Professor Greg Newbold says “white collar criminals do more damage to society than the gangs” ?
Yep I would agree as it is the Asian gangs bringing in the methamphetamine into NZ and distributing through our traditional gangs like the Mongrel Mob & the Head Hunters ?
The profits are then normally washed through the real estate and construction sector ?
Yes they do, but white collar crime seems to be legal aka how many of the business roundtable became rich by buying up cheap government assets sold off, how many people are profiting from current assets sell offs and government construction contracts.
Making the criminal legal is why we have so many lawyers per capita in this country, even more than the UK!
If you want to screw over people in this country but don’t have the connections to government as per above, no problem, it’s so easy. Just set up a company and then ‘go bankrupt’ owing millions and make poorer people bankrupt and then set up another company and start again… Lucky their are so many bankruptcy lawyers and big 5 who can help the government on behalf of the tax payer paying them big bucks
… this is not just the big guys people, anyone can do it, even one tradie I had the misfortune to encounter had been bankrupted 4 times leaving big debts, by Price Waterhouse the last one and was even trading under the same name, so was not obvious it was a different company! I rang PWC liquidator and asked why is he still allowed to be in business, and they said, that the public had to lay another complaint… I mean 5 times should be pretty obvious that that person should be in jail, not still on the scene. The liquidators even let him keep his van so he could continue with the poor business practices. It was unbelievable.
If he was simply a tradie, chances are he was being taken to the cleaners by the scoundrels he was subbing to – in recognition of that, state departments can be quite lenient with such people. I know – been there, done that!
IT IS difficult to overstate the scale of the damage caused by so-called white-collar crime.
If white-collar crime formed part of the backdrop to our banking collapse, then it follows that every citizen of the State is a victim of such crime by way of increased taxes, loss of national sovereignty, wide-ranging youth unemployment, restricted services and life opportunities, and so on.
Even leaving banking aside, tax evasion and the flouting of the law in such areas as the environment, health and safety, planning, competition and the running of companies, strains public resources, endangers people’s health, reduces the quality of the built environment, puts businesses at risk and rips off consumers on an ongoing basis.
White collar crimes costs an estimated $600-750 billion dollars in America or roughly 5% of GDP. This massive cost is more than all other crimes combined. Let me repeat that. White collar crime does more damage to society than all forms of stealing and violence combined. Contrary to the common perception, the most dangerous criminal is not a youth in a hoody, but a middle aged man in a suit. The biggest hot spots for crime are not the ghettoes, but the financial districts. It is not in council estates, but commercial offices that most criminals spend their time.
There’s actually quite a lot of research out there showing the same thing going back decades. I’ll leave you with this quote:
Because of the huge sums of money involved, on a strictly financial level corporate crime dwarfs all conventional property offences. Indeed, a single act of corporate crime in a nation can cause more financial damage than all conventional crime in that nation for an entire year, combined (White & Habibis 2005, p. 130). A study in the 1980s showed that “for every dollar taken by conventional crime, about 40 dollars were stolen by criminals wearing suits and ties” (Newbold 2000, p. 44). Money taken from the individual also causes indirect, but very real, damage to people surrounding the victims; “for every person injured by the collapse of a company, ten others – wives, children, creditors and their families – are seriously affected by it” (Charles Sturt, cited in Newbold 2000, p. 45). It also harms economies in general, which affects most everyone in a society (Newbold 2000, p. 45).
And yet despite all that the politicians focus on the minor stuff. Probably because they get their donations and careers from the white collar criminals.
That Irish TImes link didn’t seem to work for me. The other two didn’t describe a comparison of the direct and indirect costs of different kinds of crime, for example between “white collar” and “all others”. A link within the second citation simply went “error 404”.
It’s fine to claim that in a financial crime affects not just the specific person who is damaged, but that is true of most other crimes as well.
I would fully agree that financial crime is under-reported and under-policed in New Zealand. And I would agree that the rich afford better lawyers to get away with it more often, because that is what I have seen.
For an academic of good experience, Greg Newbold needs to be a whole bunch more precise about his claims. I also don’t mind academics having a strong class filter on their claims, so long as they back themselves up.
White collar frauds and economic crime costs the country billions of dollars each year, government officials have concluded.
Minister for the Serious Fraud Office Anne Tolley said many Ministries had been working for two years on a “Cost of Economic Crime” report that was due to be presented to cabinet soon.
Newbold was in Pare in the ’70s or ’80s, got sent down for drugs IIRC. I read his book, don’t remember much of it now except to recall it wasn’t a bad read.
I’m not sure I could agree with the statement. IMO the serious damage is done by those who tend to be above the law.
“The Big Huey”.
And since then, it’s become more and more about punishment, and less about any type of rehabilitation.
Even the Honorable Don McKinnon was into rehab in those days assisting with prison debating teams, etc.
Now its got so bad, we see NGOs having to do even more basic things (such as with literacy and numeracy) which SHOULD be an inherent part of the system
There are two journo commentators not to be missed:
David Slack “Slack at the Back” (SST) and Steve Braunais. Both of them brilliant.
I agree about Winston. I hope he shows his coalition partners how to handle the crap coming out of the mouths of their opponents – not just sit there like numpties and take it.
Propagandists Not Journalists
Exhibit 1: The ghoulish ISABEL KIRSHNER of the New York Times
“Jihad Abu Jamous, 30, from Bani Suheila, a village near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, set off for the border in a taxi with his wife, Ghadir, and their four children. He didn’t come back. His widow said he had moved toward the fence and was shot in the head. It was not clear whether he was throwing stones at the time.”
New York Times, “After Gaza Clash, Israel and Palestinians Fight With Videos and Words” April 1, 2018
Morrissey…….when the power elites throughout the world collude with the settler colonial project in Palestine, as they have done since 1948, this is an example of how war crimes are rationalised through the corporate media. Killing unarmed protesters and clearly identified medics helping the injured, as has been happening in the last month in the Gaza Strip, are now accepted as the price of allowing the criminal Netanyahu and his far right government in Israel to grab more and more Palestinian land and deny the basic human rights of the lawful owners. Our government need to be making clear and strong statements about this ongoing genocide, and keep repeating it.
“Being stupid is not a crime”
True, and we’re all fortunate that’s the case.
Encouraging other people to be stupid for the purpose of making a profit oneself isn’t a crime either.
So criminality isn’t always the best test of whether something is right or not.
Neither have many on the right Ad.
One of the more outspoken commentators on the stupidity of Lotto is Don Brash. He has always said it is stupid.
For example
“I haven’t bought a Lotto ticket, ever. I think most of those gambling activities are really a very regressive form of taxation. They are particularly hard on low-income people, who cherish the myth that they’ll have all their financial woes fixed if they can just win Lotto.” http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/9161761/Brash-and-the-art-of-parsimony
I guess that will lead to people who don’t like Brash running out to get their ticket for tonight’s draw. If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.
Don is right of course as the odds against winning anything much are ridiculous. That doesn’t stop me buying a ticket whenever it goes over $20 million though. I know the odds but I get some pleasure from the dream.
They are particularly hard on low-income people, who cherish the myth that they’ll have all their financial woes fixed if they can just win Lotto.
This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have. It’s why lotto sales tend to go up in a recession.
That is certainly a spectacularly quick change of heart.
At 12.19pm you think
“Lotteries are simply ripping people off”.
Then by 12.26pm you propose
“This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have”.
I am not surprised of course. As I said in my comment
” If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.”
You, discovering what Don thinks, have immediately flipped your opinion so that you can now take the opposite view to him.
Sad really. Still I suppose you manage to rationalise this in the deep turgid recesses of your mind.
The only sad thing is your habit of misinterpreting comments to suit yourself.
Draco had no change of heart that I can see. Lotteries ripping people off is not contradictory to Lotteries being a poor but only source of hope to the poor because employment offers even less hope…
Putting your thoughts into other people’s words by selective quoting is a sad activity. You need a better pastime, alwyn.
” that I can see”.
That’s nice dear.
Of course you don’t see anything. As the saying goes
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”.
That is, of course, a selective quote. It was selected because it describes you perfectly.
As expected – total failure to counter the explanation of why Draco had had no change of heart. Instead, shallow, insulting sophistry.
Alwyn, you really do need a healthier pastime.
That’s an average annual net profit of nearly $40,000 per year..
That’s on an outlay of $126 per week. Which I know is more than most people can afford or are willing to outlay, but if you want to profit you have to spend as much as you can possibly afford. I’m not on a high income but I don’t have a family to worry about and I’m confident enough to spend that much each week even sometimes going 4 weeks or more without winning a cent.
