This is insane during a time of growing unemployment and economic downturn.
The local companies have great experience of building rail electrification from the Auckland network. And to award the contract to China of all places? Unbelievable. China should be paying us compensation for the economic devastation from their actions relating to covering up their virus from October through to January. They are no friends of ours that's for sure.
That's the separate departmental mentality for you, that uses cost as it's primary factor. It is inexcusable at present.
If we included the SROI (Social Return on Investment) and other benefits when considering these major contracts, any local supplier would be accurately measured.
A legislative adjustment that changes the way government contracts are awarded, is required, and as soon as possible.
In this case I do wonder exactly what is the real motivation. Kiwirail have had 10 years of being ripped off by their Chinese suppliers (and remember most large Chinese companies are ultimately owned and controlled by the Chinese government).
The Chinese built DL locomotives have been a disaster, from continual mechanical breakdowns to the discovery they were riddled with banned asbestos. Already many have had to be partially rebuilt due to poor components and finish. And the Chinese built wagons were a similar expensive fiasco, with container wagons that were unable to be used as their camber prevented containers being able to be loaded! And the wagons with brakes that applied by themselves when running, causing hugely expensive damage to wheels and track.
I think it is well overdue that the Auditor General had a good look at the cost relationship between Kiwirail and their Chinese suppliers. Anyone who has ever dealt with Chinese procurement will be well aware of what I mean.
Downers and Fletchers are listed on the Australian share market. Their ownership has a heavy NZ component and involvement. They employ locally. Chinese firms tend to largely operate as a closed shop.
As as for being 'better at the job', experience tells us otherwise, as per my post above. The media were doing what our PM should have been doing: putting the interests of our country first and applying pressure to KR.
National flush out the SOE's to get what they want asap so it'd be interesting to see how 'blue' the management team is. They can do whatever the F they like basically
Governance is a box that's sooo easy to tick so everybody's all nice and clean.
25% cheaper to buy, but if you look at the costs of the required DL locomotive partial rebuilds, the lengthy period they were withdrawn to allow the removal of asbestos, the loss of productivity due to wagons that could not be used and required essentially new decks, the damage to track and wheel sets due to faulty brakes, which themselves required rebuild, all at our expense, I am sure the 25% saving was sucked up very quickly and we are now probably millions out of pocket.
And yet KR continues to purchase DL locos. Very odd.
They've obviously had the big meeting with Todd and every little incident in the country, any little thing is to be used to create a fuss and a presence. From the desperate bullies like Matt King to the twerps like Simeon Brown they're into it.
There's probably a 'brownie points' chart in the caucus room and every mention in the media is a point. A photo is a star and a T snippet will be some special bonus.
Matt King is a real chip off the Aaron Gilmore/Mike Sabin block and the 'right stuff' for team Toddy.
I look forward to his ongoing contributions as to what's left behind in the NZ police force that he identifies with still and all around him in team national.
Call me suspicious, but several of Guyon Espiner’s pieces have involved “scandals” involving constituents of the Government Coalition. NZ First’s Trust and financial structure, and now the “SIS 80s break ins” linked to the then Labour Govt. of David Lange. https://shorthand.radionz.co.nz/the-service-podcast/index.html
Perhaps todays voters will not care about such things as the Cold War “pie and Penthouse” era SIS–I see RNZ could not resist running again the 1974 night photo of Soviet diplomat Dimitri Razgovorov allegedly legging it after meeting Dr Sutch!
Sure Espiner’s story may have naturally unfolded and been ready to roll, but few investigative writers drop a significant piece without consideration of timing. My view is there are various ways to try and undermine an administration. The ongoing exposure of the media stitch up of Jeremy Corbyn–in collusion with right wing UK Labour people–shows how this can work.
So you think that these illegal (although no doubt justified) actions should have remained buried forever? Gee, I thought we lived in a free and open society.
If anything, this story is a positive for the Labour government of that time, as it dispels the myth that some still hold that they were puppets of Moscow. Shows the truth that they were realists.
Don't be naive Peter Chch. TMs point is looking at whether Guyon Espiner is basically just a Labour destroyer, despite giving signals that he is passionate about telling the facts, the truth, transparency etc.
We need to know the present news, and then about the present background of it; we already know about the past, and it can be referred to briefly but left for later to be brought forward and reviewed for a fuller picture.
Greywarshark. I put that that badly in my post. But absolutely no, I do not think he is a Labour destroyer.
His article is of importance and interest and the timing is not relevant to the Labour led government of today. It is to Espiners credit he investigated and published now. We need more real journalism like his, regardless of our political views.
Yeah I think I'm probably naive, but still suspicious of Espiner. When he left being host on Radionz he started into something that I felt seemed like a rightish partisan choice, forget what it was.
Yes. For those who have forgotten, this is from the 2017 election. Steven Joyce and his "hole", memorably challenged by Guyon, and nobody in all of the media coverage ever did it better:
…Peter Chch @3.1
No. If I thought the SIS story should be buried I would have said so. I have no brief at all for the NZSIS and its history of bungling and pursuing non threatening subjects, and not pursuing some more obvious ones!
The consensus from those that replied to my post seems to be that Espiner’s story can stand alone, and I’m fine with that.
… its history of bungling and pursuing non threatening subjects, and not pursuing some more obvious ones.
Actually someone from the SIS is on record for acknowledging as much in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings. It might have been Director, Rebecca Kitteridge.
The history of the SIS leaves a lot to be desired. I was one of those personally impacted in the 80s and I suspect you were too. We will have to wait until the end of the 5 part series to be able to pass judgement on Guyon Espiner's handling of the subject. He's a good journo if a bit uneven with his partisanship at times.
Journalists ought to be applying extra scrutiny to whoever is in government. Investigative stories like that take many months so I would not be reading too much into timing.
Investigative journalists and writers are needed to write about incidents which have been covered up providing what they write is factual.
People will read into what they think regardless of the timing.
On 17 June it is 45 years since the Colin Moyle incident. The full police evidence has not yet been released. Moyle has not recieved an apology from the police either. I think how the police handled the matter is of public interest. I also feel that there are documents of public interest when it comes to the planting of the cartridge case in the false conviction of Arthur Allan Thomas.
Yes Treetop, 100% agree. NZ Police have at times acted appallingly.
Re Arthur Allen Thomas. Not just the cartridge case, the 'discovery' of the stub axle in the Thomas farm tip also was very suspect although seldom gets a mention. And to think that corrupt scumbag Hutton was praised so highly by Mike Bush, former Police Commissioner. Unbelievable.
Who is the watch dog of historical police cover ups?
How do you get a historical police matter to be investigated by an independent source?
I thought that a police commissioner or the PM could order an inquiry.
I do not like it when a situation becomes political because the person who has been treated appallingly is the person who has to fight for justice and this takes energy when the complainant is usually partially burntout.
A private investigator costs money but an investigative journalist does not.
Where would Teina Pora be if McKinnel did not intervene?
It is important to keep an eye on the ball – the mirror ball that is the election. It's very Labour purist to decide to follow some lead of misbehaviour or even crime of the past and get excited about that, and forget about being pragmatic.
Pragmatic is real, it's now which is chaotic and we must stay steady on course; the other matters may be festering but bringing them up now is suspect to me.
NZ has needs like never before. Stick with thinking about those all left supporters and concentrate on being in defence mode, not stir-mode.
But what if you were personally affected by a historical issue and you are still being affected and you approached those who were in a position to investigate and they were not diligent?
As for stir mode, were the unresolved to resurface due to it being part of something else really important would victim blaming occur?
But what if you were personally affected by a historical issue and you are still being affected and you approached those who were in a position to investigate and they were not diligent?
I would go further than that and say: those in a position to investigate often chose not to do so because they were protecting their own.
"Call me suspicious, but several of Guyon Espiner’s pieces have involved “scandals” involving constituents of the Government Coalition. NZ First’s Trust and financial structure, "
Do you not think this was worth checking out it is kosher?
It has nothing to do with Espiner's timing. NZF was leaking like a sieve.
Is anyone talking about what it will mean for NZ if we eradicate the coronavirus and no useful vaccine is developed? Or are we avoiding this until we see what happens with the vaccine?
I meant eradicate rather than eliminated in NZ. I thought eliminated meant no current outbreaks but still the potential for them, whereas eradicated meant there is no virus left here. I don't know how those are assessed/measured.
But either way, is anyone talking about if there is no more covid in NZ and there is no vaccine?
Ta. The public health language matches what I used above: 'Eradicated' means it exists nowhere in the world. 'Eliminated' means only within a specific area, like NZ.
Elimination only in NZ just puts more pressure on our border controls, quarantine, ongoing community testing and fast tracing capabilities.
Restating the question then, is anyone talking about what happens if NZ eliminates covid and there is no vaccine (say in the next 5 years), or are we waiting and seeing?
Assuming we sort out the quarantining issues, what next? Are we basing out current responses on the idea that a vaccine will be available in the next few years?
I would have thought that pinning hopes on a vaccine is foolhardy.
We would need to progress with the notion the disease has to be managed, along the lines of the 14 day quarantine and checking temps/testing that we do now.
