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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Today the shabby little train of denial ran out of smoke. Payment, apology in Dirty Politics case — Newsroom Crushing defeat for Dirty Politics PR man with apology to defamed academics — The Spinoff Here’s the apology wording, below. It’s ruined only by the clearly bullshit implication that there was ...
It’s always tempting to reach for the easiest “answers” to make sense of an uncertain world. It’s a tendency that has been there for a long time, but in the time of COVID, a lot of it seems to be on steroids.Desperate people do desperate things. In ...
Why New Research? Skeptical Science exists for the purpose of improving public capacity for critical thinking about anthropogenic climate change. Effective critical analysis requires a basis of information, and for our purpose the wellsprings of fundamental understanding are found in peer-reviewed academic literature, our best grasp of how Earth's climate operates and ...
This column will be calling it out. There’s so much folx need to educate ourselves about and DO BETTER. From cis privilege to white privilege, whether it’s how to decolonise, how to handle the pronoun illiterates, this column will be an inclusive space, for ALL GENDERS and ALL IDENTITIES. It ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh, Colombia, 26 February 2021 The recent decision taken in California to place men and women in the same wings of prisons as a response to the violence meted out to trans prisoners is a nascent issue in Colombia, but sooner or later it will get here. ...
About 10 years ago there was a proliferation of home wares promoting ‘Keep calm and carry on’. This adage came from World War 2 posters produced by the British Government in an effort to boost the morale of its citizens. Typically printed as white lettering on a red background you ...
Having spent most of the pandemic alternately calling for mass-death by relaxing lockdowns "for the economy", and for those who breach lockdowns to face harsher and harsher punishments, the National Party has finally made a useful contribution by calling for people told to self-isolate to be paid directly: The ...
The Ombudsman is supposed to be our core watchdog on administrative decision-making. Their central job is to review decisions by public agencies to ensure they are fair and reasonable and followed a proper process. So its more than a little embarrassing that they've been called to account by the courts ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington For many, people life moved online in 2020. From preschool to dissertation defenses, first dates to weddings, video calls brought us together. To entertain ourselves, we streamed concerts and movies, played video games, and scrolled social media. Demand for internet ...
The Government has made a litany of mistakes over Covid, and we have been more than willing to forgive Labour these missteps and give them some leeway. Branko Marcetic says that when members of the public also make mistakes, we should be focusing on designing a wider system that insulates ...
Naïve optimism has been blinding everyone from Ashley Bloomfield to Case M. Josh Van Veen argues we need to be more aware of our biases in dealing with Covid – but especially the authorities. In the United States, naive optimism was at the heart of the Trump Administration’s failed ...
Cecile Meier walks us through some of the costs of a border system that has neither been able to safely scale up to meet need, nor able to find any reasonable way of prioritising entry into those scarce MIQ spaces. When Zane Gillbee hugged his family goodbye in South Africa ...
Technology lists, what’s this thing called “Deep Tech”, and thinking beyond the tech. Top “x” lists of technology developments, breakthroughs and trends aren’t hard to find. But how useful are they? MIT’s “Breakthrough Technologies” This time every year MIT’s Technology Review magazine produces a “10 breakthrough technologies” list. This ...
Having watched and read about the Conference of the Paranoid, Angry and just plain Crazy (CPAC), including the Orange Merkin’s return to the political centre stage, I am more convinced then ever that if US conservatism, and indeed the US itself, is to find its way back to some semblance ...
Back in 2019, following media revelations that bullying was widespread within the police, the Independent Police Conduct Authority announced that it would be investigating the issue. Today, they reported back, and found the police to be a completely toxic organisation: An independent report into police culture has described a ...
Dr Ben Gray*New Zealand has begun to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination programme, starting with those working at the border, including in the Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities. There have been calls for prioritising other groups such as those in South Auckland [1] and meat industry workers ...
The Climate Change Commission’s recommendations span the breadth of the economy. They are required to come up with sector-by-sector climate budgets consistent with getting New Zealand with net zero emissions under the Zero Carbon Act. The sector-by-sector budgets rest on underlying models. The models build predictions about what will happen ...
Revolution From Below: The original “Long March” was, of course, undertaken by Mao Zedong and what was left of his communist military forces. They did not, however, head off for the nearest school or university, government office or medical clinic. Their goal was not to infiltrate the institutions of capitalism, but ...
There are some genre authors who like to demonstrate their edgy, iconoclastic credentials by sticking the boot into J.R.R. Tolkien. Michael Moorcock springs to mind, with the much-beaten dead horse that is the Epic Pooh essay. Each to their own, I suppose, though seeing as Epic Pooh really boils ...
