It would depend on how it's been set up, but its more than likely not. I would imagine tax would be paid in which ever country they are domiciled and likewise for the individual investors with money in Blackrock.
Depends on who owns the entity that holds the asset.
If for example Wind Turbine number 1 is owned by New Zealand Wind Limited, a New Zealand registered company, and Blackrock invests in that company, then profits will be taxed at the corporate level through New Zealand Wind Limited
National’s going to micromanage schools to the extent of banning kids having mobile phones in schools ?
The notion and the practicalities rely on the public being dumb. Dumbness developed in mainly pre-mobile days when we apparently had an education system which was brilliant.
Good. Kids do not need their mobile phones during class. They can use them during their breaks and tehn all the rest of the day in their rooms at home. But while they are learning they do not need their phones.
Im in two minds on this, my daughter is pretty shy so rather than ask a teacher if shes stuck with something usually math or physics she'll flick me a msg to help out. At a previous school where phones were banned she would just sit in class not complete the work and fall behind.
it’s unclear to me how that would work alongside a total ban. But I have to admit I am surprised kids are allowed to use their cell phones during class time.
This all started when kids were allowed to "bring their own devices" in order to make use of online learning. It was a way for schools/govt to avoid the expense of providing enough computers/laptops etc.
It's also a health and safety issue that if parents want to contact their student or vice versa, they should do so through the school office so the school knows what's happening.
They should not use private cells in schools for schoolwork – give them school devices or not at all.
And your child will have to learn to communicate in real life if she wants to succeed. I get shy, but not being able to participate other then flicking msg to teachers is not the way to go, kids must learn to speak to others and be able to ask for help.
So no cells in class, box by the teachers desk, kids put phone in there and get them back when leaving class. Rinse repeat.
Training for teachers to be able to engage shy kids and give them the confidence to speak up. Cause for sure in the future she might not be able to keep a job if they are not able to communicate in person, or if they can’t do the job because they actually have to speak to people.
I actually find the idea that a teachers waits for a msg from a student to be quite lazy. Specially if they know that a student is extremely shy.
Certainly some teachers are better than others in that respect, sadly my daughter had a bad experience with a teacher who essentially made her feel stupid when she asked a question in class and was compounded by some students laughing at the teachers response. A bit soul destroying for a 13yr old. Long story short ended up changing schools
Just imagine the indignant trumpeting you would have heard from Newstalk ZB if it had been Labour suggesting this. Hosking and his swaggering sycophants would have been braying about "nanny state", "big brother interfering in people's lives" etc.
But with National suggesting it there will be a lot of heads nodding sagely.
How bloody ridiculous.
If National think this is going to make any difference to the quality of education they obviously know little about what goes on in classrooms.
Whether Chris Luxon likes it or not cellphones are part of our tech culture now, they are essential tools and unrealistic to expect children to go without what adults can't live and breath without. In any case most, if not all schools have policies regarding their use which generally work well.
They don't need National interfering in the classroom.
I wonder how this will go down with wonder boy Seymour?
It is deeply ironic, and deeply dispiriting that we will now get the chorus of "four legs good, two legs better" from the new advocates of the "nanny state".
Not because it is a terrible idea (there's a reasonable case for it but it's very "meh", a headline grab not a real education policy). But because it is the very definition of "nanny state": a government using the law to tell parents and teachers what is good for their children. As an interfering big-government rule-loving lefty I don't mind so much … but every red-tape-hating get-out-of-our-lives righty should be up in arms.
But when Nanny's got a blue rosette it's all good. Any decent interviewer would ask Luxon if he'd now like to apologise for National's tedious chorus of "nanny state" all these years.
And by total coincidence RNZ this morning just happened to stumble across several schools that have already banned phones, with glowing accounts of the benefits from the Principals and ‘community’, notably they did not ask any students for their views.
What first time voters, and yes, Mr Freedom is my middle name Seymour will make of this will be interesting.
Didnt ask any students etc Actually they did interview one . Predictably she supported restriction of cell use though explaining that her school already had systems in place to regulate it as is probably the case in all schools .
Bang on Mike, Tech is part of our society whether we like it or not, they should probably ban windows in classrooms whilst they are at it, just in case a kid is daydreaming about living in a world they can afford. Headline grabbing policy, blah blah blah
Mrs Mac1, a former teacher, immediately asked, "Who will police this ban?" She suggested the local MP.
I would ask, as a former teacher myself, where is the evidence that cell phones impede student learning so much that they need banning?
The topic of student learning performance came up at a political candidates meeting last night.
The National MP wants 3 hours of mandated core subjects per day on average. He mocked what is taught now saying that you can't even tell what subjects are now by their name.
Again, I'd ask. What is the evidence that student performances are dropping and what are the drivers of this?
When I read of such reactionary moves I am reminded of attending AGMs where shallow- minded people bring forward half-arsed stupidity as remits to act as solutions to complex problems.
For example, a remit calling for AGMs of a national organisation to be held only in towns on the main trunk line supposedly in order to facilitate attendance……..
I can't see that this is going to be an effective nation-wide policy.
It would require teachers to do a lot more managing cell phone use in class – than they are prepared to do. And/or schools to have effective cell-phone management plans in place (some do in practice, but most have a theoretical plan which is ignored in practice).
Secondary schools do use cellphones as a research/teaching tool in class (anecdata based on my experience of teens, and friendship with teachers). There is, however, a lot of surfing the internet in class – when they are supposed to be working (and using ChatGPT to do their written work for them….)
Primary schools – much less so. And, it's possible that this is more intended for the primary age group (can't tell from the policy release)
This will, however, be an effective sound-bite policy with parents who are concerned over dropping education standards – regardless of whether it's implementable or even effective.
It's not about policy – it's about getting attention because it's a topic just about everyone has an (often ignorant) opinion on. Oh – and you can implement it with any of your supporters having to pay an extra cent of tax – just dump it on the schools to work out. These are not serious people.
Ok, the cell phone ban thing in schools. Regardless of what you think about it, there was one particular thing in the way Lux Flakes talked about it this morning on RNZ that should be a warning sign for every voter.
Could that thread be provided in a way that non-twitter users can access please?
This is the real Luxon yesterday:
Teaching the basics brilliantly is one of National’s education policies.
But put into practice, Luxon may need to brush up on his own basics.
While Luxon corrected one student at a Hamilton school that the word ‘car’ is spelt “C-A-R” not “C-A-T”, a child then spelt ‘can’ as “K-A-N” and Luxon repeated it back.
“K-A-N, very good.”
‘Can’ is spelt with a C.
One child spelled out “K-A-T” next.
Luxon then asked, “what is K-A-T?”
The children responded: “Cat.”
Luxon said: “Cat, I am just checking, I am just checking.”
Would-be PM Lux Flakes is relatively inexperienced – maybe he was just joking?
More ‘stand-up’ comedy will be coming our way soon enuff – could be a ruff ride.
Zen and the art of motorway maintenance [7 August 2023]
In this sense the pothole is a good symbol how of this election is proceeding. There are itches all around the body politic that demand scratching. In the moment we are far more aware of them than we are of the tumour quietly growing inside, the virus caught but not yet symptomatic, the vehicle crash that awaits around the corner, the fire about to engulf our home. The snake oil retailers draw attention to the easy solutions to the surface and immediate issues and we are often only too willing to reward them for it.
Due to Twitter's new pricing structure, we made a difficult choice to restrict the option of unrolling tweets on the web to Premium members only. You can still unroll tweets for free by visiting Twitter and replying to the tweet with "@threadreaderapp unroll." We appreciate your understanding!
A few generations ago, schoolrooms were built with windows high up on the walls so that children were not distracted by goings on outside. But we could glimpse the clouds and the occasional sparrow. It just made classrooms that much more boring and banning cellphones are the modern version of high windows. (Ballpoint pens were banned as well in later years. Just use dip pens which were splattered ink across the work of clumsy fingers.)
Teachers have always had to deal with distractions. I never allowed the use of ear plugs/headphones for music listening during a lesson unless it was a music lesson. Saxophones were never played during poetry lessons, except perhaps when listening to music lyrics. Chess sets were banned in class except when being made in woodwork. Parrots were only allowed in class on Pets' Day.
An argument could be made that cellphones enable bullying but the prevention of bullying has not been a motivation for National. Even so, the issue of bullying at school is far more complex and needing wider remedies than the blanket banning of cell phones.
Now, what other factors might there be for poor school performance?
I used to deal with 'naughty' boys who were sent from class. High on their factors that could have affected their learning so much that they were sent from class were, in no particular order- poor nutrition including no breakfast, late nights spent on electronic devices that often led to lateness the next morning and therefore no time/desire to eat breakfast, consumption of cans of 'energy' drinks, disinterest caused by all sorts of factors, parental problems, poor housing, medical reasons, hearing, bullying, drug use, alcohol.
That list would not be addressed by a cell phone ban as even bullying can continue without texting, after all.
Poor performance is far more complex than cell phones. The issues I listed above need far more state intervention than call phone bans, far more resources, money, housing, meals etc. Don’t even need a police force when you have teachers to enforce the ban.
But that’s National for you. Poor, cheap fixes by others for problems of their own making.
Constant banging on time clocks, cries of
"Check!' and 'Mate!', tapping of knights negotiating their moves, bishops sermonising, castles crumbling, pawns being sacrificed……. very noisy! But at lunchtime, the chess and guitar clubs were where the smart ones were.
"In the 1920s new approaches were made to school planning, notably of the Taranaki and Canterbury open air type, with very much larger windows for more light and ventilation."
I started school in 1958 in a school that had large opening windows on the north side, which gave views over the playground & grass rugby/cricket field to the road & houses on the far side.
"Architects, including Eliel Saarinen and Richard Neutra, join education reformers of the 1920s and ’30s to soften the utilitarian approach of the previous decades. Their daylit rooms offer views outside with desks arranged in groups rather than in rows."
While our desks still had the holes that ink wells for dip pens would have sat, they were long gone. We progressed from pencil to fountain pen in standard 2 (1962). Ball point pens weren't successfully marketed until later in the sixties.
Quite right – in New Zealand, the school "rooms" that only had high windows were assembly halls/multipurpose rooms that were also used for drama, films and sports, this necessitating high windows only which could be more effectively shaded.
My schoolroom in the 40s had high windows. There were many schools with old rooms so built, while newer ones gradually replaced with openness. I think the big wall-windows opening to verandahs had something to do with fighting Tb.
My point anyway was that new "threats" had to be countered with strict resistance in this case for political gain. Interesting that Luxon has not consulted with teacher unions.
NZ by the way sits at 7th in the World on Pisa scales. Not a disaster at all.
