Well, silly you then. Supply & demand dictate the outcome – so when you get govts of the left & right flooding Aotearoa with immigrants for many years, you get more people than available houses. Stopping the Chinese influx was just the first step, and it happened years later than it ought to have. Politicians ignored the problem for as long as they could, until voters started to notice it.
Given how thick voters are, that was always going to take years. So now the politicians want to cover all Ak's prime food-producing land with houses. We call this democracy in action. We could call it people-pollution.
The usual line – "Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?"
You mean, little to nothing apart from ending various aggravating factors National had allowed to continue, extending the bright-line test, changing rental laws, re-building the Housing ministry and emarking on a massive house-building programme that's currently seeing the most state houses being built since the 1970s? Sour grapes much?
My grapes are ripe yet and I'm not eating them for at least another month….
All that you said on one side of the equation, balanced with: refusing to implement a CGT, not altering the landlord subsidy and keeping the migration tap open.
I notice you avoided bringing Kiwibuild into the discussion…
So, they haven't been able to do every single thing you wanted, which in your mind equates to them having done "little to nothing." Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
I didn't mention Kiwibuild because it's just one part of the house-building programme I mentioned. It's not a very successful part, which I suppose is why you raised it, but the government's programme still has thousands of houses being built every year, something we haven't seen for a long time. How is that "doing little to nothing?"
They have done quite a few things that I am stoked about: moving minimum wage towards living wage, kept quiet during JLR vs Bennett/Bridges, led in an appropriately compassionate way following ChCh murders/ Whakaari, re-entry @ Pike River.
My grizzle is what I mentioned (CGT, accom. supplement, migration) are what I expect from the other mob. Which, by the way, Labour have had three terms to plan how they could avoid the Kiwibuild 'mis-steps'.
No sour grapes from me. I own my own home. my lemon trees aren't liking the haze and lack of summer, but that's another issue.
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises, when all the metrics and evidence point to a complete lack of control of the situation by this government.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises…
Did they promise to have this crisis that was 15 years in the making fixed within two years? That would have been very foolish of them, and it would have been very foolish of you to believe it if they had promised it.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
Again, having blind faith would be foolish. The question is, which of the alternatives in front of this election has policies more likely to improve the housing situation, and which has policies more likely to degrade it further? If you'd prefer the situation to improve, then yes you'd better support this government because the other lot will degrade it further.
Do I A) want the housing crises to worsen slowly so that there is no end in sight or B) do I want to ride unchecked until it’s inevitable crash and hope the government of the day is brave enough to not give bailouts to the enabling parties?
given a desire for either scenario, which major bloc do I vote for Milt? The answers aren’t there as no government of either colour is willing to admit they prefer the outcome of A as it kicks the can so far down the road it won’t be their problem.
Classic Trump / Hillary problem at the moment with the majors. Who do I not want to vote for the least
Jesus, this again. Bitching about a party with 8 MPs failing to dominate the legislative agenda just makes you look stupid. If you want to see more of their policies implemented, encourage more people to vote for them.
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric. Are we supposed to just believe that it will all change for the better if we blindly vote for another term despite current performance?
your exasperation is misplaced. Tell the pollies, the voters are sick of being told they’re stupid for not blindly agreeing
And where is labour on this? They had interventionist policies on housing too and between them and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
And when you look at the make up of this government and find that nz fist have to be placated on some issues, things like the CGT don't get done, which is exactly why the flavour numbers of mps in a coalition matter. It’s not having a simple majority that really counts under mmp.
As The Al1en pointed out already, that's exactly how politics works. If not enough people vote for parties with the kind of policies you'd like to see, those policies don't get enacted.
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric.
The achievements are substantial, especially when you take into account the scale of the problem and the fact the government is a coalition of three parties with sometimes-incompatible agendas. As mentioned already, if you want to see more progress, persuade more people to vote for the party with the policies you want to see enacted and discourage them from voting for parties that will only exacerbate the problem.
…between [Labour] and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
Between them they have 54 seats in a 120-seat Parliament. If you have some hitherto-unknown method of dominating the legislative agenda with a minority of the MPs, please do share it with them.
""Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?""
Classic Jamesisms, nicely captured by Psycho Milt.
Break the Wesfarmers / fletchers building materials supply duopoly, create a nationally funded apprentice college network similar to the old polytechnics and insist that master tradesmen engage at a guild level for apprentices for master accreditation, remove council fees beyond processing costs on consents and therefore the gst on council fees.
Now what do you suggest? Let me guess….kiwibuild reset?
No, strangely enough, I agree with your propositions in that area. Quite good ideas to my mind.
We may be on the same side. The thing is that you appeared to be suggesting that we dump current Govt and vote National again.
Voting National would never achieve what you propose, would it?
No. I’m just not defending this governments behaviour on the premise that National were worse. It’s binary and allows this government to abdicate any responsibility for contributing to the mess
Our over priced housing has multiple causes … all that's happened is one form of aggravation; hot Chinese money looking for a safe haven has been replaced by another aggravation … persistently low interest rates.
And as Dennis says … high migration. One factor everyone likes to pretend won't happen, what happens if the Australian economy/climate tanks and around 500,000 passport holding kiwis with limited access to welfare over the ditch decide to come home? Lowish likelihood, but potentially a big impact.
Yes the low interest rates are the latest tool' to defy market realities.
No Govt can withstand a large drop in property prices.
Hopefully the Coalition or Labour alone, can prevail in the next election and really bring about some programmes to make the Kiwi dream affordable again.
This steady as she goes term ,albeit with good intentions needs to transform into inspired action.
Add into the 500,000 plus New Zealand passport holders several million Australian passport holders who can reside, and buy property, in New Zealand and we could have an accomodation crisis of unimaginable proportions.
I'm not convinced it's likely … but it's a risk we rarely discuss. Given that almost 25% of people ever born in NZ are now living overseas, we are remarkably exposed on this.
The silver lining is that most ex-pats would return with some decent funds and much of it would go into building new housing.
Low interest rates are not driving house prices to any extent, just as high interest rates didn't proclude house price rises prior to the GFC. The reserve bank could raise interest rates to the extent of collapsing the housing market but would at the same time cause mass defaults and probably a recession. This is not a valid policy for an institution charged with promoting financial stability.
But directly there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. The theoretical economic concept of a natural interest rate (for the central bank to target) is also known to be pretty dubious.
The Reserve Bank is not there to "Fix" the current housing crisis. We were told during the election campaign that there this WAS an issue and that should we vote in Labour then this would be rectified. They had 9 years in Govt and 9 years in opposition to isolate the causes and implement fixes to these.
To date there is no evidence that any changes made have halted this issue and that there are signs of the housing crisis abating. To continue with the immigration policy of increasing Kiwis by 55k p.a. does nothing but place increased pressure.
and headlines like this "Rental squeeze: Easier to find a job in Wellington than a flat, says professional on $100,000 salary" does not give confidence that this crisis has been addressed, but has deteriorated.
Are any current or future govts just hoping that the Market Will correct of that there is a recession 🤢??
When historical house price to income ratios are compared with those today,there is an imbalance of concern.
Scrutiny of the sub prime fiasco in the U.S will reveal the frenzy of loan originators to peddle mortgages to anyone with a pulse.
(There was a corresponding increase in supply in the U.S too and non recourse.)
Whilst that has not happened to the same extent here,one feature is very evident and that is ,existing home owners have been increasing borrowing leverage ,ie the wealth effect.
The extension of the brightline test to 5 years appears to have stymied flipping and the foreign buyer rules are having effect. (screaming in Queenstown).
Orr is correct in increasing the banks cap ratios.
People should expect a correlation between house prices and wages and C.P.I
It is no wonder property is excluded from inflation assessments,it would blow them to kingdom come.
$650,000 homes are not affordable homes.
When the rubber hits the road(*recession)people will look to the Govt for a bail out,that's for sure.
We are clearly on different dimensions regarding the meaning of facts and logic. I am sticking to my conclusion that the rate of house price inflation can be measured as the percentage rate of those prices increasing.
So whats the primary cause of interest rate fluctuations for mortgages?
As far as facts and logic go….'there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. '
In your world cost and affordability are not aligned.
The most important factor in setting market interest rates appears to be the OCR. Eg its the interest rate the reserve bank wants. But obviously the reserve bank policy doesn't fluctuate much (and I don't see why that is a relevant thing here).
In the real world cost and affordability are not well aligned. Cost is related to the house price but affordability is a question of income which in a lot of cases doesn't even come from the asset or in other cases is a positive function of asset price appreciation. People buying into the housing market (esp for profit) seem mostly interested in which areas are going to appreciate next, not what the going interest rates are.
'For example, the Reserve Bank would tend to increase the OCR in response to an increase in inflation pressure. The rise in the OCR would tend to flow through to higher bank interest rates, which would offset the pressure by shifting preferences from consumption to saving, because the cost of borrowing has increased, and the return from savings is also higher. This translates into a lower demand for consumption and investment goods, easing the inflation pressure in the economy. When the OCR is raised, it also results in an appreciation of the New Zealand dollar because the demand for New Zealand interest-earning investments increases. As the demand for the New Zealand dollar increases, the value of the dollar appreciates. The higher dollar dampens exports and increases the demand for the relatively cheaper imports, also lowering demand and thus the inflation pressures.'
