“When you think about him as politician and his both intellect and EQ [emotional intelligence], he is a complete package so it is hard to go past him in terms of his style and the way he does things.”
“He is not an academic but he is intellectual,” says Bridges”
“He also makes special mention of Attorney-General Chris Finlayson, Trade Minister Tim Groser, and former Justice Minister Simon Power”
Glad this was picked up by Muzza- my heart sank too. Poor Simon Bridges, to consider Key to be the “complete article” one has to wonder at the merit and mental and moral fibre of this new minister. Hard to respect a person who speaks so adoringly (and blindly) about Key.
Describing someone as a “complete article” dehumanises them and allows you to interact with them in ways that a description such as “a person with a consistent, coherent point of view” does not allow.
“intellectual” is also pretty loaded, in the NZ context – inviting just the reponse you give.
I reckon it’s all a put down.
Bridges comes across as an attention seeking young man without strong views on how to achieve social justice.
Robin Duff said, in the PPTA News, the teachers’ union could not continue to be “complicit in this conspiracy of silence” that concealed the level of violence within schools.
The culture of violence in schools is another part of a widespread problem embedded in our society. Schools, like families and other groups in society need to confront this, not keep it secret.
Pat Walsh, Secondary Principals’ Association President, said “he had not seen any evidence of a conspiracy of silence, nor was he aware of principals banning teachers from reporting assaults to police.”
We should at least find out, serious claims have been made.
I think the Standard should have a rule against linkwhoring. If you linkwhore three days in a row the key gets thrown away and your laptop gets crushed.
[ The policy allows it within certain parameters: ” You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.”…RL]
Do you not think that suppressing stories of violence in schools is important?
Ah, you’re trying to divert from it here. Are you trying to continue the conspiracy of silence on violence? I guess trying to score a political hit beats violence.
savagemicky, if you actually read what’s there rather than resorting to repeat pitifil pinpricking you would see that it was Robin Duff who said the teachers’ union could not continue to be “complicit in this conspiracy of silence”. He used a cliche to try and raise attention, but isn’t what he says a concern?
You seem to be more intent on attacking people than discussing issues that are raised.
It would be good if posters were to indicate any links in their post that lead to their own blog rather than to material directly related to the subject at hand. T’would be easy to do.
You’d think some of the worst offenders actually want unwitting readers to be tricked into going where they don’t want to go….
Well. It does save typing out again, when you have already addressed that issue on your own blog.
I do not like those who put a placeholder instead of the entire link. I get really pissed off when I am unknowingly directed to Kiwibog, or PG, for example. I can only take so much bullshit at a time.
Robin Duff said, in the PPTA News, the teachers’ union could not continue to be “complicit in this conspiracy of silence” that concealed the level of violence within schools.
Sure, because it is in teachers’ interests to keep quiet when it is they who often become the victims of violence against themselves or their property.
Dear Pete George, your website is garish… particularly the multicoloured Your NZ logo. Could you possibly redesign the logo or not link to it on Saturday or Sunday, when people are likely recovering from a late night and technicolour of any kind is not welcome?
BTW You swap from accusing Eddie of making unsubstantiated claims to accusing the reader in your Wilted with wolf wail wantonness post… whatever that means? This is a sure way of turning people off reading your blog, presuming anybody gets past the graphic issues that is.
There should be a minimum design standard which your blogsite is obviously not attaining PG.
This and the article on truancy further on in the SST are just more evidence of the medias push to portray the negative stories about education in NZ, especially at a time when performance pay, suppossed poor teaching and charter schools are being so prominently pushed by certain factions. Implicit in these articles are the thinly veiled attacks on teachers and how the onus is entirely on them to solve the problems. Witness the students in the truancy article talking about turning up to school stoned and saying school was boring or Parata saying teachers had to provide engaging programmes. Where’s the talk about what students and their families should be bringing to to the table. Education is a partnership but unfortunately at the moment media and political comment sees it as a one way street with the everything stacked against teachers.
And the point Duff made is schools may be trying to hide negative stories. That’s a serious complaint from within the school system.
Which means you must think that parents are complicit too. And Boards of Trustees. And principles. And general staff.
A real conspiracy theory you got going there.
I do notice however that you primarily blame the “teachers union” though. How do you think they manage to keep all these other parties quiet? Probably intimidation tactics right? After all, unions always use intimidation tactics right?
While not entirely disagreeing with you on this when did you last read something positive about education in NZ. Both SST articles focussed on the negative. As a teacher it seems to me that there is a concerted effort by some to portray education in a negative light as much as possible so as to influence public perception and thus making it easier for this government to make the changes they want in education.
This is a common problem – doing things right is just expected, it’s not newsworthy.
The media is naturally attracted to negatives, mistakes, scandals, problems and complaints. That’s why you won’t see balancing articles like “most teachers helped most students achieve well”.
As someone who went to NPBHS in the 70’s it seems to be that bullying has significantly decreased in schools.
What was acceptable then would in no way be condoned now.
Let me list the ways that I and others were bullied at school:
1. Being physically beaten up before breakfast by the fullback of the first fifteen many mornings before breakfast
2. Hauled out of bed and made to have cold showers in the middle of the night
3. Having to wash the rugby gear, by hand, of the boarders in the first XV – we got good at using toothpaste on the white stripes
4. Being made to stand in the middle of the field and used as tackle bags
5. Being made to fight other students for the pleasure of the prefects
6. Being caned by the prefects
7. Being made to smoke by the prefects ( I never did hence incurring more beatings)
8. Being made to run errands for the prefects such as constantly going to the dairy down the hill to buy one cents worth of jelly beans – if you were not quick enough you got a clout
9. Being sent to the teacher at prep time to be caned for no reason – and the teachers indulging and complicit in this
10. Being made to write such engaging essays as the sex life of a ping -pong ball
11. Having to site in a seated position without a chair and an upright compass (mathematical with a point) below you backside – trust me landing on this hurts
12. Being beaten up again for no reason
13. Having to hold hand upright with fingers and thumb touching while a ruler edge was forcibly applied to your fingertips
14. Being “dubbin”ed and “nugget”ed and deep heated on your private parts
15. Being hung from a tree and spray painted orange
16. Having eyebrows shaved off
17. Having to float on the swimming pool so you could be dive bombed by the prefects
18. Dorm raids in the middle of the night which were just another excuse to beat up on the weakest
19. Having to learn the names of the first XV, the All Blacks and the Taranaki rugby team – in that order – and again being hit if you got it wrong.
These are the ones that immediately spring to mind.
It’s not character building and in my experience it’s often those that were bullied who have problems later in life – particularly with violence. The bullies seem to be able to move on much more easily.
One woman I know has two sons in jail for murder who went to another boarding school. It’s only now in prison they talk about what happened to them when they were there. They went from being two quiet lovely kids at 13 to having significant issues in life when they were older.
There were some good aspects to going to NPBHS (and some very good teachers, history and biology in particular, but the bullying and the violence that I and others experienced will forever tarnish our view of that school.
The thing I notice in this country is that people are quick to jump on the band wagon when it’s Maori school involved but there seems to be much more of a cover up when the school is supposed to have a “reputation”.
I copped it mainly at primary school; fortunately by the time I was at secondary school I had grown tall enough not to be an obvious target anymore. But it left it’s mark alright. Not something often talked about because of the stigma and shame attached to it.
These days I tend to over-react if I feel someone is putting one over on me. It only happens briefly and occasionally, but I’ve learned that if you don’t look like a soft target they’ll move onto someone else. But it’s not a comfortable place to be.
And looking at that list…. shit it’s way worse that anything I encountered. I get the impression it was worse in the provinces than at the big city schools, althought that’s just a guess.
It is definitely a lot less tolerated in public schools than it was 40 years ago.
When I found that the way to avoid being bullied, my parents shifted around a lot for work reasons, was to pick a fight with the biggest and toughest looking boy in the new school. Didn’t matter if you won or lost, no-one else would take you on after that.
I get a distinct impression that, in many private schools, and some schools that claim to be “traditional” boys schools, bullying is, still, often tacitly encouraged as a means of ensuring conformity and discipline.
My memories of school are very narrow, one small rural school and one hear at a larger city school, and I was lucky to not experience a bullying environment. And my kids have all left school so I’m not in touch with how it is at the moment – I’m sure it varies a lot.
