But those contracts aren’t protected by the Residential Tenancies Act, giving people in emergency housing a shaky claim on the title “tenant”, and no certainty of shelter beyond seven days. On the other hand, the contracts sometimes roll over indefinitely – in some cases for years – because the actual social housing wait list now exceeds 22,000 people.
lex Cassels has owned The Setup on Manners since 2015, when he converted levels two and three into a budget hotel. He manages a diverse property portfolio throughout the central city, including a controversial suite of residential apartment buildings and another emergency housing provider in Ghuznee St.
There are about 100 people in emergency accommodation across those two sites. But Cassels says he “doesn't want to talk about people in emergency housing.”.
“It’s very disrespectful – it upsets me, actually,” the 39-year-old property developer says. “They are not second class people. I deal with them all the time now. They’re people like you and me, and we need to respect them the same way, and give them the same basic dignity. Otherwise, we’re creating a two-tier society, and that’s just not on.”
Dear Mr. Property Developer, the only reason you can hold on to your development without an influx of backpacckers who don't care how many are shoved into a room as they only stay a night or two is the two tier rental / owning houses system that we have. And if you too are one of those that profit of this misery by making millions of not housing people i can understand why you would not want to talk about it. It might not reflect well upon you. Those who can still afford to rent/buy will try to do so, and those that are excluded by the market will get shoved into your hovel with no rental security for a week or more at the highest market price and WINZ will pay so as to look humane, and the government is happy to foot the bill so as to not come across as the callous useless tories they are.
These arrogant out of touch good for nothing people.
It needs to be all about the needs of the people who are staying in emergency accommodation. The landlord will use any financial advantage for their own benefit.
It is about the disruption and unknown when faced with being homeless caused by not being able to afford a rental or due to the landlord selling up. I can see why there needs to be restrictions for those who cause problems for the emergency guests, even though they themselves are an emergency guest over stepping it.
Night shelters should never have become run down. There were never enough of them. They were supervised. I personally do not like night shelters long term but they are vital short term.
Is it just me who thinks this?Not having a bed, (even in a night shelter) is depriving a person of a basic human right.
Accessing emergency housing has barriers. Walking in off the street to a night shelter is straight forward.
The government could rent the flats outright for market rent and then place the people in need in a safe and secure flat, rather then pay the mortgage of this guy on the backs of the homeless.
Yes and I thought that to. The landlord has arranged it the way he has as it is more lucrative. He eases his conscience by saying he is helping, yes but at an inflated cost for the government. I know this is going to sound nuts but he could charge what a weeks rent would be for an apartment. They all could who are at the government trough.
I did read how bad the run down night shelter was. The reality is that some people are so high, intoxicated, acutely unwell that a night shelter needs to be designed so it is safe, maintained and can be managed.
Does anyone know how a homeless person manages when they have no bed and they are high, intoxicated or acutely unwell?
I was never high, intoxicated or actuely unwell while being a transient teenager, but if you don't have access to shelter or emergency housing you have the choice of – somewhere in the woods a little encampment which is probably the safest, in some doorways with cameras – also somewhat safe, somewhere in someones house in exchange for sex, on someones sofa or floor because they are generous or in occupied empty housing (not here in NZ obviously) and of course your car if you have one. There really are no good options, and frankly to live this way it helps being high or intoxicated cause sober is just no way to live on the streets, and most have mental illness, come from broken homes, abusive situations etc. There is a small subset of people that have made a proffesional life on living on the streets but these are not people you would find in emergency housing.
Currently the people living in emergency housing are people who can not find a rental, who may work a job, who may have been made homeless not because they are bad renter but because they simply lost their rental.
Yes, landlords wanting more and more rent or selling up is the main cause for homelessness for most in emergency housing.
Those with complex needs require support to readjust to living within 4 walls. Rent free for 90 days and power paid. Basically relegating financial responsibility to someone else.
There needs to be some sort of housing assistance to prevent further homelessness. Peter is being robbed to pay Paul and the government needs to pay Paul to not rob Peter.
Government need to buy existing homes as they cannot build them fast enough. 22,000 people waiting for state housing is only going to increase.
Are the 22,000 part of the emergency housing stats?
The jolly lolly for the home investor is no longer sweet.
There needs to be a jolly lolly deposit scheme for the first home buyer so they can give their landlord notice.
I note that close to 100% of homes the government purchase will not be a home investor ghost home. People will actually live in the home which I thought was the purpose of purchasing a home.
Lolly as in money a slang term. The lolly from the government, something like using the old family benefit (probably closest to it WFF) to get an advance to use for a home deposit. I do realise not everyone gets WFF.
Third paragraph, I expect not note, I tried to edit but to late.
It is proving to be a challenge to rebalance the effects of what home investors have done to the housing and rental market. The banks are also culpable with easy loans when a person has collateral.
I am advocating for first home owners so they can pay their own mortgage.
It would be a thrill to give the landlord 28 days notice and move into your own place.
The kaingaroa scheme falls short for a deposit. I do like the Aussie one for single parents 2% required, the federal government top it up 18% so the 20% deposit has been reached. I have seen it so many times the shortfall in NZ and if kiwis saver was that great there would be more first home buyers.
I saw a link to the NZ branch of the tory eugenicist, Toby Young's; Free Speech Union over on TS's Feeds list the other night. That was quite a rabbit hole! See the DR for 7/5 for my immediate response.
Though free speech is apparently only for Jordan William and his asshat associates. Whitmore on Redline doesn't seem to be interested in free speech for those who disagree with her views about what constitutes peril to the "Anglosphere" anyway.
Fortunately, I kept a draft copy of my comment that got disappeared – though not the later "Test Failed" single line about that disappearance which also got disappeared. So in the interest of freeing speech that the Free Speech Union does not want to be free, I will reproduce that here. The topic was chosen simply because it addressed the name and claims in the caption under the post's photo:
"…we would not generally exclude people from joining the Free Speech Union, or eject existing members, for engaging in uncivil behaviour (although we reserve the right to do so)."
So not really totally Free Speech at the FSU is it? Who exactly gets to determine what counts as "uncivil" in that context?
As a test then; Maya Forstater worked out her full contract, but that was not subsequently renewed because her colleagues found that presence was toxic to workplace morale. I am not going to say that the OP description is necessarily a lie; perhaps they are merely ignorant of such details in their rush for an easy slogan?
She's in the process of appealing, so I won't bother quoting from the (easily locatable if you are not daunted by all the big words) original ruling. But this did seem an important point for a FSU to consider (without even making a Godwhiny):
"Queen’s Counsel will argue on her behalf that her beliefs should be protected by law and she should have the right to refer to anyone however she likes, wherever and whenever she likes.
"If those arguments succeed, the court judgment won’t only apply in her specific case, it will apply in workplaces and businesses throughout the country. It will mean, for example, that a person will be permitted to misgender a trans work colleague, indeed be legally protected if they do so. This puts employers in an impossible position where one employee is entitled to harass another, likely making the employer liable to the harassed employee for discrimination. It is both morally wrong and practically unworkable: employers will not be able to meet their duty of making workplaces safe to work in or public spaces safe to visit.
"It would also, which perhaps may even concern Forstater, apply not only to beliefs that harm transgender people, but to any controversial belief a person may hold – including, for example, a belief that women are intellectually inferior to men. If Ms Forstater succeeds before the court, a man at work will have the protection of the law to make those statements at work whenever he likes, causing whatever damage he likes to the women he works with. That cannot be right. "
To clarify: MF didn’t do anything at her workplace that led to her contract not being renewed. She was tweeting from her personal Twitter account and the only connection with her employers or job was she said in her Twitter bio who she worked for.
So Forstater was fired not for transphobia at work but for tweeting personally such things as biological sex exists in a binary, that humans can’t literally change sex biologically and that she would use people’s preferred pronouns as a courtesy but didn’t believe people should be coerced into pronoun use.
of course that should be protected speech.
Seems reasonable that her employers ask her to remove reference to them given she was tweeting politically, but she should still be able to tweet without being fired.
the comparison with incells is specious. One, MF doesn’t argue for harm to be done to trans people. She wants trans people to have the same human rights as others. Two, Twitter is full of misogyny that largely goes unchallenged, include the routine death and rape threats aimed at gender critical feminists, as well as the routine use of violent and often sexually violent imagery used to attack GCFs that the trans supporting left has been silently sanctioning for years.
Forstater made the very grave error in declaring that it is impossible to change one's biological sex. "Sex" being generally understood (from a biological science point of view) to mean " either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions. " (Oxford)
One sex produces eggs and the other sperm. In the vast majority of births the sex of the baby is obvious upon observation of genitalia. It is impossible to change one's biological sex.
The number of births where the baby is intersex has been reported to be as low as 0.018% or as high as roughly 1.7%, depending on which conditions are counted as intersex.[4][5][6] The number of births with ambiguous genitals is in the range of 0.02% to 0.05%.
…either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
Okay Weka – I will provide more links in the future, it just seemed redundant in this case; as it's right there on the side of the page. Forgot that you can't see that on mobile. Alhough the comment I tried to leave earlier just got eaten by a single backspace, even though not Ctrl-A selected.
Anyway, it has been (until late afternoon) not too bad an autumn Saturday down here – I have been out and about. I will try and address some of the responses to my comment later on when kids in bed. At least I hope I will have more luck at that with a proper keyboard than a touch-screen.
Sorry Weka – that wasn't supposed to be a spray and walk away comment. I just didn't get around to responding on the weekend, and now it seems a bit pointless to dig up a two day old OM thread.
Also, the site is still eating comments if I so much as glance at the backspace key; on laptop as well as mobile.
I sometimes write my posts in a text editor and then cut and past across. I don't lose many but it's bloody annoying when it happens. Flick Lynn an email if it keeps happening.
Forget Now "terfs can be free to spout their transphobia".
Can you clarrify what is transphobic? Cause it seems to me if you are not prepared to say Trans Women are real women, for example, then you are branded as Trans phobic.
Many of us struggle to do so, because there is a difference between trans women and women who are biological women. And frankly I think I should be free not to have to say that trans women are real women. Absence of me saying that seems to label me trans phobic.
It is a fact that trans women and biological women are different. Different builds hormones, muscle mass, different experience growing up boy v. girl. Differences that give for example Laureen Hubbard a considerable advantage over other competitors in weight lifting. That is just unfair to biological women competitors and as such I will tell the truth about the disadvantageous situation for Laureens competitors and I want shut up about that.
The hope, I believe, is to become, not pre-industrial but post-industrial.
What I object to is that when I ask for more details on what this is meant to entail, and how the author thinks it might work – I'm told I'm 'strawmanning' and a flat out refusal to engage.
It doesn't give me any confidence in the real motives behind the thinking in this post at all. Like you I'm very supportive around the specifics of doing agriculture far more intelligently than we are, but when it's being used as a figleaf to 'smash capitalism' I sense a dishonest agenda in play.
Convince me otherwise.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Your first comment didn’t ask for detail. It went straight to your idea that sustainability = dark ages. That’s a straw man, hence the moderation.
Your latest comment presents another straw man: that the post is a fig leaf for smashing capitalism. There’s no such thing in the post, in fact I dropped bread crumbs all the way through of general ideas on solutions that are nothing to do with smashing capitalism (I tend to be agnostic on smashing capitalism as a pragmatic next step).
It’s obvious you didn’t understand the post. My suggestion is to stop making shit up about what I write and think if you want to comment under my posts. And if you want explanations then ask the commentariat. There are plenty of people in that conversation that can tell you what it’s about, and in fact some even tried to. And as McFlock pointed out, I’ve written a whole bunch of posts as part of a series explaining regenag and now sustainability, I’m guessing if we went back and looked we’d find you arguing against your straw men rather than engaging with the substance of the posts and asking for explanations.
I’ve just said to Gosman, probably the commenter furtherest from my politics, that he can argue against the post but he has to understand it first. Especially the basic premises which are just not what you are asserting.
You can ask that, that’s fine. What you can’t do is make up shit about the post or my thinking, which is what you’ve been moderated for. I’ve made suggestions about how to get answers to your questions, up to you if you want to use them next time. Please stay out of the conversation under that post from now though as I’ve spent more time on this than I want to.
