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?
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1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
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Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
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Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
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Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
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I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
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Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
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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?
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:
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.![indecision indecision](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/whatchutalkingabout_smile.png)
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![cheeky cheeky](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/tongue_smile.png)
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/
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?
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![cheeky cheeky](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/tongue_smile.png)
Yeah, lol.![yes yes](https://cdn.ckeditor.com/4.11.3/full-all/plugins/smiley/images/thumbs_up.png)
kia kaha
Like a bulldog licking pee off a nettle 😆