You're listening to Hooton reckons on the Green Party and taking them seriously?
that's paywalled, so no idea what the constitution bit is, but Hooton's job is to lose the election for the left, or failing that, make sure that the Greens have the least amount of influence in a centre left government as possible.
The stage is being set for Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick to join Marama Davidson as a co-leader of the Green Party, replacing James Shaw.
This requires amending the party's constitution, which currently demands one co-leader be female and one male. Party members will soon change the rules, instead requiring one co-leader to identify as a woman and the second as any gender. They are also expected to introduce a rule requiring one to identify as Māori and the other as any ethnicity.
The moves are motivated by both principle and pragmatism.
The new ethnicity requirement reflects the Greens' commitment to partnership under Te Tiriti.
On the sex rule, using "male" and "female" excludes intersex people and has uncertain implications for transgender people. But changing the words to the genders "man" and "woman" would still exclude many intersex people and the entire non-binary community.
snip
Successfully negotiating a so-far durable compromise with Labour, National and Te Pāti Māori over 2019's Zero Carbon Act made Shaw a genuine world leader in climate politics.
snip
Alternatively, with over 70 per cent of greenhouse emissions said to come from just 100 companies, Shaw might calculate that he could make a bigger contribution by returning to his PwC climate consultancy.
Either way, a vacancy in the Greens' co-leadership is expected sometime between next month's Budget and the end of 2023.
Of the Greens' two other male MPs, Teanau Tuiono has the skills for leadership but apparently not the aspiration. Dunedin Mayor Aaron Hawkins is stuck in that job until October.
With no other credible new male co-leader on the horizon, the Greens' constitutional changes are responsible succession planning.
snip
Most recently, Labour has utterly betrayed the young people who swung in behind Jacinda Ardern's 2017 promises to deliver a "nuclear-free moment" on climate change, make housing affordable and reduce poverty and inequality. To young leftists, her 2017 declaration that capitalism has been "a blatant failure" seems like one she has just proven true ever since.
With Labour struggling in the polls, it falls on the Greens to secure the left-wing base. Current speculation sees Swarbrick replacing Shaw after the election. But if the Labour-Green bloc keeps failing, she may need to step in earlier to keep the betrayed 20-somethings in the tent and prevent them from splintering off in all directions along the spectrum.
It is actually not a bad article, nothing bad faith about it. Simply a speculation of a what if scenario and why not? It's an election year….speculations are there to keep people engage.
Fwiw, i don't think Hooton is spinning this time. This is an opinion and it is fair enough.
As for the Greens and their internal politics, i don't know and i don't care as they are not a party on my watchlist.
edit: it would also make sense for them to abolish Sex based selection of leadership, after all sex is so last century and Gender is anything anyone wants it to be.
If this article about the Greens is true and it may not be, I am not sure what to think.
Are the Greens in talking about a female co-leader saying that biological sex matters afterall? That is qite a shift. To think it was only some months back that Elizabeth Kerekere and Labour women were treating women, who were brave enough to speak up on the self id bill, with contempt. Afterall, that is what we were saying. That sometimes biological sex matters. So according to Hootens article, the Greens are now trying to draw a distinction between sex and gender. Perhaps the women who presented with such reasoned arguements to the select committee finally got through to the Greens and they have come to realize that biological sex does matter and trumps gender identity.
Are the Greens being hypocritical or failing to see the irony of their position.? And of course its possible Hooten's article is bullshit
Maybe they had a look at the Green Party in Germany where two men were elected on the women roll and decided that that might be going a bit to far for now? I can see how that could upset the voters and rank and file members.
if Hooton's not implying that, it's unfortunate that Ad took it that way. Or it's intentional, because here we are arguing about it instead of talking about the GP rent control policy. Mission accomplished.
Can't read it, but from what's visible I assume the alleged move to change the constitution would be to remove the requirement for male and female co-leaders, co-convenors etc.
If the allegation turns out to be true, the motivation behind it will be to remove the offensive-to-the-gender-faithful terms "male" and "female" from the constitution, rather than the kind of trivial bullshit Hooton is peddling.
Hooton is spinning madly if he's saying that the changes are being done to roll Shaw. He's not stupid, he knows the discussions have been happening, and he also knows how things work in the party.
Interesting – so, not just about gender bollocks but also about what happens if you find you have a lot more female than male MPs. Still, as you say, nothing to do with Machiavellian plots to roll Shaw and everything to do with Hooton wanting to distract from Greens' policy announcements.
There's too many older women in the Green Party (members) who would vote for that shit .It's a red line
Younger ones might push for it but I think everyone realises it would be too divisive.The self ID legislation got through , but this would be in your face and a bridge too far.Remember its the Green Party membership who vote for the co leaders. and list rankings . Can they afford to have their lesbian and older members leave in droves?
oh this is a really good point. Not only leave in droves but then put energy into criticising them from the outside and in their workplaces and communities.
Them leaving a party because they feel they are no longer represented ?
Them criticizing from the outside a party that they left because they no longer felt represented and that they felt they could not criticizing while being an active member of that party.
Which then leads to this question:
Would it be ok for them to leave the party so as long as they keep their mouth shut as to why they left and any misgivings they may have?
I find the changes in the Green Party, here and in Europe, quite interesting tbh.
don't know what you are asking. Anyone is free to leave the GP at any time and criticise them publicly. They can even stay a member and criticise them publicly.
Yes – Hooton's mission is to damage the left in any way possible. He's best read with that background understanding – then ridiculed or ignored.
That said, I think the Greens should go for a single leader – the party has no problem with female representation internally and most future leaders would probably be women anyway by virtue of arithmetic. This split leadership is past its use by date, over-emphasises individual identity at the expense of collective vision, and is therefore vulnerable to the sort of wedging attacks Hooton is mounting here.
And the Party must know how critical the right sort of leader is to getting mass political support – as in the galvanising effect of Ardern replacing Little. Voters are unfortunately much more swayed by their perception of leaders than their analysis of policy, and the Greens have to swim in the pond they're actually find themselves in, not some idealised and imaginary one.
Agreed Tricle-Hooton made a complete idiot of himself in backing Mueller.
James Shaw was excellent on Morning Report recently, the Greens are polling well and it has always been public knowledge that the constitution requires a man/woman partnership (not sure about how LGBTQ2+fits in with this).
Hooton must be desperate for something to write about so he has made this up.
So what will the ratio be? 1:1:1? half-half-half? Will they just spend between now and the election talking about it incessantly while the electorate tip toes out of the room?
lefties need to stop and think about what they are doing. The day after the Greens release an actual left wing policy that has the potential to shift the overton window, NZH headlines that the Greens are about to go through a leadership challenge, and the rights premier spinmeister writes the piece.
And they paywall it, so there will be lots of speculation without people knowing what is going on. The extent to which this plays into leftie anti-green sentiment is on the left though.
"…The day after the Greens release an actual left wing policy…" that has somewhere between zero and less than zero chance of being implemented. Pointless grandstanding and as unserious as ACT demanding referendums on the treaty.
How about some policy that might have a chance of succeeding? How about something about the actual environment, like proposing legislative changes to strengthen the right to work from home? Or a demand for an immediate census of Kokako and Kiwi in Te Urewera? Or a statement that the Greens are going to push hard for fast tracking a massive windfarm in the Taranki bight?
Behaving like a NGO lobby group is not how you get things done in parliament.
seriously mate, if you want to hate the Greens you are basically saying better blue than green. Which is a cohort of the left for sure, but there's no mana in it.
Read some of sanctury's comments weka. Sanctury is a right winger who can sometimes blow bubbles left on social issues. Your better off not bothering with their hard right b.s.
[You are a moron who does not play the ball but loves having a go at others, including an attempt at cancelling, it appears – others don’t need your mis-guidance as to whom they should or should not reply here. And even if Sanctuary were a “right winger” blowing “hard right b.s.”, which they’re not and which they don’t, then you would still address their actual argument or point, which you don’t, as usual. Stick your bollocks next door where you plucked them from and stop acting like an utter fool here – Incognito]
As far as the NZ Labour Caucus is concerned, having the first MMP majority Govt. in history is not how you get things done in Parliament either!
Their take is you do not apologise for Rogernomics and sack all the senior public servants and get things done, oh no, you just keep on trucking with the Reserve Bank Act, State Sector Act and all the rest of the the rotten neo lib state that Roger’n’Ruth created.
"So is the Greens constitution about to be changed so that Chloe can roll Shaw?"
That would be the best thing the Greens could do at this point….if the Greens are serious about being a serious Progressive political party, giving voters an actual alternative to the Centrist political ideology of both Labour/Nats..then Shaw is nothing but dead weight to the Greens….as we all know he is a centrist at heart himself.
Yep, I vote Green for the brand and to let the others know we are going to ruin their neo liberal party eventually.
Too late to form new Parliamentary parties for 2023 & 2026, so it is Green and Maori. But it is not too late to start new social movements and organise-like occupying empty residential & commercial properties.
Activism will put the pressure on and Ms Swarbrick is s better bet to receive and carry the message. Plus she can get the better of most pundits and politicians.
….as we all know he is a centrist at heart himself.
And you know this from Shaw himself? Sounds more like a projection of your own low opinion of Shaw and a poor character assassination attempt at the same time. I think that Shaw is a little less B & W than you can imagine.
It may be too late for many of the victims, but the removal of Russia from the UN Human Rights Commission, paves the way for some modicum of belated justice for the tens of thousands of Syrians, disappeared, tortured, murdered and robbed by the Assad regime, long shielded by the regime's Russian backers in the UN.
….the report established the massive human rights violations committed, first and foremost by the Syrian “regime” and its allies…..
….The Government should cease arbitrary detentions. Gender-based violations and violations of children’s rights were of concern. Conditions for safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons had not yet been met…
…..Over 150,000 Syrians were arbitrarily detained or forcibly disappeared. The continuing war crimes were a barrier to the return of refugees and internally displaced persons……
…… One in 13 killed in the conflict were children. The Government forces continued to commit war crimes, continued to rape and murder, and the international community must hold the Syrian Government to account.
…..The violence committed by the “regime” affected every family. Over 150,000 Syrians were arbitrarily detained or forcibly disappeared. The continuing war crimes were a barrier to the return of refugees and internally displaced persons….
….Conditions for safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons had not yet been met. The situation continued to deteriorate, with increased suffering. Accountability was key; impunity was of great concern, and independent monitors must be given access to all areas. The “regime” must allow humanitarian access in line with United Nations Security Council resolutions.
…… the report had some concrete and specific recommendations on the release of those in detention, such as for Syria to publish the names of those in detention and give access to families and lawyers. The ways this could be done had been explained in the report; it could be done starting with the sick, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. All that was left was for people to listen to the recommendations of the Commission…..
…..Some speakers noted that resolution 46/22 on Syria, establishing the Commission, had not been supported by 20 Council members. The mandate of the Commission on Syria was not supported, nor were other similar mandates, as they were political, and thus the report was unacceptable and biased.
……Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the information media; not an official record.
Saudi Arabia is currently killing women and children in Yemen , and blockading food supplies .The Saudis have also recently beheaded 81 of their own citizens.
This is the regime that chopped a journalist into pieces in a foreign embassy, and incinerated Yemeni children travelling on a school bus on their way back from a picnic – an “apparent war crime”, in the words of Human Rights Watch.
The Saudi violence has only increased in Yemen since October, after the UN human rights council voted to end its war crimes investigation following intensive lobbying by the dictatorship in Riyadh.
The Saudis are armed by the UK, and given logistical and intelligence support by the US, help with targeting and kill strikes
This has been going on for 8 years, the same amount of time Ukraine has been killing its citizens in the east.81% of civilian deaths occur by Ukrainian army shelling those citizens, according to a UN report
Shall we kick them off the Human Rights Council too , while we're at it .All of them
The US role in the current starvation of women and children in Afghanistan surely needs your righteous attention
According to a health ministry official, approximately 1 in 10 newborn Afghan babies born since January 2022 have died – over 13,000 total – an increase believed to be exacerbated by worsening malnutrition, hunger-related diseases, and the collapse of the country’s healthcare sector. 95 percent of the population does not have enough to eat and 3.5 million children need nutritional support.
Or are you only moved by the loudest, lurid pictures on your screen, the very partial and curated images that reinforce "our" foreign policy directives.
Saudi Arabia is currently killing women and children in Yemen , and blockading food supplies .The Saudis have also recently beheaded 81 of their own citizens…..
….are you only moved by the loudest, lurid pictures on your screen, the very partial and curated images that reinforce "our" foreign policy directives.
I was moved by my personal experience of the Assad regime during my time in The Middle East and Syria in 2010 where I witnessed first hand the first early stirrings of the Arab Spring. A grass roots revolt across the Arab world that was violently crushed, by the pro-Western regimes you mentioned.
In 2011, when the Arab Spring spread to Syria…
I was moved by my disgust and dismay of the many commenters including yourself who sided with the Assad regime in it's genocidal war against its own people.
You on the other hand, were moved by my mentioning of this war.
And you Jenny wilfully choose to ignore the will and determination of the Syrian people who voted Bashar Assad their President by an overwhelming majority in 2021 and 2014.
You do nothing but insult Syrians who are not bigoted or simple minded as you seem to be, but they are intelligent, well educated and politically aware who know a damned sight more than you who is the best candidate to run their country.
Especially when the alternative was your head chopping friends El Nusra et al.
In both elections only Syrians in government controlled areas were allowed to vote.
That is only one of the notable things about those elections.
The eyewatering high level of voter turn out for Assad, that is pretty notable. Democracies like NZ for example, government's have trouble getting over 50% of the vote.
That other great dictator of the Arab world Hosni Mubarak also had the same eye watering high level of voter support just before an estimated 25 million Egyptians in the biggest popular revolt in human history forced him out of power.
…..Egyptians tell a joke about a man who dares to vote against the government in a parliamentary election.
On his way home from voting, the man starts to imagine all the terrible things that could happen to him and his family if the authorities find out, so he hurries back to the polling station and speaks to the policeman in charge.
"I'm very sorry," he says, "but I think I made a mistake on my ballot paper."
"Yes, you did," replies the policeman, "but not to worry. Fortunately we spotted your mistake and have already corrected it. Please be more careful next time."
Hear hear Francesca. It always is amazing how whenever the US screeches Look!! we all turn our heads and never look anywhere else. Apparently if its not on the news it just doesn't happen.
Subliminal, what always amazing is how the screeches of the likes of Brigid and Francesca who echo pro-Russia propagandists get us to turn our heads away from the genocidal wars waged by Russia.
Shawn Carrie 25 May, 2016
Assad's allies in the West
"They see it in silly binary terms – 'I'm against American imperialism; therefore I support President Putin's "anti-imperialism",' which is insane because that's also, or even moreso, a savage imperialist power, and at the moment a very worrying one," said Yassin-Kassab.
What is amazing is how prophetic Shawn Carrie’s words on the dangers of Russian imperialism written in 2016 are, considering what is going on now in Ukraine
Whitewashing Assad and his allies must be challenged
When we leave whitewashers to continue their campaigns unchecked, we put our own voices at risk of being marginalised.
Malak Chabkoun
…..Leaving whitewashers unchallenged says more about us than about them. It indicates that we are either not willing or unable to seek out truth. When we leave whitewashers to continue their campaigns unchecked, we put our own voices at risk of being marginalised in the very same way when it is our turn to speak.
The core point so many of the Putin cheerleaders here ignore is that for the past decade Russia was well on it's way to being a failed state anyway. A failing economy, a failing demographic and above all a failed polity. NATO was only expanding eastward because so many of the post Soviet states were desperate to escape the orbit of this accumulating catastrophe.
Russia indeed faces an existential threat, but it was never from NATO or the EU, but it's own internal contradictions.
“Contradictions” is putting it mildly. Demographic catastrophe, brain drain, endemic corruption, ridiculous totalitarian state fascism with gross perversion of the Orthodox religion, sponsor of worldwide disinformation and assassinations
A surprising number of people were able to see well in advance where the eastward expansion of Nato would end. Your wide eyed innocence is not particularly believable
They tried repeatedly but were rejected. It became obvious that they were to be villified as a future enemy. By 2007, in his Munich speech Putin already outlined the ways Russia was being targeted along with the absurd Iran rationale for missile defence in Europe
Imagine how differently things would have turned out if Russia had been accepted into a pan European security alliance, instead of being pointedly excluded.
Clinton on the period before NATO's expansion eastward (1999).
In 1994, Russia became the first country to join the Partnership for Peace, a program for practical bilateral cooperation, including joint training exercises between NATO and non-NATO European countries. That same year, the U.S. signed the Budapest Memorandum, along with Russia and the United Kingdom, which guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in return for Ukraine’s agreement to give up what was then the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Beginning in 1995, after the Dayton Accords ended the Bosnian War, we made an agreement to add Russian troops to the peacekeeping forces that NATO had on the ground in Bosnia. In 1997, we supported the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which gave Russia a voice but not a veto in NATO affairs, and supported Russia’s entry to the G7, making it the G8. In 1999, at the end of the Kosovo conflict, Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen reached an agreement with the Russian defense minister under which Russian troops could join UN-sanctioned NATO peacekeeping forces. Throughout it all, we left the door open for Russia’s eventual membership in NATO, something I made clear to Yeltsin and later confirmed to his successor, Vladimir Putin.
Well of course Clinton would put himself in that favourable light "I tried to set Putin on the right path"!!
The arrogance of the sole superpower
But it seems from Gorbachev on, there was no intention to admit Russia into NATO
Whoever it was who said "I'm sorry I'm about to do a terrible thing to you.I'm going to deprive you of an enemy "after the end of the Soviet Union was wrong.America needed an enemy.The following link is pretty interesting, worth reading the lot
.It points out the early warnings of Russian concerns about NATO
Washington, D.C., March 16, 2018 – Declassified documents from U.S. and Russian archives show that U.S. officials led Russian President Boris Yeltsin to believe in 1993 that the Partnership for Peace was the alternative to NATO expansion, rather than a precursor to it, while simultaneously planning for expansion after Yeltsin’s re-election bid in 1996 and telling the Russians repeatedly that the future European security system would include, not exclude, Russia.