John SchwartzElizabeth Kolbert lives her stories. In the course of reporting her new book, “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” she got hit by a leaping carp near Ottawa, Illinois (“It felt like someone had slammed me in the shin with a Wiffle-ball bat”) and visited ...
New Zealand has an excellent Emissions Trading Scheme covering everything except agriculture – a non-trivial exclusion, but we can come back to that later. The ETS has a cap. Net emissions from the covered sector cannot exceed the cap. So any other regulations that affect sectors covered by the cap ...
Michael SchulsonDays before the inauguration of President Joe Biden, at a time when some Americans were animated by the false conviction that former President Donald J. Trump had actually won the November election, a man in Colorado began texting warnings to his family. The coming days, he wrote, would ...
Last year, Beef and Lamb New Zealand produced a bought-and-paid-for report claiming that their industry was already carbon neutral, so didn't need to do anything to reduce emissions. The report was full of obviously dodgy accounting - basicly, it didn't bother to follow international carbon accounting rules, because they would ...
Last year, the government chickened out on clean rivers, setting "water standards" that failed to properly control poisonous nitrates. So who was to blame? MPI: The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) opposed introducing a tough bottom line for nitrogen levels in rivers over concerns the economic impact would outweigh ...
Robert Greenberg, University of AucklandThe world was excited by the news last week that NASA’s Perseverance rover had successfully landed in a Martian crater. The rover will now set about collecting samples from what scientists say was an ancient lake fed by a river. The name of this exotic ...
Faith In The Essentials: Fenced-in, almost literally, by motorways. Located, seemingly permanently, at the bottom of politicians’ priority-lists. Heaped with praise for their cultural vibrancy, but not rewarded for it by the presence of white pupils in their public schools, South Aucklanders (like people of colour everywhere) provide their paler ...
Image credit:POLITICAL BLOG I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL ...
Since the pandemic began, the UK government has restricted protests in an effort to contain the plague. But of course, they're plotting to make these restrictions permanent: Concern over the government’s limitation of the right to protest during lockdown continues to mount after it emerged that the home secretary, ...
Completed reads for February: The Dream of Scipio, by CiceroThe Dragon Masters, by Jack Vance The Dream of Scipio is Pearman’s translation. A very quiet month in the reading department… but a truly excellent one in the writing department. Better yet, this was not merely short stories, but solid ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (Colombia, 18 February 2020) Two soldiers, Jhony Andrés Castillo Ospino and Jesús Alberto Muñoz Segovia, fell into the hands of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN; National Liberation Army). Their capture produced the usual reactions that they had been kidnapped when in fact they were prisoners ...
As much of the world is still implementing lockdowns, including New Zealand, it is a good time to see how Sweden has fared. After being demonised for a year for having relatively moderate restrictions the Swedish death toll is rather much in line with other years. Sweden followed the standard ...
Under The Influence Of The "Governance" Kool-Aid: The furore surrounding Mayor Andy Foster's "review" of the Wellington City Council's "governance" is but the latest example of the quite conscious delegitimization, and sinister re-framing, of spirited political opposition and debate as irresponsible, immature and “dysfunctional”. It shows how very far from ...
Hello there everybody. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come on his blog today and speak my mind about stuff. The government has a lot to answer for. I was sitting there last week as Auckland came out of it’s latest lockdown and I knew the government was making ...
There are times when tikanga needs to be broken for tikanga to survive.I recently gave a presentation on Māori economic history based on my Not in Narrow Seas. Its most important message was that Māori proved to be a very adaptable people continually evolving as new opportunities arose. The European ...
Some of you may remember our blog post "A conundrum: our continued presence on Facebook" in which we detailed our misgivings about and decision to stick with Facebook for the time being. So these latest developments - reposted from the Cranky Uncle homepage - might come as a bit of surprise! ...
Image credit:Quick Data Lessons: Data Dredging Oh dear – another scientific paper claiming evidence of toxic effects from fluoridation. But a critical look at the paper shows evidence of p-hacking, data dredging and motivated reasoning to derive their conclusions. And it was published in a journal shown to be ...
We've had a housing crisis for the past decade, and successive governments have done nothing to solve it. Why not? Bernard Hickey gets it right when he says its all about protecting the rich: The Government is reluctant to push down house prices fearing they'll loses the support of ...
There’s more of the Obama legacy here and Deporter in Chief: Obama chucks out 2,000,000 and Can Trump really deport more people than Obama? and Obama, gay rights and the killing drones ...
My Department Right Or Wrong: Far from “politicians involving themselves in some Corrections matters” being a bad thing, their involvement – along with that of the Ombudsman – constitutes a necessary check upon the unreasonable and unlawful exercise of authority over prison inmates by prison staff. A Corrections Minister who ...
