4. We need a government that houses ALL its citizens well.
To do this it must act decisively to deal with inequities in renting and owning houses.
It must make rental costs cheaper, raise rental property standards and increase the rights of renters.
In addition buying a house must be affordable and we need a government that does not look after the rentier class and does everything to prick the housing bubble.
Select the party you feel will best tackle the problems of housing, inequality, climate change and the environment , which this government had failed to tackle and , in each case, worsened.
Once each party dedicated to removing this government releases their policies on each, decide which will act the most decisively to deal with our pressing issues.
So you can cross National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party from your list.
Decide which of Labour, the Greens, New Zealand First, Mana or the Opportunity Party look they have the best plan to act decisively to deal with these issues.
Peters may choose National esp with Key gone. If we want a change of govt NZF are a risk. If they choose to support Labour they will be a force to hold Labour in the centre rather than going left. It’s not just about what plan the parties have or what they say they will do, it’s about voting strategically.
I quite agree weka. NZF cannot be considered as ‘left’. Populist ,yes. Ron Marks is a right winger for a start.
We need to see who their candidates are before counting on them because we don’t need another debacle like the last time NZF got in with numbers.
I would say that if Peters is leader it doesn’t matter who the candidates are, the risk is still there for them to support a National govt. In other words we can’t count on them.
“If we want a change of govt NZF are a risk. If they choose to support Labour they will be a force to hold Labour in the centre rather than going left.”
Yet, NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues. Hence, a number from the left support them.
If anything, Labour are more likely to be the stumbling block in a NZF, Greens and Labour coalition.
“Yet, NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues. Hence, a number from the left support them.”
True, but Peters himself is not left, and is in fact against NZ moving left. That’s not in dispute surely? And the Greens don’t have a handful of policies to the left of Labour, pretty much all their policies and kaupapa is to the left of Labour.
This is what I mean about being strategic. Yes, one can prefer NZF over Labour, and can have a problem with voting Green for whatever reason, and so vote NZF, but that doesn’t get around the fact that they may support the formation of a 4th term for National. The only way to vote left is to vote for parties that are on record as saying they won’t support a National-led govt.
“If anything, Labour are more likely to be the stumbling block in a NZF, Greens and Labour coalition.”
Peters has been fairly consistently clear that he opposed the Greens being in govt. Labour on the other hand have come round to being ok with either party. Doesn’t sound like Labour is the problem in formation of govt at least.
As NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues it would imply Peters is left of Labour on those issues.
The Greens aren’t fully to the left of Labour and have a number of policies that could be deemed centrist and right wing. Compulsory KiwiSaver for every child born is one example.
While NZF may not go with Labour (but given their bottom line – i.e. Pike River it is more likely they would) they’ll still help keep National more in line with the left in a number of areas if Labour fail to win (highly probable considering the polls).
Which is a fail-safe a vote for the Greens won’t ensure.
Moreover, Labour could decide to drop the Greens altogether, which they have done before, thus resulting in a wasted vote voting Green.
“Peters has been fairly consistently clear that he opposed the Greens being in govt”
No he hasn’t. In fact, he has claimed that is more of a media beat up.
As it is likely Labour will be the dominant player, it’s more likely they will attempt to take the coalition more right.
There was an episode on the Nation some time back when all three were there and for once they actually came across as a coalition in waiting.
“As NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues it would imply Peters is left of Labour on those issues.”
Not necessarily. It could be that Labour is to the right of Peters’ centrist position. But we’re talking too generally here. How about pulling up 2 or 3 NZF policies that you feel are to the left of Labour and we’ll have a look at them and whether they themselves position Peters as left wing.
I’m not against a 3 way coalition. I’m arguing that if left wingers want a change of govt, voting NZF is a risk, esp because of Peters.
While NZF may not go with Labour (but given their bottom line – i.e. Pike River it is more likely they would) they’ll still help keep National more in line with the left in a number of areas if Labour fail to win (highly probable considering the polls).
Which is a fail-safe a vote for the Greens won’t ensure.
But if the left fail by say 2% because that 2% voted NZF but wanted a left wing govt, and now Peters has gone with National again, then those left wing voters just voted in a right wing govt. They instead could have voted Labour or Greens and still ended up with NZF on the left.
“How about pulling up 2 or 3 NZF policies that you feel are to the left of Labour”
Sure.
State run Kiwi Fund opposed to privately run KiwiSaver
Buying back energy companies and enabling a 10 per cent discount for SuperGold cardholders.
Superannuation.
If the left not only want a change of Government but want one that is more left in many respects, then NZF requires to be there.
If the left fail because some in the left voted for NZF opposed to Labour, the blame can be put on Labour for not being left enough to secure their vote.
“The Greens aren’t fully to the left of Labour and have a number of policies that could be deemed centrist and right wing. Compulsory KiwiSaver for every child born is one example.”
I said pretty much not absolutely. How is compulsory Kiwisaver right wing? I also suspect that if you put that one policy in the context of their overall policy you’d find it’s not right wing. That’s why I included kaupapa in my comment.
You’re arguing individual policies, I’m saying that individual policies are important but that if we vote on them alone we risk much.
KiwiSaver is largely a massive ongoing revenue gathering stream for the banking sector to play the market. Providing the banking sector with an ongoing handsome return.
“If you put that one policy in the context of their overall policy you’d find it’s not right wing.”
Can you explain how putting it into the context of their overall policy transforms it from being right wing?
I’m contesting your assertion that NZF will hold Labour in the centre rather than going left. As NZF sits left of Labour on a number issues, it’s logical to assume they will attempt to take Labour left in those areas. But as Labour will most likely be the dominant player, it’s more likely they will attempt to take NZF to the right and not the other way round as you asserted.
“Why not tell us who we should vote for and list the relevant policies to address these issues you are concerned about.”
For Paul’s points 1, 2, and 3 the Greens are way out in front. For points 4 and 5 I’d say both Labour and the Greens are doing good things. You can look the policies up online pretty easily, or ask more specific questions.
5. We need a government that ensures ALL its citizens are paid a living wage and work under equitable conditions.
To do this it must act decisively to empower workers through radical reform of industrial relations, undoing the ravages of neoliberal laws passed since the 1980s.
Which political party is pledging to transform transparency in New Zealand, by implementing and enforcing the Public Records Act 2005, thoroughly and properly across local and central government, and the judiciary?
As an Independent candidate in the Mt Albert by-election, this is a pivotal ‘plank’ in my campaign.
Why?
Because the implementation and enforcement of the Public Records Act 2005, would, in my opinion, transform the lack of transparency across NZ local and central government and the judiciary.
How can you have transparency or accountability without full and accurate public records available for public scrutiny?
What I was pointing out is that it isnt. Have a message, sure, and while I think she is crazy, and I dont disagree with her on anything – its hard to ignore that she is passionate about it.
What Im saying – pick a different platform perhaps – because the running for everything is not getting her message across.
IMHO this is a dumb move by him, he’s making lots of dumb moves already.
It’s a cowardly move by him. It certainly wouldn’t have been his own idea to boycott Waitangi. English, to his credit, actually made the effort to learn some Te Reo to conversational level when he was leading the National Party fifteen years ago; this decision smacks of the influence of the sort of people who supported Don Brash.
Hiyas James xxx It’s not telling a lie, I simply left that point out 🙂
Anyways, he maybe unable to speak, but this demonstrates to me that he is also unable to listen or show real support to his coalition partners Foxy and Flavell.
As someone just tweeted, the point of going to the Marae at Waitangi (once a year) isn’t to listen to Māori -it’s not for the PM to tell them more of what the government did/does/plans. Plenty of other places where the PM speaks.
Ok, so I throw a party, and there’s no drugs allowed, and you decide to not come unless I allow you to take drugs, and now you’re saying that you want to come to a drug-free party but the conditions aren’t right because it should be a drug-taking party? Whereas I’d say you won’t want to come to a drug-free party.
