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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A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
In the spirit of Remember, remember the fifth of November, let's keep this in mind FOREVER.
Oh dear. Extraordinary interview on PM with Andrew Bridgen and @EvanHD just now. Bridgen was defending Jacob Rees Mogg’s Grenfell comments. Evan asked him if JRM had meant to say he would have left ...
Collision Course? In conditions of ideological white-out, the international bankers’ “Woop-Woop! Pull Up!” warning may have come too late to save global capitalism.WHAT DOES IT MEAN when international bankers are more willing to embrace radical solutions than our politicians and their electors? At both the International Monetary Fund and the ...
Pertussis (whooping cough) is a conundrum. It is a disease that was described hundreds of years ago and the bacteria that causes it (Bordetella pertussis) isolated in 1906. We have had vaccines for about 80 years but this disease is defiant in the face of human immunity. I wanted to ...
The Zero Carbon Bill has just passed its third reading, uanimously. In the end, National supported it - but we all know they'll turn around and gut it the moment they regain power. Meanwhile, I guess ACT's David Seymour didn't even bother to show up. I am on record as ...
Dr Lindsay Robertson, Dr Jerram Bateman, Professor Janet HoekMembers of the public health community hold divergent views on how access to vaping products or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products should be arranged. Some believe ENDS should be as widely available as smoked tobacco and argue for liberal ...
When the Police were trying to cover up for the National Party over Dirty Politics, they went all-in with their abuses of power. They illegally search Nicky Hager's house, violating his journalistic privilege and invading his privacy. They unlawfully acquired Hager's bank records. They did the same to left-wing blogger ...
Last month, in response to a wave of protests by Extinction Rebellion, the British government purported to ban their protests from the whole of London. It was a significant interference with the freedoms of expression and assembly, and another sign of the country's decline into tyranny. But now, a court ...
Last year, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security reported on significant problems with the intelligence warrant system. While they were unwilling to declare any warrant "irregular" (meaning unlawful) due to the recent law change, they were also not willing to give the system a clean bill of health. Now, they've ...
The National Party has come out in support of encouraging greater vaccination uptake. But it sure isn’t the way I’d do it. National’s suggested docking the benefits of those on benefit whose kids aren’t keeping up with their vaccinations. Some in National have suggested extending that to payments under Working ...
Feeding The Flames: It is simply not enough to demand an end to “corruption”, or “inequality”, or the overbearing influence of the authorities in Beijing. These are just “lowest common denominator” demands: the sort of slogans that pull people onto the streets. They are not a plan.WHERE’S THE PLAN? Across ...
The labour market statistics have been released, and unemployment has risen to 4.2%. There are 115,000 unemployed - 11,000 fewer than when Labour took office. In that time the minimum wage has gone up by $2 an hour, which shows that the right's fears about increases causing unemployment are simply ...
The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has called for submissions on Andrew Little's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. Normally I encourage participation in the democratic process. I am not doing so in this case. Instead, I encourage all of you to boycott this submissions process, and to post ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIf tiny concentrations of carbon dioxide can hold enough heat ...
Aviation is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and within it, one of the fastest sources is elite travel: billionaires flitting around the world in their private jets, spewing excessive pollution into the atmosphere just so they can avoid mixing with us dirty peasants. But in ...
That's what we face if we don't stop climate change, according to a warning from 11,000 scientists:The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists. “We declare clearly and unequivocally ...
by Phil Duncan Here’s just a few of the kind of threats issued day in and day out against gender-critical women – feminists, marxists, etc – overwhelmingly by MEN (albeit men identifying as women). “Kill all Terfs”. “Shoot a Terf today”. “All terfs deserve to be shot in the head”. ...
This is the third of the synopses of parts of the opening chapter of John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century (New York, Monthly Review Press, 2016). The synopsis and commentary below is written by Phil Duncan. Unlike the humble cup of coffee and t-shirt that we looked at in ...
Tom MooreTraditionally a food source and cutting tool, freshwater mussels/kākahi are now widely valued as water filters that help clean our waterbodies and maintain ecosystem health throughout Aotearoa. The improvement they provide in water quality can make it easier for other animals to live in streams and rivers, as ...
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…Installation complete: this was nothing ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is back in the House today for its second reading. While this isn't the final stage, its still effectively D-Day for the bill. Because today, at around 5pm, is when we're going to find out if it has a majority, whether National will support it or ...