It’s working so far. I could now play $126 per week for the next 20 years win nothing at all every week for the entire 20 years and would break even. So I look at it as I’m playing for the next 20 years for free.
Sorry Adam – too many (ex)English or Language teachers amongst us for that to have gone unnoticed. Had I disagreed, I would be more likely to comment, or more likely, just spell the word correctly when replying.
Good of you to point out ‘forlorn’ – a word with sad connotations that best describes the plight of the poor. (Sorry – relatively poor, for those righties who pretend that everyone has a fair chance…)
State houses were then seen as a stop-gap measure, to tide the tenants over until they found a place of their own.
Talk about re-writing history. They were not built to be merely a stop-gap measure at all. They were long term family homes where successive generations could bring up their children in a safe and stable environment. It’s true some were able to eventually buy their own homes but many more stayed in those homes for the rest of their lives.
Soper is either super ignorant or is redefining the truth to fit a certain political bias for the benefit of those who don’t know their history.
Edit: in fact most of the article is a ‘redefining of the truth’. Most of the tenants were – and I suspect still are – normal stable individuals.
It was hasty read. Missed that bit. Does that mean he reads The Standard? That’s good to know. I’ll be use every opportunity to ridicule the ignorant piece of
Anne. The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!
This is why it’s important to get your thoughts down here with links whenever you are able and whenever the injustice of the right wing rears it’s ugly head. To make a comment both adds to the voice of social consciousness, and makes a record of your opinion.
It does make a difference, and contributes to the necessary counter argument to corporate media. I’m talking Hooten, Trevett, Soper, etc.
“The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!”
I didn’t realise it. Never mind, I’m not changing my style to satisfy a bunch of mealy mouthed, self entitled, arrogant journos… turned PR acolytes for greedy, even more self entitled, ignorant Nat politicos and their sycophantic support base of trolls and nitwits. 😉
I don’t think you need to worry about too many politicians and journalists reading the standard Anne .. and if they are it’ll mostly be for the laughs.
I bet ms is. His posts are always rational and well thought through.
Btw, I forgot to finish the last sentence @6.1. I. 1. I was trying to think of a really shitty descriptive word that was appropriate for a ‘family friendly’ blog like TS, then got sidetracked. 😈
Exactly. Total bullshit to say they werent ‘homes for life’
Up till the deregulation of the banking sector in the 80s, vast majority of working families werent eligible for a home mortgage as the money was rationed by the banks ( mainly saving banks) – none of this borrowing overseas to fund local residential mortgages.
You had to be a well established customer to boot and quite substantial deposit ( saved with the bank of course) to show your ability to repay.
+1. I think he’s beginning to find out that his days are numbered and the erratic personal attacks on politicians for the purposes of his own headlines are not going to carry him far into him retirement.
Watch his young, young wife Heather Duplicity-Allen drop him when his political access finally runs out.
Also, a lot of State houses were used for Public Servants on transfer. In the early 1970’s a friend of mine and his family were moved from Welllington to Auckland with the Labour Department (as it was then). They got a state house in GI as part of the transfer package.
The only certain ‘unintended consequence’ I can see is that the complicity of the middle classes in creating our class based dystopia has come back to bite them.
Whatever the original intention on state houses various things seemed to have gone wrong.
Firstly thinking selling them off was a good idea.
Secondly whoever is getting them seems to be pretty arbitrary – had friends who were migrants got a state house in mission bay, and were on $100,000k… couldn’t believe it because even then 20 years ago, it was considered hard to get into a state house and they were not hiding their wages or anything. Then they were allowed to buy the state house at a 10% discount. (Which they didn’t, as they had already left the country after gaining residency in the UK, but left behind their parents in the state house, because they had to be resident for approx 5 years to get citizenship).
Thirdly, if they have tenants who are P heads in there, there has to be another place to put them once they are evicted, you would think some sort of drug rehab might be a good idea and then some sort of supervised housing for them and their family.
Fourthly – we need to have real measures to get rid of P, not scams like MethCon.
Fifthly we need real jobs for people to work in, if we have a plethora of jobs that need government assistance to top up wages in the service industry for example and all over wages in real terms not going up while the cost of living is soaring, is that a win for this country????
Sixly, we need to decide are we continuing in our low wage economy and driving out our educated youth by having them compete for jobs with people trying to gain residency. Then look at do we want to sully our NZ degrees with some of the questionable courses being put out there…
The state housing stock is so out of proportion when it comes to homes per capita. I think it is at a 1949 figure.
This is the fault of the government in the last 20 years. Immigration in the last decade has not helped the situation, it is not an immigrants fault.
Non residents and those who have not been resident for 3 years have had an entitlement to purchase an existing home. There is more than enough land in NZ to do a new build.
Instead homes are having to be built because non residents and those having residency for less than 3 years were able to compete against NZ citizens and committed residents for an existing home.
When it comes to student numbers the rental situation is temporary.
What does the government need to do to accelerate building affordable homes for people who are fully committed to the country?
1937 was a vintage year for building homes and many more
glorious years followed. NZ can do it again.
“It’s certainly a change from their attitude over the past three years when 300 state house tenants were shown the door for methamphetamine-related transgressions, ironically the same number of curious people who traipsed through the first state house in Wellington way back in 1937 after the Prime Minister of the time Mickey Savage struggled through the door with a dining table”
I had a few thoughts; that he’s been reading The Standard so much he’s unconsciously typed Mickey Savage instead of Michael Joseph Savage.. or is he having a sly dig at one the authors here. Was it deliberate or accidental?
He is just doing that fau familiarity thing commentors do when they are implying a close insider knowledge, whilst simultaneously serving a backhander to the object of commentary. (“Struggle” suggestive of not being used to manual labour, instead of a humble action taken by a great man).
Just an example of where our county is at. Yesterday a friend of mine was walking along Queen ST in Auckland. The All blacks were at the ASB Bank as some sort of promotion, meanwhile at the intersection of that road, a homeless man?? was being worked on by paramedics… is that really the brighter future that we were all promised, big winners and quite a lot of big losers?
According to some boffhead on Country Life on RNZ this morning, nitrogen pollution is caused by those naughty nitrogen fixing plants clover and gorse.
Wanker
Listen to the link.
He posits that legumes are a cause of nitrogen pollution.
He’s not referring top any scientific report that supports that.
Note that he does not suggest any other cause of Nitrogen pollution, like extreme stocking rates, or the application of nitrogen to the soil.
If legumes are a cause of pollution these days, why was Nitrogen pollution not a problem 80 years ago when clover was first widely used a a pasture plant?
So what science are you referring to that you suggest suits my bias?
What is my bias?
Yeah, those fucking scientists what the fuck would they know ?.
Much better to pull to pull uninformed ignorance out of your arse than go by researched facts any day.
If its good enough for the Donald its good enough for you,eh.
Methinks the sciencey type got his mucking furds wuddled due to the stress of trying to sound casual under pressure.
WE all know what he was trying to say…so go easy, eh?
It was a very good piece about an excellent environmental initiative involving refugees from Lincoln.
Well the actual clip would be nice, rather than some fucker selectively quoting some other fucker’s selective quotes and paraphrasing of what the original fucker said.
Reminds me of the time I read a book chapter that argued with a four page peer reviewed article about one guy’s single sentence in a two page opinion piece in a trade advertising magazine. Mountains out of molehills.
Don’t get me wrong, Stewart’s pretty good at laying into the entire partisanship hypocrisy.
But you know these youtube vids: someone tags it as “A eviscerates/pwns/demolishes B”, and it turns out that A said something either not very convincing or merely not completely praiseworthy of B, if anything at all. And those moments of your life are now gone.
As is usual the DomPost has an article applauding Martinborough getting rid of plastic bags in Supermarkets.
The Dom does this in a paper that is home delivered wrapped in not one but two plastic bags. Each of them is made of much thicker plastic than a shopping bag. They are also not usable as bin liners which is what I do with my grocery bags.
Thus they campaign for scrapping multi use bags while they use multiple single use bags to deliver their paper each day.
They are as hypocritical as their local MP. Just like Grant they want one law for themselves and another for everyone else. Not the same law of course. In Grant’s case it is selling access to the Minister of Finance. I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?
I will only be doing it for a couple more weeks though. The only reason I am getting the paper is that they are giving it away free and that only lasts a month.
“Write them a letter”?
What on earth do you think that is going to accomplish? You surely don’t believe that they would publish it. It would be dumped straight into the rubbish bin and I would simply have wasted the cost of the stamp.
No, returning the plastic to the paper will force them to do something about it. Even if that is only sweeping it up and dumping it. If a number of people did the same thing they might stop creating the rubbish in the first place. It would mean they had to put the paper in the letterbox, at least on wet days, but so what?