So I throw a party and the highlight will be a big lecture about how awful some of my guests are, and I’m dreadfully offended when some of my guests say no thanks.
that’s not what happened though. One of the guests think he has a right to go to the party and speak, but the person organising things has said no. He can come but not speak on the main stage. He then refuses to come. Nothing to do with the lecture, you just made that shit up.
he is not boycotting Watiangi. He just does not care and they gave him a reason to conveniently pull a sad – they don’t let me speak!!!! and thus i don’t go.
so in my eyes he is throwing a the adult equivalent of a toddlers tantrum for smokes and mirrors sake. Lookit i’m da good guys and they don’t let me SPEAK!
As PM he should have been allowed to speak. Denial of that right is a clear slap in the face. Under those circumstances I would also refuse to attend, on principle, if I was PM. Seems to me the organizers should pull their bloody heads in.
And I’m not even a National Party supporter.
My understanding was that no politicians were allowed to speak on the Marae. Is that not the tradition? I thought they had to do their speaking external to the ceremony part which was the story during Keys refusal to attend/non invitation to attend.
Lovely. That song used to be the basis of a running gag between me and a friend – one of those songs that certain people view with scorn, but can sing from start to finish when they are drunk and it’s very late at night. 🙂
Interview with the chief economist of the Bank of England, where he admits that their forecasting (mainstream economic forecasting) was completely wrong about brexit (the forecast was for it to cause a major slow down in the UK, the opposite happened).
Apparently the problem with the forecasts is that they were expecting people to behave ‘rationally’, but people are for some reason not behaving ‘rationally’ right now. A careful look at the meaning of ‘rationally’ here shows that it means that people making up the economy predict the future in a similar way to how they might play roulette (e.g they know the probability of future events with a greater degree of certainty than someone gambling on a sporting event!). Seems like a reasonable thing to expect then?
The fact that brexit takes time to implement was taken into account by the forecasts. The forecasts are suppost to tell us how investment, commerce and the public evaluates the political decision to leave the european union. The expected reaction was quite negative (for growth) but in fact was quite positive.
On the other hand Mr Haladine still believes the forecasts will do ok in the long run. And I think thats a certainty because the long run is not in 5 or 10 years, its once the economy reaches equilibrium. In other words he can believe whatever he wants about an economic state which never happens to a real economy.
I’d add that Venezuela is not as bad as how people like to paint it. And in one case at least, the toilet paper debacle. It was the actions of supermarkets chains inside the country to deliberately not buy toilet paper, that created the shortage – then they blamed the government for a lack of toilet paper.
Ironic that one of the so called libertarians came on here ranting and raving how bad it was they had no toilet paper, and it was the governments fault.
I suppose with Venezuela being a target of every hard right loon, the other South American Nations can just get on with the job of improving people lives.
Bolivia is great and so is their president – I put up an interview with him some time ago with Abby Martin, very insightful.
You really are the definition of a useful idiot. Francisco Toro is an utterly discredited right wing shill, and he writes his vicious propaganda for a paper which acts pretty much as a North American version of Pravda. In 2003, Toro was forced to resign from the New York Times, when his biased and unfair Venezuela coverage proved too outrageous even for that government megaphone….
I read your heartfelt plea yesterday to all on the liberal and progressive side of politics to put aside our differences, with an election coming up later this year. But I ask you: are we expected to remain silent when people like this fellow post up such inaccurate and incendiary material?
Is the UK threatening sanctions or whatever against Israel? No. Of course not. And yet the level of meddling claimed to be at least under consideration is a million blue miles beyond any influence Russia is claimed to have had on the US processes (in the released Intelligence report) via bog standard media presentations by rt or who-ever, that the NSA and others are pushing and/or using as a pretext to ‘ratchet it up’ with Russia.
The relationship between Israel and the UK is not the same as the relationship between the USA and the RF. Nations have a range of measures they take when things like this come to light.
The UK government says “We promote Britain’s security, prosperity and well-being, and regional peace, through partnership with Israel”. Would you describe US/RF relations as a “partnership”?
If the UK were to impose sanctions (or any other long-term measures) on Israel, I’d expect them to do so after any official inquiries had concluded.
So meddling in another’s internal affairs isn’t really such a big deal after all unless there is a deep seated institutional antipathy being harboured for the offending party? At which point, a possibly dangerous and certainly irrational response or set of responses being called for by those institutional actors is well within the realms of acceptability?
If that’s the case, then it’s fine, because liberal social democracies have checks and balances in place. Except that if you go google any mainstream outlet on the allegations the US is making towards Russia, you’ll see nothing but lock-step compliance with the idea that something quite unprecedented happened and that the right response is ‘to hate on’ Russia and (this is beginning to emerge) denounce any and all who aren’t gleefully jumping aboard the bandwagon – anyone who has the temerity to stand up and say “Hey. Just a second”. And that’s not fine.
…Trump accepts the US intelligence community’s conclusion…
Republicans have urged Trump to “punish” Russia.
In a joint appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain said evidence was conclusive that Putin sought to influence the election.
“In a couple weeks, Donald Trump will be the defender of the free world and democracy,” Graham said.
“You should let everybody know in America, Republicans and Democrats, that you’re going to make Russia pay a price for trying to interfere.”
Especially early on, this improved safety will be achieved by the vehicles being much more cautious on our roads as human drivers are much less predictable. More cautious also means slower and how will a trip taking longer by being driverless affect usage. Of course as I’ve pointed out before, it won’t take long for pedestrians to catch on and effectively reclaim the streets simply be threatening to walk across the road and all cars will stop.
Well, after reading the TB post and comments, it oks to me like the best use of autonomous vehicles would be in the public transport system – within closed systems where humans can’t interfere. Apparently the already work well in Vancouver’s Metro – (presumably underground).
Plus, I think there would still need to be security guards in a mass transit system – so jobs still needed within the system.
Whereas, driverless cars seem to be too fraught with problems in urban areas, especially within a CBD.
You really want to go there again? Continually posting propaganda for a despotic hereditary dictatorship is offensive – stop doing it, for fuck’s sake.
Ahhhh Psycho Milt, still wanting to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East.
BTW how’s that been working out for the west over the last 50 years?
Why not admit that it’s time the Anglo-US empire stopped with reruns of the Sykes-Picot bullshit and looked after the health of their own democracies for a change?
As usual, you’re addressing some comment you’d prefer someone had made, rather than the actual comment. Paul spamming Open Mike with Assad regime propaganda is the subject at hand, not “the Anglo-US empire.” He may have forgotten agreeing a couple of weeks back to stop doing it, but I haven’t.
It’s not propaganda if it’s the truth, particularly if it is truth which competes against the chosen narrative that the Anglo-US imperial propaganda prefers.
Paul spamming Open Mike with Assad regime propaganda…
????
Paul is one of the more civilised and thoughtful contributors to this mostly excellent site. I’m sure I am not the only person to notice that over the last few months he has been vilified and ridiculed by a small group of ideological fanatics whose brutal ad hominem attacks, distortions and outright lies, such as the one in italics above, are similar to the sort of thing that Cameron Slater engages in on his disreputable blog.
MEMO weka:
Why is Psycho Milt permitted to post up bald-faced and incendiary lies like this repeatedly? He seems to be immune to any standards of behaviour or truthfulness.
Actually, I note that at 17.1.1.1.1.2, weka has asked him to provide a link to back up his statements.
I discussed the likes of Psycho Milt with the moderators a few weeks ago; they are aware of the problem, although understandably reluctant to stop them. Sunlight is of course the best disinfectant against these fanatics—and the best way to expose them to the sunlight is by calling them out whenever they try to do it—as I did just an hour or so ago, after the ever credulous “Ad” posted a vile piece of propaganda….
I have no problem whatsoever with people asking questions about moderation. There are a few lines not to cross over. One is attacking authors. Another, a particular bugbear of mine, is people making out that there is a problem with pseudonyms, “Morrissey”.
As for PM, he’s expressing an opinion. By all means call him on that but it’s hardly a moderating offence. Likewise, you expressed an opinion as to the value of Paul’s comments. Personally I find your assertions much more problematic than PMs, because you cast general aspersions rather than naming specific people and comments. Either way, there’s no rule against thinking someone else is a dick and expressing that.
“I discussed the likes of Psycho Milt with the moderators a few weeks ago; they are aware of the problem, although understandably reluctant to stop them.”
I’d like you to link to that conversation please. Because you’ve just implied that more than one moderator thinks there is a problem with PM’s commenting, and as another moderator, I’d like to see the context.
as an aside, there was a fleeting discussion in the back end last week about whether to do something about the amount of FB-like posts in OM.