Winston Peters is in court today, suing a bunch of former Minister and civil servants over their pre-election leak of his superannuation repayment. He's characterised the leak as malicious, and said that it is repugnant that his information was passed on to Ministers to use for political advantage. And he's ...
Murray CoxDo I have to finish my favourite genome? That’s an often-asked question. Geneticists generally strive to produce high-quality genomes that sequence every last gene, making full use of the state-of-the-art technologies coming on stream. Sequencing DNA means determining the order of the four chemical building blocks – called ...
Transformative Politics: The idea is to turn each recipient into an unwitting accomplice in their own transformation. From interested observer to hyped-up activist, sharing our messages promiscuously with ‘friends’. You’ll be part of an ever-expanding circulatory system, Jennifer, for the ideas that will win us the election.”JENNIFER SKITTERED her chair ...
The boycott is a fundamental tool of protest. By choosing who we buy from, we can send a message, and hopefully change corporate behaviour. Historically, boycotts have been effective, for example over apartheid in South Africa and Israel, in forcing divestment from Myanmar, and in ending bus segregation in the ...
Jan Rivers spoke at the Abortion Legislation Select Committee in favour of the bill, but in opposition to calls from other submitters to exchange the word ‘woman’ for ‘person’ throughout the bill. Jan is a supporter of the feminist group Speak Up For Women and has recently written an excellent ...
I checked my traffic stats:I was intrigued by 'monica29' - who was this very dedicated individual? I clicked on the link, to be greeted with ...Ho, hum.Spreadin' the word, spreadin' the word. Doesn't matter who hears it, as long as it gets out there. ...
There have been three polls since the election was announced, and I will shamelessly steal YouGov / UK Polling Report's Anthony Wells' summary of them:Survation – CON 34%, LAB 26%, LDEM 19%, BREX 12%, GRN 1% Ipsos MORI – CON 41%, LAB 24%, LDEM 20%, BREX 7%, GRN 3% YouGov ...
The following article is translated from Lutte Ouvrière, the weekly newspaper of the organisation usually known by the same name in France. When, for the second time this year, Chilean President Piñera announced an increase in the price of Metro tickets from 800 to 830 pesos, students in the high ...
Today, a worker contacted me asking if she could go to the police over her employer stealing thousands of dollars from her in unpaid wages. The employer also did not pay this worker’s taxes or student loan which amounts to tax fraud. As a workers rights activist, who founded the ...
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, They're Yours: Is there any person more vulnerable than a jilted lover on the rebound? Or, anything more certain than that the charmer, the predator, the glib spinner of lies and promises will seek such broken people out? Yes, of course, he will love every one of ...
Though Jonathan Romain is a fairly high profile Rabbi, writing in several papers and popping up on TV and the radio, this story doesn't seem to have made it to the Guardian yet, so I'll take the unusual step of linking the Stephen Pollard edited Jewish Chronicle:Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain ...
There's an election afoot, and that is when noted opinion formers such as myself get to make wild fools of ourselves by pretending we have the faintest idea what will happen.So, here is my absurdly optimistic prediction:Labour - 285Conservative - 262SNP - 53Lib Dems - 20PC - 5Ireland - 18 ...
Image Credit:Increase Social Media Traffic & Website Traffic 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 ...
Belinda CridgeI was reading my son a story last night. A great tale of derring-do of five mountaineers scaling the Matterhorn for the first time. One in the party had tried six times previously and failed, this was the last attempt before winter closed another season. They tried a ...
As introduced, the Zero Carbon Bill included an expansive secrecy clause, which would have covered virtually all decisions by the Climate Change Commission over our most important policy area. The Ministry for the Environment admitted this was a mistake (or as they put it, an "oversight"), and the select committee ...
Rachael Shaw, Victoria University of WellingtonWhen we think about animals storing food, the image that usually comes to mind is a squirrel busily hiding nuts for the winter. We don’t usually think of a small songbird taking down an enormous invertebrate, tearing it into pieces and hiding these titbits ...
. . NZ First’s success in putting the euthenasia bill to a public referenda may not be the victory they believe it to be. They may even have sounded the death-knell for a second Labour-NZ First-Green coalition. On 23 July this year, NZ First MP, Jenny Marcroft, submitted a Supplementary ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
We began the week by commemorating the New Zealand Wars and celebrating a major increase in the number of teachers. Then, we were busy supporting offenders into work and getting our rail back on track after years of underinvestment. And that's just the start! ...
