74.1 per cent of Chinese voters voted National in 2014.
Chinese voter turnout in the 2014 General Elections was 78.5 per cent – higher than the national average of 76.8 per cent.
This has been a concern of mine for years now. It is not a racial problem as such , it seems to be based more about the ‘type’ of person our policy attracts.
For me it stands out most with the immigrants from a certain rugby playing nation.
I’ve noticed that our government seems to favour under educated people from countries that have high corruption and poor human rights in particular for women.
We already have high family violence rates in NZ, so as well as cutting most funding for the cause, the government has even found a way to try and make that worse in the future by adding people from worse off countries. They are like anti human rights magicians so no wonder many vote National. Or are they trying to get a cultural fit?
NZ was predicted to get a rise in GDP of 0.9% by 2030–less than 1%, in exchange for being made liable to be sued if our laws were changed and didn’t comply with TPP rules written by/for corporates.
A 20 yr old kid drove his boss’s fully laden bee truck and trailer into the back of a logging truck at 4 am, killing his workmate who was asleep in the passenger seat.
“An inspection of his work logbook and employment records revealed that Power had breached his cumulative work time and rest time hours on a regular basis between October 20 and November 21, 2015.
That included him making false statements about the start of his cumulative work day on 34 occasions, the summary of facts revealed.”
Well, either granny’s got it wrong again, or he worked 34 shifts in 32 days and regularly exceeded 14 hour days in that period. He would have been in zombie land by the time he crashed.
So, where’s the employer in all this? The boy wouldn’t be working those hours of his own volition, he would have been instructed to and the same with the log book violation.
They did mention the employer in the article – and I’m fairly sure a competent lawyer would have made sure that there was/wasn’t culpability on the part of the employer so as to mitigate the boys sentence.
Back when I used to regularly use forest roads in that area the word was they were not public roads so weight limits didn’t apply. Rumour was speed limits didn’t apply either, but that may have just been wishful thinking by young male hoons. Certainly there were some very large very heavily laden trucks (much more load than you’d ever see on state highways) going very fast.
Dunno if that was actually true back then or what the current legal status of those roads really is.
I travel between Whangarei and Auckland at least several times a month – it is becoming more and more of a safety gamble as more and more trucks clog up the roads, far too often speeding, overtaking each other and generally creating traffic mayhem. Many of these loads should, I’m sure, be on trains, and the awful state of the roads north are certainly not capable of sustaining the obvious increase of heavy vehicles. Many of the drivers are likely to be in similar situations to the young man who died – I see far too many trucks on the roads in the Waikato too when I’m there.
I drive a 5 tonne housebus and am theoretically restricted to 90kph. Very seldom am I not passed by a following juggernaut. Andre…still applies today even on main roads….the perception is that heavy vehicles have immunity from attention from the law enforcement brigade. I can’t remember the last time a roadside weighstation was having a blitz.
We travel regularly between Waikato and the Far North and can attest to the volume and the almost aggressiveness of some truck drivers. The Brynderwens, quite frankly, give me the shits when I’m trying to come down the south side of the hill with a huge truck pushing me to travel at a speed much faster than is safe. And I have a lead foot. Ken Shirley is an awesome spokeperson and lobbyist for the trucking industry and usually blames the daily accident involving a truck on the other road user.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: WTF: this looks like some kind of stupid unexplained diversion at the top of a post. If I see you do anything like that in the near future, you will be banned until after the election. I don’t have time to deal with stupidity. ]
In Hawaii in 2000, for instance, the Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine demands “adequate provision for traditional and customary Hawaiian rights, wildlife, maintenance of ecological balance and scenic beauty, and the preservation and enhancement of the waters for various uses in the public interest”.
This kind of approach would work well in New Zealand, where public fury about the degradation of lakes, rivers, streams, springs and aquifers has reached a fever pitch. Kiwis are demanding their rights to the lawful enjoyment of these water bodies, and that their ecological health and scenic beauty are recognised.
Given these precedents, a Waterways Act that puts all water bodies in trust for future generations would be timely. As in Hawaii, this would include recognition of the relationships between iwi and their ancestral rivers, springs and lakes, within a framework that protects “te mana o te wai” and the health and wellbeing of all waterways for all citizens.
Russell and Baucher hope to fire up KiwiSavers to demand the tax system be made fairer, but also to spark a national debate about whether it is finally time for the wealthy to pay tax on their capital gains.
“When the public rebels against unfair taxation, governments can change.”
well put, it remains rather telling that no senior people in NZ Labour including President Haworth, seem to be able to bring themselves to support Jeremy Corbyn
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: I am getting tired of having these kinds of personal attacks with no actual argument. Guess where it is going. BTW: I left my carefully framed observation as a comment in an expanded version of your own style. Enjoy. ]
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Quite simply having deranged lefties ranting at me with no visible intelligence saying that I should support him for unspecified reasons out of some kind of faith based religiosity isn’t exactly a way to convince me. In fact it seems to be doing exactly the opposite.
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
I noticed exactly the same thing when I looked at Saunders. I suspect that the supporters of such candidates are their oppositions best weapon against them.
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Really, Lin? What is it that you find hard to support? His commitment to the National Health Service? His commitment to decent, properly funded schooling? His commitment to international law? His opposition to Britain’s insane and ruinous “defence” policies?
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
Labour is in desperate straits in the United Kingdom. That’s not Corbyn’s fault, it’s the fault of Blair and his Kool-Aid Britannia mob, and no-hopers like Ed Miliband—the same people who are busy white-anting the party leader now.
I guess you like your Labour—sorry, New Labour—politicians to be like this bloke:
The funny thing is that I never hear anyone trying to explain any of these things. And in fact you didn’t explain them in your first para either.
What I hear a lot are comments like your second – which effectively are whining.
Usually followed by your third para, which is that of the usual attacking someone for not being faithful to something that they are incapable of explaining.
FFS Morrisey. I could give a pigs arse about UK politics. But I find fundamentalist fools like you and Tiger about as useful for picking up information as Christian nutters trying to explain the bible without ever apparently ever having read it more than selected sections of it.
Needless to say, people who act like that just tend to irritate me. I share the obvious human presumption that with supporters like this, why does that politician need any enemies?
Unfortunately I suspect this is increasingly the attitude of Labour voters in the UK. Certainly the results in the local elections overnight are dispiriting. The few brighter spots in the results were even more dispiriting. It appears that political survival at that level for Labour candidates is increasingly to be very very local and have nothing to do with Westminister Labour.
Broadly, he’s been advocating a return to social democratic governance. Ironically, much in line with what the SNP are already doing in Scotland, who he keeps having to bag as a party of austerity because Kezia.
@Morrissey +1
Labour NZ yet another traditional left western political party being destroyed by it’s ‘faith based’ religious adherence to a debunked and destructive ideology.
To be fair to Corbyn though, it’s hard to see how anyone in that situation would be doing well on voting day given that (a) half the UK Labour party have openly undermined him and hence voters probably don’t trust the party to be competent in govt, and (b) the MSM have been relatively biased against him. Not that he is without fault, but there are significant factors outside of his control.
Although it’s interesting to not that since the snap election was announced, UKLabour has gone up almost 5% in the trend of polls.
The tories have gone up too, but seem to be wobbling a bit at the top, and most of their support seems to have come from UKIP.
A Labour win is still very very much in doubt, but provided they don’t falter as the effect of the localbodies kicks in, UKLabour might still be able to give the tories a bloody nose.
Seems to be bang on when the snap election was announced.
#ifthistrendcontinues (lol) 35% wouldn’t be completely out of the question. But it it flattens for the next couple of weeks it would be game over.
Also, the tories need to start losing, rather than just plateauing. Either way, I don’t expect the lines to cross over, but if they’re close then the tories might have trouble getting their hard brexit and other agenda items through.
I suspect they already do. I mean, they’re actually campaigning pretty well and have a good polling track so far, I just don’t think it’ll be enough for us to see PM Corbyn. It might be enough to see May knifed in the back, though.
I suspect that it is largely the election effect allied to a lack of parties from a FFP system. When it gets closer to actually having to vote, then voting intentions firm up.
In this case the idea about actually voting for the Conservatives for another 5 year term compared to someone that they are unsure about.
I think that Labour will do better in this early election than many political observers expect. They have had the long term issue that many of their traditional supporters are looking for something to change. They are not seeing it as coming from UK Labour after the Blair years. So they have been drifting off to the SNP or UKIP or Lib-Dems (or Brexit) and splitting the vote. But I suspect that there is a bit too much change going on now.
The problem for the conservatives as far as I can see as an outside observer, is that outside of the southern suburbs and some of the leafier semirural areas of the UK – there isn’t much solid support for the tories either. They have been doing well from the loss of support from the other side(s). But it looks like it is very soft.
So when it gets back to being a two horse race (now that UKIP and Lib-Dems have largely disintegrated their accumulated support), then Labour is going to do better in the two horse races outside of Scotland.
But I don’t think that Labour there looks like it can get to the point of forming a government.
Of the 300-ish seats that Labour lost, just under half were lost in Scotland (130). A fair few in Wales went to independents.
Anyone with a half an ounce of nous knew that Labour were going to get trounced in Scotland – and that’s down to Labour previously jumping into bed with the Tories and the gobsmacking ‘leadership’ of Kezia “the Blairite” Dugdale.
So Labour didn’t do too badly – certainly not as badly as msm would have people believe.
That the Tories picked up the UKIP vote and that both the Tories and Scottish Labour allowed members of the fucking Orange Order to stand as Labour and Tory candidates…that’s what would be newsworthy in my world.
But then, I’m not a liberal msm forlornly manning the trenches against inevitable change – fuk! Was that a Bob Dylan earworm I just squished? I think it was 😉
Oh I’d agree that he has had issues outside of his control. Reminds me of the way Cunliffe had problems here.
However I have largely had to make up my decision about Corbyn from sources outside his supporter community, as they seem to spend all of their time whining about those issues outside of his control.
Try finding someone amongst his ardent supporters who can coherently discuss his policy areas and why they are being applied without someone trying to accuse you of not supporting them.
Which was the point that I’m making. Incidentally, this was part of the problem that Cunliffe had as well. Their most ardent supporters seem to make their life looking for someone to blame. They are often noisier than the actual enemies and tend to put a lot of people off.
It also tends to drown out the message of what they are wanting to do in a wash of blind and usually deluded faith. Who in the hell needs enemies when left politicians have supporters like these?
apologies for bungling “reply”, my comment referred directly to sanctuary’s first comment (which included a reference to Mr Corbyn) on ADVANTAGE’s “yes for Ardern” piece
no apology though, for my views on the lack of support for Jeremy Corbyn from NZ Labour tops and their minions, and don’t bother banning me–I have banned you!–this site became increasingly unreadable, imo, during the US Primary and Election debacle; a shame as I had been a Standard supporter from the start
I’m afraid, Tiger Mountain, that Labour’s team of clever strategists—the same people who instructed Labour candidates in 2014 to recite, like a catechism, “Oh, look, Dirty Politics is a distraction”—have decreed that Corbyn’s platform of moderate, traditional Labour Party policies and a progressive, moral foreign policy is absolutely verboten.