As far as property inflation goes ,it has been rampant for years and the opposite to the above is being implemented.
Sure, but you know that this conventional wisdom is wrong. This is because there is no such market for savings vs borrowing to trade off in. I have observed in your comments that you know that market doesn't exist because banks originate the funds during the lending process (eg nobody loses access to there savings when a new loan is created so the described trade off doesnt occur).
The inflation measure is the CPI and house prices are only nominally measured within the CPI (building cost increases excluding land) …existing housing asset (bubbles) dont form part of the CPI, some may say conveniently
Nic. You always make challenging replies. You are right that interest rates by themselves are not a direct predictor of house prices … but the ability to service a loan is. We are in quite a different position prior to the GFC, mortgages were typically small enough that interest rates in the 7-9% range could be tolerated.
But now with many households with over $500k of debt, or a lot more, they're a much more sensitive to even quite small interest rate rises.
This is an effect Steven Keen wrote a fair bit on, in the big picture Debt to GDP ratio was a critical parameter most economists didn't place enough importance on at the time. He's been proven right and we see a lot more attention on it now.
I saw what appears a quite enlightening comment by Warren Mosler recently. He describes the inflation process as a price setting mechanism occuring when new (higher) prices are accepted by the institution making payment.
That suggests that commercial banks have been driving house prices with the change to lower equity loans, which the reserve bank has had some influence on. The US had a significant issue with property valuers over valueing properties (at the behest of banks) and this also supports house price inflation.
I don't actually see it as a housing market issue however. Overall the government has not been as accomodating of public sector wages (same mechanism as Mosler describes, govt chooses what to pay public sector) and the shift to monetary policy has squeezed private sector wages for many as well. Its no wonder that housing costs are well above incomes after 20+ years of this pressure. The only surprising thing is that so many people expect a natural and automatic balance to exist between housing and other prices (including wages).
I had already identified during the last election that Labours Kiwi build policy could not 'fix' house prices and was at most hopeful that public sector housing stock would be built. Looking at the housing market as supply and demand driven will never suggest a workable solution to house prices. Asset markets are not remotely amenable to that because asset inflation generates passive income at the same time it adds cost to new market entrants.
I think I found and watched this discussion (June 2018).
At a later stage Mosler makes the same claim that a permanent zero interest rate central bank policy is not inflationary.
I thought Keen was a bit off in his disagreements there. But its probably relevant to understand that a trade surplus makes domestic policy easier to implement.
but that asset price MUST remain serviceable…. otherwise mass default a la GFC subprime mortgages. And the banks (including central) set the rates and create the lending with one eye on that at all times to their maximum perceived benefit…..and we all hope their judgement is not found wanting (again)
Also, I don't see the argument that interest rates of 7-9% were tolerable as saying anything meaningful. The model is not, the Reserve Bank sets interest rates as high as may be tolerated. The model is something like, the Reserve Bank sets an interest rate to bring inflation rate towards the target.
The (small) problems being that monetary policy has neglegible impact on inflation anyway and some key prices (wages and housing) are adjusting relatively to each other in problematic ways.
Socialism as yet undead: "Spain's caretaker socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has narrowly won a confidence vote in parliament, enabling him to govern in coalition with far-left Podemos." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51019358
"The dramatic open vote, by a simple majority of MPs, went 167 to 165 in his favour. Abstentions by Catalan and Basque MPs played a critical role. He will now form a minority government. It will be Spain's first coalition government since democracy was restored in 1978, after the Franco dictatorship."
Can socialists do consensus politics? This will be the test. "The new coalition plans to raise income taxes for those who earn more than €130,000 (£111,000; $145,000) annually. They also plan to reverse some labour market reforms passed by the previous conservative government, which made it easier and less expensive to fire workers."
"PSOE spokeswoman Adriana Lastra accused right-wing MPs of "bullying"." Combining complaint with virtue-signalling in a single word. "She said MP Tomás Guitarte of the small Teruel Existe party had suffered so much pressure that he concealed his whereabouts out of fear. She said he had received more than 8,000 emails urging him to vote "no" instead of "yes"." If 8000 emails arrived in your inbox one day would you run & hide?? Nah, get tough, don't wilt under pressure.
"The ERC decision came after Mr Sánchez agreed to open a formal dialogue on the future of Catalonia, if confirmed as prime minister, and to then submit the dialogue's conclusions to Catalan voters. The Catalan separatists' drive for independence overshadows Spanish politics, with the conservative and far-right opposition parties bitterly opposed to it. Mr Sánchez said he wanted to free Spanish politics of its "toxic atmosphere". He said dialogue was necessary to "overcome the territorial disputes, always in line with the constitution". The PSOE opposes granting Catalans a legal independence referendum, while recognising that both Catalonia and the Basque Country are nations within Spain, and not just regions. The Catalans and Basques already have a large degree of autonomy."
Another Catalan vote seems sensible. If he can design a compromise between enhanced autonomy & independence, and Catalans vote to support it, he will have proven his expertise – and socialism will get some regeneration via consensus politics.
Simon would have received a silky treatment to smoothen the path. He wouldn’t have to say much because, unlike Simon, they are masters in reading body language and would have read him like an open book. They saw him coming all the way from New Zealand.
The relevant principle being non-alignment. Being allied tends to look like non-conformity to the principle, huh? I don't see our help with peace-keeping overseas as making us allies with whatever else country is likewise helping. However, as regards being in the arena when the yanks launch attack drones, perception that we are allied with them could indeed be a problem.
I hope the Greens can get the coalition to see that. Golriz seems to have issued an appropriate message, muted and politic, well done. Now Iraq has called for us to head for the exit, let's do that asap.
But the time is rapidly coming when political leaders and former political leaders need to start sheeting home scathing criticisms directly to the persons responsible ie. Donald Trump and his inner sanctum heavies.
At the moment they act like they are treading oven broken egg shells. All that does is provide the Chump with further evidence he can get away with anything he likes.
This has shades of Lianne Dalziel circa 2002 all over it.
Iirc, Dalziel as Minister of Immigration about that time, sent back to Sri Lanka a young child whose parents were resident, but not citizens, and the child was neither? I could be wrong (probably am) but Lees-Galloway's decision here seems similar.
Labour ministers never seem to have a good record in the immigration portfolio.
Prior to new year's eve, BBC reported Putin "thanked US counterpart Donald Trump for intelligence that helped foil "acts of terrorism" on Russian soil, according to a Kremlin statement. Mr Putin and Mr Trump spoke on the phone on Sunday, it said. The Kremlin said the information came via intelligence services, but it provided no further details."
"Russian media is reporting the discovery of a plot to attack St Petersburg over the new year period. Tass news agency says two Russian nationals have been arrested and plans to attack a mass gathering were seized, according to a spokesperson from the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50941754
It would have been sensible for Trump to have sussed out how Putin felt about his option of taking out the Iranian general, during their discussion. However Trump is rarely sensible, and the option may have come up fast due to being sourced in observation – secret travel arrangements usually don't forewarn opponents.
"In December 2017, Mr Putin thanked Mr Trump for another warning from US intelligence agencies, which again apparently prevented a terrorist plot in St Petersburg, according to a White House account. During that call, the Kremlin said Mr Putin had promised to reciprocate with information about terrorist threats to the United States."
Never discount the value of a verbal contract between top leaders in geopolitics, however conditional they may be. I suspect the two have a reasonable understanding on a personal level. It's a question of how destabilising Putin feels the assassination actually is.
Looks like Putin is being sensible in getting an impartial perspective from the German leader, to avoid the knee-jerk response and optimise his options.
Very interesting. In my mind I've always painted Trump and Putin as 'about as bad as each other, but in very different ways'. What they do have in common is that both are nationalists, and neither man is a sociopath who wants nothing more than to visit devastation on the world.
Putin is first and foremost a Russian nationalist who has led his country to a remarkable recovery from the disaster of the 90's. He absolutely doesn't want a US-Iran confrontation on his southern border region.
Trump is similarly a US nationalist, but who has inherited an intolerable shambles from prior Administrations. He want’s out too, but is so entangled in the ME that he needs to slash and burn some crap first.
That they are talking is more reason to hope than not.
What are your thoughts on the Iran Nuclear agreement and the way Darth Drumpf trashed it, even though his own administration was certifying that Iran was fully complying with it?
N will have been briefed beforehand. Consulted, even, would be my guess. There's a good reason the top jew in the Trump team was put closest to the oval office. "Kushner's office is physically the closest to the Oval Office."
Trump spins on a dime. Here's his framing of the u-turn: "Mr Trump said that "according to various laws" the US should not target these cultural sites. "You know what, if that's what the law is, I like to obey the law," he said." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51027619
Notice the subtle caveat. Guiliani or someone gives him views on which laws it might be a good idea to obey, or when it may be timely to create that impression in the public mind.
Voters rejected Corbyn's socialism, so the Labour mandarins feel they must swing back to market forces and are waving an olive branch at the Blairites?
They could go further. Tell the people that selling the right to vote to the highest bidder is a damn good idea. Have an auction. Middle class wannabes would love it. Get Simon Cowell to stage the thing for primetime tv – suddenly Labour would seem trendy to a huge swathe of voters. 🙄
I paid $5 to vote for Andrew Little as Labour leader. All cobwebs as regards social democracy in that party but present pricks, tho' more sellable, are worse. I hear the party in Britain is now firmly Corbynist in membership, and up the echelons a bit. Which is what I desired from and desire from Corbyn and Sanders respectively.
