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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Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians)In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...
Maybe you’ve seen the graph that says those countries where everyone wears a mask are the ones that have managed to keep Covid-19 under control? The first thing to say about that claim is that those countries also did lots of other things, too – they acted fast, with intense ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggestsResearch into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...
The Treaty on Open Skies is one of the most effective mechanisms for preventing war curently in force. By letting countries make surveillance flights over each others' territory, it eliminates fears that they are secretly preparing for war. So naturally, the US is planning to withdraw from it: The Trump ...
. . April 5: Day eleven of living in lock-down… My one day of rest for the week, and an opportunity to mow my lawns – which I’d been delaying for about three weeks. (On the plus side, the damp micro-climate in my back yard yielded three lovely fresh mushrooms ...
As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...
The vast majority of tributes to the Listener hearken back to its glory days, with little reflection on the magazine as it was at its end.I wrote for it, for half the Listener’s life; I have known personally all the editors except the first (mythical) three. From 1978 to 2014 ...
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ...
. . April 4: Day 10 of living in lock-down… I wake up to a fine Saturday morning which normally would be like an early Christmas. But it’s Day 10 of Level 4 Lock Down. What will my fellow New Zealanders be doing on a day like this – staying ...
Some time during the night we went over the 850,000 views mark. We might have had our millionth view by the end of this year – certainly by early next year. Most of the people involved in Redline spent years and years producing various small left-wing papers and selling them ...
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...
One of the key voices in this extraordinary time in which we live is that of University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Philip Matthews did an an excellent job this weekend of capturing the way he became the man for this moment in a profile for The Press.But one ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...
Redline received this article from the KOE a Marxist party in Greece Our friends in the KOE describe here the mounting crisis in Greece and tensions on the Turkish border. As desperate people flee from their homelands which have been ruined after decades of imperialist wars and interventions the people ...
As the first week of Level Four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was (and was not) allowed under its “rules”. Partly these were driven by some apparently contradictory messagesfrom different authority figures and explanations carried in the media. Partly they reflected a somewhat sketchy legal basis ...
. . April 3: Day 9 of living in lock-down… Another late-start to my work day. Everything is temporarily upended as clients are shuffled around so we can minimise our “bubble” by reducing the number of people we help. One of my colleagues has been removed from his clients; his ...
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 2: Day eight of living in lock-down… Today, my work day starts late. Our rosters and clients have been dramatically changed, lessening (theoretically) the number of people in our work “bubble”. If just one of us catches covid19 the impact could be considerable as Grey Base Hospital ...
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin Don’t we all know that feeling now.
Prospect Magazine alerted me to this particularly apt quote. It is a much more evocative quote than Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly” which is also doing ...
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...
Brian Williamson1, Prof Nick Wilson2 (1Economic consultant, UK; 2University of Otago Wellington)In this blog, we outline how a win-win social contract could be forged to address the major dimensions of response to the COVID-19 pandemic when using a mitigation strategy: the particular need to protect older people from high ...
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...
No Free Society Without A Free And Functioning News Media: If we are to surrender our civil rights to the broader cause of defeating Covid-19, then foreign corporations must, likewise, surrender their right to inflict immense economic and cultural harm on New Zealanders simply because it improves their bottom line.I’M ...
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...
The swan politicians may be gliding on the water, occasionally snapping at one another. Meanwhile, as the Covid19 crisis illustrates, the officials are desperately paddling below providing the real locomotion. One of the most fatuous recent grandstanding comments (of about a week ago), adding to the public’s anxieties, was ...
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...
Today has felt surreal. I was all set to touch base online with my science communication students when a colleague shared the news that Bauer Media would be shutting down its publications immediately. The first link I saw implied it was Woman’s Weekly affected, and even that shocked me. But ...
Bogeymen, Real And Imagined: Is the number of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals in any given society truly as vanishingly small as we like to tell ourselves? Isn’t it more likely that the mass-shooters and serial-killers filling the headlines represent only the tip of a much, much larger iceberg of frightfulness? ...