Brilliant Labour thinkers like Stephen “I Agree With Matthew” Mills have been strenuously distancing themselves from Corbyn for some time now….
Yeh first of all we had to put up with Mike Williams on RNZ, which made Monday morning politics a complete waste of time, and now Mills, although to be fair, I guess he agrees with Hooton so often because…well because he just does, that’s centrists politics for you.
It’s like listening or reading the gibberish from Nash and Lorck around here, who would know if you where listening or reading someone from National or Labour? I sure as hell can’t tell the difference most of the time.
FFS: I’m not a Labour strategist. I am (generally) a Labour supporter. Surely even you could explain why I or NZ Labour be that interested in UK politics from here?
The last of my family left the British isles a mere 150 years ago. NZ Labour’s job here is to represent citizens of this country. As far as I am concerned Nigel Haworth wasn’t elected to opine about affairs in another country. Especially when that country is 5th or 6th on our export trade and steadily becoming less relevant to NZ all of the time.
Perhaps you should explain your reasoning rather than acting like a spoilt child demanding that other people do what you want them to do.
As a moderator, as far as I could see there was nothing in your comment that related to the post. It barely seemed to have much relationship to Sanctuary’s comment, which was at least largely on topic, unlike Gosman’s comments which were at the top of the comments.. Which is why it got shunted to here.
The comment I replied to it expressed my frustration at the myopia of the faithful who seem to care more about delineating enemies than convincing others through rational argument and facts. Basically after several years of this recently I suspect that many of you would be at home in an Inquisition torture pit ‘explaining’ in your inimitable fashion why heathens should be converting to the gentle religion of Christ.
BTW: it was a reply to Sanctuary. The shift to OpenMike removes the parenting, but carries through any child comments.
Something rotten in the state of the German Green Party
When fanatics and dilettantes like Volker Beck are allowed to dominate and bully an organization, it is doomed. The Greens in Germany look like they’re a spent force….
Pike River families never shown video of men in drift, mother says
Carol Rose, the mother of one of the Pike River 29 and took notes of all the meetings in the months following the disaster, says families were never shown footage of men in the drift.”
They can’t both be right. Surely the Police can produce a minute detailing the what when where. Should be easy to do.
After all Bill English keeps repeating the “they were shown the videos.” “My Police team told me so and they are as reliable as my friend Keating.”
On the absurdity that education is the silver bullet to relieve existing poverty and magic away inequality.
. Education is not the best anti-poverty program, argues historian Harvey Kantor, and it’s long past time we acknowledged that…
[…]
Kantor: One of the consequences of making education so central to social policy has been that we’ve ended up taking the pressure off of the state for the kinds of policies that would be more effective at addressing poverty and economic inequality. Instead we’re asking education to do things it can’t possibly do. The result has been increasing support for the kinds of market-oriented policies that make inequality worse.
If we really want to address issues of inequality and economic insecurity, there are a lot of other policies that we have to pursue besides or at least in addition to education policies, and that part of the debate has been totally lost. Raising the minimum wage, or providing a guaranteed income, which the last time we talked seriously about that was in the late 1960’s, increasing workers’ bargaining power, making tax policies more progressive—things like that are going to be much more effective at addressing inequality and economic security than education policies. That argument is often taken to mean, *schools can’t do anything unless we address poverty first.* But that’s not what we were trying to say.
Education. Compulsory. Why? Because it’s good for citizens to be literate, and numerate and know about a raft of subjects. How will it be useful to them? Well they will be able to make their way in life, know about the world , the country and its systems, manage their affairs, know about opportunities, get jobs and make their individual lifestyle, and take their full, functioning place in society.
That’s roughly how the thinking has been in everyone’s minds. What good has education actually been in helping people to become fully functioning citizens enjoying their place in society? What do we see around us today to show us how useful the education has been, received since the beginning of the 1900’s?
Let’s unpick the above beliefs and look at reality.
* The government and the comfortably off (actually the wealthy and rich but they never use such direct language), unpick society so it is fragmented going towards tatters. Education has helped them in finding their individual wealth, and then how to siphon off to themselves more that others needed to make their individual way.
* Individual lifestyle, now becoming more precarious. May be without a permanent dwelling. Many forced to live like gypsies, worse than primitive hunter, gatherers who knew where the caves were and just had to turn out the lower animals to occupy, (or co-habit)
.
Many people are treated as litter on the streets, a dessicated leaf to be stepped on, or slipped on, and a target for street thieves, muggers, haters and the cold, superiority of elites.
* Get jobs, which are offered on whim for a few hours when required by employers, but such workers not free to do anything else in between by order of the government, who want you work-ready day or night. So you can’t have an individual lifestyle, it is the chess economy, and you are a black or white pawn, with nothing to pawn when you are out of funds.
* Opportunities – if you hear of them, you probably won’t be able to get to where they are being offered. You haven’t an address so they can’t be sent to you (do hey deliver to – usually end bench at the north corner of X Park). You haven’t the means to have a shower and get clean clothes to attend a competitive interview.
Or you have children that you are nurturing, but no-one in government who has helped create this diminished situation that has left you stranded has positive thoughts for you and wants to help you and your children. There is no-one to nurture parents, and having children, a basic human, normal, natural condition, is regarded as a private hobby, that no-one else is involved with or celebrates with you.
On your own you lose hope and also your cardboard layers that you slid away to provide a clean mat along with newspapers in which you read about last week’s opportunities, now passed. Or the opportunities presented are illusory, you are advised to shift away from the big city to somewhere else where there are said to be more chances. You do, and lose your network of contacts and soup caravan and handouts till you score another cash-paying job, because there is even less for you in the new location.
* Being able to read and write and manage your affairs. Well self-management is talked about and then the means to do it are withheld. Need temporary help from WINZ? The female guard outside the doors in uniform will need to see whether the department staff deign to see you. You have had to travel a long weary way and not anticipated how long it would take and you are late! Your appointment has been cancelled, you have wasted good people’s time. You have to beg for money to get back to your starting point.
Etc etc. The privileged people give you a thousand invisible kicks and look at the end result of someone bravely still standing and criticise how your hair is untidy, your children messy, your face sour, your manner uncouth, your car (if you have one) unwarranted. Actually all this negativity is unwarranted, but actually the wealthy give themselves the right to give you a WOF with just a once-over from appearance. They don’t look in your eyes, they never look at the achievements of the person just keeping going in such an arid, punitive human climate as cold to the soul as Antarctica is. Put a little love in your hearts went a song. The cold, say what would that cost?
Education. Compulsory. Why? Because it’s good for citizens to be literate, and numerate and know about a raft of subjects.
Actually, education became compulsory because the business community demanded it. Even in the 19th century ignorant and illiterate people could not work the machines available nor do other menial tasks such as serving at the counter.
I’m pretty sure that many capitalists at that time (I’m really not sure about to day – they really do seem to believe the myth of special people) realised that innovation is a numbers game. The more ideas you have that can be worked upon at the same time increases the number that will actually bring about something useful and educated people have more ideas.
In other words, free compulsory education was brought about as a massive subsidy to business who didn’t want to pay for all that training themselves.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that people being educated is a bad thing. In fact, I’d say that it was a positively good thing. The problem is that all the benefits of it are going to the bludging rich – exactly as designed.
Most of the education now needs to be spent on devising theories and then trying to make practical models of them, and then reviewing them to see what effect they will have on people, and the environment. Also learning civics and how hard it is to get people working together, and the goldilocks lesson of law making and supervision of behaviour; getting it at the right level isn’t easy.
And learning more manual stuff, how to do things for yourself instead of passively waiting for a machine to do it.
Human psychology and sociology should come first, along with literacy and basic numeracy. Everything else can be learned at tertiary level of polytechnic style. The intermediate level would take on the above matters and extend to four years, so up to the old fourth form level. Then the tertiary and career training. Learning about detail, say in geography later than earlier etc.
It’s no use to learn the facts of the world and not understand what being human is about. That is what is important in this technological age, with robots and AI looming. To be able to critique what are facts would be good!
And to sort out in one’s mind what things are interesting and what are just froth and conformism and escapism that isolates from the real and important for ‘good’ living. So there would be fewer car, gun and war and fewer men’s women’s magazines filled with photos of people elevated to Objects of Interest, objects of materialism, expensive watches, sophisticated booze, clothes, makeup techniques, feelings, exotic and rare animals, house decoration etc.
Yes, instead of becoming the bulwark of an informed and healthily functioning democracy, education, a few steps behind the fourth estate, is being slowly forced to tread the same path as the fourth estate: erosion of independent state-funded quality outlets; encouragement of privatisation and forced reliance upon commercialism, with the total exclusion from debate of any other (superior) forms of funding .
Some commentators now blatantly assume that commercial advertising is the only way that any news media should be funded. Blinkered idiots.
What struck me was the statement “Take the failed Whangaruru charter schools decision to spend most of their upfront funding purchasing a farm. Since Hekia Parata finally decided to close them down, as the Ministry of Education repeatedly recommended, that huge investment of public money was lost forever.”
I recall this being raised as a possibility right back when the charter schools initiative was getting underway, but from memory was dismissed as just partisan hyperbole. Is this true? Did anything get recovered from the private owners (furniture, office equipment, AV equipment, playground fittings, etc, etc)? Or is it all just a huge windfall for the private owners – being rewarded for an education failure?
Is it possible to find out how much the total spending from taxpayer funds was, and of that how much was spent on operating costs other than management fees, and how much recovered when the school was closed?
It astounds me that the operators of the failed Whangaruru School were allowed to keep their choice of school, a farm. I’m not sure if I should be protesting or starting a Cabin Crew school, I’d need a Boeing Dreamliner. Fortunately I know absolutely nothing about training cabin crew and I’m excellent at international travel.
It failed, ok. Why on earth are the assets not returned to the people that provided them. You and me.
The bloke next to me works long long hours, he’ll knock up homes for 10 families this year. I see his office light burning at 1am. He makes lots more money than I do, he’s what I’d call wealthy.
I don’t work many hours. I spend lots of time fishing, surfing, drinking, travelling around and entertaining myself commenting on blogs.
If the bloke next door and I were paid the same money, had the same boat, sqm of house etc…..why the hell would he work 100 hours a week? He’d be nuts not to hang out with me and cruise.
What a hoot we’d have. Alas, the Jones, Smiths, Browns and Black families will have to make do with a tarpaulin stretched between trees…and since we averaged things out, there’s only room on our boats for 2.
I’m a huge fan of equality. Splitting all the $ up so we have equal shares is ridiculous. If we do it on a global scale, it’s about $7.50 each. We’d all be surfing and eating feijoa jam, nothing would get done. I think the equality we need to be concerned with is an equality of opportunity and the associated benefits of embracing them.
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
If the bloke next door and I were paid the same money, had the same boat, sqm of house etc…..why the hell would he work 100 hours a week?
Why is he working 100 hour weeks? That’s enough for two or even three full time jobs. And that amount of time at work is decreasing his productivity and probably to the point that he isn’t getting anywhere near as much done as actually needs to be done. He’s probably wasting 20 hours or more.