In October I was sworn in as the Mayor of Lower Hutt.It’s the privilege of my life to serve Hutt people as their Mayor. There is something really special to be able to serve the community where I was raised, and where I live. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters met with Korea Racing Authority Chairperson Nak Soon Kim in Seoul today to discuss closer cooperation between the New Zealand and Korean horse racing industries. As part of the visit to the Seoul Racecourse, Mr Peters witnessed ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $10 million to establish Otago as the centre of New Zealand’s creative digital industry over the next ten years, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “The initiative will bring us closer to the vision of ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)’s skills and employment programme will help young Otago people into long-term forestry careers, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. Te Ara Mahi will invest $63,000 in the 2020 school year to support eight 17 and 18 ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) will support local plans to revitalise and stimulate economic development opportunities in Otago, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The four Regional Economic Development Ministers have approved an in-principle investment of $19.9 million towards the region’s ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is pleased to have received the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) report on the Coalition Government’s Mycoplasma bovis eradication efforts, which shows significant progress in the fight against the disease. New Zealand First Spokesperson for Primary Industries, Mark Patterson, says the report’s findings ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon David Parker, Minister for Trade and Export Growth The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing to support economic growth opportunities for Otago’s engineering and manufacturing sectors, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Trade and Export Minister David Parker announced today. Almost $20 million ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his South Korean counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, discussed in Seoul today opportunities to work more closely in the Pacific and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Mr Peters and Minister Kang confirmed New Zealand and the ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Minister for Māori Development The three marae in the historic Parihaka Pa complex in Taranaki have been upgraded to high speed broadband with the support of the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Connecting the ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence Minister of Defence Ron Mark will today launch the Advancing Pacific Partnerships 2019 Defence Assessment during a speech at Te Papa. The Assessment outlines how Defence will partner with our Pacific Island neighbours and invest in Pacific regional security architecture. The Plan aligns with the Coalition ...
A new Provincial Growth Fund investment could create about 80 new jobs in Gisborne over the next two years, turning a local small business into a “beacon of employment” in the process. Regional Economic Development Parliamentary Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau said the PGF’s Te Ara Mahi funding stream would provide $1.6m ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters will travel to the Republic of Korea and Japan next week. “The Republic of Korea and Japan are two of New Zealand’s closest partners in the region with whom we share common values and ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced today that New Zealand is leading a police support mission in Bougainville as the region prepares to vote in a non-binding referendum on its political future. “New Zealand has accepted an invitation ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is defending Immigration New Zealand (INZ) after it instructed officials to stop granting visas as an exception to instructions. He has also lashed out at immigrant leaders upset with the tightening of the rules, saying they had an “elevated sense of entitlement”. Members of ...
Groups involved with innovative fisheries research projects are encouraged to apply for government support in the latest funding round from the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures programme. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash says the SFF Futures funding is designed to be flexible enough to support small or large projects across a ...
The Government has fixed an issue affecting how Immigration New Zealand has processed visa applications for culturally arranged marriages, which will now see a consistent process applied which ensures people with legitimate arranged marriages can visit New Zealand while also preventing any rorting of the system. Earlier this year Immigration ...
The Royal Commission into the Attacks on Christchurch Mosques will report back on 30 April 2020 to give it more time to hear submissions and consider information, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Royal Commission was originally scheduled to report back to Government by 10 December 2019. “There has ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Washington DC today to attend a ministerial meeting focused on defeating ISIS, and to continue pursuing New Zealand’s trade opportunities. Mr Peters will participate in a meeting of Foreign and Defence Ministers from key countries contributing to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. ...
The recently crowned Bird of the Year, the hoiho/yellow eyed penguin, is getting a much needed helping hand alongside more than 168 other community conservation projects announced Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage today. 168 community conservation projects throughout New Zealand are benefiting from $8 million in government grants, including $500,000 ...
Controls on assault rifles and semi-automatic firearms are to be broadened to include some types of pistols, under changes to a bill currently making its way through Parliament. Police Minister Stuart Nash has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper to the Arms Legislation Bill, which is currently before a Select Committee ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark will travel to Singapore today to conduct a counterpart visit and to co-chair the third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting with his counterpart, Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen. “Singapore is one of our most important defence partners in the region, and our ...
Nelson’s Salisbury School is to be rebuilt, creating a modern and suitable learning environment for students at the residential special school, Education Minister Chris Hipkins and Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The school for girls aged 8-15, in Richmond, was earmarked for closure by National until the process ...