You are living in fantasy land. Even if Russia was serious, even if the Western nations did let Russia join Nato. It would not get rid of the reason for war.
The competing growth economies of rival political and economic blocs will continue to clash, just as the growth economies of the world are crashing up against the natural barriers of the environment and climate.
Unless we can reach a steady state economy, the future is war and environmental and climate collapse.
The limits of growth
Dennis L. Meadows:
"….Depletion in the future is probably going to manifest most directly through what look like political forces. As countries like the United States and China become dependent on imports to sustain their living standards, which they are already with respect to oil, they will begin to implement political, military, and economic measures to gain control over those assets abroad. And that’s certainly going to bring us into conflict. Diverting resources off to the mechanisms of control will reduce the kind of growth that’s possible domestically."
As countries like the United States and China become dependent on imports to sustain their living standards, which they are already with respect to oil,
Well that is certainly true of China, but much, much less so of the USA.
In terms of energy independence US oil and gas import are a negligible fraction of their production capacity. They really only trade around the margins for a variety of commercial and technical reasons.
In terms of food production, the US Midwest is the world's greatest food basket. They export far more than import.
In terms of manufactured goods, their fraction of goods imported outside of NAFTA compared to their GDP is rather modest. Less than 10% last I looked. Their biggest trading partner is Mexico, not China as most people assume – and this gap is only going to widen rapidly.
In terms of security, short of a nuclear exchange in which everyone loses, the North American continent is impregnable, two friendly neighbours and two oceans they completely control. No-one can physically invade by any currently known means (unless the Democrats really do decide to fling their borders open to literally anyone).
Basic Geopolitics 101, secure energy, food, water and borders. The USA is not a nation motivated by a shortage of resources.
"The USA is not a nation motivated by a shortage of resources."
Resources are not the only thing that nations fight over.
Overseas markets are one of the main issues that nations clash over.
Growth economies need markets, once the internal market is saturated, external markets are sought.
Every growth economy is an export economy. Russia wants to export, China wants to export America wants to export New Zealand wants to export. No body wants to import. Strong countries force smaller weaker countries, to accept access to their market while closing access to their market with tariffs
True, but much the same logic applies – outside of NAFTA the USA exports only a very modest fraction of it's GDP. Somewhere under 10% last I looked, pretty much the lowest fraction of all the major trading nations.
Their motives for being so influential globally are much more complex than a base imperialism.
@ RedLogix…
"Exactly what did Russia have to fear by becoming part of Europe"
You seem to forget that the USSR proposed joining NATO in 1954, and even went so far as to amend their original proposal to include/exclude points that were rejected by NATO in their first proposal.
The concluding note to their proposal read…
"NATO would cease to be a closed military alignment of states and would be open to other European countries which, together with the creation of an effective system of European collective security, would be of cardinal importance for the promotion of universal peace." https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/molotovs-proposal-the-ussr-join-nato-march-1954
NATO rejected Russia's offer.
Putin has also apparently floated the idea of joining NATO.
“Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?
"Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,”
I believe they have long wanted to become a part of Europe…however the dangerous Russophobia that existed then (and now) meant that negotiating a peaceful path to that outcome has never got off the ground….I guess the people who could have helped to give those negotiations even just a little oxygen and maybe plant the seeds of peace going forward, had already picked a side…just like you RedLogix…
Thanks Ad, much of that piece is taken from Geoffrey Roberts book, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953.
Here is a link to an extremely interesting and enlightening interview with Roberts on his historical overview of Stalin as Political Leader and as War Leader, well worth a read if you have got the time…. Stalin’s Wars: An Interview with Professor Geoffrey Roberts
RedLogix…are you drinking something that is reverting you to your youth…you sound a teenager, and a fucking stupid one at that…grow up you idiot, or stop commenting to me please.
An article pretending to evaluate Stalin's legacy and fails to explore something as obvious as the grotesque cruelty of the gulags – especially those in the Far East – deserves nothing but contempt. It is exactly equivalent as telling us Hitler was wonderful and failing to mention the Holocaust.
But then why should I be surprised that you think it worth referencing.
Please dial back the personalised stuff. You were warned about this the other day. There are plenty of politics to focus on. If you don't like a particular commenter's response, you can just ignore them.
RL …."deserves nothing but contempt. It is exactly equivalent as telling us Hitler was wonderful and failing to mention the Holocaust"….
It is like this bit from that same article was written especially for you RedLogix…" A lot of people have confused my being impressed by Stalin with my being some kind of admirer of Stalin or someone who approved of Stalin. Personally and politically I detest the kind of policies and ideology that Stalin stood for…… Don’t confuse the story I tell about this powerful and impressive system and this powerful and impressive leader with my own point of view. I’m just telling the story as I see it. I see it as my duty as a historian to tell that story, even though that story might make a lot of people uncomfortable. It might not want to be the story that a lot of people want to hear. It might be the story that offends a lot of people’s own politics. I can’t help that. That’s the history and as a historian I’m committed to telling the truth as I see it.
The problem with you RL, is if the historical story is one that conflicts with your present world view you get angry….as can be seen by the way you relentlessly insult me at the end of half the comments you reply to me with…and that is getting real boring and annoying to me, so how about you either stop it or don’t comment to me in future.
RedLogix…I don't mean to be mean of rude here, but seriously, the more you talk these days, the more you sound like you have nothing to say…from my end it's all a bit sad really. Even though I rarely agreed with you, I used to quite respect you, at least you, unlike most of your other Liberal Imperialist comrades on this site, usually delivered a well thought out debate and/or position….now all you sound like is a big pile of angry stinking shit.
But yo your question…”If Russia was so keen to join NATO why did they continue to target them with nuclear weapons?”
Probably because they were well aware that the West (mainly the USA/UK) were not interested in peace with Russia…
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov…..
“Most likely, the organizers of the North Atlantic bloc will react negatively to this step of the Soviet government and will advance many different objections. In that event the governments of the three powers will have exposed themselves, once again, as the organizers of a military bloc against other states and it would strengthen the position of social forces conducting a struggle against the formation of the European Defense Community,”
RedLogix: I have put up a You Tube link on today's (Friday) Daily Review.
Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss the war in Ukraine after the latest round of atrocities. It expands on your perception of the way things are going and the most likely outcomes.
Its an hour long but the most illuminating discussion I have encountered thus far. Buchanan has a huge amount of experience in the field of intelligence and analysis gathering plus personal experience of atrocities committed in South America.
Yes, you are not the only Sanctuary on, a few ex NZ Tankie mates & I are rather jealous at what is about to happen even though our respective wife's/ partners/ hubby's have given us permission to volunteer (note we left the RNZAC/ Scots SQN in late the 90's.)
Me personally I would like to join the Ukrainian Airforce Ground Defence Units my bread & butter for the last 20yrs in RAAF. Especially Defending the Warloc's for the MiG29's, SU25's & Hind Helicopters.
Given what has happened & what we have seen so far in terms of Combined Arms TTP's from Russian & Ukrainian Armoured Corps. The Ukranian Tankies incl its Light Cavalry combined with the Ukrainian Light Infantry Units have a superior TTP's (SOP's in old money).
Just to add, that I had planned a trip to Ukraine incl Crimea, Kursk & through to Rostov on the Don until Tsar Poot's little Green Man invaded in 14. My Travel plans got knock back by work, as they deem it to high risk.
Josie Pagani has an article on the Stuff website arguing that the West should intervene militarily in Ukraine:
In a twist on the '’mutually assured destruction’' deterrent, Putin is showing that he can use the threat of nuclear weapons as an effective way of coercing his adversaries to do what he wants.
His tactic is dangerous and can't be allowed to stand. Let him do this, and we say Putin can commit war crimes, bomb maternity hospitals, execute civilians, and even destroy whole cities and the people in them. As long as he has a nuclear weapon, we won't enter the war.
I don't know what she means by "standing up to Putin". I think she would have to be be pretty naive to think that that Putin would not carry through on his threat and start a nuclear war if the West attempted to impose a no-fly zone.
Kennedy, in 1962, threatened nuclear war, but war was averted when a negotiated settlement was reached with Kruschev. In the current conflict the West, instead of accusing Russia of war crimes, atrocities etc, and imposing sanctions, should be doing their utmost to steer the protagonists towards the negotiating table.
How? Exactly what else should be done than has not already been attempted?
It should have happened before the invasion even started. Putin tried on many occasions to get talks started on the Eastern Ukraine situation but Zelenskyy simply ignored him; so then he massed troops on the Ukranian border, but even then Zelenkyy didn't get the message, In the end Putin had little choice but to launch an invasion, and still Zelenskyy made no moves to avert a disaster by agreeing to talks.
All the West has done is to make loud noises about war crimes and atrocities. Good propaganda no doubt, but hardly calculated to bring about peace, assuming of course that peace is what America wants. The recriminations should be left until after the war is over.
Or are you really suggesting that Ukraine should just surrender?
If the Ukranians win it will be a Pyrrhic victory – assuming it's not a Pyrrhic loss.
"Standing up to Putin" doesn't have to involve imposing a no-fly zone, just equipping Ukraine with the necessary military equipment to trash Russian invasion forces. There are no "protagonists" to steer towards a negotiating table, only invaders and the invaded. Make the invaded "negotiate" how much of their country they're going to give up to the invaders and you unleash a whole new round of bigger countries exercising their territorial ambitions on smaller ones.
I think the line drawn between sanctions and indirect military conflict with Russia (via Ukraine) and actually being involved militarily in the Ukrainian conflict is somewhat semantic. I am not sure that Russia would see it as much different. It could be argued that the effect of sanctions on Russia is far greater than would be the effect of Nato intervening directly in the conflict.
So, from their perspective, Russia may well see itself under attack already, regardless of whether Nato is directly involved or not.
Remember, it was a form of sanction, the oil embargo on Japan, from the US, that led to the Pearl Harbour attack.
So, there is no guarantee that sanctions themselves wouldn't elicit a military response from Russia. The fact that an arguably greater economic attack from the west hasn't provoked a military response from Russia, then, suggests that an arguably lesser response from Nato (say setting up a no fly zone) would not be a step that would lead to WW3 either.
In the end, Russia is far outweighed in terms of military strength by Nato. Therefore, they certainly do not want to get involved in a conventional war with Nato. And the use of nuclear weapons would be national suicide for them.
Therefore, I think the consequence of Nato and the west getting getting directly involved in Ukraine is probably far overstated.
That is not to say I am actually arguing that Nato should be directly involved. Only, that I think the risks of such involvement leading to WW3 are not increased to any significant degree compared to the action already being taken.
Not sure why the clip should have anything to do with stomachs ts but thanks for putting up the interview with peskov gd to hear the usually missing Russian perspective ! in my view we need as many of these conversations as possible . I found something which you may have seen already perhaps but if not you and all the other 'armchair generals ' here might appreciate .Seems credibly unbiassed and educative .
Thanks for the Peskov interview. I hadn't seen that. I guess that will be the last time such a rational discussion of the events in Ukraine will get aired.
Afterall Peskov, shown two of the events that the west consider slam dunks in Bucha, was able to point out weaknesses in each in the short time he was given to respond.
The satellite photos of Yablonsksa Street are obviously taken after the scene was set but we are asked to believe that the satellite company with Pentagon contracts was telling the truth about the dates?? No verifiable time stamps with the photos. Good grief
The identification of the armoured vehicle that blew up the woman cyclist as Russian uses photos obviously different (diferent positions) to that in the video.
The attempt to portray the whole world as against Russia was laughable in a western centric way. Pushing all the tired white helmet and novichok fabrications as fact. Difficult to get any balance in five eyes countries but guess what? We aren't the world.
At the end, Peskov states that Russia views its special operation as a preventative measure against a future third world war. They have taken the lesson of Chamberlain type appeasement to heart. Viewing US behaviour in its unipolar moment can only support such a view. A US led world has only brought chaos and destruction to poor, defenceless countries.
Hopefully you are aware how few nuclear detonations will be required to set off a nuclear winter. I believe the US understanding is that they might well succeed in a first strike able to negate Russian response, but the consequences of that would still be devastating for the US.
I do understand the nuclear threat. But I think that exists already with what the west is already doing in terms of sanctions and effectively attacking Russia indirectly by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Look at all the damage Nato and the west are already doing to Russian forces via the weapons they are supplying Ukraine.
I am not convinced that the threat of this would be greatly increased should the west, say, establish a no fly zone.
A no fly zone is a significant escalation. Thats a distinction Biden has made by implementing sanctions supplying weapons, but not a no fly zone. As far as we can see Russia seems to hold this distinction also as they have not described economic lines which would lead to nuclear retaliation.
Your framework is at odds to both nuclear capable sides and so there seems no reason to adopt it.
If you really want to scare yourself silly on the topic I suggest you should read Daniel Ellsberg's 2017 book on the subject. It is called The doomsday machine : confessions of a nuclear war planner.
Thing is, if Russia/Putin was a rational actor, they wouldn't have invaded Ukraine in the first place.
I can see the benefit to invading Crimea – it ain't good to have such a strategically significant port held under lease and a handshake just because it's on someone else's territory.
But invading the rest of Ukraine? Maybe the foreign policy advice Putin receives is as gilded as the advice he received about military readiness. Because if he's receiving rational advice, his decisions are incredibly and unusually stupid. But if he's making rational decisions in an advice fantasy land, his decisions still have an unpredictable outcome in reality.
I think he was rational to the extent he was probably entitled to make assumptions that he based his decisions on, and thought he had the opportunity to grab Ukraine in a quick operation.
Firstly, he had just witnessed the west pulling out of Afghanistan, and had seen the relative lack of commitment of the NATO countries and their squabbles. Also, he had seen their response over the Crimean invasion. So it was probably reasonable for him to believe that the west would huff and puff but not really do anything.
Secondly, he had built up large foreign reserves that he thought would fund his military campaign. He probably didn't envisage that the west might lock a lot of that away.
Thirdly, on paper anyway, he had vast military superiority over Ukraine. Even a lot of western commentators didn't think the Ukranians would last that long.
Finally, I think he vastly underestimated the willingness of the Ukranians to fight. He probably thought they would give up quickly like the Afghanistan army. After all, the Ukranians didn’t put up much of a fight in Crimea. So past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour etc.
So, I think taking the above into account, it was probably quite rational of him to expect a quick, easy win. And that is what the Russian army prepared for.
If he had known the way things would turn out, he probably would never have made the move in the first place. But now that he has gone in, he really has to keep it going otherwise he loses face, and possibly is position as leader.
It's one thing to expect an easy win, but another thing entirely to plan to expect a walkover. The shear number of troops they used left them no contingency for actual resistance. So that's the deeply flawed intelligence, and planning flawed to the point of complacency.
Then there are things like the logistics problems, the maintenance issues, the unsupported armour going into urban areas. Those are readiness issues that should have been prevented or at least reported.
Then there's the dramatic impact of newer ATGMs, and the failure to achieve air supremacy. That's a failure in military intelligence and also overly rosy tech analyses.
So the point is, even if Putin isn't pumped full of roid rage and is thinking clearly, he's still working off a fantasy football playbook. Does his information about his nuclear weapons efficacy and likely US/global responses to use of nukes follow the same fantasy land? That's one of the big risks here.
Sure, he's unexpectedly having to evaluate his continued leadership when he was expecting a walkover and to be welcomed as a liberator, but if that could lead to him making a miscalculation based on accurate information, what about if his information is flawed?
I am not denying that Putin may be becoming unhinged, or very angry about the situation. But I think the damage has already been done in that respect. So the risk of a nuclear response is probably there right now.
I don't actually think there is much point to a no fly zone, because the Ukranians already effectively have that with the huge amount of anti-aircraft assets they have now. I just saw a report that the Russians are hardly using attack helicopters now because they have lost so many of them. And the Ukranians are shooting down a lot of the cruise missiles.
However, it could be argued that the presence of NATO in some capacity might actually reduce the likelihood that Nukes are used.
The most likely use of nukes I have seen reported is the possibility of limited tactical use within Ukraine with a smaller weapon aimed at eliminating a large force of infantry for instance.
But if NATO were in there, the Russians might be very reluctant to use nukes in that way because of the possibility of it being seen as an attack on NATO and hence a military response.
It is a difficult one. Obviously a nuclear war would be civilisation ending, and no-one wants that.
But, when there is an aggressor threatening to use nukes unless he gets his way, how is the world to respond to that? If the world just gives up and gives him what he wants, he will just keep on doing the same thing.
Remember, I did say in my initial post that I wasn't actually arguing that NATO should go into Ukraine. But just that I didn't think it greatly elevated the risk by doing so.
If Putin gets told Nato troops are there when deciding to use nukes.
And what if the mobilisation of nukes leads to an accidental use by individual units, outside of the policy decision-making framework? If Ukrainians get nuked it's bad, but if Nato (especially US) troops get nuked then all hell could let loose.
Let Russia threaten. Maybe the response to actual nukes will be WW3, maybe not. At the moment, not knowing the response framework gives the rational decision-maker a suggestion that the stakes are possibly unacceptable. Nato troops on the ground might suggest that the only rational option (other than refusing to play) is to go all-in.
The whole nuclear war scenario is incredibly scary.
I saw a video from a guy who's previous job was to game war scenarios. He said that gaming (military not play station) predicted that even the limited use of a nuclear weapon as described above would lead quickly to full scale nuclear war.
What is the west to do if they see Russia starting to open nuclear missile silos, and prepare other assets for a nuclear attack?
I don't think Nato would just wait for the Russians to start firing missiles. I think they would try and get their own attack away first to try and take out missiles before they could be launched. I think Russia would realise that as well, so would only take that sort of action if they actually intended to follow through, which NATO would also realise…. So it very quickly reaches a point of no return.
