Still getting problem where Commenter Name loads with two stray quote marks in front. If not edited out, comment just disappears when submitted, with no message. Any progress on a fix @lprent?
It certainly isn’t a mystery – NZ road design ensures that these sorts of collisions will occur. Insofar as trucking companies fund right wing incompetence, they are responsible for it too.
And yet it is possible to drive a truck safely on NZ roads. I think the time pressure on truck drivers from employers is more of an issue, plus the culture of using stimulants and aggression to keep going. Where the cyclist blogged about the speed and aggression from truck drivers matches my experience.
I agree, there’s no good reason for so much freight to be transported like that. Won’t solve the routes that don’t have rail though.
OAB, I noticed that she said she got a lot of horns being blown at her. That’s either her doing stupid shit (and I’ve seen cyclists do that), or aggression from the drivers.
I think the speed issue is passive aggressive. No-one has the right to put someone else’s life in danger because of job pressures, but here we are.
Or something else happened. I would guess speed was a factor. There is fuck all you can do in a vehicle that big if you come across something on the road and there is no room to manouevre. Or she wasn’t very visible. Or the driver was distracted or tired. Or as you say, he was just too close and angry.
I googled to see if there was a follow up report but couldn’t find anything. I guess the police make a report on the cause of accident and that’s it, but it doesn’t necessarily get reported publically.
There is fuck all you can do in a vehicle that big if you come across something on the road and there is no room to manouevre.
Quoting article:
The cause of the crash, which happened about 11.50am last Tuesday in a passing zone on State Highway 3 in the central North Island, is still under police investigation.
Pusch was about 4km north of Bulls and heading towards Wanganui when she was struck by a truck and trailer heading in the same direction.
So the truck driver could have put an entire lane between him and the cyclist.
One important thing that they can do is slow down. The reason why you have to stand back at train stations is because passing trains can suck you on to the tracks while it’s passing. A truck passing at speed has the same effect which means that cyclists get sucked into the wheels.
Another is to give room and don’t pass if it’s unsafe to do so.
“One important thing that they can do is slow down”
“Another is to give room and don’t pass if it’s unsafe to do so.”
Quite. Hence my point about speed, and then the one about how the industry creates the accidents by putting unrealistic time pressures on drivers. The reason truck drivers are going so fast is that they lose too much time if they drive safely (the loss of momentum and time in slowing down and then getting back up to speed). I have a class 2 licence and it used to freak me out driving a medium sized truck and having those big rigs pass me at speed. If something goes wrong there is not a lot that can be done because they’re just too big and too fast. It’s astounding that they’re allowed to drive like that and it’s no surprise that we have so many truck accidents in NZ.
I was thinking that about the cyclist being sucked under the truck too. Pity I can’t find a later report.
The object of having roads and engine driven vehicles is to be able to cover distances fast. The speed limits are set rather high for NZ roads I think, and in some places too low. They need to be looked at. But to slow down from 80 or 100 to a cyclists speed, for how long, can result in traffic going at a crawl.
Less road traffic and favouring rail, with high road charges for large trucks would be sensible and save lives, money, government costs on roads. But ex-Labour and ACT MP Ken Shirley is an advocate for the roading companies and they lobby hard. (Since July 2010, he has been the chief executive of the Road Transport Forum (RTF), representing road transport interests….He has previously served as ACT’s deputy leader, and in 2004, he was one of four candidates to seek the party’s leadership after the retirement of Richard Prebble.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Shirley
This report about the driver and the lack of response from him and his company indicate a dour unconcern for others and their lack of care when driving. Which I think is a reaction from many males to others needs in the present. (Remember when a woman was shot at an outdoor hut while brushing her teeth. The shooter will just excuse himself and so will all his buddies and that fraternity.)
A 66-year-old Wanganui man was today charged with careless driving causing death and was due to appear in Marton District Court on May 5. (2010)…..
Ms Pusch, who arrived in New Zealand last October, described the perils cyclists in New Zealand faced in the final entry of her online blog on December 30.
She referred to Kiwi truck drivers as “beasts” who “[drive] permanently at a phenomenal speed in a race against time.”
”When one is a cyclist on New Zealand roads, one is not only torn from one’s daydreams by diving-bombing magpies but is more often threatened by a more nasty species that really requires more attention: truck drivers,” Ms Pusch wrote.
($5000 would not even pay for the family’s costs of coming to NZ or getting the body or ashes returned, or whatever they wanted to do to gather their child to them and commemorate her, so not enough there to recompense for harm and suffering!
The driver is still allowed to drive after 12 months? The driver who killed a young woman cyclist in Christchurch about 2013, was in his 70’s. When they are that old and having these sort of accidents they should not be allowed to drive again. Maturity should make for better driving practices and when they cause death, they obviously have gone past their peak and into the decline of old age.) http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3757432/Driver-to-pay-5000-over-tourist-death
I hear this trucks don’t pay their way for roads story a lot on
“the standard ” but at 33c per k j for ruc the amount of tax paid for trucks plying rural nz roads must far outweigh the money spent back onto roads , I would suggest that rural nz is subsidizing all those flash city roads.
Trucks have effectively been subsidized by petrol vehicles who have paid far higher net road tax per tonne for far too long. Any government that seeks to equalize the road taxes is subject to howls of rage from the trucking lobby
Every time I’ve looked into it, the proportion of RUC and petrol excise tax collected in the Auckland region is a lot greater than the proportion of transport funds spent in the Auckland region. On the basis of that data, Auckland is subsiding transport networks in the rest of the country.
Two counterarguments I can dream up, but have never seen any data for: Aucklanders filling up in Auckland before and after trips outside Auckland, companies headquartered in Auckland buying RUCs for operations outside Auckland.
Actual considered engineering opinion based on trials, is that the proportion of wear and tear caused by heavy vehicles is a lot higher than the proportion of transport funds paid by heavy vehicles, ie light vehicles are subsidizing heavy vehicles. Let alone that the cost of engineering a road to be able to carry heavy vehicles is vastly higher than if it just needed to carry light vehicles.
When considering the cost of repairing the damage that heavy vehicles do to roads, is the gst getting paid on the diesel the PAYE getting paid by the driver and the economic “grease” that the industry brings with it considered? (I’m very pro rail BTW)
Never seen any argument or data around GST on fuel and RUC, or PAYE and company tax for transport companies properly going back into transport. The general view seems to be that GST and PAYE and company tax properly go straight to the general government accounts. Hell, it was a big deal when all of the petrol excise tax was put towards transport, instead of diverting some of it to the consolidated fund. Look up “full hypothetication”.