I'm guessing the BAU economics crowd are working off the assumption that we will have a vaccine (backed up by the idea that if we don't, we should let covid back in at some point).
More interested in what progressives are thinking and if anyone is considering it seriously.
NZ can probably eliminate Covid-19 with the current border restrictions. Once the borders are open even with a NZ and Australian bubble the risk rises to not eliminating the virus in NZ.
Which animals can get the virus from humans and then pass it onto humans is a worry.
It is not a time for being complacent in jeopardizing the hard won gains in the Covid-19 fight.
good grief, that article is a hodge podge of he said/she said. The MoH response looks standardly inadequate, but the 'we had to walk through a crowd of people wearing masks' story doesn't quite add up either.
The comment from the apartment wing dweller is more concerning than the earlier one who just heard some people with a US accent in the hotel reception area.
Main problem seems to be that the MoH is reduced to taking the word of others about whether proper quarantine was maintained. Not good enough.
The image of the guys lying on a bed with a bed cover printed the same as the wallpaper reminds me of a Gary Larson cartoon where enemy insects come to the door and the mother sits in her armchair unnoticed because her dress and the armchair match the wallpaper. That Gary, he has super-vision for a different angle to everything we think we know.
This Cold War thing and spies and… is depressingly cyclic. Can we never break out; (plaintively)?
After spending all that time being protected from the Russians in a safe house, and not appearing on any news platform for safety reasons they are suddenly outed as living in NZ
15,000 Russians already live in NZ.To think that the Skripals could live here anonymously is ridiculous.If the Brits cant provide safety with their much more beefed up resources, why should we be able to?And why should we?
I think its total bullshit so that everyone can now just forget about the Skripals
By keeping the borders closed we're effectively cutting off international tourism and the foreign student industry.
Meanwhile import/export goes on as usual
Limited numbers are allowed in according to our capacity to test, track , and isolate
And viable treatments could change the scene considerably .Like HIV no vaccine, but good treatments
Meanwhile we look at restructuring our domestic economy I suppose
Sorry Weka , I'm no expert, no "inside" info , just "supposes"
Cuba might give us a few clues
Cuba at 11.4 million has managed to survive for decades despite the US embargo and sanctions.
They have their own pharmaceutical industry, a health system lauded internationally, and a commitment to organic food production.
Like us they have been heavily dependent on tourism .Unlike us they do not charge huge amounts for foreign students attending their much praised medical schools
We should keep an eye on Cuba. They've handled Covid 19 brilliantly on meagre resources, and after years of imposed economic privations have come up with innovative strategies to deliver good outcomes for the people
Well i guess if we found a benefactor like the USSR that pumped up the Cuban economy for political reasons, then maybe. In the absence of such, I would not recommend it.
Take a look at Cubas appallingly real situation, not the bs stats from a dictatorial government.
Really? Have you actually been there and seen the empty shops? Try something as simple as getting a coffee in a coffee shop. Their economy is a joke. Like so many extreme right or extreme left economies, they are a beautiful peoples in a beautiful country ruled by an out of touch elite.
The USSR propped it up but with the end of their empire Cuba reverted to what it otherwise would have been.
Life expectancy in this poor country is 78.66 years
Same in US (7th richest country in the world);78.54
Child mortality is at a lower rate than the US
Cuba 4 per 1000 live births
US 5.8 per 1000 live births
Suicide rate s
Cuba 10.1 per 100,000 (less than us)
US 21.4 per 100,000
Wikipedia
forget about the trappings of consumerism, if you want your children to stay alive, to live longer and not be driven to suicide its Cuba hands down
For example, with suicide, just look at Durkheims famous study on suicide, that found vastly different recorded suicide rates reflected cultural factors more so than any real difference in numbers. With Cuba being a Roman Catholic country, that would suggest the authorities would be more reluctant to record a death as suicide than from other causes.
Life expectancy is also a meaningless comparison. Vastly different ethnic mix, a largely rural hot country cf a heavily industriaised country and could one even rely on a dictatorship to be honest as to stats?
As I say, visit Cuba, then post your views from first hand evidence and after talking to the locals. You may well have a different viewpoint then.
Just outta curiosity, how many Cubans want to move to the US? How many US residents want to move to Cuba? Of the Cubans that have moved to the US, how many want to move back to Cuba?
I am not so fussed about open borders.It remains to be see whether either tourism or education has been an overseas earner worth having. Despite our substantial population increases in the last 15 years my understanding is that GDP per head has remained pretty flat. We need to transition to a high wage economy not a high people import economy
Would be very nice indeed. But in promoting that idea you need to take into account the demographics, because people at different stages of their life behave rather differently in economic impact.
Young adults, under about 40, spend more, borrow more and drive up consumption as they form families, establish households and have children. They are early in their working life, have lower skills in general and lower productivity. On the back of this demographic you can have a consumption led economy.
Middle adults are all about saving and investment. They pay down the mortgage, build equity in investments and save as much as they can. They now have two decades of work experience, are much more productive and pay higher taxes. On this demographic you can have a high value export led economy.
Late adults, from 65 onward suddenly drop out of the job market and switch from saving to drawing down on their investments. The Japanese worked out an ingenious solution to this; they used automation to locate much of their manufacturing directly into their overseas markets, off shoring their economy.
These are broad and crude generalisations of course, but what they tell you is that the raw population numbers alone are not enough to understand what is going to drive a 'high wage' economy.
Because all the developed nations now have birth rates below replacement, populations are experiencing for the first time in human history a 'demographic inversion', more older people than younger ones. It's not obvious at all that every developed nation can use an export or offshore led strategy to support their economies.
New Zealand is an interesting exception to this pattern, we have maintained a reasonably flat demographic profile by two processes, one was by exporting older workers overseas (over a quarter of all people born in NZ no longer live here), and at the same time importing younger workers to replace them. Immigration has been a critical factor in supporting a balance of local domestic consumption, and export driven income. (What we have never managed is to develop an authentic off-shored economy, but that may be a useful clue in developing a strategy.)
Like you I'm no fan of increasing NZ's population for the sake of it, but in proposing change it's vital to start thinking about the implications.
To those who are protesting against civil outrages and bad government.Here is a song about a protester from the Vietnam war. This is just one of the past protests and the words written by NZr Willow Macky about an Australian with values.
It is important that we keep trying to alter the direction that our world is constantly turning to that leads to destruction for the many. We did try in the 20th century, and though you don't understand that there may not be a 21st century for people, please take our word for this and keep thinking and working as if humans and animals will live on to their good potential. You will meet the best people you will ever know on these protests and the environmental work, so keep working together doing important work though you will have realised it won't make you rich!
If the National Party was prepared to come up with a deal where they could beat Labour and come up with a plan on addressing inequality, on climate action, and on protecting nature – and they could outdo our current partners on that
Sure, outdoing their current partners is an awfully low bar, but it's still higher than a chalk line on the ground.
Shaw said the Greens have had a "different strategy".
"We've been doing quite a lot of online town halls around the country and we've had several thousand people participate in those and for us that was about talking to people directly rather than trying to misbehave to carve out media time."
Garner asked Shaw if he was accusing the Deputy Prime Minister of misbehaving.
"No, not at all," Shaw replied. "It would be completely unlike me, as you know Duncan."
The option of a fully defunded Police force is that the hard left can occupy the streets with chanting and the hard right can come onto the streets with AR15s.
There will be plenty of city-wide initiatives that come out of this, but the bills that are already in play at the federal level are where this contest needs to go.
We re already deep into danger of nothing meaningful coming out of all these protests as much as nothing did from the last upsurge of #Blacklivesmatter.
If the moronity stops it will be a gift for Biden to support the proposed police reforms now in the House. If it will continue it will give a good bump to Trump on a straight law and order platform like he has pledged.
After a particularly deadly year in 1995, Camden’s Cathedral of Immaculate Conception began illuminating one candle for each homicide victim. In 2012, the year ended with 67 candles—a rate of about 87 murders per 100,000 residents, which ranked Camden fifth nationwide.
But on New Year’s 2018, just 22 candles were lit: The city’s murder rate fell to its lowest since 1987. The number of annual killings has been in decline since 2012; so have robberies, aggravated assaults, violent crimes, property crimes, and non-fatal shooting incidents.
So what’s happening in this city, which for many years has been deemed among the dangerous in America? Thomson, who took the helm of the Camden police force in 2008, says the biggest factor may have been the change in structure of the department itself. In 2013, the Camden Police Department was disbanded, reimagined, and born again as the Camden County Police Department, with more officers at lower pay—and a strategic shift toward “community policing.”
Council members said in interviews on Sunday that they did not have specific plans to announce for what a new public safety system for the city would look like. They promised to develop plans by working with the community, and said they would draw on past studies, consent decrees and reforms to policing across the nation and the world.
Maybe have the new “police” live in the communities they serve as a basic start.
Out of control thuggery. Well overdue a root and branch jobbie.
Long before former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck, the Third Precinct in south Minneapolis had a reputation for being home to police officers who played by their own rules.
One officer kicked a handcuffed suspect in the face, leaving his jaw in pieces. Officers beat and pistol-whipped a suspect in a parking lot on suspicion of low-level drug charges. Others harassed residents of a south Minneapolis housing project as they headed to work, and allowed prostitution suspects to touch their genitals for several minutes before arresting them in vice stings.
