MDMA acts primarily by increasing the release of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline in parts of the brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA
Catalytic, hormonal stimulant. Never used it myself (too old). Way back when I did experiment with psychedelics some enlightenment ensued but not as much as I expected. I think transcendence happens when the time is right for someone.
It's all relative to the mental fog induced in people by the education system plus social conditioning generally. Psychedelics are good for dissipating that – but over-use can have a disintegrating effect on the psyche. Saw plenty of that downside way back then.
The point is that use of any tool is relative to style of application, technique, context. One can't generalise any further than that.
More like sorting out/getting into some perspective..the garbage that most of us haul around…
And mdma is not called the hug drug for no reason..
'cos you can be sitting with someone you have known for years…and you can riff off on how you have never realised what excellent examples of the human race they are..
internal polling seen by the Herald shows a rising pool of potential Green voters at 30 per cent – up from 24 per cent prior to the 2020 election – and of those deemed “on the fence”, the bulk are Labour voters.
According to the Herald’s poll of polls, the Green Party vote share has slipped over the past year, from hovering around 9 to 10 per cent now down to about 7 to 8 per cent.The model predicts that share could grow as high as just under 11 per cent on election night, or drop as low as 6 per cent.
Marketing to floating voters is too sophisticated a concept for the Greens to get their heads around apparently – so easy to default to tradition & cannabalise Labour.
Davidson said over the past term they had seen the amount of available votes grow to 30 per cent, based on their own polling. These are voters who had considered voting Green.
“That is because people know that the pace of change is not happening fast enough, and that’s primarily around climate action, protecting nature and inequality.”
Now, those are internal polling figures – so to be taken with a strong pinch of salt.
But. If there are potentially 30% of the votes up for grabs – what is turning off those voters from the GP?
If they can figure this out – and then change their policies to match what the voter-base wants – then they can be serious players.
Wokeism, currently. Lack of marketing pizzazz has tended to embed & reinforce floating voter scepticism re GP representation of the Green movement.
I've watched them default to the left continuously since they got into parliament. The effect of this has been to maintain the same level of popular support they got in 1990. That consistent bias against connecting with others has been remarkable in how it consistently prevents them growing their support base (except sporadic sucking of votes out of Labour).
Talk to them individually, you usually get intelligent conversation. The problem lies in their group mind. It's transpersonal! Somehow the parliamentary leftist alignment parks them in a cul de sac in the political ecosystem. Comfortable there, doan wanna leave, is the syndrome resulting that has captivated them…
Okay, I hear you, but denial doesn't get anyone anywhere. Maybe you disagree with my diagnosis but can't articulate why. Fair enough. Feelings are natural. They need not necessarily be put into words.
Time is (too) precious and life is (too) short to be doggy paddling in word swamps that add nothing, do nothing, and achieve nothing other than providing a means & habitat for swamp-dwellers – my name is not Shrek.
In the past its been pretty simple, when labour is strong I vote green, if they're weak I vote labour, (have voted top ,nzf once each this century)
Still haven't forgiven Davidson for her racist rant, I think taxing farming emmisions on a level footing with frivolous emissions like tourism is ridiculous ,and the is definitely an anti farmer bent in the left of left green s.
Fear is another reason I'm wary of the greens being to strong, not sure some of their economic theories won't pull the whole house of cards down.
The Greens are the only party who will be in parliament for the next term who have a serious set of policies on ending poverty. Climate change isn't mentioned much in those, but it comes in in things like building sustainable houses.
A country in poverty, (nz is along way from there) isn’t going to do a single thing about cc,
This year alone this poor country has to spend billions in dollars because of a weather events – and lives were lost that will never come back. It’s likely to get worse and more expensive. NACT’s attitude is a hedonistic, selfish & entitled party-hard and let somebody else clean up the mess and the Greens’ attitude is a proactive and more considerate leave some for the next generation(s) too.
But one Green Party Co-Leader said something one day that offended a few people, so let’s take the party back on track!
Don't worry to much about my vote the greens need labour and vis versa, nact arnt an option for me, (and I can't ever see them being one, top maybe, bit I don't like wealth /land taxs , (I have neither btw)
Not worried, just fascinated by the narratives and internal monologues of people in how they decide, justify, and argue for their voting choices. Are they informed choices? Everybody is free to vote (or not vote) any way they like.
I think taxing farming emmisions on a level footing with frivolous emissions like tourism is ridiculous
Climate change doesn't care if emissions are frivolous to humans or not. All that matters is the amount of GHGs going into the atmosphere thanks to us. In other words, we could eliminate all the frivolous GHG emissions and still go over a cliff (collapse civ and the biosphere) because we thought that some GHG emissions were necessary.
and the is definitely an anti farmer bent in the left of left green s.
I'm curious where you see that. The party itself is pro farmer, but if there are greens doing anti-farmer shit I'd like to see how that is playing out.
The problem is that climate change mostly directly affects future food production.
We have had about 10,000 years of relatively calm weather and climate since the last glacial and immediate post-glacial episode compared to the climate chaos that preceded it. That is what allowed us as a species to build up a farming technology that underlies our current food production.
Rapidly reverting to the kinds of climates that were prevalent and last seen in the Eocene over the next century or two seems unlikely to provide a stable basis for developing a new much more robust farming technology. After all we still haven’t managed to develop particularly good farming technologies for our current tropical regions. Which is why the bulk of the worlds food is grown in temperate climates.
We still don’t have really good models of what happens when when there is a rapid rise in greenhouse gases. Nor do we have accurate information about the actual climate in the tropics during the Eocene. What we do know and what has been becoming clearer from both the overly rapid current climate shifts and research into past climates is that it is likely to be a lot worse than our current models.
During the Eocene, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was more than 560 parts per million, at least twice preindustrial levels, and the epoch kicked off with a global average temperature more than 8 degrees Celsius – about 14 degrees Fahrenheit – warmer than today, gradually cooling over the next 22 million years
and jumping to the conclusions looking at temperate regions.
