I have no doubt this has been said by other commentators on previous days, but I need to get it off my chest, so apologies for any repetition.
I am getting royally pissed off by the blatant dishonesty of the National Party, in their unrelenting criticism of the Coalition government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
We know from past experience (their slack handling of the cow disease – mico something or other) that their response to Covid-19 would have been almost identical to the Coalitions, only slower.
Imagine the cries and whining from National if the Coalition had effectively sealed off our borders (as perhaps they should have done) to all countries as soon as it was apparent the virus was spreading in an uncontrollable way.
Imagine the effect on all business in this country and how the Coalition would have got slammed for their actions.
My fear, and I believe the Natz are doing this quite deliberately, is that this negativity will have some impact on the electorate. Their policy, to paraphrase Orwell’s Animal Farm is: before 2017, all good, after 2017 all bad. [Two legs bad, four legs good].
This continued negativity, like water on a stone, will begin to leave an impression!
[Fixed white spaces; it looked like a snowy Winter land]
Fair enough. You seem to have typed two spaces between each paragraph and few at the end for good measure. If you are pasting from somewhere else those can come along for the ride.
We are basically in the same situation now as a wartime government. Today the PM offered explictly in an interview with John Campbell on TVNZ's Breakfast show for the Nats to work cooperatively on NZ's pandemic response.
Barking 'tax cuts' at passing cars starts to look really unfit for power..
I don’t really think it’s working out quite the way National (and their proxies in the media) would like though.
Aotearoa is still in Phase 1 of the epidemic curve (thanks Siouxsie Wiles for the explainer) and so far there’s no real sign of Phase 2 – a more widespread outbreak – that the Nats need to have happen if their narrative is going get traction.
The fact that National (and their friends) are almost wishing for a pandemic as a way to attack the government in an election year is beyond belief really.
It really looks like that is their plan – the worse we get it here, the more they can make political capital out of it regardless of whether there were any shortcomings in the NZ response.
It would be cool if they could bring up specifics, but they have nothing.
A bonfire of the regulations restricting workers right to strike, the ones allowing police to taser the mentally ill, and the ones allowing security services to spy on anyone National doesn't like, would be great, but I don't think those are the ones National has in mind.
Time to prepare the counter-arguments about the value of workplace protections in making sure workers come home to their families at the end of each day.
Protection is the word to emphasise, not regulation. The Nats have a history of removing protections and it leads to things like Pike River.
If work place regulations are so effective why have work place deaths increased?
[I don’t think anybody stated those words. You’re intelligent and could make at least an attempt to answer your own disingenuous question. Thus, it looks very much like you’re trolling us again, which is your MO here. You spray & walk away and usually add very little to the debate. Patience is wearing thin in election year and I have no patience for you wasting our time. Take a week off – Incognito]
Nationals promise to dump two regs for every new one brought in is bound to be a real vote catcher this election i reckon in fact were it not for a fairly deep seated distrust and general loathing for suit wearing slimeballs i'd be tempted to vote for them myself !
People just love having less protection. Why waste all that public money painting lines down the middle of the road? Think of the tax cuts we could have instead.
No doubt the full page ads they put in the papers listing all those they're getting rid of will identify all the ones brought in under their governments.
They'll probably also apologise for telling us they were right at the time they convinced us those regs were necessary when they came in came in but weren't really necessary.
I worked on a farm as a handyman gardener for a while. I remember the leading maintenance man, a painter by trade, finishing painting a one storey building roof and then stepping back to admire the job. He hit the concrete below before he realised he'd stepped off the roof, and was very fortunately uninjured. That farm was a very unsafe place, exacerbated by a culture of drinking and very 'laddish' behaviour.
When I think about some of what I observed- animal cruelty, guesswork used in estimating chemical usage, pranks like setting off detonators inside a wool-shed, turning up to drive tractors at 7.30 after drinking till 3, playing chicken with trucks, not properly obeying hand signals when using front end loaders to stack wool bales on the bed of a truck and pushing both man and bales off the side, alcoholic shepherds with stashes of booze around the farm, and finding a stick of weeping explosive in the toolbox mounted just behind the 35X tractor seat…………
Now what was that about education and the need for safety regulations again?
Very interesting – thanks.. However I was disappointed to see that the model takes no account of how tax cuts will flatten the curve. Especially if targeted at the top marginal rate. A disqualifying oversight surely? /endpisstake
We're already running trials on treatment efficacy with drugs our ancestors didn't dream of.
Multiple teams are developing vaccines.
There were multiple waves of the black death, each only slowed by isolation, each wave devastating. We're looking at a bad initial wave of a new disease, but after a year or two it probably won't be much of an issue.
We've recorded 145 different single amino acid mutations among sequenced viruses in the #COVID19 pandemic. This manuscript focuses on a particular change from leucine ("L") to serine ("S") at site 84 in the ORF-8 gene of #SARSCoV2. 2/8
Has anyone even bothered developing a vaccine for the entire selection of viruses that only cause 15% of the common cold?
I have no idea.
But I do know that we have a variety of treatments for cold symptoms that our ancestors never had – the best drugs being so awesome we're not even allowed to buy them here for fear we make something even more powerful.
btw, I thought the link was pretty funny. It’s important to keep your sense of humour in times like these.
