None of these schemes seem to be UBI’s of the sort suggested by Gareth Morgan and Keith Rankin. Their UBIs would be payable to everyone, rich or poor, employed or unemployed.
…subsidies for parents who choose to stay at home with their pre- schoolers rather than depositing them in state funded day care/early childhood ‘education’.
You are right Rosemary, it is a pity that FF have proposed this. One automatically supposes ulterior motives, just like most homeschoolers and Charter schools.
Why the quotation marks around education, Rosemary? Ece teachers have a three year training qualification just like primary. It is possible you do not understand what education at this level is about, or are you having a well-aimed crack at some of the more commercial, lesser quality centres around since the world and its wife discovered what a wonderful cash cow it can be?
“…or are you having a well-aimed crack at some of the more commercial, lesser quality centres around since the world and its wife discovered what a wonderful cash cow it can be?”
Yes…yes most definitely.
But also I have to question (hence the ‘ ‘) if what pre -schoolers receive in these artificial environment is a better preparation for primary school.
Parents are the best first teachers of their children, and it was a source of personal grief that I was forced into paid work when mine were little. But apart from a brief six weeks in a private ece centre for No 1 son ( he was bored there, so we quit) all three of mine got their preparation for primary school from home.
Within a few days of them beginning school, their teachers wanted to know which pre- school/kindy they had gone to to be so well prepared for primary school. I have a reasonable level of formal education but certainly no teacher training, child development training or any other formal learning that we are now told is vital for very young children to succeed and reach their full potential.
Hmmm…when you think about it…the phenomena of very young children being ‘educated’ by strangers is very recent.
Coincides with the economic necessity of families needing two incomes to keep their heads above water.
The jury is still out on the benefits of mass ece…and I suspicion that much of the research to test the benefits may very well be funded by those with vested interest in maintaining what has become (unfortunately IMO) the norm.
Parents are the best first teachers of their children
How does ignorance translate into better teachers?
You note that you have a reasonable level of education but the majority of people don’t. That’s changing as more people get more and better education but it’s not true at present.
Hmmm…when you think about it…the phenomena of very young children being ‘educated’ by strangers is very recent.
Yes. Just a few thousand years ago they would have been taught by the entire tribe whom they would have known and grown up with.
You are going to have to expand on that DTB…are you saying that all those without formal teaching qualifications are ignorant.
No, I’m saying that the majority of people simply don’t have enough education to raise children. That’s what that really stupid referendum on continuing to allow people to smack their children got so much support.
You’ll note that less than 50% have tertiary education.
We have been told we are not qualified to teach our own under fives…by whom?
Those people who have done the research.
It’s been known for quite some time that those children with better educated parents and social circles tend to end up with better education and life outcomes than those who don’t.
I don’t really think that sending kids off to preschool is a great idea. It’s there to try and break that cycle that I just mentioned but we need to be lifting the parents as well as the children.
Having children qualifies people to comment on the role of parenting, in reality, not through statistics
No children (or raising, caring, fostering etc) does not preclude anyone from offering opinions. But on raising children, they don’t carry much credibility because they lack first hand experience of ‘parenting’
Your comment further below about the UBI and ECE for parents who wish to raise children at home, is a good suggestion. As an example of where non parent opinions can contribute
The education question was not loaded, I was curious as you had not qualified the statement( s)
Having children qualifies people to comment on the role of parenting, in reality, not through statistics
Not really. Or do you really think that the parents of the Kahui twins knew what they were doing?
IMO, we have such high childhood abuse statistics because our parents don’t know how to parent which they learned from their parents.
The education question was not loaded
Yes it was because it couldn’t be answered with an ‘acceptable’ answer. No matter what I put there you would have found a way to use it as an attack.
@Rosemary McDonald
“But on raising children, they don’t carry much credibility because they lack first hand experience of ‘parenting’.”
This.
Not something you can learn from a book.
That’s what a lot of ignorant people say about a lot of things taught in school. You’ll note that those people who do learn it in school do it better at the start than those who don’t.
In other words, you’re talking a load of bollocks.
There was no need to insult anyone, Draco. Perhaps reflect on the projection in your comments as well
That you won’t provide a response on education level (due to an imagined, unforthcoming’attack’) is counter to having a point of reference to begin with
Using the Kahui twins as an example shows me how uneduated you are on this subject, which is why statistics hold appeal to you, along with reference to the ‘smacking referendum’
“Know what they were doing” does not come into a sensible discussion about parenting, Draco. If you were a parent you would understand why your comment is so misplaced. Heck even common sense should help you with that one…parent or not
“High abuse statistics” and their causation are a very different conversation from where I stand, and bringing them into this discussion to support (whatever your position) appears misplaced
Being a parent/carer is a natural phenomenon which has been successfully performed since day one. The ‘education’ I suspect you have in mind was superfluous at anytime outside and including the modern age
Skills and and learnings are still wonderfully transferred through generations in nations around the world through a plethora of different cultures
There is no need for anything other than ensuring informative and skills based training/education/support is available to those who may seek it out, and let people find their way organically
Such courses are fundamental and elementary in form, and compliment the innate capabilities of the overwhelming majority of parents and parents to be..
Is this the sort of ‘education’ you’re referring?
Or am I to join the threads you’re leaving behind and take a path which I believe is somewhat sinister on your part?
Whichever angle it is you’re coming from, it’s not an ‘educated’ one, that much is clear!
Being a parent/carer is a natural phenomenon which has been successfully performed since day one.
Really?
Then why are we so damn bad at it?
Skills and and learnings are still wonderfully transferred through generations in nations around the world through a plethora of different cultures
Except for the fact that they’re not due to the ongoing fragmentation of society through Individualism and Capitalism.
Think about it this way:
It used to be that a household would have three or more generations living in it. The elders would look after the children while the middle generations worked. The middle generations would learn from the elders how to look after the children.
Now we’ve broken that. We have only two generations living in a house – the parents and the children. So the parents aren’t learning from their elders, don’t have the immediate support that they used to have and the children are only getting fragmented experience.
Each generation that passes becomes worse at parenting.
Such courses are fundamental and elementary in form, and compliment the innate capabilities of the overwhelming majority of parents and parents to be..
Mankind doesn’t appear to have any innate capabilities. This is why we need to be taught.
Hmmm…when you think about it…the phenomena of very young children being ‘educated’ by strangers is very recent.
So’s the phenomena of the physically disabled or mentally ill not being regarded as an embarrassment to be hidden away by their relatives. “Recent” != “bad.”
Parents are the best first teachers of their children…
In some cases, maybe. Not that many, though. The people working in my kids’ childcare centres were way better educators of small children than I was, not least because they’d had a shitload of training in it, compared to my “training” of knowing how my parents and my friends’ parents had done it.
“Parents are the best first teachers of their children…
In some cases, maybe. Not that many, though. ”
With respect PM…rubbish.
Following your logic…only those with the requisite years of study and proper qualifications should be caring for and ‘educating’ under five year- olds.
Next great ideologically based legislation will be compulsory early childhood education by ‘professionals’….oh, wait, they already did that…
“Early childhood experts are in shock after a government decision to make education compulsory from the age of 3 for children of welfare beneficiaries.
The decision, announced by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett yesterday, will apply from July to 31,500 children, aged 3 and 4, whose parents are either on sole parent or couple benefits.
Parents will have their benefits halved if they fail to take “all reasonable steps” to keep their children in licensed or certificated early education for at least 15 hours a week from the time they turn 3 until they go to school.
A Cabinet paper estimates that about 2200 beneficiary families might fail the test each year, of which 1300 might fail to comply immediately and have their benefits halved.
Dr Sarah Farquhar of the Child Forum early childhood support network said the decision amounted to “a revolution in our social policy”.”
Unsurprisingly, those with vested interests (read…snouts in the government trough) thought this was a great idea.
“‘From this point of view early childhood education can be viewed as an inoculation for multiple diseases, with these diseases including low achievement at school, criminality, unemployment, and poverty as an adult.’
The requirement to ensure children attend early childhood education had the potential to rescue hundreds of thousands of children from educational underachievement, ‘and the nightmare that could follow from that’.
It was, said Mr Reynolds, ‘one of the most important welfare reforms in recent years’, and was likely to start changing lives the week it was implemented.”
Scaremongering much?
Psycho Milt…you seem to be a fairly intelligent sort of person…for goodness sakes…have a bit more confidence in your own abilities as a parent…and by ‘parent’ I mean all aspects of parenting….giving love, protection from harm, proper housing and nutrition, teaching language and communication skills, teaching morals and ethics, etc. etc.
Following your logic…only those with the requisite years of study and proper qualifications should be caring for and ‘educating’ under five year- olds.
That’s not logic, it’s reductio ad absurdum. We could do the same to your position, by “following its logic” to the conclusion that only a child’s biological parents should be caring for it.
…have a bit more confidence in your own abilities as a parent…and by ‘parent’ I mean all aspects of parenting….giving love, protection from harm, proper housing and nutrition, teaching language and communication skills, teaching morals and ethics, etc. etc.
I did all those things in the time the kids weren’t in childcare, ie by far the greater amount of the time. But while I was at work, it was being handled by trained professionals, and life provides inexhaustible examples of how professionals are better than amateurs. Those guys did a great job and were worth every cent.
I don’t think pre-school education should be compulsory. It, however, should be an accessible choice for any parent who wants it, for whatever reason. And good quality pre-school centres should be available.
The Natz government’s policies are just in the same vein as all their punitive, condescending treatment of beneficiaries.
Parents should also have state supported choice to stay home with pre-schoolers, rather than being pressured into work.
Just wondering what it was that your Kid’s teachers were so much better at teaching your children than you were? The main thing young children need to learn are language and how to get along with other people in their family and community. No matter how good the centre is the ratios of adults to children is much worse than that of a child in a family. Parents can have far more frequent and deeper conversations with children than a childcare teacher with a ratio of one to five for under twos and 1 to ten for overs can possibly do. The same goes with learning social mores. Children who spend their time in large groups of other children do not have as much adult role modeling and guidance in how to behave properly instead learning from other children of a similar age and stage. Hence why I think Rosemary McDondald’s children who had spent most of their time with family arrived at school with advanced social skills which impressed their teachers.
I have no problem with children going into early childhood centres if that meets the needs of their families. However, I think that big commercial interests are selling educational advantages to us that are just not realistic. There is a lot of push down curriculum from school and parents being impressed by children learning school stuff such as numbers and letters instead of playing. I would say that unless a family is very dysfunctional with a lot of problems parents can certainly do just as good a job if not better than a commercial centre.
Children are differnet in the kinds of experiences they learn from – it’s not one-size fits all. Some children may benefit more from the home environment, others may benefit from a pre-school one – and there are probably individual differences in the kind of day care that a child responds to.
A good child care centre would focus a lot on social skills and learning through play – providing a wide range of play experiences. It’s actually more pressure that comes from some parents who think the child care centre should be doing some sort of formal teaching.
A good child care centre should have a small number of children for each staff member.
There are some social skills learned in a child care centre that are not so easily taught “in the home” (although it’s a bit of an assumption that parents and children spend all their time at home). So, learning to engage with people other than family members, with social rules that are not necessarily the same in each home, are useful pre-school skills.
Plus, for some children, the kinds of daily routines in schools are a shock after a more free-form day at home. So having set times for certain activities at a pre-school, can ease some children into a school-type routine.
Also, the skills needed for staff in child care centres, include some not so often practiced in the home – managing small groups of (possibly diverse) children, for instance, in play activities. Also being aware of the health and safety procedures in such situations is an important staff skill.
People who are good with their own children may not be so good with other children in a pre-school setting – different set of skills.
Just wondering what it was that your Kid’s teachers were so much better at teaching your children than you were?
In the early stages, it was stuff like toilet training and how to eat like a human. Later, it was stuff like numbers and writing – my kids could write their own names when they started school and I sure as hell had nothing to do with it. However, the most important thing they taught was how to behave in a group of unrelated strangers, which no kid gets from their family and often makes a very noticeable difference at the year one school level. My experience leads me to a completely different conclusion than yours with regard to learning social mores – childcare was much better for that. (Although, presumably the quality of the childcare is relevant here.)
