Credit to Bernie for shifting the terms of debate on healthcare. But I've got my doubts that Medicare for all would have been enough to tip it to Bernie even had the pandemic happened a year earlier.
First, there's Bernie's approach to the topic. Half of Americans get their healthcare through employer subsidised insurance. It's a fact of human nature that people value keeping what they have more than taking a risk on getting something better. Given the degree of governmental malfunction in areas of governmental monopoly in the US, being forced into a government health health plan looks like a big risk.
Second, paying for M4A is a gnarly topic. Bernie didn't have a clear message on how workers would be better off financially. Most people just heard their taxes would go up to pay for it. Furthermore, relieving companies of their burden of subsidising their employee health insurance programs amounts to a massive windfall to the companies.
Third, the other candidates would have adjusted their messaging, so Bernie's stance would not have remained as large a differentiation as it was.
edit: then there’s this piece for a broader look at why Bernie fell short.
There is the practical matter that if he gets over 1/4 of the delegates (including superdelegates), he can force a vote at the convention on any policy platform proposals he wants to push. That means he would need around 1200. He's got about 900 now, with about 1600 still to be voted on, so it will be tight for clearing that hurdle.
The global death toll is horrendous, including the high NUMBER of deaths in the US. However, so far, the US does not have the highest death rate pre 1 million of their population. Their’s is 44. Many European countries and the UK have higher death rates so far.
The US and the UK are catching up Carolyn, though doubt if they will get near Spain and Italy which has a death rate of 292/m. Odd you missed it from your list.
Yes. I did say this is the current stats. My list wasn't comprehensive – just a selection to show some of the spread. Spain is the highest at the moment.
If the US gets a similar death rate to the current death rates in Italy and Spain, then they will have around 100K deaths. But they're still suffering high ongoing deaths in Italy etc.
Compared to Italy and Spain, the US has a younger population and a culture that is somewhat less up close and personal in terms of physical space. But the US went a lot later and softer on physical distancing and isolation, helping the contagion spread.
It's a horrifying but fascinating experiment to watch as it plays out in real time.
Thanks for that Carolyn, was wondering what that stat's were like re population. Much appreciated.
Andre, they were talking of 100,000 -200,000 expected deaths in the US last week at one of trumps pressers. Agree re horrifying but fascinating however twisted that sounds.
The stats don't tell everything. You probably know that we Kiwis have greater personal space than people in densely concentrated urban areas.
The last time I visited a big European city, I took two weeks to get used to the density of buildings and the number of people always close to me.. So different from my major-city NZ abode.
NZ has an advantage in that respect – the virus will naturally spread faster in those areas of greater population density.
And, condescending post of the day so far award goes to…it never failed to amaze, the number of spineless centrists and closet righties masquerading as leftists, disparaging the Sanders Campaign on The Standard. Not even luke warm support for Medicare for all and $15 min wage etc.
Bernie put up a great campaign–his analysis and policy were spot on–as subsequent tragic events have illustrated what happens with for profit healthcare and millions living week to week on low wages…
His strength–not running with the herd–was ultimately his weakness too. But he has certainly laid the platform for “the next Bernie”.
The big question is whether Trump's popularity bump holds for 4 weeks, 8 weeks or 10. That's the danger. Nothing either Biden or Sanders could have done about that,.
Or a coup installing Trump as dictator for the duration of the"temporary" emergency. Depends if his allies can convince enough of the USAn military and bureaucracy that he is a useful idiot.
But then, some people may actually take their oaths of office seriously. Maybe?
Florida has been a bit of a disaster with Covid 19…Trump in a bit of trouble there too though close…the average of the last two Florida polls has Biden 3.2% ahead of Trump.
The Sanders campaign no doubt made some tactical mistakes – I've said before that the branding of 'revolution' and "democratic socialism" was unsuited to that particular political market. The policy prescriptions (on the whole) were well received by a majority – and a rhetoric of returning to the sensible centre after 40 years of extremism, a return to proven solutions from America's own past and to core American values, would have been a better approach.
That said, history takes no prisoners as 'Pepe' Mujica remarked"And now I am the president. And tomorrow, like everyone, I will just be a pile of worms". The grace, historical awareness and humility of Sanders withdrawal speech yesterday, as is so often the case with defeated candidates, gives us a sense of what has been lost.
Bernie was out of the race when he failed to counter Warren's scurrilous lie about him being a sexist, and when he claimed, bizarrely, that that doddering old fool from Delaware could beat Trump.
All white males over a certain age are by definition misogynist. There was nothing Bernie could have said to 'defend' himself. Indeed the mere attempt at doing so would have only confirmed his guilt.
Defending the literacy programme of Castro was excellent for left sympathizers, but it lost him Florida. You can win neither a nomination nor a presidency without Florida.
But the Cuban literacy programme was, and is, excellent. As is the Cuban health system. Bernie lost not because he told the truth and angered a few elderly extreme right ideologues, but because the Democratic Party machine was determined not to let his "insurgent", i.e. authentically popular and truly democratic, campaign triumph. They'd rather have Trump than Bernie, that is clear.
And then of course there's the very serious question of Bernie's failure to stick up for himself in the face of a campaign of belittlement and abuse; very similar to Corbyn's failure.
Sanders was indeed correct about the Cuban literacy programs being a good thing. In a very narrow sense.
But arguing that statement is technically correct when you are trying to win an election in Florida is grossly negligent political malpractice, given the importance of the Cuban-American vote. The malpractice is further aggravated by the foregone opportunity to draw a contrast with the current nepotistic kakistocracy's habit of using the presidency to promote their personal private business interests in foreign countries.
The Democratic Party has a long and dishonorable history of compromising, indeed abandoning, basic commitments to human rights in order to get the votes of certain sectors. Before the Cuban right wing, the Florida constituency it bent over backwards to placate was the Ku Klux Klan.
What does that have to do with the dumbfuckery involved in Sanders blowing a perfect opportunity to go after Don Drumpfeone's corrupt foreign entanglements, just so he could show off the moral superiority of his progressive purity?
Thereby blowing any chance he may have had of winning the biggest swing state, for no conceivable gain anywhere else.
Stating an uncontestable truth is not to make a show of "purity", it's simply stating a fact. Telling a lie in order to curry favour with the extreme Cuban right wing would not make him a whit more electable, it would make him another Hillary Clinton.
But, anyway, they’re going to select someone who’s prepared to say anything, and does.
One of the most basic political skills needed to successfully run for a position as basic as a student council is how to use a question as an entry to talk about a subject that's favourable ground. There's no need to lie, he simply needed to make his answer about something that isn't awkward ground, while still "addressing the subject" in an innocuous way.
Sanders failed that basic test that's frankly at high-school politics level. And cost himself what could have been a significant prize in a completely unforced error.
Well said, sir. Yes, Mr Sanders could certainly have spoken more adroitly.
However, in the end, his opposition was the billionaire-backed DNC, and they were going to win their pyrhhic victory no matter what. I do not look forward with any relish to the gruesome spectacle of Biden being savaged and humiliated by Trump.
I just hope that this year we are spared the unedifying sight of unhinged Democratic Party supporters gnashing their teeth and melting down like this….
The World Trade Organisation makes it very clear why this impending global recession will be far worse than the 2008-9 GFC:
"The economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic inevitably invites comparisons to the global financial crisis of 2008-09. These crises are similar in certain respects but very different in others. As in 2008-09, governments have again intervened with monetary and fiscal policy to counter the downturn and provide temporary income support to businesses and households.
But restrictions on movement and social distancing to slow the spread of the disease mean that labour supply, transport and travel are today directly affected in ways they were not during the financial crisis. Whole sectors of national economies have been shut down, including hotels, restaurants, non-essential retail trade, tourism and significant shares of manufacturing."
"A strong rebound is more likely if businesses and consumers view the pandemic as a temporary, one-time shock. In this case, spending on investment goods and consumer durables could resume at close to previous levels once the crisis abates. On the other hand, if the outbreak is prolonged and/or recurring uncertainty becomes pervasive, households and business are likely to spend more cautiously.
Under both scenarios, all regions will suffer double-digit declines in exports and imports in 2020…"
Ha! Radio NZ just had a piece on the news with National’s Campaign Chair Paula Bennett saying that the government must delay the election – “NZers won’t cope” she said.
Any guesses what National’s polling must be telling them?
I don’t know what she meant. Whatever it is it will be bullshit though, a delaying tactic to allow National time to get their dirty politics machinery back on track.
Interestingly I’ve been getting some of those National Party Border Closure petition posts on my Facebook in the last 24 hours. Given the party political nature of these posts you’d expect the comments to be mostly supportive. But they’re not really. National is getting chastised by their own supporters for electioneering at this time.
What's more, the deputy Oppn leader doesn't even understand the law:
"With New Zealand now in full lockdown for at least another two weeks and businesses and livelihoods in disarray, the opposition said an election in September just seemed too much.
National's deputy leader and campaign chair Paula Bennett said the government and opposition needed to discuss in the weeks ahead whether 19 September was a realistic date." (italics added)
Of course, the PM doesn't need to discuss the election date with National at all. PMs never do that with the opposition. Ardern could call an election tomorrow (if she lost her mind). September 19 is an intention, but has no meaning in law.You aren't relevant, Paula.
They would certainly need to discuss an extension of the term, which would need approval from Parliament. But there is no reason to do that when an election could be held as late as December, if the PM so decides.
"With New Zealand now in full lockdown for at least another two weeks and businesses and livelihoods in disarray, the opposition said an election in September just seemed too much."
I will be interested to see how that goes down. Can't see any kind of rationale there. The only challenge is how to vote in ways that don't spread coronavirus. Other than that, NZers are resilient enough to manage voting in five months time. It's not like it's next week. Daft (but haven't listened for the context).
If there was any kind of rationale, Bennett would be saying:
"Forget about going to watch sport in September. Forget about going to concerts and all those events that require more public interaction and health concerns than going to one location and putting paper in a ballot box."
That would be logical, and incredibly unpopular, so …
Actually, I'm not assuming we will be able to do public gatherings by September, and that the govt may have to make arrangements around that to ensure voting can happen.
Paula's not a deep thinker, but it should occur to her that the lockdown will be over well before Sept … unless things go badly wrong and we have a second wave – a rise in cases and back to Level 4.
If that happens, the government's support will take a hit. National would change their tune.
It depends what you mean by lockdown. I can't see the entire country being still at level 4 for the duration. But level 1 certainly, which prohibits mass gatherings (eg political rallies, demonstrations, or fundraising concerts). And some parts of the country may be level 2 or higher (over 70s encouraged to stay at home and as yet unspecified size smaller gatherings only).
But a virtual lockdown may linger on in people's heads. Being permitted to return to social proximity does not mean that we will overnight overcome the fear and distancing conditioning we will have spent months soaking up.
A society is an ongoing process not a fixed object.
I predict we will have stamped out but will still be quarantining and inbound travelers a measure that will start this week . (It better start this week)
The USA will be carnges Europe will be winning slowly . 3rf world countries dont know.
How will we know if we have stamped out Corona? Given that the antibody tests are far more likely to give a false negative (insufficient viral load at time,or sampling error), than a false positive (samples getting mixed up, testing equipment inadequately sterilized). Let alone the possibility of animal reservoirs (really hoping that we've avoided that nightmare scenario).
If any of the 10% or more people diagnosed with Covid who test as false negatives then proceed to infect others, we will be back in an exponential growth phase again very quickly.
Antibodies are a host response and made by the host and will stay in the host’s circulation (or not) long after the virus has gone from the host. Equipment sterilisation is to remove viable bugs and spores, not antibodies (although these should also be removed in the whole cleaning & sterilisation process).
Whoops! I meant that the current SARS-COV-2 RNA testing. Overly hopeful to announce the existence of an antibody test that would be able to tell who has previously been infected!
Sterilisation itself should get rid of contamination from previous tests, but only if done correctly. People get tired and mistakes get made, but my point was that a false negative is currently more likely than a false positive.
Almost all the materials used for the PCR-based test are disposable.
Yes, people do make mistakes and tired people make more mistakes but the decontamination & sterilisation processes are almost fully automated and done according to SOPs that stand the test of time, so to speak.
Yup, likelihood of false negative is much higher than false positive.
Yes ForgetNow, , and Jacinda will listen to the scientists.
You are right about the possible problem of animal transmission.
We have never eradicated bovine TB in possums, and spend billions testing and poisoning. Governments deal with Foot and Mouth by culling and burning all affected animals… that was a British nightmare at one stage.
We are learning more about this virus, some helpful, some terrifying.
