So the differential in the US electorate, consistently around 12 to 14% for months according to the polls, was really only 3%.
This is a disaster for the polling industry and for media outlets and analysts that package and interpret the polls for public consumption, such as FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times’ Upshot,and The Economist’s election unit. They now face serious existential questions.
The real catastrophe is that the failure of the polls leaves Americans with no reliable way to understand what we as a people think outside of elections—which in turn threatens our ability to make choices, or to cohere as a nation.
Assertions of public opinion are traditional in the media. It would be better if they were evidence-based. If polling can't provide reliable evidence, we need tech that does the job better – or we need to ditch the delusion that public opinion is unitary.
I reckon the public naturally subdivides into bodies of opinion. Sophisticated reporting would identify these. The media ought to have a go at that. They will claim it costs too much to do the job. If so, we all must consider the cost of an incoherent society.
The coming days and weeks will see careful analysis and less careful recrimination, but no one seems to know yet exactly what went wrong. But the answer almost doesn’t matter, unless you’re a professional pollster, because after two huge presidential flops, pollsters have lost the confidence of the press and public.
Expect two lines of defense. First, many pollsters insist that their polls are snapshots, not predictors … If their snapshots are so far off, though, where were they aiming the lens? Why bother? Second, the analysts will protest that they’re only as good as the polls, but who cares? Whatever the instructions on the bottle, the public uses opinion polls to try to understand what happens. If the polls and their analysts don’t offer the service that customers are seeking, they’re doomed.
Pollsters and analysts are unlikely to get much sympathy, especially today. But the train wreck of their industry has consequences that run deeper than its impact on their own professional lives, or even having set incorrect expectations for the presidential race. Much of American democracy depends on being able to understand what our fellow citizens think.
That has become a more challenging task as Americans sort themselves into ideological bubbles—geographically, romantically, professionally, and in the media they consume. Parties are now mostly ideologically homogeneous. We no longer spend much time around people who disagree with us. Public-opinion polling was one of the last ways we had to understand what other Americans actually believe. If polling doesn’t work, then we are flying blind.
This existential crisis doesn't just apply to the USA. Public life everywhere provides a common ground of culture, in which diversity co-exists with what is generally accepted as consensus reality. People need a sense of sharing things that matter, since confidence & trust are essential to enterprise, economy & well-being.
Competing cultural bubbles are obviously the trend of the times, but commonality will remain a vital ingredient of contemporary society. Focus on how to identify it is likely to become the next big thing.
Yeah I get that. Trouble is, that personal focus just degenerates society into a mad scramble to grab whatever is left.
Rather than a shitfight, people organise together to provide collectively. An economy forms, and politics is meant to do the organisation of democracy on an informed basis. When social trends focus on disinformation, we get incoherence.
Maybe it's that more people are deliberately full of shit. Trolling has taken on an art form and science these days. Make em confident – less turnout.
Bot armys can be readily seen today replying to Trump tweets. Swathes of them claiming to be aggrieved servicemen cheated out of an election and leaving US for Mexico (how ironic) as a result.
It's laughable it if wasn't so rife, dangerous, and unchecked.
That's a good point. I've been reading scifi stories of a dysfunctional future since the early 1960s and have no problem with a healthy subculture of dissidents. Nature balances order & chaos naturally – no reason we can't do the same.
It's just that we ought to tilt the balance back towards order when chaos threatens to get out of control. If bots get leverage, we need tech entrepreneurs to create counter-bots. No way will govts be able to do it. So people have to think about their common interests in co-creating a sane political culture that empowers sensible governance while preserving some anarchic diversity that will enable free enterprise to produce creative progress.
I like that septenary (?) division – wonder if it's viable in other capitalist democracies. Would be good to see social science research testing it here in Aoteroa.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the hidden architecture underlying political behavior is people's group identities. Social scientists have long recognized that people see their own groups as a strong source of self-esteem and a sense of belonging.
So here's the root of identity politics. Given that people have various group affiliations concurrent, we get a multipolar context created for each political person. Binary traditionalism does not encompass this reality.
Yes I see these seven categories as an elaboration of the core three political instinct model I've mentioned elsewhere.
Instead of the old left right binary that most people realise is past it's use by date, we should use a triplet: the system maintaining conservatives, the innovative expansionary liberals, and the re-distributive, justice seeking socialists.
If you look at the Hidden Tribes seven categories then three pairs of them neatly reduce down to the three above, leaving us moderates as seventh group annoyingly trying to be all things to everyone and rarely succeeding.
Language is so important..I find 'moderate' to be too soft/kind a word/label for those staunch defenders of doing s.f.a..the word is almost an underlining/endorsement of that not-do-much mindset…i think that 'incrementalist' is nearer the mark..'cos it describes what they want/are…d'yareckon..?
And our incrementalist-in-choef has just said she will not be increasing benefits…but she may do next winter what she did this winter….with the winter allowance thing…that's very ' moderate' of her..eh..?… How does that 'moderate' chant go..?..'what do we want..?'…'not very much'…'when do we want it..?'..'at some indetermined time in the future..'..f.f.s..!..eh..?..this is ardern exercising her mandate..eh..?..I think I'll just double-down on the f.f.s…!
It is the animal-eating 'moderates' who are destroying the land..fishing out the oceans..just to satisfy their addictions to eating animal flesh…they are the fucken radicals…prepared to destroy the world..fish out the oceans…just to be able to eat their ‘precious' flesh…how fucked up is that..?
So it's 'offensive' to tell those who are fucking over the world/oceans..that they are fucking over the world/oceans ..?…really .?..i actually find what they are doing to the world/oceans to be far more 'offensive'..than pointing those facts out to them..y'know..!..how actions speak much louder than words…?..so I guess 'offensive' must be in the eye of the beholder..
These surveys are always a bit silly in the way they insult the all-mixed-togetherness of individual thought and experience. I always remember the genius of Walt Whitman (and in Whitman it's good to remember the best of 'Murica at a time like this):
"Do I contradict myself? / Very well, then I contradict myself. / (I am large, I contain multitudes). / I concentrate toward them that are nigh."
Well they're only silly if you imagine everyone has to fit into a single isolated, hermetically sealed silo with no overlap or complexity. When doing the quiz I found many of the questions ambiguous, and answering them was a bit hit and miss. Yet the category it landed me in was accurate enough.
Whitman is right, at heart we are all a complex muddle of contradictions, and unexplored potentials … but one of the great tools humans have invented is our ability to use abstracted models to simplify reality into forms our limited minds can grapple with.