If you will not specify in any detail what you're thinking – and I note that you're explicitly refusing to do so even now – then you don't have much grounds to complain when someone asks you to expand and clarify what you have in mind.
It's clear you think BAU is not sustainable – and in this I agree. Evolutionary change is both necessary and inevitable. But when I ask you to be more specific about what direction you want to take us, and think about the broader implications of going there – it seems you don't want to do this at all.
I’ve already said why I’m not explaining to you specifically and noted that there are others who might be more willing /shrug. I have no problem taking with people about what I write who don’t start out derailing my posts and then doubling and tripling down when asked not to.
When there is a perception and growing unease (!) that big changes are on the horizon, agendas become clearer and lines between them fuzzier. Different lobby groups can band together in their fight against a perceived common agenda and thus against a perceived common enemy; the raison d'être of lobby groups and so-called movements. The latter tends to often act as a bandwagon for all sorts of agendas, which may not have all that much in common – many a fringe party campaigns on a single issue rather than on a comprehensive and cohesive policy platform. In fact, it is not uncommon to see one agenda, which is not necessarily the founding one, hijack and take over a movement.
Some people are so intrinsically suspicious of change and people in power that it borders on paranoia; their ignorance but most their fear and emotions can drive them straight into the arms of populist propagandists and conspiracy advocates.
None of this is conducive to constructive public debate, which of course plays straight into the hands of those who prefer to maintain status quo and BAU.
There is some dangerous stuff happening with cancel culture and my particular focus is on being accused of being trans phobic unless you spout the ideological position that gender is fluid and trans women are real women.
The denial of biological sex is anti scientific. The language that trans activists use often amounts to deconstructing women's identity.
Great links Rosemary.
I am also waitng to see the outcome of Harry Millers second court case (hes an ex cop who in the context of a gender self i d debate on twitter got visited by the police at his work, despite the police acknowledging he hadn't committed a crime. He took Humberside Police to court and won. Good on him
Same old discrimination tropes today that were used decades ago against gays and lesbians- that males werent msaculine enough or the women werent femine enough. Because they didnt fit gender sterotypes of the time, then they didnt count as humans either
Biological sex is the physical reality that enables Homo sapiens to reproduce. Female/male. That there are variations within that doesn’t mean the binary doesn’t exist. Maybe you were referring to social dynamics around gender? If you did mean biology then please explain how a male and a person who’s not female could conceive a child.
It's not a 'continuum' – biological sex is very much a bi-modal distribution. Yes there is some overlap in some characteristics (like height for example), but overall it's idiotic to pretend that most people (>99%) don't clearly identify as male or female.
Biology is not a perfect sorting machine that unambiguously puts everyone into one sex or another, occasionally it blurs the boundaries, but using these boundary cases to dismantle an idea that's utterly embedded in our natures is just silly.
You do realise most of the non-Western world is laughing at us for even having this 'debate'.
If your argument on 'biological sex' falls apart ( 3.5% on the continuum) then your your real aim against gender identity and even more specifically men who identify as women has no basis either.
Just because its maybe a few % who have a gender identity different to their genitals its not OK to use Catholic Church teachings as basis for everyone else.
Personally I don't have a dog in these ongoing 'gender wars' at all. Biological sex is for all practical purposes a male/female divide with a tiny fraction of ambiguous individuals. The idea there are 3.5% of people who're biologically ambiguous simply doesn't align with everyday experience. (My partner reads these threads sometimes, and she just shakes her head with incredulity that any of this is a 'thing'.)
As for 'gender' – well I'm even less impressed by the whole concept itself. I fully recognise that individual people, being the creative and diverse bunch they are, will express their sexual identity in a whole range of ways. In this I really don't care, as long as I'm not compelled to partake I'm perfectly happy to live and let live.
But to then use gender as a tool to start dividing people into categories and then setting them against each other – well I think I'll leave it here and go back to self-censoring before I say anything I might further regret.
'he idea there are 3.5% of people who're biologically ambiguous simply doesn't align with everyday experience."
Yes, because its isnt so obvious, and everyday experience isnt a good way to judge, not that you are, many other do.
But I would agree about your other views,it wouldn't generally matter to everybody else. But the Catholic Church and other conservatives with their dogma and discriminatory views have been joined by some progressives in common cause- but they claim a scientific basis which is flat out wrong. They are only left with prejudice which is almost entirely against men who identify as women.
So true! Biology or rather Mother Nature is not a sorting machine at all. It is a human construct, by and large, and mainly one from/by the Western/European cultural and historical philosophy.
In this binary logic, the world was divided into mutually exclusive units – life forms into species and genera through Linnaean taxonomy; people into different categories through censuses and ‘nation states’; human inquiry into different disciplines; …
So if binary biology is nothing more than a Western construct, how come all non-Western cultures – and all of the non-human animal kingdom for that matter – seem to have no problem identifying which are the boys and the girls and then setting about having babies?
These are extreme cases. But many other animals cannot be classified simply as “males” and “females”, as if members of each sex will look and act according to the same template.
I didn’t say that though did I. Care to explain how humans reproduce without the sex binary? Seriously, I’d like to hear your thinking.
if on the other hand you mean that that the word sex has social as well as biological meaning, then I’d agree with you. But you said there is no such thing as biological sex and that requires an explanation using biology not social concepts.
It seems you using the biological race theories ( based on physical attributes) to apply to the 'gender-sphere'
The real point of classifying people into different races was to 'allow' discrimination. Which is the same aim as those who follow the strict biological sex theory , its for exclusionary reasons. A social construct is being used for social exclusion
I can tell you as a woman who no longer ovulates that I’m still biologically female. To suggest that women who can’t conceive aren’t female is fucked up and offensive.
You still haven’t explained how there is no such thing as biological sex. It’s nothing to do with race. There’s no such thing as biological races in humans, and there’s no evidence for such. Otoh, reproduction is well studied, and humans understood it before western science came along because it’s observable.
Anyway, this is going to get boring fast, to save us the trouble I’ll assume you are talking about social aspects of sex, probably conflated with gender, and are not in fact talking about biology
Biological sex is real. Our lives depend on it. Literally.
Gender expression on the other hand is whatever one wants. The presumption that one's genitals dictates one's personality is false. Feminists have battled long and hard for this. This idea that if one's personality fails to conform to some archaic notion of gender then one was born into the wrong body is a hugely retrograde step.
The concept that failing to conform to sex-role stereotypes can be fixed with drugs and surgery is, to some of us, abhorrent.
It is an example of how destructive our present direction is to communities and human patterns of life that bind us together, that we are now arguing about how we show we are people and what sort of people and how we reproduce ourselves etc.
Once we didn't question like this and the progressive attitude was to make things better for ourselves as people, now many are educated to think along machine-like lines, to question everything, and we have no certainties, no ground to stand upon.
With the ground opening under us, a group needs to rise that presents an ethos that embraces us and which everybody can accept apart from the most utopian or misognystic. We need to agree on some Guiding Principles which could lead to us questioning a proposition; such as 'Is this going to be helpful for solving a problem or advancing betterment' or some other open query that looks to positive outcomes.
Thats merely a catholic church teaching… which is fine if you choose to follow that faith. Dont expect to impose on anyone else. Do YOU want to impose it on others ?
'The Church supports people being whole and healthy people. Our understanding of gender is tied to biological sex, which is also tied to the spiritual reality of a person. For this reason, the Church does not teach that a person’s gender can be different than their biological sex, that it falls onto a spectrum, or that it can be fluid.'
There is the same 'fluidity' for sex and gender. May not be the same people.
Dont let the facts about small group ( around the same proportion as twins) who dont have fit your theory on 'biological sex' get in the way of your abhorrence- which is really about men becoming women isnt it!
Nope, no problem with people transitioning to another gender, including trans women. Do have a problem with people who make assertions on TS that they can’t explain. You’ve got some beliefs there, which is fine, I’m just not seeing the evidence to support where you are asserting them as fact.
It's a woman's, man's or non-binary person's right to choose (or not choose.)
Choice delayed is choice denied, particularly in more 'on demand' societies.
They may not be typical of people who have transitioned to another gender. And they are not a judgement on the decisions of other trans people, be they trans men, trans women or non-binary.
Both of these young people are conscious of how stories of detransition have been used by transphobic organisations and commentators to invalidate the experience of trans and non-binary people, and attack their hard-fought access to health care. Neither Ellie nor Nele deny the rights of trans people. They do, however, question whether transition is always the right solution.
" conform to sex-role stereotypes can be fixed with drugs and surgery is abhorrent'
Maybe you should protest outside fertility clinics as they use drugs to improve women's ability to conceive. Gynecologists can tell you about common physical impediments to childbirth that are corrected by surgery.
Also Im surprised you dont about the surgery called Cesarean section.
Surgery and drugs is OK when it meets your requirements but not for others? And please dont stigmatise those that do.
Let me put it this way. One of my part timer is a trans women, however she will never menstruate, never get pregnant, never give birth, and never go through menopause.
And these are differences that can make a great difference in life.
AS to how 'infertile' women perceive this?
Well i had a hysterectomy 20 odd years ago due to a rapid growth tumor. So now i don't menstruate anymore, had a whole lot of sex without having any pregnancy scare (wow, so liberating!) never gave birth and now go through menopause. Also the money i saved on female hygiene products is just insane! That shit is expensive.
Am I still a biological women. I just never birthed a child. . And also let me assure you that your question about 'infertile women' also applies to 'infertile men' – what would you call them?
I simply suggest that you stay away from this discussion as clearly you don't want to listen to women and the potential issues they have in a conservation that acutely affects them.
As for trans women are women? No matter how many and how hard anyone wants to believe that they are a women or are like all women – or as Kaitlyn Jenner said 'for all intend and purposes i ama woman' but i certainly would never discuss menstruation, child birth, menopause, breastfeeding, hysterectomies, cervical cancer, fallopian cysts, etc with them. Because they would have no clue what i am speaking of. Cause that part of women hood is biological and we did not ask for it, it came with us.
Gender Fluidity arent necessarily the same people as those who dont fit the idea of a biological sex.
Why are you so obsessed about menstruation, those before puberty and after menopause cant. Is that another category of what makes a woman ?
What those people who beat the biological sex drum want to do is create a rigid class of what a women is, so they can exclude the gender fluid/ and those without the right genitals/childbirth etc.
And when they can create the right genitals – your abhorrence shows its your own social construction thats threatened. Well boo hoo, its unacceptable to use some sort of psuedo biological reasoning to create discrimination.
It’s not an obsession with menstruation, she named a range of life stages specific to females (irrespective of whether all females go through all stages). Women talking about the experiment of menstruation is core to femajesy and no other class of people. The push to stop women talking about their own experiences is part of why there is the sex/gender war.
thing that fucks me off about your position is that we could have been having a conversation about how to make society safe and good for women and gender fluid people. But the insistence that this class of people doesn’t exist is pitting people who should other wise be allies against each other.
you can make up shit about and misrepresent my beliefs and there’s not a lot I can do about it (although I will moderate on TS if it gets out of hand), but the numbers of women who are increasingly alarmed not by trans people but by the loss of women’s culture and rights is getting larger every day. I just hope the left wing GCFs prevail, because the right wing GC people are going to do massive damage other wise.
Where have I said anything about a class that doesnt exits.
Medically the idea of a rigid he-she line doesnt scientifically happen
'According to the BBC documentary, Me, My Sex and I, “There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.”
when you get your menstruation around 10 – 13 and you have this until you are well into your 40s it is not an obsession but a bodily function thanks to biology. Its like men having boners in the morning. The only ones having them are those that are born with a penis. Also not an obsession. Just a biological tick in the 0 1 universe that creates 'man' and 'woman' and guarantees the survival of the species.
The fact that you have to ask why we women are so obsessed about menstruation actually says it all. Biological women menstruate, whether they want to or not. Actually most of us would be really happy to live without that particular part of womanhood but conversely it is a universal shared experience that brings us together. It is a thing that makes us women.
Womanhood is not all about genitals, it is about shared experience and all the stuff Sabine said and sadly for your perspective the plumbing that makes us menstruate is ONE aspect of that.
Women and Trans women are different. I don't see this as discriminatory just as. Different is not a judgement it is just different!!
Transwomen have their own stuff, leave us with our stuff please.