Ok fair enough. I guess everyone has different ideas about what is important. My kids did not go to childcare but to Playcentre as I did not go back to work until our youngest started school. I think they did know how to write their names from memory but don’t remember teaching them. They didn’t know the alphabet or anything like that but they soon picked all this up at school. I think that learning oral language, and conversing and thinking are more important than reading and writing at that age. They have certainly done OK in the education system with the older two currently doing Masters and Phd degrees. I do believe that school and institutionalised pre-school teaches children how to fit into an institution. I am not too sure if teaching compliance in an institutionalised setting at a very young age is necessarily what they need to learn in our complex and troubled world.
I am not too sure if teaching compliance in an institutionalised setting at a very young age is necessarily what they need to learn in our complex and troubled world.
I can understand that.
Although, a lot of our school system is about funneling people into our dominant institutions, workplaces, etc – our education system does tend to reward compliance. That’s why some parents opt to home school their children and/or send them to alternative schools.
My children went through the state school system. I feel that having their early years predominately with family meant they gained a strong sense of who they are and the ability to cope with the institutionalised education systems without losing the ability to question, be creative, and think for themselves.
“In the early stages, it was stuff like toilet training and how to eat like a human. ”
I’m sorry PM…I have to wonder what sort of role model/s your kids were getting from home in these areas? (And honestly, I and every other honest parent has had a ‘what on earth have I spawned here’ moment. Or three. 😉 )
But seriously, (and moving right on along), did you never read to your kids? Never wrote their name proudly on the latest piece of pre-school artwork? Never counted out the cutlery when setting the table or demonstrated simple fractions when cutting the cake? Never played the ‘count the number of yellow/green/blue cars spotted’ when on a long and boring drive?
“However, the most important thing they taught was how to behave in a group of unrelated strangers, which no kid gets from their family…”
Did you never go shopping with your kids? Exposing them to strangers and crowds of unfamiliar people? To a movie, pantomime or an outdoor concert?
If you answer, “Off course you silly woman I did all of that stuff with my kids when they were under five!”… then you, sir, were their first teacher.
Lessons learned from the people closest to the very young child are the ones that stick.
That’s why those parents less well equipped for the job of parenting need help…
“That’s why those parents less well equipped for the job of parenting need help…”
Which is what organisations such as Playcentre offer, and unfortunately are offering less and less as fewer parents are able to make the choice to stay with their children and are working longer and longer hours. I find it heartbreaking that a beneficiary who in earlier days would have been able to attend Playcentre with their child and upskill themselves at the same time as well as gaining support from the Playcentre community, is less and less likely to be able to do this with WINZ preferring them to attend courses and seminars on things such as CV writing.
All you want is children willing to learn and teachers willing to teach. In Mexico they have that in abundance with one of the highest attendance rates right up to uni, and it’s all free.
So price isn’t a problem in education it’s that education is being destroyed for political reasons. But like any public programs it can be changed by democratising forces
But seriously, (and moving right on along), did you never read to your kids?
I qualified as a professional librarian, so well duh. I’m not saying my kids got nothing from me, I’m saying they got more from professionals than they did from this amateur. Are you under the impression amateurs are better than professionals as a general rule, or is it only professional ECE workers who are less useful than amateurs?
Are you saying that teaching children these skills…
form friendships
play and explore
be courageous and try new things
ask questions and have a say
meet people outside their whānau
learn to relate well to other children in a group
sing, dance, and play games
think and solve problems
take turns, negotiate, and share
understand their own feelings and those of others
learn about disagreements and how to manage these
learn about words, numbers, and how things work
have conversations with children and adults
begin to understand and make sense of the world around them.
….is best done by those who had to go to school for three years to learn how to teach them, or should they be skills all parents have and can impart to their babies long before they toddle of to be educated by the state?
Parents need brakes to. It’s nice to send your kids off to a competent school soo adults can have time to be adults. Otherwise you end up frustrated and that’s known to be a negative learning environment
…best done by those who had to go to school for three years to learn how to teach them…
I’m not saying that. Particularly for the under-twos, the ECE centre my kids went to had staff who hadn’t had any professional education, just a lot of experience. I’m an opponent of 100%-qualified requirements for ECE.
Since when did parenting become a ‘profession’?
I’m tempted to write “Since we implemented the DPB in 1973,” but that could start a flame war. Obviously parenting is not a profession, but professional childcare equally obviously is one.
…subsidies for parents who choose to stay at home with their pre- schoolers rather than depositing them in state funded day care/early childhood ‘education’.
I’d prefer to see a UBI and ECE training available for those parents who choose to stay home.
clearly we can’t pay women to stay at home and raise their children, don’t they know that it is a ‘labour of love’ and something that ‘women have a calling for’ and that ‘is the fulfillment of womanhood’ and that a ‘goodly women knows her place is being an unpaid home maker and helpmeet and child care provider’.
No matter that this is what keeps women poor and depended on state help should the ‘provider’ walk out, die, or fall ill.
seriously and besides won’t somebody please think of the poor blokes that don’t get paid for staying at home and doing nothing much other then a bit of household chores, cooking, cleaning, looking after gods little blessings.
When we were kids we were told how great our Country was because mums could stay at home and raise a family. On the other hand we were told how uncivilised the Russians were for putting all their kids in state care whilst the parents were forced to go out and work, and how that was terrible for the kids and the Country.
Mmmmm.
when you were a kid the mothers that stayed at home would have had a hard time surviving on their own once their provider was gone. Consider as well that if our current government could, the Sole Parent Benefit (used to be the DPB) would be scrapped overnight, cause we all know that it only incentives women into having children that they can’t afford. And for what its worth, I am sure the Widow Key would not have managed on her own without government assistance.
So to have a women stay at home without pay is not helping her ….the point is that she is completely depended on her ‘provider’. You can see how someone who would like to keep women as ‘chattel’ and children as ‘chattel’ would consider the ex USSR an abomination for not only having women work at across the Industries and have easy accessible abortion, birth control etc. Cause godly and such.
But then, its all good, cause we are going back to the good old days and the USSR does not exist anymore. Right?
Interesting conversation going on while I was travelling. It’s pretty apparent that no-one has read the amazing NZ ece curriculum Te Whariki which has earned world-wide acclaim or accessed the Competent Children, Competent Learners study – ho hum!
“It’s pretty apparent that no-one has read the amazing NZ ece curriculum Te Whariki which has earned world-wide acclaim or accessed the Competent Children, Competent Learners study – ho hum!”
I’m not reading it that way Jan M…I’m reading opinions from both sides if the issue.
Sounds wonderful…but ALL of those skills can be learned from properly engaged parents.
form friendships
play and explore
be courageous and try new things
ask questions and have a say
meet people outside their whānau
learn to relate well to other children in a group
sing, dance, and play games
think and solve problems
take turns, negotiate, and share
understand their own feelings and those of others
learn about disagreements and how to manage these
learn about words, numbers, and how things work
have conversations with children and adults
begin to understand and make sense of the world around them.
Exactly, Te Whaariki outlines what a child would receive in a family environment and a good childcare centre tries to be as homelike as possible. Things such as primary caregiving, good ratios, nice environment etc. I don’t believe it does it better than the home environment.
What surprises me is the lack of news stories and reporting on this. I knew little about it and yet it’s of more relevance to NZ than events Syria or the US election by virtue of it affecting us directly.
I can remember the furore over Japanese long lining and drift-netting of a few decades ago and the relative silence on this is quite puzzling. Are the media being muzzled or do people just not see this as important any more?
The problem is that nowadays people don’t know who to believe. Since they can’t see it with their own eyes, they don’t know what to think on the issue.
We used to have a media that would find out about stuff like this but I guess this is to expensive to report on. It’s costs too much money to get video of it happening.
CV, Russia, China and terrorist groups are miles ahead of the US, Israel and most if not all the other western nations in cyberwarfare. Because they know they can’t match us on the battlefield so use they the indrecit route via cyberwarfare ie to attack/ deny/ destroy/ delay/ exploit/ corrupt and spread false information because they know our life style now increasing built around digital connectivity.
Why spend billons on nukes why you can infect a nations power supply or Stock market for example by a simple Stuxnet virus or something even more deadly.
Hell, I still teach the my lads how use a map and compass to move around the bush. To get even more technical, I show them how to use a sun compass and teach astro navigation at night for shits and giggles especially if I’ve got dumb yanks attached to me. The look on the yanks faces is priceless Lol.
For further reading, Out of the mountains “The coming age of the Urban Guerrilla.
By David Kilcullen and the New Zealand DWP 2016
CV, Russia, China and terrorist groups are miles ahead of the US, Israel and most if not all the other western nations in cyberwarfare. Because they know they can’t match us on the battlefield so use they the indrecit route via cyberwarfare
Your rationale is solid, but my read from the Snowden revelations is that the US Gov has co-opted all major US tech providers like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Amazon, the big banks etc. to put in backdoor access for the NSA, as well as compromising internet cables and network hardware world wide.
In combination with the FVEY surveillance arrangements its a lead that no other nation can match, though of course they do the best they can.
Whereas Russia may have used some kind of password phishing scam to get Podesta’s emails, the NSA can just open up Google’s gmail databases directly.
The Snowden papers I’ve seen seem to deal with Intell gathering ie meta data collecting since 9/11 which in the scheme things is small fry and can defeat this very using snail mail or have internal web system like Iran did after the Stuxnet attack there and China has one.
Russia, China, terrorist groups and their 3rd parties partners are way ahead of us in terms of cyber warfare. Some of the Janes Defence articles and other Defence journals I’ve seen over the years we (the west) really have our head in the sand when it comes to cyber warfare and we (the west) are now playing catch up. Especially what Russia is doing in the Ukraine, the Baltic Nations. No doubt the Russians use the same tactics in the US elections and in the EU. China are doing the same to everyone. On most cases the Russia, China, terrorist groups and their 3rd parties partners were able to pretty much walk in without anymore realizing they were there, in most cases after the event a occur. Very Scary stuff
If you have 3 COA ( Courses of Action) your Enemy will have 4 COA.
Your Enemy is more smarter than you are and don’t treat them as a idiot unless you want to lose.
Maybe it’s because I don’t care about theft of intellectual property why I don’t view China as an enemy. They are brutal but I’m not going to condem them unless they charge over 90 mile beach with tanks. And to be honest, China pays its way in the world and they can handle there piss. If they really want to play Cold War and ramp up a global enterventionist force then fine. I’ll treat them just like America
I’m sorry, but I’ll have to disagree with you about China. I treat China with awful lot suspicion they slowly adopting a global interventionist force posture and no doubt they will take over when the yanks finally go tits up.
They have their finger in quite a few counties I’ve visited in the last few years and locals I’ve spoken too distrust Chinese as they don’t buy local instead import their own food, bring in their workers instead employing locals. Hell they even doing it in New Zealand even my dad ranks them up there with the Indian’s, South Koreans and freedom campers as worst tourists to have. He should know he works in the tourists industry.
China had a crack at doing the same thing here in Oz during boom, but AWU and CFMEU got wind of it and told them to F off.
Please don’t me started on what they do to those Poor Pacific nations and East Timor ATM or in the South China Sea it make my blood boil.
I know this is old news, but this just the tip of the iceberg on what they are doing in Africa ATM.
VENTURES AFRICA – News from the Kenya Railways Corporation suggests that the China Road & Bridge Corporation will send in 5,000 workers to work on the standard gauge railway.
Kenya signed a Sh314.2 billion deal with China for the construction of the Mombassa‐Nairobi railway in May, 2014.
The deal is to be executed in phases starting with the standard gauge railway project which is to cover 609.3km from the port of Mombassa to Nairobi.
Im guessing you would know that All Asian hate the Koreans more.
One slight quibble with your news report. The deal is a good deal. Africa owns it so the profits go straight to them. The quality of there engines is yet to be seen. We’ve spoken about 3rd world development for decades so I’m not going to condem China for actually doing it.
If I was to condem China it would be on there environmental record. The South China Sea claim is bogus because it’s based on a cartoon Chairmen Mao made up during his interlectual purge. That’s concerning but I wonder if America would swallow it’s pride and return Hawaii to its indigenous inhabitants which I find hard to believe given how vital it is to its strategic concerns. Since 5trillion in trade passes through the South China Sea that will be concerning for China.
