But on a more serious note..it's interesting to note that your so called defenders of Democracy in the Ukraine today, both the USA and the UK were both supporters of that Fascist, Franco..even when they were fully aware of all of his atrocities…
…but then we are talking about the same two countries, the USA and the UK, that supported the Pol Pot after The Killing Fields for fucks sake…
So yes it turns out that history does repeat.. maybe hop off that high horse you and others seem to think you are riding on over there Jenny, and just remember who you are actually getting into bed with… this saying old saying comes to mind…you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.
"… We are here to talk about the facts. the fact is Russia is winning this war decisively, we can go through the metrics all you want."
" I have huge amount of experience in this. I have been studying military maps all my life. And I am telling you right now, whatever metric you put up there, Russia has won this war hands down and they are in the process of, I believe, of wrapping up one of the most stunning military victories in modern history."
Good grief !
How can anyone have their head so far up their arse, that they are not be able to appraise themselves of the real situation?
Russia is staring down the barrel of a catastrophic military defeat in Ukraine. How can this possibly be disputed?.
Scott Ritter needs to look up from his military maps take off his narrow militaristic blinkers and look around at the actual situation.
Russian forces have become bogged down in Ukraine.
Following its stalled military advance, Russia has turned to terrorist tactics honed in Syria and Chechnya of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Missiles do not win wars. Soldiers on the ground do, they always have. Who ever climbs out of the rubble to hold the ground will win this war.
The Zylensky government is conducting a mass evacuation of its civilian population, and preparing for a long war. Russia cannot win a long war.
The longer the war continues. The longer the anti-war protests in Russia refuse to be crushed. The longer the body bags keep coming. And as long as brave individuals continue to speak up.
No matter how much blood and treasure Russia spends, Russia can not win this war. No matter how much slaughter and destruction is done, it will only harden the Ukraine will to resist, and turn the world and the Russian public against them.
Pretty much. Idiot reads 'maps'. Wars are not won on maps they are won with logistics and being able to hold strategic objectives.
The Russian army has failed at both. Which is why this will be a long grinding war of attrition.
I was surprised at how much the defense in depth vs offensive attack questions have been answered in this war. This has been a military question going on for the last 25 odd years.
But until now, there really hasn't been a good test of resonably modern anti-armour and anti-air missiles vs tank armies. Turns out that defense beats attack in that circumstance.
Now the only realistic Russian strategies left are either to have atrocities against civilians with artillery and bombardment missiles – hopingvto push Ukraine to negoitiate. Or to use chemical biological or nuclear weapons to attempt to take even more devestated cities with less casualties to do the same.
Queue more Russian atrocities with lots of bullshit 'explanations' provided to the credulous fools like Adrian. I believe those about as much as I believed the intelligence about WMD in Iraq in 2003.
The opposite view to Ritter is put by this guy here:
Honestly I cannot quite make up my mind here – because there is also good reason to think that Putin is willing to go into siege mode and grind his way slowly across Ukraine, town after town, village after village and slowly strangle the cities. It could take a year or more. The occupied zone would be either abandoned by Ukrainians fleeing or those trapped behind mopped up by internal security forces. There would be no need for a large occupying army, because civilian resistance would be liquidated. Boundless cruelty means nothing to Putin. At the end of it the only people alive in Ukraine would be Russian sympathisers.
Moldova would be taken in a long weekend. Or perhaps longer if they run out of fuel again. But then what?
Winning Ukraine means Putin faces being hard up against NATO in Finland, the Baltic states, Poland and Romania and he still has not achieved his strategic goal of creating a defendable state. By then Europe will have achieved full economic decoupling, and Russia will have extended his military to the maximum – even with a full draft. Their economy will shrink so much they won't even qualify to be in the G20 anymore. Millions more of their youngest and brightest will seek ways to escape the country.
All they will have left is their nukes – and that is the great danger here. Not a strong Russia, but one so reduced politically, economically and morally by a long, bloody war they really will face the existential threat they have so long feared.
This is why it is crucial to stop Russia in Ukraine – to convince their military that it is impossible to win their strategic goals and force a retreat or a hopeless stalemate. The goal is a delicate balancing act that defeats Putin without necessarily defeating Russia itself.
Pretty much confirms my assertion that Russia cannot win a long war. i.e. Russia is on a hiding to nowhere.
That the world's most powerful Superpower recent defeat in Afghanistan, America's longest war ever. And the US defeat in Vietnam and the draw in Korea emphasise this fact.
The Russian leaders need to enter into a serious peace negotiation with the Ukrainians now. Starting with ceasefire during the negotiations to show good faith.
Will they do it?
Historical turning points like this often hinges on the personality of one or two leading individuals. in this case the Russian leader, one Vladimir Putin.
Will Putin go for it, and try and talk up a negotiated settlement into some sort of victory, as this commentator suggests he should?
Personally my hopes are not high, and the war will grind on.
While the Putin regime looks unlikely to back down at this stage.
I truly wish you would be proven correct Jenny. It is Putin and Putin alone who holds the power to end this without unthinkable suffering.
But all the evidence tells us that he has become possessed by an ideology, that Russia stands alone against a perverse, homosexual, nazi, liberal world of western degenerates. And in this noble, homophobic war he must cleanse Europe to make the world safe for Russia. Alexsander Dugin built the intellectual framework, Putin has sold it to Russia.
As with all totalitarian ideas Dugin starts with a small grain of truth, and then excludes all other considerations to erect monumental insanity. In this view if the mass of Russian's embrace this view, the outlook is dark indeed
But events have a way of eluding all prediction Jenny – there is no sense to indulge in despair.
Not " whattaboutism" just a couple of actual facts…do you people remember what they are?….but then again they are of probably no interest or use to you now that you have so honorably and selflessly “picked a side” I guess?
It’s like you have seamlessly transitioned from your ‘Post Ideology’ world to a Post Fact world…impressive.
Though to be honest, I don’t believe either will age that well…
If my memory is correct New Zealand still recognised Pol Pot as the "legitimate" government of Cambodia after the Vietnamese invaded and kicked his arse to the kerb – we didn't want to upset China
A term created to extract western warmongers from the difficult position of having done All The Bad Things they accuse others of doing. When someone uses it on you, it means you just killed their argument and exposed their moral bankruptcy.
Some of us feel it necessary to remind others of the sickening hypocrisy and double standards being applied and the methods being used to shut down debate. I haven't seen anyone here justifying atrocities but that accusation is being used to shut down the conversation. But it is very important to be able to put context into the discussion.
I think everyone here wants the ICC to have the teeth it needs to look into every war crime, gather evidence to prosecute, and bring every war criminal to the dock. Reading some comments, I'm not entirely sure. But we all know the US hostility to the ICC.
In ideal world, the USA would pursue it's own war crimes as vigorously as they do the suspected criminal behavior of others, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. If only they could occupy the moral high ground and have that strength to preach to others.
Julian Assange wouldn't be rotting in a cell and the collateral murderers would be facing justice.
The Pentagon would find that the killers of the 10 Afghan civilians last year (including 7 children) didn't make 'an honest mistake' and someone would be charged with, at least, careless use of a drone to commit manslaughter. “It was an honest mistake,” said the Pentagon. “But it’s not criminal conduct, random conduct, negligence.” How many honest mistakes have they made, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths in drone strikes? does anyone see a pattern here?
The My Lai anniversary was on March 16th and I think this horrific massacre passed by without a single mention in any New Zealand or other western media I've read. It that because it doesn't suit the current narrative? or is it something that the world has just forgotten. I'd be fairly certain that most 20-30 year-olds couldn't tell you the meaning of My Lai, and that's tragic.
Chris Trotter hasn't forgotten and I salute him for this article, which has also been published in the Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star
In ideal world, the USA would pursue it's own war crimes
At the very least the US and the West have extensively documented their own crimes and some offenders have indeed been brought before domestic courts.
Omitting the Abu Ghraib/Bagram torture and prisoner abuse mob:
Robert Bales.
Clint Lorance
John E. Hatley
Eddie Gallagher
Donald Ball,
Dustin Heard
Evan Liberty
Nicholas Slatten
Paul Slough
Marshall L. Magincald
Trent D. Thomas
Robert B. Pennington
Melson J. Bacos
Jerry E. Shumate
John J. Jodka
Tyler A. Jackson
Jason Finley
Andrew Holmes
Michael Wagnoner
Jeremy Morlock
Adam Winfield
Now, do Russia.
passed by without a single mention
As did Srebrenica in 1995, the British suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, the Rwanda genocide of 1994 and the tortured, murdered and disappeared of Chile, Argentina and the wider Central/South America.
I guess that you can point to the cases where the current Russian Federation has supported the ICC in examining Russian conflicts (afghanistan, chechyna, georgian, syria or any of their post-soviet conflicts) and even post-Yugoslavia cases?
You are curiously one eyed in your claims and arguments. They always wind up as Americia bad, and noone else much is mentioned – except in relation to the US.
Of course every one who reads knows about the absolute hostility of the Russian Federation to any of the workings of the ICC.
Just as they know that the US refuses the ICC jurisdiction over US military. But who has assisted in bringing non-US military to the Hague.
Please note the distinction between the two positions.
As for Mai Lai – what was the result of the courts martial over that? Have you never looked at that?
Compare that to the medals ceremonies for Russia soldiers after massacres. Chechyna and Syria in particular.
As a client state of the US, New Zealand also supported Pol Pot. The logic being employed by our respective governments, – 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' The enemy of the US hegemon and its allies, including NZ, of the time was Vietnam, which was also an enemy of the Pol Pot regime.
But we were not the only ones to support Pol Pot, Noam Chomsky, the darling of the Alt-Left and Tankies everywhere, also supported Pol Pot. Anyone can make a mistake I suppose, and supporting a genocidal regime is a big one. But doing it a second time?
But on a more serious note..it's interesting to note that your so called defenders of Democracy in the Ukraine today, both the USA and the UK were both supporters of that Fascist, Franco….
I have never claimed that both the USA and the UK are my defenders of Democracy.
In my life I have protested against the US during the war in Vietnam,
During the 'Troubles' I joined a protest occupation of the UK consul offices in Auckland against the UK occupation of Northern Island. I have been a life long opponent of imperialism of all kinds.
It is interesting Adrian that you bring up the fact that the US and the UK were at different times both supporters of the Franco regime. So were Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy.
At another time and place, it is somewhat analogous to the West's support of the Assad regime, It is on the record that at another time Tony Blair lobbied to get Bashar Assad a British Knighthood. And that Assad and his family were close friends of the British Royal family, Assad being the only sitting Middle East leader ever to overnight in the Buckingham palace as the Queen's guest. That it was well known, Assad's appalling human rights record. narrowly prevented Assad getting his Knighthood from the British establishment.
Things soured somewhat between Western imperialism and Assad at the outbreak of the Arab Spring in Syria. But the West did not step in on the side of the regime to crush the popular revolt against Assad, as they have done in so many other countries, leaving a space for the rising revanchist Russian imperialists to do so.
If we are going to make comparisons with the past.
I would compare Russia's intervention in Syria, to Germany's intervention in Spain.
I would compare Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to Germany's invasion of Poland.
Both aspiring superpowers who were/are challenging the existing imperial division of the world, were emboldened in Europe by their rivals lack of interest in stopping their overseas interventions in Syria and Spain.
Another comparison I would make to imperialist interventions of the past would be to the Vietnam War to Ukraine. The Vietnam defeated the American imperialists, just as Ukraine is defeating the Russian imperialists.
I think the problem here Adrian, is that you are so blinded by your hatred of US UK imperialism that you can't recognise the fact that imperialism has been and is practiced by other countries.
Even little ol' New Zealand.
New Zealand was once known as "The Prussia of the South Seas" for our colonial practices toward our Pacific Island neighbours.
At the outbreak of the First World War New Zealand navy raced Australia to take possession of the German colony of Samoa. (England and France being otherwise engaged). Once in full control of Samoa, New Zealand, practices a form of colonial oppression rivaling anything practiced by bigger imperial powers, including mass detention and massacre of the Samoan people.
What you fail to realise Adrian is that the trend to imperialism and colonial expansion is endemic to all capitalist economies.
It is widely accepted that capitalist economies must have growth.
Without growth capitalist economies go into recession and decline.
Expansion or decline.
To escape this vice and maintain growth economies, big nations expand to take over more and more resources and markets, often in competition with other big countries, smaller nations like New Zealand or defeated nations like Japan unable to practice imperialism on their own, have to tie themselves to the war wagon of bigger winning imperial powers like the US.
Until we can achieve a steady state economy, rival imperial blocs will keep butting up against each other.
Until we can achieve a steady state economy we will keep exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet.
I think your mistake Adrian is that you are partisan to one side, instead of being opposed to all imperialisms.
…..maybe hop off that high horse you and others seem to think you are riding on over there Jenny, and just remember who you are actually getting into bed with… this saying old saying comes to mind…you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas….
"Lay down with dogs get up with fleas”, Eh Adrian? Maybe you need to closely examine some of the fleas that you (figuratively) 'lay down with" ?
…..Alexei Milchakov is a St Petersburg neo-Nazi who moved from decapitating puppies and calling on fellow Neo-Nazis to kill down-and-outs back in Russia to torturing Ukrainian soldiers in Donbas as part of a formation called ‘Rusich’…..
…… members of mainly European and Russian far-right and neo-Nazi parties. Now the two men are valued ‘instructors’ at a camp under the patronage of former ‘prime minister of the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’, Alexander Borodai. .
..Milchakov was among the militants who posted videos of themselves, for example, cutting off the ear of one of their victims. The videos have all been removed from YouTube due to their monstrous content, however copies will certainly have been retained and, like the photos here, will hopefully receive appropriate assessment from the International Criminal Court.
European fascists fighting in Syria alongside regime forces, Sepah Pasdaran and Hezbollah
February 11, 2014
A rare article by Leila Shrooms from the Tahrir International Collective Network [1] lists a number of fascist and far-right nationalist groups and organisations from across Europe that have been openly supporting the Syrian regime, whether by going to fight in Syria, raising funds or organising pro-regime demonstrations. These include:
– the National Front in France
– Forza Nuova and CasaPound in Italy
– Golden Dawn and Black Lilly in Greece
– the British National Party in the UK
– the National Rebirth of Poland, Falanga and All Polish Youth in Poland.
…..Shrooms attributes this rather bizarre phenomenon to a number of factors:
– Anti-imperialist or anti-globalist nationalist sentiments (they believe the Assad regime is fighting against US imperialism);
– Anti-semitism (they believe the Assad regime is fighting against Israel, their “age-old foe”);
– Islamophobia (they believe the Assad regime is fighting against Islamist extremists); and
– Twisted concerns about growing Arab and Muslim migration to Europe, where fascists in a number of countries have been protesting against and harassed Syrian refugees.
“All of these beliefs,” Shrooms adds, “rest on fallacy and an uncritical perpetuation of [the Syrian] regime narratives. They are also positions shared (although without the racist element) by sections of the [European] left.”
The soup war boiled over into social media this year, when @Russia (the official Twitter account for the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) tweeted: “A timeless classic, #Borsch is one of Russia’s most famous & beloved #dishes & a symbol of traditional cuisine”.
To the average Twitter skimmer, Russians broadcasting about borsch may seem obvious and innocuous, but for Ukrainians, who consider borsch to be their national dish, the Russian tweet is wartime propaganda, especially considering the current occupation of Crimea and the latest territorial conflict in eastern Ukraine that’s been raging since 2014. The Ukrainian Twittersphere responded with anger and humour, with comments like “As if stealing Crimea wasn’t enough, you had to go and steal borsch from Ukraine as well”.