I think you are male Ghost, but I could be wrong. "Obsessed about menstruation" lol lol lol………………….A woman would understand why this might be the case!
… but i certainly would never discuss menstruation, child birth, menopause, breastfeeding, hysterectomies, cervical cancer, fallopian cysts, etc with them. Because they would have no clue what i am speaking of.
What a most peculiar statement. People do discuss these things with people of the opposite sex, e.g. with their partners/spouses. Not every woman has (had) the things you list and similarly, not every man has (had) erectile issues, prostate or testicular cancer or male breast cancer, for example. We discuss [my emphasis] these things, which can be among the most personal, with people we trust and I don’t see how this would or could be limited to one’s own sex only. I might be missing something here.
Women do talk to other women about things that they don’t talk to men about. In the same way gardeners might talk with other gardeners about a topic. They might also talk to non gardeners but the conversation is different. This is a common thing among humans.
Yes, common, that is the key word here, which here means not exclusively or not always. This is a crucial point that often is ignored, sometimes (?) deliberately, which is in/with many (?) public discussions and debates on complex and sensitive issues, some people and/or groups are excluded, ignored, or cancelled even. I’m convinced that this never ends with good outcomes for all in the long run, not even when it is (supposedly) only (!) temporary. For example, when X talk about X then Y should stay silent and listen. It takes effort, sometimes considerable effort, from all sides to be as inclusive as possible and not to slide into technical jargon or lingo that excludes others or turns discussions into superficial and almost meaningless convos. Make of that what you will.
I get the point at the general level but Sabine was saying that she personally wouldn’t talk to a trans woman about biological processes specific to females. Whether that’s absolute or not I don’t know (I didn’t take it that way, I took it to mean she wouldn’t talk women’s business rather than never ever talk female biology, and it’s Sabine’s style to be blunt and appear absolutist).
But, there are times when exclusion is appropriate. Women having spaces separate from men, Maori caucuses within or alongside Pakeha dominant orgs, men’s drumming circles, we have a lot of such things in human society that aren’t in and of themselves discriminatory. It’s hard to see how Sabine could have made her comment inclusive when the point of it was to show difference.
No, while i talk women stuff with her, such as lower pay for women, being an immigrant women, travelling as a women, cooking, boys, career in her chosen field and so on, i would not discuss with her the trauma of having an emergency hysterectomy and in doing so having lost all potential children i could have born. There are the things that i can 'identify' with her as a women, and then there are things that i can not identify with her as a women. If that makes any sense, in the same sense as i don't expect to talk about all her issues to me just because we both fall in that box 'women' now. She and I we know full well that we are not 'the same', but we both identify as women.
As to my 'blunt' style, i am german and thus lack all english sense of etiquette and am usually to honest to be polite, and english is not my first language. So maybe that should also be factored in. Not everyone is native.
I think talking to a trans woman about menstruation etc, wouldn't be something I would do. It would feel a bit like talking about my pregnancy to an infertile couple, but it would depend I guess.
It’s not an obsession with menstruation, she named a range of life stages specific to females (irrespective of whether all females go through all stages). Women talking about the experiment of menstruation is core to femajesy and no other class of people. The push to stop women talking about their own experiences is part of why there is the sex/gender war.
The same applies to people who want us to discuss these very personal issues with people we might not care to because they find refusal to do so ‘peculiar’. Nothing peculiar about it. Unless women now no longer have the right to discuss these female centric biological issues with people whom they identify with?
Obviously, no two people are the same and I don’t recognise your and weka’s reasoning as a given that applies to all and this is what I meant by “peculiar” but it is obvious from your reaction you took it to mean something different and negative; it wouldn’t be the first time 🙁
I don’t think anybody here today has said or tried to stop women discussing certain issues with “people whom they identify with” (AKA other women) but one doesn’t get to pick and choose here who replies and what they’ll say. Weka has previously posted Leftie-only and women-only posts on this site and even then people stray across, sometimes accidentally, sometimes not … However, even then, you cannot stop people commenting and trying to run interference from the side lines in posts such as this one (i.e. OM). Personally, I don’t think it is the most effective and efficient way to go about it but I have supported & policed the efforts as weka knows. Framing it as a “war” is problematic, IMO.
I don’t want this to become an argument so this is my final comment about it here and now.
There is war going on Incognito, and it’s terrible. TS had largely been sheltered from it for a range of reasons.
It’s not that women in this conversation have been stopped from speaking, but then this is a mixed sex space. However TS most definitely has a history of women not being able to fully take part and that’s never been resolved. That’s not been around the gender/sex wars, but there’s something here about watching left wing men not listen to women, again, in this particular war as it comes to TS. Many people are underestimating just how serious this is for women.
beyond that, there are absolutely massive issues with suppression of debate in the war. And women are bearing the brunt of that. This is a listen and learn situation imo, not that men should take part but an acknowledgment of not getting what we are talking about wouldn’t go amiss.
I will add that I don’t consider TS to be a safe debate space for trans people either, nor other groups. This is part of why I haven’t talked about the war until recently and why I’ve written only one post. But the war is about to arrive in our faces because of NZ legislative changes and we need to get up to speed with how to make room for the debate here.
To give you an example, women are being told in social media groups not to use language specific to their bodies because it’s exclusionary. That’s the context for Ghost’s reductionist and dismissive framing of women talking about our bodies. Am happy to explain why having our language taken is such a big deal if it’s not apparent.
Ghost you are making a big claim "there is no such thing as biological sex". and using a Forbes magazine article, written by a ?Journalist? Please. Big claims call for very big evidence. And I mean scientific evidence.
You are alive because a female produced an egg and a male sperm. The female then carried you in her womb and gave birth to you. Even if IVF etc, was used, it is still the same process.
Ghost, you make extraordinary claims "there is no such thing as biological sex" and then use a Forbes magazine article, written by a ?journalist? to back it up .
Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence. Science please.
You are alive because a female egg got fertilized by a male sperm and you were carried in someones womb for approx 9 mths and then said women gave birth to you.
That women would have ovulated, menstuated, grown breasts, had the capacity to breast feed and then has or will go through menopause. She is on average of shorter stature to men, she has less muscle mass and more oestrogen and progesterone. These are the facts and if you do not accept them, you need some compelling evidence to present to say otherwise. People on this site acknowledge that there are some people (a very small minority who are born asexual and that there are a very small minority of people who are born a sex and experience gender dysphoria about this.
Most of us here are likely to have compassion for this and be respectful towards such people. Some of us really object to having science re-written, by people who aren't scienctists and being told unless we tow this ideological line we are trans phobic and run the risk of being cancelled.
What you arguing for is called Essentialism, thats theres immutable rules which determine these things . However you are wrong, as was explained in a whole issue of Lancet ( is that 'medical' enough for you)
And yet, as medical anthropologist Katrina Karkazis pointed out in The Lancet last year, the facile search for a definitive trait of biological sex continues:
For a century, scientists studied an array of human characteristics that inform our ideas of what makes someone a woman or a man, seeking to pin down a single, definitive biological indicator. Bodies troubled these schemes and led to socially untenable categorizations. If gonads were understood as the essence of sex, women who were phenotypically female but who had testes were men. This didn’t make sense, so scientists proposed yet other traits. Even as they debated which biological trait signaled its essence, scientists understood sex as biological and involving multiple, if contested, factors.
"As such, there is growing support for the idea that gender classification is not simply a matter of biology, but rather is the result of complex and ever-shifting interactions between culture and biology."
Hmmm. A scientific journal suggesting that what we were taught in intermediate school was a simplified version of what is actually a much more complex and nuanced subject?
“Even as they debated which biological trait signalled its essence, scientists understood sex as biological and involving multiple if contested factors”.
In reply to McFlook, biological sex in the vast majority of cases isn’t complex or nuanced. For The vast majority of people their assigned sex at birth is simple and straightforward. They have anatomy and biological differences that make it clear they are either female or male and this is egosyntonic
The article is published it a medical journal,but no cries to do away with assigning sex at birth.
Interestingly it is the activists who are calling for gender self id, not scientists or medical associations
so scientists agree that sex is biological. So do I.
A recurring theme in these discussions here seems to be that just because something appears to apply to the vast majority of people, for the purposes of discussion we can ignore the existence of anyone for whom it does not actually apply – even if the discussion is partly about them.
Reasserting a category is soothing for people trying to resist it being reconceptualised. Has happened every step of the way. Won't matter ultimately but can cause harm in the meantime.
Yes Sacha, I object to what being a women is being recategorized.
I am sorry if that is hurtful for some, but believe I have science on my side and also have a right to defend the de construction of my identity as a women.
McFlook re your comments.
Most of us here are likely to have compassion for this and be respectful towards such people. Some of us really object to having science re-written, by people who aren't scienctists and being told unless we tow this ideological line we are trans phobic and run the risk of being cancelled.
No I’d like you to explain something about your reference beyond that sound bite. Because it looks like you think they took a specific position and I’m not sure you are correct.
Thanks. A quick look at the start, they’re talking about biology not being destiny, ie we have a biology but it doesn’t predetermine what women should do or what roles we should have in society. That’s different from saying there’s no biological definition of female.
The minute expressions such as "pregnant people" and "menstruators" and "lactators" began appearing in MSM and governmental publications as if all of these are not applicable to women only, some of us realized this whole issue had gone too far. Way too far.
GCF have spoken about their concerns that the trans movement could conceivably erase women, as defined as 'adult human female'. They were obviously right.
…biological sex did not define women? And yet, back in those heady days of Women's Lib, some of the more radical spent time with mirrors strategically placed so they could properly acquaint themselves with the parts of their anatomy they had been conditioned (for millennia) to hide and be ashamed of.
I believe that what was meant by not being 'defined' by biological sex was that we women should not be confined by limitations placed upon us by a largely predominant patriarchy because we are female.
Back we are to that old chestnut of 'sex-role-stereotypes'…revived again by this trans movement which seems to believe that biological sex does define and confine a person.
I believe that what was meant by not being 'defined' by biological sex was that we women should not be confined by limitations placed upon us by a largely predominant patriarchy because we are female.
this. It’s also a misreading of GCF views to conflate them with bioessentialism. Words and their shared meaning matter.
@Sacha. No. I meant what I said. These people clearly truly believe that they can only be 'true to themselves' if they can legally change their biological sex. (As if such a thing is actually possible.)
As if they are defined and confined by their biological sex.
They are not. Just as I am not. Or yourself. Or any of us.
talk about being reduced to biological happenings.
No longer a girl, or a women but a menstruator, lactators, pregnant people'.
Heck, why would anyone be upset by these charming adjectives to descripe describe the one half of the world population that bred all of worlds humanity.
A recurring theme in these discussions here seems to be that just because something appears to apply to the vast majority of people, for the purposes of discussion we can ignore the existence of anyone for whom it does not actually apply – even if the discussion is partly about them.
humans reproduce via two biological sexes, social understandings of sex are more nuanced, intersex people exist, trans people exist, biologically female people exist. None of those things are contradictory.
when a woman starts talking about her politics and experience as a woman it doesn’t harm others that she doesn’t always refer to them. #notallhumans is a reactionary response. It’s patronising too.
I don’t recall support for intersex people being talked about here until women started talking about their politics. Maybe we can find ways to support both groups.
So when medical science is finally able to give people the fully-functioning reproductive system of their choice, do you think these arguments will stop? Because I don't.
I don't think that will be possible. Reproduction and childbirth and lacttion is complex and lots of it we don't understand particularly well. But I don't see how that is relevant. You want men of the distant future to be able to have babies (why?), but you don't want women in the here and now to have the right to determine their own existence and politics? This is not new McFlock, but as I've said I'm surprised to hear it coming from you.
I'm not sure how distant it actually is, but where will the discussion go when it does happen?
Every time someone has nailed sex into two distinct categories, an exception gets brought up. So then the commenter either says that such exceptions are so uncommon as to make the experiences of those people not worth considering (although they're not usually honest enough to put it into those terms), or tightens up the criteria. But there are eventually exceptions to those criteria, too. And the more the criteria get tightened, more and more people get kicked out of one group or the other – even people who aren't the targets of the people obsessed with the binary.