Paul Buchanan once said, “I wonder how long New Zealander can be a tier 1 strategic partner with America and vital trade relations with China while they’re locked into a dispute.” I want my cake and eat it to so I’ll hold fast to the status quo. But rest assured the moment VT4s role out in anger. I’ll be there.
Too right, Mr Trump. Regardless of what happened, you would have won anyway. Dems are totally out of touch with the American people and are looking for a scapegoat!
1. A thread on something that's been bothering me: How on earth was Trump losing money on his casinos while competitors were making bank? https://t.co/EsrkuLkHCV
I know for a fact that Donald Trump, greatest American President since Reagan, is a tremendous Morrissey fan, and regards him as a great, great, American artist.
While calving is a natural process, it can be driven into overdrive by the warm ocean waters that are lapping away at the ice shelves that fringe Antarctica. When calving events happen too quickly in succession, the glacier-ice shelf system doesn’t have time to rebalance, which can result in glaciers continuing to speed their flow, bringing more and more ice into the oceans and raising sea levels.
This is what happened with Larsen C’s northern neighbors, Larsen A and B, which collapsed spectacularly in 1995 and 2002, respectively. The glaciers that had fed Larsen B flowed six times faster after its demise.
So Fonterra is doing feel good ads and Ritchie maybe has a new bromance appearing on them.
From Stuff:
“Fonterra chief operating officer in global consumer and foodservice Jacqueline Chow said the campaign was designed to promote the goodness of dairy.
She said dairy was a part of the solution to malnutrition, but its image in New Zealand was being affected by “dietary fads and special interest groups”.”
Well it’s great to know that the special interest groups in New Zealand are becoming sufficiently large & influential for Fonterra to actually notice!
But Fonterra could help themselves:
– there has been considerable publicity about the disappearance of mainstream Lewis Road organic milk from supermarket shelves (only one supermarket of the six or so around here has held out) Be interesting to see what ComCom does about this and why Fonterra though that this was a good idea at any level. Don’t forget Fonterra bought the Kapiti label (it was a premium brand) about 15 years ago and promptly closed it down. Will they do the same again once they have swamped Lewis Road so we have to go back to the normal rubbish.
-stop selling stuff in bottles that pretends to be a milk product at milk product prices when it is little more than watered down skim with some additives. I’m not sure how they get away with this under the Fair Trading act. Most of this is simply a milk flavoured drink much as we have juice flavoured drinks
-and then there are all the dirty water issues and ruined swimming places
”and the innovation might even help.” might actually be how a few survive if it gets real rough.
I was more commenting on how lefties love the concept of frank’n food but the hate big pharma/agrichemical companies , when it’s those very companies that will produce your beaker burger
I’m not keen on synthetic food because it taste like saw dust. I imagine they have no nutrition value because they can store it longer. But that makes sense from the point of view of commercialised agriculture, after all you’re in it to make money not to feed people. That drives productive agriculture/farmers out, it’s horrible for the rest of the world. We talk about a supposed immigration problem, a lot of the problem is due to designers of our trade pax attempting to destroy agriculture in other countries. Chinese farms are efficient enough but they couldn’t possible justify (for example) dairy intensification because there population is lactose intolerant.
There is a movement around lake Taupo wanting to better use dairy farming/forest/water, it’s encouraging, it’s competent, well organised and they’re generating valuable data and they’re making money. It isn’t a massive movement but it proves you can divert growth from dairy intensification to sustainable methods and it’s got a lot to show already.
I’d say there is some nutritional value otherwise it wouldn’t be a food. But I take the point.
The biggest issue I see with dairying, even the people that are doing good things, is the focus on export. The whole model is just wrong, from the need for irrigation to the exporting of fertility via milk powder. People are focussed on water quality and run off, but the underlying problem is the model that says we can strip the land to make excess profit and ignore the ecosystem at the same time.
Good to hear about Taupō. I know of a few other diary farms around that are doing good things, but the pressure is always there to keep growing.
It was a good bet that you could grow tomatoes ect and pass it on to your son but that’s a suckers bet now due to political instability, so we keep doubling and not paying attention. Theirs a notion in economics of externalities which are things you don’t pay attention to when carrying out transactions. That’s to say it’s nice to feed more people but what else are we doing. We know what they’re doing to poison the environment and it makes it harder to produce. It’s outside the capacity of our culture to do something about it so solutions have to be imposed on the industry.
People are focussed on water quality and run off, but the underlying problem is the model that says we can strip the land to make excess profit and ignore the ecosystem at the same time.
Yep. People don’t understand that running an economy always costs in resources. To do one thing requires the removal of resources to do another. Intensified farming takes away resources from the environment.
Remember John Key saying something like water going into the sea was wasted?
That’s how these capitalists see it. If a resource isn’t being used to make them richer then it’s wasted. Keeping a healthy environment or a healthy society doesn’t factor into their thinking and so both have resources removed from them to boost profit for the few.
And Hollywood thinks we are a hot bed of piracy. Hahaha.
Rather over-egging it given our 4 million of population compared to the US 340 million. I’d say there is no comparison the US – we’d lose every time.
What have the Left done in the last month to change votes? nothing. That’s why the summer BBQs talk about cricket and not about politics. There will never be another Labour government.
Some these days are programmed to offer suggestions like: “Fisiani, I want you to try those new cricket patties from Canada. Yummy alternative protein. No slave labour, honest.”
The Right have done it all for them. Key took off like a scolded dog after the humiliating Mt Roskill defeat, and they picked the morally corrupt Bill 21% English as his replacement.
And you will do everything in your limited, anti-worker, anti-Kiwi invective to prevent that eventuality.
Seriously. If you spent half the time you do dribbling over US politics on NZ social outcomes then you might claim to be helping the disenfranchised of this country.
Twyford is right. The Asian elite do not care about this country.
Twyford is a careerist dickhead who goes wherever the political wind is blowing. If he thinks anti-asian sentiment is the flavour of the month, that’s where he will go, and repeaters like you will spout it out as wisdom.
So much for lefty respect of cultural and ethnic diversity. Just more insincerity.
What a self centred scum bag you are. I thought you were self centred before but you have cemented it here in your stupid, Trumptastic way.
Are you in Auckland? No, you’re not and as such you know nothing about the place. You judge Twyford but I’m sure you have never met him and so know nothing about his call for accurate information about the Asian spend in Auckland.
What really confuses me is that you ruptured an arsehole about Twyford in your own fucking county but have no issue about Trump in his.
You’re going to leap to Twyford’s defence? Figures. BTW I lived in Auckland for several years. Rodney Hide’s electorate. A lovely city to be 1600km away from.
While I find myself agreeing with most of the sentiments and even some of the expressions you have for CV, I fear that expressing them so bluntly will only result in you picking up a ban while he continues to liberally sprinkle the site with his bullshit.
The so-called democratic Israelis are not shy of interfering with other countries democracies when it suits them. The embassy is distancing itself from the comments by one of its own but you can bet senior political officer Masot’s opinion is reflective of the entire Israeli authority.
Israel’s ambassador to the UK has apologised after a senior member of his staff was secretly filmed saying he wanted to “take down” Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan.
Interesting (scary) speculation on how the relationship between Trump and the intelligence agencies might play out. With a useful reminder that the WMD thing was more about Bush and his senior official misrepresenting info than the agencies giving them bad intel.
Getting back to New Zealand for a moment, Greenpeace wins big against the dairy industry.
This sort of ruling is important for New Zealand rivers because Dairy NZ, Fonterra, and the number 8 wire farmers are no longer allowed to protest against the truth. The truth being that our waterways are under threat.
“What we’re seeing is that dairy industry is doing everything they can to try and confuse people about water pollution but the facts are the facts and ordinary New Zealanders are starting to see that.”
The Greens should own this issue and it should be theirs as an election platform along with renters rights. Labour should focus on housing affordability and worker’s rights. NZ First should focus on immigration concerns. They should all be allowed to comment on lack of infrastructure and the underfunding of social services.
These parties and the people who vote for these parties all want the government changed for the good of the whole country. Tasks need to be delegated.
A coalition government in waiting should have a devolution of tasks, and I think it would help individuals aligned with particular concerns to be able to devote their energies to that concern while at the same time not attacking others’ concerns.
In short, each party in the coalition would own their ground but also have common ground.
The Greens have always said environment, society and economy are indivisible. Labour likewise has policies in all 3 areas. Winston First have usually been a thing unto themselves.
I don’t like the police numbers thing being associated with Labour or Green. Clearly it is the penny pinching current government which has presided over the increase in volume crime in this country but the stick part should be delegated to NZ first.
Fearmongering. That poll shows people’s fears, not whether war is likely or not. It also appears to be showing that the countries where people are happiest have less people concerned about war.
Joyzus !!! … Farrar/ Slater / other prominent Tory shills must be absolutely pissing themselves with glee
You see, there’s a little event coming up in New Zealand politics later this year (maybe even sooner than we think, who knows ?). It’s called … wait for it …
… the 2017 New Zealand General Election.
And what does the premier Left-leaning forum for the New Zealand labour movement do ? – increasingly tears itself apart, … first during the US Presidential Election campaign late last year, then over the rights and wrongs of Superpower involvement in Syria, and now over allegations of Russian interference in the US Presidential Election.
Authors happily abusing each other, expletives being thrown about with wild abandon, regular commenters abusing authors and vice versa, … basically a whole lot of people stridently crossing the line from bona fide robust debate to bitter and waspish personal insults, outright contempt and the determination to win their petty little battles no matter what the long-term cost.
Now the last thing I want to sound like here is some sort of horrendous touchy-feely New Age Middle-Class Hand-Wringing Liberal Hippy “Facilitator”… BUT … the kind of personal abuse that’s been going on almost inevitably ends up emotionally wounding people (even when they’re too proud to admit it), in turn generating long-term grudges and resentment, if not immediate ruptures (with the potential for authors to suddenly pack their up bags and fuck the fuck off, never to be heard of again).
Not something we necessarily need in Election Year … especially when we’re up against ruthless, power-hungry, tightly disciplined opponents.
Despite being firmly in that broad camp I associate with Bill, CV, Morrissey, Olwyn, Puddleglum and various others on these contentious issues – and despite having occasionally thrown a few snide little grenades into the conversation myself – from now on I’m going to discipline myself to avoid any involvement in these specific debates.
Who knows, might be in the Left’s long-term interests if others consider doing likewise.
Or … to put it all another way … Do we always have to live up to the Life of Brian sketch ?
I mean, every single fucking time ?
I’m trying to help NZ communities. You, however, are some sort of egomaniac and retarded keyboard hack who has no empathetic thought for anyone but yourself and this proof is born by the amount of time you spent on USA threads.
It amuses me greatly how a group of people who put so much weight into the concept of the collective, fight to the death over such irrelevant micro issues.
Know it all, never can see another view point egotists will always be the Achilles heel of the left.
“the kind of personal abuse that’s been going on almost inevitably ends up emotionally wounding people (even when they’re too proud to admit it), in turn generating long-term grudges and resentment”
Quite. If left-leaning citizens cannot behave like grown-ups in our own discussion spaces, why would anybody vote for the organisations we champion?
Hey swordfish, I agree with most of your comments, you make a very good point, but can I ask you if you honestly believe that any thing said or stated in this forum will have any influence what so ever over the outcome of the up coming election? My guess is NO.
Trying to change the behaviour of “old men stuck in a mind set” is the same as pissing into the wind.
It’s the largest left wing blog in NZ. The political blogosphere plays a part in the election cycle both directly, via the MSM, and via activism. Of course the website has influence. Whether we make good use of that influence is another matter.
I’m also wanting to focus on other areas so if you or anyone wants to see different content and hopefully different discussion, feel free to put forward ideas.
Ok,hows about moving all mad scientist stuff to a battle ground where they can scratch each others eyes out –not where mortals like me get confused by it all.
Having set up spaces for US election conversations during the election, and then diverting people there I can say it’s a lot of work. If people want to do what they did today, it’s pretty hard to stop them. We can of course set up different kinds of conversations if people want that, but whenever I offer that I generally don’t get too many suggestions.
