John Key overnight displayed his stunning diplomacy credentials by saying while in China, North Korea’s only remaining ally, that New Zealand has a long and proud history of coming to the support of South Korea and taken to the extreme, and without interventions and resolutions to the issues, war is of course possible.
I am sure that such an approach is the best one to take to North Korea.
The only word I can think of to describe Key is “Knucklenead”.
Listened to 15min’ of radio rantland’s Hoskings this morning. Seriously unintelligent, the dog whistling, disrepecting other countries situations with his biased rantings it was depressing after an hour of the BBC as a contrast.
He slagged off india for not protecting Novartis’s ‘right’ to profiteer off a drug they want made more widely available to their people making a sweeping assumption that it spells the end for new drug research and then made a ‘wha wha wha’ sneering overlay of a UK Labour members crtique of Cameron’s latest welfare austerity moves.
Thinking of how his target audience would be going ‘yeah Mike you’re so onto it’ made it even more depressing.
Read the transcript to that interview this am, if anything it probably indicates that some interveiwers are now at the point (under instruction) where they are going to try and pressure Shearer into the inevitable ums and ahhs as well as various other contridictions to make him look bad.
If you look at it from that perspective she didn’t do a bad job and I would say that there will be worse to come from certain sections of the media undoubtably the acid test for Shearers ability to expouse policy and ideas in public starts now.
She thinks in black and white terms (typical Tory mode) and adopts an adversarial approach where the interviewer pushes a simple line that is the polar opposite to the interviewee’s view even when that line is already shown to be less than accurate or downright false. Example: at one point she defends Key’s forgetfulness as being normal and points out she forgets things too as if that exonerates him… even though it’s clear to anyone with only half a brain that he’s been lying through his teeth.
In the world that Susan Wood revolves in and earns in, high income is a reality. How does this money paid to Wood match our PM’s? She feels she has the right to fire verbal bullets at politicians whose positions are far more vulnerable than hers. She probably has listened to Mary Wilson on Radionz evenings Checkpoint, but Mary tries to reveal facts and the substance of the problem, while Susan sees herself as a fracking tool opening any crack she can find and blasting murky thoughts in to the gap.
Determination of Employment Relations Authority 7 November 2005
B. The Authority declares that Susan Marie Wood’s entitlement to a present salary of $450,000.00 will expire on 31 December 2005. Television New Zealand Limited is not permitted to impose a new salary as from 1 January 2006 without Susan Marie Wood’s consent. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0511/S00122.htm
Uproar in New Zealand Over TV Anchors’ Salaries http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0940022/news
17 November 2005 | Studio Briefing – Film News | See recent Studio Briefing – Film News news »
Two of Television New Zealand’s top news anchors have disappeared from the screen and the state-owned network’s CEO has quit following government efforts to cut salaries of leading personalities. One of the anchors, Judy Bailey, had been a fixture on the network for nearly 18 years, earning an annual salary of $550,000. Susan Wood, host of a current affairs show, had been earning $307,000. Revelation of their salaries had caused a public outcry, Bloomberg News reported today (Thursday). It quoted Paul Norris, who was TV New Zealand’s news director from 1987-94, as saying, “Ordinary members of the public just can’t comprehend how someone could be worth that much” for being a TV anchor.
The figures are puny compared with those for their U.S. counterparts. Katie Couric reportedly earns $15 million per year. Newly installed NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams reportedly earns $5 million annually. »
DS needs some media training, the Woods of this world are easily shown for the agenda peddling monkeys they are with some quality media training.
No umm’s err’s, pauses show authority and thought, when you’re intterupted you stop, smile and then resume answering the question regardless of the interuption.
The union women said, on the panel of Q&A, that shutting the smelter would costs jobs, taxes and economic activity. She was then completely ignored by the three others. The Industry talking head just pooh pooh any idea, making no comment on economics, energy, but just railed that anyone who questioned neo-liberal orthodoxy. What’s the point in having a panel if they don’t address the substance, that the dam was built to supply jobs to south land, that the smelter was attached for this purpose, that China obvious can hammer any part of our economy at will, and National have exactly nothing and no willingness to stand up for NZ. Bend over, how far, Key makes another jibe about how NZ is not worthy for any kind of standard that the world believes promotes good governance. Q&A still sucks.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 4
thirdly that there should be support through a contributory principle for people putting into the system as well as taking out
That seems to fit with Beveridge’s view that the rich should have larger child allowances to encourage them to breed (not that the fact that they are already rich shows that money isn’t the problem with low birth rates) and a lesser rate to discourage the poor from breeding. In the end the government of the day rejected Beveridge’s view and instituted a universal child allowance – fitting with their belief in a universal unemployment benefit.
Show some guts Harriet. You gave the reasons why this is wrong, but still came out in support of it.
Thanks for these links. This bit from the Byrne piece:
Third, we must do more to strengthen the old principle of contribution: there are lots of people right now who feel they pay an awful lot more in than they ever get back. That should change. We should start by letting councils give priority in social housing allocations to those who work and contribute to their community.
Rather than divide and rule, we believe Britain can only overcome the enormous challenges we face if all of us – from top to bottom – play our part.
Contradictory, much.
I was suspicious of Miliband’s “One Nation” stuff from the start. And the idea that pay-outs should reflect contributions is based on a very individualistic notion and ignores unequal access to work, etc. It also seems to think that continuting to capitalist profits is magically always and the only ways people contribute to society. I t ignores that the middleclasses benefit most from the state funded and/or managed systems (education, health, etc).
Agree karol. It was always a little bit middle england.
I’d seriously like to know what happened to ‘from each according to ability to each according to need’ I wonder if our labour party has views on this.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 4.1.1.1.1
From each according to ability to each according to need is a slogan popularised by Marx. In case you hadn’t noticed, his policy platform has not been widely endorsed since the big experiment in implementing it caused misery and death to millions and collapsed in a screaming heap.
So Marx puts in to a pithy little phrase a principle that churches, charities and Labour parties, among others, think is important. That phrase brought down the Soviet Union? Righteo, then.
I could care less if Tory party members thought the rich should get more of the taxpayer dollars than the poor, but this is a L.a.b.o.u.r party saying it. To be worthy of that name they need to be looking out for the poor, broken workers, those unable to work, and their families as well as the fully capable workers. It’s not even that they’re looking at universal benefits (universal vs. targeted benefits is a discussion worth having), they’re looking at more money being spent on people who earn more.
A Labour party… when did they ever support the rich getting more? /sarc. This is moving the principle of taxpayers funding big business ahead of SMEs into the domestic sphere.
And on that point, linking the funding of this policy with taxing bankers bonuses? Sheesh there is so much wrong with making that connection I don’t know where to start. Apart from the idea that bankers shouldn’t be getting bonuses of such a size.
* “The women that we feature in the magazine are ornamental. That is how we see them.”
* “I could lie to you and say we’re interested in their brains as well, but on the whole, we’re not. They’re there to be beautiful objects. They’re objectified.”
* “One of the things men like is picture of pretty girls. So we provide them with pictures of pretty girls … We also provide them with pictures of cool cars, or whatever. It’s a thing that you might want to look at.”
* “We’re at least, or possibly more, ethnically diverse [than other magazines]. More shape-diverse. We also have older women. Not really old, but in their 40s… Cameron Diaz was on the cover three issues ago. She’s in her 40s.”
Bilmes also said his magazine was “more honest” than women’s magazines, which contain negative images of women.”