Are you aware that the “ever-credulous” Ad you just delivered one of your stern, pompous rebukes to is one of the moderators you apparently discussed “the likes of me” with a few days ago?
EDIT:
weka: sorry, posted the above without seeing your comment.
It’s not what one would really call news except for this bit:
Despite two field tests conducted on the “meth” coming back as positive, a third test carried out in a forensic lab revealed the reality.
It isn’t clear how the first two tests were so glaringly wrong, but LeBeau said he doesn’t blame the police. He however does want an apology and said the arrest caused him to lose work.
There’s only two possibilities:
1. The test simply isn’t accurate enough to be useful or
2. It wasn’t tested and was just sent back as ‘positive’ for political purposes
We, of course, have experience in NZ with methamphetamine tests not being fit for purpose.
Could be any number of things: the cops using the test were contaminated from previous busts, the kitty litter had absorbed traces of meth, something innocent but relatively rare in the kitty litter made the test indicate meth, and so on.
Field tests are usually indicative, whereas the lab tests are the precise identifiers. Like how lots of people blow into bags or machines and return a positive alcohol result, but the blood/ breath test at the station/bus is the evidentiary test.
One false positive does not a test negate. If it were a common occurrence, however, there’d be an issue.
Why on earth they thought the kitty litter contained meth was itself kinda weird.
I mean, when the cops come in to do a bust do they gather up any kitty litter as evidence, is this common in the USA?
Maybe the kitty was a dealer? All i can say is lucky that pussy doesn’t live in a HNZ house, they would have be out of their ear after the first positive and never allowed back.
Drivers in the US are advised to carry kitty litter or sand in wintry conditions to sprinkle in front of their wheels to give them traction should their vehicles slip off the road. And kitty-litter (the silica kind) filled socks can prevent windows fogging overnight. Like those little silica packages that keep boxes of electronics dry.
Yeah it was the latter that seemed to be the idea.
Bit like baking soda in the fridge.
It still deserves investigating just why the field test returned a positive. Best case is it’s something funny in the litter (doubtful but possible). Middle case is the cops need to brush up on their contamination protocols.
Worst case is that they know this and were just using the tests as a “contempt of cop” punishment, or justification for harrassment. As the article said, it gave them probable cause to lock him up for three days. How many other people have been locked up or had parole revoked based on poor testing procedures?
Handy little tool if you want to shit on someone but they haven’t done anything illegal (like a story about NZ cops raiding a trade unionist at home in the 1930s – bust open the door and immediately asked him how much money he had in his pocket. Of course he had nothing, because he was at home, so they detained him under the vagrancy laws).
21 November 2016 : women are going to be denied reproductive autonomy – ✓.
. Trump, being wealthy and male, gets a pass for his lengthy history of sleeping with any woman who will have him — and bragging about grabbing the pussies of those who won’t. But for those of us who aren’t privileged enough to be wealthy men, Republicans are going to do everything in their power to inflict punishment in the form of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted childbearing.
Trump’s willingness to fully embrace the Junior Anti-Sex League was demonstrated on Thursday, when his transition team announced the hire of Katy Talento as domestic policy counsel for the White House, focusing on health care. Not only is Talento against abortion — which is par for the course in Republican circles — she’s also an anti-birth control fanatic.
A red meat appointment for the base of evangelicals who swung in hard behind his candidacy – at the last minute.
Trump has said quite clearly that the status of abortion has been comprehensively considered in the Supreme Court and under his administration it will be states’ rights as to how they want to treat it.
There seems to be quite a few “red meat” appointments to trump’s incoming regime: various Goldman Sachs executives, breitbarters, an EPA director who doesn’t believe AG exists, a Commerce Secretary who kept an unsafe mine open (killing 12 workers), a Secretary of Education who wants to defund public schools…
Can you point to any vegetable appointments? Or even a fish course?
Another fuck you with the appointment of Senator John Hoeven, a supporter of Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines with a serious financial interest in seeing the projects go forward, as chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
U.S. Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) recently came out in support of the Dakota Access pipeline, the hotly contested Energy Transfer Partners-owned pipeline envisioned to move oil obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale basin. As the pipeline transports oil across North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, it will cross farms, natural areas, and perhaps most notably, ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which is one of several tribes disagreeing with Sen. Hoeven’s assessment that this pipeline is “infrastructure we need.”
What Sen. Hoeven — an outspoken supporter of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline — did not mention, however, is his personal investment in 68 different oil-producing wells in North Dakota under the auspices of the company Mainstream Investors, LLC according to his most recent congressional personal financial disclosure form.
Seventeen of those wells are owned by Continental Resources, the company whose CEO Harold Hamm also serves as a campaign energy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Those wells have a value of between $11,000–$171,000, and 14 of them, named Wahpeton, are located within 18 miles of the Dakota Access Watford City terminal site.
In a twist of irony, Wahpeton is part of the namesake of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe, whose reservation sits in southeast North Dakota and northeast South Dakota. The tribe passed a resolution in 2014 in opposition to the building of the Dakota Access pipeline.
Fisher House ($250,000)
Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund ($200,000)
College Summit ($125,000)
Posse Foundation ($125,000)
United Negro College Fund ($125,000)
Hispanic Scholarship Fund ($125,000)
Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation ($125,000)
American Indian College Fund ($125,000)
Africare ($100,000)
Central Asia Institute ($100,000)
Descriptions of what these charities do are in the link I provided.
Forget the donations for a prize he should never have received: how about simply ordering his country to stop supporting terrorists in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Syria? And how about simply apologizing and immediately ceasing his interference in Brazil, Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, and Haiti?
Instead of donating those paltry amounts to charity, Obama needs to apologize for insulting and pathetic behaviour like THIS….
Comment from thinking economist from BERL : BERL chief economist Ganesh Nana backed the idea of a summit, but said he hoped more could be achieved if it happened.
Dr Nana said the debate needed to include child poverty and inequality, with Brexit showing the growing frustration of people left behind by economies increasingly geared to precarious work.
“The goal is to make sure that what we leave for the next generation is a lot better than what I inherited and at the moment what I’m leaving for the next generation isn’t in my opinion any better than what I inherited from my parents’ generation.
“My parents’ generation, nobody ever talked about child poverty in New Zealand. I have on a regular basis Year 12 geography students asking me for help with their child poverty in New Zealand research essays,” Dr Nana said.
Compare to dazzling commercial entrepreneur on his view of what the economy is delivering: Xero founder and managing director Rod Drury also lamented the lack of bold ideas from politicians to prepare the economy for the growing challenges of globalisation, automation and inequality.
He said another summit, like the 2009 jobs summit under former Prime Minister John Key, was needed.
“It was one of the things that showed there is a Team New Zealand. We had the unions, we had Laila [Harre], and all those sorts of people. It was a really positive discussion,” Mr Drury said.
“The main thing that came out of it was the cycleways, but they’ve been amazing.
“If you look now, people are travelling there and doing all these sort of things. It’s actually become part of all regional towns now, they have to have that investment,” Mr Drury said….
another walk down Drury Lame:
Auckland: ‘Let’s add a million more people’
The desirability of a larger Auckland was also contentious.
“Let’s make a decision. Let’s add a million more people,” Mr Drury said. “So we can do another harbour crossing, so we can do a train out to the airport.”
Cycleways, just what we need. They are used by people who can afford bicycles and helmets. Or haven’t had them pinched. And are they on the route for going to work? If there is any? They are a nice middle class thing that makes people feel green and healthy. The ones sleeping in cars or on sofas or on a round-about shared between rellies have other priorities. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/322055/calls-for-leaders%27-summit-to-tackle-inequality
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This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission.In this article I look into data on how well the rail network serve New Zealanders, and how many people might be able to travel by train… if we ran more than a ...
Hi,Before we get into Hayden Donnell’s new column about how yes, Donald Trump is definitely the Antichrist, I wanted to touch on something feral that happened in New Zealand last week.Members of Destiny Church pushed and punched their way into an Auckland library, apparently angry it was part of Pride ...
Despite delays, logjams and overcrowding in our emergency departments, funding constraints are limiting the numbers of nurses and doctors being trained. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, February 18 are:A NZ Herald investigation ...