1. Some new authors. I would be happy to arrange a login for you because your poll analysis is second to none.
2. The fights we have had over US politics is rather difficult. Some of us prefer to pull our fingernails out than support Trump. But that does not sit with others.
Author wise we are now fine. I agree to the onward and upward proposal.
Your second point is a bit like Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit. Some see an orange greed monster at the helm of a superpower, others see a very compromised left with all the machinery of power behind it finally getting its comeuppance. Broadly speaking, both sides seem to respect Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and Helen Kelly – perhaps we need to bear that touchstone in mind.
As one of the more vocal people arguing for Clinton here (who would have much preferred Bernie, O’Malley, or a long list of others that didn’t put their hand up), I’m quite happy to see compromised Democrat elites getting their comeuppance.
But the price is that many real, vulnerable people really are going to get damaged over the next few years by the orange greed monster. To a far greater extent than they would be under the compromised Dems. With no guarantee that the next cohort of Democrat elites will be less compromised. To me, that damage to the vulnerable is way way too high a price to pay for the temporary satisfaction of kicking elites who are already well-insulated from any potential pain.
Well the election has been and gone and most of us here didn’t have a vote in it. The result is what it is. In that respect Bernie Sanders has the right idea – to regroup, support what is good and fiercely oppose what is bad.
I can understand the impulse to throw a grenade at a comfortable two party system of political elitists, and I abhor the Democratic parties alignment with imperialist corporations, while, at the same time, I am horrified by Trump..
The election of Trump may be for the best in the end.
A definable enemy is easier to fight than someone who pretends to be on our side, but really isn’t. Like the US Democrats and “third way” Labour parties.
I think it’s appropriate that this all plays out on here. The battle of the collapsing media and political establishment and those more tied up within it and those that aren’t.
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...
Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians)In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...
Maybe you’ve seen the graph that says those countries where everyone wears a mask are the ones that have managed to keep Covid-19 under control? The first thing to say about that claim is that those countries also did lots of other things, too – they acted fast, with intense ...
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As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...
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Brian Williamson1, Prof Nick Wilson2 (1Economic consultant, UK; 2University of Otago Wellington)In this blog, we outline how a win-win social contract could be forged to address the major dimensions of response to the COVID-19 pandemic when using a mitigation strategy: the particular need to protect older people from high ...
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Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
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The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
The New Zealand Government has made arrangements to charter a flight for New Zealanders stranded in Peru to depart the country, following agreement with the Chilean government to allow the necessary transit through Chile, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. “Like many travellers around the world at the moment, ...
Hospital preparations for COVID-19 are well advanced says Health Minister David Clark. “Hospitals across New Zealand are repurposing buildings and training staff to get ready for COVID-19 patients. This gives me confidence that we are well prepared for any potential increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospital level care,” said David ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
After five years, the Final Fantasy VII Remake has finally appeared. Sam Brooks reviews the highly anticipated remake, looking back while leaping forward. Remakes have been around so long as we’ve been making art. We’re used to them, whether they’re new retellings of old myths, covers of old songs, or complete ...
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern does not want New Zealand to be at level four for “a minute longer than needed”, but says there is no plan to lift it earlier than the planned four weeks. As New Zealand approaches the halfway point of the four-week lockdown, ...
Supercity Mayor Phil Goff says Auckland Airport is entitled to launch a major share issue even if it dilutes the council's own shareholding in a strategic asset Auckland Council will see its shareholding in the city's international airport diluted during a $1.2b equity raising initiative. Auckland International Airport shares traded at $7.20 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew McLachlan, Head of School and Dean of Pharmacy, University of Sydney Researchers testing the head lice drug Ivermectin as a possible treatment for COVID-19 have seen promising results in lab studies. But the research is in its early stages and the ...
In the Covid-19 crisis it seems like it's every country for itself, so where does that leave the European Union? Falling apart like the Roman Empire, says Oliver Hartwich We all know those newspaper segments which feature a previously famous person. And then we read these articles wondering why we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne This week’s Newspoll, conducted April 1-3 from a sample of 1,508 people, showed a huge boost in Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval rating based on his leadership thus far in ...
Analysis: New Zealand has dedicated itself to going hard and going early against Covid-19. When compared with other countries, how did we do? When Jacinda Ardern announced a requirement for everyone entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days, she told the nation what New Zealand's strategy for the months ...
Covid-19 quickly put Vodafone NZ to the test, but CEO Jason Paris - working out of his son's bedroom - tells Rod Oram the telco is in good shape, with the crisis giving it the opportunity "to accelerate to our digital future" Vodafone New Zealand got an early start preparing ...
Inland Revenue (IR) will turn off its computer systems for seven days from this Thursday to implement the latest round of planned transformation changes. All phone and online services will be unavailable from 3pm on 9 April until 16 April. That ...
Taxis drivers working during lockdown are facing challenges to keep themselves and their passengers safe, and rideshare service drivers face extra problems. The Taxi Federation's John Hart says most companies are asking callers who request a taxi whether the travel is allowed under the lockdown rules. "If they don't meet ...
Auckland Airport is the latest big company to rush to strengthen its finances to counter the impact of the Covid-19 virus. The company is to raise more than $1.2 billion through a share issue to big institutional investors and existing shareholders, including the Auckland Council which has a 22 percent ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Governments across the world have rolled out extensive financial packages to support individuals, businesses and large corporations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Equally, central ...
Pacific Media Watch From the second week of lockdown in New Zealand, to Covid-19 in the Pacific and an “authoritarianism creep” by governments in the Asia-Pacific region provided a fast-changing landscape on the Pacific Media Centre’s Southern Cross radio programme on 95bFM today. New Zealand had crossed the 1000-case ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers' Union is urging the Government to halt its non-essential legislative agenda, including the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Bill, until the worst of COVID-19 has passed. Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Islay ...
Fuel sales have dropped dramatically and stocks are building up, creating pressure on storage facilities globally and in New Zealand. Z Energy's chief executive Mike Bennetts told Morning Report that there are many storage tanks throughout the country and at the Marsden Point Oil Refinery. "The issue for us is more about ...
Join us for our eighth live Q&A session with Dr Ayesha Verrall, a senior lecturer at Otago University who specialises in infectious diseases. Ayesha Verrall is an infectious diseases physician and senior lecturer at Otago University's Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine (Wellington). Dr Verrall has been monitoring the spread and impact of Covid-19 ...
SkyCity has broken the law by sacking hundreds of workers as of today with no consultation or discussion. Salaried managers at SkyCity were told on Friday that their jobs would finish today. Their letter of notice states clearly that the decision has already ...
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersThese posts collate the most recent statistics and presents them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early ...
Mark Jennings writes on some of the good things to have come out of lockdown - and the tough times that lie ahead. We are well into our second week of lockdown and, for me, our old world already feels strangely remote. I’ve learned that working from home is fine, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Deakin University Some weeks ago, I got an email from a student who had returned to Northern Italy over Christmas to see family. Unable to return to Australia, they were in lockdown. The hospitals were filling ...
The Taranaki-Whanganui Conservation Board (TWCB) has welcomed its latest victory in a long-running court battle to prevent seabed mining off the Taranaki coast. The TWCB has been working with iwi, seafood and other environmental organisations to ...
If you’re a movie-lover but don’t feel like funnelling more money to a giant global corporation right now, good news: there are plenty of free – and legal – streaming options out there. You just have to know where to look.The number of people with access to linear television is ...
The face mask question is more complicated than it might at first seem, explains Siouxsie Wiles.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 crisis is only possible because of the support of members. If you can, please consider joining Spinoff Members here. Read Toby Morris’s new Side Eye comic, created with Siouxsie Wiles, here. ...
In times of economic uncertainty, good information can be an invaluable commodity. So we’ve been working on a way to channel it to you.For many people, knowing what to do in our radically changing economy is like trying to figure out what to do when the power in your house ...
3 April 2020: The Auditor-General has written to the chief executives of a range of public agencies about important governance matters to consider during the response to the pandemic. The contents of this letter are useful matters for all chief executives ...
Cries that coronavirus lockdown was interfering with “essential pest control” were scare-mongering not unlike supermarket panic buying says a hunting organisation the Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust. The comment was in response to an Auckland University ...
The Chief High Court judge’s decision to step down has triggered a question bluntly expressed in a headline on Asian Invasion 2019 – What The Hell Is Going On In The New Zealand Judiciary? First, the blogger says, the judiciary was accepting debate sparked by a newly appointed Supreme Court ...
The daily growth in Covid-19 cases in New Zealand continues to slump as the number of tests carried out yesterday reached a record high, Marc Daalder reports The continuing stagnation in the number of new Covid-19 cases on Monday is encouraging, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said. Monday saw just 67 ...
Laura Jean McKay is hunkered down in Palmerston North but her much-hyped novel The Animals in That Country is out there in the world – earlier than expected, too, because it’s about a strange new flu. Two women stand close to each other in an aisle labelled CANS. They’re young, ...
She’s not a teacher or a fluent speaker – she just wants to practise with you. Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Today we’re making it count – from 0 to 1000!Most of us learned tahi, rua, toru, whā when ...
Human rights lawyer Kingsley Abbott warns that Kiwis should not be too complacent about the restrictions being placed upon them In New Zealand, swimming at the beach is prohibited, an activity so entrenched in the Kiwi psyche that for many it is like being asked to go without oxygen. The ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...
Gareth Morgan believes if current trends continue, the Government could "open the jail" in another week Each week we’re locked up imparts irreparable harm to the economy, people’s livelihoods and not least our health. We all know why it’s been necessary and the Government is to be congratulated for moving ...
The Reserve Bank will buy up local government bonds in a major move to support the smooth functioning of the market in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic The Reserve Bank has heeded the call of economists and the country's largest council to expand its multi-billion dollar asset-purchasing programme to include bonds issued by ...
Today President Trump again touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for Covid-19, despite a lack of good evidence that it is safe or effective against the coronavirus. Here’s what we do know about the drug Trump calls a ‘game changer’.On Saturday the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use ...
Simon Bridges supports the start of discussions about a possible exit plan from level-4 restrictions, as long as the government remains focused on enforcing an effective lockdown. ...
PACIFIC PANDEMIC DIARY:By Sri Krishnamurthi, self-isolating in Auckland under New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdown as part of a Pacific Media Watch series. As New Zealand edges toward the third week of lockdown having passed 1000 cases threshold (1039) with 89 new cases, 12 clusters and one death on day ...
It’s a more complicated issue than simply whether one company should control the majority of the market, writes regulatory law expert Edward Willis.The closure of Bauer Media’s operations in New Zealand, along with many well-loved magazine titles, is devastating. The broad impact of the closure, coupled with the realisation that ...
Pacific Media Watch Authorities are cracking down to try and stop the spread of the coronavirus in Fiji, which already has 12 cases, reports TVNZ One News. Police have arrested more than 240 people in the last two days for breaching curfew. “This level of lawlessness is irresponsible, un-Fijian ...
‘When you reach for the exact same thing day after day, your grasp on everything else in the world loosens.’Read more Lockdown Letters hereAt the end of 2001, my brother JP and I picked cherries and thinned apples at an orchard just outside Blenheim. It was hot and tiring work ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin USA still far from worst. Chart by Keith Rankin. Looking at known cases of Covid19, as for Friday 3 April, we still see the dominance of the jetsetter enclaves – including the tax shelters of Europe. We also see the Norse ‘viking’ cluster of Norway, ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentPublic health strategy Charlie Mitchell (Stuff): How hard, how early? The numbers behind New Zealand’s quick lockdown David Fisher ...
Alex Casey talks to a physiotherapist about how we can all save our necks and backs from a world of pain while working from home during the lockdown. As we enter another week of lockdown, you might be starting to feel a new twinge at the nape of your neck, or ...
The country's three major IT groups have been left out of the loop by the Government in the race to speed up critical contact tracing of virus carriers. ...
