I’ve a $20 bet since March that Trump will be out of the Whitehouse by Christmas.
I read that Muller is now briefing senior officials (unimplicated ones).
Is this a sign that my $20 is safe?
I think your bet is lost. Trump is currently the favourite candidate to win the presidency in 2020. (that said he is the incumbent and we do not know who will be running against him from the Democratic side. He is though a long shot to be out of office by the end of the year. http://www.betfair.com
It was more than nine months from the Saturday Night Massacre to Nixon’s resignation – and we haven’t yet had an equivalent to it in terms of open blatant misconduct for the express purpose of saving his own skin. Firing Comey didn’t come close. These things move slowly. Even if Mueller already has the evidence to put the Chump away for the rest of his life, Christmas is way too soon for anything to have happened.
1 Rt Hon Winston Peters
2 Ron Mark
3 Tracey Martin
4 Fletcher Tabuteau
5 Darroch Ball
6 Clayton Mitchell
7 Mark Patterson
8 Shane Jones
9 Jenny Marcroft
Half the GP caucus are based in Auckland. The NZF caucus tends to have more links with regions outside Auckland.
NZF could negotiate a coalition with either Nats or Labour, but they could also opt to sit on the cross benches, abstain from confidence and supply votes, and allow the Nats to run a minority government.
Hold it Sister: the GP did not win any electoral seats. The way you displayed the two lists is misleading. You seem to suggest that all the NZ F are list and the GP are electoral.
Please correct it.
Say what? the only differences is that the GP list numbers did not copy. They are at the link. But I would need to add each number individually. Is that really necessary?
The NZF numbers copied with the names from a straight copy and paste. Not my fault, and otherwise there is no indication I’m saying the GP MPs are electorate MPs.
My pick is that English would prefer another election to leading a minority government that could be out-voted on anything other than confidence and supply.
The Nats’ born to rule sense of entitlement is too strong to tolerate it. National’s coffers are full and they could fight another, probably even nastier, election with MMP itself in the crosshairs.
National continue to show a disdain for democracy, they’ve not diversified the economy, they’ve gutted crucial areas like health, education and housing whilst selling out nz.
So personally I’d like to see them wear this one with Peters sniping away making them own the damage they’ve caused.
Bill can manage that rockstar economy they’ve been blathering on about so there’s a challenge for the DP acolytes.
It’s not in their hands, though. If Mr. English can’t accept a deal with NZ First (assuming he is even in a position to make one), then NZ First has other options before a new election is called, and English’s most likely immediate destination is opposition.
As we know National is under corporate control (English accompanied Key to the 2011/12 Bilderberg Group annual meeting) and since then has to deliver what they need to complete their mission out, in total control as you say correctly.
“The Nats’ born to rule sense of entitlement is too strong to tolerate it. National’s coffers are full and they could fight another, probably even nastier, election with MMP itself in the crosshairs”
Interesting. But expecting Lab/NZF govt with Gs giving cross-bench support. Re-election would potentially strengthen nzf n G hands, as social electioneering would stand solid. Gnats must fold. Transition is safe and on-track.
No doubt co-incidental that one of the Nats backers is having a big-wig conference now as well.
:A white-shirted church member at the gate, Eddy Suckling, said it was “just a church conference”.
“There are a few from around the regions that have come in, just locals,” he said.
Suckling was unable to say how many people were inside, but cars were forced to park on the grass surrounding the 200-plus car park alongside the hall.
At least 15 white buses were lined up, as well as more than 20 white vans. Shiny white SUVs and utes filled the adjacent streets.”
Anyone want to make the argument that Bitcoin is actually a good and useful thing?
To me, it looks like the ultimate example of a thing that only has value because a bunch of people delude themselves it has value.
Bitcoin is not like fiat money, which in many ways is backed by the issuing state’s powers of compulsion.
Even gold and diamonds, while they are way overvalued because people are attracted by shiny things, actually have particular properties that make them useful.
But it looks to me like a bitcoin is nothing more than a certificate of gratuitously wasted computing time and electricity. See this article to illustrate how much goes into this waste.
Bitcoin is not like fiat money, which in many ways is backed by the issuing state’s powers of compulsion.
And the issuing state’s economy.
BitCoin is a perfect example of why bank money was actually made illegal. What happens, and we know this from history, is that multiple companies start making their own currency that a) isn’t universally accepted and b) creates far too much money for the economy.
Of course, that latter part is happening now as the private banks create huge amounts of money pushing up house prices.
Slow clap for du Plessis-Allan and her unilluminating ‘me me me’ Winston Peters nonsense in the Herald this morning. Served up in vintage, passive-aggressive du Plessis-Allan, sly-smile style.
From the top – “At Auckland airport this week, on my way down to Wellington, ‘ I ‘ bumped into a man from the capital.” Oh really ? Who cares how you get to work dear ?
Story is…….Winston will sit on the cross benches. Without even confidence and supply seemingly. Reasoning being that since first Maori PM’s not on……..then ‘Pfft’ to the flash job, the baubles, the government limos. Like no one else ever used one. I daresay du Plessis-Allan herself has greased her way into a few of those in her time.
You see Winston’s into “legacy”. But because National actually won this MMP election “fair and square” (at least in her FPP figurings), Winston should send English to the Governor-General vaunting a minority government, Wow ! Such “legacy”.
This would be Winston being “uncharacteristically responsible”. He’s going to (and should) cement in the “vacuum” of the last 14 days which [gulp] she and her cohort have snortingly bitched about for all of those 14 days. And the uncertainty will run for three lame duck years or until the sooner (inevitable) snap election.
The truth is that she and hubby Soper (“the man from the capital”?) seek to endorse the National Party’s perennial ‘entitlement’ burden. The National Party has served their vainglory for years now. Here’s hoping Mickey Savage doesn’t risk blowing his Shyte-Meter by passing through it this ‘Bazza ‘n’ Me Hate Winston’ nonsense.
Do these people get angry when a Fast Food giant tells them they have to wait 2 minutes for their order?
Government is not fast food. It should be a well thought through thing. It has ONLY been 2 weeks.
This older generation better never speak again of the young folks need for instant gratification or bemoan their short concentration spans ( both of which are myths).
Do these people get angry when a Fast Food giant tells them they have to wait 2 minutes for their order?
My daughter works at Domino’s, and apparently yes they do. For some people, the fact there are currently over a hundred pizza orders shouldn’t make theirs take any longer to arrive, and the fact that the votes haven’t been counted yet shouldn’t make forming a government take any longer. Like the poor, the stupid will always be with us.
Learning about our new MP’s on Q+A, feeling very proud to have these two women in Parliament.
I didn’t know that Angie, Labours new MP used to run the Womens Refugee in Tauranga, awesome, maybe some of her ideas gained from knowledge in that sector can help NZ with the insipid domestic violence that touches most of our lives.
Both well past their use by dates! Many years ago had the ‘pleasure’ of having a lot to do with Prebble as Minister of Transport. Was not a highlight of my career in the public service.
The report aligns with the American Cancer Society that the IARC report identifies hazards, whereas the regulatory authorities identify risks, and then the regulations required to keep people safe.
The IARC just assesses whether a particular thing might cause cancer in some people if they get a high enough dose of it. They don’t do any work on how high a dose might be needed. The EPA’s reviewed the evidence out there and not found any to suggest glyphosate might be a cancer risk at any dose it’s feasible for a human to encounter in everyday circumstances. Maybe if you were to sprinkle a couple of spoonfuls of glyphosate on your Weetbix every morning for 50 years there’s a chance it might give you cancer, but who knows? The IARC certainly doesn’t. Maybe you’d need to eat a kilo a day to have a risk of getting cancer – that’s still “probably carcinogenic” from the IARC’s perspective.
Thing is, all these groups involve humans and agribusiness isn’t the only interest group lobbying them. The organic food industry, Green politicians and anti-glyphosate nutcases aren’t honest brokers in this any more than Monsanto is.
You could defend Round-Up on having a good GHG balance, but “safe-to-health” claims are shit-nuggets through a knowledge-filter. Tests on glyphosphate, may differ from tests on Round-up mix… and endless other hat-tricks to produce poison.
Nothing’s safe for your health if consumed in large enough quantities, up to and including pure water. The relevant question is: at what quantity does it become unsafe? Anti-glyphosate nutters might be convinced there’s no dose small enough to be allowed to enter the sacred temple of their bodies, but the EPA has to take a more objective view.
One Two is an unfortunate pseudo I think for this person. Indicates a low standard of numeracy. And spacing things out like mod poetry and enigmatically saying why to everything – what a waste of space. Tell me something about some subject with a source that might shed some light on our concerns please.
Despite the misgivings raised by responding to the kind of person who puts quotation marks around the word science….
looking at your history commenting when this subject comes up, you’re consistent in defending glyphosate
“Defending” glyphosate? What next? Nigger-lover? There’s nothing to “defend.”
An idiot might ‘think’ that’s the relevant question.
Well this particular “idiot” certainly thinks the EPA’s job in this case is to consider the potential harm of using glyphosate as a pesticide relative to the benefits of using it. If you hold a different view of its job, you’re going to need to elaborate because I seriously have no fucking idea what you’re on about.