Everyone can determine their own existence and politics. But if those politics are based upon a myth as an excuse to endanger others and deny them medical care, other people are allowed (and have a duty) to criticise those politics.
As you put it, "humans reproduce via two biological sexes". That says absolutely nothing about the gamut of people who never had the biological equipment to reproduce. And there are others who have had medical intervention to either get functioning reproductive organs, or organs that look like functioning reproductive organs.
So the statement "humans reproduce via two biological sexes" is simply a description of the reproductive act, and is of no help whatsoever in discussing who should participate in which sporting event or who should use which toilet block.
If you don't like the continuum idea, try ""humans reproduce via two biological sexes that are two general classes that mostly (but by no means entirely) account for millions of variations in human sexual or reproductive organs".
That didn’t answer my question. Do you think there is a class of people that are biologically female? You are implying there is in your last paragraph, but I just want to be clear.
I'm not sure I would use that term (or "biologically male", for that matter), to denote a "class" of people.
There are males and females.
There are males with female characteristics and vice versa. Not just the sex organs: hormone levels, bodily proportions, whatever. Are they not "biologically" one because they have features of the other?
Is it so difficult to imagine that just as sometimes there might be a mismatch in the physical characteristics between one sex pole and the other, there might be a mismatch between the physical characteristics and the complex physiology and chemistry of the brain? But even then "biologically [male/female]" would still be a relative term, not a categorical one.
Yeah! Nationalise builders and their companies and suppliers of building materials and have the whole building industry prioritised to building stock for government houses.
That'd go down well.
Oops, except for those working of shoddy school buildings. Oh and those upgrading hospitals.
It's just a comment to summarise the debate – people want 'The Government' to do everything, be involved with everything to do with housing. Government is in the gun when any element of housing is not to someone's satisfaction.
I'd read the Tauranga article earlier. Surely only by one agency having control of all facets of housing, linking, co-ordinating controlling can they be blamed for all shortfalls and problems.
When we have someone in Tauranga offering to pay $30,000 upfront and a Rotorua couple so desperate they pay more than they can affair is just the market working?
You want the Government to get in boots and all and tackle everything?
My suggestion would be a start. Then there'd be railing though about 'communism' and let the market decide. Or the half pie measures like wanting the Government involvement in fringe little bits.
Housing and homelessness was literally was the reason for so many to actually vote for these timewasters. But yeah, i get it the second election was won by Covid, so now they don't have to pretend anymore to work for the people. Now they literally just seem to show off to some think tanks and big business who hopefully will elect them when they lose the next election.
Honestly i don't think anyone in this country voted for Andrew Little to grandstand with his remake of the Health System in NZ, all the while freezing wages for 'frontline' worker. And certainly no one voted for Michael Woods to pontificate and potentially fuck up the already fucked up process of wage negotiations in NZ.
I just want this bloody government to do one thing, and that is to encourage smart building – building to rent, not building to accumulate an assett or several to create an even worse housing shortage by keeping houses empty for Captial Gains by the thousands..
But that is in the too hard basket it seems. And yes, i do want the government to interfere in the 'free and unregulated market' and regulate to the best of the greater good and for the benefit of all.
Good explainer from RNZ. Still this Q: are there examples of herd immunity to an illness, from vaccination, where repeat vaccination is needed ongoing, or is this new territory?
Also, has the govt described how border opening might work and how non vaccinated people would be protected?
The Rotumans come from a tiny island north of Fiji and try to live there in a good and practical way. They keep their connections going in New Zealand and show us a good Pacific way to be. I hope their ceremonial get-together is an enjoyable occasion of friendly meetings.
Navigating the EESG Cross-Currents: Sustainable Stakeholder Corporate Governance
Leo E. Strine Jr. and Karessa L. Cain – Leo and Karessa will join us via livestream from the US to discuss a practical approach to sustainable stakeholder corporate governance, exploring employee, environmental, social and governance considerations for directors.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/442116/endangered-leatherback-turtle-returned-to-hapu Documents show more than $10,000 was spent by DOC and Te Papa on transportation and a burial ceremony. Te Rūnanga o Koukourārata chair Dr Matiu Payne said the honu is a taniwha, a guiding deity for his people, and is part of the legends passed down, although this traditional knowledge was purposely not widely shared
This was a good decision and expenditure. Maori don't tell all to nosy tauiwi who often take the knowledge and exploit it. Also remember how much that the government is prepared to pay elite professionals for some task, could be $1000 a day.
eg New Tauranga City Council commissioners could … – NZ Herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz › bay-of-plenty-times › news
5/02/2021 — Commissioners appointed to lead Tauranga City Council could be paid … A Cabinet paper shows Tolley to be paid up to $1,800 a day for her work, and … The term of the commission will run until just after the next local government … days a week for the other commissioners, while they work to…
You obviously still don’t understand context. Let me explain it to and for you:
A link as a reply can stand on its own, especially if it points to factual/informative content and the URL is sufficiently self-explanatory and/or it is a direct answer to somebody’s question. A link out of the blue that goes to an opinion piece or video clip, for example, when the URL is not explaining it clearly is a no-no because there’s no context.
Please don’t hesitate to ask if you need further clarification.
Please don’t run interference with my pre-moderation comments again, thanks.
A new analysis of the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic suggests 6.9 million people worldwide have died from the disease, more than twice as many people as has been officially reported.
In the United States, the analysis estimates, 905,000 people have died of Covid since the start of the pandemic. That is about 61% higher than the current death estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 561,594. The new figure also surpasses the estimated number of U.S. deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic, which was estimated to have killed approximately 675,000 Americans.
Thanks joe90 – an interesting analysis from the IHME. The apparent estimated 10-fold under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths in Japan is noteworthy as the Olympics loom.
Looking at past NZ history in the 1980's. This, deja vu all over again?
New Zealand’s economic difficulties persisted into the mid-1980s, and Muldoon’s National Government favoured erratic policies which ranged from severe spending cuts, to energy-intensive development, to an extreme wage and price freeze. Unemployment continued to increase and New Zealand society was changing:
Māori protest at the legacies of colonisation was more visible; a third wave of feminism challenged many assumptions about work, family life, fertility and the media; environmental movements challenged assumptions about economic growth and development; and there was increasing discussion around a non-aligned and anti-nuclear foreign policy. https://www.labour.org.nz/history
Who or what was responsible for changing our direction? Douglas/Treasury?
[Douglas] argued in 1982 that the government should actively support small business, and intervene to stop the aggregation of assets by big business. In his view, the government should use the tax system to encourage productive investment and discourage speculative investment. Until the end of 1983, Douglas saw exchange rate, tax and protection policies as means of actively shaping the business environment. In August 1982 he supported a contributory superannuation scheme as a means of funding industrial development and in February 1983 he wrote a paper called "Picking Winners for Investment" which proposed the establishment of local consultative groups to guide regional development. In a paper dated May 1983, Douglas argued that an unregulated market led to unhealthy concentrations of market power. //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Events_after_the_1981_election
At the end of 1983 there was a marked change in Douglas's thinking. He prepared a caucus paper called the "Economic Policy Package" which called for a market-led restructuring of the economy…He acknowledged the contribution to the package of Doug Andrew, a Treasury officer on secondment to the parliamentary opposition, among others.[25] W H Oliver noted the close alignment of the package and Economic Management,[26] Treasury's 1984 briefing to the incoming government.[27] His assessment was that Douglas was predisposed towards the Treasury view because its implementation required decisive action and because greater reliance on the market solved what Douglas saw as the problem of interest-group participation in policy-making. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#A_new_direction,_1983%E2%80%931984
/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Minister_of_Finance,_1984%E2%80%931988
In 1984, Roger Douglas was made Minister of Finance, with two associate ministers of finance, David Caygill and Richard Prebble. They became known as the "Treasury Troika" or the "Troika", and became the most powerful group in Cabinet.[32] Douglas was the strategist, Prebble the tactician, while Caygill mastered the details. With Caygill the "nice cop" and Prebble the "nasty cop", Douglas could sometimes appear as steering a considered middle course. Later Trevor de Cleene was made undersecretary to Douglas, with special responsibility for Inland Revenue. [33] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Immediate_results
Probably, but we embraced it (at least the political class did) early and with such enthusiasm we appear to have disabled ourselves to the extent we are unable to imagine anything else.
However, Professor Peter Collignon from Australian National University said the risk of transmission between New South Wales and New Zealand was very low.
I have a niggling worry besetting my brow – is our government still vital and in good mental health? Who tests them to make sure they are compos mentis? Do they need to be all wired up in their seats in Parliament that send a regular charge through to jerk their muscles every half hour, sort of like A Weekend at Bernies.
Or are they reminiscent of the Dead Parrot Sketch. Are they appearing, saying their piece after being partly resuscitated, and then being nailed back on their perch? Are they too debilitated to let fly with chirpy policy after a long squawk over Covid19 and other tiresome bothers? Will we end up being offered a slug, that doesn't talk for our next PM?
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
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It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
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Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
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Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
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TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
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Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
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https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/125038675/the-truth-about-the-setup-on-manners-wellingtons-notorious-emergency-housing-hotel
Dear Mr. Property Developer, the only reason you can hold on to your development without an influx of backpacckers who don't care how many are shoved into a room as they only stay a night or two is the two tier rental / owning houses system that we have. And if you too are one of those that profit of this misery by making millions of not housing people i can understand why you would not want to talk about it. It might not reflect well upon you. Those who can still afford to rent/buy will try to do so, and those that are excluded by the market will get shoved into your hovel with no rental security for a week or more at the highest market price and WINZ will pay so as to look humane, and the government is happy to foot the bill so as to not come across as the callous useless tories they are.
These arrogant out of touch good for nothing people.
It needs to be all about the needs of the people who are staying in emergency accommodation. The landlord will use any financial advantage for their own benefit.
It is about the disruption and unknown when faced with being homeless caused by not being able to afford a rental or due to the landlord selling up. I can see why there needs to be restrictions for those who cause problems for the emergency guests, even though they themselves are an emergency guest over stepping it.
Night shelters should never have become run down. There were never enough of them. They were supervised. I personally do not like night shelters long term but they are vital short term.
Is it just me who thinks this?Not having a bed, (even in a night shelter) is depriving a person of a basic human right.
Accessing emergency housing has barriers. Walking in off the street to a night shelter is straight forward.
The government could rent the flats outright for market rent and then place the people in need in a safe and secure flat, rather then pay the mortgage of this guy on the backs of the homeless.
Yes and I thought that to. The landlord has arranged it the way he has as it is more lucrative. He eases his conscience by saying he is helping, yes but at an inflated cost for the government. I know this is going to sound nuts but he could charge what a weeks rent would be for an apartment. They all could who are at the government trough.
I did read how bad the run down night shelter was. The reality is that some people are so high, intoxicated, acutely unwell that a night shelter needs to be designed so it is safe, maintained and can be managed.
Does anyone know how a homeless person manages when they have no bed and they are high, intoxicated or acutely unwell?
I was never high, intoxicated or actuely unwell while being a transient teenager, but if you don't have access to shelter or emergency housing you have the choice of – somewhere in the woods a little encampment which is probably the safest, in some doorways with cameras – also somewhat safe, somewhere in someones house in exchange for sex, on someones sofa or floor because they are generous or in occupied empty housing (not here in NZ obviously) and of course your car if you have one. There really are no good options, and frankly to live this way it helps being high or intoxicated cause sober is just no way to live on the streets, and most have mental illness, come from broken homes, abusive situations etc. There is a small subset of people that have made a proffesional life on living on the streets but these are not people you would find in emergency housing.
Currently the people living in emergency housing are people who can not find a rental, who may work a job, who may have been made homeless not because they are bad renter but because they simply lost their rental.
Yes, landlords wanting more and more rent or selling up is the main cause for homelessness for most in emergency housing.
Those with complex needs require support to readjust to living within 4 walls. Rent free for 90 days and power paid. Basically relegating financial responsibility to someone else.
There needs to be some sort of housing assistance to prevent further homelessness. Peter is being robbed to pay Paul and the government needs to pay Paul to not rob Peter.
Government need to buy existing homes as they cannot build them fast enough. 22,000 people waiting for state housing is only going to increase.
Are the 22,000 part of the emergency housing stats?