America faces 'Pearl Harbour moment' this week; Trump still promoting anti-malaria drug; Irish PM to work as doctor as wellA million cases is so last week, huge doubt over data: A weekend is a long time for an exponential epidemic to do its mathematical work. Early today, New Zealand time, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suze Wilson, Senior Lecturer, Executive Development, Massey University Imagine, if you can, what it’s like to make decisions on which the lives of tens of thousands of other people depend. If you get things wrong, or delay deciding, they die. Your decisions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hewson, Professor and Chair, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Climate deniers have been hanging out for the United Nations’ next big summit to fail. In a sense, the coronavirus and its induced policy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Giancaspro, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide You’ve lost income because of the coronavirus crisis and finding it hard to pay the bills. What if you can’t pay your rent? The short answer, if you live in Australia, is that rules ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Burton, Lecturer in Media Arts, University of Wollongong Being in isolation might be a great time to try something new. In this series, we get the basics on hobbies and activities to start while you’re spending more time at home. ...
The prime minister has pushed back on comments made by an Australian government minister telling New Zealanders to go home if they have no means of support. ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Safe harbour for directors; Virgin Australia shuts NZ base; Z Energy cancels dividend and talks to banks; Serko bounces on cost cutsSafe harbour: Company directors might be sleeping a little easier now that the Government has provided clarity around the issue of reckless trading or trading while insolvent. The ...
Covid 19 coronavirus: Foreign Minister Winston Peters says up to 100,000 foreign nationals may be heading home; and pressure on Government to bring forward capital projects as part of infrastructure injection. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Debate over leaving lockdown fires up, how the tax system could change after Covid-19, and concerns as cyclone bears down on Vanuatu.Over the last few days, a debate has started to fire up about leaving level four restrictions, and restarting some ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Queenstown author Jane Bloomfield on a writing compeition which unlocks kids' imaginations during the lockdown. Encouraging young minds to roam wild is what drives myself and nine other children’s authors to run the online story-writing competition, Fabostory. With the current lockdown in place, we invite writers aged 7–13 to unlock ...
The University of Otago's Patrick Boudreau explains how 'adventure psychology' can help you cope with self-isolation Imagine being halfway up a sheer vertical face of rock. Gripping ledges smaller than the width of your iPhone with the tips of your fingers and edge of your toes. If the rock gives ...
After 15 years on the world pro tennis circuit, Marina Erakovic is chasing a new dream in sports medicine and mentoring young tennis stars. Marina Erakovic can’t run anymore. She didn’t really like it anyway, but still, it’s a measure of the toll a 15-year career at the highest level of tennis has ...
Newsroom wanted to find out why so many small shops still don’t want us to use paywave. And the answer hasn’t changed - bank fees. Suddenly, surfaces are scary. Door handles, taps, light switches, lift buttons, eftpos machines. These days they aren't just useful inanimate objects we touch without a ...
Should all New Zealanders wear face masks in public to reduce the spread of Covid-19? Farah Hancock looks at the science. The success of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in keeping Covid-19 levels low has seen a call for widespread mask-wearing. In the United States, the message from officials has ...
The Global Financial Crisis badly hurt the employment prospects of young people about to enter the workforce. Roger Smyth writes that Covid-19 will have a deeper impact, and the Government needs to respond better this time. Recessions hit the young hardest. Employers stop recruiting. Those without qualifications and those without experience end ...
March 16, 2020 is a day that any share market investor is likely to remember for a long time. That’s the day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index that tracks the top 30 companies listed on US stock exchanges, lost 2997 points, nearly 13 percent of its value. ...
Scientists hope to seek evidence of the coronavirus, or its absence, in wastewater. Mirjam Guesgen explains.The fight against Covid-19 is headed for the sewers, with New Zealand scientists hoping to analyse wastewater samples for signs of the coronavirus.Tests would allow health authorities to see whether New Zealand’s elimination strategy has ...
Since the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment relaxed the rules around the supply of essential non-food items last week, more businesses are announcing that their online stores are up and running. Some things, however, are not what leaps to mind as ‘essential’.Under the new policy allowing essential non-food items ...
By Jane Patterson, political editor of RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it’s too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. At today’s media briefing, Ardern was reluctant to draw too many conclusions from ...
By Stefan Armbruster of SBS News in Brisbane Refugees and asylum seekers in Brisbane have begun daily protests urging for their release after doctors and human rights lawyers flagged fears that a repurposed hotel could become a coronavirus infection hotspot. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Human ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it's too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. ...
Open Mike 08/01/2017 
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...9 hours ago
Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians) In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...9 hours ago
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggests Research into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...13 hours ago
The Treaty on Open Skies is one of the most effective mechanisms for preventing war curently in force. By letting countries make surveillance flights over each others' territory, it eliminates fears that they are secretly preparing for war. So naturally, the US is planning to withdraw from it: The Trump ...14 hours ago
. . April 5: Day eleven of living in lock-down… My one day of rest for the week, and an opportunity to mow my lawns – which I’d been delaying for about three weeks. (On the plus side, the damp micro-climate in my back yard yielded three lovely fresh mushrooms ...14 hours ago
Paul Connett is putting all his eggs in one basket. He says “you only have to read four studies” to find community after fluoridation harmful. Image credit: Fluoride Action Network newsletter. For part 1 of this series see Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 1: Bashash et al (2018). Paul Connett, ...17 hours ago
As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...17 hours ago
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I just found out that Art Theorist Jon Berger died earlier this week.
His “Ways of Seeing” TV program changed the way I saw.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/02/john-berger-obituary
UBI is a coming ?
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2017/01/ubi-idea-whose-time-has-come.html
None of these schemes seem to be UBI’s of the sort suggested by Gareth Morgan and Keith Rankin. Their UBIs would be payable to everyone, rich or poor, employed or unemployed.
A pity it is Family First who has mooted this….http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11778433
…subsidies for parents who choose to stay at home with their pre- schoolers rather than depositing them in state funded day care/early childhood ‘education’.
Imagine if a parent who chose to care for their child themselves was paid the going rate for ece…..https://www.childforum.com/costs-subsidies-prices/72-government-ece-funding-rates.html
…or childcare….https://www.childforum.com/costs-subsidies-prices/274-childcare-subsidy-a-tax-deduction.html
You are right Rosemary, it is a pity that FF have proposed this. One automatically supposes ulterior motives, just like most homeschoolers and Charter schools.
Why the quotation marks around education, Rosemary? Ece teachers have a three year training qualification just like primary. It is possible you do not understand what education at this level is about, or are you having a well-aimed crack at some of the more commercial, lesser quality centres around since the world and its wife discovered what a wonderful cash cow it can be?
“…or are you having a well-aimed crack at some of the more commercial, lesser quality centres around since the world and its wife discovered what a wonderful cash cow it can be?”
Yes…yes most definitely.
But also I have to question (hence the ‘ ‘) if what pre -schoolers receive in these artificial environment is a better preparation for primary school.
Parents are the best first teachers of their children, and it was a source of personal grief that I was forced into paid work when mine were little. But apart from a brief six weeks in a private ece centre for No 1 son ( he was bored there, so we quit) all three of mine got their preparation for primary school from home.
Within a few days of them beginning school, their teachers wanted to know which pre- school/kindy they had gone to to be so well prepared for primary school. I have a reasonable level of formal education but certainly no teacher training, child development training or any other formal learning that we are now told is vital for very young children to succeed and reach their full potential.
Hmmm…when you think about it…the phenomena of very young children being ‘educated’ by strangers is very recent.
Coincides with the economic necessity of families needing two incomes to keep their heads above water.
The jury is still out on the benefits of mass ece…and I suspicion that much of the research to test the benefits may very well be funded by those with vested interest in maintaining what has become (unfortunately IMO) the norm.
How does ignorance translate into better teachers?
You note that you have a reasonable level of education but the majority of people don’t. That’s changing as more people get more and better education but it’s not true at present.
Yes. Just a few thousand years ago they would have been taught by the entire tribe whom they would have known and grown up with.
“How does ignorance translate into better teachers?”
You are going to have to expand on that DTB…are you saying that all those without formal teaching qualifications are ignorant.
“You note that you have a reasonable level of education but the majority of people don’t.”
Wot? The majority? Data please.
We have been told we are not qualified to teach our own under fives…by whom?
Yes to the UBI…but more importantly better access to ‘confidence in parenting’ courses for those who find being a parent challenging.
Like this…http://www.tipuora.org.nz/parents-as-first-teachers/
oh but wait…http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/304311/funds-cut-from-parents-as-teachers-scheme
There is an agenda here….
No, I’m saying that the majority of people simply don’t have enough education to raise children. That’s what that really stupid referendum on continuing to allow people to smack their children got so much support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment
You’ll note that less than 50% have tertiary education.
Those people who have done the research.
It’s been known for quite some time that those children with better educated parents and social circles tend to end up with better education and life outcomes than those who don’t.
I don’t really think that sending kids off to preschool is a great idea. It’s there to try and break that cycle that I just mentioned but we need to be lifting the parents as well as the children.
Do you know the “majority of people”?
Do you have children?
What level of ‘education’ for parenting is acceptable from your perspective?
Nope. Like everyone I have to go on statistics.
Having children doesn’t make you an expert on children or how to raise them in a healthy environment.
Ah, a loaded question designed to enable you to ridicule me no matter what I say.
Statistics to gauge parental suitability?
Having children qualifies people to comment on the role of parenting, in reality, not through statistics
No children (or raising, caring, fostering etc) does not preclude anyone from offering opinions. But on raising children, they don’t carry much credibility because they lack first hand experience of ‘parenting’
Your comment further below about the UBI and ECE for parents who wish to raise children at home, is a good suggestion. As an example of where non parent opinions can contribute
The education question was not loaded, I was curious as you had not qualified the statement( s)
“But on raising children, they don’t carry much credibility because they lack first hand experience of ‘parenting’.”
This.
Not something you can learn from a book.
Oh god! Imagine reading that 83.4% of three year old boys are 97.6 % toilet trained (including at night.)
Or that 78.3% of two and a half year old girls can use three or more words in an intelligible sentence!
Statistics and parenting…mutually exclusive!
@One Two
Not really. Or do you really think that the parents of the Kahui twins knew what they were doing?
IMO, we have such high childhood abuse statistics because our parents don’t know how to parent which they learned from their parents.
Yes it was because it couldn’t be answered with an ‘acceptable’ answer. No matter what I put there you would have found a way to use it as an attack.
@Rosemary McDonald
That’s what a lot of ignorant people say about a lot of things taught in school. You’ll note that those people who do learn it in school do it better at the start than those who don’t.
In other words, you’re talking a load of bollocks.
There was no need to insult anyone, Draco. Perhaps reflect on the projection in your comments as well
That you won’t provide a response on education level (due to an imagined, unforthcoming’attack’) is counter to having a point of reference to begin with
Using the Kahui twins as an example shows me how uneduated you are on this subject, which is why statistics hold appeal to you, along with reference to the ‘smacking referendum’
“Know what they were doing” does not come into a sensible discussion about parenting, Draco. If you were a parent you would understand why your comment is so misplaced. Heck even common sense should help you with that one…parent or not
“High abuse statistics” and their causation are a very different conversation from where I stand, and bringing them into this discussion to support (whatever your position) appears misplaced
Being a parent/carer is a natural phenomenon which has been successfully performed since day one. The ‘education’ I suspect you have in mind was superfluous at anytime outside and including the modern age
Skills and and learnings are still wonderfully transferred through generations in nations around the world through a plethora of different cultures
There is no need for anything other than ensuring informative and skills based training/education/support is available to those who may seek it out, and let people find their way organically
Such courses are fundamental and elementary in form, and compliment the innate capabilities of the overwhelming majority of parents and parents to be..
Is this the sort of ‘education’ you’re referring?
Or am I to join the threads you’re leaving behind and take a path which I believe is somewhat sinister on your part?
Whichever angle it is you’re coming from, it’s not an ‘educated’ one, that much is clear!
I haven’t insulted anyone.
Really?
Then why are we so damn bad at it?
Except for the fact that they’re not due to the ongoing fragmentation of society through Individualism and Capitalism.
Think about it this way:
It used to be that a household would have three or more generations living in it. The elders would look after the children while the middle generations worked. The middle generations would learn from the elders how to look after the children.