I have never in my 78 years felt as I do now. Friends and family truly at risk and many learning how tenuous the threads of the "safety net" really are. Learning to value our humans and pets, and creating our own safety net, all the time being aware of the hidden mainly silent suffering of those whose lives have been damaged or at least impacted by this virus.
I am a survivor of the 1946/7 polio epidemic which closed schools and had 34 victims in a village of 326. I was six and did not have close contact with my parents while in the Waikato Crippled Children's Hospital for nearly six months. I saw them twice through the distorting glass of the hospital door.
This has made me feel for those in quarantine or hospital separated from loved ones. It is terrible and remains a fear for life. Also not being able to say goodbye takes comfort away from the bereaved.
Awful though this has been for some, most of us have been spared that through the decisions of a switched on Leader and cabinet, who have put well being at the centre of Government Policy.
Let us hope that they manage the swell of unemployed, streamline the mechanics of welfare, revamp training and retraining and build the support net needed 'till we weather this. May the goodwill last.
@wags: Can this thing lie dormant? Or if we have 4 weeks with no new cases is most likely it's gone.
My bigger concern is how long this lurgee can be infectious in asymptomatic/low symptom carriers. It could only need a chain of two or three asymptomatic carriers to go past that four weeks and then initiate a whole new infectious breakout.
National's deputy leader and campaign chair Paula Bennett said the government and opposition needed to discuss in the weeks ahead whether 19 September was a realistic date."
It's interesting how someone projects their own wants and needs onto someone else. She means the opposition wants to discuss. The government certainly does not need to. It sets the election date. It's about Paula's, and National's, desires. She really means, "I want to change the date." Needs and wants- too easily confused.
Listeners this morning were inflicted with another P.R. piece for Israel—this time a once-over-lightly piece about Passover/Easter in Jerusalem with one Barry Guy, who usually does the sports news, having a breezy chat with Liat Collins of the extreme right wing Jerusalem Post. He asked not one awkward question, of course.
Liat Collins has been used by the dupes at RNZ National before…..
Lin, why is this ignoramus allowed to post inflammatory nonsense?
[lprent: Because we mainly and almost entirely moderate on behaviour. Ideological differences can be aired provided that they don’t descend into hate speech and bigotry. And we’re pretty good at detecting undeclared pattern of behaviours and dealing with them. The same thing applies to paddington, as it does to you. ]
The data is taken from the Washington Post. These are simple facts. If you want to self promote your own blog, go for gold. But as I have posted earlier, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a complex mixture of historical, religious and cultural factors where there is no good guy/bad guy scenario. No matter how you try to paint it otherwise.
Nope – I’d describe them as being self-serving propaganda and simply not worth the media they are printed on.
Those figures are what are reported by the Israeli forces. Since the occupation troops are a pack of layabout draftees who have been known to lie every time they fuck up – I personally give them no credibility when they are reporting their live round kills.
Anyone who has spent time living on the west bank (and I know a few who have) knows the Israeli draftees are useless lazy young badly trained fuckwits with guns. They routinely block the checkpoints so that they can have a siesta. They like to provoke the palestinians going through checkpoints or when they are on patrol. And in my estimation at least half of their kills and injuries are directly due to their behaviour.
They are an occupying force of incompetent garritroopers. Which is why they also don’t let in outside observers to evaluate their reporting of the justification of their troops. It is also why the Israelis don’t even let their own courts look at the behaviour of their troops.
I can’t read the WP article – but I’d take a bet that they haven’t referenced a single Palestinian report.
So I’d say that your authoritative source could be described only as complete trash. About as credible as the lack of active Russian troop involvement in Eastern Ukraine – which is the classic example of fake PR.
Hi lprent. Thanks for your response. I'm not going to push this, because my point was not to defend Israeli activity but to try to communicate to Morrisey that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is far more complicated than his rather simplistic commentary. From my own observation, this is a conflict between intractible parties whose focus on ancient historical and religious grievances is (close to) psycopathic.
Of course I could have just as easily argued the other way.
But on the balance, I think that the Palestinians have had the raw end of the stick both from the Israeli state (who in my view have no historical rights to Palestine – unless they wish to argue with the Romans) and from the Europeans of Europe and the US, who they could easily argue owe them for their complicity and actions in a recent genocide.
It sure as hell doesn't give the Israeli government any right to attempt genocide or ethnic cleansing on their fellow citizens of the land of Palestine.
Those absurd and dubious "statistics"—Palestinians are not just shot by IDF marksmen, they are always killed appropriately, as in "killed carrying out attacks against Israelis", "clashes", and "attempted stabbings"—are direct from the Israeli authorities, and are nearly always contested by human rights groups and witnesses of the killings. The Washington Post is notoriously biased on this issue, amongst many others.
It's a discussion of Passover. In Jerusalem. With an extreme right commentator who shamelessly defends Israeli actions and routinely pours opprobrium on the victims of Israel’s regime of repression.
There is every reason to object to that, but poor Barry Guy had not a clue.
None of which is in the piece. So listeners were not "inflicted" (your word) with anything.
Except an accurate description of a traditional Jewish festival, and that would not annoy any reasonable person. (Of course some might be triggered by it, but we despise those people, don't we?).
On Jessie Mulligan today a lovely intelligent Jewish restaurant lady was talking about the fact that because NZ Jews cannot meet some were going to have "Zoom Passover"….love that.
My problem is with credulous RNZ hosts being bamboozled by nasty zealots like Liat Collins. At the end of her four minute chat this morning, she told the the hapless Barry Guy; "It's kind of mindbending, I don't think there's EVER been anything like this." He didn't get the brutal irony of what she was saying.
Yesterday Mark Sommers QC, the extremely erudite and bookish second counsel for Julian Assange in his extradition hearing, trembled with anger in court. Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser had just made a ruling that the names of Julian Assange’s partner and young children could be published, which she stated was in the interests of “open justice”. His partner had submitted a letter in support of his Covid 19 related bail application (which Baraitser had summarily dismissed) to state he had a family to live with in London. Baraitser said that it was therefore in the interests of open justice that the family’s names be made public, and said that the defence had not convincingly shown this would cause any threat to their security or well-being. It was at this point Sommers barely kept control. He leapt to his feet and gave notice of an appeal to the High Court, asking for a 14 day stay. Baraitser granted four days, until 4pm on Friday.
I am in lockdown in Edinburgh, but received three separate eye witness reports. They are unanimous that yet again Baraitser entered the court carrying pre-written judgements before hearing oral argument; pre-written judgements she gave no appearance of amending.
There have been two Covid-19 deaths in Belmarsh prison so far. For obvious reasons the disease is ripping through the jail like wildfire. The Department of Justice is admitting to one death…
You laugh at the suffering of Julian Assange. I have no doubt that you would also have laughed at the suffering of other dissenters and journalists imprisoned by repressive and anti-democratic regimes.
You sneer at the suffering of a political dissenter in Great Britain and callously repeat state-sponsored lies about him. Ergo, you would probably have sneered at the suffering of political dissenters in other brutal regimes and you would have callously repeated state-sponsored lies about them. That’s a reasonable inference, assuming that your behaviour in this case is not bizarrely inconsistent with your normal behaviour.
Your comments on logic are as credible and as thorough as your disparagement of Julian Assange.
You can be sure that I'm not the only one who sees you have little or no credibility. Your lame "Mr Angry from Cheam" quip shows you have little or no SOH, either.
No the UK and US govts with the complete endorsement of vast numbers of total plonkers brainwashed by propaganda is what has put Assange in danger of his life
What do you mean when you put the word "torture" in scare quotes? Are you pretending that he is not being tortured? Is that another of your jokes?
I urge other Standard readers to bear in mind The Al1en's sneering contempt for Assange and compare his behaviour to that of the United Nations' Rapporteur on Torture….
I'm not making an argument, I'm replying to your continued usage of logical fallacies, which is easy to do as you're well practiced and predictable with it.
The actual guts of the matter are:
Good job he's in solitary. – Turns out he's not being isolation 'tortured' anymore.
The convicted bail jumper didn't get bail. – No answer.
Excerpts from a February 2020 report on the propaganda war against Assange. UN special rapporteur on torture Melzer "admits that he was himself initially taken in by the propaganda campaign."
"Four democratic countries joined forces – the U.S., Ecuador, Sweden and the UK – to leverage their power to portray one man as a monster so that he could later be burned at the stake without any outcry. The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of Western rule of law. If Julian Assange is convicted, it will be a death sentence for freedom of the press."
"There is only a single explanation for everything – for the refusal to grant diplomatic assurances, for the refusal to question him in London: They wanted to apprehend him so they could extradite him to the U.S. The number of breaches of law that accumulated in Sweden within just a few weeks during the preliminary criminal investigation is simply grotesque."
You are probably wasting your time on these subservient citizens here Morrissey, they are obviously just a bunch of wannta be camp guards only waiting for the opportunity to prove their worth to their masters, quite disgusting and vile.
btw, Kenneth Williams used to refer to the regular voice he used in the Hancock shows as 'the Snide'. Doesn't remind me of anyone here at the Standard, of course.
Someone here needs to do a decent response to Trotter.
Hey Mr Trotter try this out:
1. New Zealand now has the most effective democratic socialist government in the entire fucking world Mr Trotter. Best led, best communicated, best response through the public health system, best deployment of policing and social enforcement. And it's not me saying it.
So fuck off with your "thoughts" on democratic socialism. We already have it.
2. This government has just embarked on the largest Keynsean expansion since the Depression, and is going to keep expanding through the May 8th 2020 budget, and through the campaign manifesto, and through the 2021 budget.
The state is going into tens of billions of debt on new projects, is propping up every single waged person with a business who asks for it, and we are now a month away from even more largesse in the budget.
So fuck off with your "… but not yet!"
3. There is a gobsmacking irony of a blogger begging for a lifeline for a physical print of the Listener, when his own personal blog is now the only place the Trotter's own writing is published anywhere. Trotter's own practise of publishing online from many years ago is the clearest evidence that he knew this day was coming and planned for the demise of printed commentary years ago.
If Trotter wanted to he could amass his analogue leftie comrades and buy the Listener masthead from the receivers. But that's won't happen because he's all mouth and no trousers.
And while we are at it, the government is already well underway to strengthen broadcasting under Fa'afoi's plan for RNZ and TVNZ. They are well and truly doing their part already.
So fuck off with your defence of The Listener.
4. Trotter needs to get it out of his head that the government reaction to this recession is going to look the same as the Labour response to the 1930s Depression. That he can't step out of his tragedian pyre and lead something practical in society other than perpetually interviewing his typewriter and adding poorly paralleled historical anecdote, shows how deeply stale his imagination really is.
5. This government is holding the whole of the political order, the whole of society, and the whole of the economy, together right now, through sheer will and debt. They are about to get us through the virus crisis in better health shape than any other developed nation on earth. Overseas commentators are already noticing.
So we can afford to give them a smidgen of a break as we await coherence on the plan to revive our economy.
"If Trotter wanted to he could amass his analogue leftie comrades and buy the Listener masthead from the receivers. But that's won't happen because he's all mouth and no trousers."
Funny you should suggest that, I was wondering why he hadnt proposed the staff purchasing it for the dollar (potential liabilities aside) and running it as a collective (or co operative)…the existing staff would be the best placed to judge its future viability an could potentially secure both their ongoing employment and maintain an independent voice but havnt seen anyone involved propose such.
He now seems to think that he can return here from his self-imposed exile with a blatant troll comment.
Sam is wrong about that.
Banned for a year so that we can all recover from the pandemic and prepare for the election without having to endure his inane troll comments that create more work for Moderators – Incognito]
It [The Listener] still had 30,00 subscribers apparently.
Subscribers really isn't that useful as a measure of utility. Certainly not a measure of how much it is valued by the public for whom it is purportedly doing good.
Consider this site as an alternative ‘risk free rate’ for taxpayers and look at the usage – which is our only measure of subscribers.
According to google analytics this site has had ~23k unique visitors in the last 30 days in ~89k sessions. This excludes almost all of the bots and because it is google has a fairly accurate idea about who is a person even when they jump machines (as I do all of the time)`.
~57k of those sessions were from users who entered the site with more than 15 times over 30 days – ie reading on average about every two days or better on average. ~31k sessions were from users who read the site more than 201 times over that 30 days.About ~26k of the sessions were from users who entered less than 5 times or less.
Average session duration is 6:32 and average pages per session is 3.84. Once you start figuring out the probable times that some people on here, then there is clearly a *lot* of utility.
The last 30 days was up about 1/6th above our recent median. Session times and page counts are slightly elevated.
That was done with a far more amateur level level of writing, no subscription to the site, we don't inflict advertising, and the commenters provide as much writing value as the authors.
