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.
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
David Farrar writes – Newstalk ZB report: The man responsible for a horror hit and run in central Wellington last year was on a suspended licence and was so drunk he later asked police, “Did I kill someone?” Jason Tuitama injured two women when he ran a red ...
Muriel Newman writes – Former US President Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” The fight for ...
Why Courts should have said Waitangi Tribunal could not summons Karen Chhour Gary Judd writes – In the High Court, Justice Isacs declined to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to compel Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, to appear before it to be ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The number of voices raising concerns about the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is rapidly growing. This is especially apparent now that Parliament’s select committee is listening to submissions from the public to evaluate the proposed legislation. Twenty-seven thousand submissions have been made to Parliament ...
An average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during the March quarter, up 54% from a year ago.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in ...
The government has made it abundantly clear they’re addicted to the smell of new asphalt. On Tuesday they introduced a new term to the country’s roading lexicon, the Roads of Regional Significance (RoRS), a little brother for the Roads of National (Party) Significance (RoNS). Driving ahead with Roads of Regional ...
School is outAnd I walk the empty hallwaysI walk aloneAlone as alwaysThere's so many lucky penniesLying on the floorBut where the hell are all the lucky peopleI can't see them any moreYesterday morning, I’d just sent out my newsletter on Tama Potaka, and I was struggling to make the coffee. ...
Hi,I wanted to check in and ask how you’re doing.This is perhaps a selfish act, of attempting to find others feeling a similar way to me — that is to say, a little hopeless at the moment.Misery loves company, that sort of deal.Some context.I wish I could say I got ...
I have hitherto been fairly quiet on the new season of Rings of Power, on the basis that the underwhelming first season did not exactly build excitement – and the rumours were fairly daft. The only real thing of substance to come out has been that they have re-cast Adar ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
“The thing is,” Chris Luxon says, leaning forward to make his point, “this has always been my thing.”“This goes all the way back to the first multinational I worked for. I was saying exactly the same thing back then. The name of our business needs to be more clear; people ...
Buzz from the Beehive It’s been a momentous few days for Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision which blocked a summons order from the Waitangi Tribunal for her. And today she has announced the Government is putting children first by introducing to ...
In 2014 former Australian army lawyer David McBride leaked classified military documents about Australian war crimes to the ABC. Dubbed "The Afghan Files", the documents led to an explosive report on Australian war crimes, the disbanding of an entire SAS unit, and multiple ongoing prosecutions. The journalist who wrote the ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – According to the respected Pew Research Centre, “In seven of eight [European] countries surveyed, the most trusted news outlet asked about is the public news organization in each country”. For example, “in Sweden, an overwhelming majority (90%) say they trust the public broadcaster SVT”. ...
David Farrar writes – Kata MacNamara reports: Details of Tony Blakely’s involvement in the New Zealand Government’s response to the pandemic raise serious questions about the work of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry over which he presides. It has long been clear that Blakely, a ...
Chris Trotter writes – Are you a Brahmin or a Merchant? Or, are you merely one of those whose lives are profoundly influenced by the decisions of Brahmins and Merchants? Those are the questions that are currently shaping the politics of New Zealand and the entire West. ...
RNZ reports – It’s supposed to be a haven of healing and spiritual awakening but residents of the Kawai Purapura community say they’ve been hurt and deceived. It’s the successor to the former Centrepoint commune, and has been on the bush block opposite Albany shopping centre since 2008. It ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. Usually we have a video chat to go with this wrap, but were unable to do one this week. We’ll be back next week.Several reports ...
The Transport Minister has set a hard 'fiscal envelope' of $6.54 billion for transport capital spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy is settling into a state of suspended animation as the Government’s funding freezes and job cuts chill confidence and combine with stubbornly high interest rates to ...
To be precise, the term “anti- Zionism” refers to (a) criticism of the political movement that created a modern Jewish state on the historical land of Israel, and to (b)the subjugation of Palestinians by the Israeli state. By contrast, the term “anti-Semitism” means bigotry and racism directed at Jewish people, ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Because hurricanes are one of the big-ticket weather disasters that humanity has to face, climate misinformers spend a lot of effort muddying the waters on whether climate change is making hurricanes more damaging. With the official start to the hurricane ...
Yesterday the Mayor released what he calls his “plan to save public transport” which is part of his final proposal for the Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP). This comes following consultation on the draft version that occurred in March which showed, once again, that people want more done on transport, especially ...