Now we’ve broken that. We have only two generations living in a house – the parents and the children. So the parents aren’t learning from their elders, don’t have the immediate support that they used to have and the children are only getting fragmented experience.
Each generation that passes becomes worse at parenting.
Mankind doesn’t appear to have any innate capabilities. This is why we need to be taught.
I seem to remember some research that Playcentre produced the best results.
Playcentre, of course, relied on parents attending with their children, along with the playcentre associations free courses in parenting.
Educating both parents and children.
+1
Hmmm…when you think about it…the phenomena of very young children being ‘educated’ by strangers is very recent.
So’s the phenomena of the physically disabled or mentally ill not being regarded as an embarrassment to be hidden away by their relatives. “Recent” != “bad.”
Parents are the best first teachers of their children…
In some cases, maybe. Not that many, though. The people working in my kids’ childcare centres were way better educators of small children than I was, not least because they’d had a shitload of training in it, compared to my “training” of knowing how my parents and my friends’ parents had done it.
“Parents are the best first teachers of their children…
In some cases, maybe. Not that many, though. ”
With respect PM…rubbish.
Following your logic…only those with the requisite years of study and proper qualifications should be caring for and ‘educating’ under five year- olds.
Next great ideologically based legislation will be compulsory early childhood education by ‘professionals’….oh, wait, they already did that…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10833412
“Early childhood experts are in shock after a government decision to make education compulsory from the age of 3 for children of welfare beneficiaries.
The decision, announced by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett yesterday, will apply from July to 31,500 children, aged 3 and 4, whose parents are either on sole parent or couple benefits.
Parents will have their benefits halved if they fail to take “all reasonable steps” to keep their children in licensed or certificated early education for at least 15 hours a week from the time they turn 3 until they go to school.
A Cabinet paper estimates that about 2200 beneficiary families might fail the test each year, of which 1300 might fail to comply immediately and have their benefits halved.
Dr Sarah Farquhar of the Child Forum early childhood support network said the decision amounted to “a revolution in our social policy”.”
Unsurprisingly, those with vested interests (read…snouts in the government trough) thought this was a great idea.
https://www.ecc.org.nz/Story?Action=View&Story_id=841
“‘From this point of view early childhood education can be viewed as an inoculation for multiple diseases, with these diseases including low achievement at school, criminality, unemployment, and poverty as an adult.’
The requirement to ensure children attend early childhood education had the potential to rescue hundreds of thousands of children from educational underachievement, ‘and the nightmare that could follow from that’.
It was, said Mr Reynolds, ‘one of the most important welfare reforms in recent years’, and was likely to start changing lives the week it was implemented.”
Scaremongering much?
Psycho Milt…you seem to be a fairly intelligent sort of person…for goodness sakes…have a bit more confidence in your own abilities as a parent…and by ‘parent’ I mean all aspects of parenting….giving love, protection from harm, proper housing and nutrition, teaching language and communication skills, teaching morals and ethics, etc. etc.
Following your logic…only those with the requisite years of study and proper qualifications should be caring for and ‘educating’ under five year- olds.
That’s not logic, it’s reductio ad absurdum. We could do the same to your position, by “following its logic” to the conclusion that only a child’s biological parents should be caring for it.
…have a bit more confidence in your own abilities as a parent…and by ‘parent’ I mean all aspects of parenting….giving love, protection from harm, proper housing and nutrition, teaching language and communication skills, teaching morals and ethics, etc. etc.
I did all those things in the time the kids weren’t in childcare, ie by far the greater amount of the time. But while I was at work, it was being handled by trained professionals, and life provides inexhaustible examples of how professionals are better than amateurs. Those guys did a great job and were worth every cent.
I don’t think pre-school education should be compulsory. It, however, should be an accessible choice for any parent who wants it, for whatever reason. And good quality pre-school centres should be available.
The Natz government’s policies are just in the same vein as all their punitive, condescending treatment of beneficiaries.
Parents should also have state supported choice to stay home with pre-schoolers, rather than being pressured into work.
Just wondering what it was that your Kid’s teachers were so much better at teaching your children than you were? The main thing young children need to learn are language and how to get along with other people in their family and community. No matter how good the centre is the ratios of adults to children is much worse than that of a child in a family. Parents can have far more frequent and deeper conversations with children than a childcare teacher with a ratio of one to five for under twos and 1 to ten for overs can possibly do. The same goes with learning social mores. Children who spend their time in large groups of other children do not have as much adult role modeling and guidance in how to behave properly instead learning from other children of a similar age and stage. Hence why I think Rosemary McDondald’s children who had spent most of their time with family arrived at school with advanced social skills which impressed their teachers.
I have no problem with children going into early childhood centres if that meets the needs of their families. However, I think that big commercial interests are selling educational advantages to us that are just not realistic. There is a lot of push down curriculum from school and parents being impressed by children learning school stuff such as numbers and letters instead of playing. I would say that unless a family is very dysfunctional with a lot of problems parents can certainly do just as good a job if not better than a commercial centre.
Children are differnet in the kinds of experiences they learn from – it’s not one-size fits all. Some children may benefit more from the home environment, others may benefit from a pre-school one – and there are probably individual differences in the kind of day care that a child responds to.
A good child care centre would focus a lot on social skills and learning through play – providing a wide range of play experiences. It’s actually more pressure that comes from some parents who think the child care centre should be doing some sort of formal teaching.
A good child care centre should have a small number of children for each staff member.
There are some social skills learned in a child care centre that are not so easily taught “in the home” (although it’s a bit of an assumption that parents and children spend all their time at home). So, learning to engage with people other than family members, with social rules that are not necessarily the same in each home, are useful pre-school skills.
Plus, for some children, the kinds of daily routines in schools are a shock after a more free-form day at home. So having set times for certain activities at a pre-school, can ease some children into a school-type routine.
Also, the skills needed for staff in child care centres, include some not so often practiced in the home – managing small groups of (possibly diverse) children, for instance, in play activities. Also being aware of the health and safety procedures in such situations is an important staff skill.
People who are good with their own children may not be so good with other children in a pre-school setting – different set of skills.
Just wondering what it was that your Kid’s teachers were so much better at teaching your children than you were?
In the early stages, it was stuff like toilet training and how to eat like a human. Later, it was stuff like numbers and writing – my kids could write their own names when they started school and I sure as hell had nothing to do with it. However, the most important thing they taught was how to behave in a group of unrelated strangers, which no kid gets from their family and often makes a very noticeable difference at the year one school level. My experience leads me to a completely different conclusion than yours with regard to learning social mores – childcare was much better for that. (Although, presumably the quality of the childcare is relevant here.)
Ok fair enough. I guess everyone has different ideas about what is important. My kids did not go to childcare but to Playcentre as I did not go back to work until our youngest started school. I think they did know how to write their names from memory but don’t remember teaching them. They didn’t know the alphabet or anything like that but they soon picked all this up at school. I think that learning oral language, and conversing and thinking are more important than reading and writing at that age. They have certainly done OK in the education system with the older two currently doing Masters and Phd degrees. I do believe that school and institutionalised pre-school teaches children how to fit into an institution. I am not too sure if teaching compliance in an institutionalised setting at a very young age is necessarily what they need to learn in our complex and troubled world.
I am not too sure if teaching compliance in an institutionalised setting at a very young age is necessarily what they need to learn in our complex and troubled world.
I can understand that.
Although, a lot of our school system is about funneling people into our dominant institutions, workplaces, etc – our education system does tend to reward compliance. That’s why some parents opt to home school their children and/or send them to alternative schools.
My children went through the state school system. I feel that having their early years predominately with family meant they gained a strong sense of who they are and the ability to cope with the institutionalised education systems without losing the ability to question, be creative, and think for themselves.
“In the early stages, it was stuff like toilet training and how to eat like a human. ”
I’m sorry PM…I have to wonder what sort of role model/s your kids were getting from home in these areas? (And honestly, I and every other honest parent has had a ‘what on earth have I spawned here’ moment. Or three. 😉 )
But seriously, (and moving right on along), did you never read to your kids? Never wrote their name proudly on the latest piece of pre-school artwork? Never counted out the cutlery when setting the table or demonstrated simple fractions when cutting the cake? Never played the ‘count the number of yellow/green/blue cars spotted’ when on a long and boring drive?
“However, the most important thing they taught was how to behave in a group of unrelated strangers, which no kid gets from their family…”
Did you never go shopping with your kids? Exposing them to strangers and crowds of unfamiliar people? To a movie, pantomime or an outdoor concert?
If you answer, “Off course you silly woman I did all of that stuff with my kids when they were under five!”… then you, sir, were their first teacher.
Lessons learned from the people closest to the very young child are the ones that stick.
That’s why those parents less well equipped for the job of parenting need help…
“That’s why those parents less well equipped for the job of parenting need help…”
Which is what organisations such as Playcentre offer, and unfortunately are offering less and less as fewer parents are able to make the choice to stay with their children and are working longer and longer hours. I find it heartbreaking that a beneficiary who in earlier days would have been able to attend Playcentre with their child and upskill themselves at the same time as well as gaining support from the Playcentre community, is less and less likely to be able to do this with WINZ preferring them to attend courses and seminars on things such as CV writing.
All you want is children willing to learn and teachers willing to teach. In Mexico they have that in abundance with one of the highest attendance rates right up to uni, and it’s all free.
So price isn’t a problem in education it’s that education is being destroyed for political reasons. But like any public programs it can be changed by democratising forces
But seriously, (and moving right on along), did you never read to your kids?
I qualified as a professional librarian, so well duh. I’m not saying my kids got nothing from me, I’m saying they got more from professionals than they did from this amateur. Are you under the impression amateurs are better than professionals as a general rule, or is it only professional ECE workers who are less useful than amateurs?
Are you saying that teaching children these skills…
form friendships
play and explore
be courageous and try new things
ask questions and have a say
meet people outside their whānau
learn to relate well to other children in a group
sing, dance, and play games
think and solve problems
take turns, negotiate, and share
understand their own feelings and those of others
learn about disagreements and how to manage these
learn about words, numbers, and how things work
have conversations with children and adults
begin to understand and make sense of the world around them.
….is best done by those who had to go to school for three years to learn how to teach them, or should they be skills all parents have and can impart to their babies long before they toddle of to be educated by the state?
Since when did parenting become a ‘profession’?
Parents need brakes to. It’s nice to send your kids off to a competent school soo adults can have time to be adults. Otherwise you end up frustrated and that’s known to be a negative learning environment
…best done by those who had to go to school for three years to learn how to teach them…
I’m not saying that. Particularly for the under-twos, the ECE centre my kids went to had staff who hadn’t had any professional education, just a lot of experience. I’m an opponent of 100%-qualified requirements for ECE.
Since when did parenting become a ‘profession’?
I’m tempted to write “Since we implemented the DPB in 1973,” but that could start a flame war. Obviously parenting is not a profession, but professional childcare equally obviously is one.
I’d prefer to see a UBI and ECE training available for those parents who choose to stay home.
clearly we can’t pay women to stay at home and raise their children, don’t they know that it is a ‘labour of love’ and something that ‘women have a calling for’ and that ‘is the fulfillment of womanhood’ and that a ‘goodly women knows her place is being an unpaid home maker and helpmeet and child care provider’.
No matter that this is what keeps women poor and depended on state help should the ‘provider’ walk out, die, or fall ill.
seriously and besides won’t somebody please think of the poor blokes that don’t get paid for staying at home and doing nothing much other then a bit of household chores, cooking, cleaning, looking after gods little blessings.
When we were kids we were told how great our Country was because mums could stay at home and raise a family. On the other hand we were told how uncivilised the Russians were for putting all their kids in state care whilst the parents were forced to go out and work, and how that was terrible for the kids and the Country.
Mmmmm.
that might very well be, but
when you were a kid the mothers that stayed at home would have had a hard time surviving on their own once their provider was gone. Consider as well that if our current government could, the Sole Parent Benefit (used to be the DPB) would be scrapped overnight, cause we all know that it only incentives women into having children that they can’t afford. And for what its worth, I am sure the Widow Key would not have managed on her own without government assistance.