News editor Marina Ovsyannikova's denouncing of the war in Ukraine on live TV has highlighted a steady stream of resignations from Russia's state-run media……
……Her protest follows a steady but quiet stream of resignations from journalists at Russian media organisations.
According to the BBC, just hours after Ovsyannikova's act, resignation details emerged of three more journalists who had quit. It was revealed Channel One employee Zhanna Agalakova quit as Europe Correspondent while journalists Lilia Gildeyeva and Vadim Glusker quit rival station NTV.
RT, formally known as Russia Today, has also seen a string of high profile resignations with former chief editor Maria Baronova, former London correspondent Shadia Edwards-Dashti and Moscow-based journalist Jonny Tickle all resigning after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
French RT presenter Frédéric Taddeï also resigned saying it was because France was "in open conflict" with Russia.
Adrian 'Stream' and 'Steady Stream' do not negate each other.
You are just nit-picking, Adrian. You are unable to challenge the the main point of my comment and links, which is, that many Russian newscasters despite their salaries and threats to their freedom, can't stomach the vile pro-war propaganda they have to churn out, on pain of 15 year detention in a labour camp.
P.S.
Adrian, If you have ever had to write a Newspaper headline then you would know you have to economise on words. Because of this many headlines are often cryptic. Another thing, Headlines are often not written by the journalist who wrote the report, but the Editor they handed it to for publication. Sometimes it is even the compositor, if it is a for a hard copy journal.
By not addressing or disputing the main point you are only making a fool of yourself.
For those of you who haven't heard it yet, the marcabre, yet incredibly catchy Ukranian song (with English Subtitles) eulogising the exploits of the Bayraktar drone in the Ukranian conflict. Trigger warning: contains lots of drone video of things exploding.
I saw a video of residents of captured Kherson singing this song at the Russian occupiers as an act of defiance.
NZH piece looking at burnout in the health system,
But the problem of overwork doesn't stop at the executive ranks. Doctors, nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals have all expressed concern about the amount of pressure they face on a daily basis.
"Burnout is a key issue," says Cheng.
…
"There's no easy fix here. You can't just bump wages up overnight."
Even though restrictions are lifting around the country, the pandemic is not yet over – and if anything, the pressure on healthcare staff will only grow as the country shifts to a system reliant on personal responsibility.
"Covid is far from over, despite what people are saying. There could be a resurgence and there will be new variants."
These developments will again heap pressure on the already-stretched healthcare staff on the verge of burnout.
not as bare as it's going to be if our medical staff get PTSD and burnout and we don't have enough to run our hospitals, medical centres and old people's homes.
Our hospitals, medical centres and rest homes have always relied upon the free flow of health professionals and associated caregivers from the asia pacific region and around the world.
It is and was one of the greatest failures of our COVID response that this flow of outstanding people was turned off.
It appears the pay restraint guidelines to June 21 still apply.
"On 28 April 2020 the Public Service Commissioner issued guidance on the application of pay restraint through to June 2021 following a Cabinet decision that visible pay restraint in the public sector was an appropriate response to the impact of COVID-19."
If so, key principle 2.5 still operates.
"Address acute recruitment and retention issues that are creating risks to frontline service delivery. Initiatives in this area should be of limited scale."
They could I guess update the guidelines, but looks like that would need Cabinet say so. Weird how Cabinet hasn't given health worker pay guidelines separate from the rest to acknowledge the obvious extra effort required of them in the Covid pandemic. Seems to me that would be "an appropriate response to the impact of COVID 19."
"On 28 April 2020 the Public Service Commissioner issued guidance on the application of pay restraint through to June 2021 following a Cabinet decision that visible pay restraint in the public sector was an appropriate response to the impact of COVID 19."
Health and housing are both not doing well and both are vital for well being.
Health is probably easier to fix. Free training for nurses and a 50% discount for doctors. Increasing salaries by 10% and recruiting more qualified nurses and doctors from overseas. The Medical Council has outdated methods in accepting some registration of qualified doctors from overseas even when they have worked in Britain or the US.
Exhausted medical staff is close to slave labour.
Preventative programs could work such as free visits to the GP for some medical conditions . I realise the shortage of GPs is also a concern.
I popped a comment the other day about 'moral injury, classically experienced by soldiers now common amongst health professionals.
Folk caught in a double or triple bind. Conflicting pressures, trying to serve/advocate for a patient against time, staffing and resource short-comings.
Burn out has the sound of the victim lacking resilience or another deficiency. Moral injury puts the cause where it belongs: at the feet of a broken system. No matter your ability, an individual will not change a not-fit-for-purpose beauracracy.
Once again I plead for Little's health reforms to reject this neo-liberal, sub-contracting business model of running our hospitals.
More money doesn't fix burnout. What fixes burnout is more staff.
I don't see the current DBH structure (which is hyper-focused on the coming re-organization) doing anything about increasing base-line staffing levels.
More money will do little to help the current burnt-out workforce – though it may help reduce the risk of our health professionals deciding that 20+% higher salaries in Australia are a much better option.
What I think needs to happen:
Immediate recruitment drive for health professionals here in NZ (including permanent residents and people here on other visas. Guaranteed PR residence with minimal hoops to leap through would be the biggest carrot.
Overseas recruitment drive for medical professionals. Again guaranteed PR is the big carrot. Need to also free up the blockage which is the medical council preventing recognition of qualifications. Let them work under supervision for the first year – and require retraining if it proves clinically necessary. Importantly, this needs to *not* be tied to a firm job offer – we just need the pool of professionals here. If that means that 80% of the immigration places go to health professionals – I can live with that.
DHBs requiredto staff to fully cover annual and sick leave – with a buffer for emergencies. This should absolutely include stopping the frankly dangerous practice of rostering junior doctors on 12-18 hour shifts. It should also cover senior doctor supervision 24/7 (not 'on call' actually on site). I expect that this will require active monitoring by the Health Department, and penalties for non-compliance (imposed on the senior management and/or the boards). This may require increased salaries (especially for hard to staff areas) and removal of some of the penny-pinching and staff unfriendly practices which have been imposed over the last 20 years (I could give chapter and verse, but will refrain)
This would get us through the next 5 years.
In parallel. We need to step up the training and qualification of medical professionals (in the widest possible sense) in NZ. Whatever it takes, including, but not limited to: Direction to the universities to double or triple the doctor intake; making nursing fees-free; allowing student loans to be forgiven for medical professions who remain in NZ (and at an an increased rate for hard to staff areas), etc.
NZ needs to grow our own medical professionals, rather than rely on importing them.
After 5 years we should be able to cover entry level places (and then scale back immigration). After 10-15 years we should only need to import for highly specialized or unique skill sets (e.g. a paediatric oncologist from Boston Children's Hospital – who happens to want to immigrate to NZ)
the article I linked to says they can't recruit, and they can't stop people leaving, because workers can get better wages and salaries overseas. In a pandemic, the countries paying decently will get the staff. That's not us. So money is intrinsically linked to burnout. Which was the point of my comment. Why can't we raise rates and then do all the retention and recruiting things you suggest.
will also point out that staff burnout and PTSD internationally means there is a smaller pool to draw on. We should be doing whatever we can to retain our current health workforce.
And while I'm here, improving work conditions (including pay) so that people want to do aged and disability care etc is an urgent necessity as well.
I don't disagree with more money. I'm just pointing out that it's only the first step.
More money doesn't fix the people who are burnt out now.
And it doesn't fix the culture at the DHB (expressed over the last 20 years) of never hiring enough staff – and using bureau/agency staff to cover gaps. That's not a bad emergency solution, but it's a shockingly-bad one to be using routinely (which they have been).
As far as recruitment goes, money isn't everything. Sorting out the appallingly bad practice (and reputation) of NZ Immigration would be high up there. Newspaper articles about skilled migrants who are being knocked back on PR status by Immigration NZ over relatively petty bureaucratic concerns do us no favours on the international stage.
And, of course (it all circles back) housing in NZ is a critical concern. People coming from overseas want to 'settle' – they want their own home, and to pay a reasonable price for it. Living costs are high on the list of factors that immigrants consider.
It probably would feel humiliating for some overseas doctors to not have their registration recognised by the Medical Council. Fluency in English could be a barrier for some and tuition for this needs to be available.
NZ offers courses for international students to do nursing. Reduce the fee by 50% if they work in NZ for 3 years once they are registered.
Attrition rates in NZ due to burnout has now become serious. No one wants to spend their day off needing to stay in bed or be kept up at night worrying if there will be enough nurses on the next shift, as seen on the Sunday programme last week.
My preference would be to train more people permanently in New Zealand but it is retaining the trained nurses which is the problem. The only way to retain is comparable wages and working conditions with the country's where our trained nurses flock to.
I think it's more than humiliating. It looks as though the Medical Council is deliberately feather-bedding – to protect the status/salaries of their members.
Yup, only a dimwit would expect a dim-witted reply, LOL. Yes, indeed, you’re demonstrably responsible for “the Government's profligacy”, which is exactly what I said. \sarc
Ross, learn to read, then read to learn, about politics, economy, government, and other important stuff that we discuss here on TS and then come back here with useful contributions.
Out of morbid curiosity, do you think that all of that $51 million has been a complete waste and none of the work undertaken can and will ever be used for anything else? Do you know exactly what it paid for? Do you now that planning costs money? Do you know that it doesn’t involve just little sketches on a napkin and calculations on the back of an envelope? Do you know, Ross?
Stupid maybe, but at least it was an honest assessment of a Labour candidate winning in Tauranga in any election and especially in the current climate.
Even in an outstandingly historic landslide for Labour – which resulted in an outright majority government – she was unable to defeat the National candidate.
The difference between the Labour List result and her personal vote tally indicates that it was Ardern who was popular, not Tinetti.
Now that the gloss is off Ardern (not arguing the reasons and/or fairness of this – but it's the reality) – Tinetti will do a lot worse than she did in 2020. Especially as, historically, electorates use by-elections to punish the government.
Luckily, I can tell the difference between cannot and unlikely. Only a fatalistic fool would throw in the towel before the match and give up the fight as fait accompli, as that would indeed be fucking stupid. Luckily, Parker and Ardern are more politically savvy than you are.
In any case, whether Labour thinks it has a show of winning or not – they should be using the by-election to test out policies on the electorate – just as Act will be (and I'd hope the Greens would be, too).
Notably the poll either doesn't ask (or the results haven't been released), the question 'which party/candidate would you vote for in the coming by-election'?
Voters (as seen in Epsom) vote strategically. Unless the ACT candidate has a stratospheric rise in polls over the next few weeks, most people are going to think that it would be a wasted vote, since he doesn't have a chance. ACT will be using the by-election to bolster their presence as a party – with an eye on 2023. The Greens should be doing the same, as should Labour – especially as Ardern has effectively ruled out a real challenge.
Next time anyone attempts to criticise Grant Robertson, maybe they should first take a look at the extremely devious fellow who is running the finances in the UK-Rishi Sunak.
"The redisorganisation will make the three waters infrastructure more visible with the expectation that the waters will be better looked after. That will be costly. The minister introducing the policy stupidly said the new configuration will lower local body rates since they wont have to fund local water supplies from them. What she did not say was how the new entities will be funded. By rates? By user charges? By central government subsidies out of its tax revenue? The lack of answers is an omission comparable to leaving the economy out of our history.
It is not simply a matter of higher charges somewhere in the system. Who pays will matter. Consider the clumsy entity which runs from East Cape to Nelson. Will the East Capers be paying for Nelson’s water infrastructure or the other way around? Perhaps the expectation is that Wellingtonians will pay for both. Who knows? Certainly not those designing the system."
Easton would be more use if he had a handle on public-private institutional economics, because that's really what runs the country. He sounds as tired as Trotter.
I think he was making his point generally rather than trying to second-guess the minister. As we all know, Grant is the finance maestro. He will wield his magic wand over three waters at the right time in the process. Down the road apiece.
Easton cites his own The Commercialisation of New Zealand. which is 23 years old now.
What we need is economists who can do more than rail against commercialisation of public entities. We are beset by them. We have commercialised entities in the public realms of: health, public health, electricity, tertiary education, social welfare, superannuation, banking, jails, and pretty much everything else except the armed forces, judges and the Police. We are about to add water, nationwide rather than locally.
We've had most of them in operation since the first term of the Bolger government. If New Zealand were going to come apart by now because of commercialisation we would have done so by now.
So Easton bemoaning yet another commerical hybrid, using his 1990s toldyaso framework, just doesn't cut the mustard anymore.
It seems we are also to commercialize road building,with Waka Kotahi to become an importer of Bitumen,this will of course reduce both the commercial risk and margins for foreign companies such as Higgins,Fulton hogan and Downers.
we could also extend it further with WK taking over the role of regional councils on public transport,and conservation and MPI taking over biosecurity.This would help to make Regional councils extinct a win win.
There will need more to be taken from local government ,such as decrease in wages for the town clerks (who identify as CEO'S) as without such a large asset base,and fewer employees will not need such large salaries.Similar for local body politicians a 25% cut across the board on remuneration ,a win win again.
None,hence we are still entrenched to repeat the errors of the past,by forgetting the history (as Easton put it) that allowed the corporatisation and then financialization ( future pricing instruments) of public monopolies.The instruments were energy shocks,high inflation and a hot cold war with Russia.
destined to repeat because after over 3 decades of lost institutional knowledge and capability they no longer know how to even if they wanted to….or worse they dont even know that they dont know.
On Monday the Prime Minister told Newsroom she felt co-governance was becoming “an increasingly politicised term’’. Cabinet had been due to consider the paper that day but it had been delayed “because of Minister Jackson’s loss in his family’’, Jacinda Ardern said. Jackson was on leave from Parliament for tangihanga last week after his mother, Dame Temuranga June Jackson, and his uncle, Doctor Moana Jackson, both died. The Minister’s hopeful his colleagues will approve the drafting of a plan, which he expects to happen over the next two months before it is presented to the wider public.
Asked what specific feedback was received during the targeted Māori engagement, Jackson was reluctant to give details given it was yet to go to Cabinet. “The point I’d make is we went to 70 hui, so every type of suggestion is coming through,’’ he told Newsroom.
“You’re going to get some extreme views, I won’t go into the detail, but I’m sure we’ll get extreme views when we go to the broader country too.’’
“These are just people’s views and part of the process is allowing people to have their say, both Māori and Pakeha,’’ Jackson said.
Ardern has already ruled out a Māori Parliament or upper house after it was proposed in He Puapua, an independent report commissioned by the Government last term.
ACT's attempt to beat up the situation via referendum proposal seems like a phony war. Obviously settler descendants would vote in accord with the earlier settler majority. Retaining neocolonialism is a priority for many. Seymour's masks his agenda with various diversionary framings.
Nevertheless the govt framing of co-governance ought to be sophisticated while grounded in realpolitik. Obviously parity between 16% of the populace and the other 84% is a non-starter. Anyone who thinks co-governance means racial parity is best described as delusional, so it will be interesting to see how many binary left/right voters fall into that conceptual trap!
Honouring the Treaty is easy in principle but in practice the devil rules the detail so it will come down to context in each instance. Bioregionalism is an economic Green framing which could be a useful basis. That would allow Maori to interpret the chiefly Treaty rights of 1840 in contemporary terms via iwi & hapu. Some residual economic traditions from that earlier era could then combine with current best practice.
The last major reform this government will have a crack at is the 3 waters reform, and it's the last we will hear of major Maori aspirations driven out of government.
I'd put odds on 3 Waters completing this term as 50-50. And should National win they've stated it will be completely overturned.
The Labour Maori Caucus are clearly driving this Labour government to a short and very deadly election in 2023.
I'd say less than 50:50. Even if the legislation is enacted, the actual transition won't be started, let alone been completed before the election. And, as you say, National/Act have committed to over-turn it. So electoral suicide for zero long-term benefit.