The team then used their dataset from the tropics to back-calculate the temperature and chemistry of polar oceans, relying on previous studies of forams that captured the conditions of those regions.
With this correction factor in place, they investigated the degree to which polar oceans warmed more than the tropics, a feature of the climate system known as polar amplification. Their data showed that the difference between polar and equatorial sea surface temperatures in the Eocene was an estimated 20 degrees Celsius, about 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Today the difference is 28 degrees Celsius, indicating that polar regions are more sensitive to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide than the tropics.
Troublingly, said Evans, when the team compared their data with various modern climate models under Eocene conditions, most models underestimated polar amplification by about 50 percent.
The two models that came closest to reproducing the team’s data had one key aspect in common – they modified the way they accounted for cloud formation and the longevity of clouds in the atmosphere, particularly in the polar regions.
“To us, that looks like a promising research direction,” he said. “If – and it’s a big if – that turns out to be the right avenue to go down, that could play into the models we use for our future climate predictions.”
Which basically means that if we get to a effective short-term doubling of green house gases causing a more rapid climate change. For instance by the much faster short-term heating from methane and nitious oxides from farming releasing carbon stores in permafrost or methane from ocean clathrates. Or for that matter any of the many possible tipping points to short-term green-house effects that the higher short-term effect greenhouse gas emissions affect disproportionately.
It isn’t being anti-farming to worry about the ability of farming to produce sufficient food in the future.
Particularly it seems in a large part because farmers showing a palpable unwillingness to learn how to rapidly reduce their high-effect greenhouse gas emissions if it hits their immediate profits. What is the point of NZ producing food for 40 million people when they are hastening a demise in their ability of farm effectively?
Methane is circular, so we arnt producing more of it since we ate farming less animals now than 30 years ago especially sheep number(I'm aware some of those sheep numbers have bec6dsiry cow numbers)
Farmers inputs will already be getting any current emissions taxs ,
Yes I know farming will get harder with changing weather, unhealthy out here every day doing it. But taxing it out of existence isn't the answer.
The number of farm animals is only part of the equation. What animals, what size, what age, feeding patterns & diet changes, production patterns, the effects of increased milk production, etc. All these are factors in total farm emissions, including methane.
Circular in the emmisions profile, with a 10 year life span, so unless we increase animal numbers, which we're not ,it's not increasing or methane emmisions,
AFAIK, methane does not have a life span, but a half-life in the atmosphere, which is about 10 years. IIRC, it breaks down to carbon dioxide, which has a much longer half-life. This and the fact that the potential greenhouse effect of methane is about 28 times larger than carbon dioxide makes methane an ideal target for reduction of emissions of greenhouse gasses.
You seem to imply that current levels of agriculture methane emissions are just dandy as long as we don’t increase them!?
My understanding is that the emissions from stock are circular due to it being taken up by the plants the stxk eat, so the emmisions stay the same ,not increasing unless you increase animals,
Also my original point was that food production is important, so not all emmisions are created equal, 8 billion people need feeding,
AFAIK, there are some soil bacteria that absorb methane but plants don’t use methane as such.
Not all animals are equal either in terms of emissions of greenhouse gasses.
You keep missing or avoiding the main point though, which is that current emissions are too high and agriculture is a huge contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.
literally no-one in NZ pol has suggested taxing farming out of existence. There's no earthly reason to not transition to regenag and have lower stock numbers, other than the economics. We can still produce food for NZ and excess to sell to the world.
By the time you add large numbers of large ruminants and a greater application of nitrogenous fertilisers to the equation a reduction by half in sheep numbers doesn't make that much difference.
Ruminant enteric methane emissions are responsible for 35% of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions and account for 73% of all New Zealand’s agricultural emissions, with 30% of enteric methane directly attributable to the sheep industry (Ministry for the Environment, 2021).
Sheep are still about 25% of our total greenhouse gas emissions.
Methane is circular,
Way way too shallow. It simply isn't 'circular' on any human timescale. It is nett culmulative over the next few centuries.
After all these materials are going into the atmosphere and getting removed from the cycle. Try showing me anything in NZ that is sucking up methane and nitrous oxides in quantity.
So where does the material come from in the first place. In NZ, most of the carbon in CH3 is effectively mined from the soil by farming. It is no coincidence that the best farming soils are those in the lowlands on old river flood plains, peat bogs, and forested areas. They are effectively a natural mine for long stored carbon – especially drained swamps. Even the hill country that sheep mostly run on are steadily being mined for old forest carbon stores.
We are at least several centuries away from NZ getting its soil carbon into a equilibrium. I'd hardly call that being 'circular'.
I'd point out that from the perspective of an earth scientist, the nett effect of adding fertilisers is to simply mine the soil of its carbon and other nutritional materials faster with scant regard to the future.
Wr certainly aren't 'circular' when you look at nitrous oxides. There is a paucity of nitrogen in NZ soils that is only a teeny part made up by legume (mostly white clover) fixing. The reason is pretty obvious. Umm here is a source discussing the issue in laymans terms.
Farmers are so focused on extracting every kilogram of dry matter they can, that the significance of white clover is being overlooked in favour of the grass component in pasture mixes. I regularly meet farmers who increase their grass sowing rate just so they can get to their first grazing faster, despite the fact that the increased plant competition will have a negative impact on clover establishment.
ie sucking up fossil carbon (dry matter) faster. The same applies to super phosphate application. Rather than making extraction 'circular' NZ farmers actively accelerate deletion.
Of course on the way through, extractive farming also pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases of methane and nitrous oxides and the waterways as a side effect.
Between 1991 and 2019, estimates from sales data of nitrogen applied to land in fertiliser increased from 62,000 to 452,000 tonnes (just over a sixfold increase, 629 percent).
Since our last update of this indicator in April 2019, there was a 5.4 percent increase from 2015 to 2019 in nitrogen applied from fertiliser. In this period, urease inhibitor use increased 48 percent.
