What’s going on in the National Party is nothing short of a purge.
Anyone who won’t have the stomach for the extreme right-wing blitzkrieg the central committee has planned for the third term is out, and will be replaced by obedient, subservient little Randian ideologues and proto-fascists who owe their entire career to the leadership.
And don’t forget to mention not too bright – I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that Simon Bridges signed over a national park in pristine condition to the oil drillers and then cheerfully announced he’d never heard of the park in question before!
The Nats are starting to expose their hubris to an astonishing degree – more astonishing are the number of twerps in Aotearoa who are just not getting it!
Though, alternately the right may figure they don’t actually want to grind away at another 3 years in power and figure they will have legislated a sufficient number of our rights away to be able to carry on without us by September – let Labour etc. try and unpick the mess, probably to no real avail as too many evils will have escaped from Pandora’s box. We live in interesting times (read Chris Trotter’s latest offering in Bowally Road)
“Though, alternately the right may figure they don’t actually want to grind away at another 3 years in power and figure they will have legislated a sufficient number of our rights away to be able to carry on without us by September”
Don’t believe it for a moment Jan.
The Nats want another term, and if they get it the hammer is coming down hard.
That nasty centre left National government that presides over economic freedom and a giant welfare safety net will send us plummeting in the rankings. Oh the humanity.
“A United Nations Human Rights Council report says New Zealand needs to do more to combat issues such as child poverty, domestic violence and racial crimes.
It’s just the second time New Zealand has been included in the report, which is issued every four years and provides recommendations on global human rights issues.
This year’s document contains 155 recommendations for New Zealand, up from to 64 four years ago.”
United Nations Human rights Council members
Algeria
Argentina
Austria
Benin
Botswana
Brazil
Burkina Faso
Chile
China
Congo
Costa Rica
Côte d’Ivoire
Cuba
Czech Republic
Estoni
Ethiopia
France
Gabon
Germany
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Maldives
Mexico
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Pakistan
Peru
Philippines
Republic of Korea
Romania
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Sierra Leone
South Africa
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
United States of America
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
Viet Nam
HRC Membership
Do you really think anyone cares what sort of report come out of that nest of appalling regimes.
The United Nations only has something useful about to say about NZ if Helen Clark or some other Labour retread is saying it, anything else is lies, damm lies.
Good grief – there are no New Zealanders who do not have their “basic needs” met. You seem so miserable and angry that nothing will please you. No evidence will change your mindset. Everything is doomed, when all evidence points to the exact opposite. You are very strange.
Yep. Trying to incrementally undo bits and pieces of the damage done (e.g. using the Employment Relations Act to moderate the Employment Contracts Act) is a useless centrist approach.
Even if Labour and its mates were to accidentally win the election (and they wont as the caucus would hate to admit that Cunliffe was the right man for the job so wont help him) then you are working on the false assumption that the Labour Caucus would actually WANT to change anything.
Look at history – apart from Roger Douglas, there have been stuff all major changes in economic policy brought about by a change of Government in the past forty years.
Even Helen Clarks first Government didnt reverse Ruth Richardsons welfare “reforms”
And in foreign fields, the French Presidential candidate Hollande spoke the big words about not being bullied into austerity by the Germans and the banks, and once elected, within weeks changed his words 100% and eventually morphed into a poodle.
Whatever makes you think a Cunliffe led government will be any different?
Whatever makes you think a Cunliffe led government will be any different?
Nothing which is why I’m not a Labour supporter. Still, they could always listen to what I say and the Greens, whom I do somewhat support, will be there as well and so we may get some needed legislative reform.
‘subservient little Randian ideologues and proto-fascists..’ Bridges, JLR, Guy, Foss, Adams etc.
Bill’s on the list to make a quick exit should one be required, watch for others swapping out in this manner as it’s effectively preparing for a departure as you just slip away and another sock puppet comes in off the list, no by-election.
+100
That sums it up absolutely felix. It is the conclusion that makes sense of all that is going on in NACT. It reminds me of once when I had to coat my kitten with lindane to get rid of the fleas years ago. They fell off in staggering amounts, it was definitely a purge.
The downward slide continues on Morning report. More of Oscar Pistorius crying, complete with long pauses. As a special treat we got a story about a married US politician no one here has ever heard of, apologising for a video showing him kissing another women, apparently he ran on a platform of ‘family values’, oh the irony! Of course we have the royal playdate and at 6.30am traffic congestion as a result of earthquake repairs in Christchurch made the bulletin. Who else left when Geoff retired? Is the programme being produced by year 12 media students or what?
Today he said he heard a window in the bathroom, panicked. he said he yelled to Reeva to get under the bed, yelled at her to call the police, yelled at the intruder, then he heard the toilet door close…
My partner suggested that reeva, hearing him, not knowing she was the alleged intruder, took refuge in the toilet. He then proceeded tot he toilet door and shot…
That doesn’t explain any calls tot he person behind the toilet door, warnings to them etc which would have alerted reeva to the fact she was the alleged intruder that bothered him.
It’s one explanation.
Also we need to recall that even those who commit awful violence on their partners are often remorseful very soon after…
Is this an all or nothing charge for the Crown? Or if it is not premeditated murder, it’s still murder or manslaughter?
It is a concern that Morning Report seems to have descended into repetition and trivia. Maybe it is just another slow news day – again. Guyon and Susie seem to be struggling with what they are given but who is giving them the material and who is standing over them to make sure that the program fades away during election year?
Tomorrow will be better perhaps.
Oh come on we re so lucky to now have ‘Gyro’ Espiner frantically trying to sound like a commercial station every time he speaks. If we do get a left party in power again then a thorough overhaul of Radio and Television is a must and it should be done in a way that it cannot be easily undone without a solid proportion of NZ voting to change it.
plus 100. i switched to radio live (after guyon talking about how ‘lucky’ the babies who were going to meet the royals were, blurgh!) but hit their sport panel (double blurgh!) so i listened to some mp3s instead…aphrodites childs ‘666’ mega epic psychedelic greek rock!!!!
I have noticed the Radionz News fascination with the endless Oscar piss stories. And his crying. Specially brought to you the educated listener to inform you about what important things are happening in the world. He should get an ‘Oscar’ all right. And a boot up his bum. It sounds to me like a Special Boy who has been fated and feted to get everything that he wants.
An underlying learning that comes from those two examples is that girls have to watch their boyfriends aren’t actually boyfiends. Watch your spelling ladies, or your mistake could mean your death.
Then as Corokia says the USA Christian who was Sooooo Sorry that he kissed another woman besides his wife and has stepped down from something political. And not only do we give him a brief report in our news, we get USA feed giving us the rundown on it. The excitement of it all. Someone has got something sexual, a touch, a kiss, a brush of the bodies, nooky or something.
Heaven help us. Can we get people and our heretofore respected Radionz who respect our need for real news, and not some tripe suitable for the tripey women’s magazines or the defunct Truth newspaper. No wonder it had to close down. It’s erstwhile readers are so well served by all the latest Titbits and Tittle-tattle, it couldn’t compete. Why don’t we have some page 3 nudes, both men and women. Let’s have real pictures of real bodies and be honest that we like that some of the time. And the rest of the time we can stop having little everyday indecency blown up into major news. And hear some of the important news that is presently sidelined so we can share in the horror of an illegitimate kiss.