Editor (soon to be ex?) from Esquire magazine during a panel discussion on feminism in the media. I’d rate him as not quite as diplomatic as John Key.
Just had a look through the attached bloglists,
The Daily Blog does not seem to be in the sidebars, nor does the Civilian, which both seem to be proving popular since their arrival
I was fuzzy about the North Korea situation and have learned this morning that they have been begging, even demanding the USA, for a peace treaty to be signed and the USA has refused. It almost sounds that North Korea has been maneouvring around being nuclear or not as a way of bringing pressure on USA to legitimise their country’s status. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/asia/12korea.html?_r=0
The Prime Minister has been criticised for commenting on the prospect of war with North Korea and New Zealand’s potential role, at a delicate time. Former Victoria University academic, Tim Beal is an expert on Asian politics and business, and is the author of two books on North Korea. He is also a member of New Zealand’s DPRK Society. (13′26″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon
It seems to me, after listening to the facts about North Korea, that intelligent, strategic thinking NZs should open up a relationship with North Korea such as was done with China when it was the badlands. We had Rewi Alley and others go to China very early on.
Power games by big countries’ defence oligarchs will only bring a greater shadow of unhappiness and fear to us all.
[Robert] Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, that he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
I very much doubt that the US professional military have any interest whatsoever in waging a war on the Korean peninsula, only a thousand or so km’s from both China and from Russia.
[Robert] Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, that he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.
QFT
And that is exactly what representative democracy is for. To prevent actual democracy and to leave the rich in power.
Well why exactly should anyone continue to reward North Korea’s ridiculous policy of rattling their nuclear sabre every time they want something instead of engaging with the rest of the world? That just encourages other states to see nukes as a legitimate diplomatic tool, which is fucked. Fuck them.
Also the difference between New Zealand’s early detante with China and the probability of doing something similar with North Korea, is that China’s leadership post-Mao has not been batshit insane.
“Well why exactly should anyone continue to reward North Korea’s ridiculous policy of rattling their nuclear sabre every time they want something instead of engaging with the rest of the world?”
It certainly works for the United States and Israel. Why should the North Koreans act any differently?
NOTE: My question is meant to stimulate serious discussion; it is not directed at this “Populuxe1” creature, who I do not believe is capable of answering it intelligently.
Go boil your head you poseur. If you can pinpoint a single instance since the Cold War that the US has threatened ANYONE with a non-retaliatory nuclear attack, I will be amazed. The possibility was raised during the Vietnam conflict, but thankfully we haven’t taken the path of naturalising nuclear weapons as part of warfare. As for Israel, you can’t really threaten a nuclear strike against someone unless you actually go so far as to admit having nuclear weapons – which we all know they have and they know we know etc etc, but still haven’t come out and said they have the capability.
Basically you are a pretentious moron pretending to academic titles you obviously aren’t worthy of, so shove it up your arse.
The seppos have often said “All options are on the table.” Coming from the only country that’s ever used nuclear weapons in anger, that could be construed as nuclear sabre rattling. I believe MacArthur was keen to nuke China during the Korean War, although he was told he didn’t speak for the government. The fact is that nukes are used as a diplomatic tool, even if not specifically mentioned. The threat is always implicit.
interestingly, the US “decides” to delay ICBM test from West Coast…hmmm, not wanting to create any “mis-perceptions” while the last heard was “We don’t know exactly where the North Koreans have located those two missiles”. lol (well, it is not funny really, but then…sigh). NK (and the updated retaliatory policy, lower echelon decision-making by the SK military enabled etc, may cause a lot of casualties before they call elevenses.)
I suppose you could make the argument that the mere existence of nuclear weapons, hell, the knowledge that such weapons can be created, is an implicit threat. I choose to deploy Occam’s Razor than do a Jesuit’s dance with the aleph null of angels on the head of a pin.
As are your pissy little retorts because you insist on playing the man instead of the ball because basically you haven’t anything to say but can’t resist trying to get the last word in, not doubt due to some deep-seated insecurity.
Yes, that must be it. I’m the insecure one, the one who needs to prove to everyone else how much I know about US military strategy and tactics in East Asia.
“If you can pinpoint a single instance since the Cold War that the US has threatened ANYONE with a non-retaliatory nuclear attack, I will be amazed.”
U.S. officials often raised the possibility of attacking Vietnam with nuclear weapons. You would know that if you had any familiarity with the Pentagon Papers.
“The possibility was raised during the Vietnam conflict, but thankfully we haven’t taken the path of naturalising nuclear weapons as part of warfare.”
Good, you DID know. So your absurd rhetorical positioning statement is rendered invalid by your following statement. That is impressive, in a grisly, stupid way.
“As for Israel, you can’t really threaten a nuclear strike against someone unless you actually go so far as to admit having nuclear weapons…”
Israel’s armourer and diplomatic protector, the United States, makes no pretence about its client being nuclear-armed. That’s freely admitted by military and State Dept. officials in their official correspondence, where they are honest, and unconcerned with diplomatic ruses.
I have decided to refrain from dealing with the personal comments and recommendations.
You do realise that actual professors don’t usually take the fruity, artificial condescending tone you have adopted, don’t you? I said “threat”, not “considered using” because quite obviously in Vietnam saner heads prevailed (British, as it happens) – actual threat was not made. McArthur certainly did not have the authority to deploy a nuke.
While the US would certanly deploy conventional welfare if Israel was attacked, nothing short of a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv will see them using nukes in that situation.
You are an arse-hat.
While the US would certanly deploy conventional welfare if Israel was attacked, nothing short of a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv will see them using nukes in that situation.
Because you’ve seen the Pentagon’s contingency action plans for a large scale Israeli based conflict? LOL
No, but I’ve seen historical precedence of the United States avoidence of using nuclear weapons – ie, nothing since Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the only major stand off being the Bay of Pigs crisis. I’ve also seen Obama take an unprecentedly strong stance with Israel’s provocative behaviour. That is all rather suggestive of overall strategy.
If you are going to argue that using nukes is response to chemical weapons is retaliatory, then fine. But it’s pretty torturous given the stupidity of the ‘WMD’ classification.
“Maintained the right” is far from being the same thing as “acted on the right” – otherwise large swathes of South East Asia, Central America, and Central Asia would be radioactive slag right now. 9/11 being a case in point, because if anything could be taken as a justification for a nuclear strike, it would be that.
You have been saying that the US doesn’t threaten the use of nukes. Their official doctrine lays out the ways in which they do. For example, Iran and NK are exempt from the we wont’t use them first against non-nuclear states rule.
the only eason that exemptioon is in tehre is to send a signal to those countries that nukes are on the table. Does that mean they will be the first thing used, or even used at all in a conflict? No.
But it does mean that their use is being signaled as an option. The docrtrine is about sending signals, which is why it is public. The signal sent to those countries is, we might use them against you. That’s a threat, no?
Funnily enough, it is suddenly beneficiary bashing time over at Kiwiblog. If the best evidence of a bad harvest in North Korea is images of smiling farmers, then surely for all the Kremlinologists out there an attack on beneficiaries is the best evidence we have yet that all of the recent carry on has dented Key’s popularity.
The unusual salad was one of the offerings at what organizers believe is the first U.S. market devoted to wild food and herbs, a kind of non-farmer’s market that will be held monthly in the town near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
A similar weekly market is scheduled to open next month in Asheville, making North Carolina the latest hot spot in the growing movement toward eating food foraged from forests and fields rather than cultivated on farms.