And it's a pleasure that I have knownAnd it's a treasure that I have gainedAotearoa’s coalition government is fragile. It’s held together by the obsequious sycophancy of Christopher Luxon, who willingly contorts his party into the fringe positions of his junior coalition partners and is unwilling to contradict them. The ...
The Select Committee hearing submissions on the fast-track consenting legislation is starting to become a beat-up of regional councils. The inflexibility and slow workings of the Councils were prominent in two submissions yesterday. One, from the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association, simply said that the Waikato Regional Council’s planning decisions were ...
Back in April, the High Court surprised everyone by ruling that Ministers are above the law, at least as far as the Waitangi Tribunal is concerned. The reason for this ruling was "comity" - the idea that the different branches of government shouldn't interfere with each other's functions. Which makes ...
Buzz from the BeehiveTolling was mentioned when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government was re-introducing the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme, with 15 “crucial” projects to support economic growth and regional development across New Zealand. All RoNS would be four-laned, grade-separated highways, and all funding, financing, and ...
or the past 14 years, ever since the Spanish government cheated on an autonomy deal, Catalonia has reliably given pro-independence parties a majority of seats in their regional parliament. But now that seems to be over. Catalans went to the polls yesterday, and stripped the Catalan parties of their majority. ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ report: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the Electoral Commission should make sure the system ran smoothly and “taking away the right of thousands of people to vote” was not the answer. “Thousands of people enroled and voted on the day. If ...
Don Brash writes – There was a rather revealing headline in the Herald on Sunday today (12 May). It read “One in 8 Auckland homes on market were bought during boom, may now sell for loss”. The first line of text noted that “New data shows one in ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – At a time when universities are understandably nervous regarding the establishment of the University Advisory Group (UAG) and the Science System Advisory Group (SSAG) it may seem strange – or even fool-hardy – to state that there are long-standing issues in the tertiary sector ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – A lack of perspective can make something quite large or important seem small or irrelevant. Against a backdrop of high-profile, negative statistics it is easy to overlook the positive. For instance, the fact that 64 percent of Maori are employed is rarely reported. For ...
Earlier this year, the Herald ran a series of articles amounting to a sustained campaign against raised pedestrian crossings, by reporter Bernard Orsman. A key part of that campaign concerned the raised crossings being installed as part of the Pt Chevalier to Westmere project, with at least 10 articles over ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 19 include:PM Christopher Luxon is expected to hold his weekly post-cabinet news conference at 4:00pm on Monday.Parliament is not sitting this week. It resumes next week for a two-week sitting session up to and ...
Hi,Thanks to all the beautiful Worms who came to the LA Webworm popup on Saturday.It was a way to celebrate the online store we launched last week — and it was super special.As I talk about a lot, I really value our community here — and it was a BLAST ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 5, 2024 thru Sat, May 11, 2024. (Unfortunate) Story of the week "Grief that stops at despair is an ending that I and many others, most notably ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Benjamin, Professor in Art History, University of Sydney “She’s no oil painting”. Those were the unkind words of a colleague commenting on the subject of Vincent Namatjira’s acrylic painting, Gina. Every one of the prominent Australians and cultural heroes in Namatjira’s ...
Government plans to require local councils hold a referendum on whether to have Māori wards breaches the Treaty of Waitangi, a Waitangi Tribunal report has found. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, Industry Professor and Chief Economist, University of Technology Sydney This year the National Rugby League (NRL) opened its season in Las Vegas. It was an audacious move by the league’s ambitious head honcho Peter V’Landys to showcase the game in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Strong, Associate Professor, Music Industry, RMIT University Leading music organisations have praised the federal budget for its investment in the live music sector. The budget includes A$8.6 million for a program called Revive Live: to provide essential support to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnee Shay, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, The University of Queensland The 2024 federal budget contains A$110 million for Indigenous education. This includes funding for various different organisations to represent and help Indigenous people as well as scholarships in a bid to ...
Air New Zealand has confirmed Nouméa’s Tontouta International airport in New Caledonia is closed until Tuesday. The airline earlier told RNZ it would update customers as soon as it could. Earlier today, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Morning Report government officials had been working on an “hourly basis” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Linley, PhD Candidate in Ecology, Charles Sturt University Grant Linley Australia’s unprecedented Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 created ideal conditions for misinformation to spread, from the insidious to the absurd. It was within this context that a bizarre story ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcel Scharth, Lecturer in Business Analytics, University of Sydney OpenAI executive Mira Murati launching GPT-4o.OpenAI Earlier this week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treasure McGuire, Assistant Director of Pharmacy, Mater Health SEQ in conjoint appointment as Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Bond University and as Associate Professor (Clinical), The University of Queensland Speedkingz/Shutterstock Menopause is a natural biological process that marks the end of a ...