Arguably even with all of the low rent comments and the provocative authors, that is a shit load of writing on here. I'd expect that it is of far more volume than The Listener.
The Listener really has to argue on the basis of the quality of its writing.
Quality – who knows? I personally haven't read one in some time – but it hasn't improved much beyond the mostly 'I reckons' writing that we do in blogs, or is common in the daily media, or even around reddit.
Sure there were always nuggets in the mix of waffle. But they weren't worth effort of finding the paper copy, paying for it, and reading it without the opportunity to comment. I certainly wouldn't want to pay for it as taxpayer even when I last read it.
It provided me with no value. If I want to subsidize writers then personally I'd prefer to pay for this ad-free venue – which is mostly what happens. I think that it is of more benefit to many of the people here.
I wouldn't mind being able to subsidizing journalists more. All they have to do is to have it all easily online, largely dump the advertising, separate the opinionists away from the journalism (the former is ideal as a filtered pay per read), and let me subscribe just to the journalism.
Problem is that is very hard to get in NZ media outside of a few mail feeds.
The writing here might be rough as (especially when I write), but in terms of the value that you pay for it is extremely valuable.
For me, I'm happy to spend money for reading material that is better than what we have here. But I didn't feel any sense of value in any of the Baur stable of magazines to outweigh the cost. A different editorial policy may have produced a better material. But they basically needed to change their business model even more – and showed no real signs of doing that.
Can't see a reasons to subsidize them more than any other business as there are others around that market place. The wage subsidy should have been enough to keep them viable if they’d had a business model that would work in the future – which they didn’t. That looks to have been the conclusion of Bauer.
I love it when I read a truly good piece written by a true professional. It’s the same with music, art, or science. When I need to dig too deep and too hard to find that rare gem, it’s not worth my money and even less so my time – actually, I have to work for my money so it all comes down to my time, which I don’t have as much of as I’d like 🙁
Indeed, a good editor is like a good conductor: worth their weight in gold; they can work miracles and turn things into gold but equally, they can fuck up things and turn things to custard.
My assessment of Fa’afoi is based on his hopeless performance when that rogue RNZ board suddenly announced that they planned to liquidate RNZ Concert. Fa'afoi, after guffawing that he did not listen to classical music, then went on to regurgitate their talking points. He clearly had no idea, and was blindsided by Jim Mather and his cronies.
Edit – this got shunted down the list while I was writing it.
I am replying to Ad at 8.2
As a reader of the Listener since the 1970s, I am not entirely convinced by you, Ad.
1) If our system is best in the world, the standard is not very high. Other countries with far greater population density (meaning far more infections) seem to have done better. And you may be counting chickens that have not yet hatched.
2) Partly true, but only in its infancy, and I hope that the Govt has the courage to continue in this vein. Especially if the Righties start criticising this policy, as they will.
3) That is not irony – I see it more as Trotter lamenting the Listener's earlier role. I also remember the Listener and the Auckland Star being the only printed vehicles of real criticism of the disastrous Vietnam War.. There is a lot to be lamented since the Listener got swallowed by the right-wing marketers.
4) Maybe Trotter still has a vision of real social reform, whereas you don't. Or you don't show it very often. Blairite?
5) Fully agree, but one out of five is far from convinced.
I suspect that Trotter is afraid that after we have succeeded in starting to look for coherence on the plan to revive our economy, it will be too late to do any serious social reform.
Ad – do you want any serious social reform?
I am struggling to understand why you are so hostile to Trotter.
I can't see that Chris has 'melted down' with this statement though:
"According to Andrew Little’s former Chief-of-Staff, Neale Jones:
“I cannot think of a worse time to implement a UBI than in the middle of this economic crisis. Some of us are doing fine. Others need unprecedented government support just to stay afloat. UBI would spread that support thinner, or quickly spend 10s of billions we may need later."
Meaning Neale has no grasp at all of Keynesian economics. No understanding of the crucial importance of keeping up the level of aggregate demand. No historical grasp of the crucial role spending plays in lifting a nation out of an economic slump. Nor does he understand the practical and moral efficiency of universal, as opposed to means-tested, state support. The massively positive effect of telling every Kiwi: ‘You are important in your own right, not because you’re in need of charity but because you are a citizen of New Zealand.’ Everyone keeps telling us that “we’re all in this together” – a UBI would prove it."
" How did dreary pragmatism become Labour’s default-setting? A full explanation would require a book-length answer. Suffice to say that once a party embraces the fundamental tenets of neoliberalism, anything other than orthodox and cautious policy responses will be treated as the political equivalent of upending a can of petrol over your head and striking a match."
It seems to me that someone (the janitor – it's always the janitor) changed Labour's label to 'socialist' while everyone was at morning tea and no one has the courage to change it back, while the majority of them has no courage either to enact real socialism.
I wonder if Jacinda is banging her head against her desk at the 'dreary pragmatism' that pervades the party. I wonder.
Although perhaps it is the fact that since the 1980s Labour has become a centrist party with neo liberal leanings and that's all there is to it.
Collective is implicitly shared agreement. When it is mandated by those for whom it is convenient it just becomes coercion.
Problem is that I fail to see a point in subsiding a stable of publications that with massive cost-cutting producing what looked like a inaccessible mediocre product and barely managing to hold a subscriber base or a profit level is worth trying to save.
In an economic sense you could easily argue that their mere presence in the marketplace was actually constraining innovation in a failing area. They were holding on to audiences and thereby preventing development of a more viable economic model. As a government, you’d be better off using resources to provide technical infrastructure for writers to try to find a more useful model to build a viable and accessible product in. There are examples around like Newsroom, Spinoff, Evening Report, and even Scoop as well as the online mass media.
Because in the end, unless they figured out a different way to operate, then all of those magazines had been on a ventilator ready to die of technical obsolescence in the market for about a decade. Removing their Bauer DNR wouldn’t have made them last for many more years even if there wasn’t a pandemic at the same time.
no i dont imagine they do…and it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall should the staff ever attempt it….I could imagine it wouldnt go smoothly.
Trotter doesn't understand economics, or pretends not to. Buying these magazines for a dollar sounds cheap until the losses start to mount. I think he is emotionally attached to the titles and can't bear to see them go.
If there is a profitable market for a right-wing (but pretending not to be) glossy like the Listener, a new magazine will be set-up by somebody using their own money.
It's not the government's job to invest in/take over the media-accusations of manipulation for political ends would follow like night follows day.
Speaking to relatives in Aussie last night , one of whom works for a large retailer (who shall remain unnamed) and the relating of how the social distancing and 'lockdown' is being handled there is an object lesson in why we are correct to minimise the number of retailers that are able to trade.
The complete disregard for the guidelines from both the company and the general public makes a mockery of the process.
Couldn't believe it at pak n save today, waiting in the queue at the checkout, using the marked lines as a distancing guide, and people were pushing their trolleys between the gaps left behind me, completely ruining the purpose of having the lines in the first place. I told a floor supervisor that I realised it's not up to her to police it, but that particular part of the system was broken.
Didn't help that the customer in front of me took out a wad of notes and proceeded to lick his fingers, twice, whilst thumbing through them, and then again before touching the eftpos card he part paid with. Had to warn the checkout kid before she touched this idiot's cash, and patiently waited until she had decontaminated it and the terminal before I could check out, contemplating survival of the fittest v stupid by association.
and pales in comparison in both scale and actions related to me about Victoria last night….Im very pleased our Gov appears to be holding the line as staunchly as it is in the face of considerable pressure
Generally I've been impressed with the supermarkets down here, but then I've been able to time my runs really well, to have shopped at the slowest of times. Today, I had to risk the one day closed hoarders, so maybe the mentality of customers and staff were a bit less focused than of late, especially with the drop off in new cases. Let's hope complacency doesn't creep in and ruin all the good work thus far.
I thought you generally made sure you were better informed RedLogix. 'A' has reeled off an out of date hit-job and stupidly highlighted China which is not on the Council. Besides, the representatives on the Council are not appointed to represent their countries or any political viewpoint, unlike the Cato Institute or Quartz.
Two weeks till Business as Usual reconvenes, woohoo!
Government sanctioned "mental illness" will be forgotten, and Cognitive Dissonance in all things will be the name of the game. Project your fears onto anyone weaker than you and aim to take it all!
Hot Tip: don't get caught on the line when the starter pistol fires, not unless you are ready to slash your way through anyone you meet.
I'm feeling lucky to be the recipient of good fortune in several ways. These are: NZ's isolation, a generally competent government that aims to serve the interests of all its citizens not just some, and enough social cohesion to voluntarily observe a lock-down with high levels of compliance. (There are a few peripheral sociopaths like Mike Hosking but that is to be expected)
Therefore I'm not really faced with the fear and rage that clearly prompted this piece from the fabulously civilised RJ Eskow a couple of weeks ago – No – I will not die for this damned economy. He used the word 'damned' advisedly – not as a mere expletive, but in the Biblical sense "this damned economy…and we, the damned who live within it." What we need to emerge from this crisis is an economy that does not damn so many – the odds are we will get one which damns more.
FFS! David Seymour is asking, at the Epidemic committee, why employers including sole traders in receipt of wage subsidies get named publicly, but sole parents etc in receipt of benefits are not publicly named! At about 1hr 15 minutes into the committee today.
I think Sepuloni also said there is a box to tick asking if employer agrees to be named publicly when applying for a subsidy.
The Government is extending expired or expiring licenses and Warrants of Fitness to enable essential travel.
Transport Minister Phil Twyford said all driver licences, WoFs, CoFs, and some vehicle certifications, that expired on or after January 1, 2020 would now be valid for up to six months from April 10, 2020.
You can order a rego online, doesn't need to be at a Post Shop. Post is still being delivered as far as I can tell. I was just curious if that part of NZTA was still operational or not.
It also looks like there is some vehicle WOF renewals for essential business vehicles.
Where can I go to renew my WoF/CoF if I am providing an essential service and it is expiring during Alert Level 4?Back to top
You can renew your WoF/CoF at several vehicle inspection sites around the country (see links below) or check with your local provider if they are available on an appointment only basis.
Please note that at all locations, there are requirements you need to follow for an essential vehicle inspection to be carried out
I don’t work for an essential service, my vehicle WoF/CoF is due for renewal and I need to get groceries. Can I keep using my vehicle since testing stations and garages are shut?Back to top
To help smooth the transition back to compliance, if your WoF/CoF expired on or after 1 January 2020, it is temporarily extended.
The Stuff article I linked to in my previous comment says:
It'll still be up to drivers to keep their vehicles safe and I urge owners to follow the NZ Transport Agency's advice and regularly self-check their vehicle." The Government was allowing for essential repairs, like sorting out punctured tyres or damaged windscreens. Previously only essential service workers' vehicles could access repairs and certification services. Other people are only able to get critical repairs done for the purpose of accessing essential services. "If anything looks out of order, please go get it fixed as soon as you can," Twyford said.
Seems the ICs applied the precautionary principle as well….
"As a result, many insurers added exclusions to standard commercial policies for losses caused by viruses or bacteria. Now, the added policy language will potentially allow insurance companies to avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in business-interruption claims because of the covid-19 pandemic."
Insurers in the US respond to cv with refunds and discounts.
With less traffic on the road, there have been fewer accidents and fewer car insurance claims. And the prospect of paying claims is what auto insurance base their rates on. Several car insurance companies have now stepped up to offer their customers refunds. More will likely follow.
Some have been published on media for not hearing the result of their tests for many days afterwards. The explanation includes the fact that results are fed back to whoever authorised the test such as the doctor.
If the test is positive the victim is informed straight away and followup action taken.
If the result is negative then the lesser urgency will be in the hands of the doctor to inform. Maybe too busy but must be anxious wait for the victim though the longer the wait the more likely all is well.
Heh, just like when you get tested for STDs, if you all clear you usually don't get notified (check your online hub thing), only if you positive will they be in touch (& not a call you want, obviously).
So closing down flights from China didn’t save thousands of lives.
Coronavirus in New York came mainly from Europe, studies show.
New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February, weeks before the first confirmed case, and that it was brought to the region mainly by travelers from Europe, not Asia.
“The majority is clearly European,” said Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-wrote a study awaiting peer review.
A separate team at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine came to strikingly similar conclusions, despite studying a different group of cases. Both teams analyzed genomes from coronaviruses taken from New Yorkers starting in mid-March.
There could have been hundreds more cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand already if a lockdown had not gone ahead, new modelling shows.
Instead, the country now has a high chance of eliminating the virus, the research says – but only if the level 4 restrictions are extended.
Te Pūnaha Matatini, a cluster of researchers from Landcare Research and the Universities of Auckland and Canterbury, has been working for more than a month on modelling the spread of the virus here.