The trend has gained cachet among foodies, with dishes featuring everything from exotic mushrooms found deep in forests to humble dandelions that are the scourge of suburban lawns. Foraging tours have cropped up across the country and farm-to-table dinners are giving way to forage-to-table affairs.
I once read an article that asserted (yes, asserted) that there was more food in a hectare of healthy forest than there was in a hectare of farm land. The problem was that people didn’t know what was food and what wasn’t.
Heard that a few times over the last few years. Magic Mushrooms and LSD are looking to be better treatment for depression and other mental illnesses than the normal drugs but the research is hampered by the laws making them illegal.
We now have “foreign” Kiwis in control of the three biggest political parties, the Reserve bank and the Secret Service! Just think about that for a moment!
Yup, these people are identified, some earlier than others, they are then rinsed on the global scene in various ways, through various *institutions*, and returned to their country or origin, complete with back stories etc at the ready for an easy sell to joe public!
Kiwis lap it up, cos we’re so, you know, well heeled and cosmopolitan in our global interconnectedness!
from the Dom;
MOH: “effectiveness of rheumatic fever campaign questioned in report evaluating first 18 months; according to frontline health professionals, there needs to be a focus on over-crowded, damp housing., poverty and access to medical care”, else when the project money runs out, little impact into incidence.
meanwhile, in Dads Army, Commodore Keats is alleged to have made a false declaration on an SIS security clearance form (Sackable offence Sadly; Not!) and the C.D.S Jones charged with “inaction”, Captain suh! Suh!
locally, “experienced one-man-band builders” leaving the industry, to alternative occupations with regular pay as building activity remains sluggish. (send them to the Southern Front, Commandant Brownlee / Major Bennett; not what their country can do for them…)
wasser, wasser everywhere…”Ground-water levels in the Heretaunga and Ruataniwha basins and Tukituki river at there lowest ever recorded levels”. (could be the Ruataniwha Storage “Puddle” by the time its built) 😉
15:7 Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.
secret: Agent. man.” A person (or other being, HLM etc,) who is the subject when there is action. A long history attaches to thinking of the property of being an agent as, a) possessing a capacity to choose between options and ,b) being able to do what one chooses (things sure have gone downhill since the Atheneum). Agency is then treated as a causal power.
While Ryle’s attack on “volitions” served as a distraction, despite what he attempted to demonstrate, it seems undeniable that bodily action has a first-person aspect.
Furthermore, some recent writings attempt to rehabilitate the phenomenology of agency. O’Shaughnessy’s “dual aspect theory” for example, brings out the importance of a acheiving a view of action in which a third-person and first-person perspective are both incorporated yet neither is exaggerated.
A range of theses hold that the concept of agency, which human beings acquire in their experience of agency, is prior (in one, or another sense) to the concept of causality. And, in the pre-modern world, causation in the absence of of human action was typically construed either as divine action, or as the action of an object whose nature it was to realize certain ends.
Reid 😉 claimed that the idea of cause and effect in nature must be arrived at by analogy, from the relation between an active power (of which human agency is a species) and its products.
Brian O’Shaughnessy, “The Will” 2 vols : Cambridge 1980…to be sure…to be sure.
Those knuckleheads at the herald are comparing John Key’s statements on the 73% pay rise for the Mighty River directors with his statements on the campaign to raise the low wages of carers in rest homes.
Key thinks one of these pay rises is a sensible and realistic move while the other would be nice but people must accept that these are tough times.
Yes I can. I imagine dear young naive Judy will soon be called into the Editor’s Office and have explained to her that what she has written is not the way things are done at the Herald.
even ghosts have to do house-work on Monday mornings, akrasia, I know, clean the bathroom, sweep and mop the floors, take out the rubbish; “Socrates questioned whether one could ever deliberately, when able to follow either course, choose the worse, due to being overcome by fear, pleasure, LUST, etc-i.e. whether akrasia could occur, thus setting the problem as, a)how can we act against what reason dictates? and , b) how can we act against our view of what we take as good? Socrates answered that we cannot. Fortunately, Aristotle and others following him thought Socrates ignored the obvious facts. They contrasted reason and the pursuit of the good with motivation by passion. This involved denying the Socratic view that all deliberate action is aimed at what the agent considers best.
There grew up a tendency to ally virtue with the exercise of reason, in opposition to passion with its relatively short-term considerations: and to see akrasia as a moral problem, the question of its existence as one of ethics.
Back in the good ol’ pre-enlightenment Middle Ages, account had to be given of how the Devil, without passion, could deliberately go wrong; Aquinas tried to account for this as an error of reason, Scotus as a case of the will freely choosing a good, but one it should not choose. Passion-free akrasia had arrived.
The puzzle, if there is one, arises even where a contrast between reason and something else is hard to make out: Hamlet is an interesting case. Here it arises because the agent seems to favour a course of action which he then does not take, without apparently ceasing to favour it. Neither passion nor short-term considerations are an essential factor. The puzzle is unforced action against apparently sincere declarations of opposition to it.
That reason does not always dictate intentional action seems to follow from the fact that if there is no common standard for judging between two objectives, or there is, but reason cannot determine that one is to be preferred to the other by that standard, then the agent (the will) must be free to choose either way. If, in the case of wrongdoing, there is no over-arching standard for choosing between the moral good and some other objective, then the will has to choose between standards, without the help of reason. The will may be overcome by passion (be less than strong), but in the absence of passion is just evil when it chooses the worse course.
This view of the will can be de-moralized by attaching it to long-term objectives generally, or to reflective choice. Yet, there are many problems in the whole project of postulating such a rational faculty, which is an unstable structure built too rapidly on some familiar idioms and supposed requirements of experience.”
-Justin Gosling, “Weakness of The Will”: London 1990
soooo, to return to the Hume by-way; reason as the slave of passions! which is a fundamental claim of Hume’s moral psychology,used in his rebuttal of the rationalist pretence that reason can oppose the passions and teach us moral truths: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to be any other office than to serve and obey them”. (Treatise, II.iii.3). In an employment of His “fork”, Hume insists that demonstrative reasoning (for example in mathematics) plainly has no effect in itself on the passions (sadly); and probable reasoning is of significance to the passions only by “directing” our aversion to pain, or our propensity to pleasure, to those things that we take to be causally related to them.”
Spooky stuff, constructs built on sand argued with passion to get to the “truth”. Rationally of course. You have spotted me accusing the local ideologues of no less.
I have found life soooo much easier since submitting to master-teachers. One strong characteristic of many here is the ability to ride; no point in nostalgically, romantically, Living In The Past (unless you belong to an influential Asian or Germanic nation I would suggest) 😉 hence the simplicity of the “two commandments”; Lord keeps testing the Hebrews though; such a mystery. Night.
Chickenhawks are Go! The Panel, Radio NZ National, Monday 8 April 2013
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Tino Pereira
In the preamble to today’s program, the first topic for discussion was the situation in Korea. So far, Stephen Franks has, predictably, sneered at those “sanctimonious” people who have dared to criticize Key’s reckless statements about sending New Zealanders to “defend South Korea”. He has also claimed that it “makes sense” to unilaterally declare your country ready to fight in a nuclear conflict. Interestingly, and predictably, he failed to declare his own readiness to “serve” in the nuclear zone.