19 forwards (only 2 hookers, 5 props, 4 locks, 2 utilities, 6 loose forwards – one the injured captain Kolisi)
and 14 backs (4 half backs/4 wingers 6 for the other 4 positions).
It appears that one of the half backs and 2 of the loose forwards/utilities will be injured – and replaced by Dweba (hooker), Pollard (1st 5) and Am (midfield) when they are fit to return.
Is it just womens sports or womens' sports teams with men in them that are a no-no for discussion here on TS?
I thought we did not run a sports talkback here?
Got no problem as long as it is OK to talk about both, particularly the importance of women playing against women and especially when this is in 'fledgling' sports teams or individual sports such as track & field.
Lowrie said Greater Auckland had crunched numbers to show that for the cost of both the light rail and recently announced second harbour crossing, the city could get 300 kilometres of surface light rail.
"We're talking a substantial network you could deliver for going for that surface option."
If the Greens get to form a coalition, other than for confidence & supply, are the policies that are coming out those that will form part of the discussions or are there back pocket policies that the electorate does not know about?
This relates to the widely held view that the selfID schemozzle was part of an agreement by The Greens with Labour. That other parties hand-waved this through does not derogate from the concept of where this came from in the first place.
We have had the happenings at Albert Park where Green-involved people were part of a thugs charter to disrupt peaceful, mainly women, from listening to a pro women speaker. Women have been on the back foot ever since.
I dread to think of a re-run in a couple of months time where intolerant and emboldened people once again try to stop others from listening to a speaker. This speaker, despite what many have said here, is not in cahoots with the devil or Nazis or fascists. She seems to be able to speak in other countries where antis are kept well back.
So as this came from a No Debate Greens coalition policy (so it is said/rumoured) are there other ideas like this that are not going to be shared with the general public but may form part of a coalition deal?
seems unlikely to me given both the Greens and Labour have strongly ideologically committed MPs on gender identity. Why would there need to be a secret deal when they both were going to support self ID anyway?
Agreed. It's no secret where any of Labour or Greens Mps stand, they are quite open and passionate about this and while I think it comes from a good place of wanting to help people and not exclude people, I think their tendency to shut down and any nuanced conversation on gender can be deeply unhelpful, the emotionally charged rhetoric can be so toxic that both sides often just end up not hearing each other and slagging each other off and standing in their corners rather than having nuanced conversations and finding some kind of compromise or common ground.
That said, this election is a choice between an all out conservative and neoliberals economic assault on every facet of NZ life from an economic class war all the way up to interfering in the courts and burning all environmental legislation.
There's so much at stake at this election. I'll be party voting Green for the second time (first time in 2017) and hoping against hope for a Labour/green/Maori govt and I'll be voting based off the greens policy's so I'd expect the greens to use those policies as their basis of negotiations and I'm certain they will
"the emotionally charged rhetoric can be so toxic that both sides often just end up not hearing each other and slagging each other off and standing in their corners rather than having nuanced conversations and finding some kind of compromise or common ground." Corey @ 6.1.1.
Actually, I have to say, the tras started it. I have always supported LGB and I still do. It was only when I saw how the trans rights activists shut down debate that I pricked up my ears. Then I started to listen and read and what I discovered about the T and Q made me very concerned
Looks like the UK Green Party is having its problems with gender ideology.
"The Greens have swallowed transgender ideology, and purged dissenters with enthusiasm. Deputy leader Zack Polanski has suggested that anyone who takes a contrary view to the party’s policies on trans rights – specifically those members who claim that trans women are men and trans men are women – should not have a place in the Greens. He is unequivocal:
‘I’m really clear that if you want to misgender someone then that is transphobic, and transphobia is not welcome in the Green party.’
No one, it seems, is safe in the Green party if they don’t toe the line on gender."
If the Greens get to form a coalition, other than for confidence & supply, are the policies that are coming out those that will form part of the discussions or are there back pocket policies that the electorate does not know about?
Are there items that are not known to the electorate and will not be known to the electorate for this election that will form part of The Greens negotiating stance similar to what Self ID is rumoured to have been.
[Ok, I let you run this earlier because it was easily addressed as a general principle above. But since you brought it up again. You appear to be claiming that the Greens 1) had a secret policy on self ID before an election and 2) that policy was part of a deal with Labour in post-election negotiations. You claim that this is widely believed. Please provide some evidence for this now. – weka]
The Greens negotiating stance similar to what Self ID is rumoured to have been.
Please note the word 'rumoured'.
From you:
the Greens had a secret policy on self ID before an election
that policy was part of a deal with Labour in post-election negotiations.
that this is widely believed
As I can no longer find the rumours, some were on here about the Greens support for self ID and how it came about as a policy that the electorate did not get the chance to examine, I wish to retract the statements as expressed above.
[of course I noted the word ‘rumoured’. This is exactly the problem with your comments. You cannot spread rumours on TS about political parties, especially during an election campaign.
Honestly, I’m surprised I have to point this out. Stop and think about it. If we let people spread rumours, someone could say ‘I heard Shanreagh eats baby kittens for breakfast’, then a month later someone else says ‘it’s widely believed that Shanreagh kills and eats kittens’.
We have robust debate here because it’s the best way to hash out political ideas, processes and events, and robust debate depends on people being truthful and being able to distinguish fact from opinion and both of those from unsubstantiated rumour.
I’ve just banned someone until well after the election for doubling down on what amounts to unsubstantiated rumour, and you got pretty close to reasserting your claim despite you having zero evidence.
You tried to run lines here that the Green Party lie to the electorate by ommission and might be doing that again this election, and that somehow Labour are in on it because the two parties discuss secret policy in post-election negotiations and agree on something but don’t write it in their governance document. This is a serious accusation of two political parties.
As I said originally, there was no need for a secret agreement because both parties were fully on board with self ID legislation. If you wanted to know how the GP developed their self ID position, all you had to do was ask. Instead you chose to rumourmonger about the Greens in what appears now to be a pattern from you. This has to stop. There are plenty of legitimate critiques to be made about the Greens without making stuff up. If you are unclear on where the line is between criticism and slur politics, then please ask. -weka]
As a woman fighting my whole life to improve the lot of women and my mother before me I do look askance at legislation that affects us.
I accept your view that Self ID was to be found in policies prior to the election…..I assume this is what you mean. How else could we know about it.
and agree on something but don’t write it in their governance document.
My assumption was wrong therefore that the agreements included policies like 'no debate/self ID that had not gone out to the electorate prior to the election.
I accept your view that Self ID was to be found in policies prior to the election…..I assume this is what you mean. How else could we know about it.
I haven't said that, and please don't make assumptions especially about my words when I am moderating. Just ask if you are unclear.
As I explained below, parties form policy during the three year term, not just at elections.
In order for me to know if the GP had formed formal policy ahead of an election (which one?), I would have to research that, and then I could provide the evidence. But I haven't done that, and I don't know whether it is true or not, hence I am not making that claim.
You are the one that is raising the issue, it's on you to do that work, not me.
What I am more clear on is that, imo, it doesn't make sense to say there was a secret deal in post-election negotiations, because both parties were on the same page, why would they need a secret deal? I would be wrong, it's just an informed opinion, anyone can prove me wrong with actual evidence.
I also think that accusing L and GP of having agreed to something in those negotiations that they didn't put in the document is hugely problematic. We're talking about whole teams of people on both sides. Do you really think that L/GP are doing handshake deals we don't know about? The political risk to them both of that being leaked is enough to make it extremely unlikely, without even looking at whether those parties would act unethically in this way.
I am of the era where unexplained/unmentioned/unvoted for policies had a very bad effect on the country…viz the neo lib stuff. This was not explictly set out in any election policies and yet was brought in very early on and has had a terrible affect on NZ. Possibly a case where incremental policy work on the various proposals may have got rid of the fish-hooks, had this been offered.
I rate the no debate /Self ID and its known affects on the rights of women to be in this category. I did not know about the Greens or Labour having policies that went out to the electorate on self ID before the election, I do know that those who tried, seemingly to us, at the very last minute to ask that the changes to the BDM bill be amended got short shrift from the select committee. I do know that SUFW had to go to the Courts to get a ruling that discussing changes to BDM was not hate speech, so they could hold meetings prior to the select committee.
So it seems other people than just me thought this no debate/self ID had come from nowhere. I certainly would not have included The Greens in any of my voting plans last election or before had I known I was voting for some thing that had the possibility to affect women in such a bad way. But clearly I did not read their manifestos or election policies closely enough.
Coalition agreements are held close to the chest and are not campaigned on before elections, more's the pity.
My wish is to know what any party to a coalition agreement might contain. So the bottom lines.
Bearing in mind what has happened in the past my wish is not hard to justify. And it does come down to trust when an elector assigns the negotiating of a coaliton agreement sight unseen when voting for a particular party.
This is a good point about the changes in the 80s that brought in neoliberalism. Different electoral system, but my memory is that the changes happened very fast and that out FPP system allowed for this. I'm not sure how easy it would be to do that now. There was other precedent eg Muldoon overriding the High Court on the Clyde Dam. It would be interesting to go back and see what parties were saying the relevant election campaigns.
My understanding about the BDMRR Bill is this,
all parties voted for the changes re self-ID (so why single out the Greens?)
there was a problem with the select committee process in that they tried to put the self ID change through as a routine thing rather than doing due process
whether that's because the L/G MPs believed it was a routine thing, or because they knew there would be objections and so tried to put it through quietly, or both, I don't know
they were unable to do that, and the Bill stalled.
There is certainly a great deal of criticism to be made of both L and GP on that. If you want to tie that back to election campaigns, then you will need to do the mahi of establishing what actually happened.
On the GP side, they develop policy via the membership, it seems unlikely but not impossible that they 'hid' the development of this process on self ID from the wider membership. But again, if anyone wants to argue about what happened, it needs actual evidence.
My own view is that for both L and GP, self ID is an anomaly with regards to how they normally operate and the positions they take (hence I don't buy the argument that if they can be sex denialist on this then they can't be trusted on anything else that relies on science).
Afaik, positions and policy are not only developed and presented in election year. Obviously that would make governing very difficult. In the three year term, parties are involved with policy that arises as needed. I don't think it's realistic to expect that only policy presented in an election campaign can be worked on in the following term. What can be done is that scrutiny can be brought to bear on positions and policies that arise during the term.
My wish is to know what any party to a coalition agreement might contain. So the bottom lines.
That's not possible either. Parties need to see how many votes/MPs they get, what happens in the election campaign, what parties are involved in the post-election negotiations and so on.
In the GP, it's the members that have the say on adopting any coalition or other deal that is negotiated. That's because of the commitment to democratic process within the party. The MPs and campaign managers cannot pre-empt that.
And negotiation is just that. The GP could say that a climate Ministry is a bottom line, but then Labour offer them something else that is a better result for ensuring good climate action. It would be insane to lock themselves into positions ahead of the election and wouldn't serve governance.