The Rod Oram article seems to cover the issue very well – it shows that there is spin and selective interpretation both for aand against. The concept of “net benefit” on an undefined basis that offsets health risks against production increases is scary in hiding components – we should be able to do better. Poisons can have long term effects – some of the orchard poisons that caused long term problems in a Hamilton subdivision also caused reductions in fertility – but they did increase production so that’s all right – ? We should at least know details of both sides of the equation . . . and that may require another government.
The concept of “net benefit” on an undefined basis that offsets health risks against production increases is scary in hiding components – we should be able to do better.
In what way? Using axes and chainsaws involves health risks orders of magnitude higher than the possibility that someone might conceivably suffer cancer at some point in the future if they disregard the safety instructions for using glyphosate over a long period, and yet the forestry industry exists. X-rays are definitely carcinogenic, not probably, and at relatively low doses, and yet we still X-ray people because “net benefit.” It’s an entirely reasonable approach.
* Parscale and his team submitted the email addresses of all known Trump supporters in Facebook’s advertising system. They then got their Facebook profiles, which were sorted by, among other things, ethnicity, gender, and home district.
* Through the Facebook Lookalike Audiences tool, they identified “lookalikes”, i.e. other Facebook users with similar interests and profiles. In addition, they built an external database of, among others, GOP’s registry of approximately 100M Americans.
** By adding large amounts of information for each person in the database, for example, interest according to the person’s site statistics, personality type after prior behaviors such as online purchases, credit card purchases, insurance history, etc. they could segment the people into different categories of voters.
** After that, they created large amounts of overly relevant non-truthful news for each segment of people that were then targeted towards the right people on the right occasions.
** Ex: when Hillary was already embarrassed by the emails, they heaped on even more negative news towards the voters who were doubtful of Hillary. View at Medium.com
* Parscale’s team then bombarded the various profiles with targeted ads or articles through Facebook
* Nothing was left to chance: the team sent out tens of thousands of variations of the ads, which prompted quick acquiescence of what worked (so-called A/B-testing). On the day of the third presidential election debate between Trump and Clinton for example, 175 000 different ads where used.
Despite the ethically dubious goal, Project Alamo was not a secret intelligence operation: Brad Parscale and his co-workers have on multiple occasions openly talked about how they manipulated the American election process and actively undermined democracy.
This is what happens when private companies have free access to your data and you have no control over it.
If it’s on Facebook you have plenty of control over your information.
I’m not on Facebook, Baidu, Twitter, anything like that, and I have no loyalty cards.
But with my regular Google use they still know me pretty well.
If it’s on Facebook you have plenty of control over your information.
[Citation Needed]
And they’re not actually looking at the information. They’re using algorithms to see if one person ‘looks’ like another and then targeting those people with fake news.
I almost start to understand why the US public does not want to relinquish their right to bear arms. With the enemy within, it is difficult to argue against.
Maybe we are all looking at the wrong horizon for direction how to achieve peace and a reasonable trade world. Perhaps the US, being only 241 years old and despite technological advance just behaves like a child throwing a tantrum which we mistook for strength? There are no Homers or Socrates in sight, neither short nor long term.
INTERVIEWER: I mean, what were Facebook, Google and YouTube people actually doing here? Why were they here?
THERESA HONG: They were helping us, you know I mean they were basically our hands-on partners as far as being able to you know, utilize the platform as effectively as possible.
When you’re pumping in millions and millions of dollars to these social platforms, you’re gonna get white club treatment, so they would send people, you know, representatives, to the Project Alamo to ensure that all of our needs were being met
I don't know how many people are on Mueller's list to interview but I'm guessing she made like #17 pic.twitter.com/pN9qjXXId7
Facebook’s response? Hire a right-wing outlet to fact check news stories.
According to a new report from Quartz, Facebook plans to sign conservative magazine Weekly Standard as a fact checking partner. Several outlets currently work as fact checkers for the platform, though all the outlets Facebook has signed thus far have been approved by the Poynter Institute.
Scarey when you think of what they are doing and why. Privacy has become a thing of the past. Those fake ads are designed to get you thinking the way they want. Bastards.
Just watched M.Moore in the 9TH Floor on ex P.M’s.Interesting opinion he has of himself .Seems he still regards himself as a real Labour man’,despite embracing Rogernomics and globalisation.Mentioned that Douglas still regards Labour as ‘our party’ too.Had some interesting quotes from Lange,Churchill and Lloyd George,but the underlying timbre of the discourse appeared to me that he regards himself as a man of destiny that was…unlucky.
Duncan Garner has written an article backing Winston on immigration after his experience shopping in Kmart.
It has provoked a lot of criticism and support on Stuff and twitter.
Bradbury also writes this article
‘Why we urgently need to investigate Chinese influence over National’
‘The shocking reality that the National Party is little more than a front for Chinese business interests demands far more attention than it gained…
New research paper lays bare China’s influence campaign in New Zealand
Concerns raised over political donations and directorships offered to former ministers and relatives
Chinese-owned New Zealand dairy farms said to possibly being used to test advanced missile technology’
Keeps the white honkey’s and the Bro’s wages to a manageable level , eh what old boy?…. keeps them in their place, – all those commie unionists and what not…
Lets the other crowd in to invest and plunder the proceeds back to their home country , eh old sausage?… bit like the bally old English did , … my these foreigners learn fast , don’t they , say what ?
‘Rather than complaining about the racial make up of the people standing in line, the real story is why Kmart has been able to hollow out their staff for self-check outs. The economic system that exploits everyone shopping there is the issue, not the ethnicity of those forced to wait in line.
So what is this column really about?
A multinational retailer gutting worker rights to the same level of the sweat shop made products they import is crowded by poor people and migrants trying to stretch their dollar while a middle class white bloke happy to exploit the low prices brought about by globalisation hisses about immigrants because he has to wait in line with them.
To be honest, that kinda does sum up NZ almost perfectly doesn’t it?’
I think you’ll find that lot ( and others – witness the amount of Indian /Chinese exploiting recent immigrants from their home country and flouting our laws ) are only one section.
What we have here , – is enabled neo liberalism that sets worker against worker and unscrupulous employers reigning supreme.
I get a little sick and tired of wankers using the overdone cliched ‘oppressive white man’ card when every other bastard from every other race takes less than 1.5 seconds to realize an opportunity in order to exploit some other poor bastard regardless of their race .
I usually find the same sort of wankers actively encourage this sort of sanctimonious inverse racism because it suits their surreptitious pecuniary advantage to do so.
And if it was up to me ?
I would cut immigration massively and encourage taking on a much larger quota of refugees instead.
And not necessarily RICH ONES either.
That’d soon sort out all these parsimonious fuckers who like to play the race issue to further their own ends,… AND , – as well as THAT , – legislate an AWARD RATE for wages.
I can hear the wankers , the racists , the opportunist’s and the disgusting treasonous globalist shitters squealing from here as they kick their troughs over in panic….
The fuck with the whole howling , squawking sanctimonious hypocritical lot of them.
AND THAT’S ,… the power of balanced nationalism and taking a fucking pride in ones own country – and not being a doormat for FUCKING WANKERS.
I agree with him about Garner’s racism.
But I doubt we agree on much else.
Steve Cowan, a true leftie, writes.
‘A dedicated cheerleader for the market economy , Garner won’t place the responsibility for New Zealand’s economic and social problems at the door of those who are really responsible- successive governments, both Labour and National, who have pursued economic and social policies that have led inevitably to more poverty and inequality and more division.
We live in a society where market forces and values have been prioritised over basic human needs and aspirations. But Garner would rather scapegoat immigrants instead – even claiming they are responsible for stealing ‘our dreams’.’
Yep , – its the same old blaming the ‘ little people’ instead of looking at the shit – for – brains neo liberal treasonist’s who created the situation we are in.
Meanwhile ,… as the veneer is removed , we see both the privatized media and the globalist National party for the supercilious fuckers they really are.
Relax.
The Jeremy Corbyn effect / awakening is well on its way.
I get that warm fuzzy feeling every time I perceive neo liberal / treasonist scumbags suffering ,… sort of like ,… when you crack your ankle joints in the morning after a refreshing nights sleep,… you know,… that sense of ”oooo ”… mild slight dull ‘cracking ‘ pain but instant mobility and warmth in the joints…
Well ,… expelling neo liberals is much the same … mild pain at first but then a great sense of mobility , warmth and perception of circulation ,… a great feeling of ‘can do ‘ …
And that’s whats in store for us,… transcending the diseased state into the full picture of health once the virus is expelled… a little bit more , a little bit more application ,… and we will be all sitting around wondering what all the fuss was all about and why it took us all so long …
And that’s all neo liberalism ever was : a virus. An extremist far right wing virus concocted by neo NAZI’s and their sympathizers.
‘Foreign direct investment (ownership of companies) in New Zealand increased from $15.7 billion in March 1989 to $110.8 billion at March 2016 – over seven times. As a proportion of the total output of the economy, Gross Domestic Product, it has risen from 22% to 44%. Ownership of overseas companies by New Zealand residents has not grown as fast over that period (five and a half times) so net foreign direct investment has grown over eight times from a net liability of $8.8 billion to $72.8 billion, and as a percentage of GDP multiplied over two times from 13% of GDP to 29%.
Foreign owners controlled 36% of the share market in 2016. In 1989, the figure was 19% and it was estimated to be below 5% in 1986.
At March 2015, they owned an estimated 22% of the value of all equity (shareholdings) and 26% of privately owned equity of enterprises in New Zealand, including shares not listed on the stock exchange.