Define: Paid the same money
What a hoot we’d have. Alas, the Jones, Smiths, Browns and Black families will have to make do with a tarpaulin stretched between trees…and since we averaged things out, there’s only room on our boats for 2.
There’s quite a few people available who could be employed to ensure that everyone has a home but the capitalists, like your hero there, would complain because wages would go up.
Splitting all the $ up so we have equal shares is ridiculous.
And where have I ever suggested such a thing?
you seem to have this delusional idea that people are solely motivated by money whereas most people are motivated by anything but. In fact, it seems to me that only the sociopathic types are motivated by money and then there’s the reality of motivation and how paying people too much causes them fail badly:
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
It is natural that the rewards, whatever form they take, gravitate towards the productive. I don’t think the guy next door is pushed along by money these days. He has a comfortable buffer. These days I think he just likes making homes for families and teaching kids to build. He’s in the habit of getting up with the sun.
You see his assets as a problem, a product of his greed. We are all guilty of greed, who the hell can have just 2 Toffee Pops and put the packet away? Yep you’re right, I see his fair and square rewards as a ‘Good on ya mate.’ I think most Kiwis would.
Of course we’re all motivated by money. To a degree. Few of us can do without electricity or clothing. I get the feeling you’d like to limit how productive/rewarded I’m allowed to be. I think to remove that choice from people severely hobbles aspiration and motivation.
It is natural that the rewards, whatever form they take, gravitate towards the productive.
The problem with that is that the majority of rich people aren’t productive at all – they’re just parasites living off the work of those who are. in other words, they’re nothing but bludgers. Probably more accurately called parasites as they will kill the host.
In other words, that sentence is pure bollocks. In fact, I’d call it an outright lie.
You see his assets as a problem, a product of his greed.
And they are on both counts. Excessive assets owned by one person leaves less for everyone else. That’s why capitalism always results first in ever increasing poverty and finally the collapse of the society that it arose in.
I get the feeling you’d like to limit how productive/rewarded I’m allowed to be.
And in that you’d be wrong. In fact what i want is to increase everyone’s creativity but to do that requires removing the nations resources from the control of the few.
Yeah…I think we could bounce a ping-pong ball between us all night Draco and be no closer to common ground. I like you all the same. I think you bring colour and thought provoking comments to this blog.
These fat neo-liberal huas you refer to Draco. Yep, unnecessary exploitive parasites of the highest order, I agree. They are a hindrance on us all leading rounded colourful lives. But there are only 100’s of them. The bogeyman is very thin. I don’t know any neo liberal life sucking bastards but I know quite a few people that are comfortable by way of applying themselves and getting stuck in.
There is no limit on opportunity Draco. There is not a defined quota out there for us to share between us. One person having what you deem too much is not hogging your share. There is plenty for everyone, but putting a bucket next to my couch and expecting it to fill up with money as I watch TV is an unrealistic expectation.
I thought I’d seen you make a comment along the lines of “Yep, everything over 100k is greed, anything over $100k pa, 100% tax on the excess.
Yeah, I don’t think those bogeymen are that thin and they really are causing serious problems. The same problems that feudalism caused in fact because that’s what capitalism is.
There is no limit on opportunity Draco.
Yes there is. If someone doesn’t have access to the resources to be creative then they have no opportunity.
And that true for most of the population of the world and it’s that way because so few people control all of the resources of the world.
There is plenty for everyone, but putting a bucket next to my couch and expecting it to fill up with money as I watch TV is an unrealistic expectation.
And yet rich people do that all the time through their ownership of resources and factories.
And I’m pretty sure you also do exactly the same thing with your savings account. you know, put money in the savings account and expect it to grow with no productive activity on your part at all.
Wow, conviction and discharge. Cool. We are taking a different line to criminality are we, public admission then put in stocks for a day in a public place? Having to clean public toilets with a toothbrush. Go and work at seasonal work and picking vegetables – that would be good, up early in the morning cutting lettuces for the supermarkets?
I wonder what punishment, retribution, re-education, sanctions have been imposed on him and Cameron Slater, who as everyone knows has a hard, grey shell and scuttles around in ingenious places. However I understand that beer is a favourite for pulling him from his hideyhole under decaying detritus.
Visit Southern Man at #16 above and look at that link. Slater is a pimple on a very large smelly backside. Wot me worry?!
“Cyclone Donna is now the strongest tropical storm to hit the South Pacific in May after reaching Category 5 this morning….
Weatherwatch.co.nz said Donna now had sustained winds of 215km/h gusting up to a ferocious 260km/h, making it the strongest May cyclone recorded in the Southern Hemisphere”.
“A climate scientist said Cyclone Donna’s lateness and intensity was a direct result of a changing climate.
Jim Salinger, from Otago University, said late cyclones such as Donna were rare, but not unheard of.
However, he said this one was unusual as the sea temperatures around Vanuatu and New Caledonia are what they would normally be in March.
“Well we’re not in an El Niño and we’re not in a La Niña, so you would not expect temperatures to be that warm, though they can be on occasions. So what we’re seeing happening here is, I’d say, there’s a bit of global warming going on,” Dr Salinger says.
Dr Salinger said scientific predictions of stronger, more intense cyclones over a longer season as a result of climate change were starting to be borne out”.
Personally, I think the precession of the earths’ axis, doing as it always does, has far more impact on the seasonal changes we are experiencing. After all, 26500 years happens gradually, so it’s not complete idiocy to imagine that seasonal changes would happen imperceptibly.
20 years ago, wouldn’t have had any issue planting out tomatoes on Labour Weekend. Now, it’s more likely to be first weekend of December such is the change in the seasonal patterns that have been experienced. Summer hasn’t followed the 1 December – 1 March “cycle” for nearly a decade now – it’s been more like March when Summer really hits it’s stride. Winter seems to be occurring from mid July – October.
I’m sure I’ll be howled down by the earth sciences graduates claiming that seasons never change and are completely immutable.
Bill English: …. ‘irresponsible’, ‘misleading’ Pike River families..
Playing the Blame game..
Speaking on NewsHub AM Show today “he continued to defend the Government’s reluctance to allow manned entry to the mine, where 29 people lost their lives in a 2010 explosion.
“It could be putting a significant number of lives in danger…and doing so for the worst of reasons – and that’s political reasons”.
And yet he would still not rule out agreeing to manned entry as a part of post-election coalition talks….
Bullshit. For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor. In a very few rare circumstances, almost always in controlled environments like greenhouses, CO2 will be the constraint to growth, so increasing CO2 will lead to increased growth. This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.
And if the oceans lose productivity due to increased acidification from increased CO2, then that loss will likely swamp any tiny increase from extra plant growth.
“For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor.”
Yet, satellite imaging shows the Earth has been getting greener.
“This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.”
Alternatively, it could just be an upside to the downside.
You appear to be genius at useless aphorisms. I guess that is what glib but scientifically ignorant are good at.
The world got gets ‘greener’ when we have green algae growing on oceans and waterways. It gets ‘greener’ when grassland replaces forest or swamp. It gets greener when snow and ice cover is replaced by plants.
However none of these mean nothing to providing increased sequestration on additional fossil carbon – they do the opposite. They don’t compensate for the increased adsorption of heat inside our planets volatiles that is performing the fastest climate change that this world has seen since the last major asteroid sea strike.
But I guess that saying such stupid aphorisms they satisfy your tongue and reduce your need to have have to use your brain for actual science eh?.
The article stated it (greening in the satellite imaging) was a consequence of the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration measured by the leaf area index. Therefore, I don’t see how algae and grass fall into that category. Nevertheless, one would assume those occurrences (along with snow and ice cover over the period) would be accounted for.
Edmeades doesn’t appear to cite where those claims of increased leaf area index came from, so it’s hard to comment on how accurately he’s representing the source data and how credible that source is.
On the off chance it’s from his main cite, CO2 Science, here’s a backgrounder on them. They’re another one of these fossil-fuel funded organisations set up to sow confusion.
So it does at least include grass, then, and they expect the “upside” to be temporary anyway. And a lot of the dark green seems to be around the north pole, which has its own problems.
+1. Fat lot of good it will do once the droughts kick in too. And the big rains. And gale force winds. I guess when the forest gets knocked over the grass will grow there faster. Yay.
No, leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees.
They say the benefits ‘may’ also be limited as plants have shown to acclimatize overtime, but no time frame was given. And given the use of the word ‘may’, it sounds as if that is still inconclusive.
Moreover, this study goes back 35 years, therefore it could be several decades before benefits cease, if the cease at all.
Tell me Chairman, since you look for encouraging news in those satellite pictures, how is the glacier retreat problem going? Any reports of glaciers generally making up their losses from over the recent 5 decades?
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The Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni today announced a new approach that continues to broaden the Government’s social sector focus from a narrow, investment approach to one centred on people and wellbeing. Minister Sepuloni said redefining the previous approach to social investment by combining science, data and lived experience ...
The Government is strengthening the Protected Disclosures Act to provide better protection for whistle blowers, Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins said today. “The Protected Disclosures Act is meant to encourage people to speak up about serious wrongdoing in the workplace and protect them from losing their jobs or being ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ngā ...
Tougher penalties for gun crime are a step closer with the passage of firearms reform legislation through another stage in Parliament. The Arms Legislation Bill has tonight passed its Second Reading. “The changes have one objective - to prevent firearms falling into the wrong hands,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Introduction Mr Speaker We all know why we are here today. It has been a long journey. The journey did not actually begin on 15 March 2019. It began on 30 June 1997. Almost 23 years ago, Justice Sir Thomas Thorp told us what was wrong with our firearms legislation. ...
The Government’s work to put trades and vocational education back on the agenda took another major step forward today with the passing of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said. “This is a watershed day for trades and vocational education. These law changes formalise ...
Speeding up the return of Christchurch regeneration activities to local leadership is behind the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill introduced to Parliament today by Minister Megan Woods. “As we approach nine years since the February 2011 earthquake in Canterbury, and with the transition to local leadership well underway, the time ...
Hundreds of New Zealanders and international visitors will be able to get back out into nature with the Milford Track partially reopening next week, after extensive assessments and repairs, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. The popular Great Walk has been closed since 3 February after an extreme ...
Up to 110 new EV chargers nationwide in cities and regions 50 electric vehicles for ride-sharing The Government is helping deliver more infrastructure and options for low emissions transport through new projects, Energy and Resources Minister Dr Megan Woods says. Tauranga, Nelson, Levin, New Plymouth and Oamaru are just some ...
New Zealanders are increasingly better off under this Government as wages rise and families have more disposable income, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ reported today that average household disposable incomes after housing costs rose 4.9% in 2019. This was the highest rise in four years and came as ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
Today the Government is making progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in Parliament. “This Bill includes a series of reforms to improve the wellbeing of the 609,700 households that live in rented homes, and ...
A Government programme to wipe out pea weevil has achieved a world first, with Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor today announcing the successful eradication of the noxious pest from Wairarapa. This means the nearly four-year ban on pea plants and pea straw was lifted today. Commercial and home gardeners can again grow ...