New Zealand is supposed to have a progressive tax system, which taxes people according to their ability to pay. But it turns out that the rich are cheating: The wealthiest New Zealanders pay just 12 per cent of their total income in tax on average, according to research from ...
Ground truths on warming When we think about rapid climate change of the kind we've accidentally unleashed and the warming of Earth systems inherent in the process, we tend to focus on phenomena in order of their immediate tangibility, their drama. Sea ice loss in the Arctic, atmospheric and ocean ...
by Daphna Whitmore The Department of Corrections has called in the police over a pamphlet that supports protests at Waikeria Prison, saying the material might incite another riot. The group People Against Prisons Aotearoa denies it advocates for riots and has said it “encourages persistent, peaceful protest action such as striking from ...
One theme in the literature dedicated to democratic theory is the notion of a “tyranny of the minority.” This is where the desire to protect the interests of and give voice to electoral minorities leads to a tail wagging the dog syndrome whereby minorities wind up having disproportionate influence in ...
I've just lodged my fourth complaint to the Ombudsman for deemed refusal of an OIA request by police this year. That brings their total to four for four - every request I have sent them has not been answered within the legal timeframe, even when they extend it to give ...
Will the health reforms proposed for the Labour Government make the system better or worse? Health commentator Ian Powell (formerly the Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists) gives his analysis of what change is most necessary, and what should be avoided. The review of the Health ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections An off-course polar vortex meandered toward the Mexican border, bringing with it frigid Arctic air rarely seen as far south as Texas. Frozen equipment rendered power generation systems in the state inoperable, forcing grid operators to begin rolling blackouts to customers then left to fend ...
Just as National once produced a “rock star economy” that Grant Robertson rejected as being only for the rich, the Labour Government has produced an economic “bounce back” that leaves out the poor. Branko Marcetic argues for a rise in benefit levels to give the poor a real bounce back. ...
Virginia has voted to abolish the death penalty: State lawmakers gave final approval on Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, a dramatic turnaround for a state that has executed more people than any other. The legislation repealing the death penalty now heads to the ...
Yesterday a New Zealand Judge issued a formal finding that the Department of Corrections had treated prisoners in a cruel, degrading and inhumane manner, illegally detaining them, using excessive force, denying them basic necessities unless they performed degrading rituals of submission first. Some of the conduct appears to be criminal: ...
The Herald reports that there is a "storm brewing for the Climate Change Commission". The "problem"? Polluters are unhappy with its economic projections saying that action will not be as costly as they have previously claimed: Last week a coalition of over a dozen New Zealand business and industry ...
The Green Party are calling on the Government to assess how the COVID-19 leave support scheme can be better improved, distributed and enforced so that workers can properly take leave when self-isolating. ...
We know that when our rural communities do well, all of New Zealand benefits. Labour is committed to supporting our regions so that, together, we can achieve even more. Here are just some of the ways we’re backing rural communities. ...
Government data today shows that the wealthiest New Zealanders aren’t paying their fair share of tax, whilst everyone else chips in, Green Party spokesperson on Finance Julie Anne Genter said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the change in the Reserve Bank’s remit to consider the impacts on housing when making financial decisions, but housing affordability shouldn’t be left to the Reserve Bank, Green Party Co-leader and Housing spokesperson Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the passing of the Local Electorate Act Māori Wards Amendment Bill which ensures Māori have a say on local issues across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
New UMR research reveals that 69 percent of New Zealanders agree that the government should increase the amount if income support paid to those on low incomes or not in paid work. ...
The Green Party are celebrating the Labour Government bringing forward the timeline to ban conversion therapy, and will push to ensure any draft bill properly protects all of our Rainbow communities. ...
The Green Party is joining the call for ‘brave policy action’ to address rapidly increasing inequality in New Zealand, which is likely to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Health Minister Andrew Little welcomes the Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission’s assessment that transformation of New Zealand’s approach to mental health and addiction is underway. “This is an important step in the Government’s work to provide better and equitable mental health and wellbeing outcomes for all people in New ...
The Government’s Consumer Travel Reimbursement Scheme has helped return over $352 million of refunds and credits to New Zealanders who had overseas travel cancelled due to COVID-19, Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark says. “Working with the travel sector, we are helping New Zealanders retrieve the money owed to them by ...
An additional 88,000 students in 322 schools and kura across the country have started the school year with a regular lunch on the menu, thanks to the Government’s Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches programme. They join 42,000 students already receiving weekday lunches under the scheme, which launched last ...
New Zealand’s economic recovery has again been reflected in the Government’s books, which are in better shape than expected. The Crown accounts for the seven months to the end of January 2021 were better than forecast in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU). The operating balance before gains ...
More than half of New Zealand’s estimated 12,000 border workforce have now received their first vaccinations, as a third batch of vaccines arrive in the country, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. As of midnight Tuesday, a total of 9,431 people had received their first doses. More than 70 percent ...