Sometimes you have to wonder how much the loony Christian fundamentalism within the US government want to see the world burn. Dick Cheney, being the one who opened the door.
Video is 25 minutes long, and good view from a former staffer in the Bush Presidency.
"The Pentagon said Iran fired more than a dozen missiles. "It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. military and coalition personnel at Al-Assad and Irbil," Jonathan Hoffman, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said in a statement." https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/us-iran-soleimani-tensions-intl-01-07-20/index.html
If Pompeo wasn't killed, Iran has failed to achieve parity. Mullahs failing to respond severely, after declaring they would, are likely to lose credibility in the opinions of their followers. Will the govt of Iraq declare war on Iran? An unprovoked attack on two of their bases merits the traditional response. Having told all foreigners to get out, these tough guys are dead keen to go it alone. Or maybe not…
What a puerile, childish and idiotic comment. The Iraqi government is powerless.
The two bases hit are effectively US territory, and they are unequivocally major US military installations being unequivocally attacked by the military of Iran.
The Greek chorus of Trumpian chumps who made light on this site of the assassination of Qassem Suleimani completely failed to grasp that by carrying out that killing the United States effectively declared war on Iran. No nation can sit back and allow another to assassinate it's top leaders with impunity. Iran is now taking the US at it's word and has struck back.
To make it clear – by any reasonable standard of international behaviour a state of war has existed between Iran and the United States since the 3rd of January 2020.
What the fuck did the US administration think Iran would do after that assassination?
Iran and the US have been in a state of conflict for a very long time … while it's true the Trump pushed events over an important threshold in the past week … none of this happened in a vacuum.
The theocratic thugs who run the Iranian regime are not nice innocent people, any more than any of the other cynical bastards tangled up in this.
Get a grip, lad. If they were US bases CNN would have described them as such. Or are you trying to subtly imply CNN journalists can't even get such elementary facts right??
How adequate the response from Iran has been remains to be seen from casualty figures. My point was re the court of public opinion in Iran. Loss of their top military commander, weighed in the balance against how many US soldiers?
Most people would view that as an ineffective response regardless. Think of it as a chess move: lose a Queen and retaliate by taking a few pawns. Doesn't rate.
Hey Sanctuary, in the interests of not increasing people's stress, can you please tone down the pejoratives? It's fine to point to perceived ignorance in comments with some analysis, but once you start aiming that at people and name calling, it becomes a problem for moderators.
I hear you, but at the same time if someone writes six plus posts of 600 odd words and then reveals he isn't even aware of what bases the US has in Iraq…
Well, being called an idiot I would have thought is as polite a reply as one should expect.
I bite my tongue on the internet all the time 😉 The choices we make about what we write after reacting are what determine whether a shit fight breaks out (and then whether the mods get involved).
I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?
The point being that the rockets were an offensive action against both countries – Iraq and USA. I get why leftists are addicted to demonising the USA. Spent much of my life feeling that way too! But political commentary is more effective when based on fact rather than misrepresentation.
"I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?"
No idea. I'm not reading much of the commentary on this, just enough to keep an eye on moderation and what might be developing. My main point here would be that tensions are high enough without us winding each other up 🙂 Where that line lies is on all of us.
The point being that the rockets were an offensive action against both countries – Iraq and USA.
Just as the US drone strike in the Iraqi airport was a offensive action against both Iraq and Iran. Looks to me like a proportionate response bearing in mind that the drone didn’t give radar warnings of have to go through have to go through anti-missile defenses.
Most people understand tit for tat. It's even in the Bible (`an eye for an eye'). But, as I pointed out in 12.1, re the effect on the credibility of the mullahs, those that count are in Iran.
The reason Sanctuary is doing his hysterical thing is that the truth hurts, so folks get emotional. Once the feelings subside, a cooler clearer appraisal becomes possible…
I think a “cooler clearer appraisal” might not apply to “most people” in Iran now. I think the Kiwis in Iraq might also have slightly heightened emotions.
Attention Jenny: noting a Moderation note is not sufficient. You need to respond to it in a way that shows that you understand and accept your moderation otherwise we’ll just go around in circles, which will lead to a lengthy ban.
Until I’ve seen a satisfactory response from you, you can stop posting comments because they will automatically end up in Trash and I have no means to restore them retrospectively (and this would take up more of my precious time).
Attention Ross: Please stop ‘testing’ because it won’t get you anywhere until you respond to the latest Moderation note that was left for you to respond to and satisfy the Moderator.
I only test when the reply button goes walkabout. Submitting a comment returns the reply option, and then I delete the test message (unless this sticky mouse button posts two entries, as it sometimes does, then only one test entry permits editing).
Nah, tried all options, including deleting browser data, ccleaning, purging, fasting and praying to the aliens. Only thing that fixes it (for me) is to make a test post.
Sorry for the troublesome desk rodent when it plays up, though. I should pick up a new key/mouse set at some stage, but at least the reason for my tests are out there now. lol
BREAKING: Iran launches missile attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq, according to Iranian state media
Al Asad air base in western Iraq, which houses U.S. troops, was hit by at least six rockets, according to a U.S. defense official. The White House said it was aware of reports of attacks on American facilities in Iraq and that President Trump is monitoring the situation and consulting with his national security team."
could be useful too. Consumption is the big driver of CC. The problem for NZ is that we choose not to protect vulnerable people. It won't hurt the middle classes to tighten their belts, but I wish they'd learn to share more.
on the contrary…if oil increases it will impact 'growth' and the expected reaction would be an interest rate cut to offset (if there were room to cut) the reduced economic activity
Depends what it does to inflation for the rbnz to cut.if there are pricing signals of an increase the rbnz wont cut.
Internal food costs are sensitive to transport (and a poor growing season at present due to colder weather) impacts the poor firstly on a day to day basis.
RBNZ has 'looked through' potential inflationary spikes for years now….any inflationary impact is likely to be temporary, remembering that fuel prices typically fluctuate through quite a wide range for various reasons….however as said the likely impact on interest rates (if any) would be expected to be down rather than up
Lucky Trump's actions were triggered by something irrelevant, something that doesn't mean anything to him – impeachment – an illegal action of course and without any evidence. (he reckons.)
Imagine how crazy he'd have gone if he was more personally challenged like his tax and financial records facing the usual open scrutiny and ensuing legal challenges. The claimant of the biggest dick being found to need a magnifying glass to be identified would have really set him off.
[Be careful typing your user name correctly, thanks]
The Iranians have made no attempt to hide their direct attack on US forces in Iraq. This is a state action, a response to what was basically a US declaration of war on them. The only hope now for peace is for Trump to panic and chicken out. I really hope Trump doesn't think this is a good war to help his re-election bid. A US president who loses a war won't be popular.
Shit Taji is where the ANZAC training team is atm, I hope Jandal’s tells Ronnie to get the troop asap and thank **** I’m no longer in the Forces and if they do ask me back to the colours it will be a f*** off sunshine etc as I’m not fighting for dumps silly little war / WW3 the Yanks started it so let them finish it without us.
All we need is Rocket man to throw something at Dump and Putin to do something in the Baltic, come to think I’ve read a novel by someone on this same scenario where a war kicks off in the Sandpit and rest fall like dominos.
Poission, I’m not too worried about the Russians in Syria as they have in Syria since late 50’s to early 60’s from memory. But it’s Baltic States that are the weak link to NATO and to EU, if I were a betting man that where I think Putin will strike nexts therefore splitting the western alliance/ economy.
Just watching Trump's son rabbiting on about great his father is. He hasn't said he agrees so much about sorting the Middle East out that he's putting his hand up to go there and help. Funny that.
Last time I was at Kiwiblog they had a regular 400 odd commenters. Versus Left blogs with a quarter of that. 'Kommon Zense' as per talkback radio? Appealing to know-nothingers with a near body to kick apparently beats reason, balance, Ballance, Savage and the whole of our corner of knowledge.
It's very hard to denie climate change global warming and Sealevels rising is our reality. All the intelligence people must keep up the Mana mahi and champion a clean and Green future for all of our mokopuna.
The 2010s were almost certainly the hottest decade on record — and it showed. The world burned, melted and flooded. Heat waves smashed temperature records around the globe. Glaciers lost ice at accelerating rates. Sea levels continued to swell.
At the same time, scientists have diligently worked to untangle the chaos of a rapidly warming planet.
In the past decade, scientists substantially improved their ability to draw connections between climate change and extreme weather events. They made breakthroughs in their understanding of ice sheets. They raised critical questions about the implications of Arctic warming. They honed their predictions about future climate change
The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, with temperatures rising at least twice as fast as the global average.
places like the United States, Europe and parts of Asia — for instance, a link between shrinking sea ice and cold winters in Siberia, or Arctic heat waves and extreme winter weather in the United States.
The trouble is models have a hard time capturing the causes driving these connections.
"No one argues that the Arctic meltdown will affect weather patterns, the question is exactly how," said Arctic climate expert Jennifer Francis, a researcher at Woods Hole Research Center. "So figuring out what's not right in the models will be a major focus. Without realistic models, it's hard to use them to separate Arctic influences from other possible factors."