The total number of active Covid-19 cases in New Zealand has stalled over the past four days, hovering between 920 and 930 cases.
Additionally, the Ministry of Health reported 29 new cases of Covid-19 today – the lowest number of new cases over a 24-hour period in a fortnight.
The paper published by Te Pūnaha Matatini today showed that had the government not gone into a level four lockdown, the number of new cases each day would exceed 150 by now, rising to 350 a day by the middle of next week.
"Coronavirus: Greenkeepers granted exemption for maintenance work after Easter"
And about bloody time. Golf Greens and Bowling Greens can be destroyed and take years to recreate if they aren't very carefully maintained. Why did it need Grant Robertson to do the bloody obvious. You don't need to allow people to play but a green keeper can work in isolation and preserve the painstakingly cared for lawns.
They are far more fragile and harder to repair than most Council owned parks and sports grounds. Mowing of those seems to have been allowed throughout.
The membership of the average golf club is quite typical of the whole New Zealand population. And New Zealand is one of the cheapest places to play golf in the world. A full playing membership at Inglewood, which is a pretty little course near New Plymouth is only about $500/year. The Waitara Golf Club, also near New Plymouth is even cheaper at $350/year.
Royal Wellington and Royal Auckland and Grange excluded of course.
Tut tut, alwyn. I sail, and my yearly sub is only $120. I probably spend less on my boat (which I bought with trailer for $2,500 in 1987) than you spend on clubs and lost golf balls (sorry to be rude.)
Your altruistic concern for the well-being of golfing greens is rather amusing.
But there we are. I get mad when stupid but well-meaning people plant trees near the lake I sail on, and ruin the wind after the tree has grown.
$2,500! For a boat? It sounds as if you bought one of Paul Allen's cast offs.
I am, I admit, an unusual golfer (or should I say a former golfer). I played for about 48 years and only ever owned two sets of clubs. I bought the first set in the late 60's for the grand sum of $100. The second set was purchased in about 1996 for rather more, but I would still be under the cost of your boat. Golf balls are quite cheap. You can get perfectly suitable golf balls for about $2.00 each.
Most people I know spent rather more. Almost every golfer lives with the dream that if they buy the latest driver they will be able to hit their drives out to about the 280 metre mark. I was always a realist. I might have admired the skills of Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods but I was never under the illusion that I could play like them.
Aye, and I am foolishly still trying to sail a teenager's one-man racing skiff, because when I get a few good rides, it beats being on every big expensive lead-swinging keelboat that ever sailed.
As a matter of interest, what were your average subs for belonging to a club?
I sailed a P class when I was very young. In my 20's we bought a Javelin. That was great fun, although we always thought we should fly the letter flag "D" when we were out. For those who don't sail it means "Keep clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty".
I had to give up playing 5 years ago so my knowledge of subs is a bit out of date..
When I was a child I had a dose of a much nastier virus than Cofid 19. It appeared I had fully recovered from it but it turns out you never do. About half the people like me get problems many years later and my walking was affected so I gave up playing. I believe a full playing membership at the last club I belonged to is about $1250/year. You can play all day, every day of the year for that. That would be typical of city clubs I should say.
I was thinking more of you bringing petty nitpicking shit here. The government was made aware there was a problem and rightly assessed that a green keeper can probably work alone safely.
My patience has run out with pathetic moaning morons .
Have any golf courses or bowling greens been destroyed thus far? If not, what's the problem? Lots of people are waiting to get their privileges back, it takes time for processes to be worked through.
Lol. I still like to lie on my lawn, and I can see the potential of permaculture cricket pitches and rugby fields. But holy shit, there's a reason there are no organic golf courses. I'm guessing bowling greens might be similar?
I understood that Singapore was initialy relying on phone apps and the internet to do a lot of the tracing work and they found out a bit too late that it wasn't very successful, as Dr Bloomfield said a few days ago a phone can't do the job that a thorough face to face ( at 2 metres I presume ) interview can. Just exactly how many crimes would be solved with a little chat on line or a few texts. Sweet fuck all.
I think Singapore tried to move too quickly and were reliant on the phone technology. Furthermore being an island about the size of Lake Taupo and with over 5m people isolating is far more difficult. I'm not sure just what restrictions they have in place wrt new arrivals, but a large proportion of their workforce in terms of amah, and construction workers are from the Philippines, India, and Malaysia.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will only allow the entry / return of work pass holders, including their dependents, for those providing essential services, such as in healthcare and transport.
yep – and I see that a good proportion of the new cases are in those worker dormitories. Mind you a lot of the wealthy families have live in house maids etc _ I can't see them giving up their amahs so easily
Well this is interesting. Overseas buyer’s interest in the Pacifica apartment building is up 200% because of favourable reaction to the government’s Covid-19 response. Both expats and foreign buyers (this development has an exemption for foreign buyers) have registered an interest.
It appears that there is some appetite to change the paradigm….Kate Raworth style
"The port of Amsterdam is the world’s single largest importer of cocoa beans, mostly from west Africa, where the labour is often highly exploitative.
As an independent private company it could reject such products and take the economic hit, but at the same time almost one in five households in Amsterdam qualify for social benefits due to low incomes and savings.
Van Doorninck says the port is looking at how it moves on from dependence on fossil fuels as part of the city’s new vision, and she expects that to naturally evolve into a wider debate over other pressing dilemmas brought to the forefront by the doughnut model.
“It gives space to talk about whether you want to be the place where products are being stored that are produced by child labour or by other forms of labour exploitation,” she says."
WASHINGTON — Although President Donald Trump has directed states and hospitals to secure what supplies they can, the federal government is quietly seizing orders, leaving medical providers across the country in the dark about where the material is going and how they can get what they need to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
Officials who've had materials seized also say they've received no guidance from the government about how or if they will get access to the supplies they ordered. That has stoked concerns about how public funds are being spent and whether the Trump administration is fairly distributing scarce medical supplies
It's based on unpublished data, so has to be taken with a chunk of salt. But, if; the IL6 cytokine is predominantly involved in SARS-COV-2 pneumonia, then an IL6 receptor blocker being of use in preventing that, does make a certain amount of sense on the face of it.
After all, it doesn't really matter if people are infected with the Crow, just so long as you can stop them suffocating on their own body!
Except that the more replications of a virus, the more chances for mutations. DNA is more stable than RNA.
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
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New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
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On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
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Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
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For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
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This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
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Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
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There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
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Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
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This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
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Bernie Sanders is out of the race.
If this pandemic had happened a year earlier, the need for nationwide healthcare reform would have been his saving.
It's a cruel fate this 2020 election.
Credit to Bernie for shifting the terms of debate on healthcare. But I've got my doubts that Medicare for all would have been enough to tip it to Bernie even had the pandemic happened a year earlier.
First, there's Bernie's approach to the topic. Half of Americans get their healthcare through employer subsidised insurance. It's a fact of human nature that people value keeping what they have more than taking a risk on getting something better. Given the degree of governmental malfunction in areas of governmental monopoly in the US, being forced into a government health health plan looks like a big risk.
Second, paying for M4A is a gnarly topic. Bernie didn't have a clear message on how workers would be better off financially. Most people just heard their taxes would go up to pay for it. Furthermore, relieving companies of their burden of subsidising their employee health insurance programs amounts to a massive windfall to the companies.
Third, the other candidates would have adjusted their messaging, so Bernie's stance would not have remained as large a differentiation as it was.
edit: then there’s this piece for a broader look at why Bernie fell short.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-campaign-retrospective-2020-democratic-primary_n_5e837ecfc5b603fbdf4a8782
Andre I just threw that line about healthcare in to be kind to the Bernie supporters.
Be nice to them today and don't bayonet the wounded.
Sorrreeee.
🙂
🙂
Gutted for the USA, beginning to think they have been cursed, the death toll coming out of there is horrendous. Those poor people.
At least Bernie is staying on the ballot, even if he has pulled out of the presidential race.
There is the practical matter that if he gets over 1/4 of the delegates (including superdelegates), he can force a vote at the convention on any policy platform proposals he wants to push. That means he would need around 1200. He's got about 900 now, with about 1600 still to be voted on, so it will be tight for clearing that hurdle.
Wow, that's interesting, wonder how it will play out in the end.
The global death toll is horrendous, including the high NUMBER of deaths in the US. However, so far, the US does not have the highest death rate pre 1 million of their population. Their’s is 44. Many European countries and the UK have higher death rates so far.
US: 44
UK: 105
France: 167
Netherlands: 131
Belgium: 193
Spain: 316
Switzerland: 103
Sweden: 68
Ireland: 48
The US and the UK are catching up Carolyn, though doubt if they will get near Spain and Italy which has a death rate of 292/m. Odd you missed it from your list.
Yes. I did say this is the current stats. My list wasn't comprehensive – just a selection to show some of the spread. Spain is the highest at the moment.
I linked to the full list in my opening sentence.
If the US gets a similar death rate to the current death rates in Italy and Spain, then they will have around 100K deaths. But they're still suffering high ongoing deaths in Italy etc.
Compared to Italy and Spain, the US has a younger population and a culture that is somewhat less up close and personal in terms of physical space. But the US went a lot later and softer on physical distancing and isolation, helping the contagion spread.
It's a horrifying but fascinating experiment to watch as it plays out in real time.
Thanks for that Carolyn, was wondering what that stat's were like re population. Much appreciated.
Andre, they were talking of 100,000 -200,000 expected deaths in the US last week at one of trumps pressers. Agree re horrifying but fascinating however twisted that sounds.
The stats don't tell everything. You probably know that we Kiwis have greater personal space than people in densely concentrated urban areas.
The last time I visited a big European city, I took two weeks to get used to the density of buildings and the number of people always close to me.. So different from my major-city NZ abode.
NZ has an advantage in that respect – the virus will naturally spread faster in those areas of greater population density.
And, condescending post of the day so far award goes to…it never failed to amaze, the number of spineless centrists and closet righties masquerading as leftists, disparaging the Sanders Campaign on The Standard. Not even luke warm support for Medicare for all and $15 min wage etc.
Bernie put up a great campaign–his analysis and policy were spot on–as subsequent tragic events have illustrated what happens with for profit healthcare and millions living week to week on low wages…
His strength–not running with the herd–was ultimately his weakness too. But he has certainly laid the platform for “the next Bernie”.
Sanders and Warren have already shunted Biden leftwards on many policy areas.
Everyone will be looking to see what Biden's revised healthcare plan looks like.
Straight out of the blocks the big progressive activist groups have told Biden what they are wanting out of him
https://nextgenamerica.org/Biden-letter/
The big question is whether Trump's popularity bump holds for 4 weeks, 8 weeks or 10. That's the danger. Nothing either Biden or Sanders could have done about that,.
Realclearpolitics has Biden 49.7 Trump 43.4 on 7 April.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
Trump is history.
Well I'm just unwilling to hope yet.
Thanks for the poll, it's slightly cheering.
Presumably it all comes down to which way Florida goes, again.
Or a coup installing Trump as dictator for the duration of the"temporary" emergency. Depends if his allies can convince enough of the USAn military and bureaucracy that he is a useful idiot.
But then, some people may actually take their oaths of office seriously. Maybe?
I don't think the military are Genrl Bonespur's number 1 fans.
Florida has been a bit of a disaster with Covid 19…Trump in a bit of trouble there too though close…the average of the last two Florida polls has Biden 3.2% ahead of Trump.
Did he sell it to employers as saving them a buttload of money?
The Sanders campaign no doubt made some tactical mistakes – I've said before that the branding of 'revolution' and "democratic socialism" was unsuited to that particular political market. The policy prescriptions (on the whole) were well received by a majority – and a rhetoric of returning to the sensible centre after 40 years of extremism, a return to proven solutions from America's own past and to core American values, would have been a better approach.
That said, history takes no prisoners as 'Pepe' Mujica remarked"And now I am the president. And tomorrow, like everyone, I will just be a pile of worms". The grace, historical awareness and humility of Sanders withdrawal speech yesterday, as is so often the case with defeated candidates, gives us a sense of what has been lost.
Bernie was out of the race when he failed to counter Warren's scurrilous lie about him being a sexist, and when he claimed, bizarrely, that that doddering old fool from Delaware could beat Trump.
All white males over a certain age are by definition misogynist. There was nothing Bernie could have said to 'defend' himself. Indeed the mere attempt at doing so would have only confirmed his guilt.
All white males over a certain age are by definition misogynist.
What perfect balderdash that statement is.
Well yes.
It has the ring of truth about it…
Defending the literacy programme of Castro was excellent for left sympathizers, but it lost him Florida. You can win neither a nomination nor a presidency without Florida.