But I take notice if Robin Duff says there’s a problem.He should know something about it.
‘… but I’ve learned that if you don’t look like a soft target they’ll move onto someone else. But it’s not a comfortable place to be.’
Totally get lack of comfort thing RL – same thing goes on in the work place and quite often the bully is showing a bit of front which if you rebuff with something like “that’s a nasty/racist/… thing to do/ say” they are often totally embarrased. Recently heard about a bloke at my work who in the past cracked a joke whilst someone was having a seizure about it being a shame he didn’t have his laundry with him – this while being within earshot of the person having the seizure and no one took him to task – unfuckingbelieveable – sometimes people have to speak out about injustice and get uncomfortable.
I copped it mainly at primary school; fortunately by the time I was at secondary school I had grown tall enough not to be an obvious target anymore.
In my case, it was primary and Intermediate, and verbal not physical and I don’t want to go into much detail (I did once, and QoT has never forgiven me for telling the truth.)
We (my sisters and I) committed 3 crimes – we were English in Rotorua in the 60s, we were working class and in the higher streams (well, I was in the higher streams) and we were brighter than the bullies. I used ‘big words’.
When at high school, an older girl made me the butt of her jokes, and called me “ostentatiously puerile” I was made up – her insults were clever, and in one or two instances merited. Because I responded in kind, we became friends.
Shit DOS, props to you for surviving – it sounds worse than some of the stuff I’ve read about English public schools.
I went to a private girls’ school and got bullied because I wanted to do my work, was tall, very slender and couldn’t be arsed teasing and tormenting other people. Since having kids, one with ADHD who gets bullied I’m a complete wolverine and the school dreads an email or phone call from me but I will not let my kid be teased unmercifully and don’t give a rat’s arse if the faculty don’t like it. Thankfully this year there are two wonderful women in the maths area who have brought the tormentors to task with some really interesting detentions – I’m sure it helps that one is HOD and married to a man with Asperger’s and the 2IC who has a finely honed sense of justice.
Once read:
The mill of God grinds slow but grinds exceeding small.
Maybe some of your former tormentors have been through the mill.
I was at NPBHS during the early 2000s and can say without a doubt things are much different now. I was never a border but the odd case where younger students were beaten were normally dealt with by expulsion. There is a concerted effort now to stamp out bullying. Of course it still occurs but it is rarely tolerated.
Yes I went to a very white “school of reputation” in the early 80’s as a boarder and was bullied mercilessly there. Though it was mostly verbal rather than physical abuse I think this is what actually causes the most harm. A broken bone can heal in a bit of time, but a broken spirit? It completely fucked up my life, making me depressed (undiagnosed and untreated for much of that time) from the age of 14 to the age of 42 and with severe anxiety issues that still continue.
The bullying was an accepted by teachers and pupils as part of the culture of the school. They probably did view it as character building. And perhaps it could have been, had it been evenly and fairly shared around, but it wasn’t. That’s not how bullying works. The most vulnerable people are identified and 95% of the bullying is directed at that 2% of the children. Look at our shameful youth suicide rate and I am sure you will find most of them are that unfortunate 2%.
The irony is that my parents scrimped and saved to send me there because it was supposedly a “good school”!
“Education is a partnership but unfortunately at the moment media and political comment sees it as a one way street with the everything stacked against teachers.”
Education is a partnership where everyone should be working to support our children – not trying to knock spots of each other (the adults that is.)
Have just seen Descendant of Smith’s ghastly story have never heard the like . I taught in some tough schools in England through the seventies and eighties and I have never encountered such a litany of horror. My colleagues and I were always on the lookout for any bullying behaviour and took grounds duty very, very seriously and there were quite a few of us in large schoools so students always had back up and support. I haven’t seen as much support in New Zealand, especially in primary schools and some intermediate schools appear to be a bit tough on the children. I put it down to the “laid back Kiwi attitude”, but I must say I felt a bit sorry for the children having little adult supervision in large grounds. However I realise I have only seen and experienced some schools, both as a teacher and a parent.
I sent my brother “Boy” the Christmas before last ( he went to quite a tough British school ) and he said how sad and angry it had made him. Descendant of Smith’s story has made me feel very very sad and sickened too. Children should never have to go through this. Thank God you came out the other side DOS, I am so sorry this happened to you in what was meant to be a safe and becoming place.
March 06, 2012 Bombing Osirak, Burying UN Resolution 487 – An Exchange With The BBC’s Jonathan Marcus
On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli aircraft bombed the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor ten miles southeast of Baghdad. Ten Iraqis and one French civilian were killed. In his book State of Denial, journalist Bob Woodward argued that the raid intensified Iraq’s nuclear programme:
‘Israeli intelligence were convinced that their strike… had ended Saddam’s program. Instead [it prompted] covert funding for a nuclear program code-named “PC3” involving 5,000 people testing and building ingredients for a nuclear bomb…’ (Woodward, State of Denial, Simon & Schuster, 2006, p.215)
In response to the attack, UN Security Council Resolution 487 was passed 15-0, on June 19, 1981, with no-one opposing and no-one abstaining – not even the United States. It is worth quoting the Resolution at some length:
‘Fully aware of the fact that Iraq has been a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since it came into force in 1970, that in accordance with that Treaty Iraq has accepted IAEA safeguards on all its nuclear activities, and that the Agency has testified that these safeguards have been satisfactorily applied to date,
‘Noting furthermore that Israel has not adhered to the non-proliferation Treaty…
‘Considering that, under the terms of Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”,
‘1. Strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct;
‘2. Calls upon Israel to refrain in the future from any such acts or threats thereof;
‘3. Further considers that the said attack constitutes a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime which is the foundation of the non-proliferation Treaty;
‘4. Fully recognizes the inalienable sovereign right of Iraq, and all other States, especially the developing countries, to establish programmes of technological and nuclear development to develop their economy and industry for peaceful purposes in accordance with their present and future needs and consistent with the internationally accepted objectives of preventing nuclear-weapons proliferation;
‘5. Calls upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards;
‘6. Considers that Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel…’
Readers may be wondering why they have not seen or heard more about Resolution 487 during a period of intense speculation that Israel might launch a similar attack, involving the same violation of international law, on Iran. We can all, of course, remember the endless political and media references to UN Resolutions 1441 and 687, said to be relevant to the US-UK attack on Iraq in March 2003. The likes of Tony Blair and Jack Straw never stopped reminding the public of their crucial significance. We will return to media coverage of Osirak and Resolution 487 below.
‘Getting There’ – An Exchange With Jonathan Marcus
Last week, the BBC published an article by Defence Correspondent Jonathan Marcus under the title, ‘How Israel might strike at Iran’ (Subsequently altered to, ‘How Iran might respond to Israeli attack’).
Like a tourist guide, the piece listed Israeli aircraft under the banner ‘Getting There – Aircraft, Details, Task’ and identified ‘Potential targets’, including Iranian nuclear energy facilities (as discussed in our previous alert, there is currently no evidence that Iran is even planning to attempt to build a nuclear weapon).
The nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz is a clear target. Marcus commented: ‘The facility is underground, making bunker-busting munitions essential.’
The military site at Parchin was also mentioned:
‘IAEA inspectors were prevented from visiting the site in February 2012 as they sought to clarify the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear programme.’
In an article also published last week titled, ‘How the media got the Parchin story wrong,’ investigative journalist Gareth Porter wrote that ‘explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA and the language of the new IAEA report indicate that Iran did not reject an IAEA visit to the base per se but was only refusing access as long as no agreement had been reached with the IAEA governing the modalities of cooperation’.
Porter added:
‘But not a single major news media report has reported the significant difference between initial media coverage on the Parchin access issue and the information now available from the initial IAEA report and Soltanieh [Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh].’
Returning to the BBC analysis, the ‘Task’ for each Israeli weapon system was described. However, when it came to Iranian defences, instead of ‘Task’, Marcus used the word ‘Threat’, thus presenting the imagined conflict from an Israeli perspective. Of course the Iranians might well perceive Israeli ‘Tasks’ as ‘Threats’. The media monitoring website News Unspun noted the biased language, complaints followed, and the BBC changed ‘Threat’ to ‘Efficacy’.