Resolving the debate will require "a combination of data and modeling," according to NASA climatologist Claire Parkinson. Many scientists are already hard at work on this issue.
One ongoing project known as the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project is conducting a series of coordinated model experiments, all using the same standard methods, to investigate the Arctic climate and its connections to the rest of the globe. Experts say these kinds of projects may help explain why modeling studies conducted by different groups with different methods don't always get the same results.
At the same time, improving the way that physical processes are represented in Arctic climate models is also essential, according to Xiangdong Zhang, an Arctic and atmospheric scientist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Outside that debate, there are still big questions about the Arctic climate to resolve. Scientists know the Arctic is heating up at breakneck speed — but they're still investigating all the reasons why.
Researchers believe a combination of feedback processes are probably at play. Sea ice and snow help reflect sunlight away from the Earth. As they melt away, they allow more heat to reach the surface, warming the local climate and causing even more melting to occur.
One key question for the coming decade, Zhang said in an email, is "what relative role each of the physical processes plays and how these processes work together" to drive the accelerating warming.
Unraveling these feedbacks will help scientists better predict how fast the Arctic will warm in the future, according to Francis — and how quickly they should expect its consequences to occur. They include vanishing sea ice, thawing permafrost and melting on the Greenland ice sheet
Sea-level rise is one of the most serious consequences of climate change, with the potential to displace millions of people in coastal areas around the world.
There are many old technologically advanced societies around the world that have vanished. They have built structures that our modern society can not duplicate even with all our modern technology.???? So what caused the collapse of these old civilisation the same thing that is causing our world problems man taking mother nature for granted. Climate change and global warming sea level rising. Our scientists have waved a red flag for 40 years. The wealthiest people choose to ignore their warnings and worse they use their money to distort the reality of common people who some they know will be easily manipulated into believing there lies giving them power and in reality putting there own mokopuna in the jeopardy Wake up.
The environment in 2050: flooded cities, forced migration – and the Amazon turning to savannah
Unless we focus on shared solutions, violent storms and devastating blazes could be the least of the world’s troubles. Civilisation itself will be at risk
Good morning. Here is the shipping forecast for midday, 21 June, 2050. Seas will be rough, with violent storms and visibility ranging from poor to very poor for the next 24 hours. The outlook for tomorrow is less fair.”
All being well, this could be a weather bulletin released by the Met Office and broadcast by the BBC in the middle of this century. Destructive gales may not sound like good news, but they will be among the least of the world’s problems in the coming era of peak climate turbulence. With social collapse a very real threat in the next 30 years, it will be an achievement in 2050 if there are still institutions to make weather predictions, radio transmitters to share them and seafarers willing to listen to the archaic content.
I write this imaginary forecast with an apology to Tim Radford, the former Guardian science editor, who used the same device in 2004 to open a remarkably prescient prediction on the likely impacts of global warming on the world in 2020.
Journalists generally hate to go on record about the future. We are trained to report on the very recent past, not gaze into crystal balls. On those occasions when we have to venture ahead of the present, most of us play it safe by avoiding dates that could prove us wrong, or quoting others.
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent.
North land experienceing drought we have to listen to our scientists and plan for the weather conditions that they have forcast or else one will be in trouble.
A green turtle laying its eggs on a popular beach in Australia it good they have people with the knowledge to move the turtle eggs safely.
That's great Simaria getting The BBC to pay you the same putea as men Mana Wahine.
Trees grow much faster in Aotearoa than other countries maple syrup would be a great sestanable tree crop.
New technologies bowel cancer diegnosed with a mask it's the Ion age great new invention.
That's a excellent take of the hundreds of Sharks around the Great Barrier Islands. Sharks are a important part of Tangaroa environment and need to be protected and preserved.
Tyson was lucky to servive when his whare burnt down in the middle of winter.
The slide look cool A penguin but it slides the tamariki out to fast causeing injuries one would think they would test it before letting the public tamariki use it.???
I think thats a great move to ban exports of whitebait it will be awesome that in 30 years time everyone comes to Aotearoa to see our presteen wildlife and environment.
The Moana getting hot That's not good it doesn't take much temperatures to rise for life to get extremely difficult.
Bioluminesent sea creatures making Tangaroa look beautiful cool.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2020/01/property-prices-largest-national-value-increase-in-years-auckland-dunedin-soaring.html
I thought banning Chineese sounding named people buying houses was going to keep prices down?
Well, silly you then. Supply & demand dictate the outcome – so when you get govts of the left & right flooding Aotearoa with immigrants for many years, you get more people than available houses. Stopping the Chinese influx was just the first step, and it happened years later than it ought to have. Politicians ignored the problem for as long as they could, until voters started to notice it.
Given how thick voters are, that was always going to take years. So now the politicians want to cover all Ak's prime food-producing land with houses. We call this democracy in action. We could call it people-pollution.
The usual line – "Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?"
The problem is that the Government has done little to nothing. No one expects a full fix, but progress is a fair expectation wouldn't you agree?
You mean, little to nothing apart from ending various aggravating factors National had allowed to continue, extending the bright-line test, changing rental laws, re-building the Housing ministry and emarking on a massive house-building programme that's currently seeing the most state houses being built since the 1970s? Sour grapes much?
My grapes are ripe yet and I'm not eating them for at least another month….
All that you said on one side of the equation, balanced with: refusing to implement a CGT, not altering the landlord subsidy and keeping the migration tap open.
I notice you avoided bringing Kiwibuild into the discussion…
So, they haven't been able to do every single thing you wanted, which in your mind equates to them having done "little to nothing." Everyone's entitled to their opinion.
I didn't mention Kiwibuild because it's just one part of the house-building programme I mentioned. It's not a very successful part, which I suppose is why you raised it, but the government's programme still has thousands of houses being built every year, something we haven't seen for a long time. How is that "doing little to nothing?"
They have done quite a few things that I am stoked about: moving minimum wage towards living wage, kept quiet during JLR vs Bennett/Bridges, led in an appropriately compassionate way following ChCh murders/ Whakaari, re-entry @ Pike River.
My grizzle is what I mentioned (CGT, accom. supplement, migration) are what I expect from the other mob. Which, by the way, Labour have had three terms to plan how they could avoid the Kiwibuild 'mis-steps'.
Next to nothing is far from my thinking.
BTW, I meant my grapes aren't ripe.
No sour grapes from me. I own my own home. my lemon trees aren't liking the haze and lack of summer, but that's another issue.
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises, when all the metrics and evidence point to a complete lack of control of the situation by this government.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
My issue is that we are continuously expected to just believe labours election promise that they will fix the housing crises…
Did they promise to have this crisis that was 15 years in the making fixed within two years? That would have been very foolish of them, and it would have been very foolish of you to believe it if they had promised it.
How long do we keep having blind faith in this government because apparently the other lot are so bad?
Again, having blind faith would be foolish. The question is, which of the alternatives in front of this election has policies more likely to improve the housing situation, and which has policies more likely to degrade it further? If you'd prefer the situation to improve, then yes you'd better support this government because the other lot will degrade it further.
Do I A) want the housing crises to worsen slowly so that there is no end in sight or B) do I want to ride unchecked until it’s inevitable crash and hope the government of the day is brave enough to not give bailouts to the enabling parties?
given a desire for either scenario, which major bloc do I vote for Milt? The answers aren’t there as no government of either colour is willing to admit they prefer the outcome of A as it kicks the can so far down the road it won’t be their problem.
Classic Trump / Hillary problem at the moment with the majors. Who do I not want to vote for the least
The Greens have interventionist housing policies.
Yet not the power to implement them. This is mmp, we have to think about power blocs.
If people don't vote for them they don't have the power to implement their policies, no. You can help rectify that situation by voting for them.
But they have been voted for, and they are in government. Yet the problems seem to be getting worse and not better.
Jesus, this again. Bitching about a party with 8 MPs failing to dominate the legislative agenda just makes you look stupid. If you want to see more of their policies implemented, encourage more people to vote for them.
not really how politics works is it though milt?
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric. Are we supposed to just believe that it will all change for the better if we blindly vote for another term despite current performance?
your exasperation is misplaced. Tell the pollies, the voters are sick of being told they’re stupid for not blindly agreeing
And where is labour on this? They had interventionist policies on housing too and between them and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
That's exactly how it works, that is, get more mps under mmp and you'll proportionally have more clout around a coalition table.
For example: 40 labour mps and 21 greens, will give you much more left of centre policy than what's offered currently.
30 labour seats and 31 greens would be totally different again.
What bit are you not getting?.
The current government has how many mps? Enough to govern correct?
And how many promises did they make on housing? enough to get voted in.
Now voters get to choose whether those promises were kept
And when you look at the make up of this government and find that nz fist have to be placated on some issues, things like the CGT don't get done, which is exactly why the flavour numbers of mps in a coalition matter. It’s not having a simple majority that really counts under mmp.
not really how politics works is it though milt?
As The Al1en pointed out already, that's exactly how politics works. If not enough people vote for parties with the kind of policies you'd like to see, those policies don't get enacted.
its getting boring listening to people defend a government 2/3 of the way through its term that is yet to achieve anything meaningful on housing, despite all the rhetoric.