Foreign investors owned 24% (or $368 billion) of net wealth in New Zealand whose commercial net value totalled $1.5 trillion at March 2015. They owned 27% of private net wealth. This comprised housing, land, other property, plant, equipment and financial assets owned directly or indirectly by households, government, non-profit organisations and foreign investors. New Zealand residents owned a further $215 billion of investments abroad. (These totals exclude shared natural wealth such as rivers, and human and social capital.)’
And I hope the Moanday morning scumbag privatized newsmedia take notice ( as I KNOW they do because the lazy bastards look at these types of blogs to gauge some sort of ‘ public sentiment’ – I worked security at a major NZ TV network and was a fly on the wall, – to their detriment – like a ‘plant’ as it were …)
And I would just like to shove THIS in their faces for all the junior politico wanks who weren’t even born in 1984…
Here’s your fucking neo liberalism for ya,… and your fucking Ruth Richardson and her bullshit NZ Initiative mentality …
…………………………………………………………
Ken Douglas, then president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, recalled in the 1996 documentary Revolution:
The Employment Contracts Act was deliberately intended to individualize the employment relationship. It was a natural outcome of the ideological propaganda of rugged individualism, of self-interest and greed and the appeal to individuals that you could find better for you by climbing over the tops of your colleagues, your mates, and so on. Ruth Richardson was very clear, very blunt, very honest about its purpose. It was to achieve a dramatic lowering of wages, very, very quickly.
……………………………………………………………
There you go ,.. and Bolger the wanker crying his crocodile tears about ‘ neo liberalism was a mistake’… what a wanker.
As if he didn’t see the massive demonstrations at the time.
As if he didn’t realize what this would do to NZ society.
As if he didnt know what this would do to the NZ worker.
As if he didn’t know all the insider trading and the massive profits shifted offshore and the massive profits gained by his colleagues in the NZ Business Roundtable ( now renamed the NZ Initiative ).
What a total hypocritical cunt.
Him playing along with Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson , – BOTH Board of Directors of the Mont Pelerin Society of England.
What a piece of shit.
What a dirty filthy reptilian piece of snake scum.
Crack those ankles and feel good , people,… the awakening is happening.
And your about to be vindicated for every hateful thought you ever had against these wanking scum.
Apparently Canadians and the English own more property. Racism is stupid. Being worried about losing what we have is valid. I wish the 2 were kept separate.
Was interesting listening to the professor on Kim Hill Saturday who’s field is ‘electoral physiology’ talking about studies that show when people vote by postal ballot or internet they vote along more egocentric lines as opposed to actually going to the polling both. http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201861544
Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet
WWF report finds 60% of global biodiversity loss is down to meat-based diets which put huge strain on Earth’s resources
‘The ongoing global appetite for meat is having a devastating impact on the environment driven by the production of crop-based feed for animals, a new report has warned.
The vast scale of growing crops such as soy to rear chickens, pigs and other animals puts an enormous strain on natural resources leading to the wide-scale loss of land and species, according to the study from the conservation charity WWF.’
…60% of global biodiversity loss is down to meat-based diets…
That’s your spin on it. The non-spin version is that 60% of global biodiversity loss is down to growing crops to feed stock animals, which certainly is a stupid thing to do but isn’t inherent to a meat-based diet. So, not actually the same thing, but nice propaganda you’ve got there.
He did lead with: “Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet”
Is New Zealand’s pasture-based system included in the figure? If so, it would be even higher. Loss of biodiversity through conversion to pasture is enormous, imo. I don’t get your point, “…isn’t inherent to a meat-based diet” – seems to me, it is! Are you meaning some meat-based diets are serviced by hunting wild game? Wouldn’t be a very big %
Loss of biodiversity through conversion to pasture is enormous, imo. I don’t get your point, “…isn’t inherent to a meat-based diet” – seems to me, it is!
So, pasture and crops both reduce biodiversity. Which means the issue isn’t that a meat-based diet reduces biodiversity, it’s that having 7 billion-plus people on the planet reduces biodiversity.
Meat-eating necessitates a loss of diversity. Plant eating could be managed to increase diversity significantly, at least over that which exists presently. A mixed, managed woodland that’s filled with edible perennials and a sprinkling of annual vegetables would do it 🙂 As to population management, that’s a whole other story.
I expect meat-eating could be managed to increase diversity significantly as well. The problems are that we aren’t doing that either for plants or livestock, and we have way too many people to do it for everyone anyway. Whether people eat meat or not is of little relevance.
Pedantry!!!
🙂
Most lightly populated.
Least populated.
Most unpopulated.
Emptiest of people.
Quietest.
Most thinly populated.
Least peopled.
In any case, “least sparsely populated” means the opposite of what might have been intended (by my reckoning 🙂
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ...
. . April 4: Day 10 of living in lock-down… I wake up to a fine Saturday morning which normally would be like an early Christmas. But it’s Day 10 of Level 4 Lock Down. What will my fellow New Zealanders be doing on a day like this – staying ...
Some time during the night we went over the 850,000 views mark. We might have had our millionth view by the end of this year – certainly by early next year. Most of the people involved in Redline spent years and years producing various small left-wing papers and selling them ...
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...
One of the key voices in this extraordinary time in which we live is that of University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Philip Matthews did an an excellent job this weekend of capturing the way he became the man for this moment in a profile for The Press.But one ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...
Redline received this article from the KOE a Marxist party in Greece Our friends in the KOE describe here the mounting crisis in Greece and tensions on the Turkish border. As desperate people flee from their homelands which have been ruined after decades of imperialist wars and interventions the people ...
As the first week of Level Four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was (and was not) allowed under its “rules”. Partly these were driven by some apparently contradictory messagesfrom different authority figures and explanations carried in the media. Partly they reflected a somewhat sketchy legal basis ...
. . April 3: Day 9 of living in lock-down… Another late-start to my work day. Everything is temporarily upended as clients are shuffled around so we can minimise our “bubble” by reducing the number of people we help. One of my colleagues has been removed from his clients; his ...
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 2: Day eight of living in lock-down… Today, my work day starts late. Our rosters and clients have been dramatically changed, lessening (theoretically) the number of people in our work “bubble”. If just one of us catches covid19 the impact could be considerable as Grey Base Hospital ...
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin Don’t we all know that feeling now.
Prospect Magazine alerted me to this particularly apt quote. It is a much more evocative quote than Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly” which is also doing ...
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...
Brian Williamson1, Prof Nick Wilson2 (1Economic consultant, UK; 2University of Otago Wellington)In this blog, we outline how a win-win social contract could be forged to address the major dimensions of response to the COVID-19 pandemic when using a mitigation strategy: the particular need to protect older people from high ...
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...
No Free Society Without A Free And Functioning News Media: If we are to surrender our civil rights to the broader cause of defeating Covid-19, then foreign corporations must, likewise, surrender their right to inflict immense economic and cultural harm on New Zealanders simply because it improves their bottom line.I’M ...
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...
The swan politicians may be gliding on the water, occasionally snapping at one another. Meanwhile, as the Covid19 crisis illustrates, the officials are desperately paddling below providing the real locomotion. One of the most fatuous recent grandstanding comments (of about a week ago), adding to the public’s anxieties, was ...
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...
Today has felt surreal. I was all set to touch base online with my science communication students when a colleague shared the news that Bauer Media would be shutting down its publications immediately. The first link I saw implied it was Woman’s Weekly affected, and even that shocked me. But ...
Bogeymen, Real And Imagined: Is the number of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals in any given society truly as vanishingly small as we like to tell ourselves? Isn’t it more likely that the mass-shooters and serial-killers filling the headlines represent only the tip of a much, much larger iceberg of frightfulness? ...
Outgoing Police Commissioner Mike Bush appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee today, who asked him for the rules police are using to enforce the lockdown. He refused:Police Commissioner Mike Bush has admitted the advice given to Kiwis about what they're able to do during the lockdown hasn't been clear enough. ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of my cat, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a pretty flower. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 1: Day seven of living in lock-down… This morning I had a brief chat with one of my neighbours, “D” (social distance between us, a good three or four metres). I learned he had resigned from his previous job and had been hired by another company – ...
Funnily enough, my thought as I start this post is whether it will be well written enough. Or should that be well enough written? Because so much of what I know about good writing came from my two stints at The Listener, which this morning was shut down due to ...
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Safe harbour for directors; Virgin Australia shuts NZ base; Z Energy cancels dividend and talks to banks; Serko bounces on cost cutsSafe harbour: Company directors might be sleeping a little easier now that the Government has provided clarity around the issue of reckless trading or trading while insolvent. The ...
Covid 19 coronavirus: Foreign Minister Winston Peters says up to 100,000 foreign nationals may be heading home; and pressure on Government to bring forward capital projects as part of infrastructure injection. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Debate over leaving lockdown fires up, how the tax system could change after Covid-19, and concerns as cyclone bears down on Vanuatu.Over the last few days, a debate has started to fire up about leaving level four restrictions, and restarting some ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Queenstown author Jane Bloomfield on a writing compeition which unlocks kids' imaginations during the lockdown. Encouraging young minds to roam wild is what drives myself and nine other children’s authors to run the online story-writing competition, Fabostory. With the current lockdown in place, we invite writers aged 7–13 to unlock ...
Newsroom wanted to find out why so many small shops still don’t want us to use paywave. And the answer hasn’t changed - bank fees. Suddenly, surfaces are scary. Door handles, taps, light switches, lift buttons, eftpos machines. These days they aren't just useful inanimate objects we touch without a ...