What can be done is that parties can signal which policies and positions are important.
What can be done is that parties can signal which policies and positions are important.
Yes I agree with this, do you think this is likely? How would we influence this for the good to encourage this signalling in advance of the election?
This is a good point about the changes in the 80s that brought in neoliberalism. Different electoral system, but my memory is that the changes happened very fast and that out FPP system allowed for this. I'm not sure how easy it would be to do that now.
I am not sure that I agree wholeheartedly with this. I think a concept of moving to neo lib actions or other adverse and unheralded changes could happen now as it did then. Labour just took its win and ran with it…….Labour could have taken it's win back in 2020 and run with it…..some of us are saying more's the pity it did not but we still had Covid and I think are used to working with other in a MMP arrangement even having a FPP type 'win'.
In fact I think despite all that was facing us Labout did squander, to an extent, its popularity and could have rolled back, or signalled a roll back of the more pernicious neo lib stuff such a high energy prices etc.
Hopefully this will enable my comments to come out of moderation.
I note some very moderate ones today re the propserity church have been deleted. Why is this?
Hi Shanreagh. You’re still in premod because it’s taken so much of my moderation time in recent times to get you to attend to issues. It’s easier for me to read each comment and release it.
Today was unusual in that I haven’t been round as much, mostly your comments are released within and hour or less.
None of your comments today have been deleted. The only time I delete comments is if someone is ignoring a bolded moderation request and they are in premod. In that case I move comments that aren’t a response to moderation to Spam until the person responds. We find that it lessens the propensity to post and run.
there’s nothing else to respond to. You are still in moderation so that I can see your comments in as they arrive, rather than having to deal with them reactively via moderation later.
From what I can see you have been posting more carefully, which I appreciate. If that continues I will remove premod at some point. But I haven’t seen comments in the areas where there have been problems yet.
And the speaker has recently won a monetary settlement and an apology from a UK media company that stated that she had supported the Nazi salute given by the bunch of kids at one of the Australian venues. She should sue a few of the equivalents here.
Planning a "protest" outside a district court on the day her tomato juice assailant is due to appear? Purely coincidental. Of course she's not hankering for all the attention she will receive if there's another counter protest – preferably with a little bit of violence thrown in for good measure. (sarc)
The best thing would be for no-one to turn up to any counter protest – at least not outside the District Court. She would have come all this way to NZ for nothing. Imagine the chagrin.
She will be here for the hearing considering that she was the victim of a most cowardly attack.
Again, just for those that really think that assaulting a whole lot of women in a park is a kind, nice, tolerant and progressive thing to do, NZ – Aotearoa is/was lucky to now not be known as the country where mobs egged by media, sitting MPs, and celebrities stomp women to death. As it is this country is currently only known as the country where prostate having people bash old women, trample a few others and throw liquids about.
So yes, PP will be here, free of any charges, while her assaulter is answering the courts about their behavior.
Sounds like a plan as she would likely be required to give evidence and she has said before that she is sad that the chance for NZers to hear her was denied them.
Let us just hope that the Govt/commentators do not play silly bxxxxrs this time and that normal policing is resumed.
Labour has announced legislation to protect parts of the Hauraki gulf but will not be able to pass it before the election. Once again the lack of urgency around protecting our environment is worrying but it is good to see action being taken now none-the-less:
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced the plan at Tamaki Yacht Club in Auckland on Wednesday morning, alongside Conservation Minister Willow-Jean Prime, and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Rachel Brooking.
"The Hauraki Gulf — Tīkapa Moana – is an absolute treasure and needs to be protected for the enjoyment of future generations," Hipkins said. "We know action is needed now. Today's announcement follows years of careful work and extensive consultation, and strikes a good balance."
Prime said some protection areas would be covered by a "high protection area" category, with strong restrictions while also recognising kaitiakitanga and other tangata whenua cultural practices.
The new legislation would set up 12 such areas, along with five new seafloor areas to preserve seafloor habitats with bans on bottom-contact fishing methods.
As usual the Greens have been calling for this since ages ago:
The Green Party has long held a policy of phasing out harmful fishing practices in the Gulf, and banning bottom trawling on all seamounts – mountains under the sea.
In a statement, the party's Oceans and Fisheries spokesperson Eugenie Sage welcomed the announcement but urged the government to make it a first step of many.
"For decades, successive governments have allowed overfishing, sediment pollution, and destructive fishing practices to degrade the health of the Gulf, despite repeated calls and pressure from the community and mana whenua for change," she said.
"Our biggest disappointment is that this has come so late in the term. It is good to see a commitment to introduce legislation to establish these new protected areas, but very disappointing it won't become law before the election."
She said the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Sea Change had raised concerns about a lack of urgency three years ago, and the proposed legislation did not need to wait until the final weeks of the Parliamentary term.
"People want bottom trawling stopped to protect the seabed and the seafloor species. The time is now to make this happen. This is even more urgent when the biosecurity threat of Caulerpa seaweed is spread through trawling."
She means 18 months of policy time because we lost so much governing during the first years of the pandemic. I think this is true. However, if the Greens developed the policy, then Labour didn't have to do the work, so it's doesn't make sense in this case?
A new NZ survey has been released by the Guardian, including the usual opinion poll Qs but also a lot of detail on specific issues – much more than in the usual TV polls.
The transport question is revealing: no loud lobby for roads, a big majority preferring public transport investment.
Yeah. First, it has a sufficient database to be credible. Second, Labour comes in below 30%. Third, National is ahead by more than the margin of error. Fourth, NZF come in over the threshold. Fifth, TMP is about half what the average of other recent polls suggested.
Volatility of public mood produces fluctuations from time to time but it increasingly looks like commercial polling design & technique produce different `publics', even if those differences are only a few percent…
It's much less about the party vote than the detailed data below the surface. Horse-race headlines alone don't tell us much.
On policy issues, there is no evidence at all of a public mood swing to the right.
Example: asked about inequality, 5 times more say it’s increasing than decreasing. That’s a clear signal to policy-makers. One that National/ACT have no interest in addressing, at all.
Support for the NZ opposition is only an ill-defined desire for a better tomorrow, an anti-incumbency mood which is the same or worse in countries with right-wing governments (Exhibit A: the UK).
I agree re anti-incumbency mood, & your policy point too. I still think Labour have left their run too late but National seems surprisingly inept too so the old tweedledumb & tweedledumber thing has us trending into hung parliament…
Yes. Thanks Observer. Interesting. If questions were asked on a telephone survey it would be impossible to think of an answer, but I guess online would be more time to consider and more credible.
Pity that the huge drop in Youth crime stats from 2013 to 2022 are not published more freely, or the General Crime Stats for that matter, then people would be less concerned and Opposition leaders would look foolish.
NZ Pisa Education tracking has NZ at 7th out of about a hundred countries so not nearly as dire as Opposition would have us believe, and so the concerns expressed in the survey would be lower.
" I think Kirk's passing had a huge impact on our politics, and the paths taken."
I agree Richard. He ended up transcending party politics with the depth of his commanding presence. It was apparent at the time of his untimely death expressed by so many thousands of NZers across the political spectrum..
I recall a photo of Keith Holyoake standing alone at the airport watching the Hercules carrying Kirk's coffin depart for Christchurch. His grief was etched on his face.
It was indeed fortunate for Muldoon that Kirk died when he did. There is no way he would have won in 1975 and Kirk would have been able to cement in a superannuation policy that would have have ensured the country’s fiscal security for many decades to come.
The treasury report on housing makes it clear that private rents rise to match income increases. Landlords are able to institute increases that outpace inflation because of the dearth of public alternatives:
The supply of dwellings relative to demand is a less prominent driver of house prices, but an important determinant of rents. Until recently rents in Hamilton Waikato had move broadly in line with, and at times slower than, incomes over a long period. Trends at a national level were similar. But since 2015, rents have increased sharply across the Hamilton Waikato region as population has grown faster than the supply of dwellings. The worsening availability and affordability of rentals has increased financial stress and homelessness.
This is also part of the Greens policy on housing:
"Right now, the massive cost of having a safe, warm home to live in is one of the main reasons why so many people are struggling to make ends meet. It is even worse for Māori, Pasifika and disabled children. Poor and expensive housing continues to be a major factor.
“We need urgent action to boost incomes, which this Budget also falls short on. But income support alone won’t be enough. We also need long-term investment to significantly increase the Government’s building programme. That needs to happen alongside action to empower community housing providers and iwi to build more homes.
“Right now, the biggest barrier to making sure everyone has a warm, safe, and dry home is the government itself. It comes down to this: if the government doesn’t raise enough money – for example by taxing wealth or capital gains – it cannot pay for the services and investments we all need.
“And so, if people want a government that will invest in a massive house building programme to ensure everyone has a safe place to live and put down roots, we need more Green MPs. The tools to lift every family and child out of poverty exist; the Government just needs to use them,” says Ricardo Menéndez March.
Renters United president Geordie Rogers says low supply and high demand allow landlords to charge as much as their tenants can pay.
"We don't have enough houses," Rogers said.
"Every single time we get a pay rise it's immediately eaten up by the increased cost of rent, going straight to our landlords."
The report also noted that mortgage rates only had a marginal impact on rents.
"We consistently hear landlords saying the reason they're putting rent prices up is due to the increased costs they're taking on," he said.
"A lot of the forecasting done by the Treasury shows that actually isn't the case, and rather landlords are setting rent prices at the maximum amount they can get."
The report found rent prices were increasing at a faster rate than inflation. Rogers said it was clear landlords were benefiting from the lack of housing supply.
"We know that the cost of renting a property is increasing faster than the cost put on to landlords," he said.
"It clearly shows that landlords are setting rent prices as high as possible, and a lot of that comes down to the fact that we do not have enough houses."
There's a Gordon Campbell up about this deal too, and it's well worth the 5min read.
If a National/ACT government had negotiated the renewables deal with the giant investment firm BlackRock, it is safe to assume that we would be never hearing the end of it. Only National and Act, we would be being told, would have had the business nous and deal-making expertise….etc
The country's third biggest bank reported a net profit for the year ended June of $1.56 billion, up 6 percent on the year before, as it increased its lending and margins.
James Shaw nails it…indeed there's no better time than now.
These Aussie banks are taking the piss both sides of the ditch.
Albos making zero moves on the industry that values profit over people all laid out in a scathing royal commission draft report in 2018. No surprise there as it’s Aussies largest industry that financial sector.
i'm not suggesting the guardian poll is completely fucked, but when it says that lab + greens is less than national in the 18-34 bracket, and that labour is more popular than national with boomers, that would suggest that the guardian poll is completely fucked.