The Government is significantly increasing its investment in restoring Central Otago’s waterways while at the same time delivering jobs to the region hard-hit by the economic impact of Covid-19, says Land Information Minister, Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor says two new community projects under the Jobs for Nature funding programme will ...
The Government has confirmed details of COVID-19 support for business and workers following the increased alert levels due to a resurgence of the virus over the weekend. Following two new community cases of COVID-19, Auckland moved to Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand moved to Alert Level ...
The Government remains committed to hosting the Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2022 should a decision be made by World Rugby this weekend to postpone this year’s tournament. World Rugby is recommending the event be postponed until next year due to COVID-19, with a final decision to ...
Community and social service support providers have again swung into action to help people and families affected by the current COVID-19 alert levels. “The Government recognises that in many instances social service, community, iwi and Whānau Ora organisations are best placed to provide vital support to the communities impacted by ...
The Government is following through on an election promise to conduct an independent review into PHARMAC, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Andrew Little announced today. The Review will focus on two areas: How well PHARMAC performs against its current objectives and whether and how its performance against these ...
Some of the country’s most forward-thinking early-career conservationists are among recipients of a new scholarship aimed at supporting a new generation of biodiversity champions, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has awarded one-year postgraduate research scholarships of $15,000 to ten Masters students in the natural ...
I acknowledge our whānau overseas, joining us from Te Whenua Moemoeā, and I wish to pay respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today. I am very pleased to be part of the conversation on Indigenous business, and part ...
Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced today that main benefits will increase by 3.1 percent on 1 April, in line with the rise in the average wage. The Government announced changes to the annual adjustment of main benefits in Budget 2019, indexing main benefit increases to the average ...
A Deed of Settlement has been signed between Ngāti Maru and the Crown settling the iwi’s historical Treaty of Waitangi claims, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The Ngāti Maru rohe is centred on the inland Waitara River valley, east to the Whanganui River and its ...
With a suite of Government income support packages available, Minister for Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni is encouraging people, and businesses, connected to the recent Auckland COVID-19 cases to check the Work and Income website if they’ve been impacted by the need to self-isolate. “If you are required to ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has expressed her condolences at the passing of long-serving former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare. “Our thoughts are with Lady Veronica Somare and family, Prime Minister James Marape and the people of Papua New Guinea during this time of great ...
E te tī, e te tā Tēnei te mihi maioha ki a koutou Ki te whenua e takoto nei Ki te rangi e tū iho nei Ki a tātou e tau nei Tēnā tātou. It’s great to be with you today, along with some of the ministerial housing team; Hon Peeni Henare, the ...
The Government is backing a new project to use drone technology to transform our understanding and protection of the Māui dolphin, Aotearoa’s most endangered dolphin. “The project is just one part of the Government’s plan to save the Māui dolphin. We are committed to protecting this treasure,” Oceans and Fisheries ...
Major water reform has taken a step closer with the appointment of the inaugural board of the Taumata Arowai water services regulator, Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. Former Director General of Health and respected public health specialist Dame Karen Poutasi will chair the inaugural board of Crown agency Taumata Arowai. “Dame ...
The newly completed Hibiscus Coast Bus Station will help people make better transport choices to help ease congestion and benefit the environment, Transport Minister Michael Wood and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said today. Michael Wood and Phil Goff officially opened the Hibiscus Coast Bus Station which sits just off the ...
New funding announced by Conservation Minister Kiri Allan today will provide work and help protect the unique values of Northland’s Te Ārai Nature Reserve for future generations. Te Ārai is culturally important to Te Aupōuri as the last resting place of the spirits before they depart to Te Rerenga Wairua. ...
Today the Government has taken a key step to support Pacific people to becoming Community Housing providers, says the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio. “This will be great news for Pacific communities with the decision to provide Pacific Financial Capability Grant funding and a tender process to ...
Conservation Minister Kiri Allan is encouraging New Zealanders to have their say on a proposed marine mammal sanctuary to address the rapid decline of bottlenose dolphins in Te Pēwhairangi, the Bay of Islands. The proposal, developed jointly with Ngā Hapū o te Pēwhairangi, would protect all marine mammals of the ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges. Two of the appointees will take up their roles on 1 April, replacing sitting Judges who have reached retirement age. Kirsten Lummis, lawyer of Auckland has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to ...
Government announces list of life-shortening conditions guaranteeing early KiwiSaver access The Government changed the KiwiSaver rules in 2019 so people with life-shortening congenital conditions can withdraw their savings early The four conditions guaranteed early access are – down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s disease and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder An alternative ...