Edit
relegatingtransferringWhat a jolly good idea!!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kiwis-cant-outbid-kainga-ora-government-grilled-over-750-million-house-buying-bill/5C2LMNP7F5ZTSJMDF6BL3P2SG4/
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/04/government-buys-hundreds-of-houses-in-direct-competition-with-first-home-buyers.html
Yes it is a jolly good idea and I say keep doing it.
What would work for first home buyers raising a deposit?
The people who are in competition with first home buyers are the home investors.
Another jolly good idea!
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/govt-housing-package-backs-first-home-buyers
The jolly lolly for the home investor is no longer sweet.
There needs to be a jolly lolly deposit scheme for the first home buyer so they can give their landlord notice.
I note that close to 100% of homes the government purchase will not be a home investor ghost home. People will actually live in the home which I thought was the purpose of purchasing a home.
What do you mean?
I could not parse your third paragraph either.
Lolly as in money a slang term. The lolly from the government, something like using the old family benefit (probably closest to it WFF) to get an advance to use for a home deposit. I do realise not everyone gets WFF.
Third paragraph, I expect not
note, I tried to edit but to late.It is proving to be a challenge to rebalance the effects of what home investors have done to the housing and rental market. The banks are also culpable with easy loans when a person has collateral.
Yes, I know the alternative meaning of lolly. I don’t get how you’d want to link it up to giving notice to the landlord, that’s all.
Yes, it takes time to unwedge a big obstacle with little manoeuvring room.
Tenant is able to buy a first home through a government deposit scheme, 28 days notice to the landlord.
Keep your eye on the Australian full budget next week. I saw a headline daily mail Australia about single parents and a 2% deposit for a home.
It looks like you tried to post this link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-08/single-parents-assistance-buying-home-new-budget/100126040.
You know that NZ has a deposit scheme too through KiwiSaver: https://kaingaora.govt.nz/home-ownership/first-home-grant/
I still don’t know whether you’re advocating for Government assistance to go to Landlords when giving notice.
I am advocating for first home owners so they can pay their own mortgage.
It would be a thrill to give the landlord 28 days notice and move into your own place.
The kaingaroa scheme falls short for a deposit. I do like the Aussie one for single parents 2% required, the federal government top it up 18% so the 20% deposit has been reached. I have seen it so many times the shortfall in NZ and if kiwis saver was that great there would be more first home buyers.
I saw a link to the NZ branch of the tory eugenicist, Toby Young's; Free Speech Union over on TS's Feeds list the other night. That was quite a rabbit hole! See the DR for 7/5 for my immediate response.
Though free speech is apparently only for Jordan William and his asshat associates. Whitmore on Redline doesn't seem to be interested in free speech for those who disagree with her views about what constitutes peril to the "Anglosphere" anyway.
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2021/05/07/the-free-speech-union-nz-branch/
Fortunately, I kept a draft copy of my comment that got disappeared – though not the later "Test Failed" single line about that disappearance which also got disappeared. So in the interest of freeing speech that the Free Speech Union does not want to be free, I will reproduce that here. The topic was chosen simply because it addressed the name and claims in the caption under the post's photo:
"…we would not generally exclude people from joining the Free Speech Union, or eject existing members, for engaging in uncivil behaviour (although we reserve the right to do so)."
So not really totally Free Speech at the FSU is it? Who exactly gets to determine what counts as "uncivil" in that context?
As a test then; Maya Forstater worked out her full contract, but that was not subsequently renewed because her colleagues found that presence was toxic to workplace morale. I am not going to say that the OP description is necessarily a lie; perhaps they are merely ignorant of such details in their rush for an easy slogan?
She's in the process of appealing, so I won't bother quoting from the (easily locatable if you are not daunted by all the big words) original ruling. But this did seem an important point for a FSU to consider (without even making a Godwhiny):
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/maya-forstater-rowling-trans-b1838137.html
If TERFs can be free to spout their transphobia, then why would you expect InCels to keep their misogyny quiet?
[link added so we know what you are referring to and for context. In future please supply a link with your comment. – weka]
If TERFs can be free to spout their transphobia, then why would you expect InCels to keep their misogyny quiet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b0ftfKFEJg
To clarify: MF didn’t do anything at her workplace that led to her contract not being renewed. She was tweeting from her personal Twitter account and the only connection with her employers or job was she said in her Twitter bio who she worked for.
So Forstater was fired not for transphobia at work but for tweeting personally such things as biological sex exists in a binary, that humans can’t literally change sex biologically and that she would use people’s preferred pronouns as a courtesy but didn’t believe people should be coerced into pronoun use.
of course that should be protected speech.
Seems reasonable that her employers ask her to remove reference to them given she was tweeting politically, but she should still be able to tweet without being fired.
the comparison with incells is specious. One, MF doesn’t argue for harm to be done to trans people. She wants trans people to have the same human rights as others. Two, Twitter is full of misogyny that largely goes unchallenged, include the routine death and rape threats aimed at gender critical feminists, as well as the routine use of violent and often sexually violent imagery used to attack GCFs that the trans supporting left has been silently sanctioning for years.
Some light reading…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/im-credited-with-having-coined-the-acronym-terf-heres-how-it-happened
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/18/judge-rules-against-charity-worker-who-lost-job-over-transgender-tweets
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/19/incels-why-jack-peterson-left-elliot-rodger
Forstater made the very grave error in declaring that it is impossible to change one's biological sex. "Sex" being generally understood (from a biological science point of view) to mean " either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions. " (Oxford)
One sex produces eggs and the other sperm. In the vast majority of births the sex of the baby is obvious upon observation of genitalia. It is impossible to change one's biological sex.
The number of births where the baby is intersex has been reported to be as low as 0.018% or as high as roughly 1.7%, depending on which conditions are counted as intersex.[4][5][6] The number of births with ambiguous genitals is in the range of 0.02% to 0.05%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex
Although environmental toxins just may be increasing that rate…https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5017538/
"Gender" on the other hand…
…either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
This popped up on my Twitter feed this morning.
https://twitter.com/lynnw192/status/1390795858698903557
You might enjoy this too if you’re not already following Lynn. This is the story of so many left wing women, beautifully told.
https://twitter.com/lynnw192/status/1390819453407883267
Mod note for you, please let me know that in future you will supply the relevant link/s.
Okay Weka – I will provide more links in the future, it just seemed redundant in this case; as it's right there on the side of the page. Forgot that you can't see that on mobile. Alhough the comment I tried to leave earlier just got eaten by a single backspace, even though not Ctrl-A selected.
Anyway, it has been (until late afternoon) not too bad an autumn Saturday down here – I have been out and about. I will try and address some of the responses to my comment later on when kids in bed. At least I hope I will have more luck at that with a proper keyboard than a touch-screen.
thanks FN.
Sorry Weka – that wasn't supposed to be a spray and walk away comment. I just didn't get around to responding on the weekend, and now it seems a bit pointless to dig up a two day old OM thread.
Also, the site is still eating comments if I so much as glance at the backspace key; on laptop as well as mobile.
I sometimes write my posts in a text editor and then cut and past across. I don't lose many but it's bloody annoying when it happens. Flick Lynn an email if it keeps happening.
Forget Now "terfs can be free to spout their transphobia".
Can you clarrify what is transphobic? Cause it seems to me if you are not prepared to say Trans Women are real women, for example, then you are branded as Trans phobic.
Many of us struggle to do so, because there is a difference between trans women and women who are biological women. And frankly I think I should be free not to have to say that trans women are real women. Absence of me saying that seems to label me trans phobic.
It is a fact that trans women and biological women are different. Different builds hormones, muscle mass, different experience growing up boy v. girl. Differences that give for example Laureen Hubbard a considerable advantage over other competitors in weight lifting. That is just unfair to biological women competitors and as such I will tell the truth about the disadvantageous situation for Laureens competitors and I want shut up about that.
The hope, I believe, is to become, not pre-industrial but post-industrial.
What I object to is that when I ask for more details on what this is meant to entail, and how the author thinks it might work – I'm told I'm 'strawmanning' and a flat out refusal to engage.
It doesn't give me any confidence in the real motives behind the thinking in this post at all. Like you I'm very supportive around the specifics of doing agriculture far more intelligently than we are, but when it's being used as a figleaf to 'smash capitalism' I sense a dishonest agenda in play.
Convince me otherwise.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Your first comment didn’t ask for detail. It went straight to your idea that sustainability = dark ages. That’s a straw man, hence the moderation.
Your latest comment presents another straw man: that the post is a fig leaf for smashing capitalism. There’s no such thing in the post, in fact I dropped bread crumbs all the way through of general ideas on solutions that are nothing to do with smashing capitalism (I tend to be agnostic on smashing capitalism as a pragmatic next step).
It’s obvious you didn’t understand the post. My suggestion is to stop making shit up about what I write and think if you want to comment under my posts. And if you want explanations then ask the commentariat. There are plenty of people in that conversation that can tell you what it’s about, and in fact some even tried to. And as McFlock pointed out, I’ve written a whole bunch of posts as part of a series explaining regenag and now sustainability, I’m guessing if we went back and looked we’d find you arguing against your straw men rather than engaging with the substance of the posts and asking for explanations.
I’ve just said to Gosman, probably the commenter furtherest from my politics, that he can argue against the post but he has to understand it first. Especially the basic premises which are just not what you are asserting.
Absolute bullshit moderation. You do this far too often.
In the post you specifically say:
Which leads us to the second issue, of how to make a living as we move beyond the conventional farming and economic models?
Well I'm asking a highly pertinent question around the basic premises of the post and you all you offer is 'breadcrumbs'. That's just not good enough.
[deleted]
[Leave it alone please MB, I’d rather not have the drama on the weekend]
Mod note.
Oh, well. Let's all delete Muttonbird's posts!
Ironic given I probably just saved you from a ban.
From who, ffs?
Any of the mods whose had a gutsful of flaming and of arguing about moderation
So why does the comment at 3.1.1 still exist?
It is exists because you put it there
You can ask that, that’s fine. What you can’t do is make up shit about the post or my thinking, which is what you’ve been moderated for. I’ve made suggestions about how to get answers to your questions, up to you if you want to use them next time. Please stay out of the conversation under that post from now though as I’ve spent more time on this than I want to.
If you will not specify in any detail what you're thinking – and I note that you're explicitly refusing to do so even now – then you don't have much grounds to complain when someone asks you to expand and clarify what you have in mind.
It's clear you think BAU is not sustainable – and in this I agree. Evolutionary change is both necessary and inevitable. But when I ask you to be more specific about what direction you want to take us, and think about the broader implications of going there – it seems you don't want to do this at all.
I’ve already said why I’m not explaining to you specifically and noted that there are others who might be more willing /shrug. I have no problem taking with people about what I write who don’t start out derailing my posts and then doubling and tripling down when asked not to.
Many farmers are smelling another agenda as well.
When there is a perception and growing unease (!) that big changes are on the horizon, agendas become clearer and lines between them fuzzier. Different lobby groups can band together in their fight against a perceived common agenda and thus against a perceived common enemy; the raison d'être of lobby groups and so-called movements. The latter tends to often act as a bandwagon for all sorts of agendas, which may not have all that much in common – many a fringe party campaigns on a single issue rather than on a comprehensive and cohesive policy platform. In fact, it is not uncommon to see one agenda, which is not necessarily the founding one, hijack and take over a movement.
Some people are so intrinsically suspicious of change and people in power that it borders on paranoia; their ignorance but most their fear and emotions can drive them straight into the arms of populist propagandists and conspiracy advocates.
None of this is conducive to constructive public debate, which of course plays straight into the hands of those who prefer to maintain status quo and BAU.
Thanks for some sanity on this Rosemary and Weka.
There is some dangerous stuff happening with cancel culture and my particular focus is on being accused of being trans phobic unless you spout the ideological position that gender is fluid and trans women are real women.
The denial of biological sex is anti scientific. The language that trans activists use often amounts to deconstructing women's identity.
Great links Rosemary.
I am also waitng to see the outcome of Harry Millers second court case (hes an ex cop who in the context of a gender self i d debate on twitter got visited by the police at his work, despite the police acknowledging he hadn't committed a crime. He took Humberside Police to court and won. Good on him
There is no such thing as 'biological sex' just like the idea humans are divided into 'biological races'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth-of-biological-sex/?sh=6c52b3b876b9
‘According to the BBC documentary, Me, My Sex and I, “There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.”