But the Cuban literacy programme was, and is, excellent. As is the Cuban health system. Bernie lost not because he told the truth and angered a few elderly extreme right ideologues, but because the Democratic Party machine was determined not to let his "insurgent", i.e. authentically popular and truly democratic, campaign triumph. They'd rather have Trump than Bernie, that is clear.
And then of course there's the very serious question of Bernie's failure to stick up for himself in the face of a campaign of belittlement and abuse; very similar to Corbyn's failure.
Sanders was indeed correct about the Cuban literacy programs being a good thing. In a very narrow sense.
But arguing that statement is technically correct when you are trying to win an election in Florida is grossly negligent political malpractice, given the importance of the Cuban-American vote. The malpractice is further aggravated by the foregone opportunity to draw a contrast with the current nepotistic kakistocracy's habit of using the presidency to promote their personal private business interests in foreign countries.
The Democratic Party has a long and dishonorable history of compromising, indeed abandoning, basic commitments to human rights in order to get the votes of certain sectors. Before the Cuban right wing, the Florida constituency it bent over backwards to placate was the Ku Klux Klan.
What does that have to do with the dumbfuckery involved in Sanders blowing a perfect opportunity to go after Don Drumpfeone's corrupt foreign entanglements, just so he could show off the moral superiority of his progressive purity?
Thereby blowing any chance he may have had of winning the biggest swing state, for no conceivable gain anywhere else.
Stating an uncontestable truth is not to make a show of "purity", it's simply stating a fact. Telling a lie in order to curry favour with the extreme Cuban right wing would not make him a whit more electable, it would make him another Hillary Clinton.
But, anyway, they’re going to select someone who’s prepared to say anything, and does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAUOurZIVfI
One of the most basic political skills needed to successfully run for a position as basic as a student council is how to use a question as an entry to talk about a subject that's favourable ground. There's no need to lie, he simply needed to make his answer about something that isn't awkward ground, while still "addressing the subject" in an innocuous way.
Sanders failed that basic test that's frankly at high-school politics level. And cost himself what could have been a significant prize in a completely unforced error.
Well said, sir. Yes, Mr Sanders could certainly have spoken more adroitly.
However, in the end, his opposition was the billionaire-backed DNC, and they were going to win their pyrhhic victory no matter what. I do not look forward with any relish to the gruesome spectacle of Biden being savaged and humiliated by Trump.
I just hope that this year we are spared the unedifying sight of unhinged Democratic Party supporters gnashing their teeth and melting down like this….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrKKPGhh-ZU
The World Trade Organisation makes it very clear why this impending global recession will be far worse than the 2008-9 GFC:
"The economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic inevitably invites comparisons to the global financial crisis of 2008-09. These crises are similar in certain respects but very different in others. As in 2008-09, governments have again intervened with monetary and fiscal policy to counter the downturn and provide temporary income support to businesses and households.
But restrictions on movement and social distancing to slow the spread of the disease mean that labour supply, transport and travel are today directly affected in ways they were not during the financial crisis. Whole sectors of national economies have been shut down, including hotels, restaurants, non-essential retail trade, tourism and significant shares of manufacturing."
"A strong rebound is more likely if businesses and consumers view the pandemic as a temporary, one-time shock. In this case, spending on investment goods and consumer durables could resume at close to previous levels once the crisis abates. On the other hand, if the outbreak is prolonged and/or recurring uncertainty becomes pervasive, households and business are likely to spend more cautiously.
Under both scenarios, all regions will suffer double-digit declines in exports and imports in 2020…"
https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres20_e/pr855_e.htm
This to me show how distinct the New Zealand response to the health crisis of the virus is to the economic response to the shutdown.
I have a suspicion we will be as different a country coming out of this one as we were before and after the Great Depression.
Ha! Radio NZ just had a piece on the news with National’s Campaign Chair Paula Bennett saying that the government must delay the election – “NZers won’t cope” she said.
Any guesses what National’s polling must be telling them?
Lol.
What does she mean "can't cope"?
I don’t know what she meant. Whatever it is it will be bullshit though, a delaying tactic to allow National time to get their dirty politics machinery back on track.
She means that National knows they don't have a shit Show of getting back into power this year.
So. They need extra time for a manipulative propaganda offensive.
She means NZ "can't cope" with anything other than a National government.
Yesterday colmar brunton put out a poll saying 90% of people trust the government's handling of covid
Interestingly I’ve been getting some of those National Party Border Closure petition posts on my Facebook in the last 24 hours. Given the party political nature of these posts you’d expect the comments to be mostly supportive. But they’re not really. National is getting chastised by their own supporters for electioneering at this time.
My good she popped up on my fb this morning.
My eyes my eyes .
Swinging voters likely on board then and why not when you look at Bridges arrogance.
I thought Scott must have misheard (hey, it's early) but no …
RNZ news report
What's more, the deputy Oppn leader doesn't even understand the law:
"With New Zealand now in full lockdown for at least another two weeks and businesses and livelihoods in disarray, the opposition said an election in September just seemed too much.
National's deputy leader and campaign chair Paula Bennett said the government and opposition needed to discuss in the weeks ahead whether 19 September was a realistic date." (italics added)
Of course, the PM doesn't need to discuss the election date with National at all. PMs never do that with the opposition. Ardern could call an election tomorrow (if she lost her mind). September 19 is an intention, but has no meaning in law.You aren't relevant, Paula.
They would certainly need to discuss an extension of the term, which would need approval from Parliament. But there is no reason to do that when an election could be held as late as December, if the PM so decides.
Wondered how long before they'd bring that up.
Shows where the real concern is…..getting decimated. Bridges would’ve floored them.
"With New Zealand now in full lockdown for at least another two weeks and businesses and livelihoods in disarray, the opposition said an election in September just seemed too much."
I will be interested to see how that goes down. Can't see any kind of rationale there. The only challenge is how to vote in ways that don't spread coronavirus. Other than that, NZers are resilient enough to manage voting in five months time. It's not like it's next week. Daft (but haven't listened for the context).
If there was any kind of rationale, Bennett would be saying:
"Forget about going to watch sport in September. Forget about going to concerts and all those events that require more public interaction and health concerns than going to one location and putting paper in a ballot box."
That would be logical, and incredibly unpopular, so …
Actually, I'm not assuming we will be able to do public gatherings by September, and that the govt may have to make arrangements around that to ensure voting can happen.
Assuming the lockdown is over by Sept!!!
Paula's not a deep thinker, but it should occur to her that the lockdown will be over well before Sept … unless things go badly wrong and we have a second wave – a rise in cases and back to Level 4.
If that happens, the government's support will take a hit. National would change their tune.
We wont be in lock down in September. It just wouldn't be possible.
It would destroy nz financially.
People wouldn't handle it or accept it .
Bw very likely you are right
BUT can you predict especially what will happen with the virus, AND what will happen overseas eg USA, Europe.
It depends what you mean by lockdown. I can't see the entire country being still at level 4 for the duration. But level 1 certainly, which prohibits mass gatherings (eg political rallies, demonstrations, or fundraising concerts). And some parts of the country may be level 2 or higher (over 70s encouraged to stay at home and as yet unspecified size smaller gatherings only).
But a virtual lockdown may linger on in people's heads. Being permitted to return to social proximity does not mean that we will overnight overcome the fear and distancing conditioning we will have spent months soaking up.
A society is an ongoing process not a fixed object.
I predict we will have stamped out but will still be quarantining and inbound travelers a measure that will start this week . (It better start this week)
The USA will be carnges Europe will be winning slowly . 3rf world countries dont know.
How will we know if we have stamped out Corona? Given that the antibody tests are far more likely to give a false negative (insufficient viral load at time,or sampling error), than a false positive (samples getting mixed up, testing equipment inadequately sterilized). Let alone the possibility of animal reservoirs (really hoping that we've avoided that nightmare scenario).
If any of the 10% or more people diagnosed with Covid who test as false negatives then proceed to infect others, we will be back in an exponential growth phase again very quickly.
Antibodies are a host response and made by the host and will stay in the host’s circulation (or not) long after the virus has gone from the host. Equipment sterilisation is to remove viable bugs and spores, not antibodies (although these should also be removed in the whole cleaning & sterilisation process).
Whoops! I meant that the current SARS-COV-2 RNA testing. Overly hopeful to announce the existence of an antibody test that would be able to tell who has previously been infected!
Sterilisation itself should get rid of contamination from previous tests, but only if done correctly. People get tired and mistakes get made, but my point was that a false negative is currently more likely than a false positive.
Almost all the materials used for the PCR-based test are disposable.
Yes, people do make mistakes and tired people make more mistakes but the decontamination & sterilisation processes are almost fully automated and done according to SOPs that stand the test of time, so to speak.
Yup, likelihood of false negative is much higher than false positive.
Yes ForgetNow, , and Jacinda will listen to the scientists.
You are right about the possible problem of animal transmission.
We have never eradicated bovine TB in possums, and spend billions testing and poisoning. Governments deal with Foot and Mouth by culling and burning all affected animals… that was a British nightmare at one stage.
We are learning more about this virus, some helpful, some terrifying.
I have never in my 78 years felt as I do now. Friends and family truly at risk and many learning how tenuous the threads of the "safety net" really are. Learning to value our humans and pets, and creating our own safety net, all the time being aware of the hidden mainly silent suffering of those whose lives have been damaged or at least impacted by this virus.
I am a survivor of the 1946/7 polio epidemic which closed schools and had 34 victims in a village of 326. I was six and did not have close contact with my parents while in the Waikato Crippled Children's Hospital for nearly six months. I saw them twice through the distorting glass of the hospital door.
This has made me feel for those in quarantine or hospital separated from loved ones. It is terrible and remains a fear for life. Also not being able to say goodbye takes comfort away from the bereaved.
Awful though this has been for some, most of us have been spared that through the decisions of a switched on Leader and cabinet, who have put well being at the centre of Government Policy.
Let us hope that they manage the swell of unemployed, streamline the mechanics of welfare, revamp training and retraining and build the support net needed 'till we weather this. May the goodwill last.
Can this thing lie dormant? Or if we have 4 weeks with no new cases is most likely it's gone.
bwaghorn, "quarantining"Starting midnight tonight 9/4/20
@wags: Can this thing lie dormant? Or if we have 4 weeks with no new cases is most likely it's gone.
My bigger concern is how long this lurgee can be infectious in asymptomatic/low symptom carriers. It could only need a chain of two or three asymptomatic carriers to go past that four weeks and then initiate a whole new infectious breakout.
Not only that. Lockdown would have been a proven failure by September.
Nope, we should still be able to vote even from lock down.
And the other aspect is that some big businesses are struggling to survive for 4 week and need tax payers support
Do they not have ANY planning for major problems?
National's deputy leader and campaign chair Paula Bennett said the government and opposition needed to discuss in the weeks ahead whether 19 September was a realistic date."
It's interesting how someone projects their own wants and needs onto someone else. She means the opposition wants to discuss. The government certainly does not need to. It sets the election date. It's about Paula's, and National's, desires. She really means, "I want to change the date." Needs and wants- too easily confused.
Who can't cope paula? Maybe she's run out of oregano?
She needs a haircut and a real job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbAoXw_DqvM
But I haven't got a brother Bob? 🙁
He ain't heavy …
They'll be glad of a day out by September.
A puff piece on Passover in Jerusalem
RNZ National, Thursday 9 April 2020, 8:50 a.m.
Listeners this morning were inflicted with another P.R. piece for Israel—this time a once-over-lightly piece about Passover/Easter in Jerusalem with one Barry Guy, who usually does the sports news, having a breezy chat with Liat Collins of the extreme right wing Jerusalem Post. He asked not one awkward question, of course.
Liat Collins has been used by the dupes at RNZ National before…..
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/another-israeli-propagandist-takes.html
You're on that again? Ok, I can argue this either way, because there are madmen on both sides. But just for you:
Attacked by Palestinians on Israeli's since October 1st:
Stabbings = 84
Attempted Stabbings = 57
Car Attacks = 31
Shootings = 20
Bombings = 4
Death Toll:
Palestinians killed carrying out attacks against Israelis = 149
Palestinians shot by Israeli forces during clashes = 59
Israelis killed in attacks by Palestinians = 35
Citizens of other countries killed = 5
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/israel-palestine-deaths/
MEMO: Editors/Moderators of The Standard
Lin, why is this ignoramus allowed to post inflammatory nonsense?