Managerialism in work places plays a part I think as well. I find it slightly amusing when people go on about the left being intolerant and PC when the biggest proponents of group-think and conformity are career managers who all are alike, been trained in the same things and can't handle disagreement and different opinions.
There are an increasing trend of HR people being lawyers as well so what is legal is more important that what is right.
When what is legal becomes the measure of morality it is an odd place to be.
"At the end of the day, if employers and horticulture want to attract hard workers, they have to offer them something that is worth their while.”
A large part of the problem is accommodation; most horticulture workers are not able to afford to do a short term 6 week job in one location, while also holding onto the home they live in elsewhere. From your RNZ link:
“We have 10 weeks of harvest. It is difficult for New Zealanders to come from out of town, to find accommodation just for a period of 10 weeks – and then there’s the issue of if they bring families, the issue of schooling and finding schooling for them for that time, and making sure they don’t fall though the cracks … Basically, adds pressure if you’re running your own business to have to do all that pastoral care too, which comes with the territory and we understand that.
Big shearing contractors used to get around this by provide free accommodation and food, but then this was always a part of what is always a highly nomadic work life.
how is it possible that orchardists cannot see that providing accommodation and meals will result in a better harvest. Is is possibly that the persons actually growing and tending the crop are not the decision makers?
The employers aren't even trying. I've been on the "Work the Seasons" list since lockdown stage four – only offer was some commercial cleaning – not what I did my my MA for. They're counting on the government proving as round-heeled as they have over the last few decades and giving them as many slave workers as they want.
You can easily imagine the discussions …'just get us through this season and it'll be back to BAU with a vaccine and open borders, no need to do anything radical, the industry wont survive otherwise'.
A corrupted business model, that survives on mean wages overwork and poor accommodation, with cries for support? Part of the "Too big to fail" pattern.
I'm more than happy to put my hand up for some work, have ample experience, and we broke a lot of harvest records on a lot of farms.
Is there affordable temporary accommodation making it worthwhile? No.
Is there enough money to justify an overpriced room? No.
Is the actual accommodation provided on a few farms comfortable? For many, not even close. Dorms of bunk beds. They could hardly have provided less.
Are the penalties, meetings, scrutiny and BS from WINZ worth it? No.
Will the farmers continue to plead victim and lose their crops rather than share the wealth? Yes.
For most of these answers I am generalising. There will always be exceptions to the rule. But it should not also be the fruit pickers responsibility to ensure fair conditions and pay before signing on for a job in NZ in 2020.
It's a non-trivial problem. Look at the cost of housing in this country; and for any business paying that substantial cost for an asset that may only be used for less than 20% of the year is a tough ask.
One of the constraints will be the high cost of compliance around this type of building; maybe the horticulture industry needs to get together with local govt to negotiate an special case building category for them.
And growers supply power, water, toilets, kitchen, laundry.
A smart grower would do catering, maybe for a nominal fee, to enable the workforce that wish to, to clock up longer hours without exhausting themselves. We used to pick all day and pack all night. Those with support got through it easily. We taking care of ourselves struggled to get the laundry to the laundromat, and the time to cook wasn't really there so we got worn out doing long hours on takeaways & junk. Various industries insist on catering for workers on larger jobs, where the work comes in pulses and is required to be done quickly and safely.
The whole hair pulling schtick by the industry is a bit tired. Pinching pennies and blaming the public. Sustainable business or bye bye.
That's a grand idea for seasonal workforces. It used to be fun too, back in the day – bit of fresh air, hard case fellow workers, dip in the river around dusk, a few folk plinking bunnies or fishing after work. Twas a whole culture the neoliberals destroyed.
Aye my father used to do shearing out the back of Feilding and remembers the change from farm owners to managers.
He oft mentioned one occasion when the shearing took a day longer on one farm than anticipated and the appointed farm manager of another farm took exception to his shearing starting a day later.
The farmer owner rung him up and said I always put on a BBQ and beers for the shearers when they finish and I'll be doing the same this year. If you have a problem with that come and see me. He had the shearers back.
Sadly many of those good employers – across NZ are gone – those that paid decent wages and looked after their staff unable to compete against the low wages paid by many others. When competitiveness relied on paying the lowest wages being a good employer wasn't always enough to continue to exist.
Fond memories. When I was 19 I did a summer working for a big contractor, Toby Smith, in based in a little West Otago town called Heriot. Now that was an experience …
Don't forget the Fringe Benefit Tax on supplied accommodation, more beauocracy for fuck all return for the Gummint, drop the requirement for seasonal work.
Keep in mind that the term 'exploit' is highly relative. For many people (mostly men) who are migrant workers around the world, the conditions they have to endure are awful by local standards, but are still way better than the choices on offer back home.
I learned this the hard way on a mining site some years back, when I idly passed judgement on the conditions the Fillipino workers on site had to put up with compared to my much plusher life. Well the senior Fillipino metallurgist I was talking with responded by educating me on some hard truths. We ended up rather good friends, both about the same age and with a lot in common as it turned out.
They may be better than conditions 'at home'…but they are not working in that labour market, they are working in our labour market….and they are exploited and by extension facilitate the exploitation of local labour.
Yes I get that. This is always the impact of mobile labour, it pulls down local standards and lifts them up for the families back home. Over time it tends to average out both countries, as painful as this process often is.
I'm not trying to defend this situation. In the long run the best answer here is for developing countries to catch up to the developed world, closing the gaps and reducing these mismatches. In the short term govts everywhere need to pay more attention to protecting these people and mitigating the excesses.
It would be better if, under a Labour government, their first priority were the prosperity of our own workers. Neoliberalism has driven the accommodation costs out of proportion, and the slave workers artificially depress local wages in that context. We ought to have a sinking lid on the foreign workers, if the goal of a thriving sustainable economy is anything more than a sound bite.
Maybe some 80% of the human race live in 'developing' nations. One of their main pathways to a better life is trading with the developed world, whether directly as migrant workers, or indirectly through their own local manufacturing and/or exports.
I don't think we can just slam the door on their opportunity to escape poverty.
How do you expect those countries to develop their economies if we artificially reduce our costs by exploiting their labour and education?…if you desire a single world economy (and therefore governance) then we had best have a vote on such….should such an entity occur then we would have the same standards worldwide and no need to seek better conditions elsewhere
What we rightly perceive as exploitation, may well be seen as opportunity by them. Both perspectives are true at the same time; how to reconcile them?
Like so many of the problems we face, this is global in scope cannot be effectively solved by the actions of single nations in isolation. So yes I do advocate for continued evolution of the global governance systems we have been developing since WW2.
"So yes I do advocate for continued evolution of the global governance systems we have been developing since WW2."