Gotta love that last two sentences. It does point out the futility of urease inhibitors. All they do is decrease the demand while still allowing a 5.4% increase. Good try – total fail without a actual reduction in nitrogen fertilizer usage. Which shows no signs of happening even through the pandemic.
Phosphates are going down, probably more due to price increases than lack of demand. But the over all increase in fertilisers in NZ shows up most clearly when you look at the two key nutrients for extracting greenhouse gases of fixed nitrogen and phosphates in tonnes of the nutrient – as in the older chart from stats (I wonder why is it so hard to see the side by side figures in the updated page).
The overall level of extra nutrient applied to the soils in NZ has massively increased over the last 20 years. In effect mining the soil faster and releasing much more pollutants – including shoter-term acting greenhouse gases.
CO2 has stabilised since the ETS, hopefully to reduce, despite a 50% increase in population over the last 30 years. But our useless farmers chasing a unsustainable personal profit mining our soils have been effectively increasing their pollution profile. They are massively increasing the amount of a longer-lived greenhouse gas and haven't managed to constrain the emissions of their larger output.
What is even more annoying is that the sectors of agriculture tat are doing most of the pollution aren't even a very profitable industries for the country. Most of their gross export profit is immediately paid offshore in interest payments on capital. The nett profit to our society is piss all, and certainly not enough to cover their pollution costs.
They just leave the costs of their soil mining industry for the rest of NZ to pay in cleaning up waterways and paying higher ETS levies.
In short farmers can easily be regarded as being unsustainable economic parasites for the rest of NZ, even before you look at this tiny group being the largest polluters in NZ. In a lot of ways NZ would probably be economically better off dropping our food production down to only supplying the domestic market and concentrating on cost reductions for the economically productive members of the workforce – the ones who make a productive profit for the country as a whole.
Or farmers could start receiving price signals from something like the ETS that make them act in a more economically responsible role than being simple soil miners.
But. If there are potentially 30% of the votes up for grabs – what is turning off those voters from the GP?
Politics is a contest of ideas although in NZ it’s become more like a dirty MMA fight. This by itself might turn off voters and increase political apathy & disengagement but also there will be winners & losers in such a competition – it is kind of a zero-sum game.
If they can figure this out – and then change their policies to match what the voter-base wants – then they can be serious players.
Are they not already ‘serious players’? Should they water down some of their policies and forsake some of their values & principles for the sake of more populist & appealing ones? Do you have any policies in mind? The Wealth Tax proposal, by any chance? And then you will vote for them?
So transparent, like a floor to ceiling window in a multi million dollar mansion on a clear day.
What you imply is what every Nat trying for a climate conscience wants, for the Greens to get rid of their stupid, woke social policies and concentrate on greenwashing for the right wing.
If the Greens ditched all their social policy which is what you have asked them to do, they'd lose most of their members and most of their support. Support to be replaced by a small number of wealthy RW women looking for somewhere to park their privileged guilt.
I suggested that they could look at the reasons why those who indicated that they considered voting Green, don't actually follow through (either in polls or in real life at the elections).
I don't know what those reasons are (I certainly don't have visibility of their internal polling) – perhaps you do – since you're commenting with such confidence!
The Greens are a party of the left because both climate change and climate change policies will disproportionately hurt the poor and working class.
They believe in govt and societal action on climate change not centerist green washing, individual responsibility on climate change.
They believe left wing and universal economic policies will ease the burden of climate change and climate change policies on the poor and working class.
They also oppose crony capitalism, trickle down and infinite growth because we're on a finite planet.
Therefore they are a party of the left and their strategy is to get as many left wing voters off labour as possible to have increased influence in a coalition to push Labour to the left.
The strategy should be that the greens go after the left and try to excite as many non voting lefty's to vote as possible, while labour goes after the center and tries to convert as many National, Top and NZ first voters as possible.
I don't get how that Strategy is difficult to get!
Add the Maori party who if needed to stop Nat/Act, Hopefully are able to manage to win as many Maori electorates as possible, with as little party votes as possible and cause an overhang making it impossible for national to govern.
I always hear this argument about the greens being in a culdesac, I never hear this of ACT who are trying the exact same strategy, but on the right, except national keeps fighting them for right wing votes rather than trying to convert the center!
Being on the left doesn't blunt the greens influence, Labour needs the greens inside the tent pissing out, the last thing labour wants is the greens supporting a labour minority govt in the crossbenches on an issue by issue basis demanding massive concessions on each issue.
Walking a fine line down the middle of the road, internationally, I note. One thread: NZ must make sure to have eggs in many basket…EU FTA…South East Asia tensions. And another thread…independent foreign policy, as in Clark over Iraq, is not the same as neutral foreign policy…AUKUS 5 eyes, but not AUKUS military action, necessarily.
Gosh so they are! I have two takes on this situation:
a) stunned mullet syndrome – audience either blotto or unable to cognite that H did the right thing with modest flair & finesse
b) audience so entrained by smart-phone-driven short attention spans that the prospect of reading an actual speech freaked them instantly into evasion mode
A year old gripe released at the moment to hurt the most. Nasty, nasty work by faceless people and Andrea Vance. Care about bullying and mental health? This is some vengeance by some very nasty pieces of work.
I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?
Remember there don't need to be any facts involved, just anonymous rumours that such and such has been doing whatever unsavoury thing.
This is followed by a series of MSM articles from Vance, Malpass, Soper et al saying "this adds to the growing list of lazy/corrupt/tainted/unbalanced/out-of-their depth Labour ministers." whose so-called misdemeanors are then listed again and again.
Hipkins should stare this down and stand by Allan shoulder to shoulder.
I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?
I suspect the dramatic escalation in the numbers of ram-raids is the flag that will catch their attention. So whichever minister currently shows up in the revolving door with the police minister label on it will become auto-target.
The minister will go "Who, me? I'm just sitting here thumb-twiddling, ain't doing nothing wrong. I'm not responsible for police operational non-decisions!"