These and more substantiated incidents, detailed in court records and police reports, help explain a saying often used by fellow cops to describe the style of policing practiced in the Third: There’s the way that the Minneapolis Police Department does things, and then there’s the way they do it “in Threes.”
The article IFL linked to, and you approvingly replied to is quite specific in supporting police abolition.
Amid the current protests, abolitionist groups have put forward concrete steps toward dismantling police and prisons, arguing that defunding police is the first move,
No police, no prisons, and presumably no courts. Do you support this McFlock?
Because in the absence of state law enforcement, communities will quickly revert back to armed gangs of young men imposing their own arbitrary rules.
I think you'll find that most of those abolitionist groups do not see "zero police and prisons" as being synonymous with "armed gangs instead". I mean, it wouldn't compute in your head that there might be a different way of achieve peace in a society, but that doesn't mean that they don't have some valid ideas.
Additionally, as the Cambden example illustrates, eliminating the current police force doesn't even mean replacing it with a police force of a completely different nature to the current alienated and combative model.
So your strict interpretation of a single line in a report as being representative of an entire movement wanting "armed gangs" roaming neighbourhoods is just another example of your own conviction that there is no alternative to present evils.
It's very clear that everyone is rejecting 'incremental reforms', so I followed the link in the article above, the one you so strongly supported, and it lands here:
Demand the highest budget cuts per year, until they slash police budget to zero.
Slash police salaries across the board until they are zeroed out.
Immediately fire police officers who have any excessive force complaints.
No hiring of new officers or replacement of fired or resigned officers.
Fully cut funding for public relations.
Suspend the use of paid administrative leave for cops under investigation.
That's very explicit … in fairly short order it means no police, no law enforcement. If this is what BLM is really demanding then do you support this?
just another example of your own conviction that there is no alternative to present evils.
Actually no. In numerous posts over the years I've outlined in considerable detail many alternatives to the current order of things …. sadly most of them too radical for the unimaginative. These days I hold back a fair bit.
But you haven't been holding back have you. No at every opportunity you have jumped at the chance to play apologist for the police. Credibility none you have.
I actually do support that for current police departments. They need to be cleaned out, shut down, and replaced with something better. Whether that is a more community-oriented style of policing, or even something an actual anarchist might come up with, I look forward to seeing a variety of approaches. None of which will revolve around armed gangs of youths (well, no more than currently).
Because most of them will be better than the current model of paramilitary policing as an occupying force. And the ones that aren't will be discontinued quickly, as the "there is no alternative" terror will have been overcome by a multitude of viable alternatives.
What if all people became so educated and refined that the mere thought of committing an offense against another was more shameful than the act itself?
Preventing crime is obviously a far more desirable strategy than punishing it and I'd strongly support anything that might be shown to move us in that direction. This position is consistent with my track record here for many years.
It's fairly clear too that the USA has moved too far down the path of punishment to the neglect of prevention. They need to restore that balance.
But this does not mean there will be no crime. You know that perfectly well. There is a reason why clubs and bars have bouncers, and why all functioning human societies have laws and means of enforcing them. Arguing that the police should be abolished when you can't even begin to outline 'something better' is beyond wrong. It's insane.
No. It's letting communities find their own solutions to their own problems, be it a phased replacement like in Cambden or whatever they come up with in the way of community involvement and control.
Because paramilitary policing isn't working.
Watching the same injustices get perpetrated by the same broken system year after year and doing nothing about it is insanity.
It's letting communities find their own solutions to their own problems, be it a phased replacement like in Cambden or whatever they come up with in the way of community involvement and control.
Ah … separate development. Sounds familiar? Does this mean white supremacists get to have their own 'community solutions' too? I somehow don't think that is what you have in mind.
This of course doesn't rule out more sophisticated policing systems that have strong community input and advice, and adapt themselves appropriately to the situations they are operating in. That isn't easy and takes a considerable effort to develop the trust, communication and institutional memory to make it work well.
But that's the kind of incrementalism BLM has explicitly rejected. They're demanding police abolition, and there isn't much wriggle room in that.
At bedrock the whole concept of the nation state is predicated on it's right to make laws and operate them on behalf of all it's citizens. It is the state that 'owns and controls' the justice system, not any arbitrary number of identity groups.
BLM is not a homogeneous group, that's your first problem.
Secondly, municipalities in the US already determine their own policing methods. That's why some have a PD, some have a sherriff's department, some have constables, and some have two or thee organisations over the same jurisdictions. And yes, this has resulted in some forces consisting of white supremacists. That's a problem with the current system.
Thirdly, incrementalism failed. That's why obviousl;y defenceless people are still being murdered.
Unfortunately they're not very clear on what 'defund the police' actually might mean, but here you have it leading on their main website. You kind of have to take it seriously and ask yourself exactly what you are supporting.
Secondly, municipalities in the US already determine their own policing methods.
Yeah that's a big part of the problem. Somewhere up above I mentioned the 18,000 different law enforcement agencies in the USA. I really recommend this link on gypsy cops. It's an eye-opener.
The United States has a highly decentralized and fragmented system of law enforcement, with around 18,000 law enforcement agencies, and is regulated separately in the 50 states, plus US territories, the federal and local level as well. Hiring and disciplinary standards vary greatly between police departments, the majority of which are small in size.
In other words community driven policing is already a strong feature of US law enforcement and this is the less than wonderful outcome.
Yes and no. How many US police officers are actually responsible to the communities they police, or live in those communities?
But then we might start looking at why that is, and the roots of US policing vs the roots of the London Met. Both developed to respond to two very different labour problems in the defense of the ruling class.
How many US police officers are actually responsible to the communities they police, or live in those communities?
Well in the majority of these smaller law enforcement agencies it's my understanding that the senior officer, typically a Sheriff, is an elected position, directly accountable to the community.
As for the ordinary police officers I have no direct link for this, but again I believe that there has been a real movement toward hiring an ethnic diversity of officers in recent decades. And it would only be logical to think the majority would live locally. Happy to see evidence to the contrary.
OK so in reviewing your responses it's clear that you have rejected any political reform process, and by implication are supporting the full disbanding of all police forces as demanded by BLM and many other liberal left voices at the moment.
Or if you have any other alternative ideas you really have failed to express them.
All well and good; you'll get to punch nazis to your heart's content.
RL, would traditional police systems be part of your vision for a future hyper-energised global world order?You seem to have imagination to burn when it comes to making giant leaps, but a poverty of imagination wrt small steps.
A 2014 article on "alternatives to the modern police system", for open minds.
“Let’s talk about policing the way we too often don’t. The underlying problem with policing isn’t just the lack of oversight policies, more training, and better procedures. While radically changing these three areas remains essential for harm reduction, the problem itself is more insidious.
The core problem is modern policing itself. The original sin of policing in this nation is its attachment to the nation’s first and most devastating sin: chattel slavery. Modern police forces in this country can be traced back to slave patrols used in Charleston, South Carolina. From their inception, police have been tasked with protecting power and privilege by exerting social control over Black people.” https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/reimagining-the-role-of-police/
What you completely omit from that narrative is that European and American societies were the first ones to outlaw chattel slavery. They are the societies that invented industrialisation that made slavery obsolete, and then had the great internal debate (and in the case of the USA a very bloody Civil War) to end it.
Evidence of slavery predates written records and has existed in many cultures.[3] Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations because it requires economic surpluses and a high population density to be viable. Thus, although it has existed among unusually resource-rich hunter gatherers, such as the American Indian peoples of the salmon-rich rivers of the Pacific Northwest Coast, slavery became widespread only with the invention of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution about 11,000 years ago.[42]
In the earliest known records, slavery is treated as an established institution. The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), for example, prescribed death for anyone who helped a slave escape or who sheltered a fugitive.[43] The Bible mentions slavery as an established institution.[3] Slavery was known in almost every ancient civilization and society.[3] Such institutions included debt bondage, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves.
Ending such a deeply embedded institution was not just a simple political and legal matter. It had strong cultural roots that have taken generations to wither away. In the USA abolition was just 150 years ago, the restoration of full civil rights just 60 years ago. The growth of a strong black middle class is another remarkable feature of this period, culminating in the election of a black President in this past decade.
In the face of such undeniable progress, to pretend the USA is somehow unique in it's 'original sin of racist slavery' is nothing but a perverse fruit of indentity politics run to a toxic eruption.
You are quite correct. Both Ming and Qing rules outlawed it respectively, but slavery was never on the level of that which Europeans practiced in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Nor did it rise to the same evil level of dehumanisation as the trans-Atlantic trade.
'Slavery' of course in terms of indentured labour into the 20th century in China. It was in fact indentured labour often called slavery. While morally reprehensible, it is different in nature from chattel slavery practiced in North America.
The British and French used vast amounts of forced labour in their colonies in the 20th century – is that slavery?