Canny heads within Labour will want to hold off the legislation – especially as it's turning into such a hot potato – and wait and see what the outcome of the 2023 election is. If they're back in power, they'd rightly regard this as an endorsement of 3 waters, and slam the legislation through at the beginning of the term.
However, as you say, the Maori Caucus may well be in control of the process, rather than the political strategists.
If that was the approach Labour took then not only would it be disingenuous (no surprises there) but it would provide the platform for Nat/Act pre election campaign to wring a backtrack from Labour, much like CGT
Yes National have made their position clear. whereas Labour if they delay are being anything but. The 'canny heads' wouldnt be so canny to hold off then…either Labour want the policy or not…and the election potentially gives them a mandate.
Well, no. It can hardly be argued that Labour have a mandate for 3 waters. It wasn't declared policy at the last election – which, in any case, was won on Covid, rather than on any other policies.
If they get re-elected, when the electorate know that it's a piece of legislation in the works, then they certainly do have a mandate.
AFAICS there are 4 scenarios:
* Labour passes 3 waters and loses the election. National immediately repeals it.
* Labour doesn't pass 3 waters and loses the election. Zero change.
* Labour doesn't pass 3 waters, and wins the election. 3 waters legislated in the first year. Effectively a mandate for 3 waters.
* Labour passes 3 waters, and wins the election (which is a very close call IMHO). 3 waters legislation is implemented 1-2 years earlier. Election is effectively a referendum on 3 waters.
In the first 2 scenarios – it doesn't matter for 3 waters – Labour loses and the legislation is either not enacted, or repealed.
In the second 2 scenarios. 3 waters is enacted – with a 1-2 year delay the difference.
However, in both the second two scenarios, the election is a referendum on 3 waters (whether already passed or not). National's position makes this impossible for Labour to avoid.
The question is: Does enacting 3 waters, pre-election, make it less likely for Labour to be re-elected. For most commenters, the answer is 'yes'. Which then leads to the question – is it worthwhile saving (at best case) 1-2 years and in the worst case, losing an election, over?
Good analysis. The other thing to consider is how keen pakeha Labour parliamentarians are to alienate Maori Labour voters. Not doing it seems to threaten a substantial electoral damage. Ardern would follow HC into the historical category of Labour leaders who betrayed Maori. Twice stabbed in the back would be a repetition Maori leaders would regard as a lesson about naivety they didn't really need to repeat. Chances of any third rinse & repeat cycle would be zilch…
Nope. I'm advocating (if anything) for Labour to go to the election with 3 Waters announced as a policy (hopefully with the major gaps and lacunae cleared up, so people can understand exactly what they're voting for).
Nothing deceptive about that.
"Nope. I'm advocating (if anything) for Labour to go to the election with 3 Waters announced as a policy"
or
"Canny heads within Labour will want to hold off the legislation – especially as it's turning into such a hot potato – and wait and see what the outcome of the 2023 election is. If they're back in power, they'd rightly regard this as an endorsement of 3 waters, and slam the legislation through at the beginning of the term."
I think you are mistaking commentary for advocacy.
And, in any case, both of your quotes are saying virtually the same thing – I think it’s a mistake (if Labour want to be re-elected) for them to enact 3 waters prior to the elections. For pragmatic political reasons. Governing is the art of the possible.
Any sitting Government has a mandate to draft new Bills. Heck, it is their duty & responsibility. The draft 3-Waters Bill may make it into Parliament in the 2nd half of this year and then it will take a whole lot more water under the bridge [pun intended] before we have the final vote. If the policy is worth doing then they should do it and do it now, no if’s or but’s. If it’s not worth doing then they should drop it at the earliest opportune moment and spin it into a positive decision.
So 3 waters is a sufficiently main-plank policy for Labour, that it's worth risking losing an election over?
Because governments play politics all the time with policy – judging where in the electoral cycle they are, and how important the content is, and what the opposition (both in parliament and in the country at large) thinks.
If Labour thinks it is a worthy policy then they should go for it now and on the campaign trail, if necessary. Same for the other political parties. In any case, most parties have a comprehensive and mature portfolio of policies.
Also, a government has a political mandate to draft new bills to enact the legislation they campaigned on. Now, of course, the electorate cuts them some slack where a new situation/crisis arises, or for routine and/or minor legislation.
But there is always an outcry, when a government enacts major pieces of legislation which were not announced in their election campaign. And both the 'asset grab' and the 'co-governance' elements are pretty much unique in NZ legislative history AFAIK.
So-called ‘public’ outcries in MSM and on SM through the megaphones of dubious spinsters with hidden agendas trying to sow doubt & division? If I were a timid politician I would shake in my boots too, but a draft Bill that is strong enough to withstand scrutiny in the House and Select Committees should also be able to withstand the scrutiny of the voters and public opinion. I’m quite certain that the final (?) 3-Waters Bill will be watered down version of the current draft.
BTW, one form or another of ‘co-governance’ has been in the cards since ToW.
Definitely a test of the political skills of the Labour team but I'm still more optimistic than 50-50. On a good day, I'm 70-30 odds on. On a bad day, 60-40.
Why? Reform is an historical necessity. No chance the status quo will survive regardless of the next election. So it comes down to how & what will change. Up to Willie & co to sell their view of the changes to pakeha colleagues. Sticking points that prevent consensus emerging will become the process focus. If they can't finesse those in a few days of trying, cabinet will try to park the thing.
Labour need to get more runs on the board so a policy win is preferable to admitting defeat. Compromise can get that…
Willie Jackson dont need to sell it to his colleagues…the gov need to sell it to the electorate…..and that is going to be nigh on impossible unless they can demonstrate advantage, something they appear unable to do even at this advanced stage.
I have yet to see any sign of the remotest possibility of meaningful compromise coming from Mahuta.
Compromise would require her to be removed from this portfolio, and someone capable of building consensus with an already irate group of councils, to be appointed. Zero idea who, from the Labour ministers who would be capable – possibly Hipkins – though God alone knows he's got enough on his plate.
Given that the mayors and councillors are already going into election mode (and many LG elections will effectively be a referendum on local policy over 3 waters) – there's a very short window of opportunity to make significant progress in this area.
I just don't see that it's a significant priority for the Ardern Government (as opposed to the Labour Maori caucus).
Too early for her to compromise. Ardern may transfer the task to another minister in a reshuffle. Probably depends how cabinet handles it next week.
You may be right re priority but that depends on Ardern & her view of her legacy. What does she want to achieve? She declared her climate change agenda but I don't recall anything else being cited as priority. Perhaps homelessness, but incrementalism is her agenda with that too. She's a liberal.
It's not just failure to compromise, Mahuta has treated the Councils with outright contempt – everything from lying about opt in/out provisions through to a clumsily handled (and failed) propaganda attempt to tar them in the eyes of the voters. Mahuta must be aware that as a prominent member of the Maori caucus, she is representing the way that co-governance will operate within the 3 waters organisations – and from the Council perspective, it looks like a total disaster.
Child poverty is Ardern's personal goal.
She's declared that climate change is her nuclear free moment – though I've yet to see substantial policy backing this up (yes, I know, Covid….)
If 3 waters sinks this Labour govt (and with Mahuta at the helm, it may well do so), what will be left as a legacy? Ardern will rise or fall in history books on her crisis management, but this will not be seen as a transformational government.
Wokesterism producing paranoia in uinversities has been a global trend for a while (mainly in advanced democracies perhaps).
The first New Zealand Annual Survey on Academic Freedom, published today, shows that a significant proportion of university academics feel very constrained in what they can discuss and disagree with.
The survey, commissioned by the Free Speech Union and carried out by Curia Research, asked academics how free they felt in challenging consensus, debating issues such as gender or the Treaty of Waitangi, and so forth. Respondents were asked to rate their academic freedom on various topics on a 0-10 scale, in which 0 meant “unfree” and 10 meant “entirely free”. There were 1266 responses to the survey.
For five of the eight questions, about a third of academics rated their academic freedom below 5 (out of 10).
On the general idea of being able to question and test received wisdom, 45 per cent felt more constrained than free. On the question of being able to raise differing perspectives or to debate and discuss gender or sex issues, 47 per cent felt more constrained than free. And when it came to debating and discussing Treaty issues and colonisation, 50 per cent felt more constrained than free. On this last question, the average rating on academic freedom was 5.4 out of 10. Generally, these results show that there is a serious problem.
Timorous professors bound by invisible constraints. It's all in the mind. Universities are factories producing orthodoxy by tradition. It's why they refused to offer Einstein a professorship for so many years. Even after he destroyed establishment physics by published five ground-breaking dissertations in 1905 while working as a patent-examiner, the mediocrities still defended their citadel for years.
Academic silos have been identified as part of their cultural dysfunction. Some universities have created multidisciplinary teams to cross-fertilise disciplines in recent decades but that remains a minority trend. We need a lot more. To deal with the wokesterism problem in particular, a focus on ethics & principles is required. Then enforcement, to make academic freedom real instead of a charade…
If the left won't address the issue ('there's not such thing as cancel culture'), or even let people speak (No Debate), then it will be left to the right to determine how the conversation goes. Massive fucking own goal lefties.
In the UK people lose their jobs and careers. Many people are afraid to say anything. It's scary how fast this has developed and how much ground has been lost.
It reminds me of a bad relationship with an angry person. You walk on eggshells waiting to do or say something perceived as wrong. It's anyone's guess what will be used as fuel for their fire. It's very unhealthy.
Wiles didn't physically threaten the 7letter writers. Completely obvious difference in circumstance.
Seems to me the anti-wokists have each jumped on their usual bandwagons without actually bothering to see if any cancelling was attempted – and by whom.
A lawyer's letters (that some recipients apparently found to be quite intimidating) was sent to some people who had expressed a contrary view to the original 7. In a further public opinion piece (just as the original letter-writers continued their own media engagement) Wiles misattributed the letters as being written on behalf of the 7, rather than their employer the University of Auckland. Note that she didn't call for people to be fired in that piece, either.
The misattribution was the subject of your Media Council link. Not cancel culture.
The closest one gets to silencing free speech was via the lawyers' letters that intimidated some academic employees from engaging in public debate with other employees of the same university.
But when people are being menaced in their own offices, the employer's actions are sluggish at best.
leaving aside the debate about cancelling, there's a difference between academic debate, and what goes on around that. Some people publish a letter, some other people publish a rebuttal. All good. But because we do in fact have a culture that wants people to get fired or be punished or be removed from positions of power (I don't think this is a particularly controversial description of part of the progressive agenda), and because we have social media, the pressures on the first and second lot of people can be intense. Couple that with how things play out at work in the various relationships, it's not imo a healthy environment that encourages exploration of ideas.
I also think we are losing the ability to both form arguments and tolerate them. The contrast between TS's robust debate kaupapa and how twitter operates is stark. On twitter people just block or mute the people they get upset with, and there is no mechanism for ensuring robust debate. Robust debate can and does happen on twitter, but there are also a hell of a lot of people there who cannot tolerate a lot of push back on their ideas. I would hope that universities would be better but it seems clear that ground is being lost on this.
1) Academic freedom should not be an excuse to distribute outright misinformation, especially if it endangers people's lives and is out of the particular academic's area of knowledge. There has to be some line between honest academic debate and outright professional misconduct, especially when lives and public wellbeing are involved.
2) I don't see much difference between blocking someone on twitter and skipping over any comment that is either from a known fool or looks to just be another installment of topics I tend to think of as "the daily hate". If anything, I curate the topics I discuss here much more carefully than stuff on twitter. Twitter isn't a format conducive to actual debate, anyway. Character count is too small, everything is atomised. Good for small jokes, though.
You should see what they say about TS 😉 I've been in good debates on twitter, although much seems less common now.
The difference between scrolling past on TS and blocking on twitter is that block actively affects the other person (they no longer see your tweets). This is why twitter has it, because it's a different tool from scrolling past. But my point was that on TS we actively enable robust debate, whereas on twitter it's not the kaupapa and they have tools to enable people to tweet in bubbles.
TS moderators put in a lot of effort regarding robust debate, for sure. But if I see some commenters in the activity feed, or particular patterns of specific people replying to each other, well, I'd need a shitload of spoons to even bother opening the thread. That feeling is not really one I get on twitter, thanks to the block feature.
In one of the links, Wiles states she was not one of those complainants. So Ad bringing up Wiles in this context is still inappropriate.
Also, the investigation was initiated by anonymous complainants… but "the society required they be identified for the disciplinary process to move ahead", according to your link.
And the complaint process didn't even get beyond the initial stage, let alone go to any possibility of "cancelling" (professional censure for misconduct, expulsion, etc).
But I'm not sure if you get what cancel culture is. It's the environment that suppresses debate. You don't need to actually be expelled to next time make you think twice about saying something. In fact the actual expulsions tend to free people up to speak out more. The point isn't to expel people, it's to get them to shut up.
The environment in this case was all the things that happened (in the broader context of what is happening with progressive and identity cultures). Someone might shrug off a stalled investigation but that and the MSM coverage and the shitfest on SM might not be so easy.
As aside, I don't know what RS normally do, but if they don't allow anonymous complaints why did they even start the investigation? No idea what has happened there, but my observation is that some of the time people in positions of power do odd things because they don't want to be seen to not be progressive.
Like I said, there's something unhealthy going on.
Given that the complainants had to be identified before the initial investigation could proceed, the events seemed to be that they received five complaints. They knew who the complainants were, otherwise the complainants wouldn't have been able to be advised they would have to be on record to proceed. Two went on record.
As for what "cancel culture" is, it's nothing new. Whether it's twitter or having very public arguments in the media, people have always faced consequences for their opinions. Sometimes the reputational damage they inflict on themselves is permanent, other times it's barely noticable.
If someone's desire to express an opinion in global media (and now all media is global) exceeds their ability to express that opinion in a manner that reflects its complexity and impact on people's lives, they'll damage their personal and professional reputations.
Can't see how multidisciplinary teams will solve the cancel culture or suppression of debate going on in academia. It's very common in the UK and the US for academics from a wide range of departments to publicly criticise a colleague or peer who is talking about gender critical issues.
People lose their jobs and careers. They're not timorous and it's not all in their mind. They're brave, they stand up and speak out, and they pay a high cost.
how multidisciplinary teams will solve the cancel culture or suppression of debate going on in academia
It would develop on a common-interest basis. Then become self-organising as a group. Self-organising groups happen naturally. Ecosystems are self-organising. Membership of a lobby group that is demonstrably multidisciplinary gives you a broad base of support via design.
By which I mean humans can steer their self-organising groups in various ways. Unions arose historically on that basis, amalgamating democracy & hierarchy, using charisma to select for leaders (retaining them on a performance basis).
So if academic groups haven't been fit for purpose in preserving civil rights & freedom of speech, academics need to herd themselves more intelligently…
Have you done it tho? I learnt from running the process for the Greens. Being a primadonna like all the other activists, it became a learning curve on how to compromise to generate consensus.
So they'd only agree with each other on the goal at first. They'd enter the process on that basis, differentiate on how to work together, thrash out the differences, discover how to make consensus decision-making effectively, apply that method to the practicalities of how to engage with university & societal power-structures, media, public, etc.
A generational shift. They got captivated by the trend (unable to see the big picture). Simpleminded folk usually have to learn the hard way. Many of them even fail that test…
But what happens when groups disagree on the goal? The big picture philosophical stuff: co-governance or democracy; impact of trans on feminism; big or small government.
Those are the issues where the cancel culture is operating.
Well the issue started as freedom of speech so I was assuming academics would identify it as in their common interest. The goal would have to be framed in terms of whatever is limiting or compromising it in the university context. You get analysis & diagnosis to clarify that in the initial stage of discussion normally.