We're already running trials on treatment efficacy with drugs our ancestors didn't dream of.
That's a reasonable possibility, but our track record with anti-virals is patchy at best.
Multiple teams are developing vaccines.
The good news here is that despite the emergence of multiple variants, most teams will be targeting highly conserved or stable parts of the RNA sequence. Hopefully one vaccine will rule them all. The bad news is that while development of candidate vaccines may well be remarkably fast, testing them to ensure they work and are safe for mass rollout across the whole human population is probably 18 months away.
We're looking at a bad initial wave of a new disease, but after a year or two it probably won't be much of an issue.
Initial reports suggest COVID 19 is somewhat more genetically stable than the common cold virus. This hopefully means that over time as more and more people develop natural antibodies from having got the illness, an increasing total herd immunity will dramatically slow down the growth rate.
If it doesn't then we could see successive waves circle the globe for years. Also we don't yet fully understand how much damage a serious case of the illness causes, and whether it leaves an individual vulnerable to a subsequent infection.
Still lots to learn about this 'devil virus' as the CCP described it. Personally I'm taking it very seriously and have already made significant changes in our plans taking into account the medical and systemic risks it poses. Everything from already avoiding crowds, touching anything in public, always wearing glasses, washing hands everytime we return home, etc … right through to thinking through the consequences of being stuck in Australia if trans-Tasman travel is shut down,
I'm basically thinking only a few months ahead – longer term repercussions are too up in the air. But there might be some upcoming travel and events that need to be cancelled, impacts on business, that sort of thing in that timeframe.
I was already a bit germ-phobic about door handles etc, my fear of covid-19 was preceded by my fear of gastroenteritis lol
The successive waves of similar severity is basically the worst possible scenario, and frankly unlikely. More likely than NZ having zero fatalities, but we have more than prayer and isolation to rely on.
Bear in mind that even though we don't have actual disease cures, we do have a lot of symptom treatments.
“Thanks to Professor Gane and his international colleagues’ innovative work and perseverance, almost everyone with Hepatitis C can now be cured with a short course of tablets. The World Health Organisation recently announced that more than one million people have already been cured with these new drugs and that global eradication of Hepatitis C should now be achievable within the next 30 years.”
I'd like to say the hypocrisy is astounding but it's not because that's what we expect from Bridges and the current bunch of nats. National introduced the current Social Security Act 2018 (which the current government embraced and passed at the end of last year) which is riddled with reliance upon regulations which weren't there before, putting the lie to the rhetoric that the new legislation was both policy neutral and would simplify things. Of course what Bridges says doesn't matter because beneficiaries don't count.
I spoke to a relative this morning who lives in Italy and posited the perfect place for a flu -like outbreak is cold wet inland China and Italy's Po valley. cold, damp, foggy etc. He added another one and in his opinion the principal reason for the Italian outbreak is that Chinese companies have established very large factories in Italy assembling Chinese goods so that they can be marketed as EU and Italian made and they are staffed exclusively by Chinese workers most of whom went home for Chinese New Year and then left there early when the disease became known and were let back into Italy because the Italians are particularily slack when it comes to observing regulations etc.
An interesting observation on the map of the outbreaks is that there is very little spread in the southern hemisphere which is currently at the end of summer . I'll take a wild quess and bet that like SARS which it apparently shares about 97% similarity that Covid-9 will dry up and fade dramaticly when some heat and drying returns up north.
There are also very large numbers of Chinese workers in Iran as Iran is seen as the hub for the Belt and Road expansion. China has poured billions into Iranian construction and factories in the last few years. Ironic considering the CCPs treatment of it's own muslim communities.
Ironic considering the CCPs treatment of it's own muslim communities.
It's a bit of a paradox isn't it. The deeper explanation is that the Uighurs are culturally Turkic in origin and much of the rest of the Muslim world just doesn't give a shit.
Soimon wants renters to live in cold damp houses because landlords shouldn’t have to provide heaters. He’s got a heart of gold (oops, meant a heart of ice). Such a lovely man.
I don't mind providing good insulation and dampness management in our units; it keeps tenants happy and makes good business sense. And these are are typically fixed assets that are hard to mess with. But the first set of heat pumps I installed over 10 years ago all got either stolen or broken by tenants. Much less encouraging.
I'd love to see NZ have a housing stock that is modern, warm and dry … but we just don't. Many rentals are houses that are in the last 20% of their economic life, houses that very few people want to live in as their own home. And houses this old were built in an era where they were often very badly oriented to the sun, and were completely devoid of any details we would take for granted in a modern building. For this reason they're actually quite expensive to effectively get them up to a modern standard. Sure you can stuff in insulation to your heart's content … but they'll never really perform.
If building costs in NZ were more aligned with those in Australia, I'd be a lot keener to simply knock over these end of life units and build new.
Building costs!!!!!! I just priced a 5 metre length of 100mm x 12mm skirting board made out of recyled cardboard, MDF to you and it was $37 fucking dollars a metre or $185 a length, I only need 1.5 metres but Placemakers dont cut to length.
I'm going to use flattened gold bars in future, they are cheaper and have better residual value. Fucking thieving arseholes.
In a post based on a rant by far right-wing ex-convict Damien Grant, and in a feat of staggering hypocrisy, DFP fights what he calls "cancel culture" with – wait for it – a boycott campaign.