Put it this way, the number of people included in the Greens 18-34 was 35 and Greens 35-54 was 46. Given how biased the subset of people that answer polls is, this is basically noise. For Labour, we're talking 20 people difference for 18-43 vs 35-54. Ignore this poll
“But, that’s the thing, mate, isn’t it? We showed ourselves to be nothing more useful than a bunch of angry old men, shaking our fists at the sky. Were we really that angry at Labour and the Greens? Or was it just the inescapable fact of our own growing irrelevancy ...
Jerry Coyne writes – This article from New Zealand’s Newsroom site was written by Julie Rowland, the deputy dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland as well as a geologist and the Director of the Ngā Ara Whetū | Centre for Climate, Biodiversity & Society. In other ...
Ain't nobody gonna steal this heart away.For the last couple of weeks its felt as though all the good things in our beautiful land are under attack.These isles in the southern Pacific. The home of the Māori people. A land of easy going friendliness, openness, and she’ll be right. A ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.MondayYou cannot be seriousOne might think, god, people who are seeing all this must be regretting their vote.But one might be mistaken.There are people whose chief priority is not wanting to be ...
Alan Bollard, formerly Treasury Secretary, Reserve Bank Governor and Chairman of APEC, has written an insightful book exploring command vs demand approaches to the economy. The Cold War included a conflict about ideas; many were economic. Alan Bollard’s latest book Economists in the Cold War focuses on the contribution of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The Minister of Defence has returned from Noumea to announce New Zealand will host next year’s South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting and (wearing another ministerial hat) to condemn malicious cyber activity conducted by the Russian Government. A bigger cheer from people who voted for the Luxon ...
The suppression of individual thought in our universities spills over into society, threatening free speech everywhere.Elizabeth Rata writes – Indigenising New Zealand’s universities is well underway, presumably with the agreement of University Councils and despite the absence of public discussion. Indigenising, under the broader umbrella of decolonisation, ...
Now that he’s back as Foreign Minister, maybe Winston Peters should start reading the MFAT website. If he did, Peters would find MFAT celebrating the 25th anniversary of how New Zealand alerted the rest of the world to the genocide developing in Rwanda. Quote: New Zealand played an important role ...
It must have been a hard first couple of weeks for National voters, since the coalition was announced. Seeing their party make so many concessions to New Zealand First and ACT that there seems little remains of their own policies, other than the dwindling dream of tax cuts and the ...
It’s Friday again and Christmas is fast approaching. Here’s some of the stories that caught our attention. This week in Greater Auckland On Tuesday Matt covered some of the recent talk around the costs, benefits and challenges with the City Rail Link. On Thursday Matt looked at how ...
Amsterdam to Hong Kong William McCartney16,000 kilometres41 days18 trains13 countries11 currencies6 long-distance taxis4 taxi apps4 buses3 sim cards2 ferries1 tram0 medical events (surprisingly)Episode 4Whether the Sofia-Istanbul Express really qualifies to be called an express is debatable, but it’s another one of those likeably old and slow trains tha… ...
Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro arrives for the State Opening of Parliament (Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)TL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:New Finance Minister Nicola Willis set herself a ...
Sometimes one gets morbidly curious about the oddities of one’s own legal system. Sometimes one writes entire essays on New Zealand’s experience with Blasphemous Libel: https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/blasphemous-libel-new-zealand-politics/ And sometimes one follows up the exact historical status of witchcraft law in New Zealand. As one does, of course. ...
Don’t expect any fiscal shocks or surprises when the books are opened on December 20 with the unveiling of the Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU). That was the message yesterday from Westpac in an economic commentary. But the bank’s analysis did not include any changes to capital ...
It is quiet reading time in Room 13! It is so quiet you can hear the Tui outside. It is so quiet you can hear the Fulton Hogan crew.It is so quiet you can hear old Mr Grant and old Mr Bradbury standing by the roadworks and counting the conesand going on ...
It looks like the new ministerial press secretaries have quickly learned the art of camouflaging exactly what their ministers are saying – or, at least, of keeping the hard news out of the headlines and/or the opening sentences of the statements they post on the home page of the governments ...
The big dairy co-op Fonterra had some Christmas cheer to offer its farmers this week, increasing its forecast farmgate milk price and earnings guidance for the year after what it calls a strong start to the year. The forecast midpoint for the 2023/24 season is up 25cs to $7.50 per ...
Michael Bassett writes – Many of the comments about the Coalition’s determination to wind back the dramatic Maorification of New Zealand of the last three years would have you believe the new government is engaged in a full-scale attack on Maori. In reality, all that is happening ...
Mary Robinson asked Al Jaber a series of very simple, direct and highly pertinent questions and he responded with a high-octane public meltdown. Photos: Getty Images / montage: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR The hygiene effects of direct sunshine are making some inroads, perhaps for the very first time, on the normalised ‘deficit ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Appointed by new Labour PM Jacinda Ardern in 2018, Cindy Kiro headed the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) tasked with reviewing and recommending reforms to the welfare system. Kiro had been Children’s Commissioner during Helen Clark’s Labour government but returned to academia subsequently. ...
It seems even our transport agencies don’t want Labour’s harbour crossing plans. In August the previous government and Waka Kotahi announced their absurd preferred option the new harbour crossing that at the time was estimated to cost $35-45 billion. It included both road tunnels and a wiggly light rail tunnel ...
Hi,Paying Webworm members such as yourself keep this thing running, so as 2023 draws to close, I wanted to do two things to say a giant, loud “THANKS”. Firstly — I’m giving away 10 Mister Organ blu-rays in New Zealand, and another 10 in America. More details down below.Secondly — ...
Yesterday saw the State Opening of Parliament, the Speech from the Throne, and then Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s dream for Aotearoa in his first address. But first the pomp and ceremony, the arrival of the Governor General.Dame Cindy Kiro arrived on the forecourt outside of parliament to a Māori welcome. ...
Probably not since 1975 have we seen a government take office up against such a wall of protest and complaint. That was highlighted yesterday, the day that the new Parliament was sworn in, with news that King Tuheitia has called a national hui for late January to develop a ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). War, conflict and climate change are tearing apart lives across the world. But these aren't separate harms - they're intricately connected. ...
These dire woeful and intolerant people have been so determinedly going about their small and petulant business, it’s hard to keep up. At the end of the new government’s first woeful week, Audrey Young took the time to count off its various acts of denigration of Te Ao Māori:Review the ...
The new white supremacist government made attacking te reo a key part of its platform, promising to rename government agencies and force them to "communicate primarily in English" (which they already do). But today they've gone further, by trying to cut the pay of public servants who speak te reo: ...
Buzz from the Beehive The biggest buzz we bring you from the Beehive today is that the government’s official website is up and going after being out of action for more than a week. The latest press statement came from Education Minister Eric Stanford, who seized on the 2022 PISA ...
There was another ETS auction this morning. and like all the other ones this year, it failed to clear - meaning that 23 million tons of carbon (15 million ordinary units plus 8 million in the cost containment reserve) went up in smoke. Or rather, they didn't. Being unsold at ...
This isn’t news, but the National-led coalition is mounting a sustained assault on Treaty rights and obligations. Even so, Christopher Luxon has described yesterday’s nationwide protests by Maori as “pretty unfair.” Poor thing. In the NZ Herald, Audrey Young has compiled a useful list of the many, many ways that ...
New Zealand’s dairy industry, the mainstay of the country’s export trade, has been under pressure from rising costs. Down on the farm, this has been hitting hard. But there was more positive news this week, first from the latest Fonterra GDT auction where prices rose, and then from a report ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In their rush to discredit the new government (which our MainStream Media regard as illegitimate and having no right to enact the democratic will of voters) the NZ Herald and Newshub are arguing ACT’s Deputy Leader Brooke van Veldon is not following Treasury advice ...
Even many young people who smoke support smokefree policies, fitting in with previous research showing the large majority of people who smoke regret starting and most want to quit. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s my pick of the top 10 news and analysis links elsewhere on the morning of Wednesday, December ...
Well it didn’t take six months, but the leaks have begun. Yes the good ship Coalition has inadvertently released a confidential cabinet paper into the public domain, discussing their axing of Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs).Oops.Just when you were admiring how smoothly things were going for the new government, they’ve had ...
A wave of new and higher fees, rates and charges will ripple out over the economy in the next 18 months as mayors, councillors, heads of department and price-setters for utilities such as gas, electricity, water and parking ramp up charges. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Just when most ...
Hi,Kiwis — keep the evening of December 22nd free. I have a meetup planned, and will send out an invite over the next day or so. This sounds sort of crazy to write, but today will be Tony Stamp’s final Totally Normalcolumn of 2023. Somehow we’ve made it to ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
The electorate has high expectations of the new government. The question is: can it deliver? Some might say the signs are not promising. Protestors are already marching in the streets. The new Prime Minister has had little experience of managing very diverse politicians in coalition. The economy he ...
Nicola of Marsden:Yo, normies! We will fix your cost of living worries by giving you a tax cut of 150 dollars. 150! Cash money! Vote National.Various people who can read and count:Actually that's 150 over a fortnight. Not a week, which is how you usually express these things.And actually, it looks ...
When this government came to power, it did so on an explicitly white supremacist platform. Undermining the Waitangi Tribunal, removing Māori representation in local government, over-riding the courts which had tried to make their foreshore and seabed legislation work, eradicating te reo from public life, and ultimately trying to repudiate ...
Buzz from the Beehive Maybe this is not the best time for our Minister of Defence to have gone overseas. Not when the Maori Party is inviting (or should that be inciting?) its followers to join a revolution in a post which promoted its protest plans with a picture of ...
A Maori Party post on Instagram invited party followers to …. Tangata Whenua, Tangata Tiriti, Join the REVOLUTION! & make a stand! Nationwide Action Day, All details in tiles swipe to see locations. • This is our 1st hit out and tomorrow Tuesday the 5th is the opening ...
The RBNZ governor is citing high net migration and profit-led inflation as factors in the bank’s hawkish stance. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s my pick of the top 10 news and analysis links elsewhere on the morning of Tuesday, December 5, including:Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr says high net migration and ...
Willis has accused labour of “economic vandalism’, while Robertson described her comments as a “desperate diversion from somebody who can't make their tax package add up”. There will now be an intense focus on December 20 to see whether her hyperbole is backed up by true surprises. Photo montage: Lynn ...
The City Rail Link has been in the headlines a bit recently so I thought I’d look at some of them. First up, yesterday the NZ Herald ran this piece about the ongoing costs of the CRL. Auckland ratepayers will be saddled with an estimated bill of $220 million each ...