Disappointingly, but again predictably, neither Mora nor Noelle McCarthy uttered a word to challenge any of his statements. Perhaps the other guest, Tino Pereira, will have the nous and the courage to say something, but I’m not particularly hopeful.
I have to go out and am going to miss today’s show. Would someone like to have a go at capturing the essence of what these three fellows and their guests say? I’m particularly interested in what Franks will say; it seems he’s in a particularly self-righteous yet insane state of mind.
The Auckland City Mission’s Medical Service has now adopted the philosophy of Work and Income’s Principal Health Advisor Dr David Bratt, who again is a kind of “disciple” of the misguided “bio psycho social model” that Prof. Mansel Aylward (former Chief Med. Officer, DWP) is propagating, to assess and to “assist” sick and disabled back into “suitable” work.
In a document I found via online search today, they (ACM’s Medical Service doctors) are quoting Dr David Bratt out of comments he made to the New Zealand Doctor Magazine in August 2012, using this as “guidance” for how to handle clients they have, who require or request a “medical certificate” to take to WINZ.
They emphasize how bad it is to be on the benefit, quoting Dr Bratt, referring to the benefit to be treated like a “drug”, mention all the bizarre comments Dr Bratt usually gives, to explain that it is now practice to look at what clients “can do” rather than “cannot do”.
The approach of WINZ is kind of not just adopted, it is reinforced, and they make clear, the certificate is now a “Work Capacity Medical Certificate”.
They make clear that their doctors take a FIRM stand on matters, and they make clear, that if clients going to the Mission have drug and alcohol issues, they must prove they attend treatment programs.
That there are few, that they have waiting queues for months, that AA are not that successful with their 12 steps program, and other factors do not seem to matter.
So that is how “compassionate” the City Missioners are now, I’d hate to be out on the street then, having to rely on them for help!
From your link, it looks to me that medical practitioners are following WINZ, and Bennett’s policies and laws. I’m not sure how much leeway they have to go against those.
The Calder Centre is a joint initiative between the Auckland Primary Health Organisation (PHO), Auckland District Health Board and Auckland City Mission to bring primary health care services to the most marginalised Aucklanders, many of whom have extremely high and complex health needs.
So it looks like the ACM does not have unrestricted say in what happens at the Centre.
I’d need more information to see if the ACM is just caving to Bennett, Bratt et al, or if they don’t have much choice.
What appalls me is that they use a letter explaining their processes and approach re issuing Work Capacity Medical Certificates – and putting quotes by biased and extreme Dr David Bratt (from MSD) at the top of it, even making this bizarre comparison with a drug and Medsafe!
Now, I thought that PHOs had more independence in how they operate and deliver services, certainly from any influence by a highly questionable, extreme, biased RHA from the Ministry of Social Development.
…then I would not be surprised that PHOs are now told to tow the line and work with MSD to bring the “results” that they want!
But MSD should be responsible for their services and the Ministry of Health of theirs.
Yet look closely at the ‘Rising to the Challenge’ plan for mental health and addiction services by M.o.H., which can be found via Google search. There it is mentioned that there will be more “coordination of services”.
This is stuff that happens in “autocratic regimes”!
At the bottom of the article they itemise “dumb debt” and “smart debt”.”Under “Dumb Debt”, they have included “unemployment”. Say what? So, of course, people are running around making themselves unemployed so they can …? What? go into debt because there’s something to gain?
And under “smart debt” they put:
Buying appreciating asset such as a house
Yes, well all the smart arses that are doing that are making the rest of us less well off in the long run….. and, ultimately they’ll suffer too. I’d call it selfish and short-sighted more than smart.
“of course, people are running around making themselves unemployed so they can …?”
People are obviously also running around getting sick and having a relationship breakdowns so they can accumulate dumb debt. It’s deliberate I tell ya!
hmmm… MRP “Investors” to pay millions to Tuwharetoa, annually, backdated, for up to the next 30 years (hopefully more), yet Govt concedes “the quantum of payment is not yet known”.
I dont know why David Shearer persists, I listened to him being interviewed by Larry Williams tonight. He is so atrocious there is no way that he could be enjoying what he is doing. He has no innate intelligence so he really just struggles to answer questions. I hate to keep harping on about this but in the end of the day the Left needs to put its best team forward in Nov 2014, Shearer isnt even close.
Harp away. it is a public socio-political forum, and I for one, read the ethereal trails you leave in the cup. (though, your handle always reminds me of SAARS; could be worse, could be Ebola, but as you can see, I’m all fleshed out.)
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It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...
A factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...
“You talking about me?”The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in ...
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ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD).Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits.First published in 2021.All my ...
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With our collective remembrance, and steadfast belief in our common humanity, we strengthen our hope and resolve to do what we can to foster dialogue and understanding, and to heal divisions in our pursuit of peace. ...
Principal reasons for the opposition is the loss of the public’s democratic right to have “a fair say” and the vital need for a government free from corruption, said Casey Cravens of Dunedin, president of the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater ...
Never mind the scoreboard – in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup decider, the real trans-Tasman battle was won before kickoff.First published in 2016. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the ...
I’m on the wrong side of 40, I never pursued creative work and now my job is killing my soul. Help! Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,May I start with the least original conversation opener you’re likely to hear around the motu at the moment, particularly in Wellington: ...
“Never again - No AUKUS” was the message of the wreath laid at this morning’s national ANZAC Day commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park this morning by the Stop AUKUS group. ...
Until this month, Auckland swimmer Hazel Ouwehand had never met a qualifying time in an Olympic event for a New Zealand team, even as a junior. Now she’s very likely off to the Paris Olympics after swimming well under the qualifying standard in the 100m butterfly twice – both in ...
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell.First published in 2022.The high school’s head girl and ...
Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association.First published in 2018.When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of ...
A poem by Wellington writer Tayi Tibble.Hoki Mai She kisses him goodbye with her eyes still wet and alight from their last swim in the Awatere river. At the train station celebration, she leads the Kapa Haka but her voice keeps breaking under and over itself like waves. ...
A poem from Bill Manhire’s 2017 book of verse Some Things to Place in a Coffin.My World War I Poem Inside each trench, the sound of prayer. Inside each prayer, the sound of digging. Image courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum. ...
There are three books I have wolfed down in one sitting over the last two years. Colleen Maria Lenihan’s gorgeous and sad debut Kōhine, Noelle McCarthy’s memoir Grand about becoming her mother and then unbecoming her, and now Hine Toa, a staunch yet gentle self-portrait by living legend Ngāhuia te ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 25 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Asia Pacific Report Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States. The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong Australian teddy bear bees are cute and fluffy, but get a look at that massive (unbarbed) stinger! James Dorey Photography Most of us have been stung by a bee and we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Roberts, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Aussie~mobs/FlickrVictor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915. Victor Farr ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Gregory Moore I had the good fortune to care for the sugar gum at The University of Melbourne’s Burnley Gardens in Victoria where I worked for ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cally Jetta, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead; College for First Nations, University of Southern Queensland Australian War MemorialAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, as well as sensitive historical information ...
RNZ News Melissa Lee has been ousted from New Zealand’s coalition cabinet and stripped of the Media portfolio, and Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues portfolio in a reshuffle. Climate Change and Revenue Minister Simon Watts will take Lee’s spot in cabinet. Simmonds was a minister outside of cabinet. ...
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John Key overnight displayed his stunning diplomacy credentials by saying while in China, North Korea’s only remaining ally, that New Zealand has a long and proud history of coming to the support of South Korea and taken to the extreme, and without interventions and resolutions to the issues, war is of course possible.