[lprent: Because we mainly and almost entirely moderate on behaviour. Ideological differences can be aired provided that they don’t descend into hate speech and bigotry. And we’re pretty good at detecting undeclared pattern of behaviours and dealing with them. The same thing applies to paddington, as it does to you. ]
The data is taken from the Washington Post. These are simple facts. If you want to self promote your own blog, go for gold. But as I have posted earlier, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a complex mixture of historical, religious and cultural factors where there is no good guy/bad guy scenario. No matter how you try to paint it otherwise.
Nope – I’d describe them as being self-serving propaganda and simply not worth the media they are printed on.
Those figures are what are reported by the Israeli forces. Since the occupation troops are a pack of layabout draftees who have been known to lie every time they fuck up – I personally give them no credibility when they are reporting their live round kills.
Anyone who has spent time living on the west bank (and I know a few who have) knows the Israeli draftees are useless lazy young badly trained fuckwits with guns. They routinely block the checkpoints so that they can have a siesta. They like to provoke the palestinians going through checkpoints or when they are on patrol. And in my estimation at least half of their kills and injuries are directly due to their behaviour.
They are an occupying force of incompetent garritroopers. Which is why they also don’t let in outside observers to evaluate their reporting of the justification of their troops. It is also why the Israelis don’t even let their own courts look at the behaviour of their troops.
I can’t read the WP article – but I’d take a bet that they haven’t referenced a single Palestinian report.
So I’d say that your authoritative source could be described only as complete trash. About as credible as the lack of active Russian troop involvement in Eastern Ukraine – which is the classic example of fake PR.
Thanks, Lin. Here's some reading for our friend Paddington….
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/01/newspapers-palestinians-headlines/
Hi lprent. Thanks for your response. I'm not going to push this, because my point was not to defend Israeli activity but to try to communicate to Morrisey that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is far more complicated than his rather simplistic commentary. From my own observation, this is a conflict between intractible parties whose focus on ancient historical and religious grievances is (close to) psycopathic.
Of course I could have just as easily argued the other way.
But on the balance, I think that the Palestinians have had the raw end of the stick both from the Israeli state (who in my view have no historical rights to Palestine – unless they wish to argue with the Romans) and from the Europeans of Europe and the US, who they could easily argue owe them for their complicity and actions in a recent genocide.
It sure as hell doesn't give the Israeli government any right to attempt genocide or ethnic cleansing on their fellow citizens of the land of Palestine.
The data is [sic] taken from the Washington Post.
Those absurd and dubious "statistics"—Palestinians are not just shot by IDF marksmen, they are always killed appropriately, as in "killed carrying out attacks against Israelis", "clashes", and "attempted stabbings"—are direct from the Israeli authorities, and are nearly always contested by human rights groups and witnesses of the killings. The Washington Post is notoriously biased on this issue, amongst many others.
It's a discussion of Passover. At Passover.
There is no possible reason to object to that.
It's a discussion of Passover. In Jerusalem. With an extreme right commentator who shamelessly defends Israeli actions and routinely pours opprobrium on the victims of Israel’s regime of repression.
There is every reason to object to that, but poor Barry Guy had not a clue.
None of which is in the piece. So listeners were not "inflicted" (your word) with anything.
Except an accurate description of a traditional Jewish festival, and that would not annoy any reasonable person. (Of course some might be triggered by it, but we despise those people, don't we?).
????
This person is either disoriented or utterly cynical.
On Jessie Mulligan today a lovely intelligent Jewish restaurant lady was talking about the fact that because NZ Jews cannot meet some were going to have "Zoom Passover"….love that.
Yes, she was cool. If I lived in Auckland, I would be joining a queue to book in.
Zoom powered Passover Seder.
Jeez Morry, what's your problem with passover?
?????
My problem is with credulous RNZ hosts being bamboozled by nasty zealots like Liat Collins. At the end of her four minute chat this morning, she told the the hapless Barry Guy; "It's kind of mindbending, I don't think there's EVER been anything like this." He didn't get the brutal irony of what she was saying.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018742132/coronavirus-jerusalem-marks-easter-with-restricted-movement
Here is the news, the sad new about the lockdown.
We have 'gotten' nasty in 14 days with online bitching. Exactly that.
Mike Hosking said it; " … and nasty, and my word we have gotten nasty in 14 days with online bitching."
He is upset because in 14 days we have got nasty and bitchy? 14 days? Is it 14 years he's been like that?
Lmao !!!!!! Bruised ego hosking after kiwi's slayed him on social media for being an egg.
Maybe he could start a support group 🙂
Start a Give A Little for Mike's ego I say! I'll put in the first cent (or do they allow half-cent donations?)
Next MikieHoskings will be calling for kindness….
seriously though, can’t we get rid of him. Please
twenty years. He was bitchy and nasty while on morning TV in 1998 with his then lover, now wife.
The guy and his now missus were never anything else but nasty and bitchy.
He’s gone behind the paywall on the Herald. Maybe they no longer think he’s quite the crowd-puller they thought?
Mike's so formulaic that it's easy to imagine what his reckons are based on the headline.
Wonder if he writes his own columns these days or just uses the Mike Hosking Bot?
What kind of 'puller' was that?
Did the wind change on Horeskin and he got his own back?
Ah, such a subtle shrinking violet you are, Gabby. (Please don't stop.)
From the Independent Media Institute:
Truth and Propaganda About Coronavirus
"In the early weeks when the virus emerged in Wuhan, the Chinese government neither suppressed evidence nor did their warning systems fail"
Beyond Words
by CRAIG MURRAY, 8 April 2020
Yesterday Mark Sommers QC, the extremely erudite and bookish second counsel for Julian Assange in his extradition hearing, trembled with anger in court. Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser had just made a ruling that the names of Julian Assange’s partner and young children could be published, which she stated was in the interests of “open justice”. His partner had submitted a letter in support of his Covid 19 related bail application (which Baraitser had summarily dismissed) to state he had a family to live with in London. Baraitser said that it was therefore in the interests of open justice that the family’s names be made public, and said that the defence had not convincingly shown this would cause any threat to their security or well-being. It was at this point Sommers barely kept control. He leapt to his feet and gave notice of an appeal to the High Court, asking for a 14 day stay. Baraitser granted four days, until 4pm on Friday.
I am in lockdown in Edinburgh, but received three separate eye witness reports. They are unanimous that yet again Baraitser entered the court carrying pre-written judgements before hearing oral argument; pre-written judgements she gave no appearance of amending.
There have been two Covid-19 deaths in Belmarsh prison so far. For obvious reasons the disease is ripping through the jail like wildfire. The Department of Justice is admitting to one death…
Read more….
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/beyond-words/
Good job he's in solitary confinement, then, and not general population.
People like you sneered at the people locked away in Stalin's and Mao's crackdowns on dissenters.
Will you laugh if he dies?
Only people like you could associate assange with the victims of Mao and Stalin.
Only people like you would laugh at the victims of Mao and Stalin.
Except I don't.
You laugh at the suffering of Julian Assange. I have no doubt that you would also have laughed at the suffering of other dissenters and journalists imprisoned by repressive and anti-democratic regimes.
Or is this contempt for Assange just a one-off?
Logical fallacies
I think you used every single fallacy in this chart during this exchange.
You sneer at the suffering of a political dissenter in Great Britain and callously repeat state-sponsored lies about him. Ergo, you would probably have sneered at the suffering of political dissenters in other brutal regimes and you would have callously repeated state-sponsored lies about them. That’s a reasonable inference, assuming that your behaviour in this case is not bizarrely inconsistent with your normal behaviour.
Your comments on logic are as credible and as thorough as your disparagement of Julian Assange.
Losing credibility in your eyes is a right of passage on the standard and should be taken as a compliment rather than a curse.
Being shamed by Mr Angry from Cheam isn't as bad as you may believe it to be.
But that aside, do carry on with how outrageous it is that a convicted bail jumper didn’t get bail.
You can be sure that I'm not the only one who sees you have little or no credibility. Your lame "Mr Angry from Cheam" quip shows you have little or no SOH, either.
Moz, a few people here agree with you. A few people here agree with The Al1en. That's how a forum works.
I would suggest you get over yourself, but that would be futility exemplified.
You could be right there, McFlock.
Except he's not
That ended some weeks if not months ago
So the campaign to end the isolation 'torture' has put him in more danger. Well done.
No the UK and US govts with the complete endorsement of vast numbers of total plonkers brainwashed by propaganda is what has put Assange in danger of his life
So the covid excuse to get out of jail was just a ruse. Looks like the magistrate called it.
What do you mean when you put the word "torture" in scare quotes? Are you pretending that he is not being tortured? Is that another of your jokes?
I urge other Standard readers to bear in mind The Al1en's sneering contempt for Assange and compare his behaviour to that of the United Nations' Rapporteur on Torture….
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange
The Standard readers are free to bear in mind whatever they want about me, be that my alleged sneering contempt, or whatever else takes their fancy.
It's all good.
No, it's not "all good." Your sneering contempt for this suffering dissident is not "alleged", it's there for posterity.
You've condemned yourself, and your flippant words now can't make it go away.
Yep, it's still all good, as am I.
You're gasping. It's embarrassing.
Logical fallacies
Bingo. lol
You keep saying that, but you have no ability to develop an argument. Why don't you cut your losses and go read a book or something?
I'm not making an argument, I'm replying to your continued usage of logical fallacies, which is easy to do as you're well practiced and predictable with it.
The actual guts of the matter are:
Good job he's in solitary. – Turns out he's not being isolation 'tortured' anymore.
The convicted bail jumper didn't get bail. – No answer.
Excerpts from a February 2020 report on the propaganda war against Assange. UN special rapporteur on torture Melzer "admits that he was himself initially taken in by the propaganda campaign."
You are probably wasting your time on these subservient citizens here Morrissey, they are obviously just a bunch of wannta be camp guards only waiting for the opportunity to prove their worth to their masters, quite disgusting and vile.
Thanks for those kind words, Adrian. Much appreciated.
They're not "kind words", Moz. Far from it, actually.
I'm devastated that your normally astute and utterly reliable analysis of the written word has deserted you on this occasion.
I blame The Al1en for making you angry 😉
ps, Cheam is a very pleasant London suburb, particularly the Eastern portion around the railway cutting.
Hancock's half hour. lol
Stop messing about!
btw, Kenneth Williams used to refer to the regular voice he used in the Hancock shows as 'the Snide'. Doesn't remind me of anyone here at the Standard, of course.
“He's right you know”
How the hell did I miss that reference?!!??!?
Al1en & te reo 1-0 Breen.
It's only half time, Morrissey. I expect you'll give yourself a good talking to in the changing sheds and come out fighting in the second half.
No, you two have got me beat, my friend. Unless I can find a Craig Joubert type to bribe, I haven't got a show.
We've had python and Tony Hancock, so next time we should try Frankie Howard.
Plenty of time for homework, Lurcio.
… next time we should try Frankie Howard. [sic]
Frankie Howerd.
There you go, back in the game, though pointing out a spelling mistake is the football equivalent of getting a corner kick against the run of play.
Mr Trotter having something of a meltdown?
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2020/04/lord-give-us-democratic-socialism-but.html
Yes it's a beauty isn't it? I think he's in mourning lol
or one of the stages of grief
Someone here needs to do a decent response to Trotter.
Hey Mr Trotter try this out:
1. New Zealand now has the most effective democratic socialist government in the entire fucking world Mr Trotter. Best led, best communicated, best response through the public health system, best deployment of policing and social enforcement. And it's not me saying it.
So fuck off with your "thoughts" on democratic socialism. We already have it.
2. This government has just embarked on the largest Keynsean expansion since the Depression, and is going to keep expanding through the May 8th 2020 budget, and through the campaign manifesto, and through the 2021 budget.
The state is going into tens of billions of debt on new projects, is propping up every single waged person with a business who asks for it, and we are now a month away from even more largesse in the budget.
So fuck off with your "… but not yet!"
3. There is a gobsmacking irony of a blogger begging for a lifeline for a physical print of the Listener, when his own personal blog is now the only place the Trotter's own writing is published anywhere. Trotter's own practise of publishing online from many years ago is the clearest evidence that he knew this day was coming and planned for the demise of printed commentary years ago.
If Trotter wanted to he could amass his analogue leftie comrades and buy the Listener masthead from the receivers. But that's won't happen because he's all mouth and no trousers.
And while we are at it, the government is already well underway to strengthen broadcasting under Fa'afoi's plan for RNZ and TVNZ. They are well and truly doing their part already.
So fuck off with your defence of The Listener.
4. Trotter needs to get it out of his head that the government reaction to this recession is going to look the same as the Labour response to the 1930s Depression. That he can't step out of his tragedian pyre and lead something practical in society other than perpetually interviewing his typewriter and adding poorly paralleled historical anecdote, shows how deeply stale his imagination really is.