On February 27, we wrote to Jonathan Marcus about his article:
Presumably the legal issues surrounding an Israeli attack, and the possibility of major civilian casualties, don’t merit a mention. Amazing to see such a close copy of the ‘toys for boys’ journalism that preceded the war on Iraq, which claimed 100,000s, perhaps a million, human lives. That ought to be sobering.
Best wishes
David Edwards
Marcus responded the same day:
Well that I suppose sounds an incisive point but when I am asked by my editors to write a military assessment of Israel’s capacities to carry out such a mission, I speak to the air power experts and write the piece.
There are indeed many other aspects to this story and I am sure they are being coveted and will be covered extensively over the coming weeks and months.
This is not “toys for boys”- go to a wargaming exhibition if you want that – this is a military analysis – nothing more, nothing less.
JM
Further exchanges took place on the same day:
Thanks Jonathan. You wrote:
‘Only a few days ago, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, said that an Israeli attack would not be prudent. Such a strike, he said, “would be destabilising and would not achieve their long-term objectives”.’
What’s the difference between citing a US general on the imprudent nature of a strike and citing an expert on international law on the illegal nature of a strike? Dempsey was talking about political consequences – it ‘would be destabilising’ – which could also justify mention of possible civilian casualties, which would certainly be destabilising.
As an independent journalist, you could include this material, or suggest it to your editors for inclusion, or protest if they took it out.
Best
David
Marcus replied:
The piece dealt with the subject that was requested, which is why the General was quoted. Indeed there would have been a prominent USAF general (retd) cited in the piece but he was not able to respond in time, though that probably wouldn’t have made you any happier.
The other issues you mention, not least the legality of such a strike, were not the issue here. I daresay that I will probably be asked to do something on that subject in due course.
While discussing military matters the piece did not give any sense that this would be an easy nor an un-problematic undertaking. Indeed one of the people interviewed gave a pretty blunt view of the desirability of such an attack.
Your glib toys for boys reference annoyed me since I think it rather betrays your own prejudices. The freedoms you and I enjoy – me to broadcast what I believe is a fair assessment – and you to write in and criticise it – were maintained by “boys with toys” as you call them.
Your implication is that the piece is in some sense “war-mongering” which I entirely disagree with – for all I know you may be a battle-scarred recipient of the VC – but I have in the past seen some fighting reasonably close-up. It is not pleasant. But I know what wars are about and – if I may speak personally for a moment – have no enthusiasm for them.
That’s it – you’ve had my two responses (on my day off as well – there’s public service). You should be glorying in the fact that we have a BBC and especially the World Service – celebrating its 80th birthday this year), rather than always carping and complaining. But you are of course entitled to your opinion, as I am to provide my informed assessment.
Regards
JM
We responded:
Thanks Jonathan. Sorry if you were annoyed by the ‘toys for boys’ comment. I meant to suggest that it is wrong and dangerous to discuss military possibilities as a kind of technical issue distinct from political and humanitarian concerns. As I mentioned, you did refer to political issues, but you haven’t explained why these were included when the related issues of legality and possible civilian casualties were not.
In his analysis of obedience in modern society, the psychologist Stanley Milgram remarked on the growing ‘tendency of the individual to become so absorbed in the narrow technical aspects of the task that he loses sight of its broader consequences,’ such that he ‘entrusts the broader tasks of setting goals and assessing morality to the… authority he is serving’. (Milgram, Obedience to Authority, Pinter & Martin, 1974, p.25)
It seems to me that your piece was an example of what Milgram was warning against. He pointed out that, finally – regardless of what is ‘requested’ of us – we are all morally responsible for our own actions. If BBC editors ask for a purely technical analysis of a possible future conflict, they should be resisted.
Best wishes
David
Marcus replied:
There will be a follow up piece later this week looking at at least of the issues you raise. this one happily was the most looked at page today so there is clearly interest.
I am not going to get into the sociology of the media – It gives me indigestion.
JM’
We answered:
That’s good to hear, thanks.
Best
David
We didn’t mean we were glad to hear that ‘sociology’ gives Marcus indigestion. We were grateful for his lengthy, if somewhat gruff, responses. He deserves credit for responding at all (so many BBC journalists do not). We look forward to his article ‘looking at at least [some?] of the issues’ we raised. If he mentions Osirak, and especially Resolution 487, he will have reinvented himself as a media outlier.
So how extraordinary would a Marcus mention of these issues be? Recall that June 7, 2011 marked the 30th anniversary of Israel’s historic raid on Osirak – the world’s first attack on a nuclear facility. And yet the LexisNexis media search engine records just eight mentions of Osirak in all UK national newspapers in the last 12 months. On the day of the anniversary itself, the attack was mentioned in single-sentence, ‘On this day in history’ comments in the free London newspaper Metro and in the Paisley Daily Express. The words ‘Osirak’ and ‘Resolution 487’ produced zero results for all available dates in all print media.
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The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Unlike the the Gulf of Mexico, New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty hasn’t had any comprehensive study into the environmental effects from the Rena disaster.
This is outrageous considering the Rena was also carrying large amounts of dangerous chemicals, with the cumulative toxic effects likely to cause damage to the environment for many years to come…
muzza our public service is rated as the least corrupt by international ratings agencies !
But our business sector is rated as one of the most corrupt by international agencies!
Do you have a link for this claim?
I find the claim about New Zealand businesses impossible to believe.
Which International agencies and when did they say it?
His claim wasn’t about the competence or otherwise on NZ Managers.
He claimed that New Zealand businesses were CORRUPT.
That is the thing I find very hard to believe.
The problem that I’ve seen over and again is that we consistently promote the wrong people into management. The same mistakes get made over and over:
1. We confuse extrovert behavior and having a loud mouth, the ability to verbally bully or push people about… with leadership.
2. At the same time we promote -yes-men who we know won’t rock the boat or threaten the people at the top.
3. We confuse ‘management’ with ‘leadership’. We don’t train or mentor people properly in the skills needed to be a good leader.
4. Too often we fail to realise that the people at the top set the moral and behavioural standards and for this reason we promote people who fall short in this respect.
5. And far too often we DON”T promote the right people because they are too skilled and valuable doing what they are at present.
Only about 1/3 of all the many, many ‘managers’ I’ve met in my life really should have been in the job. The rest were either well-meaning amateurs at best, ditherers and road-blockers… or psychopathic arseholes whose sole purpose in life was to exploit their organisational power to torment their victims.
Pete George you have placed this comment on another blog
When the Chinese have taken over our economy and land, Muslims have taken over our law, and Australians have taken over our workforce, the Indians have taken over our service industry, the Pacific Islanders have taken over our rugby, and then US has taken over the rest of the world, what then?
What do you mean here Pete George? How does this fit in with your antiviolence line when the comment you have put up seems to incite difference and fear, all of which can lead to violence against ‘others’ in extreme cases. Haven’t you just contributed to a “culture of violence”.
It the bankers and neo-libs taking over our laws. Can’t see any of the regressive laws being enacted as having any Islamic influence what-so-ever.
How the fuck you extrapolate that to Muslims is beyond me.
You might also like to consider the Islamic notion of not charging interest on loans.
Islam allows only one kind of loan and that is qard-el-hassan (literally good loan) whereby the lender does not charge any interest or additional amount over the money lent.
What’s apparent the more you open your mouth (albeit via your keyboard) the more you come across as a right wing bigoted conservative.
@Descendant of Smith. That is horrific, and I hope that kids these days are more likely to tell their parents or teachers, who would hopefully believe them and take action against the bullies (not the victims as still happens). It is important to speak up as others being bullied then feel they are not alone. Boys high decile schools are particularly prone to endemic bullying. Also hope you got some counselling, as bullying is similar to other PTSDs in its long term affects on the victims.
I don’t mind speaking out about it and it helps others when I have.
In the end I was pretty resilient and have had no long term effects apart from further developing an already held social conscience and a dislike for bullying, the abuse of power and hypocrisy.
Some of the other kids suffered, including running away.
I remember somewhat coming across a man in his 70’s who still got unspeakably angry when he thought of what had happened to him at the same school many years earlier.
That’s why Pete and others of his ilk are wrong when they talk about how great it was in the old days and that this generation is more violent.