The drum is beating for the RB Governor to reduce the OCR down from 1 to .5% – if only to match cuts made by others so the dollar does not rise in value while exporters (loss of revenue) and importers (lack of new supply) are struggling. The problem is this will further fuel the property market.
Maybe it is time to consider Bollards idea of a mortgage surcharge – there would still be a OCR fall but the property market would be constrained by a mortgage surcharge (start at 0.25%, maybe rising to 0.5%).
The mortgage surcharge would also bring in revenue for wage subsidies and interest free loans to businesses so they can meet loan repayments during the downturn.
That might only happen if the banks pass on any cut in full, which is doubtful. While people are stocking up on toilet paper their minds might not be on investing in the property market either.
Seems to me that the purpose of the rate decrease is to stimulate the economy via corporate betting.
Thing is, the issue isn't corporate confidence in their psychological betting game, it's an actual lowering of personal consumption due to isolation and lowered incomes.
So a better way to inject money into that area would be for the govt to borrow from the RB at the lower rate (not offered to banks) and give boosts to recipients of government transfers. They're the ones who will keep the retail sector alive.
Interest rates largely don't fuel the property market. Yes, I am aware its a widely held belief but look at the actual evidence like rate of property price increase vs prevailing interest rates and you would conclude its not strongly correlated.
That's is cool the 2 million dollars of government tau toko for farmers affected by the droughts in Aotearoa.
There you go he is picking on people who can't defend themselves tipical right neck move.
The way I see it is a person can only handle so much toxic substances so the more that is consumed the faster the negative effects will start ie diabetes.
If you look around the world and see how badly Wahine are treated the #Metoo movement is overdue kia kaha.
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The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
Cycling advocates are calling for the transformation of urban transport, as New Zealand races to cut carbon. The Climate Change Commission will release its initial advice on Sunday 31 January. “Bikes and e-bikes are perfect for many local trips, ...
Three Ministers, led by the PM, joined in chorus today to warble about a bunch of measures aimed at helping to meet New Zealand’s 2050 carbon neutral target, create new jobs and boost innovation. Mind you, the measures mentioned seem to be more matters of decisions yet to be made ...
Michelle Kidd defines her role at Auckland’s specialist family violence court as te kaiwhakatere – the navigator. It’s a one-of-a-kind job, helping guide defendants through the court system. And there’s no one better suited to it than Whaea Michelle.First published November 24, 2020.Whaea Michelle is part of Frame, a series of short ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sallie Yea, Associate professor & Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe University Each year, thousands of men and boys labour under extremely exploitative conditions on commercial fishing vessels owned by Taiwanese, Chinese and South Korean companies. The Taiwanese fleet, which operates in all ...
Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis believes the Crown should maintain responsibility for the care and protection of at-risk and vulnerable children, regardless of their race. Moreover, he is confident his all-Maori team of advisers will not be taking race into account as they help to improve Oranga Tamariki’s care and protection of ...
It’s easy to sacrifice John Banks. It’s a lot harder for brands, sports organisations and government to truly stop funding racism. Are they willing to try?Yesterday John Banks, the former Auckland mayor and MP, became subject to one of the fastest firings in media history when audio covering his approving ...
A community is outraged after Auckland Council granted consent for a row of trees planted by local kids to be removed along a revitalised waterway in South Auckland, reports Justin Latif. An Auckland Council decision to give contractors the all-clear to chop down 12 mānuka and kānuka trees shading Māngere’s Tararata ...
Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu hopes that the recent changes to Oranga Tamariki leadership present an opportunity for a long overdue paradigm shift that will place whānau at the heart of the child welfare sector. Pouārahi Helen Leahy says that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rice, Professor of Management, University of New England Elon Musk is now the world’s richest person, edging out previous title holder Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. His rocketing fortune is due to the booming share price of Tesla, the maker of electric vehicles ...
There are now three returnees who contracted the virus in the Auckland isolation facility then left into the community while positive. These are some of the questions that need to be resolved. At 10.20pm last night the Ministry of Health confirmed that the two cases they’d been treating as probable ...
Having a hard time remembering to scan in on the NZ Covid Tracer app when you’re out and about? Get this song stuck in your head and you’ll never forget again.Learn the lyrics:Aotearoa, it’s time to get scanning!I mean if you think about it, it never really wasn’t time we ...
We conclude our week-long examination of New Zealand writer Roderick Finlayson with a review of his stories by John Newton Roger Hickin’s Cold Hub Press is one of the small miracles of contemporary New Zealand publishing. Over the last decade, on what can only be a shoe-string budget, the ...
Thursday 28th January, AUCKLAND: Drive Electric, the not-for-profit with one mission – making electric vehicle uptake in New Zealand mainstream, welcomes the announcement by the Government today as a sign of what’s to come through 2021, and we are confident ...
The Government announced today key policy decisions on the proposed clean car policies. The MIA has stated on many occasions that we support well thought out and constructive policies that will lead to an increased rate in the reduction of CO2 emissions from ...
Get wild, get cultured, get fed and then get to bed: the essential guide to a perfect few days in the southern city. There’s one thing that preoccupies the staff of The Spinoff almost as much as arranging popular food items into arbitrary lists, and that’s Dunedin. A quite remarkable ...