Should all New Zealanders wear face masks in public to reduce the spread of Covid-19? Farah Hancock looks at the science. The success of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in keeping Covid-19 levels low has seen a call for widespread mask-wearing. In the United States, the message from officials has ...
The Global Financial Crisis badly hurt the employment prospects of young people about to enter the workforce. Roger Smyth writes that Covid-19 will have a deeper impact, and the Government needs to respond better this time. Recessions hit the young hardest. Employers stop recruiting. Those without qualifications and those without experience end ...
March 16, 2020 is a day that any share market investor is likely to remember for a long time. That’s the day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index that tracks the top 30 companies listed on US stock exchanges, lost 2997 points, nearly 13 percent of its value. ...
The University of Otago's Patrick Boudreau explains how 'adventure psychology' can help you cope with self-isolation Imagine being halfway up a sheer vertical face of rock. Gripping ledges smaller than the width of your iPhone with the tips of your fingers and edge of your toes. If the rock gives ...
After 15 years on the world pro tennis circuit, Marina Erakovic is chasing a new dream in sports medicine and mentoring young tennis stars. Marina Erakovic can’t run anymore. She didn’t really like it anyway, but still, it’s a measure of the toll a 15-year career at the highest level of tennis has ...
Scientists hope to seek evidence of the coronavirus, or its absence, in wastewater. Mirjam Guesgen explains.The fight against Covid-19 is headed for the sewers, with New Zealand scientists hoping to analyse wastewater samples for signs of the coronavirus.Tests would allow health authorities to see whether New Zealand’s elimination strategy has ...
Since the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment relaxed the rules around the supply of essential non-food items last week, more businesses are announcing that their online stores are up and running. Some things, however, are not what leaps to mind as ‘essential’.Under the new policy allowing essential non-food items ...
By Jane Patterson, political editor of RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it’s too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. At today’s media briefing, Ardern was reluctant to draw too many conclusions from ...
By Stefan Armbruster of SBS News in Brisbane Refugees and asylum seekers in Brisbane have begun daily protests urging for their release after doctors and human rights lawyers flagged fears that a repurposed hotel could become a coronavirus infection hotspot. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Human ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it's too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. ...
Sam Brooks, a lifelong Studio Ghibli fan, presents a guide to the Japanese studio’s animated films, including which ones to show your kids when.Just heard ‘Let It Go’ for the billionth time? Sick of those class-traitor dogs that make up the cast of Paw Patrol? Look no further than the ...
Alan Simmons co-leader of the NZ Outdoors Party says tensions are at breaking point around New Zealand. “I cannot keep up with the calls and messages from New Zealanders who are extremely stressed, distressed and frustrated by dramatic changes imposed ...
Welcome back to Papercuts, our monthly books podcast hosted by Louisa Kasza, Jenna Todd and Kiran Dass.Well, we’ve all said we wish we had more time to read and now we’ve got what we wished for. Jenna, Kiran and Louisa delve into some book news (that’s not too heavy for ...
The prime minister says she expects the health minister to continue doing his job, including media interviews, after he broke the lockdown rules last week to go mountain biking. ...
There have been calls for major institutions like Auckland Art Gallery to do better in identifying queer or queer-associated artists. New Auckland Art Gallery director Kirsten Paisley believes it’s ‘a conversation that needs to happen’. Writer Samuel Te Kani digs into the complications below the surface of the erasures of ...
Ardern says the role of planning for moving out of lockdown is not the Government's alone Businesses should plan how they will operate in an environment where intensive contact tracing would be needed post-lockdown, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. The Government was working on additional guidance for the move to Level 3 ...
Netflix’s four-part series Unorthodox traces a woman’s escape from a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn. Emily Writes considers the lessons we can all learn from her journey. There was a moment watching Netflix’s miniseries Unorthodox when I felt like I was actually in Berlin, where much of the show is ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...
By RNZ Pacific The number of people with Covid-19 in the Pacific continues to climb with French Polynesia hitting 40 cases, Guam now over 90 and the US state of Hawai’i suffering its third coronavirus death. In the past day, another person tested positive for Covid-19 in French Polynesia. ...
We needed a reasonable period of time to allow the recent surging wave of highly geared first home buyers to get financially comfortable. We didn’t get it, writes David Hargreaves of interest.co.nz.You know, I was really beginning to think (as well as hope) that we might just get away with it.By ‘it’ ...
Being stuck inside all day might be wearing you and your kids down, but there’s never been a better time to encourage them to pick up their musical instrument and get stuck into writing songs. Mike Chunn from Play It Strange explains how. Mums and dads and households with teenage children. ...
Siouxsie Wiles on the vitriolic correspondence she’s received since the Covid-19 outbreak struck, and the realities of communicating evidence.I recently received an email and text from someone telling me they are planning to email my boss, the University of Auckland vice chancellor. They are going to ask for me to ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, five of New Zealand’s best writers chronicle the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Fiona Farrell.There’s a sign sticky-taped to the bakery window. Closed Until Further Notice. Stay Safe NZ and Be Kind. We will get through this!We all know where the words ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Covid-19 is a real threat to older people, but these Central Otago seniors are embracing technology, experiencing no FOMO, and finding new ways to connect and share, finds Jill Herron When the full lockdown began on March 25 it meant the end of going for a swim, spa or to ...
Former editor of the Woman's Weekly, Nicky Pellegrino, bids farewell to the magazine that brought information and fun to generations of New Zealand women. All those stories. Gone. Stories about our politics, our health, our education, our aspirations. Stories about the houses we lived in and the gardens we grew, ...
As small businesses fight for their survival in the Covid-19 lockdown, it seems one of the country’s biggest retail landlords is not keen to share the pain. On the one side, you have Jonathan*. Jonathan runs a small business out of South Auckland’s Sylvia Park - New Zealand’s biggest mall. ...
With no Covid-19 cases and its economy desperate to restart, the Chathams is keen to go fishing again, writes Jim Kayes.It shouldn’t really be a surprise. They are, after all, ahead of New Zealand by 45 minutes.And though they are part of Wellington’s Rongotai electorate, the fiercely ...
On Friday night, the government quietly laid down some lockdown rules via a legal order under the Health Act. Law professor Andrew Geddis explains what it means for all of us (including David Clark). As the first week of level four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was ...
The health and wellbeing of people working and being held inside our prisons needs to be a priority, writes JustSpeak director Tania Sawicki Mead. Kelvin Davis’s interview on The Hui last weekend made it clear that precautions taken by Corrections to stop the spread of Covid-19 will create an unprecedented restriction ...
Like countless New Zealanders stranded overseas, Wellingtonian Rosie O’Hagan will be braving authorities, airlines, airports and uncertainty to make it back from the other side of the world, writes Jim Kayes.Rosie O’Hagan hadn’t stepped outside for three weeks.When she finally did – around midnight on Friday ...
PACIFIC PANDEMIC DIARY:By David Robie A rather beautiful Guåhan legend is rather poignant in these stressed pandemic times. It is one about survival and cooperation. In ancient times, goes the story, a giant fish was eating great chunks out of this western Pacific island. The men used muscle ...
Simon Wren-Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford, raises good questions about Britain’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of them seem germane to this country’s response. Wren-Lewis posted his critique on his Mainly Macro blog under the heading Following the Science or a ...
Alex Casey speaks to a dream expert about why so many people are suddenly remembering their vivid and often horrible dreams. As the days begin to blur together and the only thing we get between sleeps is unimaginably horrible news and an embarrassing tootle around the block, it’s no surprise ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...
Medical centres across the country are condensing services, moving online, and ushering in pandemic plans. Josie Adams assesses what it’s like to access and provide essential medical care under alert level four.On Monday, Sandra Russell woke up before dawn and drove to Milford to get her blood tested. She has ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, writer and doctor Glenn Colquhoun, with the second of his Letters to Hone Tūwhare and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions. ...
ANALYSIS:By Haiqing Yu of RMIT University and Michael Keane of Curtin University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play. China played ...
Tech giant Google has released a giant global data set which shows how different countries are locking down, and which NZ regions are most compliant with its lockdown.A giant set of reports released by Google, created using its anonymised cellphone location data reveals the scale of human behaviour change the ...
Comedian Penny Ashton writes on the necessity of the arts, especially during lockdown.On March 22, everyone’s favourite fiscal bloodhounds, the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, sent out a tweet in response to Creative New Zealand’s announcement that it will dedicate an emergency response package to helping New Zealand’s artists, in the ...
Wellington writer Philippa Swan’s new novel TheNight of All Souls is an homage to Pulitzer-winning and all-round fabulous American writer Edith Wharton. Wharton died in 1937 but, Swan writes, she’s very much of the moment. Nobody does social distancing like Wharton did. While Wharton was still comparatively young, she created the ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford.I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...
How do you hold a funeral service with the country in lockdown? Where there’s a will – and a tech-savvy uncle – there’s a way, Erin Kavanagh-Hall discovered.I was floating somewhere in the Cook Strait when I heard my grandfather’s funeral had been cancelled.I should elaborate. It was a Monday, ...
‘Stay in your bubble’ didn’t exist 100 years ago, but our ancestors would want us to know how essential it is to do so, says Jai Breitnauer.It was a warm but slightly grey January day in 2019 when I pulled the car over to the side of SH1, just south ...