This police minister as ornamental pot-plant thingy has been an area of consensus between National & Labour for quite a while. So the Nats will struggle to make impact. Consistently blaming Labour for police uselessness won't impress floating voters much. They could suggest a more strident form of virtue-signalling at the cops by Labour's police minister but they aren't putting on a convincing performance of doing that themselves so even Nat supporters are likely to be underwhelmed.
The backroom policework is 8000 offenders and 40000 charges laid in taking down drug networks since 2022. Criminal gangs up their nuisance raids, and add community violence as the advertising, because Operation Cobalt is taking out their easy revenue stream. Protection rackets are an alternative income source.
Okay, that's informative. Does it mean a clogged-up justice system?? We know how addicted judges & lawyers are to dragging out legal processes for as long as possible. Is the system working or broken or somewhere in between?
If you look at NZ incarceration stats, they were going down until July 22, mostly due, apparently, to a new support programme for functionally illiterate 1st offenders on remand being given help to apply for home detention in place of remand prison. (A difference which contributes to more poor and Maori suffering extended incarceration time early on).
Then they have climbed, as Operation Cobalt began to bite, but also as other violence crimes were solved.
Plus I think, although covid introduced a big backlog, the court system has maintained streamlined processes introduced then. This includes judge-only trials, and remote attendance for simple court appearances, cutting down the need to move prisoners back and forth from remand to court, and saving court time.
Apparently, up to 40% of the prison population comprised of remand prisoners in 2020, some of whom spent time in remand longer than any sentence for their crimes due to court backlogs. Andrew Little as Justice Minister from 2017 achieved significant reforms, and added funding and judiciary appointments over National. Covid put a crimp in clearing the backlog, of course.
Obviously Parliament could change the law to allow operational decisions to be made by ministers. Unless that happens, ministers really don't have much say in how the police go about their work.
BG: "I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?"
Peeni Henare Is being accused of Conflict of interest. Tatou Industries gained contracts while Peeni was Associate Ministry of Health and Peeni is partner of Skye Temura who is head of Tatou.
Sounds ominous but efforts to promote this smear October 2022 failed to ignite but Nats are now full on. Maybe the voters will get sick of the smear campaigns by the likes of Simeon Brown?
Timing is everything in politics. The ‘opinion leaders’ of Newstalk ZB are simply trying again to see if it germinates this time in their audience of unthinking talk-back listeners and if it does it will be cultivated and spread further by other MSM ‘opinion leaders’ and useful idiots, like a GMO that spreads in the environment after a successful ‘field trial’.
Peeni is confident that he followed all the Cabinet protocols. And this smear arose last year. So I really hope that he has an all clear, given the fair warning from last time. He said he had nothing to do with the contract letting so for his sake and the Party's sake, here is hoping.
"Peeni is confident that he followed all the Cabinet protocols."
Ianmac: This is DP. The Nats aren't playing by any rules or protocols; they just want headlines that suggest wrongdoing that the compliant MSM will print, or ZB will promote.
The power of Instagram: The overnight success of Threads is a testament both to the dissatisfaction with Musk’s ownership of Twitter and to the unique power and reach of one of Meta’s most important properties: Instagram. Instagram has more than two billion users, far more than the 238 million users Twitter reported having in the months before Musk took over.
When new users sign up for Threads, which they do using an Instagram account, the app prompts them to follow all of their existing Instagram contacts with a single tap. It’s optional, but is easy to accept, and it takes a conscious decision to decline.
By promoting Threads through Instagram, and by sharing Instagram user data with Threads to let people instantly recreate their social networks, Meta has significantly greased the onboarding process. That frictionless experience has allowed Threads to leapfrog what’s known in the industry as the “cold start” problem, in which a new platform struggles to gain new users because there are no other users there to attract them.
Bit like jumping the board to catch the wave? Elon likely to be confounded, I suspect. His magic touch hasn't been in evidence since he took Twitter, & now this. However he has exhibited tremendous resilience which becomes evident if you read his biography.
Luxton and Co. are so ideological at this point, they are making Marxist/Leninist's blush from their utter lack of rigidity and purity.
All the talk of running the country like a business is just getting silly. Now they want ministers to act like as junior executives, to the PM being a CEO.
Stripping people of basic work place rights is a given from this mob, making it impossible for average people to get ahead is high on the agenda as well.
But the truly jumping the shark stuff is the putting community on the same level as business and asking them for input – ignoring they fact both have been doing that for years. The national party have lost the plot.
No wonder all the do is ratfucking week in and week out.
This is a very once-over-lightly analysis – but, I thought, useful to highlight the potential swing-seats in the 2023 election (including my local MP).
Who wins seats/electorates is largely irrelevant except for Akl Central, the Maori seats and possibly, though unlikely, a couple of others like Northland and Wellington Central.
It has some impact on which list MPs enter Parliament for National and Labour though. Not relevant to overall numbers, but some relevance to the specific MPs who will make up Parliament.
The UK Conservative government's anti-woke priorities: Minister tells asylum processing centre for children to paint over a mural of disney characters that make the place "too welcoming".
Meanwhile, food and rents/mortgages rise, the seas and rivers are awash with sewage while private water companies have profited, and the UK economy suffers post-Brexit, the biggest example of cutting off your nose to spite your face I can think of.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
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 ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
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 ...
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 ...
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. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
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. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
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 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
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. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
Australia has legalised mdma and psylocibin for therapeutic use..
This is excellent news…when are we going to do that here..?
I have used both of them…ask me anything..
ask me anything
Have you become enlightened?
Catalytic, hormonal stimulant. Never used it myself (too old). Way back when I did experiment with psychedelics some enlightenment ensued but not as much as I expected. I think transcendence happens when the time is right for someone.
It's all relative to the mental fog induced in people by the education system plus social conditioning generally. Psychedelics are good for dissipating that – but over-use can have a disintegrating effect on the psyche. Saw plenty of that downside way back then.
The point is that use of any tool is relative to style of application, technique, context. One can't generalise any further than that.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/492980/mdma-australia-begins-world-first-psychedelic-therapy
Not so much enlightenment..
