We have prominent NZer’s court case coming up at long last (justice delayed for so long to that person’s victims)
Bradley Ambrose is suing Key for defamation, as long as he can get the $$$ to cover the court costs.
And by April the sports logo flag will be trampled in the mud in celebratory fashion, along with Key’s ego.
It could be a pretty shitty autumn for them.
Oh, and hows that plagiarism case coming along? You know, the one where the National Party managed to rip off the Eminem tune for their election campaign music in 2014?
Good gains were made in February in regard to public backlash over the Nat govt, with Key copping most of it. Hopefully we can do round two next month.
PS Don’t forget the Clutha Southland kid’s developing problems. A Dirty Politics cub?
In the past, problems with Nat MP’s going a bit astray managed to last a few news cycles and then get forgotten about due to the apparent popularity of Key, not necessarily of the govt, but of Key. But things have changed now. He’s a little less popular. A new side show might do more damage then it once did. That might lessen the boredom.
The love is fading, as the Smiths could tell you. It’s not what it used to be eh?
“Nothing’s changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
Only slightly, only slightly less
Than I used to, my love”
Heh, good one. You are right that things might liven up a bit as the people steadily find the voice and power to stand up to these bozos – witness clown action in the TPP meeting yesterday.
…. looking forward to the custard pie for Finlayson QC….
At today’s roadshow Auckland mayoral hopeful Penny Bright questioned how TPP could be in New Zealand’s best interests given it doesn’t include our second biggest trading partner, China, and Obama had been quoted as saying “if we don’t write the rules, then China will write the rules in the region”.
…Penny Bright questioned how TPP could be in New Zealand’s best interests given it doesn’t include our second biggest trading partner, China…
Seeing as we already have a satisfactory free trade deal with China, how would including it in the crappy TPPA be in our interests? Still, I guess it makes as much sense as Penny ever does.
The Government is being accused of going easy on Chinese authorities when making trade deals for the infant formula industry.
Dozens of Kiwi brands made by small businesses going down the drain.
There were 200 brands – and now there are just 20.
Michael Barnett of the Infant Formula Exporters Association said “MPI have allowed them to control that process, so we’ve ended up with a small group of privileged exporters.”
He says many of those exporters are Chinese-owned companies based in New Zealand.
Yeah, and the Australian company producing baby formula just saw it’s share price double as in can’t keep up with demand after doubling it’s production this year from 5M units, to 10M units.
You know countries can have more than one trade deal at a time, right?
There’s plenty of better things to criticise about the TPPA than “it doesn’t include China”
After years as an internet wasteland, the Labour Party’s “Red Alert” blog site looks to have been quietly put out of its misery. Once lauded as the new way for MPs to interact with the public, it soon became a bit of an embarrassment, before being ignored. Now, it appears to be no more.
Thats a shame, it was always quite amusing to go there but they did have some very strict moderation going on…but this was my favorite post:
chris73 says:
July 31, 2010 at 12:00 pm
A vote for Phil Goff is a vote for a prosperous NZ
The only way to win an argument these days is to call the other person a troll. As soon as you say it you can walk away from your keyboard feeling fully satisfied.
a clear narrative on the looming impact on provincial NZ, remembering that most of rural NZ only began to recover from a massive hollowing out with land values halving on the back of this once in a lifetime dairy boom that has now come to an end…..back to the future
No, whats worse is the small businesses that have to carry Fonterra debt for 90 days & cut margins by 10%.
I’m a small business, when my clients don’t pay for 30+ days I still have costs to cover from MY suppliers (thank god I have an overdraft) . I understand it’s a business model but it has the potential to kill off many small kiwi contractors. Maybe they are waiting for the TPP to take force so those large overseas operations can come in an carry their debt by employing former local contractors and paying them less?
Haven’t heard much about Nathan Guy’s “export double” recently. Funny when prices are going up it’s all because of what brilliant economic managers the govt are and when they are plummeting it’s all because of world markets and “out of our control”.
That seems to be similar to Fonterra’s attitude, IMO. No mention of bad management or servicing their high debt being a problem, it’s all because of world markets etc…
Have you seen the latest attempt at making the general populace want to be a republic!!!!!???? Talk about blatant mindbending propoganda quiz questions… also asking whether you are right or left winged (of course if right winged you get a 10 and left = 0) such blatant propoganda I don’t think I’ve seen in quite some time.
I turned out to be a Traditionalist … left out in the cold minority with only 14% of the population apparently and obviously living in the past and need to get with the program persay..
Its incredible…. 3 days till TPPA submissions close.. fek!
Definitely more of a push-poll than a genuine quiz. Still, gotta watch them sneaky MSM polls and quizzes. They are often just as much about profiling readers as they are about providing genuine quizzes. By finger-printing the device from which the answers are entered, MSM servers will tailor “product” to best suit your profile so, if you are left wing, you will see more left wing “news”, and so on. Personally, I try to provide as little information as possible to MSM data harvesting operations.
Given half a chance Collins’ would run her very own black sites.
/
Hence Judith Collins’ transparent attempt to re-assert political control. She wants MPs to ask her office before they go into a prison, and she wants to make sure that senior prison officials escort them at every point of their visit.
Her reasons are, of course, spurious. She cites the case of an MP who shared a female Corrections staffer’s contact details with an offender who has a history of sexual violence. That was certainly a stupid and dangerous thing to do, and Davis has since outed himself as the MP.
[…]
Collins’ argument that she is just trying to keep visiting MPs safe from “the country’s most difficult and dangerous people” is cant. Her initiative isn’t about the health and safety of her fellow politicians. It’s about power and control.
It also raises other questions about prisons and accountability. Collins clearly wants prisons to be run out of her office. This means that information about the state of prisons would be entirely in the hands of a hard-line politician who doesn’t think there is anyone in prison who shouldn’t be there and would happily put a lot more people in as well.
I think that a “fag” is a name given to those junior pupils who are virtually slaves to the whims of senior pupils at Public Schools like Eton. In that context….
It’s also a pun given Wee Toddy Baccy’s connections to the tobacco industry. But I take Lanth’s point. I didn’t know about the private school meaning. Does that get used in NZ?
Since those more innocent or ignorant days, fag may have sexual overtones. Not good. It is becoming acceptable with the barbarians in our
midst to snigger at jokes about men in jail not wanting to bend over in the shower if they drop the soap. Can we keep this vile attitude out of this blog.
No, BM, but if you did, that might explain a little about your current misanthropic attitudes. I wasn’t private schooled, myself. Had a few mates who were and heard the stories. Class war in a school uniform.
Speaking of age, here’s the ODT coverage of the student balcony collapse in Dunedin over the weekend. A couple of things stand out for me.