I think Putin is going to lose this war. Probably the best outcome would be for him to gain enough in the short-term anyway, for him to be able to proclaim "victory"on May 9th, and then withdraw his troops. As I don't think he can afford to keep this going for long.
Putin's likely already lost, the question is "how badly".
Yeah, the escalation curve tends to get pretty steep after mushroom clouds of whatever size. Mostly because of any perceived imbalance of how many of the smaller nukes one side has/can take vs another, so after that it's either go big or go home.
On the plus side, they wouldn't open silos for a tactical nuke – those tend to be bombs or even artillery rounds (although I don't know if anyone has the artillery nukes in current arsenals – US in particular had them in the 1960s, some of them scary small).
BTW, I don't actually think NATO would put infantry on the ground in Ukraine.
But I could envisage a scenario where there is some complex missile systems capable of taking out Russian artillery and ships with a high degree of efficiency from a very long range. But the problem is that the Ukranians don't know how to use them.
But if that were stationed say in the west of Ukraine away from the fighting, and operated by NATO personnel, it would be difficult for the Russians to know whether it was actually NATO or Ukranians who had been trained in the equipment.
Or, some type of drone weapons that NATO could operate from outside of Ukraine. Again, it would be very difficult to prove NATO was doing it, and NATO would deny it if the accusation was made.
It would be ironic though, if the only forces to be nuked in this conflict was the Russians themselves, digging trenches in the red forest around Chernobyl.
Don't forget the old "foreign volunteer, ok last week they were a specialist in xxx armed forces, but totally unaffiliated now, don't know how they got that equipment, either" move.
But as soon as the numbers start getting into the hundreds, the chances of them popping up in the media increase – like the "mystery troops" in Crimea in 2014 who were facebooking happily away…
Yeah. Like I said at the outset the question of whether or not NATO (and the west) is directly involved starts become a bit semantic.
The way I see this conflict has become is that it is now a proxy war with Russia fighting Ukraine as a proxy for NATO.
I think NATO is so invested in this conflict now that they actually want Ukraine to win now, rather than just survive. And they really don't want Putin to be able to claim a win, because that would just incentivise him to keep going. And Putin is just as committed as well.
So, it is a bit like a fight to the bitter end now. I don’t see a negotiated solution, especially after the war crimes.
The good thing is at the end of this Russia will no longer be a super power, and after this there will only be two crazy super powers to worry about.
I think the Nato hope was that Ukraine would retreat to its western areas and do some assymetric insurgency in the occupied areas, slowly bleeding Russia. But Ukraine is still using conventional forces, and holding its own.
There's also the war crime thing which seems to be a bit more unexpected – sure, artillery obliteration, but population relocations and mass executions already?
So now I think Nato is sniffing an opportunity and a desire to topple Putin internally, and can probably do that just by keeping the missiles flowing to Ukraine. A lot of the equipment like the NLAW actually seems to require pretty low levels of training, too.
Russia seems to be reorienting to consolidate its eastern gains, but whether they will be able to hold that territory seems to be more up to Ukraine than it's up to Putin.
Yeah. The problem for the Russians is that the Ukranians can reposition a lot of their troops as well, now they aren’t needed up north.
I am thinking the Russians really have no option but to attack. And that will be against very dug in positions. So, there is going to be a lot of life lost over the next couple of weeks, unfortunately, on both sides.
After all, the Ukranians didn’t put up much of a fight in Crimea. So past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour etc.
There was no actual invasion of Crimea. The latter's citizens handed themselves over to Russia willingly. Ukraine and Crimea had little in common, either ethnically or culturally, anyway.
please look at what you just did. Whatever device you used to make that comment, you have to check the Name and Email field each time to make sure there are no typos there. Please say if there are technical difficulties.
If you think that a no fly zone is a lesser response then I suggest that you don't have much understanding. Enforcing a no fly zone requires shooting down aircraft. Since Ukraine has not had much joy in that endeavour, it will involve operations, either missiles or aircraft from neighbouring countries. That will mean a Europe wide war that would soon involve the US as well. So not really "lesser"
I was listening to Kathryn Ryan being the full song chickenhawk on RNZ yesterday and it occured to me the singular political phenomena of the last twenty-twenty five years has been the emergence of the blue liberal hawk, AKA "centrists". Pagani is an exemplar of the type.
What gets me about Josie Pagani is that she repeats what others have been thinking and saying for weeks/months before she comes out and says it as if its something new and novel.
Yes, when it comes to nukes; MAD–mutually assured destruction–still stands even if it might be a lingering, post apocalyptic destruction.
The former Soviet Union was involved in a number of anti proliferation Nuclear Treaties that the USA has since disregarded. Perhaps if the USSR had invented iMacs and skinny jeans rather than producing ICBMs they would still be here.
But the fact is virtually any armed conflict is finally resolved with negotiation.
There is value in reading this thread and the comments which cover a wide range of viewpoints.
Some of the world’s largest countries (China, India, Brazil, Pakistan, Indonesia) refuse to condemn Russia’s war. We tend to assume that outrage at Russia must be universal, but there are reasons why so many countries back Putin or at least hesitate to condemn him
Good stuff. I have been a lone voice on The Standard for a while pushing the Non Aligned Movement, and that Aotearoa NZ should join it–there is of course “a shit show and no show” of that happening while this country is hooked into 5 Eyes.
The non aligned movement allows mutually beneficial bilateral trade and cultural agreements, and seems a worthy solution for small nations in the era of Climate Disaster, COVID affected supply lines and imperialist power plays.
What can Ukraine concede in negotiations – a neutral Ukraine outside NATO, the Donbas region becoming independent, a plebiscite in Crimea? All these things are possible, but they assume that Russia is a rational actor (criminal, but still rational) pragmatically concerned about its own security.
But the recent atrocities and the "denazification" propaganda feel like that there is an altogether darker and irrational nationalism at work. Like some fascist harking back to a glorious imperial Russian past that has been betrayed in the present. Can the Ukrainians really negotiate with such people – or can they do so only from a position of military strength, or at least parity? It is very concerning to see no end to this war.
Neither really – I just don't see how anyone will think it's possible to go back to those negotiating positions after what the Russians have done. The Russians were certainly provoked, but they pulled the trigger and what they have revealed of themselves since doing so is ugly.
I mentioned here only a couple years back that we'd be fighting over shit in short order.
The immensity of our failure to create sustainable systems…
Gardeners beware! Not all shit is equal.
Some (spray residues in) manures can actually kill or severely damage your crops. Know the medicinal and spray regime of the animals and land they came from. Some pesticides are extremely persistent, don't let your need to save money cost you your garden.
Makes me grateful for my rough sawn, off-grid (some may say feral) buddies up on Northland.
A composting toilet on an elevated site, overlooking the banana grove and the manuka. A large partitioned drum, that gets rotated every 3 months. After resting for a while the 'humanure' feeds the bananas.
It's a subject fraught with difficulty. On the one hand a tremendous resource, on the other a populace that is heavily medicated* with all manner of things we don't want in the food chain.
*e.g. US, despite user pays health, has 66% of adults on one pill or another.
And an honourable mention goes to the types of things people flush: Dead pets make fine compost I'm sure, even the Civil war cannon shell might be scavenged for nitrate. But we also flush cell phones and syringes.
And how real is this take going to be? certainly a minefield (pardon the pun) for the EU countries to get through. No simple choices.
Sit back and watch Europe commit suicide
If the US goal is to crush Russia's economy with sanctions and isolation, why is Europe in an economic free fall instead?
…Cue to the coming catastrophic economic consequences felt by Europeans in their daily life (but not by the wealthiest five percent): inflation devouring salaries and savings; next winter energy bills packing a mean punch; products disappearing from supermarkets; holiday bookings almost frozen. France’s Le Petit Roi Emmanuel Macron – perhaps facing a nasty electoral surprise – has even announced: “food stamps like in WWII are possible.”
We have Germany facing the returning ghost of Weimar hyperinflation. BlackRock President Rob Kapito said, in Texas,“for the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want.” African farmers are unable to afford fertilizer at all this year, reducing agricultural production by an amount capable of feeding 100 million people.
Zoltan Poszar, former NY Fed and US Treasury guru, current Credit Suisse grand vizir, has been on a streak, stressing how commodity reserves – and, here, Russia is unrivaled – will be an essential feature of what he calls Bretton Woods III (although, what’s being designed by Russia, China, Iran and the Eurasia Economic Union is a post-Bretton Woods).
Poszar remarks that wars, historically, are won by those who have more food and energy supplies, in the past to power horses and soldiers; today to feed soldiers and fuel tanks and fighter jets. China, incidentally, has amassed large stocks of virtually everything.
If one thinks back, it seems previously when Russia was sanctioned, it responded by developing self-sufficiency in a number of areas of its economy which has stood it in pretty good stead. This time around, cynics would think the same is likely to happen again. They might also notice that the ruble isn't looking too shabby while the Euro is going south along with the pound.
There is one winner though – the US is frantically selling arms to suckers who are arming Ukraine and will want the inflated debts paid for in their funny money.
So which is the historically weak currency recovering after halving its value in early march for some reason, and which one has been tracking down against the USD for a year (a year of a new POTUS, btw)?
Not sure Russian self sufficiency is all it's cracked up to be, but time will no doubt tell. If it is, I guess the sanctions against superyachts and currency reserves aren't a massive hardship for ordinary Russians.
Is the fertiliser shortage because of sanctions on Russia, or because Ukraine is a war zone?
Russia is both a big exporter of most fertilizers,and Gas.The high cost of gas has meant a number of major manufacturers in Europe have stopped making Urea etc.
As the international price lifts all boats including the US has meant US farmers have switched their crop selection from feed maize (also used for ethanol production) to soya (which requires a 1/4 of the fert)
South America is struggling with Rice not being sown in Peru,where it is a staple food.
Pozsar argument is that the Russian stress test of global economies cam at a time of most risk ie Where central banks have over extended at both ends of their stimulus regime( interest rates and QE) to reduce harm they have to both raise interest rates and reduce liquidity which is where they will come unstuck.
Commodities are real assets and fully trade able,where collateral exists,a number of financial assets such as ETF (index funds) are not.
"Global credit ratings agency S&P Global has given New Zealand the first ratings upgrade of any country since the global coronavirus pandemic, effectively giving the Government a cheaper credit card and sending a signal to global investors New Zealand is on a positive economic trajectory"
Here’s a bit of science, as to why some people are vacinne hesitant, from our wonderful Dunedin study…..this is the only research in NZ I would trust without digging very deep.
the Dunedin study found there was a preponderance of negative events in childhood leading these people to mistrust authority. The backlash against these people will of course make this worse.
Just to reiterate I do not support the anti vax point of view or their unscientific belief systems
That speaks to close friends who have a fairly top end restaurant.
They really struggled (and still are) with having to insist 3 key members of staff had to leave (and be paid out) because they weren't willing to be vaccinated. He, the chef/owner, had grown up with the experience of being a healthy young nipper until he was vaccinated for something.
Then the auto-immune issues started- eczema and athsma mainly followed by picking up every bug that went round.
Those experiences and the family stories about them, formed his reality. Far from an anti-vaxxer, he was very resistant to the compulsion vibe and ended up having to comply for a bunch of reasons, non of which were health related.
This, and the divisions formed from the response, is where there is a lot of healing to occur before we can say we are past the pandemic.
is where there is a lot of healing to occur before we can say we are past the pandemic.
.Acute disease is only the beginning. We're staring down the barrel at a huge swathe of the population being disabled in ways we can only imagine.
If it turns out that natural herd immunity doesn't exist and new variants keep emerging then it's unlikely we'll be able to drive the effective reproduction number down to <1.
The societal burdens of endemic covid will be huge and eventually, they'll become unbearable. Elimination will be the only option.Vaccination and non clinical interventions will get us there.
Yes, isn't it ironic that part of his reason for going into Ukraine was because NATO was getting too close and too scary. But now he is getting absolutely the opposite of what he wanted with more countries about to join NATO and a lot more NATO forces on his doorstep.
Only if you drink in the one-sided propaganda we are fed. Wait and see. I will be pleased if you are right, but I currently have no confidence in the stories we are being told.
What proportion of the population are "fully vaccinated or boosted"? If they were hospitalised at the same rate as unvaccinated people, how many admissions would that be?
Oh look. You've refused to keep up for at least a year now.
79% of the population is fully "vaccinated" and 51% have taken up the offer of a booster.
And for those who prefer fancy graphics, Farah Hancock has provided some nifty examples. It would seem that at the most, having partaken of the Pfizer product might..and I use that word advisedly…just might slightly lower your chances of occupying a hospital bed. If you're lucky you might get care from an uninfected doctor or nurse. Or a fully vaccinated but testing positive nurse.
And as for admissions to hospital of the willfully unvaccinated…that rate has come down. Perhaps because it was the practice to test those at 'high risk' of being infected, rather than test everyone regardless of vaccination status.
"Everyone is screened coming through and if you're considered high-risk, then you'll be off for a swab. If you're unvaccinated, that does put you into the high-risk group."
Dr. Tait is hopefully looking at the infection rates and amending the protocols.
It would be such a shame if an infectious person was welcomed into the hallowed halls of his hospital because he wrongfully assumed a fully vaxxed and boosted patient is at significantly lower risk of being infected.
It's not their charter.They've engaged in wars that weren't triggered by article 5 before.
Is it the fear of things going nuclear.If so, belonging to NATO may be more of a weapons buying scam than a protection.
Or is NATO/US waiting for both parties to exhaust themselves, as in WW2, then step in and pick over the spoils of war between them .And don't think for a moment any crumbs would be left for Ukraine.With resources getting scarce both the US and Europe could gorge themselves on unlimited energy and the food baskets of both countries.
I wouldn't be betting too heavily on MAD as a deterrent though .There are those on both sides who think a nuclear war can be winnable.
There are those on both sides who think a nuclear war can be winnable.
And that is the bloody frightening thing. I don't think there is such a thing, because any use of tactical nuclear weapons will inevitably escalate to the full monty.
My fear too. It really worries me when the wishful thinkers who see this as proof of Russian military weakness proclaim with idiotic certainty that the Russians wouldn’t dare unleash nuclear weapons on a big scale.
They'd dare alright, it they think they're losing.
Poots has said as much.
To me the real worry is heightened tensions open the door to posibilities that errors of judgment or accidents escalate, and we have nuclear conflict that no one, including Poots, wants.
Have you been looking out of your window for signs of the apocalypse? Don’t worry, you haven’t been door knocked by a representative of the Brian Tamaki party. They’re probably a bit busy this morning spruiking salvation, or getting ready to march on our parliament, which is closed. No, I’ve ...
Climate Town is the YouTube channel of Rollie Williams and a ragtag team of climate communicators, creatives and comedians. They examine climate change in a way that doesn’t make you want to eat a cyanide pill. Get informed about the climate crisis before the weather does it for you. The latest ...
A close analysis of the Treasury assessment of the Medium Term in its PREFU 2023 suggests the economy may be entering a new phase.Last week I explained that the forecasts in the just published Treasury Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU 2023) was similar to the May Budget BEFU, ...
Back in June, we learned that Kiri Allan was a Parliamentary bully. And now there's another one: Labour MP Shanan Halbert: The Labour Party was alerted to concerns about [Halbert's] alleged behaviour a year ago but because staffers wanted to remain anonymous, no formal process was undertaken [...] The ...
Its that time in the election season where the status quo parties are busy accusing each other of having fiscal holes in a desperate effort to appear more "responsible" (but not, you understand, by promising to tax wealth or land to give the government the revenue it needs to do ...
JERRY COYNE writes – If you want to see what the government of New Zealand is up to with respect to science education, you can’t do better than listening to this video/slideshow by two exponents of the “we-need-two-knowledge-systems” view. I’ve gotten a lot of scary stuff from Kiwi ...
Buzz from the Beehive First, we were treated to the news (from Finance Minister Grant Robertson) that the economy has turned a corner and New Zealand never was in recession. This was triggered by statistics which showed the economy expanded 0.9 per cent in the June quarter, twice as much as ...
It has taken 17 months to get a comment published pointing out the obvious errors in the Scafetta (2022) paper in GRL. Back in March 2022, Nicola Scafetta published a short paper in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) purporting to show through ‘advanced’ means that ‘all models with ECS > ...
TL;DR: In the middle of a climate emergency and in a city prone to earthquakes, Victoria University of Wellington announced yesterday it would stop teaching geophysics, geographic information science and physical geography to save $22 million a year and repay debt. Climate change damage in Aotearoa this year is already ...
For nearly thirty years the pundits have been telling the minor parties that they must be good little puppies and let the big dogs decide. The parties with a plurality of the votes cast must be allowed to govern – even if that means ignoring the ...
Another poll, another 27 for Labour. It was July the last time one of the reputable TV company polls had Labour's poll percentage starting with a three, so the limbo question is now being asked: how low can you go?It seems such an unlikely question because this doesn't feel like the kind ...
After the trench warfare of Tuesday night, when the two major parties went head to head, last night was the turn of the minor parties. Hosts Newshub termed it “thePowerbrokers' Debate”.Based on the latest polls the four parties taking part - ACT, the Greens, New Zealand First, and Te ...
Hi,You can’t make this stuff up.People involved with Sound of Freedom, the QAnon-infused movie about anti-child trafficker Tim Ballard, are dropping like flies. I won’t ruin your day by describing it here, but Vice reports that footage has emerged of executive producer Paul Hutchinson being inappropriate with a 16-year-old trafficking ...
The trading banks yesterday concluded that though GDP figures released yesterday show the economy is not in recession, it may well soon be. Nevertheless, the fact that GDP has gone up 0.8 per cent in the latest quarter and that StatsNZ revised the previous quarter’s figure to show a ...
.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work..A recent political opinion poll (20 September) on TV1 presented what could only be called bleak news for the Left Bloc:National: 37%, down two points equating to 46 seatsLabour: 27%, down one point (34 ...