The achievements are substantial, especially when you take into account the scale of the problem and the fact the government is a coalition of three parties with sometimes-incompatible agendas. As mentioned already, if you want to see more progress, persuade more people to vote for the party with the policies you want to see enacted and discourage them from voting for parties that will only exacerbate the problem.
…between [Labour] and the greens they did have enough votes to dominate the legislative agenda.
Between them they have 54 seats in a 120-seat Parliament. If you have some hitherto-unknown method of dominating the legislative agenda with a minority of the MPs, please do share it with them.
""Look! The coalition government's already been in power a couple of years and still hasn't fixed the problem National spent nine years aggravating! Who will save us from these incompetents? How about returning National to power? That would be the best solution, right?""
Classic Jamesisms, nicely captured by Psycho Milt.
a classic guytonism, assuming that because isn't fixed entirely, that it's in hand and will be fixed if we have enough faith in his chosen cause
Classic Climaction – decrying others' faith, but showing none of his/her own.
Pray tell us, Climaction – What should we all do in your depiction of our dire situation?
Break the Wesfarmers / fletchers building materials supply duopoly, create a nationally funded apprentice college network similar to the old polytechnics and insist that master tradesmen engage at a guild level for apprentices for master accreditation, remove council fees beyond processing costs on consents and therefore the gst on council fees.
Now what do you suggest? Let me guess….kiwibuild reset?
No, strangely enough, I agree with your propositions in that area. Quite good ideas to my mind.
We may be on the same side. The thing is that you appeared to be suggesting that we dump current Govt and vote National again.
Voting National would never achieve what you propose, would it?
No. I’m just not defending this governments behaviour on the premise that National were worse. It’s binary and allows this government to abdicate any responsibility for contributing to the mess
But if you thereby encourage people to vote National instead, what happens then?
Our over priced housing has multiple causes … all that's happened is one form of aggravation; hot Chinese money looking for a safe haven has been replaced by another aggravation … persistently low interest rates.
And as Dennis says … high migration. One factor everyone likes to pretend won't happen, what happens if the Australian economy/climate tanks and around 500,000 passport holding kiwis with limited access to welfare over the ditch decide to come home? Lowish likelihood, but potentially a big impact.
Yes I've been wondering how much these recent few seasons will be prompting kiwis to rethink Oz. I was always eyeing Tassie as a plan B.
I know many who are seriously considering it now their kids are self sufficient as living in those Ozzie cities is getting to be quite the grind.
There's also expats in the UK and Hong Kong looking for an escape from the political turmoil, plus Australians looking to escape the climate turmoil.
There was an opinion piece at the weekend from a real estate agent salivating at the prospect. He described NZ as having a glowing future.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/118569686/house-prices-will-continue-their-steady-growth-in-2020-but-lets-wait-and-see-about-this-election
Yes the low interest rates are the latest tool' to defy market realities.
No Govt can withstand a large drop in property prices.
Hopefully the Coalition or Labour alone, can prevail in the next election and really bring about some programmes to make the Kiwi dream affordable again.
This steady as she goes term ,albeit with good intentions needs to transform into inspired action.
Add into the 500,000 plus New Zealand passport holders several million Australian passport holders who can reside, and buy property, in New Zealand and we could have an accomodation crisis of unimaginable proportions.
I'm not convinced it's likely … but it's a risk we rarely discuss. Given that almost 25% of people ever born in NZ are now living overseas, we are remarkably exposed on this.
The silver lining is that most ex-pats would return with some decent funds and much of it would go into building new housing.
Low interest rates are not driving house prices to any extent, just as high interest rates didn't proclude house price rises prior to the GFC. The reserve bank could raise interest rates to the extent of collapsing the housing market but would at the same time cause mass defaults and probably a recession. This is not a valid policy for an institution charged with promoting financial stability.
But directly there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. The theoretical economic concept of a natural interest rate (for the central bank to target) is also known to be pretty dubious.
The Reserve Bank is not there to "Fix" the current housing crisis. We were told during the election campaign that there this WAS an issue and that should we vote in Labour then this would be rectified. They had 9 years in Govt and 9 years in opposition to isolate the causes and implement fixes to these.
To date there is no evidence that any changes made have halted this issue and that there are signs of the housing crisis abating. To continue with the immigration policy of increasing Kiwis by 55k p.a. does nothing but place increased pressure.
and headlines like this "Rental squeeze: Easier to find a job in Wellington than a flat, says professional on $100,000 salary" does not give confidence that this crisis has been addressed, but has deteriorated.
Are any current or future govts just hoping that the Market Will correct of that there is a recession 🤢??
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/103058/people-arriving-nz-work-and-long-term-visitor-visas-record-highs-12-months-october
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12298132
Does the inherent contradiction in your post escape you.
Look at house prices pre 2008 and now!
A 400k house @ 8% ,vs an 800k house @ 4%.
Savers have been getting their heads kicked in and RE has a reputation as an appreciating asset and the best 'bank' for funds compared to anything.
Interest rates and exchange rates are an artificial construct and do not reflect any supposed 'market' forces.
"Does the inherent contradiction in your post escape you.
Look at house prices pre 2008 and now!"
A quick look at the RBNZ house price index should demonstrate to you that house prices were rising faster prior to 2008 than since.
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/key-graphs/key-graph-house-price-values
The % rate of increase is not the point.
The total cost is.
When historical house price to income ratios are compared with those today,there is an imbalance of concern.
Scrutiny of the sub prime fiasco in the U.S will reveal the frenzy of loan originators to peddle mortgages to anyone with a pulse.
(There was a corresponding increase in supply in the U.S too and non recourse.)
Whilst that has not happened to the same extent here,one feature is very evident and that is ,existing home owners have been increasing borrowing leverage ,ie the wealth effect.
The extension of the brightline test to 5 years appears to have stymied flipping and the foreign buyer rules are having effect. (screaming in Queenstown).
Orr is correct in increasing the banks cap ratios.
People should expect a correlation between house prices and wages and C.P.I
It is no wonder property is excluded from inflation assessments,it would blow them to kingdom come.
$650,000 homes are not affordable homes.
When the rubber hits the road(*recession)people will look to the Govt for a bail out,that's for sure.
We are clearly on different dimensions regarding the meaning of facts and logic. I am sticking to my conclusion that the rate of house price inflation can be measured as the percentage rate of those prices increasing.
So whats the primary cause of interest rate fluctuations for mortgages?
As far as facts and logic go….'there is no good reason to believe people are significantly trading off interest rates and prices when going into the housing market. '
In your world cost and affordability are not aligned.
The most important factor in setting market interest rates appears to be the OCR. Eg its the interest rate the reserve bank wants. But obviously the reserve bank policy doesn't fluctuate much (and I don't see why that is a relevant thing here).
In the real world cost and affordability are not well aligned. Cost is related to the house price but affordability is a question of income which in a lot of cases doesn't even come from the asset or in other cases is a positive function of asset price appreciation. People buying into the housing market (esp for profit) seem mostly interested in which areas are going to appreciate next, not what the going interest rates are.
Interesting given conventional wisdom…
'For example, the Reserve Bank would tend to increase the OCR in response to an increase in inflation pressure. The rise in the OCR would tend to flow through to higher bank interest rates, which would offset the pressure by shifting preferences from consumption to saving, because the cost of borrowing has increased, and the return from savings is also higher. This translates into a lower demand for consumption and investment goods, easing the inflation pressure in the economy. When the OCR is raised, it also results in an appreciation of the New Zealand dollar because the demand for New Zealand interest-earning investments increases. As the demand for the New Zealand dollar increases, the value of the dollar appreciates. The higher dollar dampens exports and increases the demand for the relatively cheaper imports, also lowering demand and thus the inflation pressures.'
As far as property inflation goes ,it has been rampant for years and the opposite to the above is being implemented.
Sure, but you know that this conventional wisdom is wrong. This is because there is no such market for savings vs borrowing to trade off in. I have observed in your comments that you know that market doesn't exist because banks originate the funds during the lending process (eg nobody loses access to there savings when a new loan is created so the described trade off doesnt occur).
@ Blazer
The inflation measure is the CPI and house prices are only nominally measured within the CPI (building cost increases excluding land) …existing housing asset (bubbles) dont form part of the CPI, some may say conveniently
Nic. You always make challenging replies. You are right that interest rates by themselves are not a direct predictor of house prices … but the ability to service a loan is. We are in quite a different position prior to the GFC, mortgages were typically small enough that interest rates in the 7-9% range could be tolerated.
But now with many households with over $500k of debt, or a lot more, they're a much more sensitive to even quite small interest rate rises.
This is an effect Steven Keen wrote a fair bit on, in the big picture Debt to GDP ratio was a critical parameter most economists didn't place enough importance on at the time. He's been proven right and we see a lot more attention on it now.
I saw what appears a quite enlightening comment by Warren Mosler recently. He describes the inflation process as a price setting mechanism occuring when new (higher) prices are accepted by the institution making payment.
That suggests that commercial banks have been driving house prices with the change to lower equity loans, which the reserve bank has had some influence on. The US had a significant issue with property valuers over valueing properties (at the behest of banks) and this also supports house price inflation.
I don't actually see it as a housing market issue however. Overall the government has not been as accomodating of public sector wages (same mechanism as Mosler describes, govt chooses what to pay public sector) and the shift to monetary policy has squeezed private sector wages for many as well. Its no wonder that housing costs are well above incomes after 20+ years of this pressure. The only surprising thing is that so many people expect a natural and automatic balance to exist between housing and other prices (including wages).