One is the photo in the first link, which shows people on the remaining balconies laughing and taking photos immediately after the collapse where some people had fallen 3m and some people had a balcony collapse on top of them and all of that is visible to the people laughing (it’s much more obvious in the front page version of the hardcopy). Why are they laughing, and why are they not concerned about their own balcony? Alcohol is a factor, but I think there is something else going on here.
The other thing is, why are these people not at a protest 😉 By the time I was that age, I’d already protested against the Tour and marched up the motorway in Dunedin with thousands of people including many students who were at the forefront of organising the protests. Why do we not have that culture now? I’m being a bit facetious, because of course partying hard was part of uni culture then too, but politics were still a thing too.
I wish more people would look at the builder/developers instead of the students all the time, should that balcony have nothing holding it up? The police are not going to investigate, Worksafe have walked away shrugging their shoulders. It’s like a shanty town that area.
Those balconies were pieces of shit. Should have had a post under each corner. Trying to cantilever balconies in that way is complete and utter negligence.
Those buildings aren’t that old either (relative to Dunedin housing in general), but I don’t know if they predate changes to the building code or not.
I agree, the balconies were probably deficient for the use. But they were probably not built to have a full load of jumping students on them either, so might well have been fit for the purpose they were designed for (residential use). I wasn’t quite sure from the articles, but this is a private residence right? And a private party (eg no tickets sold)?
This comes on the back of the annual couch burning fest that happens in Dunedin, and that along with other problems suggests that the culture there isn’t particularly healthy. Maybe this will wake a few people up.
Cantilevers. I looked at the photo and thought, did no-one teach these kids about Cave Creek when they were at school?
Developer/Designer/Builder have a responsibility to specify what is appropriate for that environment. A cantilevered balcony was chosen for one of the rowdiest, destructive streets in the country where its structural capacity would be severely tested. I find it hard to imagine that no one along the design process said, do you think the design of those balconies are ok?
I heard someone knowledgable on radio saying that balconies are supposed to be able to support 200 kg per square metre or something. These days that might not be enough for a load bearing certificate.
As for students worrying about load bearing – they are young, they wouldn’t expect to have to inspect the specifications of a house before they let rip with their party. And worry – that’s SEP.
Really it just underlines how we depend on trusting each other to do the proper job. Those who don’t should have to sit in town stocks for a day so we can see the so and sos and throw tomatoes at them. They would hate that, and it would keep them out of prison and away from those really nasty criminals.
Think about the trust required when flying. We should actually question the pilot each time we get onto a small plane, carry a checklist to go through before we fly with one of these possible adult idiots who run small airlines like Bannerman? in Christchurch. Like the hot air balloon pilate, washed his hands of responsibility for taking care. Ask have they looked at the weather forecast and are planning to fly round storms? Have they enough fuel? Do their emergency beacons work, have they current batteries?
Maybe, maybe not. Last time I looked at floor loadings in a building code (not New Zealand admittedly), you’d have to pack people in pretty tight to get to design load. Then there’s generous safety factors on top of that.
Where a cantilevered joist comes out of the wall turns into a moisture trap really easily. In the right continually wet conditions, even H3 will rot pretty quickly. Looking at the photos, those joists look smallish for the length of cantilever. Then if the builders there pulled a real plonker stunt like they did on the cantilevered deck for my house and notched the joists where they sit on the bearers…
Andre
That is an important point worth considering. Design features can be circumvented by the erectors of whatever, because of long-established methods they prefer to use as known practices and easier to follow, than the actual specified method.
Then there is the question of the allowed width of any cantilevered balcony..
There should be standards set by a professional and knowledgable department of building standards that can be consulted free, and which gives detailed information at low cost. Hah hah NZ I bet we haven’t anything like one of these services from our beloved gummint. Now that’s a mint to chew on.
BRANZ I think might have done that in the past, but now when I looked at it for helpful information, it referred me to the type of private consultant who would provide it.
Looking at their site they seem to be busy with industry information, but for ordinary NZs – do they have a role of informing them and protecting them against the shonky, the makeshift, the fast johnnies?
Perhaps they had abandoned the informative, cautionary role long ago and so did not concern themselves with overseas findings of failures with the cladding systems, that were adopted here, although known to be trouble elsewhere.
This, we know has led to ordinary working people losing their entire investment and savings because of a shonky house, finding that the best resolution would be to demolish the remains of their home and sell the bare land to recover some of their mortgage.
This is from their contact us page under a query box where you can describe your concern.
Our professionals helpline – 0800 80 80 85 – is available free to those who work within the New Zealand building and construction industry.
Our consumer helpline is 0900 5 90 90 – calls cost $1.99 per minute, plus GST. Full knowledge of the details of your enquiry may result in you being referred to someone else.
We regret we are unable to respond to technical queries by email. All helpline responses are strictly on a case-by-case basis and are solely based on the information provided.
If your question is of a non-technical nature, please complete the contact us form above, and we will endeavour to respond to you within 48 hours.
Fair enough but people are idiots aren’t they? That’s why we legislate (Stop signs, ‘flammable’ notices, handrails). Most of these kids would have had no idea, now they do, harsh lesson learnt. (A few landlords are up there now adding strength to their balconies, still looks rough, but who cares each out for their own make a buck & move on).
Do think the young will ever not have a few idiotic moments here & there? & the people hurt were standing underneath the balconies? Fair enough 2 broke their backs?
A few weeks ago at my friend left his five children and headed off to start his morning shift and was killed a few minutes later by a young woman crossing the centre line.
Had she survived there’s little doubt she would’ve been prosecuted as should the idiots who overloaded the balcony. Fair enough?
I was also a little confused about the behaviour of the crowd immediately after the collapse. Footage I’d seen showed people looking at the aftermath and cheering. I saw a guy with two drinks in his hands raise them up. I’m guessing this is just really bad judgement from drunk people, in what would have been a traumatic situation for those with serious injuries.
But then there may have been people that rushed to help. We don’t know. Also the Police asked the band to continue playing after the collapse to distract people away from the scene so they might have had such short attention spans that they, once again, feeling wasted, just got back on with the buzz of it.
Still, there did seem to be a disconnect didn’t there?
As an aside, Mr R experienced a weird crowd reaction yesterday. It was also a disconnection to the seriousness of the situation, or at least a lack of reaction, not appropriate to the situation.
Walking down the street on afternoon tea break he watched as an elderly woman got up from an outdoor table where she was having coffee. He saw her trip on the leg of the table, begin to fall and he went running to her to stop her falling any further. He got there just in time and caught her, but not before she hit her head on the corner of the table.