Now that the US has ripped up the Atlantic alliance, Europe is more vulnerable now than at any time since the mid-1930s. Apparently, Europe and Ukraine itself will not have a seat at the table in the talks between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin that will ...
Olivia and Noah and Hana are going to the library!It is fun to go to the library. It has books and songs and mat time and people who smile at you and say, Hello Olivia, what have you been doing this morning?The library is more fun than the mall. At ...
New World Orders: The challenge facing Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins is how to keep their small and vulnerable nation safe and stable in a world whose economic and political climate the forty-seventh American president is changing so profoundly.IT IS, SURELY, the ultimate Millennial revenge fantasy. Calling senior Baby-Boomer and Gen-X ...
“This might surprise you, Laurie, but I reckon Trump’s putting on a bloody impressive performance.”“GOODNESS ME, HANNAH, just look at all those Valentine’s Day cards!”“Occupational hazard, Laurie, the more beer I serve, the more my customers declare their undying love!”“Crikey! I had no idea business was so good.” Laurie squinted ...
In 2005, Labour repealed the long-standing principle of birthright citizenship in Aotearoa. Why? As with everything else Labour does, it all came down to austerity: "foreign mothers" were supposedly "coming to this country to give birth", and this was "put[ting] pressure on hospitals". Then-Immigration Minister George Hawkins explicitly gave this ...
And I just hope that you can forgive usBut everything must goAnd if you need an explanation, nationThen everything must goSongwriters: James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones.Today, I’d like to talk about a couple of things that happened over the weekend:Brian Tamaki’s Library Invasion and ...
New reporting highlights how Brooke van Velden refuses to meet with the CTU but is happy to meet with fringe Australian-based unions. Van Velden is pursuing reckless changes to undermine the personal grievance system against the advice of her own officials. Engineering New Zealand are saying that hundreds of engineers ...
The NZCTU strongly supports the Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill. This Bill represents a positive step towards addressing serious issues around unlawful disparities in pay by protecting workers’ rights to discuss their pay and conditions. This Bill also provides welcome support for helping tackle the prevalent gender and ...
Years of hard work finally paid off last week as the country’s biggest and most important transport project, the City Rail Link reached a major milestone with the first test train making its way slowly though the tunnels for the first time. This is a fantastic achievement and it is ...
Engineers are pleading for the Government to free up funds to restart stalled projects. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, February 17 are:Engineering New Zealand CEO Richard Templer said yesterday hundreds of ...
It’s one of New Zealand’s great sustaining myths: the spirit of ANZAC, our mates across the ditch, the spirit of Earl’s Court, Antipodeans united against the world. It is also a myth; it is not reality. That much was clear from a series of speakers, including a former Australian Prime ...
Many people have been unsatisfied for years that things have not improved for them, some as individuals, many more however because their families are clearly putting in more work, for less money – and certainly far less purchase on society. This general discontent has grown exponentially since the GFC. ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 9, 2025 thru Sat, February 15, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report shows worsening food poverty and housing shortages mean more than 400,000 people now need welfare support, the highest level since the 1990s. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and ...
You're just too too obscure for meOh you don't really get through to meAnd there's no need for you to talk that wayIs there any less pessimistic things to say?Songwriters: Graeme DownesToday, I thought we’d take a look at some of the most cringe-inducing moments from last week, but don’t ...
Please note: I’ve delayed my “What can we do?” article for this video.The video above shows Destiny Church members assaulting staff and librarians as they pushed through to a room of terrified parents and young children.It was posted to social media last night.But if you read Sinead Boucher’s Stuff, you ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is sea level rise exaggerated? Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, not stagnating or decreasing. Warming global temperatures cause land ice ...
Here is a scenario, but first a historical parallel. Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the ...
I’ve spent the last couple of days in Hamilton covering Waikato University’s annual NZ Economics Forum, where (arguably) three of the most influential people in our political economy right now laid out their thinking in major speeches about the size and role of Government, their views on for spending, tax ...
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
A ballot for a single member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Employment Relations (Collective Agreements in Triangular Relationships) Amendment Bill (Adrian Rurawhe) The bill would extend union rights to employees in triangular relationships, where they are (nominally) employed by one party, but ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
“The ACT Party can’t be bothered putting an MP on one of the Justice subcommittees hearing submissions on their own Treaty Principles Bill,” Labour Justice Spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
The Government’s newly announced funding for biodiversity and tourism of $30-million over three years is a small fraction of what is required for conservation in this country. ...
The Government's sudden cancellation of the tertiary education funding increase is a reckless move that risks widespread job losses and service reductions across New Zealand's universities. ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Ngāi Tahu wants to introduce contamination charges to address contamination in Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere, the High Court has been told.In the second week of the two-month case against the Attorney-General over wai māori (freshwater), Dr Elizabeth Brown, the Rangatira of Taumutu, which sits on the lake’s edge, told Justice Melanie ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra ASIO chief Mike Burgess has warned that over the next five years Australia’s security environment will become more dynamic, diverse and degraded, with “more security surprises” in the second half of the decade than in ...
There is certainly plenty of room for better police training for dealing with protest activity that starts with a rights-based approach to ensuring people can fully exercise their human rights. ...
“We are thrilled that this Bill is making its way through the House and looks set to become law,” said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University Gumbariya/Shutterstock The Reserve Bank’s decision to cut interest rates for the first time in four years has triggered a round of celebration. Mortgage holders are cheering the fact their monthly repayments are now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Housing supply in Australia will be a key battleground in the election campaign. With home ownership more and more out of reach for young and not so young Australians, red tape and low productivity are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Korolev, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, UNSW Sydney The United States and Russia agreed to work on a plan to end the war in Ukraine at high-level talks in Saudi Arabia this week. Ukrainian and European representatives were pointedly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University BaLL LunLa/Shutterstock Sleep is the holy grail for new parents. So no wonder many tired parents are looking for something to help their babies sleep. A TikTok trend claims ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ranjana Gupta, Senior Lecturer, Accounting Department, Auckland University of Technology Jirsak/Shutterstock The profit made on every breakfast bowl of weet-bix is tax exempt, giving Sanitarium Health Food Company, owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, an advantage over other breakfast food companies. ...
A closer look at some of the homegrown talent currently commanding television screens around the globe. The new season of The White Lotus hit our screens this week, and with it a familiar face in New Zealand actor Morgana O’Reilly. To secure a role in one of the world’s most ...
"This is a crisis of the Government’s own making and the unit is another sign of desperation," said PSA acting national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francesca Perugia, Senior Lecturer, School of Design and the Built Environment, Curtin University Australia’s housing crisis has created a push for fast-tracked construction. Federal, state and territory governments have set a target of 1.2 million new homes over five years. Increasing housing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ash Watson, Scientia Fellow and Senior Lecturer, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock When we’re uncomfortable we say the “vibe is off”. When we’re having a good time we’re “vibing”. To assess the mood we do a “vibe check”. And when the atmosphere in ...
What’s up with the man from Epsom? The leader of the Act Party has been in plenty of headlines in the last two weeks, ranging from a controversial letter to police on behalf of constituent Philip Polkinghorne (written before David Seymour was a minister) to an attempt to drive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Stephenson, Deputy Director, Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, Australian National University Newly published research has found clear evidence that openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and queer+ (LGBTIQ+) Australian politicians were disproportionately targeted with personal abuse on social media at the ...
Gilmore Girls, Schitt’s Creek, even The Vampire Diaries – they’re all set in tight-knit neighbourhoods where everyone knows everyone. So what is it like to actually know your neighbours? My favourite television shows are set in tight-knit neighbourhoods where everyone knows everyone. Characters attend town meetings where they debate local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yanyan Hong, PhD Candidate in Communication and Media Studies, University of Adelaide IMDB On the surface, Ne Zha 2: The Sea’s Fury (2025), the sequel to the 2019 Chinese blockbuster Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child, is a high-octane, action-packed and ...