“Although Auckland generates a high proportion of the road user revenue, it may be generating a
higher proportion of the worthwhile projects. At the same time regions that are not experiencing
growth are still paying hypothecated revenue yet may need little in the way of transport expenditure
other than road maintenance.”
The above is from a PDF on nzta site about hypothecated revenue.
That would suggest that you might be wrong about Auckland raising more then is spent on its roads and what not, especially if you chuck things like the kopu bridge and the northern holiday highway in which are for Auckland’s benefit.
Cheers for the link.
Ms Pusch was cycling up hill in the slow vehicle bay and although I can’t find anything online I do recall something about the truck driver being reported about his behavior earlier that day.
Don’t feel like you need to wait for details, charges or the coroner’s report to start laying blame, eh.
Maybe the truckie was in the left lane because of a queue of cars that were passing on the uphill section. Cyclist hits pothole at wrong time, you’re lucky the truckie even noticed someone got squashed. There was one like that in Dunedin a year or two back, the truck ended up being pued over in Oamaru for the guy to be told what had happened: driver in a parked car had opened their door into the cycle lane after the truck cab had passed the cyclist. That was the last one in a series of similar deaths on that stretch of road, and the DCC finally made cycle lanes about half as much wider again and I haven’t read of another accident since.
My point is that the truck driver is only one factor in any crash. Environment, road design, road quality, etc…
Maybe the truckie was in the left lane because of a queue of cars that were passing on the uphill section.
The driver of a vehicle has two reasonable options when approaching a cyclist:
1. Go wide so as to pass safely
2. Slow down and stay behind the cyclist until such time as they can do 1
That’s it. Almost no driver in NZ will do that and some will actively go closer to the cyclist to frighten/abuse them.
And some truck drivers I’ve seen haven’t got a friggen clue as to how trucks actually behave when driven. I saw one take off the front bumper of a parked car while going around a bend. He simply didn’t seem to realise that the back wheels go inside the front wheels during a turn. Had a truck/trailer unit pass me a few weeks ago and although his cab went wide I had to slow down so the back wheels of the trailer didn’t get me.
There was one like that in Dunedin a year or two back, the truck ended up being pued over in Oamaru for the guy to be told what had happened: driver in a parked car had opened their door into the cycle lane after the truck cab had passed the cyclist.
And so the car driver should have been charged. You always need to look before opening the doors but many people don’t.
Cycling in NZ is dangerous because the vehicle drivers are bunch of fucken idiots.
you do realise that charged is not the same as guilty, right? You still know absolutely nothing of note about the case.
And yes, in most of the dunedin cases that spring to mind the door-openers were charged and found guilty of carelessness, etc. But the point is that a small change in the cycle lane width has markedly reduced the problem.
As for your options for motorists passing cyclists on a hill, option one restso on subjective assessments of how wdie is safe (the only objective test being a confirmed negative whenever anyone was hit). Option two simpy shows how selfish cyclists can be.
You can blame drivers all you want, but the fact remains that cycling, particularly on the open road, involves balancing very squishy humans on two wheels and then placng them, even at the best of times, in close proximity to several tonnes of fast-moving steel. But because it’s a “road” and not an enclosed workplace, somehow that’s regarded as fine.
you do realise that charged is not the same as guilty, right? You still know absolutely nothing of note about the case.
Dude, he was found guilty and disqualified for 12 months and ordered to $5000 reparation.
As for your options for motorists passing cyclists on a hill, option one restso on subjective assessments of how wdie is safe (the only objective test being a confirmed negative whenever anyone was hit).
1.5m is the recommended space.
Option two simpy shows how selfish cyclists can be.
And the motorists whinging shows just how selfish they are. Pausing for a short while to save a life isn’t the problem – being impatient and causing death is.
But because it’s a “road” and not an enclosed workplace, somehow that’s regarded as fine.
My preferred option is the removal of open roads. Want to go faster then take a train.
You need to read your link again. Hell, the poor woman has only just did. How quickly do you think the legal system works?
1.5m is the recommended space.
Recommended. Not compulsory, and probably not 100% safe, either.
And the motorists whinging shows just how selfish they are. Pausing for a short while to save a life isn’t the problem – being impatient and causing death is.
My vehicle travels significantly slower than most vehicles on the open road. You know what I do if someone’s behind me? I pull over and let them pass. Because I expect normal human beings to have all the imperfections and frailties of normal human beings.
Even if no cyclist were ever the cause of their own demise, any system that requires people to be more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal people is doomed to failure. And if you want a genuinely safe system, you assumethat all users are performing significantly worse than normal people would. That is why particularly robust and reliable systems are termed “fool proof”.
Drivers, cyclists and pedestrians all blame each other, and you leapt onto that bandwagon with both feet. But as long as people obsess over one part of the problem, the problem will never be solved.
She was killed in 2010. The driver was found guilty in 2010.
Recommended. Not compulsory, and probably not 100% safe, either.
Which is why cycling organisations have been calling for it to be compulsory.
You know what I do if someone’s behind me? I pull over and let them pass.
Difficult to pull over further when you’re already on the shoulder of the road.
Even if no cyclist were ever the cause of their own demise, any system that requires people to be more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal people is doomed to failure.
It doesn’t require them to be “more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal”.
Ms Pusch wrote.
“They swerve past the cyclists who are struggling under their own steam at breakneck speed, mainly within only a half-metre to a metre gap, all the while aggressively honking their horn.”
She was killed in 2010. The driver was found guilty in 2010.
fuck me you’re right. Missed the date line that it was five years ago. Just went with the use of the present tense by the original linker. Apologies.
Recommended. Not compulsory, and probably not 100% safe, either.
Which is why cycling organisations have been calling for it to be compulsory.
Great, so now drivers end up needing a tape measure. All that would do is make it easier to ascribe blame, it would do nothing to address the issue.
You know what I do if someone’s behind me? I pull over and let them pass.
Difficult to pull over further when you’re already on the shoulder of the road.
If you were already on the shoulder, traffic that is on the road wouldn’t hit you. That’s exactly why I pull over.
Even if no cyclist were ever the cause of their own demise, any system that requires people to be more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal people is doomed to failure.
It doesn’t require them to be “more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal”.
Yes, it does, because normal human drivers are hitting cyclists because of inattention, frustration, faulty judgement, or whatever. The system is not fool-proof, it is not even “regular person doing the same job for years” proof.
Ms Pusch wrote.
“They swerve past the cyclists who are struggling under their own steam at breakneck speed, mainly within only a half-metre to a metre gap, all the while aggressively honking their horn.”
It does require them to not be arseholes though.
Sadly, there is no legislation against being an arsehole. And even if there were, it’s normal for some people to be arseholes anyway – much more reliable to change the design so arseholes don’t endanger other people so much.