Open access notables At our roots Skeptical Science is about cognition of the results of climate science research in the minds of the entire human population. Ideally we'd be perfectly communicating understanding of Earth's climate, and perfectly understood. We can only approximate that, but hopefully converging closer to perfection. With ...
Coming Over The Top: Rory Stewart's memoir, Politics On The Edge, lays bare the dangerous inadequacies of the Western World's current political model.VERY FEW NEW ZEALANDERS will have heard of Rory Stewart. Those with a keen eye for the absurdities of politics may recognise the name as that of the ...
A bit of a narrative has been building that these two guys, your Chris and your Chris, are not so very different.It's true to a point. The bread and butter timidity has been dispiriting to watch, if you have a progressive disposition. It does leave the two of them relatively ...
Richard Prebble writes – There was a knockout winner of the Leaders’ debate. Check for yourself. Recall how they looked. If you cannot remember or missed it, the debate is on TVNZ’s website. Turn off the sound and ask: “Which one looks like a Prime Minister?” ...
Just like National when it was in government, Labour bought nominal GDP growth and momentum by pulling as hard as it could on the population lever. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR:Stats NZ has reported better-than-expected GDP growth in the June quarter, thanks largely to record-high net migration of ...
We already know that the National Party are de facto climate change deniers who want to reverse virtually all climate change policy. So how do they think they'll cut emissions? According to their climate change spokesperson, polluting corporations will do it out of the goodness of their hearts: The ...
Dairy farmers, or at least those who are also shareholders in the Fonterra dairy co-operative would have received a second dose of good news this week, when the dairy giant reported a massive profit jump. This followed news of a better sale at the Fonterra GDT auction this week. Net ...
A longtime New Zealand broadcaster and commentator is taking a theatrical turn in advance of the General Election to draw different kinds of attention to the issues New Zealanders will be voting on in October.In a pre-election event that invites audiences to consider New Zealand politics through a theatrical lens ...
Our busy ministers – desperately busy trying to whip up voters’ support as their poll support sags, among other things – have added just one item of news to the government’s official website over the past 24 hours or so. It’s the news that the Government has accepted the Environment ...
On Monday, we learned that Queenstown, one of the country's largest tourist destinations, suddenly had to boil its water to avoid cryptosporidium. Now, it looks like it will last for months. Why? The usual reason: they'd been keeping rates low: Queenstown could face months of having to boil water ...
This week’s ONE News-Verian poll had the National/ACT coalition teetering on the edge of being able to govern alone while – just as precariously – having its legislative agenda vulnerable to a potential veto by Winston Peters in the House. So close, but so perilous. During the run-up to election ...
National Leader Christopher Luxon likes to bag the way the Resource Management Act worked. Though it has been repealed and replaced by the Labour government, Luxon plans, before Christmas, to repeal the new legislation and, for the foreseeable future, revert to the old Act that he has consistently criticised. ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Over a year later, its climate provisions remain a hot topic. The law’s proponents argue that it’s created a boom in domestic manufacturing jobs within the United States while paving ...
New Zealand’s dairy farmers will be relieved that prices rose for the second time this month at the latest Fonterra GDT auction. The encouraging feature of the sale was the activity of Chinese buyers who drove up prices. As a result, the GDT price index rose 4.6%, helped by a 4.6% lift ...
Here is a review of last night’s Democracy McNuggets debate, delivered in the style of last night's Democracy McNuggets debate.McNugget #1This format was very advantageous for the man who speaks in lazy SLAM DUNK.To hark back a few editions: The lazy SLAM DUNK doesn’t bother to make its case. It simply offers ...
Unfortunately I will need to take a bit of time off from this blog. After months of misdiagnoses and a change in GPs, my precious son is in Starship Hospital about to have major surgery. He already has had one … Continue reading → ...
Buzz from the BeehiveSource: ANZ The latest balance of payments statistics – providing a broad measure of what the country earns and spends internationally – gave grist to Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s publicity mill today. The current account deficit narrowed to 7.5 per cent of ...
Can This Be Possible? For nearly thirty years the pundits have been telling the minor parties that they must be good little puppies and let the big dogs decide. The parties with a plurality of the votes cast must be allowed to govern – even if that means ignoring the ...
Since we began worrying about climate change, the market fundamentalists have pushed the idea of "offsets" rather than actual emissions reductions. There's just one atmosphere after all, so in theory it doesn't matter where the reductions are made, so you can just pay someone on the other side of the ...
Ministers are pretending the former PM has simply vanished.Graham Adams writes – Late last week, Tova O’Brien asked Grant Robertson on her Stuff podcast if Jacinda Ardern should be “rolled out” to “galvanise the base” to help save Labour’s faltering campaign. Robertson laughed. ”I’m sure for ...
Owners of property deemed at risk from climate change related floods and rising sea levels will increasingly find their access to affordable insurance shut off. Some may become ‘prisoners’ in their uninsurable and therefore unbankable homes. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR:IAG, which insures more than 60% of homes ...
So it’s kind of obligatory to start with the boxing analogy…In the red corner, you’ll know him from his red hair and his red heart, the champion of achievable socialism, weighing in when given the opportunity - it’s Chris.And fighting out of the blue corner, you’ll know him from his ...
Last night’s TVOne debate may well reinforce the idea that the minor parties will determine this election. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon ended their one-and-a-half hours with Luxon probably slightly ahead, though a stalemate might be a more realistic assessment. But there was nothing of ...
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 ...
Aliens landed in the seaside village this morning. Just like every other cruise tourist who gets carted over here by Fullers and dumped at the bus stop, they had that bewildered look that said, How do you have fun here?I took them by their goey rubbery arms and said, Come ...
The 2023 general election campaign must be the most hollow in living memory. There really isn’t much that is positive or attractive about the electoral options on offer. This is an election without inspiration. An angry mood for change There is a definite cyncism amongst the public right now – ...
As New Zealand confronts a near-record current account deficit few, if any, of the country’s politicians are talking about it or the underlying problems. NZ’s external deficit is expected to continue narrowing, but at a slower pace than forecast a few months ago. Data out this week is expected ...
Fighting Mad: That which Twenty-First Century progressives most feared, Twenty-First Century progressivism has become. No one old enough to have experienced the emancipatory power of true progressivism: in the factory or on the streets; in the university quad or in the “old school” newsroom; could possibly vote for the parties ...
Buzz from the Beehive Hurrah. Someone in the Beehive has posted a ministerial announcement, the first since Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta last Thursday announced New Zealand will provide humanitarian support to those affected by last week’s earthquake in Morocco. It is somewhat stale news, dated 15 September 2023. It was ...
More investors are eyeing up the market, and first home buyers are feeling the FOMO again. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Landlords are gearing up to jump back into the housing market as soon as a National-ACT Government is elected, expecting a swathe of repeals to tax rules that ...
* Michael Bassett writes – If Labour ministers and our left-leaning media knew more about New Zealand’s political history they would stop giving so much publicity to National’s tax-cut plans, ill-advised though they might be. The attacks are only increasing the likelihood that National will be elected. In one ...
Debate time: In contrast to most debates, political debates aren’t simply about winning on points of logic, but are also about looking likeable on television – which is why good political debaters often have to pull their punches on TV, lest they seem unkind to dumb animals. Chris Hipkins is ...
Before New Zealand changed to MMP in 1996 there was a lot more interest in certain local contests. First past the post elections were won and lost in key marginal electorate battles, rendering the votes of those in safe seats largely obsolete.These days local contests have little impact on the ...
Both National and ACT are starting to back off some of their hardline positions on tax and spending. And finally, National leader Christopher Luxon has softened his stance on doing a deal with Winston Peters and NZ First. Their moves are subtle and wrapped up in sound-byte-friendly media standup ...
In Art, we find meaning.From Art, we draw deeper understanding of what the hell it’s all about.Kindly now mute your cellphones and please remain behind the velvet ropes as we move through the gallery.She might be contemplating a secret, she might be enjoying a private joke. Perhaps she is simply ...
In Art, we find meaning.From Art, we draw deeper understanding of what the hell it’s all about.Kindly now mute your cellphones and please remain behind the velvet ropes as we move through the gallery.She might be contemplating a secret, she might be enjoying a private joke. Perhaps she is simply ...
The right has a problem with brainwormed conspiracy theorists. They've thoroughly infiltrated NZFirst and ACT, and now it seems they've infiltrated National as well: The National Party candidate favoured to win the Hamilton East electorate held views directly opposed to the party's leader on fluoridation of water and vaccine ...
Pushed by the need for votes, Act’s leader, David Seymour, like Richard Prebble before him, has reached out to the dark side of the New Zealand electorate. Much as he would prefer to pull in support on the strength of Act’s sunny libertarianism, there just ain’t enough Eighteenth Century liberals ...
Buzz from the BeehiveAgain, no news has been posted on the government’s official website over the past 24 hours. Indeed, no news has been posted since Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta last Thursday announced New Zealand would be providing $1 million humanitarian support to Morocco to those affected by ...
Despite the headlines, things are not much worse than at the time of the 2023 budget, but fiscal management is always difficult.Brian Easton writes- The Treasury is required by law to publish a Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) a few weeks before a general election, ...
It’s a bit bigger than that: the gap between National’s forecast of lost tax revenues from changes to tax rules for landlords and what Treasury predicts is significant, and adds to the $500 million a year predicted shortfall from its foreign buyers tax . File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
Once upon a time, manifestos were a key feature of the election period, arriving in letterboxes in solid printed form, and full of details of what each party proposed to do and why. These days, we get a little pledge card with a few bullet points on it. So it’s interesting ...
Change is coming. A shakeup of the ministers responsible for New Zealand’s international relations seems almost guaranteed, irrespective of the country’s election result on October 14. Coalition politics are likely to play a key role in appointments related to foreign affairs. On current opinion polling, a government led by the ...
ACT leader David Seymour has declared war on the public service with his promise to sack 15,000 of them. This is probably four times more than National want given the boot under its promise to cut all budgets by 6.5 per cent. But Seymour may have got a foretaste ...
It has been a while since I engaged in meaty Tolkien analysis, so I deem it time to delve into one of the most pressing issues of our age. Namely, the vexed property law issues governing the One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. I was prompted to offer some ...
We, the public, are making a hiring decision. That’s what this is. As silly as it is to have things like those utterly infernal “Most preferred Prime Minister” polls, largely an outcome of the “presidential style” of politics that has no basis in our system because we simply do ...
Hi,Webworm was birthed over three years ago, as New Zealand went into its first Covid lockdown. Back then I wrote a lot about the conspiratorial madness that erupted from the sewers, the world very quickly becoming infected with brain worms. I have all those Webworms archived here, for anyone interested.As ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Here’s a few things that I stumbled on over the week that made me stop and think, or just have a chuckle. Hope you enjoy them on a Sunday. They’re especially for paying subscribers, although if there’s plenty of support from paying subscribers, I ...
“Suppose big ‘ol Luxon will be there”, said my middle lad Johnny, watching the game with me.“Doubt it”, I replied, remembering John Key being soundly booed at games in the past. “League is a working man’s game, West Auckland, South Auckland, this is Labour territory”.Getty images.It’s true. I remember the ...
I always smile when my supermarket checkout offers me a moment of existential angst. Do you wish to continue? a kindly woman’s voice asks, meaning: you're standing in front of a card-only machine and cash money’s no good here.Do you wish to continue? What’s not to like about some Hamlet ...
A chronological listing of news and opinion articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Sep 10, 2023 thru Sat, Sep 16, 2023. Story of the Week Humans Have Crossed 6 of 9 ‘Planetary Boundaries’Scientists analyzed nine so-called planetary boundaries and found humans are currently ...
Mr Pushmepullyou: Pushed by the need for votes, Act's leader, David Seymour, like Richard Prebble before him, has reached out to the dark side of the New Zealand electorate. Much as he would prefer to pull in support on the strength of Act's sunny libertarianism, there just ain't enough Eighteenth ...
Buzz from the Beehive Your Point of Order writers, again starved of news when they visited the government’s official website this morning, found something fascinating while surfing the worldwide web. Our attention was drawn to a TVNZ interview last Sunday, when Rawiri Waititi, co-leader of the Māori Party defended the ...
TL;DR: I interviewed ACT Leader David Seymour this week after the party released its housing policy1, which includes:an aim to build 51,000 new houses a year, which relies on a migration forecast of around 28,000 per year (there was 96,200 net migration in the year to the end of July);sharing ...
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:Treasury published the Pre Election Fiscal Update (PREFU) on Tuesday, including a one-year delay in Labour returning ...
“Can you guys hear me?”, said Nicola, feeling her body shrink into the corner of the sofa.She moved her head, which for some reason turned incredibly slowly. Her eyes took even longer to follow.A man was sitting at the far end of the sofa with one foot resting on the ...
The Green Party is calling on Auckland Council to do more to protect urban trees and housing developer Aedifice Property Group to restore and replant the native forest it cleared, and protect all the remaining trees on Ngahere Road in Pukekohe after a significant number of native trees were cut ...
Latest Police data shows monthly ram raids have hit a two-year low, laying waste to Christopher Luxon’s false claim that there are two ram raids a day says Labour’s Police Spokesperson Ginny Andersen. ...
Free and healthy school lunches will be here to stay if Labour is re-elected, guaranteeing food for our kids who need it most and significant cost saving for parents. ...
The next Labour Government will build a new hospital in Hawke’s Bay, Labour leader Chris Hipkins and Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall announced. ...
The Green Party will keep up the fight to support exploited migrant workers, including pushing to end single employer visas, after the government picked up Green recommendations to improve immigration settings. ...
Green Party co leader James Shaw visited a home in Auckland today that has been upgraded with a wide range of energy improvements, similar to those that would be supported through the Green Party’s Clean Power Payment. ...
The Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s presence in New York today at the United Nations General Assembly is a contempt of New Zealand’s “caretaker government” convention. Despite the long-standing caretaker convention, Minister Mahuta is today at the UN to sign a highly contentious “Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement”, delivering a ...
The Pre-Election Fiscal Update Changes EverythingWithin an hour of this speech there is going to be a debate between the political parties that the media, under MMP, still think are the only parties that matter in this campaign. Both of those parties are riddled with inexperience, as evidenced by ...
National and ACT's tax plans don't add up, and that means deep cuts to the public services New Zealanders rely on, says Labour Campaign Chair Megan Woods. ...
Thank you for your invitation to speak with you this afternoon about New Zealand Foreign Policy. After offering one or two general thoughts about the nature of foreign policy, the focus today will be the Pacific Reset and why its goals remain even more important today as when they were ...
National’s plan to cut policies that are reducing New Zealand’s climate emissions will result in a huge gap in the country’s emissions budgets and could see Kiwis paying significantly more at the petrol pump as a result of Christopher Luxon hiking the ETS price. ...
Labour’s plan to support rooftop solar is a step in the right direction, but falls short of what could be achieved through the Green Party’s Clean Power Payment. ...
Labour will double the number of houses with rooftop solar in New Zealand, lowering household power bills, reducing emissions and boosting renewable electricity generation. ...
A re-elected Labour Government will continue its proud tradition of advancing women’s health, employment, and legal rights Spokesperson for Women Jan Tinetti said. ...
Speaking at the E Tū Election Launch in Auckland today, Green Party co leader Marama Davidson outlined the Green Party’s manifesto commitment to ensure everyone has five weeks of annual leave. ...
A re-elected Labour Government will protect hard-fought workers’ rights and keep the momentum on wage growth to lift incomes for all New Zealanders, leader Chris Hipkins announced today. ...
New Zealand First is proud to announce the Party List for the upcoming 2023 General Election. We have had a great number of applicants and potential candidates moving through the selection process over the past few months. Our final selection for our list proves we have a wide range ...
Massive cuts to public service are on the cards as Nicola Willis has promised to resign if she doesn’t deliver tax cuts but is refusing to make the same commitment if she doesn’t raise enough income from her bungled foreign buyer’s tax. ...
Labour will help more victims of crime achieve justice faster by introducing a formal class-action regime, modernising consent laws and increasing the use of technology to speed up hearings. ...
Labour will deliver the largest ever increase to the number of doctors trained each year, adding an additional 335 doctors a year to our health workforce from 2027, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has announced. ...
Today’s PREFU has some alarming statistics showing an economy deteriorating and the cost of unaffordable government expenditure, mainly in the 2022 and 2023 budgets. Despite this alarming economic and fiscal picture, political parties are making unaffordable promises, talking about a surplus by 2027, or four years time, all of which ...
If re-elected Labour will make cervical screening services free to all women and people with a cervix aged 25 – 69 years, delivering better cancer care for over 1.4 million New Zealanders. ...
Labour is running a positive, forward-looking campaign that's focused on fixing the cost of living, keeping people and communities safe and investing in education, health and housing. ...
Statements from David Seymour and Winston Peters have called into question whether National would be able to lead a functional government if they were in a position to do so after the election. ...
The Green Party will protect 30% of the ocean by 2030, create an independent Ocean Commission to advise the government, and put a Green Minister for Oceans and Fisheries in charge of making it happen. ...
National's shaky tax scheme has received a further blow after it’s been revealed that John Key received advice when he was Prime Minister that the scheme being proposed by National couldn’t be done, Labour Finance Spokesperson Grant Robertson says. ...
The National Party’s housing policy is vacant; with no new funding and no timelines attached to its delivery says Labour Housing Spokesperson Megan Woods. ...
A re-elected Labour Government will help Kiwi households to be more energy efficient and reduce emissions from household energy use, Labour Spokesperson for Building and Construction and Energy and Resources, Megan Woods, announced today. ...
A Labour Government will deliver a further increase of 300 additional frontline Police officers, new ways to crackdown on gangs and strengthen legal protections against stalking and harassment. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the launch of Te Ohu Tāmaki, and affirms its commitment to clear the social housing waitlist in 5 years - and challenges other parties to say they will do the same. ...
Judicial warrant process for out-of-hours compliance visits 2023/24 Recognised Seasonal Employer cap increased by 500 Additional roles for Construction and Infrastructure Sector Agreement More roles added to Green List Three-month extension for onshore Recovery Visa holders The Government has confirmed a number of updates to immigration settings as part of ...