I am sure that such an approach is the best one to take to North Korea.
The only word I can think of to describe Key is “Knucklenead”.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/132213/backtrack-by-pm-on-korea
C’mon mickey, Sideshow John’s got his nose so far up the USA’s arse he farts in tandem with them, any diplomacy that occurs is coincidence.
“The only word I can think of to describe Key is “Knucklenead”.”
Bless, drop down to the gutter and I’ll teach you some corkers 😆
JK: (petulant) hmph, not getting my way with the media anymore, ill show them, have them sent to nth Korea as war correspondents, heh.
If Key believes so much in war as a solution, he should send his own kids.
New Zealand doesn’t have conscription or a draft so his kids would have to volunteer on their own.
+ 1
I don’t like war but I believe in conscription because it puts everyone’s son in harm’s way.
After Vietnam the USA ended conscription for that reason. Now only the poor are grunts.
The Swiss have universal military service and haven’t been in a war since Napoleon invaded them in 1812 (200 years).
Listened to 15min’ of radio rantland’s Hoskings this morning. Seriously unintelligent, the dog whistling, disrepecting other countries situations with his biased rantings it was depressing after an hour of the BBC as a contrast.
He slagged off india for not protecting Novartis’s ‘right’ to profiteer off a drug they want made more widely available to their people making a sweeping assumption that it spells the end for new drug research and then made a ‘wha wha wha’ sneering overlay of a UK Labour members crtique of Cameron’s latest welfare austerity moves.
Thinking of how his target audience would be going ‘yeah Mike you’re so onto it’ made it even more depressing.
Don’t do it! It is bad for the mental health …
It seems that Hoskins went to the same journalism school that Susan Wood went to. She had an absolute shocker on Q&A.
Read the transcript to that interview this am, if anything it probably indicates that some interveiwers are now at the point (under instruction) where they are going to try and pressure Shearer into the inevitable ums and ahhs as well as various other contridictions to make him look bad.
If you look at it from that perspective she didn’t do a bad job and I would say that there will be worse to come from certain sections of the media undoubtably the acid test for Shearers ability to expouse policy and ideas in public starts now.
My reading of Susan Wood’s type of interviewing:
She thinks in black and white terms (typical Tory mode) and adopts an adversarial approach where the interviewer pushes a simple line that is the polar opposite to the interviewee’s view even when that line is already shown to be less than accurate or downright false. Example: at one point she defends Key’s forgetfulness as being normal and points out she forgets things too as if that exonerates him… even though it’s clear to anyone with only half a brain that he’s been lying through his teeth.
In the world that Susan Wood revolves in and earns in, high income is a reality. How does this money paid to Wood match our PM’s? She feels she has the right to fire verbal bullets at politicians whose positions are far more vulnerable than hers. She probably has listened to Mary Wilson on Radionz evenings Checkpoint, but Mary tries to reveal facts and the substance of the problem, while Susan sees herself as a fracking tool opening any crack she can find and blasting murky thoughts in to the gap.
Determination of Employment Relations Authority 7 November 2005
B. The Authority declares that Susan Marie Wood’s entitlement to a present salary of $450,000.00 will expire on 31 December 2005. Television New Zealand Limited is not permitted to impose a new salary as from 1 January 2006 without Susan Marie Wood’s consent. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0511/S00122.htm
Uproar in New Zealand Over TV Anchors’ Salaries
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0940022/news
17 November 2005 | Studio Briefing – Film News | See recent Studio Briefing – Film News news »
Two of Television New Zealand’s top news anchors have disappeared from the screen and the state-owned network’s CEO has quit following government efforts to cut salaries of leading personalities. One of the anchors, Judy Bailey, had been a fixture on the network for nearly 18 years, earning an annual salary of $550,000. Susan Wood, host of a current affairs show, had been earning $307,000. Revelation of their salaries had caused a public outcry, Bloomberg News reported today (Thursday). It quoted Paul Norris, who was TV New Zealand’s news director from 1987-94, as saying, “Ordinary members of the public just can’t comprehend how someone could be worth that much” for being a TV anchor.
The figures are puny compared with those for their U.S. counterparts. Katie Couric reportedly earns $15 million per year. Newly installed NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams reportedly earns $5 million annually. »
DS needs some media training, the Woods of this world are easily shown for the agenda peddling monkeys they are with some quality media training.
No umm’s err’s, pauses show authority and thought, when you’re intterupted you stop, smile and then resume answering the question regardless of the interuption.
take control DC.
The union women said, on the panel of Q&A, that shutting the smelter would costs jobs, taxes and economic activity. She was then completely ignored by the three others. The Industry talking head just pooh pooh any idea, making no comment on economics, energy, but just railed that anyone who questioned neo-liberal orthodoxy. What’s the point in having a panel if they don’t address the substance, that the dam was built to supply jobs to south land, that the smelter was attached for this purpose, that China obvious can hammer any part of our economy at will, and National have exactly nothing and no willingness to stand up for NZ. Bend over, how far, Key makes another jibe about how NZ is not worthy for any kind of standard that the world believes promotes good governance. Q&A still sucks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/07/labour-benefits-system_n_3032569.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
Yes… I’m still trying to get my head around Labour UK supporting Willian Beveridge’s thoughts that seem to be to be based on his eugenics beliefs rather than his social security safety net reports. It’s been bugging me all day since I first read Liam Byrne’s piece. It’s this little phrase of Labour’s
That seems to fit with Beveridge’s view that the rich should have larger child allowances to encourage them to breed (not that the fact that they are already rich shows that money isn’t the problem with low birth rates) and a lesser rate to discourage the poor from breeding. In the end the government of the day rejected Beveridge’s view and instituted a universal child allowance – fitting with their belief in a universal unemployment benefit.
Show some guts Harriet. You gave the reasons why this is wrong, but still came out in support of it.
Thanks for these links. This bit from the Byrne piece:
Contradictory, much.
I was suspicious of Miliband’s “One Nation” stuff from the start. And the idea that pay-outs should reflect contributions is based on a very individualistic notion and ignores unequal access to work, etc. It also seems to think that continuting to capitalist profits is magically always and the only ways people contribute to society. I t ignores that the middleclasses benefit most from the state funded and/or managed systems (education, health, etc).
Agree karol. It was always a little bit middle england.
I’d seriously like to know what happened to ‘from each according to ability to each according to need’ I wonder if our labour party has views on this.
From each according to ability to each according to need is a slogan popularised by Marx. In case you hadn’t noticed, his policy platform has not been widely endorsed since the big experiment in implementing it caused misery and death to millions and collapsed in a screaming heap.
The only problem with that assertion is that the policy implemented had nothing to do with Marx’s ideas.
Sssssh, Draco. I want to see if for Gormless’ next act he’ll lecture us on how democracy is a sham because of the DPRK, DDR and DRC.
The Buddah you meet is not the true Buddah.
true
these are not the droids you are looking for. Move along…
they still love to chew through other citizens credits though…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/8523631/Kiwis-still-living-beyond-their-means
So Marx puts in to a pithy little phrase a principle that churches, charities and Labour parties, among others, think is important. That phrase brought down the Soviet Union? Righteo, then.
I could care less if Tory party members thought the rich should get more of the taxpayer dollars than the poor, but this is a L.a.b.o.u.r party saying it. To be worthy of that name they need to be looking out for the poor, broken workers, those unable to work, and their families as well as the fully capable workers. It’s not even that they’re looking at universal benefits (universal vs. targeted benefits is a discussion worth having), they’re looking at more money being spent on people who earn more.