For instance, does their employment contract allow the university authorities to limit it? Does the university charter allow it? If no and yes, then it becomes a question of enforcement. What happens if the academics point out via public statement that the authorities are failing to do their job properly? Then the academics would need legal advice, and funding of that. What if the academics just complained to the minister of education? What if the response is "not my business"?
What I'm getting at is the usual story of method: it depends on required process to solve a problem. A group that forms to solve a problem has to operate as a task force (define goals, form a team, get rules of operation, then a plan & strategy).
So in regard to your more general questions, all this stuff applies but the various stages will work differently for each task & likely a different group dedicated to each too. In the 1970/80s when ngos were the thing, activists often were members of several simultaneously.
Unfortunately, at least some of the academics do not agree on the primacy of free-speech. They place other considerations first.
Ref Wiles/Hendry and the 'is Maori knowledge science' debate.
And, have zero desire to have a debate. Cancelling your opponents is both easier and more satisfactory for them.
What would make them want to engage with this consensus approach? Right now, the rewards from the 'woke' establishment are much, much greater.
Yeah, but such divides are traditional. Plenty of workers don't join unions. When I was at TVNZ I joined the PSA but it was optional & around half the staff didn't. So political lobbying happens when those sufficiently motivated agree to work together in a group to do it.
More generally, civil rights became an international trend & got UN covenants due to a small group of activists making it happen. Others who didn't do the hard work also got the benefits from the result. Altruism has a place.
So, back to your free speech example. We have a group of academics who are prepared to debate the primacy of free speech.
We have another group of academics, supported by powerful establishment leaders (university administration, social media storm-troopers, etc.) with zero interest in debate, using political and social tools to undermine, cancel and dismiss the first group.
I don't see how this has helped in any way.
In order for consensus to work, people have to choose to participate, or agree to abide by the decision, if they truly don't care.
The academics seem to be on a political learning curve. Prevailing over discrimination takes plenty of pressure and building it takes resolve and time. For a victim, the trajectory ahead always has a fork: give up & become or remain a victim if the path is too hard, or persevere until victory.
what you are suggesting may be useful for other things, but I'm still not seeing how it will stop cancel culture and No Debate.
In the GC area, people are too scared to speak out loud let alone organise formally within academia. Although in the UK there is organising outside of that, and consequently they have one of the most vibrant grass roots feminists movements in the English speaking world.
It wouldn't stop wokesters doing their thing initially, true. However pushback always modifies behaviour eventually. So the design of that has to be context-driven, such as factoring in the duty of university hierarchy to protect staff, how enforcement gets done, how negotiations can produce non-violent conflict resolution etc.
The basic psychodynamics is all about a balance of forces in a contentious context – something the UN is being reminded of by Russia – so as to force the wokesters doing group narcissism to learn how to relate to other groups in their community who have different values…
There's a fundamental dichotomy between the woke requirement for students to feel 'safe' in an intellectual/emotional sense; and the freedom of expression that requires universities to debate challenging and difficult matters.
If you are not sufficiently mentally robust to be in a space where alternative viewpoints are expressed and debated, then you don't belong at a university.
Alternative viewpoints should never be cancelled on a university campus. Alternatives include: invite another speaker to give a different view point; Challenge and debate; Protest matters of opinion being presented as fact (which is intellectually dishonest), etc.
I also think that courses (certainly undergrad) can be arranged so people can study and not take part in debate if they're not particularly robust eg if there is a hard lecture coming up, then they watch it on livestream or recording from home.
There's another issue here which is the degree to which the concept of safety has been distorted. So we have one end of a spectrum saying that everyone has to feel safe by way of the least safe person determining where the line is, and at the other end we have lefties saying that there's not such thing as safe space and we shouldn't even try. I see this as reactions to neoliberalism and old school hard man politics. Fortunately there are other models out there, but we're a bit slow in trying them out.
For me, the writing was on the wall when Brash was prevented from speaking at Massey University, by a chancellor who was more concerned with 'image' than with free speech.
I have little support for Brash and his views. But he is a NZ politician, and universities should foster the debate of all views. If you profoundly disagree – then either don't go (attendance is entirely optional), or listen and prepare a counterargument (student newspaper, radio, or even a counter speech)
In academia, people lose their jobs and careers if they don’t get funding. They need to publish and submit grant applications. They need to teach and attract students. The most pragmatic and expedient way is to go with the flow rather than go against the stream an upset the fragile and delicate status quo – united we survive, divided we succumb. All this is largely a zero-sum game; journals accept limited number of manuscripts unless they are predatory journals, funders have limited budgets, universities have limited staff positions and vacancies, and the pool of students is limited too – even the international pool. University ranking is becoming a perverse tool to play the game even harder. Look at what happened with the 16 Polytechs here in NZ, they’re now headed by one CEO.
I find it hilarious that you use Einstein as an illustrative example of “wokesterism” at NZ universities. Anyway, AFAIK, he wrote only 1 dissertation in 1905 for which he was given his PhD degree. How many years did it take him from being a patent-examiner in 1905 to becoming professor?
To deal with the wokesterism problem in particular, a focus on ethics & principles is required. Then enforcement, to make academic freedom real instead of a charade…
That is rather meaningless without specifying which/what ethics and principles – NZ universities ooze ‘ethics and principles’, just not the ones you appear to be thinking of. Enforcing freedom has a nice ring of irony to it.
Authors normally cite all five that I mentioned for 1905: the one that got him his doctorate, plus the four more important ones (the one on quanta of light won him the Nobel prize, the one that proved atoms exist, the one on special relativity, and the one introducing E = mc2) which are described here…
He became physics prof at the University of Zurich four years later. I agree universities are afflicted by the credibility problem you describe – if they started to practice the ethics & principles they preach things would be more likely to improve.
For various reasons and through various mechanisms NZ universities are in lockstep with NZ Governments. Slowly but surely, their role as critic and conscience of society has been eroded down to mere window dressing and chiming of virtues. Genuine debates don’t happen, at least not as often as they should, and decisions are made mostly behind closed doors by managers, not thinkers, critics, or visionaries with token consultation of staff and students and usually only if and when it is required by law, i.e. by employment law. I could give a few examples of public (high-profile) appointments and arrangements over the years to illustrate my point and show how intertwined NZ academia and politics have become, but I’d be targeting individuals who are bending over backwards to do a great job.
There's a strong implication that the leadership (Ardern and Robertson) wanted her gone because a) She was Team Cunliffe b) She didn't toe the party line, and was loud and argumentative in expressing her views and c) She was a 'divisive' force (which I think is code for 'doesn't automatically support the leader, right or wrong')
I don't care about A. But B & C are reasons to support her, rather than sack her. And the fact that they did 'de-select' her, doesn't say good things about Szabo (or Ardern & Robertson – who had to have agreed).
There is no doubt whatsoever, that Arena Williams was parachuted into the seat by the central Labour Party, over the wishes of the local electorate Labour team (some of whom are still bitter about it). It was a deliberate attempt to get rid of Wall – and only succeeded (after the legal challenge) because Wall agreed to a compromise.
"Wall withdrew in a deal that would give her a winnable place on Labour's list for an understanding she would retire during the current term when a suitable job came up.
That suitable job just came up: a role with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as a New Zealand-based ambassador trying to improve the empowerment of women in the Pacific and focusing more broadly on LGBTQI+ rights."
Quote from article above
Arena Williams has yet to make any mark on the fabric of NZ society. She may turn out to be the next Ardern, but so far she's a poor replacement for a stroppy sheila with a sense of justice a mile wide, who's not afraid to stand up and be counted AND believes in working with whoever can contribute to get the job done. I think we need more Louisa Walls in Parliament, not fewer.
I couldn't see anything in the context to worry about:
And, folks — (applause) — let me close with what I’ve long said: America is a nation that can be defined in a single word. I was in the foothi- — foot- — excuse me, in the foothills of the Himalayas with Xi Jinping, traveling with him. (Inaudible) traveled 17,000 miles when I was Vice President at the time. I don’t know that for a fact.
And we were sitting alone. I had an interpreter and he had an interpreter. And he looked at me. In all seriousness, he said, “Can you define America for me?” And I said what many of you heard me say for a long time. I said, “Yes, I can, in one word: possibilities.” (Applause.) “Possibilities.” That, in America, everyone should be able to go as far as their hard work and God-given talent will take them. And possibilities. We’re the only ones. That’s why we’re viewed as the “ugly Americans”: We think anything is possible. (Laughter.)
So he's riffing on the historic occasion – anything's possible in the USA. Ugly is a bit of a puzzle. I presume he means anal-retentive societies & their autocrats are freaked by the concept of possibility. They hate the implied uncertainty. They believe everyone can be expected to do as they're told. Since that belief still prevailed here during my childhood & youth I understand that roboticism.
I'm inclined to agree. I expected him to be doddery but have been rather impressed by his resolute stance in office. Reagan got alzheimers in office, remember – didn't do him much harm in ratings from what I recall. If someone sees Biden ask "What's this red button for?" and reach for it, I hope they're near enough to grab his arm…
The violent anti-social who has inflicted over 4 years of extreme violent intimidation, severe stress and prolonged sleep deprivation on my elderly parents (and a good deal on the wider neighbourhood) was arrested yesterday morning, taken away in handcuffs by 3 Police.
No idea why, and no idea if it'll resolve the situation … but suspect not.
But I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Poto Williams, the current Labour Govt [and, indeed, the previous National one] for cheerfully dumping violent psychopaths (& I don’t use that term lightly) with long criminal records on innocent neighbourhoods … in this specific case, the other side of the dividing-wall from a very elderly couple who have lived in their home (which they own) for 60 years in a previously very quiet, peaceful, community-minded street … thanks specifically to Williams & Labour for the sheer callous brutality of the No Eviction policy … & a shoutout to Kainga Ora & Ngāti Toa's community housing provider, Te Āhuru Mōwai for their useless, heartless, borderline sadistic response.
Thanks must also go to Ad for demonstrating once again that various long-time Labour activists have lost their moral compass (assuming they ever had one) & will casually force innocent people, including elderly – and therefore vulnerable- people, to endure a perpetual living hell …Open mike 02/04/2022 « The Standard… the "wraparound services" that Ad casually pivots everything on are, of course, total bullshit … hardened anti-socials with inherently violent personality-types don't change … generally, they've exhibited severe anti-social personality problems since younger childhood … as my parents & their neighbours have found to their cost. Plenty of "wraparound services" for the waste of space terrorising them, esp following all of his really major explosions of violence & intimidation … and yet here we still are.
Let's call this Kainga Ora scandal what it is: state-sanctioned domestic terrorism … and it's clearly just one facet of a broader systematic scapegoating of low & low-middle income 'outgroups' [in Intersectional / Critical Theory terms].
I'm pleased for your parents & other victims of the offender & hope something resembling justice gets done.
Serial offenders usually seem to have been afflicted by an horrendous childhood & have entered adulthood warped in consequence. In theory, psychiatric help could solve their problems. In practice, I haven't noticed govts of the left & right making the attempt to do that in recent decades. Yet when I was a teenager everyone knew they did as normal policy.
I suppose being brainwashed by Hollywood ultraviolence continuously since then produced too many offenders so the establishment decided to put them into the community as punishment for the electorate voting left/right all the time?
I would call it gentrification by stealth. they expect people like your parents to sell. Yes i am that cynical when it comes to housing and the lack thereof in NZ.
I'd support the lowlife concerned being bailed to live next door to Poto Williams. Wonder how long he'd last in the 'community' under those circumstances.
Any news Swordfish? Please keep us up to date. All the best to your parents…..hopefully they had a quiet night last night. Though I know from experience you would always be on high alert after being confronted with this domestic terrorism for four long years.
It is shocking beyond belief Swordfish. Partly why I have only a tiny amount of sympathy for the politicians who found the front lawn protesters so distasteful. At least the politicians could go home and get a quiet nights sleep.
there are some people we can’t help, they are not interested in changing and they will continue to have a callous disregard for others.
..there are some people we can’t help, they are not interested in changing and they will continue to have a callous disregard for others.
This is the key. What to do? Do we put them in motels and boarding houses or do we set up a Hobsonville plus for them. Perhaps they could have a type of gated community.
At the very least Kainga Ora should be matching people to localities. Difficult I know when housing is short. Do they do this at all? Or is it top of the list equals first dibs on the first available units. I think I read that some complexes are red or blue and KO try not to put opposing gangs together.
But dealing with the complex at the end of our street, a group of local homeowners, and the long term tenants, including some refugees, who have generally lived there quietly, put the pressure on KO to move on the occupiers who had arrived after the death of an elderly street person and tried to occupy the unit. We had Police, noise control every day & night about the music, Police about the cars and the drug dealing and people arriving pushing Amps & beers etc in supermarket trolleys.
In the end KO were more or less forced to act by giving them 'notice' to leave in 10 days even though they were not tenants and were only distantly related to the tenant and had been invisible when he was very ill etc.
I feel for your parents Swordfish. I thought of them when our neighbourhood changed in the twinkling of an eye.
Amazingly they left or were forced to. But if the tenant had had a tenancy then we were dreading that we would have a Swordfish type scenario.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
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New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
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Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
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The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
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The New Nazi Axis
“History never repeats, I tell myself before I go to sleep.” Tim Finn
The original nazi axis was Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, (and later following Pearl Harbour, Japan)
The new nazi axis.
Russia
Assad Syria
On-Line Conspiracy Theorists
The New Triptych of Cheerleaders for World Wide Nuclear Holocaust….
Western MSM.
US Neo-Con lead NATO Expansion
Dummies on The Standard
Yet More Dummies on The Standard
Here is a perfect comedy clip that perfectly encapsulates the insane US media war hounds baying for war with Russia….
But on a more serious note..it's interesting to note that your so called defenders of Democracy in the Ukraine today, both the USA and the UK were both supporters of that Fascist, Franco..even when they were fully aware of all of his atrocities…
…but then we are talking about the same two countries, the USA and the UK, that supported the Pol Pot after The Killing Fields for fucks sake…
So yes it turns out that history does repeat.. maybe hop off that high horse you and others seem to think you are riding on over there Jenny, and just remember who you are actually getting into bed with… this saying old saying comes to mind…you lay down with dogs you get up with fleas.
U.S. to Support Pol Pot Regime For U.N. Seat
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/09/16/us-to-support-pol-pot-regime-for-un-seat/58b8b124-7dd7-448f-b4f7-80231683ec57/
How Thatcher gave Pol Pot a hand
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2000/04/how-thatcher-gave-pol-pot-a-hand
And for this morning's episode of whataboutism .. in the red trunks we have Adrian..
Scott Ritter on Ukraine for those who don't swallow the MSM propaganda.
Bucha civilian "cleansing" explained at 1.00hr in.
Yeah nah
I'd prefer to watch John Ritter.
'
Scott Ritter, @ 16:35 minutes
Good grief !
How can anyone have their head so far up their arse, that they are not be able to appraise themselves of the real situation?
Russia is staring down the barrel of a catastrophic military defeat in Ukraine. How can this possibly be disputed?.
Scott Ritter needs to look up from his military maps take off his narrow militaristic blinkers and look around at the actual situation.
Russian forces have become bogged down in Ukraine.
Following its stalled military advance, Russia has turned to terrorist tactics honed in Syria and Chechnya of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Missiles do not win wars. Soldiers on the ground do, they always have. Who ever climbs out of the rubble to hold the ground will win this war.
The Zylensky government is conducting a mass evacuation of its civilian population, and preparing for a long war. Russia cannot win a long war.
The longer the war continues. The longer the anti-war protests in Russia refuse to be crushed. The longer the body bags keep coming. And as long as brave individuals continue to speak up.