Tangi ngunguru ana ngā tai ki te wahapū o Hokianga Whakapau Karakia. Tārehu ana ngā pae maunga ki Te Puna o te Ao Marama. Korihi tangi ana ngā manu, kua hinga he kauri nui ki te Wao Nui o Tāne. He Toa. He Pou. He Ahorangi. E papaki tū ana ...
The lifting of COVID-19 isolation and mask mandates in August has resulted in a return of almost $50m in savings and recovered contingencies, Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Following the revocation of mandates and isolation, specialised COVID-19 telehealth and alternative isolation accommodation are among the operational elements ...
Susie Houghton of Auckland has been appointed as a new District Court Judge, to serve on the Family Court, Attorney-General David Parker said today. Judge Houghton has acted as a lawyer for child for more than 20 years. She has acted on matters relating to the Hague Convention, an international ...
The Government has today confirmed $2.5 million to fund a replace and upgrade a stopbank to protect the Waipawa Drinking Water Treatment Plant. “As a result of Cyclone Gabrielle, the original stopbank protecting the Waipawa Drinking Water Treatment Plant was destroyed. The plant was operational within 6 weeks of the ...
Another $2.1 million to boost capacity to deal with waste left in Cyclone Gabrielle’s wake. Funds for Hastings District Council, Phoenix Contracting and Hog Fuel NZ to increase local waste-processing infrastructure. The Government is beefing up Hawke’s Bay’s Cyclone Gabrielle clean-up capacity with more support dealing with the massive amount ...
The future of Supercars events in New Zealand has been secured with new Government support. The Government is getting engines started through the Major Events Fund, a special fund to support high profile events in New Zealand that provide long-term economic, social and cultural benefits. “The Repco Supercars Championship is ...
The economy has turned a corner with confirmation today New Zealand never was in recession and stronger than expected growth in the June quarter, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. “The New Zealand economy is doing better than expected,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s continuing to grow, with the latest figures showing ...
The Government has accepted the Environment Court’s recommendation to give special legal protection to New Zealand’s largest freshwater springs, Te Waikoropupū Springs (also known as Pupū Springs), Environment Minister David Parker announced today. “Te Waikoropupū Springs, near Takaka in Golden Bay, have the second clearest water in New Zealand after ...
Temporary package of funding for accommodation and essential living support for victims of migrant exploitation Exploited migrant workers able to apply for a further Migrant Exploitation Protection Visa (MEPV), giving people more time to find a job Free job search assistance to get people back into work Use of 90-day ...
An export boost is supporting New Zealand’s economy to grow, adding to signs that the economy has turned a corner and is on a stronger footing as we rebuild from Cyclone Gabrielle and lock in the benefits of multiple new trade deals, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. “The economy is ...
The Government has approved $15 million to raise about 200 homes at risk of future flooding. More than half of this is expected to be spent in the Tairāwhiti settlement of Te Karaka, lifting about 100 homes there. “Te Karaka was badly hit during Cyclone Gabrielle when the Waipāoa River ...
The Government is helping businesses recover from Cyclone Gabrielle and attract more people back into their regions. “Cyclone Gabrielle has caused considerable damage across North Island regions with impacts continuing to be felt by businesses and communities,” Economic Development Minister Barbara Edmonds said. “Building on our earlier business support, this ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little has turned the first sod to start construction of a new Maintenance Support Facility (MSF) at Burnham Military Camp today. “This new state-of-art facility replaces Second World War-era buildings and will enable our Defence Force to better maintain and repair equipment,” Andrew Little said. “This Government ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta will represent New Zealand at the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this week, before visiting Washington DC for further Pacific focussed meetings. Nanaia Mahuta will be in New York from Wednesday 20 September, and will participate in UNGA leaders ...
Around 1,700 Te Whatu Ora employed midwives and maternity care assistants will soon vote on a proposed pay equity settlement agreed by Te Whatu Ora, the Midwifery Employee Representation and Advisory Service (MERAS) and New Zealand Nurses Association (NZNO), Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. “Addressing historical pay ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will provide humanitarian support to those affected by last week’s earthquake in Morocco, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. “We are making a contribution of $1 million to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to help meet humanitarian needs,” Nanaia Mahuta said. ...
The Government is investing over $22 million across 18 projects to improve the resilience of roads in the West Coast that have been affected by recent extreme weather, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. A dedicated Transport Resilience Fund has been established for early preventative works to protect the state ...
The Government has today confirmed a $2 million grant towards the regeneration of Greymouth’s CBD with construction of a new two-level commercial and public facility. “It will include a visitor facility centred around a new library. Additionally, it will include retail outlets on the ground floor, and both outdoor and ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta will attend the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, in Suva, Fiji alongside New Zealand’s regional counterparts. “Aotearoa New Zealand is deeply committed to working with our pacific whanau to strengthen our cooperation, and share ways to combat the challenges facing the Blue Pacific Continent,” ...
Economy to grow 2.6 percent on average over forecast period Treasury not forecasting a recession Inflation to return to the 1-3 percent target band next year Wages set to grow 4.8 percent a year over forecast period Unemployment to peak below the long-term average Fiscal Rules met - Net debt ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall proudly opened the Canterbury Cancer Centre in Christchurch today. The new facility is the first of its kind and was built with $6.5 million of funding from the Government’s Infrastructure Reference Group scheme for shovel-ready projects allocated in 2020. ...
$12 million to improve the resilience of roads in the Nelson, Marlborough and Tasman regions Hope Bypass earmarked in draft Government Policy Statement on land transport $127 million invested in the top of the south’s roads since flooding in 2021 and 2022 The Government is investing over $12 million to ...
Ko tēnei te wiki e whakanui ana i tō tātou reo rangatira. Ko te wā tuku reo Māori, e whakanuia tahitia ai te reo ahakoa kei hea ake tēnā me tēnā o tātou, ka tū ā te Rātū te 14 o Mahuru, ā te 12 o ngā hāora i te ahiahi. ...
The 70-year-old Wildlife Act will be replaced with modern, fit-for-purpose legislation to better protect native species and improve biodiversity, Minister of Conservation Willow-Jean Prime has announced. “New species legislation is urgently needed to address New Zealand’s biodiversity crisis,” Willow-Jean Prime said. “More than 4,000 of our native species are currently ...
Central and Local Government are today announcing a range of new measures to tackle low-level crime and anti-social behaviour in the Auckland CBD to complement Police scaling up their presence in the area. “Police have an important role to play in preventing and responding to crime, but there is more ...
The Government has confirmed $73.7 million over the next four years and a further $40.5m in outyears to continue to transform the disability support system, Minister for Disability Issues Priyanca Radhakrishnan has announced. “The Enabling Good Lives (EGL) approach is a framework which guides positive change for disabled people, ...
Standard and Poor’s is the latest independent credit rating agency to endorse the Government’s economic management in the face of a deteriorating global economy. S&P affirmed New Zealand’s long term local currency rating at AAA and foreign currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook. It follows Fitch affirming New ...
Christchurch barrister Kelvin Reid has been appointed as a Judge of the Environment Court and the District Court, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Mr Reid has extensive experience in Resource Management Act issues, including water quality throughout the South Island. He was appointed to the Technical Advisory Group advising the ...
New Zealand is on track to have greener steel as soon as 2026 with New Zealand Steel’s electric arc furnace project reaching a major milestone today. The Government announced a conditional partnership with New Zealand Steel in May to deliver the country’s largest emissions reduction project to date. Half of ...
Pokia ana te tihi Taiarahia e Hine-Pūkohu-rangi Hotu kau ana te manawa! Horahia ana te whārua o Ruātoki e te kapua pouri Tikaro rawahia ko te whatumanawa! Rere whakamuri kau ana te awa o Hinemataroa Ki te kawe i te rongo ki te mātāpuna i nga pōngaihu Maungapōhatu, tuohu ...
Police Minister Ginny Andersen has today congratulated Police in their efforts to crack down on gangs, after laying 50,000 charges against gang members and their associates through the hugely successful Operation Cobalt. As at 31 August, Police have: Laid 50,396 criminal charges against gang members and their associates Issued 64,524 ...
The Government has confirmed details of the tax changes to the bright-line test for cyclone-damaged properties, with the release of the required legislative amendments. Revenue Minister Barbara Edmonds has released a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee in the next Parliament, as it ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O’Connor has welcomed the CPTPP Panel’s ruling in favour of New Zealand in our dispute against Canada, a significant win for our primary sector exporters. The Panel found that Canada’s dairy quota administration is inconsistent with its obligations under the Comprehensive and Progressive ...
The next phase of the Government’s response to youth crime is underway, with an intensive programme for the country’s most prolific young offenders launched today in Auckland, Minister for Children Kelvin Davis said. The programme, announced by Prime Minister Chris Hipkins in July, will see up to 60 recidivist young ...
The Government has agreed to a request from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 for extra three months to deliver its final report. The Royal Commission was established in 2022 to strengthen New Zealand’s preparedness for any future pandemics. It was originally due to conclude mid-2024. “The Commission has ...
The Wainuiomata High School redevelopment is making great progress, with two more classroom blocks set to be complete by the end of the month, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced today. The Prime Minister visited today to see first-hand the progress of the redevelopment which is continuing at pace and is ...
By Grace Salmang in Port Moresby Reconstruction and renovation work for dormitories, laboratories, mess and tutorial rooms is currently underway at the University of Papua New Guinea’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences. This is following a sit-in protest a week ago by students led by Student’s Representative Council (SRC) ...
By Iliesa Tora, RNZ Pacific sports journalist in Saint-Étienne, France Argentinian winger Emiliano Boffelli scored all his team’s points as they defeated Manu Samoa 19-10 at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Étienne, France, yesterday in a Rugby World Cup pool D match. That gave the Pumas their first win at the ...
This essay by Emma Ng is from the book Present Tense: Wāhine Toi Aotearoa – A Paper Record, edited by Catherine Griffiths. It’s part of a wider project of posters which aim to ‘record the current landscape of women in design and give visibility to the unsung diversity of Aotearoa design’. ...
The House Rules NZ judge talks Tip Top, The Traitors and why she’ll never watch The Kardashians. Katrina Hobbs might be a judge on House Rules NZ, but there’s little chance she’d leave her home in the hands of complete strangers. “I’ve got to confess, when I first read about ...
One of the country’s top swimmers is to trial for the NZ team for the first time since 2017. This time she could qualify for the Paris Olympics in multiple events. Dave Crampton reports. In February 2020 Laticia Transom was one of New Zealand’s top freestyle swimmers. She would have ...
"I’m as born an optimist as Chippy himself": Vincent O'Sullivan imagines a Labour Party candidate, essentially campaigning for themselves with a snowball's chance in hell I was born the week Norman Kirk, that Leviathan of Labour, died. It is obvious Nature intends me to follow in his wake. ...
In this week's episode of VOTE2023, we talk to Labour MP for Taieri Ingrid Leary and TOP Dunedin candidate Dr Ben Peters on key issues including political representation, climate change, and taxThis series is made by politics students and aims to entertain and inform viewers about their potential representatives ...
Every weekday, The Detail makes sense of the big news stories. This week, a new proposal to burn the South Island's rubbish problem away, the bluster behind parties' fiscal talk, the dispute over the Tarras Airport development, how strategic voting in a general election really works, and tiny Naseby's pitch to become ...
Animal Justice Party Aotearoa NZ (AJP) candidates will be on the campaign trail this weekend across the country spreading their message of compassion and advocating for animals across New Zealand. Registered just last month, AJP has swiftly assembled ...
In the first instalment of a new column about gardening while renting, a planter box is vetoed, the rent is raised, and the value of dirt is brought into question.Last summer, we barely got one tomato and three beans out of the garden. Everything, weather-wise, went wrong, but mostly ...
A decade ago The Spinoff founder Duncan Greive spent three months shadowing Lorde as she became a star, a period which started with ‘Royals’ as a local chart topper and ended with her as a global pop phenomenon. He was given unparalleled access across dozens of meetings, shows, studio sessions, ...
This is The Detail's Long Read – one in-depth story read by us every weekend. This week, it's a Make Voting Sexy Again, written and read aloud here by Nadine Anne Hura, and published on The Spinoff. Nadine joins The Detail's Alexia Russell to discuss why she felt compelled to write about New Zealand's clutch ...
Winston Peters plays to his strengths in the Act Party heartland of Remuera, less than 24 hours after calling its local MP his “imitator” In 1996 at the age of 11, a motorised toy car I was driving on stage in a school play inexplicably cut out. No one was coming to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra arly a year ago, a privately financed inquiry, led by Peter Shergold, a former head of the prime minister’s department, undertook an inquiry into Australia’s handling of the COVID pandemic. The report, Fault ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Phibbs, Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney The Victorian government, like many governments around the world, has announced new regulations on short-stay accommodation. The government says Victoria has more than 36,000 short-stay places, which are reducing the number of homes available for ...
Act’s released policy platform aimed at senior citizens would also rescind restrictions on a chemical used to make methamphetamine Act leader David Seymour is angling for the senior vote with a new suite of policies aimed at improving healthcare for the elderly and reforming the Retirement Commission. But while he ...
In 2020, Rawiri Waititi told his fellow MPs his job was to be a change agent for Māori. Three years later, how does the party grow its platform and base, Annie Te One asks. ...
By Eloise Gibson, RNZ climate change correspondent While attention is focused on economists finding a $500 million-a-year hole in National’s tax plans, a similar-sized hole in climate costings is hiding in plain sight — and it applies to Labour, too. National appears to have the bigger gap, however. The gulf ...
By Meri Radinibaravi in Suva The Fiji government has warned the public “don’t panic” as news of an alleged firebombing incident at Totogo Police Station in the heart of Suva sent shockwaves around the community. The incident yesterday also spurred questions about the safety of citizens in the country as ...
By Iliesa Tora, RNZ Pacific sports reporter in Saint Étienne, France Manu Samoa have made only three changes to their starting lineup to maintain consistency and ensure game flow against Argentina in a must-win Pool D clash in Saint-Étienne on Saturday morning (NZ time). Head coach Vaovasamanaia Seilala Mapusua has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamal Abarashi, Lecturer, International Business, Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department, Auckland University of Technology Maintaining a tidy home is a never-ending challenge. And tidiness goes beyond aesthetics – it contributes to a person’s mental wellbeing. So what are the best strategies for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Mitchell, Geriatrician working in clinical practice. PhD Candidate at The University of Melbourne studying ethics and ageism in health care. Affiliate lecturer, Deakin University Shutterstock A child once approached me, hunched over, carrying a vacuum cleaner like a walking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Renee McKibbin, Professor of Economics, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Misinformation is circulating about recommendations concerning the Reserve Bank board made by the RBA Review, of which I was a member. Among the claims are that the new monetary ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamal Abarashi, Lecturer, International Business, Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department, Auckland University of Technology Maintaining a tidy home is a never-ending challenge. And tidiness goes beyond aesthetics – it contributes to a person’s mental wellbeing. So what are the best strategies for ...
The Act Party would reverse the ban on over-the-counter pseudoephedrine as part of a policy to help seniors. It’s been 12 years since products containing pseudoephedrine were reclassified from a class C to B2 controlled drug because of its use in the production of methamphetamine. But Seymour said that the ...
Analysis - The leaders' debate Chris Hipkins had to win but didn't, more bad polling news for Labour, and ACT and NZ First reluctantly agree they could work together, writes Peter Wilson. ...
A new report published by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union analysing the impacts of taking GST off fresh fruit and vegetables concludes that the policy would be expensive, complicated, poorly targeted and would see most of the benefits going to supermarkets ...
One of the biggest games of the year seeks not to reinvent the wheel, but instead make the best wheel possible, writes Sam Brooks.What’s all this then?Baldur’s Gate 3 is the biggest role-playing game of the year, give or take a Final Fantasy or a Starfield. It is, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne At age 92, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corp but will stay on in the role of chairman emeritus, presumably ...
A new poem by Dan Goodwin. Basketball You will be dead by 30. You will never have close relations with friends or family. You will never have a partner. You should drop out of university. Environments like that can be stressful. Our priority right now is to keep you alive, ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1The Creative Act: A Way of Beingby Rick Rubin (Canongate, $50) We suppose it’s ...
The ACT Party wants to bring back over-the-counter pseudoephedrine, make it easier to get some other drugs, and make changes to the Retirement Commission. ...
The clean-up is beginning in Queenstown, with mayor Glyn Lewers telling RNZ the town is beginning to clear debris flows and geotechnical engineers are assessing hills in the area. The rain is easing off, he says. Southland MP Joseph Mooney said late this morning that Queenstown town centre was open ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Mitchell, Geriatrician working in clinical practice. PhD Candidate at The University of Melbourne studying ethics and ageism in health care. Affiliate lecturer, Deakin University Shutterstock A child once approached me, hunched over, carrying a vacuum cleaner like a walking ...
By Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group 21 September 2023 Original url https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/09/21/hexy-s21.html The first televised debate of the New Zealand election campaign, between incumbent Labour Party Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and opposition National Party leader Christopher ...
A report from the Nordic Council of Ministers on recommendations to address plastic production doesn’t go far enough, according to Greenpeace Aotearoa. The Nordic Council of Ministers published a report to provide modeling of 15 policy interventions ...
National’s ‘Rebuilding the economy’ plan is well-focused on key economic issues, containing several policies recommended by BusinessNZ, says BusinessNZ Advocacy Director Catherine Beard. Policy directions such as returning to a single inflation mandate ...
The next Government must support the use of technology to transform the economy, lift the performance of New Zealand industries and create high-value jobs, according to NZTech CEO Graeme Muller. NZTech has released its manifesto for the upcoming election, ...
State of emergency will be in place for at least seven days after wettest 24 hours in nearly a quarter of a century Queenstown is under a state of emergency as rain continues to fall and flooding affects many parts of the region. Niwa says Queenstown has recorded its wettest ...