A Labour party… when did they ever support the rich getting more? /sarc. This is moving the principle of taxpayers funding big business ahead of SMEs into the domestic sphere.
And on that point, linking the funding of this policy with taxing bankers bonuses? Sheesh there is so much wrong with making that connection I don’t know where to start. Apart from the idea that bankers shouldn’t be getting bonuses of such a size.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10872895
” Here are some exact quotes:
* “The women that we feature in the magazine are ornamental. That is how we see them.”
* “I could lie to you and say we’re interested in their brains as well, but on the whole, we’re not. They’re there to be beautiful objects. They’re objectified.”
* “One of the things men like is picture of pretty girls. So we provide them with pictures of pretty girls … We also provide them with pictures of cool cars, or whatever. It’s a thing that you might want to look at.”
* “We’re at least, or possibly more, ethnically diverse [than other magazines]. More shape-diverse. We also have older women. Not really old, but in their 40s… Cameron Diaz was on the cover three issues ago. She’s in her 40s.”
Bilmes also said his magazine was “more honest” than women’s magazines, which contain negative images of women.”
Editor (soon to be ex?) from Esquire magazine during a panel discussion on feminism in the media. I’d rate him as not quite as diplomatic as John Key.
Just so it’s clear, this is what people really mean when they talk about post-feminism.
Just had a look through the attached bloglists,
The Daily Blog does not seem to be in the sidebars, nor does the Civilian, which both seem to be proving popular since their arrival
The Civilian is must-read stuff, especially if you’re in need of laughing until you cry.
linky?
http://www.thecivilian.co.nz
http://thedailyblog.co.nz
as if you had not already deduced the top secret cypher I used 😎
I was fuzzy about the North Korea situation and have learned this morning that they have been begging, even demanding the USA, for a peace treaty to be signed and the USA has refused. It almost sounds that North Korea has been maneouvring around being nuclear or not as a way of bringing pressure on USA to legitimise their country’s status.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/asia/12korea.html?_r=0
On 9toNoon on Radionz this morning – Tim Beal, academic, author of two books on North Korea. http://www.timbeal.net.nz/Crisis_in_Korea/CiK_reviews.htm
09:09
PM criticised for North Korea comments
The Prime Minister has been criticised for commenting on the prospect of war with North Korea and New Zealand’s potential role, at a delicate time. Former Victoria University academic, Tim Beal is an expert on Asian politics and business, and is the author of two books on North Korea. He is also a member of New Zealand’s DPRK Society. (13′26″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon
It seems to me, after listening to the facts about North Korea, that intelligent, strategic thinking NZs should open up a relationship with North Korea such as was done with China when it was the badlands. We had Rewi Alley and others go to China very early on.
Power games by big countries’ defence oligarchs will only bring a greater shadow of unhappiness and fear to us all.
The US gov/military are probably gagging for a war. Anything to get their war economy on the move and distract the natives before they turn on them.
I very much doubt that the US professional military have any interest whatsoever in waging a war on the Korean peninsula, only a thousand or so km’s from both China and from Russia.
I’m not talking about US army, I’m talking about the US weapons manufacturers.
QFT
And that is exactly what representative democracy is for. To prevent actual democracy and to leave the rich in power.
Well why exactly should anyone continue to reward North Korea’s ridiculous policy of rattling their nuclear sabre every time they want something instead of engaging with the rest of the world? That just encourages other states to see nukes as a legitimate diplomatic tool, which is fucked. Fuck them.
Also the difference between New Zealand’s early detante with China and the probability of doing something similar with North Korea, is that China’s leadership post-Mao has not been batshit insane.
“Well why exactly should anyone continue to reward North Korea’s ridiculous policy of rattling their nuclear sabre every time they want something instead of engaging with the rest of the world?”
It certainly works for the United States and Israel. Why should the North Koreans act any differently?
NOTE: My question is meant to stimulate serious discussion; it is not directed at this “Populuxe1” creature, who I do not believe is capable of answering it intelligently.
Go boil your head you poseur. If you can pinpoint a single instance since the Cold War that the US has threatened ANYONE with a non-retaliatory nuclear attack, I will be amazed. The possibility was raised during the Vietnam conflict, but thankfully we haven’t taken the path of naturalising nuclear weapons as part of warfare. As for Israel, you can’t really threaten a nuclear strike against someone unless you actually go so far as to admit having nuclear weapons – which we all know they have and they know we know etc etc, but still haven’t come out and said they have the capability.
Basically you are a pretentious moron pretending to academic titles you obviously aren’t worthy of, so shove it up your arse.
The seppos have often said “All options are on the table.” Coming from the only country that’s ever used nuclear weapons in anger, that could be construed as nuclear sabre rattling. I believe MacArthur was keen to nuke China during the Korean War, although he was told he didn’t speak for the government. The fact is that nukes are used as a diplomatic tool, even if not specifically mentioned. The threat is always implicit.
interestingly, the US “decides” to delay ICBM test from West Coast…hmmm, not wanting to create any “mis-perceptions” while the last heard was “We don’t know exactly where the North Koreans have located those two missiles”. lol (well, it is not funny really, but then…sigh). NK (and the updated retaliatory policy, lower echelon decision-making by the SK military enabled etc, may cause a lot of casualties before they call elevenses.)
I suppose you could make the argument that the mere existence of nuclear weapons, hell, the knowledge that such weapons can be created, is an implicit threat. I choose to deploy Occam’s Razor than do a Jesuit’s dance with the aleph null of angels on the head of a pin.
What you choose to deploy is entirely irrelevant.
As are your pissy little retorts because you insist on playing the man instead of the ball because basically you haven’t anything to say but can’t resist trying to get the last word in, not doubt due to some deep-seated insecurity.
Yes, that must be it. I’m the insecure one, the one who needs to prove to everyone else how much I know about US military strategy and tactics in East Asia.
“If you can pinpoint a single instance since the Cold War that the US has threatened ANYONE with a non-retaliatory nuclear attack, I will be amazed.”
U.S. officials often raised the possibility of attacking Vietnam with nuclear weapons. You would know that if you had any familiarity with the Pentagon Papers.
“The possibility was raised during the Vietnam conflict, but thankfully we haven’t taken the path of naturalising nuclear weapons as part of warfare.”
Good, you DID know. So your absurd rhetorical positioning statement is rendered invalid by your following statement. That is impressive, in a grisly, stupid way.
“As for Israel, you can’t really threaten a nuclear strike against someone unless you actually go so far as to admit having nuclear weapons…”
Israel’s armourer and diplomatic protector, the United States, makes no pretence about its client being nuclear-armed. That’s freely admitted by military and State Dept. officials in their official correspondence, where they are honest, and unconcerned with diplomatic ruses.
I have decided to refrain from dealing with the personal comments and recommendations.
You do realise that actual professors don’t usually take the fruity, artificial condescending tone you have adopted, don’t you? I said “threat”, not “considered using” because quite obviously in Vietnam saner heads prevailed (British, as it happens) – actual threat was not made. McArthur certainly did not have the authority to deploy a nuke.
While the US would certanly deploy conventional welfare if Israel was attacked, nothing short of a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv will see them using nukes in that situation.
You are an arse-hat.