John Banks’ racist exchange with a Magic Talk listener on Tuesday was the latest in nearly 50 years of talkback controversies. Donna Chisholm has the receipts.John Banks axed over Māori ‘stone age culture’ comments on Magic Talk1972: On Radio I, sports talkback host Tim Bickerstaff launches a “Punch a Pom ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission.Two new community Covid-19 cases have been identified as the more infectious South African variant, but Auckland Mayor Phil Goff sayit would be "premature to go into lockdown now". The two new cases of Covid-19 identified in the ...
Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine in Southland to Fonterra’s ...
KiwiRail STOP Hauling COAL Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Dunn, Associate professor, University of Sydney The government is rolling out a new public information campaign this week to reassure the public about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which one expert has said “couldn’t be more crucial” to people actually getting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Therese O’Sullivan, Associate Professor, Edith Cowan University The COVID vaccine rollout has placed the issue of vaccination firmly in the spotlight. A successful rollout will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is vaccine acceptance. One potential hurdle to vaccine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernard Walker, Associate Professor in Organisations and Leadership, University of Canterbury Kiwis know what it’s like when life throws curveballs. We’ve had major quakes, floods, fires, an eruption, a terrorist attack and now a pandemic. In those situations, it’s the ability to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Irwin, Emeritus professor, Murdoch University While we continue to be occupied with the COVID pandemic, another life-threatening disease has emerged in northern Australia, one that’s cause for considerable alarm for the millions of dog owners around the country. This disease — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cath Ferguson, Academic, Edith Cowan University Almost half of Australian adults struggle with reading. Similar levels of struggling readers are reported in the United Kingdom and United States. This does not mean all struggling readers are illiterate. It means they often struggle ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abbas Shieh, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Design, Islamic Azad University The industrial revolution transformed cities, resulting in places of residence and work becoming more distant than ever before. This spatial segregation is still largely embedded in the design of our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Review: Occupation: Rainfall, written and directed by Luke Sparke Historically, when a sequel to a film was greenlit, you could rest assured this was because the first film made a ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 28, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Tourism suffers in the shadow of Covid-19, two new positive cases in Auckland confirmed, and National will contest the Māori electorates.The front page of the January 4 Greymouth Star carried grim tidings for several of the glacier towns on the ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Two people who left managed isolation on January 15 have been confirmed as positive Covid-19 cases, with the Ministry of Health urging anyone who visited the same locations during the same time period as the infected pair in Auckland to ...
The watchlist of 'offensive or unreasonable' babies' names is to be reviewed, to include more names from other languages. Generations of the Īhaka family have played a meaningful role in bringing Te Reo and stories of Māori to our wider community. Archdeacon Sir Kīngi Matutaera Īhaka (Te Aupōuri, 1921-93) was known as the orator of ...
After Morocco’s flagrant violation of the terms of the ceasefire in Western Sahara on Friday 13 November 2020 war broke out between the two sides. In the midst of this war Tauranga based Ballance Agri-Nutrients has decided to carry on importing phosphate ...
Nicholas Agar suggests that our handling of the pandemic could be partly down to our distinctive Treaty of Waitangi relationship, and Māori ideas that enabled us to make it through without tens of thousands of deaths A mission for universities in the coming decade will be a deep understanding of the meaning ...
A young girl who once sent $5 to an embattled America's Cup team is now among the women on the water helping run the contest for the Auld Mug. As an eager and generous nine-year-old, Melanie Roberts posted a letter, with a $5 note, to OneAustralia’s America’s Cup team. It was 1995, ...
At 5am today, cock’s crow, the embargo lifted on the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist. Here are the books in the race, followed by thoughts from poetry editor Chris Tse and books editor Catherine Woulfe. A shortlist of four books in each category will be announced March 3, with ...
Ignoring those QR codes when you drop into the supermarket? Can’t be bothered when you grab a coffee? The people serving you notice, and you’re freaking them out.So far, New Zealanders’ use of the Covid-19 Tracer app has been notably woeful. Food industry workers who’ve watched streams of customers walk ...
Steve Braunias reveals the longlist of the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards Apart from one or two unfortunate omissions which cast doubt on the sanity and intellectual acumen of judges, especially the nobodies who judged this year's non-fiction, the longlist for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards is ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea’s biggest hospital is straining to provide medical services to the growing population of the capital Port Moresby – with an estimated growth rate of 3 percent annually, a medical executive says. Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Nationals who attend Thursday’s memorial service in Tweed Heads for Doug Anthony, who died last month aged 90, may muse on the contrast between the state of their party when he led it and now. ...
Returning to quarantine-free travel in 2021 doesn't just need a vaccine, but a way to check whether arriving passengers are actually immune to the virus. A smart Kiwi science start-up is working with a global biometrics giant to make that happen. A deal signed between Kiwi research and development company Orbis Diagnostics, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlyn Forster, PhD Candidate, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney This summer’s wetter conditions have created great conditions for flowering plants. Flowers provide sweet nectar and protein-rich pollen, attracting many insects, including bees. Commercial honey bees are also thriving: ...
Lotto scratchie tickets featuring the pop band Six60 are being withdrawn after a public backlash. In a statement, Lotto NZ said there had been a mutual decision made with the band to remove the tickets from sale following the negative feedback, and it offered an apology. The band faced criticism, both ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Shell-crushing predation was already in full swing half a billion years ago, as our new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals. A hyena devouring ...