It’s become a bit of a thing in the UK. Shoppers unwrapping all the stuff they’ve bought at the supermarket and leaving the mountains of plastic behind in the trolleys. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-43559636
But there is alwyn taking his usual arrogant and ‘superior’ attitude; deliberately misunderstanding the sarcastic nature of Gabby’s instruction (do you really need a sarc tag every time, alwyn?) and then flooding the Ethernet with more garbage. Alwyn – you need a healthier pastime.
In the meantime I continue to be amazed at your claimed ability to determine what other people mean by their comments.
I am also appalled by your stalking of me on this site. I really am not interested in the sick obsessions you appear to indulge in and the insane comments you make about me.
Get over it you old drunk. It does you no good to exhibit such perverted jealousy of your superiors.
… a great idea! “I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?”
REALLY we read this
Especially given todays environment, with Fonterra’s PR advertising campaign to show the +ve side of farming and the M.Bovis issue and the threat to our economy. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/104382640/waikato-councils-take-hard-line-on-truckies-illegally-dumping-stock-effluent
Others are also worried effluent discarded on roads could hinder efforts to stop Mycoplasma bovis from spreading in the region.
But a spokesperson from stock transportation firm Waitoa Haulage said there weren’t enough effluent dumping stations, not only in the Matamata-Piako district but throughout New Zealand
“We have been promised more (dumping stations) time and time again, but they were never delivered.”
Not a behaviour to gain support of the masses
“An email from Bishop Joseph said the rest of the money would be put in a a separate account, not to be released without his permission, according to reports.”
Not being big on religion I don’t know why they’d do this but, on the face of it, its certainly not a good look
If you’re doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing. His word isn’t worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.
“when the polls close in Northcote”.
At the same time as every other Parliamentary election in New Zealand.
7:00 pm.
If you live there and haven’t voted you really will have to get your skates on.
Yeah, I had a lot of time for PM, too. Frequently disagreed, often agreed, and if he got the wrong end of something he owned it. The ban was a damn shame.
It was only when one of their got sinbinned that the All Blacks got three tries in fast order.
For at least the first two thirds of the game the packs were about even, and for the first half the territory was pretty even. Last thirty minutes was a disaster.
Finally good to see Auckland’s public transport system actually work well for once; the trains actually worked on time, and most of the City’s buses were pressed into service. It worked.
It’s well time the All Blacks lost, for the good of the game, and Dunedin would be the right place to see it happen.
The All BLacks have not been in the national interest for quite some time, it has all jumped the shark somewhat and become delusional. In these increasingly unsecure times, NZ rugby has become a increasing security liability, estranging traditional relations among other things.
But there is no sensible oversight for such things in modern New Zealand.
Well, Commentators both agreed that the Yellow card was unjustified. The unjustified Yellow card (especially when Sam Cane did more to earn one later on, but nothing happened) changed the course of the game by upsetting the near-balance.
Tonight’s win was more a cause for guilt than rejoicing.
NZ has to be careful. NZ is the biggest country in the world where rugby is the main winter sport. Most other countries – Rugby needs to work bloody hard to even make itself significant.
Many others around the world still believe France was robbed in the last World Cup final.
Tonight’s game did NZ and Rugby NO GOOD AT ALL.
But this comment is for those silly enough to care.
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When the government introduced the Zero Carbon Bill, people rightly asked what they planned to do to reduce transport emissions, which basicly had no policy at all other than the ETS. Today, they responded, announcing a "feebate" system which would ...
At almost every level, the problem with medicinal cannabis is a lack of good information. In the US, FDA regulations make it hard to research. Most doctors aren't familiar with what research there is and most patients don't know either. ...
Redline is critical of Corbyn for his political weaknesses, but he’s no anti-Semite. There is no substance to the McCarthyist witch-hunt being run by the right wing, and the pro-Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour Party in the UK. ...
The government's billion trees program is the sort of policy which could make a real difference to our emissions and the fight against climate change. But climate scientist Jim Salinger isn't convinced:The Forestry Minister Shane Jones' one billion trees won't ...
Last month the government was celebrating another surplus. Meanwhile, children are starving:One in five children are living in households where putting food on the table is a struggle, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health. It found ...
Show Me The Money! The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Auckland mayoral challenger, Tamihere, has some solid points to make. ...
If we are to avoid making the earth uninhabitable, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to practically nothing over the next decade. But that will still leave us with the problem of the carbon we have already emitted, which ...
Former Waikato DHB CEO Nigel Murray allegedly misused public funds, spending more than $120,000 of public money on unjustified travel. He was forced to resign and the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation. But despite the SFO finding that the ...
Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, is being advised – not least by his deputy (as well as by some of his would-be successors) – that he must come “off the fence” on the Brexit issue if he wants to bolster ...
The End of Life bill has been read a second time and is now heading for the House for further debate. Personally, I support the proposal. I don't ever epect to take advantage of the Bill's provisions myself, but as ...
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more ...
Below is a translation of the editorial in the June 24 round of weekly workplace bulletins issued all over France by the revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvriere. Last Saturday, 8,000 people took to the streets of Belfort (eastern France) to ...
Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing ...
Back in May the government released its Zero Carbon Bill. While much of the bill was welcome, there was one big exception: it contained a secrecy clause, requiring the Climate Change Commission to maintain secrecy over practically everything it does. ...
by Phil Duncan This past week has marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall Inn riots in Christopher Street, New York, the event generally regarded as kicking off the gay liberation movement. Quite a few articles have ...
Southland - land of coal-burning dairy farmers - has become the first region in the country to explicitly vote against declaring a climate emergency. Their reason? They didn't want to "devalue" the word "emergency". Its an argument addressed powerfully in ...
New Zealand has a problem with police chases: officers going after fleeing drivers like rabid dogs, without any consideration for proportionality or public safety, often with fatal results. And according to an in-depth article in the Guardian today, the UK ...
Welcome to another heaping helping of research publications related to climate change drivers and mechanisms, the effects of climate change and how we might yet grope our way into systems approaches to dealing with the mess we're making, despite ourselves. ...
Holly Lawford-Smith is a senior lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Melbourne. She’s currently writing a book about radical feminism. This article appeared on Feminist Current Academics should be standing together in defence of universities’ fundamental values: the ...
The Otago Daily Times has an in-depth article about the future of wind energy in New Zealand, and it is looking bright:The news that wind will play the leading role in New Zealand’s energy future was put up in lights ...
If the sight of schoolkids striking for a future has been filling you with hope, good news: they want you to join them on September 27:Students will take to the streets again demanding action on climate change, and this time ...
The People's "Friend": In this masterpiece of revolutionary propaganda, the homicidal political psychopath, Jean-Paul Marat, has been transformed by Jacques-Louis David, the French Revolution's most accomplished artist, into a martyred hero of the ordinary people of Paris. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, ...
The principle of one person, one vote doesn’t apply for local elections. In fact, you don’t even need to be a person to have voting rights. Welcome to the ratepayer roll. While the ratepayer roll accounts for less than 1% ...
I have been working my way through a 47,000 document tranche of declassified US government communications related to Argentina and the “Dirty War” of 1976-83. I grew up in Argentina in the period leading up to the March 24, 1976 ...
To express concern about foreign ownership and control in New Zealand is often to invite accusations of xenophobia and economic illiteracy. It is worthwhile, therefore, to rehearse the grounds for that concern, and to explore the various forms it can ...
It must be a day ending in Y because the Guardian - remember when it used to be a good paper1 - is running another spurious story about Corbyn's leadership being threatened over anti-Semitism.The headline the Guardian runs is: "MPs tell ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Jun 23 through Sat, June 29, 2019 Editor's Pick When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious'Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and ...
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...
Million-dollar start to gun collection eventsPolice Minister Stuart Nash says a solid start has been made to the gun buyback and amnesty after the first weekend of community collection events. “Gun owners will walk away with more than ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has praised Police and gun owners after the first firearms collection event saw a busy turnout at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch. “Police officers and staff have put a tremendous effort into planning and logistics for the ...
Seventy-eight new Police constables are heading out to the regions following today’s graduation of a new recruit wing from the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the record high number of new Police officers being recruited, ...
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...
Information sessions on proposals for The Medicinal Cannabis Scheme take place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next fortnight. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the proposed scheme. ...
“Our children are our most vulnerable, most innocent victims and we do not want to see any more children harmed by these ‘known sex offenders’. The safety of our community must be the paramount consideration.” ...
“The announcement that Fonterra will immediately stop installing any new coal boilers or increasing capacity to burn coal is the signal that the biomass fuel supply industry welcomes” said Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association. ...