…and as we know that evolution has led to the mobile capital and labour that undermines local economies and fosters exploitation so in effect you are advocating for the exploitation to continue…as is I note, our Minister
perfection fallacy my arse…the globalists have had almost 40 years to mitigate the negative impacts of their agenda and not only have they failed they have accentuated them at every opportunity…..and people wonder why the likes of Trump can maintain 70 million votes?
Globalization has had winners and losers. Since WW2 it's pulled a vast number of people out of poverty. Here is a statistic that changed my mind when I read it, in the decade to 2013 around 230,000 people where connected to an electricity grid for the first time. Every day for a decade.
That's a staggering achievment, and transformed billions of lives.
At the same time, because there was only a rudimentary governance of the globalization process many new problems, such as climate change and inequitable labour treatment, remain to be addressed.
The answer to poor governance is better systems. Not to throw them out of the cot because our first attempt wasn't perfect.
So, in the decade to 2013 around (230,000 x 365 x 10 =) 0.84 billion "people where connected to an electricity grid for the first time."
While that may not have "transformed billions of lives", it certainly is "a staggering achievement". It's an interesting coincidence that the global population increased by roughly the same amount (0.83 billion) in the decade to 2013, while atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by a mere 5.6%. We're ‘laughing‘.
But there are two different things there…one is the right for foreign workers to come here to do jobs nzrrs don't want to…and hard to argue against that..and them getting those opportunities…but that does not mean they can be paid slave-wages…and charged for crap accommodation…eh..?…that is a different issue…best not to conflate the two..eh..?…it just muddies the water..
We're a small country – and wrecking our workers' lives to provide cheap labour to scumbag employers should not be allowed the phony figleaf of foreign aid. If we want to increase actual foreign aid though, go right ahead.
The ones who live in the draught, who pay for the door being open deserve the say on whether it shuts.
Many in island communities are finding their lives improving after tourism crashed. They're growing food and fishing, connecting through their communities again, and loving it.
But we are the white knights, riding in with our dollars to save the day. Maybe they don't need us so much as we need to believe we're superior.
Maybe you should ask them what they want. Telling people in poorer countries that they have to stay that way because it's morally superior is patronising to say the least.
Your common reasoned helicopter view Red Logix. Being all historical and theoretical doesn't deal with the here and now business of living and the conditions that are prevalent and make it unpleasant and often sad.
Your input tends not to help with solving problems. Your skill tends to the didactic and pontificating. Perhaps you could bring yourself to make suggestions to help with the here-and-now, real and existential problems impacting on real people in this country presently.
'fisheries expert Dr Glenn Simmons said they should all be sent home.
They did not bring enough money into the economy to justify the risk we were taking, illustrated by the two health workers taking the virus home with them after caring for 31 of the infected mariners, he said.'
"We send money overseas for the actual charter of these vessels and their wages are typically sent back to their home country. The species that they are harvesting is sent offshore semi-processed, and it's reprocessed into value added products offshore, and we don't capture that value either."
'New Zealand Merchant Service Guild general secretary Helen McAra said the reason for bringing in foreign crews was economic.'
"They earn very low wages compared to New Zealand conditions. They come from third world labour supply countries and I'd be surprised if they met the New Zealand minimum wage," she said.
'She said successive governments had swept the problem under the rug, but the pandemic had brought it back to light.'
Cheap camper vans, the opportunity to travel New Zealand (sans foreign tourists) between stints in seasonal work is an attractive option as a gap year.
Firstly, there are the issues of payment for work, and accommodation.
Then there are the issues around using overseas workers to avoid paying decent wages by NZ standards. Outsourcing exploitation.
After that, there is the question of whether reliance on cheap labour is stunting innovation – innovation in automation, but also innovation in how the jobs are designed and whether more secure employment can be established beyond just one employer in one industry. Many jobs have seasonal work, but not all seasonal jobs occur in the same season.
At least the movement of goods is one degree of separation away from actually having NZ employers underpay and overwork people.
I strongly suspect that half the time employers "need" to hire overseas staff, it's simply for the power being a visa sponsor gives them to get kickbacks (sorry, "accommodation costs") and otherwise abuse workers with lower odds of being reported for the violation. But that's just my cynicism showing.
McFlock, good to see some vineyards taking responsibility for their problems. I add further below at 2.6 .
What used to happen in our vineyards was for workers to work in both hemispheres but Covid-19 is really affecting that.
Your questions will need to be answered by employers as you say. Covid might have some beneficial effects in forcing employers and industries into addressing these employment issues.
This is a RNZ report from 2016 and when it is visited there are other links to support the idea that poor treatment of workers has been a long time here.
To counter this, some local Marlborough people in the industry had to set up an ethical employment system.
The effect of poor employer practice was manifold. It resulted in poor wages and conditions. Poor wages did not do much for the local economy. Vineyards locally are 80%+ owned outside of the area. Poor wages here but the profits went out of the region. Local housing became difficult to get rentals, and more expensive, with the pack of provision of housing by employers. Ethical employers were undercut and disadvantaged by unscrupulous employers. Health services got stretched and rough sleepers and cheap campers grew in numbers.
All for less than 50c a bottle on the price of a bottle of wine. Let the true costs of production be worn by producers and then by consumers, not by the workers and the local environment and society.
" Statistics New Zealand figures show despite the impact of covid-19, fruit exports are up. In the year to September 2020, fruit exports were worth $3.8 billion, an increase of 11 per cent on the same period last year."
'Despite lobbying the Government for more action in recruiting workers to the horticulture and viticulture sectors, there is little movement on Central Otago’s orchards and vineyards.
Alexandra-based industry recruiter Seasonal Solutions chief executive Helen Axby put the situation bluntly.'
Back in 1954 a visiting Prince from the UK observed that Maori were bit museum relic of the past and bit current day pet
Funny coz a few Maori visiting the UK on tours this century might well observe their royal family in similar terms. Presumbaly the ministry will advise the new FM not to say this out loud.
Grandad was a provincial bigwig and family lore has it that when grandma was asked to be part of the party greeting the 1954 touring royals she replied; "that woman and her family have had two of my sons so I'll be buggered if I'm going to curtsey to the bitch".
The Royal Family have done a great PR job for Britain. Without them to blame people might have to look at the source of their real toffy-nosed villains as Boris.
For a wee time they did get a satirical view – through the Pythons, but there is now some woke guy heading the BBC and tending to ban satire, comment, laughter etc. reflecting modern-day Puritanism. I think it is a determination of the upper-middle class to present themselves as better than the USA. Probably an achievable target.
Reading some of the stories of past Royals Pr.Andrew's behaviour would have been commonplace, without the common in his case. No doubt at the time it all seemed good fun to the men and glitsy to the women and teenage girls seeking 'the high life'.