Vodafone has suspended advertising on the radio station amid calls for talkback host John Banks to be taken off air after yet another racist outburst. Alex Braae reports. In an alarming segment of talkback radio, former Auckland mayor John Banks endorsed the views of a caller who described Māori as a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland When a COVID-19 case was found in Northland last Sunday, Aotearoa’s second-longest period with no detected community case came to an end. ESR scientists worked late into Sunday night to obtain a whole genome sequence ...
He has the perfect moustache, an exceptional mullet, and he uses terms like ‘face hole’ on national TV. Who or what is Dr Joel Rindelaub?I was drawn in by the moustache, but it was the mullet that really kept me there. Watching TVNZ’s Breakfast yesterday morning I was fixated. Often, ...
We’ll never be royals with nearly a quarter of declined baby names featuring “Royal” in some form or another. Te Tari Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs has released the list of names declined in 2020 by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and ...
After a raft of inquiries delving into and recommending what should be done about the politically beleaguered Orangi Tamaraki, along with the briefing papers we suppose he has been given, we imagined Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis would have no more need for expert advice. Wrong. He has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University There’s a common assumption men take longer than women to poo. People say so on Twitter, in memes, and elsewhereonline. But is that right? What could explain it? And if ...
Just as sexuality is a spectrum, so too is asexuality. In Ace of Hearts, members of New Zealand’s asexual community talk about the challenges and misconceptions of identifying as ace.First published November 17, 2020.Ace of Hearts is part of Frame, a series of short documentaries produced by Wrestler for The Spinoff.“A ...
Sam Brooks wasn’t allowed to watch kids TV as a kid. Now, as a 30 year old man, he watches it for the first time.My mother’s approach to parenting was unorthodox. I wrote weekly book reports on top of my actual homework, I did maths equations in Roman numerals and ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk More leading Indonesian figures have made racial slurs against Natalius Pigai, former chair of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) – and all West Papuans, says United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda. “Since the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1963, Indonesian ...
“The Government’s failure to even conduct a standard cost-benefit analysis for the most expensive infrastructure project in New Zealand’s history is mind-bogglingly arrogant,” says New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke. “A ...
The Ministry of Health is today drawing backlash from the local New Zealand vaping industry following its release of proposed regulations for the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act. Vaping Trade Association New Zealand (VTANZ) President, ...
Sophie Gilmour and Simon Day are joined by special guest Hugo Baird, co-owner of Grey Lynn’s Honey Bones and Lilian, to talk about opening new pub Hotel Ponsonby.Auckland is a city of many bars but few really good pubs – the kind of places you’d be just as comfortable going ...
The appointment of an advisory board for Oranga Tamariki is welcome and should be a step toward a total transformation of the care and protection system to a by Māori, for Māori approach, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft said today. Minister ...
Taking control of your financial wellbeing can have cascading positive impacts for your life and it can also be fun. With the help of the team at Kiwi Wealth, we’ve compiled some simple tricks for balancing your books in 2021. There’s something about the beginning of a new year, especially after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of Technology As we know, getting into New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. There are practicalities, such as high airfare and managed isolation costs. And there are legal requirements, including pre-flight testing, mandatory ...
New Zealand faces the risk of a generation being locked out of the housing market unless land is freed up and more houses built, National Party leader Judith Collins says. ...
On Sunday, Stuff published a months-long investigation by Alison Mau detailing allegations of harassment and exploitation within the local music industry.The piece, ‘Music industry professionals demand change after speaking out about its dark side’, includes allegations of inappropriate behaviour and abuse of power by male artists, international acts and executives; ...
“The Government is all at sea on timelines for Australia and New Zealand’s respective vaccine roll-outs, with the worst news coming from the mouth of Pfizer Australia CEO Anne Harris,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “Yesterday, under increasing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he pledged to vastly increase refugee resettlement in the US. If history is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Baumann, Casual Academic, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Lanicek, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History and Jewish History, UNSW On January 27 communities worldwide commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz — the largest complex of concentration camps and extermination centres during the Holocaust. This is the first year the International ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorinda Cramer, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Australian Catholic University The summer break is over, marking a return to the office. For some, this ends almost a year of working from home in lockdown. Some analysts are predicting it might also mark an enduring ...
I have no doubt this has been said by other commentators on previous days, but I need to get it off my chest, so apologies for any repetition.
I am getting royally pissed off by the blatant dishonesty of the National Party, in their unrelenting criticism of the Coalition government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
We know from past experience (their slack handling of the cow disease – mico something or other) that their response to Covid-19 would have been almost identical to the Coalitions, only slower.
Imagine the cries and whining from National if the Coalition had effectively sealed off our borders (as perhaps they should have done) to all countries as soon as it was apparent the virus was spreading in an uncontrollable way.
Imagine the effect on all business in this country and how the Coalition would have got slammed for their actions.
My fear, and I believe the Natz are doing this quite deliberately, is that this negativity will have some impact on the electorate. Their policy, to paraphrase Orwell’s Animal Farm is: before 2017, all good, after 2017 all bad. [Two legs bad, four legs good].
This continued negativity, like water on a stone, will begin to leave an impression!