18 July 2019-- Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and ...
The increase in demand for cage-free eggs is set to continue according to animal rights organisation SAFE, who says the egg industry should expect this and prepare. ...
Wellington, New Zealand – 350 Pacific made a formal submission to the New Zealand Government’s Environment Parliamentary Select Committee on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCWs) based in ...
There used to be a school of thought on the centre right side of politics that the best way to neuter the Greens as a political force would be to let them have a spell in government. Then, according to ...
Today (18 July) is Nelson Mandela International Day when the United Nations highlights the importance of humane conditions of imprisonment. In New Zealand our prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. At 214 prisoners per 100,000 people, we have the fifth ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa will take legal action over the lengthy delay in implementing pay increases for teachers. Novopay announced yesterday that teachers would have to wait until 11 September to see pay increases that they won when they settled ...
EDS has filed its submission on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. The Bill sets targets for greenhouse gas reductions, provides for the government to set a series of carbon budgets, and sets up a new, independent, Climate ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has identified an absurd case of mission creep at Wellington City Council: the decision to spend $21,750 on two Consumer NZ investigations into different brands of bike lights. ...
The Motor Trade Association is welcoming the release of the Government’s new draft road safety strategy. MTA Chief Executive Craig Pomare says the association is pleased to see vehicle safety has been made a priority in the Road to Zero ...
The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704 ...
The government's silence on the fact that the country's second-largest milk processor is on the brink of becoming 25% Chinese Government owned has been deafening. ...
School Strike 4 Climate NZ welcomes the coalition Government’s endeavour to take action on reducing agricultural emissions but is disappointed at the weak stance that the Government has taken on the issue. ...
The Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has issued a formal warning under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (AML/CFT Act) to seven reporting entities within the Regus Management Limited (RNZML) designated business ...
The Northland Regional Council (NRC) has voted to exclude all GM/GE precautionary provisions in its regional plan, despite years of community engagement showing support for such protection. There is a sense of betrayal following the way the NRC Chairman ...
New Zealand’s ‘mission-driven’ charities working in international aid are showing early signs of changing the way they work, in particular prioritising building the capacity and resilience of local communities to do their own development. ...
Teachers will have to wait until 11 September for pay increases won as part of their collective agreement negotiations settled in June, according to an update sent to schools today from Novopay. ...
July 16 (BusinessDesk) - Energy Minister Megan Woods says the government “won’t die in a ditch” if its goal of 100 percent renewable electricity generation isn't reached by 2035. ...
The Electricity Networks Association (ENA) is welcoming the Government’s response to the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) Report released today. Graeme Peters, chief executive of the ENA, said one of the key recommendations, endorsed by the ...
An article* published this month in the Journal of Health Organization and Management raises questions over the way health board members are elected and whether the boards are even needed. ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa's kindergarten teacher members will vote on a proposed settlement to their collective agreement after four days of negotiations with the Ministry of Education and kindergarten employers. ...
Vector has today welcomed the ICCC’s report on Accelerated Electrification . Vector agrees that accelerating the electrification of transport and process heat will play a major role in reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Initiatives to ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on the Porirua City Council to cancel its underwriting of a proposed Canadian-led privately owned adventure park slated for public land after a similar project created a huge liability for Christchurch ...
Youth climate change campaigners Generation Zero welcome the Interim Climate Change Committee’s (ICCC’s) reports: Accelerated Electrification and Action on agricultural emissions ; which were finally released by the Government today, almost three months ...
Fish & Game New Zealand notes the announcement today that the Government and the intensive agriculture leadership have reached a ‘historic consensus’ and are exploring using a formal sector-government agreement instead of bringing agriculture ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee’s report on Accelerated Electrification was released today by the Minister for Energy and Resources, Hon Dr Megan Woods. ...
The independent Interim Climate Change Committee’s report Action on agricultural emissions was released today by the Minister for Climate Change, Hon James Shaw and the Minister of Agriculture, Hon Damien O’Connor. ...
Please find attached embargoed copies of two media statements from the Interim Climate Change Committee http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1907/Embargoed_Interim_Climate_Change_Committee_Accelerated_electrification_MEDIA_STATEMENT.pdf ...
Greenpeace Executive Director, Dr Russel Norman, has reacted with disbelief that the Government’s latest climate proposal includes an option for dairy to voluntarily deal with their emissions over the next six years. ...
This week’s “Youth Parliament” is an expensive waste of time that promotes taxpayer-funded junketeering, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “We shouldn’t be training kids on the joys of the trough,” says Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones admitted on Q+A tonight that the state of New Zealand’s infrastructure planning is “dismal” and the government needs to get on with building “rather than writing more reports about it.” ...
DairyNZ has released its submission on the Zero Carbon Bill and is calling on the Government to revise the methane target in the Bill to one that does not put at risk New Zealand’s world-leading dairy sector. Farm profit could ...
July 15 (BusinessDesk) - Foreign Minister Winston Peters will have bi-lateral meetings with two of US president Donald Trump's most hawkish defence and security advisers in a five day trip to Washington D.C. ...
Youth climate change campaigners Generation Zero are calling for Members of Parliament to show political courage as the Zero Carbon Bill goes through the crucial Select Committee process. ...
Annual net migration was provisionally estimated at 50,200 (± 800) in the year ended December 2018 compared with 52,600 in the previous year, Stats NZ said today. ...
New Zealanders have the opportunity to contribute to the government’s Review of Retirement Income Policies, including questions around Superannuation and KiwiSaver. Submissions are now open for the Review, being run by the Commission for Financial ...
Yesterday at Mataatua Marae the Tamaki Makaurau Electorate of the Māori party congratulated Rangi Mclean who was appointed to the Vice president Tāne role of the party nation-wide executive. ...
The funding crisis facing the disability sector has become more urgent following the disturbing news that the Ministry of Health will not increase contract prices for providers this year, the New Zealand Disability Support Network said today. ...
The growing number of working poor is an alarming indicator that the regulatory Minimum Wage does not cut it said Closing the Gap spokesperson Peter Malcolm. ...
Historic hui gives overwhelming agreement for a Māori Inquiry The inquiry into state run Oranga Tamariki will be led by whanau, kaimahi and Māori leaders. ...
Drug infiltration into our maximum security prisons is putting prisoners and staff at unnecessary risk, and one tool that would be of huge benefit is a full body scanner. ...
Neil Armstrong may have been the first man on the moon, but if we define the ‘space race’ as spaceflight capability, the Soviets won it hands down, writes Jennifer Frost. ...
Joel Rindelaub explains why it's so important for those weighing on climate science to be transparent about their funding sources and conflicts of interest. ...
Our government and leaders are (still) divided on the question of compulsory te reo Māori. Who’s for it, who’s against it, and who’s flip flopping around in the middle?Under article two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the government pledges to ...
When teenagers today are being called upon to solve the problems of tomorrow, why aren’t they given the right to participate in democracy? Fourteen-year-old Oli Morphew makes the case for lowering the voting age. If you’re going to deprive someone of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University Australia’s relations with China will be further complicated by the news that Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is set to be charged with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Kyne, Senior Research Fellow in conservation biology, Charles Darwin University More than 28,000 species around the world are threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics, Centre For Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics (CAPPE), Charles Sturt University Two Australian universities, University of Technology Sydney and Curtin University, are conducting internal reviews of ...
The dairy and red meat sectors are playing games and employing delaying tactics rather than facing up to the climate change challenge, says Rod Oram. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne The next US presidential election will be held on November 3, 2020. Incumbent president Donald Trump will almost certainly be ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has doubled down on her criticism of Australia's deportation policy as "corrosive", ahead of her meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Larkin, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of Sydney Review: Whiteley, Opera Australia, Sydney. Opera Australia’s newest production, Whiteley, brings together three Australian icons. Elena Kats-Chernin, the doyenne of Australian composers, has ...
By RNZ Pacific The United Nations in Papua New Guinea is boosting its presence in the Highlands as it works with the government to improve access to justice for tribal communities. The acting resident coordinator said the massacre of ...
A children’s television presenter, New Zealand’s first supermodel, and bloody Cocksy! Jordan Hamel pays tribute to the Kiwi icons that helped get him through his life.Adolescence was not a great time for me. Depression, anxiety, sexuality, awkward social interactions, emotional ...
The House - The Youth Parliament has beat the real thing to the punch by declaring a climate change emergency this week. Youth Press Gallery member Sophie Dixon reports. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rona Macniven, Research Fellow, University of Sydney Indigenous Australians have a long and proud heritage in both traditional sports and games, and in modern sport through the achievements of people like Johnathan ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University It’s 50 years since the two Apollo 11 astronauts – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin – spent 22 hours collecting samples, ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.It’s a wacky, wacky week on The Real Pod this week. But is it wackier than the fact that Gilda Kirkpatrick saw a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neal Hughes, Senior Economist, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Water prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin have reached their highest levels since the worst of the Millennium ...