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...
Every day at 1pm New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announces precise figures on the number of confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in the country. He is working on the best information available, and during this week the level of community transmission was put at around ...
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Deery, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, University of Melbourne “Stupid coronavirus!” I heard my six-year-old mumble while talking in her sleep. Earlier that day her swimming and basketball lessons were cancelled, a birthday party postponed, and she had to race with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University “Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom. With hundreds of millions ...
Analysis - A leading epidemiologist says health authorities 'really have no idea' of the extent of community spread, Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee gets its teeth into what's going on during the lockdown and the horrendous economic imp ...
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...
The Finance Minister says struggling companies will be able to put some debt into hibernation, under new legislation unveiled today. Watch the latest government update here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.This article ...
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the ...
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Of the larger European countries, Italy is now in third place for known cases per person in the population. Spain has overtaken Switzerland for ...
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru are celebrating the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight. The Court of Appeal found that there ...
Open Mike 08/10/2017 
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...14 hours ago
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ... 16 hours ago
. . April 4: Day 10 of living in lock-down… I wake up to a fine Saturday morning which normally would be like an early Christmas. But it’s Day 10 of Level 4 Lock Down. What will my fellow New Zealanders be doing on a day like this – staying ...20 hours ago
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...21 hours ago
One of the key voices in this extraordinary time in which we live is that of University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Philip Matthews did an an excellent job this weekend of capturing the way he became the man for this moment in a profile for The Press.But one ...21 hours ago
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...2 days ago
As the first week of Level Four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was (and was not) allowed under its “rules”. Partly these were driven by some apparently contradictory messages from different authority figures and explanations carried in the media. Partly they reflected a somewhat sketchy legal basis ...2 days ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...3 days ago
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...3 days ago
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...3 days ago
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...3 days ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...4 days ago
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...5 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 5 days ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...5 days ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...5 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...7 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...1 week ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...1 week ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...1 week ago
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...14 hours ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world". Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...3 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...2 weeks ago
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...3 days ago
Safe harbour for directors; Virgin Australia shuts NZ base; Z Energy cancels dividend and talks to banks; Serko bounces on cost cuts Safe harbour: Company directors might be sleeping a little easier now that the Government has provided clarity around the issue of reckless trading or trading while insolvent. The ...40 mins ago
Covid 19 coronavirus: Foreign Minister Winston Peters says up to 100,000 foreign nationals may be heading home; and pressure on Government to bring forward capital projects as part of infrastructure injection. ...45 mins ago
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Debate over leaving lockdown fires up, how the tax system could change after Covid-19, and concerns as cyclone bears down on Vanuatu.Over the last few days, a debate has started to fire up about leaving level four restrictions, and restarting some ...55 mins ago
Queenstown author Jane Bloomfield on a writing compeition which unlocks kids' imaginations during the lockdown. Encouraging young minds to roam wild is what drives myself and nine other children’s authors to run the online story-writing competition, Fabostory. With the current lockdown in place, we invite writers aged 7–13 to unlock ...2 hours ago
Newsroom wanted to find out why so many small shops still don’t want us to use paywave. And the answer hasn’t changed - bank fees. Suddenly, surfaces are scary. Door handles, taps, light switches, lift buttons, eftpos machines. These days they aren't just useful inanimate objects we touch without a ...2 hours ago
Should all New Zealanders wear face masks in public to reduce the spread of Covid-19? Farah Hancock looks at the science. The success of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in keeping Covid-19 levels low has seen a call for widespread mask-wearing. In the United States, the message from officials has ...2 hours ago
The Global Financial Crisis badly hurt the employment prospects of young people about to enter the workforce. Roger Smyth writes that Covid-19 will have a deeper impact, and the Government needs to respond better this time. Recessions hit the young hardest. Employers stop recruiting. Those without qualifications and those without experience end ...2 hours ago
March 16, 2020 is a day that any share market investor is likely to remember for a long time. That’s the day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index that tracks the top 30 companies listed on US stock exchanges, lost 2997 points, nearly 13 percent of its value. ...2 hours ago
The University of Otago's Patrick Boudreau explains how 'adventure psychology' can help you cope with self-isolation Imagine being halfway up a sheer vertical face of rock. Gripping ledges smaller than the width of your iPhone with the tips of your fingers and edge of your toes. If the rock gives ...2 hours ago
After 15 years on the world pro tennis circuit, Marina Erakovic is chasing a new dream in sports medicine and mentoring young tennis stars. Marina Erakovic can’t run anymore. She didn’t really like it anyway, but still, it’s a measure of the toll a 15-year career at the highest level of tennis has ...2 hours ago
By Jane Patterson, political editor of RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it’s too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. At today’s media briefing, Ardern was reluctant to draw too many conclusions from ...12 hours ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it's too early to claim success against the spread of Covid-19 but 11 days into lockdown, New Zealand has made a good start. ...14 hours ago
Alan Simmons co-leader of the NZ Outdoors Party says tensions are at breaking point around New Zealand. “I cannot keep up with the calls and messages from New Zealanders who are extremely stressed, distressed and frustrated by dramatic changes imposed ...15 hours ago
Ardern says the role of planning for moving out of lockdown is not the Government's alone Businesses should plan how they will operate in an environment where intensive contact tracing would be needed post-lockdown, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. The Government was working on additional guidance for the move to Level 3 ...17 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...18 hours ago
Covid-19 is a real threat to older people, but these Central Otago seniors are embracing technology, experiencing no FOMO, and finding new ways to connect and share, finds Jill Herron When the full lockdown began on March 25 it meant the end of going for a swim, spa or to ...1 day ago
Former editor of the Woman's Weekly, Nicky Pellegrino, bids farewell to the magazine that brought information and fun to generations of New Zealand women. All those stories. Gone. Stories about our politics, our health, our education, our aspirations. Stories about the houses we lived in and the gardens we grew, ...1 day ago
As small businesses fight for their survival in the Covid-19 lockdown, it seems one of the country’s biggest retail landlords is not keen to share the pain. On the one side, you have Jonathan*. Jonathan runs a small business out of South Auckland’s Sylvia Park - New Zealand’s biggest mall. ...1 day ago
With no Covid-19 cases and its economy desperate to restart, the Chathams is keen to go fishing again, writes Jim Kayes. It shouldn’t really be a surprise. They are, after all, ahead of New Zealand by 45 minutes. And though they are part of Wellington’s Rongotai electorate, the fiercely ...1 day ago
Like countless New Zealanders stranded overseas, Wellingtonian Rosie O’Hagan will be braving authorities, airlines, airports and uncertainty to make it back from the other side of the world, writes Jim Kayes. Rosie O’Hagan hadn’t stepped outside for three weeks. When she finally did – around midnight on Friday ...2 days ago
Simon Wren-Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford, raises good questions about Britain’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of them seem germane to this country’s response. Wren-Lewis posted his critique on his Mainly Macro blog under the heading Following the Science or a ...2 days ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...2 days ago
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...2 days ago
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...2 days ago
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...2 days ago
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford. I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...2 days ago
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...2 days ago
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...2 days ago
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...3 days ago
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...3 days ago
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...3 days ago
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...3 days ago
I’ve a $20 bet since March that Trump will be out of the Whitehouse by Christmas.
I read that Muller is now briefing senior officials (unimplicated ones).
Is this a sign that my $20 is safe?
Is there Book on it?
I think your bet is lost. Trump is currently the favourite candidate to win the presidency in 2020. (that said he is the incumbent and we do not know who will be running against him from the Democratic side. He is though a long shot to be out of office by the end of the year. http://www.betfair.com
It was more than nine months from the Saturday Night Massacre to Nixon’s resignation – and we haven’t yet had an equivalent to it in terms of open blatant misconduct for the express purpose of saving his own skin. Firing Comey didn’t come close. These things move slowly. Even if Mueller already has the evidence to put the Chump away for the rest of his life, Christmas is way too soon for anything to have happened.
The NZ First and Green Party caucuses are divided markedly by gender. NZF’s 9 MPs includes 2 women and the GP 8 MPs include 2 men;
NZF MPs:
1 Rt Hon Winston Peters
2 Ron Mark
3 Tracey Martin
4 Fletcher Tabuteau
5 Darroch Ball
6 Clayton Mitchell
7 Mark Patterson
8 Shane Jones
9 Jenny Marcroft
GP MPs:
James Shaw (Wellington Central)
Marama Davidson (Tamaki Makaurau)
Julie Anne Genter (Mt Albert)
Eugenie Sage (Port Hills)
Gareth Hughes (East Coast)
Jan Logie (Mana)
Chlöe Swarbrick (Maungakiekie)
Golriz Ghahraman (Te Atatu)
Half the GP caucus are based in Auckland. The NZF caucus tends to have more links with regions outside Auckland.
NZF could negotiate a coalition with either Nats or Labour, but they could also opt to sit on the cross benches, abstain from confidence and supply votes, and allow the Nats to run a minority government.
Interesting, there is balance to be found there 😀
Hold it Sister: the GP did not win any electoral seats. The way you displayed the two lists is misleading. You seem to suggest that all the NZ F are list and the GP are electoral.
Please correct it.
Say what? the only differences is that the GP list numbers did not copy. They are at the link. But I would need to add each number individually. Is that really necessary?
The NZF numbers copied with the names from a straight copy and paste. Not my fault, and otherwise there is no indication I’m saying the GP MPs are electorate MPs.