Outgoing Police Commissioner Mike Bush appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee today, who asked him for the rules police are using to enforce the lockdown. He refused:Police Commissioner Mike Bush has admitted the advice given to Kiwis about what they're able to do during the lockdown hasn't been clear enough. ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of my cat, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a pretty flower. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 1: Day seven of living in lock-down… This morning I had a brief chat with one of my neighbours, “D” (social distance between us, a good three or four metres). I learned he had resigned from his previous job and had been hired by another company – ...
Funnily enough, my thought as I start this post is whether it will be well written enough. Or should that be well enough written? Because so much of what I know about good writing came from my two stints at The Listener, which this morning was shut down due to ...
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs 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 ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will enter into transit arrangements with a range of countries to make it easier for each other’s citizens to get home. “There are millions of people around the world stranded ...
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Communities stepping up to help New Zealanders stay at home to break the transmission of COVID-19 and save lives have received Government support, said Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “Delivering groceries for the elderly who can’t shop online, providing data packs for low income families to keep them connected, and being ...
Across New Zealand 120 sites are taking samples to be tested for COVID-19. 68 community based assessment centres (CBACs) have been established to take samples from people with COVID-19 symptoms. Alongside this, 52 other centres including designated general practices, swabbing centres, and mobile clinics are now testing people for ...
The Ministry of Education is working with partners to develop a package of options so that students can learn at home when Term 2 begins on 15 April, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. Supports are also being prepared for households with children under five, to help parents and whānau ...
Māori Television to begin educational te reo programmes Ki te Ao Mārama – a new online learning space Thousands of hard copy learning packs ready for distribution Helpdesk and advice service for kōhanga, kura and wharekura Television, the internet and hard copy learning packs are some of the ways whānau ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced an initial package of support to help the people and the Government of Vanuatu respond to the impact of Tropical Cyclone Harold. “Our Pacific neighbours have been hit by a Category 5 Cyclone at the same time as dealing with the economic impacts ...
Tourism New Zealand to lead work reimagining the way tourism operates in post-COVID-19 world. Ministers to review International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy investment plan. The Government, industry and business are working together to develop a plan for how tourism will operate in a post-COVID-19 world, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis ...
More New Zealanders are taking up the chance to work in horticulture as the sector keeps New Zealanders fed and in jobs during the COVID-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown. “Our horticulture sector has long been one of New Zealand’s export star performers, contributing around $6 billion a year to our ...
The Provincial Development Unit is working through applications and projects to see where Provincial Growth Fund money can be repurposed for initiatives deemed more critical to fighting the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “We need to be throwing everything we have at ...
The Government’s wage subsidy to protect jobs and keep workers and businesses connected during the lockdown has now supported over a million New Zealanders, with $6.6 billion already paid out. “We’re supporting businesses to pay wages, and stay connected with their workers so that we are all in a better ...
The Government is stepping up efforts to help protect New Zealand’s Pacific communities in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet has agreed that $17 million will be allocated to support a COVID-19 Pacific Response Package, which will: Support Pacific health and disability services facing increased demand; Ramp up public health messaging ...
“Yesterday evening the Health Minister advised me of his trip to a beach during the lockdown and offered his resignation,” Jacinda Ardern said. “Under normal conditions I would sack the Minister of Health. What he did was wrong, and there are no excuses. “But right now, my priority is our ...
Last night as part of my preparation for the Epidemic Response Committee, I provided the Prime Minister with a complete picture of my activity outside my home during Alert Level 4. That included the fact that on the first weekend of the Alert Level 4 lockdown I drove my family ...
A range of support is being rolled out across New Zealand to help people look after their mental health during COVID-19 Health Minister David Clark said this morning. “COVID-19 has brought a lot of uncertainty into our lives and many of us will be feeling some level of distress or ...
The New Zealand Government has made arrangements to charter a flight for New Zealanders stranded in Peru to depart the country, following agreement with the Chilean government to allow the necessary transit through Chile, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. “Like many travellers around the world at the moment, ...