She’s dead from being hit by a truck on a straight piece of road. That could only happen if he got to close and hence then being found guilty of careless driving causing death.
Since you mention facts, have you got a citation to prove your claim that Andrew Little is in the top 1% of New Zealand’s wealthiest individuals by net worth? Or are you just making stuff up?
That’s pretty consistent with what he was saying last year, but he does sound clearer and is able to express it more clearly now, presumably because they’ve worked through the actual document. And caucus has had time to pull its head in 😈
in related news, I live how that article about the woman who’d had her teeth smacked out for speaking Maori was quickly followed up by one that said she’d been telling porkies. I mean, gee, bar staff, cops, you’re spoiled for choice about sources for corroboration.
I like how your nuttiness has been exposed along with OAB. Implying a conspiracy between a random Howick bar owner,staff, eyewitnesses, and the Police to cover up a video-recorded assault on an individual of no note, has to be a new high for him.
No doubt we are about to hear some ridiculous angle about a Government plot to suppress Te Reo and cow its speakers into submission with random bashings.
No conspiracy alleged you idiot, just pointing out that words were exchanged before blows: the article offers no evidence of what those words were. Something started it.
No, before you trip over another witless notion, I’m not condoning violence, nor apportioning blame.
This interesting article relating to the upcoming peace accord between the government and rebels in Colombia discusses how 50 years of conflict has engendered a strong relationship between violence and masculinity that will be difficult to undo – something that applies to other conflicts as well.
that seems to be the default when there is no effective government.
life is cheap, and we revert to a macho tribal “honor” based society.
people try to find security by association with a “strongman” figure.
Want to know how to turn $10m in to $520m in less than two years? Just ask Anchorage Capital. The private equity group has pulled off one of the great heists of all time, using all the tricks in the book, to turn Dick Smith from a $10m piece of mutton into a $520m lamb.
A headline from the Australian newspaper this morning.
Then I read further and discovered it was about a likely change of leadership in the National Party of Australia (junior partner in the Government) and that they were talking about Barnaby Joyce.
Everyone may now relax.
No Stephen Joyce as Deputy would be as interventionist as Sutch: all kinds of interesting deals would get cut with all kinds of industries.
Happy free loans would fly out the door to any media organization you liked.
Legislation would just be some hand-operated printing machine you could tweak at will.
Mines would be built on whims and new roads built on the smell of whims to service mines, which would of course go bust as fast as something out of The Lorax.
And we could get rid of all our global warming problems by just exporting all our animals for slaughter to Saudi Arabia.
With Joyce we’d be back to making televisions in Waihi. …. back in the day …
Sutch shouldn’t be put in the same basket as Joyce. He was looking at how NZ could develop without getting into the straitjackets of TPPA agreements. But we did have to do something and government would need to be up there just as they are now. But Sutch wasn’t picking winners for his personal gain.
That rawstory page has somthing for every leftie – all the people you love to hate. As for the ‘militiamen’ they seem upset because someone disagreed with having women and children on the protest site when they were planning a gun battle. What a spoilsport. Then he went and spent some of their money on drink. I think he may have a reasonable excuse after reading their opinions. Why don’t they get dragged off, and ordered to go and get a job which is the usual response to anyone who steps out of the square?
In her words:
Below is a selection of quotes from Ida Gaskin, published between 1983 and 2013.
“I knew people who were in concentration camps. I saw my mother unable to go out because the uppers of her shoes had worn through; she didn’t mind that the soles had worn through; no one could see those.”
“I remember reading The Tempest. The teacher used to get us to act and I was the drunken butler. I just loved being the drunken butler.”
“I like young people. My beloved seventh-formers, they are who I miss the most since I gave up teaching.”
“It’s a duty and a privilege to pay income tax. That’s why I am a Socialist.”
“I am interested in politics because I am interested in people.”
On winning Mastermind: “I thought ‘My God, I’ve done it’, and then there was the sense of relief it was over.”
“I would hate to outlive my mind. I don’t mind the ‘sweet, tormenting body’ thing, but I should hate to outlive my mind.”
Labour and National both use dirty politics. Politics is a filthy game played by grubby people. Or do you think Helen and Heather played by the rules all of the time?
[lprent: Ok this thread went well off topic and into follish territory. Probably not a deliberate diversion, so to OpenMike. ]
“They were the only party who were caught out by the AG’s ruling, eh. No, wait, you’re being selective with your account.
I call that lying. What do you call it?”
There’s nothing selective about it. I’m simply demonstrating that Labour are as bad as National, maybe worse, and by invoking the ‘all in it’ argument you seem to be agreeing with me. Did National rort over $400k in spending? I think not.
You are demonstrating nothing of the sort. A long term arrangement that all parties had benefited from was ruled illegal, money was repaid.
If you think that’s the equivalent of the Prime Minister’s ratfucking operation your moral compass is broken, or perhaps you’re too stupid to do anything but plagiarise other people’s attack lines.
Feel free to list instances of Labour systematically and covertly working back channels to subvert media coverage – citations/links to sources other than sewerblogs required. And please name their equivalent of Jason Ede.
acrophobic – under Labour
– how many news programmes were silenced?
– how many journalists were raided?
– how many academics subjected to vicious smears?
– was there any secret funding equivalent to the Cabinet Club?
ZERO
instead we got a herald campaign saying “democracy under attack” for a few weeks in 2008. where was the outcry against National’s “dirty politics” in 2014 ?
“– how many news programmes were silenced?”
National haven’t closed any new programs, nor, do I recall did Labour.
(Forgotten Helen Clark’s rant about John Campbell after ‘Corngate’ have we?)
“– how many journalists were raided?”
National haven’t raided any journalists, nor, do I recall did Labour.
“– how many academics subjected to vicious smears?”
That’s a regular occurrence by both parties.
“– was there any secret funding equivalent to the Cabinet Club?”
The Cabinet Club wasn’t ‘secret’. Besides, Labour raise money in all sorts of similar ways. Ever heard of the $1250 paid by supporters at its party conference for time with MPs?
But here’s the doozy of them all. Labour’s regular and wilful breaking of electoral laws. Remember when Labour stole $840,000, then passed retrospective legislation to prevent a High Court challenge to their thieving?
“The Labour Party has escaped prosecution for breaching electoral law with its pocket-sized pledge cards, despite police finding there was a prima facie case against it.
It is the third time the police have found a prima facie case against the Labour Party or a Labour MP and not pressed charges.”
Labour were given a warning rather than prosecuted because it was clear a number of other parties had also used similar tactics and it would have been unfair to single Labour out.
I note that you have misrepresented the article you cited. Why do you tell so many lies?