[Fixed white spaces; it looked like a snowy Winter land]
Fair enough. You seem to have typed two spaces between each paragraph and few at the end for good measure. If you are pasting from somewhere else those can come along for the ride.
We are basically in the same situation now as a wartime government. Today the PM offered explictly in an interview with John Campbell on TVNZ's Breakfast show for the Nats to work cooperatively on NZ's pandemic response.
Barking 'tax cuts' at passing cars starts to look really unfit for power..
I don’t really think it’s working out quite the way National (and their proxies in the media) would like though.
Aotearoa is still in Phase 1 of the epidemic curve (thanks Siouxsie Wiles for the explainer) and so far there’s no real sign of Phase 2 – a more widespread outbreak – that the Nats need to have happen if their narrative is going get traction.
The fact that National (and their friends) are almost wishing for a pandemic as a way to attack the government in an election year is beyond belief really.
It really looks like that is their plan – the worse we get it here, the more they can make political capital out of it regardless of whether there were any shortcomings in the NZ response.
It would be cool if they could bring up specifics, but they have nothing.
A bonfire of the regulations restricting workers right to strike, the ones allowing police to taser the mentally ill, and the ones allowing security services to spy on anyone National doesn't like, would be great, but I don't think those are the ones National has in mind.
More leaky homes and Pike Rivers, anyone?
She’ll be right, mate.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/120107398/national-to-promise-commonsense-legal-test-for-workplace-safety-rules
Time to prepare the counter-arguments about the value of workplace protections in making sure workers come home to their families at the end of each day.
Protection is the word to emphasise, not regulation. The Nats have a history of removing protections and it leads to things like Pike River.
Worm farms
For the 'making fun of them' part of the resistance, yes. #ComingUpWoodhouse
If work place regulations are so effective why have work place deaths increased?
[I don’t think anybody stated those words. You’re intelligent and could make at least an attempt to answer your own disingenuous question. Thus, it looks very much like you’re trolling us again, which is your MO here. You spray & walk away and usually add very little to the debate. Patience is wearing thin in election year and I have no patience for you wasting our time. Take a week off – Incognito]
Because the Ministry of Inaction doesn't bother enforcing them?
Whoever is the Minister of the department responsible should be sacked by Ardern then. Who is the Minister responsible?
Ardern does not sack anyone.
As a proportion of hours worked?
But if deaths are increasing does it make sense to remove the regulations Gos?
Remember the leaky buildings fiasco was down to the Nats removing rules and regulations
Cos they excluding farming
At least in part because a goddamned island blew up.
Also in part due to basic statistical variation.
See my Moderation note @ 8:53 AM.
Because they are designed to allow employers to avoid responsibility, not protect, workers.
As you would know, if you ever had a real job.
Would someone please confirm the lifting of my ban?
[Looks like the machine has let you through – MS]
I cannot confirm nor deny that your ban has expired as of this morning.
Nationals promise to dump two regs for every new one brought in is bound to be a real vote catcher this election i reckon in fact were it not for a fairly deep seated distrust and general loathing for suit wearing slimeballs i'd be tempted to vote for them myself !
People just love having less protection. Why waste all that public money painting lines down the middle of the road? Think of the tax cuts we could have instead.
exactly….and who needs buildings that are waterproof?
the poors
No doubt the full page ads they put in the papers listing all those they're getting rid of will identify all the ones brought in under their governments.
They'll probably also apologise for telling us they were right at the time they convinced us those regs were necessary when they came in came in but weren't really necessary.
Can some reporter please ask bridges ,how many roofers have to break their back before scaffolding single story dwellings is economically worth it.
I worked on a farm as a handyman gardener for a while. I remember the leading maintenance man, a painter by trade, finishing painting a one storey building roof and then stepping back to admire the job. He hit the concrete below before he realised he'd stepped off the roof, and was very fortunately uninjured. That farm was a very unsafe place, exacerbated by a culture of drinking and very 'laddish' behaviour.
When I think about some of what I observed- animal cruelty, guesswork used in estimating chemical usage, pranks like setting off detonators inside a wool-shed, turning up to drive tractors at 7.30 after drinking till 3, playing chicken with trucks, not properly obeying hand signals when using front end loaders to stack wool bales on the bed of a truck and pushing both man and bales off the side, alcoholic shepherds with stashes of booze around the farm, and finding a stick of weeping explosive in the toolbox mounted just behind the 35X tractor seat…………
Now what was that about education and the need for safety regulations again?
Dr Siouxsie Wiles writes clearly about the shape of NZ's public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including handy animated illustration by Toby Morris of 'flattening the epidemic curve': https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/09-03-2020/the-three-phases-of-covid-19-and-how-we-can-make-it-manageable/
That's a good read. Here is a new 3Blue1Brown video on the underlying math. Quite easy to follow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas0tIxDvrg
Very interesting – thanks.. However I was disappointed to see that the model takes no account of how tax cuts will flatten the curve. Especially if targeted at the top marginal rate. A disqualifying oversight surely? /endpisstake
Ah … that's the 'Laffer out Loud" curve you're thinking of.
Flattening the curve,is only achievable by containment ,here we are limited by technological constraints and have only one mechanism.
Well, no, that's not strictly true.
We're already running trials on treatment efficacy with drugs our ancestors didn't dream of.