A new poem by Hannah Patterson. Xiāng There’s a pear tree in our backyard And Xiāng tells me She can’t eat them anymore Not after some things that have happened in her life. She tells me, in Mandarin The word for pear sounds the same as the word for disassociation ...
‘Cycling Works’ aims to show business support for citywide cycle infrastructure. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, supermarket giant Foodstuffs lost its attempt to block the construction of a cycle lane outside Thorndon New World in Wellington. The Spinoff’s Wellington editor ...
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 Slow Productivity by Cal Newport (Penguin, $40)Taking out the top spot in Auckland this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University For decades, Australia has exported uranium – but not used it, other than in the Lucas Heights research reactor. But change is coming. We now face a rapidly deepening commitment to ...
"In future I should walk away," Green MP Julie Anne Genter says after complaints over an exchange in Parliament and from two members of the public. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Graffam, PhD Candidate in Theatre, Monash University Gianna Rizzo/Malthouse Music pumps; lights pulsate; two sweaty bodies sway together, touching, breathing in each other’s scent. A male body framed by downlight restlessly shifts between stances and gestures. He undresses. The intensity ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra van der Laan, Professor of Accounting, University of Sydney Mtaya/Shutterstock At some point, you or someone else will need to make a decision about your “send-off”. Most Australians die in an institution, such as a hospital or aged care facility. ...
Asia Pacific Report Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai — who is also Chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group — has reaffirmed MSG’s support of the pro-independence umbrella group Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) stance opposing the French government’s constitutional bill “unfreezing” the New Caledonia Electoral Roll. It is ...
Producer Susan Leonard remembers her father Ernie, a pioneer of Māori television, and how his legacy lives on in Pathfinders.My father was a fabulous man. His name was Ernie Leonard and he started in TV in the 1970s when it was still glamorous – when TVNZ made behind the ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk, and Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist The suspected ringleaders of the unrest in New Caledonia have been placed in home detention and the social network TikTok has been banned as French security forces struggle to restore law and order. The French ...
Multi-year appropriations - which give the government authority to spend money without reapplying annually - are loosening Parliament's control of the public purse, auditor-general says. ...
Dr. Eric Chuah who stood for a centrist NZ political party in the October 2023 NZ Elections for Maungakiekie Auckland will stand as a candidate for Tauranga City Council Ward of Matua-=Otumoetai and Mayor of Tauranga. ...
If you can’t get to the comedy fest, let us bring the comedy fest to you. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in full swing at the moment, with a veritable smorgasboard of comedy treats ...
A new poll commissioned by Unions Wellington shows an overwhelming majority of Wellingtonians oppose the Council’s plan to sell the 34% public stake in Wellington Airport. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aruna Sathanapally, Chief Executive, Grattan Institute, Grattan Institute A central focus of this week’s budget is the treasury’s forecast for inflation. By this time next year, inflation is projected to be back within the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target range. Inflation has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yolanda van Heezik, Professor of Ecology, University of Otago Getty Images Cities across Aotearoa New Zealand are trying to solve a housing crisis, with increasing residential density a key solution. But not everyone is happy about the resulting loss of natural ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Reeve, Deputy Program Director, Energy and Climate Change, Grattan Institute WDG Photo/Shutterstock For years, the electricity sector has been the poster child for emissions cuts in Australia. The sector achieved a stunning 26% drop in emissions over the past 15 ...
It’s often the last thing people want to do, but asking someone if they’re having suicidal thoughts is a critical first step to helping them. Content warning: this story discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. For a list of resources that can help if you or someone you know is feeling ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy J. Ralph, Associate Professor, Macquarie University The pyramids at Giza, like dozens of others, are located several kilometres west of the current path of the Nile.Alex Cimbal / Shutterstock The largest field of pyramids in Egypt – consisting of 31 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute ABO PHOTOGRAPHY/Shutterstock Receiving a cancer diagnosis is life-changing and can cause a range of concerns about ongoing health. Fear of cancer returning is one ...
Winston Peters has been on tour around the Pacific while two unrelated crises unfolded, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Two separate ...