At the offices of Cosmopolitan magazine, however, the staff seemed to forget that Ms Geldof had a life and career. In fact they seemed to forget altogether that she was a real, flesh and blood woman with friends and family who are shocked and grieving, and decided that their “tribute” to her would be this:
as designed Adrian, not one everyone is privvy to except probably Griffin the other nat cronies on the RNZ board so they all chirp as one along with the nact backers who provided the design.
Of course why am I not surprised that you would choose that right wing rag The Economist. A magazine that still hides the names of its reporters, probably because we might recognise their names in the Tory register.
One could do so much better reading a reputable news publication.
Yep. Much better to listen to some uplifting Mahler or Lesbians on Ecstasy on your morning commute. Or a Podcast of The Economist.
srylands
The Standard must be the main post of your life, that keeps you upright, your mainstay. You poor old person who has to sit on your hill and make snide remarks at the hoi pollio down below.
Why don’t you do something useful now. You have no doubt acquired money over your life, sticking one of your tentacles to the lifeblood of the right wing institutions that you have belonged to. Now you are so empty, you can only fill yourself by writing critical remarks about people who are trying to do something.
Have you ever said anything positive, offered a positive and effective comment to ideas expressed on this blog that would help carry NZ forward keeping in mind its financial and other difficulties and the long mismanagement of the economy? I think you would have to look hard to find it. I wonder if you can bother to.
From yesterdays question time, Bill English asked a question by David Parker about superannuation, an attempt to skewer English with the news story of the mega-billions that would have been in a previous superannuation fund if an incoming National Government had not cancelled it,
English retorted, fishing or with inside knowledge???, that Labour currently had an unspoken of plan to ‘means test’ all superannuation payments which certainly got Parker looking like He had just pee’d on an electric fence,
My view is that English was simply using a bullshit line to avoid actually answering the question, i doubt Labour have a ‘plan’ to means test superannuation at all, why would they promote such an electorally kneecapping policy when they already have a perfect ‘turn off’ to 2–5% of voters with the ‘plan’ to raise the age of entitlement to 67,
If anything should Labour gain the numbers in the Parliament to actually further this policy, i would suggest an impossibility unless they commit electoral suicide and use National to ram such Legislation through,after individual compulsory superannuation savings Legislation will come a future ‘imperative’ to raise the age of entitlement to 70,
Given the current state of political polls it is not unreasonable to suggest that NZFirst will be a feature in the next Parliament which would make the Labour plan to raise the age of entitlement basically null and void and it is beyond me to understand why Parliamentary Labour continue to push this vote losing policy,
The fact that David Cunliffe cannot ‘see’ this has me questioning whether He is as smart as we are lead to believe…
Oh, he’s as smart as we were led to believe. His problem is that he still believes in the economic paradigm that has been throttling NZ for the last thirty years. In fact, he’s well and truly indoctrinated in it.
When Paddy G interviewed DC on The Nation and the issue of lifting the retirement age was raised by Gower, I got a strong feeling from DC’s response that he was pretty luke warm about it. He was very emphatic in all his other answers and what he did say was he thought there should be a cross party agreement on the issue. This is how I remember it anyway.
Unfortunately a ”pretty lukewarm response” from David Cunliffe on the superannuation question does not necessarily mean that He is ‘against’ raising the age of entitlement,
Such a ”lukewarm response” might have simply been His response to a question He found it easier to equivocate over than give a straight answer, especially if that answer would have entailed confirming the Labour plan to raise the age of entitlement,
From RadioNZ News, both on radio and online it appears that Labour have contingency plans when it comes to the question of mining if the Green party refused to support any future mining initiatives during a Labour/Green Government,
It appears that the mining lobby group Straterra held ,(paid for), a function in the Parliaments Grand Hall a couple of days ago at which Andrew Little represented the Labour Party,
Spoken to after this function Little is quoted, presumably full of the wine of Straterra’s human kindness, as saying that should the Green Party in a future coalition with Labour refuse to support any future mining Legislation granting new license to mine Labour would then rely on the support of the National Party to pass such Legislation in the House,
So how far astray are those who see exactly the same ‘tactic being used to pass Legislation through the House on the raising of the age of superannuation question,
i realize that we all want rid of Slippery the Prime Minister and this shoddy corrupt Government, BUT, rid of them at what cost, i for one cannot continue to promote ”unity” of the left when Labour look every bit the ‘other’ National Party masquerading at the ball…
Raising the age to 67 is inevitable. It is happening all over the OECD. There is no alternative. Take a look at the long term fiscal outlook Treasury put out last year. If you don’t do this, there will be no money for health expenditure growth. You choose. You need to look at this in the context of all fiscal pressures to 2040.
Labour could win the election by promising a phased increase in super eligibility to 70 years. Another useful reform would be to unlink it from wage growth and chanage it to CPI. Do thiose two things and things will look much sweeter. Ultimately both WILL happen because there is no alternative. Labour might as well take the credit. Because the next National Government led by J Key’s successor will do it.
Raising the age to 67 is inevitable. It is happening all over the OECD. There is no alternative.
Odd then that the US Federal Reserve can print $80B a week in interest free money for the big banks?
Odd then that the US and the EU can instantly come up with multi-billion dollar bail outs and loan guarantees for their preferred government in Ukraine?
Odd then that the 0.1% have stashed away several trillion dollars in tax havens and high value assets like gold?
Where is all this money coming from for these special pet projects?
Why do you say that austerity for the 99% is inevitable when there is clearly so much money being printed and stashed away by the 0.1%?
srylands,
statements like that suggest your thought process is not qualified to strain week old soup, let alone create the banquet of circumstance required to grow a healthy society
The usual Nazi rubbish from SSLands, still choosing i see to vomit an absolute pile of excrement without a shred of fact into the debate,
Here is the ACT Party view of this supposed ‘crisis in superannuation:
”Since 1980 the number of people over the age of 65 has doubled”. ”StatisticsNZ predicts this age group will double again by 2036”. ”In that time the cost of NZ Super is projected to increase from 9 billion dollars a year to 20 billion dollars a year”.unquote.
So, shock horror where exactly is the problem, doesn’t the rise in the cost of superannuation from the present 9 billion dollars to 20 billion dollars in 2036 just have you all shaking at the knees,
There is no problem with superannuation as has been shown by the ability to pay for a doubling of the number of superannuation payments from 1980 to the present day,
In 1980 GDP was 22,967 billions of dollars
In 2012 GDP was 208,688 billions of dollars,
This GDP growth was achieved through any number of financial and economic crisis, if we apply the same rate of growth to expected GDB in 2036 an entirely different picture of shock horror emerges,
The estimated GDP in 2036 394,400 billions of dollars
plus the contents of the Cullen Super fund now at 24 billion dollars and rising,
Estimated GDP 418,400 billions of dollars,
So using the exact same growth rate for the years 1980—2012 in billions of dollars we can estimate the growth in the GDP from 2012–2036 to arrive at a figure of,(adding in the Cullen Super fund), 418,400 billions of dollars doubling the present 2012 figure of GDP,
Crisis what Crisis, by 2036 the number of superannuation payments will have doubled as will the the growth of GDP,(based upon historical fact),which will simply mean that the Government will have doubled its income from taxation of that doubled GDP so where exactly is this crisis…
Firstly, there is no such thing as this is “happening all over the OECD”. The age for many mainland Euro countries is 60 to 65 years with Ireland 66 years. These are facts, so no stories please.