And if we categorise forced and indentured labour as slavery, as the white right do when it comes to non-Western cultures, then we should apply the same to the US —chain gangs, prison labour etc, then some have said that what was in essence slavery (to a far greater extent than what occurred in China say), persisted in the USA right up until WW2. Excellent documentary 'Slavery by Another Name"
As I said slavery was deeply embedded in all societies, stretching back over at least 10 millenia, therefore it would be very surprising if it had come to an absolute end everywhere all at once, in every conceivable form. Your own reference to the Chinese experience demonstrates just how many times it was outlawed, and yet how persistently it reappeared.
But since industrialisation, the US Civil War and the emancipation movement, the rejection and trend away from slavery, toward a full and permanent recognition of it's evils is undeniable.
If you read the reference fully it seems various Chinese dynasties repeatedly attempted to abolish slavery … the final date reads:
The Hongwu Emperor abolishes all forms of slavery,[5] but it continues across China. Later rulers, as a way of limiting slavery in the absence of a prohibition, pass a decree that limits the number of slaves per household and extracts a severe tax from slave owners.[23]
Still it is fair to say that while slavery was a very common feature of pre-industrial life, most people recognised it as a very undesirable state to fall into. It's history is, like most things, way more complex than we imagine and at various times it was abolished by more enlightened rulers, only to reappear later.
It was industrialisation that ensured it's suppression from modern life, by making it obsolete.
It was industrialisation that ensured it's suppression from modern life, by making it obsolete.
That is true to an extent. One can say that for civilization to advance beyond the hunter gatherer, there needed to be a group of people who did the shitty work, and allowed others to philosophize, create, paint, sculpture, and design. Such as the case in feudal Europe and Asia, and ancient Greece and Rome.
However one could still run a pretty much pre-industrial society without the form of chattel and heritable slavery seen in the Americas –China is one example.
Yes, agree, it was a very unfortunate position to be, whether a galley slave of Ancient Rome, a Russian serf, or a Chinese peasant in pre-revolutionary China.
"European and American societies were the first ones to outlaw chattel slavery. w chattel slavery"
There is a wide spectrum relating to the level of dehumanization, when it comes to 'slavery' in all of its many historical forms. There is the Greco Roman type, the indentured servitude type that use to be found in China, the Islamic type, indentured labour in the South Pacific, 'blackbirding' in Queensland, Chinese coolies in the US, and the type of slavery practiced in the ante-bellum US south.
The last one on the list above was by far the most dehumanising and racist and hopeless for those enslaved, for a whole host of reasons. That dehumisation has continued right up through the past 150 years through Jim Crow, lynchings, the indignities of segregation, and police brutality.
Whereas, say, for Chinese indentured servants such as mui tsai etc, they could well have married into the families they worked for and their children and definitely their children's children seamlessly become part of the mainstream without any stigma attached to them. In most other cases slaves were still considered human, not sub-human
Even conservative US Christians make this point and draw distinctions when try to mitigate Paul's apparent defence of it ( Epistle of Paul to Philemon for example). That it was vastly different in nature to that which existed in the ante-bellum Southern states. And they are right.
In order to link North China and South China, the Yuan rulers ordered the expansion of the Grand Canal, and it took almost 10 years for over 4 million slaves to finish the project.
As for slavery in the ante-bellum US, there is no quibble it intensified into an especially dehumanised version. In the early part of the industrial revolution technologies like deep water navigation and the advent of rapid economic growth in Europe resulted in an especially toxic period. Yet it was never sustainable in any sense of the word … it came to an end most abruptly with the cost of many lives in a bloody civil war.
But somehow pretending this period was categorically uniquely evil, and that by comparison the slavery of millions of humans stretching back millenia was justified and benign… is a ridiculous confection.
Forced or indentured labour (call them slaves or whatever) have been used by every civilization and country in history.
Of course it was never justified and benign. That is why you had events such as the Chinese and Russian revolutions. 'Slaves' of a sort overthrowing their 'masters' and exacting violent revenge. So yes, it would have been crap otherwise why the violence in overthrowing it.
But chattel slavery of the form that happened in the ante-bellum South was something unique in its level of dehumanisation based on race – as you admit. Even more so than perhaps the South American variety. And it carries on through the biologically —status is biologically inherited.
Nevertheless it can be argued that this has made Americans uniquely sensitive to race and racism and aware of it. There is probably far less of the sort of overt 'casual' racial stereotypiing in Anglo Saxon founded countries than in other countries. This is both a good and a bad thing.
South was something unique in its level of dehumanisation based on race – as you admit.
Actually we have no way to know that. The intense darkness of that period is apparent to us because we have access to modern records of it. And indeed in the USA that period has often been close to the centre of their public debate.
But history rarely records the experiences of slaves. For example what do we really know of the lives of the 4m who dug part of the Grand Canal? Time has obscured our view of them, but there is no reason to conclude their experience was any less 'dehumanising' than that of the ante-bellum South.
This is the fatal idiocy of identity politics, it degenerates into an oppression Olympics, when in reality all peoples have their legacy of trauma.
For example what do we really know of the lives of the 4m who dug part of the Grand Canal?
Of course in terms of actual individual experience of and suffering your point is obviously true.
But then you could argue a Kenyan who suffered in the British Gulags in Kenya or was one of the thousands hanged in the 1950s by the British, suffered as much as a Jewish person under Nazi rule. Or those persecuted and then beheaded by French imperialists in Vietnam suffered just as much as those in the White Rose resistance movement under Hitler, in terms of individual experience (losing one's noggin)
However few, including myself, would argue, that on this basis, British or French imperial rule was anywhere close in terms of moral evil to Nazi rule.
I won't put this on the Covid-19 thread because he's not important enough to dampen a celebration, but …
Team Todd screwed up yet again. He spoke live to the media while Ardern and Bloomfield were still speaking. Guess how many carried his press conference live (clue: it's the same number as Covid-19 cases in NZ).
Not the media's fault. It's scheduled invisibility. Genius.
No, you misunderstand. The strategy makes perfect sense because on current internal polling National will do a deal with ACT and get into Parliament on ACT’s coattail. They don’t want to rattle the Epsom electorate and need to massage and soften them up slowly and gently because they’re so used to not voting for that Māori fella with the Pākehā name. We may even have an overhang of one seat!
My distrust of Espiner largely stems back to his writing about Shane Jones during the Labour leadership contest.
Looking at what has happened recently and considering his lengthy years in the gallery he's definitely a connected guy. Interesting that these two stories came out today. But they suggest perhaps desire to promote his podcast and create sensation, or perhaps some intelligence community flexing rather than any serious move against the government.
Quite carefully, neither of the other countries involved exist any more. Wanting to know about the S.I.S. and others in the last 30 years, well, wait another 30 years I guess.
I think planning for the future is great we need to invest in green low costs energy I. E. lower our exporting NZ dollars for carbon I have read green energy will provide heaps of jobs.Education and training is logical .
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
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 ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
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 ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
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 ...
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 Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
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 ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
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 ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
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 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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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 ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
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Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
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A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
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Kiwirail contract awarded to Chinese company.
This is insane during a time of growing unemployment and economic downturn.
The local companies have great experience of building rail electrification from the Auckland network. And to award the contract to China of all places? Unbelievable. China should be paying us compensation for the economic devastation from their actions relating to covering up their virus from October through to January. They are no friends of ours that's for sure.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12337516
That's the separate departmental mentality for you, that uses cost as it's primary factor. It is inexcusable at present.
If we included the SROI (Social Return on Investment) and other benefits when considering these major contracts, any local supplier would be accurately measured.
A legislative adjustment that changes the way government contracts are awarded, is required, and as soon as possible.
Absolutely agree.
In this case I do wonder exactly what is the real motivation. Kiwirail have had 10 years of being ripped off by their Chinese suppliers (and remember most large Chinese companies are ultimately owned and controlled by the Chinese government).
The Chinese built DL locomotives have been a disaster, from continual mechanical breakdowns to the discovery they were riddled with banned asbestos. Already many have had to be partially rebuilt due to poor components and finish. And the Chinese built wagons were a similar expensive fiasco, with container wagons that were unable to be used as their camber prevented containers being able to be loaded! And the wagons with brakes that applied by themselves when running, causing hugely expensive damage to wheels and track.
I think it is well overdue that the Auditor General had a good look at the cost relationship between Kiwirail and their Chinese suppliers. Anyone who has ever dealt with Chinese procurement will be well aware of what I mean.
The closing of the Dunedin workshops alongside that contract is a succinct example of failings in the system.
There is a need to include an assessment of the delivery of quality goods, remediation of substandard delivery and ongoing service as well.
Molly
Great spin from the losing contenders, regurgitated faithfully by our media.
https://twitter.com/GreaterAKL/status/1269448318779711489
Downers and Fletchers are listed on the Australian share market. Their ownership has a heavy NZ component and involvement. They employ locally. Chinese firms tend to largely operate as a closed shop.
As as for being 'better at the job', experience tells us otherwise, as per my post above. The media were doing what our PM should have been doing: putting the interests of our country first and applying pressure to KR.
National flush out the SOE's to get what they want asap so it'd be interesting to see how 'blue' the management team is. They can do whatever the F they like basically
Governance is a box that's sooo easy to tick so everybody's all nice and clean.
Thanks for sharing Peter.
The shoddy workmanship/build quality etc, was apparently only 25% cheaper than the local bid.