Like to ability to rape your spouse this sort of behaviour was condoned and accepted, as was the abuse of those with intellectual and psychiatric problems in institutions.
Anyone who has worked with many of the people who were previously institutionalised – including within orphanages – knows the damage that some of these people had done to them.
The right wing notion is that everyone can be resilient and pull themselves up by their bootstraps is so abhorrent – many can – many cannot.
I’ve been making this observation for years and have had many arguments over this with those from earlier generations who seem to have very rose tinted glassless.
It was interesting to have this view re-inforced recently when coming across this book:
The question that should always be asked is in who’s interest is it to have both a fearful population and to convey that it’s your fault if you can’t get your shit together?
That’s why Pete and others of his ilk are wrong when they talk about how great it was in the old days and that this generation is more violent.
Not my ilk, I often argue against those who say things like we should go back to how things were in the 50s. Redbaiter used to say we should go back to education as it was in about 1905.
I doubt a general population anywhere at any time in history has had things as good as we do right now. Plenty of room for improvement yet but actual wellbeing and opportunity-wise even the bottom 10% are better off then the bottom 90% a hundred years ago. Better than everyone healthwise and for life expectancy.
I would be surprised if health stats and cause of death stats for NZ 100 years ago are as reliable as todays – so not as easy as you make it look to make comparisons.
What is certain though is that some diseases, particularly the non-infectious diseases, are on the rise in NZ. Obesity, diabetes type 2, high blood pressure, bowel cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, lymphoma and others.
There is evidence from population studies that the western diet and lifestyle are responsible in some way (the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor focuses on genetic predispositions – but diet and lifestyle are crucial – and more amenable to goverbmnet action – asssuming we have finally discarded the eugenics based options).
I was very impressed this week by the performance and straight to the point style of Green’s Julie Anne Genter taking on Brownlee of transport issues. This style is also evident in her comments quoted in this article , eg “The numbers show the the top people are paid 50 times more than those staffing security or doing the cleaning,” Genter said. “It’s an example of what is happening in New Zealand. People who are earning the most are earning so much more than others. Are they really worth it? And is it economically and socially sustainable?”
It is also interesting to note that in the article she is quoted before Claire Curran …..
But I divert from the subject matter of the article itself.
More progress on the ‘draft ACTION PLAN against ‘white collar’ crime, corruption and ‘corporate welfare’!
WHERE’S THE ‘REGISTER OF INTERESTS’ FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES AND STAFF (INCLUDING CONSULTANTS) RESPONSIBLE FOR PROCUREMENT AND PROPERTY?
How can the public be confident that there are no untoward ‘conflicts of interest’ between those responsible for giving and those who receive private sector contracts for ‘goods, services and people’ at local government level?
How come, in New Zealand, ‘perceived’ to be the ‘least corrupt country in the world’ there isn’t already this framework for genuine ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government?
Why should citizens and ratepayers pay rates – when the ‘books’ aren’t open – we don’t know exactly where our money is going, and we don’t know if it’s going to private sector consultants/contractors who may be mates / family or associates of local government elected representatives or employees responsible for procurement and property?
How can ‘conflicts of interest’ be avoided/ minimised – if interests aren’t DECLARED, and ‘Registers of Interest’ made publicly available?
Good enough for central government elected representatives – why not local government elected representatives?
Next step – ‘Registers of Interest’ for ALL those responsible for awarding contracts and responsible for procurement and property……
Go, Penny – well done! IMO if people want to run for and get elected to local councils, then they must be prepared to have their interests out in the open. Ditto, high level council staff.
Not worth having your entire personal financials exposed to public scrutiny for a measley $40K-$50K pa for a 3 year term. Which is the ball park that a lot of these councillor positions pay.
In other words, this proposal is a good way to put people off from bothering to stand for local government.
Now if there was a direct conflict of interest around a matter which was being considered – yes in that case it makes sense to require the publishing of relevant financial holdings, for someone else to independently vet the decision making process, or to allow the councillor to recuse themselves from the discussion.
‘Notorious hacktivist group Anonymous has taken down the UK Home Office website. The group took responsibility for the attack, saying in their tweet it was launched for ‘draconian surveillance proposals.’
‘British security agencies are pushing for a law which would allow police to monitor text messages, phone calls and emails of their citizens, as well as websites visited, Facebook and Twitter exchanges, and even online game chats. More than $3 billion over the first decade alone is the extraordinary sum the British taxpayer may have to pay to be legally spied upon should the bill be passed.’
If our power companies become privatised, how can the government make sustainable energy a national priority without impinging on private interests? http://bit.ly/HrO6oS
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 15, 2024 thru Sat, December 21, 2024. Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one published soleley by category. We are still interested in ...
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...
Welcome to the December 2024 Economic Bulletin. We have two monthly features in this edition. In the first, we discuss what the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update from Treasury and the Budget Policy Statement from the Minister of Finance tell us about the fiscal position and what to ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...
Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year. As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...
The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and , ...
“Like you said, I’m an unreconstructed socialist. Everybody deserves to get something for Christmas.”“ONE OF THOSE had better be for me!” Hannah grinned, fascinated, as Laurie made his way, gingerly, to the bar, his arms full of gift-wrapped packages.“Of course!”, beamed Laurie. Depositing his armful on the bar-top and selecting ...
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed a significant slowdown in the economy over the past six months, with GDP falling by 1% in September, and 1.1% in June said CTU Economist Craig Renney. “The data shows that the size of the economy in GDP terms is now smaller ...
One last thing before I quitI never wanted any moreThan I could fit into my headI still remember every single word you saidAnd all the shit that somehow came along with itStill, there's one thing that comforts meSince I was always caged and now I'm freeSongwriters: David Grohl / Georg ...
Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
Hi,If you’re a New Zealander — you know who Mike King is. He is the face of New Zealand’s battle against mental health problems. He can be loud and brash. He raises, and is entrusted with, a lot of cash. Last year his “I Am Hope” charity reported a revenue ...
Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
Oh, I weptFor daysFilled my eyesWith silly tearsOh, yeaBut I don'tCare no moreI don't care ifMy eyes get soreSongwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Kossoff. Read more ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
Just ten days ago, South Korea's president attempted a self-coup, declaring martial law and attempting to have opposition MPs murdered or arrested in an effort to seize unconstrained power. The attempt was rapidly defeated by the national assembly voting it down and the people flooding the streets to defend democracy. ...
Hi,“What I love about New Zealanders is that sometimes you use these expressions that as Americans we have no idea what those things mean!"I am watching a 30-something year old American ramble on about how different New Zealanders are to Americans. It’s his podcast, and this man is doing a ...
What Chris Penk has granted holocaust-denier and equal-opportunity-bigot Candace Owens is not “freedom of speech”. It’s not even really freedom of movement, though that technically is the right she has been granted. What he has given her is permission to perform. Freedom of SpeechIn New Zealand, the right to freedom ...
All those tears on your cheeksJust like deja vu flow nowWhen grandmother speaksSo tell me a story (I'll tell you a story)Spell it out, I can't hear (What do you want to hear?)Why you wear black in the morning?Why there's smoke in the air? Songwriter: Greg Johnson.Mōrena all ☀️Something a ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
Legislation that will repeal all advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays has passed through first reading in Parliament today, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “As a growing share of audiences get their news and entertainment from streaming services, these restrictions have become increasingly redundant. New Zealand on ...
Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
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“Asked which ministers he admires, he nominates without hesitation John Key, whom he calls “a complete article”
“When you think about him as politician and his both intellect and EQ [emotional intelligence], he is a complete package so it is hard to go past him in terms of his style and the way he does things.”
“He is not an academic but he is intellectual,” says Bridges”
“He also makes special mention of Attorney-General Chris Finlayson, Trade Minister Tim Groser, and former Justice Minister Simon Power”
Oh dear!
I read that. What a case study in puff pieces that article is.
Yes the public has just been groomed, the same way that Bridges has been by the Tory Masters UK.
The names he has given as “special mention” only serve to illustrate his grooming!
There is nothing West Auckland about this boy!
Maybe happy but I read a certain skepticism between Audrey’s lines. A sort of pride going before a fall for Bridges?
‘…whom he calls “a complete article”
More like a shitty article.