Secondly, if a state pays a benefit it has to be contributed to. So why not link it to the years worked rather then age reached. Lets say the tax contribution years of each person is 40 years – and please note this is based on individual contribution, no couples or diminishing into the wall paper if you are married.
This would mean that if you are at university slouching off for years on end it will not get you the good life. Equally if you start working young or in an apprenticeship that often means physical work, one would retire earlier. Thus the system would be fairer. If one chooses to continue working and is able it should not be a problem.
There is still a cap of the working age, lets say 67, by which time everybody would be entitlement to at least a minimum pension as it is paid now. The difference is that in the case of having the full 40 years contributed the pension is set at the average income of the last few years of work.
You might say that this is a good incentive to a/ not stay on the dole, b/ go from benefit to benefit without ever contributing anything and lastly everybody knows that they are not a drain on the next person. This can be run like any other pension scheme and does not need extensive set up costs, privatization with money being paid to shareholders instead of the retiree. The question is, is the average person out there ready to take responsibility?
And this is why most Euro countries have minimum pensions for women reaching the age of 60 and this is paid on an individual basis and not as the women being the left foot of a man.
Really, an incentive to get a job???what a load of fucking shit, there are not enough jobs in the economy so other than rotational employment everyone cannot work…
In several European countries it’s below 60 for men and lower than men by a couple of years for women. In the OECD only Japan and South Korea have an effective retirement age that is quite a lot older than the official retirement age.
Most Euro countries do not peg against reaching a certain age but rather on years of contribution to the retirement fund. Hence the age varies. However, 60 -65 is the minimum age by which one can get minimum retirement money without the nominal time of contributions. Yes, the effective retirement age is often lower. I know this first hand as my younger siblings are already retired whilst I have to put some considerable years into it here in NZ before I get some peanuts.
The super surcharge was, in effect, a method of means testing National Super, and I think that was introduced originally by Labour. Perhaps that was what English was referring to.
My guess from this is that Labour intend to have a means tested superannuation at 65 and non means test at 67 as a way of allowing those who wish/need to retire at 65 to be able to access superannuation if they are of limited means. Personally, I’d rather see more money being spent on those living in poverty than being paid out to 65 year olds who are still in full-time work earning over $100,000 a year.
The super for those on such high incomes would largely be lost in taxes. And having applied for NZ Super – it’s a trial – requires verification of identity, documented evidence of all income, all savings, etc as well as of all assets (whether than can be swapped for money or not) – it’s a bugger of a form to complete. For those who will lose the super gain in taxes anyway, it may not be worth the effort – though I guess they’d have accountants to do it for them.
That’s true, Karol – I was working full time when I first received Super and I was paying quite a bit more in taxes than I was getting back (and I wasn’t earning $100,000 either!) You have to pay secondary tax on either your income or your Super, so the tax payments are quite high
And after paying secondary tax you then fill in the correct forms and get the over paid tax back. You still end up paying the same amount of tax on income.
”Fixer” would be a better descriptive, but please, do tell us all more,(with proof or asked as a question),
Most English gangster clans have a ”Fixer” which saves the elite of such from having to dirty their hands,
i must hunt out the story i read,(online), that alleges that one particular ‘Woyal’ suffering from irreversible brain damage far from ‘falling’ to His death from the step of the particular remote mansion/castle He had been hidden away in, went over a nearby cliff allegedly with the help from another Sir in the form of a ‘Woyal Fixer’…
Go to the post. You will find all the proof you need. I never put anything out unless I can link to proof or I put it in a question. Hence the link in the comment. By the way calling someone a piece of work isn’t what you might call libelous is it?
Sorry book signed travellerev, i missed that one word in Blue reading your comment at speed on the first go round, yep have had a read and He is as you say he is…
Thanks, interesting. So Sir David Manning was involved in preparing that dossier of mis-information in support of the UK joining the US in the 2003 attack on Iraq – misinformation about WMDs.
A million excess deaths in Iraq in the years since the Blair/Bush led war. Yes, that’s war criminal level activity right there, regardless of whether or not Blair was a Saint on every other day of the week.
And that’s also ignoring how Blair further increased the political capture exercised by the City of London bankers.
One day I think and hope the Standardistas are going to look at your comments and think he is getting more and more blatant in his shill behavior by the day. You’re not even pretending anymore!
Cheers, Ev, as usual you haven’t got a clue. I’m not defending Blair, but pointing out an interesting, if contrarian, opinion piece. Not everything is an conspiracy, you know.
From TV3 News last night. Simon (the moron) Bridges opens up 450,000 hectares of conservation land for oil and gas exploration including Victoria Forest Park, described by DOC as “pristine and untouched” and has no idea it exists or where it is. You have to watch this.
Yes, lots of jokes on Twitter last night at Bridge’s expense. Is it me, or is Bridge’s usual bad-John-key-imitation of mangled speech less noticeable than usual in that vid? – His more natural speech coming out when caught on the back foot?
For the Minister to approve this without even knowing it raises serious questions about his competence and that of his Ministry. Was he advised about it? If so, and he ignored it, then he’s a total muppet. OTOH, if he wasn’t, it suggests serious problems with MoBIE’s economic development unit, which the Minister is ultimately responsible for. And either way, its crystal clear that National has no commitment whatsoever to conservation or our environment; if it can be bulldozed for profit, they’ll sign off on it.
…I have to agree with Martin Bradbury that “If the Greens are serious about being the main part in a Labour led Government, they have to start finding bridges to build with Winston.”
“Is Kennedy Graham the Green’s secret weapon and are they getting rid of him too soon?”
i have to wonder which Labour Party ‘Bomber’ is referring to when He says that ”285,000 kids growing up in poverty and a climate damaged enviroment can’t afford blah blah blah”,
In light of my comment (7.2.1) above it appears that Labour will happily indulge in climate damaging mining and if the Green component of any Labour/Green Government objects to this the Labour Party as Andrew Little is quoted by RadioNZ National News will happily seek the votes of National to pass any needed Legislation,
As far as addressing child poverty i have yet to see a labour Party policy that in any way addresses such poverty, as by the time all these jobs,jobs,jobs, which appears to be the sum total of the ‘plan’ materialize those kids will have lived their whole childhoods in that poverty and suffer the consequences of it for the remainder of their lives…
It would cost about 1.5% of GDP (=$3B p.a.) to totally eradicate child poverty from NZ. And of course, it’s not a “cost” it’s an investment in the future of New Zealand.
Funny how no political party seems to be giving us what we need.
We can safely abandon the doctrine of the eighties, namely that the rich were not working because they had too little money, the poor because they had much.
Crim Dot Con says that he has an electorate MP (Not Hone) agreed to sign up to the Internet party
If this is true then there is a current electorate MP who is lying to his electorate and party now because every single one has denied being in the Crim’s pocket. There is no electorate MP who could survive as an MP having lied and deceived the public like that.
Crim Dot Con is a liar desperate to avoid extradition and jail time.