Southland residents hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall can now access help finding temporary accommodation with the Government activating the Temporary Accommodation Service, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare announced today. “The Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) has been activated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to help ...
“Is that it?” That’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response to Simon Bridges’ much-hyped economic speech today. “Simon Bridges just gave the most over-hyped and under-delivered speech that I can remember during my time in politics,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s not surprising. Simon Bridges literally said on the radio this morning ...
A trial deployment of the Police Eagle helicopter in Christchurch will test whether the aircraft would make a significant difference to crime prevention and community safety. “The Bell 429 helicopter will be based in Christchurch for five weeks, from 17 February to 20 March,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The ...
The Government has kept up the pace of its work to promote New Zealand’s trade interests and diversify our export markets, with visits to Fiji and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. Building momentum to bring the PACER Plus trade and development agreement ...
The Coalition Government’s investment in a strong border and disrupting transnational organised crime produced record results for stopping drugs in 2019, says Minister of Customs Jenny Salesa. The illegal drugs were seized at the New Zealand border by Customs, and overseas by Customs’ international border partners before the drugs could ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off construction of a separated cycleway alongside Tamaki Drive. A two-way separated cycleway will be built along the northern side of Tamaki Drive, between the Quay Street Cycleway extension and Ngapipi Road. There will be a separate walking path alongside. Phil Twyford said giving ...
Owner-occupiers of unit and apartments living in earthquake-prone buildings will have certainty about the financial support they’ll be eligible for with the release of criteria for an upcoming assistance scheme, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. The Residential Earthquake-Prone Building Financial Assistance Scheme will help unit owners facing ...
Temporary restrictions on travel from China will remain in place as a precautionary measure to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The restrictions which prevent foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through, mainland China from entering New Zealand have been extended for a further 8 days. This position ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today that Tairāwhiti rangatahi will benefit from an investment made by the Government’s He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) scheme. The funding will go to the Tautua Village, Kauneke programme and the Matapuna Supported Employment Programme which will fund 120 rangatahi over two years. “Both programmes work ...
All parents and caregivers need to ensure that their children go to school unless they are sick, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin said today. “The school attendance results for 2019 show, across the board, a drop in the number of students going to school regularly,” the Minister says. “Apart from ...
A Deed of Settlement agreeing redress for historical Treaty claims has been signed by the Crown and Moriori at Kōpinga Marae on Rēkohu (Chatham Islands) today, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little has announced. Moriori have a tradition of peace that extends back over 600 years. This settlement ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today with Māori King Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII officially opened the country’s newest road, the $384 million Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway. The 15km four-lane highway with side and central safety barriers takes State Highway 1 east of Huntly town, across lowlands and streams ...
The rapid uptake of life-saving new hepatitis C medicine Maviret since it was funded by PHARMAC a year ago means the elimination of the deadly disease from this country is a realistic goal, Health Minister David Clark says. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus which attacks the liver, proving fatal ...
Kaupapa Māori will underpin the Government’s new plan to deal with homelessness announced by the Prime Minister in Auckland this morning. “Māori are massively overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness, so, to achieve different outcomes for Māori, we have to do things very differently,” says the Minister of Māori Development ...
1000 new transitional housing places delivered by end of year to reduce demand for emergency motel accommodation. Introduce 25% of income payment, after 7 days, for those in emergency motel accommodation to bring in line with other forms of accommodation support. Over $70m extra to programmes that prevents those at ...
The Labour Party says it has received money from two of the people facing charges in relation to National Party donations but says they were above board. ...
New Zealand First’s action to halt the introduction of a ‘feebate’ scheme designed to support the nation’s transition to low-emission vehicles is a leap back into the industrial age, says Drive Electric Chairman Mark Gilbert. “While ...
Staff expenses at the Reserve Bank – which have increased by an average 4.4% a year since 2009/11 – surged by 14.8% in the 12 months to 2018/19. Total staff numbers increased by an average 3.4 a year during those nine years but shot up by 19 in 2018/19 from ...
The Socialist Equality Group is holding a protest rally on Sunday February 23 in Wellington to demand freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. Sunday 23 February, 3:00pm Cuba Street (Left Bank intersection) ...
By Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila ABS-CBN president and CEO Carlo Lopez Katigbak has broken his silence amid the controversy over renewal of the Philippine TV giant’s broadcast franchise, which expires in one month. Katigbak, in a video posted on the ABS-CBN News site and aired over flagship ...
RNZ management wants to grow a youth audience without having to build a costly new platform. Anna Dean offers a bunch – none of which involves scrapping RNZ Concert.Over the next few weeks RNZ National Concert staff are set to take part in strategy workshops focused on “growth in audience reach, ...
Today LockerRoom brings you the first episode of Pure As, a mini documentary series on the Silver Ferns' personal journeys to World Cup glory. So much of the magic and composure Silver Ferns captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio brings to the netball court today was learned from years of sitting on the ...
"He was an energy vacuum, a shit magnet, a waste of skin": a black comedy by Nelson writer Grant Smithies. The stars he saw were blue, green, golden. Little lights swam around slowly, then went out one by one. His face felt hot. His left eye wasn’t working. And ...
Yes, it’s still summer and, en route to that final festival or beach bolt-hole, the season of the road trip. Here Spinoff Art co-editor Mark Amery runs down some of the best North Island contemporary art stopovers, and the mavericks behind them. We cross the Cook Strait next year, promise.Back ...
The Star Wars prequels are universally regarded as the nadir of the franchise, but at least they gave us spinoff series The Clone Wars, writes Sam BrooksNobody likes the Star Wars prequels. Though that statement is slightly hyperbolic, it’s not far from the truth. Even if you can make a ...
Jai Breitnauer on what happens when male role models start disappearing from a child’s life.Recently, we saw a ghost from the past. Once a regular visitor to our home, there just after the birth of our first child and a constant presence for more than a decade, this individual disappeared ...
Dragon Quest: Your Story feels like an hour-and-a-half-long highlight reel of an adventure spanning dozens of hours, but it’s damn fun, writes Felix Walton.One of Netflix’s current hustles seems to be grabbing movies with little to no hope of a wide release and publishing them as “Netflix Originals.” The latest ...
The Ministry of Education is proposing a number of changes to NCEA Level One, including the merging of several subjects to be phased in over the next five years. Felix Walton looks into how, and why, these changes are happening.Why are they changing things now?They aren’t changing things now, per ...
Pacific Media Centre Chinese authorities are systematically harassing Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic groups even after they have left the country, according to new testimonies gathered by Amnesty International. Uyghur New Zealanders were among those interviewed, despite the threat of further intimidation. The case studies, published online today, reveal ...
A victim of the Generate KiwiSaver hack is considering legal action to seek compensation for stress and the risk of identity theft. One of the 26,000 KiwiSavers who had personal information, including their physical address, IRD number, bank statements and identification, stolen by an unknown third party has sought advice ...
Healthcare appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has upped its profit forecasts for the third time this year, with increased sales off the back of the coronavirus. The company now expects a full year net profit of between $260 and $270 million, up 1.9 percent on its previous forecast. Chief ...
Power company Genesis Energy has taken a significant financial hit and lowered its guidance, because of lower hydro generation and gas shortages. Net profit for the six months ended December fell 81.4 percent to $9.2 million, from slightly lower revenue of $1.3 billion. Lower inflows for its hydro power stations ...
Kiwibank's first half profit is down on flat revenue growth and increased operations and compliance costs. The New Zealand-owned bank's net profit fell 18 percent to $51 million in the six months to December, compared with the year earlier's $62m. "As expected the bank faced rising operating costs due to ...
The New Zealand Bar Association has urged Parliament to balance carefully the need to reform legislation in respect of sexual violence with the need to ensure that only the guilty are convicted. The Association told the Justice Select Committee ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Michelle Grattan talks with Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher about the week in politics, including the extension of the coronavirus travel ban, the royal commission into the bushfires, and labor’s stance on a compulsory superannuation guarantee ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Steen, Professor of Midwifery, University of South Australia In a new parenting podcast, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, said she used hypnobirthing techniques to help her get through severe morning sickness – a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum. She also used the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Alexander, Research fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne This article is the first in a three-part series on radical ideas to solve the environmental crisis. As the Productivity Commission confirmed this week, Australia’s economy has enjoyed uninterrupted growth for ...
The Nats are accusing Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor of being slow to act on a tuberculosis outbreak in Hawke’s Bay. Is it a fair cop? OSPRI confirmed an outbreak in Hawke’s Bay in April last year, but a disease management response wasn’t put in place until October, National agriculture spokesman ...
Porirua City Council is scratching its head on how it's going to meet the costs of a $2 billion bill to bring its water network up to scratch over the next two to three decades. ...
The sentencing of Grace Millane’s killer to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years marks the end of a judicial process that can only have been extremely harrowing for her family. They had already experienced the loss of their daughter, ...
Twenty years ago, Auckland’s streets were ruled by diesel-hating narcs. Josie Adams looks back at the short-lived 0800 SMOKEY campaign.For five chaotic weeks in 2000, the Auckland Regional Council experimented with extreme, multi-level peer pressure. The goal: to get cleaner-burning fuel into Auckland cars. The method: turning citizens against each ...
The National Party donations scandal that had nothing to do with the National Party was the big news of the week. James Elliott has some thoughts on that. Simon Bridges has climbed into double digits as preferred Prime Minister in the latest political polling which is significant for two reasons. ...
He thought he’d moved on, but the news the Holden brand was being killed off hit Trevor McKewen harder than he expected. Here he reminisces about a youthful infatuation that never quite burned out.A part of me died this week and I didn’t see it coming.Holden has shut up shop ...
Today the unnamed man found guilty of murdering Grace Millane was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 17. “One person has been locked away but are New Zealand women any safer?” asks White Ribbon Manager Rob McCann. “We certainly ...
Pacific Media Watch An Australian federal court decision upholding the legality of the police raid on the Sydney headquarters of the national public broadcaster ABC last June has dealt a major blow to the protection of journalists’ sources and poses a grave danger for the future of public interest ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20)What is going on, Auckland? Is it just ...
A poem by US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.The FightThe rising sun paints the feet of night-crawling enemies. And they scatter into the burning hills. I have fought each of them. I know them by name. From before I could speak. I’ve used every weapon. To make them retreat. Yet they ...
A string of toy companies are facing legal action for selling unsafe toys that pose choking hazards for young children. Yesterday, Cinevan International was fined $81,000 and another four companies are before the courts. Businesses have been using a sticker on the packaging saying 'not suitable for children under three' ...
The Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee, Gareth Hughes, is calling for public submissions on the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which was referred to the committee on 20 February 2020. The Residential Tenancies Act ...
ANALYSIS:By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape has embarked on a state visit to New Zealand. It is the first visit to New Zealand by a sitting PNG prime minister since Marape’s predecessor Peter O’Neill’s trip in 2013. Marape, who rolled O’Neill ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentDonations scandals Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Who are the people at the centre of the SFO political donation row? Collette ...