Not a particularly pleasant family when it comes to the way they treated my Irish and Scottish forebears, even executed one of them at Grassmarket, Edinburgh. We lost a number of family members in WW1 & WW2 and got very little thanks for those sacrifices. Badly bred people with no morals IMHO ???
That's silly – blaming all on the Royal Family. The Brits have been keen pirates and colonists and class privileged since Adam was a cowboy. The East India company and Rhodes and… were all there with their tongues hanging out. John Buchan wrote many books representing the Brits as free-ranging colonials with an attitude of service to the great British nation of noble gits with strong chins and attractive uniforms. Also kidnapped male citizens off the street to serve in the Navy etc.
It is so refreshing to hear that something is being done about controlling Covid in the US. Biden has wasted no time in discussing a response to Covid with top health advisers in the US. Capacity in hospitals is nearing a crisis.
Biden has had unexpected loss and further loss. In 1972 his wife and infant daughter died in a car crash and in 2015 his son Beau died from a brain tumor.
NZs scientific community has been a treasure beyond anything that comes out of Treasury. A beautiful book has been issued for the connosieur, on NZ insects through Potton and Burton relating the story and works of an early independent scientist GV Hudson and showing his exquisite art in his coloured illustrations. He was a keen entomologist by age 10, and continued all his life after he came here from Britain about 1881. He worked at the Post Office with shift hours that enabled him to carry out his work. And he recommended daylight-saving time – which was apparently ridiculed then.
I would like to express my gratitude. Thanks Team. And I don’t consider any virus escape a ‘failure’. It is invisible, and it’s very easy for it to act like a stowaway despite your best efforts.
I’d like to think most New Zealanders are aware of how difficult (and crucial) your work must be.
Oct.28/20 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-eighteen-ways-nz-can-beef-up-its-border/LND4I4UGBOGYDBEZQ6Z7UUNQXY/ In a new blog post, a team of Otago University public health argued it was now an "excellent time" for the newly-elected Government to carry out a systematic review to limit New Zealand's threat of more outbreaks. "The persisting occurrence of cross-border incursions of the pandemic virus – five since August 1, including a large outbreak in Auckland – highlights the need for such a review," wrote doctors Jennifer Summers and Amanda Kvalsvig, and professors Nick Wilson and Michael Baker.
While they acknowledged New Zealand had been a top performer at stamping out the virus, the experts offered a list of potential changes for the Government to consider. One was banning all travellers from countries with high levels of uncontrolled spread – such as the US, UK, India – until the prevalence of infection in travellers was low.
.
The Midwest remains the hardest-hit region based on the most cases per capita with North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska the top five worst-affected US states. Illinois emerged as the new epicentre in the Midwest, with the state reporting over 60,000 Covid-19 infections in the last seven days, the highest in the country, according to Reuters data. The state reported more than 12,454 new cases on Saturday, the highest single-day number so far.
Texas, which accounts for 10 percent of total US cases, is the hardest-hit state and became the first to surpass a million coronavirus cases in the United States on Saturday.
I don't think the general populace especially men, is self-disciplined and concerned enough to not need regular reminding about the simple things like masks and hand washing, (and noting where they go). (I have a notebook – my device is out of date I am sure.) Don’t know about the covid-19 heavy countries – I find hearing about US/UK (you suck!) is repetitive and boring now.
But caught this about Taiwan – perhaps they area good model. Haven't read it yet myself.
Listening to an OZ based scientist, Marco Herold, who is working on CRISPR techniques to detect covid.
They claim to be able to edit the dna of a blood sample, put it through their process and get a definitive result in 20 minutes, less than the time to checkin for an international flight.
Reckons it's 18 months from being viable at scale to work in an airport situation. Go you scientists !
Hooo-kaaay – I'm awfully curious about the applicability of the family of CRISPR DNA sequences and the gene-editing techniques developed around them, to detecting RNA virus infections.
Their press release certainly fails to shed any kind of technical light on the subject.
So forgive me for thinking this has a kind of Theranos whiff about it. Y'know, leveraging off a bunch of people with letters after their names putting out press releases with lots of sciencey words promising amazing things with a notable absence of actual detail.
Within a week they can train dogs to sniff for coronavirus in someone at an airport. Apparently it takes seconds and they get results as accurate as the current test – except that takes 24 hours to come back with a positive result.
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The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
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 ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
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So the differential in the US electorate, consistently around 12 to 14% for months according to the polls, was really only 3%.
Assertions of public opinion are traditional in the media. It would be better if they were evidence-based. If polling can't provide reliable evidence, we need tech that does the job better – or we need to ditch the delusion that public opinion is unitary.
I reckon the public naturally subdivides into bodies of opinion. Sophisticated reporting would identify these. The media ought to have a go at that. They will claim it costs too much to do the job. If so, we all must consider the cost of an incoherent society.
This existential crisis doesn't just apply to the USA. Public life everywhere provides a common ground of culture, in which diversity co-exists with what is generally accepted as consensus reality. People need a sense of sharing things that matter, since confidence & trust are essential to enterprise, economy & well-being.
Competing cultural bubbles are obviously the trend of the times, but commonality will remain a vital ingredient of contemporary society. Focus on how to identify it is likely to become the next big thing.
Reading that was like reading a treatise on management speak.
Right now some of our cultural bubbles are pretty much this – trying to pay my rent and buy food.
Yeah I get that. Trouble is, that personal focus just degenerates society into a mad scramble to grab whatever is left.
Rather than a shitfight, people organise together to provide collectively. An economy forms, and politics is meant to do the organisation of democracy on an informed basis. When social trends focus on disinformation, we get incoherence.
Maybe it's that more people are deliberately full of shit. Trolling has taken on an art form and science these days. Make em confident – less turnout.
Bot armys can be readily seen today replying to Trump tweets. Swathes of them claiming to be aggrieved servicemen cheated out of an election and leaving US for Mexico (how ironic) as a result.
It's laughable it if wasn't so rife, dangerous, and unchecked.
That's a good point. I've been reading scifi stories of a dysfunctional future since the early 1960s and have no problem with a healthy subculture of dissidents. Nature balances order & chaos naturally – no reason we can't do the same.
It's just that we ought to tilt the balance back towards order when chaos threatens to get out of control. If bots get leverage, we need tech entrepreneurs to create counter-bots. No way will govts be able to do it. So people have to think about their common interests in co-creating a sane political culture that empowers sensible governance while preserving some anarchic diversity that will enable free enterprise to produce creative progress.