Sooooo…
TVNZ7, 3D, Campbell Live just mysteriously stopped?
Mihi Forbes, Nicky Hager, John Campbell, Bradley Ambrose, HDPA are just random victims of circumstance?
You think it’s BAU to smear academics and ignore their studies?
National just happens to be always flush with cash (because of their impeccable virtue) while opposition parties barely scrape by?
🙄
I’ll remember this next time you make a comment: that you are an amoral snake with no regard for journalism, democracy, or honest debate.
National is flush because they are no longer a political party (as evidenced by our jokey non-politics PM), they are a PR organisation sponsored by foreign banks, corporations, and oligarchs.
fishy
does your comment enlighten, or is it typical RWNJ snark?
Perhaps NZ has seen a few demographic changes over the 100 years since Labour was formed. A century of progressive reform is something to be proud of. It has made NZ a better place to live for 4 generations.
Does your side have anything to boast about? A grinning clown for a PM perhaps? Yeah he’s good for a laugh I suppose, but deep down we all cringe whenever the idiot opens his mouth.
The graph shows what looks like a terminal and inevitable decline in Labour polling. If it continues on then Labour could poll say 30% in 2017 and then 22% in 2020. 25% in 2023 and 18% in 2026. 21% in 2029 and 14% in 2032. Labour were relevant in a cloth cap society as they could address the interests of the working populace. Now they are just a collection of fringe interest activists, trade union functionaries and insipid bench warmers. Rehashing policies from the 1970’s will not work. Cheering on the SAS in Syria might be popular for a while. Face the evidence. This century will be centre-right.
existing “centre” right politics lead to financial crises and destruction of the middle class. if the current trajectory continues the top 10-20% will vacuum up too much of the wealth and then things will turn ugly.
the 21st century will experience a slow and painful decay of the entire western empire as debt rises unsustainably and energy crises cause increasing shockwaves to the global economy.
are you happy to follow the neoliberal lies to the very end?
Ever since it became clear in the weeks leading up to Xmas that the current flag was likely to be retained in March, I’ve been wondering what dirty trick Key and co. would get up to in order to get their National Party coloured flag over the line.
Did you actually read the article? No, didn’t think so.
“Students can choose between the preferred alternative flag from the first referendum and the current New Zealand flag, and compare their results with the results of the real referendum.”
OK – I concede I was a bit quick. But I still wonder if the flag project teaching units will press teachers toward showing support for a flag change. Key’s government does tend to put its finger on the scales.
Has the SYRIAN Government – led by President Assad – asked the New Zealand Government to assist in fighting ISIL in Syria?
If not – New Zealand should BUTT OUT, in my considered opinion.
Syria is a sovereign Nation State.
End of story.
For those who are interested in the International ‘Rule of Law’ aspects of this matter – you may find the following VERY interesting?
“If there was any lingering doubt about the illegality of coalition activities in Syria, the Syrian government put these to rest in September, in two letters to the UNSC that denounced foreign airstrikes as unlawful:
“If any State invokes the excuse of counter-terrorism in order to be present on Syrian territory without the consent of the Syrian Government whether on the country’s land or in its airspace or territorial waters, its action shall be considered a violation of Syrian sovereignty.”
Yet still, upon the adoption of UNSC Resolution 2249 last Friday, US Deputy Representative to the United Nations Michele Sison insisted that “in accordance with the UN Charter and its recognition of the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense,” the US would use “necessary and proportionate military action” in Syria.
The website for the European Journal of International Law (EJIL) promptly pointed out the obvious:
“The resolution is worded so as to suggest there is Security Council support for the use of force against IS. However, though the resolution, and the unanimity with which it was adopted, might confer a degree of legitimacy on actions against IS, the resolution does not actually authorize any actions against IS, nor does it provide a legal basis for the use of force against IS either in Syria or in Iraq.”
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Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
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The movie the big short is well worth a look
https://youtu.be/vgqG3ITMv1Q
Yeah it’s a fantastic movie. See it ASAP!
Review: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-big-short-20151210
looks like the same motivation for Hollywood as the subject matter
Still getting problem where Commenter Name loads with two stray quote marks in front. If not edited out, comment just disappears when submitted, with no message. Any progress on a fix @lprent?
What browser? I tested in several and didn’t see the problem.
FYI the name is loaded from a cookie by the browser side JavaScript. So I need a browser to look at the problem.
Ta. FF 43.0.2 on Mac osx 10.8.5
Germany builds awesome bike roads as a way to lessen car traffic. NZ builds bike tracks for tourists and increases car traffic.
http://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/1467/Germany-Opens-62-Mile-Bicycle-Highway-That-s-Completely-Car-Free#pKFLBCBfskmdpOTc.01
…and kills cyclists.
No mystery at all – he cut too close to the cyclist probably while being angry at her.
It certainly isn’t a mystery – NZ road design ensures that these sorts of collisions will occur. Insofar as trucking companies fund right wing incompetence, they are responsible for it too.
And yet it is possible to drive a truck safely on NZ roads. I think the time pressure on truck drivers from employers is more of an issue, plus the culture of using stimulants and aggression to keep going. Where the cyclist blogged about the speed and aggression from truck drivers matches my experience.
Mine too, and I’m conscious that what feels like aggression probably has far more to do with turbulence, momentum, and options.
I think the solution is to have separate traffic flows, as per your link, and as you also said, that’s a political problem.
IMO, in this case the solution is to get the trucks off of the main highways. They really shouldn’t be there.
I agree, there’s no good reason for so much freight to be transported like that. Won’t solve the routes that don’t have rail though.
OAB, I noticed that she said she got a lot of horns being blown at her. That’s either her doing stupid shit (and I’ve seen cyclists do that), or aggression from the drivers.
I think the speed issue is passive aggressive. No-one has the right to put someone else’s life in danger because of job pressures, but here we are.
By law, you blow your horn to alert someone to your presence, so clearly, not all horn blowing is intended to be threatening.
Personally I think the design of NZ roads makes this behaviour inevitable, whether truckies all have National Party values or not.
Or something else happened. I would guess speed was a factor. There is fuck all you can do in a vehicle that big if you come across something on the road and there is no room to manouevre. Or she wasn’t very visible. Or the driver was distracted or tired. Or as you say, he was just too close and angry.
I googled to see if there was a follow up report but couldn’t find anything. I guess the police make a report on the cause of accident and that’s it, but it doesn’t necessarily get reported publically.
Quoting article:
So the truck driver could have put an entire lane between him and the cyclist.
One important thing that they can do is slow down. The reason why you have to stand back at train stations is because passing trains can suck you on to the tracks while it’s passing. A truck passing at speed has the same effect which means that cyclists get sucked into the wheels.