He held her and held his hand under her wound which was bleeding terribly, all over him , all over her, all over the footpath. By this time there was a crowd standing around them. He asked the crowd to call an ambulance., Nothing. They just stared. He asked again, and still nothing, just more staring at him and the woman. It took him three goes for anyone to get their phone out and call an ambulance. On the third instruction he was yelling at the crowd.
While he was fine with dealing with the injured woman he was totally shocked and annoyed by the lack of response from the crowd.
News reports say that there were plenty of people helping on the ground. The ones higher up seemed to not understand the seriousness of what happened, which is bizarre.
That’s a disturbing story about Mr R. and I think that’s what I was getting at. Are we so disconnected now? Bad shit happening to people is something you see on TV so when it happens in real life there’s confusion about whether to be a spectator or not? In the front page photo in the ODT the number of cell phones being held up to record what is happening sticks out.
The watershed moment for me was listening to the TV reporter talk about the immediate moments after the big Chch quake. She proudly talked about how she was on the streets with a cameraman within 1 minute. They filmed what was going on, including people trying to get other people out of collapsed buildings. That she not only thought this was appropriate behaviour but felt proud of it is mindboggling to me. She was interviewed again recently for the 5 year anniversary. I had to turn the radio off.
I think there are times when it’s appropriate to be removed from such situations. eg critical media reporting has alerted the world to what is going on in war zones. But in Chch that wasn’t necessary, whereas helping people in great pain and distress was. At the scene of an accident, if you can’t help, you get yourself out of the way so that emergency crews and people on the scene can do what is needed. You don’t have to watch.
edit, thinking about it, I wonder if many people now just have no clues what to do in emergencies. I attended to an elderly couple in a store one who were having an acute medical emergency and there were people there who had no idea what to do. Even so, the scene you describe to me seems very odd. Calling 111 isn’t rocket science.
Psychology refers to the “bystander effect”, a phenomenon where the more people there are at an emergency scene the less likely one will come forward to assist. In a situation where there are very few, one is forced to assist, out of a sense of duty.
But I don’t know what psychology would say now days about our apparent reluctance – our disconnection , or inappropriate responses. I’m sure there are theories on it, or theories on whether our behaviour has changed. Have we moved so far away from the concept of collective care, eg, pre neolib days, that the need to respond to another in distress just doesn’t compute? I don’t know if it’s the influence of the culture of political systems or something else entirely. That’s one for the sociologists.
Musings aside, in your situation with the elderly couple and in Mr R’s situation, the most helpful and the easiest thing for bystanders to do is dial 111. Why the blockage around that? I just don’t get it.
PS: I remember tv chanels crowing about the fact they were “first on the scene” with their cameras, vulture like, focused on the victims on 22.02.11. Made me sick.
The other crowd effect relevant to that situation is the “milling” effect, where nobody does anything until somebody does something, then everybody does the same thing.
Some people are switched on and jump to action more than others – a sort of vacancy takes over until they find a familiar thing to latch onto and start working from. Very common startle reflex: fight / flight / freeze.
One trick is to speak to an individual, address them directly – can you call and ambulance, etc. It breaks them out of the spectator mode.
Most people milling from day to day aren’t put into these sorts of situations, and we probably wouldn’t want too many keyed up, leap into action types walking around anyway. Too far the other side are the sort who also get swept away while trying to save others, take on the armed robber over $150 till takings, that sort of thing.
Cops and soldiers can change modes pretty quick (ISTR Ron Mark had an active role in the aftermath of a traffic accident a while back – probably no coincidence that he’s ex-army, IMO), and so are others trained in outdoorsey stuff where you need to plan for these things (one of the best incident bystanders I encountered was in a scuba diving club – practically had everything handled before the ambulance came, and it was a fairly complex case as well).
The “milling effect” you refer to could explain what Mr R encountered yesterday, but really it was more like an overwhelming inertia. After some time did only one person eventually phone 111 when instructed. And I do mean directly instructed.
Understand your explanation “where nobody does anything until somebody does something, then everybody does the same thing.” I’m in the situation where I observe ducks, most days and they do this en masse but humans, in a vacuous state, I could see that applying to.
I guess in Mr R’s circumstance, he is switched on to observation. He’s a health and safety officer at his workplace. He saw it coming where as others who were closer to the person just walked away as it was happening.
As another side note I couldn’t help think of the irony of so many people being so disconnected to daily life and social observation because they have their face in a smart phone all day but in a real life situation they completely fail to act and use the phone for something, well, useful.
A really interesting experiment was to put students in a mock exam situation, all authority figures leave the room, and smoke comes under the door after a while.
All except one of the students were confederates instructed to ignore the smoke, but follow the test subject if they left. The control was to leave the room when the smoke was noticed.
If everyone else acted unconcerned, the test subject usually stayed in the room until the smoke was very thick, despite obvious discomfort and concern for personal safety.
I have been told the best way to deal with such a situation is to directly ask some one in the crowd – make it personal
Like “could you the person in the blue jersey please call 111, and look directly at them.
@dv
Brilliant. That is something I recall and have seen it happen. So that is something to put in our mental notes for emergencies. Make it personal – get a who, me response.
And if the person doesn’t respond say to the next person, ‘Are you a capable person’? Phone for an ambulance, just 111, tell them where, or get the person next to you to do it?
I have read of a woman who collapsed in a main city street, with people carefully going round her, but one man apparently stepped over her, but no one squatting down by her head and trying to communicate or help her. I think she was a nurse, used to helping people in difficulty, and was wounded in her respect for others, when she found that the public didn’t help others in distress, and particularly, return her level of care, to herself when needed.
edited
Rosie
That was interesting. In a world of individuals, apparently people still wait for someone else to take over in an unusual situation. It’s like people are basically conformists and in their mental book of etiquette there is no prior instruction of what to do when there is no-one in authority to take charge. And we often are unaccustomed to acting with initiative. People are not very compassionate these days, more uncaring and censorious than they used to be I think.
I remember the story long ago of the NZ woman and her friend at Hampton Court in London who along with other visitors were confronted by a workman who had been down a manhole and just managed to get up to advise that his mate had collapsed.
She looked around and none of the men moved to do anything, so she went down, no doubt carefully, to check the situation, and with her friend formed a rescue team,
successfully.
But it is amazing that people can’t even call an ambulance. The emotion of shock, coupled with an avid and ghoulish curiosity about this novel event, must produce this unpleasant result of dissociation.
I don’t doubt that for a minute, but how is using the gender specific term in your first clause an example of an intersected statement which improved upon the Bill Haywood observation? It does improve on somewhat but cannot be fully intersected. It seems Haywood is addressing exploitation rather than he is addressing exploitative men.