No matter how much blood and treasure Russia spends, Russia can not win this war. No matter how much slaughter and destruction is done, it will only harden the Ukraine will to resist, and turn the world and the Russian public against them.
Pretty much. Idiot reads 'maps'. Wars are not won on maps they are won with logistics and being able to hold strategic objectives.
The Russian army has failed at both. Which is why this will be a long grinding war of attrition.
I was surprised at how much the defense in depth vs offensive attack questions have been answered in this war. This has been a military question going on for the last 25 odd years.
But until now, there really hasn't been a good test of resonably modern anti-armour and anti-air missiles vs tank armies. Turns out that defense beats attack in that circumstance.
Now the only realistic Russian strategies left are either to have atrocities against civilians with artillery and bombardment missiles – hopingvto push Ukraine to negoitiate. Or to use chemical biological or nuclear weapons to attempt to take even more devestated cities with less casualties to do the same.
Queue more Russian atrocities with lots of bullshit 'explanations' provided to the credulous fools like Adrian. I believe those about as much as I believed the intelligence about WMD in Iraq in 2003.
The opposite view to Ritter is put by this guy here:
Honestly I cannot quite make up my mind here – because there is also good reason to think that Putin is willing to go into siege mode and grind his way slowly across Ukraine, town after town, village after village and slowly strangle the cities. It could take a year or more. The occupied zone would be either abandoned by Ukrainians fleeing or those trapped behind mopped up by internal security forces. There would be no need for a large occupying army, because civilian resistance would be liquidated. Boundless cruelty means nothing to Putin. At the end of it the only people alive in Ukraine would be Russian sympathisers.
Moldova would be taken in a long weekend. Or perhaps longer if they run out of fuel again. But then what?
Winning Ukraine means Putin faces being hard up against NATO in Finland, the Baltic states, Poland and Romania and he still has not achieved his strategic goal of creating a defendable state. By then Europe will have achieved full economic decoupling, and Russia will have extended his military to the maximum – even with a full draft. Their economy will shrink so much they won't even qualify to be in the G20 anymore. Millions more of their youngest and brightest will seek ways to escape the country.
All they will have left is their nukes – and that is the great danger here. Not a strong Russia, but one so reduced politically, economically and morally by a long, bloody war they really will face the existential threat they have so long feared.
This is why it is crucial to stop Russia in Ukraine – to convince their military that it is impossible to win their strategic goals and force a retreat or a hopeless stalemate. The goal is a delicate balancing act that defeats Putin without necessarily defeating Russia itself.
Pretty much confirms my assertion that Russia cannot win a long war. i.e. Russia is on a hiding to nowhere.
That the world's most powerful Superpower recent defeat in Afghanistan, America's longest war ever. And the US defeat in Vietnam and the draw in Korea emphasise this fact.
The Russian leaders need to enter into a serious peace negotiation with the Ukrainians now. Starting with ceasefire during the negotiations to show good faith.
Will they do it?
Historical turning points like this often hinges on the personality of one or two leading individuals. in this case the Russian leader, one Vladimir Putin.
Will Putin go for it, and try and talk up a negotiated settlement into some sort of victory, as this commentator suggests he should?
Personally my hopes are not high, and the war will grind on.
While the Putin regime looks unlikely to back down at this stage.
14 months from now anything is possible.
I truly wish you would be proven correct Jenny. It is Putin and Putin alone who holds the power to end this without unthinkable suffering.
But all the evidence tells us that he has become possessed by an ideology, that Russia stands alone against a perverse, homosexual, nazi, liberal world of western degenerates. And in this noble, homophobic war he must cleanse Europe to make the world safe for Russia. Alexsander Dugin built the intellectual framework, Putin has sold it to Russia.
As with all totalitarian ideas Dugin starts with a small grain of truth, and then excludes all other considerations to erect monumental insanity. In this view if the mass of Russian's embrace this view, the outlook is dark indeed
But events have a way of eluding all prediction Jenny – there is no sense to indulge in despair.
Useless whattaboutism as cover for evil.
Fake neutrality while cheering on boundless cruelty
Not " whattaboutism" just a couple of actual facts…do you people remember what they are?….but then again they are of probably no interest or use to you now that you have so honorably and selflessly “picked a side” I guess?
It’s like you have seamlessly transitioned from your ‘Post Ideology’ world to a Post Fact world…impressive.
Though to be honest, I don’t believe either will age that well…
If my memory is correct New Zealand still recognised Pol Pot as the "legitimate" government of Cambodia after the Vietnamese invaded and kicked his arse to the kerb – we didn't want to upset China
“Whataboutism”
A term created to extract western warmongers from the difficult position of having done All The Bad Things they accuse others of doing. When someone uses it on you, it means you just killed their argument and exposed their moral bankruptcy.
А у вас негров линчуют
Some of us feel it necessary to remind others of the sickening hypocrisy and double standards being applied and the methods being used to shut down debate. I haven't seen anyone here justifying atrocities but that accusation is being used to shut down the conversation. But it is very important to be able to put context into the discussion.
I think everyone here wants the ICC to have the teeth it needs to look into every war crime, gather evidence to prosecute, and bring every war criminal to the dock. Reading some comments, I'm not entirely sure. But we all know the US hostility to the ICC.
In ideal world, the USA would pursue it's own war crimes as vigorously as they do the suspected criminal behavior of others, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. If only they could occupy the moral high ground and have that strength to preach to others.
Julian Assange wouldn't be rotting in a cell and the collateral murderers would be facing justice.
The Pentagon would find that the killers of the 10 Afghan civilians last year (including 7 children) didn't make 'an honest mistake' and someone would be charged with, at least, careless use of a drone to commit manslaughter.
“It was an honest mistake,” said the Pentagon. “But it’s not criminal conduct, random conduct, negligence.” How many honest mistakes have they made, with tens of thousands of civilian deaths in drone strikes? does anyone see a pattern here?
The My Lai anniversary was on March 16th and I think this horrific massacre passed by without a single mention in any New Zealand or other western media I've read. It that because it doesn't suit the current narrative? or is it something that the world has just forgotten. I'd be fairly certain that most 20-30 year-olds couldn't tell you the meaning of My Lai, and that's tragic.
Chris Trotter hasn't forgotten and I salute him for this article, which has also been published in the Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star
Bloody Anniversaries.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2022/04/bloody-anniversaries.html
Cite?
No, they've been flat-out whatabouting to minimise and deflect.
And Russia's.
Your point?
At the very least the US and the West have extensively documented their own crimes and some offenders have indeed been brought before domestic courts.
Omitting the Abu Ghraib/Bagram torture and prisoner abuse mob:
Robert Bales.
Clint Lorance
John E. Hatley
Eddie Gallagher
Donald Ball,
Dustin Heard
Evan Liberty
Nicholas Slatten
Paul Slough
Marshall L. Magincald
Trent D. Thomas
Robert B. Pennington
Melson J. Bacos
Jerry E. Shumate
John J. Jodka
Tyler A. Jackson
Jason Finley
Andrew Holmes
Michael Wagnoner
Jeremy Morlock
Adam Winfield
Now, do Russia.
As did Srebrenica in 1995, the British suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, the Rwanda genocide of 1994 and the tortured, murdered and disappeared of Chile, Argentina and the wider Central/South America.
Again, your point?
I guess that you can point to the cases where the current Russian Federation has supported the ICC in examining Russian conflicts (afghanistan, chechyna, georgian, syria or any of their post-soviet conflicts) and even post-Yugoslavia cases?
You are curiously one eyed in your claims and arguments. They always wind up as Americia bad, and noone else much is mentioned – except in relation to the US.
Of course every one who reads knows about the absolute hostility of the Russian Federation to any of the workings of the ICC.
Just as they know that the US refuses the ICC jurisdiction over US military. But who has assisted in bringing non-US military to the Hague.
Please note the distinction between the two positions.
As for Mai Lai – what was the result of the courts martial over that? Have you never looked at that?
Compare that to the medals ceremonies for Russia soldiers after massacres. Chechyna and Syria in particular.
As a client state of the US, New Zealand also supported Pol Pot. The logic being employed by our respective governments, – 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' The enemy of the US hegemon and its allies, including NZ, of the time was Vietnam, which was also an enemy of the Pol Pot regime.
But we were not the only ones to support Pol Pot, Noam Chomsky, the darling of the Alt-Left and Tankies everywhere, also supported Pol Pot. Anyone can make a mistake I suppose, and supporting a genocidal regime is a big one. But doing it a second time?
It just seems that some people never learn.
How Noam Chomsky Betrayed the Syrian People
I have never claimed that both the USA and the UK are my defenders of Democracy.
In my life I have protested against the US during the war in Vietnam,
During the 'Troubles' I joined a protest occupation of the UK consul offices in Auckland against the UK occupation of Northern Island. I have been a life long opponent of imperialism of all kinds.
It is interesting Adrian that you bring up the fact that the US and the UK were at different times both supporters of the Franco regime. So were Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy.
At another time and place, it is somewhat analogous to the West's support of the Assad regime, It is on the record that at another time Tony Blair lobbied to get Bashar Assad a British Knighthood. And that Assad and his family were close friends of the British Royal family, Assad being the only sitting Middle East leader ever to overnight in the Buckingham palace as the Queen's guest. That it was well known, Assad's appalling human rights record. narrowly prevented Assad getting his Knighthood from the British establishment.
Things soured somewhat between Western imperialism and Assad at the outbreak of the Arab Spring in Syria. But the West did not step in on the side of the regime to crush the popular revolt against Assad, as they have done in so many other countries, leaving a space for the rising revanchist Russian imperialists to do so.
If we are going to make comparisons with the past.
I would compare Russia's intervention in Syria, to Germany's intervention in Spain.
I would compare Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to Germany's invasion of Poland.
Both aspiring superpowers who were/are challenging the existing imperial division of the world, were emboldened in Europe by their rivals lack of interest in stopping their overseas interventions in Syria and Spain.
Another comparison I would make to imperialist interventions of the past would be to the Vietnam War to Ukraine. The Vietnam defeated the American imperialists, just as Ukraine is defeating the Russian imperialists.
I think the problem here Adrian, is that you are so blinded by your hatred of US UK imperialism that you can't recognise the fact that imperialism has been and is practiced by other countries.
Even little ol' New Zealand.
New Zealand was once known as "The Prussia of the South Seas" for our colonial practices toward our Pacific Island neighbours.
At the outbreak of the First World War New Zealand navy raced Australia to take possession of the German colony of Samoa. (England and France being otherwise engaged). Once in full control of Samoa, New Zealand, practices a form of colonial oppression rivaling anything practiced by bigger imperial powers, including mass detention and massacre of the Samoan people.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/samoa/rise-of-mau
What you fail to realise Adrian is that the trend to imperialism and colonial expansion is endemic to all capitalist economies.
It is widely accepted that capitalist economies must have growth.
Without growth capitalist economies go into recession and decline.
Expansion or decline.
To escape this vice and maintain growth economies, big nations expand to take over more and more resources and markets, often in competition with other big countries, smaller nations like New Zealand or defeated nations like Japan unable to practice imperialism on their own, have to tie themselves to the war wagon of bigger winning imperial powers like the US.
Until we can achieve a steady state economy, rival imperial blocs will keep butting up against each other.
Until we can achieve a steady state economy we will keep exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet.
I think your mistake Adrian is that you are partisan to one side, instead of being opposed to all imperialisms.
"Lay down with dogs get up with fleas”, Eh Adrian? Maybe you need to closely examine some of the fleas that you (figuratively) 'lay down with" ?
Just a suggestion, but maybe it is you Adrian that needs to get off your high horse.
Pissed Russian lets the cat out of the bag. It's all about the soup.
https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1512395642999611393
The soup war boiled over into social media this year, when @Russia (the official Twitter account for the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) tweeted: “A timeless classic, #Borsch is one of Russia’s most famous & beloved #dishes & a symbol of traditional cuisine”.
To the average Twitter skimmer, Russians broadcasting about borsch may seem obvious and innocuous, but for Ukrainians, who consider borsch to be their national dish, the Russian tweet is wartime propaganda, especially considering the current occupation of Crimea and the latest territorial conflict in eastern Ukraine that’s been raging since 2014. The Ukrainian Twittersphere responded with anger and humour, with comments like “As if stealing Crimea wasn’t enough, you had to go and steal borsch from Ukraine as well”.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20191014-who-really-owns-borsch
Even the niggling itch that is pavlova has Russian origins, with the ballerina Anna Pavlova touring the world and inspiring a dessert with her tutu.
‘
“…..she is apparently absolutely drunk”
And who wouldn't be, in her position?
Anyone would have to be drunk or on drugs to continue in this role.
I Love it how the screaming Header for that piece is…
Stream of journalists resign from Russia's state TV amid Ukraine invasion
..then two lines down it's more like…."a steady but quiet stream"
Looks like your news outlets must be learning quickly from their new News instructors…The Daily Mail…LOL!
Screaming Header?
And you want to be taken seriously?
That's a LOL! from me.
Adrian 'Stream' and 'Steady Stream' do not negate each other.
You are just nit-picking, Adrian. You are unable to challenge the the main point of my comment and links, which is, that many Russian newscasters despite their salaries and threats to their freedom, can't stomach the vile pro-war propaganda they have to churn out, on pain of 15 year detention in a labour camp.
New Russian law on Ukraine war reporting threatens journalists with lengthy prison sentences
P.S.
Adrian, If you have ever had to write a Newspaper headline then you would know you have to economise on words. Because of this many headlines are often cryptic. Another thing, Headlines are often not written by the journalist who wrote the report, but the Editor they handed it to for publication. Sometimes it is even the compositor, if it is a for a hard copy journal.
By not addressing or disputing the main point you are only making a fool of yourself.
For those of you who haven't heard it yet, the marcabre, yet incredibly catchy Ukranian song (with English Subtitles) eulogising the exploits of the Bayraktar drone in the Ukranian conflict. Trigger warning: contains lots of drone video of things exploding.
I saw a video of residents of captured Kherson singing this song at the Russian occupiers as an act of defiance.
Buckle in North Island people for the Tuesday storm coming down from south of New Caledonia.
New Zealand North Island Weather Forecast (metvuw.com)
Great we need some steady rain for a few days, hopefully it falls in the right places and as per goldilocks instructions.
Looking like a direct hit and another model indicates it may sit just east of Cook Strait = storm winds around Wellington
Interactive Weather and Wave Forecast Maps
NZH piece looking at burnout in the health system,
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-front-page-podcast-resignation-problem-runs-deeper-than-ashley-bloomfield-and-health-bosses/X7K77CEIORFTNT227FHNBXFHBM
It's an emergency situation that's not going away any time soon.
What are the reasons that the government cannot give nurses and other staff an immediate pay raise?
They are running out of peanuts?
RNZ news today staff in wairarapa literally given peanuts. No link as yet.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/128307456/health-workers-get-10-bonus-peanuts-and-popcorn-for-working-through-omicron
The hospitals or the government?
DHBs
One can imagine the meeting where these decisions were made, all bowing down to the sacred balance sheet.
Makes me think of the Pythons, very prescient.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wd9NQxIeAAc
Ah, the machine that goes 'bing'….brilliant
Yes Minister is scarily close to reality.
There was an agreed and backdated pay rise last year.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/126691612/nurses-to-get-5800-pay-rise-after-83pc-of-nzno-members-vote-to-accept-dhb-offer
Also as Macro mentions the cupboard is bare ..in fact worse than bare.
not as bare as it's going to be if our medical staff get PTSD and burnout and we don't have enough to run our hospitals, medical centres and old people's homes.