I had already identified during the last election that Labours Kiwi build policy could not 'fix' house prices and was at most hopeful that public sector housing stock would be built. Looking at the housing market as supply and demand driven will never suggest a workable solution to house prices. Asset markets are not remotely amenable to that because asset inflation generates passive income at the same time it adds cost to new market entrants.
Good points; that all makes sense. Any chance of a link to Warren Mosler please?
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=44010
Its about a 26 minute video i think.
Ta.
I see Keen and Mosler have an interesting looking video on YT @ Real Progressives.
I think I found and watched this discussion (June 2018).
At a later stage Mosler makes the same claim that a permanent zero interest rate central bank policy is not inflationary.
I thought Keen was a bit off in his disagreements there. But its probably relevant to understand that a trade surplus makes domestic policy easier to implement.
but that asset price MUST remain serviceable…. otherwise mass default a la GFC subprime mortgages. And the banks (including central) set the rates and create the lending with one eye on that at all times to their maximum perceived benefit…..and we all hope their judgement is not found wanting (again)
I make the distinction between the individual and the systemic…banks (including central) are unconcerned with the individual
Also, I don't see the argument that interest rates of 7-9% were tolerable as saying anything meaningful. The model is not, the Reserve Bank sets interest rates as high as may be tolerated. The model is something like, the Reserve Bank sets an interest rate to bring inflation rate towards the target.
The (small) problems being that monetary policy has neglegible impact on inflation anyway and some key prices (wages and housing) are adjusting relatively to each other in problematic ways.
Socialism as yet undead: "Spain's caretaker socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has narrowly won a confidence vote in parliament, enabling him to govern in coalition with far-left Podemos." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51019358
"The dramatic open vote, by a simple majority of MPs, went 167 to 165 in his favour. Abstentions by Catalan and Basque MPs played a critical role. He will now form a minority government. It will be Spain's first coalition government since democracy was restored in 1978, after the Franco dictatorship."
Can socialists do consensus politics? This will be the test. "The new coalition plans to raise income taxes for those who earn more than €130,000 (£111,000; $145,000) annually. They also plan to reverse some labour market reforms passed by the previous conservative government, which made it easier and less expensive to fire workers."
"PSOE spokeswoman Adriana Lastra accused right-wing MPs of "bullying"." Combining complaint with virtue-signalling in a single word. "She said MP Tomás Guitarte of the small Teruel Existe party had suffered so much pressure that he concealed his whereabouts out of fear. She said he had received more than 8,000 emails urging him to vote "no" instead of "yes"." If 8000 emails arrived in your inbox one day would you run & hide?? Nah, get tough, don't wilt under pressure.
"The ERC decision came after Mr Sánchez agreed to open a formal dialogue on the future of Catalonia, if confirmed as prime minister, and to then submit the dialogue's conclusions to Catalan voters. The Catalan separatists' drive for independence overshadows Spanish politics, with the conservative and far-right opposition parties bitterly opposed to it. Mr Sánchez said he wanted to free Spanish politics of its "toxic atmosphere". He said dialogue was necessary to "overcome the territorial disputes, always in line with the constitution". The PSOE opposes granting Catalans a legal independence referendum, while recognising that both Catalonia and the Basque Country are nations within Spain, and not just regions. The Catalans and Basques already have a large degree of autonomy."
Another Catalan vote seems sensible. If he can design a compromise between enhanced autonomy & independence, and Catalans vote to support it, he will have proven his expertise – and socialism will get some regeneration via consensus politics.
So the Asia Editor of the Financial Times can’t help wondering what on earth Simon Bridges might have to say to the Head of China’s secret police?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/118419927/national-mp-jian-yang-organised-simon-bridges-controversial-china-trip-emails-show
simon would have had fuck all to say ,he was their to listen would be my guess
Simon would have received a silky treatment to smoothen the path. He wouldn’t have to say much because, unlike Simon, they are masters in reading body language and would have read him like an open book. They saw him coming all the way from New Zealand.
From the horses mouth (or at least their twittering): "to discuss the many areas our countries have in common and how we can strengthen ties."
As its the CCP secret police, I assume the ties are cable ties used on interviewees.
Croatians have ditched the far right:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/06/croatia-elects-leftist-zoran-milanovic-to-be-next-president?
Greens defence spokesperson: "I think that is a good place for New Zealand to be, that we stand as a principled voice on the international stage and we do call out our allies". https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/406869/new-zealand-should-be-a-principled-voice-as-us-iran-tensions-rise-golriz-ghahraman-says
The relevant principle being non-alignment. Being allied tends to look like non-conformity to the principle, huh? I don't see our help with peace-keeping overseas as making us allies with whatever else country is likewise helping. However, as regards being in the arena when the yanks launch attack drones, perception that we are allied with them could indeed be a problem.
I hope the Greens can get the coalition to see that. Golriz seems to have issued an appropriate message, muted and politic, well done. Now Iraq has called for us to head for the exit, let's do that asap.
Thanks Wayne. It needed to be said and a former Defence Minister with Foreign Affairs credentials was the right person to start the ball rolling:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/406882/like-throwing-a-match-on-tinder-paper-wayne-mapp-on-us-iran-tensions
But the time is rapidly coming when political leaders and former political leaders need to start sheeting home scathing criticisms directly to the persons responsible ie. Donald Trump and his inner sanctum heavies.
At the moment they act like they are treading oven broken egg shells. All that does is provide the Chump with further evidence he can get away with anything he likes.
Snap. Just popped that on another post.
'It's too expensive for us to allow you to stay here so we have to make sure you leave.'
Good on you, Lees-Galloway, good on you.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/118630641/brain-tumour-survivor-to-be-deported-to-the-philippines-over-medical-costs
This has shades of Lianne Dalziel circa 2002 all over it.
Iirc, Dalziel as Minister of Immigration about that time, sent back to Sri Lanka a young child whose parents were resident, but not citizens, and the child was neither? I could be wrong (probably am) but Lees-Galloway's decision here seems similar.
Labour ministers never seem to have a good record in the immigration portfolio.
Prior to new year's eve, BBC reported Putin "thanked US counterpart Donald Trump for intelligence that helped foil "acts of terrorism" on Russian soil, according to a Kremlin statement. Mr Putin and Mr Trump spoke on the phone on Sunday, it said. The Kremlin said the information came via intelligence services, but it provided no further details."
"Russian media is reporting the discovery of a plot to attack St Petersburg over the new year period. Tass news agency says two Russian nationals have been arrested and plans to attack a mass gathering were seized, according to a spokesperson from the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50941754
It would have been sensible for Trump to have sussed out how Putin felt about his option of taking out the Iranian general, during their discussion. However Trump is rarely sensible, and the option may have come up fast due to being sourced in observation – secret travel arrangements usually don't forewarn opponents.
"In December 2017, Mr Putin thanked Mr Trump for another warning from US intelligence agencies, which again apparently prevented a terrorist plot in St Petersburg, according to a White House account. During that call, the Kremlin said Mr Putin had promised to reciprocate with information about terrorist threats to the United States."
Never discount the value of a verbal contract between top leaders in geopolitics, however conditional they may be. I suspect the two have a reasonable understanding on a personal level. It's a question of how destabilising Putin feels the assassination actually is.
"The German chancellor will travel to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin this coming Saturday. The pair plan to discuss the Iran escalation as well as the conflicts in Ukraine, Libya and Syria." https://www.dw.com/en/putin-invites-merkel-to-russia-over-iran-crisis/a-51900382
Looks like Putin is being sensible in getting an impartial perspective from the German leader, to avoid the knee-jerk response and optimise his options.
Very interesting. In my mind I've always painted Trump and Putin as 'about as bad as each other, but in very different ways'. What they do have in common is that both are nationalists, and neither man is a sociopath who wants nothing more than to visit devastation on the world.
Putin is first and foremost a Russian nationalist who has led his country to a remarkable recovery from the disaster of the 90's. He absolutely doesn't want a US-Iran confrontation on his southern border region.
Trump is similarly a US nationalist, but who has inherited an intolerable shambles from prior Administrations. He want’s out too, but is so entangled in the ME that he needs to slash and burn some crap first.
That they are talking is more reason to hope than not.
What are your thoughts on the Iran Nuclear agreement and the way Darth Drumpf trashed it, even though his own administration was certifying that Iran was fully complying with it?
My first thoughts are that someone in Israel didn't give a fuck about compliance …
Israel? That's an interesting angle.
Nutty-yahoo has certainly been sending mixed messages in public about the Soleimani murder. Haaretz has an interesting piece about how he benefits …
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-for-trump-criticism-over-soleimani-assassination-was-better-than-inaction-1.8353402
N will have been briefed beforehand. Consulted, even, would be my guess. There's a good reason the top jew in the Trump team was put closest to the oval office. "Kushner's office is physically the closest to the Oval Office."
"Trump put Kushner in charge of brokering peace in Israeli–Palestinian conflict, as well as making deals with foreign countries, although in what way he is in charge is unclear. On August 24, 2017, Kushner traveled to Israel to talk to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (with whom Kushner has longstanding personal links and family ties".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Kushner
Need some laundering done..?