‘“He is not an academic but he is intellectual,” says Bridges’
Sense of humour I see.
Glad this was picked up by Muzza- my heart sank too. Poor Simon Bridges, to consider Key to be the “complete article” one has to wonder at the merit and mental and moral fibre of this new minister. Hard to respect a person who speaks so adoringly (and blindly) about Key.
Describing someone as a “complete article” dehumanises them and allows you to interact with them in ways that a description such as “a person with a consistent, coherent point of view” does not allow.
“intellectual” is also pretty loaded, in the NZ context – inviting just the reponse you give.
I reckon it’s all a put down.
Bridges comes across as an attention seeking young man without strong views on how to achieve social justice.
New Zealand has a terrible culture of violence that ruins many lives – and kills some.
A Sunday Star Times report on The secret story of violence in schools is very disturbing.
Robin Duff said, in the PPTA News, the teachers’ union could not continue to be “complicit in this conspiracy of silence” that concealed the level of violence within schools.
The culture of violence in schools is another part of a widespread problem embedded in our society. Schools, like families and other groups in society need to confront this, not keep it secret.
Pat Walsh, Secondary Principals’ Association President, said “he had not seen any evidence of a conspiracy of silence, nor was he aware of principals banning teachers from reporting assaults to police.”
We should at least find out, serious claims have been made.
I think the Standard should have a rule against linkwhoring. If you linkwhore three days in a row the key gets thrown away and your laptop gets crushed.
[ The policy allows it within certain parameters: ” You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.”…RL]
Do you not think that suppressing stories of violence in schools is important?
Ah, you’re trying to divert from it here. Are you trying to continue the conspiracy of silence on violence? I guess trying to score a political hit beats violence.
PG – conspiracy theorist lol
Peter are you wearing a tin foil hat right now?
savagemicky, if you actually read what’s there rather than resorting to repeat pitifil pinpricking you would see that it was Robin Duff who said the teachers’ union could not continue to be “complicit in this conspiracy of silence”. He used a cliche to try and raise attention, but isn’t what he says a concern?
You seem to be more intent on attacking people than discussing issues that are raised.
Nah Petey you accused me of being part of the conspiracy of silence.
DNFTT
…your laptop gets crushed… 😀 More than fair.
It would be good if posters were to indicate any links in their post that lead to their own blog rather than to material directly related to the subject at hand. T’would be easy to do.
You’d think some of the worst offenders actually want unwitting readers to be tricked into going where they don’t want to go….
Well. It does save typing out again, when you have already addressed that issue on your own blog.
I do not like those who put a placeholder instead of the entire link. I get really pissed off when I am unknowingly directed to Kiwibog, or PG, for example. I can only take so much bullshit at a time.
It’s easy enough to say something like “I’ve explained this in more detail at my own blog *link* etc.
It’s probably a good idea to be clear about what all links are linking to. I prefer not to unwittingly end-up at KB or WO. It’s not difficult.
Thats why I prefer full links.
For example with mine. Blogspot.kjt sort of gives away where it is going.
Then it is up to the reader to decide.
Sure, because it is in teachers’ interests to keep quiet when it is they who often become the victims of violence against themselves or their property.
Warning – second link is to PG’s own site.
Dear Pete George, your website is garish… particularly the multicoloured Your NZ logo. Could you possibly redesign the logo or not link to it on Saturday or Sunday, when people are likely recovering from a late night and technicolour of any kind is not welcome?
BTW You swap from accusing Eddie of making unsubstantiated claims to accusing the reader in your Wilted with wolf wail wantonness post… whatever that means? This is a sure way of turning people off reading your blog, presuming anybody gets past the graphic issues that is.
There should be a minimum design standard which your blogsite is obviously not attaining PG.
You’re right about the look of the blog, a makeover is on my to do list.
Perhaps a disclaimer like Please wear appropriate eye protection would be appropriate in the meantime.
more hair
This and the article on truancy further on in the SST are just more evidence of the medias push to portray the negative stories about education in NZ, especially at a time when performance pay, suppossed poor teaching and charter schools are being so prominently pushed by certain factions. Implicit in these articles are the thinly veiled attacks on teachers and how the onus is entirely on them to solve the problems. Witness the students in the truancy article talking about turning up to school stoned and saying school was boring or Parata saying teachers had to provide engaging programmes. Where’s the talk about what students and their families should be bringing to to the table. Education is a partnership but unfortunately at the moment media and political comment sees it as a one way street with the everything stacked against teachers.
Robin Duff raised this when writing in the PPTA News. SST simply picked up on it and highlighted it.
And the point Duff made is schools may be trying to hide negative stories. That’s a serious complaint from within the school system.
Which means you must think that parents are complicit too. And Boards of Trustees. And principles. And general staff.
A real conspiracy theory you got going there.
I do notice however that you primarily blame the “teachers union” though. How do you think they manage to keep all these other parties quiet? Probably intimidation tactics right? After all, unions always use intimidation tactics right?
Anyways I’m done feeding the trolls for today.
While not entirely disagreeing with you on this when did you last read something positive about education in NZ. Both SST articles focussed on the negative. As a teacher it seems to me that there is a concerted effort by some to portray education in a negative light as much as possible so as to influence public perception and thus making it easier for this government to make the changes they want in education.
This is a common problem – doing things right is just expected, it’s not newsworthy.
The media is naturally attracted to negatives, mistakes, scandals, problems and complaints. That’s why you won’t see balancing articles like “most teachers helped most students achieve well”.
As someone who went to NPBHS in the 70’s it seems to be that bullying has significantly decreased in schools.
What was acceptable then would in no way be condoned now.
Let me list the ways that I and others were bullied at school:
1. Being physically beaten up before breakfast by the fullback of the first fifteen many mornings before breakfast
2. Hauled out of bed and made to have cold showers in the middle of the night
3. Having to wash the rugby gear, by hand, of the boarders in the first XV – we got good at using toothpaste on the white stripes
4. Being made to stand in the middle of the field and used as tackle bags
5. Being made to fight other students for the pleasure of the prefects
6. Being caned by the prefects
7. Being made to smoke by the prefects ( I never did hence incurring more beatings)
8. Being made to run errands for the prefects such as constantly going to the dairy down the hill to buy one cents worth of jelly beans – if you were not quick enough you got a clout
9. Being sent to the teacher at prep time to be caned for no reason – and the teachers indulging and complicit in this
10. Being made to write such engaging essays as the sex life of a ping -pong ball
11. Having to site in a seated position without a chair and an upright compass (mathematical with a point) below you backside – trust me landing on this hurts
12. Being beaten up again for no reason
13. Having to hold hand upright with fingers and thumb touching while a ruler edge was forcibly applied to your fingertips
14. Being “dubbin”ed and “nugget”ed and deep heated on your private parts
15. Being hung from a tree and spray painted orange
16. Having eyebrows shaved off
17. Having to float on the swimming pool so you could be dive bombed by the prefects
18. Dorm raids in the middle of the night which were just another excuse to beat up on the weakest
19. Having to learn the names of the first XV, the All Blacks and the Taranaki rugby team – in that order – and again being hit if you got it wrong.
These are the ones that immediately spring to mind.
It’s not character building and in my experience it’s often those that were bullied who have problems later in life – particularly with violence. The bullies seem to be able to move on much more easily.
One woman I know has two sons in jail for murder who went to another boarding school. It’s only now in prison they talk about what happened to them when they were there. They went from being two quiet lovely kids at 13 to having significant issues in life when they were older.
There were some good aspects to going to NPBHS (and some very good teachers, history and biology in particular, but the bullying and the violence that I and others experienced will forever tarnish our view of that school.
The thing I notice in this country is that people are quick to jump on the band wagon when it’s Maori school involved but there seems to be much more of a cover up when the school is supposed to have a “reputation”.
Geeze… all that on a ‘good day’!
I copped it mainly at primary school; fortunately by the time I was at secondary school I had grown tall enough not to be an obvious target anymore. But it left it’s mark alright. Not something often talked about because of the stigma and shame attached to it.
These days I tend to over-react if I feel someone is putting one over on me. It only happens briefly and occasionally, but I’ve learned that if you don’t look like a soft target they’ll move onto someone else. But it’s not a comfortable place to be.