Because you’ve seen the Pentagon’s contingency action plans for a large scale Israeli based conflict? LOL
No, but I’ve seen historical precedence of the United States avoidence of using nuclear weapons – ie, nothing since Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the only major stand off being the Bay of Pigs crisis. I’ve also seen Obama take an unprecentedly strong stance with Israel’s provocative behaviour. That is all rather suggestive of overall strategy.
You’ve seen what was reported in the MSM. Big deal.
I’m with the Prof. Why do you go nuclear allatime?
Because morons seem determined to provoke me
Because morons seem determined to provoke me.
Jesus H. Christ, Populuxe1 is now channeling Kim Il Sung!
QED
Pop, US nuclear doctrine isn’t ‘no first strike’. They’ve maintained the right to go nuke first for a long time.
Here’s some recent stuff:
Under Bush:
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_09/Kristensen
And Obama:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/04/nucl-a08.html
If you are going to argue that using nukes is response to chemical weapons is retaliatory, then fine. But it’s pretty torturous given the stupidity of the ‘WMD’ classification.
“Maintained the right” is far from being the same thing as “acted on the right” – otherwise large swathes of South East Asia, Central America, and Central Asia would be radioactive slag right now. 9/11 being a case in point, because if anything could be taken as a justification for a nuclear strike, it would be that.
No one claimed they acted on the right.
You have been saying that the US doesn’t threaten the use of nukes. Their official doctrine lays out the ways in which they do. For example, Iran and NK are exempt from the we wont’t use them first against non-nuclear states rule.
the only eason that exemptioon is in tehre is to send a signal to those countries that nukes are on the table. Does that mean they will be the first thing used, or even used at all in a conflict? No.
But it does mean that their use is being signaled as an option. The docrtrine is about sending signals, which is why it is public. The signal sent to those countries is, we might use them against you. That’s a threat, no?
Funnily enough, it is suddenly beneficiary bashing time over at Kiwiblog. If the best evidence of a bad harvest in North Korea is images of smiling farmers, then surely for all the Kremlinologists out there an attack on beneficiaries is the best evidence we have yet that all of the recent carry on has dented Key’s popularity.
From mushrooms to dandelions, foraged food finds way to U.S. tables
I once read an article that asserted (yes, asserted) that there was more food in a hectare of healthy forest than there was in a hectare of farm land. The problem was that people didn’t know what was food and what wasn’t.
just like magic
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9976077/Magic-Mushrooms-treatment-for-depression-being-delayed-by-drug-laws.html
drink, and walk away!
Heard that a few times over the last few years. Magic Mushrooms and LSD are looking to be better treatment for depression and other mental illnesses than the normal drugs but the research is hampered by the laws making them illegal.
My take on “foreign” Kiwi’s in positions of power:
We now have “foreign” Kiwis in control of the three biggest political parties, the Reserve bank and the Secret Service! Just think about that for a moment!
Yup, these people are identified, some earlier than others, they are then rinsed on the global scene in various ways, through various *institutions*, and returned to their country or origin, complete with back stories etc at the ready for an easy sell to joe public!
Kiwis lap it up, cos we’re so, you know, well heeled and cosmopolitan in our global interconnectedness!
We.Have.Been.Cleaned.Out!
The OIA “laundering process” according to Annette
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876059
from the Dom;
MOH: “effectiveness of rheumatic fever campaign questioned in report evaluating first 18 months; according to frontline health professionals, there needs to be a focus on over-crowded, damp housing., poverty and access to medical care”, else when the project money runs out, little impact into incidence.
meanwhile, in Dads Army, Commodore Keats is alleged to have made a false declaration on an SIS security clearance form (Sackable offence Sadly; Not!) and the C.D.S Jones charged with “inaction”, Captain suh! Suh!
locally, “experienced one-man-band builders” leaving the industry, to alternative occupations with regular pay as building activity remains sluggish. (send them to the Southern Front, Commandant Brownlee / Major Bennett; not what their country can do for them…)
wasser, wasser everywhere…”Ground-water levels in the Heretaunga and Ruataniwha basins and Tukituki river at there lowest ever recorded levels”. (could be the Ruataniwha Storage “Puddle” by the time its built) 😉
15:7 Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.
When it comes to the Keats investigation are the severe defence force cuts to blame for justice being delayed? Will have to see if it is denied.
Leave. denied 🙂
secret: Agent. man.” A person (or other being, HLM etc,) who is the subject when there is action. A long history attaches to thinking of the property of being an agent as, a) possessing a capacity to choose between options and ,b) being able to do what one chooses (things sure have gone downhill since the Atheneum). Agency is then treated as a causal power.
While Ryle’s attack on “volitions” served as a distraction, despite what he attempted to demonstrate, it seems undeniable that bodily action has a first-person aspect.
Furthermore, some recent writings attempt to rehabilitate the phenomenology of agency. O’Shaughnessy’s “dual aspect theory” for example, brings out the importance of a acheiving a view of action in which a third-person and first-person perspective are both incorporated yet neither is exaggerated.
A range of theses hold that the concept of agency, which human beings acquire in their experience of agency, is prior (in one, or another sense) to the concept of causality. And, in the pre-modern world, causation in the absence of of human action was typically construed either as divine action, or as the action of an object whose nature it was to realize certain ends.
Reid 😉 claimed that the idea of cause and effect in nature must be arrived at by analogy, from the relation between an active power (of which human agency is a species) and its products.
Brian O’Shaughnessy, “The Will” 2 vols : Cambridge 1980…to be sure…to be sure.
Interesting.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876010
Those knuckleheads at the herald are comparing John Key’s statements on the 73% pay rise for the Mighty River directors with his statements on the campaign to raise the low wages of carers in rest homes.
Key thinks one of these pay rises is a sensible and realistic move while the other would be nice but people must accept that these are tough times.
Can you guess which is which?
Yes I can. I imagine dear young naive Judy will soon be called into the Editor’s Office and have explained to her that what she has written is not the way things are done at the Herald.
Or maybe the worm is starting to turn.
turnips for everyone
even ghosts have to do house-work on Monday mornings, akrasia, I know, clean the bathroom, sweep and mop the floors, take out the rubbish; “Socrates questioned whether one could ever deliberately, when able to follow either course, choose the worse, due to being overcome by fear, pleasure, LUST, etc-i.e. whether akrasia could occur, thus setting the problem as, a)how can we act against what reason dictates? and , b) how can we act against our view of what we take as good? Socrates answered that we cannot. Fortunately, Aristotle and others following him thought Socrates ignored the obvious facts. They contrasted reason and the pursuit of the good with motivation by passion. This involved denying the Socratic view that all deliberate action is aimed at what the agent considers best.
There grew up a tendency to ally virtue with the exercise of reason, in opposition to passion with its relatively short-term considerations: and to see akrasia as a moral problem, the question of its existence as one of ethics.
Back in the good ol’ pre-enlightenment Middle Ages, account had to be given of how the Devil, without passion, could deliberately go wrong; Aquinas tried to account for this as an error of reason, Scotus as a case of the will freely choosing a good, but one it should not choose. Passion-free akrasia had arrived.
The puzzle, if there is one, arises even where a contrast between reason and something else is hard to make out: Hamlet is an interesting case. Here it arises because the agent seems to favour a course of action which he then does not take, without apparently ceasing to favour it. Neither passion nor short-term considerations are an essential factor. The puzzle is unforced action against apparently sincere declarations of opposition to it.