The National Party has relaunched many of its economic policies as part of a repackaged plan for the future. In front of a crowd of MPs, candidates and party faithful in central Auckland, leader Christopher Luxon and deputy Nicola Willis reiterated that this election was about the economy – and ...
Responding to news that the Ministry for the Environment intends to cut back hundreds of jobs, Taxpayers’ Union Policy Adviser, James Ross, said: “Since 2017, Government spending has increased by nearly 70%. Expenditure at the Ministry for the Environment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dianne Rodger, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Adelaide On September 22 2003, Adelaide hip-hop group the Hilltop Hoods released The Calling. They had been making music for over ten years, but this, their third full-length album, would be their first ...
Mr Darris McNeely from the USA will be conducting public lectures in Auckland and Christchurch presenting a frame work for a new global government. It is now recognized that unless there are changes to how we govern our planet, mankind runs the risk ...
A new Taxpayers' Union – Curia poll found that New Zealanders preferred Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis (46% of respondents) to Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson (37%) as the most trusted team to deal with the cost of living crisis. 17% of respondents ...
A state of emergency has been declared across Southland and in Queenstown as severe weather causes major flooding across much of the region. What is a state of emergency?A state of emergency is called when an event occurs that may cause injury or loss of life to New Zealanders ...
Everybody needs good Neighbours – especially Marissa from The O.C.?!This review contains spoilers for the first week of Neighbours: A New Chapter. Like Harold standing on a rock looking out to sea, please be careful. What’s all this then? Neighbours is back, baby. The long-running Australian soap that ended ...
In a small town in the Bay of Plenty, a community trust is improving health, education, housing and career opportunities with the help of Z Energy.Liam Rātana tells the story of Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau Haoura.The small North Island town of Kawerau doesn’t often get much attention. It’s the ...
Dame Jacinda Ardern has spoken to Good Morning America about her decision to leave New Zealand politics behind. It was in mid-January that Ardern shocked the nation when she told reporters in Napier that she would be stepping down as prime minister, as soon as a successor could be confirmed. ...
The 2023 election campaign is now in full swing. Readers, viewers and listeners are being bombarded with political coverage as every move and utterance from party leaders is reported, analysed and commented on. At Newsroom we are focused on cutting through the noise and providing you with context and clarity. ...
Political editors for RNZ, Newsroom and Stuff Jane Patterson, Jo Moir and Luke Malpass, and RNZ deputy political editor Craig McCulloch, dissect the week on the campaign trail. ...
Political editors for RNZ, Newsroom and Stuff Jane Patterson, Jo Moir and Luke Malpass, and RNZ deputy political editor Craig McCulloch, dissect the week on the campaign trail. ...
Political editors for RNZ, Newsroom and Stuff Jane Patterson, Jo Moir and Luke Malpass, and RNZ deputy political editor Craig McCulloch, dissect the week on the campaign trail. ...
Liam Wallis is the founder of HIP V HYPE, a design agency in Melbourne that helped design, fund and build the first Nightingale project apartments in Melbourne’s Brunswick. These apartments are designed from the start to be carbon neutral, healthier, and cheaper places to heat. On the new episode of ...
Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, which stretches from East Cape to Hutt Valley has been held by Labour MPs for its entire 24 year history. But after Meka Whaitiri defected from Labour to Te Pāti Māori earlier this year after a decade in the seat, the race has been given an unpredictable shake up. ...
Warehouse workers have opted to continue a ‘social media strike’ and are sharing their thoughts on executive pay, the importance of a living wage and their challenging working conditions despite threats from management to penalise participating staff, ...
By Aaron Martin, Principal Lawyer at New Zealand Immigration Law In response to ongoing investigations of exploited migrant workers, Immigration Minister Andrew Little recently rolled out new measures designed to protect exploited migrant workers. ...
We’ve reached the end of another week, but the campaign must go on. Here’s a look at today’s agenda. Labour leader Chris Hipkins continues his roadie through the central North Island. He’ll visit a roading construction site this morning, then visit a free school lunches provider and speak to ...
A group of 17 former Today FM staff have received a pay out following the sudden closure of the radio station earlier in the year, reported the Herald’s Shayne Currie in his Media Insider column today. It includes high-profile broadcaster Tova O’Brien, who has since launched a new podcast for ...
So is the Greens constitution about to be changed so that Chloe can roll Shaw?
Matthew Hooton: Chloe Swarbrick odds on to join Marama Davidson, replacing James Shaw as a co-leader of the Green Party – NZ Herald
It would seem odd when their polls are strong and they are within 6 weeks of rolling out their only government policy.
You're listening to Hooton reckons on the Green Party and taking them seriously?
that's paywalled, so no idea what the constitution bit is, but Hooton's job is to lose the election for the left, or failing that, make sure that the Greens have the least amount of influence in a centre left government as possible.
From the linked article above:
snip
snip
It is actually not a bad article, nothing bad faith about it. Simply a speculation of a what if scenario and why not? It's an election year….speculations are there to keep people engage.
thanks Sabine. So is it Ad or Hooton that's doing this spinning?
Fwiw, i don't think Hooton is spinning this time. This is an opinion and it is fair enough.
As for the Greens and their internal politics, i don't know and i don't care as they are not a party on my watchlist.
edit: it would also make sense for them to abolish Sex based selection of leadership, after all sex is so last century and Gender is anything anyone wants it to be.
I doubt it's a coincidence that this appears the day after the Greens announce a serious left wing social policy.
the mind boggles Sabine, as to who might actually be on your watch list…
If this article about the Greens is true and it may not be, I am not sure what to think.
Are the Greens in talking about a female co-leader saying that biological sex matters afterall? That is qite a shift. To think it was only some months back that Elizabeth Kerekere and Labour women were treating women, who were brave enough to speak up on the self id bill, with contempt. Afterall, that is what we were saying. That sometimes biological sex matters. So according to Hootens article, the Greens are now trying to draw a distinction between sex and gender. Perhaps the women who presented with such reasoned arguements to the select committee finally got through to the Greens and they have come to realize that biological sex does matter and trumps gender identity.
Are the Greens being hypocritical or failing to see the irony of their position.? And of course its possible Hooten's article is bullshit
Maybe they had a look at the Green Party in Germany where two men were elected on the women roll and decided that that might be going a bit to far for now? I can see how that could upset the voters and rank and file members.
Exactly Weka. Don't believe a word of it.
He's not saying Chloe is going to roll James.
He is saying the constitution is being changed so that when James leaves, Chloe will be his most likely successor.
if Hooton's not implying that, it's unfortunate that Ad took it that way. Or it's intentional, because here we are arguing about it instead of talking about the GP rent control policy. Mission accomplished.
Honestly , anyone who thinks the overhaul of the constitution is about anything but reflecting TeTiriti has lost the plot.
I thought it was about looking at sex/gender equity.
Can't read it, but from what's visible I assume the alleged move to change the constitution would be to remove the requirement for male and female co-leaders, co-convenors etc.
If the allegation turns out to be true, the motivation behind it will be to remove the offensive-to-the-gender-faithful terms "male" and "female" from the constitution, rather than the kind of trivial bullshit Hooton is peddling.
It's been talked about for ages
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/a-new-leadership-model-afoot-for-the-greens
Hooton is spinning madly if he's saying that the changes are being done to roll Shaw. He's not stupid, he knows the discussions have been happening, and he also knows how things work in the party.
Interesting – so, not just about gender bollocks but also about what happens if you find you have a lot more female than male MPs. Still, as you say, nothing to do with Machiavellian plots to roll Shaw and everything to do with Hooton wanting to distract from Greens' policy announcements.
really need to see the internal party docs to know what the full picture is. I just hope they don't fuck it up re sex/gender.
There's too many older women in the Green Party (members) who would vote for that shit .It's a red line
Younger ones might push for it but I think everyone realises it would be too divisive.The self ID legislation got through , but this would be in your face and a bridge too far.Remember its the Green Party membership who vote for the co leaders. and list rankings . Can they afford to have their lesbian and older members leave in droves?
oh this is a really good point. Not only leave in droves but then put energy into criticising them from the outside and in their workplaces and communities.
What would be worse?
Them leaving a party because they feel they are no longer represented ?
Them criticizing from the outside a party that they left because they no longer felt represented and that they felt they could not criticizing while being an active member of that party.
Which then leads to this question:
Would it be ok for them to leave the party so as long as they keep their mouth shut as to why they left and any misgivings they may have?
I find the changes in the Green Party, here and in Europe, quite interesting tbh.
don't know what you are asking. Anyone is free to leave the GP at any time and criticise them publicly. They can even stay a member and criticise them publicly.
Yes – Hooton's mission is to damage the left in any way possible. He's best read with that background understanding – then ridiculed or ignored.
That said, I think the Greens should go for a single leader – the party has no problem with female representation internally and most future leaders would probably be women anyway by virtue of arithmetic. This split leadership is past its use by date, over-emphasises individual identity at the expense of collective vision, and is therefore vulnerable to the sort of wedging attacks Hooton is mounting here.
And the Party must know how critical the right sort of leader is to getting mass political support – as in the galvanising effect of Ardern replacing Little. Voters are unfortunately much more swayed by their perception of leaders than their analysis of policy, and the Greens have to swim in the pond they're actually find themselves in, not some idealised and imaginary one.
Hootons credibility has gone since his Mueller debacle he is not even trusted by his own party.
Agreed Tricle-Hooton made a complete idiot of himself in backing Mueller.
James Shaw was excellent on Morning Report recently, the Greens are polling well and it has always been public knowledge that the constitution requires a man/woman partnership (not sure about how LGBTQ2+fits in with this).
Hooton must be desperate for something to write about so he has made this up.
So what will the ratio be? 1:1:1? half-half-half? Will they just spend between now and the election talking about it incessantly while the electorate tip toes out of the room?
Last time I looked at the proposal was two co-leaders, one of whom had to be female (female wasn't defined).
It's an internal party matter, I doubt they will be talking about it much other than responding to media or if there is a leadership challenge.
lefties need to stop and think about what they are doing. The day after the Greens release an actual left wing policy that has the potential to shift the overton window, NZH headlines that the Greens are about to go through a leadership challenge, and the rights premier spinmeister writes the piece.
And they paywall it, so there will be lots of speculation without people knowing what is going on. The extent to which this plays into leftie anti-green sentiment is on the left though.
"…The day after the Greens release an actual left wing policy…" that has somewhere between zero and less than zero chance of being implemented. Pointless grandstanding and as unserious as ACT demanding referendums on the treaty.
How about some policy that might have a chance of succeeding? How about something about the actual environment, like proposing legislative changes to strengthen the right to work from home? Or a demand for an immediate census of Kokako and Kiwi in Te Urewera? Or a statement that the Greens are going to push hard for fast tracking a massive windfarm in the Taranki bight?
Behaving like a NGO lobby group is not how you get things done in parliament.
this is exactly why the left can't have nice things.
The Greens have plenty of environmental polices, go look them up.
Lefties arguing that we shouldn't bother with left wing social policy because we'll never get it, jfc.
seriously mate, if you want to hate the Greens you are basically saying better blue than green. Which is a cohort of the left for sure, but there's no mana in it.
Read some of sanctury's comments weka. Sanctury is a right winger who can sometimes blow bubbles left on social issues. Your better off not bothering with their hard right b.s.
[You are a moron who does not play the ball but loves having a go at others, including an attempt at cancelling, it appears – others don’t need your mis-guidance as to whom they should or should not reply here. And even if Sanctuary were a “right winger” blowing “hard right b.s.”, which they’re not and which they don’t, then you would still address their actual argument or point, which you don’t, as usual. Stick your bollocks next door where you plucked them from and stop acting like an utter fool here – Incognito]
Mod note
funnily enough I found myself wondering if they were left wing after I commented.
As far as the NZ Labour Caucus is concerned, having the first MMP majority Govt. in history is not how you get things done in Parliament either!
Their take is you do not apologise for Rogernomics and sack all the senior public servants and get things done, oh no, you just keep on trucking with the Reserve Bank Act, State Sector Act and all the rest of the the rotten neo lib state that Roger’n’Ruth created.
Fyi
Te Urewewa is going downhill fast. Possum numbers through the roof..birdsong quiet to non existent.
Thoughts from a random tramper
There are few coincidences in Parliamentary politics!
The Rent Freeze proposal definitely put Greens back in the frame, and in fact their policy is full of pro working class content.
"So is the Greens constitution about to be changed so that Chloe can roll Shaw?"
That would be the best thing the Greens could do at this point….if the Greens are serious about being a serious Progressive political party, giving voters an actual alternative to the Centrist political ideology of both Labour/Nats..then Shaw is nothing but dead weight to the Greens….as we all know he is a centrist at heart himself.
Let's see how he lands in May.
Yep, I vote Green for the brand and to let the others know we are going to ruin their neo liberal party eventually.
Too late to form new Parliamentary parties for 2023 & 2026, so it is Green and Maori. But it is not too late to start new social movements and organise-like occupying empty residential & commercial properties.
Activism will put the pressure on and Ms Swarbrick is s better bet to receive and carry the message. Plus she can get the better of most pundits and politicians.
And you know this from Shaw himself? Sounds more like a projection of your own low opinion of Shaw and a poor character assassination attempt at the same time. I think that Shaw is a little less B & W than you can imagine.
It may be too late for many of the victims, but the removal of Russia from the UN Human Rights Commission, paves the way for some modicum of belated justice for the tens of thousands of Syrians, disappeared, tortured, murdered and robbed by the Assad regime, long shielded by the regime's Russian backers in the UN.
Saudi Arabia is currently killing women and children in Yemen , and blockading food supplies .The Saudis have also recently beheaded 81 of their own citizens.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/20/uk-government-yemen-war-saudi-arabia-westminster
The Saudis are armed by the UK, and given logistical and intelligence support by the US, help with targeting and kill strikes
This has been going on for 8 years, the same amount of time Ukraine has been killing its citizens in the east.81% of civilian deaths occur by Ukrainian army shelling those citizens, according to a UN report
Shall we kick them off the Human Rights Council too , while we're at it .All of them
The US role in the current starvation of women and children in Afghanistan surely needs your righteous attention
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/17/time-running-out-address-afghanistans-hunger-crisis#
Or are you only moved by the loudest, lurid pictures on your screen, the very partial and curated images that reinforce "our" foreign policy directives.
I was moved by my personal experience of the Assad regime during my time in The Middle East and Syria in 2010 where I witnessed first hand the first early stirrings of the Arab Spring. A grass roots revolt across the Arab world that was violently crushed, by the pro-Western regimes you mentioned.
In 2011, when the Arab Spring spread to Syria…
I was moved by my disgust and dismay of the many commenters including yourself who sided with the Assad regime in it's genocidal war against its own people.
You on the other hand, were moved by my mentioning of this war.
Francesca, you recognise the genocidal nature of only some wars.
You willfully choose to ignore the genocidal nature and cruelty of the Assad regime war against its own people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQni3qn6GIU&ab_channel=HumanRightsWatch
And you Jenny wilfully choose to ignore the will and determination of the Syrian people who voted Bashar Assad their President by an overwhelming majority in 2021 and 2014.
You do nothing but insult Syrians who are not bigoted or simple minded as you seem to be, but they are intelligent, well educated and politically aware who know a damned sight more than you who is the best candidate to run their country.
Especially when the alternative was your head chopping friends El Nusra et al.
In both elections only Syrians in government controlled areas were allowed to vote.
That is only one of the notable things about those elections.
The eyewatering high level of voter turn out for Assad, that is pretty notable. Democracies like NZ for example, government's have trouble getting over 50% of the vote.
That other great dictator of the Arab world Hosni Mubarak also had the same eye watering high level of voter support just before an estimated 25 million Egyptians in the biggest popular revolt in human history forced him out of power.
Hear hear Francesca. It always is amazing how whenever the US screeches Look!! we all turn our heads and never look anywhere else. Apparently if its not on the news it just doesn't happen.
Subliminal, what always amazing is how the screeches of the likes of Brigid and Francesca who echo pro-Russia propagandists get us to turn our heads away from the genocidal wars waged by Russia.
What is amazing is how prophetic Shawn Carrie’s words on the dangers of Russian imperialism written in 2016 are, considering what is going on now in Ukraine
Never thought I'd live to see tank armies clashing again in sweeping battles on the steppe.
Wish I didn't have to, but it looks like that is the next stage of this war.
And funny to think, most people would cheer to the echo if many of the tanks on one side were made in Germany.
How the world changes in a flash.
A very heartfelt agreement here Sanctuary.
The core point so many of the Putin cheerleaders here ignore is that for the past decade Russia was well on it's way to being a failed state anyway. A failing economy, a failing demographic and above all a failed polity. NATO was only expanding eastward because so many of the post Soviet states were desperate to escape the orbit of this accumulating catastrophe.
Russia indeed faces an existential threat, but it was never from NATO or the EU, but it's own internal contradictions.
“Contradictions” is putting it mildly. Demographic catastrophe, brain drain, endemic corruption, ridiculous totalitarian state fascism with gross perversion of the Orthodox religion, sponsor of worldwide disinformation and assassinations
Like MAGA America but worse
A surprising number of people were able to see well in advance where the eastward expansion of Nato would end. Your wide eyed innocence is not particularly believable
Exactly what did Russia have to fear by becoming part of Europe?
Why did the Kremlin imagine it needed to keep all of Eastern Europe in permanent servitude and poverty in order to satisfy their paranoia?
They tried repeatedly but were rejected. It became obvious that they were to be villified as a future enemy. By 2007, in his Munich speech Putin already outlined the ways Russia was being targeted along with the absurd Iran rationale for missile defence in Europe
They wanted to become part of Europe!
In Putin's early days he asked to join NATO.He saw the future of Russia was with Europe, but he was constantly rebuffed.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/02/22/putin_says_he_asked_bill_clinton_about_russia_joining_nato_in_year_2000.html
Imagine how differently things would have turned out if Russia had been accepted into a pan European security alliance, instead of being pointedly excluded.