Policyholders fear the sale of AMP LIfe to a Bermuda-based 'zombie fund guru' could leave them stranded because a legal gap means the FMA is powerless to protect them ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Giancaspro, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide When booking a luxury cruise, you generally expect relaxation and enjoyment, not forced quarantine and distress. Unfortunately, for the thousands of vacationers trapped on cruise ships in Asia the past month, what started as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Courtney Hempton, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University The Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board has this week published a report detailing the first six months of the legislation in action in Victoria. The report reveals 52 people legally ended their lives from the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blanca del Rosal Rabes, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology Brain temperature is implicated in many common conditions including stroke, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and headaches. Changes in brain temperature can indicate there is a disease developing, but researchers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Anthony Albanese will commit a Labor government to adopting a target of zero net emissions by 2050, in a speech titled “Leadership in a New Climate” to be delivered on Friday. The opposition leader’s embrace ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy N. W. Jackson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian Venom Research Unit, University of Melbourne This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, a series where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.auWho would ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamen Franklen Gussen, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology In 1971, a Time magazine article, titled “Should New York City Be the 51st State?”, observed: States have not only short-changed and hamstrung their cities but are themselves the least creative ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ida Kubiszewski, Associate professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Labor’s treasury spokesman, Jim Chalmers, wants to follow New Zealand’s example and introduce a “wellbeing budget” alongside the traditional budget that stresses economic growth, when Labor is next in office. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Andreallo, Honorary research fellow, University of Sydney A sea of oversized hair bows bobs through primary school gates each morning. It might be dismissed as a harmless children’s fad but big bows are back, driven by current fashions, tween influencers and ...
The Government of New Zealand has recognized that the country is facing a housing crisis, said Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, at the end of her visit to the country . “While the Government has taken important steps ...
Survey results released today by the Helen Clark Foundation and the New Zealand Drug Foundation show that support for cannabis legalisation grows when people know more about the proposed legislation. When respondents were asked how they would vote ...
In today’s edition: Views on cannabis legalisation could hardly be tighter, the Papua New Guinea PM arrives in NZ, and bad light threatens cricket on the radio.A new poll published this morning finds that 46% of those surveyed would vote yes, and 44% no, with 10% undecided. That’s a markedly different ...
Actress Jennifer Ward-Lealand Te Atamira, a long-time champion of the arts, and te reo Māoriis the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year for 2020. Mark Jennings reports on the night that honours the best of us. What does it mean to be a New Zealander? The question was posed by ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias.FICTION 1 In the Clearing by JP Pomare (Hachette, $34.99) All next week at ReadingRoom is devoted to this brilliant thriller inspired by Australian cult The Family, led by ...
‘A life-changing experience’, ‘The greatest of the great! It must be experienced!’, ‘That show with the dancing lady on the billboard.’ Shen Yun ads are impossible to avoid, but what on earth is it?So what is Shen Yun?According to the Shen Yun website: “It is a brilliant artistic revival ...
"To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up. We need to hear your voices." These are the words of Hildur Guðnadóttir, who recently accepted the Oscar for best original score for the film Joker at the 92nd ...
Dr Amanda Landers discusses the stigma associated with palliative care and why the field deserves recognition Scalpels are a powerful tool in medicine, but words can be just as mighty. Some medical specialties are easy to comprehend - they cut, stitch, unblock, restart or fix. Others are just too hard ...
A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to the attention of authorities, the poorly stored solvents remain a fire and environmental risk. While Government agencies struggled to get a polluter to clean up his mess, up to one million ...
Georgia Hale's tireless and compassionate work, using her sport of rugby league to create opportunities for many different communities, has earned her the title of Young New Zealander of the Year. As soon as she left high school, Georgia Hale began working with children with intellectual disabilities. It changed her ...
A new, "true green" party hoping to break into Parliament at this year's election has been hit by resignations and allegations of questionable conduct, Newsroom's political editor Sam Sachdeva reports Fledgling political party Sustainable New Zealand has been rocked by a flurry of resignations and allegations of questionable behaviour by its ...
A rare visit by a prime minister of Papua New Guinea to New Zealand highlights a strong friendship, but one which could be closer, writes Johnny Blades for RNZ.Papua New Guinea’s James Marape has embarked on a state visit to New Zealand. It’s the first visit to New Zealand by ...
Plant-based food producers ‘stigmatise and demonise’ traditional agriculture, according to Jones, but those working in the new industry say it should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat. NZ First minister Shane Jones’ suggestion that plant-based food must be “stopped in its tracks” has been labelled concerning, negligent and anti-competitive ...
The prospect of going to the Red Planet is possibly a step closer with the US President's State of the Nation speech, in which he promises we will land there. The chances of anything coming from Mars - according to the 1978 Jeff Wayne musical War of the Worlds - are ...
Jennifer Ward-Lealand’s dedication to acting, directing and te ao Māori saw her named the 2020 Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year at a special dinner in Auckland last night. Alice Webb-Liddall speaks to her about how she hopes to nurture the future of the craft that has given her so ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Seen as a political narrative, the Morrison government’s handling of the coronavirus (COVID-19) fits the patterns of its approaches on border security and anti-terrorism. Stressing the central imperative is to “keep Australians safe”, it has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The coronavirus is presenting a major threat to Australia’s education export industry, which is highly dependant upon the China market, and a huge challenge to the universities. Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The corona virus is presenting a major threat to Australia’s education export industry, which is highly dependant upon the China market, and a huge challenge to the universities. Phillip Honeywood, CEO of the International Education ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stacey L Rowe, PhD candidate, Monash University Today’s evacuation of about 180 passengers from the cruise ship Diamond Princess to serve another period of quarantine back in Australia has raised questions about the best way to control spread of the coronavirus. The ...
Open Mike 08/05/2017 
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article ‘The Dangerous Denial of Sex by two scientists Colin Wright and Emma Hilton. Write is an evolutionary biologist at Penn State and Hilton is a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester. It is well worth reading the article in full. Here ...1 hour ago
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...3 hours ago
Winston Peters - Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NZ First PartyWe all know that politics can be pretty messy at times. Just look at the Dirty Politics saga in New Zealand, the misgovernment of the Australian bushfires or the recent Trump impeachment debacle in the US. In a ...8 hours ago
Last Monday SpaceX launched another clutch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, bringing up to 300 the number of these units intended to bring 5G internet to the whole globe. In this post I present a movie showing how all 300 such satellites will be zipping around our planet over ...19 hours ago
The recent floods in Southland have highlighted the issue of Rio Tinto's illegal toxic waste dump in Mataura. But according to Newsroom, there's an even worse mess in Ruakaka near Whangarei:A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to ...1 day ago
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman CARLSBAD, CA. – When it comes to paying the electric bill, most people don’t give it a second thought – it’s something that in effect is “baked in.” But across California and several other states, local governments increasingly are ...1 day ago
The Democracy Virus: China’s authoritarian political system enables a level of social surveillance and control that liberal democratic societies cannot match. The Chinese Government makes full use of the latest digital technology to both punish – and reward – its citizens. The plans it formulates cannot be challenged, or hindered. Where ...1 day ago
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...3 days ago
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...6 days ago
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Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...1 day ago
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...1 week ago
Justice Minister Andrew Little will travel to Berlin tomorrow to represent New Zealand at a high-level summit on nuclear disarmament. This year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) celebrates 50 years since it entered into force. “New Zealand’s proud record and leadership on nuclear disarmament is unwavering, so it’s important we are present ...5 hours ago
The Labour Party says it has received money from two of the people facing charges in relation to National Party donations but says they were above board. ...18 mins ago
New Zealand First’s action to halt the introduction of a ‘feebate’ scheme designed to support the nation’s transition to low-emission vehicles is a leap back into the industrial age, says Drive Electric Chairman Mark Gilbert. “While ...2 hours ago
Staff expenses at the Reserve Bank – which have increased by an average 4.4% a year since 2009/11 – surged by 14.8% in the 12 months to 2018/19. Total staff numbers increased by an average 3.4 a year during those nine years but shot up by 19 in 2018/19 from ...5 hours ago
By Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila ABS-CBN president and CEO Carlo Lopez Katigbak has broken his silence amid the controversy over renewal of the Philippine TV giant’s broadcast franchise, which expires in one month. Katigbak, in a video posted on the ABS-CBN News site and aired over flagship ...9 hours ago
RNZ management wants to grow a youth audience without having to build a costly new platform. Anna Dean offers a bunch – none of which involves scrapping RNZ Concert.Over the next few weeks RNZ National Concert staff are set to take part in strategy workshops focused on “growth in audience reach, ...10 hours ago
Today LockerRoom brings you the first episode of Pure As, a mini documentary series on the Silver Ferns' personal journeys to World Cup glory. So much of the magic and composure Silver Ferns captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio brings to the netball court today was learned from years of sitting on the ...13 hours ago
"He was an energy vacuum, a shit magnet, a waste of skin": a black comedy by Nelson writer Grant Smithies. The stars he saw were blue, green, golden. Little lights swam around slowly, then went out one by one. His face felt hot. His left eye wasn’t working. And ...13 hours ago
Peter Griffin looks past the rollercoaster ride that is cryptocurrency to find out its true potential. ...1 day ago
A victim of the Generate KiwiSaver hack is considering legal action to seek compensation for stress and the risk of identity theft. One of the 26,000 KiwiSavers who had personal information, including their physical address, IRD number, bank statements and identification, stolen by an unknown third party has sought advice ...1 day ago
Apple is the latest tech firm to warn that Kiwis may lose access to streaming content if a new parental guidance law goes ahead. ...1 day ago
Healthcare appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has upped its profit forecasts for the third time this year, with increased sales off the back of the coronavirus. The company now expects a full year net profit of between $260 and $270 million, up 1.9 percent on its previous forecast. Chief ...1 day ago
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Some facts for your consideration.
74.1 per cent of Chinese voters voted National in 2014.
Chinese voter turnout in the 2014 General Elections was 78.5 per cent – higher than the national average of 76.8 per cent.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11851380
Yep – if you want to know why Natz still are in power… they are importing in voters in record numbers.
This has been a concern of mine for years now. It is not a racial problem as such , it seems to be based more about the ‘type’ of person our policy attracts.
For me it stands out most with the immigrants from a certain rugby playing nation.
And your comment could easily be referencing immigrants from Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa…
I’ve noticed that our government seems to favour under educated people from countries that have high corruption and poor human rights in particular for women.
We already have high family violence rates in NZ, so as well as cutting most funding for the cause, the government has even found a way to try and make that worse in the future by adding people from worse off countries. They are like anti human rights magicians so no wonder many vote National. Or are they trying to get a cultural fit?
Who is Barry Soper paid by ?
Supporters of the TPP I sense.
And he calls himself a journalist.
‘Barry Soper: The days when people knew how to protest’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11850972
And who is Stephen Jacobi paid by? The International Business Forum?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201842970/trade-group-uses-videos-to-try-gain-public-backing-for-new-tpp
NZ was predicted to get a rise in GDP of 0.9% by 2030–less than 1%, in exchange for being made liable to be sued if our laws were changed and didn’t comply with TPP rules written by/for corporates.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11848118
A 20 yr old kid drove his boss’s fully laden bee truck and trailer into the back of a logging truck at 4 am, killing his workmate who was asleep in the passenger seat.