Is this the most shambolic government in the history of New Zealand? Given that parliament hasn’t even opened they’ve managed quite a list of achievements to date.The Smokefree debacle trading lives for tax cuts, the Trumpian claims of bribery in the Media, an International award for indifference, and today the ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis late yesterday stopped only slightly short of accusing her predecessor Grant Robertson of cooking the books. She complained that the Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU), due to be made public on December 20, would show “fiscal cliffs” that would amount to “billions of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The year was 2015. ‘Uptown Funk’ with Bruno Mars was at the top of the music charts. Jurassic World was the most popular new movie in theaters. And decades of futility in international climate negotiations was about to come to an end in ...
As a heads-up, I am not one of those people who stay awake at night thinking about weird Culture War nonsense. At least so far as the current Maori/Constitutional arrangements go. In fact, I actually consider it the least important issue facing the day to day lives of New ...
Strong Words: “We do not consent, we do not surrender, we do not cede, we do not submit; we, the indigenous, are rising. We do not buy into the colonial fictions this House is built upon. Te Pāti Māori pledges allegiance to our mokopuna, our whenua, and Te Tiriti o ...
Some days it feels like the only thing to say is: Seriously? No, really. Seriously?OneSomeone has used their health department access to share data about vaccinations and patients, and inform the world that New Zealanders have been dying in their hundreds of thousands from the evil vaccine. This of course is pure ...
Buzz from the Beehive After $21.8 million was spent on investigations, the plug has been pulled on the Lake Onslow pumped-hydro electricity scheme, The scheme – that technically could have solved New Zealand’s looming energy shortage, according to its champions – was a key part of the defeated Labour government’s ...
If those elected to the Māori Seats refuse to take them, then what possible reason could the country have for retaining them?Chris Trotter writes – Christmas is fast approaching, which, as it does every year, means gearing up for an abstruse general knowledge question. “Who was ...
The coalition party agreements are mainly about returning to 2017 when National lost power. They show commonalities but also some serious divergencies.Brian Easton writes – The two coalition agreements – one National and ACT, the other National and New Zealand First – are more than policy documents. ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – New Zealand’s international relations are under new management. And Winston Peters, the new foreign minister, is already setting a change agenda. As expected, this includes a more pro-US positioning when it comes to the Pacific – where Peters will be picking up where he ...
The most charitable explanation for National’s behaviour over the smokefree legislation is that they have dutifully fulfilled the wishes of the Big Tobacco lobby and then cast around – incompetently, as it turns out – for excuses that might sell this health policy U-turn to the public. The less charitable ...
As Deb Te Kawa writes in an op-ed, the new Government seems to have immediately bought itself fights with just about everyone. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Here’s my pick of the top 10 news and analysis links elsewhere as of 10 am on Monday December 4, including:Palau’s President ...
Let’s begin today by thinking about job interviews.During my career in Software Development I must have interviewed hundreds of people, hired at least a hundred, but few stick in the memory.I remember one guy who was so laid back he was practically horizontal, leaning back in his chair until his ...
New Zealand’s international relations are under new management. And Winston Peters, the new foreign minister, is already setting a change agenda. As expected, this includes a more pro-US positioning when it comes to the Pacific – where Peters will be picking up where he left off. Peters sought to align ...
Auckland’s city rail link is the most expensive rail project in the world per km, and the CRL boss has described the cost of infrastructure construction in Aotearoa as a crisis. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The 3.5 km City Rail Link (CRL) tunnel under Auckland’s CBD has cost ...
The first big test of the new Government’s approach to Treaty matters is likely to be seen in the return of the Resource Management Act. RMA Minister Chris Bishop has confirmed that he intends to introduce legislation to repeal Labour’s recently passed Natural and Built Environments Act and its ...
Time to revisit something I haven’t covered in a while: the D&D campaign, with Saqua the aquatic half-vampire. Last seen in July: https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2023/07/27/the-song-of-saqua-volume-ii/ The delay is understandable, once one realises that the interim saw our DM come down with a life-threatening medical situation. They have since survived to make ...
A chronological listing of news and opinion articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Nov 26, 2023 thru Dec 2, 2023. Story of the Week CO2 readings from Mauna Loa show failure to combat climate changeDaily atmospheric carbon dioxide data from Hawaiian volcano more ...
Affirmative Action was a key theme at this election, although I don’t recall anyone using those particular words during the campaign.They’re positive words, and the way the topic was talked about was anything but. It certainly wasn’t a campaign of saying that Affirmative Action was a good thing, but that, ...
It was at the end of the Foxton straights, at the end of 1978, at 100km/h, that someone tried to grab me from behind on my Yamaha.They seemed to be yanking my backpack. My first thought was outrage. My second was: but how? Where have they come from? And my ...
There’s no news to be gleaned from the government’s official website today – it contains nothing more than the message about the site being under maintenance. The time this maintenance job is taking and the costs being incurred have us musing on the government’s commitment to an assault on inflation. ...
Don’t you sometimes wish they’d just tell the truth? No matter how abhorrent or ugly, just straight up tell us the truth?C’mon guys, what you’re doing is bad enough anyway, pretending you’re not is only adding insult to injury.Instead of all this bollocks about the Smokefree changes being to do ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.Friday Under New Management Week in review, quiz style1. Which of these best describes Aotearoa?a. Progressive nation, proud of its egalitarian spirit and belief in a fair go b. Best little country on the planet c. ...
Like earlier this year, members from our team will be involved with next year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The conference will take place on premise in Vienna as well as online from April 14 to 19, 2024. The session catalog has been available since November 1 ...
1. Which of these best describes Aotearoa?a. Progressive nation, proud of its egalitarian spirit and belief in a fair go b. Best little country on the planet c. Under New Management 2. Which of these best describes the 100 days of action announced this week by the new government?a. Petulantb. Simplistic and wrongheaded c. ...
Sorry to say, the government’s official website is still out of action. When Point of Order paid its daily visit, the message was the same as it has been for the past week: Site under maintenanceBeehive.govt.nz is currently under maintenance. We will be back shortly. Thank you for your ...
Radio NZ reports: Te Pāti Māori’s co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has accused the new government of “deliberate .. systemic genocide” over its policies to roll back the smokefree policy and the Māori Health Authority. The left love hysterical language. If you oppose racial quotas in laws, you are a racist. And now if you sack ...
Labour’s immigration spokesperson Phil Twyford is calling on the Government to follow the example of Australia and help New Zealanders’ close family members stuck in Gaza to escape and take shelter here. ...
The Green Party is urging the Government to recognise its commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi so our tamariki and mokopuna can grow up in an Aotearoa where their language is celebrated, their health is prioritised, and their whenua is protected. ...
By scrapping Aotearoa’s world-leading smokefree laws, this government is sacrificing Māori lives to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. Not only is this plan revolting, but it doesn’t add up. Treasury has estimated that the reversal of smokefree laws to pay for tax cuts will cost our health system $5.25bn, ...
Figures showing National needs to find another $900 million for landlords highlights the mess this coalition Government is in less than a week into the job. ...
Community organisations, mana whenua and the Greens have written to the incoming Minister of Oceans and Fisheries to call for the progression without delay of the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill. ...
"On behalf of the Labour Party I would like to congratulate Christopher Luxon on his appointment as Prime Minister,” Labour Party Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
NZ First has gotten their wish to ‘take our country back’ to the 1800s with a policy program that will white-wash Aotearoa and erase tangata whenua rights. By disestablishing the Māori Health Authority this Government has condemned Māori to die seven years earlier than Pākehā. By removing Treaty obligations from ...
Te Pāti Māori have called for the resignation of the Ministry of Foreign and Trade chief executive Chris Seed following his decision to erase te reo Māori from government communications. While the country still waits for a new government to be formed, Mr Seed took it upon himself to undermine ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon joined Cyclone Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell and Transport and Local Government Minister Simeon Brown, to meet leaders of cyclone and flood-affected regions in the Hawke’s Bay. The visit reinforced the coalition Government’s commitment to support the region and better understand its ongoing requirements, Mr Mitchell says. ...
New Zealand has joined the UK and other partners in condemning malicious cyber activity conducted by the Russian Government, Minister Responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau Judith Collins says. The statement follows the UK’s attribution today of malicious cyber activity impacting its domestic democratic institutions and processes, as well ...
The Government has begun the process of disestablishing Te Pūkenga as part of its 100-day plan, Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds says. “I have started putting that plan into action and have met with the chair and chief Executive of Te Pūkenga to advise them of my ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will be leaving for Dubai today to attend COP28, the 28th annual UN climate summit, this week. Simon Watts says he will push for accelerated action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, deliver New Zealand’s national statement and connect with partner countries, private sector leaders ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins yesterday announced New Zealand will host next year’s South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting (SPDMM). “Having just returned from this year’s meeting in Nouméa, I witnessed first-hand the value of meeting with my Pacific counterparts to discuss regional security and defence matters. I welcome the opportunity to ...
The Government is committed to lifting school achievement in the basics and that starts with removing distractions so young people can focus on their learning, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. The 2022 PISA results released this week found that Kiwi kids ranked 5th in the world for being distracted ...
Today I met with Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to set out my expectations, which he has agreed to, says Police Minister Mark Mitchell. Under section 16(1) of the Policing Act 2008, the Minister can expect the Police Commissioner to deliver on the Government’s direction and priorities, as now outlined in ...
New Zealand needs a strong and stable Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) that is well placed for the future, after emission units failed to sell for the fourth and final auction of the year, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. At today’s auction, 15 million New Zealand units (NZUs) – each ...
With 2022 PISA results showing a decline in achievement, Education Minister Erica Stanford is confident that the Coalition Government’s 100-day plan for education will improve outcomes for Kiwi kids. The 2022 PISA results show a significant decline in the performance of 15-year-old students in maths compared to 2018 and confirms ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today departed for New Caledonia to attend the 8th annual South Pacific Defence Ministers’ meeting (SPDMM). “This meeting is an excellent opportunity to meet face-to-face with my Pacific counterparts to discuss regional security matters and to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the Pacific,” Judith Collins says. ...
Putting more money in the pockets of hard-working families is a priority of this Coalition Government, starting with an increase to Working for Families, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. “We are starting our 100-day plan with a laser focus on bringing down the cost of living, because that is what ...
Most weeks, following Cabinet, the Prime Minister holds a press conference for members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. This page contains the transcripts from those press conferences, which are supplied by Hansard to the Office of the Prime Minister. It is important to note that the transcripts have not been edited ...
The Government has axed the $16 billion Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme championed by the previous government, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says. “This hugely wasteful project was pouring money down the drain at a time when we need to be reining in spending and focussing on rebuilding the economy and ...
New Zealand welcomes the further one-day extension of the pause in fighting, which will allow the delivery of more urgently-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza and the release of more hostages, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said. “The human cost of the conflict is horrific, and New Zealand wants to see the violence ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today expressed on behalf of the New Zealand Government his condolences to the family of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who has passed away at the age of 100 at his home in Connecticut. “While opinions on his legacy are varied, Secretary Kissinger was ...