It seems inevitable that New Zealand will soon officially be in a state of emergency over climate change, with a declaration likely to be passed in Parliament. Is this a good thing? The debate over moving into official emergency status ...
The newsreader turned talkback host Peter Williams (not Peter Williams) is furious about the mainstream refusal to acknowledge the cheesiness of the moon.I’m sorry but my head still hurts.Yesterday I blew to smithereens the so-called “consensus” on the “science” around ...
Every fish on the iconic New Zealand Commercial Fish Species poster, ranked. There are a few staples of the quintessential fish and chip shop: sticky plastic curtains, soggy paper tickets with a little red number, tin pottles of Wattie’s tomato sauce, ...
Eligible home owners will be able to claim grants for energy-efficient heaters this winter as part of the government's Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. ...
MediaRoom this week: the Media Council backs reporters asking questions, urges caution linking a group to the Christchurch attacks, muses on news vs advertising and wants corrections published faster. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Even though we can see the Moon shining brightly in the night sky – and sometimes in daylight – it’s hard to put into ...
By Pacific Media Centre NewsdeskIndonesian President Joko Widodo’s threat to pursue anyone who impedes investment is worrying environmental activists who claim that such actions could criminalise those fighting for the environment, reports CNN Indonesia.Jokowi made the threat ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monica Barratt, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University A NSW Coronial Inquest investigating a series of drug-related deaths at Australian music festivals has heard evidence of ...
The Netball World Cup grand final is tie-proof and won't end in any kind of super over. RNZ's netball reporter Ravinder Hunia who's in Liverpool explains why. ...
Party Line is a new audio work by Evangeline Riddiford Graham that reinvestigates the Cartwright Inquiry, medical mispractice and misogyny through the lens of the #metoo era. In a red room six handsets dangle from the ceiling on their spiral cords. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil R Jordan, Lecturer, UNSW Humans and dogs go way back. From wolf totems to the big bad wolf of fact and fairy tale, through sheepdogs, lap dogs, and labradoodles, our relationships ...
For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode three, host Timothy Giles speaks to Grace Stratton about accessibility, in fashion and in Auckland.She’s launched ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentForeign affairs and trade Peter Dunne (Newsroom): Beware, nice ...
Human rights activists and refugees are calling on the PM to use her international profile to speak out against China’s persecution of religious groups. ...
Instead of buying a cuppa in exchange for a place to work, Coffee Supreme is flipping the script.For the last 25 years, Coffee Supreme has stuck to what it does best, which is sourcing, roasting, brewing and selling some seriously ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Blaskovich, Senior Research Officer, The University of Queensland Artistic depictions of several chemical elements feature in a new exhibition from today as part of Australia’s celebrations for the International Year of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Hopkins, Senior Lecturer, Australian National University In 2017, a small group of male prisoners participated in an eight-week yoga program at the Alexander Maconochie Centre(AMC), which houses all adult prisoners in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ramon Zenel Shaban, Clinical Chair and Professor of Infection Prevention and Disease Control at the University of Sydney, University of Sydney “Travel safe, travel far, travel wide, and travel often,” saysNomadic ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Bone, Lecturer, Massey University A majority of academic staff at some of Australia’s top universities work in casual or fixed-term positions. This reflects a trend towards casualisation in academia, and other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Smith, Professor of Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in south-west Victoria is the first Indigenous Australian landscape to be gazetted on ...
Open Mike 09/06/2018 
I have been reading and listening to the aftermath of Trump’s comments about the four female first term Democratic representatives, all of whom are “people of color.” I found the US coverage interesting both as evidence of partisanship and the ...15 hours ago
The Herald reports that the housing shortage / bubble has hit a new level:New Zealand is short of 130,000 homes, the tally having risen lately by 30,000, two economists say. Jarrod Kerr and Jeremy Couchman, Kiwibank economists said: "This time ...15 hours ago
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...1 day ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...2 days ago
2 days ago
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...3 days ago
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...3 days ago
A Woman’s Place is on the Podium was a public meeting in London on 10 July to discuss women’s sports and the impact of transwomen competing against women. The venue was sold out with a packed hall of 750 people. ...5 days ago
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...1 week ago
1 week ago
2 weeks ago
Welcome to another heaping helping of research publications related to climate change drivers and mechanisms, the effects of climate change and how we might yet grope our way into systems approaches to dealing with the mess we're making, despite ourselves. ...2 weeks ago
The People's "Friend": In this masterpiece of revolutionary propaganda, the homicidal political psychopath, Jean-Paul Marat, has been transformed by Jacques-Louis David, the French Revolution's most accomplished artist, into a martyred hero of the ordinary people of Paris. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, ...2 weeks ago
The principle of one person, one vote doesn’t apply for local elections. In fact, you don’t even need to be a person to have voting rights. Welcome to the ratepayer roll. While the ratepayer roll accounts for less than 1% ...2 weeks ago
Image Credit: Blog Writing Tips. I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the ... 3 weeks ago
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...3 days ago
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...15 hours ago
A former MP and shock jock says Queenstown council’s making excuses in seeking a 35-year approval for sewer overflows. ...22 mins ago
Neil Armstrong may have been the first man on the moon, but if we define the ‘space race’ as spaceflight capability, the Soviets won it hands down, writes Jennifer Frost. ...52 mins ago
Joel Rindelaub explains why it's so important for those weighing on climate science to be transparent about their funding sources and conflicts of interest. ...52 mins ago
Emma Espiner takes a look at a deadly inequity happening in our poorest communities. ...52 mins ago
Rebecca Mahoney is about to make rugby history as the first woman to referee a Ranfurly Shield challenge. ...52 mins ago
Our government and leaders are (still) divided on the question of compulsory te reo Māori. Who’s for it, who’s against it, and who’s flip flopping around in the middle?Under article two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the government pledges to ...1 hour ago
At three weeks in, how is New Zealand coping with the plastic bag ban? ...1 hour ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University Australia’s relations with China will be further complicated by the news that Australian citizen Yang Hengjun is set to be charged with ...7 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Kyne, Senior Research Fellow in conservation biology, Charles Darwin University More than 28,000 species around the world are threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species compiled by the International ...8 hours ago
The dairy and red meat sectors are playing games and employing delaying tactics rather than facing up to the climate change challenge, says Rod Oram. ...10 hours ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has doubled down on her criticism of Australia's deportation policy as "corrosive", ahead of her meeting with counterpart Scott Morrison. ...11 hours ago
A controversial selection is on track to be the All Blacks' X-factor star at the Rugby World Cup. ...11 hours ago
By Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk The Indonesian government is furious over the Oxford City Council’s decision to award West Papuan activist Benny Wenda the Honorary Freedom of the City accolade, reports Kumparan. “Indonesia strongly condemns the award by the ...11 hours ago
The PM has been touting New Zealand's attractiveness to investors during her Australia visit - but can she win over the banks? ...11 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Larkin, Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of Sydney Review: Whiteley, Opera Australia, Sydney. Opera Australia’s newest production, Whiteley, brings together three Australian icons. Elena Kats-Chernin, the doyenne of Australian composers, has ...13 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific The United Nations in Papua New Guinea is boosting its presence in the Highlands as it works with the government to improve access to justice for tribal communities. The acting resident coordinator said the massacre of ...13 hours ago
A children’s television presenter, New Zealand’s first supermodel, and bloody Cocksy! Jordan Hamel pays tribute to the Kiwi icons that helped get him through his life.Adolescence was not a great time for me. Depression, anxiety, sexuality, awkward social interactions, emotional ...13 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University It’s 50 years since the two Apollo 11 astronauts – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin – spent 22 hours collecting samples, ...15 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neal Hughes, Senior Economist, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) Water prices in the southern Murray-Darling Basin have reached their highest levels since the worst of the Millennium ...15 hours ago
Instagram will test the removal of 'likes' from New Zealand-based users' content from today. ...16 hours ago
The newsreader turned talkback host Peter Williams (not Peter Williams) is furious about the mainstream refusal to acknowledge the cheesiness of the moon.I’m sorry but my head still hurts.Yesterday I blew to smithereens the so-called “consensus” on the “science” around ...16 hours ago
Every fish on the iconic New Zealand Commercial Fish Species poster, ranked. There are a few staples of the quintessential fish and chip shop: sticky plastic curtains, soggy paper tickets with a little red number, tin pottles of Wattie’s tomato sauce, ...16 hours ago
MediaRoom this week: the Media Council backs reporters asking questions, urges caution linking a group to the Christchurch attacks, muses on news vs advertising and wants corrections published faster. ...16 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Even though we can see the Moon shining brightly in the night sky – and sometimes in daylight – it’s hard to put into ...17 hours ago
By Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s threat to pursue anyone who impedes investment is worrying environmental activists who claim that such actions could criminalise those fighting for the environment, reports CNN Indonesia. Jokowi made the threat ...17 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Monica Barratt, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University A NSW Coronial Inquest investigating a series of drug-related deaths at Australian music festivals has heard evidence of ...17 hours ago
The Netball World Cup grand final is tie-proof and won't end in any kind of super over. RNZ's netball reporter Ravinder Hunia who's in Liverpool explains why. ...17 hours ago
Two of Australia's big banks and their New Zealand operations have taken another hit. ...18 hours ago
Fonterra is accelerating plans to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels by 11 years. ...18 hours ago
Party Line is a new audio work by Evangeline Riddiford Graham that reinvestigates the Cartwright Inquiry, medical mispractice and misogyny through the lens of the #metoo era. In a red room six handsets dangle from the ceiling on their spiral cords. ...19 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil R Jordan, Lecturer, UNSW Humans and dogs go way back. From wolf totems to the big bad wolf of fact and fairy tale, through sheepdogs, lap dogs, and labradoodles, our relationships ...19 hours ago
The government's chief digital technology advisor said it is fulfilling its function despite meeting only once this year. ...19 hours ago
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Professor Greg Newbold says “white collar criminals do more damage to society than the gangs” ?