5. This government is holding the whole of the political order, the whole of society, and the whole of the economy, together right now, through sheer will and debt. They are about to get us through the virus crisis in better health shape than any other developed nation on earth. Overseas commentators are already noticing.
So we can afford to give them a smidgen of a break as we await coherence on the plan to revive our economy.
"If Trotter wanted to he could amass his analogue leftie comrades and buy the Listener masthead from the receivers. But that's won't happen because he's all mouth and no trousers."
Funny you should suggest that, I was wondering why he hadnt proposed the staff purchasing it for the dollar (potential liabilities aside) and running it as a collective (or co operative)…the existing staff would be the best placed to judge its future viability an could potentially secure both their ongoing employment and maintain an independent voice but havnt seen anyone involved propose such.
It still had 30,00 subscribers apparently.
[lprent: 32,000 from memory. ]
If the staff and management dont see a future path to sustainability why would anyone else
thats why command dosnt suit you
[On 26 July 2019, Sam wrote these memorable words:
Link: https://thestandard.org.nz/protect-ihumatao/#comment-1640435.
He now seems to think that he can return here from his self-imposed exile with a blatant troll comment.
Sam is wrong about that.
Banned for a year so that we can all recover from the pandemic and prepare for the election without having to endure his inane troll comments that create more work for Moderators – Incognito]
good grief…its Sam , youre still alive!
See my Moderation note @ 1:42 PM.
does us all a favour. Never come back.
FYI, I’m not on the pay-roll; we’re all volunteers here.
Subscribers really isn't that useful as a measure of utility. Certainly not a measure of how much it is valued by the public for whom it is purportedly doing good.
Consider this site as an alternative ‘risk free rate’ for taxpayers and look at the usage – which is our only measure of subscribers.
According to google analytics this site has had ~23k unique visitors in the last 30 days in ~89k sessions. This excludes almost all of the bots and because it is google has a fairly accurate idea about who is a person even when they jump machines (as I do all of the time)`.
~57k of those sessions were from users who entered the site with more than 15 times over 30 days – ie reading on average about every two days or better on average. ~31k sessions were from users who read the site more than 201 times over that 30 days.About ~26k of the sessions were from users who entered less than 5 times or less.
Average session duration is 6:32 and average pages per session is 3.84. Once you start figuring out the probable times that some people on here, then there is clearly a *lot* of utility.
The last 30 days was up about 1/6th above our recent median. Session times and page counts are slightly elevated.
That was done with a far more amateur level level of writing, no subscription to the site, we don't inflict advertising, and the commenters provide as much writing value as the authors.
Arguably even with all of the low rent comments and the provocative authors, that is a shit load of writing on here. I'd expect that it is of far more volume than The Listener.
The Listener really has to argue on the basis of the quality of its writing.
Quality – who knows? I personally haven't read one in some time – but it hasn't improved much beyond the mostly 'I reckons' writing that we do in blogs, or is common in the daily media, or even around reddit.
Sure there were always nuggets in the mix of waffle. But they weren't worth effort of finding the paper copy, paying for it, and reading it without the opportunity to comment. I certainly wouldn't want to pay for it as taxpayer even when I last read it.
It provided me with no value. If I want to subsidize writers then personally I'd prefer to pay for this ad-free venue – which is mostly what happens. I think that it is of more benefit to many of the people here.
I wouldn't mind being able to subsidizing journalists more. All they have to do is to have it all easily online, largely dump the advertising, separate the opinionists away from the journalism (the former is ideal as a filtered pay per read), and let me subscribe just to the journalism.
Problem is that is very hard to get in NZ media outside of a few mail feeds.
My summary: we’re doing ok but there’s always room for improvement here on TS 😉
And IMHO the Listener was not.
The writing here might be rough as (especially when I write), but in terms of the value that you pay for it is extremely valuable.
For me, I'm happy to spend money for reading material that is better than what we have here. But I didn't feel any sense of value in any of the Baur stable of magazines to outweigh the cost. A different editorial policy may have produced a better material. But they basically needed to change their business model even more – and showed no real signs of doing that.
Can't see a reasons to subsidize them more than any other business as there are others around that market place. The wage subsidy should have been enough to keep them viable if they’d had a business model that would work in the future – which they didn’t. That looks to have been the conclusion of Bauer.
I love it when I read a truly good piece written by a true professional. It’s the same with music, art, or science. When I need to dig too deep and too hard to find that rare gem, it’s not worth my money and even less so my time – actually, I have to work for my money so it all comes down to my time, which I don’t have as much of as I’d like 🙁
Indeed, a good editor is like a good conductor: worth their weight in gold; they can work miracles and turn things into gold but equally, they can fuck up things and turn things to custard.
Good reply to the insufferable Trotter—except for the confidence expressed in Chris Fa'afoi. He's an incompetent minister, if ever there was one.
Morrisey, reasons for your attack on Chris Fafoi?
My assessment of Fa’afoi is based on his hopeless performance when that rogue RNZ board suddenly announced that they planned to liquidate RNZ Concert. Fa'afoi, after guffawing that he did not listen to classical music, then went on to regurgitate their talking points. He clearly had no idea, and was blindsided by Jim Mather and his cronies.
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2020/03/integrating-seamlessly-with-lowest.html
Edit – this got shunted down the list while I was writing it.
I am replying to Ad at 8.2
As a reader of the Listener since the 1970s, I am not entirely convinced by you, Ad.
1) If our system is best in the world, the standard is not very high. Other countries with far greater population density (meaning far more infections) seem to have done better. And you may be counting chickens that have not yet hatched.
2) Partly true, but only in its infancy, and I hope that the Govt has the courage to continue in this vein. Especially if the Righties start criticising this policy, as they will.
3) That is not irony – I see it more as Trotter lamenting the Listener's earlier role. I also remember the Listener and the Auckland Star being the only printed vehicles of real criticism of the disastrous Vietnam War.. There is a lot to be lamented since the Listener got swallowed by the right-wing marketers.
4) Maybe Trotter still has a vision of real social reform, whereas you don't. Or you don't show it very often. Blairite?
5) Fully agree, but one out of five is far from convinced.
I suspect that Trotter is afraid that after we have succeeded in starting to look for coherence on the plan to revive our economy, it will be too late to do any serious social reform.
Ad – do you want any serious social reform?
I am struggling to understand why you are so hostile to Trotter.
I second every single word of your comment, Ad
I can't see that Chris has 'melted down' with this statement though:
"According to Andrew Little’s former Chief-of-Staff, Neale Jones:
“I cannot think of a worse time to implement a UBI than in the middle of this economic crisis. Some of us are doing fine. Others need unprecedented government support just to stay afloat. UBI would spread that support thinner, or quickly spend 10s of billions we may need later."
Meaning Neale has no grasp at all of Keynesian economics. No understanding of the crucial importance of keeping up the level of aggregate demand. No historical grasp of the crucial role spending plays in lifting a nation out of an economic slump. Nor does he understand the practical and moral efficiency of universal, as opposed to means-tested, state support. The massively positive effect of telling every Kiwi: ‘You are important in your own right, not because you’re in need of charity but because you are a citizen of New Zealand.’ Everyone keeps telling us that “we’re all in this together” – a UBI would prove it."
" How did dreary pragmatism become Labour’s default-setting? A full explanation would require a book-length answer. Suffice to say that once a party embraces the fundamental tenets of neoliberalism, anything other than orthodox and cautious policy responses will be treated as the political equivalent of upending a can of petrol over your head and striking a match."
It seems to me that someone (the janitor – it's always the janitor) changed Labour's label to 'socialist' while everyone was at morning tea and no one has the courage to change it back, while the majority of them has no courage either to enact real socialism.
I wonder if Jacinda is banging her head against her desk at the 'dreary pragmatism' that pervades the party. I wonder.
Although perhaps it is the fact that since the 1980s Labour has become a centrist party with neo liberal leanings and that's all there is to it.
Oh well.
isnt a collective real socialism?
Collective is implicitly shared agreement. When it is mandated by those for whom it is convenient it just becomes coercion.
Problem is that I fail to see a point in subsiding a stable of publications that with massive cost-cutting producing what looked like a inaccessible mediocre product and barely managing to hold a subscriber base or a profit level is worth trying to save.
In an economic sense you could easily argue that their mere presence in the marketplace was actually constraining innovation in a failing area. They were holding on to audiences and thereby preventing development of a more viable economic model. As a government, you’d be better off using resources to provide technical infrastructure for writers to try to find a more useful model to build a viable and accessible product in. There are examples around like Newsroom, Spinoff, Evening Report, and even Scoop as well as the online mass media.
Because in the end, unless they figured out a different way to operate, then all of those magazines had been on a ventilator ready to die of technical obsolescence in the market for about a decade. Removing their Bauer DNR wouldn’t have made them last for many more years even if there wasn’t a pandemic at the same time.
dont disagree with that but my point was Mr Trotter was bemoaning a lack of socialism and ignored the most socialist response
Yeah – there are number of fully or semi cooperatives already in that space (as I pointed to). They just don't pay much.
no i dont imagine they do…and it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall should the staff ever attempt it….I could imagine it wouldnt go smoothly.
Trotter doesn't understand economics, or pretends not to. Buying these magazines for a dollar sounds cheap until the losses start to mount. I think he is emotionally attached to the titles and can't bear to see them go.
If there is a profitable market for a right-wing (but pretending not to be) glossy like the Listener, a new magazine will be set-up by somebody using their own money.
It's not the government's job to invest in/take over the media-accusations of manipulation for political ends would follow like night follows day.
Speaking to relatives in Aussie last night , one of whom works for a large retailer (who shall remain unnamed) and the relating of how the social distancing and 'lockdown' is being handled there is an object lesson in why we are correct to minimise the number of retailers that are able to trade.
The complete disregard for the guidelines from both the company and the general public makes a mockery of the process.
Couldn't believe it at pak n save today, waiting in the queue at the checkout, using the marked lines as a distancing guide, and people were pushing their trolleys between the gaps left behind me, completely ruining the purpose of having the lines in the first place. I told a floor supervisor that I realised it's not up to her to police it, but that particular part of the system was broken.
Didn't help that the customer in front of me took out a wad of notes and proceeded to lick his fingers, twice, whilst thumbing through them, and then again before touching the eftpos card he part paid with. Had to warn the checkout kid before she touched this idiot's cash, and patiently waited until she had decontaminated it and the terminal before I could check out, contemplating survival of the fittest v stupid by association.
and pales in comparison in both scale and actions related to me about Victoria last night….Im very pleased our Gov appears to be holding the line as staunchly as it is in the face of considerable pressure
Generally I've been impressed with the supermarkets down here, but then I've been able to time my runs really well, to have shopped at the slowest of times. Today, I had to risk the one day closed hoarders, so maybe the mentality of customers and staff were a bit less focused than of late, especially with the drop off in new cases. Let's hope complacency doesn't creep in and ruin all the good work thus far.
+1
UN Council for Human Rights – China now on the council.
Unbelievable.
Countries with a seat on the council get to oversee and appoint representatives who in turn investigate + report on human rights abuses.
Other council members with this influence include Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Egypt, Nigeria, Venezula, Lybia…more here https://qz.com/1418293/what-countries-are-on-the-un-human-rights-council/
A den of thieves put in charge of the bank. This is the problem when you select for 'equitable representation' than competency.
I thought you generally made sure you were better informed RedLogix. 'A' has reeled off an out of date hit-job and stupidly highlighted China which is not on the Council. Besides, the representatives on the Council are not appointed to represent their countries or any political viewpoint, unlike the Cato Institute or Quartz.
Fair cop.
Two weeks till Business as Usual reconvenes, woohoo!
Government sanctioned "mental illness" will be forgotten, and Cognitive Dissonance in all things will be the name of the game. Project your fears onto anyone weaker than you and aim to take it all!
Hot Tip: don't get caught on the line when the starter pistol fires, not unless you are ready to slash your way through anyone you meet.
Totally – I'm devising a method to gouge the newly-unemployed. Awesome eh? Can't wait.
Domestic tourism = landlords and AirBnB are rubbing their hands with glee. Shame that many campsites have turned into mini- wannabe-Omahas.
I'm feeling lucky to be the recipient of good fortune in several ways. These are: NZ's isolation, a generally competent government that aims to serve the interests of all its citizens not just some, and enough social cohesion to voluntarily observe a lock-down with high levels of compliance. (There are a few peripheral sociopaths like Mike Hosking but that is to be expected)
Therefore I'm not really faced with the fear and rage that clearly prompted this piece from the fabulously civilised RJ Eskow a couple of weeks ago – No – I will not die for this damned economy. He used the word 'damned' advisedly – not as a mere expletive, but in the Biblical sense "this damned economy…and we, the damned who live within it." What we need to emerge from this crisis is an economy that does not damn so many – the odds are we will get one which damns more.