I would have thought the point of showing the GP locations/electorates was because of the comment about the number of Ak MPs.
Would the governor General accept a government that could not show that it had 51% support in the house?
My pick is that English would prefer another election to leading a minority government that could be out-voted on anything other than confidence and supply.
The Nats’ born to rule sense of entitlement is too strong to tolerate it. National’s coffers are full and they could fight another, probably even nastier, election with MMP itself in the crosshairs.
National continue to show a disdain for democracy, they’ve not diversified the economy, they’ve gutted crucial areas like health, education and housing whilst selling out nz.
So personally I’d like to see them wear this one with Peters sniping away making them own the damage they’ve caused.
Bill can manage that rockstar economy they’ve been blathering on about so there’s a challenge for the DP acolytes.
Oh yeah, the Rock Star Economy:
“Sell your soul to the company. They’re all waiting there to sell plastic wares…”
It’s not in their hands, though. If Mr. English can’t accept a deal with NZ First (assuming he is even in a position to make one), then NZ First has other options before a new election is called, and English’s most likely immediate destination is opposition.
Ab 100%
I see it this way to.
As we know National is under corporate control (English accompanied Key to the 2011/12 Bilderberg Group annual meeting) and since then has to deliver what they need to complete their mission out, in total control as you say correctly.
“The Nats’ born to rule sense of entitlement is too strong to tolerate it. National’s coffers are full and they could fight another, probably even nastier, election with MMP itself in the crosshairs”
Interesting. But expecting Lab/NZF govt with Gs giving cross-bench support. Re-election would potentially strengthen nzf n G hands, as social electioneering would stand solid. Gnats must fold. Transition is safe and on-track.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/97629437/exclusive-brethren-supreme-leader-bruce-hales-in-nz-to-curb-wicked-behaviour
No doubt co-incidental that one of the Nats backers is having a big-wig conference now as well.
:A white-shirted church member at the gate, Eddy Suckling, said it was “just a church conference”.
“There are a few from around the regions that have come in, just locals,” he said.
Suckling was unable to say how many people were inside, but cars were forced to park on the grass surrounding the 200-plus car park alongside the hall.
At least 15 white buses were lined up, as well as more than 20 white vans. Shiny white SUVs and utes filled the adjacent streets.”
I wonder what Don Brash is up to this weekend
Brash was on Radio live an hour ago with some other right wing nutters.
surely not… lmao 😀
I’m learning all the time, and found this article about difference between a Coalition government and Confidence & Supply one, very informative. However, are there rules within a NZ context which defines what legislation other than budget expenditure that gets passed with C&S?
Anyone want to make the argument that Bitcoin is actually a good and useful thing?
To me, it looks like the ultimate example of a thing that only has value because a bunch of people delude themselves it has value.
Bitcoin is not like fiat money, which in many ways is backed by the issuing state’s powers of compulsion.
Even gold and diamonds, while they are way overvalued because people are attracted by shiny things, actually have particular properties that make them useful.
But it looks to me like a bitcoin is nothing more than a certificate of gratuitously wasted computing time and electricity. See this article to illustrate how much goes into this waste.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/why-the-biggest-bitcoin-mines-are-in-china
Works if you are a criminal seeking to evade tax, or evade all state scrutiny.
The Chinese government is on to them.
“To me, it looks like the ultimate example of a thing that only has value because a bunch of people delude themselves it has value”
Sounds like it has that in common with the share market to me.
And the issuing state’s economy.
BitCoin is a perfect example of why bank money was actually made illegal. What happens, and we know this from history, is that multiple companies start making their own currency that a) isn’t universally accepted and b) creates far too much money for the economy.
Of course, that latter part is happening now as the private banks create huge amounts of money pushing up house prices.
Worth a read
https://e-tangata.co.nz/news/veronica-tawhai-building-hope-that-there-can-be-change
Awesome wahine toa
I once knew her parents; awesome people and I’m chuffed to read of their daughter. Thanks marty.
Thank’s Marty. That’s a web site I’ll now visit regularly.
Thanks so much for that link. Excellent read and site, now bookmarked etc for the future.
Slow clap for du Plessis-Allan and her unilluminating ‘me me me’ Winston Peters nonsense in the Herald this morning. Served up in vintage, passive-aggressive du Plessis-Allan, sly-smile style.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11930019
From the top – “At Auckland airport this week, on my way down to Wellington, ‘ I ‘ bumped into a man from the capital.” Oh really ? Who cares how you get to work dear ?
Story is…….Winston will sit on the cross benches. Without even confidence and supply seemingly. Reasoning being that since first Maori PM’s not on……..then ‘Pfft’ to the flash job, the baubles, the government limos. Like no one else ever used one. I daresay du Plessis-Allan herself has greased her way into a few of those in her time.
You see Winston’s into “legacy”. But because National actually won this MMP election “fair and square” (at least in her FPP figurings), Winston should send English to the Governor-General vaunting a minority government, Wow ! Such “legacy”.
This would be Winston being “uncharacteristically responsible”. He’s going to (and should) cement in the “vacuum” of the last 14 days which [gulp] she and her cohort have snortingly bitched about for all of those 14 days. And the uncertainty will run for three lame duck years or until the sooner (inevitable) snap election.
The truth is that she and hubby Soper (“the man from the capital”?) seek to endorse the National Party’s perennial ‘entitlement’ burden. The National Party has served their vainglory for years now. Here’s hoping Mickey Savage doesn’t risk blowing his Shyte-Meter by passing through it this ‘Bazza ‘n’ Me Hate Winston’ nonsense.
Do these people get angry when a Fast Food giant tells them they have to wait 2 minutes for their order?
Government is not fast food. It should be a well thought through thing. It has ONLY been 2 weeks.
This older generation better never speak again of the young folks need for instant gratification or bemoan their short concentration spans ( both of which are myths).
Pfffffff
Do these people get angry when a Fast Food giant tells them they have to wait 2 minutes for their order?
My daughter works at Domino’s, and apparently yes they do. For some people, the fact there are currently over a hundred pizza orders shouldn’t make theirs take any longer to arrive, and the fact that the votes haven’t been counted yet shouldn’t make forming a government take any longer. Like the poor, the stupid will always be with us.
Learning about our new MP’s on Q+A, feeling very proud to have these two women in Parliament.
I didn’t know that Angie, Labours new MP used to run the Womens Refugee in Tauranga, awesome, maybe some of her ideas gained from knowledge in that sector can help NZ with the insipid domestic violence that touches most of our lives.
Well done NZ for voting in these two MP’s.
Prebbles last column bemoaning the power of one man. Irony alert anyone?
Prebbles? Or do you mean Rodney Hide’s last column in the Herald today? Hurrah!
Oops. I meant Hide. Of course they are interchangeable.
Both well past their use by dates! Many years ago had the ‘pleasure’ of having a lot to do with Prebble as Minister of Transport. Was not a highlight of my career in the public service.
Good piece by Rod Oram at Newsroom exposing the reprehensible Jacqueline Rowarth and her pro-agribusiness lies and disinformation about Monsanto’s Roundup poison. Thirty pieces of silver, Jacquie? https:// http://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/10/07/52025/concerns-at-okay-for-roundup-poison.
Rowarth is correct, as per her response in the comments thread of this Sciblogs post linked from Oram’s article:
The report aligns with the American Cancer Society that the IARC report identifies hazards, whereas the regulatory authorities identify risks, and then the regulations required to keep people safe.
The IARC just assesses whether a particular thing might cause cancer in some people if they get a high enough dose of it. They don’t do any work on how high a dose might be needed. The EPA’s reviewed the evidence out there and not found any to suggest glyphosate might be a cancer risk at any dose it’s feasible for a human to encounter in everyday circumstances. Maybe if you were to sprinkle a couple of spoonfuls of glyphosate on your Weetbix every morning for 50 years there’s a chance it might give you cancer, but who knows? The IARC certainly doesn’t. Maybe you’d need to eat a kilo a day to have a risk of getting cancer – that’s still “probably carcinogenic” from the IARC’s perspective.
Thing is, all these groups involve humans and agribusiness isn’t the only interest group lobbying them. The organic food industry, Green politicians and anti-glyphosate nutcases aren’t honest brokers in this any more than Monsanto is.
I suspect if you sprinkled a couple of spoonfuls of roundup on your weetbix every morning you would risk ending up in organ failure.
Don’t try this at home, kids!
You could defend Round-Up on having a good GHG balance, but “safe-to-health” claims are shit-nuggets through a knowledge-filter. Tests on glyphosphate, may differ from tests on Round-up mix… and endless other hat-tricks to produce poison.
“You could defend Round-Up on having a good GHG balance”
How so?
Nothing’s safe for your health if consumed in large enough quantities, up to and including pure water. The relevant question is: at what quantity does it become unsafe? Anti-glyphosate nutters might be convinced there’s no dose small enough to be allowed to enter the sacred temple of their bodies, but the EPA has to take a more objective view.
An idiot might ‘think’ that’s the relevant question..
But it isn’t!
Can you figure out what is?
PS, looking at your history commenting when this subject comes up, you’re consistent in defending glyphosate
I would suggest you spend some more time looking into the revolving door, before citing the EPA
Widen the focus and stop pretending you understand the relevant ‘science’…you do not
Citing?
😆
You don’t need to cite the EPA to understand the relationship between dosage and toxicity.