Trump spins on a dime. Here's his framing of the u-turn: "Mr Trump said that "according to various laws" the US should not target these cultural sites. "You know what, if that's what the law is, I like to obey the law," he said." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51027619
Notice the subtle caveat. Guiliani or someone gives him views on which laws it might be a good idea to obey, or when it may be timely to create that impression in the public mind.
"The ruling national executive committee (NEC) will meet on Monday to decide the timetable for electing Jeremy Corbyn’s successor, who can have a vote and how much they should pay to do so." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leadership-election-rebecca-long-bailey-kier-starmer-jess-phillips-a9271196.html
Voters rejected Corbyn's socialism, so the Labour mandarins feel they must swing back to market forces and are waving an olive branch at the Blairites?
They could go further. Tell the people that selling the right to vote to the highest bidder is a damn good idea. Have an auction. Middle class wannabes would love it. Get Simon Cowell to stage the thing for primetime tv – suddenly Labour would seem trendy to a huge swathe of voters. 🙄
I paid $5 to vote for Andrew Little as Labour leader. All cobwebs as regards social democracy in that party but present pricks, tho' more sellable, are worse. I hear the party in Britain is now firmly Corbynist in membership, and up the echelons a bit. Which is what I desired from and desire from Corbyn and Sanders respectively.
Sometimes you have to wonder how much the loony Christian fundamentalism within the US government want to see the world burn. Dick Cheney, being the one who opened the door.
Video is 25 minutes long, and good view from a former staffer in the Bush Presidency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVWmmVhS0uc&ab_channel=TheGrayzone
Great link, thanks Aaron. 😉
Aljazeera TV have just reported that multiple Iranian missiles have hit a U.S. airbase in Iraq.
"The Pentagon said Iran fired more than a dozen missiles. "It is clear that these missiles were launched from Iran and targeted at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. military and coalition personnel at Al-Assad and Irbil," Jonathan Hoffman, assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said in a statement." https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/us-iran-soleimani-tensions-intl-01-07-20/index.html
If Pompeo wasn't killed, Iran has failed to achieve parity. Mullahs failing to respond severely, after declaring they would, are likely to lose credibility in the opinions of their followers. Will the govt of Iraq declare war on Iran? An unprovoked attack on two of their bases merits the traditional response. Having told all foreigners to get out, these tough guys are dead keen to go it alone. Or maybe not…
What a puerile, childish and idiotic comment. The Iraqi government is powerless.
The two bases hit are effectively US territory, and they are unequivocally major US military installations being unequivocally attacked by the military of Iran.
The Greek chorus of Trumpian chumps who made light on this site of the assassination of Qassem Suleimani completely failed to grasp that by carrying out that killing the United States effectively declared war on Iran. No nation can sit back and allow another to assassinate it's top leaders with impunity. Iran is now taking the US at it's word and has struck back.
To make it clear – by any reasonable standard of international behaviour a state of war has existed between Iran and the United States since the 3rd of January 2020.
What the fuck did the US administration think Iran would do after that assassination?
Iran and the US have been in a state of conflict for a very long time … while it's true the Trump pushed events over an important threshold in the past week … none of this happened in a vacuum.
The theocratic thugs who run the Iranian regime are not nice innocent people, any more than any of the other cynical bastards tangled up in this.
Get a grip, lad. If they were US bases CNN would have described them as such. Or are you trying to subtly imply CNN journalists can't even get such elementary facts right??
How adequate the response from Iran has been remains to be seen from casualty figures. My point was re the court of public opinion in Iran. Loss of their top military commander, weighed in the balance against how many US soldiers?
Most people would view that as an ineffective response regardless. Think of it as a chess move: lose a Queen and retaliate by taking a few pawns. Doesn't rate.
I think you are an uninformed idiot.
Hey Sanctuary, in the interests of not increasing people's stress, can you please tone down the pejoratives? It's fine to point to perceived ignorance in comments with some analysis, but once you start aiming that at people and name calling, it becomes a problem for moderators.
I hear you, but at the same time if someone writes six plus posts of 600 odd words and then reveals he isn't even aware of what bases the US has in Iraq…
Well, being called an idiot I would have thought is as polite a reply as one should expect.
I bite my tongue on the internet all the time 😉 The choices we make about what we write after reacting are what determine whether a shit fight breaks out (and then whether the mods get involved).
Think of it as practice for election year.
I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?
The point being that the rockets were an offensive action against both countries – Iraq and USA. I get why leftists are addicted to demonising the USA. Spent much of my life feeling that way too! But political commentary is more effective when based on fact rather than misrepresentation.
"I admit I was teasing him. But since he didn't tell the truth (refer to joint bases) tweaking his tail was fair enough, eh?"
No idea. I'm not reading much of the commentary on this, just enough to keep an eye on moderation and what might be developing. My main point here would be that tensions are high enough without us winding each other up 🙂 Where that line lies is on all of us.
Just as the US drone strike in the Iraqi airport was a offensive action against both Iraq and Iran. Looks to me like a proportionate response bearing in mind that the drone didn’t give radar warnings of have to go through have to go through anti-missile defenses.
Who are those “most people”, Dennis? Where are they, mostly? In Iran, by any chance?
Most people understand tit for tat. It's even in the Bible (`an eye for an eye'). But, as I pointed out in 12.1, re the effect on the credibility of the mullahs, those that count are in Iran.
The reason Sanctuary is doing his hysterical thing is that the truth hurts, so folks get emotional. Once the feelings subside, a cooler clearer appraisal becomes possible…
I think a “cooler clearer appraisal” might not apply to “most people” in Iran now. I think the Kiwis in Iraq might also have slightly heightened emotions.
Attention Jenny: noting a Moderation note is not sufficient. You need to respond to it in a way that shows that you understand and accept your moderation otherwise we’ll just go around in circles, which will lead to a lengthy ban.
Until I’ve seen a satisfactory response from you, you can stop posting comments because they will automatically end up in Trash and I have no means to restore them retrospectively (and this would take up more of my precious time).
Attention Ross: Please stop ‘testing’ because it won’t get you anywhere until you respond to the latest Moderation note that was left for you to respond to and satisfy the Moderator.
Test
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Test reply to Test.
See? More than one of us can waste screenspace.
But only one of you is in Moderation 😉
I only test when the reply button goes walkabout. Submitting a comment returns the reply option, and then I delete the test message (unless this sticky mouse button posts two entries, as it sometimes does, then only one test entry permits editing).
I know you do 😉
Refreshing the browser sometimes helps.
Nah, tried all options, including deleting browser data, ccleaning, purging, fasting and praying to the aliens. Only thing that fixes it (for me) is to make a test post.
Sorry for the troublesome desk rodent when it plays up, though. I should pick up a new key/mouse set at some stage, but at least the reason for my tests are out there now. lol
A friend of mine lifes in Arkansas,
she send this text
Aljazeera TV are reporting at least two U.S. airbases have been hit and another wave of Iranian missiles have been launched.
https://twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS/status/1214701382068031488
https://www.twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS/status/1214710060754120705
Of course it's going cost us.
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/1214696126676393986
oil price increases are a useful thing.
and interest rates?
you'd need to be more specific.
shares fall,oil and gold and interest rates tend to move upwards.
could be useful too. Consumption is the big driver of CC. The problem for NZ is that we choose not to protect vulnerable people. It won't hurt the middle classes to tighten their belts, but I wish they'd learn to share more.
on the contrary…if oil increases it will impact 'growth' and the expected reaction would be an interest rate cut to offset (if there were room to cut) the reduced economic activity
Depends what it does to inflation for the rbnz to cut.if there are pricing signals of an increase the rbnz wont cut.
Internal food costs are sensitive to transport (and a poor growing season at present due to colder weather) impacts the poor firstly on a day to day basis.
RBNZ has 'looked through' potential inflationary spikes for years now….any inflationary impact is likely to be temporary, remembering that fuel prices typically fluctuate through quite a wide range for various reasons….however as said the likely impact on interest rates (if any) would be expected to be down rather than up
The reckless actions of Trump has given Iran a casus belli to act in self defence. They are acting on that. So it begins.
Lucky Trump's actions were triggered by something irrelevant, something that doesn't mean anything to him – impeachment – an illegal action of course and without any evidence. (he reckons.)
Imagine how crazy he'd have gone if he was more personally challenged like his tax and financial records facing the usual open scrutiny and ensuing legal challenges. The claimant of the biggest dick being found to need a magnifying glass to be identified would have really set him off.
[Be careful typing your user name correctly, thanks]
The Iranians have made no attempt to hide their direct attack on US forces in Iraq. This is a state action, a response to what was basically a US declaration of war on them. The only hope now for peace is for Trump to panic and chicken out. I really hope Trump doesn't think this is a good war to help his re-election bid. A US president who loses a war won't be popular.
someone needs to turn of this tv and the fox propaganda war. Cause literally Fox and Friends is giving him tips on whom to bomb next.
Shit Taji is where the ANZAC training team is atm, I hope Jandal’s tells Ronnie to get the troop asap and thank **** I’m no longer in the Forces and if they do ask me back to the colours it will be a f*** off sunshine etc as I’m not fighting for dumps silly little war / WW3 the Yanks started it so let them finish it without us.
All we need is Rocket man to throw something at Dump and Putin to do something in the Baltic, come to think I’ve read a novel by someone on this same scenario where a war kicks off in the Sandpit and rest fall like dominos.