That reason does not always dictate intentional action seems to follow from the fact that if there is no common standard for judging between two objectives, or there is, but reason cannot determine that one is to be preferred to the other by that standard, then the agent (the will) must be free to choose either way. If, in the case of wrongdoing, there is no over-arching standard for choosing between the moral good and some other objective, then the will has to choose between standards, without the help of reason. The will may be overcome by passion (be less than strong), but in the absence of passion is just evil when it chooses the worse course.
This view of the will can be de-moralized by attaching it to long-term objectives generally, or to reflective choice. Yet, there are many problems in the whole project of postulating such a rational faculty, which is an unstable structure built too rapidly on some familiar idioms and supposed requirements of experience.”
-Justin Gosling, “Weakness of The Will”: London 1990
soooo, to return to the Hume by-way; reason as the slave of passions! which is a fundamental claim of Hume’s moral psychology,used in his rebuttal of the rationalist pretence that reason can oppose the passions and teach us moral truths: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to be any other office than to serve and obey them”. (Treatise, II.iii.3). In an employment of His “fork”, Hume insists that demonstrative reasoning (for example in mathematics) plainly has no effect in itself on the passions (sadly); and probable reasoning is of significance to the passions only by “directing” our aversion to pain, or our propensity to pleasure, to those things that we take to be causally related to them.”
Led Ovid to The Black Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid
16:1 To man belong the plans of the heart, yet from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue. 🙂
Spooky stuff, constructs built on sand argued with passion to get to the “truth”. Rationally of course. You have spotted me accusing the local ideologues of no less.
I have found life soooo much easier since submitting to master-teachers. One strong characteristic of many here is the ability to ride; no point in nostalgically, romantically, Living In The Past (unless you belong to an influential Asian or Germanic nation I would suggest) 😉 hence the simplicity of the “two commandments”; Lord keeps testing the Hebrews though; such a mystery. Night.
Chickenhawks are Go!
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Monday 8 April 2013
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Tino Pereira
In the preamble to today’s program, the first topic for discussion was the situation in Korea. So far, Stephen Franks has, predictably, sneered at those “sanctimonious” people who have dared to criticize Key’s reckless statements about sending New Zealanders to “defend South Korea”. He has also claimed that it “makes sense” to unilaterally declare your country ready to fight in a nuclear conflict. Interestingly, and predictably, he failed to declare his own readiness to “serve” in the nuclear zone.
Disappointingly, but again predictably, neither Mora nor Noelle McCarthy uttered a word to challenge any of his statements. Perhaps the other guest, Tino Pereira, will have the nous and the courage to say something, but I’m not particularly hopeful.
I have to go out and am going to miss today’s show. Would someone like to have a go at capturing the essence of what these three fellows and their guests say? I’m particularly interested in what Franks will say; it seems he’s in a particularly self-righteous yet insane state of mind.
Gotta rush. Thank you all….
The Lebanon
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323361804578388410856381092.html
The Auckland City Mission’s Medical Service has now adopted the philosophy of Work and Income’s Principal Health Advisor Dr David Bratt, who again is a kind of “disciple” of the misguided “bio psycho social model” that Prof. Mansel Aylward (former Chief Med. Officer, DWP) is propagating, to assess and to “assist” sick and disabled back into “suitable” work.
In a document I found via online search today, they (ACM’s Medical Service doctors) are quoting Dr David Bratt out of comments he made to the New Zealand Doctor Magazine in August 2012, using this as “guidance” for how to handle clients they have, who require or request a “medical certificate” to take to WINZ.
They emphasize how bad it is to be on the benefit, quoting Dr Bratt, referring to the benefit to be treated like a “drug”, mention all the bizarre comments Dr Bratt usually gives, to explain that it is now practice to look at what clients “can do” rather than “cannot do”.
The approach of WINZ is kind of not just adopted, it is reinforced, and they make clear, the certificate is now a “Work Capacity Medical Certificate”.
They make clear that their doctors take a FIRM stand on matters, and they make clear, that if clients going to the Mission have drug and alcohol issues, they must prove they attend treatment programs.
That there are few, that they have waiting queues for months, that AA are not that successful with their 12 steps program, and other factors do not seem to matter.
So that is how “compassionate” the City Missioners are now, I’d hate to be out on the street then, having to rely on them for help!
See the link to the document to be found on the web:
http://www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz/uploads/file/Calder%20Centre/Sickness%20Benefit%20explanation.pdf
How the hell will people be treated when the new regime will come in after July this year!?
Pretty disgraceful, xtasy.
From your link, it looks to me that medical practitioners are following WINZ, and Bennett’s policies and laws. I’m not sure how much leeway they have to go against those.
I see the Calder Centre is:
So it looks like the ACM does not have unrestricted say in what happens at the Centre.
I’d need more information to see if the ACM is just caving to Bennett, Bratt et al, or if they don’t have much choice.
Karol
What appalls me is that they use a letter explaining their processes and approach re issuing Work Capacity Medical Certificates – and putting quotes by biased and extreme Dr David Bratt (from MSD) at the top of it, even making this bizarre comparison with a drug and Medsafe!
Now, I thought that PHOs had more independence in how they operate and deliver services, certainly from any influence by a highly questionable, extreme, biased RHA from the Ministry of Social Development.
Yet when looking at this recent news:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/132179/dhbs-reject-criticisms-from-union
and also comments and articles found via this link –
http://www.asms.org.nz/Site/News/Default.aspx
…then I would not be surprised that PHOs are now told to tow the line and work with MSD to bring the “results” that they want!
But MSD should be responsible for their services and the Ministry of Health of theirs.
Yet look closely at the ‘Rising to the Challenge’ plan for mental health and addiction services by M.o.H., which can be found via Google search. There it is mentioned that there will be more “coordination of services”.
This is stuff that happens in “autocratic regimes”!
Roguetrooper @ 5.34pm, posted a link to Kiwis still living beyond their means
At the bottom of the article they itemise “dumb debt” and “smart debt”.”Under “Dumb Debt”, they have included “unemployment”. Say what? So, of course, people are running around making themselves unemployed so they can …? What? go into debt because there’s something to gain?
And under “smart debt” they put:
Yes, well all the smart arses that are doing that are making the rest of us less well off in the long run….. and, ultimately they’ll suffer too. I’d call it selfish and short-sighted more than smart.
did he, such a rogue he is, wait ’til i see him next. anyway, remember what Wilkins Micawber said about incomings and outgoings. 😉
“of course, people are running around making themselves unemployed so they can …?”
People are obviously also running around getting sick and having a relationship breakdowns so they can accumulate dumb debt. It’s deliberate I tell ya!
hmmm… MRP “Investors” to pay millions to Tuwharetoa, annually, backdated, for up to the next 30 years (hopefully more), yet Govt concedes “the quantum of payment is not yet known”.
and no, the RRC did not feel informed / confident enough to comment publicly (yet anyway) on Marie Krarup,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876170
*sigh*
who owes what?
I dont know why David Shearer persists, I listened to him being interviewed by Larry Williams tonight. He is so atrocious there is no way that he could be enjoying what he is doing. He has no innate intelligence so he really just struggles to answer questions. I hate to keep harping on about this but in the end of the day the Left needs to put its best team forward in Nov 2014, Shearer isnt even close.
Harp away. it is a public socio-political forum, and I for one, read the ethereal trails you leave in the cup. (though, your handle always reminds me of SAARS; could be worse, could be Ebola, but as you can see, I’m all fleshed out.)