Another is to give room and don’t pass if it’s unsafe to do so.
“One important thing that they can do is slow down”
“Another is to give room and don’t pass if it’s unsafe to do so.”
Quite. Hence my point about speed, and then the one about how the industry creates the accidents by putting unrealistic time pressures on drivers. The reason truck drivers are going so fast is that they lose too much time if they drive safely (the loss of momentum and time in slowing down and then getting back up to speed). I have a class 2 licence and it used to freak me out driving a medium sized truck and having those big rigs pass me at speed. If something goes wrong there is not a lot that can be done because they’re just too big and too fast. It’s astounding that they’re allowed to drive like that and it’s no surprise that we have so many truck accidents in NZ.
I was thinking that about the cyclist being sucked under the truck too. Pity I can’t find a later report.
The object of having roads and engine driven vehicles is to be able to cover distances fast. The speed limits are set rather high for NZ roads I think, and in some places too low. They need to be looked at. But to slow down from 80 or 100 to a cyclists speed, for how long, can result in traffic going at a crawl.
Less road traffic and favouring rail, with high road charges for large trucks would be sensible and save lives, money, government costs on roads. But ex-Labour and ACT MP Ken Shirley is an advocate for the roading companies and they lobby hard. (Since July 2010, he has been the chief executive of the Road Transport Forum (RTF), representing road transport interests….He has previously served as ACT’s deputy leader, and in 2004, he was one of four candidates to seek the party’s leadership after the retirement of Richard Prebble.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Shirley
This report about the driver and the lack of response from him and his company indicate a dour unconcern for others and their lack of care when driving. Which I think is a reaction from many males to others needs in the present. (Remember when a woman was shot at an outdoor hut while brushing her teeth. The shooter will just excuse himself and so will all his buddies and that fraternity.)
A 66-year-old Wanganui man was today charged with careless driving causing death and was due to appear in Marton District Court on May 5. (2010)…..
Ms Pusch, who arrived in New Zealand last October, described the perils cyclists in New Zealand faced in the final entry of her online blog on December 30.
She referred to Kiwi truck drivers as “beasts” who “[drive] permanently at a phenomenal speed in a race against time.”
”When one is a cyclist on New Zealand roads, one is not only torn from one’s daydreams by diving-bombing magpies but is more often threatened by a more nasty species that really requires more attention: truck drivers,” Ms Pusch wrote.
”They swerve past the cyclists who are struggling under their own steam at break-neck speed mainly within only a half-metre to a metre gap, all the while aggressively honking their horn.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3550154/Truck-driver-charged-over-tourists-death
Later – A Whanganui truck driver whose vehicle struck and killed a German tourist near Bulls has been disqualified from driving for 12 months and ordered to pay $5000 reparation to the dead woman’s family for emotional harm and suffering.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3757432/Driver-to-pay-5000-over-tourist-death
($5000 would not even pay for the family’s costs of coming to NZ or getting the body or ashes returned, or whatever they wanted to do to gather their child to them and commemorate her, so not enough there to recompense for harm and suffering!
The driver is still allowed to drive after 12 months? The driver who killed a young woman cyclist in Christchurch about 2013, was in his 70’s. When they are that old and having these sort of accidents they should not be allowed to drive again. Maturity should make for better driving practices and when they cause death, they obviously have gone past their peak and into the decline of old age.)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3757432/Driver-to-pay-5000-over-tourist-death
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/licensing-rego/road-user-charges/ruc-rates-and-transaction-fees/#RUC-rates-for-distance-licences-type-h
I hear this trucks don’t pay their way for roads story a lot on
“the standard ” but at 33c per k j for ruc the amount of tax paid for trucks plying rural nz roads must far outweigh the money spent back onto roads , I would suggest that rural nz is subsidizing all those flash city roads.
All those flashy city roads are paid for out of rates. The highways are paid for out of a combination of petrol taxes and RUCs.
Are the new tunnels in Auckland being funded fully from the council?
Trucks have effectively been subsidized by petrol vehicles who have paid far higher net road tax per tonne for far too long. Any government that seeks to equalize the road taxes is subject to howls of rage from the trucking lobby
Every time I’ve looked into it, the proportion of RUC and petrol excise tax collected in the Auckland region is a lot greater than the proportion of transport funds spent in the Auckland region. On the basis of that data, Auckland is subsiding transport networks in the rest of the country.
Two counterarguments I can dream up, but have never seen any data for: Aucklanders filling up in Auckland before and after trips outside Auckland, companies headquartered in Auckland buying RUCs for operations outside Auckland.
Actual considered engineering opinion based on trials, is that the proportion of wear and tear caused by heavy vehicles is a lot higher than the proportion of transport funds paid by heavy vehicles, ie light vehicles are subsidizing heavy vehicles. Let alone that the cost of engineering a road to be able to carry heavy vehicles is vastly higher than if it just needed to carry light vehicles.
When considering the cost of repairing the damage that heavy vehicles do to roads, is the gst getting paid on the diesel the PAYE getting paid by the driver and the economic “grease” that the industry brings with it considered? (I’m very pro rail BTW)
Never seen any argument or data around GST on fuel and RUC, or PAYE and company tax for transport companies properly going back into transport. The general view seems to be that GST and PAYE and company tax properly go straight to the general government accounts. Hell, it was a big deal when all of the petrol excise tax was put towards transport, instead of diverting some of it to the consolidated fund. Look up “full hypothetication”.
“Although Auckland generates a high proportion of the road user revenue, it may be generating a
higher proportion of the worthwhile projects. At the same time regions that are not experiencing
growth are still paying hypothecated revenue yet may need little in the way of transport expenditure
other than road maintenance.”
The above is from a PDF on nzta site about hypothecated revenue.
That would suggest that you might be wrong about Auckland raising more then is spent on its roads and what not, especially if you chuck things like the kopu bridge and the northern holiday highway in which are for Auckland’s benefit.
Cheers for the link.
It’s been a while seen I took a close look at the data, and the Waterview tunnels are very expensive…
Don’t EVER mention the holiday highway again or you’ll never stop me going on and on about what a waste that is.
Ms Pusch was cycling up hill in the slow vehicle bay and although I can’t find anything online I do recall something about the truck driver being reported about his behavior earlier that day.
https://can.org.nz/system/files/images/White%20bike%20mia%20roadside.preview.JPG
https://can.org.nz/article/mia-pusch-rest-in-peace
Don’t feel like you need to wait for details, charges or the coroner’s report to start laying blame, eh.