Hospital preparations for COVID-19 are well advanced says Health Minister David Clark. “Hospitals across New Zealand are repurposing buildings and training staff to get ready for COVID-19 patients. This gives me confidence that we are well prepared for any potential increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospital level care,” said David ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
By RNZ News Social media misinformation about Covid-19 is putting Pacific communities in New Zealand at particular risk, government advisers say. The government announced a $17 million package toward building an awareness campaign in Pacific languages, as well as support for health providers. Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa identified ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin University A distinctive feature of the prosecution of Cardinal George Pell is that the former choirboy who accused him of sexual abuse (known in the High Court as Complainant “A”) was regarded as a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Palmer, Associate professor, Deakin University The law on what we can and can’t do during the coronavirus outbreak is changing on an almost hourly basis. Some of what is written now might be overtaken by the shifts in the pandemic powers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Mudgway, Senior Lecturer in Law, Auckland University of Technology As millions of people are moving work and social interactions online to protect themselves from COVID-19, existing online safety measures may not be enough to deal with a surge in harassment and ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor says the primary sector will play a critical role in NZ’s economic recovery once the country emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown. It is the first time (at least within Point of Order’s close surveillance of the issue) that a coalition minister has acknowledged how the pandemic ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Doughney, Emeritus professor, Victoria University The loss of international students due to COVID-19 restrictions, and predicted second semester declines, will see universities lose between A$3 and 4.5 billion, according to Universities Australia. The higher education sector was dealt another blow this ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Oliver, Research Leader in Respiratory cellular and molecular biology at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney Harry Potter author JK Rowling says a breathing technique has helped her coronavirus-like respiratory symptoms, a ...
8 April 2020 This media release summarises changes to the operation of the courts entering week of COVID-19 alert level 4. It also looks ahead to how the courts will operate in the short and medium term under alert restrictions. Courts to function ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Glasziou, Professor of Medicine, Bond University Should members of the public be wearing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s a controversial question, with different countries and authorities giving different advice. We have reviewed the results of more than a dozen ...
The Government is moving to safeguard businesses from insolvency with 'safe harbour' legislation for directors’ liabilities and a business debt hibernation regime. Practically, the business debt hibernation regime will see company directors seeking ...
This Passover, we won’t be attending synagogue, we won’t be participating in large raucous dinners and sharing our food with our extended family and friends, we won’t be welcoming strangers into our homes, as Jewish people are instructed to do, writes Juliet Moses.Tonight, on what is hopefully the halfway point ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Elphinstone, Lecturer in psychology., Swinburne University of Technology The same week social distancing measures were announced in Australia (March 16 – March 22), sales of game consoles leaped 285.6%. Prior to this, sales were declining month on month. We’ve also seen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Harris, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, UNSW As part of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, all elective surgeries across Australia have been temporarily cancelled. Elective surgery is non-urgent surgery people choose (elect) to have: things like cataract surgery, joint replacement, ...
Infratil and Wellington Council are preparing to lend Wellington Airport funds to help it cope with a traffic collapse because of Covid-19 restrictions, DIleepa Fonseka reports from Infratil's update to investors Wellington City Council and listed investment firm Infratil are preparing a loan to support Wellington Airport, which has seen ...
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersThese posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early ...
After two weeks of lockdown, police are no longer taking "I didn't know the rules" as a valid excuse, Marc Daalder reports Two weeks into the nationwide lockdown, the police are starting to take non-compliance seriously. The number of prosecutions nearly tripled in 24 hours and 76 new breaches of ...
As the Ministry of Social Development struggles to cope with unprecedented inquiries due to Covid-19, Child Poverty Action Group is calling for the Government to fix our broken welfare system and redesign it so all New Zealanders, but particularly ...
Fijian authorities are scrambling to ensure Cyclone Harold doesn’t make the country’s Covid-19 crisis worse, Teuila Fuatai reports. As Cyclone Harold hits Fiji, authorities have issued physical distancing and sanitation guidelines for evacuation centres. Lashing rain and strong winds caused widespread flooding, power outages and damage to homes and buildings ...
The Government has announced a $88 million package to help students adjust to the new normal of learning from home Thousands of modems and internet-ready devices are being sent to households around the country, in a bid to bridge the digital divide before children resume their studies at home next ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Jenkins, Professor, Respiratory Medicine, UNSW Sydney and Clinical Professor at the University of Sydney, George Institute for Global Health The new respiratory coronavirus COVID-19 is particularly worrying for the 2.7 million Australians who already suffer from asthma. That’s roughly one in ...