Our hospitals, medical centres and rest homes have always relied upon the free flow of health professionals and associated caregivers from the asia pacific region and around the world.
It is and was one of the greatest failures of our COVID response that this flow of outstanding people was turned off.
"Have always relied on" cheap labour and staff who have their training costs paid elsewhere,, to be exploited, and keep wages low.
Just like most large NZ employers.
Fixed it for Ya!
There's no doubt that pay scales in the NZ healthcare system are lower than across the Tasman.
The medical professionals and allied healthcare providers will, however, get the same pay as their NZ educated and resident peers.
It is not only healthcare in NZ, that is underpaid.
It appears the pay restraint guidelines to June 21 still apply.
"On 28 April 2020 the Public Service Commissioner issued guidance on the application of pay restraint through to June 2021 following a Cabinet decision that visible pay restraint in the public sector was an appropriate response to the impact of COVID-19."
If so, key principle 2.5 still operates.
"Address acute recruitment and retention issues that are creating risks to frontline service delivery. Initiatives in this area should be of limited scale."
https://www.publicservice.govt.nz/our-work/er/public-service-pay-guidance-2021/
so a policy they could easily revisit?
They could I guess update the guidelines, but looks like that would need Cabinet say so. Weird how Cabinet hasn't given health worker pay guidelines separate from the rest to acknowledge the obvious extra effort required of them in the Covid pandemic. Seems to me that would be "an appropriate response to the impact of COVID 19."
"On 28 April 2020 the Public Service Commissioner issued guidance on the application of pay restraint through to June 2021 following a Cabinet decision that visible pay restraint in the public sector was an appropriate response to the impact of COVID 19."
Health and housing are both not doing well and both are vital for well being.
Health is probably easier to fix. Free training for nurses and a 50% discount for doctors. Increasing salaries by 10% and recruiting more qualified nurses and doctors from overseas. The Medical Council has outdated methods in accepting some registration of qualified doctors from overseas even when they have worked in Britain or the US.
Exhausted medical staff is close to slave labour.
Preventative programs could work such as free visits to the GP for some medical conditions . I realise the shortage of GPs is also a concern.
I popped a comment the other day about 'moral injury, classically experienced by soldiers now common amongst health professionals.
Folk caught in a double or triple bind. Conflicting pressures, trying to serve/advocate for a patient against time, staffing and resource short-comings.
Burn out has the sound of the victim lacking resilience or another deficiency. Moral injury puts the cause where it belongs: at the feet of a broken system. No matter your ability, an individual will not change a not-fit-for-purpose beauracracy.
Once again I plead for Little's health reforms to reject this neo-liberal, sub-contracting business model of running our hospitals.
More money doesn't fix burnout. What fixes burnout is more staff.
I don't see the current DBH structure (which is hyper-focused on the coming re-organization) doing anything about increasing base-line staffing levels.
More money will do little to help the current burnt-out workforce – though it may help reduce the risk of our health professionals deciding that 20+% higher salaries in Australia are a much better option.
What I think needs to happen:
This would get us through the next 5 years.
In parallel. We need to step up the training and qualification of medical professionals (in the widest possible sense) in NZ. Whatever it takes, including, but not limited to: Direction to the universities to double or triple the doctor intake; making nursing fees-free; allowing student loans to be forgiven for medical professions who remain in NZ (and at an an increased rate for hard to staff areas), etc.
NZ needs to grow our own medical professionals, rather than rely on importing them.
After 5 years we should be able to cover entry level places (and then scale back immigration). After 10-15 years we should only need to import for highly specialized or unique skill sets (e.g. a paediatric oncologist from Boston Children's Hospital – who happens to want to immigrate to NZ)
the article I linked to says they can't recruit, and they can't stop people leaving, because workers can get better wages and salaries overseas. In a pandemic, the countries paying decently will get the staff. That's not us. So money is intrinsically linked to burnout. Which was the point of my comment. Why can't we raise rates and then do all the retention and recruiting things you suggest.
will also point out that staff burnout and PTSD internationally means there is a smaller pool to draw on. We should be doing whatever we can to retain our current health workforce.
And while I'm here, improving work conditions (including pay) so that people want to do aged and disability care etc is an urgent necessity as well.
I don't disagree with more money. I'm just pointing out that it's only the first step.
More money doesn't fix the people who are burnt out now.
And it doesn't fix the culture at the DHB (expressed over the last 20 years) of never hiring enough staff – and using bureau/agency staff to cover gaps. That's not a bad emergency solution, but it's a shockingly-bad one to be using routinely (which they have been).
As far as recruitment goes, money isn't everything. Sorting out the appallingly bad practice (and reputation) of NZ Immigration would be high up there. Newspaper articles about skilled migrants who are being knocked back on PR status by Immigration NZ over relatively petty bureaucratic concerns do us no favours on the international stage.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/skilled-migrants-throw-in-the-towel-after-families-rejected
And, of course (it all circles back) housing in NZ is a critical concern. People coming from overseas want to 'settle' – they want their own home, and to pay a reasonable price for it. Living costs are high on the list of factors that immigrants consider.
It probably would feel humiliating for some overseas doctors to not have their registration recognised by the Medical Council. Fluency in English could be a barrier for some and tuition for this needs to be available.
NZ offers courses for international students to do nursing. Reduce the fee by 50% if they work in NZ for 3 years once they are registered.
Attrition rates in NZ due to burnout has now become serious. No one wants to spend their day off needing to stay in bed or be kept up at night worrying if there will be enough nurses on the next shift, as seen on the Sunday programme last week.
Why do this instead of training more New Zealanders?
My preference would be to train more people permanently in New Zealand but it is retaining the trained nurses which is the problem. The only way to retain is comparable wages and working conditions with the country's where our trained nurses flock to.
yep. I would have thought the pandemic would have made this crystal clear to the government but apparently not.
I think it's more than humiliating. It looks as though the Medical Council is deliberately feather-bedding – to protect the status/salaries of their members.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/127955802/uktrained-neurosurgeon-takes-legal-action-against-medical-council-after-being-denied-specialist-role-in-nz
I really don't think that the neurosurgery standards of UK hospitals are significantly lower than those of NZ hospitals /sarc.
Well said and all the Medical Council of NZ has done is put more pressure on Christchurch neuro surgery.
More money doesn't fix burnout. What fixes burnout is more staff.
True, but that costs money. 🙂
The Government wasted at least $51 million on a defunct cycle lane project. It has its priorities sorted.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/126575243/51m-spent-on-axed-auckland-harbour-cycling-bridge-project-residents-in-limbo
I didn’t know that Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency funded DHBs.
You seem to have no clue about government spending, but I knew this already.
You seem to have no clue about government spending,
An infantile response which I expected lol. Clearly, I'm responsible for the Government's profligacy.
Yup, only a dimwit would expect a dim-witted reply, LOL. Yes, indeed, you’re demonstrably responsible for “the Government's profligacy”, which is exactly what I said. \sarc
Ross, learn to read, then read to learn, about politics, economy, government, and other important stuff that we discuss here on TS and then come back here with useful contributions.
Out of morbid curiosity, do you think that all of that $51 million has been a complete waste and none of the work undertaken can and will ever be used for anything else? Do you know exactly what it paid for? Do you now that planning costs money? Do you know that it doesn’t involve just little sketches on a napkin and calculations on the back of an envelope? Do you know, Ross?
What chance of the right vote being split, and Jan Tinetti taking the win?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/04/poll-finds-tauranga-voters-think-act-more-effective-than-national-as-david-seymour-announces-cameron-luxton-as-candidate.html
Will Jan Tinetti do the work?
This week Ardern and Parker are on record saying she can't win, which is just fucking stupid.
Stupid maybe, but at least it was an honest assessment of a Labour candidate winning in Tauranga in any election and especially in the current climate.
Labour won the party vote in Tauranga last time and fell short on the candidate vote by less than 2000.
Which is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Tinetti…..
Why not? It's the best result in a long time.
Even in an outstandingly historic landslide for Labour – which resulted in an outright majority government – she was unable to defeat the National candidate.
The difference between the Labour List result and her personal vote tally indicates that it was Ardern who was popular, not Tinetti.
Now that the gloss is off Ardern (not arguing the reasons and/or fairness of this – but it's the reality) – Tinetti will do a lot worse than she did in 2020. Especially as, historically, electorates use by-elections to punish the government.
Labour won the party vote in Tauranga last time and fell short on the candidate vote by less than 2000.
At at the last election, Labour's party vote across the country was 50%. Meanwhile, the latest Roy Morgan poll has Labour polling at 32%.
https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/8942-nz-national-voting-intention-march-2022-202204080325
Since when have honest assessments had anything to do with politians especially around elections?
Under promise and over deliver.
Most parties will be using the by election as a way of fine tuning their systems for next year.
Just as well that neither Parker nor Ardern did say that “she [Jan Tinetti] can't win” [my italics].
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/04/tauranga-by-election-david-parker-doesn-t-think-labour-s-jan-tinetti-will-win-electorate.html
The only way Labour or a Labour candidate cannot win is when they don’t stand at all.
So, maybe they weren’t fucking stupid after all.
No one anywhere near the Tinetti campaign would be confused by your semantic foolery, since Ardern is clear that Labour hasn't won there since 1935:
SunLive – Tauranga by-election date to be set soon – The Bay's News First
Tauranga by-election: Jacinda Ardern doesn't expect Labour to win, will set date soon | Stuff.co.nz
Luckily, I can tell the difference between cannot and unlikely. Only a fatalistic fool would throw in the towel before the match and give up the fight as fait accompli, as that would indeed be fucking stupid. Luckily, Parker and Ardern are more politically savvy than you are.
How many times do you think that Ardern will appear at a campaign event in Tauranga during the by-election campaign period?
Not appearing at all in support of her parties own campaign would certainly be a case giving up the fight I would say.
On the other hand appearing four or five times would demonstrate they were trying to win. What is you pick for the number of times she will show up?
Your guess is as good as mine, but more importantly, how vigorously will Labour’s candidate campaign? Will the candidate even show up at events?
In any case, whether Labour thinks it has a show of winning or not – they should be using the by-election to test out policies on the electorate – just as Act will be (and I'd hope the Greens would be, too).
Cam Luxton should shave his head? There's enough stupid right wingers who would vote him in error to make his performance look good
Notably the poll either doesn't ask (or the results haven't been released), the question 'which party/candidate would you vote for in the coming by-election'?
Voters (as seen in Epsom) vote strategically. Unless the ACT candidate has a stratospheric rise in polls over the next few weeks, most people are going to think that it would be a wasted vote, since he doesn't have a chance. ACT will be using the by-election to bolster their presence as a party – with an eye on 2023. The Greens should be doing the same, as should Labour – especially as Ardern has effectively ruled out a real challenge.
Next time anyone attempts to criticise Grant Robertson, maybe they should first take a look at the extremely devious fellow who is running the finances in the UK-Rishi Sunak.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/08/the-rishi-sunak-show-non-dom-chancellor-wife-tax
Brian Easton to the heart of things (again)
"The redisorganisation will make the three waters infrastructure more visible with the expectation that the waters will be better looked after. That will be costly. The minister introducing the policy stupidly said the new configuration will lower local body rates since they wont have to fund local water supplies from them. What she did not say was how the new entities will be funded. By rates? By user charges? By central government subsidies out of its tax revenue? The lack of answers is an omission comparable to leaving the economy out of our history.
It is not simply a matter of higher charges somewhere in the system. Who pays will matter. Consider the clumsy entity which runs from East Cape to Nelson. Will the East Capers be paying for Nelson’s water infrastructure or the other way around? Perhaps the expectation is that Wellingtonians will pay for both. Who knows? Certainly not those designing the system."
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/why-do-we-ignore-economics-in-public-policy-and-history
As he demonstrates, 3 Waters is a non solution to a misidentified problem.
Easton would be more use if he had a handle on public-private institutional economics, because that's really what runs the country. He sounds as tired as Trotter.
I think he was making his point generally rather than trying to second-guess the minister. As we all know, Grant is the finance maestro. He will wield his magic wand over three waters at the right time in the process. Down the road apiece.
Easton cites his own The Commercialisation of New Zealand. which is 23 years old now.
What we need is economists who can do more than rail against commercialisation of public entities. We are beset by them. We have commercialised entities in the public realms of: health, public health, electricity, tertiary education, social welfare, superannuation, banking, jails, and pretty much everything else except the armed forces, judges and the Police. We are about to add water, nationwide rather than locally.
We've had most of them in operation since the first term of the Bolger government. If New Zealand were going to come apart by now because of commercialisation we would have done so by now.
So Easton bemoaning yet another commerical hybrid, using his 1990s toldyaso framework, just doesn't cut the mustard anymore.
It seems we are also to commercialize road building,with Waka Kotahi to become an importer of Bitumen,this will of course reduce both the commercial risk and margins for foreign companies such as Higgins,Fulton hogan and Downers.
we could also extend it further with WK taking over the role of regional councils on public transport,and conservation and MPI taking over biosecurity.This would help to make Regional councils extinct a win win.
Not all contractors will need that.
WK pretty much own local government outside of water.
Local Government are sucked dry like a wasp on a chrysalis.
There will need more to be taken from local government ,such as decrease in wages for the town clerks (who identify as CEO'S) as without such a large asset base,and fewer employees will not need such large salaries.Similar for local body politicians a 25% cut across the board on remuneration ,a win win again.
Its all good…im sure we can import local government as well
We already are.
true to a degree for services…but not yet in its entirety….the candidates at least have to be resident.
More the LG ideology for public assets from failed nation states such as the UK.
https://ilsr.org/is-britains-long-love-affair-with-privatization-ending-in-divorce/
excellent piece…but can you see ANY political party here that recognises such?….certainly not the Ardern led (who worked for Blair) NZ Labour Party.
None,hence we are still entrenched to repeat the errors of the past,by forgetting the history (as Easton put it) that allowed the corporatisation and then financialization ( future pricing instruments) of public monopolies.The instruments were energy shocks,high inflation and a hot cold war with Russia.
https://twitter.com/crampell/status/1511711122784768008?cxt=HHwWkMC-ybfQ1vopAAAA
destined to repeat because after over 3 decades of lost institutional knowledge and capability they no longer know how to even if they wanted to….or worse they dont even know that they dont know.
Woooosh
I'm sure Mr Easton will take your criticism on board
As much as the government will take on his.
To their detriment
Well the mysterious silence from cabinet last week turns out to be due to a process glitch: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cabinet-to-consider-next-co-governance-steps
ACT's attempt to beat up the situation via referendum proposal seems like a phony war. Obviously settler descendants would vote in accord with the earlier settler majority. Retaining neocolonialism is a priority for many. Seymour's masks his agenda with various diversionary framings.
Nevertheless the govt framing of co-governance ought to be sophisticated while grounded in realpolitik. Obviously parity between 16% of the populace and the other 84% is a non-starter. Anyone who thinks co-governance means racial parity is best described as delusional, so it will be interesting to see how many binary left/right voters fall into that conceptual trap!
Honouring the Treaty is easy in principle but in practice the devil rules the detail so it will come down to context in each instance. Bioregionalism is an economic Green framing which could be a useful basis. That would allow Maori to interpret the chiefly Treaty rights of 1840 in contemporary terms via iwi & hapu. Some residual economic traditions from that earlier era could then combine with current best practice.
The last major reform this government will have a crack at is the 3 waters reform, and it's the last we will hear of major Maori aspirations driven out of government.
I'd put odds on 3 Waters completing this term as 50-50. And should National win they've stated it will be completely overturned.
The Labour Maori Caucus are clearly driving this Labour government to a short and very deadly election in 2023.
I'd say less than 50:50. Even if the legislation is enacted, the actual transition won't be started, let alone been completed before the election. And, as you say, National/Act have committed to over-turn it. So electoral suicide for zero long-term benefit.