Will Mana ignore their principles and take his thirty silver coins.
If so they have no mana.
I thought Dotcom talked of an “elected MP”. That is not necessarily the same thing as an electorate MP. Bearing in mind his first language is not English, then its possible he was referring to an MP elected by the voters to be an MP which would include list MPs elected via the party vote.
I am reading an old Simenon story first published in 1954. It’s about a French village and called Maigret Goes to School.
This is a quote that took my fancy, describing the Deputy Mayor –
“The expression on his face combined the cunning self-assurance of the peasant with that of the politician skilled in juggling with the village elections.”
And the postman, who has lost a hand which has been replaced with a hook, complaining about the forms he has to deliver from the government:-
To begin with, there are the ex-servicemen. That I can understand. Then there are the widows’ pensions. The the health insurance, the large family allowances. And the allowances for…
Can you sort them all out? I sometimes wonder whether there’s a soul in the village who doesn’t draw something from the government…. And I’m certain some of them have kids just for the sake of the children’s allowance.
Simenon has Maigret think –
It seemed to be an obsession. He must draw a pension himself, for his arm. He was paid by the government. And it infuriated him that other people benefited as well. In fact, he was jealous.
Simenon is an observer of the human character. He notes that a war veteran who ostensibly was fighting for his fellow citizens and country and the wellbeing of the whole country, can then turn at the end of the war and resent his fellows their life and the efforts to go forward in an improved way with a new life and children for the future.
So thinking about oneself and resenting others getting help with the duties of their roles and consideration for their situation is not new. And that applies to war veterans needing help and not getting it also.
”Two thirds of the way through the current financial year the ‘tax take’ is now 1.1 Billion Dollars below estimates”,
Shortfalls:
GST down by 3.2%,
Business taxes down by 6.8%,
We were told when the ‘tax take’ was light by 500 million dollars that this was due to ‘slower than usual’ tax payments from the business sector,
Considering that hole in the Government revenue stream has now more than doubled to 1.1 Billion Dollars we can only view such an excuse as bullshit, more lies form this National Government, it would appear from such a sizable hole in that Government revenue stream that ‘business’ has found a new means of tax avoidance and considering the doubling of the amount that business has not paid in due taxation it would appear that more of those in business are using such a ‘loophole’ to avoid paying due taxation,
Considering the ‘upward trend’ in non-compliance from the business sector to pay due taxation the estimate for the full year of increase in tax avoidance/evasion will leave the Government income for the year 1.7 –2 billion dollars less than what the GDP growth would suggest is due…
The board of kiwirail didn’t know their ferry was using significant amounts of lubrication, above the norm, and let the ferry sail!@#@ Inevitably leading to a failure costing millions to fix…!!!
Tax revenues down. Key ideological delusion thought lowering tax would raise revenue.
Sad, really sad, that Key actually thinks neo-liberal deregulate actually creates growth.
No. The growth of the last thirty years has been due to year on year falls in the cost
of energy. The glut of cheap high density petroleum.
And now that’s over, the way to increase govt revenue, create more jobs, a more efficient economy, is to pull back on government largess to industries and tax payers, and let manage the economy so the most have the best opportunity to compete and innovate. And you don’t do that by giving relief to those who have already ensconced themselves and use the tax cut to solidify their positions (as they have). Innovation comes from stress, Key’s soft on industrial approach is naive now, was naive for the last thirty years, since it hands an easy ride, and so boost the financial sector. We don’t generate new science by dictate to scientist what they can research, we don’t generate new ideas and new products, new innovations by helping those who have a systemic interest in keeping the status quo.
For thirty years we have dropped the ball, and been lied to by the self proclaimed geniuses of high finance. It was just one giant right wing monetary scam.
Just the indignity of having to explain to a government official that your child has died and you need to travel aboard to keep getting basic income assistance to eat. This when Collins, paid for by tax payers, to fly, to live it up in hotels, to get free feeds, can have a private dinner (not so private she didn’t have to inform the ambassador about). I mean its the same abuse surely, using tax payers money to do with it for some purpose that you shouldn’t. In a beneficiary were to travel overseas, wined and dined because of who their husband is, because of their husbands company, Ms Bennett would be out drolling how she saved money, but should that person be a minister!!!
. There is a disconnect between the rhetoric of a “rock star economy” promoted by a writer at the NZ Herald, and more than 40 people turning up at an information evening for a probation officer position in Wellington a few days ago.
who read the dinkum oil by chalkie in todays dompost. “how the forex traders fixed the market”. Ithink I heard that around here lately too. good job if you can get it.
As an increasingly greater number of people within my social and work circles have been saying, as I have heard many times in recent months, some Labour MPs would prefer to be in control of a losing Labour Party than not be in control of a winning Labour Party.
Power is shifting: to places in which we have no voice or vote. Domestic policies are forged by special advisers and spin doctors, by panels and advisory committees stuffed with lobbyists. The self-hating state withdraws its own authority to regulate and direct. Simultaneously, the democratic vacuum at the heart of global governance is being filled – without anything resembling consent – by international bureaucrats and corporate executives. The NGOs permitted, often as an afterthought, to join them intelligibly represent neither civil society nor electorates. (And please spare me that guff about consumer democracy or shareholder democracy: in both cases some people have more votes than others, and those with the most votes are the least inclined to press for change).
I simply want to express how pissed off I am that Labour’s caucus have rejected a formal coalition with the Greens – as reported on the tv news tonight.
I am unlikely ever to vote Greens for a whole bunch of reasons. I also delivered and donated for them at the last election.
There is little to be gained by Labour for doing this – it is abundantly clear that there will be little shifting of the major blocs (at least those visible to public polling) leading up to election. In fact Labour’s David Cunliffe has admitted as much by stating regularly that it will not be fresh voters that win Labour the election, but instead it will be those who already have a predisposition to vote Labour anyway but who simply chose not to vote last time.
We have also heard regularly on television and on sites such as this that the vast majority of those who vote Labour would prefer a Labour-Green coalition. Like my wife and I.
The rump end of Labour’s caucus are simply chickenshit conservative egotists who think they can go it alone until the very end, but in fact are signalling that they would prefer not to have to deal with the Greens at all.
The Greens could quite well determine that there is less to be gained by being pushed around and excluded like they were last time Labour was in power, and decide it’s better not to have a progressive government if it means having to be relentlessly done over by Labour’s bullying thugs.
We met these hard-assed ugly caucus members head on when we changed the rules to force the Labour membership to have a say in the leader. We met them again when we campaigned successfully to get David Cunliffe to be leader of the Labour Party. They were bitter fights, but on the surface at least unity was re-established in order to gain re-election.
And now we get to meet them again, that same sad bitter old rump without courage or whit to get another job (while National completely clears house for the next generation). They are a pathetic excuse for a caucus if they explicitly slap down a generous and constructive coalition offer from the Greens. Labour’s caucus could not generate a united political vision throughout the entire leadership debate, and have just made Cunliffe go on television and state it in black and white.
I am in complete despair at the coldness and meanness of the Labour caucus response. I noted Cunliffe’s careful wording. However the optimism and youth of the Greens look a whole lot more attractive right now.
“I simply want to express how pissed off I am that Labour’s caucus have rejected a formal coalition with the Greens – as reported on the tv news tonight.”