Here’s an example: https://jvullinghs.medium.com/the-maker-movement-lessons-in-building-community-word-of-mouth-growth-and-product-design-d67798cca144
Yes , the maker culture feels like a real life incarnation of the 'Tinkers' that Vernor Vinge created for his Peace War trilogy
Then there is this interesting attempt to put them all through the sorting hat.
Just for giggles while munching my muesli I did the quiz. Predictably I came out a Moderate.
"Progressive Activist" for me
Note – you have to pretend you are an American to do this one.
I like that septenary (?) division – wonder if it's viable in other capitalist democracies. Would be good to see social science research testing it here in Aoteroa.
So here's the root of identity politics. Given that people have various group affiliations concurrent, we get a multipolar context created for each political person. Binary traditionalism does not encompass this reality.
perhaps forming bubbles (tribes) is a survival tactic in a chaotic time
Yes I see these seven categories as an elaboration of the core three political instinct model I've mentioned elsewhere.
Instead of the old left right binary that most people realise is past it's use by date, we should use a triplet: the system maintaining conservatives, the innovative expansionary liberals, and the re-distributive, justice seeking socialists.
If you look at the Hidden Tribes seven categories then three pairs of them neatly reduce down to the three above, leaving us moderates as seventh group annoyingly trying to be all things to everyone and rarely succeeding.
Language is so important..I find 'moderate' to be too soft/kind a word/label for those staunch defenders of doing s.f.a..the word is almost an underlining/endorsement of that not-do-much mindset…i think that 'incrementalist' is nearer the mark..'cos it describes what they want/are…d'yareckon..?
And our incrementalist-in-choef has just said she will not be increasing benefits…but she may do next winter what she did this winter….with the winter allowance thing…that's very ' moderate' of her..eh..?… How does that 'moderate' chant go..?..'what do we want..?'…'not very much'…'when do we want it..?'..'at some indetermined time in the future..'..f.f.s..!..eh..?..this is ardern exercising her mandate..eh..?..I think I'll just double-down on the f.f.s…!
And I find 'progressive activist' altogether too anodyne to describe childish idiots who would burn the world down in order to save it.
Or in other words, I can play your silly game too.
It is the animal-eating 'moderates' who are destroying the land..fishing out the oceans..just to satisfy their addictions to eating animal flesh…they are the fucken radicals…prepared to destroy the world..fish out the oceans…just to be able to eat their ‘precious' flesh…how fucked up is that..?
It is the animal-eating 'moderates'
Really? I've been mostly plant based for decades, since around when my partner did a three year naturopath course back in the early 80's.
I just don't see the need to be offensive about it like you seem compelled to be.
So it's 'offensive' to tell those who are fucking over the world/oceans..that they are fucking over the world/oceans ..?…really .?..i actually find what they are doing to the world/oceans to be far more 'offensive'..than pointing those facts out to them..y'know..!..how actions speak much louder than words…?..so I guess 'offensive' must be in the eye of the beholder..
These surveys are always a bit silly in the way they insult the all-mixed-togetherness of individual thought and experience. I always remember the genius of Walt Whitman (and in Whitman it's good to remember the best of 'Murica at a time like this):
"Do I contradict myself? / Very well, then I contradict myself. / (I am large, I contain multitudes). / I concentrate toward them that are nigh."
Well they're only silly if you imagine everyone has to fit into a single isolated, hermetically sealed silo with no overlap or complexity. When doing the quiz I found many of the questions ambiguous, and answering them was a bit hit and miss. Yet the category it landed me in was accurate enough.
Whitman is right, at heart we are all a complex muddle of contradictions, and unexplored potentials … but one of the great tools humans have invented is our ability to use abstracted models to simplify reality into forms our limited minds can grapple with.
It has me as progressive activist…I can't argue much with that…and there are 8 percent of us out there..
Managerialism in work places plays a part I think as well. I find it slightly amusing when people go on about the left being intolerant and PC when the biggest proponents of group-think and conformity are career managers who all are alike, been trained in the same things and can't handle disagreement and different opinions.
There are an increasing trend of HR people being lawyers as well so what is legal is more important that what is right.
When what is legal becomes the measure of morality it is an odd place to be.
[Sigh] Where to start?
Media that don’t report the news but massage it to manufacture opinion, consent, and dissent.
An audience/public that has selective hearing, binary & tribal attitudes, and wishful thinking.
When the nail goes crooked, it’s not the hammer’s fault.
"the culprits are Kiwis."
….well, so goes the whine from the Vineyard/Orchardist owner types.
https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/horticulture/vineyards-orchards-still-short-workers
And of course the local nat MP's are in up to their necks…
https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/horticulture/mps-push-crop-workers
Seems reminiscent of sir Key and ol "double dipper" Bill English…
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/312562/immigrants-needed-due-to-nzers%27-work-ethic,-drug-use-pm
Anyway. What I KNOW personally.And can vouch for… Please READ it. Very true
"At the end of the day, if employers and horticulture want to attract hard workers, they have to offer them something that is worth their while.”
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/kiwi-fruit-pickers-have-simple-message-growers-cry-labour-pay-us-more
The market will decide…..NZers wont be treated like shit OR slaves.
"At the end of the day, if employers and horticulture want to attract hard workers, they have to offer them something that is worth their while.”
A large part of the problem is accommodation; most horticulture workers are not able to afford to do a short term 6 week job in one location, while also holding onto the home they live in elsewhere. From your RNZ link:
Big shearing contractors used to get around this by provide free accommodation and food, but then this was always a part of what is always a highly nomadic work life.
how is it possible that orchardists cannot see that providing accommodation and meals will result in a better harvest. Is is possibly that the persons actually growing and tending the crop are not the decision makers?
The employers aren't even trying. I've been on the "Work the Seasons" list since lockdown stage four – only offer was some commercial cleaning – not what I did my my MA for. They're counting on the government proving as round-heeled as they have over the last few decades and giving them as many slave workers as they want.
You can easily imagine the discussions …'just get us through this season and it'll be back to BAU with a vaccine and open borders, no need to do anything radical, the industry wont survive otherwise'.
The way they talk about how desperate they are, I ought to have to fight them off with a stick. It's all PR.
A corrupted business model, that survives on mean wages overwork and poor accommodation, with cries for support? Part of the "Too big to fail" pattern.
Professional bludger's is what they are called IMHO ???
I'm more than happy to put my hand up for some work, have ample experience, and we broke a lot of harvest records on a lot of farms.
Is there affordable temporary accommodation making it worthwhile? No.
Is there enough money to justify an overpriced room? No.
Is the actual accommodation provided on a few farms comfortable? For many, not even close. Dorms of bunk beds. They could hardly have provided less.