So to have a women stay at home without pay is not helping her ….the point is that she is completely depended on her ‘provider’. You can see how someone who would like to keep women as ‘chattel’ and children as ‘chattel’ would consider the ex USSR an abomination for not only having women work at across the Industries and have easy accessible abortion, birth control etc. Cause godly and such.
But then, its all good, cause we are going back to the good old days and the USSR does not exist anymore. Right?
Too true Sabine. I was just pointing out a kind of irony on how things have turned out in “godzone”.
Interesting conversation going on while I was travelling. It’s pretty apparent that no-one has read the amazing NZ ece curriculum Te Whariki which has earned world-wide acclaim or accessed the Competent Children, Competent Learners study – ho hum!
“It’s pretty apparent that no-one has read the amazing NZ ece curriculum Te Whariki which has earned world-wide acclaim or accessed the Competent Children, Competent Learners study – ho hum!”
I’m not reading it that way Jan M…I’m reading opinions from both sides if the issue.
http://parents.education.govt.nz/early-learning/learning-at-an-ece-service/what-your-child-learns-at-ece/#TeWhariki
Sounds wonderful…but ALL of those skills can be learned from properly engaged parents.
form friendships
play and explore
be courageous and try new things
ask questions and have a say
meet people outside their whānau
learn to relate well to other children in a group
sing, dance, and play games
think and solve problems
take turns, negotiate, and share
understand their own feelings and those of others
learn about disagreements and how to manage these
learn about words, numbers, and how things work
have conversations with children and adults
begin to understand and make sense of the world around them.
Exactly, Te Whaariki outlines what a child would receive in a family environment and a good childcare centre tries to be as homelike as possible. Things such as primary caregiving, good ratios, nice environment etc. I don’t believe it does it better than the home environment.
Seems some smokers have been hit far harder than what’s been announced.
Some brands have increased 15%.
With inflation running at around 0.4% and the tax increase is 10%, tobacco companies have some explaining to do.
International trade dispute lawyers aint cheap.
Chuckles.
a few days ago ropata posted some info on China’s plundering of fisheries in the south Pacific;
http://thespinoff.co.nz/society/30-03-2016/how-chinas-illegal-fishing-armada-is-plundering-the-south-pacific/
What surprises me is the lack of news stories and reporting on this. I knew little about it and yet it’s of more relevance to NZ than events Syria or the US election by virtue of it affecting us directly.
I can remember the furore over Japanese long lining and drift-netting of a few decades ago and the relative silence on this is quite puzzling. Are the media being muzzled or do people just not see this as important any more?
The problem is that nowadays people don’t know who to believe. Since they can’t see it with their own eyes, they don’t know what to think on the issue.
We used to have a media that would find out about stuff like this but I guess this is to expensive to report on. It’s costs too much money to get video of it happening.
Some here will find this documentary interesting.
Director Alex Gibney on ‘Zero Days’ Documentary, Stuxnet & Cyberweapons
The US and Israel are very far advanced in the field of cyberwarfare innovations.
That’s the irony of the accusations that “Russia did it.”
CV, Russia, China and terrorist groups are miles ahead of the US, Israel and most if not all the other western nations in cyberwarfare. Because they know they can’t match us on the battlefield so use they the indrecit route via cyberwarfare ie to attack/ deny/ destroy/ delay/ exploit/ corrupt and spread false information because they know our life style now increasing built around digital connectivity.
Why spend billons on nukes why you can infect a nations power supply or Stock market for example by a simple Stuxnet virus or something even more deadly.
Hell, I still teach the my lads how use a map and compass to move around the bush. To get even more technical, I show them how to use a sun compass and teach astro navigation at night for shits and giggles especially if I’ve got dumb yanks attached to me. The look on the yanks faces is priceless Lol.
For further reading, Out of the mountains “The coming age of the Urban Guerrilla.
By David Kilcullen and the New Zealand DWP 2016
Greetings exkiwiforces.
Your rationale is solid, but my read from the Snowden revelations is that the US Gov has co-opted all major US tech providers like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Amazon, the big banks etc. to put in backdoor access for the NSA, as well as compromising internet cables and network hardware world wide.
In combination with the FVEY surveillance arrangements its a lead that no other nation can match, though of course they do the best they can.
Whereas Russia may have used some kind of password phishing scam to get Podesta’s emails, the NSA can just open up Google’s gmail databases directly.
Thank you very much for the reference.
The Snowden papers I’ve seen seem to deal with Intell gathering ie meta data collecting since 9/11 which in the scheme things is small fry and can defeat this very using snail mail or have internal web system like Iran did after the Stuxnet attack there and China has one.
Russia, China, terrorist groups and their 3rd parties partners are way ahead of us in terms of cyber warfare. Some of the Janes Defence articles and other Defence journals I’ve seen over the years we (the west) really have our head in the sand when it comes to cyber warfare and we (the west) are now playing catch up. Especially what Russia is doing in the Ukraine, the Baltic Nations. No doubt the Russians use the same tactics in the US elections and in the EU. China are doing the same to everyone. On most cases the Russia, China, terrorist groups and their 3rd parties partners were able to pretty much walk in without anymore realizing they were there, in most cases after the event a occur. Very Scary stuff
If you have 3 COA ( Courses of Action) your Enemy will have 4 COA.
Your Enemy is more smarter than you are and don’t treat them as a idiot unless you want to lose.
Maybe it’s because I don’t care about theft of intellectual property why I don’t view China as an enemy. They are brutal but I’m not going to condem them unless they charge over 90 mile beach with tanks. And to be honest, China pays its way in the world and they can handle there piss. If they really want to play Cold War and ramp up a global enterventionist force then fine. I’ll treat them just like America
I’m sorry, but I’ll have to disagree with you about China. I treat China with awful lot suspicion they slowly adopting a global interventionist force posture and no doubt they will take over when the yanks finally go tits up.
They have their finger in quite a few counties I’ve visited in the last few years and locals I’ve spoken too distrust Chinese as they don’t buy local instead import their own food, bring in their workers instead employing locals. Hell they even doing it in New Zealand even my dad ranks them up there with the Indian’s, South Koreans and freedom campers as worst tourists to have. He should know he works in the tourists industry.
China had a crack at doing the same thing here in Oz during boom, but AWU and CFMEU got wind of it and told them to F off.
Please don’t me started on what they do to those Poor Pacific nations and East Timor ATM or in the South China Sea it make my blood boil.
I know this is old news, but this just the tip of the iceberg on what they are doing in Africa ATM.
VENTURES AFRICA – News from the Kenya Railways Corporation suggests that the China Road & Bridge Corporation will send in 5,000 workers to work on the standard gauge railway.
Kenya signed a Sh314.2 billion deal with China for the construction of the Mombassa‐Nairobi railway in May, 2014.
The deal is to be executed in phases starting with the standard gauge railway project which is to cover 609.3km from the port of Mombassa to Nairobi.
China has delightful cuisines. I envy China.
Im guessing you would know that All Asian hate the Koreans more.
One slight quibble with your news report. The deal is a good deal. Africa owns it so the profits go straight to them. The quality of there engines is yet to be seen. We’ve spoken about 3rd world development for decades so I’m not going to condem China for actually doing it.
If I was to condem China it would be on there environmental record. The South China Sea claim is bogus because it’s based on a cartoon Chairmen Mao made up during his interlectual purge. That’s concerning but I wonder if America would swallow it’s pride and return Hawaii to its indigenous inhabitants which I find hard to believe given how vital it is to its strategic concerns. Since 5trillion in trade passes through the South China Sea that will be concerning for China.
Paul Buchanan once said, “I wonder how long New Zealander can be a tier 1 strategic partner with America and vital trade relations with China while they’re locked into a dispute.” I want my cake and eat it to so I’ll hold fast to the status quo. But rest assured the moment VT4s role out in anger. I’ll be there.
Bill Binney is smarter than most any of the guys who write about cyberwarfare.
Thoroughly enjoyed that thanks. CIA is in active revolution
Didn’t they also claim Bin Laden got past the most sophisticated air defence in the world from a cave in Pakistan?
Donald Trump, greatest President of America since Reagan says “Hacking did NOT affect election results.”
Too right, Mr Trump. Regardless of what happened, you would have won anyway. Dems are totally out of touch with the American people and are looking for a scapegoat!
Donald Trump is the greatest President of America since Barack Obama.
Tip of the ice berg
Respect to my wonderful namesake!
https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/when-morrissey-ruined-bill-cosbys-appearance-on-the-tonight-show
I know for a fact that Donald Trump, greatest American President since Reagan, is a tremendous Morrissey fan, and regards him as a great, great, American artist.
Truth – Post-truth
Large Iceberg Poised to Break Off From Antarctica
Climate change is now accelerating non-linearly.
Climate is a chaotic system.
“While calving is a natural process…”
Temporarily homebound, partner and I have been hitting the Offspring’s Netflix…spellbound by this little gem last night…
So Fonterra is doing feel good ads and Ritchie maybe has a new bromance appearing on them.
From Stuff:
“Fonterra chief operating officer in global consumer and foodservice Jacqueline Chow said the campaign was designed to promote the goodness of dairy.
She said dairy was a part of the solution to malnutrition, but its image in New Zealand was being affected by “dietary fads and special interest groups”.”
Well it’s great to know that the special interest groups in New Zealand are becoming sufficiently large & influential for Fonterra to actually notice!
But Fonterra could help themselves:
– there has been considerable publicity about the disappearance of mainstream Lewis Road organic milk from supermarket shelves (only one supermarket of the six or so around here has held out) Be interesting to see what ComCom does about this and why Fonterra though that this was a good idea at any level. Don’t forget Fonterra bought the Kapiti label (it was a premium brand) about 15 years ago and promptly closed it down. Will they do the same again once they have swamped Lewis Road so we have to go back to the normal rubbish.
-stop selling stuff in bottles that pretends to be a milk product at milk product prices when it is little more than watered down skim with some additives. I’m not sure how they get away with this under the Fair Trading act. Most of this is simply a milk flavoured drink much as we have juice flavoured drinks
-and then there are all the dirty water issues and ruined swimming places
Our traditional agriculture industry may be totally disrupted over coming years anyway: http://pureadvantage.org/news/2016/11/29/lament-nz-farm/
i bet monsanto and co can’t wait to start turning out your frank’n food.
I bet farming practices are going to be far more disrupted by anthropogenic global warming than by innovation, and the innovation might even help.
”and the innovation might even help.” might actually be how a few survive if it gets real rough.
I was more commenting on how lefties love the concept of frank’n food but the hate big pharma/agrichemical companies , when it’s those very companies that will produce your beaker burger
I have no idea what that is, and even less what it might taste like.
Mate, I’ll be eating roadkill before that shit.
You do that and I’ll get the Puha/watercress
Excellent 🙂
Other measures will be needed.
“I bet farming practices are going to be far more disrupted by anthropogenic global warming than by innovation, and the innovation might even help.”
That kind of innovation is a driver in the land/water pollution and farming’s contribution to GHG emissions/CC.
No it isn’t. Vertical farms don’t have any run off as an example.
I’m talking about currently. And note I didn’t say all innovation.
I’m not keen on synthetic food because it taste like saw dust. I imagine they have no nutrition value because they can store it longer. But that makes sense from the point of view of commercialised agriculture, after all you’re in it to make money not to feed people. That drives productive agriculture/farmers out, it’s horrible for the rest of the world. We talk about a supposed immigration problem, a lot of the problem is due to designers of our trade pax attempting to destroy agriculture in other countries. Chinese farms are efficient enough but they couldn’t possible justify (for example) dairy intensification because there population is lactose intolerant.
There is a movement around lake Taupo wanting to better use dairy farming/forest/water, it’s encouraging, it’s competent, well organised and they’re generating valuable data and they’re making money. It isn’t a massive movement but it proves you can divert growth from dairy intensification to sustainable methods and it’s got a lot to show already.
I’d say there is some nutritional value otherwise it wouldn’t be a food. But I take the point.
The biggest issue I see with dairying, even the people that are doing good things, is the focus on export. The whole model is just wrong, from the need for irrigation to the exporting of fertility via milk powder. People are focussed on water quality and run off, but the underlying problem is the model that says we can strip the land to make excess profit and ignore the ecosystem at the same time.