(Serious question, I’ve just been getting into this whole critical theory of oppressive institutions and its linguistics.)
Maybe it depends on context. If it’s general (which is how I’m reading it not knowing who Haywood is), then make both clauses gender neutral. I think we now have enough women making money off other people to warrant that.
I guess it depends on what you mean by not working, but I know plenty of women doing well off investments and interest on savings. I’m not comparing numbers of women to men or women to women, I’m looking at women in NZ and seeing a big chunk that fit what you are saying.
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The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
By bringing these global voices to the fight for free expression in New Zealand, we’ll continue to protect and expand our culture of free speech, says Nathan Seiuli, the Free Speech Union's Events Manager. ...
The issue is no longer a hypothetical one. US President Donald Trump will not explicitly suggest death camps, but he has already consented to Israel’s continuing a war that is not a war but rather a barbaric assault on a desolate stretch of land. From there, the road to annihilation is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cecelia Cmielewski, Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University To be selected as the artist and curator team to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale is considered the ultimate exhibition for an artistic team. To have your selection rescinded, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia Severe Tropical Cyclone Zelia is bearing down on the northwest coast of Australia and is likely to make landfall early Friday evening. It’s a monster storm of great concern to Western Australia. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Ireland-Piper, Associate Professor, ANU National Security College, Australian National University A Victorian government decision to allow dingo culling in the state’s east until 2028 has reignited debate over what has been dubbed Australia’s most controversial animal. Animals Australia, an animal welfare ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University Overnight, Robert F. Kennedy Jr was confirmed as the secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department. Put simply, this makes him the most influential figure in overseeing the health and wellbeing of more ...
Everything you missed from day five of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard eight hours of submissions.Read our recaps of the previous hearings here.It was another work from home day for the Justice Committee, the only people in Room 3 being security guards, committee ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milad Haghani, Associate Professor & Principal Fellow in Urban Risk & Resilience, The University of Melbourne Juris Teivans/Shutterstock In Australia, fatal road crashes are climbing again, especially since the pandemic, and despite years of attempts to reduce road trauma, the numbers ...
In its eagerness to appease supporters of Israel, the media is happy to ride roughshod over due process and basic rights. It’s damaging Australia’s (and New Zealand’s?) democracy.COMMENTARY:By Bernard Keane Two moments stand out so far from the Federal Court hearings relating to Antoinette Lattouf’s sacking by the ...
“The reality is we’re getting poorer. The government this year is leaning heavy on chasing economic growth, which is absolutely the right thing to do.” ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 The Vegetarian by Han Kang (Granta, $28) Han Kang’s astounding novel was based on an ...
This new docuseries about two single comedians looking for love is also a joyful celebration of female friendship. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. “How many people do you think are boning right now?” Kura Forrester asks Brynley Stent as the bright ...
A new poem by Freya Turnbull. Hunger Song – After Kaveh Akbar (Untitled With Hunger And Matcheads) I hold my age in ripped fishnet hold an empty vessel oldyoung body cracks like gunshot like killa i was a father ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominik Koll, Honorary Lecturer, Australian National University View of the Pacific Ocean from the International Space Station.NASA Earth must have experienced something exceptional 10 million years ago. Our study of rock samples from the floor of the Pacific Ocean has found ...
Troy Rawhiti-Connell reviews Kia Tupu Te Ara, a documentary chronicling the meteoric rise of Aotearoa’s groundbreaking metal band. “Two brothers attempt to storm the world of thrash metal with the Māori language, despite the fact they’re both still teenagers,” reads the synopsis of Kent Belcher’s documentary, Kia Tupu Te Ara. ...
Three freelance writers have been awarded grants to work on their ambitious journalism projects. In January, The Spinoff announced the Vince Geddes In-Depth Journalism Fund, supported by the Auckland Radio Trust (ART). The fund was established to provide much-needed financial and editorial support to talented freelance journalists, empowering them to ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist in Avarua, Rarotonga China has confirmed details of its meeting with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown for the first time, saying Beijing “stands ready to have an in-depth exchange” with the island nation. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters during his ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ 2023 strategic foreign policy assessment, “Navigating a shifting world”, accurately foresaw a more uncertain and complex time ahead for New Zealand. But already it feels out of date. The ...
Our parliamentary throuple may be the longest running in the country, but cracks are showing. Gabi Lardies wonders if differing attachment styles may be to blame. Though no one ever anticipated happiness or roses in the three-way coalition, the relationship has wobbled on for over a year without breaking up. ...
As Mike White’s dark satire returns for a third season, we look back on some of The White Lotus’s most memorable characters. The White Lotus looks like a dream holiday, but this resort is anything but paradise. Set in an exclusive five star hotel resort, HBO’s award-winning series is a ...
Analysis: Would the last scientist to leave the building please turn out the lights? Because the confirmation of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US Secretary of Health suggests we’re heading back to the dark ages.It’s a sad irony that President John F Kennedy propelled America into the space age; now his nephew ...
The crux of my message today is that New Zealand needs to bend two curves. One is the long-term economic growth trajectory, which needs to bend upwards to expand our productive capacity and national real incomes. The second is our net public debt ...
Away from the tense scenes on the paepae, under a closely guarded canvas tent, te iwi Māori do the real work of Waitangi: talking. We were invited inside to listen. ...
The Jono & Ben star is self-aware and surrounded by extraordinary women in Three’s latest local comedy series. The first episode of Vince, written by and starring Jono Pryor, opens with intrigue, a loincloth and a man in the middle of some kind of breakdown. As the titular character, a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Barclay, ARC Future Fellow and Professor, Macquarie University Wikimedia “1,000 Letters and 15,000 Kisses” screamed the headline in an 1898 edition of the English newspaper, the Halifax Evening Courier. Harriet Ann McLean, a 32-year-old laundry maid, was suing Francis ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lena Wang, Associate Professor in Management, RMIT University Supplied/AppleTV+ The highly anticipated season two of Severance, released in weekly instalments, has continued to draw interest among viewers around the world. A gripping psychological thriller, this TV series provides an extreme ...
We need a new government to slag – this one is getting boring
April could be interesting vto.
We have prominent NZer’s court case coming up at long last (justice delayed for so long to that person’s victims)
Bradley Ambrose is suing Key for defamation, as long as he can get the $$$ to cover the court costs.
And by April the sports logo flag will be trampled in the mud in celebratory fashion, along with Key’s ego.
It could be a pretty shitty autumn for them.
Oh, and hows that plagiarism case coming along? You know, the one where the National Party managed to rip off the Eminem tune for their election campaign music in 2014?