The Reserve Bank is now required to consider the impact on housing when making monetary and financial policy decisions, Grant Robertson announced today. Changes have been made to the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee’s remit requiring it to take into account government policy relating to more sustainable house prices, while working ...
The Labour Government will invest $6 million for 70 additional adult cochlear implants this year to significantly reduce the historical waitlist, Health Minister Andrew Little says. “Cochlear implants are life changing for kiwis who suffer from severe hearing loss. As well as improving an individual’s hearing, they open doors to ...
The Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill passed its third reading today and will become law, Minister of Local Government Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. “This is a significant step forward for Māori representation in local government. We know how important it is to have diversity around ...
The Government has added 1,000 more transitional housing places as promised under the Aotearoa New Zealand Homelessness Action Plan (HAP), launched one year ago. Minister of Housing Megan Woods says the milestone supports the Government’s priority to ensure every New Zealander has warm, dry, secure housing. “Transitional housing provides people ...
A second batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived safely yesterday at Auckland International Airport, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. “This shipment contained about 76,000 doses, and follows our first shipment of 60,000 doses that arrived last week. We expect further shipments of vaccine over the coming weeks,” Chris Hipkins said. ...
The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni has today announced $18 million to support creative spaces. Creative spaces are places in the community where people with mental health needs, disabled people, and those looking for social connection, are welcomed and supported to practice and participate in the arts ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little today welcomed Moriori to Parliament to witness the first reading of the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill. “This bill is the culmination of years of dedication and hard work from all the parties involved. “I am delighted to reach this significant milestone today,” Andrew ...
22,400 fewer children experiencing material hardship 45,400 fewer children in low income households on after-housing costs measure After-housing costs target achieved a year ahead of schedule Government action has seen child poverty reduce against all nine official measures compared to the baseline year, Prime Minister and Minister for Child Poverty ...
It’s time to recognise the outstanding work early learning services, kōhanga reo, schools and kura do to support children and young people to succeed, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins says. The 2021 Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards are now open through until April 16. “The past year has reminded us ...
Three new Jobs for Nature projects will help nature thrive in the Bay of Plenty and keep local people in work says Conservation Minister Kiri Allan. “Up to 30 people will be employed in the projects, which are aimed at boosting local conservation efforts, enhancing some of the region’s most ...
The Government has accepted all of the Holidays Act Taskforce’s recommended changes, which will provide certainty to employers and help employees receive their leave entitlements, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Wood announced today. Michael Wood said the Government established the Holidays Act Taskforce to help address challenges with the ...
The Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and faster than expected economic recovery has been acknowledged in today’s credit rating upgrade. Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) today raised New Zealand’s local currency credit rating to AAA with a stable outlook. This follows Fitch reaffirming its AA+ rating last ...
Tena koutou e nga Maata Waka Ngai Tuahuriri, Ngai Tahu whanui, Tena koutou. Nau mai whakatau mai ki tenei ra maumahara i te Ru Whenua Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga mate ki te hunga mate Apiti hono tatai hono, Te hunga ora ki te hunga ora Tena koutou, Tena ...
The Minister of Justice has reaffirmed the Government’s urgent commitment, as stated in its 2020 Election Manifesto, to ban conversion practices in New Zealand by this time next year. “The Government has work underway to develop policy which will bring legislation to Parliament by the middle of this year and ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage and Social Development Hon Carmel Sepuloni today launched a new Creative Careers Service, which is expected to support up to 1,000 creatives, across three regions over the next two years. The new service builds on the most successful aspects of the former Pathways to ...
Asia Pacific Report Papua New Guinea’s Supreme and National Courts in Port Moresby will be partially closed for a week beginning yesterday after a judge has been tested positive for the covid-19, reports The National. Registrar Ian Augerea said in a statement the closure was to prevent any further infections ...
By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it is hard not to feel like New Zealand is having a run of bad luck, with residents waking up today to a tsunami alert amid the covid-19 restrictions. The tsunami alert was triggered after three quakes overnight – the first of ...
Asia Pacific Report The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) has called on the Australian government to stop trying to keep Papua off the agenda at the Pacific Islands Forum and “strenuously support” Pacific leaders in urging Jakarta to allow a PIF fact-finding mission to the territory. Congratulating the PIF Secretary-General ...
Did you sense the roads were busier in this Auckland lockdown than previous ones? Google mobility data indicates that you’re right.More people were going to work, and more heading out shopping, during the current lockdown in Auckland than during the August equivalent, which also took place under alert level three ...
The only statement to emerge from the Beehive in the past two days was cheery in tone but foreshadowed further increases in the funding devoted to mental health. The statement was issued by Health Minister Andrew Little, who welcomed the Initial Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission’s assessment that transformation ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is condemning Wellington City Council’s refusal to consult on the privatisation of the central library as undemocratic. “Wellingtonians threatened with a 13.5 percent rate hike deserve a full menu of cost-saving options ...