Multiple teams are developing vaccines.
There were multiple waves of the black death, each only slowed by isolation, each wave devastating. We're looking at a bad initial wave of a new disease, but after a year or two it probably won't be much of an issue.
Multiple teams are developing vaccines.
For which strain
The worst strain
Will it be as successful as other coronavirus vaccines such as the common cold?
Has anyone even bothered developing a vaccine for the entire selection of viruses that only cause 15% of the common cold?
I have no idea.
But I do know that we have a variety of treatments for cold symptoms that our ancestors never had – the best drugs being so awesome we're not even allowed to buy them here for fear we make something even more powerful.
btw, I thought the link was pretty funny. It’s important to keep your sense of humour in times like these.
We're already running trials on treatment efficacy with drugs our ancestors didn't dream of.
That's a reasonable possibility, but our track record with anti-virals is patchy at best.
Multiple teams are developing vaccines.
The good news here is that despite the emergence of multiple variants, most teams will be targeting highly conserved or stable parts of the RNA sequence. Hopefully one vaccine will rule them all. The bad news is that while development of candidate vaccines may well be remarkably fast, testing them to ensure they work and are safe for mass rollout across the whole human population is probably 18 months away.
We're looking at a bad initial wave of a new disease, but after a year or two it probably won't be much of an issue.
Initial reports suggest COVID 19 is somewhat more genetically stable than the common cold virus. This hopefully means that over time as more and more people develop natural antibodies from having got the illness, an increasing total herd immunity will dramatically slow down the growth rate.
If it doesn't then we could see successive waves circle the globe for years. Also we don't yet fully understand how much damage a serious case of the illness causes, and whether it leaves an individual vulnerable to a subsequent infection.
Still lots to learn about this 'devil virus' as the CCP described it. Personally I'm taking it very seriously and have already made significant changes in our plans taking into account the medical and systemic risks it poses. Everything from already avoiding crowds, touching anything in public, always wearing glasses, washing hands everytime we return home, etc … right through to thinking through the consequences of being stuck in Australia if trans-Tasman travel is shut down,
I'm basically thinking only a few months ahead – longer term repercussions are too up in the air. But there might be some upcoming travel and events that need to be cancelled, impacts on business, that sort of thing in that timeframe.
I was already a bit germ-phobic about door handles etc, my fear of covid-19 was preceded by my fear of gastroenteritis lol
The successive waves of similar severity is basically the worst possible scenario, and frankly unlikely. More likely than NZ having zero fatalities, but we have more than prayer and isolation to rely on.
Bear in mind that even though we don't have actual disease cures, we do have a lot of symptom treatments.
'but our track record with anti-virals is patchy at best.' You haven't seen the work of the esteemed Ed Gane.
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news-events-and-notices/news/news-2017/02/new-zealander-of-the-year-honours-for-academic-and-graduate.html
“Thanks to Professor Gane and his international colleagues’ innovative work and perseverance, almost everyone with Hepatitis C can now be cured with a short course of tablets. The World Health Organisation recently announced that more than one million people have already been cured with these new drugs and that global eradication of Hepatitis C should now be achievable within the next 30 years.”
An excellent interview that gives an Iranian professor's perspective on Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opbiV61Qy1c&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1F4XBF8W2JVznbxYEwNF5JOdl2k2s9D26U9CkkN5k_5SzFd7jkW3mH37g
Thanks.
That's an excellent interview. In an hour Mohammad Marandi has described the Syrian War as no MSM outlet ever could or would ever dare.
Simon Bridges continues to borrow (or rather, steal) from his blue buddies overseas. Nothing he says is original, not even the language he uses.
If you want a laugh, just Google "bonfire of red tape [regulations]".
National: copy and paste.
With a compliant MSM willing to act as your echo chamber further scaring the punters and sowing dissent instead of providing balance why change
I'd like to say the hypocrisy is astounding but it's not because that's what we expect from Bridges and the current bunch of nats. National introduced the current Social Security Act 2018 (which the current government embraced and passed at the end of last year) which is riddled with reliance upon regulations which weren't there before, putting the lie to the rhetoric that the new legislation was both policy neutral and would simplify things. Of course what Bridges says doesn't matter because beneficiaries don't count.
I spoke to a relative this morning who lives in Italy and posited the perfect place for a flu -like outbreak is cold wet inland China and Italy's Po valley. cold, damp, foggy etc. He added another one and in his opinion the principal reason for the Italian outbreak is that Chinese companies have established very large factories in Italy assembling Chinese goods so that they can be marketed as EU and Italian made and they are staffed exclusively by Chinese workers most of whom went home for Chinese New Year and then left there early when the disease became known and were let back into Italy because the Italians are particularily slack when it comes to observing regulations etc.
An interesting observation on the map of the outbreaks is that there is very little spread in the southern hemisphere which is currently at the end of summer . I'll take a wild quess and bet that like SARS which it apparently shares about 97% similarity that Covid-9 will dry up and fade dramaticly when some heat and drying returns up north.
heres hoping.
There are also very large numbers of Chinese workers in Iran as Iran is seen as the hub for the Belt and Road expansion. China has poured billions into Iranian construction and factories in the last few years. Ironic considering the CCPs treatment of it's own muslim communities.
Ironic considering the CCPs treatment of it's own muslim communities.