Well, it’s a good thing that’s not what happened, eh. All that actually has happened is that Labour has decided against using coalition style language prior to the election (and before the negotiations that will form the Labour led Government). It’s not my preference, as a supporter of explicit pre-election blocs, but it ain’t the end of the world.
Labour had better figure out how people are reacting to such lack of cooperativeness – because yes it isn’t the end of the world – but I could see Labour becoming a minor party if they persist in competing with the other main (biggest) party of the left.
Humans get further cooperating with their associates. If they want to compete – how about they focus on National and Act as their targets to compete against? (…now there is a novel idea)
I am having a similar reaction – the only clause out for Labour in my book, is that if this was reported in a manner that made it look particularly bad for Labour – One News is usually fairly fair (unlike 3News) – however I am suspending drawing firm conclusions until I find out more via other sources.
The items that were mentioned by One News that the Greens had presented to Labour sounded sensible and very workable. I agree with Russel Norman’s comment – that people wish to see the future government and how these parties will work together.
If this item is confirmed accurate – Labour have managed to lower their chances of a vote from me – they will just have to access how many others will react in a similar way ( – because obviously just one person being put off matters very little 🙂 ) I am sorry for the members who did a wonderful job of getting their voices heard in changing the Leadership rules and let’s be very clear if Labour was going to get my support it would be due to these members’ efforts. yet now after hearing this news, I am unlikely to vote Labour.
This lack of cooperation and particularly not providing a decent reason for this choice by Labour, simply makes Labour look really pathetic and power-trippy in my view. A cooperative, ‘can do’ attitude is needed on this matter of the parties they are most likely going to be working with – not a misaligned cupidity toward power they may not even get if they don’t start showing some cohesion with their peers and assertiveness toward issues that matter to people. Or at least explaining where they are coming from.
This looked pathetic Labour just pathetic is my initial reaction – final conclusions, as mentioned earlier, are pending.
On the surface it doesn’t look great does it. You’d think that a united Left coalition would stand in positive contrast to National which is essentially on its own.
Maybe Labour have some strategic reason?? Dunno.
I guess that the floating centre vote may not switch to Labour is there was a formal coalition with the Greens. Although no formal coalition may send some floating Lab/Green votes to the Greens it’s not going to hurt the overall left-ish vote. I think Labour have made the correct decision here.
This was one of the thoughts I had too – however Winston is likely to have captured this market of these types of voters and what about the issue of people who don’t see Labour ‘as being any different from National’? – from my point of view this perception is wrong – Labour governments are a lot different to National because they invest in people and people issues that bear fruit in the future – however perceptions count for a lot with elections and if Labour made some sort of clear stand that would counter such perceptions it would be excellent. It may be that this defining of Labour as different to National is more of an issue – it is certainly the comment I hear most regularly.
Instead of making clear statements, however Labour choose to go all woolly about parties that they are going to have to work with. It would have been good to have a clear explanation of why it was that Labour rejected this coalition plan and a positive comment re the Greens whilst doing so. Instead we are just left in the dark – left to guess – why Labour wouldn’t find some common ground with the Greens. What are the chances of Labour getting enough votes to be in Government without them?
It’s not inconsistent with the goal of turning out the disenfranchised vote. I’m generally a Labour voter (not sure this year), but I’m not concerned about where the left vote goes in terms of left-ish parties – as long as it goes somewhere – maybe the outrage will send a few more people to the ballot box to vote Greens or Mana?
BL – Labour and the Greens have both been pretty clear about what they agree on. I guess from a personal perspective I know a few people that are thinking about switching from Nat to Lab, but won’t have a bar of the Greens. Whereas people who are going vote left will do so anyway.
I think rejecting a coalition with the Greens is a safe strategy for the left generally, maybe there are many who would prefer Labour to be bold… Interesting that this is leading the news, not Simon Bridges, because it’s not news at all, imo. When was the formal proposal put forward? It’s talked about before and I don’t think there has ever been an indication that Labour would agree to such a deal if it was proposed.
If the concern is that being explicit will turn centrists off, then the make up of the left wing block is important.
Voters who won’t vote Labour ‘because of the Greens’, will be at least as aware of what sort of coalition they will need to form as anyone else.
If Labour keep distancing themselves from the Greens in order to woo ‘centrists’, and this causes left voters to switch to the greens, then those centrists will notice that.
Labour can’t help anyone by pretending. there are people who really don’t want a left wing government. They are called tories, and they vote for National, and Labour should stop trying to woo them. They should woo the people who are likely to be wooed.
I largely think the athe blue/green thing is a myth. They are far more blue, than green, but if there is a block of Nat voters labour should target, it’s them. Those voters don’t vote green because of whatever reason, but Labour is far closer to those voters than the Greens are.
I respect what you’re writing, but I can’t really see a downside for the left block in general due to Labour’s position. Although I can see a downside for Labour. Lab voters who prefer an alliance with the Greens, are very unlikely to move to the right if they’re annoyed with Labour. I do agree it’s not going to necessarily maximise the Labour vote, but I doubt it will damage the left vote.
I definitely think there are disaffected National voters who will vote Labour if they think Labour is not ‘giving in’ to the Greens. I’m not calling for Labour to go after that vote, far from it, I just think the Left might lose more than it gains by explicitly agreeing to a coalition with the Greens.
As for the Blue-Greens, yes, I agree they are an almost extinct species. I reckon their environmental perspective is likely to be a consumerist one, not a social one. I think that if they exist they’re unlikely to vote Green, but are even more unlikely to vote a Green party explicitly coalescing with Labour. The Greens recognised that last election when they refused to ‘rule out’ National (I think they found that the Blue-Greens are mostly blue, but).
Seems like such an arrangement would benefit the Greens more than Labour both in potential votes and subsequent power in a coalition government. If such a coalition failed to take the treasury benches they’d have far more MP’s, perhaps even nearing a parity with Labour. A cynical play by the Greens, Labour are smart to reject it, they’d be signing the death warrant of the party.
I can certainly see your point, however I see the Green’s proposal as more in touch with the voters than Labour’s position on this one (and quite a few other issues too). i.e if 70% of left wing voters would like to see a working relationship between Labour and the Greens – the Greens proposal delivers that and also gives us voters something very defined to base our decisions on – i.e if we want a more Labour flavour it makes it clear to vote Labour and if we want Greens to have that much influence – we vote Greens. This is still the case – yet the Green’s proposal emphasises this – and this doesn’t necessarily mean that more people would vote Greens.
Labour could have responded by putting forward some limits i.e. no finance portfolios (for example) and then the ball would be in the Green’s court.
“Seems like such an arrangement would benefit the Greens more than Labour both in potential votes and subsequent power in a coalition government”
Can you explain your reasoning? I know a few voters who currently say they’ll vote Green simply to force Labour to work with them. They feel burned by Labour’s constant pandering to soft tories like Winston and Dunne. They don’t agree with the Greens on a lot of things, prefer Labour on many, but would simply rather Labour be negotiating with the Greens than with Winston or Dunne.
This announcement is likely to have confirmed they’ll be voting Green. 68% of Labour voters said they’d rather Lab work with the Greens than with Winston in a CB poll late last year. Those are Labour voters at risk of voting Green to force that party to do what they want. A deal like that proposed would leave them comfortably red.
