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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As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 26 July appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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.
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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