Are the penalties, meetings, scrutiny and BS from WINZ worth it? No.
Will the farmers continue to plead victim and lose their crops rather than share the wealth? Yes.
For most of these answers I am generalising. There will always be exceptions to the rule. But it should not also be the fruit pickers responsibility to ensure fair conditions and pay before signing on for a job in NZ in 2020.
It's a non-trivial problem. Look at the cost of housing in this country; and for any business paying that substantial cost for an asset that may only be used for less than 20% of the year is a tough ask.
One of the constraints will be the high cost of compliance around this type of building; maybe the horticulture industry needs to get together with local govt to negotiate an special case building category for them.
I'm thinking tiny houses on wheels.
And growers supply power, water, toilets, kitchen, laundry.
A smart grower would do catering, maybe for a nominal fee, to enable the workforce that wish to, to clock up longer hours without exhausting themselves. We used to pick all day and pack all night. Those with support got through it easily. We taking care of ourselves struggled to get the laundry to the laundromat, and the time to cook wasn't really there so we got worn out doing long hours on takeaways & junk. Various industries insist on catering for workers on larger jobs, where the work comes in pulses and is required to be done quickly and safely.
The whole hair pulling schtick by the industry is a bit tired. Pinching pennies and blaming the public. Sustainable business or bye bye.
That's a grand idea for seasonal workforces. It used to be fun too, back in the day – bit of fresh air, hard case fellow workers, dip in the river around dusk, a few folk plinking bunnies or fishing after work. Twas a whole culture the neoliberals destroyed.
Aye my father used to do shearing out the back of Feilding and remembers the change from farm owners to managers.
He oft mentioned one occasion when the shearing took a day longer on one farm than anticipated and the appointed farm manager of another farm took exception to his shearing starting a day later.
The farmer owner rung him up and said I always put on a BBQ and beers for the shearers when they finish and I'll be doing the same this year. If you have a problem with that come and see me. He had the shearers back.
Sadly many of those good employers – across NZ are gone – those that paid decent wages and looked after their staff unable to compete against the low wages paid by many others. When competitiveness relied on paying the lowest wages being a good employer wasn't always enough to continue to exist.
Fond memories. When I was 19 I did a summer working for a big contractor, Toby Smith, in based in a little West Otago town called Heriot. Now that was an experience …
Don't forget the Fringe Benefit Tax on supplied accommodation, more beauocracy for fuck all return for the Gummint, drop the requirement for seasonal work.
Another industry that relies on imported labour to exploit…and the Minister's response indicates there is going to be no change.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018771933/questions-over-benefits-of-foreign-fishing-crews
Keep in mind that the term 'exploit' is highly relative. For many people (mostly men) who are migrant workers around the world, the conditions they have to endure are awful by local standards, but are still way better than the choices on offer back home.
I learned this the hard way on a mining site some years back, when I idly passed judgement on the conditions the Fillipino workers on site had to put up with compared to my much plusher life. Well the senior Fillipino metallurgist I was talking with responded by educating me on some hard truths. We ended up rather good friends, both about the same age and with a lot in common as it turned out.
They may be better than conditions 'at home'…but they are not working in that labour market, they are working in our labour market….and they are exploited and by extension facilitate the exploitation of local labour.
Thank you Pat, yes.
Yes I get that. This is always the impact of mobile labour, it pulls down local standards and lifts them up for the families back home. Over time it tends to average out both countries, as painful as this process often is.
I'm not trying to defend this situation. In the long run the best answer here is for developing countries to catch up to the developed world, closing the gaps and reducing these mismatches. In the short term govts everywhere need to pay more attention to protecting these people and mitigating the excesses.
as the RNZ link indicates our Gov. appears to have no such intention
Faafoi is totally down with giving the worst scumbags in NZ an unlimited extension of the systematic fraud that gives them access to slave workers.
Like Nash before him, he is completely self-serving, a scoundrel and a recreant to the founding values of the party that provides him his sinecure.
It would be better if, under a Labour government, their first priority were the prosperity of our own workers. Neoliberalism has driven the accommodation costs out of proportion, and the slave workers artificially depress local wages in that context. We ought to have a sinking lid on the foreign workers, if the goal of a thriving sustainable economy is anything more than a sound bite.
Maybe some 80% of the human race live in 'developing' nations. One of their main pathways to a better life is trading with the developed world, whether directly as migrant workers, or indirectly through their own local manufacturing and/or exports.
I don't think we can just slam the door on their opportunity to escape poverty.
How do you expect those countries to develop their economies if we artificially reduce our costs by exploiting their labour and education?…if you desire a single world economy (and therefore governance) then we had best have a vote on such….should such an entity occur then we would have the same standards worldwide and no need to seek better conditions elsewhere
What we rightly perceive as exploitation, may well be seen as opportunity by them. Both perspectives are true at the same time; how to reconcile them?
Like so many of the problems we face, this is global in scope cannot be effectively solved by the actions of single nations in isolation. So yes I do advocate for continued evolution of the global governance systems we have been developing since WW2.
"So yes I do advocate for continued evolution of the global governance systems we have been developing since WW2."
…and as we know that evolution has led to the mobile capital and labour that undermines local economies and fosters exploitation so in effect you are advocating for the exploitation to continue…as is I note, our Minister
Ah the Perfection Fallacy. An oldie but ever so popular.
perfection fallacy my arse…the globalists have had almost 40 years to mitigate the negative impacts of their agenda and not only have they failed they have accentuated them at every opportunity…..and people wonder why the likes of Trump can maintain 70 million votes?
Globalization has had winners and losers. Since WW2 it's pulled a vast number of people out of poverty. Here is a statistic that changed my mind when I read it, in the decade to 2013 around 230,000 people where connected to an electricity grid for the first time. Every day for a decade.
That's a staggering achievment, and transformed billions of lives.
At the same time, because there was only a rudimentary governance of the globalization process many new problems, such as climate change and inequitable labour treatment, remain to be addressed.
The answer to poor governance is better systems. Not to throw them out of the cot because our first attempt wasn't perfect.
So, in the decade to 2013 around (230,000 x 365 x 10 =) 0.84 billion "people where connected to an electricity grid for the first time."
While that may not have "transformed billions of lives", it certainly is "a staggering achievement". It's an interesting coincidence that the global population increased by roughly the same amount (0.83 billion) in the decade to 2013, while atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by a mere 5.6%. We're ‘laughing‘.
But there are two different things there…one is the right for foreign workers to come here to do jobs nzrrs don't want to…and hard to argue against that..and them getting those opportunities…but that does not mean they can be paid slave-wages…and charged for crap accommodation…eh..?…that is a different issue…best not to conflate the two..eh..?…it just muddies the water..