And looking at that list…. shit it’s way worse that anything I encountered. I get the impression it was worse in the provinces than at the big city schools, althought that’s just a guess.
It is definitely a lot less tolerated in public schools than it was 40 years ago.
When I found that the way to avoid being bullied, my parents shifted around a lot for work reasons, was to pick a fight with the biggest and toughest looking boy in the new school. Didn’t matter if you won or lost, no-one else would take you on after that.
I get a distinct impression that, in many private schools, and some schools that claim to be “traditional” boys schools, bullying is, still, often tacitly encouraged as a means of ensuring conformity and discipline.
Surely PG is old enough to remember that environment and to give him a sense of perspective on today. Nah, hopeless optimism that.
My memories of school are very narrow, one small rural school and one hear at a larger city school, and I was lucky to not experience a bullying environment. And my kids have all left school so I’m not in touch with how it is at the moment – I’m sure it varies a lot.
But I take notice if Robin Duff says there’s a problem.He should know something about it.
‘… but I’ve learned that if you don’t look like a soft target they’ll move onto someone else. But it’s not a comfortable place to be.’
Totally get lack of comfort thing RL – same thing goes on in the work place and quite often the bully is showing a bit of front which if you rebuff with something like “that’s a nasty/racist/… thing to do/ say” they are often totally embarrased. Recently heard about a bloke at my work who in the past cracked a joke whilst someone was having a seizure about it being a shame he didn’t have his laundry with him – this while being within earshot of the person having the seizure and no one took him to task – unfuckingbelieveable – sometimes people have to speak out about injustice and get uncomfortable.
In my case, it was primary and Intermediate, and verbal not physical and I don’t want to go into much detail (I did once, and QoT has never forgiven me for telling the truth.)
We (my sisters and I) committed 3 crimes – we were English in Rotorua in the 60s, we were working class and in the higher streams (well, I was in the higher streams) and we were brighter than the bullies. I used ‘big words’.
When at high school, an older girl made me the butt of her jokes, and called me “ostentatiously puerile” I was made up – her insults were clever, and in one or two instances merited. Because I responded in kind, we became friends.
Shit DOS, props to you for surviving – it sounds worse than some of the stuff I’ve read about English public schools.
I went to a private girls’ school and got bullied because I wanted to do my work, was tall, very slender and couldn’t be arsed teasing and tormenting other people. Since having kids, one with ADHD who gets bullied I’m a complete wolverine and the school dreads an email or phone call from me but I will not let my kid be teased unmercifully and don’t give a rat’s arse if the faculty don’t like it. Thankfully this year there are two wonderful women in the maths area who have brought the tormentors to task with some really interesting detentions – I’m sure it helps that one is HOD and married to a man with Asperger’s and the 2IC who has a finely honed sense of justice.
Once read:
The mill of God grinds slow but grinds exceeding small.
Maybe some of your former tormentors have been through the mill.
“Maybe some of your former tormentors have been through the mill.”
Not likely.
As I said my observation is that the bullies move on – the bullied are the ones who I have found have a problem later.
Most of the boarders at that time came from quite well off families.
There were not too many of us there on some sort of scholarship.
I was at NPBHS during the early 2000s and can say without a doubt things are much different now. I was never a border but the odd case where younger students were beaten were normally dealt with by expulsion. There is a concerted effort now to stamp out bullying. Of course it still occurs but it is rarely tolerated.
I was never a border [sic!]
Maybe some extra study at night with the boarders might have taught you how to spell.
There is a concerted effort now to stamp out bullying. [sic!]
Stamping out bullying is like screwing for virginity. (I know, I know, but it’s still a good one…)
Yes I went to a very white “school of reputation” in the early 80’s as a boarder and was bullied mercilessly there. Though it was mostly verbal rather than physical abuse I think this is what actually causes the most harm. A broken bone can heal in a bit of time, but a broken spirit? It completely fucked up my life, making me depressed (undiagnosed and untreated for much of that time) from the age of 14 to the age of 42 and with severe anxiety issues that still continue.
The bullying was an accepted by teachers and pupils as part of the culture of the school. They probably did view it as character building. And perhaps it could have been, had it been evenly and fairly shared around, but it wasn’t. That’s not how bullying works. The most vulnerable people are identified and 95% of the bullying is directed at that 2% of the children. Look at our shameful youth suicide rate and I am sure you will find most of them are that unfortunate 2%.
The irony is that my parents scrimped and saved to send me there because it was supposedly a “good school”!
+1+1Tony P,
“Education is a partnership but unfortunately at the moment media and political comment sees it as a one way street with the everything stacked against teachers.”
Education is a partnership where everyone should be working to support our children – not trying to knock spots of each other (the adults that is.)
Have just seen Descendant of Smith’s ghastly story have never heard the like . I taught in some tough schools in England through the seventies and eighties and I have never encountered such a litany of horror. My colleagues and I were always on the lookout for any bullying behaviour and took grounds duty very, very seriously and there were quite a few of us in large schoools so students always had back up and support. I haven’t seen as much support in New Zealand, especially in primary schools and some intermediate schools appear to be a bit tough on the children. I put it down to the “laid back Kiwi attitude”, but I must say I felt a bit sorry for the children having little adult supervision in large grounds. However I realise I have only seen and experienced some schools, both as a teacher and a parent.
I sent my brother “Boy” the Christmas before last ( he went to quite a tough British school ) and he said how sad and angry it had made him. Descendant of Smith’s story has made me feel very very sad and sickened too. Children should never have to go through this. Thank God you came out the other side DOS, I am so sorry this happened to you in what was meant to be a safe and becoming place.
Q and A on now, RussNorm and Crafar discussion – could be interesting..
Not served well for was is meant to pass as “serious tv” are we!
What about the CNN/WAR/Israeli/Romney shill spewing the CNN lines. ” I don’t think people shouild underestimate Romney”!
“In short, the rise of China”
The nodding moron hosting – What a joke!
“NZ should be a haven, of capital and people, and be more business friendly”
TVNZ having this blatant shill for globalism and neo-liberal clap trap is a disgrace!
The nodding moron, just keeps nodding along!
http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=671:bombing-osirak-burying-un-resolution-487-an-exchange-with-the-bbcs-jonathan-marcus&catid=25:alerts-2012&Itemid=69
March 06, 2012
Bombing Osirak, Burying UN Resolution 487 – An Exchange With The BBC’s Jonathan Marcus
On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli aircraft bombed the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor ten miles southeast of Baghdad. Ten Iraqis and one French civilian were killed. In his book State of Denial, journalist Bob Woodward argued that the raid intensified Iraq’s nuclear programme:
‘Israeli intelligence were convinced that their strike… had ended Saddam’s program. Instead [it prompted] covert funding for a nuclear program code-named “PC3” involving 5,000 people testing and building ingredients for a nuclear bomb…’ (Woodward, State of Denial, Simon & Schuster, 2006, p.215)
In response to the attack, UN Security Council Resolution 487 was passed 15-0, on June 19, 1981, with no-one opposing and no-one abstaining – not even the United States. It is worth quoting the Resolution at some length:
‘Fully aware of the fact that Iraq has been a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since it came into force in 1970, that in accordance with that Treaty Iraq has accepted IAEA safeguards on all its nuclear activities, and that the Agency has testified that these safeguards have been satisfactorily applied to date,
‘Noting furthermore that Israel has not adhered to the non-proliferation Treaty…
‘Considering that, under the terms of Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”,
‘1. Strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct;
‘2. Calls upon Israel to refrain in the future from any such acts or threats thereof;
‘3. Further considers that the said attack constitutes a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime which is the foundation of the non-proliferation Treaty;
‘4. Fully recognizes the inalienable sovereign right of Iraq, and all other States, especially the developing countries, to establish programmes of technological and nuclear development to develop their economy and industry for peaceful purposes in accordance with their present and future needs and consistent with the internationally accepted objectives of preventing nuclear-weapons proliferation;
‘5. Calls upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards;
‘6. Considers that Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel…’
Readers may be wondering why they have not seen or heard more about Resolution 487 during a period of intense speculation that Israel might launch a similar attack, involving the same violation of international law, on Iran. We can all, of course, remember the endless political and media references to UN Resolutions 1441 and 687, said to be relevant to the US-UK attack on Iraq in March 2003. The likes of Tony Blair and Jack Straw never stopped reminding the public of their crucial significance. We will return to media coverage of Osirak and Resolution 487 below.