Maybe the truckie was in the left lane because of a queue of cars that were passing on the uphill section. Cyclist hits pothole at wrong time, you’re lucky the truckie even noticed someone got squashed. There was one like that in Dunedin a year or two back, the truck ended up being pued over in Oamaru for the guy to be told what had happened: driver in a parked car had opened their door into the cycle lane after the truck cab had passed the cyclist. That was the last one in a series of similar deaths on that stretch of road, and the DCC finally made cycle lanes about half as much wider again and I haven’t read of another accident since.
My point is that the truck driver is only one factor in any crash. Environment, road design, road quality, etc…
Driver found guilty of careless driving causing death
The driver of a vehicle has two reasonable options when approaching a cyclist:
1. Go wide so as to pass safely
2. Slow down and stay behind the cyclist until such time as they can do 1
That’s it. Almost no driver in NZ will do that and some will actively go closer to the cyclist to frighten/abuse them.
And some truck drivers I’ve seen haven’t got a friggen clue as to how trucks actually behave when driven. I saw one take off the front bumper of a parked car while going around a bend. He simply didn’t seem to realise that the back wheels go inside the front wheels during a turn. Had a truck/trailer unit pass me a few weeks ago and although his cab went wide I had to slow down so the back wheels of the trailer didn’t get me.
And so the car driver should have been charged. You always need to look before opening the doors but many people don’t.
Cycling in NZ is dangerous because the vehicle drivers are bunch of fucken idiots.
you do realise that charged is not the same as guilty, right? You still know absolutely nothing of note about the case.
And yes, in most of the dunedin cases that spring to mind the door-openers were charged and found guilty of carelessness, etc. But the point is that a small change in the cycle lane width has markedly reduced the problem.
As for your options for motorists passing cyclists on a hill, option one restso on subjective assessments of how wdie is safe (the only objective test being a confirmed negative whenever anyone was hit). Option two simpy shows how selfish cyclists can be.
You can blame drivers all you want, but the fact remains that cycling, particularly on the open road, involves balancing very squishy humans on two wheels and then placng them, even at the best of times, in close proximity to several tonnes of fast-moving steel. But because it’s a “road” and not an enclosed workplace, somehow that’s regarded as fine.
Dude, he was found guilty and disqualified for 12 months and ordered to $5000 reparation.
1.5m is the recommended space.
And the motorists whinging shows just how selfish they are. Pausing for a short while to save a life isn’t the problem – being impatient and causing death is.
My preferred option is the removal of open roads. Want to go faster then take a train.
You need to read your link again. Hell, the poor woman has only just did. How quickly do you think the legal system works?
Recommended. Not compulsory, and probably not 100% safe, either.
My vehicle travels significantly slower than most vehicles on the open road. You know what I do if someone’s behind me? I pull over and let them pass. Because I expect normal human beings to have all the imperfections and frailties of normal human beings.
Even if no cyclist were ever the cause of their own demise, any system that requires people to be more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal people is doomed to failure. And if you want a genuinely safe system, you assumethat all users are performing significantly worse than normal people would. That is why particularly robust and reliable systems are termed “fool proof”.
Drivers, cyclists and pedestrians all blame each other, and you leapt onto that bandwagon with both feet. But as long as people obsess over one part of the problem, the problem will never be solved.
She was killed in 2010. The driver was found guilty in 2010.
Which is why cycling organisations have been calling for it to be compulsory.
Difficult to pull over further when you’re already on the shoulder of the road.
It doesn’t require them to be “more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal”.
It does require them to not be arseholes though.
fuck me you’re right. Missed the date line that it was five years ago. Just went with the use of the present tense by the original linker. Apologies.
Great, so now drivers end up needing a tape measure. All that would do is make it easier to ascribe blame, it would do nothing to address the issue.
If you were already on the shoulder, traffic that is on the road wouldn’t hit you. That’s exactly why I pull over.
It doesn’t require them to be “more accurate, alert, controlled and disciplined than normal”.
Yes, it does, because normal human drivers are hitting cyclists because of inattention, frustration, faulty judgement, or whatever. The system is not fool-proof, it is not even “regular person doing the same job for years” proof.
Sadly, there is no legislation against being an arsehole. And even if there were, it’s normal for some people to be arseholes anyway – much more reliable to change the design so arseholes don’t endanger other people so much.
“road design, road quality, etc…”
I personally would not ride a bike on open roads in nz and I would try to persuade any one dare to me not to either.
Since you list it as a matter of fact – anything to back it up – or are you just making up stuff and presenting it as fact?
She’s dead from being hit by a truck on a straight piece of road. That could only happen if he got to close and hence then being found guilty of careless driving causing death.
Since you mention facts, have you got a citation to prove your claim that Andrew Little is in the top 1% of New Zealand’s wealthiest individuals by net worth? Or are you just making stuff up?
Andrew Little belatedly making noises about TPP……pressure starting to tell?http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/summerreport/audio/201785059/labour-says-it-will-defy-tpp
That’s pretty consistent with what he was saying last year, but he does sound clearer and is able to express it more clearly now, presumably because they’ve worked through the actual document. And caucus has had time to pull its head in 😈
slightly less vague I agree…..theyve had time to study the polls perhaps
in related news, I live how that article about the woman who’d had her teeth smacked out for speaking Maori was quickly followed up by one that said she’d been telling porkies. I mean, gee, bar staff, cops, you’re spoiled for choice about sources for corroboration.
[lprent: Off topic – to OpenMike ]
The article offers no evidence of the initial cause of the subsequent alleged assaults.
I ‘like’ how you live it.
What article and what does that have to do with this post?
Two words:
Video footage.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/crime/news/article.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=11570129
I like how your nuttiness has been exposed along with OAB. Implying a conspiracy between a random Howick bar owner,staff, eyewitnesses, and the Police to cover up a video-recorded assault on an individual of no note, has to be a new high for him.
No doubt we are about to hear some ridiculous angle about a Government plot to suppress Te Reo and cow its speakers into submission with random bashings.
You’re putting words in other people’s mouths.
The original piece with the race angle was debunked, and the verbal evidence is only hearsay.
with this kind of conclusion-jumping, are you a Herald reporter?
No conspiracy alleged you idiot, just pointing out that words were exchanged before blows: the article offers no evidence of what those words were. Something started it.
No, before you trip over another witless notion, I’m not condoning violence, nor apportioning blame.
This interesting article relating to the upcoming peace accord between the government and rebels in Colombia discusses how 50 years of conflict has engendered a strong relationship between violence and masculinity that will be difficult to undo – something that applies to other conflicts as well.
http://newint.org/blog/2016/01/06/colombia-peace-disarming-manhood/
that seems to be the default when there is no effective government.
life is cheap, and we revert to a macho tribal “honor” based society.
people try to find security by association with a “strongman” figure.