@DMK
More accurate data on electricity as a measure of human progress:
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access
We're a small country – and wrecking our workers' lives to provide cheap labour to scumbag employers should not be allowed the phony figleaf of foreign aid. If we want to increase actual foreign aid though, go right ahead.
The ones who live in the draught, who pay for the door being open deserve the say on whether it shuts.
We really need to get off the poor natives trope.
Many in island communities are finding their lives improving after tourism crashed. They're growing food and fishing, connecting through their communities again, and loving it.
But we are the white knights, riding in with our dollars to save the day. Maybe they don't need us so much as we need to believe we're superior.
Maybe you should ask them what they want. Telling people in poorer countries that they have to stay that way because it's morally superior is patronising to say the least.
No, using them as bargaining chips for poor business practise in NZ under the guise of 'a hand up' is patronising.
There are many ways to give aid that don't exploit socio-economic disparity.
Your common reasoned helicopter view Red Logix. Being all historical and theoretical doesn't deal with the here and now business of living and the conditions that are prevalent and make it unpleasant and often sad.
Your input tends not to help with solving problems. Your skill tends to the didactic and pontificating. Perhaps you could bring yourself to make suggestions to help with the here-and-now, real and existential problems impacting on real people in this country presently.
I tend to reply to people in the same manner they take with me.
But as for a lack of practical ideas, well that is easily countered. Even in this thread at 2.2.2.1 I did just that.
Agree Slave Labour and Artificially Inflated Accommodation Costs and That Is a FACT !!!
I think you might find that a lot of the boats are Georgian or Ukranian and leased by NZ fishing companies for our seasons.
Think Talleys, Sealord and Ngai Tahu.
'fisheries expert Dr Glenn Simmons said they should all be sent home.
They did not bring enough money into the economy to justify the risk we were taking, illustrated by the two health workers taking the virus home with them after caring for 31 of the infected mariners, he said.'
"We send money overseas for the actual charter of these vessels and their wages are typically sent back to their home country. The species that they are harvesting is sent offshore semi-processed, and it's reprocessed into value added products offshore, and we don't capture that value either."
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/covid-19-foreign-fishing-crews-not-worth-risk-expert
Absolutely !!
and those claimed 450 onshore jobs generate a claimed 725 million pa for the 'country'….wonder how much ends up in those 450 pay packets?
The very least they could get away with….
'New Zealand Merchant Service Guild general secretary Helen McAra said the reason for bringing in foreign crews was economic.'
"They earn very low wages compared to New Zealand conditions. They come from third world labour supply countries and I'd be surprised if they met the New Zealand minimum wage," she said.
'She said successive governments had swept the problem under the rug, but the pandemic had brought it back to light.'
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/429335/fishing-companies-don-t-want-to-hire-local-mariners-say
Cheap camper vans, the opportunity to travel New Zealand (sans foreign tourists) between stints in seasonal work is an attractive option as a gap year.
A shower, laundry and toilet block and the camper van to sleep in, I wish I was 20 years old again.
lol not all vinyards.
There are so many issues to unpack.
Firstly, there are the issues of payment for work, and accommodation.
Then there are the issues around using overseas workers to avoid paying decent wages by NZ standards. Outsourcing exploitation.
After that, there is the question of whether reliance on cheap labour is stunting innovation – innovation in automation, but also innovation in how the jobs are designed and whether more secure employment can be established beyond just one employer in one industry. Many jobs have seasonal work, but not all seasonal jobs occur in the same season.
Payment of decent wages in the horticultural industry is a sour topic, screwing workers in the horticultural industry is a sanctioned human right.
Same argument could be applied to any time goods are exported or imported between any two countries with different labour rates.
I agree with much of what you are saying, but we need to be careful about exactly what problem we are solving.
In case we accidentally solve another problem?
At least the movement of goods is one degree of separation away from actually having NZ employers underpay and overwork people.
I strongly suspect that half the time employers "need" to hire overseas staff, it's simply for the power being a visa sponsor gives them to get kickbacks (sorry, "accommodation costs") and otherwise abuse workers with lower odds of being reported for the violation. But that's just my cynicism showing.
McFlock, good to see some vineyards taking responsibility for their problems. I add further below at 2.6 .
What used to happen in our vineyards was for workers to work in both hemispheres but Covid-19 is really affecting that.
Your questions will need to be answered by employers as you say. Covid might have some beneficial effects in forcing employers and industries into addressing these employment issues.
what happened to all the workers freed up from tourism and hospo?
No idea. But at least some otherwise seasonal workers have job security.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/311418/wine-industry-worker-treatment-%27putting-sales-in-danger%27
This is a RNZ report from 2016 and when it is visited there are other links to support the idea that poor treatment of workers has been a long time here.
To counter this, some local Marlborough people in the industry had to set up an ethical employment system.
The effect of poor employer practice was manifold. It resulted in poor wages and conditions. Poor wages did not do much for the local economy. Vineyards locally are 80%+ owned outside of the area. Poor wages here but the profits went out of the region. Local housing became difficult to get rentals, and more expensive, with the pack of provision of housing by employers. Ethical employers were undercut and disadvantaged by unscrupulous employers. Health services got stretched and rough sleepers and cheap campers grew in numbers.
All for less than 50c a bottle on the price of a bottle of wine. Let the true costs of production be worn by producers and then by consumers, not by the workers and the local environment and society.
mac1 Thanks. Interesting, informative and helps to see the matter in the round.
" Statistics New Zealand figures show despite the impact of covid-19, fruit exports are up. In the year to September 2020, fruit exports were worth $3.8 billion, an increase of 11 per cent on the same period last year."
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/kiwi-fruit-pickers-have-simple-message-growers-cry-labour-pay-us-more
$3.8 …Billion?!
Pay. More. Whats so fkn hard about that?
"$18.90 per hour "
https://job-bank.workandincome.govt.nz/find-a-job/details.aspx?JobId=482356
'Despite lobbying the Government for more action in recruiting workers to the horticulture and viticulture sectors, there is little movement on Central Otago’s orchards and vineyards.
Alexandra-based industry recruiter Seasonal Solutions chief executive Helen Axby put the situation bluntly.'
"Nothing has changed."
No shit Sherlock….
"$18.90 per hour "
PAY more…
Link for above..
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/central-otago/no-change-seasonal-worker-shortage
Back in 1954 a visiting Prince from the UK observed that Maori were bit museum relic of the past and bit current day pet
Funny coz a few Maori visiting the UK on tours this century might well observe their royal family in similar terms. Presumbaly the ministry will advise the new FM not to say this out loud.