Good gains were made in February in regard to public backlash over the Nat govt, with Key copping most of it. Hopefully we can do round two next month.
PS Don’t forget the Clutha Southland kid’s developing problems. A Dirty Politics cub?
In the past, problems with Nat MP’s going a bit astray managed to last a few news cycles and then get forgotten about due to the apparent popularity of Key, not necessarily of the govt, but of Key. But things have changed now. He’s a little less popular. A new side show might do more damage then it once did. That might lessen the boredom.
The love is fading, as the Smiths could tell you. It’s not what it used to be eh?
“Nothing’s changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
Only slightly, only slightly less
Than I used to, my love”
Heh, good one. You are right that things might liven up a bit as the people steadily find the voice and power to stand up to these bozos – witness clown action in the TPP meeting yesterday.
…. looking forward to the custard pie for Finlayson QC….
8 March 2016
FYI – not all questions were ignored by media at yesterday’s TPPA ‘Rogue Show’.
http://thespinoff.co.nz/08-03-2016/tea-pee-and-pecuniary-gains-amid-the-clowns-at-the-trade-deal-roadshow/
Tea, pee and pecuniary gains: Amid the clowns at the trade deal roadshow
8 MARCH 2016
By Tim Murphy
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1603/S00243/walker-five-other-countries-interested-in-joining-tpp-deal.htm
At today’s roadshow Auckland mayoral hopeful Penny Bright questioned how TPP could be in New Zealand’s best interests given it doesn’t include our second biggest trading partner, China, and Obama had been quoted as saying “if we don’t write the rules, then China will write the rules in the region”.
…Penny Bright questioned how TPP could be in New Zealand’s best interests given it doesn’t include our second biggest trading partner, China…
Seeing as we already have a satisfactory free trade deal with China, how would including it in the crappy TPPA be in our interests? Still, I guess it makes as much sense as Penny ever does.
Some find it far from satisfactory.
The Government is being accused of going easy on Chinese authorities when making trade deals for the infant formula industry.
Dozens of Kiwi brands made by small businesses going down the drain.
There were 200 brands – and now there are just 20.
Michael Barnett of the Infant Formula Exporters Association said “MPI have allowed them to control that process, so we’ve ended up with a small group of privileged exporters.”
He says many of those exporters are Chinese-owned companies based in New Zealand.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/business/infant-formula-agency-accused-government-going-easy-china?autoPlay=4785655384001
Yeah, and the Australian company producing baby formula just saw it’s share price double as in can’t keep up with demand after doubling it’s production this year from 5M units, to 10M units.
The TPPA is NOT a ‘Free Trade Agreement’.
It is an anti-China economic and political ‘pivot’ pushed by USA President Barack Obama.
(Obama has been quoted as saying “if we don’t write the rules, then China will write the rules in the region”.)
It just so happens that China is NZ’s 2nd largest trading partner.
So – how is the TPPA in NZ’s best interests?
Just asking …..
Also – how is the TPPA going to remove subsidies from USA, Japanese and Canadian beef and dairy farmers?
This is on top of tariffs under the TPPA never going to be completely eliminated for NZ dairy and meat exports – both key NZ exports?
So – how is the TPPA In NZ’s best interests?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
(Who is the only Auckland Mayoral candidate who is actively opposed to the TPPA).
You know countries can have more than one trade deal at a time, right?
There’s plenty of better things to criticise about the TPPA than “it doesn’t include China”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11599571
Red and dead
After years as an internet wasteland, the Labour Party’s “Red Alert” blog site looks to have been quietly put out of its misery. Once lauded as the new way for MPs to interact with the public, it soon became a bit of an embarrassment, before being ignored. Now, it appears to be no more.
Thats a shame, it was always quite amusing to go there but they did have some very strict moderation going on…but this was my favorite post:
chris73 says:
July 31, 2010 at 12:00 pm
A vote for Phil Goff is a vote for a prosperous NZ
One month ban for lying. Trevor
So you were a troll there too. Such lofty ambitions.
I’d suggest that holding the same position for over 6 years now (and counting) suggests a strongly held belief as opposed to trolling
The only way to win an argument these days is to call the other person a troll. As soon as you say it you can walk away from your keyboard feeling fully satisfied.
What was deleted?
TPPA
The Process Of obtaining Pecuniary Advantage over a nation’s sovereignty by multinational corporations
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/298354/fonterra-accused-of-unfair-demands
a clear narrative on the looming impact on provincial NZ, remembering that most of rural NZ only began to recover from a massive hollowing out with land values halving on the back of this once in a lifetime dairy boom that has now come to an end…..back to the future
Dairy co-operative Fonterra has cut its dairy payout forecast, after the milk price dropped from $4.15 to $3.90 per kilo of solids.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/298360/fonterra-drops-forecast-milk-payout
This just keeps getting worse.
Fonterra has a market value of $8.9 billion. However, it has total borrowings of $7.56 billion
Net interest costs have risen from $269 million in the July 2013 year to $518 million in the latest period.
The co-op’s International Farming division had a loss of $44 million for the July 2015 year.
Standard & Poor’s downgraded Fonterra’s long-term rating from “A” to “A-“.
S&P’s “A-” rating assumed a milk price of $4.60 per kilogram of milksolids compared with Fonterra’s latest forecast of $4.15 per kilogram.
Hat tip to greywarshark for the link.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11596222
No, whats worse is the small businesses that have to carry Fonterra debt for 90 days & cut margins by 10%.
I’m a small business, when my clients don’t pay for 30+ days I still have costs to cover from MY suppliers (thank god I have an overdraft) . I understand it’s a business model but it has the potential to kill off many small kiwi contractors. Maybe they are waiting for the TPP to take force so those large overseas operations can come in an carry their debt by employing former local contractors and paying them less?
What would be worse is Fonterra not being able to pay its bills, leaving creditors high and dry.
Haven’t heard much about Nathan Guy’s “export double” recently. Funny when prices are going up it’s all because of what brilliant economic managers the govt are and when they are plummeting it’s all because of world markets and “out of our control”.
+1
@ Cowboy
That seems to be similar to Fonterra’s attitude, IMO. No mention of bad management or servicing their high debt being a problem, it’s all because of world markets etc…
@ pat
Liquidity problem looming? See comment at 5.1.1
is a question that will be asked….and can say that the restructure that McKinsey recommended appears to have been placed on hold.
Have you seen the latest attempt at making the general populace want to be a republic!!!!!???? Talk about blatant mindbending propoganda quiz questions… also asking whether you are right or left winged (of course if right winged you get a 10 and left = 0) such blatant propoganda I don’t think I’ve seen in quite some time.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/kiwimeter-kind-kiwi-you
I turned out to be a Traditionalist … left out in the cold minority with only 14% of the population apparently and obviously living in the past and need to get with the program persay..