Canny heads within Labour will want to hold off the legislation – especially as it's turning into such a hot potato – and wait and see what the outcome of the 2023 election is. If they're back in power, they'd rightly regard this as an endorsement of 3 waters, and slam the legislation through at the beginning of the term.
However, as you say, the Maori Caucus may well be in control of the process, rather than the political strategists.
If that was the approach Labour took then not only would it be disingenuous (no surprises there) but it would provide the platform for Nat/Act pre election campaign to wring a backtrack from Labour, much like CGT
National/Act have already announced that they'll roll back 3 waters. It's already an election issue, regardless of what Labour do.
Yes National have made their position clear. whereas Labour if they delay are being anything but. The 'canny heads' wouldnt be so canny to hold off then…either Labour want the policy or not…and the election potentially gives them a mandate.
Well, no. It can hardly be argued that Labour have a mandate for 3 waters. It wasn't declared policy at the last election – which, in any case, was won on Covid, rather than on any other policies.
If they get re-elected, when the electorate know that it's a piece of legislation in the works, then they certainly do have a mandate.
AFAICS there are 4 scenarios:
* Labour passes 3 waters and loses the election. National immediately repeals it.
* Labour doesn't pass 3 waters and loses the election. Zero change.
* Labour doesn't pass 3 waters, and wins the election. 3 waters legislated in the first year. Effectively a mandate for 3 waters.
* Labour passes 3 waters, and wins the election (which is a very close call IMHO). 3 waters legislation is implemented 1-2 years earlier. Election is effectively a referendum on 3 waters.
In the first 2 scenarios – it doesn't matter for 3 waters – Labour loses and the legislation is either not enacted, or repealed.
In the second 2 scenarios. 3 waters is enacted – with a 1-2 year delay the difference.
However, in both the second two scenarios, the election is a referendum on 3 waters (whether already passed or not). National's position makes this impossible for Labour to avoid.
The question is: Does enacting 3 waters, pre-election, make it less likely for Labour to be re-elected. For most commenters, the answer is 'yes'. Which then leads to the question – is it worthwhile saving (at best case) 1-2 years and in the worst case, losing an election, over?
Good analysis. The other thing to consider is how keen pakeha Labour parliamentarians are to alienate Maori Labour voters. Not doing it seems to threaten a substantial electoral damage. Ardern would follow HC into the historical category of Labour leaders who betrayed Maori. Twice stabbed in the back would be a repetition Maori leaders would regard as a lesson about naivety they didn't really need to repeat. Chances of any third rinse & repeat cycle would be zilch…
If 3 Waters being enacted will cost Labour the election then it is obviously an unwanted policy.
You appear to be advocating for deception by a political party to obtain the Treasury benches, and we wonder why democracy is under threat.
Nope. I'm advocating (if anything) for Labour to go to the election with 3 Waters announced as a policy (hopefully with the major gaps and lacunae cleared up, so people can understand exactly what they're voting for).
Nothing deceptive about that.
"Nope. I'm advocating (if anything) for Labour to go to the election with 3 Waters announced as a policy"
or
"Canny heads within Labour will want to hold off the legislation – especially as it's turning into such a hot potato – and wait and see what the outcome of the 2023 election is. If they're back in power, they'd rightly regard this as an endorsement of 3 waters, and slam the legislation through at the beginning of the term."
I think you are mistaking commentary for advocacy.
And, in any case, both of your quotes are saying virtually the same thing – I think it’s a mistake (if Labour want to be re-elected) for them to enact 3 waters prior to the elections. For pragmatic political reasons. Governing is the art of the possible.
Both of 'your' quotes are contradictory
"…and the (2023) election potentially gives them a mandate."
Any sitting Government has a mandate to draft new Bills. Heck, it is their duty & responsibility. The draft 3-Waters Bill may make it into Parliament in the 2nd half of this year and then it will take a whole lot more water under the bridge [pun intended] before we have the final vote. If the policy is worth doing then they should do it and do it now, no if’s or but’s. If it’s not worth doing then they should drop it at the earliest opportune moment and spin it into a positive decision.
So 3 waters is a sufficiently main-plank policy for Labour, that it's worth risking losing an election over?
Because governments play politics all the time with policy – judging where in the electoral cycle they are, and how important the content is, and what the opposition (both in parliament and in the country at large) thinks.
If Labour thinks it is a worthy policy then they should go for it now and on the campaign trail, if necessary. Same for the other political parties. In any case, most parties have a comprehensive and mature portfolio of policies.
Also, a government has a political mandate to draft new bills to enact the legislation they campaigned on. Now, of course, the electorate cuts them some slack where a new situation/crisis arises, or for routine and/or minor legislation.
But there is always an outcry, when a government enacts major pieces of legislation which were not announced in their election campaign. And both the 'asset grab' and the 'co-governance' elements are pretty much unique in NZ legislative history AFAIK.
So-called ‘public’ outcries in MSM and on SM through the megaphones of dubious spinsters with hidden agendas trying to sow doubt & division? If I were a timid politician I would shake in my boots too, but a draft Bill that is strong enough to withstand scrutiny in the House and Select Committees should also be able to withstand the scrutiny of the voters and public opinion. I’m quite certain that the final (?) 3-Waters Bill will be watered down version of the current draft.
BTW, one form or another of ‘co-governance’ has been in the cards since ToW.
Definitely a test of the political skills of the Labour team but I'm still more optimistic than 50-50. On a good day, I'm 70-30 odds on. On a bad day, 60-40.
Why? Reform is an historical necessity. No chance the status quo will survive regardless of the next election. So it comes down to how & what will change. Up to Willie & co to sell their view of the changes to pakeha colleagues. Sticking points that prevent consensus emerging will become the process focus. If they can't finesse those in a few days of trying, cabinet will try to park the thing.
Labour need to get more runs on the board so a policy win is preferable to admitting defeat. Compromise can get that…
Willie Jackson dont need to sell it to his colleagues…the gov need to sell it to the electorate…..and that is going to be nigh on impossible unless they can demonstrate advantage, something they appear unable to do even at this advanced stage.
I have yet to see any sign of the remotest possibility of meaningful compromise coming from Mahuta.
Compromise would require her to be removed from this portfolio, and someone capable of building consensus with an already irate group of councils, to be appointed. Zero idea who, from the Labour ministers who would be capable – possibly Hipkins – though God alone knows he's got enough on his plate.
Given that the mayors and councillors are already going into election mode (and many LG elections will effectively be a referendum on local policy over 3 waters) – there's a very short window of opportunity to make significant progress in this area.
I just don't see that it's a significant priority for the Ardern Government (as opposed to the Labour Maori caucus).
Too early for her to compromise. Ardern may transfer the task to another minister in a reshuffle. Probably depends how cabinet handles it next week.
You may be right re priority but that depends on Ardern & her view of her legacy. What does she want to achieve? She declared her climate change agenda but I don't recall anything else being cited as priority. Perhaps homelessness, but incrementalism is her agenda with that too. She's a liberal.
It's not just failure to compromise, Mahuta has treated the Councils with outright contempt – everything from lying about opt in/out provisions through to a clumsily handled (and failed) propaganda attempt to tar them in the eyes of the voters. Mahuta must be aware that as a prominent member of the Maori caucus, she is representing the way that co-governance will operate within the 3 waters organisations – and from the Council perspective, it looks like a total disaster.
Child poverty is Ardern's personal goal.
She's declared that climate change is her nuclear free moment – though I've yet to see substantial policy backing this up (yes, I know, Covid….)
If 3 waters sinks this Labour govt (and with Mahuta at the helm, it may well do so), what will be left as a legacy? Ardern will rise or fall in history books on her crisis management, but this will not be seen as a transformational government.
Wokesterism producing paranoia in uinversities has been a global trend for a while (mainly in advanced democracies perhaps).
Timorous professors bound by invisible constraints. It's all in the mind. Universities are factories producing orthodoxy by tradition. It's why they refused to offer Einstein a professorship for so many years. Even after he destroyed establishment physics by published five ground-breaking dissertations in 1905 while working as a patent-examiner, the mediocrities still defended their citadel for years.
Academic silos have been identified as part of their cultural dysfunction. Some universities have created multidisciplinary teams to cross-fertilise disciplines in recent decades but that remains a minority trend. We need a lot more. To deal with the wokesterism problem in particular, a focus on ethics & principles is required. Then enforcement, to make academic freedom real instead of a charade…
A self selecting survey by an astro turf organisation with an axe to grind still couldn't come up with a good headline.
Bryce Edwards in a nutshell.
If the left won't address the issue ('there's not such thing as cancel culture'), or even let people speak (No Debate), then it will be left to the right to determine how the conversation goes. Massive fucking own goal lefties.
No it is not in their minds.
Actually when professors speak out they are shamed and hunted out of their jobs.
And just very occasionally the Media Council does their job – in this case finding against Stuff and Souxie Wiles.
Media Council – PROFESSORS KENDALL CLEMENTS, ELIZABETH RATA, DOUG ELLIFFE, GARTH COOPER, ROBERT NOLA AND JOHN WERRY AGAINST STUFF
And it is also the case that the same experts who attacked those NZ-leading academics were themselves attacked online by COVID deniers.
New Zealand Covid experts take legal action against employer over alleged failure to protect them from abuse | New Zealand | The Guardian
In both cases the University of Auckland should have intervened harder and stronger to protect their staff.
We are a long, long way from the place universities ought to have here of being the legislated task of "critic and conscience of society".
In the UK people lose their jobs and careers. Many people are afraid to say anything. It's scary how fast this has developed and how much ground has been lost.
It reminds me of a bad relationship with an angry person. You walk on eggshells waiting to do or say something perceived as wrong. It's anyone's guess what will be used as fuel for their fire. It's very unhealthy.
I got out of that relationship. Can academia?
Wiles didn't physically threaten the 7letter writers. Completely obvious difference in circumstance.
Seems to me the anti-wokists have each jumped on their usual bandwagons without actually bothering to see if any cancelling was attempted – and by whom.
Wiles&many other academics responded to the 7academics' letter with an open piece of a similar tone – no cancelling was called for.
A lawyer's letters (that some recipients apparently found to be quite intimidating) was sent to some people who had expressed a contrary view to the original 7. In a further public opinion piece (just as the original letter-writers continued their own media engagement) Wiles misattributed the letters as being written on behalf of the 7, rather than their employer the University of Auckland. Note that she didn't call for people to be fired in that piece, either.
The misattribution was the subject of your Media Council link. Not cancel culture.
The closest one gets to silencing free speech was via the lawyers' letters that intimidated some academic employees from engaging in public debate with other employees of the same university.
But when people are being menaced in their own offices, the employer's actions are sluggish at best.
Royal Society initiated an investigation with the potential aim of expulsion, on the basis of anonymous complaints. Sounds like cancelling to me.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/royal-society-investigation-into-matauranga-maori-letter-sparks-academic-debate
leaving aside the debate about cancelling, there's a difference between academic debate, and what goes on around that. Some people publish a letter, some other people publish a rebuttal. All good. But because we do in fact have a culture that wants people to get fired or be punished or be removed from positions of power (I don't think this is a particularly controversial description of part of the progressive agenda), and because we have social media, the pressures on the first and second lot of people can be intense. Couple that with how things play out at work in the various relationships, it's not imo a healthy environment that encourages exploration of ideas.
I also think we are losing the ability to both form arguments and tolerate them. The contrast between TS's robust debate kaupapa and how twitter operates is stark. On twitter people just block or mute the people they get upset with, and there is no mechanism for ensuring robust debate. Robust debate can and does happen on twitter, but there are also a hell of a lot of people there who cannot tolerate a lot of push back on their ideas. I would hope that universities would be better but it seems clear that ground is being lost on this.
Couple of separate topics there.
1) Academic freedom should not be an excuse to distribute outright misinformation, especially if it endangers people's lives and is out of the particular academic's area of knowledge. There has to be some line between honest academic debate and outright professional misconduct, especially when lives and public wellbeing are involved.
2) I don't see much difference between blocking someone on twitter and skipping over any comment that is either from a known fool or looks to just be another installment of topics I tend to think of as "the daily hate". If anything, I curate the topics I discuss here much more carefully than stuff on twitter. Twitter isn't a format conducive to actual debate, anyway. Character count is too small, everything is atomised. Good for small jokes, though.
Did the original letter cross that line?
You should see what they say about TS 😉 I've been in good debates on twitter, although much seems less common now.
The difference between scrolling past on TS and blocking on twitter is that block actively affects the other person (they no longer see your tweets). This is why twitter has it, because it's a different tool from scrolling past. But my point was that on TS we actively enable robust debate, whereas on twitter it's not the kaupapa and they have tools to enable people to tweet in bubbles.
Apparently not, according to the RS process.
TS moderators put in a lot of effort regarding robust debate, for sure. But if I see some commenters in the activity feed, or particular patterns of specific people replying to each other, well, I'd need a shitload of spoons to even bother opening the thread. That feeling is not really one I get on twitter, thanks to the block feature.
In one of the links, Wiles states she was not one of those complainants. So Ad bringing up Wiles in this context is still inappropriate.
Also, the investigation was initiated by anonymous complainants… but "the society required they be identified for the disciplinary process to move ahead", according to your link.
And the complaint process didn't even get beyond the initial stage, let alone go to any possibility of "cancelling" (professional censure for misconduct, expulsion, etc).
agree about centering Wiles.
But I'm not sure if you get what cancel culture is. It's the environment that suppresses debate. You don't need to actually be expelled to next time make you think twice about saying something. In fact the actual expulsions tend to free people up to speak out more. The point isn't to expel people, it's to get them to shut up.
The environment in this case was all the things that happened (in the broader context of what is happening with progressive and identity cultures). Someone might shrug off a stalled investigation but that and the MSM coverage and the shitfest on SM might not be so easy.
As aside, I don't know what RS normally do, but if they don't allow anonymous complaints why did they even start the investigation? No idea what has happened there, but my observation is that some of the time people in positions of power do odd things because they don't want to be seen to not be progressive.
Like I said, there's something unhealthy going on.
Given that the complainants had to be identified before the initial investigation could proceed, the events seemed to be that they received five complaints. They knew who the complainants were, otherwise the complainants wouldn't have been able to be advised they would have to be on record to proceed. Two went on record.
As for what "cancel culture" is, it's nothing new. Whether it's twitter or having very public arguments in the media, people have always faced consequences for their opinions. Sometimes the reputational damage they inflict on themselves is permanent, other times it's barely noticable.
If someone's desire to express an opinion in global media (and now all media is global) exceeds their ability to express that opinion in a manner that reflects its complexity and impact on people's lives, they'll damage their personal and professional reputations.
Can't see how multidisciplinary teams will solve the cancel culture or suppression of debate going on in academia. It's very common in the UK and the US for academics from a wide range of departments to publicly criticise a colleague or peer who is talking about gender critical issues.
People lose their jobs and careers. They're not timorous and it's not all in their mind. They're brave, they stand up and speak out, and they pay a high cost.
how multidisciplinary teams will solve the cancel culture or suppression of debate going on in academia
It would develop on a common-interest basis. Then become self-organising as a group. Self-organising groups happen naturally. Ecosystems are self-organising. Membership of a lobby group that is demonstrably multidisciplinary gives you a broad base of support via design.
By which I mean humans can steer their self-organising groups in various ways. Unions arose historically on that basis, amalgamating democracy & hierarchy, using charisma to select for leaders (retaining them on a performance basis).
So if academic groups haven't been fit for purpose in preserving civil rights & freedom of speech, academics need to herd themselves more intelligently…
So you self-sort into groups which agree with each other? I don't see how that tests ideas – which is one of the primary functions of a university.