More like sorting out/getting into some perspective..the garbage that most of us haul around…
And mdma is not called the hug drug for no reason..
'cos you can be sitting with someone you have known for years…and you can riff off on how you have never realised what excellent examples of the human race they are..
Lots of grinning usually involved..
Lots of grinning
Interesting. So it shares that with mary jane. Tom Petty did a song about that:
too cold to cry when I woke up alone
I hit the last number, I walked to the road
Last dance with Mary Jane
One more time to kill the pain
https://genius.com/Tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers-mary-janes-last-dance-lyrics
Or, as the Fab Furry Freak Bros often would say `dope will get you thro times of no money better than money will get you thro times of no dope'.
A herb that reliably connects someone to Gaia in a fraction of a second will always have currency: very deep Green. In times of trauma, use carefully…
Rather listen to Bill Hicks
https://youtu.be/QLIQ_NWyErQ
That is a very good link…
I would rather listen to bill hicks too..
Mind you… anything by bill hicks..
is a good link..
Left vs left again:
Marketing to floating voters is too sophisticated a concept for the Greens to get their heads around apparently – so easy to default to tradition & cannabalise Labour.
Yeah but that is the Herald's take-what do you expect?
With Climate Change becoming more and more a major issue the Greens are well placed to take votes from parties across the board, not just from Labour.
I have seen a stream of well thought out Green Party adverts on fb over the last few months.
Chloe will win Akl Central of course.
Care to make a prediction of Wgtn Central??![smiley smiley](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/regular_smile.png?x42494)
I find this telling for the Greens
Now, those are internal polling figures – so to be taken with a strong pinch of salt.
But. If there are potentially 30% of the votes up for grabs – what is turning off those voters from the GP?
If they can figure this out – and then change their policies to match what the voter-base wants – then they can be serious players.
Wokeism, currently. Lack of marketing pizzazz has tended to embed & reinforce floating voter scepticism re GP representation of the Green movement.
I've watched them default to the left continuously since they got into parliament. The effect of this has been to maintain the same level of popular support they got in 1990. That consistent bias against connecting with others has been remarkable in how it consistently prevents them growing their support base (except sporadic sucking of votes out of Labour).
Talk to them individually, you usually get intelligent conversation. The problem lies in their group mind. It's transpersonal! Somehow the parliamentary leftist alignment parks them in a cul de sac in the political ecosystem. Comfortable there, doan wanna leave, is the syndrome resulting that has captivated them…
When I read some of your comments about the Greens it’s like I’m reading Bomber doggy paddling and slowly drowning in his own word swamp.
Okay, I hear you, but denial doesn't get anyone anywhere. Maybe you disagree with my diagnosis but can't articulate why. Fair enough. Feelings are natural. They need not necessarily be put into words.
Time is (too) precious and life is (too) short to be doggy paddling in word swamps that add nothing, do nothing, and achieve nothing other than providing a means & habitat for swamp-dwellers – my name is not Shrek.
I've voted green 3 times , not sure this time.
In the past its been pretty simple, when labour is strong I vote green, if they're weak I vote labour, (have voted top ,nzf once each this century)
Still haven't forgiven Davidson for her racist rant, I think taxing farming emmisions on a level footing with frivolous emissions like tourism is ridiculous ,and the is definitely an anti farmer bent in the left of left green s.
Fear is another reason I'm wary of the greens being to strong, not sure some of their economic theories won't pull the whole house of cards down.
The environmental cliff we are barreling towards..
Will 'bring the whole house down'..
Green policies are an attempt to avoid that..
Funny because most were economic orthodoxy not all that long ago.
When we had the highest standard of living in the world.
Neo-liberalism has had us going consistently downhill.
Just giving my feelings to those asking why the greens aren't getting 30%.
A country in poverty, (nz is along way from there) isn't going to do a single thing about cc,
The Greens are the only party who will be in parliament for the next term who have a serious set of policies on ending poverty. Climate change isn't mentioned much in those, but it comes in in things like building sustainable houses.
This year alone this poor country has to spend billions in dollars because of a weather events – and lives were lost that will never come back. It’s likely to get worse and more expensive. NACT’s attitude is a hedonistic, selfish & entitled party-hard and let somebody else clean up the mess and the Greens’ attitude is a proactive and more considerate leave some for the next generation(s) too.
But one Green Party Co-Leader said something one day that offended a few people, so let’s take the party back on track!
Don't worry to much about my vote the greens need labour and vis versa, nact arnt an option for me, (and I can't ever see them being one, top maybe, bit I don't like wealth /land taxs , (I have neither btw)
Not worried, just fascinated by the narratives and internal monologues of people in how they decide, justify, and argue for their voting choices. Are they informed choices? Everybody is free to vote (or not vote) any way they like.
Climate change doesn't care if emissions are frivolous to humans or not. All that matters is the amount of GHGs going into the atmosphere thanks to us. In other words, we could eliminate all the frivolous GHG emissions and still go over a cliff (collapse civ and the biosphere) because we thought that some GHG emissions were necessary.
I'm curious where you see that. The party itself is pro farmer, but if there are greens doing anti-farmer shit I'd like to see how that is playing out.
"Anti farmer"
Just the vibe get weka, much more muted on the standard now days,
Farming feeds people, so no emissions arnt equal, hungry people arnt going to give a shit about cc in the same way poor people won't, .
I believe the un said food production should be treated differently (am off to see if I can dig a link up)
The problem is that climate change mostly directly affects future food production.
We have had about 10,000 years of relatively calm weather and climate since the last glacial and immediate post-glacial episode compared to the climate chaos that preceded it. That is what allowed us as a species to build up a farming technology that underlies our current food production.
Rapidly reverting to the kinds of climates that were prevalent and last seen in the Eocene over the next century or two seems unlikely to provide a stable basis for developing a new much more robust farming technology. After all we still haven’t managed to develop particularly good farming technologies for our current tropical regions. Which is why the bulk of the worlds food is grown in temperate climates.