‘Getting There’ – An Exchange With Jonathan Marcus
Last week, the BBC published an article by Defence Correspondent Jonathan Marcus under the title, ‘How Israel might strike at Iran’ (Subsequently altered to, ‘How Iran might respond to Israeli attack’).
Like a tourist guide, the piece listed Israeli aircraft under the banner ‘Getting There – Aircraft, Details, Task’ and identified ‘Potential targets’, including Iranian nuclear energy facilities (as discussed in our previous alert, there is currently no evidence that Iran is even planning to attempt to build a nuclear weapon).
The nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz is a clear target. Marcus commented: ‘The facility is underground, making bunker-busting munitions essential.’
The military site at Parchin was also mentioned:
‘IAEA inspectors were prevented from visiting the site in February 2012 as they sought to clarify the “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear programme.’
In an article also published last week titled, ‘How the media got the Parchin story wrong,’ investigative journalist Gareth Porter wrote that ‘explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA and the language of the new IAEA report indicate that Iran did not reject an IAEA visit to the base per se but was only refusing access as long as no agreement had been reached with the IAEA governing the modalities of cooperation’.
Porter added:
‘But not a single major news media report has reported the significant difference between initial media coverage on the Parchin access issue and the information now available from the initial IAEA report and Soltanieh [Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh].’
Returning to the BBC analysis, the ‘Task’ for each Israeli weapon system was described. However, when it came to Iranian defences, instead of ‘Task’, Marcus used the word ‘Threat’, thus presenting the imagined conflict from an Israeli perspective. Of course the Iranians might well perceive Israeli ‘Tasks’ as ‘Threats’. The media monitoring website News Unspun noted the biased language, complaints followed, and the BBC changed ‘Threat’ to ‘Efficacy’.
On February 27, we wrote to Jonathan Marcus about his article:
Hi Jonathan
Regarding this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17115643
Presumably the legal issues surrounding an Israeli attack, and the possibility of major civilian casualties, don’t merit a mention. Amazing to see such a close copy of the ‘toys for boys’ journalism that preceded the war on Iraq, which claimed 100,000s, perhaps a million, human lives. That ought to be sobering.
Best wishes
David Edwards
Marcus responded the same day:
Well that I suppose sounds an incisive point but when I am asked by my editors to write a military assessment of Israel’s capacities to carry out such a mission, I speak to the air power experts and write the piece.
There are indeed many other aspects to this story and I am sure they are being coveted and will be covered extensively over the coming weeks and months.
This is not “toys for boys”- go to a wargaming exhibition if you want that – this is a military analysis – nothing more, nothing less.
JM
Further exchanges took place on the same day:
Thanks Jonathan. You wrote:
‘Only a few days ago, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, said that an Israeli attack would not be prudent. Such a strike, he said, “would be destabilising and would not achieve their long-term objectives”.’
What’s the difference between citing a US general on the imprudent nature of a strike and citing an expert on international law on the illegal nature of a strike? Dempsey was talking about political consequences – it ‘would be destabilising’ – which could also justify mention of possible civilian casualties, which would certainly be destabilising.
As an independent journalist, you could include this material, or suggest it to your editors for inclusion, or protest if they took it out.
Best
David
Marcus replied:
The piece dealt with the subject that was requested, which is why the General was quoted. Indeed there would have been a prominent USAF general (retd) cited in the piece but he was not able to respond in time, though that probably wouldn’t have made you any happier.
The other issues you mention, not least the legality of such a strike, were not the issue here. I daresay that I will probably be asked to do something on that subject in due course.
While discussing military matters the piece did not give any sense that this would be an easy nor an un-problematic undertaking. Indeed one of the people interviewed gave a pretty blunt view of the desirability of such an attack.
Your glib toys for boys reference annoyed me since I think it rather betrays your own prejudices. The freedoms you and I enjoy – me to broadcast what I believe is a fair assessment – and you to write in and criticise it – were maintained by “boys with toys” as you call them.
Your implication is that the piece is in some sense “war-mongering” which I entirely disagree with – for all I know you may be a battle-scarred recipient of the VC – but I have in the past seen some fighting reasonably close-up. It is not pleasant. But I know what wars are about and – if I may speak personally for a moment – have no enthusiasm for them.
That’s it – you’ve had my two responses (on my day off as well – there’s public service). You should be glorying in the fact that we have a BBC and especially the World Service – celebrating its 80th birthday this year), rather than always carping and complaining. But you are of course entitled to your opinion, as I am to provide my informed assessment.
Regards
JM
We responded:
Thanks Jonathan. Sorry if you were annoyed by the ‘toys for boys’ comment. I meant to suggest that it is wrong and dangerous to discuss military possibilities as a kind of technical issue distinct from political and humanitarian concerns. As I mentioned, you did refer to political issues, but you haven’t explained why these were included when the related issues of legality and possible civilian casualties were not.
In his analysis of obedience in modern society, the psychologist Stanley Milgram remarked on the growing ‘tendency of the individual to become so absorbed in the narrow technical aspects of the task that he loses sight of its broader consequences,’ such that he ‘entrusts the broader tasks of setting goals and assessing morality to the… authority he is serving’. (Milgram, Obedience to Authority, Pinter & Martin, 1974, p.25)
It seems to me that your piece was an example of what Milgram was warning against. He pointed out that, finally – regardless of what is ‘requested’ of us – we are all morally responsible for our own actions. If BBC editors ask for a purely technical analysis of a possible future conflict, they should be resisted.
Best wishes
David
Marcus replied:
There will be a follow up piece later this week looking at at least of the issues you raise. this one happily was the most looked at page today so there is clearly interest.
I am not going to get into the sociology of the media – It gives me indigestion.
JM’
We answered:
That’s good to hear, thanks.
Best
David
We didn’t mean we were glad to hear that ‘sociology’ gives Marcus indigestion. We were grateful for his lengthy, if somewhat gruff, responses. He deserves credit for responding at all (so many BBC journalists do not). We look forward to his article ‘looking at at least [some?] of the issues’ we raised. If he mentions Osirak, and especially Resolution 487, he will have reinvented himself as a media outlier.
So how extraordinary would a Marcus mention of these issues be? Recall that June 7, 2011 marked the 30th anniversary of Israel’s historic raid on Osirak – the world’s first attack on a nuclear facility. And yet the LexisNexis media search engine records just eight mentions of Osirak in all UK national newspapers in the last 12 months. On the day of the anniversary itself, the attack was mentioned in single-sentence, ‘On this day in history’ comments in the free London newspaper Metro and in the Paisley Daily Express. The words ‘Osirak’ and ‘Resolution 487’ produced zero results for all available dates in all print media.
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[Normally we’d prefer a shorter explanation and a link over an excessively long cut and paste like this. Try not to make a habit of it…RL]
Rena disaster not studied
Unlike the the Gulf of Mexico, New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty hasn’t had any comprehensive study into the environmental effects from the Rena disaster.
This is outrageous considering the Rena was also carrying large amounts of dangerous chemicals, with the cumulative toxic effects likely to cause damage to the environment for many years to come…
NZ, perceived least corrupt country!
Just don’t investigate, cos then it never happened eh!
muzza our public service is rated as the least corrupt by international ratings agencies !
But our business sector is rated as one of the most corrupt by international agencies!
Do you have a link for this claim?
I find the claim about New Zealand businesses impossible to believe.
Which International agencies and when did they say it?
I don’t – NZ managers tend to be some of the most incompetent in the world after all.
Especially since many of our best and brightest have frakked off too countries which will value their labour and innovation.
His claim wasn’t about the competence or otherwise on NZ Managers.
He claimed that New Zealand businesses were CORRUPT.
That is the thing I find very hard to believe.
The problem that I’ve seen over and again is that we consistently promote the wrong people into management. The same mistakes get made over and over:
1. We confuse extrovert behavior and having a loud mouth, the ability to verbally bully or push people about… with leadership.
2. At the same time we promote -yes-men who we know won’t rock the boat or threaten the people at the top.
3. We confuse ‘management’ with ‘leadership’. We don’t train or mentor people properly in the skills needed to be a good leader.