“An inspection of his work logbook and employment records revealed that Power had breached his cumulative work time and rest time hours on a regular basis between October 20 and November 21, 2015.
That included him making false statements about the start of his cumulative work day on 34 occasions, the summary of facts revealed.”
Well, either granny’s got it wrong again, or he worked 34 shifts in 32 days and regularly exceeded 14 hour days in that period. He would have been in zombie land by the time he crashed.
So, where’s the employer in all this? The boy wouldn’t be working those hours of his own volition, he would have been instructed to and the same with the log book violation.
They didn’t even mention the employer in the article!
I’m sure there was a great deal of pressure to work those hours too.
Employer was / is Arataki Honey Rotorua, mentioned in article, but nothing about prosecution of
They did mention the employer in the article – and I’m fairly sure a competent lawyer would have made sure that there was/wasn’t culpability on the part of the employer so as to mitigate the boys sentence.
The number that popped out for me from that article was the weight of the logging truck the lad rear ended…134 tonnes.
More than twice the legal limit.
Back when I used to regularly use forest roads in that area the word was they were not public roads so weight limits didn’t apply. Rumour was speed limits didn’t apply either, but that may have just been wishful thinking by young male hoons. Certainly there were some very large very heavily laden trucks (much more load than you’d ever see on state highways) going very fast.
Dunno if that was actually true back then or what the current legal status of those roads really is.
I travel between Whangarei and Auckland at least several times a month – it is becoming more and more of a safety gamble as more and more trucks clog up the roads, far too often speeding, overtaking each other and generally creating traffic mayhem. Many of these loads should, I’m sure, be on trains, and the awful state of the roads north are certainly not capable of sustaining the obvious increase of heavy vehicles. Many of the drivers are likely to be in similar situations to the young man who died – I see far too many trucks on the roads in the Waikato too when I’m there.
I drive a 5 tonne housebus and am theoretically restricted to 90kph. Very seldom am I not passed by a following juggernaut. Andre…still applies today even on main roads….the perception is that heavy vehicles have immunity from attention from the law enforcement brigade. I can’t remember the last time a roadside weighstation was having a blitz.
We travel regularly between Waikato and the Far North and can attest to the volume and the almost aggressiveness of some truck drivers. The Brynderwens, quite frankly, give me the shits when I’m trying to come down the south side of the hill with a huge truck pushing me to travel at a speed much faster than is safe. And I have a lead foot. Ken Shirley is an awesome spokeperson and lobbyist for the trucking industry and usually blames the daily accident involving a truck on the other road user.
Fortunately there a some in the industry that know better…and are willing to speak out…http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/305027/truck-crashes-blamed-on-fatigue-and-inexperience
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/90752541/Linehaul-drivers-quit-due-to-dangerous-conditions-and-inexperienced-drivers
David Corbyn???
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: WTF: this looks like some kind of stupid unexplained diversion at the top of a post. If I see you do anything like that in the near future, you will be banned until after the election. I don’t have time to deal with stupidity. ]
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11851348
Put waterways in trust for all New Zealanders
Do you remember the Foreshore and Seabed Act?
Seems reasonable.
Sowing the seeds of tax reform
Russell and Baucher hope to fire up KiwiSavers to demand the tax system be made fairer, but also to spark a national debate about whether it is finally time for the wealthy to pay tax on their capital gains.
“When the public rebels against unfair taxation, governments can change.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/92207613/kiwisavers-harshly-taxed-compared-to-property-investors-book-claims
well put, it remains rather telling that no senior people in NZ Labour including President Haworth, seem to be able to bring themselves to support Jeremy Corbyn
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: I am getting tired of having these kinds of personal attacks with no actual argument. Guess where it is going. BTW: I left my carefully framed observation as a comment in an expanded version of your own style. Enjoy. ]
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Quite simply having deranged lefties ranting at me with no visible intelligence saying that I should support him for unspecified reasons out of some kind of faith based religiosity isn’t exactly a way to convince me. In fact it seems to be doing exactly the opposite.
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
I noticed exactly the same thing when I looked at Saunders. I suspect that the supporters of such candidates are their oppositions best weapon against them.
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Really, Lin? What is it that you find hard to support? His commitment to the National Health Service? His commitment to decent, properly funded schooling? His commitment to international law? His opposition to Britain’s insane and ruinous “defence” policies?
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
Labour is in desperate straits in the United Kingdom. That’s not Corbyn’s fault, it’s the fault of Blair and his Kool-Aid Britannia mob, and no-hopers like Ed Miliband—the same people who are busy white-anting the party leader now.
I guess you like your Labour—sorry, New Labour—politicians to be like this bloke:
The funny thing is that I never hear anyone trying to explain any of these things. And in fact you didn’t explain them in your first para either.
What I hear a lot are comments like your second – which effectively are whining.
Usually followed by your third para, which is that of the usual attacking someone for not being faithful to something that they are incapable of explaining.
FFS Morrisey. I could give a pigs arse about UK politics. But I find fundamentalist fools like you and Tiger about as useful for picking up information as Christian nutters trying to explain the bible without ever apparently ever having read it more than selected sections of it.
Needless to say, people who act like that just tend to irritate me. I share the obvious human presumption that with supporters like this, why does that politician need any enemies?
Unfortunately I suspect this is increasingly the attitude of Labour voters in the UK. Certainly the results in the local elections overnight are dispiriting. The few brighter spots in the results were even more dispiriting. It appears that political survival at that level for Labour candidates is increasingly to be very very local and have nothing to do with Westminister Labour.
Maybe when the actual policies are released…
You could sign up here if you’ve the interest beyond a pigs arse.
http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto/2017
Broadly, he’s been advocating a return to social democratic governance. Ironically, much in line with what the SNP are already doing in Scotland, who he keeps having to bag as a party of austerity because Kezia.
I have to admit, Mr Prent, you’ve broken down my modus operandi in a compelling and scholarly fashion.
http://www.teacher-stamps.co.uk/image/cache/data/Bowtie-Cat-Well-Done-500×500.jpg
@Morrissey +1
Labour NZ yet another traditional left western political party being destroyed by it’s ‘faith based’ religious adherence to a debunked and destructive ideology.
But then that’s what you get with fundamentalists…just check out Helen Clark’s ‘no looking back’ rave yesterday on rnz.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/programmes/the-9th-floor/story/201842639/the-commander-helen-clark
To be fair to Corbyn though, it’s hard to see how anyone in that situation would be doing well on voting day given that (a) half the UK Labour party have openly undermined him and hence voters probably don’t trust the party to be competent in govt, and (b) the MSM have been relatively biased against him. Not that he is without fault, but there are significant factors outside of his control.
Although it’s interesting to not that since the snap election was announced, UKLabour has gone up almost 5% in the trend of polls.
The tories have gone up too, but seem to be wobbling a bit at the top, and most of their support seems to have come from UKIP.
A Labour win is still very very much in doubt, but provided they don’t falter as the effect of the localbodies kicks in, UKLabour might still be able to give the tories a bloody nose.
That’s a reasonably sharp swing up for Labour, what’s prompted that?
Seems to be bang on when the snap election was announced.
#ifthistrendcontinues (lol) 35% wouldn’t be completely out of the question. But it it flattens for the next couple of weeks it would be game over.
Also, the tories need to start losing, rather than just plateauing. Either way, I don’t expect the lines to cross over, but if they’re close then the tories might have trouble getting their hard brexit and other agenda items through.
Maybe UK Labour should have
“send the government a message’ slogan.
I suspect they already do. I mean, they’re actually campaigning pretty well and have a good polling track so far, I just don’t think it’ll be enough for us to see PM Corbyn. It might be enough to see May knifed in the back, though.
I suspect that it is largely the election effect allied to a lack of parties from a FFP system. When it gets closer to actually having to vote, then voting intentions firm up.
In this case the idea about actually voting for the Conservatives for another 5 year term compared to someone that they are unsure about.
I think that Labour will do better in this early election than many political observers expect. They have had the long term issue that many of their traditional supporters are looking for something to change. They are not seeing it as coming from UK Labour after the Blair years. So they have been drifting off to the SNP or UKIP or Lib-Dems (or Brexit) and splitting the vote. But I suspect that there is a bit too much change going on now.
The problem for the conservatives as far as I can see as an outside observer, is that outside of the southern suburbs and some of the leafier semirural areas of the UK – there isn’t much solid support for the tories either. They have been doing well from the loss of support from the other side(s). But it looks like it is very soft.
So when it gets back to being a two horse race (now that UKIP and Lib-Dems have largely disintegrated their accumulated support), then Labour is going to do better in the two horse races outside of Scotland.
But I don’t think that Labour there looks like it can get to the point of forming a government.
Of the 300-ish seats that Labour lost, just under half were lost in Scotland (130). A fair few in Wales went to independents.
Anyone with a half an ounce of nous knew that Labour were going to get trounced in Scotland – and that’s down to Labour previously jumping into bed with the Tories and the gobsmacking ‘leadership’ of Kezia “the Blairite” Dugdale.
So Labour didn’t do too badly – certainly not as badly as msm would have people believe.
That the Tories picked up the UKIP vote and that both the Tories and Scottish Labour allowed members of the fucking Orange Order to stand as Labour and Tory candidates…that’s what would be newsworthy in my world.
But then, I’m not a liberal msm forlornly manning the trenches against inevitable change – fuk! Was that a Bob Dylan earworm I just squished? I think it was 😉
Oh I’d agree that he has had issues outside of his control. Reminds me of the way Cunliffe had problems here.
However I have largely had to make up my decision about Corbyn from sources outside his supporter community, as they seem to spend all of their time whining about those issues outside of his control.
Try finding someone amongst his ardent supporters who can coherently discuss his policy areas and why they are being applied without someone trying to accuse you of not supporting them.
Which was the point that I’m making. Incidentally, this was part of the problem that Cunliffe had as well. Their most ardent supporters seem to make their life looking for someone to blame. They are often noisier than the actual enemies and tend to put a lot of people off.
It also tends to drown out the message of what they are wanting to do in a wash of blind and usually deluded faith. Who in the hell needs enemies when left politicians have supporters like these?
apologies for bungling “reply”, my comment referred directly to sanctuary’s first comment (which included a reference to Mr Corbyn) on ADVANTAGE’s “yes for Ardern” piece
no apology though, for my views on the lack of support for Jeremy Corbyn from NZ Labour tops and their minions, and don’t bother banning me–I have banned you!–this site became increasingly unreadable, imo, during the US Primary and Election debacle; a shame as I had been a Standard supporter from the start
I’m afraid, Tiger Mountain, that Labour’s team of clever strategists—the same people who instructed Labour candidates in 2014 to recite, like a catechism, “Oh, look, Dirty Politics is a distraction”—have decreed that Corbyn’s platform of moderate, traditional Labour Party policies and a progressive, moral foreign policy is absolutely verboten.
Brilliant Labour thinkers like Stephen “I Agree With Matthew” Mills have been strenuously distancing themselves from Corbyn for some time now….