The Royal Family definitely hasn't changed in the last 200 years still a bunch of toffee nosed old farts.
Grandad was a provincial bigwig and family lore has it that when grandma was asked to be part of the party greeting the 1954 touring royals she replied; "that woman and her family have had two of my sons so I'll be buggered if I'm going to curtsey to the bitch".
The Royal Family have done a great PR job for Britain. Without them to blame people might have to look at the source of their real toffy-nosed villains as Boris.
For a wee time they did get a satirical view – through the Pythons, but there is now some woke guy heading the BBC and tending to ban satire, comment, laughter etc. reflecting modern-day Puritanism. I think it is a determination of the upper-middle class to present themselves as better than the USA. Probably an achievable target.
Especially Innocent Andy ?
Reading some of the stories of past Royals Pr.Andrew's behaviour would have been commonplace, without the common in his case. No doubt at the time it all seemed good fun to the men and glitsy to the women and teenage girls seeking 'the high life'.
Not a particularly pleasant family when it comes to the way they treated my Irish and Scottish forebears, even executed one of them at Grassmarket, Edinburgh. We lost a number of family members in WW1 & WW2 and got very little thanks for those sacrifices. Badly bred people with no morals IMHO ???
That's silly – blaming all on the Royal Family. The Brits have been keen pirates and colonists and class privileged since Adam was a cowboy. The East India company and Rhodes and… were all there with their tongues hanging out. John Buchan wrote many books representing the Brits as free-ranging colonials with an attitude of service to the great British nation of noble gits with strong chins and attractive uniforms. Also kidnapped male citizens off the street to serve in the Navy etc.
I've always thought the royal family would make a good natural history museum display on the hazards of inbreeding.
It is so refreshing to hear that something is being done about controlling Covid in the US. Biden has wasted no time in discussing a response to Covid with top health advisers in the US. Capacity in hospitals is nearing a crisis.
Biden has had unexpected loss and further loss. In 1972 his wife and infant daughter died in a car crash and in 2015 his son Beau died from a brain tumor.
Yes Treetop he seems a more inclusive sensitive being. Though his “Spread the Faith” mantra? Which faith?
Faith in people having faith in him to keep them alive.
Also Biden is getting advice from top US scientists. I can see a military operation of sorts from 21 January 2021.
They have a long road ahead of them in the USA.
NZs scientific community has been a treasure beyond anything that comes out of Treasury. A beautiful book has been issued for the connosieur, on NZ insects through Potton and Burton relating the story and works of an early independent scientist GV Hudson and showing his exquisite art in his coloured illustrations. He was a keen entomologist by age 10, and continued all his life after he came here from Britain about 1881. He worked at the Post Office with shift hours that enabled him to carry out his work. And he recommended daylight-saving time – which was apparently ridiculed then.
http://books.scoop.co.nz/2020/11/08/our-insect-world/
I would like to express my gratitude. Thanks Team. And I don’t consider any virus escape a ‘failure’. It is invisible, and it’s very easy for it to act like a stowaway despite your best efforts.
I’d like to think most New Zealanders are aware of how difficult (and crucial) your work must be.
https://twitter.com/covid19nz/status/1325599690612596738
Covid-19 – how can we reduce the risks in NZ?
Nov.9/20 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/430166/covid-19-foreign-fishing-crews-not-worth-the-risk-expert
Oct.28/20 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/429335/fishing-companies-don-t-want-to-hire-local-mariners-say
Oct.28/20 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-eighteen-ways-nz-can-beef-up-its-border/LND4I4UGBOGYDBEZQ6Z7UUNQXY/
In a new blog post, a team of Otago University public health argued it was now an "excellent time" for the newly-elected Government to carry out a systematic review to limit New Zealand's threat of more outbreaks.
"The persisting occurrence of cross-border incursions of the pandemic virus – five since August 1, including a large outbreak in Auckland – highlights the need for such a review," wrote doctors Jennifer Summers and Amanda Kvalsvig, and professors Nick Wilson and Michael Baker.
While they acknowledged New Zealand had been a top performer at stamping out the virus, the experts offered a list of potential changes for the Government to consider.
One was banning all travellers from countries with high levels of uncontrolled spread – such as the US, UK, India – until the prevalence of infection in travellers was low.
.
10 million have/had it in the USA. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/430191/us-surpasses-10-million-covid-19-cases-amid-surging-third-wave-of-infections
…The grim milestone came on the same day as global coronavirus cases exceeded 50m…
The Midwest remains the hardest-hit region based on the most cases per capita with North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska the top five worst-affected US states.
Illinois emerged as the new epicentre in the Midwest, with the state reporting over 60,000 Covid-19 infections in the last seven days, the highest in the country, according to Reuters data. The state reported more than 12,454 new cases on Saturday, the highest single-day number so far.
Texas, which accounts for 10 percent of total US cases, is the hardest-hit state and became the first to surpass a million coronavirus cases in the United States on Saturday.
Do you think that people would take Covid more seriously were the actual number of deaths known?
I don't think the general populace especially men, is self-disciplined and concerned enough to not need regular reminding about the simple things like masks and hand washing, (and noting where they go). (I have a notebook – my device is out of date I am sure.) Don’t know about the covid-19 heavy countries – I find hearing about US/UK (you suck!) is repetitive and boring now.
But caught this about Taiwan – perhaps they area good model. Haven't read it yet myself.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018771675/should-nz-copy-taiwan
Listening to an OZ based scientist, Marco Herold, who is working on CRISPR techniques to detect covid.
They claim to be able to edit the dna of a blood sample, put it through their process and get a definitive result in 20 minutes, less than the time to checkin for an international flight.
Reckons it's 18 months from being viable at scale to work in an airport situation. Go you scientists !
Hooo-kaaay – I'm awfully curious about the applicability of the family of CRISPR DNA sequences and the gene-editing techniques developed around them, to detecting RNA virus infections.
Their press release certainly fails to shed any kind of technical light on the subject.
So forgive me for thinking this has a kind of Theranos whiff about it. Y'know, leveraging off a bunch of people with letters after their names putting out press releases with lots of sciencey words promising amazing things with a notable absence of actual detail.
It is possible – New kind of CRISPR technology to target RNA, including RNA viruses like coronavirus
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200316141514.htm
Within a week they can train dogs to sniff for coronavirus in someone at an airport. Apparently it takes seconds and they get results as accurate as the current test – except that takes 24 hours to come back with a positive result.
Colin Craig is going for $700,000 in damages from Cameron Slater.
Beautiful system.
Graig is only able to go after Slater because he has the money to do it. Most people do not have the money to take civil action so the snakes win.