Its incredible…. 3 days till TPPA submissions close.. fek!
There was a discussion on this in Open Mike a few days ago.
‘
Definitely more of a push-poll than a genuine quiz. Still, gotta watch them sneaky MSM polls and quizzes. They are often just as much about profiling readers as they are about providing genuine quizzes. By finger-printing the device from which the answers are entered, MSM servers will tailor “product” to best suit your profile so, if you are left wing, you will see more left wing “news”, and so on. Personally, I try to provide as little information as possible to MSM data harvesting operations.
Given half a chance Collins’ would run her very own black sites.
/
Hence Judith Collins’ transparent attempt to re-assert political control. She wants MPs to ask her office before they go into a prison, and she wants to make sure that senior prison officials escort them at every point of their visit.
Her reasons are, of course, spurious. She cites the case of an MP who shared a female Corrections staffer’s contact details with an offender who has a history of sexual violence. That was certainly a stupid and dangerous thing to do, and Davis has since outed himself as the MP.
[…]
Collins’ argument that she is just trying to keep visiting MPs safe from “the country’s most difficult and dangerous people” is cant. Her initiative isn’t about the health and safety of her fellow politicians. It’s about power and control.
It also raises other questions about prisons and accountability. Collins clearly wants prisons to be run out of her office. This means that information about the state of prisons would be entirely in the hands of a hard-line politician who doesn’t think there is anyone in prison who shouldn’t be there and would happily put a lot more people in as well.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/77572241/editorial-collins-seeks-to-crush-the-flow-of-bad-news-coming-out-of-prisons
+100 to that…smacks of police state and persecution of potentially ‘political prisoners’…we need to be protected from Collins
‘Hacker ‘Guccifer,’ who uncovered Clinton’s private emails, to be extradited to US’
https://www.rt.com/usa/334846-romanian-hacker-guccifer-extradition/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/clinton-emails-on-libya-e_b_9054182.html
https://news.vice.com/article/libyan-oil-gold-and-qaddafi-the-strange-email-sidney-blumenthal-sent-hillary-clinton-in-2011
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-libya-intervention/
@BM
And Todd Barclay is Key’s little fag.
[Pointless abuse (or dodgy joke) resulting in derail. Moved to Open Mike. BLiP]
I find that remark offensive.
I think that a “fag” is a name given to those junior pupils who are virtually slaves to the whims of senior pupils at Public Schools like Eton. In that context….
It’s also a pun given Wee Toddy Baccy’s connections to the tobacco industry. But I take Lanth’s point. I didn’t know about the private school meaning. Does that get used in NZ?
I’ve never heard it before.
It’s a very well known term associated with Tom Brown’s school days, etc.
It was the ‘official’ term for a junior boy who would do all the chores for a senior.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry.
Fags were the third form boarders when I was at high school in the early 1980’s. They had a tough life that year.
Since those more innocent or ignorant days, fag may have sexual overtones. Not good. It is becoming acceptable with the barbarians in our
midst to snigger at jokes about men in jail not wanting to bend over in the shower if they drop the soap. Can we keep this vile attitude out of this blog.
Fagging also involved homosexual activity, a lot of it forced, which is probably where the modern term comes from.
Fagging was normal in nz private schools when I was a lad. It may have faded away in these more liberal times.
Bm, I think the word may be Yiddish.
Did you ever have to toast crumpets stuck in your butt cheeks TRP.?
No, BM, but if you did, that might explain a little about your current misanthropic attitudes. I wasn’t private schooled, myself. Had a few mates who were and heard the stories. Class war in a school uniform.
Just spotted the Blackadder clip in the Todd nice but Odd post. I (now) see what you did there BM!
I thought someone would, but it depends on your understanding of the word.
“Fag, a junior boy who acts or acted as servant (“fagging”) to a senior boy at a British public school”
And – separately – I presume you know that Barclay worked for Philip Morris.
Speaking of age, here’s the ODT coverage of the student balcony collapse in Dunedin over the weekend. A couple of things stand out for me.
One is the photo in the first link, which shows people on the remaining balconies laughing and taking photos immediately after the collapse where some people had fallen 3m and some people had a balcony collapse on top of them and all of that is visible to the people laughing (it’s much more obvious in the front page version of the hardcopy). Why are they laughing, and why are they not concerned about their own balcony? Alcohol is a factor, but I think there is something else going on here.
The other thing is, why are these people not at a protest 😉 By the time I was that age, I’d already protested against the Tour and marched up the motorway in Dunedin with thousands of people including many students who were at the forefront of organising the protests. Why do we not have that culture now? I’m being a bit facetious, because of course partying hard was part of uni culture then too, but politics were still a thing too.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/375500/no-criminal-investigation-balcony-collapse
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/375391/two-seriously-hurt-after-balcony-collapse
I wish more people would look at the builder/developers instead of the students all the time, should that balcony have nothing holding it up? The police are not going to investigate, Worksafe have walked away shrugging their shoulders. It’s like a shanty town that area.
Those balconies were pieces of shit. Should have had a post under each corner. Trying to cantilever balconies in that way is complete and utter negligence.
Total negligence in construction.
quelle surprise
the construction sector in NZ is appalling
Those buildings aren’t that old either (relative to Dunedin housing in general), but I don’t know if they predate changes to the building code or not.
I agree, the balconies were probably deficient for the use. But they were probably not built to have a full load of jumping students on them either, so might well have been fit for the purpose they were designed for (residential use). I wasn’t quite sure from the articles, but this is a private residence right? And a private party (eg no tickets sold)?
This comes on the back of the annual couch burning fest that happens in Dunedin, and that along with other problems suggests that the culture there isn’t particularly healthy. Maybe this will wake a few people up.
Cantilevers. I looked at the photo and thought, did no-one teach these kids about Cave Creek when they were at school?
Nope, code says cantilevered joists are okay.
code and negligence have a history of association in nz
they are far from mutually exclusive
Developer/Designer/Builder have a responsibility to specify what is appropriate for that environment. A cantilevered balcony was chosen for one of the rowdiest, destructive streets in the country where its structural capacity would be severely tested. I find it hard to imagine that no one along the design process said, do you think the design of those balconies are ok?
I heard someone knowledgable on radio saying that balconies are supposed to be able to support 200 kg per square metre or something. These days that might not be enough for a load bearing certificate.
As for students worrying about load bearing – they are young, they wouldn’t expect to have to inspect the specifications of a house before they let rip with their party. And worry – that’s SEP.