Wellington travellers say their buses are so hot they’re often forced to get off early and walk. Shanti Mathias explores the impact of non-functioning air conditioning on public transport. When Bella, a young professional living in Wellington, thinks about taking the bus, her first thought is “Ugh”. The bus might ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annette Kroen, Research Fellow Planning and Transport, RMIT University The cleanup is underway in northern Queensland following the latest flooding catastrophe to hit the state. More than 7,000 insurance claims have already been lodged, most of them for inundated homes and other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Subha Parida, Lecturer in Property, University of South Australia Carl Oberg/Shutterstock Houses and fire do not mix. The firestorm which hit Los Angeles in January destroyed nearly 2,000 buildings and forced 130,000 people to evacuate. The 2019–20 Australian megafires destroyed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania Tasmania has been burning for more than two weeks, with no end in sight. Almost 100,000 hectares of bushland in the northwest has burned to date. This includes the Tarkine rainforest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Loosemore, Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney This week, the Productivity Commission released its much-awaited report into productivity growth in Australia’s housing construction sector. It wasn’t a glowing appraisal. The commission found physical productivity – the total number ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pascale Lubbe, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Molecular Ecology, University of Otago Royal spoonbills are among several new species that have crossed the Tasman and naturalised in New Zealand. JJ Harrison/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA When people arrived on the shores of Aotearoa ...
Stats NZ’s head is stepping down over the agency’s failure to safeguard census data, and more officials may soon be in the firing line, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. An ‘absolutely unacceptable’ failure Stats NZ chief ...
Health NZ is under greater government scrutiny, with the new health minister setting up a unit he says will "drive greater accountability and performance". ...
Reasons to vote this government out in 2017.
1. We need a government that takes public transport seriously.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11778072
Reasons to vote this government out in 2017.
2. We need a government that cares for our rivers, not one subservient to the interests of industrial agricultural demands.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/environment/88188743/just-not-good-enough-summer-slow-at-polluted-canterbury-river
Reasons to vote this government out in 2017.
3. We need a government that takes climate change seriously and acts decisively to mitigate the damage we are doing to the planet’s well-being.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/321865/2016-officially-the-warmest-year-on-record
Reasons to vote this government out in 2017.
4. We need a government that houses ALL its citizens well.
To do this it must act decisively to deal with inequities in renting and owning houses.
It must make rental costs cheaper, raise rental property standards and increase the rights of renters.
In addition buying a house must be affordable and we need a government that does not look after the rentier class and does everything to prick the housing bubble.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/outspoken/audio/201829264/outspoken-homelessness
Why not tell us who we should vote for and list the relevant policies to address these issues you are concerned about.
How to vote this government out.
Select the party you feel will best tackle the problems of housing, inequality, climate change and the environment , which this government had failed to tackle and , in each case, worsened.
Once each party dedicated to removing this government releases their policies on each, decide which will act the most decisively to deal with our pressing issues.
So you can cross National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party from your list.
Decide which of Labour, the Greens, New Zealand First, Mana or the Opportunity Party look they have the best plan to act decisively to deal with these issues.
Peters may choose National esp with Key gone. If we want a change of govt NZF are a risk. If they choose to support Labour they will be a force to hold Labour in the centre rather than going left. It’s not just about what plan the parties have or what they say they will do, it’s about voting strategically.
I quite agree weka. NZF cannot be considered as ‘left’. Populist ,yes. Ron Marks is a right winger for a start.
We need to see who their candidates are before counting on them because we don’t need another debacle like the last time NZF got in with numbers.
I would say that if Peters is leader it doesn’t matter who the candidates are, the risk is still there for them to support a National govt. In other words we can’t count on them.
“If we want a change of govt NZF are a risk. If they choose to support Labour they will be a force to hold Labour in the centre rather than going left.”
Yet, NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues. Hence, a number from the left support them.
If anything, Labour are more likely to be the stumbling block in a NZF, Greens and Labour coalition.
“Yet, NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues. Hence, a number from the left support them.”
True, but Peters himself is not left, and is in fact against NZ moving left. That’s not in dispute surely? And the Greens don’t have a handful of policies to the left of Labour, pretty much all their policies and kaupapa is to the left of Labour.
This is what I mean about being strategic. Yes, one can prefer NZF over Labour, and can have a problem with voting Green for whatever reason, and so vote NZF, but that doesn’t get around the fact that they may support the formation of a 4th term for National. The only way to vote left is to vote for parties that are on record as saying they won’t support a National-led govt.
“If anything, Labour are more likely to be the stumbling block in a NZF, Greens and Labour coalition.”
Peters has been fairly consistently clear that he opposed the Greens being in govt. Labour on the other hand have come round to being ok with either party. Doesn’t sound like Labour is the problem in formation of govt at least.
As NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues it would imply Peters is left of Labour on those issues.
The Greens aren’t fully to the left of Labour and have a number of policies that could be deemed centrist and right wing. Compulsory KiwiSaver for every child born is one example.
While NZF may not go with Labour (but given their bottom line – i.e. Pike River it is more likely they would) they’ll still help keep National more in line with the left in a number of areas if Labour fail to win (highly probable considering the polls).
Which is a fail-safe a vote for the Greens won’t ensure.
Moreover, Labour could decide to drop the Greens altogether, which they have done before, thus resulting in a wasted vote voting Green.
“Peters has been fairly consistently clear that he opposed the Greens being in govt”
No he hasn’t. In fact, he has claimed that is more of a media beat up.
As it is likely Labour will be the dominant player, it’s more likely they will attempt to take the coalition more right.
There was an episode on the Nation some time back when all three were there and for once they actually came across as a coalition in waiting.
“As NZF sits left of Labour on a number of issues it would imply Peters is left of Labour on those issues.”
Not necessarily. It could be that Labour is to the right of Peters’ centrist position. But we’re talking too generally here. How about pulling up 2 or 3 NZF policies that you feel are to the left of Labour and we’ll have a look at them and whether they themselves position Peters as left wing.
I’m not against a 3 way coalition. I’m arguing that if left wingers want a change of govt, voting NZF is a risk, esp because of Peters.
While NZF may not go with Labour (but given their bottom line – i.e. Pike River it is more likely they would) they’ll still help keep National more in line with the left in a number of areas if Labour fail to win (highly probable considering the polls).
Which is a fail-safe a vote for the Greens won’t ensure.
But if the left fail by say 2% because that 2% voted NZF but wanted a left wing govt, and now Peters has gone with National again, then those left wing voters just voted in a right wing govt. They instead could have voted Labour or Greens and still ended up with NZF on the left.
“How about pulling up 2 or 3 NZF policies that you feel are to the left of Labour”
Sure.
State run Kiwi Fund opposed to privately run KiwiSaver
Buying back energy companies and enabling a 10 per cent discount for SuperGold cardholders.
Superannuation.
If the left not only want a change of Government but want one that is more left in many respects, then NZF requires to be there.
If the left fail because some in the left voted for NZF opposed to Labour, the blame can be put on Labour for not being left enough to secure their vote.
“The Greens aren’t fully to the left of Labour and have a number of policies that could be deemed centrist and right wing. Compulsory KiwiSaver for every child born is one example.”
I said pretty much not absolutely. How is compulsory Kiwisaver right wing? I also suspect that if you put that one policy in the context of their overall policy you’d find it’s not right wing. That’s why I included kaupapa in my comment.
You’re arguing individual policies, I’m saying that individual policies are important but that if we vote on them alone we risk much.
KiwiSaver is largely a massive ongoing revenue gathering stream for the banking sector to play the market. Providing the banking sector with an ongoing handsome return.
“If you put that one policy in the context of their overall policy you’d find it’s not right wing.”
Can you explain how putting it into the context of their overall policy transforms it from being right wing?
I’m contesting your assertion that NZF will hold Labour in the centre rather than going left. As NZF sits left of Labour on a number issues, it’s logical to assume they will attempt to take Labour left in those areas. But as Labour will most likely be the dominant player, it’s more likely they will attempt to take NZF to the right and not the other way round as you asserted.
“Why not tell us who we should vote for and list the relevant policies to address these issues you are concerned about.”
For Paul’s points 1, 2, and 3 the Greens are way out in front. For points 4 and 5 I’d say both Labour and the Greens are doing good things. You can look the policies up online pretty easily, or ask more specific questions.
Reasons to vote this government out in 2017.