Same old discrimination tropes today that were used decades ago against gays and lesbians- that males werent msaculine enough or the women werent femine enough. Because they didnt fit gender sterotypes of the time, then they didnt count as humans either
Biological sex is the physical reality that enables Homo sapiens to reproduce. Female/male. That there are variations within that doesn’t mean the binary doesn’t exist. Maybe you were referring to social dynamics around gender? If you did mean biology then please explain how a male and a person who’s not female could conceive a child.
Sound a very catholic question, that we merely exist to reproduce and your genitalia defines your sex.
The continuum exists and is as common as twins.
It's not a 'continuum' – biological sex is very much a bi-modal distribution. Yes there is some overlap in some characteristics (like height for example), but overall it's idiotic to pretend that most people (>99%) don't clearly identify as male or female.
Biology is not a perfect sorting machine that unambiguously puts everyone into one sex or another, occasionally it blurs the boundaries, but using these boundary cases to dismantle an idea that's utterly embedded in our natures is just silly.
You do realise most of the non-Western world is laughing at us for even having this 'debate'.
If your argument on 'biological sex' falls apart ( 3.5% on the continuum) then your your real aim against gender identity and even more specifically men who identify as women has no basis either.
Just because its maybe a few % who have a gender identity different to their genitals its not OK to use Catholic Church teachings as basis for everyone else.
Personally I don't have a dog in these ongoing 'gender wars' at all. Biological sex is for all practical purposes a male/female divide with a tiny fraction of ambiguous individuals. The idea there are 3.5% of people who're biologically ambiguous simply doesn't align with everyday experience. (My partner reads these threads sometimes, and she just shakes her head with incredulity that any of this is a 'thing'.)
As for 'gender' – well I'm even less impressed by the whole concept itself. I fully recognise that individual people, being the creative and diverse bunch they are, will express their sexual identity in a whole range of ways. In this I really don't care, as long as I'm not compelled to partake I'm perfectly happy to live and let live.
But to then use gender as a tool to start dividing people into categories and then setting them against each other – well I think I'll leave it here and go back to self-censoring before I say anything I might further regret.
'he idea there are 3.5% of people who're biologically ambiguous simply doesn't align with everyday experience."
Yes, because its isnt so obvious, and everyday experience isnt a good way to judge, not that you are, many other do.
But I would agree about your other views,it wouldn't generally matter to everybody else. But the Catholic Church and other conservatives with their dogma and discriminatory views have been joined by some progressives in common cause- but they claim a scientific basis which is flat out wrong. They are only left with prejudice which is almost entirely against men who identify as women.
Here,here.
Edit,that’s for Redlogix
So true! Biology or rather Mother Nature is not a sorting machine at all. It is a human construct, by and large, and mainly one from/by the Western/European cultural and historical philosophy.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/dame-anne-salmond-iwi-and-kiwi-beyond-the-binary
So if binary biology is nothing more than a Western construct, how come all non-Western cultures – and all of the non-human animal kingdom for that matter – seem to have no problem identifying which are the boys and the girls and then setting about having babies?
Be careful with absolutist statements.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160624-we-have-the-wrong-idea-about-males-females-and-sex
This is much more fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8FAJXPBdOg
That was very good, thanks.
I didn’t say that though did I. Care to explain how humans reproduce without the sex binary? Seriously, I’d like to hear your thinking.
if on the other hand you mean that that the word sex has social as well as biological meaning, then I’d agree with you. But you said there is no such thing as biological sex and that requires an explanation using biology not social concepts.
maybe you should ask women who cant concieve that question
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/female-infertility/symptoms-causes/
It seems you using the biological race theories ( based on physical attributes) to apply to the 'gender-sphere'
The real point of classifying people into different races was to 'allow' discrimination. Which is the same aim as those who follow the strict biological sex theory , its for exclusionary reasons. A social construct is being used for social exclusion
I can tell you as a woman who no longer ovulates that I’m still biologically female. To suggest that women who can’t conceive aren’t female is fucked up and offensive.
You still haven’t explained how there is no such thing as biological sex. It’s nothing to do with race. There’s no such thing as biological races in humans, and there’s no evidence for such. Otoh, reproduction is well studied, and humans understood it before western science came along because it’s observable.
Anyway, this is going to get boring fast, to save us the trouble I’ll assume you are talking about social aspects of sex, probably conflated with gender, and are not in fact talking about biology
There is no such thing as 'biological sex'
Presuming you are a human…how did you get here?
Biological sex is real. Our lives depend on it. Literally.
Gender expression on the other hand is whatever one wants. The presumption that one's genitals dictates one's personality is false. Feminists have battled long and hard for this. This idea that if one's personality fails to conform to some archaic notion of gender then one was born into the wrong body is a hugely retrograde step.
The concept that failing to conform to sex-role stereotypes can be fixed with drugs and surgery is, to some of us, abhorrent.
It is an example of how destructive our present direction is to communities and human patterns of life that bind us together, that we are now arguing about how we show we are people and what sort of people and how we reproduce ourselves etc.
Once we didn't question like this and the progressive attitude was to make things better for ourselves as people, now many are educated to think along machine-like lines, to question everything, and we have no certainties, no ground to stand upon.
With the ground opening under us, a group needs to rise that presents an ethos that embraces us and which everybody can accept apart from the most utopian or misognystic. We need to agree on some Guiding Principles which could lead to us questioning a proposition; such as 'Is this going to be helpful for solving a problem or advancing betterment' or some other open query that looks to positive outcomes.
Depends on who is asking and who is answering; just ask intersectionalists.
Thanks incognito – just an idea to throw into the lucky dip, just for a toy to play with – perhaps a battery in it would get it working.
Thats merely a catholic church teaching… which is fine if you choose to follow that faith. Dont expect to impose on anyone else. Do YOU want to impose it on others ?
'The Church supports people being whole and healthy people. Our understanding of gender is tied to biological sex, which is also tied to the spiritual reality of a person. For this reason, the Church does not teach that a person’s gender can be different than their biological sex, that it falls onto a spectrum, or that it can be fluid.'
You appear to not understand the difference between biological sex and social gender.
There is the same 'fluidity' for sex and gender. May not be the same people.
Dont let the facts about small group ( around the same proportion as twins) who dont have fit your theory on 'biological sex' get in the way of your abhorrence- which is really about men becoming women isnt it!
Nope, no problem with people transitioning to another gender, including trans women. Do have a problem with people who make assertions on TS that they can’t explain. You’ve got some beliefs there, which is fine, I’m just not seeing the evidence to support where you are asserting them as fact.
Ive given a Lancet link ( it was a whole issue), the Forbes story talked about the BBC documentary.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32764-3/fulltext
The science doesnt support your view, which is based on your understandings only. Someone called it an view taught in intermediate school.
It should be clear the abhorrence was Rosemarys comment, but the threads get tangled.
It's a woman's, man's or non-binary person's right to choose (or not choose.)
Choice delayed is choice denied, particularly in more 'on demand' societies.
" conform to sex-role stereotypes can be fixed with drugs and surgery is abhorrent'
Maybe you should protest outside fertility clinics as they use drugs to improve women's ability to conceive. Gynecologists can tell you about common physical impediments to childbirth that are corrected by surgery.
Also Im surprised you dont about the surgery called Cesarean section.
Surgery and drugs is OK when it meets your requirements but not for others? And please dont stigmatise those that do.
Let me put it this way. One of my part timer is a trans women, however she will never menstruate, never get pregnant, never give birth, and never go through menopause.
And these are differences that can make a great difference in life.
AS to how 'infertile' women perceive this?
Well i had a hysterectomy 20 odd years ago due to a rapid growth tumor. So now i don't menstruate anymore, had a whole lot of sex without having any pregnancy scare (wow, so liberating!) never gave birth and now go through menopause. Also the money i saved on female hygiene products is just insane! That shit is expensive.
Am I still a biological women. I just never birthed a child. . And also let me assure you that your question about 'infertile women' also applies to 'infertile men' – what would you call them?
I simply suggest that you stay away from this discussion as clearly you don't want to listen to women and the potential issues they have in a conservation that acutely affects them.
As for trans women are women? No matter how many and how hard anyone wants to believe that they are a women or are like all women – or as Kaitlyn Jenner said 'for all intend and purposes i ama woman' but i certainly would never discuss menstruation, child birth, menopause, breastfeeding, hysterectomies, cervical cancer, fallopian cysts, etc with them. Because they would have no clue what i am speaking of. Cause that part of women hood is biological and we did not ask for it, it came with us.
Gender Fluidity arent necessarily the same people as those who dont fit the idea of a biological sex.
Why are you so obsessed about menstruation, those before puberty and after menopause cant. Is that another category of what makes a woman ?
What those people who beat the biological sex drum want to do is create a rigid class of what a women is, so they can exclude the gender fluid/ and those without the right genitals/childbirth etc.
And when they can create the right genitals – your abhorrence shows its your own social construction thats threatened. Well boo hoo, its unacceptable to use some sort of psuedo biological reasoning to create discrimination.
It’s not an obsession with menstruation, she named a range of life stages specific to females (irrespective of whether all females go through all stages). Women talking about the experiment of menstruation is core to femajesy and no other class of people. The push to stop women talking about their own experiences is part of why there is the sex/gender war.
thing that fucks me off about your position is that we could have been having a conversation about how to make society safe and good for women and gender fluid people. But the insistence that this class of people doesn’t exist is pitting people who should other wise be allies against each other.
you can make up shit about and misrepresent my beliefs and there’s not a lot I can do about it (although I will moderate on TS if it gets out of hand), but the numbers of women who are increasingly alarmed not by trans people but by the loss of women’s culture and rights is getting larger every day. I just hope the left wing GCFs prevail, because the right wing GC people are going to do massive damage other wise.
Where have I said anything about a class that doesnt exits.
Medically the idea of a rigid he-she line doesnt scientifically happen
'According to the BBC documentary, Me, My Sex and I, “There are about a dozen different conditions that blur the line between male and female. They’re known as disorders of sexual development or DSDs…. Altogether, DSDs occur as frequently as twins or red hair.”
when you get your menstruation around 10 – 13 and you have this until you are well into your 40s it is not an obsession but a bodily function thanks to biology. Its like men having boners in the morning. The only ones having them are those that are born with a penis. Also not an obsession. Just a biological tick in the 0 1 universe that creates 'man' and 'woman' and guarantees the survival of the species.
The fact that you have to ask why we women are so obsessed about menstruation actually says it all. Biological women menstruate, whether they want to or not. Actually most of us would be really happy to live without that particular part of womanhood but conversely it is a universal shared experience that brings us together. It is a thing that makes us women.
Womanhood is not all about genitals, it is about shared experience and all the stuff Sabine said and sadly for your perspective the plumbing that makes us menstruate is ONE aspect of that.
Women and Trans women are different. I don't see this as discriminatory just as. Different is not a judgement it is just different!!
Transwomen have their own stuff, leave us with our stuff please.
Women and Trans women are different. I don't see this as discriminatory just as. Different is not a judgement it is just different!!
Transwomen have their own stuff, leave us with our stuff please.
Exactly. Well said. It's really not that hard to understand.
Thank you!
I think you are male Ghost, but I could be wrong. "Obsessed about menstruation" lol lol lol………………….A woman would understand why this might be the case!
What a most peculiar statement. People do discuss these things with people of the opposite sex, e.g. with their partners/spouses. Not every woman has (had) the things you list and similarly, not every man has (had) erectile issues, prostate or testicular cancer or male breast cancer, for example. We discuss [my emphasis] these things, which can be among the most personal, with people we trust and I don’t see how this would or could be limited to one’s own sex only. I might be missing something here.
Maybe limited imagination can lead people towards essentialism?
I can’t imagine how
Women do talk to other women about things that they don’t talk to men about. In the same way gardeners might talk with other gardeners about a topic. They might also talk to non gardeners but the conversation is different. This is a common thing among humans.