By Maggie Boyle of FBC News Fiji disaster authorities have put the whole of Viti Levu island on restricted movement due to TC Harold. Director for National Disaster Management Vasiti Soko confirmed the step had been taken as a precautionary measure. Soko said everyone except emergency services were to ...
By Wansolwarastaff Fiji now has 15 coronavirus cases after a single new case has been confirmed by Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. The new case was one of 25 samples that were tested at the molecular lab and is the husband of an existing patient from Lautoka – the Zumba ...
Māori will likely make up the worst unemployment figures in the forthcoming economic recession. Things can’t go back to the way they were, writes Joshua Hitchcock.Our world has changed. While it is too early to know with any certainty what the full impact of this crisis will be on Māori, ...
‘New Zealand leads world in public perception of Covid-19 response,’ says pollster Colmar Brunton.Public support for the official New Zealand response to the Covid-19 outbreak remains high, and well ahead of the world’s richest coutries, new polling suggests.The numbers show New Zealanders’ backing for measures “far outstrips the response in ...
People waiting a week or longer for the results of their Covid-19 tests say the delays are making them anxious, even as the Government says they're nothing to worry about, Marc Daalder reports Anand Rama says the worst part wasn't the waiting, it was that he had no idea how ...
In any crisis, large or small, people usually rally round those in control so long as they convey a sense of knowing what they are doing. If those in charge lose that sense, start to waver, or are otherwise deflected, then their authority quickly starts to erode, warns Peter Dunne ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa O’Donnell, Senior Research Fellow, University of Western Australia Tackling a health crisis such as COVID-19, with society in lockdown can’t help but place families under strain. It’s been reported family violence notifications to police nearly tripled in some areas of China’s ...
A new study released today by Colmar Brunton shows the public’s response to Government measures to tackle COVID-19 far outstrips the response in any of the G7 nations. The Colmar Brunton COVID Times is a study of over 600 New Zealanders surveyed from ...
Launching a new series, 60 Seconds with Siouxsie, the inimitable Dr Wiles has a few sharp words for anyone thinking they might catch up with neighbours for a drink or a chat, even at a couple of metres apart.In our first video, made possible by the support of Spinoff members, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bekessy, Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning, Leader, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science), RMIT University Intriguing things sometimes happen in places deserted by people. Plants creep back, animals return, and slowly, birdsong fills the air. The coronavirus pandemic means ...
What’s an Ōamaru sweet maker doing giving away a product remarkably similar to the late, lamented Snifter? Amanda Thompson searches for the truth behind a minty mystery.I’m not in this for laughs, people. I’m not playing. At the time of writing, things are bad, they don’t seem to be getting ...
The Tūpuna Maunga Authority is calling for a total ban on the private sale of fireworks following the latest fire at Maungarei / Mt Wellington on Tuesday 7 April. Fire and Emergency crew in attendance advised Authority management they received reports of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geetanjali Saluja, Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney Governments everywhere face the challenge of getting people to stay home so they can limit the spread of coronavirus. In order to make their messages more effective, governments must ensure these appeals resonate with the ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government has no plans to end New Zealand’s four-week lockdown ahead of schedule, despite acknowledging there are signs the country is “starting to turn a corner” in its fight against coronavirus. Ardern’s comments came as Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield reported there had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Blakely, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Melbourne Australia is on track to flatten the curve of coronavirus cases, which will allow our health system to cope with increasing demand for intensive care unit (ICU) beds, recently released modelling confirms. The modelling, ...
Today, dozens of peace groups, academics and human rights campaigners are calling on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to withdraw from RIMPAC, the world’s largest, US-led military exercise due to begin in June. The text of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meredith Rossner, Professor of Criminology, Australian National University In the past, the courts were ideal breeding grounds for spreading disease. In what became known as the “Black Assize”, a deadly fever that swept through prisons and courts in England in 1586, 11 ...
Returning nutrients to the soil was once part of every culture, and now, more than ever, it’s time we restore its valuable role in everyday life.Like keep cups, organic cotton tote bags and eco-friendly cleaning products, composting can at times seem like a new trend latched on to by sustainability-obsessed ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...