Yeh first of all we had to put up with Mike Williams on RNZ, which made Monday morning politics a complete waste of time, and now Mills, although to be fair, I guess he agrees with Hooton so often because…well because he just does, that’s centrists politics for you.
It’s like listening or reading the gibberish from Nash and Lorck around here, who would know if you where listening or reading someone from National or Labour? I sure as hell can’t tell the difference most of the time.
FFS: I’m not a Labour strategist. I am (generally) a Labour supporter. Surely even you could explain why I or NZ Labour be that interested in UK politics from here?
The last of my family left the British isles a mere 150 years ago. NZ Labour’s job here is to represent citizens of this country. As far as I am concerned Nigel Haworth wasn’t elected to opine about affairs in another country. Especially when that country is 5th or 6th on our export trade and steadily becoming less relevant to NZ all of the time.
Perhaps you should explain your reasoning rather than acting like a spoilt child demanding that other people do what you want them to do.
As a moderator, as far as I could see there was nothing in your comment that related to the post. It barely seemed to have much relationship to Sanctuary’s comment, which was at least largely on topic, unlike Gosman’s comments which were at the top of the comments.. Which is why it got shunted to here.
The comment I replied to it expressed my frustration at the myopia of the faithful who seem to care more about delineating enemies than convincing others through rational argument and facts. Basically after several years of this recently I suspect that many of you would be at home in an Inquisition torture pit ‘explaining’ in your inimitable fashion why heathens should be converting to the gentle religion of Christ.
BTW: it was a reply to Sanctuary. The shift to OpenMike removes the parenting, but carries through any child comments.
Something rotten in the state of the German Green Party
When fanatics and dilettantes like Volker Beck are allowed to dominate and bully an organization, it is doomed. The Greens in Germany look like they’re a spent force….
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2017/05/07/finkelstein-under-attack-by-german-parliamentarian-and-self-styled-friend-of-israel-volker-beck-green-party-update/
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/201842837/pike-river-families-never-shown-video-of-men-in-drift-mother-says
Pike River families never shown video of men in drift, mother says
Carol Rose, the mother of one of the Pike River 29 and took notes of all the meetings in the months following the disaster, says families were never shown footage of men in the drift.”
So who is telling lies!!
They can’t both be right. Surely the Police can produce a minute detailing the what when where. Should be easy to do.
After all Bill English keeps repeating the “they were shown the videos.” “My Police team told me so and they are as reliable as my friend Keating.”
Painted themselves into a corner me thinks
The future of farming.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sponsored-stories/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503708&objectid=11842004
yep and then we will have enclaves of unwanted foreign labourers ,
Yep, and we can’t have that, so Natz will save, goodbye welfare system.
To the 19th century workhouse we go.
Veolia causing a stink in Wellington
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/92202533/stench-of-wellingtons-sewage-wafts-through-suburbia
Another day in a country gripped by neoliberalism. But literally the stench is starting to show.
Indeed. And when the stink hits the fan, it’s locals (not the offshore operators) that have to put up with the stench.
The no.1 threat to farming communities.
what is?
On the absurdity that education is the silver bullet to relieve existing poverty and magic away inequality.
.
Education is not the best anti-poverty program, argues historian Harvey Kantor, and it’s long past time we acknowledged that…
[…]
Kantor: One of the consequences of making education so central to social policy has been that we’ve ended up taking the pressure off of the state for the kinds of policies that would be more effective at addressing poverty and economic inequality. Instead we’re asking education to do things it can’t possibly do. The result has been increasing support for the kinds of market-oriented policies that make inequality worse.
If we really want to address issues of inequality and economic insecurity, there are a lot of other policies that we have to pursue besides or at least in addition to education policies, and that part of the debate has been totally lost. Raising the minimum wage, or providing a guaranteed income, which the last time we talked seriously about that was in the late 1960’s, increasing workers’ bargaining power, making tax policies more progressive—things like that are going to be much more effective at addressing inequality and economic security than education policies. That argument is often taken to mean, *schools can’t do anything unless we address poverty first.* But that’s not what we were trying to say.
http://haveyouheardblog.com/thepovertyfix/
Education. Compulsory. Why? Because it’s good for citizens to be literate, and numerate and know about a raft of subjects. How will it be useful to them? Well they will be able to make their way in life, know about the world , the country and its systems, manage their affairs, know about opportunities, get jobs and make their individual lifestyle, and take their full, functioning place in society.
That’s roughly how the thinking has been in everyone’s minds. What good has education actually been in helping people to become fully functioning citizens enjoying their place in society? What do we see around us today to show us how useful the education has been, received since the beginning of the 1900’s?
Let’s unpick the above beliefs and look at reality.
* The government and the comfortably off (actually the wealthy and rich but they never use such direct language), unpick society so it is fragmented going towards tatters. Education has helped them in finding their individual wealth, and then how to siphon off to themselves more that others needed to make their individual way.
* Individual lifestyle, now becoming more precarious. May be without a permanent dwelling. Many forced to live like gypsies, worse than primitive hunter, gatherers who knew where the caves were and just had to turn out the lower animals to occupy, (or co-habit)
.
Many people are treated as litter on the streets, a dessicated leaf to be stepped on, or slipped on, and a target for street thieves, muggers, haters and the cold, superiority of elites.
* Get jobs, which are offered on whim for a few hours when required by employers, but such workers not free to do anything else in between by order of the government, who want you work-ready day or night. So you can’t have an individual lifestyle, it is the chess economy, and you are a black or white pawn, with nothing to pawn when you are out of funds.
* Opportunities – if you hear of them, you probably won’t be able to get to where they are being offered. You haven’t an address so they can’t be sent to you (do hey deliver to – usually end bench at the north corner of X Park). You haven’t the means to have a shower and get clean clothes to attend a competitive interview.
Or you have children that you are nurturing, but no-one in government who has helped create this diminished situation that has left you stranded has positive thoughts for you and wants to help you and your children. There is no-one to nurture parents, and having children, a basic human, normal, natural condition, is regarded as a private hobby, that no-one else is involved with or celebrates with you.
On your own you lose hope and also your cardboard layers that you slid away to provide a clean mat along with newspapers in which you read about last week’s opportunities, now passed. Or the opportunities presented are illusory, you are advised to shift away from the big city to somewhere else where there are said to be more chances. You do, and lose your network of contacts and soup caravan and handouts till you score another cash-paying job, because there is even less for you in the new location.
* Being able to read and write and manage your affairs. Well self-management is talked about and then the means to do it are withheld. Need temporary help from WINZ? The female guard outside the doors in uniform will need to see whether the department staff deign to see you. You have had to travel a long weary way and not anticipated how long it would take and you are late! Your appointment has been cancelled, you have wasted good people’s time. You have to beg for money to get back to your starting point.
Etc etc. The privileged people give you a thousand invisible kicks and look at the end result of someone bravely still standing and criticise how your hair is untidy, your children messy, your face sour, your manner uncouth, your car (if you have one) unwarranted. Actually all this negativity is unwarranted, but actually the wealthy give themselves the right to give you a WOF with just a once-over from appearance. They don’t look in your eyes, they never look at the achievements of the person just keeping going in such an arid, punitive human climate as cold to the soul as Antarctica is. Put a little love in your hearts went a song. The cold, say what would that cost?
Actually, education became compulsory because the business community demanded it. Even in the 19th century ignorant and illiterate people could not work the machines available nor do other menial tasks such as serving at the counter.
I’m pretty sure that many capitalists at that time (I’m really not sure about to day – they really do seem to believe the myth of special people) realised that innovation is a numbers game. The more ideas you have that can be worked upon at the same time increases the number that will actually bring about something useful and educated people have more ideas.
In other words, free compulsory education was brought about as a massive subsidy to business who didn’t want to pay for all that training themselves.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that people being educated is a bad thing. In fact, I’d say that it was a positively good thing. The problem is that all the benefits of it are going to the bludging rich – exactly as designed.
Educate in the “Right” way though. Respect and obey authority and don’t tolerate original thought.
Most of the education now needs to be spent on devising theories and then trying to make practical models of them, and then reviewing them to see what effect they will have on people, and the environment. Also learning civics and how hard it is to get people working together, and the goldilocks lesson of law making and supervision of behaviour; getting it at the right level isn’t easy.
And learning more manual stuff, how to do things for yourself instead of passively waiting for a machine to do it.
Human psychology and sociology should come first, along with literacy and basic numeracy. Everything else can be learned at tertiary level of polytechnic style. The intermediate level would take on the above matters and extend to four years, so up to the old fourth form level. Then the tertiary and career training. Learning about detail, say in geography later than earlier etc.
It’s no use to learn the facts of the world and not understand what being human is about. That is what is important in this technological age, with robots and AI looming. To be able to critique what are facts would be good!
And to sort out in one’s mind what things are interesting and what are just froth and conformism and escapism that isolates from the real and important for ‘good’ living. So there would be fewer car, gun and war and fewer men’s women’s magazines filled with photos of people elevated to Objects of Interest, objects of materialism, expensive watches, sophisticated booze, clothes, makeup techniques, feelings, exotic and rare animals, house decoration etc.
Yes, instead of becoming the bulwark of an informed and healthily functioning democracy, education, a few steps behind the fourth estate, is being slowly forced to tread the same path as the fourth estate: erosion of independent state-funded quality outlets; encouragement of privatisation and forced reliance upon commercialism, with the total exclusion from debate of any other (superior) forms of funding .
Some commentators now blatantly assume that commercial advertising is the only way that any news media should be funded. Blinkered idiots.
I think Lottery games are vulgar and hurt poorer communities.
If that too confronting. Try cracked, they can sell you the idea
Ha, that was good 😈
Chris Hipkins has set out a reasonable response to Nat/ACT’s Charter Schools here:
http://www.chrishipkins.org.nz/labour_s_position_on_charter_schools
What struck me was the statement “Take the failed Whangaruru charter schools decision to spend most of their upfront funding purchasing a farm. Since Hekia Parata finally decided to close them down, as the Ministry of Education repeatedly recommended, that huge investment of public money was lost forever.”
I recall this being raised as a possibility right back when the charter schools initiative was getting underway, but from memory was dismissed as just partisan hyperbole. Is this true? Did anything get recovered from the private owners (furniture, office equipment, AV equipment, playground fittings, etc, etc)? Or is it all just a huge windfall for the private owners – being rewarded for an education failure?
Is it possible to find out how much the total spending from taxpayer funds was, and of that how much was spent on operating costs other than management fees, and how much recovered when the school was closed?
It astounds me that the operators of the failed Whangaruru School were allowed to keep their choice of school, a farm. I’m not sure if I should be protesting or starting a Cabin Crew school, I’d need a Boeing Dreamliner. Fortunately I know absolutely nothing about training cabin crew and I’m excellent at international travel.
It failed, ok. Why on earth are the assets not returned to the people that provided them. You and me.
exactly David Mac.
Robbing from the kids though is easy prey so a wonderful business opportunity for the smooth taking greedy.
To those wondering why Peter Thiel’s application for citizenship was fast tracked, the following article might provide some clues.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy?
