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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Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
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Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
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The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
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The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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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.