This is the Mount Everest of artificial meatcraft.Ah, bacon. Pig’s gold. Toast’s consolation. Dawn’s savoury embrace. If meat was a currency, bacon would be the Benjamin Franklin. Or if you’re feeling patriotic, the Lord Rutherford. When it comes to fake bacon, the obvious question is: why bother? In the ...
From illegal milk to sprinkler bans and airplane ticket scams, Tyrone Barugh is on a one-man mission through New Zealand’s most obscure legal loopholes. I’m deep undercover, investigating Wellington’s criminal underworld. Inside this store, I’ve been told there is a million-dollar trade in illicit substances. A man dressed in black ...
It’s been a recess week at Parliament, which might indicate slim pickings for conversation topics for the Raw Politics team. But things are never dull in politics, especially with a new Government keen to follow through on its law and order promises, and a NZ First minister who wants to ...
Dear Hon Judith Collins, Minister of Defence, and Hon Christopher Penk, Associate Minister of Defence I have written to you, to attempt to give you an insight into the incredible hardship of being an NZDF family. Whilst I cannot speak on behalf of serving personnel, I can speak from my ...
Analysis: What a difference a year makes. In mid 2023, Wayne Brown the Auckland Mayor was a politician diminished by a calamitous response to the region’s Anniversary Weekend storm emergency and later forced against his preference into a half sale only of the city’s airport shares. His demeanour among his ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 17 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
New Zealand’s drug legislation hasn’t been overhauled in nearly 50 years, in spite of a recommendation from the Law Commission in 2011 to do so. Our Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1975 and is based on a United Nations framework set in 1961. Now a new organisation, Harm ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) A free copy of this amazing story of a woman who operated behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France was up for grabs this past fortnight. Readers were asked to share a story of wartime bravery, ...
Asia Pacific Report An open letter to The New Zealand Herald has challenged a full page Zionist advertisement this week for failing to acknowledge the “terrible injustices” suffered by the Palestinian people in Israel’s seven-month genocidal war on Gaza. In the latest of several international reports that have condemned genocide ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra When he was opposition leader, Bill Shorten faced Coalition criticism for attacking “the top end of town”, a phrase he used in his 2019 budget reply. Now Peter Dutton is finding the line “billions of ...
By Adam Burns, RNZ News reporter Worried New Caledonian expats in Aotearoa admit they are “terrified” for friends and family amid ongoing violence and civil unrest in the French Pacific territory. The death toll remained at four tonight, and hundreds have been injured after electoral changes sparked widespread rioting by ...
French President Emmanuel Macron has declared a state of emergency in New Caledonia after several days of civil unrest in the capital. Four people are dead due to the unrest and violence in the capital, Nouméa. France TV reports that a 22-year-old gendarme who had been seriously wounded has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland This week’s budget was Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ third and – for practical purposes – final for the current parliamentary term. Even if the 2025 election is delayed long enough to give ...
They held a noisy but peaceful demonstration against the ongoing genocide being carried out by the State of Israel, condemning the Israeli ambassador who was hosting an invitation-only event to celebrate the establishment of the State of Israel. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bridget Haire, Senior lecturer, public health ethics, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Bowonpat Sakaew/Shutterstock HIV prevention was allocated A$43.9 million over three years in this week’s federal budget. Some $26m of this is for “PrEP” for people without access to ...
Karen Chhour wants Oranga Tamiriki to establish more partnerships with Māori, despite introducing a bill to Parliament removing their obligation to do so. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bridget Haire, Senior lecturer, public health ethics, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Bowonpat Sakaew/Shutterstock HIV prevention was allocated A$43.9 million over three years in this week’s federal budget. Some $26m of this is for “PrEP” for people without access to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole George, Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of Queensland New Caledonia’s capital city, Noumea, has endured widespread violent rioting over the past 48 hours. This crisis intensified rapidly, taking local authorities by surprise. Peaceful protests had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Elphinstone, Lecturer in psychology., Swinburne University of Technology A DNA sequence.Gio.tto/Shutterstock Should you be denied life insurance or have to pay extra if you have a genetic risk for certain diseases? Should insurance companies even have access to your genetic ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Senior research associate, University of Sydney Barely a day has gone by this month without politicians or commentators talking about online harms. There have been multiple high-profile examples spurring on the conversation. There was the circulation of videos of Bishop ...
With less than six months to go, it’s time to start paying attention to what could be the most consequential election of our lifetimes. It’s less than half a year until election day in the United States, which makes this a good opportunity to review what’s happened thus far in ...
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??
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.