5. We need a government that ensures ALL its citizens are paid a living wage and work under equitable conditions.
To do this it must act decisively to empower workers through radical reform of industrial relations, undoing the ravages of neoliberal laws passed since the 1980s.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/321829/ambulance-staff-to-have-wages-cut-over-strikes
Rich white men – http://i.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/88220543/james-bond-of-philanthropy-billionaire-chuck-feeney-gives-away-the-last-of-his-fortune
An anecdote does not a trend make.
Which political party is pledging to transform transparency in New Zealand, by implementing and enforcing the Public Records Act 2005, thoroughly and properly across local and central government, and the judiciary?
As an Independent candidate in the Mt Albert by-election, this is a pivotal ‘plank’ in my campaign.
Why?
Because the implementation and enforcement of the Public Records Act 2005, would, in my opinion, transform the lack of transparency across NZ local and central government and the judiciary.
How can you have transparency or accountability without full and accurate public records available for public scrutiny?
Penny Bright
Proven ‘anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner’.
Hi penny. I admire your ability to keep getting completely rejected in every election you go into – yet you keep going.
Perhaps you should look at different platforms to get your message across – because this plan isn’t working.
@ james …..Penny knows she isn’t going to win this by-election, but its a good platform to highlight an important issue.
What I was pointing out is that it isnt. Have a message, sure, and while I think she is crazy, and I dont disagree with her on anything – its hard to ignore that she is passionate about it.
What Im saying – pick a different platform perhaps – because the running for everything is not getting her message across.
What makes you think she is not getting her message across?
That recent roading scam is a good example of how crazy /scam is….. Rather than Penny.
The Public Records Act does not make records ‘available for public scrutiny’.
So Bill doesn’t want to go to Waitangi this year, he will meet with Iwi before the day, but has decided to spend the day in Auckland instead.
Outgoing PM Bill English won’t attend Waitangi Day commemorations
IMHO this is a dumb move by him, he’s making lots of dumb moves already.
IMHO this is a dumb move by him, he’s making lots of dumb moves already.
It’s a cowardly move by him. It certainly wouldn’t have been his own idea to boycott Waitangi. English, to his credit, actually made the effort to learn some Te Reo to conversational level when he was leading the National Party fifteen years ago; this decision smacks of the influence of the sort of people who supported Don Brash.
Cinny – you are telling lies.
Its not that he didnt want to go to Waitangi – it was because he wasnt allowed to speak that he decided not to take up the invitation.
Pretty simply really.
What you are doing is third rate spinning.
Hiyas James xxx It’s not telling a lie, I simply left that point out 🙂
Anyways, he maybe unable to speak, but this demonstrates to me that he is also unable to listen or show real support to his coalition partners Foxy and Flavell.
As someone just tweeted, the point of going to the Marae at Waitangi (once a year) isn’t to listen to Māori -it’s not for the PM to tell them more of what the government did/does/plans. Plenty of other places where the PM speaks.
“Its not that he didnt want to go to Waitangi – it was because he wasnt allowed to speak that he decided not to take up the invitation.”
In other words he doesn’t want to go to Waitangi this year (because he can’t dictate the conditions).
No – he wanted to go – but the conditions applied were not acceptable.
rightly or wrongly it was probably politically his best option….he was on a hiding to nothing.
Ok, so I throw a party, and there’s no drugs allowed, and you decide to not come unless I allow you to take drugs, and now you’re saying that you want to come to a drug-free party but the conditions aren’t right because it should be a drug-taking party? Whereas I’d say you won’t want to come to a drug-free party.
As an aside, comparing attending the speeches at Waitangi with attending a drug-free party seems apt – in both cases I’d rather visit the dentist.
You must have lovely teeth or a lovely dentist …
lmao…that would have to be about the falsest dichotomy of all time
what’s the false dichotomy?
One direction
So I throw a party and the highlight will be a big lecture about how awful some of my guests are, and I’m dreadfully offended when some of my guests say no thanks.
that’s not what happened though. One of the guests think he has a right to go to the party and speak, but the person organising things has said no. He can come but not speak on the main stage. He then refuses to come. Nothing to do with the lecture, you just made that shit up.
Well there you go then. I’m sure the person organising things will have a lovely party.
if he wanted to go he would have gone. Simple as that. nah, that is just a weasels excuse to being unpolite fuck.
Excuses go to the weasels.
Do you really think it’s English’s idea to boycott Waitangi? It seems much more like the decision of some “adviser”.
he is not boycotting Watiangi. He just does not care and they gave him a reason to conveniently pull a sad – they don’t let me speak!!!! and thus i don’t go.
so in my eyes he is throwing a the adult equivalent of a toddlers tantrum for smokes and mirrors sake. Lookit i’m da good guys and they don’t let me SPEAK!
As PM he should have been allowed to speak. Denial of that right is a clear slap in the face. Under those circumstances I would also refuse to attend, on principle, if I was PM. Seems to me the organizers should pull their bloody heads in.
And I’m not even a National Party supporter.
english was 100% allowed to speak – but not at a time of his choosing
My understanding was that no politicians were allowed to speak on the Marae. Is that not the tradition? I thought they had to do their speaking external to the ceremony part which was the story during Keys refusal to attend/non invitation to attend.
Peter Sarstedt dies…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TGRKYVbpRU
Every word you say is a vanity….
childhood memories and memories of living in the south of france. It is almost a national hymn in Juan les Pins.
Lovely. That song used to be the basis of a running gag between me and a friend – one of those songs that certain people view with scorn, but can sing from start to finish when they are drunk and it’s very late at night. 🙂
Those memories stretched around the world and were loved by many of us no matter where we lived. Lovely song. Thanks Sabine.
Thanks, Sabine one of the great songs I think loved by all and certainly brings back memories.
Interview with the chief economist of the Bank of England, where he admits that their forecasting (mainstream economic forecasting) was completely wrong about brexit (the forecast was for it to cause a major slow down in the UK, the opposite happened).
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/05/chief-economist-of-bank-of-england-admits-errors
Apparently the problem with the forecasts is that they were expecting people to behave ‘rationally’, but people are for some reason not behaving ‘rationally’ right now. A careful look at the meaning of ‘rationally’ here shows that it means that people making up the economy predict the future in a similar way to how they might play roulette (e.g they know the probability of future events with a greater degree of certainty than someone gambling on a sporting event!). Seems like a reasonable thing to expect then?
It hasn’t happened yet.
The fact that brexit takes time to implement was taken into account by the forecasts. The forecasts are suppost to tell us how investment, commerce and the public evaluates the political decision to leave the european union. The expected reaction was quite negative (for growth) but in fact was quite positive.
On the other hand Mr Haladine still believes the forecasts will do ok in the long run. And I think thats a certainty because the long run is not in 5 or 10 years, its once the economy reaches equilibrium. In other words he can believe whatever he wants about an economic state which never happens to a real economy.
Nice comparison of Bolivia and Venezuela here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11778233
I’d add that Venezuela is not as bad as how people like to paint it. And in one case at least, the toilet paper debacle. It was the actions of supermarkets chains inside the country to deliberately not buy toilet paper, that created the shortage – then they blamed the government for a lack of toilet paper.
Ironic that one of the so called libertarians came on here ranting and raving how bad it was they had no toilet paper, and it was the governments fault.
I suppose with Venezuela being a target of every hard right loon, the other South American Nations can just get on with the job of improving people lives.
Bolivia is great and so is their president – I put up an interview with him some time ago with Abby Martin, very insightful.
You really are the definition of a useful idiot. Francisco Toro is an utterly discredited right wing shill, and he writes his vicious propaganda for a paper which acts pretty much as a North American version of Pravda. In 2003, Toro was forced to resign from the New York Times, when his biased and unfair Venezuela coverage proved too outrageous even for that government megaphone….
http://www.narconews.com/Issue30/article584.html
MEMO Swordfish:
I read your heartfelt plea yesterday to all on the liberal and progressive side of politics to put aside our differences, with an election coming up later this year. But I ask you: are we expected to remain silent when people like this fellow post up such inaccurate and incendiary material?