4. Too often we fail to realise that the people at the top set the moral and behavioural standards and for this reason we promote people who fall short in this respect.
5. And far too often we DON”T promote the right people because they are too skilled and valuable doing what they are at present.
Only about 1/3 of all the many, many ‘managers’ I’ve met in my life really should have been in the job. The rest were either well-meaning amateurs at best, ditherers and road-blockers… or psychopathic arseholes whose sole purpose in life was to exploit their organisational power to torment their victims.
It may be tempting but a sale to China will not be in our best interests long term.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/crafar-farm-sale-threatens-sovereignty.html
Pete George you have placed this comment on another blog
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2012/04/general_debate_8_april_2012.html#comment-953319
What do you mean here Pete George? How does this fit in with your antiviolence line when the comment you have put up seems to incite difference and fear, all of which can lead to violence against ‘others’ in extreme cases. Haven’t you just contributed to a “culture of violence”.
That guy really is delusional. Especially this bit:
The US is an empire on the defensive and in decline. The BRICS nations will hold the balance of power within the next 10 years.
Pete you left off us gays. We’re after your marriages of course. We’ll also take your cake decorating.
I didn’t want to stir them up too much there.
Have you seen that Whale has been posting a lot abou equal marriage rights?
You can have your own marriage, as far as I am concerned. Leave mine alone. :-).
You can have the cake decorating too.
It the bankers and neo-libs taking over our laws. Can’t see any of the regressive laws being enacted as having any Islamic influence what-so-ever.
How the fuck you extrapolate that to Muslims is beyond me.
You might also like to consider the Islamic notion of not charging interest on loans.
Islam allows only one kind of loan and that is qard-el-hassan (literally good loan) whereby the lender does not charge any interest or additional amount over the money lent.
What’s apparent the more you open your mouth (albeit via your keyboard) the more you come across as a right wing bigoted conservative.
@Descendant of Smith. That is horrific, and I hope that kids these days are more likely to tell their parents or teachers, who would hopefully believe them and take action against the bullies (not the victims as still happens). It is important to speak up as others being bullied then feel they are not alone. Boys high decile schools are particularly prone to endemic bullying. Also hope you got some counselling, as bullying is similar to other PTSDs in its long term affects on the victims.
I don’t mind speaking out about it and it helps others when I have.
In the end I was pretty resilient and have had no long term effects apart from further developing an already held social conscience and a dislike for bullying, the abuse of power and hypocrisy.
Some of the other kids suffered, including running away.
I remember somewhat coming across a man in his 70’s who still got unspeakably angry when he thought of what had happened to him at the same school many years earlier.
That’s why Pete and others of his ilk are wrong when they talk about how great it was in the old days and that this generation is more violent.
Like to ability to rape your spouse this sort of behaviour was condoned and accepted, as was the abuse of those with intellectual and psychiatric problems in institutions.
Anyone who has worked with many of the people who were previously institutionalised – including within orphanages – knows the damage that some of these people had done to them.
The right wing notion is that everyone can be resilient and pull themselves up by their bootstraps is so abhorrent – many can – many cannot.
I’ve been making this observation for years and have had many arguments over this with those from earlier generations who seem to have very rose tinted glassless.
It was interesting to have this view re-inforced recently when coming across this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/0670022950
The question that should always be asked is in who’s interest is it to have both a fearful population and to convey that it’s your fault if you can’t get your shit together?
That’s why Pete and others of his ilk are wrong when they talk about how great it was in the old days and that this generation is more violent.
Not my ilk, I often argue against those who say things like we should go back to how things were in the 50s. Redbaiter used to say we should go back to education as it was in about 1905.
I doubt a general population anywhere at any time in history has had things as good as we do right now. Plenty of room for improvement yet but actual wellbeing and opportunity-wise even the bottom 10% are better off then the bottom 90% a hundred years ago. Better than everyone healthwise and for life expectancy.
I would be surprised if health stats and cause of death stats for NZ 100 years ago are as reliable as todays – so not as easy as you make it look to make comparisons.
What is certain though is that some diseases, particularly the non-infectious diseases, are on the rise in NZ. Obesity, diabetes type 2, high blood pressure, bowel cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, lymphoma and others.
There is evidence from population studies that the western diet and lifestyle are responsible in some way (the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor focuses on genetic predispositions – but diet and lifestyle are crucial – and more amenable to goverbmnet action – asssuming we have finally discarded the eugenics based options).
Yet another example of feeding at the trough – http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6709307/MPs-question-top-heavy-pay-scale-at-TVNZ
I was very impressed this week by the performance and straight to the point style of Green’s Julie Anne Genter taking on Brownlee of transport issues. This style is also evident in her comments quoted in this article , eg
“The numbers show the the top people are paid 50 times more than those staffing security or doing the cleaning,” Genter said. “It’s an example of what is happening in New Zealand. People who are earning the most are earning so much more than others. Are they really worth it? And is it economically and socially sustainable?”
It is also interesting to note that in the article she is quoted before Claire Curran …..
But I divert from the subject matter of the article itself.
Seen this folks?
More progress on the ‘draft ACTION PLAN against ‘white collar’ crime, corruption and ‘corporate welfare’!
WHERE’S THE ‘REGISTER OF INTERESTS’ FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES AND STAFF (INCLUDING CONSULTANTS) RESPONSIBLE FOR PROCUREMENT AND PROPERTY?
How can the public be confident that there are no untoward ‘conflicts of interest’ between those responsible for giving and those who receive private sector contracts for ‘goods, services and people’ at local government level?
How come, in New Zealand, ‘perceived’ to be the ‘least corrupt country in the world’ there isn’t already this framework for genuine ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government?
Why should citizens and ratepayers pay rates – when the ‘books’ aren’t open – we don’t know exactly where our money is going, and we don’t know if it’s going to private sector consultants/contractors who may be mates / family or associates of local government elected representatives or employees responsible for procurement and property?
How can ‘conflicts of interest’ be avoided/ minimised – if interests aren’t DECLARED, and ‘Registers of Interest’ made publicly available?
Good enough for central government elected representatives – why not local government elected representatives?
Next step – ‘Registers of Interest’ for ALL those responsible for awarding contracts and responsible for procurement and property……
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/latest-edition/6707897/Call-for-end-to-council-secrecy
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
waterpressure@gmail.com
Go, Penny – well done! IMO if people want to run for and get elected to local councils, then they must be prepared to have their interests out in the open. Ditto, high level council staff.
Not worth having your entire personal financials exposed to public scrutiny for a measley $40K-$50K pa for a 3 year term. Which is the ball park that a lot of these councillor positions pay.
In other words, this proposal is a good way to put people off from bothering to stand for local government.
Now if there was a direct conflict of interest around a matter which was being considered – yes in that case it makes sense to require the publishing of relevant financial holdings, for someone else to independently vet the decision making process, or to allow the councillor to recuse themselves from the discussion.
That’s ok, we probably don’t want those people in government anyway.
Penny
I agree. Will advocate to my fellow elected representatives and will see where we go to.
‘Notorious hacktivist group Anonymous has taken down the UK Home Office website. The group took responsibility for the attack, saying in their tweet it was launched for ‘draconian surveillance proposals.’
‘British security agencies are pushing for a law which would allow police to monitor text messages, phone calls and emails of their citizens, as well as websites visited, Facebook and Twitter exchanges, and even online game chats. More than $3 billion over the first decade alone is the extraordinary sum the British taxpayer may have to pay to be legally spied upon should the bill be passed.’
http://rt.com/news/anonymous-cyber-attack-uk-521/
The USA Senate is trying to sneak in a similar bill re the internet.
Cant be too long until it will include in-home surveillance and then monitoring of all thoughts.
I wonder how long Paul Douglas will remain a Republican.
the http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-douglas/republican-climate-change_b_1374900.html
If our power companies become privatised, how can the government make sustainable energy a national priority without impinging on private interests? http://bit.ly/HrO6oS
They can’t but you’ll find that’s true of damn near everything – banking especially. Leaving it to private profiteers will always shaft the community.
And to me that’s more reason than any to keep power companies in public ownership so we can hopefully get some real leadership on energy policy.