Every child deserves a world-leading education, and the Coalition Government is making that a priority as part of its 100-day plan. Education Minister Erica Stanford says that will start with banning cellphone use at school and ensuring all primary students spend one hour on reading, writing, and maths each day. ...
I would like to begin by echoing the Prime Minister’s thanks to the organisers of this Summit, Fran O’Sullivan and the Auckland Business Chamber. I want to also acknowledge the many leading exporters, sector representatives, diplomats, and other leaders we have joining us in the room. In particular, I would like ...
Good morning. Thank you, Rosemary, for your warm introduction, and to Fran and Simon for this opportunity to make some brief comments about New Zealand’s relationship with the United States. This is also a chance to acknowledge my colleague, Minister for Trade Todd McClay, Ambassador Tom Udall, Secretary of Foreign ...
Good morning, tēnā koutou and namaskar. Many thanks, Michael, for your warm welcome. I would like to acknowledge the work of the India New Zealand Business Council in facilitating today’s event and for the Council’s broader work in supporting a coordinated approach for lifting New Zealand-India relations. I want to also ...
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Will Blackrock s profits from investing in our renewable energy, be taxed in aotearoa?
There’s a post up about Blackrock
https://thestandard.org.nz/climate-ngos-on-the-blackrock-deal/
It would depend on how it's been set up, but its more than likely not. I would imagine tax would be paid in which ever country they are domiciled and likewise for the individual investors with money in Blackrock.
No. Chances are not.
Depends on who owns the entity that holds the asset.
If for example Wind Turbine number 1 is owned by New Zealand Wind Limited, a New Zealand registered company, and Blackrock invests in that company, then profits will be taxed at the corporate level through New Zealand Wind Limited
National’s going to micromanage schools to the extent of banning kids having mobile phones in schools ?
The notion and the practicalities rely on the public being dumb. Dumbness developed in mainly pre-mobile days when we apparently had an education system which was brilliant.
Good. Kids do not need their mobile phones during class. They can use them during their breaks and tehn all the rest of the day in their rooms at home. But while they are learning they do not need their phones.
Im in two minds on this, my daughter is pretty shy so rather than ask a teacher if shes stuck with something usually math or physics she'll flick me a msg to help out. At a previous school where phones were banned she would just sit in class not complete the work and fall behind.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2308/S00079/national-will-ban-cell-phone-use-at-school.htm
it’s unclear to me how that would work alongside a total ban. But I have to admit I am surprised kids are allowed to use their cell phones during class time.
This all started when kids were allowed to "bring their own devices" in order to make use of online learning. It was a way for schools/govt to avoid the expense of providing enough computers/laptops etc.
It's also a health and safety issue that if parents want to contact their student or vice versa, they should do so through the school office so the school knows what's happening.
They should not use private cells in schools for schoolwork – give them school devices or not at all.
And your child will have to learn to communicate in real life if she wants to succeed. I get shy, but not being able to participate other then flicking msg to teachers is not the way to go, kids must learn to speak to others and be able to ask for help.
So no cells in class, box by the teachers desk, kids put phone in there and get them back when leaving class. Rinse repeat.
Training for teachers to be able to engage shy kids and give them the confidence to speak up. Cause for sure in the future she might not be able to keep a job if they are not able to communicate in person, or if they can’t do the job because they actually have to speak to people.
I actually find the idea that a teachers waits for a msg from a student to be quite lazy. Specially if they know that a student is extremely shy.
Certainly some teachers are better than others in that respect, sadly my daughter had a bad experience with a teacher who essentially made her feel stupid when she asked a question in class and was compounded by some students laughing at the teachers response. A bit soul destroying for a 13yr old. Long story short ended up changing schools
Just imagine the indignant trumpeting you would have heard from Newstalk ZB if it had been Labour suggesting this. Hosking and his swaggering sycophants would have been braying about "nanny state", "big brother interfering in people's lives" etc.
But with National suggesting it there will be a lot of heads nodding sagely.
How bloody ridiculous.
If National think this is going to make any difference to the quality of education they obviously know little about what goes on in classrooms.
Whether Chris Luxon likes it or not cellphones are part of our tech culture now, they are essential tools and unrealistic to expect children to go without what adults can't live and breath without. In any case most, if not all schools have policies regarding their use which generally work well.
They don't need National interfering in the classroom.
I wonder how this will go down with wonder boy Seymour?
Yes.
My first thought was when was Luxon last in a class room, if ever?
It is deeply ironic, and deeply dispiriting that we will now get the chorus of "four legs good, two legs better" from the new advocates of the "nanny state".
Not because it is a terrible idea (there's a reasonable case for it but it's very "meh", a headline grab not a real education policy). But because it is the very definition of "nanny state": a government using the law to tell parents and teachers what is good for their children. As an interfering big-government rule-loving lefty I don't mind so much … but every red-tape-hating get-out-of-our-lives righty should be up in arms.
But when Nanny's got a blue rosette it's all good. Any decent interviewer would ask Luxon if he'd now like to apologise for National's tedious chorus of "nanny state" all these years.
Baldrick strikes again–Ban cellphones at schools…
And by total coincidence RNZ this morning just happened to stumble across several schools that have already banned phones, with glowing accounts of the benefits from the Principals and ‘community’, notably they did not ask any students for their views.
What first time voters, and yes, Mr Freedom is my middle name Seymour will make of this will be interesting.
Didnt ask any students etc Actually they did interview one . Predictably she supported restriction of cell use though explaining that her school already had systems in place to regulate it as is probably the case in all schools .
"I wonder how this will go down with wonder boy Seymour?"
The libertarian mind works like this: when others have power over me, it's authoritarianism; when I have power over others, it's freedom.
Bang on Mike, Tech is part of our society whether we like it or not, they should probably ban windows in classrooms whilst they are at it, just in case a kid is daydreaming about living in a world they can afford. Headline grabbing policy, blah blah blah
Are there any teachers who have a view on this move?
Mrs Mac1, a former teacher, immediately asked, "Who will police this ban?" She suggested the local MP.
I would ask, as a former teacher myself, where is the evidence that cell phones impede student learning so much that they need banning?
The topic of student learning performance came up at a political candidates meeting last night.
The National MP wants 3 hours of mandated core subjects per day on average. He mocked what is taught now saying that you can't even tell what subjects are now by their name.
Again, I'd ask. What is the evidence that student performances are dropping and what are the drivers of this?
When I read of such reactionary moves I am reminded of attending AGMs where shallow- minded people bring forward half-arsed stupidity as remits to act as solutions to complex problems.
For example, a remit calling for AGMs of a national organisation to be held only in towns on the main trunk line supposedly in order to facilitate attendance……..
I can't see that this is going to be an effective nation-wide policy.
It would require teachers to do a lot more managing cell phone use in class – than they are prepared to do. And/or schools to have effective cell-phone management plans in place (some do in practice, but most have a theoretical plan which is ignored in practice).
Secondary schools do use cellphones as a research/teaching tool in class (anecdata based on my experience of teens, and friendship with teachers). There is, however, a lot of surfing the internet in class – when they are supposed to be working (and using ChatGPT to do their written work for them….)
Primary schools – much less so. And, it's possible that this is more intended for the primary age group (can't tell from the policy release)
This will, however, be an effective sound-bite policy with parents who are concerned over dropping education standards – regardless of whether it's implementable or even effective.
And while they are at it, they can pull their socks up!
Time to get back to black board and slates I say. And fill those ink wells up while you're at it. Young people today…
It's not about policy – it's about getting attention because it's a topic just about everyone has an (often ignorant) opinion on. Oh – and you can implement it with any of your supporters having to pay an extra cent of tax – just dump it on the schools to work out. These are not serious people.
The real Luxon.
EileenJoy
@swintersections
Ok, the cell phone ban thing in schools. Regardless of what you think about it, there was one particular thing in the way Lux Flakes talked about it this morning on RNZ that should be a warning sign for every voter.
https://twitter.com/swintersections/status/1689057027623096320 (1/8)
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018901834/national-government-would-ban-cellphones-in-schools
Could that thread be provided in a way that non-twitter users can access please?
This is the real Luxon yesterday:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/08/election-2023-christopher-luxon-stumbles-on-spelling-doesn-t-rule-out-banning-mobile-phones-in-schools.html
Holy C . If only he'd had a cell phone to spell check ! Could these be future C/K Luxwords? Is he the Nats Dan Quayle?
I'm sure there will be more comedy gold coming from this Luxon vein.
Would-be PM Lux Flakes is relatively inexperienced – maybe he was just joking?
More ‘stand-up’ comedy will be coming our way soon enuff – could be a ruff ride.
Not until I find an alternative.
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A few generations ago, schoolrooms were built with windows high up on the walls so that children were not distracted by goings on outside. But we could glimpse the clouds and the occasional sparrow. It just made classrooms that much more boring and banning cellphones are the modern version of high windows. (Ballpoint pens were banned as well in later years. Just use dip pens which were splattered ink across the work of clumsy fingers.)
Teachers have always had to deal with distractions. I never allowed the use of ear plugs/headphones for music listening during a lesson unless it was a music lesson. Saxophones were never played during poetry lessons, except perhaps when listening to music lyrics. Chess sets were banned in class except when being made in woodwork. Parrots were only allowed in class on Pets' Day.
An argument could be made that cellphones enable bullying but the prevention of bullying has not been a motivation for National. Even so, the issue of bullying at school is far more complex and needing wider remedies than the blanket banning of cell phones.
Now, what other factors might there be for poor school performance?
I used to deal with 'naughty' boys who were sent from class. High on their factors that could have affected their learning so much that they were sent from class were, in no particular order- poor nutrition including no breakfast, late nights spent on electronic devices that often led to lateness the next morning and therefore no time/desire to eat breakfast, consumption of cans of 'energy' drinks, disinterest caused by all sorts of factors, parental problems, poor housing, medical reasons, hearing, bullying, drug use, alcohol.
That list would not be addressed by a cell phone ban as even bullying can continue without texting, after all.
Poor performance is far more complex than cell phones. The issues I listed above need far more state intervention than call phone bans, far more resources, money, housing, meals etc. Don’t even need a police force when you have teachers to enforce the ban.
But that’s National for you. Poor, cheap fixes by others for problems of their own making.
Chess sets were banned in class etc Wow brilliant decision !!! lol
Constant banging on time clocks, cries of
"Check!' and 'Mate!', tapping of knights negotiating their moves, bishops sermonising, castles crumbling, pawns being sacrificed……. very noisy! But at lunchtime, the chess and guitar clubs were where the smart ones were.