FFS! David Seymour is asking, at the Epidemic committee, why employers including sole traders in receipt of wage subsidies get named publicly, but sole parents etc in receipt of benefits are not publicly named! At about 1hr 15 minutes into the committee today.
I think Sepuloni also said there is a box to tick asking if employer agrees to be named publicly when applying for a subsidy.
The crisis is an opportunity for people to surface any sadistic fantasies they have been harbouring for years.
Seemore Coq doesn't require a crisis.
Why does Seymour get to be on the committee? How does this happen when you only get 1% of the vote?
He represents the only other party in Opposition.
We had some debate about this early on in level 4.
It has now been announced that WOF's, regos and licenses that expired after Jan 1st have been extended for essential travel.
so someone with an expired rego or wof can use their car to drive to the supermarket?
Has NZTA shut down?
No, their regulatory team just have more pressing things to attend to.
so we can still get a rego online and via NZPost?
Are NZPost places still open?
I wouldn't expect quick service, and as the Minister has pointed out, it's unnecessary.
You can order a rego online, doesn't need to be at a Post Shop. Post is still being delivered as far as I can tell. I was just curious if that part of NZTA was still operational or not.
in order to get a rego you need a wof.
in order to get a wof you need to go to a testing station.
so essentially to me it means if you can get a rego because your wof is still valid, go online, get it.
if you need a wof first, don't worry, you can still drive without getting a huge ticket.
Yes, regos still being issued:
Cheers.
Looks like it means private vehicles used by essential workers, or general members of the public using their cars to access essential services.
It also looks like there is some vehicle WOF renewals for essential business vehicles.
See also at ATA.
The Stuff article I linked to in my previous comment says:
Wimbledon and the precautionary principle.
https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/1247933676874334208
Seems the ICs applied the precautionary principle as well….
"As a result, many insurers added exclusions to standard commercial policies for losses caused by viruses or bacteria. Now, the added policy language will potentially allow insurance companies to avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in business-interruption claims because of the covid-19 pandemic."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/02/insurers-knew-damage-viral-pandemic-could-wreak-businesses-so-they-excluded-coverage/
i wonder how well insurers are doing out of the lockdown,say fewer home burglaries,vehicle accidents etc.
true….imagine claims are very quiet…though they will be spending some time explaining the out clauses in business interruption policies I expect.
Insurers in the US respond to cv with refunds and discounts.
With less traffic on the road, there have been fewer accidents and fewer car insurance claims. And the prospect of paying claims is what auto insurance base their rates on. Several car insurance companies have now stepped up to offer their customers refunds. More will likely follow.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/advisor/2020/04/06/car-insurance-companies-start-offering-refunds-because-few-are-driving/#309b43c84350
I suspect these would be mutual insurers.
You know the world is in turmoil when insurance companies start giving money away
Over the past couple of weeks various voices have said "Let's be Sweden"!
Latest: Sweden 696 deaths. New Zealand 1.
That wouldn't deter 'various voices', but how's the Swedish stock exchange doing?
What'ye expect?
Now 793-1
Fuck, I love NZ.
Ministry of health tweet on exercise in isolation. Informative and funny.
I love that walking stick. A bit of fun poked at our walking fraternity and sorority. Prepared for anything…..
so good.
Some have been published on media for not hearing the result of their tests for many days afterwards. The explanation includes the fact that results are fed back to whoever authorised the test such as the doctor.
If the test is positive the victim is informed straight away and followup action taken.
If the result is negative then the lesser urgency will be in the hands of the doctor to inform. Maybe too busy but must be anxious wait for the victim though the longer the wait the more likely all is well.
Heh, just like when you get tested for STDs, if you all clear you usually don't get notified (check your online hub thing), only if you positive will they be in touch (& not a call you want, obviously).
So closing down flights from China didn’t save thousands of lives.
Coronavirus in New York came mainly from Europe, studies show.
New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February, weeks before the first confirmed case, and that it was brought to the region mainly by travelers from Europe, not Asia.
“The majority is clearly European,” said Harm van Bakel, a geneticist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who co-wrote a study awaiting peer review.
A separate team at N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine came to strikingly similar conclusions, despite studying a different group of cases. Both teams analyzed genomes from coronaviruses taken from New Yorkers starting in mid-March.
http://archive.li/Ek2U9 (nyt)
Latest graph of modelling for CV19 shows just what NZ has avoided:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/covid-19/413885/lockdown-could-eliminate-covid-19-new-nz-research
Science, huh.
https://twitter.com/AshleyBurkeCBC/status/1247925285565145090
"Coronavirus: Greenkeepers granted exemption for maintenance work after Easter"
And about bloody time. Golf Greens and Bowling Greens can be destroyed and take years to recreate if they aren't very carefully maintained. Why did it need Grant Robertson to do the bloody obvious. You don't need to allow people to play but a green keeper can work in isolation and preserve the painstakingly cared for lawns.
They are far more fragile and harder to repair than most Council owned parks and sports grounds. Mowing of those seems to have been allowed throughout.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/golf/120948493/coronavirus-greenkeepers-fume-as-jacinda-ardern-defends-delay-in-exemption-request
You know the government is doing a great job when rich rightwing fuckwits can only find golf greens to attack them about.
Your KDS is showing. He plays golf doesn't he?
The membership of the average golf club is quite typical of the whole New Zealand population. And New Zealand is one of the cheapest places to play golf in the world. A full playing membership at Inglewood, which is a pretty little course near New Plymouth is only about $500/year. The Waitara Golf Club, also near New Plymouth is even cheaper at $350/year.
Royal Wellington and Royal Auckland and Grange excluded of course.
Do't be such a bigoted little prat.
Tut tut, alwyn. I sail, and my yearly sub is only $120. I probably spend less on my boat (which I bought with trailer for $2,500 in 1987) than you spend on clubs and lost golf balls (sorry to be rude.)
Your altruistic concern for the well-being of golfing greens is rather amusing.
But there we are. I get mad when stupid but well-meaning people plant trees near the lake I sail on, and ruin the wind after the tree has grown.
$2,500! For a boat? It sounds as if you bought one of Paul Allen's cast offs.
I am, I admit, an unusual golfer (or should I say a former golfer). I played for about 48 years and only ever owned two sets of clubs. I bought the first set in the late 60's for the grand sum of $100. The second set was purchased in about 1996 for rather more, but I would still be under the cost of your boat. Golf balls are quite cheap. You can get perfectly suitable golf balls for about $2.00 each.
https://www.golfwarehouse.nz/collections/golf-balls/products/srixonad333whitegolfballsv8-4dozen
Most people I know spent rather more. Almost every golfer lives with the dream that if they buy the latest driver they will be able to hit their drives out to about the 280 metre mark. I was always a realist. I might have admired the skills of Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods but I was never under the illusion that I could play like them.
Aye, and I am foolishly still trying to sail a teenager's one-man racing skiff, because when I get a few good rides, it beats being on every big expensive lead-swinging keelboat that ever sailed.
As a matter of interest, what were your average subs for belonging to a club?
I sailed a P class when I was very young. In my 20's we bought a Javelin. That was great fun, although we always thought we should fly the letter flag "D" when we were out. For those who don't sail it means "Keep clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty".
I had to give up playing 5 years ago so my knowledge of subs is a bit out of date..
When I was a child I had a dose of a much nastier virus than Cofid 19. It appeared I had fully recovered from it but it turns out you never do. About half the people like me get problems many years later and my walking was affected so I gave up playing. I believe a full playing membership at the last club I belonged to is about $1250/year. You can play all day, every day of the year for that. That would be typical of city clubs I should say.
I was thinking more of you bringing petty nitpicking shit here. The government was made aware there was a problem and rightly assessed that a green keeper can probably work alone safely.
My patience has run out with pathetic moaning morons .
Self loathing must be a terrible affliction. My sympathy for your suffering.
Aren't poor people allowed to play golf? Far canal.
Have any golf courses or bowling greens been destroyed thus far? If not, what's the problem? Lots of people are waiting to get their privileges back, it takes time for processes to be worked through.
Golf courses, bowling greens, rugby fields and other expanses of manicured lawn are ring-worm patches on the body of Mother Earth
Lol. I still like to lie on my lawn, and I can see the potential of permaculture cricket pitches and rugby fields. But holy shit, there's a reason there are no organic golf courses. I'm guessing bowling greens might be similar?
Thirty seconds in tRump says that he wants the US economy to collapse.
https://twitter.com/gaslitnation/status/1237785570815938560
'Murica
https://twitter.com/mbaram/status/1247597527987339269
He's jist plannin' to shoot some cans.
Mexicans. Puerto Ricans. Jamaicans …
Ginning up the poors.
https://twitter.com/KeriLeighMerrit/status/1030516134485925888.
Americans? Not sure if he can!
Undoubtedly he'd be delighted to if they're African ones.
Anglicans
Nope – none there!
The Episcopal Church, USA, is the official organization of the Anglican Communion in the United States.
If Singapore can't keep this under control then I doubt we'll be ending lockdown anytime soon.
https://twitter.com/ChorzempaMartin/status/1247893963639386117
ulp
I understood that Singapore was initialy relying on phone apps and the internet to do a lot of the tracing work and they found out a bit too late that it wasn't very successful, as Dr Bloomfield said a few days ago a phone can't do the job that a thorough face to face ( at 2 metres I presume ) interview can. Just exactly how many crimes would be solved with a little chat on line or a few texts. Sweet fuck all.
I think Singapore tried to move too quickly and were reliant on the phone technology. Furthermore being an island about the size of Lake Taupo and with over 5m people isolating is far more difficult. I'm not sure just what restrictions they have in place wrt new arrivals, but a large proportion of their workforce in terms of amah, and construction workers are from the Philippines, India, and Malaysia.
The place is as tight as a drum and aside from Malaysians, guest workers are required to live in licensed foreign worker dormitories. They've issued new guidelines for residents including guest workers, and shut the door on most returnees.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will only allow the entry / return of work pass holders, including their dependents, for those providing essential services, such as in healthcare and transport.
https://www.gov.sg/article/covid-19-travel-restrictions-for-foreign-visitors-entering-singapore
yep – and I see that a good proportion of the new cases are in those worker dormitories. Mind you a lot of the wealthy families have live in house maids etc _ I can't see them giving up their amahs so easily
Well this is interesting. Overseas buyer’s interest in the Pacifica apartment building is up 200% because of favourable reaction to the government’s Covid-19 response. Both expats and foreign buyers (this development has an exemption for foreign buyers) have registered an interest.
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/37795
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqIbEHNqbPs&feature=youtu.be
It appears that there is some appetite to change the paradigm….Kate Raworth style
"The port of Amsterdam is the world’s single largest importer of cocoa beans, mostly from west Africa, where the labour is often highly exploitative.
As an independent private company it could reject such products and take the economic hit, but at the same time almost one in five households in Amsterdam qualify for social benefits due to low incomes and savings.
Van Doorninck says the port is looking at how it moves on from dependence on fossil fuels as part of the city’s new vision, and she expects that to naturally evolve into a wider debate over other pressing dilemmas brought to the forefront by the doughnut model.
“It gives space to talk about whether you want to be the place where products are being stored that are produced by child labour or by other forms of labour exploitation,” she says."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/amsterdam-doughnut-model-mend-post-coronavirus-economy
This is outright malice.
https://twitter.com/npratc/status/1247988083376549888
WASHINGTON — Although President Donald Trump has directed states and hospitals to secure what supplies they can, the federal government is quietly seizing orders, leaving medical providers across the country in the dark about where the material is going and how they can get what they need to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
Officials who've had materials seized also say they've received no guidance from the government about how or if they will get access to the supplies they ordered. That has stoked concerns about how public funds are being spent and whether the Trump administration is fairly distributing scarce medical supplies
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/04/08/hospitals-across-us-say-feds-are-seizing-masks-and-other-coronavirus-supplies-without-a-word/
Feds are chucking in the towel and repugs are lemmings
https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1248062198922051584
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1248060581107679243
This looks like good news (haven't typed that phrase in a while!):
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanrhe/article/PIIS2665-9913(20)30092-8/fulltext
It's based on unpublished data, so has to be taken with a chunk of salt. But, if; the IL6 cytokine is predominantly involved in SARS-COV-2 pneumonia, then an IL6 receptor blocker being of use in preventing that, does make a certain amount of sense on the face of it.
After all, it doesn't really matter if people are infected with the Crow, just so long as you can stop them suffocating on their own body!
Except that the more replications of a virus, the more chances for mutations. DNA is more stable than RNA.