Yup. You nail it so often. While many of us contribute here in a cool, detached way … your down to it comments keep us grounded.
Putin is in syria at the moment.
https://twitter.com/rnz_news/status/1214704988686913537
https://twitter.com/Tofazzal_Alam/status/1214730282923892736
Poission, I’m not too worried about the Russians in Syria as they have in Syria since late 50’s to early 60’s from memory. But it’s Baltic States that are the weak link to NATO and to EU, if I were a betting man that where I think Putin will strike nexts therefore splitting the western alliance/ economy.
just no words
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7863359/Ukrainian-passenger-plane-carrying-180-people-crashes-near-Tehran-local-media.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR38k4Xw07vRjHb6crZ9DhR27yHCiAHf4neNeEc4gXnig15hXHUoGPYrUQk&fbclid=IwAR0fvKsm0IqarybIrx66844SqlMfMnLItPLihmfoFZTOUD5Hxcrorcnenlo&fbclid=IwAR0EUwrWaP8jFFbsM0GCflp70skFWe_woHbbrDkFJCWaTihfMeK-L2ZOUX8
Just watching Trump's son rabbiting on about great his father is. He hasn't said he agrees so much about sorting the Middle East out that he's putting his hand up to go there and help. Funny that.
Last time I was at Kiwiblog they had a regular 400 odd commenters. Versus Left blogs with a quarter of that. 'Kommon Zense' as per talkback radio? Appealing to know-nothingers with a near body to kick apparently beats reason, balance, Ballance, Savage and the whole of our corner of knowledge.
It's very hard to denie climate change global warming and Sealevels rising is our reality. All the intelligence people must keep up the Mana mahi and champion a clean and Green future for all of our mokopuna.
The 2010s were almost certainly the hottest decade on record — and it showed. The world burned, melted and flooded. Heat waves smashed temperature records around the globe. Glaciers lost ice at accelerating rates. Sea levels continued to swell.
At the same time, scientists have diligently worked to untangle the chaos of a rapidly warming planet.
In the past decade, scientists substantially improved their ability to draw connections between climate change and extreme weather events. They made breakthroughs in their understanding of ice sheets. They raised critical questions about the implications of Arctic warming. They honed their predictions about future climate change
The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, with temperatures rising at least twice as fast as the global average.
places like the United States, Europe and parts of Asia — for instance, a link between shrinking sea ice and cold winters in Siberia, or Arctic heat waves and extreme winter weather in the United States.
The trouble is models have a hard time capturing the causes driving these connections.
"No one argues that the Arctic meltdown will affect weather patterns, the question is exactly how," said Arctic climate expert Jennifer Francis, a researcher at Woods Hole Research Center. "So figuring out what's not right in the models will be a major focus. Without realistic models, it's hard to use them to separate Arctic influences from other possible factors."
Resolving the debate will require "a combination of data and modeling," according to NASA climatologist Claire Parkinson. Many scientists are already hard at work on this issue.
One ongoing project known as the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project is conducting a series of coordinated model experiments, all using the same standard methods, to investigate the Arctic climate and its connections to the rest of the globe. Experts say these kinds of projects may help explain why modeling studies conducted by different groups with different methods don't always get the same results.
At the same time, improving the way that physical processes are represented in Arctic climate models is also essential, according to Xiangdong Zhang, an Arctic and atmospheric scientist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Outside that debate, there are still big questions about the Arctic climate to resolve. Scientists know the Arctic is heating up at breakneck speed — but they're still investigating all the reasons why.
Researchers believe a combination of feedback processes are probably at play. Sea ice and snow help reflect sunlight away from the Earth. As they melt away, they allow more heat to reach the surface, warming the local climate and causing even more melting to occur.
One key question for the coming decade, Zhang said in an email, is "what relative role each of the physical processes plays and how these processes work together" to drive the accelerating warming.
Unraveling these feedbacks will help scientists better predict how fast the Arctic will warm in the future, according to Francis — and how quickly they should expect its consequences to occur. They include vanishing sea ice, thawing permafrost and melting on the Greenland ice sheet
Sea-level rise is one of the most serious consequences of climate change, with the potential to displace millions of people in coastal areas around the world.
Ka kite Ano link below.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/these-are-the-biggest-climate-questions-for-the-new-decade/
Kia Ora Newshub.
It is not on that a student can be left dead in a room unnoticed for that long there needs to be checks on students.
That's good that the Hawke's Bay health board change the move to stop home help for 600 elderly people.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Someone in Watties had a brain fart thinking it is OK to belittle Te reo Maori for putea.
I read that some one passed on Maunga Tongariro Condolences to Te Whanau.
Great to see more Tangata Whenua doctors and nurses graduates.
Golf is a good game for tangata to play and make a mahi out of the sport.
Ka kite Ano
Looks like the sis sandflys have finished their new year holiday they were swarming again today.
There are many old technologically advanced societies around the world that have vanished. They have built structures that our modern society can not duplicate even with all our modern technology.???? So what caused the collapse of these old civilisation the same thing that is causing our world problems man taking mother nature for granted. Climate change and global warming sea level rising. Our scientists have waved a red flag for 40 years. The wealthiest people choose to ignore their warnings and worse they use their money to distort the reality of common people who some they know will be easily manipulated into believing there lies giving them power and in reality putting there own mokopuna in the jeopardy Wake up.
The environment in 2050: flooded cities, forced migration – and the Amazon turning to savannah
Unless we focus on shared solutions, violent storms and devastating blazes could be the least of the world’s troubles. Civilisation itself will be at risk
Good morning. Here is the shipping forecast for midday, 21 June, 2050. Seas will be rough, with violent storms and visibility ranging from poor to very poor for the next 24 hours. The outlook for tomorrow is less fair.”
All being well, this could be a weather bulletin released by the Met Office and broadcast by the BBC in the middle of this century. Destructive gales may not sound like good news, but they will be among the least of the world’s problems in the coming era of peak climate turbulence. With social collapse a very real threat in the next 30 years, it will be an achievement in 2050 if there are still institutions to make weather predictions, radio transmitters to share them and seafarers willing to listen to the archaic content.
I write this imaginary forecast with an apology to Tim Radford, the former Guardian science editor, who used the same device in 2004 to open a remarkably prescient prediction on the likely impacts of global warming on the world in 2020.
Journalists generally hate to go on record about the future. We are trained to report on the very recent past, not gaze into crystal balls. On those occasions when we have to venture ahead of the present, most of us play it safe by avoiding dates that could prove us wrong, or quoting others.
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent
Radford allowed himself no such safe distance or equivocation in 2004, which we should remember as a horribly happy year for climate deniers. George W Bush was in the White House, the Kyoto protocol had been recently zombified by the US Congress, the world was distracted by the Iraq war and fossil fuel companies and oil tycoons were pumping millions of dollars into misleading ads and dubious research that aimed to sow doubt about science.
Radford looked forward to a point when global warming was no longer so easy to ignore. Applying his expert knowledge of the best science available at the time, he predicted 2020 would be the year when the planet started to feel the heat as something real and urgent.
Ka kite Ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/30/environment-2050-flooded-cities-forced-migration-amazon-turning-savannah
Kia Ora Newshub.
North land experienceing drought we have to listen to our scientists and plan for the weather conditions that they have forcast or else one will be in trouble.
A green turtle laying its eggs on a popular beach in Australia it good they have people with the knowledge to move the turtle eggs safely.
That's great Simaria getting The BBC to pay you the same putea as men Mana Wahine.
Trees grow much faster in Aotearoa than other countries maple syrup would be a great sestanable tree crop.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Hinewai great mahi to get on the Hawke's Bay Regional Council first tangata whenua and a Wahine at that.
Mama donuts looks like it going great franchise to Ka pai just like making fry bread.
Mana Wahine Indigenous Rugby league.
Cool the Kurakaupapa teaching there tamariki about the Maori marama Callander and time to collect Kai
Ka kite Ano.
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora Newshub.
New technologies bowel cancer diegnosed with a mask it's the Ion age great new invention.
That's a excellent take of the hundreds of Sharks around the Great Barrier Islands. Sharks are a important part of Tangaroa environment and need to be protected and preserved.
Tyson was lucky to servive when his whare burnt down in the middle of winter.
The slide look cool A penguin but it slides the tamariki out to fast causeing injuries one would think they would test it before letting the public tamariki use it.???
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Watties should not have made fun of Te reo Maori it show how racist there management is.
The old saying is don't go to war unless you are going to win Camp Kawarau.
That's is cool getting the whanau and comunity to fund rising for a young Wahine treatment of a rear form of cancer.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Newshub.
I think thats a great move to ban exports of whitebait it will be awesome that in 30 years time everyone comes to Aotearoa to see our presteen wildlife and environment.
The Moana getting hot That's not good it doesn't take much temperatures to rise for life to get extremely difficult.
Bioluminesent sea creatures making Tangaroa look beautiful cool.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Taramaki whanui That's the way of the future building sestanable whare beautiful whare to.
That's sad a Tangaroa taonga passing and being washed up in Te Taitokerau.
Cool Te wharepora traditionally Maori weaving in flaxmere Ka pai E hoa.
Those 2 roopu are both from home I have links to both and they are quite awesome Wakarma.
Ka kite Ano