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Wansolwara The news media’s crucial role in climate change and environment journalism was the focus of The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme 2024 World Press Freedom Day celebrations. The European Union Ambassador to the Pacific, Barbara Plinkert, and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna were the chief ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Adams, Professor of Corporate Law & Academic Director of UNE Sydney campus, University of New England Last August, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched legal proceedings against Qantas. The consumer watchdog accused the airline of selling thousands of tickets ...
This episode of A View From Afar was recorded LIVE on May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, May 5, 2024 at 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Taylor, Assistant Professor, Bond University Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures At the crux of the critical response to Luca Guadagnino’s new movie Challengers is one word: “sexy”. The film charts a love triangle between three up-and-coming tennis players: Tashi (Zendaya), ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Stewart, Professor of Public Policy, ADFA Canberra, UNSW Sydney For years, First Nations people have been telling governments they want to be listened to. In particular, they want more ownership of the programs and services that are supposed to help them. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Why do trees have bark? Julien, age 6, Melbourne. This is a great question, Julien. We are so familiar with bark on trees, that most of us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Nasser, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, University of Technology Sydney PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important ligament in the knee. It runs from the thigh bone (femur) to the shin bone (tibia) and helps stabilise ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne I covered the May 2 United Kingdom local government elections for The Poll Bludger. The Blackpool South parliamentary byelection was also held, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna Grant-Smith, Professor of Management, University of the Sunshine Coast The federal government has announced a “Commonwealth Prac Payment” to support selected groups of students doing mandatory work placements. Those who are studying to be a teacher, nurse, midwife or social ...
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+. If you love a dark comedy: Bodkin (Netflix, May 9)An English podcaster, an Irish podcaster and American podcaster walk into a pub and…make a TV show? ...
By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist A Pacific regionalism academic has called out New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS and says the security deal “raises serious questions for the Pacific region”. Auckland University of Technology academic Dr Marco de Jong ...
How worried should we be about the cloud? This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. I currently have a few thousand unread emails languishing in my inbox, mostly old marketing newsletters and piles of unread science journal press releases. I have a similar number ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nuurrianti Jalli, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies College of Arts and Sciences Department of Languages, Literature, and Communication Studies, Northern State University Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Southeast Asian governments not only have to deal with the virus but also with the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Murakami Wood, Professor of Critical Surveillance and Securities Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa The skyline of Riyadh, the capital and largest city of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia.(Shutterstock) There is a long history of planned city building by both governments ...
The LIVE Recording of A View from Afar podcast will begin today at 12:45pm May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment of ...
The Boil Up’s Lucinda Bennett considers the oyster – from freshness to pearls to the joy of shucking your own. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. In Carmen Maria Machado’s short story ‘Eight Bites’, a woman begins her last supper before bariatric surgery with “a cavalcade ...
Asia Pacific Report A group of 65 Auckland University academics have written an open letter to vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater criticising the institution’s stance over students protesting in solidarity with Palestine. They have called on her administration to “support” the students who were denied permission to establish an “overnight encampment” by ...
The Student Volunteer Army is on the march, generating approximately 1.6 million hours of volunteering from roughly 35,000 secondary school students in just five years. For Rebekah Brown, the pathway to volunteering started with her singing coach. With a passion for the arts, the suggestion to volunteer at Acting Antics, ...
Keeping up with online communication can be exhausting, so Fran Barclay enlisted the help of Meta’s new ‘intelligent assistant’ to respond to all her messages. Could her mates tell the difference? For centuries, technology has ruled the ways in which we communicate. From the dawn of written language, to the ...
Jamie Arbuckle, a councillor who has become an member of parliament, says he has settled into having two roles so comfortably he's going to keep both pay cheques. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong Fifty years ago, Australian feminist Anne Summers denounced “the ideology of sexism” governing over so many women’s lives. Unfortunately, sexism is as lethal today as it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jose Antonio Lara-Hernandez, Senior Researcher in Architecture, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images The COVID-19 pandemic and the hybrid work patterns it fostered have changed the way we think about office space, and central business districts in general. While fears ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Boccabella, Associate Professor of Taxation Law, UNSW Sydney There’s a good reason your local volunteer-run netball club doesn’t pay tax. In Australia, various nonprofit organisations are exempt from paying income tax, including those that do charitable work, such as churches. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Deller, Casual Academic, Creative Writing and English Literature, Flinders University NetflixComedy is opening up spaces for silences to be broken and trauma stories to be told. In 2018, Hannah Gadsby started a revolution with Nanette, asking audiences to rethink ...
The workplace can be a minefield of bad comms and passive aggression. Kinksters can help you navigate it. A friend and colleague recently gave me a compliment I loved. They told me I’d always been good at emotional communication and making people feel comfortable. “But I feel like it’s really ...
Even if some students are now just texting on their laptops. Stewart Sowman-Lund writes in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Councils from Horowhenua, Kāpiti, Wairarapa, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington City will meet this Friday to work together on a plan for a Greater Wellington region water deal. ...
Renowned musician, advocate, and proud born and raised daughter of Tauranga, Ria Hall, is announcing her candidacy for Mayor of Tauranga and Pāpāmoa Ward for the upcoming election on July 20th. ...
The new Aotearoa histories curriculum is rich with potential. There’s still work to be done, but the education minister’s criticisms about ‘balance’ miss the mark, argues primary school teacher Jessie Moss. In 2015, Ōtorohanga College students presented to parliament a petition signed by more than 10,000 people calling for a ...
For too long our so-called national bird has maintained its stranglehold on the economy of regional New Zealand. Thanks to the fast track legislation, we will have our revenge. Theories abound on what ails New Zealand’s economy. National leader Chris Luxon has posited that we’re negative, wet, whiny, and inward-looking; ...
Comment: The debate over the future relationship between news and social media is bringing us closer to a long-overdue reckoning. Social media isn’t trying to kill journalism, because social media has never really cared about journalism. Social media is resolutely in the attention business. News propels some attention — perhaps ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 6 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
For the past 12 years, Georgia-Rose Brown has balanced on the brink of making an Olympic Games – but always landed gracefully on the wrong side. Reaching the Olympics is a dream the gymnast has harboured since she was a six-year-old; a dream that would dwindle every four years, yet ...
Late one afternoon in March 1860 a man in a thin green velveteen jacket and a wide-awake hat arrived on foot at a sheep station named Glenmark, about 65 kilometres north of Christchurch. The man was in his mid-fifties but he looked older. Several people who met him that day ...
If building one of Auckland’s possible waterfront stadiums was funded privately, it would need to hold a sold-out Ed Sherran concert every weekday for 25 years. That’s Rob Hamlin’s finding – he’s a senior marketing lecturer at the University of Otago. “It’s not going to happen; forget about it,” he ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A new Commonwealth Prac Payment will provide students with $319.50 a week when they are on clinical and professional placements. The payment will be means tested and start from July 1 next year, which ...
Asia Pacific Report About 500 people honoured Palestinian journalists in the heart of the New Zealand city of Auckland today for their brave coverage of Israel’s War on Gaza, now in its seventh month with almost 35,000 people killed, mostly women and children. Marking the annual May 3 World Press ...