Yep I would agree as it is the Asian gangs bringing in the methamphetamine into NZ and distributing through our traditional gangs like the Mongrel Mob & the Head Hunters ?
The profits are then normally washed through the real estate and construction sector ?
Yes they do, but white collar crime seems to be legal aka how many of the business roundtable became rich by buying up cheap government assets sold off, how many people are profiting from current assets sell offs and government construction contracts.
Making the criminal legal is why we have so many lawyers per capita in this country, even more than the UK!
If you want to screw over people in this country but don’t have the connections to government as per above, no problem, it’s so easy. Just set up a company and then ‘go bankrupt’ owing millions and make poorer people bankrupt and then set up another company and start again… Lucky their are so many bankruptcy lawyers and big 5 who can help the government on behalf of the tax payer paying them big bucks
… this is not just the big guys people, anyone can do it, even one tradie I had the misfortune to encounter had been bankrupted 4 times leaving big debts, by Price Waterhouse the last one and was even trading under the same name, so was not obvious it was a different company! I rang PWC liquidator and asked why is he still allowed to be in business, and they said, that the public had to lay another complaint… I mean 5 times should be pretty obvious that that person should be in jail, not still on the scene. The liquidators even let him keep his van so he could continue with the poor business practices. It was unbelievable.
If he was simply a tradie, chances are he was being taken to the cleaners by the scoundrels he was subbing to – in recognition of that, state departments can be quite lenient with such people. I know – been there, done that!
What evidence does he provide for this claim?
‘White-collar crime does a lot more damage than conventional crime’
The Other Kind Of Crime
There’s actually quite a lot of research out there showing the same thing going back decades. I’ll leave you with this quote:
And yet despite all that the politicians focus on the minor stuff. Probably because they get their donations and careers from the white collar criminals.
That Irish TImes link didn’t seem to work for me. The other two didn’t describe a comparison of the direct and indirect costs of different kinds of crime, for example between “white collar” and “all others”. A link within the second citation simply went “error 404”.
It’s fine to claim that in a financial crime affects not just the specific person who is damaged, but that is true of most other crimes as well.
I would fully agree that financial crime is under-reported and under-policed in New Zealand. And I would agree that the rich afford better lawyers to get away with it more often, because that is what I have seen.
For an academic of good experience, Greg Newbold needs to be a whole bunch more precise about his claims. I also don’t mind academics having a strong class filter on their claims, so long as they back themselves up.
So, the person who’s researched this for decades and written books on it needs to be more precise while being interviewed by a journalist?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8291073/Economic-crime-costs-NZ-billions-each-year
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/257185/economic-crime-costs-up-to-$9-point-4bn
Unfortunately this article only lists the cost of retail crime at $1.2 billion. But that does seem to indicate that he’s right.
Newbold was in Pare in the ’70s or ’80s, got sent down for drugs IIRC. I read his book, don’t remember much of it now except to recall it wasn’t a bad read.
I’m not sure I could agree with the statement. IMO the serious damage is done by those who tend to be above the law.
Yes. The white-collar criminals.
“The Big Huey”.
And since then, it’s become more and more about punishment, and less about any type of rehabilitation.
Even the Honorable Don McKinnon was into rehab in those days assisting with prison debating teams, etc.
Now its got so bad, we see NGOs having to do even more basic things (such as with literacy and numeracy) which SHOULD be an inherent part of the system
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12066912
Braunias at his best.
Personally I’ll be quite pleased if Winston gives some in the cabinet and government a bloody good tool up.
There are two journo commentators not to be missed:
David Slack “Slack at the Back” (SST) and Steve Braunais. Both of them brilliant.
I agree about Winston. I hope he shows his coalition partners how to handle the crap coming out of the mouths of their opponents – not just sit there like numpties and take it.
Person status for our natural landmarks (I guess that includes aquifers). What a brilliant idea.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/travel/kiwi-traveller/104553006/why-more-of-new-zealands-natural-treasures-need-person-status
Propagandists Not Journalists
Exhibit 1: The ghoulish ISABEL KIRSHNER of the New York Times
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/06/08/is-isabel-kershner-saying-its-okay-to-shoot-him-in-the-head-if-he-was-throwing-a-stone/
Propagandists Not Journalists is compiled by Hector Stoop and presented by Morrissey Breen, for Daisycutter Sports, Inc.
Morrissey…….when the power elites throughout the world collude with the settler colonial project in Palestine, as they have done since 1948, this is an example of how war crimes are rationalised through the corporate media. Killing unarmed protesters and clearly identified medics helping the injured, as has been happening in the last month in the Gaza Strip, are now accepted as the price of allowing the criminal Netanyahu and his far right government in Israel to grab more and more Palestinian land and deny the basic human rights of the lawful owners. Our government need to be making clear and strong statements about this ongoing genocide, and keep repeating it.
Holy crap…someone called Christina won €90,000,000 through Lottoland.
That’s a record for online gambling.
And how much has Lottoland won from the suckers who “play” on it?
Being stupid is not a crime.
Being lucky and a sucker is just an occasional joy for the rest.
“Being stupid is not a crime”
True, and we’re all fortunate that’s the case.
Encouraging other people to be stupid for the purpose of making a profit oneself isn’t a crime either.
So criminality isn’t always the best test of whether something is right or not.
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that it’s right.
This, of course, is why the RWNJs like deregulation. It makes immoral actions legal.
Worst defence of the vulgarity of lotteries ever…
Joy is not built on the vain hope of breaking out of poverty.
The left has never understood the pleasure of vice.
All they can see is the need to exercise power.
Calling BS on that one. What power, moreover the lack of it. Good God man, what waffle is that?
If you think that the fallon hope with lottery is a pleasure vice, your understanding of what makes up a pleasure vice, is soft.
edit: Who is this left you speak of?
Neither have many on the right Ad.
One of the more outspoken commentators on the stupidity of Lotto is Don Brash. He has always said it is stupid.
For example
“I haven’t bought a Lotto ticket, ever. I think most of those gambling activities are really a very regressive form of taxation. They are particularly hard on low-income people, who cherish the myth that they’ll have all their financial woes fixed if they can just win Lotto.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/9161761/Brash-and-the-art-of-parsimony
I guess that will lead to people who don’t like Brash running out to get their ticket for tonight’s draw. If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.
Don is right of course as the odds against winning anything much are ridiculous. That doesn’t stop me buying a ticket whenever it goes over $20 million though. I know the odds but I get some pleasure from the dream.
This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have. It’s why lotto sales tend to go up in a recession.
Employment sure as hell doesn’t work.
BS
I’m about to have a beer. This is a vice that I enjoy.
Lotteries are simply ripping people off.
That is certainly a spectacularly quick change of heart.
At 12.19pm you think
“Lotteries are simply ripping people off”.
Then by 12.26pm you propose
“This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have”.
I am not surprised of course. As I said in my comment
” If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.”
You, discovering what Don thinks, have immediately flipped your opinion so that you can now take the opposite view to him.
Sad really. Still I suppose you manage to rationalise this in the deep turgid recesses of your mind.