We still don’t have really good models of what happens when when there is a rapid rise in greenhouse gases. Nor do we have accurate information about the actual climate in the tropics during the Eocene. What we do know and what has been becoming clearer from both the overly rapid current climate shifts and research into past climates is that it is likely to be a lot worse than our current models.
For instance this populist article on Eocene climatic research..
and jumping to the conclusions looking at temperate regions.
Which basically means that if we get to a effective short-term doubling of green house gases causing a more rapid climate change. For instance by the much faster short-term heating from methane and nitious oxides from farming releasing carbon stores in permafrost or methane from ocean clathrates. Or for that matter any of the many possible tipping points to short-term green-house effects that the higher short-term effect greenhouse gas emissions affect disproportionately.
It isn’t being anti-farming to worry about the ability of farming to produce sufficient food in the future.
Particularly it seems in a large part because farmers showing a palpable unwillingness to learn how to rapidly reduce their high-effect greenhouse gas emissions if it hits their immediate profits. What is the point of NZ producing food for 40 million people when they are hastening a demise in their ability of farm effectively?
Methane is circular, so we arnt producing more of it since we ate farming less animals now than 30 years ago especially sheep number(I'm aware some of those sheep numbers have bec6dsiry cow numbers)
Farmers inputs will already be getting any current emissions taxs ,
Yes I know farming will get harder with changing weather, unhealthy out here every day doing it. But taxing it out of existence isn't the answer.
Methane is tetrahedral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedral_molecular_geometry
The number of farm animals is only part of the equation. What animals, what size, what age, feeding patterns & diet changes, production patterns, the effects of increased milk production, etc. All these are factors in total farm emissions, including methane.
Circular in the emmisions profile, with a 10 year life span, so unless we increase animal numbers, which we're not ,it's not increasing or methane emmisions,
Are you referring to the carbon cycle?
AFAIK, methane does not have a life span, but a half-life in the atmosphere, which is about 10 years. IIRC, it breaks down to carbon dioxide, which has a much longer half-life. This and the fact that the potential greenhouse effect of methane is about 28 times larger than carbon dioxide makes methane an ideal target for reduction of emissions of greenhouse gasses.
You seem to imply that current levels of agriculture methane emissions are just dandy as long as we don’t increase them!?
My understanding is that the emissions from stock are circular due to it being taken up by the plants the stxk eat, so the emmisions stay the same ,not increasing unless you increase animals,
Also my original point was that food production is important, so not all emmisions are created equal, 8 billion people need feeding,
AFAIK, there are some soil bacteria that absorb methane but plants don’t use methane as such.
Not all animals are equal either in terms of emissions of greenhouse gasses.
You keep missing or avoiding the main point though, which is that current emissions are too high and agriculture is a huge contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.
literally no-one in NZ pol has suggested taxing farming out of existence. There's no earthly reason to not transition to regenag and have lower stock numbers, other than the economics. We can still produce food for NZ and excess to sell to the world.
By the time you add large numbers of large ruminants and a greater application of nitrogenous fertilisers to the equation a reduction by half in sheep numbers doesn't make that much difference.
Sheep are still about 25% of our total greenhouse gas emissions.
Way way too shallow. It simply isn't 'circular' on any human timescale. It is nett culmulative over the next few centuries.
After all these materials are going into the atmosphere and getting removed from the cycle. Try showing me anything in NZ that is sucking up methane and nitrous oxides in quantity.
So where does the material come from in the first place. In NZ, most of the carbon in CH3 is effectively mined from the soil by farming. It is no coincidence that the best farming soils are those in the lowlands on old river flood plains, peat bogs, and forested areas. They are effectively a natural mine for long stored carbon – especially drained swamps. Even the hill country that sheep mostly run on are steadily being mined for old forest carbon stores.
We are at least several centuries away from NZ getting its soil carbon into a equilibrium. I'd hardly call that being 'circular'.
I'd point out that from the perspective of an earth scientist, the nett effect of adding fertilisers is to simply mine the soil of its carbon and other nutritional materials faster with scant regard to the future.
Wr certainly aren't 'circular' when you look at nitrous oxides. There is a paucity of nitrogen in NZ soils that is only a teeny part made up by legume (mostly white clover) fixing. The reason is pretty obvious. Umm here is a source discussing the issue in laymans terms.
ie sucking up fossil carbon (dry matter) faster. The same applies to super phosphate application. Rather than making extraction 'circular' NZ farmers actively accelerate deletion.
Of course on the way through, extractive farming also pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases of methane and nitrous oxides and the waterways as a side effect.
It isn't slowing, it is speeding up in aggregate which is why stats NZ points out
Gotta love that last two sentences. It does point out the futility of urease inhibitors. All they do is decrease the demand while still allowing a 5.4% increase. Good try – total fail without a actual reduction in nitrogen fertilizer usage. Which shows no signs of happening even through the pandemic.
Phosphates are going down, probably more due to price increases than lack of demand. But the over all increase in fertilisers in NZ shows up most clearly when you look at the two key nutrients for extracting greenhouse gases of fixed nitrogen and phosphates in tonnes of the nutrient – as in the older chart from stats (I wonder why is it so hard to see the side by side figures in the updated page).
The overall level of extra nutrient applied to the soils in NZ has massively increased over the last 20 years. In effect mining the soil faster and releasing much more pollutants – including shoter-term acting greenhouse gases.
If you look at the gross figures about NZ greenhouse gas as CO2 equivalents for this is pretty obvious as well.
CO2 has stabilised since the ETS, hopefully to reduce, despite a 50% increase in population over the last 30 years. But our useless farmers chasing a unsustainable personal profit mining our soils have been effectively increasing their pollution profile. They are massively increasing the amount of a longer-lived greenhouse gas and haven't managed to constrain the emissions of their larger output.
What is even more annoying is that the sectors of agriculture tat are doing most of the pollution aren't even a very profitable industries for the country. Most of their gross export profit is immediately paid offshore in interest payments on capital. The nett profit to our society is piss all, and certainly not enough to cover their pollution costs.