This morning the Māori Party confirmed their new National Executive including Che Wilson, Fallyn Flavell, John Tamihere and Kaiarahi Takirua: Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Wilson returns for a second term as President and the two new members ...
New Zealand is now two weeks into the largest immunisation programme ever undertaken here, with border and managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) workers first in line. “We are so proud of our people for doing the right thing by stepping up and being ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Camilo López-Aguirre, PhD Candidate, UNSW Scientists have found another piece in the puzzle of how echolocation evolved in bats, moving closer to solving a decades-long evolutionary mystery. All bats — apart from the fruit bats of the family Pteropodidae (also called flying ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jordy Meekes, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne That Australian women earn less than Australian men is well-known. The latest calculation put the gap – the extent to which the average female full-time wage is ...
All the major news events, which will hopefully not be too many. Get in touch at info@thespinoff.co.nz Help keep The Spinoff alive and kicking. Click here to learn how you can support The Spinoff from as little as $1.8.00am: The day aheadThere are a couple of things we’ll be looking out ...
In this week's Critic's Choice review, Guy Somerset watches I Care a Lot on Amazon Prime and wonders if kindness has its limits Do you think Jacinda Ardern has been watching I Care a Lot? It would explain a lot, As Newsroom political editor Jo Moir wrote earlier this week, ...
By Ramzy Baroud At a glance, it may appear that the split of Arab political parties in Israel is consistent with a typical pattern of political and ideological divisions which have afflicted the Arab body politic for many years. This time, however, the ...
Discovering that her favourite summer drink is apparently an offence against wine, Charlotte Muru-Lanning sets out to uncover whether it’s actually so awful to serve red wine on the rocks.After many summers spent pouring red wine over ice without much thought, it recently struck me that maybe this combination was, ...
"If Maggie said she was going to bake a cake, Lois always turned up with one that was bigger, more chocolatey and with fancier icing": a shaggy cake story by Shani Naylor. It was 2am. Maggie opened her eyes and lay still in bed. She could hear her husband Ken's ...
LISTEN: Extra Time examines two big issues in women's sport this week - postponing the Rugby World Cup and the Silver Ferns' battle for the crown that eludes them. Poised at one game a piece, can the Silver Ferns overcome a spirited young Australian Diamonds side and end a nine-year drought without netball's ...
The art world is being bombarded with something called ‘non-fungible tokens’. We asked artist and crypto expert Simon Denny to help us explain what they are.At first glimpse, a gif of Nyan Cat is nothing special. It’s a bit cute, a bit nostalgic. So why did one sell for US$450,000? ...
Journalists avoid his calls, editors loathe it when he highlights mistakes. But he reckons he’s not scary at all. Chris Schulz meets RNZ’s Mr Mediawatch, Colin Peacock.Over his summer holidays, Colin Peacock tried to switch off. For much of the previous 12 months, the 52-year-old host of Radio ...
While it has since been deleted and apologised for, an op-ed by former Labour MP Michael Bassett published by the Northland Age and the NZ Herald this week caused an uproar for its racist cherry-picking and false reporting of historical facts. Historian Scott Hamilton sets the record straight.Michael Bassett is ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Deaths, West Europe still not “out of the woods”. Chart by Keith Rankin. Deaths, East Europe remains a major concern. Chart by Keith Rankin. At first glance through our rear-vision mirror, western Europe had a substantial spring outbreak of Covid19, and further outbreaks in spring and ...
A starter’s list for the national Aotearoa museum of the sporting damned. Richard Irvine confronts the demons.The sunGenerally it’s hard to make an argument against the giver of all life, as it provides photosynthesis, vitamin D and enables a wide range of recreational activities. But when it runs rampant around ...
Auckland can breathe a sigh relief knowing at 6am on Sunday the region will move down to Alert Level 2 after another seven long days in lockdown. Government and health officials are now turning their minds to lessons learnt, following a week of mixed messaging, rule-breaking and blame and shame, writes political ...
Three future scenarios after today’s large offshore earthquakes.A trio of serious earthquakes saw parts of Aotearoa shaken, tsunami threats triggered, and tens of thousands of people heading inland after evacuation instructions.Of the magnitude-7-plus events, the first, shortly before 2.30am, was centered off East Cape. Measuring 7.1, it was felt across ...