And… where is Winston on this?
25% cheaper to buy, but if you look at the costs of the required DL locomotive partial rebuilds, the lengthy period they were withdrawn to allow the removal of asbestos, the loss of productivity due to wagons that could not be used and required essentially new decks, the damage to track and wheel sets due to faulty brakes, which themselves required rebuild, all at our expense, I am sure the 25% saving was sucked up very quickly and we are now probably millions out of pocket.
And yet KR continues to purchase DL locos. Very odd.
They've obviously had the big meeting with Todd and every little incident in the country, any little thing is to be used to create a fuss and a presence. From the desperate bullies like Matt King to the twerps like Simeon Brown they're into it.
There's probably a 'brownie points' chart in the caucus room and every mention in the media is a point. A photo is a star and a T snippet will be some special bonus.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12337409
Matt King is a real chip off the Aaron Gilmore/Mike Sabin block and the 'right stuff' for team Toddy.
I look forward to his ongoing contributions as to what's left behind in the NZ police force that he identifies with still and all around him in team national.
Call me suspicious, but several of Guyon Espiner’s pieces have involved “scandals” involving constituents of the Government Coalition. NZ First’s Trust and financial structure, and now the “SIS 80s break ins” linked to the then Labour Govt. of David Lange.
https://shorthand.radionz.co.nz/the-service-podcast/index.html
Perhaps todays voters will not care about such things as the Cold War “pie and Penthouse” era SIS–I see RNZ could not resist running again the 1974 night photo of Soviet diplomat Dimitri Razgovorov allegedly legging it after meeting Dr Sutch!
Sure Espiner’s story may have naturally unfolded and been ready to roll, but few investigative writers drop a significant piece without consideration of timing. My view is there are various ways to try and undermine an administration. The ongoing exposure of the media stitch up of Jeremy Corbyn–in collusion with right wing UK Labour people–shows how this can work.
So you think that these illegal (although no doubt justified) actions should have remained buried forever? Gee, I thought we lived in a free and open society.
If anything, this story is a positive for the Labour government of that time, as it dispels the myth that some still hold that they were puppets of Moscow. Shows the truth that they were realists.
Don't be naive Peter Chch. TMs point is looking at whether Guyon Espiner is basically just a Labour destroyer, despite giving signals that he is passionate about telling the facts, the truth, transparency etc.
We need to know the present news, and then about the present background of it; we already know about the past, and it can be referred to briefly but left for later to be brought forward and reviewed for a fuller picture.
Greywarshark. I put that that badly in my post. But absolutely no, I do not think he is a Labour destroyer.
His article is of importance and interest and the timing is not relevant to the Labour led government of today. It is to Espiners credit he investigated and published now. We need more real journalism like his, regardless of our political views.
Agreed. Espiner is a good journalist, doing his job.
He picks and chooses when to do his job and given way to many soft rides so he comes across as lazy at best or owned by not being consistent.
He kept his SOE jobs through 3 terms of national so he plays the game. Campbell and many others didn't.
Yeah I think I'm probably naive, but still suspicious of Espiner. When he left being host on Radionz he started into something that I felt seemed like a rightish partisan choice, forget what it was.
In agreement. Thanks Peter ChCh. He maybe a bit of a stirrer at times but he is a very good journo.
Yes. For those who have forgotten, this is from the 2017 election. Steven Joyce and his "hole", memorably challenged by Guyon, and nobody in all of the media coverage ever did it better:
Espiner, Joyce and Robertson on Morning Report
Put a reply right at the bottom, but yeh- odd story with more to be teased out about how and why it broke, but not necessarily malign.
…Peter Chch @3.1
No. If I thought the SIS story should be buried I would have said so. I have no brief at all for the NZSIS and its history of bungling and pursuing non threatening subjects, and not pursuing some more obvious ones!
The consensus from those that replied to my post seems to be that Espiner’s story can stand alone, and I’m fine with that.
Actually someone from the SIS is on record for acknowledging as much in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings. It might have been Director, Rebecca Kitteridge.
The history of the SIS leaves a lot to be desired. I was one of those personally impacted in the 80s and I suspect you were too. We will have to wait until the end of the 5 part series to be able to pass judgement on Guyon Espiner's handling of the subject. He's a good journo if a bit uneven with his partisanship at times.
Also the Rainbow Warrior incident and going nuclear free.
Yes Labour were realists then and are realists now.
Journalists ought to be applying extra scrutiny to whoever is in government. Investigative stories like that take many months so I would not be reading too much into timing.
And remember how the righties all accused Nicky Hager of publishing things at times they did not like…
Investigative journalists and writers are needed to write about incidents which have been covered up providing what they write is factual.
People will read into what they think regardless of the timing.
On 17 June it is 45 years since the Colin Moyle incident. The full police evidence has not yet been released. Moyle has not recieved an apology from the police either. I think how the police handled the matter is of public interest. I also feel that there are documents of public interest when it comes to the planting of the cartridge case in the false conviction of Arthur Allan Thomas.
Yes Treetop, 100% agree. NZ Police have at times acted appallingly.
Re Arthur Allen Thomas. Not just the cartridge case, the 'discovery' of the stub axle in the Thomas farm tip also was very suspect although seldom gets a mention. And to think that corrupt scumbag Hutton was praised so highly by Mike Bush, former Police Commissioner. Unbelievable.
Who is the watch dog of historical police cover ups?
How do you get a historical police matter to be investigated by an independent source?
I thought that a police commissioner or the PM could order an inquiry.
I do not like it when a situation becomes political because the person who has been treated appallingly is the person who has to fight for justice and this takes energy when the complainant is usually partially burntout.
A private investigator costs money but an investigative journalist does not.
Where would Teina Pora be if McKinnel did not intervene?
It is important to keep an eye on the ball – the mirror ball that is the election. It's very Labour purist to decide to follow some lead of misbehaviour or even crime of the past and get excited about that, and forget about being pragmatic.
Pragmatic is real, it's now which is chaotic and we must stay steady on course; the other matters may be festering but bringing them up now is suspect to me.
NZ has needs like never before. Stick with thinking about those all left supporters and concentrate on being in defence mode, not stir-mode.
But what if you were personally affected by a historical issue and you are still being affected and you approached those who were in a position to investigate and they were not diligent?
As for stir mode, were the unresolved to resurface due to it being part of something else really important would victim blaming occur?
I would go further than that and say: those in a position to investigate often chose not to do so because they were protecting their own.
I want to think that silencing the complainant by not investigating has markedly reduced.
The misuse of power is horrible if you are the recepient.
And National's current front bench, particularly in the current climate, have questions to answer there.
"Call me suspicious, but several of Guyon Espiner’s pieces have involved “scandals” involving constituents of the Government Coalition. NZ First’s Trust and financial structure, "
Do you not think this was worth checking out it is kosher?
It has nothing to do with Espiner's timing. NZF was leaking like a sieve.
Is anyone talking about what it will mean for NZ if we eradicate the coronavirus and no useful vaccine is developed? Or are we avoiding this until we see what happens with the vaccine?
Do you mean if it is eradicated worldwide, or eliminated from NZ?
I meant eradicate rather than eliminated in NZ. I thought eliminated meant no current outbreaks but still the potential for them, whereas eradicated meant there is no virus left here. I don't know how those are assessed/measured.
But either way, is anyone talking about if there is no more covid in NZ and there is no vaccine?
Ta. The public health language matches what I used above: 'Eradicated' means it exists nowhere in the world. 'Eliminated' means only within a specific area, like NZ.
Elimination only in NZ just puts more pressure on our border controls, quarantine, ongoing community testing and fast tracing capabilities.
The current kerfuffle over the Avatar imports shows we may need more firm quarantine arrangements than the Ministry of Health's culture is capable of managing. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121746854/surprise-sequel-to-avatar-hotel-saga-as-guests-claim-stuffup
Some regional public health units are refusing to use the national Covid case software that the Ministry had to rapidly develop. Again, more firmness may be needed – perhaps after today's cabinet meeting. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/418222/concern-over-dhbs-reluctance-to-use-government-s-contact-tracing-system
thanks.
Restating the question then, is anyone talking about what happens if NZ eliminates covid and there is no vaccine (say in the next 5 years), or are we waiting and seeing?
Assuming we sort out the quarantining issues, what next? Are we basing out current responses on the idea that a vaccine will be available in the next few years?
I would have thought that pinning hopes on a vaccine is foolhardy.
We would need to progress with the notion the disease has to be managed, along the lines of the 14 day quarantine and checking temps/testing that we do now.
I'm guessing the BAU economics crowd are working off the assumption that we will have a vaccine (backed up by the idea that if we don't, we should let covid back in at some point).
More interested in what progressives are thinking and if anyone is considering it seriously.
NZ can probably eliminate Covid-19 with the current border restrictions. Once the borders are open even with a NZ and Australian bubble the risk rises to not eliminating the virus in NZ.
Which animals can get the virus from humans and then pass it onto humans is a worry.
It is not a time for being complacent in jeopardizing the hard won gains in the Covid-19 fight.
good grief, that article is a hodge podge of he said/she said. The MoH response looks standardly inadequate, but the 'we had to walk through a crowd of people wearing masks' story doesn't quite add up either.