Good to hear about Taupō. I know of a few other diary farms around that are doing good things, but the pressure is always there to keep growing.
It was a good bet that you could grow tomatoes ect and pass it on to your son but that’s a suckers bet now due to political instability, so we keep doubling and not paying attention. Theirs a notion in economics of externalities which are things you don’t pay attention to when carrying out transactions. That’s to say it’s nice to feed more people but what else are we doing. We know what they’re doing to poison the environment and it makes it harder to produce. It’s outside the capacity of our culture to do something about it so solutions have to be imposed on the industry.
Yep. People don’t understand that running an economy always costs in resources. To do one thing requires the removal of resources to do another. Intensified farming takes away resources from the environment.
Remember John Key saying something like water going into the sea was wasted?
That’s how these capitalists see it. If a resource isn’t being used to make them richer then it’s wasted. Keeping a healthy environment or a healthy society doesn’t factor into their thinking and so both have resources removed from them to boost profit for the few.
I can’t wait to start eating it. Then I’ll never feel guilty about Bessie ever again.
She was loved. Always remember that.
test tube seafood anyone?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/08/fish-ocean-warming-migration-sea
And Hollywood thinks we are a hot bed of piracy. Hahaha.
Rather over-egging it given our 4 million of population compared to the US 340 million. I’d say there is no comparison the US – we’d lose every time.
Obama gives his final address with his anger translator in attendance…
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/06/key-peele-s-obama-and-luther-roast-pussy-grabber-trump.html
… and Keith Olbermann has a point for Trump supporters to ponder.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/keith-olbermann-trump-supporters_us_586f0eede4b02b5f858825ca
What have the Left done in the last month to change votes? nothing. That’s why the summer BBQs talk about cricket and not about politics. There will never be another Labour government.
I didn’t know BBQs could talk, oh sorry, your probably pissed, up there on Planet Key.
Some these days are programmed to offer suggestions like: “Fisiani, I want you to try those new cricket patties from Canada. Yummy alternative protein. No slave labour, honest.”
The rest is but a fevered dream ..
The Right have done it all for them. Key took off like a scolded dog after the humiliating Mt Roskill defeat, and they picked the morally corrupt Bill 21% English as his replacement.
Correct. But there may be what they term a “Labour-led Government” which in reality will only be 3/5 Labour, and 2/5 other parties.
And you will do everything in your limited, anti-worker, anti-Kiwi invective to prevent that eventuality.
Seriously. If you spent half the time you do dribbling over US politics on NZ social outcomes then you might claim to be helping the disenfranchised of this country.
Twyford is right. The Asian elite do not care about this country.
Twyford is a careerist dickhead who goes wherever the political wind is blowing. If he thinks anti-asian sentiment is the flavour of the month, that’s where he will go, and repeaters like you will spout it out as wisdom.
So much for lefty respect of cultural and ethnic diversity. Just more insincerity.
What a self centred scum bag you are. I thought you were self centred before but you have cemented it here in your stupid, Trumptastic way.
Are you in Auckland? No, you’re not and as such you know nothing about the place. You judge Twyford but I’m sure you have never met him and so know nothing about his call for accurate information about the Asian spend in Auckland.
What really confuses me is that you ruptured an arsehole about Twyford in your own fucking county but have no issue about Trump in his.
Idiot.
You’re going to leap to Twyford’s defence? Figures. BTW I lived in Auckland for several years. Rodney Hide’s electorate. A lovely city to be 1600km away from.
Twyford doesn’t need defending in any sense.
Jesus Christ, no wonder they threw you out of the Labour Party. You are a real cunt.
MB,
While I find myself agreeing with most of the sentiments and even some of the expressions you have for CV, I fear that expressing them so bluntly will only result in you picking up a ban while he continues to liberally sprinkle the site with his bullshit.
Got em all by the pussy now
The so-called democratic Israelis are not shy of interfering with other countries democracies when it suits them. The embassy is distancing itself from the comments by one of its own but you can bet senior political officer Masot’s opinion is reflective of the entire Israeli authority.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/321989/israel's-ambassador-sorry-over-'take-down'-comment
Interesting (scary) speculation on how the relationship between Trump and the intelligence agencies might play out. With a useful reminder that the WMD thing was more about Bush and his senior official misrepresenting info than the agencies giving them bad intel.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/313123-intel-experts-worry-trump-will-go-rogue
Deep state soft coup against Trump underway
this is very well made. well done Mr. Hamill
🙂
Getting back to New Zealand for a moment, Greenpeace wins big against the dairy industry.
This sort of ruling is important for New Zealand rivers because Dairy NZ, Fonterra, and the number 8 wire farmers are no longer allowed to protest against the truth. The truth being that our waterways are under threat.
– Russell Norman
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/01/greenpeace-trumps-dairy-industry-with-river-pollution-ad-ruling.html
The Greens should own this issue and it should be theirs as an election platform along with renters rights. Labour should focus on housing affordability and worker’s rights. NZ First should focus on immigration concerns. They should all be allowed to comment on lack of infrastructure and the underfunding of social services.
These parties and the people who vote for these parties all want the government changed for the good of the whole country. Tasks need to be delegated.
I doubt they need that much deliberate division of their labours.
I think they do.
A coalition government in waiting should have a devolution of tasks, and I think it would help individuals aligned with particular concerns to be able to devote their energies to that concern while at the same time not attacking others’ concerns.
In short, each party in the coalition would own their ground but also have common ground.
The Greens have always said environment, society and economy are indivisible. Labour likewise has policies in all 3 areas. Winston First have usually been a thing unto themselves.
I don’t like the police numbers thing being associated with Labour or Green. Clearly it is the penny pinching current government which has presided over the increase in volume crime in this country but the stick part should be delegated to NZ first.
Another ally needs to drive this.
Here’s an interesting poll.
WWIII is on it’s way
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/world-war-iii-is-on-its-way-says-poll-of-western-countries/ar-BBxZaSJ?li=AAavLaF&ocid=spartanntp
Fearmongering. That poll shows people’s fears, not whether war is likely or not. It also appears to be showing that the countries where people are happiest have less people concerned about war.
Yes, and very small sample, 9000 participants across 9 western countries, 1000 per country.
The interesting part is who is frightened of who.
Joyzus !!! … Farrar/ Slater / other prominent Tory shills must be absolutely pissing themselves with glee
You see, there’s a little event coming up in New Zealand politics later this year (maybe even sooner than we think, who knows ?). It’s called … wait for it …
… the 2017 New Zealand General Election.
And what does the premier Left-leaning forum for the New Zealand labour movement do ? – increasingly tears itself apart, … first during the US Presidential Election campaign late last year, then over the rights and wrongs of Superpower involvement in Syria, and now over allegations of Russian interference in the US Presidential Election.
Authors happily abusing each other, expletives being thrown about with wild abandon, regular commenters abusing authors and vice versa, … basically a whole lot of people stridently crossing the line from bona fide robust debate to bitter and waspish personal insults, outright contempt and the determination to win their petty little battles no matter what the long-term cost.
Now the last thing I want to sound like here is some sort of horrendous touchy-feely New Age Middle-Class Hand-Wringing Liberal Hippy “Facilitator”… BUT … the kind of personal abuse that’s been going on almost inevitably ends up emotionally wounding people (even when they’re too proud to admit it), in turn generating long-term grudges and resentment, if not immediate ruptures (with the potential for authors to suddenly pack their up bags and fuck the fuck off, never to be heard of again).
Not something we necessarily need in Election Year … especially when we’re up against ruthless, power-hungry, tightly disciplined opponents.
Despite being firmly in that broad camp I associate with Bill, CV, Morrissey, Olwyn, Puddleglum and various others on these contentious issues – and despite having occasionally thrown a few snide little grenades into the conversation myself – from now on I’m going to discipline myself to avoid any involvement in these specific debates.
Who knows, might be in the Left’s long-term interests if others consider doing likewise.
Or … to put it all another way … Do we always have to live up to the Life of Brian sketch ?
I mean, every single fucking time ?
Sword. A very good point you have raised and I’ve also been concerned about it.
There are some contributors who are all out for themselves, and there are some contributors who are trying to help the disenfranchised.
It is my hope that those posting on ego might stop for a moment to think about people less fortunate than themselves.
Hey great polarising comment there. Which camp do you put yourself in then?
I’m trying to help NZ communities. You, however, are some sort of egomaniac and retarded keyboard hack who has no empathetic thought for anyone but yourself and this proof is born by the amount of time you spent on USA threads.
It amuses me greatly how a group of people who put so much weight into the concept of the collective, fight to the death over such irrelevant micro issues.
Know it all, never can see another view point egotists will always be the Achilles heel of the left.
There are days you have to man up and say you’re wrong but not today. Diluting debate isn’t my style
We know you want your point of view heard, RWNJ, but community based activists have other things on their mind…
“the kind of personal abuse that’s been going on almost inevitably ends up emotionally wounding people (even when they’re too proud to admit it), in turn generating long-term grudges and resentment”
Quite. If left-leaning citizens cannot behave like grown-ups in our own discussion spaces, why would anybody vote for the organisations we champion?
I’d say it’s because there are genuine anti-left people posting on the standard. There are very dumb people like CV taking up a lot of bandwidth.
The problems Labour faces might go a tad wider than that.
More to the left than Labour, thankfully.
The main thing those endless circle jerks over trump and russia etc cause is that they turn off readers new and old.
authors too.
Hey swordfish, I agree with most of your comments, you make a very good point, but can I ask you if you honestly believe that any thing said or stated in this forum will have any influence what so ever over the outcome of the up coming election? My guess is NO.
Trying to change the behaviour of “old men stuck in a mind set” is the same as pissing into the wind.
It’s the largest left wing blog in NZ. The political blogosphere plays a part in the election cycle both directly, via the MSM, and via activism. Of course the website has influence. Whether we make good use of that influence is another matter.
Well said Swordfish.
I’m also wanting to focus on other areas so if you or anyone wants to see different content and hopefully different discussion, feel free to put forward ideas.
Ok,hows about moving all mad scientist stuff to a battle ground where they can scratch each others eyes out –not where mortals like me get confused by it all.
Having set up spaces for US election conversations during the election, and then diverting people there I can say it’s a lot of work. If people want to do what they did today, it’s pretty hard to stop them. We can of course set up different kinds of conversations if people want that, but whenever I offer that I generally don’t get too many suggestions.
Thanks SF.
Two solutions:
1. Some new authors. I would be happy to arrange a login for you because your poll analysis is second to none.
2. The fights we have had over US politics is rather difficult. Some of us prefer to pull our fingernails out than support Trump. But that does not sit with others.
Author wise we are now fine. I agree to the onward and upward proposal.
Your second point is a bit like Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit. Some see an orange greed monster at the helm of a superpower, others see a very compromised left with all the machinery of power behind it finally getting its comeuppance. Broadly speaking, both sides seem to respect Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and Helen Kelly – perhaps we need to bear that touchstone in mind.
As one of the more vocal people arguing for Clinton here (who would have much preferred Bernie, O’Malley, or a long list of others that didn’t put their hand up), I’m quite happy to see compromised Democrat elites getting their comeuppance.
But the price is that many real, vulnerable people really are going to get damaged over the next few years by the orange greed monster. To a far greater extent than they would be under the compromised Dems. With no guarantee that the next cohort of Democrat elites will be less compromised. To me, that damage to the vulnerable is way way too high a price to pay for the temporary satisfaction of kicking elites who are already well-insulated from any potential pain.
Well the election has been and gone and most of us here didn’t have a vote in it. The result is what it is. In that respect Bernie Sanders has the right idea – to regroup, support what is good and fiercely oppose what is bad.
I see both actually.
I can understand the impulse to throw a grenade at a comfortable two party system of political elitists, and I abhor the Democratic parties alignment with imperialist corporations, while, at the same time, I am horrified by Trump..
The election of Trump may be for the best in the end.
A definable enemy is easier to fight than someone who pretends to be on our side, but really isn’t. Like the US Democrats and “third way” Labour parties.
I think it’s appropriate that this all plays out on here. The battle of the collapsing media and political establishment and those more tied up within it and those that aren’t.