They just leave the costs of their soil mining industry for the rest of NZ to pay in cleaning up waterways and paying higher ETS levies.
In short farmers can easily be regarded as being unsustainable economic parasites for the rest of NZ, even before you look at this tiny group being the largest polluters in NZ. In a lot of ways NZ would probably be economically better off dropping our food production down to only supplying the domestic market and concentrating on cost reductions for the economically productive members of the workforce – the ones who make a productive profit for the country as a whole.
Or farmers could start receiving price signals from something like the ETS that make them act in a more economically responsible role than being simple soil miners.
I genuinely appreciate the effort you've gone to to educate me, I'm sure I'll take a little bit in .
But aren't the emmisions created by stock intake removed by the growth of that intake, making it circular?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/transnational-environmental-law/article/agricultural-exceptionalism-in-the-climate-change-treaties/08A9C8B97DB5EDC545D2732DCF71A8D4
this guy is against it but agricultural exceptionalism is a thing
Politics is a contest of ideas although in NZ it’s become more like a dirty MMA fight. This by itself might turn off voters and increase political apathy & disengagement but also there will be winners & losers in such a competition – it is kind of a zero-sum game.
Are they not already ‘serious players’? Should they water down some of their policies and forsake some of their values & principles for the sake of more populist & appealing ones? Do you have any policies in mind? The Wealth Tax proposal, by any chance? And then you will vote for them?
So transparent, like a floor to ceiling window in a multi million dollar mansion on a clear day.
What you imply is what every Nat trying for a climate conscience wants, for the Greens to get rid of their stupid, woke social policies and concentrate on greenwashing for the right wing.
I. See. You.
Well, the alternative seems to be remaining in the 6-10% range.
I guess, if that makes them happy……
If the Greens ditched all their social policy which is what you have asked them to do, they'd lose most of their members and most of their support. Support to be replaced by a small number of wealthy RW women looking for somewhere to park their privileged guilt.
These Greens would end up like the UK Greens.
I haven't asked them to do a blessed thing!
I suggested that they could look at the reasons why those who indicated that they considered voting Green, don't actually follow through (either in polls or in real life at the elections).
I don't know what those reasons are (I certainly don't have visibility of their internal polling) – perhaps you do – since you're commenting with such confidence!
Its simple.
The Greens are a party of the left because both climate change and climate change policies will disproportionately hurt the poor and working class.
They believe in govt and societal action on climate change not centerist green washing, individual responsibility on climate change.
They believe left wing and universal economic policies will ease the burden of climate change and climate change policies on the poor and working class.
They also oppose crony capitalism, trickle down and infinite growth because we're on a finite planet.
Therefore they are a party of the left and their strategy is to get as many left wing voters off labour as possible to have increased influence in a coalition to push Labour to the left.
The strategy should be that the greens go after the left and try to excite as many non voting lefty's to vote as possible, while labour goes after the center and tries to convert as many National, Top and NZ first voters as possible.
I don't get how that Strategy is difficult to get!
Add the Maori party who if needed to stop Nat/Act, Hopefully are able to manage to win as many Maori electorates as possible, with as little party votes as possible and cause an overhang making it impossible for national to govern.
I always hear this argument about the greens being in a culdesac, I never hear this of ACT who are trying the exact same strategy, but on the right, except national keeps fighting them for right wing votes rather than trying to convert the center!
Being on the left doesn't blunt the greens influence, Labour needs the greens inside the tent pissing out, the last thing labour wants is the greens supporting a labour minority govt in the crossbenches on an issue by issue basis demanding massive concessions on each issue.
Bomber has posted the Hipkins overview in full: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2023/07/08/prime-ministers-foreign-policy-speech-to-nziia/
Check out the reaction of his ecosystem of rabid nutters later today…
Walking a fine line down the middle of the road, internationally, I note. One thread: NZ must make sure to have eggs in many basket…EU FTA…South East Asia tensions. And another thread…independent foreign policy, as in Clark over Iraq, is not the same as neutral foreign policy…AUKUS 5 eyes, but not AUKUS military action, necessarily.
Yes indeed. That's how I see it too. Scylla & Charybdis. Sailing the fine line between two threats has become archetypal, through recorded history…
So far, 2 comments, both positive…..
Gosh so they are!
I have two takes on this situation:
a) stunned mullet syndrome – audience either blotto or unable to cognite that H did the right thing with modest flair & finesse
b) audience so entrained by smart-phone-driven short attention spans that the prospect of reading an actual speech freaked them instantly into evasion mode
A year old gripe released at the moment to hurt the most. Nasty, nasty work by faceless people and Andrea Vance. Care about bullying and mental health? This is some vengeance by some very nasty pieces of work.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132500472/chris-hipkins-will-need-to-make-some-decisions-about-kiri-allan
It really is starting to look like good old dirty politics, reporters (and myself) swallowed this beat up hook line and sinker.
I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?
Remember there don't need to be any facts involved, just anonymous rumours that such and such has been doing whatever unsavoury thing.
This is followed by a series of MSM articles from Vance, Malpass, Soper et al saying "this adds to the growing list of lazy/corrupt/tainted/unbalanced/out-of-their depth Labour ministers." whose so-called misdemeanors are then listed again and again.
Hipkins should stare this down and stand by Allan shoulder to shoulder.
Davis is next, that fight video will be one of 100s over the years but it pops up now??
I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?
I suspect the dramatic escalation in the numbers of ram-raids is the flag that will catch their attention. So whichever minister currently shows up in the revolving door with the police minister label on it will become auto-target.
The minister will go "Who, me? I'm just sitting here thumb-twiddling, ain't doing nothing wrong. I'm not responsible for police operational non-decisions!"
This police minister as ornamental pot-plant thingy has been an area of consensus between National & Labour for quite a while. So the Nats will struggle to make impact. Consistently blaming Labour for police uselessness won't impress floating voters much. They could suggest a more strident form of virtue-signalling at the cops by Labour's police minister but they aren't putting on a convincing performance of doing that themselves so even Nat supporters are likely to be underwhelmed.