The comment from the apartment wing dweller is more concerning than the earlier one who just heard some people with a US accent in the hotel reception area.
Main problem seems to be that the MoH is reduced to taking the word of others about whether proper quarantine was maintained. Not good enough.
With the hotel manager playing the blame game by refering queries to MOH.
Hotel paid by the production company – part of the confused accountability.
And MoH referring queries to the hotel. Pythonesque.
Radionz story on spies under the bed.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-service/418496/john-daniell-on-growing-up-around-spies
The image of the guys lying on a bed with a bed cover printed the same as the wallpaper reminds me of a Gary Larson cartoon where enemy insects come to the door and the mother sits in her armchair unnoticed because her dress and the armchair match the wallpaper. That Gary, he has super-vision for a different angle to everything we think we know.
This Cold War thing and spies and… is depressingly cyclic. Can we never break out; (plaintively)?
Here is Gary Larson in the Simpsons with the satirical approach we so need. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUzFBzaAJfA
His Top 20 Quotes: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVfdzPDAeI0
On Wednesday 9.30 pm on the Duke channel there has been a programme on spies. It is well worth a watch and has accounts from people who were involved.
eek look out nz the russians are coming again !!
Listened to this 'report' on Natrad this morning (https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018749682/sergei-and-yulia-skripal-reportedly-in-new-zealand) with growing bemusement.
Was this actual news?
Very peculiar.
Very peculiar
After spending all that time being protected from the Russians in a safe house, and not appearing on any news platform for safety reasons they are suddenly outed as living in NZ
Theyre already here Weston
15,000 Russians already live in NZ.To think that the Skripals could live here anonymously is ridiculous.If the Brits cant provide safety with their much more beefed up resources, why should we be able to?And why should we?
I think its total bullshit so that everyone can now just forget about the Skripals
Questions about the spies here. Who sent them, who agreed? Why? Send them to Australia, they would love to be anti-communist wherever they could.
We can't stay still waiting for a vaccine
By keeping the borders closed we're effectively cutting off international tourism and the foreign student industry.
Meanwhile import/export goes on as usual
Limited numbers are allowed in according to our capacity to test, track , and isolate
And viable treatments could change the scene considerably .Like HIV no vaccine, but good treatments
Meanwhile we look at restructuring our domestic economy I suppose
Sorry Weka , I'm no expert, no "inside" info , just "supposes"
Cuba might give us a few clues
Cuba at 11.4 million has managed to survive for decades despite the US embargo and sanctions.
They have their own pharmaceutical industry, a health system lauded internationally, and a commitment to organic food production.
Like us they have been heavily dependent on tourism .Unlike us they do not charge huge amounts for foreign students attending their much praised medical schools
We should keep an eye on Cuba. They've handled Covid 19 brilliantly on meagre resources, and after years of imposed economic privations have come up with innovative strategies to deliver good outcomes for the people
They continue to come up with new ideas
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/28/organic-or-starve-can-cubas-new-farming-model-provide-food-security
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/04/leading-by-example-cuba-in-the-covid-19-pandemic/
I really really really don't think we should look at Cuba for inspiration.
Why Chris?
Well i guess if we found a benefactor like the USSR that pumped up the Cuban economy for political reasons, then maybe. In the absence of such, I would not recommend it.
Take a look at Cubas appallingly real situation, not the bs stats from a dictatorial government.
The USSR left Cuba decades ago.They then had to make it on their own.
Which they've done pretty damned well
Really? Have you actually been there and seen the empty shops? Try something as simple as getting a coffee in a coffee shop. Their economy is a joke. Like so many extreme right or extreme left economies, they are a beautiful peoples in a beautiful country ruled by an out of touch elite.
The USSR propped it up but with the end of their empire Cuba reverted to what it otherwise would have been.
Life expectancy in this poor country is 78.66 years
Same in US (7th richest country in the world);78.54
Child mortality is at a lower rate than the US
Cuba 4 per 1000 live births
US 5.8 per 1000 live births
Suicide rate s
Cuba 10.1 per 100,000 (less than us)
US 21.4 per 100,000
Wikipedia
forget about the trappings of consumerism, if you want your children to stay alive, to live longer and not be driven to suicide its Cuba hands down
Quoting such stats is meaningless.
For example, with suicide, just look at Durkheims famous study on suicide, that found vastly different recorded suicide rates reflected cultural factors more so than any real difference in numbers. With Cuba being a Roman Catholic country, that would suggest the authorities would be more reluctant to record a death as suicide than from other causes.
Life expectancy is also a meaningless comparison. Vastly different ethnic mix, a largely rural hot country cf a heavily industriaised country and could one even rely on a dictatorship to be honest as to stats?
As I say, visit Cuba, then post your views from first hand evidence and after talking to the locals. You may well have a different viewpoint then.
Just outta curiosity, how many Cubans want to move to the US? How many US residents want to move to Cuba? Of the Cubans that have moved to the US, how many want to move back to Cuba?
Did you read Havana Bay with Arkady by Martin Cruz Smith.? He built a crime novel on the Cuban-Russian mix.
Greywarshark.
Yes! Fantastic novel, although Polar Star is my favourite from that author. All in ChCh Library for anyone interested.
Not at all suprising you should bang on about the USSR..yet forget the American embargo against Cuba..
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1050891
I am not so fussed about open borders.It remains to be see whether either tourism or education has been an overseas earner worth having. Despite our substantial population increases in the last 15 years my understanding is that GDP per head has remained pretty flat. We need to transition to a high wage economy not a high people import economy
RBaronCV +100
We need to transition to a high wage economy
Would be very nice indeed. But in promoting that idea you need to take into account the demographics, because people at different stages of their life behave rather differently in economic impact.
Young adults, under about 40, spend more, borrow more and drive up consumption as they form families, establish households and have children. They are early in their working life, have lower skills in general and lower productivity. On the back of this demographic you can have a consumption led economy.
Middle adults are all about saving and investment. They pay down the mortgage, build equity in investments and save as much as they can. They now have two decades of work experience, are much more productive and pay higher taxes. On this demographic you can have a high value export led economy.
Late adults, from 65 onward suddenly drop out of the job market and switch from saving to drawing down on their investments. The Japanese worked out an ingenious solution to this; they used automation to locate much of their manufacturing directly into their overseas markets, off shoring their economy.
These are broad and crude generalisations of course, but what they tell you is that the raw population numbers alone are not enough to understand what is going to drive a 'high wage' economy.
Because all the developed nations now have birth rates below replacement, populations are experiencing for the first time in human history a 'demographic inversion', more older people than younger ones. It's not obvious at all that every developed nation can use an export or offshore led strategy to support their economies.
New Zealand is an interesting exception to this pattern, we have maintained a reasonably flat demographic profile by two processes, one was by exporting older workers overseas (over a quarter of all people born in NZ no longer live here), and at the same time importing younger workers to replace them. Immigration has been a critical factor in supporting a balance of local domestic consumption, and export driven income. (What we have never managed is to develop an authentic off-shored economy, but that may be a useful clue in developing a strategy.)
Like you I'm no fan of increasing NZ's population for the sake of it, but in proposing change it's vital to start thinking about the implications.
To those who are protesting against civil outrages and bad government.Here is a song about a protester from the Vietnam war. This is just one of the past protests and the words written by NZr Willow Macky about an Australian with values.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbuCzAQjIAE
It is important that we keep trying to alter the direction that our world is constantly turning to that leads to destruction for the many. We did try in the 20th century, and though you don't understand that there may not be a 21st century for people, please take our word for this and keep thinking and working as if humans and animals will live on to their good potential. You will meet the best people you will ever know on these protests and the environmental work, so keep working together doing important work though you will have realised it won't make you rich!
ZERO!!! No new cases, the last known active case is now considered recovered.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121752568/coronavirus-last-remaining-active-covid19-case-has-recovered
Celebration!
by Kool & The Gang
Great to see the Greens effectively put Labour on notice that they potentially have other choices in forming a coalition with National:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/06/greens-co-leader-james-shaw-reveals-what-it-would-take-to-work-with-national.html
All those months that Shaw put in with Simon Upton and Todd Muller to get the ETS (such as it is) up and running have paid off.
Um, yeah …
Sure, outdoing their current partners is an awfully low bar, but it's still higher than a chalk line on the ground.
Heh.
Mittens knows there's change in the wind.
https://twitter.com/hannah_natanson/status/1269742337934217219
This is going to be very interesting to watch, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/07/minneapolis-city-council-defund-police-george-floyd they're going to dismantle the current police system and replace with something new. Saying incremental change hasn't worked, so sweeping changes are needed, and will come.
This'll be massive if it works – so prepare for pushback.
Replace with what?
Nothing is not an option.
The option of a fully defunded Police force is that the hard left can occupy the streets with chanting and the hard right can come onto the streets with AR15s.
There will be plenty of city-wide initiatives that come out of this, but the bills that are already in play at the federal level are where this contest needs to go.
We re already deep into danger of nothing meaningful coming out of all these protests as much as nothing did from the last upsurge of #Blacklivesmatter.