Analysis - The prime minister came down hard on lockdown rule-breakers but were they clearly told what they had to do? Peter Wilson looks into the reports as another crisis lurks in the background. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Gleeson, Associate professor, La Trobe University News of the blockage of a shipment of 250,000 COVID-19 vaccines from Europe to Australia has caused concern and outrage. The immediate problem will probably be quickly solved through diplomatic channels. Even if it is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Stern, Professor of Geophysics, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The Tonga Kermadec subduction zone stretches between New Zealand and south of Samoa.USGS, CC BY-SA A sequence of three major offshore earthquakes, including a magnitude 8.1 quake near ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Director of the Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis Dr Laine Dare discuss the week in politics. This week the pair discuss some of the 148 recommendations ...
The minister responsible for the country's spy agencies says they can't constantly monitor the internet to identify terror threats and instead rely on the public to raise the alarm. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle Celebrity testimonials abound for pills, potions and creams that purport to make you look younger. This time collagen supplements are in the spotlight, after Jennifer Aniston became the face of one ...
Have the government’s Covid-related messages been getting through to Pacific and non-Pacific ethnic communities in South Auckland? Justin Latif tried to find out.John Pulu is one of the best-known television and radio personalities in New Zealand’s Pacific community. He not only fronts TVNZ’s Tagata Pasifika Saturday morning show, but also hosts ...
James Elliott tries to work out what made Mike Hosking and Brian Tamaki tick everyone off this week. The week started with Aucklanders back under Alert level 3 and Mike Hosking on Alert Level 6. “Mike’s Minute” on NewstalkZB on Monday, which as usual lasted significantly longer than a minute, ...
Fonterra has confirmed what most analysts had been predicting and lifted its 2020/21 forecast farmgate milk price range to $7.30 – $7.90 kg/MS, up from $6.90 – $7.50. This should send a further surge of confidence across NZ’s rural regions, hopefully in a wave strong enough to encourage farmers to ...
A Financial Times leader delivers advice that Finance Minister Grant Robertson should (but probably won’t) consider. Essentially, the advice is to resist the temptation to involve the central bank in the challenge of slowing the rise in house prices. Changing regulation and reforming planning law is a smarter way to ...
The NZ Superannuation Fund has divested from five Israeli banks due to their suspected involvement in illegal settlement construction. Michael Andrew reports.The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, an autonomous crown entity and manager of the multi-billion NZ Super Fund, has divested from five Israeli banks due to their funding of ...
A contestant on the new season of The Bachelor has apologised for ‘controversial’ social media posts comparing mask wearing to ‘slavery’ and for questioning the scientific consensus around Covid-19. Stewart Sowman-Lund reports.Shivani Pragji is – according to her LinkedIn profile – a solicitor working for the Ministry of Business, Innovation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, PhD, Media and Politics, Deakin University A couple of days ago, the musician Grimes sold some animations she made with her brother Mac on a website called Nifty Gateway. Some were one-offs, while others were limited editions of a few ...
Analysis: We are able to send a blaring alert to the phone of every New Zealanders to warn of Covid lockdowns, yet we still struggle to warn them of the danger of a tsunami This coming week, it will be 10 years since Japan was hit by the Tohoku earthquake, one ...
Moa brewery sold in February for $1.9m, leaving behind an unsavoury legacy. Michael Andrew speaks to the new owner about how the brewery plans to move forward, while at the same time returning to its Marlborough roots.Moa Brewing Company’s new owner Stephen Smith has criticised the company’s old marketing strategy, ...
By RNZ News An 8.0 earthquake has struck near the Kermadec Islands, hours after a 7.4 quake near the Kermadecs and a 7.1 off the North Island coast, A 7.4 quake struck near the Kermadec Islands earlier this morning. The islands are 800km to 1000km from New Zealand. National Emergency ...
National Parks are being closed off to allow fallow deer to be bombarded with 1080 poison. The proposal has drawn strong criticism from the Australian hunting public and also New Zealand’s Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust. Laurie Collins, spokesman ...
In the fallout from the Dirty Politics defamation hearing, how can the Food and Grocery Council and its chief continue to deny involvement in attacks on public health academics? Tim Murphy explains its stance. The middleman has 'fessed up. So where does that leave the two prominent players on either side ...
Mike Hosking is a king of breakfast radio, a lover of blazers, and deliverer of opinions via his long-running online video series, Mike’s Minute. José Barbosa absorbed three months’ worth of those opinions in one go, and lived to tell the tale. Just. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury, $25)This 2011 bestseller set during the Trojan War has ...