Please don’t bother answering this, you wretched fool.
No amygdala reference…
Dosage and toxity is not the question either
It’s incorrect framing of a relevant question
You’re a fan of censorship…well done..
I’m not!
Five sentences. Nothing substantive imparted.
One Two is an unfortunate pseudo I think for this person. Indicates a low standard of numeracy. And spacing things out like mod poetry and enigmatically saying why to everything – what a waste of space. Tell me something about some subject with a source that might shed some light on our concerns please.
Despite the misgivings raised by responding to the kind of person who puts quotation marks around the word science….
looking at your history commenting when this subject comes up, you’re consistent in defending glyphosate
“Defending” glyphosate? What next? Nigger-lover? There’s nothing to “defend.”
An idiot might ‘think’ that’s the relevant question.
Well this particular “idiot” certainly thinks the EPA’s job in this case is to consider the potential harm of using glyphosate as a pesticide relative to the benefits of using it. If you hold a different view of its job, you’re going to need to elaborate because I seriously have no fucking idea what you’re on about.
The Rod Oram article seems to cover the issue very well – it shows that there is spin and selective interpretation both for aand against. The concept of “net benefit” on an undefined basis that offsets health risks against production increases is scary in hiding components – we should be able to do better. Poisons can have long term effects – some of the orchard poisons that caused long term problems in a Hamilton subdivision also caused reductions in fertility – but they did increase production so that’s all right – ? We should at least know details of both sides of the equation . . . and that may require another government.
Rod Oram writing a lot of good stuff at Newroom.
The concept of “net benefit” on an undefined basis that offsets health risks against production increases is scary in hiding components – we should be able to do better.
In what way? Using axes and chainsaws involves health risks orders of magnitude higher than the possibility that someone might conceivably suffer cancer at some point in the future if they disregard the safety instructions for using glyphosate over a long period, and yet the forestry industry exists. X-rays are definitely carcinogenic, not probably, and at relatively low doses, and yet we still X-ray people because “net benefit.” It’s an entirely reasonable approach.
Trump’s fake news factory
This is what happens when private companies have free access to your data and you have no control over it.
If it’s on Facebook you have plenty of control over your information.
I’m not on Facebook, Baidu, Twitter, anything like that, and I have no loyalty cards.
But with my regular Google use they still know me pretty well.
[Citation Needed]
And they’re not actually looking at the information. They’re using algorithms to see if one person ‘looks’ like another and then targeting those people with fake news.
Dont forget push polling of which Joyce was quite the fan…
Push polling type question… would you still support Bill English if he was homosexual… type of thing
I almost start to understand why the US public does not want to relinquish their right to bear arms. With the enemy within, it is difficult to argue against.
Yeah, the next govt wants budget to counter lobby, eg. Front- n cross-benches with body-doubles n social PR unit.
Maybe we are all looking at the wrong horizon for direction how to achieve peace and a reasonable trade world. Perhaps the US, being only 241 years old and despite technological advance just behaves like a child throwing a tantrum which we mistook for strength? There are no Homers or Socrates in sight, neither short nor long term.
Draco didn’t National worms follow the same plan over this election? I don’t follow Facebook but I hear that it was happening.
Probably but I haven’t seen anything on it.
Trumps digital leader –
(around 2:35 into the video clip)
INTERVIEWER: I mean, what were Facebook, Google and YouTube people actually doing here? Why were they here?
THERESA HONG: They were helping us, you know I mean they were basically our hands-on partners as far as being able to you know, utilize the platform as effectively as possible.
When you’re pumping in millions and millions of dollars to these social platforms, you’re gonna get white club treatment, so they would send people, you know, representatives, to the Project Alamo to ensure that all of our needs were being met
Another reason to ditch Facebook.
Facebook helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency with fake Russian accounts and ads from the country that were pro-Trump, undermined the Clinton campaign, stoked arguments about social issues, and shared fake news stories.
The platform also embedded Republican employees with the Trump campaign to assist with ad technology, according to a new 60 Minutes interview with the campaign’s digital media director.
Facebook’s response? Hire a right-wing outlet to fact check news stories.
According to a new report from Quartz, Facebook plans to sign conservative magazine Weekly Standard as a fact checking partner. Several outlets currently work as fact checkers for the platform, though all the outlets Facebook has signed thus far have been approved by the Poynter Institute.
https://thinkprogress.org/facebook-weekly-standard-fact-check-8dfc1cba987c/
Scarey when you think of what they are doing and why. Privacy has become a thing of the past. Those fake ads are designed to get you thinking the way they want. Bastards.
Just watched M.Moore in the 9TH Floor on ex P.M’s.Interesting opinion he has of himself .Seems he still regards himself as a real Labour man’,despite embracing Rogernomics and globalisation.Mentioned that Douglas still regards Labour as ‘our party’ too.Had some interesting quotes from Lange,Churchill and Lloyd George,but the underlying timbre of the discourse appeared to me that he regards himself as a man of destiny that was…unlucky.
Douglas Moore Goff Prebble Lange…
Where are they now… and after finishing politics
Who are serving society and who went on to serve themselves…
Apparently Pebble was on the telly this morning being asked for his reckons 🙄
Good god. Why dont they just quit pretending and call Alan Gibbs
lol. I’d have less of a problem if they were balancing it with left wing voices.
Josie Pagani almost sounded left wing on telly the other day
NOoooooo. Was that by comparison to who else was on?
Probably… was she on with Mr Mapp? I cannot recall cos I didnt watch for long.
Maybe Nandor needs to some writing/appearances?
He would be a very interesting political commentator!
I believe Lange is deceased as for the others …
Just dead inside?
Moore et al = delusional.
Probably because they can feel the chill winds of time blowing and can see the Grim Reaper at Monty Python’s dinner party : “It was neoliberalism!”
Is Kelvin Davis still getting political advice from Josi Pagani? I hope not.
Duncan Garner has written an article backing Winston on immigration after his experience shopping in Kmart.
It has provoked a lot of criticism and support on Stuff and twitter.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/97625919/duncan-garner-dear-nz-how-do-we-want-to-look-in-20-years
https://twitter.com/DuncanGarnerNZ?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Bomber Bradbury’s analysis is excellent.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/10/08/why-duncan-garners-k-mart-checkout-metaphor-is-actually-delightfully-perfect/
Bradbury also writes this article
‘Why we urgently need to investigate Chinese influence over National’
‘The shocking reality that the National Party is little more than a front for Chinese business interests demands far more attention than it gained…
New research paper lays bare China’s influence campaign in New Zealand
Concerns raised over political donations and directorships offered to former ministers and relatives
Chinese-owned New Zealand dairy farms said to possibly being used to test advanced missile technology’
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/10/06/why-we-urgently-need-to-investigate-chinese-influence-over-national/
Garners a racist fuck wit.
Does Garner ever look around and think look at all those fucking Germans/Swedes/Russians?Polish etc.
No, he doesn’t because they’re White, Garners sees Black and Brown faces and automatically thinks Foreigner, not New Zealanders
He’s a thick as pig shit rat-eyed racist arsehole.
I agree with you.
And I think New Zealand needs a mature discussion about immigration, identity and infrastructure.
Gotta love those cheap waged imports , eh ?
Keeps the white honkey’s and the Bro’s wages to a manageable level , eh what old boy?…. keeps them in their place, – all those commie unionists and what not…
Lets the other crowd in to invest and plunder the proceeds back to their home country , eh old sausage?… bit like the bally old English did , … my these foreigners learn fast , don’t they , say what ?
Martin Bradbury’s analysis of Garner’s piece.
‘Rather than complaining about the racial make up of the people standing in line, the real story is why Kmart has been able to hollow out their staff for self-check outs. The economic system that exploits everyone shopping there is the issue, not the ethnicity of those forced to wait in line.
So what is this column really about?
A multinational retailer gutting worker rights to the same level of the sweat shop made products they import is crowded by poor people and migrants trying to stretch their dollar while a middle class white bloke happy to exploit the low prices brought about by globalisation hisses about immigrants because he has to wait in line with them.
To be honest, that kinda does sum up NZ almost perfectly doesn’t it?’
… ” middle class white bloke ” …
I think you’ll find that lot ( and others – witness the amount of Indian /Chinese exploiting recent immigrants from their home country and flouting our laws ) are only one section.
What we have here , – is enabled neo liberalism that sets worker against worker and unscrupulous employers reigning supreme.
I get a little sick and tired of wankers using the overdone cliched ‘oppressive white man’ card when every other bastard from every other race takes less than 1.5 seconds to realize an opportunity in order to exploit some other poor bastard regardless of their race .
I usually find the same sort of wankers actively encourage this sort of sanctimonious inverse racism because it suits their surreptitious pecuniary advantage to do so.
And if it was up to me ?
I would cut immigration massively and encourage taking on a much larger quota of refugees instead.
And not necessarily RICH ONES either.
That’d soon sort out all these parsimonious fuckers who like to play the race issue to further their own ends,… AND , – as well as THAT , – legislate an AWARD RATE for wages.
I can hear the wankers , the racists , the opportunist’s and the disgusting treasonous globalist shitters squealing from here as they kick their troughs over in panic….
The fuck with the whole howling , squawking sanctimonious hypocritical lot of them.
AND THAT’S ,… the power of balanced nationalism and taking a fucking pride in ones own country – and not being a doormat for FUCKING WANKERS.
Totally agree.