An interesting read…..
Want to know how to turn $10m in to $520m in less than two years? Just ask Anchorage Capital. The private equity group has pulled off one of the great heists of all time, using all the tricks in the book, to turn Dick Smith from a $10m piece of mutton into a $520m lamb.
https://foragerfunds.com/bristlemouth/dick-smith-is-the-greatest-private-equity-heist-of-all-time/
vulture capitalism at its finest, and a good reason to avoid the rigged stock markets.
“Joyce in box seat to become deputy PM ”
A headline from the Australian newspaper this morning.
Then I read further and discovered it was about a likely change of leadership in the National Party of Australia (junior partner in the Government) and that they were talking about Barnaby Joyce.
Everyone may now relax.
No Stephen Joyce as Deputy would be as interventionist as Sutch: all kinds of interesting deals would get cut with all kinds of industries.
Happy free loans would fly out the door to any media organization you liked.
Legislation would just be some hand-operated printing machine you could tweak at will.
Mines would be built on whims and new roads built on the smell of whims to service mines, which would of course go bust as fast as something out of The Lorax.
And we could get rid of all our global warming problems by just exporting all our animals for slaughter to Saudi Arabia.
With Joyce we’d be back to making televisions in Waihi. …. back in the day …
Now you really are trying to give me nightmares.
Luckily it is the Australian fellow they were talking about, isn’t it?
Sutch shouldn’t be put in the same basket as Joyce. He was looking at how NZ could develop without getting into the straitjackets of TPPA agreements. But we did have to do something and government would need to be up there just as they are now. But Sutch wasn’t picking winners for his personal gain.
Wheels falling off the not terrorist campaign.
https://www.facebook.com/100008074905114/videos/1659466017665879/
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/tearful-militant-discovers-friend-drank-away-donation-money-its-like-finding-out-there-is-no-such-thing-as-santa/
via – https://twitter.com/jjmacnab
Is that true that they’re allowed to come and go as they please? wtf?
That rawstory page has somthing for every leftie – all the people you love to hate. As for the ‘militiamen’ they seem upset because someone disagreed with having women and children on the protest site when they were planning a gun battle. What a spoilsport. Then he went and spent some of their money on drink. I think he may have a reasonable excuse after reading their opinions. Why don’t they get dragged off, and ordered to go and get a job which is the usual response to anyone who steps out of the square?
Black border around this please…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/75712971/shakespeare-mastermind-ida-gaskin-dies-aged-96
In her words:
Below is a selection of quotes from Ida Gaskin, published between 1983 and 2013.
“I knew people who were in concentration camps. I saw my mother unable to go out because the uppers of her shoes had worn through; she didn’t mind that the soles had worn through; no one could see those.”
“I remember reading The Tempest. The teacher used to get us to act and I was the drunken butler. I just loved being the drunken butler.”
“I like young people. My beloved seventh-formers, they are who I miss the most since I gave up teaching.”
“It’s a duty and a privilege to pay income tax. That’s why I am a Socialist.”
“I am interested in politics because I am interested in people.”
On winning Mastermind: “I thought ‘My God, I’ve done it’, and then there was the sense of relief it was over.”
“I would hate to outlive my mind. I don’t mind the ‘sweet, tormenting body’ thing, but I should hate to outlive my mind.”
RIP Ida.
Labour and National both use dirty politics. Politics is a filthy game played by grubby people. Or do you think Helen and Heather played by the rules all of the time?
[lprent: Ok this thread went well off topic and into follish territory. Probably not a deliberate diversion, so to OpenMike. ]
Clearly you don’t think they did, and yet you again offer nothing but your flaccid borrowed opinion as verification.
Oh I KNOW they did. Politics is dirty. Labour used to be god at it.
Nothing you say has value. If someone credible says it and you agree, their credibility is thereby diminished.
Perhaps you’re doing your best to validate Hodson & Busseri. Give it up: you lack the competence.
OAB, unbelievable naivety is not very becoming in you.
Your word ain’t worth shit. Either provide evidence of your assertions or have them called for what they are.
2005 election funding. The pledge card specifically. Dirty politics. They used ot be good at it.
They were the only party who were caught out by the AG’s ruling, eh. No, wait, you’re being selective with your account.
I call that lying. What do you call it?
“They were the only party who were caught out by the AG’s ruling, eh. No, wait, you’re being selective with your account.
I call that lying. What do you call it?”
There’s nothing selective about it. I’m simply demonstrating that Labour are as bad as National, maybe worse, and by invoking the ‘all in it’ argument you seem to be agreeing with me. Did National rort over $400k in spending? I think not.
You are demonstrating nothing of the sort. A long term arrangement that all parties had benefited from was ruled illegal, money was repaid.
If you think that’s the equivalent of the Prime Minister’s ratfucking operation your moral compass is broken, or perhaps you’re too stupid to do anything but plagiarise other people’s attack lines.
Which is it?
“A long term arrangement that all parties had benefited from was ruled illegal, money was repaid.”
Oh, that’s a beauty. Labour rorted this to the tune of $446,000. They got caught out.
Twist and turn all you like, you alleged willful and deliberate theft, then cited an article that stated the opposite.
Why do you tell so many lies?
@acrophobic
That false meme of “Labour did it too” doesn’t wash. John key’s dirty politics is in a league of it’s own.
Ah, nah.
Feel free to list instances of Labour systematically and covertly working back channels to subvert media coverage – citations/links to sources other than sewerblogs required. And please name their equivalent of Jason Ede.
acrophobic – under Labour
– how many news programmes were silenced?
– how many journalists were raided?
– how many academics subjected to vicious smears?
– was there any secret funding equivalent to the Cabinet Club?
ZERO
instead we got a herald campaign saying “democracy under attack” for a few weeks in 2008. where was the outcry against National’s “dirty politics” in 2014 ?
“– how many news programmes were silenced?”
National haven’t closed any new programs, nor, do I recall did Labour.
(Forgotten Helen Clark’s rant about John Campbell after ‘Corngate’ have we?)
“– how many journalists were raided?”
National haven’t raided any journalists, nor, do I recall did Labour.
“– how many academics subjected to vicious smears?”
That’s a regular occurrence by both parties.
“– was there any secret funding equivalent to the Cabinet Club?”
The Cabinet Club wasn’t ‘secret’. Besides, Labour raise money in all sorts of similar ways. Ever heard of the $1250 paid by supporters at its party conference for time with MPs?
But here’s the doozy of them all. Labour’s regular and wilful breaking of electoral laws. Remember when Labour stole $840,000, then passed retrospective legislation to prevent a High Court challenge to their thieving?