Clinton on the period before NATO's expansion eastward (1999).
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/bill-clinton-nato-expansion-ukraine/629499/
Sorry SPC
just saw this from yesterday
Well of course Clinton would put himself in that favourable light "I tried to set Putin on the right path"!!
The arrogance of the sole superpower
But it seems from Gorbachev on, there was no intention to admit Russia into NATO
Whoever it was who said "I'm sorry I'm about to do a terrible thing to you.I'm going to deprive you of an enemy "after the end of the Soviet Union was wrong.America needed an enemy.The following link is pretty interesting, worth reading the lot
.It points out the early warnings of Russian concerns about NATO
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heard
from an interview with David Frost
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x49aC06PRU
You are living in fantasy land. Even if Russia was serious, even if the Western nations did let Russia join Nato. It would not get rid of the reason for war.
The competing growth economies of rival political and economic blocs will continue to clash, just as the growth economies of the world are crashing up against the natural barriers of the environment and climate.
Unless we can reach a steady state economy, the future is war and environmental and climate collapse.
As countries like the United States and China become dependent on imports to sustain their living standards, which they are already with respect to oil,
Well that is certainly true of China, but much, much less so of the USA.
In terms of energy independence US oil and gas import are a negligible fraction of their production capacity. They really only trade around the margins for a variety of commercial and technical reasons.
In terms of food production, the US Midwest is the world's greatest food basket. They export far more than import.
In terms of manufactured goods, their fraction of goods imported outside of NAFTA compared to their GDP is rather modest. Less than 10% last I looked. Their biggest trading partner is Mexico, not China as most people assume – and this gap is only going to widen rapidly.
In terms of security, short of a nuclear exchange in which everyone loses, the North American continent is impregnable, two friendly neighbours and two oceans they completely control. No-one can physically invade by any currently known means (unless the Democrats really do decide to fling their borders open to literally anyone).
Basic Geopolitics 101, secure energy, food, water and borders. The USA is not a nation motivated by a shortage of resources.
"The USA is not a nation motivated by a shortage of resources."
Resources are not the only thing that nations fight over.
Overseas markets are one of the main issues that nations clash over.
Growth economies need markets, once the internal market is saturated, external markets are sought.
Every growth economy is an export economy. Russia wants to export, China wants to export America wants to export New Zealand wants to export. No body wants to import. Strong countries force smaller weaker countries, to accept access to their market while closing access to their market with tariffs
True, but much the same logic applies – outside of NAFTA the USA exports only a very modest fraction of it's GDP. Somewhere under 10% last I looked, pretty much the lowest fraction of all the major trading nations.
Their motives for being so influential globally are much more complex than a base imperialism.
@ RedLogix…
"Exactly what did Russia have to fear by becoming part of Europe"
You seem to forget that the USSR proposed joining NATO in 1954, and even went so far as to amend their original proposal to include/exclude points that were rejected by NATO in their first proposal.
The concluding note to their proposal read…
"NATO would cease to be a closed military alignment of states and would be open to other European countries which, together with the creation of an effective system of European collective security, would be of cardinal importance for the promotion of universal peace."
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/molotovs-proposal-the-ussr-join-nato-march-1954
NATO rejected Russia's offer.
Putin has also apparently floated the idea of joining NATO.
“Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?
"Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin-says-discussed-joining-nato-with-clinton/28526757.html
I believe they have long wanted to become a part of Europe…however the dangerous Russophobia that existed then (and now) meant that negotiating a peaceful path to that outcome has never got off the ground….I guess the people who could have helped to give those negotiations even just a little oxygen and maybe plant the seeds of peace going forward, had already picked a side…just like you RedLogix…
A bit more commentary on the Molotov proposal here:
Fact: Russia Pitched the Idea of Joining NATO in 1954 | The National Interest
Thanks Ad, much of that piece is taken from Geoffrey Roberts book, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953.
Here is a link to an extremely interesting and enlightening interview with Roberts on his historical overview of Stalin as Political Leader and as War Leader, well worth a read if you have got the time….
Stalin’s Wars: An Interview with Professor Geoffrey Roberts
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/93055
Is there no genocidal monster you cannot love?
I did a quick search on that article for the word 'gulag' and it returns one anodyne mention. Pffft …
RedLogix…are you drinking something that is reverting you to your youth…you sound a teenager, and a fucking stupid one at that…grow up you idiot, or stop commenting to me please.
An article pretending to evaluate Stalin's legacy and fails to explore something as obvious as the grotesque cruelty of the gulags – especially those in the Far East – deserves nothing but contempt. It is exactly equivalent as telling us Hitler was wonderful and failing to mention the Holocaust.
But then why should I be surprised that you think it worth referencing.
Please dial back the personalised stuff. You were warned about this the other day. There are plenty of politics to focus on. If you don't like a particular commenter's response, you can just ignore them.
RL …."deserves nothing but contempt. It is exactly equivalent as telling us Hitler was wonderful and failing to mention the Holocaust"….
It is like this bit from that same article was written especially for you RedLogix…" A lot of people have confused my being impressed by Stalin with my being some kind of admirer of Stalin or someone who approved of Stalin. Personally and politically I detest the kind of policies and ideology that Stalin stood for…… Don’t confuse the story I tell about this powerful and impressive system and this powerful and impressive leader with my own point of view. I’m just telling the story as I see it. I see it as my duty as a historian to tell that story, even though that story might make a lot of people uncomfortable. It might not want to be the story that a lot of people want to hear. It might be the story that offends a lot of people’s own politics. I can’t help that. That’s the history and as a historian I’m committed to telling the truth as I see it.
The problem with you RL, is if the historical story is one that conflicts with your present world view you get angry….as can be seen by the way you relentlessly insult me at the end of half the comments you reply to me with…and that is getting real boring and annoying to me, so how about you either stop it or don’t comment to me in future.
If Russia was so keen to join NATO why did they continue to target them with nuclear weapons?
Or indeed why object to Ukraine joining? Your logic is utterly contradictory.
Still everytime you come here cheering on Putin’s butchery it becomes more obvious that you aren’t even a useful idiot.
RedLogix…I don't mean to be mean of rude here, but seriously, the more you talk these days, the more you sound like you have nothing to say…from my end it's all a bit sad really. Even though I rarely agreed with you, I used to quite respect you, at least you, unlike most of your other Liberal Imperialist comrades on this site, usually delivered a well thought out debate and/or position….now all you sound like is a big pile of angry stinking shit.
But yo your question…”If Russia was so keen to join NATO why did they continue to target them with nuclear weapons?”
Probably because they were well aware that the West (mainly the USA/UK) were not interested in peace with Russia…
Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov…..
“Most likely, the organizers of the North Atlantic bloc will react negatively to this step of the Soviet government and will advance many different objections. In that event the governments of the three powers will have exposed themselves, once again, as the organizers of a military bloc against other states and it would strengthen the position of social forces conducting a struggle against the formation of the European Defense Community,”
now all you sound like is a big pile of angry stinking shit.
Because that is the correct response to Putin's butchery.
RedLogix: I have put up a You Tube link on today's (Friday) Daily Review.
Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss the war in Ukraine after the latest round of atrocities. It expands on your perception of the way things are going and the most likely outcomes.
Its an hour long but the most illuminating discussion I have encountered thus far. Buchanan has a huge amount of experience in the field of intelligence and analysis gathering plus personal experience of atrocities committed in South America.
Yes, you are not the only Sanctuary on, a few ex NZ Tankie mates & I are rather jealous at what is about to happen even though our respective wife's/ partners/ hubby's have given us permission to volunteer (note we left the RNZAC/ Scots SQN in late the 90's.)
Me personally I would like to join the Ukrainian Airforce Ground Defence Units my bread & butter for the last 20yrs in RAAF. Especially Defending the Warloc's for the MiG29's, SU25's & Hind Helicopters.
Given what has happened & what we have seen so far in terms of Combined Arms TTP's from Russian & Ukrainian Armoured Corps. The Ukranian Tankies incl its Light Cavalry combined with the Ukrainian Light Infantry Units have a superior TTP's (SOP's in old money).
Just to add, that I had planned a trip to Ukraine incl Crimea, Kursk & through to Rostov on the Don until Tsar Poot's little Green Man invaded in 14. My Travel plans got knock back by work, as they deem it to high risk.
Josie Pagani has an article on the Stuff website arguing that the West should intervene militarily in Ukraine:
In a twist on the '’mutually assured destruction’' deterrent, Putin is showing that he can use the threat of nuclear weapons as an effective way of coercing his adversaries to do what he wants.
His tactic is dangerous and can't be allowed to stand. Let him do this, and we say Putin can commit war crimes, bomb maternity hospitals, execute civilians, and even destroy whole cities and the people in them. As long as he has a nuclear weapon, we won't enter the war.
I don't know what she means by "standing up to Putin". I think she would have to be be pretty naive to think that that Putin would not carry through on his threat and start a nuclear war if the West attempted to impose a no-fly zone.
Kennedy, in 1962, threatened nuclear war, but war was averted when a negotiated settlement was reached with Kruschev. In the current conflict the West, instead of accusing Russia of war crimes, atrocities etc, and imposing sanctions, should be doing their utmost to steer the protagonists towards the negotiating table.
should be doing their utmost to steer the protagonists towards the negotiating table.
How? Exactly what else should be done than has not already been attempted?
Or are you really suggesting that Ukraine should just surrender?
How? Exactly what else should be done than has not already been attempted?
It should have happened before the invasion even started. Putin tried on many occasions to get talks started on the Eastern Ukraine situation but Zelenskyy simply ignored him; so then he massed troops on the Ukranian border, but even then Zelenkyy didn't get the message, In the end Putin had little choice but to launch an invasion, and still Zelenskyy made no moves to avert a disaster by agreeing to talks.
All the West has done is to make loud noises about war crimes and atrocities. Good propaganda no doubt, but hardly calculated to bring about peace, assuming of course that peace is what America wants. The recriminations should be left until after the war is over.
Or are you really suggesting that Ukraine should just surrender?
If the Ukranians win it will be a Pyrrhic victory – assuming it's not a Pyrrhic loss.
Yeah. Look at the dress she was wearing. Asking for it.
"Standing up to Putin" doesn't have to involve imposing a no-fly zone, just equipping Ukraine with the necessary military equipment to trash Russian invasion forces. There are no "protagonists" to steer towards a negotiating table, only invaders and the invaded. Make the invaded "negotiate" how much of their country they're going to give up to the invaders and you unleash a whole new round of bigger countries exercising their territorial ambitions on smaller ones.
I think the line drawn between sanctions and indirect military conflict with Russia (via Ukraine) and actually being involved militarily in the Ukrainian conflict is somewhat semantic. I am not sure that Russia would see it as much different. It could be argued that the effect of sanctions on Russia is far greater than would be the effect of Nato intervening directly in the conflict.
So, from their perspective, Russia may well see itself under attack already, regardless of whether Nato is directly involved or not.
Remember, it was a form of sanction, the oil embargo on Japan, from the US, that led to the Pearl Harbour attack.
So, there is no guarantee that sanctions themselves wouldn't elicit a military response from Russia. The fact that an arguably greater economic attack from the west hasn't provoked a military response from Russia, then, suggests that an arguably lesser response from Nato (say setting up a no fly zone) would not be a step that would lead to WW3 either.
In the end, Russia is far outweighed in terms of military strength by Nato. Therefore, they certainly do not want to get involved in a conventional war with Nato. And the use of nuclear weapons would be national suicide for them.
Therefore, I think the consequence of Nato and the west getting getting directly involved in Ukraine is probably far overstated.
That is not to say I am actually arguing that Nato should be directly involved. Only, that I think the risks of such involvement leading to WW3 are not increased to any significant degree compared to the action already being taken.
By the way, if anyone has the stomach to watch all this, here is the Sky Interview with Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson.
Yea, I see what you mean, got no stomach for those arrogant English interviewers eh
So you are a Dmitry Peskov fan then?
No way, just dont like arrogant pommie interviewers
Not sure why the clip should have anything to do with stomachs ts but thanks for putting up the interview with peskov gd to hear the usually missing Russian perspective ! in my view we need as many of these conversations as possible . I found something which you may have seen already perhaps but if not you and all the other 'armchair generals ' here might appreciate .Seems credibly unbiassed and educative .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9pVEP0AzZ4
Thanks for the Peskov interview. I hadn't seen that. I guess that will be the last time such a rational discussion of the events in Ukraine will get aired.
Afterall Peskov, shown two of the events that the west consider slam dunks in Bucha, was able to point out weaknesses in each in the short time he was given to respond.
The satellite photos of Yablonsksa Street are obviously taken after the scene was set but we are asked to believe that the satellite company with Pentagon contracts was telling the truth about the dates?? No verifiable time stamps with the photos. Good grief
The identification of the armoured vehicle that blew up the woman cyclist as Russian uses photos obviously different (diferent positions) to that in the video.
The attempt to portray the whole world as against Russia was laughable in a western centric way. Pushing all the tired white helmet and novichok fabrications as fact. Difficult to get any balance in five eyes countries but guess what? We aren't the world.
At the end, Peskov states that Russia views its special operation as a preventative measure against a future third world war. They have taken the lesson of Chamberlain type appeasement to heart. Viewing US behaviour in its unipolar moment can only support such a view. A US led world has only brought chaos and destruction to poor, defenceless countries.
Hopefully you are aware how few nuclear detonations will be required to set off a nuclear winter. I believe the US understanding is that they might well succeed in a first strike able to negate Russian response, but the consequences of that would still be devastating for the US.
I do understand the nuclear threat. But I think that exists already with what the west is already doing in terms of sanctions and effectively attacking Russia indirectly by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Look at all the damage Nato and the west are already doing to Russian forces via the weapons they are supplying Ukraine.
I am not convinced that the threat of this would be greatly increased should the west, say, establish a no fly zone.
A no fly zone is a significant escalation. Thats a distinction Biden has made by implementing sanctions supplying weapons, but not a no fly zone. As far as we can see Russia seems to hold this distinction also as they have not described economic lines which would lead to nuclear retaliation.
Your framework is at odds to both nuclear capable sides and so there seems no reason to adopt it.
If you really want to scare yourself silly on the topic I suggest you should read Daniel Ellsberg's 2017 book on the subject. It is called The doomsday machine : confessions of a nuclear war planner.
Yes, I have been looking at similar stuff, though not that book. See my last post.
Thing is, if Russia/Putin was a rational actor, they wouldn't have invaded Ukraine in the first place.
I can see the benefit to invading Crimea – it ain't good to have such a strategically significant port held under lease and a handshake just because it's on someone else's territory.
But invading the rest of Ukraine? Maybe the foreign policy advice Putin receives is as gilded as the advice he received about military readiness. Because if he's receiving rational advice, his decisions are incredibly and unusually stupid. But if he's making rational decisions in an advice fantasy land, his decisions still have an unpredictable outcome in reality.
I think he was rational to the extent he was probably entitled to make assumptions that he based his decisions on, and thought he had the opportunity to grab Ukraine in a quick operation.
Firstly, he had just witnessed the west pulling out of Afghanistan, and had seen the relative lack of commitment of the NATO countries and their squabbles. Also, he had seen their response over the Crimean invasion. So it was probably reasonable for him to believe that the west would huff and puff but not really do anything.
Secondly, he had built up large foreign reserves that he thought would fund his military campaign. He probably didn't envisage that the west might lock a lot of that away.
Thirdly, on paper anyway, he had vast military superiority over Ukraine. Even a lot of western commentators didn't think the Ukranians would last that long.
Finally, I think he vastly underestimated the willingness of the Ukranians to fight. He probably thought they would give up quickly like the Afghanistan army. After all, the Ukranians didn’t put up much of a fight in Crimea. So past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour etc.
So, I think taking the above into account, it was probably quite rational of him to expect a quick, easy win. And that is what the Russian army prepared for.
If he had known the way things would turn out, he probably would never have made the move in the first place. But now that he has gone in, he really has to keep it going otherwise he loses face, and possibly is position as leader.
It's one thing to expect an easy win, but another thing entirely to plan to expect a walkover. The shear number of troops they used left them no contingency for actual resistance. So that's the deeply flawed intelligence, and planning flawed to the point of complacency.
Then there are things like the logistics problems, the maintenance issues, the unsupported armour going into urban areas. Those are readiness issues that should have been prevented or at least reported.
Then there's the dramatic impact of newer ATGMs, and the failure to achieve air supremacy. That's a failure in military intelligence and also overly rosy tech analyses.
So the point is, even if Putin isn't pumped full of roid rage and is thinking clearly, he's still working off a fantasy football playbook. Does his information about his nuclear weapons efficacy and likely US/global responses to use of nukes follow the same fantasy land? That's one of the big risks here.
Sure, he's unexpectedly having to evaluate his continued leadership when he was expecting a walkover and to be welcomed as a liberator, but if that could lead to him making a miscalculation based on accurate information, what about if his information is flawed?
I am not denying that Putin may be becoming unhinged, or very angry about the situation. But I think the damage has already been done in that respect. So the risk of a nuclear response is probably there right now.
I don't actually think there is much point to a no fly zone, because the Ukranians already effectively have that with the huge amount of anti-aircraft assets they have now. I just saw a report that the Russians are hardly using attack helicopters now because they have lost so many of them. And the Ukranians are shooting down a lot of the cruise missiles.
However, it could be argued that the presence of NATO in some capacity might actually reduce the likelihood that Nukes are used.
The most likely use of nukes I have seen reported is the possibility of limited tactical use within Ukraine with a smaller weapon aimed at eliminating a large force of infantry for instance.
But if NATO were in there, the Russians might be very reluctant to use nukes in that way because of the possibility of it being seen as an attack on NATO and hence a military response.
It is a difficult one. Obviously a nuclear war would be civilisation ending, and no-one wants that.