About interfering in another county’s domestic democratic processes…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/08/israeli-diplomat-shai-masot-plotted-against-mps-set-up-political-groups-labour
Is the UK threatening sanctions or whatever against Israel? No. Of course not. And yet the level of meddling claimed to be at least under consideration is a million blue miles beyond any influence Russia is claimed to have had on the US processes (in the released Intelligence report) via bog standard media presentations by rt or who-ever, that the NSA and others are pushing and/or using as a pretext to ‘ratchet it up’ with Russia.
And?
The relationship between Israel and the UK is not the same as the relationship between the USA and the RF. Nations have a range of measures they take when things like this come to light.
The UK government says “We promote Britain’s security, prosperity and well-being, and regional peace, through partnership with Israel”. Would you describe US/RF relations as a “partnership”?
If the UK were to impose sanctions (or any other long-term measures) on Israel, I’d expect them to do so after any official inquiries had concluded.
Thankyou for that take OAB.
So meddling in another’s internal affairs isn’t really such a big deal after all unless there is a deep seated institutional antipathy being harboured for the offending party? At which point, a possibly dangerous and certainly irrational response or set of responses being called for by those institutional actors is well within the realms of acceptability?
If that’s the case, then it’s fine, because liberal social democracies have checks and balances in place. Except that if you go google any mainstream outlet on the allegations the US is making towards Russia, you’ll see nothing but lock-step compliance with the idea that something quite unprecedented happened and that the right response is ‘to hate on’ Russia and (this is beginning to emerge) denounce any and all who aren’t gleefully jumping aboard the bandwagon – anyone who has the temerity to stand up and say “Hey. Just a second”. And that’s not fine.
That’s ‘The Red Scare’. That’s McCarthyism.
Fair point.
Lindsey Graham taking about democracy and freedom. The circle of neocon idiocy is complete.
Notice how the article said MOSCOW whereas Priebus actually said “ENTITIES IN RUSSIA”.
Which might be a teenage kid in his grandma’s basement in Siberia.
It might be. It might have been the fairies at the bottom of my garden, too, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.
I notice some much-clutched straws and a floating corpse, puffed up like a balloon.
John ISIS McCain and Lindsay Graham
Recently returned from Georgia on ‘unofficial business’
Are they the ‘traitor squad’?
We need a government that takes the RMA seriously-often ignored in The Standard.
The RMA has been gutted with the incremental changes National, with the support of their lackies the Maori Party, have pushed through.
It is now a developer’s charter and bugger the landscape.
I am not keen on all the hype from the Nats and 6pm evening news for diverless cars.
Matt L on the Transport Blog has done an interesting post on the pros and cons of autonomous cars. This bit had me laughing out loud.
My bold.
Excellent. That made me laugh too, thanks.
I think I’ve just become a convert to the idea of everyone having a driverless car. 🙂
Oh gosh, the endless pranks. Nose to tails and cars slewed in all directions.
LOL.
Well, after reading the TB post and comments, it oks to me like the best use of autonomous vehicles would be in the public transport system – within closed systems where humans can’t interfere. Apparently the already work well in Vancouver’s Metro – (presumably underground).
Plus, I think there would still need to be security guards in a mass transit system – so jobs still needed within the system.
Whereas, driverless cars seem to be too fraught with problems in urban areas, especially within a CBD.
Greenwald: U.S. Intel Chiefs Alleging Russian Threat Have History of Deceiving the Public.
Syria: Eva Bartlett interviewed by Ajamu Baraka
Puncturing the establishment media’s bubble on Syria
Independent journalism’s aim strikes true.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X-h6TWz5TpI/WHHlA1sfSGI/AAAAAAABxWc/oljrxh7iRW838T9hOB7bRW4yuAo5mCxUgCLcB/s1600/15895175_1524824797532189_5673002338465437539_n-1.jpg
You really want to go there again? Continually posting propaganda for a despotic hereditary dictatorship is offensive – stop doing it, for fuck’s sake.
Ahhhh Psycho Milt, still wanting to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East.
BTW how’s that been working out for the west over the last 50 years?
Why not admit that it’s time the Anglo-US empire stopped with reruns of the Sykes-Picot bullshit and looked after the health of their own democracies for a change?
As usual, you’re addressing some comment you’d prefer someone had made, rather than the actual comment. Paul spamming Open Mike with Assad regime propaganda is the subject at hand, not “the Anglo-US empire.” He may have forgotten agreeing a couple of weeks back to stop doing it, but I haven’t.
It’s not propaganda if it’s the truth, particularly if it is truth which competes against the chosen narrative that the Anglo-US imperial propaganda prefers.
got a link PM?
The comment sequence starting with Garibaldi’s one here: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26122016/#comment-1279640
ta.
Paul spamming Open Mike with Assad regime propaganda…
????
Paul is one of the more civilised and thoughtful contributors to this mostly excellent site. I’m sure I am not the only person to notice that over the last few months he has been vilified and ridiculed by a small group of ideological fanatics whose brutal ad hominem attacks, distortions and outright lies, such as the one in italics above, are similar to the sort of thing that Cameron Slater engages in on his disreputable blog.
MEMO weka:
Why is Psycho Milt permitted to post up bald-faced and incendiary lies like this repeatedly? He seems to be immune to any standards of behaviour or truthfulness.
Morrissey, I quietly suggest that it’s not a good idea to criticise the way moderation is applied on this site.
Actually, I note that at 17.1.1.1.1.2, weka has asked him to provide a link to back up his statements.
I discussed the likes of Psycho Milt with the moderators a few weeks ago; they are aware of the problem, although understandably reluctant to stop them. Sunlight is of course the best disinfectant against these fanatics—and the best way to expose them to the sunlight is by calling them out whenever they try to do it—as I did just an hour or so ago, after the ever credulous “Ad” posted a vile piece of propaganda….
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09012017/#comment-1284679
I have no problem whatsoever with people asking questions about moderation. There are a few lines not to cross over. One is attacking authors. Another, a particular bugbear of mine, is people making out that there is a problem with pseudonyms, “Morrissey”.
As for PM, he’s expressing an opinion. By all means call him on that but it’s hardly a moderating offence. Likewise, you expressed an opinion as to the value of Paul’s comments. Personally I find your assertions much more problematic than PMs, because you cast general aspersions rather than naming specific people and comments. Either way, there’s no rule against thinking someone else is a dick and expressing that.
“I discussed the likes of Psycho Milt with the moderators a few weeks ago; they are aware of the problem, although understandably reluctant to stop them.”
I’d like you to link to that conversation please. Because you’ve just implied that more than one moderator thinks there is a problem with PM’s commenting, and as another moderator, I’d like to see the context.
as an aside, there was a fleeting discussion in the back end last week about whether to do something about the amount of FB-like posts in OM.
Are you aware that the “ever-credulous” Ad you just delivered one of your stern, pompous rebukes to is one of the moderators you apparently discussed “the likes of me” with a few days ago?
EDIT:
weka: sorry, posted the above without seeing your comment.
‘Bust of the year’: Texas cops mistake kitty litter for meth, hold suspect for 3 days
It’s not what one would really call news except for this bit:
There’s only two possibilities:
1. The test simply isn’t accurate enough to be useful or
2. It wasn’t tested and was just sent back as ‘positive’ for political purposes
We, of course, have experience in NZ with methamphetamine tests not being fit for purpose.
Could be any number of things: the cops using the test were contaminated from previous busts, the kitty litter had absorbed traces of meth, something innocent but relatively rare in the kitty litter made the test indicate meth, and so on.
Field tests are usually indicative, whereas the lab tests are the precise identifiers. Like how lots of people blow into bags or machines and return a positive alcohol result, but the blood/ breath test at the station/bus is the evidentiary test.
One false positive does not a test negate. If it were a common occurrence, however, there’d be an issue.
Why on earth they thought the kitty litter contained meth was itself kinda weird.
I mean, when the cops come in to do a bust do they gather up any kitty litter as evidence, is this common in the USA?
Maybe the kitty was a dealer? All i can say is lucky that pussy doesn’t live in a HNZ house, they would have be out of their ear after the first positive and never allowed back.
well, it was a funny package in a sock in a car. “Kitty litter” wouldn’t be my first thought…
Ohhhh lolololz, i hadn’t read the article and just thought, dang this is strange as. Thanks McFlock 🙂
Drivers in the US are advised to carry kitty litter or sand in wintry conditions to sprinkle in front of their wheels to give them traction should their vehicles slip off the road. And kitty-litter (the silica kind) filled socks can prevent windows fogging overnight. Like those little silica packages that keep boxes of electronics dry.