If the moronity stops it will be a gift for Biden to support the proposed police reforms now in the House. If it will continue it will give a good bump to Trump on a straight law and order platform like he has pledged.
Indeed. One of their most obvious problems is the 17,000 odd police agencies they have. Way too fragmented.
Something that works.
After a particularly deadly year in 1995, Camden’s Cathedral of Immaculate Conception began illuminating one candle for each homicide victim. In 2012, the year ended with 67 candles—a rate of about 87 murders per 100,000 residents, which ranked Camden fifth nationwide.
But on New Year’s 2018, just 22 candles were lit: The city’s murder rate fell to its lowest since 1987. The number of annual killings has been in decline since 2012; so have robberies, aggravated assaults, violent crimes, property crimes, and non-fatal shooting incidents.
So what’s happening in this city, which for many years has been deemed among the dangerous in America? Thomson, who took the helm of the Camden police force in 2008, says the biggest factor may have been the change in structure of the department itself. In 2013, the Camden Police Department was disbanded, reimagined, and born again as the Camden County Police Department, with more officers at lower pay—and a strategic shift toward “community policing.”
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-crime-in-camden/549542/
some commenters are so freaking unimaginative.
Maybe have the new “police” live in the communities they serve as a basic start.
Out of control thuggery. Well overdue a root and branch jobbie.
Long before former officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck, the Third Precinct in south Minneapolis had a reputation for being home to police officers who played by their own rules.
One officer kicked a handcuffed suspect in the face, leaving his jaw in pieces. Officers beat and pistol-whipped a suspect in a parking lot on suspicion of low-level drug charges. Others harassed residents of a south Minneapolis housing project as they headed to work, and allowed prostitution suspects to touch their genitals for several minutes before arresting them in vice stings.
These and more substantiated incidents, detailed in court records and police reports, help explain a saying often used by fellow cops to describe the style of policing practiced in the Third: There’s the way that the Minneapolis Police Department does things, and then there’s the way they do it “in Threes.”
https://www.startribune.com/third-precinct-served-as-playground-for-renegade-cops/571076562/
This is exhaustive about Camden, New Jersey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden,_New_Jersey
Some very telling images. If changes can be made in Camden they can be made here.
https://www.google.com/search?q=camden+new+jersey+usa+about&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjor6qztfHpAhUXMLcAHQz3BxIQ2-cCegQIABAA&
The article IFL linked to, and you approvingly replied to is quite specific in supporting police abolition.
No police, no prisons, and presumably no courts. Do you support this McFlock?
Because in the absence of state law enforcement, communities will quickly revert back to armed gangs of young men imposing their own arbitrary rules.
It will of course be an imaginative experiment.
I think you'll find that most of those abolitionist groups do not see "zero police and prisons" as being synonymous with "armed gangs instead". I mean, it wouldn't compute in your head that there might be a different way of achieve peace in a society, but that doesn't mean that they don't have some valid ideas.
Additionally, as the Cambden example illustrates, eliminating the current police force doesn't even mean replacing it with a police force of a completely different nature to the current alienated and combative model.
So your strict interpretation of a single line in a report as being representative of an entire movement wanting "armed gangs" roaming neighbourhoods is just another example of your own conviction that there is no alternative to present evils.
It's very clear that everyone is rejecting 'incremental reforms', so I followed the link in the article above, the one you so strongly supported, and it lands here:
That's very explicit … in fairly short order it means no police, no law enforcement. If this is what BLM is really demanding then do you support this?
just another example of your own conviction that there is no alternative to present evils.
Actually no. In numerous posts over the years I've outlined in considerable detail many alternatives to the current order of things …. sadly most of them too radical for the unimaginative. These days I hold back a fair bit.
But you haven't been holding back have you. No at every opportunity you have jumped at the chance to play apologist for the police. Credibility none you have.
I actually do support that for current police departments. They need to be cleaned out, shut down, and replaced with something better. Whether that is a more community-oriented style of policing, or even something an actual anarchist might come up with, I look forward to seeing a variety of approaches. None of which will revolve around armed gangs of youths (well, no more than currently).
Because most of them will be better than the current model of paramilitary policing as an occupying force. And the ones that aren't will be discontinued quickly, as the "there is no alternative" terror will have been overcome by a multitude of viable alternatives.
What if all people became so educated and refined that the mere thought of committing an offense against another was more shameful than the act itself?
Preventing crime is obviously a far more desirable strategy than punishing it and I'd strongly support anything that might be shown to move us in that direction. This position is consistent with my track record here for many years.
It's fairly clear too that the USA has moved too far down the path of punishment to the neglect of prevention. They need to restore that balance.
But this does not mean there will be no crime. You know that perfectly well. There is a reason why clubs and bars have bouncers, and why all functioning human societies have laws and means of enforcing them. Arguing that the police should be abolished when you can't even begin to outline 'something better' is beyond wrong. It's insane.
No. It's letting communities find their own solutions to their own problems, be it a phased replacement like in Cambden or whatever they come up with in the way of community involvement and control.
Because paramilitary policing isn't working.
Watching the same injustices get perpetrated by the same broken system year after year and doing nothing about it is insanity.
It's letting communities find their own solutions to their own problems, be it a phased replacement like in Cambden or whatever they come up with in the way of community involvement and control.
Ah … separate development. Sounds familiar? Does this mean white supremacists get to have their own 'community solutions' too? I somehow don't think that is what you have in mind.
This of course doesn't rule out more sophisticated policing systems that have strong community input and advice, and adapt themselves appropriately to the situations they are operating in. That isn't easy and takes a considerable effort to develop the trust, communication and institutional memory to make it work well.
But that's the kind of incrementalism BLM has explicitly rejected. They're demanding police abolition, and there isn't much wriggle room in that.
At bedrock the whole concept of the nation state is predicated on it's right to make laws and operate them on behalf of all it's citizens. It is the state that 'owns and controls' the justice system, not any arbitrary number of identity groups.
BLM is not a homogeneous group, that's your first problem.
Secondly, municipalities in the US already determine their own policing methods. That's why some have a PD, some have a sherriff's department, some have constables, and some have two or thee organisations over the same jurisdictions. And yes, this has resulted in some forces consisting of white supremacists. That's a problem with the current system.
Thirdly, incrementalism failed. That's why obviousl;y defenceless people are still being murdered.
BLM is not a homogeneous group
Unfortunately they're not very clear on what 'defund the police' actually might mean, but here you have it leading on their main website. You kind of have to take it seriously and ask yourself exactly what you are supporting.
Secondly, municipalities in the US already determine their own policing methods.
Yeah that's a big part of the problem. Somewhere up above I mentioned the 18,000 different law enforcement agencies in the USA. I really recommend this link on gypsy cops. It's an eye-opener.
In other words community driven policing is already a strong feature of US law enforcement and this is the less than wonderful outcome.
Yes and no. How many US police officers are actually responsible to the communities they police, or live in those communities?
But then we might start looking at why that is, and the roots of US policing vs the roots of the London Met. Both developed to respond to two very different labour problems in the defense of the ruling class.
How many US police officers are actually responsible to the communities they police, or live in those communities?
Well in the majority of these smaller law enforcement agencies it's my understanding that the senior officer, typically a Sheriff, is an elected position, directly accountable to the community.
As for the ordinary police officers I have no direct link for this, but again I believe that there has been a real movement toward hiring an ethnic diversity of officers in recent decades. And it would only be logical to think the majority would live locally. Happy to see evidence to the contrary.
Yeah, apparently not.
Edit: note the double-whammy that most officers are white, and white officers are the ones most likely to live outside the jurisdictions they “serve”.
OK so in reviewing your responses it's clear that you have rejected any political reform process, and by implication are supporting the full disbanding of all police forces as demanded by BLM and many other liberal left voices at the moment.
Or if you have any other alternative ideas you really have failed to express them.
All well and good; you'll get to punch nazis to your heart's content.
YouGov Poll:
65% of all respondents opposed cutting police force funding (just 16 % of Democrats and 15 % of Republicans supported the idea)
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/06/01/police-reform-america-poll
Defunding Police Depts:
Crosstabs: Views by Ethnicity:
………….. Oppose … Unsure ….. Support
White ……. 75% ………. 13% ……….. 12%
Black …….. 36% ………. 31% ………… 33%
Hispanic . 42% ……….. 40% ………… 17%
Other …….. 68% ………. 14% …………. 17%
It's not my role to determine what replaces a force of occupation. That's for the people being occupied to decide.
RL, would traditional police systems be part of your vision for a future hyper-energised global world order? You seem to have imagination to burn when it comes to making giant leaps, but a poverty of imagination wrt small steps.
A 2014 article on "alternatives to the modern police system", for open minds.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/police-brutality-cop-free-world-protest-199465/
More food food thought here:
What you completely omit from that narrative is that European and American societies were the first ones to outlaw chattel slavery. They are the societies that invented industrialisation that made slavery obsolete, and then had the great internal debate (and in the case of the USA a very bloody Civil War) to end it.
This is an extraordinary achievement. Slavery in many forms, was a standard feature of virtually all societies since the invention of agriculture.