Really it just underlines how we depend on trusting each other to do the proper job. Those who don’t should have to sit in town stocks for a day so we can see the so and sos and throw tomatoes at them. They would hate that, and it would keep them out of prison and away from those really nasty criminals.
Think about the trust required when flying. We should actually question the pilot each time we get onto a small plane, carry a checklist to go through before we fly with one of these possible adult idiots who run small airlines like Bannerman? in Christchurch. Like the hot air balloon pilate, washed his hands of responsibility for taking care. Ask have they looked at the weather forecast and are planning to fly round storms? Have they enough fuel? Do their emergency beacons work, have they current batteries?
Cantilevered balcony joists snap because idiots overload the structure.
http://www.odt.co.nz/files/story/2016/03/the_flat_minus_its_balcony_photo_christine_o_conno_56da31b8d5.JPG
Maybe, maybe not. Last time I looked at floor loadings in a building code (not New Zealand admittedly), you’d have to pack people in pretty tight to get to design load. Then there’s generous safety factors on top of that.
Where a cantilevered joist comes out of the wall turns into a moisture trap really easily. In the right continually wet conditions, even H3 will rot pretty quickly. Looking at the photos, those joists look smallish for the length of cantilever. Then if the builders there pulled a real plonker stunt like they did on the cantilevered deck for my house and notched the joists where they sit on the bearers…
Andre
That is an important point worth considering. Design features can be circumvented by the erectors of whatever, because of long-established methods they prefer to use as known practices and easier to follow, than the actual specified method.
Then there is the question of the allowed width of any cantilevered balcony..
There should be standards set by a professional and knowledgable department of building standards that can be consulted free, and which gives detailed information at low cost. Hah hah NZ I bet we haven’t anything like one of these services from our beloved gummint. Now that’s a mint to chew on.
BRANZ I think might have done that in the past, but now when I looked at it for helpful information, it referred me to the type of private consultant who would provide it.
Looking at their site they seem to be busy with industry information, but for ordinary NZs – do they have a role of informing them and protecting them against the shonky, the makeshift, the fast johnnies?
Perhaps they had abandoned the informative, cautionary role long ago and so did not concern themselves with overseas findings of failures with the cladding systems, that were adopted here, although known to be trouble elsewhere.
This, we know has led to ordinary working people losing their entire investment and savings because of a shonky house, finding that the best resolution would be to demolish the remains of their home and sell the bare land to recover some of their mortgage.
This is from their contact us page under a query box where you can describe your concern.
Our professionals helpline – 0800 80 80 85 – is available free to those who work within the New Zealand building and construction industry.
Our consumer helpline is 0900 5 90 90 – calls cost $1.99 per minute, plus GST. Full knowledge of the details of your enquiry may result in you being referred to someone else.
We regret we are unable to respond to technical queries by email. All helpline responses are strictly on a case-by-case basis and are solely based on the information provided.
If your question is of a non-technical nature, please complete the contact us form above, and we will endeavour to respond to you within 48 hours.
Fair enough but people are idiots aren’t they? That’s why we legislate (Stop signs, ‘flammable’ notices, handrails). Most of these kids would have had no idea, now they do, harsh lesson learnt. (A few landlords are up there now adding strength to their balconies, still looks rough, but who cares each out for their own make a buck & move on).
A few weeks ago at my friend left his five children and headed off to start his morning shift and was killed a few minutes later by a young woman crossing the centre line.
Had she survived there’s little doubt she would’ve been prosecuted as should the idiots who overloaded the balcony. Fair enough?
Oh, what a terrible loss. So very sorry joe90.
I knew/know the young woman, her partner and their family members too Rosie so a tragedy all round.
What a tragic impact impact on so many lives. Arohanui joe
joe 90
Sympathy to all. Just seconds apart and all would have been different.
Those vital seconds extinguish lifetimes. Hard to accept.
Re the balcony collapse at the six60 gig.
I was also a little confused about the behaviour of the crowd immediately after the collapse. Footage I’d seen showed people looking at the aftermath and cheering. I saw a guy with two drinks in his hands raise them up. I’m guessing this is just really bad judgement from drunk people, in what would have been a traumatic situation for those with serious injuries.
But then there may have been people that rushed to help. We don’t know. Also the Police asked the band to continue playing after the collapse to distract people away from the scene so they might have had such short attention spans that they, once again, feeling wasted, just got back on with the buzz of it.
Still, there did seem to be a disconnect didn’t there?
As an aside, Mr R experienced a weird crowd reaction yesterday. It was also a disconnection to the seriousness of the situation, or at least a lack of reaction, not appropriate to the situation.
Walking down the street on afternoon tea break he watched as an elderly woman got up from an outdoor table where she was having coffee. He saw her trip on the leg of the table, begin to fall and he went running to her to stop her falling any further. He got there just in time and caught her, but not before she hit her head on the corner of the table.
He held her and held his hand under her wound which was bleeding terribly, all over him , all over her, all over the footpath. By this time there was a crowd standing around them. He asked the crowd to call an ambulance., Nothing. They just stared. He asked again, and still nothing, just more staring at him and the woman. It took him three goes for anyone to get their phone out and call an ambulance. On the third instruction he was yelling at the crowd.
While he was fine with dealing with the injured woman he was totally shocked and annoyed by the lack of response from the crowd.
News reports say that there were plenty of people helping on the ground. The ones higher up seemed to not understand the seriousness of what happened, which is bizarre.
That’s a disturbing story about Mr R. and I think that’s what I was getting at. Are we so disconnected now? Bad shit happening to people is something you see on TV so when it happens in real life there’s confusion about whether to be a spectator or not? In the front page photo in the ODT the number of cell phones being held up to record what is happening sticks out.
The watershed moment for me was listening to the TV reporter talk about the immediate moments after the big Chch quake. She proudly talked about how she was on the streets with a cameraman within 1 minute. They filmed what was going on, including people trying to get other people out of collapsed buildings. That she not only thought this was appropriate behaviour but felt proud of it is mindboggling to me. She was interviewed again recently for the 5 year anniversary. I had to turn the radio off.
I think there are times when it’s appropriate to be removed from such situations. eg critical media reporting has alerted the world to what is going on in war zones. But in Chch that wasn’t necessary, whereas helping people in great pain and distress was. At the scene of an accident, if you can’t help, you get yourself out of the way so that emergency crews and people on the scene can do what is needed. You don’t have to watch.
edit, thinking about it, I wonder if many people now just have no clues what to do in emergencies. I attended to an elderly couple in a store one who were having an acute medical emergency and there were people there who had no idea what to do. Even so, the scene you describe to me seems very odd. Calling 111 isn’t rocket science.