The only sad thing is your habit of misinterpreting comments to suit yourself.
Draco had no change of heart that I can see. Lotteries ripping people off is not contradictory to Lotteries being a poor but only source of hope to the poor because employment offers even less hope…
Putting your thoughts into other people’s words by selective quoting is a sad activity. You need a better pastime, alwyn.
” that I can see”.
That’s nice dear.
Of course you don’t see anything. As the saying goes
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”.
That is, of course, a selective quote. It was selected because it describes you perfectly.
As expected – total failure to counter the explanation of why Draco had had no change of heart. Instead, shallow, insulting sophistry.
Alwyn, you really do need a healthier pastime.
Ah, a RWNJ misrepresenting me – what a surprise.
You really are a bad liar.
Not necessarily a vain hope if you play it right.
My annual net winnings from playing lotto over the last 4 years: (Have played for longer than that but started doing it properly 4 years ago)
2015 – $32,624
2016 – $23,910
2017 – $51,300
2018 – $26,337 (so far)
That’s an average annual net profit of nearly $40,000 per year..
That’s on an outlay of $126 per week. Which I know is more than most people can afford or are willing to outlay, but if you want to profit you have to spend as much as you can possibly afford. I’m not on a high income but I don’t have a family to worry about and I’m confident enough to spend that much each week even sometimes going 4 weeks or more without winning a cent.
It’s working so far. I could now play $126 per week for the next 20 years win nothing at all every week for the entire 20 years and would break even. So I look at it as I’m playing for the next 20 years for free.
The great majority of people don’t have $126 of disposable income a week to spend.
Let alone spending weeks going with losing that $126.
So you think you might just be an outlier on that one? And if you look I said a fallon hope, which no one spotted.
When I should have said – forlorn hope. Not a vain hope, forlorn.
Sorry Adam – too many (ex)English or Language teachers amongst us for that to have gone unnoticed. Had I disagreed, I would be more likely to comment, or more likely, just spell the word correctly when replying.
Good of you to point out ‘forlorn’ – a word with sad connotations that best describes the plight of the poor. (Sorry – relatively poor, for those righties who pretend that everyone has a fair chance…)
You must have a system?
A.
I am sure he will sell the system to you if you are silly enough to believe him.
Games within games….?
“Barry Soper: Why David Seymour has a point about state housing ”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12066506
(There’s a clue in that article for anyone interested)
If you you’re referring to the line;
State houses were then seen as a stop-gap measure, to tide the tenants over until they found a place of their own.
Talk about re-writing history. They were not built to be merely a stop-gap measure at all. They were long term family homes where successive generations could bring up their children in a safe and stable environment. It’s true some were able to eventually buy their own homes but many more stayed in those homes for the rest of their lives.
Soper is either super ignorant or is redefining the truth to fit a certain political bias for the benefit of those who don’t know their history.
Edit: in fact most of the article is a ‘redefining of the truth’. Most of the tenants were – and I suspect still are – normal stable individuals.
It was his dig at The Standard Anne. (Who was Prime Minister in 1937?)
It was hasty read. Missed that bit. Does that mean he reads The Standard? That’s good to know. I’ll be use every opportunity to ridicule the ignorant piece of
Anne. The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!
This is why it’s important to get your thoughts down here with links whenever you are able and whenever the injustice of the right wing rears it’s ugly head. To make a comment both adds to the voice of social consciousness, and makes a record of your opinion.
It does make a difference, and contributes to the necessary counter argument to corporate media. I’m talking Hooten, Trevett, Soper, etc.
“The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!”
😆
I didn’t realise it. Never mind, I’m not changing my style to satisfy a bunch of mealy mouthed, self entitled, arrogant journos… turned PR acolytes for greedy, even more self entitled, ignorant Nat politicos and their sycophantic support base of trolls and nitwits. 😉
I don’t think you need to worry about too many politicians and journalists reading the standard Anne .. and if they are it’ll mostly be for the laughs.
That was my take on it Anne, some big egos in the political scene and perhaps an author here is getting up a few noses.
I bet ms is. His posts are always rational and well thought through.
Btw, I forgot to finish the last sentence @6.1. I. 1. I was trying to think of a really shitty descriptive word that was appropriate for a ‘family friendly’ blog like TS, then got sidetracked. 😈
Exactly. Total bullshit to say they werent ‘homes for life’
Up till the deregulation of the banking sector in the 80s, vast majority of working families werent eligible for a home mortgage as the money was rationed by the banks ( mainly saving banks) – none of this borrowing overseas to fund local residential mortgages.
You had to be a well established customer to boot and quite substantial deposit ( saved with the bank of course) to show your ability to repay.
Soper is just a bitter, twisted clapped-out old journo in the early stages of Dementia.
+1. I think he’s beginning to find out that his days are numbered and the erratic personal attacks on politicians for the purposes of his own headlines are not going to carry him far into him retirement.
Watch his young, young wife Heather Duplicity-Allen drop him when his political access finally runs out.
Yeah I take issue with the “stop gap measure”. John Key was raised in a State house.
People mistakenly believe that this means they were on the bones of their arses. ACTUALLY the state house was offered as a reward for success.
If our media would do research and shit this would have been made clear long ago.
Also, a lot of State houses were used for Public Servants on transfer. In the early 1970’s a friend of mine and his family were moved from Welllington to Auckland with the Labour Department (as it was then). They got a state house in GI as part of the transfer package.
Unfortunately Soper has been diagnosed with a condition where he struggles with the truth and reality, the condition has worsened in recent years.
Liarbouritis?
You spelled it wrong. Its Liarbilityitis.
Mycoplasma bias.
Soper made a huge blooper some months back when he suggested it was the maori seats ‘ which won it for labour’
hes been a political commentator for decades and doesnt know how MMP works ( If labour won no maori seats they would just get 7 extra list seats)
The only certain ‘unintended consequence’ I can see is that the complicity of the middle classes in creating our class based dystopia has come back to bite them.
Click to Edit –
Whatever the original intention on state houses various things seemed to have gone wrong.
Firstly thinking selling them off was a good idea.
Secondly whoever is getting them seems to be pretty arbitrary – had friends who were migrants got a state house in mission bay, and were on $100,000k… couldn’t believe it because even then 20 years ago, it was considered hard to get into a state house and they were not hiding their wages or anything. Then they were allowed to buy the state house at a 10% discount. (Which they didn’t, as they had already left the country after gaining residency in the UK, but left behind their parents in the state house, because they had to be resident for approx 5 years to get citizenship).
Thirdly, if they have tenants who are P heads in there, there has to be another place to put them once they are evicted, you would think some sort of drug rehab might be a good idea and then some sort of supervised housing for them and their family.
Fourthly – we need to have real measures to get rid of P, not scams like MethCon.
Fifthly we need real jobs for people to work in, if we have a plethora of jobs that need government assistance to top up wages in the service industry for example and all over wages in real terms not going up while the cost of living is soaring, is that a win for this country????
Sixly, we need to decide are we continuing in our low wage economy and driving out our educated youth by having them compete for jobs with people trying to gain residency. Then look at do we want to sully our NZ degrees with some of the questionable courses being put out there…
bloody imgrints.
The state housing stock is so out of proportion when it comes to homes per capita. I think it is at a 1949 figure.
This is the fault of the government in the last 20 years. Immigration in the last decade has not helped the situation, it is not an immigrants fault.
Non residents and those who have not been resident for 3 years have had an entitlement to purchase an existing home. There is more than enough land in NZ to do a new build.
Instead homes are having to be built because non residents and those having residency for less than 3 years were able to compete against NZ citizens and committed residents for an existing home.
When it comes to student numbers the rental situation is temporary.
What does the government need to do to accelerate building affordable homes for people who are fully committed to the country?
1937 was a vintage year for building homes and many more
glorious years followed. NZ can do it again.
He got paid to write that?
The clue was in this paragraph here;
“It’s certainly a change from their attitude over the past three years when 300 state house tenants were shown the door for methamphetamine-related transgressions, ironically the same number of curious people who traipsed through the first state house in Wellington way back in 1937 after the Prime Minister of the time Mickey Savage struggled through the door with a dining table”
I had a few thoughts; that he’s been reading The Standard so much he’s unconsciously typed Mickey Savage instead of Michael Joseph Savage.. or is he having a sly dig at one the authors here. Was it deliberate or accidental?
He is just doing that fau familiarity thing commentors do when they are implying a close insider knowledge, whilst simultaneously serving a backhander to the object of commentary. (“Struggle” suggestive of not being used to manual labour, instead of a humble action taken by a great man).
Clue solved. Author is a pompous ass.