Ending such a deeply embedded institution was not just a simple political and legal matter. It had strong cultural roots that have taken generations to wither away. In the USA abolition was just 150 years ago, the restoration of full civil rights just 60 years ago. The growth of a strong black middle class is another remarkable feature of this period, culminating in the election of a black President in this past decade.
In the face of such undeniable progress, to pretend the USA is somehow unique in it's 'original sin of racist slavery' is nothing but a perverse fruit of indentity politics run to a toxic eruption.
[Auto-Moderation triggered by too may links]
Yikes.
You're only supposed to lick the boot, not deep throat it.
Actually, China seems to have been the first to outlaw slavery. Chattel or otherwise.
You are quite correct. Both Ming and Qing rules outlawed it respectively, but slavery was never on the level of that which Europeans practiced in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Nor did it rise to the same evil level of dehumanisation as the trans-Atlantic trade.
'Slavery' of course in terms of indentured labour into the 20th century in China. It was in fact indentured labour often called slavery. While morally reprehensible, it is different in nature from chattel slavery practiced in North America.
The British and French used vast amounts of forced labour in their colonies in the 20th century – is that slavery?
And if we categorise forced and indentured labour as slavery, as the white right do when it comes to non-Western cultures, then we should apply the same to the US —chain gangs, prison labour etc, then some have said that what was in essence slavery (to a far greater extent than what occurred in China say), persisted in the USA right up until WW2. Excellent documentary 'Slavery by Another Name"
http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/home/
As I said slavery was deeply embedded in all societies, stretching back over at least 10 millenia, therefore it would be very surprising if it had come to an absolute end everywhere all at once, in every conceivable form. Your own reference to the Chinese experience demonstrates just how many times it was outlawed, and yet how persistently it reappeared.
But since industrialisation, the US Civil War and the emancipation movement, the rejection and trend away from slavery, toward a full and permanent recognition of it's evils is undeniable.
If you read the reference fully it seems various Chinese dynasties repeatedly attempted to abolish slavery … the final date reads:
Still it is fair to say that while slavery was a very common feature of pre-industrial life, most people recognised it as a very undesirable state to fall into. It's history is, like most things, way more complex than we imagine and at various times it was abolished by more enlightened rulers, only to reappear later.
It was industrialisation that ensured it's suppression from modern life, by making it obsolete.
Except that prison slavery is still a decent chunk of the domestic US economy. So one wonders exactly how much the system has changed.
It was industrialisation that ensured it's suppression from modern life, by making it obsolete.
That is true to an extent. One can say that for civilization to advance beyond the hunter gatherer, there needed to be a group of people who did the shitty work, and allowed others to philosophize, create, paint, sculpture, and design. Such as the case in feudal Europe and Asia, and ancient Greece and Rome.
However one could still run a pretty much pre-industrial society without the form of chattel and heritable slavery seen in the Americas –China is one example.
Yes, agree, it was a very unfortunate position to be, whether a galley slave of Ancient Rome, a Russian serf, or a Chinese peasant in pre-revolutionary China.
"European and American societies were the first ones to outlaw chattel slavery. w chattel slavery"
There is a wide spectrum relating to the level of dehumanization, when it comes to 'slavery' in all of its many historical forms. There is the Greco Roman type, the indentured servitude type that use to be found in China, the Islamic type, indentured labour in the South Pacific, 'blackbirding' in Queensland, Chinese coolies in the US, and the type of slavery practiced in the ante-bellum US south.
The last one on the list above was by far the most dehumanising and racist and hopeless for those enslaved, for a whole host of reasons. That dehumisation has continued right up through the past 150 years through Jim Crow, lynchings, the indignities of segregation, and police brutality.
Whereas, say, for Chinese indentured servants such as mui tsai etc, they could well have married into the families they worked for and their children and definitely their children's children seamlessly become part of the mainstream without any stigma attached to them. In most other cases slaves were still considered human, not sub-human
Even conservative US Christians make this point and draw distinctions when try to mitigate Paul's apparent defence of it ( Epistle of Paul to Philemon for example). That it was vastly different in nature to that which existed in the ante-bellum Southern states. And they are right.
If slavery in ancient times was so very benign why did various dynasties see fit to try and outlaw your 'Chinese indentured servants’ ?
Oh look, maybe because Chinese slavery was just confined to gentile 'household work'. For instance, the Grand Canal wasn't dug by the fairies.
Your efforts to whitewash slavery in China is understandable, but scarcely supported by even a brief overview.
As for slavery in the ante-bellum US, there is no quibble it intensified into an especially dehumanised version. In the early part of the industrial revolution technologies like deep water navigation and the advent of rapid economic growth in Europe resulted in an especially toxic period. Yet it was never sustainable in any sense of the word … it came to an end most abruptly with the cost of many lives in a bloody civil war.
But somehow pretending this period was categorically uniquely evil, and that by comparison the slavery of millions of humans stretching back millenia was justified and benign… is a ridiculous confection.
The Yuan rulers were Mongolian
Forced or indentured labour (call them slaves or whatever) have been used by every civilization and country in history.
Of course it was never justified and benign. That is why you had events such as the Chinese and Russian revolutions. 'Slaves' of a sort overthrowing their 'masters' and exacting violent revenge. So yes, it would have been crap otherwise why the violence in overthrowing it.
But chattel slavery of the form that happened in the ante-bellum South was something unique in its level of dehumanisation based on race – as you admit. Even more so than perhaps the South American variety. And it carries on through the biologically —status is biologically inherited.
Nevertheless it can be argued that this has made Americans uniquely sensitive to race and racism and aware of it. There is probably far less of the sort of overt 'casual' racial stereotypiing in Anglo Saxon founded countries than in other countries. This is both a good and a bad thing.
South was something unique in its level of dehumanisation based on race – as you admit.
Actually we have no way to know that. The intense darkness of that period is apparent to us because we have access to modern records of it. And indeed in the USA that period has often been close to the centre of their public debate.
But history rarely records the experiences of slaves. For example what do we really know of the lives of the 4m who dug part of the Grand Canal? Time has obscured our view of them, but there is no reason to conclude their experience was any less 'dehumanising' than that of the ante-bellum South.
This is the fatal idiocy of identity politics, it degenerates into an oppression Olympics, when in reality all peoples have their legacy of trauma.
For example what do we really know of the lives of the 4m who dug part of the Grand Canal?
Of course in terms of actual individual experience of and suffering your point is obviously true.
But then you could argue a Kenyan who suffered in the British Gulags in Kenya or was one of the thousands hanged in the 1950s by the British, suffered as much as a Jewish person under Nazi rule. Or those persecuted and then beheaded by French imperialists in Vietnam suffered just as much as those in the White Rose resistance movement under Hitler, in terms of individual experience (losing one's noggin)
However few, including myself, would argue, that on this basis, British or French imperial rule was anywhere close in terms of moral evil to Nazi rule.
I won't put this on the Covid-19 thread because he's not important enough to dampen a celebration, but …
Team Todd screwed up yet again. He spoke live to the media while Ardern and Bloomfield were still speaking. Guess how many carried his press conference live (clue: it's the same number as Covid-19 cases in NZ).
Not the media's fault. It's scheduled invisibility. Genius.
No, you misunderstand. The strategy makes perfect sense because on current internal polling National will do a deal with ACT and get into Parliament on ACT’s coattail. They don’t want to rattle the Epsom electorate and need to massage and soften them up slowly and gently because they’re so used to not voting for that Māori fella with the Pākehā name. We may even have an overhang of one seat!
Do you think Hoots is finding the going a lot tougher than he thought it would be?
My distrust of Espiner largely stems back to his writing about Shane Jones during the Labour leadership contest.
Looking at what has happened recently and considering his lengthy years in the gallery he's definitely a connected guy. Interesting that these two stories came out today. But they suggest perhaps desire to promote his podcast and create sensation, or perhaps some intelligence community flexing rather than any serious move against the government.
Quite carefully, neither of the other countries involved exist any more. Wanting to know about the S.I.S. and others in the last 30 years, well, wait another 30 years I guess.
Kia Ora
Newshub.
They only care about the 1%.
I agree we have to have a great defence at our borders to keep the virus out of Aotearoa.
Its having positive effects in Aotearoa to.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
I hope Maori Media is given the support they deserve.
That's cool $20 million invested to make North land roads safer.
Its good to see the Palmerston north council working with the local tangata whenua.
It didn't take to long for Maori to be able to greet Maori with a Hongi. again
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
Newshub.
I think planning for the future is great we need to invest in green low costs energy I. E. lower our exporting NZ dollars for carbon I have read green energy will provide heaps of jobs.Education and training is logical .
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora
Newshub.
The bad state of our hospital buildings show that A government that puts money first is not fit to run our country.
Compassion and emperthy are excellent quality's to have.
One wonders if the staff are national supporter
That'sis cool using drones to help in conversation of turtles.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
Te Ao Maori Marama.
Its was published that the Gisborne DC was consulting Iwi and tangata using the media to pedal their lies.????.
Times are changing.
Te Orca are Awsome.
I didn't see Te Maori party championing all Maori problems in fact life for most Maori got extremely hard when the Maori party was at Te tepu.
Yes remember those reggae lyrics they speak the Truth.
Ka kite Ano.