You must be old. According to Te Ara
"In the 1920s new approaches were made to school planning, notably of the Taranaki and Canterbury open air type, with very much larger windows for more light and ventilation."
I started school in 1958 in a school that had large opening windows on the north side, which gave views over the playground & grass rugby/cricket field to the road & houses on the far side.
And in the USA
"Architects, including Eliel Saarinen and Richard Neutra, join education reformers of the 1920s and ’30s to soften the utilitarian approach of the previous decades. Their daylit rooms offer views outside with desks arranged in groups rather than in rows."
While our desks still had the holes that ink wells for dip pens would have sat, they were long gone. We progressed from pencil to fountain pen in standard 2 (1962). Ball point pens weren't successfully marketed until later in the sixties.
Quite right – in New Zealand, the school "rooms" that only had high windows were assembly halls/multipurpose rooms that were also used for drama, films and sports, this necessitating high windows only which could be more effectively shaded.
My schoolroom in the 40s had high windows. There were many schools with old rooms so built, while newer ones gradually replaced with openness. I think the big wall-windows opening to verandahs had something to do with fighting Tb.
My point anyway was that new "threats" had to be countered with strict resistance in this case for political gain. Interesting that Luxon has not consulted with teacher unions.
NZ by the way sits at 7th in the World on Pisa scales. Not a disaster at all.
PS: The classrooms at Christchurch Boys High in the 50s had no-see windows.
Pressure does funny things to people.
Exhibit A
South Africa
19 forwards (only 2 hookers, 5 props, 4 locks, 2 utilities, 6 loose forwards – one the injured captain Kolisi)
and 14 backs (4 half backs/4 wingers 6 for the other 4 positions).
It appears that one of the half backs and 2 of the loose forwards/utilities will be injured – and replaced by Dweba (hooker), Pollard (1st 5) and Am (midfield) when they are fit to return.
Is it just womens sports or womens' sports teams with men in them that are a no-no for discussion here on TS?
I thought we did not run a sports talkback here?
Got no problem as long as it is OK to talk about both, particularly the importance of women playing against women and especially when this is in 'fledgling' sports teams or individual sports such as track & field.
The Sweden and USA game was discussed on 7 August and before that the World Cup event on 20 July and then the later Norway vs New Zealand game on DR.
Ah…maybe Im missing some crucial info here?As in, why isnt this being looked at. Seriously…
Quick question, well quick-ish
If the Greens get to form a coalition, other than for confidence & supply, are the policies that are coming out those that will form part of the discussions or are there back pocket policies that the electorate does not know about?
This relates to the widely held view that the selfID schemozzle was part of an agreement by The Greens with Labour. That other parties hand-waved this through does not derogate from the concept of where this came from in the first place.
We have had the happenings at Albert Park where Green-involved people were part of a thugs charter to disrupt peaceful, mainly women, from listening to a pro women speaker. Women have been on the back foot ever since.
I dread to think of a re-run in a couple of months time where intolerant and emboldened people once again try to stop others from listening to a speaker. This speaker, despite what many have said here, is not in cahoots with the devil or Nazis or fascists. She seems to be able to speak in other countries where antis are kept well back.
So as this came from a No Debate Greens coalition policy (so it is said/rumoured) are there other ideas like this that are not going to be shared with the general public but may form part of a coalition deal?
seems unlikely to me given both the Greens and Labour have strongly ideologically committed MPs on gender identity. Why would there need to be a secret deal when they both were going to support self ID anyway?
Agreed. It's no secret where any of Labour or Greens Mps stand, they are quite open and passionate about this and while I think it comes from a good place of wanting to help people and not exclude people, I think their tendency to shut down and any nuanced conversation on gender can be deeply unhelpful, the emotionally charged rhetoric can be so toxic that both sides often just end up not hearing each other and slagging each other off and standing in their corners rather than having nuanced conversations and finding some kind of compromise or common ground.
That said, this election is a choice between an all out conservative and neoliberals economic assault on every facet of NZ life from an economic class war all the way up to interfering in the courts and burning all environmental legislation.
There's so much at stake at this election. I'll be party voting Green for the second time (first time in 2017) and hoping against hope for a Labour/green/Maori govt and I'll be voting based off the greens policy's so I'd expect the greens to use those policies as their basis of negotiations and I'm certain they will
"the emotionally charged rhetoric can be so toxic that both sides often just end up not hearing each other and slagging each other off and standing in their corners rather than having nuanced conversations and finding some kind of compromise or common ground." Corey @ 6.1.1.
Actually, I have to say, the tras started it. I have always supported LGB and I still do. It was only when I saw how the trans rights activists shut down debate that I pricked up my ears. Then I started to listen and read and what I discovered about the T and Q made me very concerned
Looks like the UK Green Party is having its problems with gender ideology.
"The Greens have swallowed transgender ideology, and purged dissenters with enthusiasm. Deputy leader Zack Polanski has suggested that anyone who takes a contrary view to the party’s policies on trans rights – specifically those members who claim that trans women are men and trans men are women – should not have a place in the Greens. He is unequivocal:
‘I’m really clear that if you want to misgender someone then that is transphobic, and transphobia is not welcome in the Green party.’
No one, it seems, is safe in the Green party if they don’t toe the line on gender."
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/are-the-greens-more-interested-in-trans-rights-than-saving-the-planet/?fbclid=IwAR2MStjzu55USTWMn8g6m9428JkyY3uZkiPr2vq7vUcnxeEvm67JyGexiB0
yeah, but they're the people who came up with a definition of women being non-men. In a special class of their own, those ones.
We can be grateful that the NZ Greens are more garden variety gender ideologists (some of them anyway).
Plus, Aimee Challenor.
Yes I realise that. My question was though……
Are there items that are not known to the electorate and will not be known to the electorate for this election that will form part of The Greens negotiating stance similar to what Self ID is rumoured to have been.
[Ok, I let you run this earlier because it was easily addressed as a general principle above. But since you brought it up again. You appear to be claiming that the Greens 1) had a secret policy on self ID before an election and 2) that policy was part of a deal with Labour in post-election negotiations. You claim that this is widely believed. Please provide some evidence for this now. – weka]
mod note.
additional mod note for clarity. I require evidence for your claims for these three things,
If you can't or won't provide evidence you can retract all or any of these claims.
You are in premod until this is sorted fully. Which means you cannot comment on site until then.
Please note the word 'rumoured'.
From you:
As I can no longer find the rumours, some were on here about the Greens support for self ID and how it came about as a policy that the electorate did not get the chance to examine, I wish to retract the statements as expressed above.
[of course I noted the word ‘rumoured’. This is exactly the problem with your comments. You cannot spread rumours on TS about political parties, especially during an election campaign.
Honestly, I’m surprised I have to point this out. Stop and think about it. If we let people spread rumours, someone could say ‘I heard Shanreagh eats baby kittens for breakfast’, then a month later someone else says ‘it’s widely believed that Shanreagh kills and eats kittens’.
We have robust debate here because it’s the best way to hash out political ideas, processes and events, and robust debate depends on people being truthful and being able to distinguish fact from opinion and both of those from unsubstantiated rumour.
I’ve just banned someone until well after the election for doubling down on what amounts to unsubstantiated rumour, and you got pretty close to reasserting your claim despite you having zero evidence.
You tried to run lines here that the Green Party lie to the electorate by ommission and might be doing that again this election, and that somehow Labour are in on it because the two parties discuss secret policy in post-election negotiations and agree on something but don’t write it in their governance document. This is a serious accusation of two political parties.
As I said originally, there was no need for a secret agreement because both parties were fully on board with self ID legislation. If you wanted to know how the GP developed their self ID position, all you had to do was ask. Instead you chose to rumourmonger about the Greens in what appears now to be a pattern from you. This has to stop. There are plenty of legitimate critiques to be made about the Greens without making stuff up. If you are unclear on where the line is between criticism and slur politics, then please ask. -weka]
mod note.
Thanks Weka.
As a woman fighting my whole life to improve the lot of women and my mother before me I do look askance at legislation that affects us.
I accept your view that Self ID was to be found in policies prior to the election…..I assume this is what you mean. How else could we know about it.
My assumption was wrong therefore that the agreements included policies like 'no debate/self ID that had not gone out to the electorate prior to the election.
Please accept my apologies.
I haven't said that, and please don't make assumptions especially about my words when I am moderating. Just ask if you are unclear.
As I explained below, parties form policy during the three year term, not just at elections.
In order for me to know if the GP had formed formal policy ahead of an election (which one?), I would have to research that, and then I could provide the evidence. But I haven't done that, and I don't know whether it is true or not, hence I am not making that claim.
You are the one that is raising the issue, it's on you to do that work, not me.
What I am more clear on is that, imo, it doesn't make sense to say there was a secret deal in post-election negotiations, because both parties were on the same page, why would they need a secret deal? I would be wrong, it's just an informed opinion, anyone can prove me wrong with actual evidence.
I also think that accusing L and GP of having agreed to something in those negotiations that they didn't put in the document is hugely problematic. We're talking about whole teams of people on both sides. Do you really think that L/GP are doing handshake deals we don't know about? The political risk to them both of that being leaked is enough to make it extremely unlikely, without even looking at whether those parties would act unethically in this way.
Thanks Weka.
I am of the era where unexplained/unmentioned/unvoted for policies had a very bad effect on the country…viz the neo lib stuff. This was not explictly set out in any election policies and yet was brought in very early on and has had a terrible affect on NZ. Possibly a case where incremental policy work on the various proposals may have got rid of the fish-hooks, had this been offered.
I rate the no debate /Self ID and its known affects on the rights of women to be in this category. I did not know about the Greens or Labour having policies that went out to the electorate on self ID before the election, I do know that those who tried, seemingly to us, at the very last minute to ask that the changes to the BDM bill be amended got short shrift from the select committee. I do know that SUFW had to go to the Courts to get a ruling that discussing changes to BDM was not hate speech, so they could hold meetings prior to the select committee.
So it seems other people than just me thought this no debate/self ID had come from nowhere. I certainly would not have included The Greens in any of my voting plans last election or before had I known I was voting for some thing that had the possibility to affect women in such a bad way. But clearly I did not read their manifestos or election policies closely enough.
Coalition agreements are held close to the chest and are not campaigned on before elections, more's the pity.
https://www.parliament.nz/media/7554/labour_greens_cooperation_agreement-1.pdf
My wish is to know what any party to a coalition agreement might contain. So the bottom lines.
Bearing in mind what has happened in the past my wish is not hard to justify. And it does come down to trust when an elector assigns the negotiating of a coaliton agreement sight unseen when voting for a particular party.
This is a good point about the changes in the 80s that brought in neoliberalism. Different electoral system, but my memory is that the changes happened very fast and that out FPP system allowed for this. I'm not sure how easy it would be to do that now. There was other precedent eg Muldoon overriding the High Court on the Clyde Dam. It would be interesting to go back and see what parties were saying the relevant election campaigns.