The backroom policework is 8000 offenders and 40000 charges laid in taking down drug networks since 2022. Criminal gangs up their nuisance raids, and add community violence as the advertising, because Operation Cobalt is taking out their easy revenue stream. Protection rackets are an alternative income source.
Okay, that's informative. Does it mean a clogged-up justice system?? We know how addicted judges & lawyers are to dragging out legal processes for as long as possible. Is the system working or broken or somewhere in between?
If you look at NZ incarceration stats, they were going down until July 22, mostly due, apparently, to a new support programme for functionally illiterate 1st offenders on remand being given help to apply for home detention in place of remand prison. (A difference which contributes to more poor and Maori suffering extended incarceration time early on).
Then they have climbed, as Operation Cobalt began to bite, but also as other violence crimes were solved.
Plus I think, although covid introduced a big backlog, the court system has maintained streamlined processes introduced then. This includes judge-only trials, and remote attendance for simple court appearances, cutting down the need to move prisoners back and forth from remand to court, and saving court time.
Apparently, up to 40% of the prison population comprised of remand prisoners in 2020, some of whom spent time in remand longer than any sentence for their crimes due to court backlogs. Andrew Little as Justice Minister from 2017 achieved significant reforms, and added funding and judiciary appointments over National. Covid put a crimp in clearing the backlog, of course.
Well, the clogged-up justice system certainly exists:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/tensions-flare-as-murder-accused-lance-hall-appears-in-court/5NYYET5GLNDSFHT6R3YEV7BWWQ/
Thanks for that tWig-very interesting-this should be known by the voters.
Obviously Parliament could change the law to allow operational decisions to be made by ministers. Unless that happens, ministers really don't have much say in how the police go about their work.
BigHairyNews give their views on National's Laura Norder tough on gangs mantra
BG: "I wonder which Labour cabinet minister the Nats will target next?"
Peeni Henare Is being accused of Conflict of interest. Tatou Industries gained contracts while Peeni was Associate Ministry of Health and Peeni is partner of Skye Temura who is head of Tatou.
Sounds ominous but efforts to promote this smear October 2022 failed to ignite but Nats are now full on. Maybe the voters will get sick of the smear campaigns by the likes of Simeon Brown?
Timing is everything in politics. The ‘opinion leaders’ of Newstalk ZB are simply trying again to see if it germinates this time in their audience of unthinking talk-back listeners and if it does it will be cultivated and spread further by other MSM ‘opinion leaders’ and useful idiots, like a GMO that spreads in the environment after a successful ‘field trial’.
Peeni is confident that he followed all the Cabinet protocols. And this smear arose last year. So I really hope that he has an all clear, given the fair warning from last time. He said he had nothing to do with the contract letting so for his sake and the Party's sake, here is hoping.
"Peeni is confident that he followed all the Cabinet protocols."
Ianmac: This is DP. The Nats aren't playing by any rules or protocols; they just want headlines that suggest wrongdoing that the compliant MSM will print, or ZB will promote.
Ever wondered what ZB stands for? Zombie Brains
"Remember there don't need to be any facts involved, just anonymous rumours that such and such has been doing whatever unsavoury thing."
How many more? Off the top of my head…
Colin Moyle
Chris Carter
David Cunliffe
Clare Curran
Meteria Turei
All have had their careers and/or mental health destroyed for being human, by braying crowds (from the left and right) led by National Party leaders.
I hope Kiri Allan isn't next, and people on the left at least, keep a bit of empathy.
Peeni Henare will be next weeks target.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/barry-soper-senior-political-correspondent-on-peeni-henares-potential-conflict-of-interest/
More ratfucking from the tory's.
If this is all you have got, then you can't lead a country, a household, or a pig farm.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132484575/something-national-wont-be-putting-back-on-track
More passenger rail please.
I'm going to Wellington early next year and thought I'm going to go down on the northern explorer!
But if I did I'd have to stay for 2 nights as there isn't daily service from the central North Island.
Aye bwaghorn. If only. All we need…is to just get on with it.
Green Rail..
Media wars latest – Zuck grabs 70 million users:
Bit like jumping the board to catch the wave? Elon likely to be confounded, I suspect. His magic touch hasn't been in evidence since he took Twitter, & now this. However he has exhibited tremendous resilience which becomes evident if you read his biography.
Is it just me or has national jumped the shark?
Luxton and Co. are so ideological at this point, they are making Marxist/Leninist's blush from their utter lack of rigidity and purity.
All the talk of running the country like a business is just getting silly. Now they want ministers to act like as junior executives, to the PM being a CEO.
Stripping people of basic work place rights is a given from this mob, making it impossible for average people to get ahead is high on the agenda as well.
But the truly jumping the shark stuff is the putting community on the same level as business and asking them for input – ignoring they fact both have been doing that for years. The national party have lost the plot.
No wonder all the do is ratfucking week in and week out.
https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/national-reveals-approach-hospital
This is a very once-over-lightly analysis – but, I thought, useful to highlight the potential swing-seats in the 2023 election (including my local MP).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/132370608/the-seats-that-could-decide-the-election-and-the-people-wanting-to-be-your-mps
Who wins seats/electorates is largely irrelevant except for Akl Central, the Maori seats and possibly, though unlikely, a couple of others like Northland and Wellington Central.
It is the party vote that counts.
It has some impact on which list MPs enter Parliament for National and Labour though. Not relevant to overall numbers, but some relevance to the specific MPs who will make up Parliament.
The UK Conservative government's anti-woke priorities: Minister tells asylum processing centre for children to paint over a mural of disney characters that make the place "too welcoming".
Meanwhile, food and rents/mortgages rise, the seas and rivers are awash with sewage while private water companies have profited, and the UK economy suffers post-Brexit, the biggest example of cutting off your nose to spite your face I can think of.
Speaking of cutting off noses/face-spiting..
..we can't ignore rogernomics..
No one in NZ voted in a referendum for rogernomics, it was thrust upon us.