The Prime Minister’s chief science adviser Juliet Gerrard says the next few days will be key to determining when the country can come out of lockdown at the end of four weeks. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Trauer, Senior Research Fellow, Monash University Australia is effectively in lockdown. Public gatherings of more than two people are banned and people are only permitted to leave home for a limited set of reasons. The recent tough measures appear to be ...
She’s not a teacher or a fluent speaker – she just wants to practise with you. Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Today we’re asking and answering: how many?E hia te roa o te rāhui e toe ana? How long have ...
Jacinda Ardern has pushed back on calls to lift New Zealand out of lockdown early - but businesses say we need a roadmap for how and when we come out the other side Business leaders have urged the Government to provide greater clarity about how New Zealand will move out ...
It looks like troughers should go back to the drawing board before submitting – or re-submitting – their claim to a serving from the Provincial Growth Fund. Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, has announced that the Provincial Development Unit is working through applications and projects ” … to see ...
E tū members at Fletcher Building Ltd are opening up about how they expect their pay cut to affect them and their families. The company has announced that most workers are in line for a wage cut of up to 70%, while the top executives on millions of ...
A simple, long overdue change in New Zealand’s policy for blood donations would benefit everyone, writes Dr. Oliver Armstrong-Scott. The New Zealand Blood Service recently pleaded for Kiwis to continue donating blood during the Covid-19 lockdown to ensure supplies do not run out. As a medical doctor, I have seen ...
Tonight New Zealand marks the halfway point of alert level four. Assuming, that is, it ends on schedule. What will determine the decision to lift the strictest restrictions, and what comes next? Kate Newton of RNZ asks the experts.Covid-19 researchers in New Zealand are optimistic that the level four restrictions ...
If crisis point was met, there is little doubt that the Bay of Plenty regions District Health Boards and hospitals could not cope with a severe outbreak of COVID-19. Medical staff would be stretched to their limits, resulting in deaths, and iwi and hapu in ...
The creators of a commercial property clause that may exempt tenants from paying all or some of their rent say it is working as intended. Clause 27 of the Auckland District Law Society (ADLS) Deed of Lease includes a "no access in emergency clause", which the Property Councilwarned could lead ...
As New Zealand enters day 14 of a scheduled four-week lockdown, director general of health Ashley Bloomfield says New Zealand can be ‘increasingly confident’ . ...
The On the Rag team meet one more time to talk about how the Covid-19 crisis affects women and what you can do to cope. It’s our last podcast for a little while so crack open a bottle of something fizzy and join us as we undergo what is basically a ...
Former Chief Justice Sir Arnold Amet … emergency powers up to controller alone. Video: EMTV NewsBy Martha Louis in Madang Papua New Guinea’s former Chief Justice Sir Arnold Amet says the state of emergency (SoE) in the country means that no other authority has any ability or powers ...
By Florencio Miranda Ximenes and Antónia Gusmão in Dili Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak has explained the decision to dismiss the vice-health minister, saying he lost trust in her to do the job. The President dismissed Élia António de Araújo dos Reis Amaral from her post on Friday, following ...
Farrowing crates, which confine mother pigs kept on factory farms, violate the Animal Welfare Act 1999, and for the first time in New Zealand history the Act will be tested in court. SAFE and the New Zealand Animal Law Association (NZALA) filed court proceedings ...
‘Yes, it’s endearing that the PM said that the Easter Bunny is an essential service but I wondered how many kids had a hope in hell of seeing three good meals a day let alone a chocolate egg.’Read more Lockdown Letters here.Bob Dylan’s latest, Murder Most Foul, is an interesting ...
Covid 19 coronavirus: Expert professor says no blanket quarantine at border risks a longer lockdown; and Covid-19: 387 Air NZ pilots look set to lose jobs. ...
Amid COVID-19, New Zealanders disregard privacy concerns for convenience – 1.2m affected by cybercrime, 600k by identity theft Over a third of New Zealanders estimated to have experienced cyber crime in the past 12 months Highlights: More than half ...
The National Party leader intends to continue commuting between Tauranga and Wellington so he can do his job effectively in an unprecedented situation. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentPublic health strategy, exiting lockdown Thomas Manch (Stuff): A path out of lockdown is being charted, but experts say ...