It's a bit of a paradox isn't it. The deeper explanation is that the Uighurs are culturally Turkic in origin and much of the rest of the Muslim world just doesn't give a shit.
Soimon wants renters to live in cold damp houses because landlords shouldn’t have to provide heaters. He’s got a heart of gold (oops, meant a heart of ice). Such a lovely man.
I don't mind providing good insulation and dampness management in our units; it keeps tenants happy and makes good business sense. And these are are typically fixed assets that are hard to mess with. But the first set of heat pumps I installed over 10 years ago all got either stolen or broken by tenants. Much less encouraging.
I'd love to see NZ have a housing stock that is modern, warm and dry … but we just don't. Many rentals are houses that are in the last 20% of their economic life, houses that very few people want to live in as their own home. And houses this old were built in an era where they were often very badly oriented to the sun, and were completely devoid of any details we would take for granted in a modern building. For this reason they're actually quite expensive to effectively get them up to a modern standard. Sure you can stuff in insulation to your heart's content … but they'll never really perform.
If building costs in NZ were more aligned with those in Australia, I'd be a lot keener to simply knock over these end of life units and build new.
Building costs!!!!!! I just priced a 5 metre length of 100mm x 12mm skirting board made out of recyled cardboard, MDF to you and it was $37 fucking dollars a metre or $185 a length, I only need 1.5 metres but Placemakers dont cut to length.
I'm going to use flattened gold bars in future, they are cheaper and have better residual value. Fucking thieving arseholes.
Farrar watch:
In a post based on a rant by far right-wing ex-convict Damien Grant, and in a feat of staggering hypocrisy, DFP fights what he calls "cancel culture" with – wait for it – a boycott campaign.
The drum is beating for the RB Governor to reduce the OCR down from 1 to .5% – if only to match cuts made by others so the dollar does not rise in value while exporters (loss of revenue) and importers (lack of new supply) are struggling. The problem is this will further fuel the property market.
Maybe it is time to consider Bollards idea of a mortgage surcharge – there would still be a OCR fall but the property market would be constrained by a mortgage surcharge (start at 0.25%, maybe rising to 0.5%).
The mortgage surcharge would also bring in revenue for wage subsidies and interest free loans to businesses so they can meet loan repayments during the downturn.
That might only happen if the banks pass on any cut in full, which is doubtful. While people are stocking up on toilet paper their minds might not be on investing in the property market either.
Seems to me that the purpose of the rate decrease is to stimulate the economy via corporate betting.
Thing is, the issue isn't corporate confidence in their psychological betting game, it's an actual lowering of personal consumption due to isolation and lowered incomes.
So a better way to inject money into that area would be for the govt to borrow from the RB at the lower rate (not offered to banks) and give boosts to recipients of government transfers. They're the ones who will keep the retail sector alive.
Interest rates largely don't fuel the property market. Yes, I am aware its a widely held belief but look at the actual evidence like rate of property price increase vs prevailing interest rates and you would conclude its not strongly correlated.
Hands up if you had "I'm Nero" on your Drumpf Batshittery Bingo card.
No? Too much? Me neither.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nero-meme_n_5e658685c5b68d61645632c2
Kia Te Ao Maori News.
Rangitane Iwi lost heaps of whenua hope the crown does the correct thing.
I think there should be more architectural mahi done on old Maori sites before they lost forever.
That's the way American indigenous Wahine ambassador championing their cultures plight from their system.
Kia Kaha to all the Wahine around the world and in Mexico for there protest on Sunday.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
if people get more putea they can spend more in business so in my view the mimimum wage increase is a win win???
If the walk is only 10 minutes I can't see what's wrong with that exercise and lowering ones negative impact on the future by walking to mahi.
Music to my ears all these song being translated into Te reo Maori.
Good to see you again Rawdon.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Newshub.
There is another subject Eco Maori has had a win on but Te kaumara never tells how sweet it is.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
I say our government is doing great mahi with the virus.
Take me to the Awa is going to be sung in Te reo Māori Ka pai.
Good to see the Marae including their church in their new Carving.
Mana Wahine that's the way Wahine Shearing Sheep.
Awsome that university celebrateing the difference cultures they have their in Hawaii
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
That's is cool the 2 million dollars of government tau toko for farmers affected by the droughts in Aotearoa.
There you go he is picking on people who can't defend themselves tipical right neck move.
The way I see it is a person can only handle so much toxic substances so the more that is consumed the faster the negative effects will start ie diabetes.
If you look around the world and see how badly Wahine are treated the #Metoo movement is overdue kia kaha.
Yes absolutely power corupts.?????.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
I put my Kiwisaver into low risk funds a little while ago.
Our government helping our farmers who are the back bone of Aotearoa is great during this drought.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Kia Kaha Pahui hope fully tangata will give heaps to your givealittle page.
Festpack in Hawaii looked like the event would have been awesome mate wa.
Some tangata pay rates and get little returns from the charges
That's is awesome Ahurri Treaty Settlement bill being passed by the government.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Big NO things have not changed still people using bulling and intimidating tactics on .
Online extremism how does one know who these people are and who they work for.????.
Prejudice is still a big part of Aotearoa SYSTEM.
Cash is King.
I userly have a good vegetable garden can you guess why I don't any more.
Ka kite Ano