The Government Communications Security Bureau denies hosting a foreign spying capability flagged by the watchdog, differentiating it from the system recently criticised. ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
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Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
Hands up who feels sorry for Tau Henare? – if you choose to swim with sharks …
Hell NO
What’s going on in the National Party is nothing short of a purge.
Anyone who won’t have the stomach for the extreme right-wing blitzkrieg the central committee has planned for the third term is out, and will be replaced by obedient, subservient little Randian ideologues and proto-fascists who owe their entire career to the leadership.
National is transforming into ACT on steroids.
And don’t forget to mention not too bright – I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that Simon Bridges signed over a national park in pristine condition to the oil drillers and then cheerfully announced he’d never heard of the park in question before!
The Nats are starting to expose their hubris to an astonishing degree – more astonishing are the number of twerps in Aotearoa who are just not getting it!
Though, alternately the right may figure they don’t actually want to grind away at another 3 years in power and figure they will have legislated a sufficient number of our rights away to be able to carry on without us by September – let Labour etc. try and unpick the mess, probably to no real avail as too many evils will have escaped from Pandora’s box. We live in interesting times (read Chris Trotter’s latest offering in Bowally Road)
I’ve posted the Bridges TV3 clip below JanM. A must see.
“Though, alternately the right may figure they don’t actually want to grind away at another 3 years in power and figure they will have legislated a sufficient number of our rights away to be able to carry on without us by September”
Don’t believe it for a moment Jan.
The Nats want another term, and if they get it the hammer is coming down hard.
+1
Oh yes the hammer. Does that mean that we will no longer be the number 1 ranked country in the world for social freedom and choice?
http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/document/pdf/201414/progress.pdf
That nasty centre left National government that presides over economic freedom and a giant welfare safety net will send us plummeting in the rankings. Oh the humanity.
What a load of crap.
This is a conversation about NZ matters.
It has nothing to do with you.
do you also accept this recent report?
“A United Nations Human Rights Council report says New Zealand needs to do more to combat issues such as child poverty, domestic violence and racial crimes.
It’s just the second time New Zealand has been included in the report, which is issued every four years and provides recommendations on global human rights issues.
This year’s document contains 155 recommendations for New Zealand, up from to 64 four years ago.”
United Nations Human rights Council members
Algeria
Argentina
Austria
Benin
Botswana
Brazil
Burkina Faso
Chile
China
Congo
Costa Rica
Côte d’Ivoire
Cuba
Czech Republic
Estoni
Ethiopia
France
Gabon
Germany
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Maldives
Mexico
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Pakistan
Peru
Philippines
Republic of Korea
Romania
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Sierra Leone
South Africa
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
United States of America
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
Viet Nam
HRC Membership
Do you really think anyone cares what sort of report come out of that nest of appalling regimes.
Come on dude , keep up
The United Nations only has something useful about to say about NZ if Helen Clark or some other Labour retread is saying it, anything else is lies, damm lies.
Austria and Ireland have appalling regimes? Please explain.
How did we go on basic needs, ecosystem sustainability, or clean waterways?
Oh, but we’re free to choose – choose australia, like you did.
Good grief – there are no New Zealanders who do not have their “basic needs” met. You seem so miserable and angry that nothing will please you. No evidence will change your mindset. Everything is doomed, when all evidence points to the exact opposite. You are very strange.
Guess that explains why there are no New Zealanders living in cars, in garages, under bridges etc etc.
Not that you’d know, you live in Australia and know nothing about life here.
You didn’t read the report you linked to. You are very stupid.
Forget unpicking the mess – just dump the whole lot and put in complete new legislation. Especially for taxes.
Yep. Trying to incrementally undo bits and pieces of the damage done (e.g. using the Employment Relations Act to moderate the Employment Contracts Act) is a useless centrist approach.
Even if Labour and its mates were to accidentally win the election (and they wont as the caucus would hate to admit that Cunliffe was the right man for the job so wont help him) then you are working on the false assumption that the Labour Caucus would actually WANT to change anything.
Look at history – apart from Roger Douglas, there have been stuff all major changes in economic policy brought about by a change of Government in the past forty years.
Even Helen Clarks first Government didnt reverse Ruth Richardsons welfare “reforms”
And in foreign fields, the French Presidential candidate Hollande spoke the big words about not being bullied into austerity by the Germans and the banks, and once elected, within weeks changed his words 100% and eventually morphed into a poodle.
Whatever makes you think a Cunliffe led government will be any different?
Nothing which is why I’m not a Labour supporter. Still, they could always listen to what I say and the Greens, whom I do somewhat support, will be there as well and so we may get some needed legislative reform.
Noises-Off Democracy’s Stage
A powerful telling.
‘subservient little Randian ideologues and proto-fascists..’ Bridges, JLR, Guy, Foss, Adams etc.
Bill’s on the list to make a quick exit should one be required, watch for others swapping out in this manner as it’s effectively preparing for a departure as you just slip away and another sock puppet comes in off the list, no by-election.
+100
That sums it up absolutely felix. It is the conclusion that makes sense of all that is going on in NACT. It reminds me of once when I had to coat my kitten with lindane to get rid of the fleas years ago. They fell off in staggering amounts, it was definitely a purge.
I dont feel sorry for Tau…he sold his soul to the devil….really he could have been so much more
The downward slide continues on Morning report. More of Oscar Pistorius crying, complete with long pauses. As a special treat we got a story about a married US politician no one here has ever heard of, apologising for a video showing him kissing another women, apparently he ran on a platform of ‘family values’, oh the irony! Of course we have the royal playdate and at 6.30am traffic congestion as a result of earthquake repairs in Christchurch made the bulletin. Who else left when Geoff retired? Is the programme being produced by year 12 media students or what?
Opinion would say, an unkind one at that, that Oscar sure as hell deserves one for His performance in the witness box…
I don’t see why someone can’t be genuinely remorseful and upset, even if they did actually commit murder.
Agreed.
Today he said he heard a window in the bathroom, panicked. he said he yelled to Reeva to get under the bed, yelled at her to call the police, yelled at the intruder, then he heard the toilet door close…
My partner suggested that reeva, hearing him, not knowing she was the alleged intruder, took refuge in the toilet. He then proceeded tot he toilet door and shot…
That doesn’t explain any calls tot he person behind the toilet door, warnings to them etc which would have alerted reeva to the fact she was the alleged intruder that bothered him.
It’s one explanation.
Also we need to recall that even those who commit awful violence on their partners are often remorseful very soon after…
Is this an all or nothing charge for the Crown? Or if it is not premeditated murder, it’s still murder or manslaughter?
Sounds as though you could do with some background reading on sociopaths 🙂
It is a concern that Morning Report seems to have descended into repetition and trivia. Maybe it is just another slow news day – again. Guyon and Susie seem to be struggling with what they are given but who is giving them the material and who is standing over them to make sure that the program fades away during election year?
Tomorrow will be better perhaps.
Oh come on we re so lucky to now have ‘Gyro’ Espiner frantically trying to sound like a commercial station every time he speaks. If we do get a left party in power again then a thorough overhaul of Radio and Television is a must and it should be done in a way that it cannot be easily undone without a solid proportion of NZ voting to change it.
plus 100. i switched to radio live (after guyon talking about how ‘lucky’ the babies who were going to meet the royals were, blurgh!) but hit their sport panel (double blurgh!) so i listened to some mp3s instead…aphrodites childs ‘666’ mega epic psychedelic greek rock!!!!