A new poem from Melbourne-based poet Grace Yee.I have heardthat the price of a pound of gold has gone grey over the last couple of monthsthat the first sovereign lord beheaded his grandsonthat chinese market gardeners in suburbia shipped out after decades of fastingand purificationthat evil-intentioned hooligans penetrated the palace ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dave Parry, Professor of Computer Science, Auckland University of Technology Although international travel restrictions for Australia have been extended to at least June, there may still be potential for a trans-Tasman bubble with New Zealand (and maybe some other countries), according to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Triccas, Professor of Medical Microbiology, University of Sydney The United States’ drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said last week COVID vaccines updated for variants won’t need to go through full randomised controlled clinical trials. The booster shots will ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Milte, Matthew Flinders Senior Research Fellow, Flinders University The final report from the aged care royal commission this week was damning. Speaking of a system in crisis, it calls for an urgent overhaul. The Morrison government has been facing difficult questions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David John Eldridge, Professor of Dryland Ecology, UNSW After 200 years of European farming practices, Australian soils are in bad shape – depleted of nutrients and organic matter, including carbon. This is bad news for both soil health and efforts to address ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zoe Vaill, PhD Candidate Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology Students are heading off to universities around Australia, whether for the first time or as returning students, with expectations of a year of learning, making friends and enjoyable socialising. For some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Thomas, Vice-Chancellor, Massey University As first-year students flooded onto campuses around the country this week, gripped with uncertainty and curiosity about their new lives, I too returned to university to learn. For the first time since what feels like forever, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW After years of repeatedly missing its inflation target through too timid monetary policy, in the past week the Reserve Bank has decided to get tough. Not only did it hold its closely watched cash rate target ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney It’s Sydney Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras festival time. LGBTQI people are enjoying what some call “gay or lesbian Christmas”. It’s not quite the same in the era of COVID, ...
A tech expert is warning the government could face multiple stumbling blocks if it makes QR code scanning mandatory - in particular when dealing with tech giants like Apple and Google. ...
*This story first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. A tsunami alert has been issued after a 7.4 earthquake near the Kermadec Islands. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says it expects strong and unusual currents and unpredictable surges at the shore. It says the threat is from ...
Live coverage of the snap lockdown and the search for a source of the latest infection. Auckland is now at alert level three, NZ at level two. Get in touch at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.50am: Two major earthquakes strike; tsunami warning in placeTwo major earthquakes have struck off the coast of New Zealand ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Cabinet to decide on lifting lockdown today, questions raised about the stability of the housing market, and people instinctively respond to tsunami threat after earthquake.A decision will be made today on whether or not Auckland will come out of level ...
The military is showing little sign of backing down, but the coup could have the unintended consequence of unifying Myanmar society in opposition, across significant ethnic divisions. A month ago, citing dubious claims of electoral fraud in the November 2020 election, Myanmar’s military deposed the country’s democratically elected National League for Democracy ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve BrauniasFICTION 1 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) "She wrote a lot of Auē in a family friend’s house at the moody mouth of the Mokihunui River, 20km ...
A Harvard professor presenting his opinions on alien life as fact when the field at large doesn't agree is misrepresenting science, argues Dr Heloise Stevance For years now Abraham (Avi) Loeb has been a rather passionate advocate for what I call 'The Alien Hypothesis' 一 the idea that extraterrestrial lifeforms are the source of ...
Anna Rawhiti-Connell doesn't want an investment or an asset, but a home. Yet because of last century’s broken promises, she feels like an idiot fish, destined to swim against a current with other idiot fish who think their life savings and lifelong debt will guarantee them a house. We went to some open homes ...
All eyes are on the Prime Minister to schedule the rollout – or flyout – to the more remote corners of NZ and the Pacific There is growing anticipation about the announcement of the Covid vaccine rollout to New Zealand's general population and the Pacific realm countries. The schedule is close ...
Were we right to leave lockdown so early after the Valentine's Day cluster was first discovered? And was our return to lockdown a result of anything more than bad luck? Marc Daalder reports Ashley Bloomfield and Jacinda Ardern fronted a press conference on February 17, three days after Auckland plunged ...
With the America's Cup first-to-seven showdown about to begin, Suzanne McFadden asks a six-time winner how much could it come down to the helmsmen? Murray Jones knows the exact essence of what makes an America’s Cup helmsman great. A phenomenal Kiwi sailor in his own right, Jones has worked alongside ...
Rio Olympian Helena Gasson may be one of the oldest Kiwi swimmers still at the top of their game, but she's found a new gear - breaking 20 NZ records in the past 18 months. Even in the year of Covid, with her plans abruptly changed and her training schedule interrupted, Helena ...
After literally thousands of requests, we’ve finally caved. We’ve decided to rank beans in an arbitrary yet unequivocally correct fashion.A-mung the current chaos of the world we live in, there’s an inherent desire to create order. Some found that order in the first lockdown by cleaning their house or exercising ...
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We thought the Covid messages were clear - but the latest Auckland lockdown has muddied the message. One political strategist says it's been like "putting tomato sauce on ice cream". New Zealand's Covid-19 communications response has been hailed the world over. Its success has catapulted us into the pages ...
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…
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….
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.
.
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