Have you done it tho? I learnt from running the process for the Greens. Being a primadonna like all the other activists, it became a learning curve on how to compromise to generate consensus.
So they'd only agree with each other on the goal at first. They'd enter the process on that basis, differentiate on how to work together, thrash out the differences, discover how to make consensus decision-making effectively, apply that method to the practicalities of how to engage with university & societal power-structures, media, public, etc.
the irony there is that the NZ Green Party has taken a No Debate position on GC issues and been very effective at preventing discussion.
In the UK, the Green Party is an absolute shitshow and far worse when it comes to identity issues.
A generational shift. They got captivated by the trend (unable to see the big picture). Simpleminded folk usually have to learn the hard way. Many of them even fail that test…
But what happens when groups disagree on the goal? The big picture philosophical stuff: co-governance or democracy; impact of trans on feminism; big or small government.
Those are the issues where the cancel culture is operating.
Well the issue started as freedom of speech so I was assuming academics would identify it as in their common interest. The goal would have to be framed in terms of whatever is limiting or compromising it in the university context. You get analysis & diagnosis to clarify that in the initial stage of discussion normally.
For instance, does their employment contract allow the university authorities to limit it? Does the university charter allow it? If no and yes, then it becomes a question of enforcement. What happens if the academics point out via public statement that the authorities are failing to do their job properly? Then the academics would need legal advice, and funding of that. What if the academics just complained to the minister of education? What if the response is "not my business"?
What I'm getting at is the usual story of method: it depends on required process to solve a problem. A group that forms to solve a problem has to operate as a task force (define goals, form a team, get rules of operation, then a plan & strategy).
So in regard to your more general questions, all this stuff applies but the various stages will work differently for each task & likely a different group dedicated to each too. In the 1970/80s when ngos were the thing, activists often were members of several simultaneously.
Unfortunately, at least some of the academics do not agree on the primacy of free-speech. They place other considerations first.
Ref Wiles/Hendry and the 'is Maori knowledge science' debate.
And, have zero desire to have a debate. Cancelling your opponents is both easier and more satisfactory for them.
What would make them want to engage with this consensus approach? Right now, the rewards from the 'woke' establishment are much, much greater.
Yeah, but such divides are traditional. Plenty of workers don't join unions. When I was at TVNZ I joined the PSA but it was optional & around half the staff didn't. So political lobbying happens when those sufficiently motivated agree to work together in a group to do it.
More generally, civil rights became an international trend & got UN covenants due to a small group of activists making it happen. Others who didn't do the hard work also got the benefits from the result. Altruism has a place.
So, back to your free speech example. We have a group of academics who are prepared to debate the primacy of free speech.
We have another group of academics, supported by powerful establishment leaders (university administration, social media storm-troopers, etc.) with zero interest in debate, using political and social tools to undermine, cancel and dismiss the first group.
I don't see how this has helped in any way.
In order for consensus to work, people have to choose to participate, or agree to abide by the decision, if they truly don't care.
The academics seem to be on a political learning curve. Prevailing over discrimination takes plenty of pressure and building it takes resolve and time. For a victim, the trajectory ahead always has a fork: give up & become or remain a victim if the path is too hard, or persevere until victory.
what you are suggesting may be useful for other things, but I'm still not seeing how it will stop cancel culture and No Debate.
In the GC area, people are too scared to speak out loud let alone organise formally within academia. Although in the UK there is organising outside of that, and consequently they have one of the most vibrant grass roots feminists movements in the English speaking world.
It wouldn't stop wokesters doing their thing initially, true. However pushback always modifies behaviour eventually. So the design of that has to be context-driven, such as factoring in the duty of university hierarchy to protect staff, how enforcement gets done, how negotiations can produce non-violent conflict resolution etc.
The basic psychodynamics is all about a balance of forces in a contentious context – something the UN is being reminded of by Russia – so as to force the wokesters doing group narcissism to learn how to relate to other groups in their community who have different values…
There's a fundamental dichotomy between the woke requirement for students to feel 'safe' in an intellectual/emotional sense; and the freedom of expression that requires universities to debate challenging and difficult matters.
If you are not sufficiently mentally robust to be in a space where alternative viewpoints are expressed and debated, then you don't belong at a university.
Alternative viewpoints should never be cancelled on a university campus. Alternatives include: invite another speaker to give a different view point; Challenge and debate; Protest matters of opinion being presented as fact (which is intellectually dishonest), etc.
Hard agree there.
I also think that courses (certainly undergrad) can be arranged so people can study and not take part in debate if they're not particularly robust eg if there is a hard lecture coming up, then they watch it on livestream or recording from home.
There's another issue here which is the degree to which the concept of safety has been distorted. So we have one end of a spectrum saying that everyone has to feel safe by way of the least safe person determining where the line is, and at the other end we have lefties saying that there's not such thing as safe space and we shouldn't even try. I see this as reactions to neoliberalism and old school hard man politics. Fortunately there are other models out there, but we're a bit slow in trying them out.
For me, the writing was on the wall when Brash was prevented from speaking at Massey University, by a chancellor who was more concerned with 'image' than with free speech.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/107196687/don-brashs-speech-at-massey-university-was-cancelled-due-to-racist-behaviours
I have little support for Brash and his views. But he is a NZ politician, and universities should foster the debate of all views. If you profoundly disagree – then either don't go (attendance is entirely optional), or listen and prepare a counterargument (student newspaper, radio, or even a counter speech)
The subsequent treatment of the University professors in the relation to the debate over whether traditional knowledge is science – particularly by Wiles and Hendry, but also by their university administrations, was shameful, but not surprising. Sadly, there have been, and are likely to be, no consequences for the abusers (Wiles, Hendry, et al); but plenty of consequences for the letter-writers – who were raising a legitimate point of debate.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/scientists-rubbish-auckland-university-professors-letter-claiming-maori-knowledge-is-not-science/GN55DAZCM47TOZUTPYP2Q3CSLM/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/experts-shaun-hendy-and-siouxsie-wiles-among-those-rejecting-claim-maori-knowledge-isnt-science-as-scientific-racism/QQSKY6Y2CBP7ONYRXXL3VUUBN4/
In academia, people lose their jobs and careers if they don’t get funding. They need to publish and submit grant applications. They need to teach and attract students. The most pragmatic and expedient way is to go with the flow rather than go against the stream an upset the fragile and delicate status quo – united we survive, divided we succumb. All this is largely a zero-sum game; journals accept limited number of manuscripts unless they are predatory journals, funders have limited budgets, universities have limited staff positions and vacancies, and the pool of students is limited too – even the international pool. University ranking is becoming a perverse tool to play the game even harder. Look at what happened with the 16 Polytechs here in NZ, they’re now headed by one CEO.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/124824938/half-of-nzs-16-polytech-ceos-have-quit-as-megamerger-takes-its-toll
I find it hilarious that you use Einstein as an illustrative example of “wokesterism” at NZ universities. Anyway, AFAIK, he wrote only 1 dissertation in 1905 for which he was given his PhD degree. How many years did it take him from being a patent-examiner in 1905 to becoming professor?
That is rather meaningless without specifying which/what ethics and principles – NZ universities ooze ‘ethics and principles’, just not the ones you appear to be thinking of. Enforcing freedom has a nice ring of irony to it.
Authors normally cite all five that I mentioned for 1905: the one that got him his doctorate, plus the four more important ones (the one on quanta of light won him the Nobel prize, the one that proved atoms exist, the one on special relativity, and the one introducing E = mc2) which are described here…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_mirabilis_papers
He became physics prof at the University of Zurich four years later. I agree universities are afflicted by the credibility problem you describe – if they started to practice the ethics & principles they preach things would be more likely to improve.
For various reasons and through various mechanisms NZ universities are in lockstep with NZ Governments. Slowly but surely, their role as critic and conscience of society has been eroded down to mere window dressing and chiming of virtues. Genuine debates don’t happen, at least not as often as they should, and decisions are made mostly behind closed doors by managers, not thinkers, critics, or visionaries with token consultation of staff and students and usually only if and when it is required by law, i.e. by employment law. I could give a few examples of public (high-profile) appointments and arrangements over the years to illustrate my point and show how intertwined NZ academia and politics have become, but I’d be targeting individuals who are bending over backwards to do a great job.
Her name is Ekaterina Morozova.
In Moscow, a girl with an anti-war poster was detained near the building of the Ministry of Defense https://24live.co/live/UPrXz?n=3024898260027740258
https://twitter.com/OvdInfo/status/1512449719347392517
– @LawMorozova
Anyone able to get through the paywall and explain "the real reason" why …
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/louisa-wall-on-quitting-politics-labours-tribalism-and-the-grief-of-leaving-parliament/RLFXSHDPWL7P4LFGKBX5FGAYRQ/
The selection of Robbo's supposed fav Arena Williams ahead of Wall.
There's a strong implication that the leadership (Ardern and Robertson) wanted her gone because a) She was Team Cunliffe b) She didn't toe the party line, and was loud and argumentative in expressing her views and c) She was a 'divisive' force (which I think is code for 'doesn't automatically support the leader, right or wrong')
I don't care about A. But B & C are reasons to support her, rather than sack her. And the fact that they did 'de-select' her, doesn't say good things about Szabo (or Ardern & Robertson – who had to have agreed).
There is no doubt whatsoever, that Arena Williams was parachuted into the seat by the central Labour Party, over the wishes of the local electorate Labour team (some of whom are still bitter about it). It was a deliberate attempt to get rid of Wall – and only succeeded (after the legal challenge) because Wall agreed to a compromise.
Quote from article above
Arena Williams has yet to make any mark on the fabric of NZ society. She may turn out to be the next Ardern, but so far she's a poor replacement for a stroppy sheila with a sense of justice a mile wide, who's not afraid to stand up and be counted AND believes in working with whoever can contribute to get the job done. I think we need more Louisa Walls in Parliament, not fewer.
Does this make anyone else worry?
https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1512476276120072200
I couldn't see anything in the context to worry about:
So he's riffing on the historic occasion – anything's possible in the USA. Ugly is a bit of a puzzle. I presume he means anal-retentive societies & their autocrats are freaked by the concept of possibility. They hate the implied uncertainty. They believe everyone can be expected to do as they're told. Since that belief still prevailed here during my childhood & youth I understand that roboticism.
Thank you for the context. But I'm still worried….
Why are you worried that there is now a black american woman on the Supreme Court?
I'm worried that Biden is showing signs of dementia
I deal with dementia sufferers every day. You have nothing to worry about.
I'm inclined to agree. I expected him to be doddery but have been rather impressed by his resolute stance in office. Reagan got alzheimers in office, remember – didn't do him much harm in ratings from what I recall. If someone sees Biden ask "What's this red button for?" and reach for it, I hope they're near enough to grab his arm…
.
The violent anti-social who has inflicted over 4 years of extreme violent intimidation, severe stress and prolonged sleep deprivation on my elderly parents (and a good deal on the wider neighbourhood) was arrested yesterday morning, taken away in handcuffs by 3 Police.
No idea why, and no idea if it'll resolve the situation … but suspect not.
But I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Poto Williams, the current Labour Govt [and, indeed, the previous National one] for cheerfully dumping violent psychopaths (& I don’t use that term lightly) with long criminal records on innocent neighbourhoods … in this specific case, the other side of the dividing-wall from a very elderly couple who have lived in their home (which they own) for 60 years in a previously very quiet, peaceful, community-minded street … thanks specifically to Williams & Labour for the sheer callous brutality of the No Eviction policy … & a shoutout to Kainga Ora & Ngāti Toa's community housing provider, Te Āhuru Mōwai for their useless, heartless, borderline sadistic response.
Here's my blogpost from last November: Kainga Ora Scandal: My Parents Situation (sub-zero-politics.blogspot.com) (encouraged to see it's currently received almost 4300 views)
Thanks must also go to Ad for demonstrating once again that various long-time Labour activists have lost their moral compass (assuming they ever had one) & will casually force innocent people, including elderly – and therefore vulnerable- people, to endure a perpetual living hell …Open mike 02/04/2022 « The Standard… the "wraparound services" that Ad casually pivots everything on are, of course, total bullshit … hardened anti-socials with inherently violent personality-types don't change … generally, they've exhibited severe anti-social personality problems since younger childhood … as my parents & their neighbours have found to their cost. Plenty of "wraparound services" for the waste of space terrorising them, esp following all of his really major explosions of violence & intimidation … and yet here we still are.
Let's call this Kainga Ora scandal what it is: state-sanctioned domestic terrorism … and it's clearly just one facet of a broader systematic scapegoating of low & low-middle income 'outgroups' [in Intersectional / Critical Theory terms].
I'm pleased for your parents & other victims of the offender & hope something resembling justice gets done.
Serial offenders usually seem to have been afflicted by an horrendous childhood & have entered adulthood warped in consequence. In theory, psychiatric help could solve their problems. In practice, I haven't noticed govts of the left & right making the attempt to do that in recent decades. Yet when I was a teenager everyone knew they did as normal policy.
I suppose being brainwashed by Hollywood ultraviolence continuously since then produced too many offenders so the establishment decided to put them into the community as punishment for the electorate voting left/right all the time?
I would call it gentrification by stealth. they expect people like your parents to sell. Yes i am that cynical when it comes to housing and the lack thereof in NZ.
I'd support the lowlife concerned being bailed to live next door to Poto Williams. Wonder how long he'd last in the 'community' under those circumstances.
Or the CE of KO.
thank fucking god. Hope your parents get some time to recover now.
Sadly, he'll probably be bailed back to the address after a brief stint in remand.
Any news Swordfish? Please keep us up to date. All the best to your parents…..hopefully they had a quiet night last night. Though I know from experience you would always be on high alert after being confronted with this domestic terrorism for four long years.
there are some people we can’t help, they are not interested in changing and they will continue to have a callous disregard for others.
At least the excrement has been arrested, lets hope while its been in custody your parents get a break Swordfish
UK are debating conversion therapy.
https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1511414676344786956
Wait, Hosbonville Point is being run by the government?! That's million dollar houses on the property market. Wtaf.
https://hobsonvillepoint.co.nz/who-we-are/
Where's the social housing?
This is the key. What to do? Do we put them in motels and boarding houses or do we set up a Hobsonville plus for them. Perhaps they could have a type of gated community.
At the very least Kainga Ora should be matching people to localities. Difficult I know when housing is short. Do they do this at all? Or is it top of the list equals first dibs on the first available units. I think I read that some complexes are red or blue and KO try not to put opposing gangs together.
But dealing with the complex at the end of our street, a group of local homeowners, and the long term tenants, including some refugees, who have generally lived there quietly, put the pressure on KO to move on the occupiers who had arrived after the death of an elderly street person and tried to occupy the unit. We had Police, noise control every day & night about the music, Police about the cars and the drug dealing and people arriving pushing Amps & beers etc in supermarket trolleys.
In the end KO were more or less forced to act by giving them 'notice' to leave in 10 days even though they were not tenants and were only distantly related to the tenant and had been invisible when he was very ill etc.
I feel for your parents Swordfish. I thought of them when our neighbourhood changed in the twinkling of an eye.
Amazingly they left or were forced to. But if the tenant had had a tenancy then we were dreading that we would have a Swordfish type scenario.
Will the RBNZ set low as the consensus suggests.
https://twitter.com/ReutersBiz/status/1512335723713773574?cxt=HHwWjIC-kf_U8vwpAAAA
Or will they lift the jolly roger and say no 1/4.
Still looking at 2%+ rise before the election,which would mean a capital flow increase in interest payments of around 3 % of GDP.
Neither will solve the problem but one or other has to occur…..and it is moot as the Fed will do their job for them.