I would be very wary about agreeing with BM if I were you….
I agree with him about Garner’s racism.
But I doubt we agree on much else.
Steve Cowan, a true leftie, writes.
‘A dedicated cheerleader for the market economy , Garner won’t place the responsibility for New Zealand’s economic and social problems at the door of those who are really responsible- successive governments, both Labour and National, who have pursued economic and social policies that have led inevitably to more poverty and inequality and more division.
We live in a society where market forces and values have been prioritised over basic human needs and aspirations. But Garner would rather scapegoat immigrants instead – even claiming they are responsible for stealing ‘our dreams’.’
Yep , – its the same old blaming the ‘ little people’ instead of looking at the shit – for – brains neo liberal treasonist’s who created the situation we are in.
Meanwhile ,… as the veneer is removed , we see both the privatized media and the globalist National party for the supercilious fuckers they really are.
Relax.
The Jeremy Corbyn effect / awakening is well on its way.
That what I hope…
🙂
Me too…. but as I’ve said time and again….
Time is on our/ your / my side.
And that’s just what the far right neo liberal hates to hear.
They know its true.
I like your positive thoughts.
😊
I get that warm fuzzy feeling every time I perceive neo liberal / treasonist scumbags suffering ,… sort of like ,… when you crack your ankle joints in the morning after a refreshing nights sleep,… you know,… that sense of ”oooo ”… mild slight dull ‘cracking ‘ pain but instant mobility and warmth in the joints…
Well ,… expelling neo liberals is much the same … mild pain at first but then a great sense of mobility , warmth and perception of circulation ,… a great feeling of ‘can do ‘ …
And that’s whats in store for us,… transcending the diseased state into the full picture of health once the virus is expelled… a little bit more , a little bit more application ,… and we will be all sitting around wondering what all the fuss was all about and why it took us all so long …
And that’s all neo liberalism ever was : a virus. An extremist far right wing virus concocted by neo NAZI’s and their sympathizers.
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
From CAFCA’s website.
‘Foreign direct investment (ownership of companies) in New Zealand increased from $15.7 billion in March 1989 to $110.8 billion at March 2016 – over seven times. As a proportion of the total output of the economy, Gross Domestic Product, it has risen from 22% to 44%. Ownership of overseas companies by New Zealand residents has not grown as fast over that period (five and a half times) so net foreign direct investment has grown over eight times from a net liability of $8.8 billion to $72.8 billion, and as a percentage of GDP multiplied over two times from 13% of GDP to 29%.
Foreign owners controlled 36% of the share market in 2016. In 1989, the figure was 19% and it was estimated to be below 5% in 1986.
At March 2015, they owned an estimated 22% of the value of all equity (shareholdings) and 26% of privately owned equity of enterprises in New Zealand, including shares not listed on the stock exchange.
Foreign investors owned 24% (or $368 billion) of net wealth in New Zealand whose commercial net value totalled $1.5 trillion at March 2015. They owned 27% of private net wealth. This comprised housing, land, other property, plant, equipment and financial assets owned directly or indirectly by households, government, non-profit organisations and foreign investors. New Zealand residents owned a further $215 billion of investments abroad. (These totals exclude shared natural wealth such as rivers, and human and social capital.)’
Brilliant !
And I hope the Moanday morning scumbag privatized newsmedia take notice ( as I KNOW they do because the lazy bastards look at these types of blogs to gauge some sort of ‘ public sentiment’ – I worked security at a major NZ TV network and was a fly on the wall, – to their detriment – like a ‘plant’ as it were …)
And I would just like to shove THIS in their faces for all the junior politico wanks who weren’t even born in 1984…
Here’s your fucking neo liberalism for ya,… and your fucking Ruth Richardson and her bullshit NZ Initiative mentality …
…………………………………………………………
Ken Douglas, then president of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, recalled in the 1996 documentary Revolution:
The Employment Contracts Act was deliberately intended to individualize the employment relationship. It was a natural outcome of the ideological propaganda of rugged individualism, of self-interest and greed and the appeal to individuals that you could find better for you by climbing over the tops of your colleagues, your mates, and so on. Ruth Richardson was very clear, very blunt, very honest about its purpose. It was to achieve a dramatic lowering of wages, very, very quickly.
……………………………………………………………
There you go ,.. and Bolger the wanker crying his crocodile tears about ‘ neo liberalism was a mistake’… what a wanker.
As if he didn’t see the massive demonstrations at the time.
As if he didn’t realize what this would do to NZ society.
As if he didnt know what this would do to the NZ worker.
As if he didn’t know all the insider trading and the massive profits shifted offshore and the massive profits gained by his colleagues in the NZ Business Roundtable ( now renamed the NZ Initiative ).
What a total hypocritical cunt.
Him playing along with Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson , – BOTH Board of Directors of the Mont Pelerin Society of England.
What a piece of shit.
What a dirty filthy reptilian piece of snake scum.
Crack those ankles and feel good , people,… the awakening is happening.
And your about to be vindicated for every hateful thought you ever had against these wanking scum.
Apparently Canadians and the English own more property. Racism is stupid. Being worried about losing what we have is valid. I wish the 2 were kept separate.
I agree.
We urgently need a mature discussion about immigration, identity and infrastructure.
However, it just may be too late.
Hi weka,
I’ve sent you a message.
School holidays.
I’m bored ! ,… is the cry … send em along for a little bit of this…. or then again, perhaps not.
Alice Cooper – School’s Out (from Alice Cooper: Trashes The World …
TransCanada Corp’s Energy East tarsands pipeline has been canned and both the Keystone XL and Trans Mountain projects are on shakey ground.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2017/10/05/news/disappointment-and-delight-mark-death-energy-east-pipeline
http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/energy-east-death-pins-oil-sands-hopes-on-two-troubled-pipelines
http://www1.aer.ca/ST98/figures/transporation_facilities/figure_9_2.jpg
Was interesting listening to the professor on Kim Hill Saturday who’s field is ‘electoral physiology’ talking about studies that show when people vote by postal ballot or internet they vote along more egocentric lines as opposed to actually going to the polling both.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201861544
Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet
WWF report finds 60% of global biodiversity loss is down to meat-based diets which put huge strain on Earth’s resources
‘The ongoing global appetite for meat is having a devastating impact on the environment driven by the production of crop-based feed for animals, a new report has warned.
The vast scale of growing crops such as soy to rear chickens, pigs and other animals puts an enormous strain on natural resources leading to the wide-scale loss of land and species, according to the study from the conservation charity WWF.’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/05/vast-animal-feed-crops-meat-needs-destroying-planet
…60% of global biodiversity loss is down to meat-based diets…
That’s your spin on it. The non-spin version is that 60% of global biodiversity loss is down to growing crops to feed stock animals, which certainly is a stupid thing to do but isn’t inherent to a meat-based diet. So, not actually the same thing, but nice propaganda you’ve got there.
He did lead with: “Vast animal-feed crops to satisfy our meat needs are destroying planet”
Is New Zealand’s pasture-based system included in the figure? If so, it would be even higher. Loss of biodiversity through conversion to pasture is enormous, imo. I don’t get your point, “…isn’t inherent to a meat-based diet” – seems to me, it is! Are you meaning some meat-based diets are serviced by hunting wild game? Wouldn’t be a very big %
Loss of biodiversity through conversion to pasture is enormous, imo. I don’t get your point, “…isn’t inherent to a meat-based diet” – seems to me, it is!
So, pasture and crops both reduce biodiversity. Which means the issue isn’t that a meat-based diet reduces biodiversity, it’s that having 7 billion-plus people on the planet reduces biodiversity.
Meat-eating necessitates a loss of diversity. Plant eating could be managed to increase diversity significantly, at least over that which exists presently. A mixed, managed woodland that’s filled with edible perennials and a sprinkling of annual vegetables would do it 🙂 As to population management, that’s a whole other story.
I expect meat-eating could be managed to increase diversity significantly as well. The problems are that we aren’t doing that either for plants or livestock, and we have way too many people to do it for everyone anyway. Whether people eat meat or not is of little relevance.
Did you read the intro – the report said it and ed repeated it – that is the opposite of spin unlike your spin which actually is spin
the report said it and ed repeated it
Well, yes. That’s “your” spin as in “you vegetarian/vegan activists,” of which the Guardian is one as well as Ed.
Ok got it ,didn’t realise it was inclusive. The author of the article may be in, not sure about the media outlet as a whole though.
Edit yesterday’s news sorry now back to today…
24/7, it’s like Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop.
Map pron.
http://brilliantmaps.com/population-circle/
Interesting.
Inside the circle you will also find:
“The least sparsely populated country on earth (Mongolia)”
?
Why the “?” ? A quick google of “country population density ranking” comes up with this.
https://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=21000
That the worst effects of climate change are expected in a broad belt right across the most densely populated part of that circle is fukn scary.
Perhaps I’m denser than usual this morning, but shouldn’t it be “The most sparsely populated…?
I wouldn’t say denser. Suffering from an excess of pedantry, perhaps.
Pedantry!!!
🙂
Most lightly populated.
Least populated.
Most unpopulated.
Emptiest of people.
Quietest.
Most thinly populated.
Least peopled.
In any case, “least sparsely populated” means the opposite of what might have been intended (by my reckoning 🙂
I love pedantry and Robert’s quite correct. Most sparsely.
Asian are good in the lower back – but every thing sounds like fear-porn to me 9-)