Of all the things the NZLP can be criticised for, it is telling that the best this plagiarist loser can come up with is other people’s zombie lies.
Sensitive OAB?
“The Labour Party has escaped prosecution for breaching electoral law with its pocket-sized pledge cards, despite police finding there was a prima facie case against it.
It is the third time the police have found a prima facie case against the Labour Party or a Labour MP and not pressed charges.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10373214.
Labour were very, very naughty.
Sensitive? I don’t even vote for them, dickhead.
Labour were given a warning rather than prosecuted because it was clear a number of other parties had also used similar tactics and it would have been unfair to single Labour out.
I note that you have misrepresented the article you cited. Why do you tell so many lies?
I have misrepresented nothing. But continue the accusations without evidence, it is making you look petulant and just plain silly.
“wilful breaking of electoral laws.”
No lie there, no sirree. You’re a little bit shit at this.
“wilful breaking of electoral laws.”
That sums up exactly what they did. And the author of this editorial agrees with me:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/5268588/Editorial-Time-Labour-learned-to-play-by-the-rules
…but the Police? Not so much.
Sooooo…
TVNZ7, 3D, Campbell Live just mysteriously stopped?
Mihi Forbes, Nicky Hager, John Campbell, Bradley Ambrose, HDPA are just random victims of circumstance?
You think it’s BAU to smear academics and ignore their studies?
National just happens to be always flush with cash (because of their impeccable virtue) while opposition parties barely scrape by?
🙄
I’ll remember this next time you make a comment: that you are an amoral snake with no regard for journalism, democracy, or honest debate.
re you seriously suggesting that somehow National is able to influence the employment of Mihi Forbes, John Campbell etc etc? You are deluded.
National is flush with cash because they are popular. Labour is broke because it is irrelevant.
National is flush with cash because they are greedy and have no conscience, simple.
That could be true, but they are also immensely popular. Labour are hopeless at fundraising….nah let’s leave it at Labour are hopeless at everything.
Hopeless at everything…except running surpluses. And reducing unemployment. And not paying bribes to Saudi troughers.
Since when is selling ministerial access and acts of parliament “popular”?
Since when is raising funds for the public to meet with cabinet ministers any different to raising funds for the public to meet with Labour MP’s?
i am not sure how a few opposition MP’s can offer legislation for hire, but from the Government benches it’s probably quite easy
National is flush because they are no longer a political party (as evidenced by our jokey non-politics PM), they are a PR organisation sponsored by foreign banks, corporations, and oligarchs.
Yeah, yeah, keep believing that. Meanwhile, the left gets smaller and smaller and smaller…..
Since when are ACT “the Left”?
I don’t need to “believe” anything I can just open my eyes and see.
Golf with Obama, deals with Warners and SkyCity, bizarre Saudi sheep farms, Oravida, Rio Tinto, Donghua Liu… etc etc etc.
Labour cannot keep dropping support surely?
Think again
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/09/labour_1938_-_2014.html
Does that graph engender hope or instead point to increasing irrelevancy?
fishy
does your comment enlighten, or is it typical RWNJ snark?
Perhaps NZ has seen a few demographic changes over the 100 years since Labour was formed. A century of progressive reform is something to be proud of. It has made NZ a better place to live for 4 generations.
Does your side have anything to boast about? A grinning clown for a PM perhaps? Yeah he’s good for a laugh I suppose, but deep down we all cringe whenever the idiot opens his mouth.
The graph shows what looks like a terminal and inevitable decline in Labour polling. If it continues on then Labour could poll say 30% in 2017 and then 22% in 2020. 25% in 2023 and 18% in 2026. 21% in 2029 and 14% in 2032. Labour were relevant in a cloth cap society as they could address the interests of the working populace. Now they are just a collection of fringe interest activists, trade union functionaries and insipid bench warmers. Rehashing policies from the 1970’s will not work. Cheering on the SAS in Syria might be popular for a while. Face the evidence. This century will be centre-right.
your “evidence” is a bunch of wild extrapolation.
existing “centre” right politics lead to financial crises and destruction of the middle class. if the current trajectory continues the top 10-20% will vacuum up too much of the wealth and then things will turn ugly.
the 21st century will experience a slow and painful decay of the entire western empire as debt rises unsustainably and energy crises cause increasing shockwaves to the global economy.
are you happy to follow the neoliberal lies to the very end?
This is unbelievable! Apparently schoolkids are to get to vote in the flag referendum. http://www.elections.org.nz/resources-learning/school-resources/kids-voting-second-referendum-new-zealand-flag
Desperate measures – the teachers whose classes make the “wrong” choice will no doubt be duly noted.
Ever since it became clear in the weeks leading up to Xmas that the current flag was likely to be retained in March, I’ve been wondering what dirty trick Key and co. would get up to in order to get their National Party coloured flag over the line.
Did you actually read the article? No, didn’t think so.
“Students can choose between the preferred alternative flag from the first referendum and the current New Zealand flag, and compare their results with the results of the real referendum.”
This is in the very first paragraph!
OK – I concede I was a bit quick. But I still wonder if the flag project teaching units will press teachers toward showing support for a flag change. Key’s government does tend to put its finger on the scales.
Has the SYRIAN Government – led by President Assad – asked the New Zealand Government to assist in fighting ISIL in Syria?
If not – New Zealand should BUTT OUT, in my considered opinion.
Syria is a sovereign Nation State.
End of story.
For those who are interested in the International ‘Rule of Law’ aspects of this matter – you may find the following VERY interesting?
“If there was any lingering doubt about the illegality of coalition activities in Syria, the Syrian government put these to rest in September, in two letters to the UNSC that denounced foreign airstrikes as unlawful:
“If any State invokes the excuse of counter-terrorism in order to be present on Syrian territory without the consent of the Syrian Government whether on the country’s land or in its airspace or territorial waters, its action shall be considered a violation of Syrian sovereignty.”
Yet still, upon the adoption of UNSC Resolution 2249 last Friday, US Deputy Representative to the United Nations Michele Sison insisted that “in accordance with the UN Charter and its recognition of the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense,” the US would use “necessary and proportionate military action” in Syria.
The website for the European Journal of International Law (EJIL) promptly pointed out the obvious:
“The resolution is worded so as to suggest there is Security Council support for the use of force against IS. However, though the resolution, and the unanimity with which it was adopted, might confer a degree of legitimacy on actions against IS, the resolution does not actually authorize any actions against IS, nor does it provide a legal basis for the use of force against IS either in Syria or in Iraq.”
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/323396-unsc-isis-syria-us/
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
New Jersey high schooler accused of violating bullying laws for making anti-Israel tweets
Yeah, I don’t think that there’s anything I can add to that.