The panel undertaking a comprehensive review of the Resource Management Act has identified the main issues to be addressed and options for reform and is calling for feedback to inform its final report. In July the Government announced the comprehensive review of the resource management system, including the RMA - ...
An important safety valve has been added to New Zealand’s criminal justice system with the third reading of the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill today. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) will investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “We’ve seen how our justice system can very occasionally get things spectacularly wrong, ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters welcomes the tabling of the Racing Industry Transition Agency (RITA) 2019 Annual Report in Parliament today. He says the 2019 Annual Report marks the point when New Zealand’s racing industry’s decline was arrested and a turnaround started. RITA’s 2019 Annual Report recorded an industry net profit ...
The New Zealand Government is today sending 21 firefighters to help fight the ongoing catastrophic Australian bushfires. “The fires in Australia are in some of the toughest, most challenging conditions ever,” says Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin. “As of yesterday morning, there were 100 active bushfire-related incidents across Queensland and ...
More frontline support for schools through a new education agency, as part of a redesigned Ministry of Education More support for principals and school boards including through a new centre of leadership and local leadership advisor roles New independent disputes panels for parents and students Management of school property ...
The Government’s reform of the Tomorrow’s Schools system is a watershed moment in education and an opportunity to create meaningful change for ākonga Māori and their whānau, Associate Education Minister Kelvin Davis said today. “Last year through Kōrero Mātauranga | Education Conversation, Māori teachers, parents, ākonga, whānau, hapū and iwi ...
Infrastructure Minister is welcoming the first of many updated project pipelines from the newly established New Zealand Infrastructure Commission today. The New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga, has released an expanded pipeline of major capital projects – another crucial step towards delivering better infrastructure outcomes. “The first iteration of the ...
Tougher gun laws designed to improve public safety through firearms prohibition orders are proposed in a new document released for public input. Police Minister Stuart Nash says firearms prohibition orders (FPOs) would give new powers to Police to ensure high-risk individuals come nowhere near firearms. “We have already prohibited the ...
Andy Coupe has been confirmed as TVNZ’s new Board Chair. “Mr Coupe has strong commercial and capital markets experience and TVNZ has benefited from his technical knowledge of business and finance, as well as his extensive governance experience,” the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Kris Faafoi said. Andy ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today officially opened a separated pathway, following the completion of the Kaiwharawhara Stream bridge, which will improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians along Hutt Road. The $6.8m Hutt Road project provides a separated path for cycling and pedestrians, the replacement of informal parking ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of career diplomat Si’alei van Toor as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to Russia. “I’m pleased to appoint Ms van Toor to this position. She brings a wealth of experience to the role having previously served as Senior Trade Adviser to the ...
The Treasury’s 2019 Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) will be released on Wednesday December 11, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Coalition Government will publish the 2020 Budget Policy Statement at the same time, outlining the priorities for Budget 2020. Further details on arrangements for the release will ...
A new initiative to better support small businesses through hands-on mentoring and advice has been launched by the Minister for Small Business. The first event in the Kiwi Business Boost series of regional workshops and online tools has been launched in Wairoa by Stuart Nash. “The Business Boost initiative combines ...
The latest Quarterly Connectivity Report shows that more and more New Zealanders are moving to Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB), with Rolleston having the highest uptake at 74 per cent, as at the end of September. “This means that nearly three quarters of Rolleston’s households and businesses have moved to ultra-fast services. ...
The passing of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill will help ensure a safe planet for our kids and grandkids, the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw said today. The landmark legislation which provides a framework to support New Zealanders to prepare for, and adapt to, the effects ...
The review of Oranga Tamariki practice around the planned uplift of a Hastings baby in May shows significant failings by the Ministry and that the planned and funded changes to shift from a child crisis service to a proper care and protection service need to be accelerated, Children’s Minister Tracey ...
Education Minister Chris Hipkins has wished students the best of luck for this year’s NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams which start tomorrow. Around 140,000 students will have participated in 119 NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exams by the end of the exam period on 3 December. “I want to ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of Bede Corry as New Zealand’s next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. “The appointment of a senior diplomat to this important role underlines the significance New Zealand places on our relationship with the United Kingdom,” said Mr Peters. “The United ...
An innovative approach to boosting the number of frontline Police has seen 20 new officers graduate from one of the uncommon training wings in Auckland. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation of 20 constables today means that 1,765 new Police officers have been deployed since the coalition government took ...
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says the 1.2 million hours of community work completed by offenders in the last financial year has helped local communities right across the country. “Community work sentences are a great way for people to pay something positive back to society. There is a massive benefit to ...
"A pathway for Police in leadership with Iwi Māori, to achieve the aspirations of Māori whānau." Police launch of Te Huringa o Te Tai, Pipitea Marae, Thorndon Quay, Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou. Hello everyone, warm greetings to you all. ...
Working New Zealanders are getting more in their back pockets under the Coalition Government’s economic plan. Stats NZ data today shows average weekly ordinary time earnings are up by $83 since the Government took office. This shows that working New Zealanders are getting higher take-home pay, and that employers are ...
The Government is supporting schools to cut down their energy consumption and reduce environmental impacts, with a quarter of all schools having their lights replaced with LEDs, a sustainability contestable fund and a plan to improve the environmental sustainability of all schools in the future. Education Minister Chris Hipkins and ...
Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis heads to China on Friday to lead the New Zealand Government presence at the China-New Zealand Year of Tourism closing ceremony. The ceremony will take place at Canton Tower in Guangzhou on Sunday 10 November. “The Year of Tourism has been mutually beneficial for both New ...
Should we plan for drought or deluge and how is CO2 released from the ocean’s floor? Several climate change projects were given a boost in the latest Marsden Fund investment of $83.6 million, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods said today. “Climate change is long-term challenge that requires out-of-the-box ...
Leaders of 16 countries negotiating the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have announced the completion of negotiation on the text as well as agreement on virtually all market access issues between 15 countries. The leaders said they will work with India to resolve its outstanding concerns in a way that ...
Civil Defence Minister Hon Peeni Henare says World Tsunami Awareness Day today (5 November) is a chance for all New Zealanders to learn more about the tsunami risk in our regions and the right actions to take to stay safe. “All of New Zealand’s coastline is at risk of tsunami. ...
New Zealand’s more than 1000 paramedics are to have their role as key frontline health professionals formally recognised and regulated in the same way as doctors and nurses, Health Minister David Clark says. The Government has agreed to regulate paramedics under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003. “Paramedic leaders ...
Changes to insolvency law announced by the Government today will include requirements to honour up to 50 per cent of the value of gift cards or vouchers held by consumers, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi says. “When a business is insolvent, these consumers are often left out of ...
Six New Zealanders tonight received medals for their meritorious work in the frontline public service. The Public Service Medal, established by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, is awarded annually. “For the second year this Government has recognised public servants who have made a real difference to the lives of New ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker heads to Shanghai today for the China International Import Expo and meetings focused on reforming the WTO. Over 90 New Zealand companies will be exhibiting at the second China International Import Expo (CIIE), which runs from 5-10 November. “China is one of New Zealand’s ...
Drivers holding a current five-year learner or restricted car or motorbike licence, expiring between 1 December 2019 and 1 December 2021, will receive an automatic two-year extension, Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter announced today. Over 144,000 drivers’ time-limited licences are due to expire in the next two years; 67,000 ...
The newly launched Sustainable New Zealand Party’s first and biggest challenge is to prove that it is in fact sustainable, and not just another flash in the new party pan. ...
The fate of RNZ and TVNZ may soon be in the hands of Cabinet ministers; and the chair of the Medical Association says it will be difficult to put safeguards in place to prevent people from being subtlety coerced into euthanasia. ...
New Zealanders now have the casting vote on whether to make euthanasia legal, after Parliament voted 69 votes to 51 in favour of the End of Life Choice Bill. ...
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 content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Euthanasia Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Euthanasia bill proves there’s power in a party-of-one Sam Sachdeva ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Wasef, Postdoctoral research fellow, Griffith University These days, not many Aussies consider the ibis a particularly admirable creature. But these birds, now colloquially referred to as “bin chickens” due to their notorious scavenging antics, have a grandiose and important place in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ward, PhD candidate, University of Sydney The ABC has announced it will not provide live radio coverage of the Olympics for the first time in 67 years for budgetary reasons, and because Australians now have the “increased ability to access Olympics ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Mosley, Research Fellow, Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting one in 350 Australians. It’s caused by the loss of cells deep within the brain that produce a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Degeneration ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael James Walsh, Assistant Professor Social Science, University of Canberra The concept of “home” refers to more than bricks and mortar. Just as cities are more than buildings and infrastructure, our homes carry all manner of emotional, aesthetic and socio-cultural significance. Our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lin Crase, Professor of Economics and Head of School, University of South Australia The deal to crank up Adelaide’s desalination plant to make more water available to farmers in the drought-stricken Murray-Darling Basin makes no sense. It involves the federal government paying ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Andreallo, Lecturer in digital culture, University of Sydney When thinking of sexbots, companionship might not be the first word that comes to mind. But sexbot advertising promises more than sex toys. It is also selling emotional intimacy: robots marketed as if ...
Ahead of the 50 Shades of Green march on parliament today, Jon Pemberton – chairman of the Ag Proud NZ Trust – urges members of the rural community to avoid confrontation and focus on rebuilding the relationship with our urban friends. “Ag Proud NZ understands ...
Paula Bennett and Anne Tolley are financially off the hook after Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters accepted they did not leak his private information. ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Another unexpected OCR move, NZ First Foundation donations under scrutiny, and End of Life Choice bill passes pending referendum.Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr seems intent on giving as many surprises as possible with the OCR. After slashing it in August when it was ...
The fate of RNZ and TVNZ may soon be in the hands of Cabinet ministers, with a proposal to disestablish both broadcasters and create an entirely new public media entity. ...
Electricity retailing is about to be changed by artificial intelligence and the move away from fossil fuels. Watch a video interview with Simply Energy's Murray Dyer. ...
Tomorrow the Australian minister for agriculture is in Christchurch to lobby for a ban on words like “milk” and “meat” from the labels of meat and dairy alternatives. Shama Sukul Lee, the founder of alternative meat startup Sunfed, says the campaign is not about the consumer: it’s driven by a ...
It’s setting up a high school and John Key is an investor, but leaked documents show the $380m education startup locks parents into tough contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars.A tutoring company with former prime minister John Key on its board is charging parents as much as $60,000 to ...
"It's highly concerning that Parliament has voted for the End of Life Choice Bill to become law, pending a referendum," says Renée Joubert, Executive Officer of Euthanasia-Free NZ . ...
The End-of-Life Choice Society is pleased MPs have recognised that the majority of voters across a wide spectrum of society want a law change to allow the terminally ill to die free of intolerable pain and suffering, its president Dr Mary Panko said ...
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 Senior Lecturer, School of Medical & Molecular Biosciences, University of Technology Sydney New South Wales and Queensland are in the grip of a devastating ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toni Noble, Adjunct Professor, Institute for Positive Psychology & Education, Australian Catholic University More than 600 schools have been closed, and some damaged, in recent days as bushfires rage across Queensland and New South Wales. Some students have been urgently evacuated while ...
Early on Thursday NZ time, the Trump impeachment inquiry kicks into high gear, as the previously closed-door proceedings are replaced with televised public hearings. Here’s the lowdown.What’s about to happen?Just over seven weeks since Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grace Moore, Senior lecturer in English, the University of Otago, New Zealand, University of Otago Bushfire writing has long been a part of Australian literature. Tales of heroic rescues and bush Christmases describe a time when the fire season was confined only ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya M Howard, Senior research fellow, University of New England It’s five years since government worker Glen Turner was murdered by a farmer in a confrontation over land clearing laws. Media reporting after his death frequently propagated the image of the “poor ...
The option of requesting assisted dying for people with terminal illness as provisioned by the proposed End of Life Choice Bill has all but divided the country. ...
The Deputy Prime Minister's case against two top civil servants, two former ministers, and a ministry has wrapped at the Auckland High Court, with the judge is reserving his decision. ...
The extension of the Royal Commission report to 30 April 2020 means all other government responses to the mosque attack should be equally delayed, according to the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO). ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia Australians woke to the news last weekend that a 19-year-old Warlpiri man had been shot and killed by a police officer in Yuendumu, 300km north-west of Alice Springs. A confrontation ...
Excessively stringent freshwater policies that won’t achieve significantly better water quality outcomes will cost New Zealanders more than $80 billion over the next thirty years, says DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle. “The water quality limits ...
Yesterday the government announced their reform of 1989’s Tomorrow’s Schools legislation. Claire Amos, a school principal in Auckland, reflects on what it all means. When the first draft of the Tomorrow’s School Report landed back in December 2018, I reflected that “the only real concern is that we are not brave enough ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University It has been called “the robbery of the century”. Martin Shields and Nicholas Diable, two British investment bankers, are on trial in Germany for helping structure a massive tax evasion scheme, known as cum-ex ...
A group of about a dozen MPs from Labour and National have addressed a last-minute protest at Parliament, on the day the End of Life Choice Bill is due to pass its final reading. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Mathews, Professor, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology Two judges in the High Court of Australia this morning referred Cardinal George Pell’s application for special leave to appeal his convictions to a full bench of the High Court. While not ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has opened for submissions on Supplementary Order Paper No 408 to the Arms Legislation Bill. Submissions can be made online and close on Friday 29 November 2019 at midnight. Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 408 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stanley Shanapinda, Research Fellow, La Trobe University Yesterday, New South Wales and Queensland issued fire warnings classified as either “catastrophic”, “severe” or “extreme” – and these conditions will remain in the coming days. The Bureau of Meteorology’s fire danger rating for Wednesday, ...
Newly launched carbon offsetting company Carbonclick want to make it easier for businesses and consumers to save the planet. CEO Dave Rouse and CPO Jan Czaplicki explain that while carbon offsetting isn’t the solution to global warming, it’s necessary.We have pumped our skies full of greenhouse gases for over 200 ...
Premiering tonight on TVNZ DUKE, Tara Ward explores the salty depths of Spiky Gold Hunters. Spiky Gold Hunter is Country Calendar for hard arses. DUKE’s new documentary series follows six Kiwis as they search the Foveaux Strait for kina, a job with great financial reward but huge risk. These divers work ...
The Reserve Bank announced on Wednesday that it hold the Official Cash Rate at 1 percent when bank economists had widely predicted and recommended a 25 basis point cut. ...
It’s time for our leaders to harness their power to take action on meaningful and sustained welfare policy changes, so that all children can have the opportunity to live good lives and to experience a happy, healthy childhood, says Child Poverty ...
Winston Peters' lawyer appears to have accepted in the High Court that two former National ministers he is suing for $450,000 for breaching his privacy were not the source of the leak or responsible for it. ...
Artist Lema Shamamba highlights the threads that connect cellphone use to violence and exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo in her first solo exhibition at Auckland’s Objectspace. Embroidered into a purple and yellow dress, a woman has one baby slung on her front and another on her back. Looking at ...
Gloria Steinem speaks to On the Rag about what she has learned from over 50 years of feminist activism. In this very special episode of On the Rag, we are joined by journalist, author, activist and feminist hero Gloria Steinem ahead of the launch of her new book The Truth Will ...
A law change that would allow assisted dying in certain select cases is coming up to a final reading in parliament tonight. Here are some of the many views on the matter we’ve published.As the End of Life Choice bill has made its way through parliament, it has become clear ...
The National Party is floating the idea of replacing the tertiary fees-free policy with a scheme like KiwiSaver to pay for University or polytechnic courses; and the Crown says Winston Peters claim his privacy was breached falls away entirely when held up against the law. ...
Malcolm Harbrow, at No Right Turn, has picked up on an important governance issue which our web search (a brief one, we acknowledge) suggests was missed by the mainstream media. The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from Parliament’s Justice Select Committee yesterday. Harbrow would have been monitoring its progress because he was one of around ...
The State Services Commission has shut down the inquiry into how Budget sensitive information was accessed from the Treasury website, because a key member failed to declare a conflict of interest. ...
Taxpayers deserve a stronger commitment from National to scrap the fees-free policy, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “On one hand, National correctly called fees-free an ‘expensive failure’. ...
In this chapter from journalist Frances Cook’s guide to getting your finances sorted, she finally comes to terms with her attitudes and behaviour around money. They say the first step is accepting you have a problem. One of the first things I had to accept was that I was guilty of ‘lifestyle ...
Pioneering conservationist Richard Henry’s crucial contribution to saving our endangered native birds is remembered today, 13 November 2019, the 90th Anniversary of his death. ...
State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes has today terminated the investigation into how Budget-sensitive material was accessed at the Treasury and appointed a new inquirer. ...
Open Mike 09/01/2017 
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...1 hour ago
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...15 hours ago
Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as ...19 hours ago
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...20 hours ago
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...2 days ago
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...2 days ago
2 days ago
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ... 4 days ago
And to think he gave all the potential goodwill away with that moronic, cult-like statement (repeated ad nauseam by many National hardliners) that Key is quite simply “the greatest PM we ever had”…
Installation complete: this was nothing ... 1 week ago
Today, a worker contacted me asking if she could go to the police over her employer stealing thousands of dollars from her in unpaid wages. The employer also did not pay this worker’s taxes or student loan which amounts to tax fraud. As a workers rights activist, who founded the ...2 weeks ago
Image Credit: Increase Social Media Traffic & Website Traffic 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 ... 2 weeks ago
. . NZ First’s success in putting the euthenasia bill to a public referenda may not be the victory they believe it to be. They may even have sounded the death-knell for a second Labour-NZ First-Green coalition. On 23 July this year, NZ First MP, Jenny Marcroft, submitted a Supplementary ...2 weeks ago
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...1 day ago
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...6 days ago
Groups involved with innovative fisheries research projects are encouraged to apply for government support in the latest funding round from the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures programme. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash says the SFF Futures funding is designed to be flexible enough to support small or large projects across a ...14 hours ago
Better Public Media cautiously welcomes the news that the government is considering establishing a multi-platform public media provider. ...40 mins ago
Mysterious foundation loaning New Zealand First money; and Auckland ports' move to Whangarei: explained ...51 mins ago
New Zealand’s MPs yesterday stepped towards history as they debated the bill, which would hand the final decision on assisted dying to the public. ...58 mins ago
The fate of RNZ and TVNZ may soon be in the hands of Cabinet ministers; and the chair of the Medical Association says it will be difficult to put safeguards in place to prevent people from being subtlety coerced into euthanasia. ...1 hour ago
New Zealanders now have the casting vote on whether to make euthanasia legal, after Parliament voted 69 votes to 51 in favour of the End of Life Choice Bill. ...1 hour ago
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 baggage handling equipment maker Glidepath has been sold to a French company. ...2 hours ago
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Another unexpected OCR move, NZ First Foundation donations under scrutiny, and End of Life Choice bill passes pending referendum.Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr seems intent on giving as many surprises as possible with the OCR. After slashing it in August when it was ...3 hours ago
Philip Matthews celebrates two remarkble - and remarkably different - portraits of the great Colin McCahon. ...3 hours ago
Electricity retailing is about to be changed by artificial intelligence and the move away from fossil fuels. Watch a video interview with Simply Energy's Murray Dyer. ...4 hours ago
Arranged marriages where partners had the freedom to say no may not be included under a new partnership visa fix. Dileepa Fonseka explains. ...4 hours ago
National's education plans has some good stuff, but the promises that will resonate most could have come from Labour. ...4 hours ago
Elite female sporting events will ultimately speak for themselves to fans who need convincing they are worthwhile watching. ...4 hours ago
David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill won over Parliament where other MPs had failed - but the real fight may just be beginning. ...4 hours ago
The University of Auckland's Dr Louise Humpage makes a plea to Jacinda Ardern to ban private fireworks once and for all. ...4 hours ago
A new Māori policing strategy, designed to get reoffending numbers down, has been met with skepticism. ...5 hours ago
Despite its best efforts to lower power prices, the Government might see a retail rate hike just six months before next year's election. ...14 hours ago
The price of avocados has been smashed to their lowest in almost three years, and the price of other fruit and veges are also falling. ...19 hours ago
The Reserve Bank announced on Wednesday that it hold the Official Cash Rate at 1 percent when bank economists had widely predicted and recommended a 25 basis point cut. ...20 hours ago
The Reserve Bank has held the Official Cash Rate steady at a record low 1 percent. ...20 hours ago
Winston Peters' lawyer appears to have accepted in the High Court that two former National ministers he is suing for $450,000 for breaching his privacy were not the source of the leak or responsible for it. ...20 hours ago
An undeclared conflict of interest has seen the initial Budget leak probe abandoned, an a new investigation launched. ...20 hours ago
The recent outbursts by Shane Jones about Indian migration should be strenuously rejected. ...21 hours ago
The National Party is floating the idea of replacing the tertiary fees-free policy with a scheme like KiwiSaver to pay for University or polytechnic courses; and the Crown says Winston Peters claim his privacy was breached falls away entirely when held up against the law. ...21 hours ago
Malcolm Harbrow, at No Right Turn, has picked up on an important governance issue which our web search (a brief one, we acknowledge) suggests was missed by the mainstream media. The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from Parliament’s Justice Select Committee yesterday. Harbrow would have been monitoring its progress because he was one of around ...21 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