Thanks for clearing that up, I was wondering what the hell this was all about.
Yeah it was the latter that seemed to be the idea.
Bit like baking soda in the fridge.
It still deserves investigating just why the field test returned a positive. Best case is it’s something funny in the litter (doubtful but possible). Middle case is the cops need to brush up on their contamination protocols.
Worst case is that they know this and were just using the tests as a “contempt of cop” punishment, or justification for harrassment. As the article said, it gave them probable cause to lock him up for three days. How many other people have been locked up or had parole revoked based on poor testing procedures?
Handy little tool if you want to shit on someone but they haven’t done anything illegal (like a story about NZ cops raiding a trade unionist at home in the 1930s – bust open the door and immediately asked him how much money he had in his pocket. Of course he had nothing, because he was at home, so they detained him under the vagrancy laws).
awesomesauce, thankies Ovid, it’s always good to learn something new.
Now here is a bit of research I’m happy will go ahead. Shame about the subject matter, but this should have happened years ago.
http://www.waateanews.com/waateanews/x_story_id/MTU0NDY=/National/Iwi-key-in-demanding-whale-autopsies
21 November 2016 : women are going to be denied reproductive autonomy – ✓.
.
Trump, being wealthy and male, gets a pass for his lengthy history of sleeping with any woman who will have him — and bragging about grabbing the pussies of those who won’t. But for those of us who aren’t privileged enough to be wealthy men, Republicans are going to do everything in their power to inflict punishment in the form of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted childbearing.
Trump’s willingness to fully embrace the Junior Anti-Sex League was demonstrated on Thursday, when his transition team announced the hire of Katy Talento as domestic policy counsel for the White House, focusing on health care. Not only is Talento against abortion — which is par for the course in Republican circles — she’s also an anti-birth control fanatic.
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/07/a-new-war-on-birth-control-trumps-victory-has-empowered-the-sex-scolds/
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/tillis-staffer-birth-control-abortion
A red meat appointment for the base of evangelicals who swung in hard behind his candidacy – at the last minute.
Trump has said quite clearly that the status of abortion has been comprehensively considered in the Supreme Court and under his administration it will be states’ rights as to how they want to treat it.
There seems to be quite a few “red meat” appointments to trump’s incoming regime: various Goldman Sachs executives, breitbarters, an EPA director who doesn’t believe AG exists, a Commerce Secretary who kept an unsafe mine open (killing 12 workers), a Secretary of Education who wants to defund public schools…
Can you point to any vegetable appointments? Or even a fish course?
Well, the soup appointment of the day is mock author.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/1999/08/nixons_monica_stonewalls_about_plagiarism.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/07/trump_national_security_aide_monica_crowley_plagiarized_large_portions_of.html
Out. Standing.
I especially liked the fact that the first plagiarism was in defense of Nixon’s white house behaviour.
Another fuck you with the appointment of Senator John Hoeven, a supporter of Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines with a serious financial interest in seeing the projects go forward, as chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
.
https://twitter.com/Jezebel/status/818199463089020928
U.S. Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) recently came out in support of the Dakota Access pipeline, the hotly contested Energy Transfer Partners-owned pipeline envisioned to move oil obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale basin. As the pipeline transports oil across North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, it will cross farms, natural areas, and perhaps most notably, ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which is one of several tribes disagreeing with Sen. Hoeven’s assessment that this pipeline is “infrastructure we need.”
What Sen. Hoeven — an outspoken supporter of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline — did not mention, however, is his personal investment in 68 different oil-producing wells in North Dakota under the auspices of the company Mainstream Investors, LLC according to his most recent congressional personal financial disclosure form.
Seventeen of those wells are owned by Continental Resources, the company whose CEO Harold Hamm also serves as a campaign energy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Those wells have a value of between $11,000–$171,000, and 14 of them, named Wahpeton, are located within 18 miles of the Dakota Access Watford City terminal site.
In a twist of irony, Wahpeton is part of the namesake of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate Tribe, whose reservation sits in southeast North Dakota and northeast South Dakota. The tribe passed a resolution in 2014 in opposition to the building of the Dakota Access pipeline.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/01/john-hoeven-dakota-access-pipeline-investments
The reason why so many New Zealanders are ignorant of so many issues.
64 % of social media news consumers only get news on one site…
http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/pj_2016-05-26_social-media-and-news_0-04/
Ron Paul: Barack Obama only US President to be at war every single day of his 8 years in office
Dropped at least 26,000 bombs during his time as President. I hope he likes the cash from the Nobel Peace Prize.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-08/ron-paul-sums-nobel-peace-prize-winning-president-obama-one-short-sentence
President Obama donated the $1.4 million he was awarded to the following charities:
Fisher House ($250,000)
Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund ($200,000)
College Summit ($125,000)
Posse Foundation ($125,000)
United Negro College Fund ($125,000)
Hispanic Scholarship Fund ($125,000)
Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation ($125,000)
American Indian College Fund ($125,000)
Africare ($100,000)
Central Asia Institute ($100,000)
Descriptions of what these charities do are in the link I provided.
Thanks Ovid. I had hoped he donated something to the Red Cross in Yemen. To compensate for the Saudi war that he is supporting there.
This from the guy who raised the debt ceiling by 10 trillion. That puts his economic management in perspective
Pump the markets up and up and up in order to enrich the US top 5%.
It’s a perfectly strange form of hording is all. There’s no design just a mental disorder
Forget the donations for a prize he should never have received: how about simply ordering his country to stop supporting terrorists in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Syria? And how about simply apologizing and immediately ceasing his interference in Brazil, Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, and Haiti?
Instead of donating those paltry amounts to charity, Obama needs to apologize for insulting and pathetic behaviour like THIS….
http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/03/21/ap_504312058477-2799a3776896905aacb78a9a97d95b74137ed0c1-s900-c85.jpg
and he needs to apologize to the people of South Africa and, indeed, the world, for this appallingly insincere method acting…..
Oh my GOD! The grotesqueries just keep coming….
Armenian Christmas in Aleppo ( eastern observance Jan 6)
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/817408711199227907
Missing from msm.
Economic discussion on Radionz calls for summit. http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201829525 about 28 mins
Comment from thinking economist from BERL :
BERL chief economist Ganesh Nana backed the idea of a summit, but said he hoped more could be achieved if it happened.
Dr Nana said the debate needed to include child poverty and inequality, with Brexit showing the growing frustration of people left behind by economies increasingly geared to precarious work.
“The goal is to make sure that what we leave for the next generation is a lot better than what I inherited and at the moment what I’m leaving for the next generation isn’t in my opinion any better than what I inherited from my parents’ generation.
“My parents’ generation, nobody ever talked about child poverty in New Zealand. I have on a regular basis Year 12 geography students asking me for help with their child poverty in New Zealand research essays,” Dr Nana said.
Compare to dazzling commercial entrepreneur on his view of what the economy is delivering:
Xero founder and managing director Rod Drury also lamented the lack of bold ideas from politicians to prepare the economy for the growing challenges of globalisation, automation and inequality.
He said another summit, like the 2009 jobs summit under former Prime Minister John Key, was needed.
“It was one of the things that showed there is a Team New Zealand. We had the unions, we had Laila [Harre], and all those sorts of people. It was a really positive discussion,” Mr Drury said.
“The main thing that came out of it was the cycleways, but they’ve been amazing.
“If you look now, people are travelling there and doing all these sort of things. It’s actually become part of all regional towns now, they have to have that investment,” Mr Drury said….
another walk down Drury Lame:
Auckland: ‘Let’s add a million more people’
The desirability of a larger Auckland was also contentious.
“Let’s make a decision. Let’s add a million more people,” Mr Drury said. “So we can do another harbour crossing, so we can do a train out to the airport.”
Cycleways, just what we need. They are used by people who can afford bicycles and helmets. Or haven’t had them pinched. And are they on the route for going to work? If there is any? They are a nice middle class thing that makes people feel green and healthy. The ones sleeping in cars or on sofas or on a round-about shared between rellies have other priorities.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/322055/calls-for-leaders%27-summit-to-tackle-inequality