Psychology refers to the “bystander effect”, a phenomenon where the more people there are at an emergency scene the less likely one will come forward to assist. In a situation where there are very few, one is forced to assist, out of a sense of duty.
But I don’t know what psychology would say now days about our apparent reluctance – our disconnection , or inappropriate responses. I’m sure there are theories on it, or theories on whether our behaviour has changed. Have we moved so far away from the concept of collective care, eg, pre neolib days, that the need to respond to another in distress just doesn’t compute? I don’t know if it’s the influence of the culture of political systems or something else entirely. That’s one for the sociologists.
Musings aside, in your situation with the elderly couple and in Mr R’s situation, the most helpful and the easiest thing for bystanders to do is dial 111. Why the blockage around that? I just don’t get it.
PS: I remember tv chanels crowing about the fact they were “first on the scene” with their cameras, vulture like, focused on the victims on 22.02.11. Made me sick.
The other crowd effect relevant to that situation is the “milling” effect, where nobody does anything until somebody does something, then everybody does the same thing.
Some people are switched on and jump to action more than others – a sort of vacancy takes over until they find a familiar thing to latch onto and start working from. Very common startle reflex: fight / flight / freeze.
One trick is to speak to an individual, address them directly – can you call and ambulance, etc. It breaks them out of the spectator mode.
Most people milling from day to day aren’t put into these sorts of situations, and we probably wouldn’t want too many keyed up, leap into action types walking around anyway. Too far the other side are the sort who also get swept away while trying to save others, take on the armed robber over $150 till takings, that sort of thing.
Cops and soldiers can change modes pretty quick (ISTR Ron Mark had an active role in the aftermath of a traffic accident a while back – probably no coincidence that he’s ex-army, IMO), and so are others trained in outdoorsey stuff where you need to plan for these things (one of the best incident bystanders I encountered was in a scuba diving club – practically had everything handled before the ambulance came, and it was a fairly complex case as well).
The “milling effect” you refer to could explain what Mr R encountered yesterday, but really it was more like an overwhelming inertia. After some time did only one person eventually phone 111 when instructed. And I do mean directly instructed.
Understand your explanation “where nobody does anything until somebody does something, then everybody does the same thing.” I’m in the situation where I observe ducks, most days and they do this en masse but humans, in a vacuous state, I could see that applying to.
I guess in Mr R’s circumstance, he is switched on to observation. He’s a health and safety officer at his workplace. He saw it coming where as others who were closer to the person just walked away as it was happening.
As another side note I couldn’t help think of the irony of so many people being so disconnected to daily life and social observation because they have their face in a smart phone all day but in a real life situation they completely fail to act and use the phone for something, well, useful.
A really interesting experiment was to put students in a mock exam situation, all authority figures leave the room, and smoke comes under the door after a while.
All except one of the students were confederates instructed to ignore the smoke, but follow the test subject if they left. The control was to leave the room when the smoke was noticed.
If everyone else acted unconcerned, the test subject usually stayed in the room until the smoke was very thick, despite obvious discomfort and concern for personal safety.
I have been told the best way to deal with such a situation is to directly ask some one in the crowd – make it personal
Like “could you the person in the blue jersey please call 111, and look directly at them.
@dv
Brilliant. That is something I recall and have seen it happen. So that is something to put in our mental notes for emergencies. Make it personal – get a who, me response.
And if the person doesn’t respond say to the next person, ‘Are you a capable person’? Phone for an ambulance, just 111, tell them where, or get the person next to you to do it?
I have read of a woman who collapsed in a main city street, with people carefully going round her, but one man apparently stepped over her, but no one squatting down by her head and trying to communicate or help her. I think she was a nurse, used to helping people in difficulty, and was wounded in her respect for others, when she found that the public didn’t help others in distress, and particularly, return her level of care, to herself when needed.
edited
Rosie
That was interesting. In a world of individuals, apparently people still wait for someone else to take over in an unusual situation. It’s like people are basically conformists and in their mental book of etiquette there is no prior instruction of what to do when there is no-one in authority to take charge. And we often are unaccustomed to acting with initiative. People are not very compassionate these days, more uncaring and censorious than they used to be I think.
I remember the story long ago of the NZ woman and her friend at Hampton Court in London who along with other visitors were confronted by a workman who had been down a manhole and just managed to get up to advise that his mate had collapsed.
She looked around and none of the men moved to do anything, so she went down, no doubt carefully, to check the situation, and with her friend formed a rescue team,
successfully.
But it is amazing that people can’t even call an ambulance. The emotion of shock, coupled with an avid and ghoulish curiosity about this novel event, must produce this unpleasant result of dissociation.
Ah yes, dissociation. That’s the word. Thank you grey. I agree, there is less compassion in our society too.
“If some man has a dollar he didn’t work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn’t get”
Bill Haywood
I’d like to change Big Bill’s comment, to reflect a more intersected movement.
“If some man has a dollar he didn’t work for, someone worked for a dollar they didn’t get”
‘
“If a person receives money for doing no work, someone else has worked for money they never received”
Nah BLiP it’s still men who dominate in exploitation
‘
I don’t doubt that for a minute, but how is using the gender specific term in your first clause an example of an intersected statement which improved upon the Bill Haywood observation? It does improve on somewhat but cannot be fully intersected. It seems Haywood is addressing exploitation rather than he is addressing exploitative men.
(Serious question, I’ve just been getting into this whole critical theory of oppressive institutions and its linguistics.)
I agree, Big Bill Haywood is speaking to exploitation, and in the language of his time.
I just think we can do both with his quote by tweaking it a bit.
It’s a patriarchal society, which we still live in. So we need to talk to power, we do no one any favours by making the first part gender neutral.
Maybe it depends on context. If it’s general (which is how I’m reading it not knowing who Haywood is), then make both clauses gender neutral. I think we now have enough women making money off other people to warrant that.
Disagree weka, women own, well not much. Plus women are exploited more.
Big Bill Haywood.
http://www.britannica.com/biography/William-D-Haywood
I guess it depends on what you mean by not working, but I know plenty of women doing well off investments and interest on savings. I’m not comparing numbers of women to men or women to women, I’m looking at women in NZ and seeing a big chunk that fit what you are saying.
+1
I think the gender neutral term is better. Targeting men only excuses the women also doing it.
Finally.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/77651767/law-commission-wants-strangulation-to-become-its-own-crime
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-unseen-victims-of-traumatic-brain-injury-from-domestic-violence
Seen this?
http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2016/mar/04/councils-outsourcing-local-authorities-contract-services
Public Leaders Network
It’s time for councils to stop out-of-control outsourcing
__________________________
Yep – I agree.
Same issue applies -in my view – to Auckland Council and Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs).
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate