well – to be totally honest – there was a couple of years of “unproductive borrowing”
plus that was when the interest on them was pretty high
factor in a gap between the first and second batches of study (pre and post grad stuff) where i was earning 8 5ths of bugger all (plus a false start at the beginning before any of that) and “presto chango” – big debt
my advice to your 18 year old would be
do it once, do it right and stick at it. Its all the bad planning and false starts that gets you
Yeah, the biggest killer for lots of people with student loans is that they screw around, fail courses, waste time etc, or take a gap year, or simply drop out of university because it’s not the right course for them (should’ve gone to polytech and gotten a trade qualification).
Doing degrees in non-commercial studies doesn’t help either.
A student loan gets written off when you die. Those who can, should pay their loans off. Those who can’t because of low wages etc shouldn’t.
National’s idea of chasing people in other countries who do not pay their student loans will end up costing New Zealand much more than is retrieved. It’s more stupid Right wing legislation that will not work.
A Ministry of Education report said only $6.4 billion of the $13.9 billion borrowed since students started getting loans in 1992 has been paid back. Student loan debt is growing by around $1 billion annually.
“National’s idea of chasing people in other countries who do not pay their student loans will end up costing New Zealand much more than is retrieved. It’s more stupid Right wing legislation that will not work.”
So far the recovery rate has been something like $3-4 for every dollar spent. Pretty good rate of return, especially when compared to Roads of Notional Significance.
So far the recovery rate has been something like $3-4 for every dollar spent. Pretty good rate of return, especially when compared to Roads of Notional Significance.
I bet that doesn’t take into account the bonus of confirming to our talented young grads around the world that New Zealand is run by tossers happy to chase them down across seven seas for loan money.
While at the same time giving tax payer funds away to rorting farmers, bankrupt finance companies and under insured insurers?
Yeah, the biggest killer for lots of people with student loans is that they screw around, fail courses, waste time etc, or take a gap year, or simply drop out of university because it’s not the right course for them
Part of the problem is that many 18 year-olds have no idea about what will suit them – they know in theory what they want to do, but that doesn’t always work for them when the reality arrives, or they don’t know how to prioritise learning over the distractions. Loans are a huge penalty for taking a longer time than to mature a bit.
Congratulations! My daughter is a month away from paying hers off – 13 years. Apart from one year out to have a child she’s been working full-time since she qualified. She didn’t mess around, got a trade qualification and is earning reasonable money now. She’d be paying it forever if the interest was not removed.
Media academic Donald Matheson calls The Standard a victim of ‘the trend to squash opposing views’ and a ‘major offender’
The poor wee fella must have become a bit timid and debate shy having been couped up in academia. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10737026
(it’s the last item at bottom of Drinnans page)
He should go and hang out at kiwiblog, which he appears to rate (enough said)
The left-wing blog The Standard, used for strategic public relations by the Labour Party, was a major offender and a victim of the trend to squash opposing views.
More than a few who’ve tried opposing views are likely to agree with that.
And on Kiwiblog:
Rather than tolerance, debates are often about “having a go” at people who do not follow the correct ideological line.
Matheson mentioned the right-of-centre Kiwiblog, which he said dominated blogland due to its hit rate.
Hard to disagree with that either, although “having a go” there tends to be more of a free-for-all rather than from one party view.
Ummmph. There are some (a minority) of the authors here that have affiliations to Labour (myself included). The majority do not. I’d say that many of the authors seem more grumpy with Labour than anything else when they mention them. Mostly they focus on National.
I don’t take orders or even suggestions from Labour, and I don’t see any of the others doing so either. Even Ben seems to write whatever he is interested in from his perspective – and he is the Labour candidate in the North Shore electorate.
At a rough guess I’d say that Donald Matheson regards agreeing with Labour as being controlled by them – which is a common level of stupidity that I have been seeing from academics recently. And he is both severely mistaken and a total dickhead for thinking I moderate to squash opposing views. Which I guess is what he is talking about.
If I want to really want to squash opposing views, then I will comment rather than moderate, and tear into the persons views. I moderate to get rid of objectionable behavior that makes the site comments boring to read.
And SS, in case you hadn’t noticed – most of the discussion you get in here will be from people who have not any particular known “party view”. But I guess you probably mean that there are considerable numbers of people from the left commenting here, many of the people from the right turn out to be inadequate at putting up decent arguments against them, and as far as I can tell have a real problem distinguishing between the many viewpoints across the left. They seem to lump them as “Labor” which is about as stupid as I’d expect from a supporter of the right.
I think number of posts is more pertinent than number of authors.
I’m quite aware of varying views across the left, and also across the centre and across the right.
What often happens here (and also in reverse on Kiwiblog, I’ve been attacked much more for much longer there than here) is that if people assume you’re one of “the right” they attack you regardless of where in the spectrum you’re trying to debate. Personality blogging often prevails.
If you think I’m a supporter of the right, I won’t say stupid as I don’t know why you keep suggesting it, I’ll just say you’ve got it wrong or you know you’re wrong and say it anyway.
I’ve always been curious to know why this blog can be so unwelcoming if the perception is one isn’t the right sort of left, or centre. No matter how distant the Labour association is here I guarantee it adversely affects Labour support levels.
Polite would prevail in an ideal world, however we do not have an ideal world, though we may strive towards it, in the meantime I suggest you get some nuts.
“What often happens here (and also in reverse on Kiwiblog, I’ve been attacked much more for much longer there than here) is that if people assume you’re one of “the right” they attack you regardless of where in the spectrum you’re trying to debate. Personality blogging often prevails.”
This happens pretty much wherever you go, in whatever forum. People read your posts, decide what pigeon hole you fit in and then start arguing against the general views they ascribe to that pigeon hole rather than specifically what you said.
I’m often quite pedantic on here, and sometimes espouse views that many here would consider centre-right. Other long-time contributors probably “get” this, but on one occasion a newcomer saw one of my rightish comments and attacked me for being a right-wing nutjob.
Similarly at primary school, I was the smartest in the class and always well-behaved. We had a substitute teacher once that for some reason thought I was a troublemaker and came down on me hard for things other kids in the same room got away with. She simply assumed I was a troublemaker after first impressions and so treated me like one.
I’m often quite pedantic on here, and sometimes espouse views that many here would consider centre-right. Other long-time contributors probably “get” this, but on one occasion a newcomer saw one of my rightish comments and attacked me for being a right-wing nutjob.
Similarly at primary school, I was the smartest in the class and always well-behaved.
It’s probably me you’re thinking of Lanth, and you must admit that you are significantly right-of-centre… Oh, and this is me being poncy, but do you mean you were ‘one of the best dressed’ at primary school, or one of the cleverest? In my day kids who were said to be ‘smart’ were being told they were cheeky beggars! (That, and elegantly dressed) are the two meanings of smart in New Zealand… ) Smart has only meant clever for as long as ‘bathroom’ has meant toilet – i.e., since about 2005! It’s very ambiguous. If all of middle and upper NZ has decided to speak American, I seriously wish they’d tell the rest of us, so we don’t end up too confused! (We’re stupid, we bennies, after all!) 😀
No matter how distant the Labour association is here I guarantee it adversely affects Labour support levels.
So? They’re a big party, they can start their own blog – and in fact that is exactly what they have at Red Alert.
I have no idea if you are supporting the right or not, and neither do I care. Similarly I don’t particularly care about the perceptions of ‘Labour’ from this site. It isn’t run by or for Labour.
What I care about is this site. In particular what I perceive as attacks on it by people attempting to meme it – which is what I perceive you as trying to do. I do tend to associate that particular attack as being a right-wing meme because the people of the left have usually had some experience with trying to get Labour to do things that are new in the political space..
Quite simply trying to say that it is run by Labour is offensive as hell to me and the authors. It is a denigration of the resources, time and effort by myself and the other authors and moderators have put into making this site as successful as it is. That has been done without support from any political party (except for an annoying accident for a few weeks). Most of the time it done despite the political parties and we get quite a lot of back end moaning from various parts of Labour.
But basically we’ve had a gutsfull of the “Labour blog” meme over the years. I personally have zero tolerance for it. If you use it, then you can expect to get removed from my site and sight.
Quite simply if you sound like a someone trying a series of well known memes from 2008’ish you’ll get responses from commentators, moderators, and me that reflect our experience of those memes. They may still sound fresh to you, but the world moves on and you’ll find that they sound tired and desperate to us. Learn to argue.
I think number of posts is more pertinent than number of authors.
Same thing applies. Right now we have more posts from authors who support Labour than I think that we have ever had over the last month or so. But a large part of that was because Marty G bowed out from writing earlier this year. He wasn’t exactly the greatest advocate for the Labour party and stated that quite clearly in his final post as well as many others. He did 922 posts that made up the bulk of the posts over last year.
Anthony/r0b, Mike, and Ben have stepped up their posts which means for probably the first time there are more posts written by actual Labour supporters than not. Eddie seems to lean to Labour as well. I quite like it – but then I’m a Labour supporter.
It also doesn’t really affect the mix. The constraint on political views is on who has time to and who is motivated to write. Other authors with posting records like Irish, Zet or The Sprout will get more time to write. One of the authors with just a few posts will get motivated. Or we will finally get around to getting some of the guest posters logins.
There have been been times when this site looks like a convention of Greens – even from authors who’d normally support Labour. Some times when it has looked like a revivalist meeting for New Labour. It really just depends on who has time to write posts. Right now, I think that it also depends on when I have time to fix the Contribute Post pages.
“And he is both severely mistaken and a total dickhead for thinking I moderate to squash opposing views. Which I guess is what he is talking about.”
I think he’s talking about the echo-chamber effect and commentators dogpiling up against others (even if they deserve it, like big bruv), not specifically the moderating behaviour. Probably his point is that the moderating style allows this to happen, which personally I don’t have a problem (which is why I’m here).
Matheson mentioned the right-of-centre Kiwiblog, which he said dominated blogland due to its hit rate.
I haven’t seen any statistics in recent years – it is possible that other blogs are in fact more popular than Kiwiblog now. Are blog statistics available?
Here are the rankings of New Zealand blogs with publicly available statistics for June 2011. These rely on blogs having sitemeters which allow public access to the stats. There are now over 250 blogs on the list.
The blogs are listed in the table below, together with monthly visits and page view numbers for June, 2011.
[lprent: A better page is this one at Open Parachute where you can see all of the stats that have been collected over the last couple of years. Our first full month was May – the month that required me to add a new server… I was pretty glad to see the mid winter slump finally starting ]
I was talking to Chris last night at Bryce Edwards lecture and showing him that. We’ll see what can be done. I’ll also ask Brian Edwards if he’d like a hand.
Ummm. jarbury should be able to to that OK at ATB. Russell will know how to do it.
But it really isn’t that hard to setup at least not for sites that don’t quite have our volumes. At present there are several analytics, a neilson, and now a sitemeter on this site. One GA is for us, and the sitemeter was stuck in for Open Parachute.
Scanning Open Parachute for June 2011 I note that both Kiwiblog and The Standard have about the same Page Views/Month yet The Standard has 100,000 less hits – approx 150,000 to Kiwiblog 250,000. So it seems that visitors read The Standard blog widely compared to Sound Bite Charlies tossing graffiti at Kiwiblog. Does that sound prejudiced! I bet it’s the case though.
Intermittent Signal Jully ’11 – A move from thinking smart business leaders. Pick up the interview from Radio NZ 9to Noon this morning. Is NZ at risk of squandering its Pure Advantage?
Rob Morrison is the chair of the newly-formed Pure Advantage group of business leaders, who include Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall and Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe. (27′55″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3
More on google under nz pure advantage – one excerpt –
Pure Advantage, a group made up of business leaders urging New Zealand to embrace green technology and join the ‘green growth’ industry, was launched …
They are working on a parallel, but in touch with nz group –
(on google) 1 Feb 2011 – The eight-strong Advisory Group will be chaired by Business New Zealand Chief Executive Phil O’Reilly and includes entrepreneur Melissa … This is – the Government’s advisory group on green growth.
There is money in being green, frogs can turn into princes (or princesses). These pure advantage business people are alert to the fact that we are rated 15 in the world by some Yale survey for good ecology and they say, reasonably, that as the only country in the world that has as its main selling slogan that it is 100% Pure, then 15th doesn’t cut it. And there are ways that we can create new business and utilise our present knowledge in using efficient ecological systems and also work on developing new ideas both for us and places like China which has money available for R&D in green matters.
Yesterday, it took GeoNet over two hours before they even registered a 7.6 Magnitude earthquake on their website. The powerful earthquake hit off the Kermadec Islands at 7.03am NZT at a depth of 48.5km.
A tsunami warning system for New Zealand would incorporate Geonet’s infrastructure, so it’s not weird at all to infer that they’re the authority to implement one.
Geonet tracks earthquakes. They don’t track tsunamis.
It took over two hours for them to even register the 7.6 M earthquake on their website. If you think that’s acceptable, you’re a fruit loop!
The pacific ocean tsunami monitoring centre in Hawaii tracks tsunamis. They had a warning out 11 minutes after the quake.
It took as little as 5 minutes for some of the tsunami to hit Japan. Without a proper warning system in New Zealand, Hawaii’s information is relatively irrelevant. The top speed of a tsunami over the open ocean is about 800 kilometers per hour. A large earthquake many kilometres away can generate significant tsunami, even when it’s hardly felt in New Zealand. A closer large earthquake that generates a tsunami when there are no proper warning systems in place in most areas will be catastrophic!
I’m not sure why listing a distance earthquake which is going to result in no shaking damage in NZ on the Geonet site is important?
Listing a large earthquake on GeoNet in an acceptable time frame is important when that quake might generate a tsunami. The point is that it took over two hours for them to register the quake. There is no proper tsunami warning system in place for New Zealand especially if a quake is close to shore. An early warning system could save lives. If you don’t think that’s important, then pray tell us why?
For earthquakes that are far away, when a tsunami takes an hour+ to reach here, it will be monitored and reported by the station in Hawaii. And then distributed by the TV and radio as appropriate.
For earthquakes that are much closer, putting an update on the geonet website isn’t going to save anyone and again the information (if there is any) will be coming from radio and TV.
No one in any scenario is going to be expecting tsunami information to be posted to the geonet website. The radio and TV stations get information directly from civil defence.
I’m unsure why you’ve failed to understand my argument? New Zealand needs a tsunami early warning system… full stop.
When there is an earthquake, finding out how big it was and where it was located is required to know if there is a tsunami danger. If the data is not available, Civil Defense cannot act appropriately. GeoNet has obviously not replaced it’s earthquake location system with SeisComP3 or any other relevant system so the problem remains. Saying you’ll do something and actually doing it are two entirely different things.
Your argument amounts to: “New Zealand doesn’t have any tsunami warning system for earthquakes within 800 km and here’s an excuse for why GeoNet doesn’t provide information.”
It’s pathetic Lanthanide, you’re making a fool of yourself.
You have to love Cactus Kate for her severely misanthropic viewpoints. Her latest is a classic look at the right wing mind…..
(CGT)…It will be the first time in three years that Labour have set the policy agenda.
They are commencing a mainstream class warfare. A war between those who for years have profited from buying and selling property, and those who have always aspired to but now are discouraged to do so. A war between those New Zealanders working hard to better themselves in the higher tax brackets and those who dont wish to contribute positively and seek to vote themselves an income when they don’t deserve the vote because they are net beneficiaries.
Kate shows her advanced vision of the democratic principle by implying if you are on the wrong side of the wealth ledger you should not get the vote. Ayn would definitely approve, the poor are bludgers who deserve nothing from those who got rich at their expense. especially not a vote.
That’s strange, I just went and checked the poll again 8:40 PM after voting a little while ago and the results now show:
No
50%, 1270 Votes
Yes
51%, 1321 Votes
Total of 2591 votes.
However the No was at the top of the question but it has now been changed to the Yes question at the top. The poll has clearly been altered after the results weren’t going National’s way. Fraudulent bastards!
The new Rainbow Warrior ship was floated last Monday. It’s the first time that Greenpeace has a purpose built ship which is environmental in design, set for sailing and perfect for the purpose of spreading the message of sustainability and peace to the world.
I’ve just set up a media news monitor, mainly to keep track of the stories I read. Check it out.
“Bureaucrats throw ze weight around and zumetimes refuze to grant ze consentz on flimsy excuses. Ze RMA rules that require consultation with ze Maori, must be eradicated. Zat iz why we must have ze first past ze post system, or we will become overrun with ze underclasses who ve pay to breed.” said Don Brash at a recent vote for change rally.
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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
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About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
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Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
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I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
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The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
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Kiwiblog outage
Kiwiblog will be off air this Sunday between 6 am and midday approx. The sewer it is on is being cleaned and moved.
Cleaned and moved? It will take a lot of cleaning …
Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
+1
-72.3
So you would never venture there then? Not to throw crap like this anyway.
Just remember to clean your system of the bogs crap!
The DF’s Kiwibog – Foaming Nappy Shit since 2003
Has Whale got the necessary permits for dumping waste, or is it just going to sort of over flo.
Paid off my student loan!
Congratulations! And apologies from my generation to yours that you ever had to take one. Education should be free.
$1000 p.a. tertiary fees is reasonable.
You can earn that with a summer holiday job and still have beer money.
me too!
(and im pushing 40 – thats how long its taken)
That’s scary, I have an 18 year old heading off to Uni next year!
well – to be totally honest – there was a couple of years of “unproductive borrowing”
plus that was when the interest on them was pretty high
factor in a gap between the first and second batches of study (pre and post grad stuff) where i was earning 8 5ths of bugger all (plus a false start at the beginning before any of that) and “presto chango” – big debt
my advice to your 18 year old would be
do it once, do it right and stick at it. Its all the bad planning and false starts that gets you
Yeah, the biggest killer for lots of people with student loans is that they screw around, fail courses, waste time etc, or take a gap year, or simply drop out of university because it’s not the right course for them (should’ve gone to polytech and gotten a trade qualification).
Doing degrees in non-commercial studies doesn’t help either.
I’m going for the record longest time to repay a student loan ………….
(is that morally wrong?? its a bit hard to judge these things when you’re a rwnj)
A student loan gets written off when you die. Those who can, should pay their loans off. Those who can’t because of low wages etc shouldn’t.
National’s idea of chasing people in other countries who do not pay their student loans will end up costing New Zealand much more than is retrieved. It’s more stupid Right wing legislation that will not work.
A Ministry of Education report said only $6.4 billion of the $13.9 billion borrowed since students started getting loans in 1992 has been paid back. Student loan debt is growing by around $1 billion annually.
“National’s idea of chasing people in other countries who do not pay their student loans will end up costing New Zealand much more than is retrieved. It’s more stupid Right wing legislation that will not work.”
So far the recovery rate has been something like $3-4 for every dollar spent. Pretty good rate of return, especially when compared to Roads of Notional Significance.
I bet that doesn’t take into account the bonus of confirming to our talented young grads around the world that New Zealand is run by tossers happy to chase them down across seven seas for loan money.
While at the same time giving tax payer funds away to rorting farmers, bankrupt finance companies and under insured insurers?
Yes, an excellent rate of return for NZ.
Part of the problem is that many 18 year-olds have no idea about what will suit them – they know in theory what they want to do, but that doesn’t always work for them when the reality arrives, or they don’t know how to prioritise learning over the distractions. Loans are a huge penalty for taking a longer time than to mature a bit.
Too true! (I made the same mistakes..) Luckily my son didn’t…
Congratulations! My daughter is a month away from paying hers off – 13 years. Apart from one year out to have a child she’s been working full-time since she qualified. She didn’t mess around, got a trade qualification and is earning reasonable money now. She’d be paying it forever if the interest was not removed.
I’m 55 and I still owe 9 grand.
Media academic Donald Matheson calls The Standard a victim of ‘the trend to squash opposing views’ and a ‘major offender’
The poor wee fella must have become a bit timid and debate shy having been couped up in academia.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10737026
(it’s the last item at bottom of Drinnans page)
He should go and hang out at kiwiblog, which he appears to rate (enough said)
Here’s the full comment on The Standard:
More than a few who’ve tried opposing views are likely to agree with that.
And on Kiwiblog:
Hard to disagree with that either, although “having a go” there tends to be more of a free-for-all rather than from one party view.
Ummmph. There are some (a minority) of the authors here that have affiliations to Labour (myself included). The majority do not. I’d say that many of the authors seem more grumpy with Labour than anything else when they mention them. Mostly they focus on National.
I don’t take orders or even suggestions from Labour, and I don’t see any of the others doing so either. Even Ben seems to write whatever he is interested in from his perspective – and he is the Labour candidate in the North Shore electorate.
At a rough guess I’d say that Donald Matheson regards agreeing with Labour as being controlled by them – which is a common level of stupidity that I have been seeing from academics recently. And he is both severely mistaken and a total dickhead for thinking I moderate to squash opposing views. Which I guess is what he is talking about.
If I want to really want to squash opposing views, then I will comment rather than moderate, and tear into the persons views. I moderate to get rid of objectionable behavior that makes the site comments boring to read.
And SS, in case you hadn’t noticed – most of the discussion you get in here will be from people who have not any particular known “party view”. But I guess you probably mean that there are considerable numbers of people from the left commenting here, many of the people from the right turn out to be inadequate at putting up decent arguments against them, and as far as I can tell have a real problem distinguishing between the many viewpoints across the left. They seem to lump them as “Labor” which is about as stupid as I’d expect from a supporter of the right.
I think number of posts is more pertinent than number of authors.
I’m quite aware of varying views across the left, and also across the centre and across the right.
What often happens here (and also in reverse on Kiwiblog, I’ve been attacked much more for much longer there than here) is that if people assume you’re one of “the right” they attack you regardless of where in the spectrum you’re trying to debate. Personality blogging often prevails.
If you think I’m a supporter of the right, I won’t say stupid as I don’t know why you keep suggesting it, I’ll just say you’ve got it wrong or you know you’re wrong and say it anyway.
I’ve always been curious to know why this blog can be so unwelcoming if the perception is one isn’t the right sort of left, or centre. No matter how distant the Labour association is here I guarantee it adversely affects Labour support levels.
Polite would prevail in an ideal world, however we do not have an ideal world, though we may strive towards it, in the meantime I suggest you get some nuts.
“What often happens here (and also in reverse on Kiwiblog, I’ve been attacked much more for much longer there than here) is that if people assume you’re one of “the right” they attack you regardless of where in the spectrum you’re trying to debate. Personality blogging often prevails.”
This happens pretty much wherever you go, in whatever forum. People read your posts, decide what pigeon hole you fit in and then start arguing against the general views they ascribe to that pigeon hole rather than specifically what you said.
I’m often quite pedantic on here, and sometimes espouse views that many here would consider centre-right. Other long-time contributors probably “get” this, but on one occasion a newcomer saw one of my rightish comments and attacked me for being a right-wing nutjob.
Similarly at primary school, I was the smartest in the class and always well-behaved. We had a substitute teacher once that for some reason thought I was a troublemaker and came down on me hard for things other kids in the same room got away with. She simply assumed I was a troublemaker after first impressions and so treated me like one.
It’s probably me you’re thinking of Lanth, and you must admit that you are significantly right-of-centre… Oh, and this is me being poncy, but do you mean you were ‘one of the best dressed’ at primary school, or one of the cleverest? In my day kids who were said to be ‘smart’ were being told they were cheeky beggars! (That, and elegantly dressed) are the two meanings of smart in New Zealand… ) Smart has only meant clever for as long as ‘bathroom’ has meant toilet – i.e., since about 2005! It’s very ambiguous. If all of middle and upper NZ has decided to speak American, I seriously wish they’d tell the rest of us, so we don’t end up too confused! (We’re stupid, we bennies, after all!) 😀
No, I’m not thinking of you at all, and I definitely don’t consider myself right of centre at all.
Nevertheless, you sometimes are! 🙂
No matter how distant the Labour association is here I guarantee it adversely affects Labour support levels.
So? They’re a big party, they can start their own blog – and in fact that is exactly what they have at Red Alert.
I have no idea if you are supporting the right or not, and neither do I care. Similarly I don’t particularly care about the perceptions of ‘Labour’ from this site. It isn’t run by or for Labour.
What I care about is this site. In particular what I perceive as attacks on it by people attempting to meme it – which is what I perceive you as trying to do. I do tend to associate that particular attack as being a right-wing meme because the people of the left have usually had some experience with trying to get Labour to do things that are new in the political space..
Quite simply trying to say that it is run by Labour is offensive as hell to me and the authors. It is a denigration of the resources, time and effort by myself and the other authors and moderators have put into making this site as successful as it is. That has been done without support from any political party (except for an annoying accident for a few weeks). Most of the time it done despite the political parties and we get quite a lot of back end moaning from various parts of Labour.
But basically we’ve had a gutsfull of the “Labour blog” meme over the years. I personally have zero tolerance for it. If you use it, then you can expect to get removed from my site and sight.
Quite simply if you sound like a someone trying a series of well known memes from 2008’ish you’ll get responses from commentators, moderators, and me that reflect our experience of those memes. They may still sound fresh to you, but the world moves on and you’ll find that they sound tired and desperate to us. Learn to argue.
I think number of posts is more pertinent than number of authors.
Same thing applies. Right now we have more posts from authors who support Labour than I think that we have ever had over the last month or so. But a large part of that was because Marty G bowed out from writing earlier this year. He wasn’t exactly the greatest advocate for the Labour party and stated that quite clearly in his final post as well as many others. He did 922 posts that made up the bulk of the posts over last year.
Anthony/r0b, Mike, and Ben have stepped up their posts which means for probably the first time there are more posts written by actual Labour supporters than not. Eddie seems to lean to Labour as well. I quite like it – but then I’m a Labour supporter.
It also doesn’t really affect the mix. The constraint on political views is on who has time to and who is motivated to write. Other authors with posting records like Irish, Zet or The Sprout will get more time to write. One of the authors with just a few posts will get motivated. Or we will finally get around to getting some of the guest posters logins.
There have been been times when this site looks like a convention of Greens – even from authors who’d normally support Labour. Some times when it has looked like a revivalist meeting for New Labour. It really just depends on who has time to write posts. Right now, I think that it also depends on when I have time to fix the Contribute Post pages.
“And he is both severely mistaken and a total dickhead for thinking I moderate to squash opposing views. Which I guess is what he is talking about.”
I think he’s talking about the echo-chamber effect and commentators dogpiling up against others (even if they deserve it, like big bruv), not specifically the moderating behaviour. Probably his point is that the moderating style allows this to happen, which personally I don’t have a problem (which is why I’m here).
Matheson mentioned the right-of-centre Kiwiblog, which he said dominated blogland due to its hit rate.
I haven’t seen any statistics in recent years – it is possible that other blogs are in fact more popular than Kiwiblog now. Are blog statistics available?
June ’11 – NZ blogs sitemeter ranking
[lprent: A better page is this one at Open Parachute where you can see all of the stats that have been collected over the last couple of years. Our first full month was May – the month that required me to add a new server… I was pretty glad to see the mid winter slump finally starting ]
Obviously, Russell Brown’s Public Address and (his bete noire) Chris Trotter’s Bowalley Road aren’t included.
I was talking to Chris last night at Bryce Edwards lecture and showing him that. We’ll see what can be done. I’ll also ask Brian Edwards if he’d like a hand.
Ummm. jarbury should be able to to that OK at ATB. Russell will know how to do it.
But it really isn’t that hard to setup at least not for sites that don’t quite have our volumes. At present there are several analytics, a neilson, and now a sitemeter on this site. One GA is for us, and the sitemeter was stuck in for Open Parachute.
If anyone wants a hand – give me a yell.
Scanning Open Parachute for June 2011 I note that both Kiwiblog and The Standard have about the same Page Views/Month yet The Standard has 100,000 less hits – approx 150,000 to Kiwiblog 250,000. So it seems that visitors read The Standard blog widely compared to Sound Bite Charlies tossing graffiti at Kiwiblog. Does that sound prejudiced! I bet it’s the case though.
He can’t he it’s having it’s sewers flushed.
Intermittent Signal Jully ’11 – A move from thinking smart business leaders. Pick up the interview from Radio NZ 9to Noon this morning.
Is NZ at risk of squandering its Pure Advantage?
Rob Morrison is the chair of the newly-formed Pure Advantage group of business leaders, who include Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall and Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe. (27′55″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3
More on google under nz pure advantage – one excerpt –
Pure Advantage, a group made up of business leaders urging New Zealand to embrace green technology and join the ‘green growth’ industry, was launched …
They are working on a parallel, but in touch with nz group –
(on google) 1 Feb 2011 – The eight-strong Advisory Group will be chaired by Business New Zealand Chief Executive Phil O’Reilly and includes entrepreneur Melissa … This is – the Government’s advisory group on green growth.
There is money in being green, frogs can turn into princes (or princesses). These pure advantage business people are alert to the fact that we are rated 15 in the world by some Yale survey for good ecology and they say, reasonably, that as the only country in the world that has as its main selling slogan that it is 100% Pure, then 15th doesn’t cut it. And there are ways that we can create new business and utilise our present knowledge in using efficient ecological systems and also work on developing new ideas both for us and places like China which has money available for R&D in green matters.
Time for an Early Warning System
Yesterday, it took GeoNet over two hours before they even registered a 7.6 Magnitude earthquake on their website. The powerful earthquake hit off the Kermadec Islands at 7.03am NZT at a depth of 48.5km.
Read about half your post, and it’s very weird.
Geonet tracks earthquakes. They don’t track tsunamis.
The pacific ocean tsunami monitoring centre in Hawaii tracks tsunamis. They had a warning out 11 minutes after the quake.
I’m not sure why listing a distance earthquake which is going to result in no shaking damage in NZ on the Geonet site is important?
Lanthanide says:
A tsunami warning system for New Zealand would incorporate Geonet’s infrastructure, so it’s not weird at all to infer that they’re the authority to implement one.
It took over two hours for them to even register the 7.6 M earthquake on their website. If you think that’s acceptable, you’re a fruit loop!
It took as little as 5 minutes for some of the tsunami to hit Japan. Without a proper warning system in New Zealand, Hawaii’s information is relatively irrelevant. The top speed of a tsunami over the open ocean is about 800 kilometers per hour. A large earthquake many kilometres away can generate significant tsunami, even when it’s hardly felt in New Zealand. A closer large earthquake that generates a tsunami when there are no proper warning systems in place in most areas will be catastrophic!
Listing a large earthquake on GeoNet in an acceptable time frame is important when that quake might generate a tsunami. The point is that it took over two hours for them to register the quake. There is no proper tsunami warning system in place for New Zealand especially if a quake is close to shore. An early warning system could save lives. If you don’t think that’s important, then pray tell us why?
I think you’ve missed the point.
For earthquakes that are far away, when a tsunami takes an hour+ to reach here, it will be monitored and reported by the station in Hawaii. And then distributed by the TV and radio as appropriate.
For earthquakes that are much closer, putting an update on the geonet website isn’t going to save anyone and again the information (if there is any) will be coming from radio and TV.
No one in any scenario is going to be expecting tsunami information to be posted to the geonet website. The radio and TV stations get information directly from civil defence.
For some reason I can’t edit it any more (shouldn’t have timed out yet).
You might also like to read these links:
http://geonet.org.nz/news/archives/2011/locating-earthquakes-being-faster.html
http://geonet.org.nz/news/archives/2011/jun-22-2011-overnight-earthquake-proves-troublesome-to-locate.html
I’m unsure why you’ve failed to understand my argument? New Zealand needs a tsunami early warning system… full stop.
When there is an earthquake, finding out how big it was and where it was located is required to know if there is a tsunami danger. If the data is not available, Civil Defense cannot act appropriately. GeoNet has obviously not replaced it’s earthquake location system with SeisComP3 or any other relevant system so the problem remains. Saying you’ll do something and actually doing it are two entirely different things.
Your argument amounts to: “New Zealand doesn’t have any tsunami warning system for earthquakes within 800 km and here’s an excuse for why GeoNet doesn’t provide information.”
It’s pathetic Lanthanide, you’re making a fool of yourself.
You have to love Cactus Kate for her severely misanthropic viewpoints. Her latest is a classic look at the right wing mind…..
(CGT)…It will be the first time in three years that Labour have set the policy agenda.
They are commencing a mainstream class warfare. A war between those who for years have profited from buying and selling property, and those who have always aspired to but now are discouraged to do so. A war between those New Zealanders working hard to better themselves in the higher tax brackets and those who dont wish to contribute positively and seek to vote themselves an income when they don’t deserve the vote because they are net beneficiaries.
Kate shows her advanced vision of the democratic principle by implying if you are on the wrong side of the wealth ledger you should not get the vote. Ayn would definitely approve, the poor are bludgers who deserve nothing from those who got rich at their expense. especially not a vote.
The most revealing bit is her tax proposals ( http://asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com/2011/01/labours-top-10-tax-policies-of-2011.html ) which provides a great pointer indicating all the areas RWNJs are terrified Labour will go, it is a sort of sign posting of where the money is that we should be taxing. Nice work Kate.
The bottom 95% of income earners and wealth holders in this country aren’t worth knowing anyway.
Poll: Tell Bill English that you like the CGT!
http://www.billenglish.co.nz/
Haha almost 90% are for the tax.
I just went and did that! Yes, the results will cause English some discomfort, I am sure! 🙂
It’s a meaningless yes/no poll, there’s a lot more to CGT than that.
The poll is just another Nat/Lab one up contest that has nothing to do with what’s best.
Really? Gosh. Thanks ever so much.
That’s strange, I just went and checked the poll again 8:40 PM after voting a little while ago and the results now show:
No
50%, 1270 Votes
Yes
51%, 1321 Votes
Total of 2591 votes.
However the No was at the top of the question but it has now been changed to the Yes question at the top. The poll has clearly been altered after the results weren’t going National’s way. Fraudulent bastards!
That doesn’t even compute Jackal! No 50% and Yes 51% doesn’t add up right… I would not put cheating past them..
Go torture Bill English:
http://www.billenglish.co.nz/
Damn, looks like the NATs are almost pulling even on the poll, at long last 😀
And now after he has had a hell of a lot of his supporters voting No.
Its No
43% 1455 votes
Yes
58% 1932 Votes
Got his mum, friends and party faithful trying to skew the numbers against CGT.
Honest Bill should just remove that poll from his website.
He can blame Labour for uploading it.
A New Rainbow Warrior
The new Rainbow Warrior ship was floated last Monday. It’s the first time that Greenpeace has a purpose built ship which is environmental in design, set for sailing and perfect for the purpose of spreading the message of sustainability and peace to the world.
I’ve just set up a media news monitor, mainly to keep track of the stories I read. Check it out.
Friday Fun with Photos #8
“Bureaucrats throw ze weight around and zumetimes refuze to grant ze consentz on flimsy excuses. Ze RMA rules that require consultation with ze Maori, must be eradicated. Zat iz why we must have ze first past ze post system, or we will become overrun with ze underclasses who ve pay to breed.” said Don Brash at a recent vote for change rally.