The Big Lie in Soper’s article:
The first state house was rented for almost 15 years then purchased by its first tenant, then sold back to the state thirty years after that when the tenants/oweners died. It also went to a council employee, a tram driver, because in those days regular workers deserved a decent home.
Soper is trying to paint a home for life as a temporary stop-gap. Rewriting history.
Death of Canadian man living in 24-hour coffee shop sparks housing outcry
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/07/canada-death-homeless-man-tim-hortons-vancouver
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/vancouver-declares-5-of-homes-empty-and-liable-for-new-tax
Just an example of where our county is at. Yesterday a friend of mine was walking along Queen ST in Auckland. The All blacks were at the ASB Bank as some sort of promotion, meanwhile at the intersection of that road, a homeless man?? was being worked on by paramedics… is that really the brighter future that we were all promised, big winners and quite a lot of big losers?
Yes it was.
BREAKING
Deep rooted legumes cause pollution
According to some boffhead on Country Life on RNZ this morning, nitrogen pollution is caused by those naughty nitrogen fixing plants clover and gorse.
Wanker
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018648442
Fun fact… cannabis loves nitrogen.
I wonder if dairy was scrapped for medicinal marijuana, just how fast the land and water would be re-balanced…hmmmmm
So you only accept science that’s suits your bias?
Listen to the link.
He posits that legumes are a cause of nitrogen pollution.
He’s not referring top any scientific report that supports that.
Note that he does not suggest any other cause of Nitrogen pollution, like extreme stocking rates, or the application of nitrogen to the soil.
If legumes are a cause of pollution these days, why was Nitrogen pollution not a problem 80 years ago when clover was first widely used a a pasture plant?
So what science are you referring to that you suggest suits my bias?
What is my bias?
Yeah, those fucking scientists what the fuck would they know ?.
Much better to pull to pull uninformed ignorance out of your arse than go by researched facts any day.
If its good enough for the Donald its good enough for you,eh.
Methinks the sciencey type got his mucking furds wuddled due to the stress of trying to sound casual under pressure.
WE all know what he was trying to say…so go easy, eh?
It was a very good piece about an excellent environmental initiative involving refugees from Lincoln.
Recommended.
What do you think he was trying to say?
I wonder if John Stewart will come to little old NZ on his new comedy tour?
p.s. – Stewart calls BS on Russia hysteria.
Well the actual clip would be nice, rather than some fucker selectively quoting some other fucker’s selective quotes and paraphrasing of what the original fucker said.
Reminds me of the time I read a book chapter that argued with a four page peer reviewed article about one guy’s single sentence in a two page opinion piece in a trade advertising magazine. Mountains out of molehills.
You going to have to wait for the comedy central special.
Don’t get me wrong, Stewart’s pretty good at laying into the entire partisanship hypocrisy.
But you know these youtube vids: someone tags it as “A eviscerates/pwns/demolishes B”, and it turns out that A said something either not very convincing or merely not completely praiseworthy of B, if anything at all. And those moments of your life are now gone.
As is usual the DomPost has an article applauding Martinborough getting rid of plastic bags in Supermarkets.
The Dom does this in a paper that is home delivered wrapped in not one but two plastic bags. Each of them is made of much thicker plastic than a shopping bag. They are also not usable as bin liners which is what I do with my grocery bags.
Thus they campaign for scrapping multi use bags while they use multiple single use bags to deliver their paper each day.
They are as hypocritical as their local MP. Just like Grant they want one law for themselves and another for everyone else. Not the same law of course. In Grant’s case it is selling access to the Minister of Finance. I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?
I will only be doing it for a couple more weeks though. The only reason I am getting the paper is that they are giving it away free and that only lasts a month.
Write them a letter wally.
“Write them a letter”?
What on earth do you think that is going to accomplish? You surely don’t believe that they would publish it. It would be dumped straight into the rubbish bin and I would simply have wasted the cost of the stamp.
No, returning the plastic to the paper will force them to do something about it. Even if that is only sweeping it up and dumping it. If a number of people did the same thing they might stop creating the rubbish in the first place. It would mean they had to put the paper in the letterbox, at least on wet days, but so what?
It’s become a bit of a thing in the UK. Shoppers unwrapping all the stuff they’ve bought at the supermarket and leaving the mountains of plastic behind in the trolleys.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-43559636
But there is alwyn taking his usual arrogant and ‘superior’ attitude; deliberately misunderstanding the sarcastic nature of Gabby’s instruction (do you really need a sarc tag every time, alwyn?) and then flooding the Ethernet with more garbage. Alwyn – you need a healthier pastime.
You claim to be, or at least to have been, a teacher.
I suppose this is the sort of “healthier pastime” you indulge in?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104319596/mum-losing-hope-of-hearing-from-teen-who-skipped-the-country-with-her-former-teacher
In the meantime I continue to be amazed at your claimed ability to determine what other people mean by their comments.
I am also appalled by your stalking of me on this site. I really am not interested in the sick obsessions you appear to indulge in and the insane comments you make about me.
Get over it you old drunk. It does you no good to exhibit such perverted jealousy of your superiors.
Another load of malevolent, wishful waffle. Appallingly unconvincing, sorry.
… a great idea! “I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?”
REALLY we read this
Especially given todays environment, with Fonterra’s PR advertising campaign to show the +ve side of farming and the M.Bovis issue and the threat to our economy.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/104382640/waikato-councils-take-hard-line-on-truckies-illegally-dumping-stock-effluent
Others are also worried effluent discarded on roads could hinder efforts to stop Mycoplasma bovis from spreading in the region.
But a spokesperson from stock transportation firm Waitoa Haulage said there weren’t enough effluent dumping stations, not only in the Matamata-Piako district but throughout New Zealand
“We have been promised more (dumping stations) time and time again, but they were never delivered.”
Not a behaviour to gain support of the masses
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104584553/church-withholds-60000-raised-to-help-poisoned-waikato-family
“An email from Bishop Joseph said the rest of the money would be put in a a separate account, not to be released without his permission, according to reports.”
Not being big on religion I don’t know why they’d do this but, on the face of it, its certainly not a good look
Frank Zappa.
Be good to hear the bishop’s story.
William Burroughs I believe
Ah yes, Words Of Advice For Young People. Thanks for the reminder 🙂
/like
That’s the one, with these dudes
Some of the churches here in NZ have not been particularly community orientated enough said.
Anyone know when the polls close in Northcote? Who of any significance will be rushing to the Birkenhead booths at this time of night?
“when the polls close in Northcote”.
At the same time as every other Parliamentary election in New Zealand.
7:00 pm.
If you live there and haven’t voted you really will have to get your skates on.
Most days I still come on here and scan the recent comments for the crass logo…
Which one is that, then?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/93/The_Crass_logo.png/220px-The_Crass_logo.png
who uses that, here?
Psycho Milt. Wow seems to be a fan.
Ah, true.
Yeah, I had a lot of time for PM, too. Frequently disagreed, often agreed, and if he got the wrong end of something he owned it. The ban was a damn shame.
+1 In reply to McFlock at 17.1.1.1
Thought I pressed reply, but got a new number.
Bit sorry for the French team tonight.
It was only when one of their got sinbinned that the All Blacks got three tries in fast order.
For at least the first two thirds of the game the packs were about even, and for the first half the territory was pretty even. Last thirty minutes was a disaster.
Finally good to see Auckland’s public transport system actually work well for once; the trains actually worked on time, and most of the City’s buses were pressed into service. It worked.
It’s well time the All Blacks lost, for the good of the game, and Dunedin would be the right place to see it happen.
“It’s well time the All Blacks lost, for the good of the game, and Dunedin would be the right place to see it happen.”
No it would not, the ABs should only lose when the opposition play better, such as not that long ago
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2017/oct/21/australia-v-new-zealand-third-bledisloe-cup-test-live
The All BLacks have not been in the national interest for quite some time, it has all jumped the shark somewhat and become delusional. In these increasingly unsecure times, NZ rugby has become a increasing security liability, estranging traditional relations among other things.
But there is no sensible oversight for such things in modern New Zealand.
Well, Commentators both agreed that the Yellow card was unjustified. The unjustified Yellow card (especially when Sam Cane did more to earn one later on, but nothing happened) changed the course of the game by upsetting the near-balance.
Tonight’s win was more a cause for guilt than rejoicing.
NZ has to be careful. NZ is the biggest country in the world where rugby is the main winter sport. Most other countries – Rugby needs to work bloody hard to even make itself significant.
Many others around the world still believe France was robbed in the last World Cup final.
Tonight’s game did NZ and Rugby NO GOOD AT ALL.
But this comment is for those silly enough to care.
Some music Eco Maori listen to back in the day link below
Ka kite ano