The rich are the problem, not the solution.
We need the productive, the dollars chase them.
The bloke next to me works long long hours, he’ll knock up homes for 10 families this year. I see his office light burning at 1am. He makes lots more money than I do, he’s what I’d call wealthy.
I don’t work many hours. I spend lots of time fishing, surfing, drinking, travelling around and entertaining myself commenting on blogs.
If the bloke next door and I were paid the same money, had the same boat, sqm of house etc…..why the hell would he work 100 hours a week? He’d be nuts not to hang out with me and cruise.
What a hoot we’d have. Alas, the Jones, Smiths, Browns and Black families will have to make do with a tarpaulin stretched between trees…and since we averaged things out, there’s only room on our boats for 2.
I’m a huge fan of equality. Splitting all the $ up so we have equal shares is ridiculous. If we do it on a global scale, it’s about $7.50 each. We’d all be surfing and eating feijoa jam, nothing would get done. I think the equality we need to be concerned with is an equality of opportunity and the associated benefits of embracing them.
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
Why is he working 100 hour weeks? That’s enough for two or even three full time jobs. And that amount of time at work is decreasing his productivity and probably to the point that he isn’t getting anywhere near as much done as actually needs to be done. He’s probably wasting 20 hours or more.
Define: Paid the same money
There’s quite a few people available who could be employed to ensure that everyone has a home but the capitalists, like your hero there, would complain because wages would go up.
And where have I ever suggested such a thing?
you seem to have this delusional idea that people are solely motivated by money whereas most people are motivated by anything but. In fact, it seems to me that only the sociopathic types are motivated by money and then there’s the reality of motivation and how paying people too much causes them fail badly:
“We need the productive, the dollars chase them.”
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
It is natural that the rewards, whatever form they take, gravitate towards the productive. I don’t think the guy next door is pushed along by money these days. He has a comfortable buffer. These days I think he just likes making homes for families and teaching kids to build. He’s in the habit of getting up with the sun.
You see his assets as a problem, a product of his greed. We are all guilty of greed, who the hell can have just 2 Toffee Pops and put the packet away? Yep you’re right, I see his fair and square rewards as a ‘Good on ya mate.’ I think most Kiwis would.
Of course we’re all motivated by money. To a degree. Few of us can do without electricity or clothing. I get the feeling you’d like to limit how productive/rewarded I’m allowed to be. I think to remove that choice from people severely hobbles aspiration and motivation.
The problem with that is that the majority of rich people aren’t productive at all – they’re just parasites living off the work of those who are. in other words, they’re nothing but bludgers. Probably more accurately called parasites as they will kill the host.
In other words, that sentence is pure bollocks. In fact, I’d call it an outright lie.
And they are on both counts. Excessive assets owned by one person leaves less for everyone else. That’s why capitalism always results first in ever increasing poverty and finally the collapse of the society that it arose in.
And in that you’d be wrong. In fact what i want is to increase everyone’s creativity but to do that requires removing the nations resources from the control of the few.
Yeah…I think we could bounce a ping-pong ball between us all night Draco and be no closer to common ground. I like you all the same. I think you bring colour and thought provoking comments to this blog.
These fat neo-liberal huas you refer to Draco. Yep, unnecessary exploitive parasites of the highest order, I agree. They are a hindrance on us all leading rounded colourful lives. But there are only 100’s of them. The bogeyman is very thin. I don’t know any neo liberal life sucking bastards but I know quite a few people that are comfortable by way of applying themselves and getting stuck in.
There is no limit on opportunity Draco. There is not a defined quota out there for us to share between us. One person having what you deem too much is not hogging your share. There is plenty for everyone, but putting a bucket next to my couch and expecting it to fill up with money as I watch TV is an unrealistic expectation.
I thought I’d seen you make a comment along the lines of “Yep, everything over 100k is greed, anything over $100k pa, 100% tax on the excess.
Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world’s population, says Oxfam
World’s eight richest people have same wealth as poorest 50%
Yeah, I don’t think those bogeymen are that thin and they really are causing serious problems. The same problems that feudalism caused in fact because that’s what capitalism is.
Yes there is. If someone doesn’t have access to the resources to be creative then they have no opportunity.
And that true for most of the population of the world and it’s that way because so few people control all of the resources of the world.
And yet rich people do that all the time through their ownership of resources and factories.
And I’m pretty sure you also do exactly the same thing with your savings account. you know, put money in the savings account and expect it to grow with no productive activity on your part at all.
Rachinger convicted of obtaining money by deception, claiming he was going to
infiltratehack the Standard and discharged.The judge was kind to him, I hope Rachinger sorts himself out and does something more constructive in future.
Wow, conviction and discharge. Cool. We are taking a different line to criminality are we, public admission then put in stocks for a day in a public place? Having to clean public toilets with a toothbrush. Go and work at seasonal work and picking vegetables – that would be good, up early in the morning cutting lettuces for the supermarkets?
I wonder what punishment, retribution, re-education, sanctions have been imposed on him and Cameron Slater, who as everyone knows has a hard, grey shell and scuttles around in ingenious places. However I understand that beer is a favourite for pulling him from his hideyhole under decaying detritus.
Visit Southern Man at #16 above and look at that link. Slater is a pimple on a very large smelly backside. Wot me worry?!
And now for the Weather…
“Cyclone Donna is now the strongest tropical storm to hit the South Pacific in May after reaching Category 5 this morning….
Weatherwatch.co.nz said Donna now had sustained winds of 215km/h gusting up to a ferocious 260km/h, making it the strongest May cyclone recorded in the Southern Hemisphere”.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/strongest-may-cyclone-hit-south-pacific
“A climate scientist said Cyclone Donna’s lateness and intensity was a direct result of a changing climate.
Jim Salinger, from Otago University, said late cyclones such as Donna were rare, but not unheard of.
However, he said this one was unusual as the sea temperatures around Vanuatu and New Caledonia are what they would normally be in March.
“Well we’re not in an El Niño and we’re not in a La Niña, so you would not expect temperatures to be that warm, though they can be on occasions. So what we’re seeing happening here is, I’d say, there’s a bit of global warming going on,” Dr Salinger says.
Dr Salinger said scientific predictions of stronger, more intense cyclones over a longer season as a result of climate change were starting to be borne out”.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/330274/still-fierce,-cyclone-donna-moving-towards-new-caledonia
Personally, I think the precession of the earths’ axis, doing as it always does, has far more impact on the seasonal changes we are experiencing. After all, 26500 years happens gradually, so it’s not complete idiocy to imagine that seasonal changes would happen imperceptibly.
20 years ago, wouldn’t have had any issue planting out tomatoes on Labour Weekend. Now, it’s more likely to be first weekend of December such is the change in the seasonal patterns that have been experienced. Summer hasn’t followed the 1 December – 1 March “cycle” for nearly a decade now – it’s been more like March when Summer really hits it’s stride. Winter seems to be occurring from mid July – October.
I’m sure I’ll be howled down by the earth sciences graduates claiming that seasons never change and are completely immutable.
James … personally I think you need to plant different Tomatoes.. Here’s some reading fyi in the meantime…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/88224605/new-zealand-was-hotter-than-ever-in-2016-niwa-climate-summary-says
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RisingCost/rising_cost5.php
Bill English: …. ‘irresponsible’, ‘misleading’ Pike River families..
Playing the Blame game..
Speaking on NewsHub AM Show today “he continued to defend the Government’s reluctance to allow manned entry to the mine, where 29 people lost their lives in a 2010 explosion.
“It could be putting a significant number of lives in danger…and doing so for the worst of reasons – and that’s political reasons”.
And yet he would still not rule out agreeing to manned entry as a part of post-election coalition talks….
FFS! How’s that for irresponsible and misleading!
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/05/bill-english-winston-peters-irresponsible-misleading-pike-river-families.html
The upside to increasing C02
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/92324200/doug-edmeades-carbon-dioxide–friend-or-foe
Bullshit. For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor. In a very few rare circumstances, almost always in controlled environments like greenhouses, CO2 will be the constraint to growth, so increasing CO2 will lead to increased growth. This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.
https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm
And if the oceans lose productivity due to increased acidification from increased CO2, then that loss will likely swamp any tiny increase from extra plant growth.
https://skepticalscience.com/ocean-acidification-global-warming.htm
“For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor.”
Yet, satellite imaging shows the Earth has been getting greener.
“This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.”
Alternatively, it could just be an upside to the downside.
You appear to be genius at useless aphorisms. I guess that is what glib but scientifically ignorant are good at.
The world got gets ‘greener’ when we have green algae growing on oceans and waterways. It gets ‘greener’ when grassland replaces forest or swamp. It gets greener when snow and ice cover is replaced by plants.
However none of these mean nothing to providing increased sequestration on additional fossil carbon – they do the opposite. They don’t compensate for the increased adsorption of heat inside our planets volatiles that is performing the fastest climate change that this world has seen since the last major asteroid sea strike.
But I guess that saying such stupid aphorisms they satisfy your tongue and reduce your need to have have to use your brain for actual science eh?.
The article stated it (greening in the satellite imaging) was a consequence of the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration measured by the leaf area index. Therefore, I don’t see how algae and grass fall into that category. Nevertheless, one would assume those occurrences (along with snow and ice cover over the period) would be accounted for.
Edmeades doesn’t appear to cite where those claims of increased leaf area index came from, so it’s hard to comment on how accurately he’s representing the source data and how credible that source is.
On the off chance it’s from his main cite, CO2 Science, here’s a backgrounder on them. They’re another one of these fossil-fuel funded organisations set up to sow confusion.
https://www.desmogblog.com/center-study-carbon-dioxide-and-global-change
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
So it does at least include grass, then, and they expect the “upside” to be temporary anyway. And a lot of the dark green seems to be around the north pole, which has its own problems.
Yay. /sarc
+1. Fat lot of good it will do once the droughts kick in too. And the big rains. And gale force winds. I guess when the forest gets knocked over the grass will grow there faster. Yay.
“So it does at least include grass”
No, leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees.
They say the benefits ‘may’ also be limited as plants have shown to acclimatize overtime, but no time frame was given. And given the use of the word ‘may’, it sounds as if that is still inconclusive.
Moreover, this study goes back 35 years, therefore it could be several decades before benefits cease, if the cease at all.
Grass is a plant.
The only grass I know with leaf cover is a noxious prohibited weed.
A blade of grass is a leaf.
A slightly broader view of what that study means…
http://grist.org/climate-energy/earth-is-getting-greener-heres-why-thats-a-problem/
Thanks.
Tell me Chairman, since you look for encouraging news in those satellite pictures, how is the glacier retreat problem going? Any reports of glaciers generally making up their losses from over the recent 5 decades?
Jail This Thug
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/330300/women-describe-'horror'-as-mp's-vehicle-struck
Even if he is found guilty I can’t see what purpose that would serve.
Surely it would deter other National Party thugs from driving their cars into people?
This lout—another National M.P.—should also have been jailed….
https://fmacskasy.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/shane-ardern-tractor-parliament-steps-september-2003.jpeg
Pie describes our world….