My understanding about the BDMRR Bill is this,
There is certainly a great deal of criticism to be made of both L and GP on that. If you want to tie that back to election campaigns, then you will need to do the mahi of establishing what actually happened.
On the GP side, they develop policy via the membership, it seems unlikely but not impossible that they 'hid' the development of this process on self ID from the wider membership. But again, if anyone wants to argue about what happened, it needs actual evidence.
My own view is that for both L and GP, self ID is an anomaly with regards to how they normally operate and the positions they take (hence I don't buy the argument that if they can be sex denialist on this then they can't be trusted on anything else that relies on science).
Afaik, positions and policy are not only developed and presented in election year. Obviously that would make governing very difficult. In the three year term, parties are involved with policy that arises as needed. I don't think it's realistic to expect that only policy presented in an election campaign can be worked on in the following term. What can be done is that scrutiny can be brought to bear on positions and policies that arise during the term.
That's not possible either. Parties need to see how many votes/MPs they get, what happens in the election campaign, what parties are involved in the post-election negotiations and so on.
In the GP, it's the members that have the say on adopting any coalition or other deal that is negotiated. That's because of the commitment to democratic process within the party. The MPs and campaign managers cannot pre-empt that.
And negotiation is just that. The GP could say that a climate Ministry is a bottom line, but then Labour offer them something else that is a better result for ensuring good climate action. It would be insane to lock themselves into positions ahead of the election and wouldn't serve governance.
What can be done is that parties can signal which policies and positions are important.
Weka, I have read this, thank you.
Is this what I was to do?
Yes I agree with this, do you think this is likely? How would we influence this for the good to encourage this signalling in advance of the election?
I am not sure that I agree wholeheartedly with this. I think a concept of moving to neo lib actions or other adverse and unheralded changes could happen now as it did then. Labour just took its win and ran with it…….Labour could have taken it's win back in 2020 and run with it…..some of us are saying more's the pity it did not but we still had Covid and I think are used to working with other in a MMP arrangement even having a FPP type 'win'.
In fact I think despite all that was facing us Labout did squander, to an extent, its popularity and could have rolled back, or signalled a roll back of the more pernicious neo lib stuff such a high energy prices etc.
Hopefully this will enable my comments to come out of moderation.
I note some very moderate ones today re the propserity church have been deleted. Why is this?
Hi Shanreagh. You’re still in premod because it’s taken so much of my moderation time in recent times to get you to attend to issues. It’s easier for me to read each comment and release it.
Today was unusual in that I haven’t been round as much, mostly your comments are released within and hour or less.
None of your comments today have been deleted. The only time I delete comments is if someone is ignoring a bolded moderation request and they are in premod. In that case I move comments that aren’t a response to moderation to Spam until the person responds. We find that it lessens the propensity to post and run.
Can you indicate which exactly pieces of the moderation I have yet to respond to please and I will do so. Thanks
I had thought I had done this but clearly I have not.
I do not want to be an irritation.
there’s nothing else to respond to. You are still in moderation so that I can see your comments in as they arrive, rather than having to deal with them reactively via moderation later.
From what I can see you have been posting more carefully, which I appreciate. If that continues I will remove premod at some point. But I haven’t seen comments in the areas where there have been problems yet.
And the speaker has recently won a monetary settlement and an apology from a UK media company that stated that she had supported the Nazi salute given by the bunch of kids at one of the Australian venues. She should sue a few of the equivalents here.
who was that? I link would help.
Kellie Jay. I go find a link now.
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1687177746680541184
Hooray.
Flying across the world to ensure the tomato sauce squirter is brought to justice?
Planning a "protest" outside a district court on the day her tomato juice assailant is due to appear? Purely coincidental. Of course she's not hankering for all the attention she will receive if there's another counter protest – preferably with a little bit of violence thrown in for good measure. (sarc)
The best thing would be for no-one to turn up to any counter protest – at least not outside the District Court. She would have come all this way to NZ for nothing. Imagine the chagrin.
I don't think Kellie Jay will mind. There will be a lot of women who turn up to speak
She will be here for the hearing considering that she was the victim of a most cowardly attack.
Again, just for those that really think that assaulting a whole lot of women in a park is a kind, nice, tolerant and progressive thing to do, NZ – Aotearoa is/was lucky to now not be known as the country where mobs egged by media, sitting MPs, and celebrities stomp women to death. As it is this country is currently only known as the country where prostate having people bash old women, trample a few others and throw liquids about.
So yes, PP will be here, free of any charges, while her assaulter is answering the courts about their behavior.
100% Sabine
Agree. It is not PP who is in the wrong here.
Sounds like a plan as she would likely be required to give evidence and she has said before that she is sad that the chance for NZers to hear her was denied them.
Let us just hope that the Govt/commentators do not play silly bxxxxrs this time and that normal policing is resumed.
Labour has announced legislation to protect parts of the Hauraki gulf but will not be able to pass it before the election. Once again the lack of urgency around protecting our environment is worrying but it is good to see action being taken now none-the-less:
As usual the Greens have been calling for this since ages ago:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/495410/labour-announces-hauraki-protection-plan-covering-18-percent-of-gulf
The Greens may have forgotten how the country was in thrall to Covid and that we haven't actually had three years but 18 months at the most.
A welcome policy announcement from Labour. Hipkins said…….
That Hipkins quote is in my post.
I am intrigued by how you experience the passage of time though, 2020 was only 18 months ago you say?
She means 18 months of policy time because we lost so much governing during the first years of the pandemic. I think this is true. However, if the Greens developed the policy, then Labour didn't have to do the work, so it's doesn't make sense in this case?
A new NZ survey has been released by the Guardian, including the usual opinion poll Qs but also a lot of detail on specific issues – much more than in the usual TV polls.
The transport question is revealing: no loud lobby for roads, a big majority preferring public transport investment.
https://essentialreport.co.nz/
That is an excellent report with plenty of meat.
Yeah. First, it has a sufficient database to be credible. Second, Labour comes in below 30%. Third, National is ahead by more than the margin of error. Fourth, NZF come in over the threshold. Fifth, TMP is about half what the average of other recent polls suggested.
Volatility of public mood produces fluctuations from time to time but it increasingly looks like commercial polling design & technique produce different `publics', even if those differences are only a few percent…
It's much less about the party vote than the detailed data below the surface. Horse-race headlines alone don't tell us much.
On policy issues, there is no evidence at all of a public mood swing to the right.
Example: asked about inequality, 5 times more say it’s increasing than decreasing. That’s a clear signal to policy-makers. One that National/ACT have no interest in addressing, at all.
Support for the NZ opposition is only an ill-defined desire for a better tomorrow, an anti-incumbency mood which is the same or worse in countries with right-wing governments (Exhibit A: the UK).
I agree re anti-incumbency mood, & your policy point too. I still think Labour have left their run too late but National seems surprisingly inept too so the old tweedledumb & tweedledumber thing has us trending into hung parliament…
Yes. Thanks Observer. Interesting. If questions were asked on a telephone survey it would be impossible to think of an answer, but I guess online would be more time to consider and more credible.
Pity that the huge drop in Youth crime stats from 2013 to 2022 are not published more freely, or the General Crime Stats for that matter, then people would be less concerned and Opposition leaders would look foolish.
NZ Pisa Education tracking has NZ at 7th out of about a hundred countries so not nearly as dire as Opposition would have us believe, and so the concerns expressed in the survey would be lower.
Reflections on a foreign country
An excellent interview from some weeks ago. Author Denis Welch discusses his recent book about Norman Kirk
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018898704/book-on-new-zealand-s-lost-leader-norman-kirk
I was 18 when Kirk died. I still think this was a real 'sliding doors' moment for NZ.
What Muldoon have still won in 1975 – against Kirk ? Not in my view. Kirk had a lot of gravitas, he really suited the position of PM.
Would Muldoon have been ditched by National by1978 ? Maybe. Perhaps he would have won then. But NZ would have been quite a different place by then.
I am no longer a Leftie, but I think Kirk's passing had a huge impact on our politics, and the paths taken.
" I think Kirk's passing had a huge impact on our politics, and the paths taken."
I agree Richard. He ended up transcending party politics with the depth of his commanding presence. It was apparent at the time of his untimely death expressed by so many thousands of NZers across the political spectrum..
I recall a photo of Keith Holyoake standing alone at the airport watching the Hercules carrying Kirk's coffin depart for Christchurch. His grief was etched on his face.
It was indeed fortunate for Muldoon that Kirk died when he did. There is no way he would have won in 1975 and Kirk would have been able to cement in a superannuation policy that would have have ensured the country’s fiscal security for many decades to come.
The treasury report on housing makes it clear that private rents rise to match income increases. Landlords are able to institute increases that outpace inflation because of the dearth of public alternatives:
https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/jp/assessment-housing-system-insights-hamilton-waikato-area
Public Housing Futures is calling for significant government investment and an increase in the supply of public housing:
https://www.publichousingfutures.com/
This is also part of the Greens policy on housing:
https://www.greens.org.nz/long_term_commitment_needed_on_public_housing
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/495434/landlords-benefiting-from-lack-of-housing-supply-renters-united
There's a Gordon Campbell up about this deal too, and it's well worth the 5min read.
http://werewolf.co.nz/2023/08/gordon-campbell-on-the-blackrock-deal-and-banning-cellphones/
Meanwhile Italy shocks banks with 40% windfall tax.
Well, Italy elected a quite interesting person.
And then there's this in Aotearoa:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/495428/asb-bank-posts-record-1-point-56-billion-full-year-net-profit
https://www.greens.org.nz/tax_the_banks
James Shaw nails it…indeed there's no better time than now.
These Aussie banks are taking the piss both sides of the ditch.
Albos making zero moves on the industry that values profit over people all laid out in a scathing royal commission draft report in 2018. No surprise there as it’s Aussies largest industry that financial sector.
A poll out by the Guardian has Labour under 30%.
Interestingly, NZ First is over 5%.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/09/guardian-essential-poll-new-zealand-national-holds-clear-lead-over-labour-as-election-nears
I linked to this above. Please look past the horse race, it's far more informative than that.
A new government will be the most loathed since 1990. The survey you quote makes that clear, if you want to read it properly.
Who supports National/ACT on climate change? 16%. That is the survey response saying the government is doing too much. Which is exactly NACT policy.
16%! It won’t just be buyer’s remorse, it’ll be rage.
They may loath National, but they wont' vote for Labour. Does that mean Labour is liked and appreciated by all?
https://twitter.com/David_Cormack/status/1689037665906393088
Thread and replies are worth a read.
https://twitter.com/adventuresofac5/status/1689040751395540992