Yes, common, that is the key word here, which here means not exclusively or not always. This is a crucial point that often is ignored, sometimes (?) deliberately, which is in/with many (?) public discussions and debates on complex and sensitive issues, some people and/or groups are excluded, ignored, or cancelled even. I’m convinced that this never ends with good outcomes for all in the long run, not even when it is (supposedly) only (!) temporary. For example, when X talk about X then Y should stay silent and listen. It takes effort, sometimes considerable effort, from all sides to be as inclusive as possible and not to slide into technical jargon or lingo that excludes others or turns discussions into superficial and almost meaningless convos. Make of that what you will.
I get the point at the general level but Sabine was saying that she personally wouldn’t talk to a trans woman about biological processes specific to females. Whether that’s absolute or not I don’t know (I didn’t take it that way, I took it to mean she wouldn’t talk women’s business rather than never ever talk female biology, and it’s Sabine’s style to be blunt and appear absolutist).
But, there are times when exclusion is appropriate. Women having spaces separate from men, Maori caucuses within or alongside Pakeha dominant orgs, men’s drumming circles, we have a lot of such things in human society that aren’t in and of themselves discriminatory. It’s hard to see how Sabine could have made her comment inclusive when the point of it was to show difference.
No, while i talk women stuff with her, such as lower pay for women, being an immigrant women, travelling as a women, cooking, boys, career in her chosen field and so on, i would not discuss with her the trauma of having an emergency hysterectomy and in doing so having lost all potential children i could have born. There are the things that i can 'identify' with her as a women, and then there are things that i can not identify with her as a women. If that makes any sense, in the same sense as i don't expect to talk about all her issues to me just because we both fall in that box 'women' now. She and I we know full well that we are not 'the same', but we both identify as women.
As to my 'blunt' style, i am german and thus lack all english sense of etiquette and am usually to honest to be polite, and english is not my first language. So maybe that should also be factored in. Not everyone is native.
I think talking to a trans woman about menstruation etc, wouldn't be something I would do. It would feel a bit like talking about my pregnancy to an infertile couple, but it would depend I guess.
let me quote Weka, she has better words then I do.
weka…
8 May 2021 at 4:37 pm
The same applies to people who want us to discuss these very personal issues with people we might not care to because they find refusal to do so ‘peculiar’. Nothing peculiar about it. Unless women now no longer have the right to discuss these female centric biological issues with people whom they identify with?
Obviously, no two people are the same and I don’t recognise your and weka’s reasoning as a given that applies to all and this is what I meant by “peculiar” but it is obvious from your reaction you took it to mean something different and negative; it wouldn’t be the first time 🙁
I don’t think anybody here today has said or tried to stop women discussing certain issues with “people whom they identify with” (AKA other women) but one doesn’t get to pick and choose here who replies and what they’ll say. Weka has previously posted Leftie-only and women-only posts on this site and even then people stray across, sometimes accidentally, sometimes not … However, even then, you cannot stop people commenting and trying to run interference from the side lines in posts such as this one (i.e. OM). Personally, I don’t think it is the most effective and efficient way to go about it but I have supported & policed the efforts as weka knows. Framing it as a “war” is problematic, IMO.
I don’t want this to become an argument so this is my final comment about it here and now.
There is war going on Incognito, and it’s terrible. TS had largely been sheltered from it for a range of reasons.
It’s not that women in this conversation have been stopped from speaking, but then this is a mixed sex space. However TS most definitely has a history of women not being able to fully take part and that’s never been resolved. That’s not been around the gender/sex wars, but there’s something here about watching left wing men not listen to women, again, in this particular war as it comes to TS. Many people are underestimating just how serious this is for women.
beyond that, there are absolutely massive issues with suppression of debate in the war. And women are bearing the brunt of that. This is a listen and learn situation imo, not that men should take part but an acknowledgment of not getting what we are talking about wouldn’t go amiss.
I will add that I don’t consider TS to be a safe debate space for trans people either, nor other groups. This is part of why I haven’t talked about the war until recently and why I’ve written only one post. But the war is about to arrive in our faces because of NZ legislative changes and we need to get up to speed with how to make room for the debate here.
To give you an example, women are being told in social media groups not to use language specific to their bodies because it’s exclusionary. That’s the context for Ghost’s reductionist and dismissive framing of women talking about our bodies. Am happy to explain why having our language taken is such a big deal if it’s not apparent.
Ghost you are making a big claim "there is no such thing as biological sex". and using a Forbes magazine article, written by a ?Journalist? Please. Big claims call for very big evidence. And I mean scientific evidence.
You are alive because a female produced an egg and a male sperm. The female then carried you in her womb and gave birth to you. Even if IVF etc, was used, it is still the same process.
I am a biological wo
Ghost, you make extraordinary claims "there is no such thing as biological sex" and then use a Forbes magazine article, written by a ?journalist? to back it up .
Extraordinary claims call for extraordinary evidence. Science please.
You are alive because a female egg got fertilized by a male sperm and you were carried in someones womb for approx 9 mths and then said women gave birth to you.
That women would have ovulated, menstuated, grown breasts, had the capacity to breast feed and then has or will go through menopause. She is on average of shorter stature to men, she has less muscle mass and more oestrogen and progesterone. These are the facts and if you do not accept them, you need some compelling evidence to present to say otherwise. People on this site acknowledge that there are some people (a very small minority who are born asexual and that there are a very small minority of people who are born a sex and experience gender dysphoria about this.
Most of us here are likely to have compassion for this and be respectful towards such people. Some of us really object to having science re-written, by people who aren't scienctists and being told unless we tow this ideological line we are trans phobic and run the risk of being cancelled.
What you arguing for is called Essentialism, thats theres immutable rules which determine these things . However you are wrong, as was explained in a whole issue of Lancet ( is that 'medical' enough for you)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32764-3/fulltext
And yet, as medical anthropologist Katrina Karkazis pointed out in The Lancet last year, the facile search for a definitive trait of biological sex continues:
"As such, there is growing support for the idea that gender classification is not simply a matter of biology, but rather is the result of complex and ever-shifting interactions between culture and biology."
Hmmm. A scientific journal suggesting that what we were taught in intermediate school was a simplified version of what is actually a much more complex and nuanced subject?
Who would have thought such a thing was possible.
A scientific journal is not a textbook 😉
In reply to McFlook, biological sex in the vast majority of cases isn’t complex or nuanced. For The vast majority of people their assigned sex at birth is simple and straightforward. They have anatomy and biological differences that make it clear they are either female or male and this is egosyntonic
The article is published it a medical journal,but no cries to do away with assigning sex at birth.
Interestingly it is the activists who are calling for gender self id, not scientists or medical associations
so scientists agree that sex is biological. So do I.
A recurring theme in these discussions here seems to be that just because something appears to apply to the vast majority of people, for the purposes of discussion we can ignore the existence of anyone for whom it does not actually apply – even if the discussion is partly about them.
Reasserting a category is soothing for people trying to resist it being reconceptualised. Has happened every step of the way. Won't matter ultimately but can cause harm in the meantime.
Yes Sacha, I object to what being a women is being recategorized.
I am sorry if that is hurtful for some, but believe I have science on my side and also have a right to defend the de construction of my identity as a women.
McFlook re your comments.
Most of us here are likely to have compassion for this and be respectful towards such people. Some of us really object to having science re-written, by people who aren't scienctists and being told unless we tow this ideological line we are trans phobic and run the risk of being cancelled.
Can you say more about what you have described as 'deconstruction of your identity'.
How does it feel different than when 1960s feminists said that biological sex did not define women?
Which 1960s feminists Sacha and what did they say?
You seriously want me to mansplain an entire discourse? I'd rather trust women who are articulating a position to know its context.
No I’d like you to explain something about your reference beyond that sound bite. Because it looks like you think they took a specific position and I’m not sure you are correct.
A variety of feminist theorists after Simone de Beauvoir (and ones from Europe like Luce Irigaray, not just the US writers) focused on the matter.
This is one overview of the whole area I found via googling and many of the references seem familiar: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/
Thanks. A quick look at the start, they’re talking about biology not being destiny, ie we have a biology but it doesn’t predetermine what women should do or what roles we should have in society. That’s different from saying there’s no biological definition of female.
Hope others find what it actually says useful and even interesting. I'm done explaining myself any further.
You haven't explained though. You gave me a long document that I didn't have time to read on my phone in lieu of saying what you meant. /shrug.
How does it feel different …?
The minute expressions such as "pregnant people" and "menstruators" and "lactators" began appearing in MSM and governmental publications as if all of these are not applicable to women only, some of us realized this whole issue had gone too far. Way too far.
GCF have spoken about their concerns that the trans movement could conceivably erase women, as defined as 'adult human female'. They were obviously right.
…biological sex did not define women? And yet, back in those heady days of Women's Lib, some of the more radical spent time with mirrors strategically placed so they could properly acquaint themselves with the parts of their anatomy they had been conditioned (for millennia) to hide and be ashamed of.
I believe that what was meant by not being 'defined' by biological sex was that we women should not be confined by limitations placed upon us by a largely predominant patriarchy because we are female.
Back we are to that old chestnut of 'sex-role-stereotypes'…revived again by this trans movement which seems to believe that biological sex does define and confine a person.
this. It’s also a misreading of GCF views to conflate them with bioessentialism. Words and their shared meaning matter.
Surely you meant ‘does NOT define’?
@Sacha. No. I meant what I said. These people clearly truly believe that they can only be 'true to themselves' if they can legally change their biological sex. (As if such a thing is actually possible.)
As if they are defined and confined by their biological sex.
They are not. Just as I am not. Or yourself. Or any of us.
'menstruators, lactators, or 'incubators'
talk about being reduced to biological happenings.
No longer a girl, or a women but a menstruator, lactators, pregnant people'.
Heck, why would anyone be upset by these charming adjectives to descripe describe the one half of the world population that bred all of worlds humanity.
humans reproduce via two biological sexes, social understandings of sex are more nuanced, intersex people exist, trans people exist, biologically female people exist. None of those things are contradictory.
when a woman starts talking about her politics and experience as a woman it doesn’t harm others that she doesn’t always refer to them. #notallhumans is a reactionary response. It’s patronising too.
I don’t recall support for intersex people being talked about here until women started talking about their politics. Maybe we can find ways to support both groups.
So when medical science is finally able to give people the fully-functioning reproductive system of their choice, do you think these arguments will stop? Because I don't.
I don't think that will be possible. Reproduction and childbirth and lacttion is complex and lots of it we don't understand particularly well. But I don't see how that is relevant. You want men of the distant future to be able to have babies (why?), but you don't want women in the here and now to have the right to determine their own existence and politics? This is not new McFlock, but as I've said I'm surprised to hear it coming from you.
I'm not sure how distant it actually is, but where will the discussion go when it does happen?
Every time someone has nailed sex into two distinct categories, an exception gets brought up. So then the commenter either says that such exceptions are so uncommon as to make the experiences of those people not worth considering (although they're not usually honest enough to put it into those terms), or tightens up the criteria. But there are eventually exceptions to those criteria, too. And the more the criteria get tightened, more and more people get kicked out of one group or the other – even people who aren't the targets of the people obsessed with the binary.
Everyone can determine their own existence and politics. But if those politics are based upon a myth as an excuse to endanger others and deny them medical care, other people are allowed (and have a duty) to criticise those politics.
McFlock, are you saying that you don’t believe that there is a class of people that are biologically female? I’m a little unclear what your view is.
As you put it, "humans reproduce via two biological sexes". That says absolutely nothing about the gamut of people who never had the biological equipment to reproduce. And there are others who have had medical intervention to either get functioning reproductive organs, or organs that look like functioning reproductive organs.
So the statement "humans reproduce via two biological sexes" is simply a description of the reproductive act, and is of no help whatsoever in discussing who should participate in which sporting event or who should use which toilet block.
If you don't like the continuum idea, try ""humans reproduce via two biological sexes that are two general classes that mostly (but by no means entirely) account for millions of variations in human sexual or reproductive organs".
That didn’t answer my question. Do you think there is a class of people that are biologically female? You are implying there is in your last paragraph, but I just want to be clear.
I'm not sure I would use that term (or "biologically male", for that matter), to denote a "class" of people.
There are males and females.
There are males with female characteristics and vice versa. Not just the sex organs: hormone levels, bodily proportions, whatever. Are they not "biologically" one because they have features of the other?