But, when there is an aggressor threatening to use nukes unless he gets his way, how is the world to respond to that? If the world just gives up and gives him what he wants, he will just keep on doing the same thing.
Remember, I did say in my initial post that I wasn't actually arguing that NATO should go into Ukraine. But just that I didn't think it greatly elevated the risk by doing so.
If Putin gets told Nato troops are there when deciding to use nukes.
And what if the mobilisation of nukes leads to an accidental use by individual units, outside of the policy decision-making framework? If Ukrainians get nuked it's bad, but if Nato (especially US) troops get nuked then all hell could let loose.
Let Russia threaten. Maybe the response to actual nukes will be WW3, maybe not. At the moment, not knowing the response framework gives the rational decision-maker a suggestion that the stakes are possibly unacceptable. Nato troops on the ground might suggest that the only rational option (other than refusing to play) is to go all-in.
The whole nuclear war scenario is incredibly scary.
I saw a video from a guy who's previous job was to game war scenarios. He said that gaming (military not play station) predicted that even the limited use of a nuclear weapon as described above would lead quickly to full scale nuclear war.
What is the west to do if they see Russia starting to open nuclear missile silos, and prepare other assets for a nuclear attack?
I don't think Nato would just wait for the Russians to start firing missiles. I think they would try and get their own attack away first to try and take out missiles before they could be launched. I think Russia would realise that as well, so would only take that sort of action if they actually intended to follow through, which NATO would also realise…. So it very quickly reaches a point of no return.
I think Putin is going to lose this war. Probably the best outcome would be for him to gain enough in the short-term anyway, for him to be able to proclaim "victory"on May 9th, and then withdraw his troops. As I don't think he can afford to keep this going for long.
Putin's likely already lost, the question is "how badly".
Yeah, the escalation curve tends to get pretty steep after mushroom clouds of whatever size. Mostly because of any perceived imbalance of how many of the smaller nukes one side has/can take vs another, so after that it's either go big or go home.
On the plus side, they wouldn't open silos for a tactical nuke – those tend to be bombs or even artillery rounds (although I don't know if anyone has the artillery nukes in current arsenals – US in particular had them in the 1960s, some of them scary small).
BTW, I don't actually think NATO would put infantry on the ground in Ukraine.
But I could envisage a scenario where there is some complex missile systems capable of taking out Russian artillery and ships with a high degree of efficiency from a very long range. But the problem is that the Ukranians don't know how to use them.
But if that were stationed say in the west of Ukraine away from the fighting, and operated by NATO personnel, it would be difficult for the Russians to know whether it was actually NATO or Ukranians who had been trained in the equipment.
Or, some type of drone weapons that NATO could operate from outside of Ukraine. Again, it would be very difficult to prove NATO was doing it, and NATO would deny it if the accusation was made.
It would be ironic though, if the only forces to be nuked in this conflict was the Russians themselves, digging trenches in the red forest around Chernobyl.
Don't forget the old "foreign volunteer, ok last week they were a specialist in xxx armed forces, but totally unaffiliated now, don't know how they got that equipment, either" move.
But as soon as the numbers start getting into the hundreds, the chances of them popping up in the media increase – like the "mystery troops" in Crimea in 2014 who were facebooking happily away…
Yeah. Like I said at the outset the question of whether or not NATO (and the west) is directly involved starts become a bit semantic.
The way I see this conflict has become is that it is now a proxy war with Russia fighting Ukraine as a proxy for NATO.
I think NATO is so invested in this conflict now that they actually want Ukraine to win now, rather than just survive. And they really don't want Putin to be able to claim a win, because that would just incentivise him to keep going. And Putin is just as committed as well.
So, it is a bit like a fight to the bitter end now. I don’t see a negotiated solution, especially after the war crimes.
The good thing is at the end of this Russia will no longer be a super power, and after this there will only be two crazy super powers to worry about.
I think the Nato hope was that Ukraine would retreat to its western areas and do some assymetric insurgency in the occupied areas, slowly bleeding Russia. But Ukraine is still using conventional forces, and holding its own.
There's also the war crime thing which seems to be a bit more unexpected – sure, artillery obliteration, but population relocations and mass executions already?
So now I think Nato is sniffing an opportunity and a desire to topple Putin internally, and can probably do that just by keeping the missiles flowing to Ukraine. A lot of the equipment like the NLAW actually seems to require pretty low levels of training, too.
Russia seems to be reorienting to consolidate its eastern gains, but whether they will be able to hold that territory seems to be more up to Ukraine than it's up to Putin.
Yeah. The problem for the Russians is that the Ukranians can reposition a lot of their troops as well, now they aren’t needed up north.
I am thinking the Russians really have no option but to attack. And that will be against very dug in positions. So, there is going to be a lot of life lost over the next couple of weeks, unfortunately, on both sides.
I wouldn't want to be in a Russian tank driver over there. According to the US State Attorney, Blinken, there are now ten anti-tank weapons over there for every Russian tank.
Those tanks and the APCs are more like steel coffins now.
A bit of macabre humour:
Q. What do you call a column of Russian tanks?
A. A deadline.
zouch
After all, the Ukranians didn’t put up much of a fight in Crimea. So past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour etc.
There was no actual invasion of Crimea. The latter's citizens handed themselves over to Russia willingly. Ukraine and Crimea had little in common, either ethnically or culturally, anyway.
please look at what you just did. Whatever device you used to make that comment, you have to check the Name and Email field each time to make sure there are no typos there. Please say if there are technical difficulties.
If you think that a no fly zone is a lesser response then I suggest that you don't have much understanding. Enforcing a no fly zone requires shooting down aircraft. Since Ukraine has not had much joy in that endeavour, it will involve operations, either missiles or aircraft from neighbouring countries. That will mean a Europe wide war that would soon involve the US as well. So not really "lesser"
I was listening to Kathryn Ryan being the full song chickenhawk on RNZ yesterday and it occured to me the singular political phenomena of the last twenty-twenty five years has been the emergence of the blue liberal hawk, AKA "centrists". Pagani is an exemplar of the type.
Yes Ryan is consistently showing her blue credentials more and more these days. I think she can no longer be bothered to hide them.
What gets me about Josie Pagani is that she repeats what others have been thinking and saying for weeks/months before she comes out and says it as if its something new and novel.
Yes, when it comes to nukes; MAD–mutually assured destruction–still stands even if it might be a lingering, post apocalyptic destruction.
The former Soviet Union was involved in a number of anti proliferation Nuclear Treaties that the USA has since disregarded. Perhaps if the USSR had invented iMacs and skinny jeans rather than producing ICBMs they would still be here.
But the fact is virtually any armed conflict is finally resolved with negotiation.
There is value in reading this thread and the comments which cover a wide range of viewpoints.
https://mobile.twitter.com/kaa_richter/status/1511687026319503364
And this, which is linked to in that thread.
The West v Russia: why the global south isn’t taking sides
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/10/russia-ukraine-west-global-south-sanctions-war
Good stuff. I have been a lone voice on The Standard for a while pushing the Non Aligned Movement, and that Aotearoa NZ should join it–there is of course “a shit show and no show” of that happening while this country is hooked into 5 Eyes.
The non aligned movement allows mutually beneficial bilateral trade and cultural agreements, and seems a worthy solution for small nations in the era of Climate Disaster, COVID affected supply lines and imperialist power plays.
What can Ukraine concede in negotiations – a neutral Ukraine outside NATO, the Donbas region becoming independent, a plebiscite in Crimea? All these things are possible, but they assume that Russia is a rational actor (criminal, but still rational) pragmatically concerned about its own security.
But the recent atrocities and the "denazification" propaganda feel like that there is an altogether darker and irrational nationalism at work. Like some fascist harking back to a glorious imperial Russian past that has been betrayed in the present. Can the Ukrainians really negotiate with such people – or can they do so only from a position of military strength, or at least parity? It is very concerning to see no end to this war.
Short memory or lack of awareness AB?
All that you suggest was on offer for a number of years but were trampled into dust beneath the NATO boots on Zelenskiy's neck.
Neither really – I just don't see how anyone will think it's possible to go back to those negotiating positions after what the Russians have done. The Russians were certainly provoked, but they pulled the trigger and what they have revealed of themselves since doing so is ugly.
I'd be surprised if they want less or more than those earlier positions, but only time will tell.
There is brass in muck.
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1512208599421964295?cxt=HHwWjsCyrbHtuPwpAAAA
I mentioned here only a couple years back that we'd be fighting over shit in short order.
The immensity of our failure to create sustainable systems…
Gardeners beware! Not all shit is equal.
Some (spray residues in) manures can actually kill or severely damage your crops. Know the medicinal and spray regime of the animals and land they came from. Some pesticides are extremely persistent, don't let your need to save money cost you your garden.
Soon, we'll be giving serious consideration to our own…
Makes me grateful for my rough sawn, off-grid (some may say feral) buddies up on Northland.
A composting toilet on an elevated site, overlooking the banana grove and the manuka. A large partitioned drum, that gets rotated every 3 months. After resting for a while the 'humanure' feeds the bananas.
It's only a bit off-putting for a while…
It's a subject fraught with difficulty. On the one hand a tremendous resource, on the other a populace that is heavily medicated* with all manner of things we don't want in the food chain.
*e.g. US, despite user pays health, has 66% of adults on one pill or another.
https://hpi.georgetown.edu/rxdrugs/#:~:text=A%20vital%20component%20of%20health,and%20those%20with%20chronic%20conditions.
That is the most difficult snafu I can see.
And an honourable mention goes to the types of things people flush: Dead pets make fine compost I'm sure, even the Civil war cannon shell might be scavenged for nitrate. But we also flush cell phones and syringes.
https://www.tritonservice.ca/top-10-strangest-things-flushed-down-the-toilet/
It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.
And how real is this take going to be? certainly a minefield (pardon the pun) for the EU countries to get through. No simple choices.
Sit back and watch Europe commit suicide
https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8853
Seems a bit slanted, that report.
"Instead" rather than "as well"?
7.3% inflation is nowhere near Weimar levels. Literal orders of magnitude out.
Is the fertiliser shortage because of sanctions on Russia, or because Ukraine is a war zone?
If one thinks back, it seems previously when Russia was sanctioned, it responded by developing self-sufficiency in a number of areas of its economy which has stood it in pretty good stead. This time around, cynics would think the same is likely to happen again. They might also notice that the ruble isn't looking too shabby while the Euro is going south along with the pound.
There is one winner though – the US is frantically selling arms to suckers who are arming Ukraine and will want the inflated debts paid for in their funny money.
So which is the historically weak currency recovering after halving its value in early march for some reason, and which one has been tracking down against the USD for a year (a year of a new POTUS, btw)?
Not sure Russian self sufficiency is all it's cracked up to be, but time will no doubt tell. If it is, I guess the sanctions against superyachts and currency reserves aren't a massive hardship for ordinary Russians.
Russia is both a big exporter of most fertilizers,and Gas.The high cost of gas has meant a number of major manufacturers in Europe have stopped making Urea etc.
As the international price lifts all boats including the US has meant US farmers have switched their crop selection from feed maize (also used for ethanol production) to soya (which requires a 1/4 of the fert)
South America is struggling with Rice not being sown in Peru,where it is a staple food.
Russia is a large exporter of all commodities.
fair call, I mixed ukraine/russia fertilizer exports. Russia was like 7BUSD, Ukraine 700mil.
Pozsar argument is that the Russian stress test of global economies cam at a time of most risk ie Where central banks have over extended at both ends of their stimulus regime( interest rates and QE) to reduce harm they have to both raise interest rates and reduce liquidity which is where they will come unstuck.
Commodities are real assets and fully trade able,where collateral exists,a number of financial assets such as ETF (index funds) are not.
https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/news-and-expertise/we-are-witnessing-the-birth-of-a-new-world-monetary-order-202203.html
"Global credit ratings agency S&P Global has given New Zealand the first ratings upgrade of any country since the global coronavirus pandemic, effectively giving the Government a cheaper credit card and sending a signal to global investors New Zealand is on a positive economic trajectory"
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124325306/sp-global-ratings-upgrade-a-massive-boost-to-grant-robertson-and-labours-economic-management-credentials
No coincidence….with China our largest trading partner, the hegemon has to make a counter offer.
Our sovereign bonds are listed on the FTSE from November,everything is networked, and outsourced.
one begets the other…we are a team player (now)
Just have a higher proportion of interest going offshore.
Tis the only game in town
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/128308781/legacy-of-mistrust-dunedin-study-links-vaccine-hesitancy-with-bad-childhood-experiences
Here’s a bit of science, as to why some people are vacinne hesitant, from our wonderful Dunedin study…..this is the only research in NZ I would trust without digging very deep.
the Dunedin study found there was a preponderance of negative events in childhood leading these people to mistrust authority. The backlash against these people will of course make this worse.
Just to reiterate I do not support the anti vax point of view or their unscientific belief systems
That speaks to close friends who have a fairly top end restaurant.
They really struggled (and still are) with having to insist 3 key members of staff had to leave (and be paid out) because they weren't willing to be vaccinated. He, the chef/owner, had grown up with the experience of being a healthy young nipper until he was vaccinated for something.
Then the auto-immune issues started- eczema and athsma mainly followed by picking up every bug that went round.
Those experiences and the family stories about them, formed his reality. Far from an anti-vaxxer, he was very resistant to the compulsion vibe and ended up having to comply for a bunch of reasons, non of which were health related.
This, and the divisions formed from the response, is where there is a lot of healing to occur before we can say we are past the pandemic.
.Acute disease is only the beginning. We're staring down the barrel at a huge swathe of the population being disabled in ways we can only imagine.
If it turns out that natural herd immunity doesn't exist and new variants keep emerging then it's unlikely we'll be able to drive the effective reproduction number down to <1.
The societal burdens of endemic covid will be huge and eventually, they'll become unbearable. Elimination will be the only option.Vaccination and non clinical interventions will get us there.
Best we hurry up.
Poots has finally achieved something.
/
IL information: Finland is preparing to apply for NATO membership with an additional registration issued by TP-Utva
The additional entry is brief and only states that the state leadership has decided to apply for NATO membership.
[…]
IL sources estimate that a decision will be made in TP-Utva to apply for NATO membership during the first two weeks of May.
https://www-iltalehti-fi.translate.goog/politiikka/a/865bf723-4d71-40a6-8f9d-6ceadb8ce405?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Yes, isn't it ironic that part of his reason for going into Ukraine was because NATO was getting too close and too scary. But now he is getting absolutely the opposite of what he wanted with more countries about to join NATO and a lot more NATO forces on his doorstep.
Only if you drink in the one-sided propaganda we are fed. Wait and see. I will be pleased if you are right, but I currently have no confidence in the stories we are being told.
Oh look, vaccine mandates for certain professions are legal.
Oh look, 77% of new cases and 77% of hospitalisations are fully vaxxed or boosted.
And despite all health staff being fully vaccinated and boosted, hospitals are still handicapped by absences due to Covid.
The Pfizer product struggled to prevent transmission of Delta…it is mocked by Omicron.
Oh look. Our Ministry of Health has failed to keep up.
Sigh.
What proportion of the population are "fully vaccinated or boosted"? If they were hospitalised at the same rate as unvaccinated people, how many admissions would that be?
Oh look. You've refused to keep up for at least a year now.
Oh look.
79% of the population is fully "vaccinated" and 51% have taken up the offer of a booster.
And for those who prefer fancy graphics, Farah Hancock has provided some nifty examples. It would seem that at the most, having partaken of the Pfizer product might..and I use that word advisedly…just might slightly lower your chances of occupying a hospital bed. If you're lucky you might get care from an uninfected doctor or nurse. Or a fully vaccinated but testing positive nurse.
And as for admissions to hospital of the willfully unvaccinated…that rate has come down. Perhaps because it was the practice to test those at 'high risk' of being infected, rather than test everyone regardless of vaccination status.
"Everyone is screened coming through and if you're considered high-risk, then you'll be off for a swab. If you're unvaccinated, that does put you into the high-risk group."
Dr. Tait is hopefully looking at the infection rates and amending the protocols.
It would be such a shame if an infectious person was welcomed into the hallowed halls of his hospital because he wrongfully assumed a fully vaxxed and boosted patient is at significantly lower risk of being infected.
You really want to go down that math-hole? ok.
On Feb13, we had had 649 hospital admissions over the pandemic. Now the number is 5899, so 89% of our hospitalisations are in the last couple of months, and thus probably omicron.
About 90% of people admitted were vaccine eligible at the time of admission.
But of the people admitted between feb13 and April 8:
But what is stopping NATO going in ?
It's not their charter.They've engaged in wars that weren't triggered by article 5 before.
Is it the fear of things going nuclear.If so, belonging to NATO may be more of a weapons buying scam than a protection.
Or is NATO/US waiting for both parties to exhaust themselves, as in WW2, then step in and pick over the spoils of war between them .And don't think for a moment any crumbs would be left for Ukraine.With resources getting scarce both the US and Europe could gorge themselves on unlimited energy and the food baskets of both countries.
I wouldn't be betting too heavily on MAD as a deterrent though .There are those on both sides who think a nuclear war can be winnable.
And that is the bloody frightening thing. I don't think there is such a thing, because any use of tactical nuclear weapons will inevitably escalate to the full monty.
My fear too. It really worries me when the wishful thinkers who see this as proof of Russian military weakness proclaim with idiotic certainty that the Russians wouldn’t dare unleash nuclear weapons on a big scale.
They'd dare alright, it they think they're losing.
Poots has said as much.
To me the real worry is heightened tensions open the door to posibilities that errors of judgment or accidents escalate, and we have nuclear conflict that no one, including Poots, wants.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/22/russia-only-to-use-nuclear-weapons-if-existence-threatened
So far as I can see some people are making far too much money off weaponry to even try to stop the war.
But Putin is not in favour with his cronies – assuming they're all under sanctions. Only the patriotically puerile will miss him. The RUs-MAGA's.
Drone strike his war criminal ass and let's see who want's to step up for more of the same. Reckon that'll be it, war ended.