US death toll catching Italy's fast; Johnson on oxygen in ICU, but not intubated; US threatens India, Canada over mask and drugs; Germany accuses America of 'piracy' as China, Russia send supplies to New YorkUS cases spiral: The United States leads the world in total cases, but not yet ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meead Saberi, Senior lecturer, UNSW Traffic jams may have disappeared from our roads as people stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we can be confident they will be back. Scientists have studied traffic and congestion for decades. We know a lot ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, University of Melbourne Almost no one thinks Indonesia is handling the COVID-19 pandemic well. Until early March, the government claimed it had no ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rod Lamberts, Deputy Director, Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University Good news: COVID-19 is not the only thing going on right now! Bad news: while we’ve all been deep in the corona-hole, the climate crisis has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Waters-Lynch, Lecturer Entrepreneurship and Innovation, RMIT University If you’re working from home for the first time, you might be asking yourself why you didn’t get to do this years ago. The benefits of remote work have been discussed for nearly half ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roslyn Petelin, Course coordinator, The University of Queensland When a literary luminary such as Thomas Kenneally declares so early in 2020 that he is certain a “more original” novel “will not be published this year”, the reviewer faces a challenge. The book ...
Open Mike 09/01/2017 
We are seeing what has been termed “a greater challenge than the crash of 2008” by a growing number of economists and more rational, sane commentators, because whilst that was a shocking exposure of the levels to which hubris had sunk, right down to the blank cheque given those who ...2 hours ago
I am a Kiwi living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Jersey City is the second-largest city in the state and is located directly across the Hudson River from downtown Manhattan. Locals call it New York’s sixth borough. More than 350,000 New Jersey citizens, including myself, commute to New York daily ...5 hours ago
It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon, we need to get out of the house, and so our bubble sets off on a bike ride around our local neighbourhood, Cambridge Park. The bikes come out of the garage, and, being really certain we have a front door key, close the garage door ...6 hours ago
. . April 7: Day 13 of living in lock-down… and unlucky for those who are superstitious. A day when there was a ray of sunshine from an otherwise bleak day of worrying signs. Today, as RNZ reported; Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield reported 54 new confirmed and probable cases ...9 hours ago
So far, universal basic income policies, which see people given a regular income without any conditions, have been trailed only on a small scale. But now, Spain is introducing one nationwide as a response to the pandemic: Spain is to roll out a universal basic income (UBI) “as soon as ...10 hours ago
Paul Connet, head of the anti-fluoride propaganda group, Fluoride Action Network, claims that the IQ of children bottle-fed in fluoridated areas drops by 9 points. But he misrepresented the research. There is no observable effect. For earlier articles in this series see: Part 1: Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only ...13 hours ago
The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she ...14 hours ago
Imagination By-Pass: Had the Communications Minister, Kris Faafoi (above) taken a firm stand with Bauer, reminding them of their obligations to both their staff and the wider New Zealand public, then a much more favourable outcome may well have ensued. He should have made it clear to the Bauer board ...1 day ago
We all know that Simon Bridges has, at the best of times, an intermittent relationship with the truth. However you would think that during a pandemic and economic crisis the current opposition leader would pull his head in and start to do the right thing.Obviously leading by example should be ...1 day ago
Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action ... 2 days ago
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...2 days ago
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggests Research into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...2 days ago
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...3 days ago
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ... 3 days ago
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...3 days ago
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...4 days ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...5 days ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...6 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs 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 ... 1 week ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...1 week ago
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will enter into transit arrangements with a range of countries to make it easier for each other’s citizens to get home. “There are millions of people around the world stranded ...1 day ago
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...3 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...2 weeks ago
Communities stepping up to help New Zealanders stay at home to break the transmission of COVID-19 and save lives have received Government support, said Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “Delivering groceries for the elderly who can’t shop online, providing data packs for low income families to keep them connected, and being ...6 hours ago