Is it so difficult to imagine that just as sometimes there might be a mismatch in the physical characteristics between one sex pole and the other, there might be a mismatch between the physical characteristics and the complex physiology and chemistry of the brain? But even then "biologically [male/female]" would still be a relative term, not a categorical one.
IT seems that the government is happy to tackle everything but this.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rental-crisis-would-you-pay-30000-upfront-to-get-a-rental-tenants-desperate-measures/3LWOAEE5BYTNNHL4C7IGSBUSYA/
WE Need to Build to Rent! Organise that Labour!
Yeah! Nationalise builders and their companies and suppliers of building materials and have the whole building industry prioritised to building stock for government houses.
That'd go down well.
Oops, except for those working of shoddy school buildings. Oh and those upgrading hospitals.
?
It's just a comment to summarise the debate – people want 'The Government' to do everything, be involved with everything to do with housing. Government is in the gun when any element of housing is not to someone's satisfaction.
I'd read the Tauranga article earlier. Surely only by one agency having control of all facets of housing, linking, co-ordinating controlling can they be blamed for all shortfalls and problems.
When we have someone in Tauranga offering to pay $30,000 upfront and a Rotorua couple so desperate they pay more than they can affair is just the market working?
You want the Government to get in boots and all and tackle everything?
My suggestion would be a start. Then there'd be railing though about 'communism' and let the market decide. Or the half pie measures like wanting the Government involvement in fringe little bits.
What the heck are you actually saying Peter?
Housing and homelessness was literally was the reason for so many to actually vote for these timewasters. But yeah, i get it the second election was won by Covid, so now they don't have to pretend anymore to work for the people. Now they literally just seem to show off to some think tanks and big business who hopefully will elect them when they lose the next election.
Honestly i don't think anyone in this country voted for Andrew Little to grandstand with his remake of the Health System in NZ, all the while freezing wages for 'frontline' worker. And certainly no one voted for Michael Woods to pontificate and potentially fuck up the already fucked up process of wage negotiations in NZ.
I just want this bloody government to do one thing, and that is to encourage smart building – building to rent, not building to accumulate an assett or several to create an even worse housing shortage by keeping houses empty for Captial Gains by the thousands..
But that is in the too hard basket it seems. And yes, i do want the government to interfere in the 'free and unregulated market' and regulate to the best of the greater good and for the benefit of all.
Yes. That is, supposedly, what a Labour government with this mandate should be all about. Sadly, it isn't.
Good explainer from RNZ. Still this Q: are there examples of herd immunity to an illness, from vaccination, where repeat vaccination is needed ongoing, or is this new territory?
Also, has the govt described how border opening might work and how non vaccinated people would be protected?
https://amp.rnz.co.nz/article/798e00d9-866b-4753-a10b-254c901d4525
The Rotumans come from a tiny island north of Fiji and try to live there in a good and practical way. They keep their connections going in New Zealand and show us a good Pacific way to be. I hope their ceremonial get-together is an enjoyable occasion of friendly meetings.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/442124/rotumans-celebrate-language-and-culture-together-amid-covid-19
https://www.beautifulpacific.com/south-pacific-maps/fiji-islands.php
Looks like an employer conference had a visitor from the USA – one Leo Strine. Any ideas how he got into the country?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/125043890/why-is-a-labour-government-encouraging-its-employees-to-become-contractors
he didn't
Navigating the EESG Cross-Currents: Sustainable Stakeholder Corporate Governance
Leo E. Strine Jr. and Karessa L. Cain – Leo and Karessa will join us via livestream from the US to discuss a practical approach to sustainable stakeholder corporate governance, exploring employee, environmental, social and governance considerations for directors.
https://iodconference2021.co.nz/programme
Thanks I obviously didn't delve deep enough.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/442116/endangered-leatherback-turtle-returned-to-hapu
Documents show more than $10,000 was spent by DOC and Te Papa on transportation and a burial ceremony.
Te Rūnanga o Koukourārata chair Dr Matiu Payne said the honu is a taniwha, a guiding deity for his people, and is part of the legends passed down, although this traditional knowledge was purposely not widely shared
This was a good decision and expenditure. Maori don't tell all to nosy tauiwi who often take the knowledge and exploit it. Also remember how much that the government is prepared to pay elite professionals for some task, could be $1000 a day.
eg New Tauranga City Council commissioners could … – NZ Herald
https://www.nzherald.co.nz › bay-of-plenty-times › news
5/02/2021 — Commissioners appointed to lead Tauranga City Council could be paid … A Cabinet paper shows Tolley to be paid up to $1,800 a day for her work, and … The term of the commission will run until just after the next local government … days a week for the other commissioners, while they work to…
An addition about the Tauranga Council Commissioners for those curious:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/four-commissioners-appointed-to-lead-tauranga-city-council/G4EQTS2NXNNWZC26DFRN5S3C6E/
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/let-us-now-cancel-david-cohen
[link tidied up]
Hi Anker, I tidied up your link; anything after the question mark “?” can be deleted from the URL usually.
When you post a link, please include some commentary and/or analysis as to why people should click on it, thanks.
Anker, this is disappointing… See Incognito’s 2.1.1 comment in the link below on how to properly comment.
https://thestandard.org.nz/ethnic-cleansing-and-new-zealand/
No, no, no! You have the wrong end of the stick or you are stirring or both plus you’re doing it all wrong, again!
This is how you do it:
https://thestandard.org.nz/ethnic-cleansing-and-new-zealand/#comment-1791492
https://thestandard.org.nz/about-the-public-service-pay-freeze/#comment-1791375
You obviously still don’t understand context. Let me explain it to and for you:
A link as a reply can stand on its own, especially if it points to factual/informative content and the URL is sufficiently self-explanatory and/or it is a direct answer to somebody’s question. A link out of the blue that goes to an opinion piece or video clip, for example, when the URL is not explaining it clearly is a no-no because there’s no context.
Please don’t hesitate to ask if you need further clarification.
Please don’t run interference with my pre-moderation comments again, thanks.
Best paragraph 2021.
https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1389999961526345731
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2021/05/05/yes-virginia-there-is-still-a-goddamn-global-pandemic/
Likely to rival the 1918 Spanish flu death count.
A new analysis of the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic suggests 6.9 million people worldwide have died from the disease, more than twice as many people as has been officially reported.
In the United States, the analysis estimates, 905,000 people have died of Covid since the start of the pandemic. That is about 61% higher than the current death estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 561,594. The new figure also surpasses the estimated number of U.S. deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic, which was estimated to have killed approximately 675,000 Americans.
https://www.statnews.com/2021/05/06/new-analysis-finds-global-covid-death-toll-is-double-official-estimates/
http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths
Thanks joe90 – an interesting analysis from the IHME. The apparent estimated 10-fold under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths in Japan is noteworthy as the Olympics loom.
Japan: Reported COVID-19 deaths = 10,390. Total COVID-19 deaths = 108,320.
Looking at past NZ history in the 1980's. This, deja vu all over again?
New Zealand’s economic difficulties persisted into the mid-1980s, and Muldoon’s National Government favoured erratic policies which ranged from severe spending cuts, to energy-intensive development, to an extreme wage and price freeze. Unemployment continued to increase and New Zealand society was changing:
Māori protest at the legacies of colonisation was more visible; a third wave of feminism challenged many assumptions about work, family life, fertility and the media; environmental movements challenged assumptions about economic growth and development; and there was increasing discussion around a non-aligned and anti-nuclear foreign policy. https://www.labour.org.nz/history
Who or what was responsible for changing our direction? Douglas/Treasury?
[Douglas] argued in 1982 that the government should actively support small business, and intervene to stop the aggregation of assets by big business. In his view, the government should use the tax system to encourage productive investment and discourage speculative investment. Until the end of 1983, Douglas saw exchange rate, tax and protection policies as means of actively shaping the business environment. In August 1982 he supported a contributory superannuation scheme as a means of funding industrial development and in February 1983 he wrote a paper called "Picking Winners for Investment" which proposed the establishment of local consultative groups to guide regional development. In a paper dated May 1983, Douglas argued that an unregulated market led to unhealthy concentrations of market power. //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Events_after_the_1981_election
At the end of 1983 there was a marked change in Douglas's thinking. He prepared a caucus paper called the "Economic Policy Package" which called for a market-led restructuring of the economy…He acknowledged the contribution to the package of Doug Andrew, a Treasury officer on secondment to the parliamentary opposition, among others.[25] W H Oliver noted the close alignment of the package and Economic Management,[26] Treasury's 1984 briefing to the incoming government.[27] His assessment was that Douglas was predisposed towards the Treasury view because its implementation required decisive action and because greater reliance on the market solved what Douglas saw as the problem of interest-group participation in policy-making. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#A_new_direction,_1983%E2%80%931984
/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Minister_of_Finance,_1984%E2%80%931988
In 1984, Roger Douglas was made Minister of Finance, with two associate ministers of finance, David Caygill and Richard Prebble. They became known as the "Treasury Troika" or the "Troika", and became the most powerful group in Cabinet.[32] Douglas was the strategist, Prebble the tactician, while Caygill mastered the details. With Caygill the "nice cop" and Prebble the "nasty cop", Douglas could sometimes appear as steering a considered middle course. Later Trevor de Cleene was made undersecretary to Douglas, with special responsibility for Inland Revenue. [33] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics#Immediate_results
Background – Jul.1/1984 https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/bim/economic-management
and Reserve Bank –
1984/5 timeline – https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Publications/Bulletins/1985/1985jan48-1nzeconomicchronology1984.pdf?revision=3fe551a1-6eac-463b-9fc6-8ad5b20b32d8
1985/6 timeline – https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/-/media/ReserveBank/Files/Publications/Bulletins/1986/1986jan49-1nzeconomicchronology1985.pdf?revision=9d0c3a2c-a1a1-48a7-b53d-420636f08334
This has been reduced but I felt that events and timelines could do with refreshment as still so relevant.
France stormed the Bastille on 14 July. Is the Treasury our parallel institution – say 4 March 1985 when our floating exchange rate was promulgated.
Doulas was sold the pup that Treasury was selling…the private banks could run the economy better than politicians…time has shown the lie.
How many in Treasury got a knighthood out of it? Or did they just get lovely lambswool skins over their seats to keep their bums warm – the bums.
Dont know where those Treasury wonks ended up, but Douglas did all right out of it.
Muldoon is often bagged but consider this fact…we have 85% renewable energy thanks to him.
Neo-liberalism would have washed upon and pummelled these shores sooner or later.
Probably, but we embraced it (at least the political class did) early and with such enthusiasm we appear to have disabled ourselves to the extent we are unable to imagine anything else.
Prick's still dead.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/552330-missouri-house-passes-bill-to-create-rush-limbaugh-day
I wondered what country the upbeat Professor was in – guess – Australia. They have less to lose by taking risks than we have.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/442106/covid-19-trans-tasman-pause-not-needed-infectious-diseases-expert
However, Professor Peter Collignon from Australian National University said the risk of transmission between New South Wales and New Zealand was very low.
I have a niggling worry besetting my brow – is our government still vital and in good mental health? Who tests them to make sure they are compos mentis? Do they need to be all wired up in their seats in Parliament that send a regular charge through to jerk their muscles every half hour, sort of like A Weekend at Bernies.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK40vtKt0Eo
Or are they reminiscent of the Dead Parrot Sketch. Are they appearing, saying their piece after being partly resuscitated, and then being nailed back on their perch? Are they too debilitated to let fly with chirpy policy after a long squawk over Covid19 and other tiresome bothers? Will we end up being offered a slug, that doesn't talk for our next PM?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvTBkjL6Dxo
Good to see Immigration NZ finally take a look at the illegal worker problem started by John Keys and his government.
It's horrible for the workers. I'd like to see major charges against those who employed them, but…
…too big to fail?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125072532/eight-illegal-workers-detained-two-deported-after-raids-on-governmentrun-sites-in-auckland
Everyone washing their hands.
Two months in to my three month temp contract I get offered a permanent full time job.
That'll teach me for turning up on time and getting stuck in.
Guess that self imposed early retirement has gone effed itself for reals this time.
Don’t you hate it when that happens
Yeah, lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzYvaA8PvVs
kia kaha
Like a bulldog licking pee off a nettle 😆