By RNZ News Social media misinformation about Covid-19 is putting Pacific communities in New Zealand at particular risk, government advisers say. The government announced a $17 million package toward building an awareness campaign in Pacific languages, as well as support for health providers. Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa identified ...2 hours ago
Business leaders are scrutinising the government's decision to only let essential businesses and those with essential goods operate. ...2 hours ago
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor says the primary sector will play a critical role in NZ’s economic recovery once the country emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown. It is the first time (at least within Point of Order’s close surveillance of the issue) that a coalition minister has acknowledged how the pandemic ...3 hours ago
8 April 2020 This media release summarises changes to the operation of the courts entering week of COVID-19 alert level 4. It also looks ahead to how the courts will operate in the short and medium term under alert restrictions. Courts to function ...4 hours ago
This Passover, we won’t be attending synagogue, we won’t be participating in large raucous dinners and sharing our food with our extended family and friends, we won’t be welcoming strangers into our homes, as Jewish people are instructed to do, writes Juliet Moses.Tonight, on what is hopefully the halfway point ...5 hours ago
Infratil and Wellington Council are preparing to lend Wellington Airport funds to help it cope with a traffic collapse because of Covid-19 restrictions, DIleepa Fonseka reports from Infratil's update to investors Wellington City Council and listed investment firm Infratil are preparing a loan to support Wellington Airport, which has seen ...5 hours ago
After two weeks of lockdown, police are no longer taking "I didn't know the rules" as a valid excuse, Marc Daalder reports Two weeks into the nationwide lockdown, the police are starting to take non-compliance seriously. The number of prosecutions nearly tripled in 24 hours and 76 new breaches of ...6 hours ago
Fijian authorities are scrambling to ensure Cyclone Harold doesn’t make the country’s Covid-19 crisis worse, Teuila Fuatai reports. As Cyclone Harold hits Fiji, authorities have issued physical distancing and sanitation guidelines for evacuation centres. Lashing rain and strong winds caused widespread flooding, power outages and damage to homes and buildings ...6 hours ago
The Government has announced a $88 million package to help students adjust to the new normal of learning from home Thousands of modems and internet-ready devices are being sent to households around the country, in a bid to bridge the digital divide before children resume their studies at home next ...7 hours ago
People waiting a week or longer for the results of their Covid-19 tests say the delays are making them anxious, even as the Government says they're nothing to worry about, Marc Daalder reports Anand Rama says the worst part wasn't the waiting, it was that he had no idea how ...7 hours ago
In any crisis, large or small, people usually rally round those in control so long as they convey a sense of knowing what they are doing. If those in charge lose that sense, start to waver, or are otherwise deflected, then their authority quickly starts to erode, warns Peter Dunne ...7 hours ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the Government has no plans to end New Zealand’s four-week lockdown ahead of schedule, despite acknowledging there are signs the country is “starting to turn a corner” in its fight against coronavirus. Ardern’s comments came as Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield reported there had been ...8 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...9 hours ago
The Prime Minister’s chief science adviser Juliet Gerrard says the next few days will be key to determining when the country can come out of lockdown at the end of four weeks. ...9 hours ago
Jacinda Ardern has pushed back on calls to lift New Zealand out of lockdown early - but businesses say we need a roadmap for how and when we come out the other side Business leaders have urged the Government to provide greater clarity about how New Zealand will move out ...9 hours ago
In which we gaily rip-off the fun quarantine-house thing on the internet and adapt it to NZ authors ...10 hours ago
It looks like troughers should go back to the drawing board before submitting – or re-submitting – their claim to a serving from the Provincial Growth Fund. Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, has announced that the Provincial Development Unit is working through applications and projects ” … to see ...10 hours ago
The creators of a commercial property clause that may exempt tenants from paying all or some of their rent say it is working as intended. Clause 27 of the Auckland District Law Society (ADLS) Deed of Lease includes a "no access in emergency clause", which the Property Councilwarned could lead ...11 hours ago
As New Zealand enters day 14 of a scheduled four-week lockdown, director general of health Ashley Bloomfield says New Zealand can be ‘increasingly confident’ . ...11 hours ago
Covid 19 coronavirus: Expert professor says no blanket quarantine at border risks a longer lockdown; and Covid-19: 387 Air NZ pilots look set to lose jobs. ...12 hours ago
US death toll catching Italy's fast; Johnson on oxygen in ICU, but not intubated; US threatens India, Canada over mask and drugs; Germany accuses America of 'piracy' as China, Russia send supplies to New York US cases spiral: The United States leads the world in total cases, but not yet ...14 hours ago
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: /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