I have noticed the Radionz News fascination with the endless Oscar piss stories. And his crying. Specially brought to you the educated listener to inform you about what important things are happening in the world. He should get an ‘Oscar’ all right. And a boot up his bum. It sounds to me like a Special Boy who has been fated and feted to get everything that he wants.
Which reminds me also of the young man whose girlfriend woke up beside him in bed only to find she was dead. The Guardian said that Emily Langley’s killer was a millionaires son. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/22/millionaire-jewellers-son-jailed-murder
An underlying learning that comes from those two examples is that girls have to watch their boyfriends aren’t actually boyfiends. Watch your spelling ladies, or your mistake could mean your death.
Then as Corokia says the USA Christian who was Sooooo Sorry that he kissed another woman besides his wife and has stepped down from something political. And not only do we give him a brief report in our news, we get USA feed giving us the rundown on it. The excitement of it all. Someone has got something sexual, a touch, a kiss, a brush of the bodies, nooky or something.
Heaven help us. Can we get people and our heretofore respected Radionz who respect our need for real news, and not some tripe suitable for the tripey women’s magazines or the defunct Truth newspaper. No wonder it had to close down. It’s erstwhile readers are so well served by all the latest Titbits and Tittle-tattle, it couldn’t compete. Why don’t we have some page 3 nudes, both men and women. Let’s have real pictures of real bodies and be honest that we like that some of the time. And the rest of the time we can stop having little everyday indecency blown up into major news. And hear some of the important news that is presently sidelined so we can share in the horror of an illegitimate kiss.
Best Looks
Sickening and disgraceful. What has the world come to if this is Cosmopolitan response. Shame on them
and describing her as a fixture… a freudian slip of sorts?
Couldn’t agree more, I never thought Morning report would end up being so lame and vacuous. And it only took a couple of days.
Going down the same drain as the Listener
as designed Adrian, not one everyone is privvy to except probably Griffin the other nat cronies on the RNZ board so they all chirp as one along with the nact backers who provided the design.
Wallace is doing a great job on Sunday though.
Yep. Much better to listen to some uplifting Mahler or Lesbians on Ecstasy on your morning commute. Or a Podcast of The Economist.
Of course why am I not surprised that you would choose that right wing rag The Economist. A magazine that still hides the names of its reporters, probably because we might recognise their names in the Tory register.
One could do so much better reading a reputable news publication.
srylands
The Standard must be the main post of your life, that keeps you upright, your mainstay. You poor old person who has to sit on your hill and make snide remarks at the hoi pollio down below.
Why don’t you do something useful now. You have no doubt acquired money over your life, sticking one of your tentacles to the lifeblood of the right wing institutions that you have belonged to. Now you are so empty, you can only fill yourself by writing critical remarks about people who are trying to do something.
Have you ever said anything positive, offered a positive and effective comment to ideas expressed on this blog that would help carry NZ forward keeping in mind its financial and other difficulties and the long mismanagement of the economy? I think you would have to look hard to find it. I wonder if you can bother to.
The Four Horsemen
Haven’t watched it yet but it will probably be of interest to those interested in economics. It’s from The Renegade Economist.
Seen it.
It’s excellent.
”They gave us the grapes that went ripe in the Sun,
That loosen the screws at the back of the tongue,
We still told nothing ’bout what was to come”,
Four Horsemen–the Clash…
It’s ok but I think it eventually advocates for a free market solution, so kinda misses the point entirely.
I thought ‘Inside Job’ was much more informative but that doesn’t advocate for any particular solution.
From yesterdays question time, Bill English asked a question by David Parker about superannuation, an attempt to skewer English with the news story of the mega-billions that would have been in a previous superannuation fund if an incoming National Government had not cancelled it,
English retorted, fishing or with inside knowledge???, that Labour currently had an unspoken of plan to ‘means test’ all superannuation payments which certainly got Parker looking like He had just pee’d on an electric fence,
My view is that English was simply using a bullshit line to avoid actually answering the question, i doubt Labour have a ‘plan’ to means test superannuation at all, why would they promote such an electorally kneecapping policy when they already have a perfect ‘turn off’ to 2–5% of voters with the ‘plan’ to raise the age of entitlement to 67,
If anything should Labour gain the numbers in the Parliament to actually further this policy, i would suggest an impossibility unless they commit electoral suicide and use National to ram such Legislation through,after individual compulsory superannuation savings Legislation will come a future ‘imperative’ to raise the age of entitlement to 70,
Given the current state of political polls it is not unreasonable to suggest that NZFirst will be a feature in the next Parliament which would make the Labour plan to raise the age of entitlement basically null and void and it is beyond me to understand why Parliamentary Labour continue to push this vote losing policy,
The fact that David Cunliffe cannot ‘see’ this has me questioning whether He is as smart as we are lead to believe…
Oh, he’s as smart as we were led to believe. His problem is that he still believes in the economic paradigm that has been throttling NZ for the last thirty years. In fact, he’s well and truly indoctrinated in it.
Well, I know for sure that DC understands very well the limitations of neoliberal/Chicago school economics and monetary policy.
Whether or not the rest of the machinery allows him much freedom to express that and act on it is another question.
When Paddy G interviewed DC on The Nation and the issue of lifting the retirement age was raised by Gower, I got a strong feeling from DC’s response that he was pretty luke warm about it. He was very emphatic in all his other answers and what he did say was he thought there should be a cross party agreement on the issue. This is how I remember it anyway.
Unfortunately a ”pretty lukewarm response” from David Cunliffe on the superannuation question does not necessarily mean that He is ‘against’ raising the age of entitlement,
Such a ”lukewarm response” might have simply been His response to a question He found it easier to equivocate over than give a straight answer, especially if that answer would have entailed confirming the Labour plan to raise the age of entitlement,
From RadioNZ News, both on radio and online it appears that Labour have contingency plans when it comes to the question of mining if the Green party refused to support any future mining initiatives during a Labour/Green Government,
It appears that the mining lobby group Straterra held ,(paid for), a function in the Parliaments Grand Hall a couple of days ago at which Andrew Little represented the Labour Party,
Spoken to after this function Little is quoted, presumably full of the wine of Straterra’s human kindness, as saying that should the Green Party in a future coalition with Labour refuse to support any future mining Legislation granting new license to mine Labour would then rely on the support of the National Party to pass such Legislation in the House,
So how far astray are those who see exactly the same ‘tactic being used to pass Legislation through the House on the raising of the age of superannuation question,
i realize that we all want rid of Slippery the Prime Minister and this shoddy corrupt Government, BUT, rid of them at what cost, i for one cannot continue to promote ”unity” of the left when Labour look every bit the ‘other’ National Party masquerading at the ball…
Raising the age to 67 is inevitable. It is happening all over the OECD. There is no alternative. Take a look at the long term fiscal outlook Treasury put out last year. If you don’t do this, there will be no money for health expenditure growth. You choose. You need to look at this in the context of all fiscal pressures to 2040.
Labour could win the election by promising a phased increase in super eligibility to 70 years. Another useful reform would be to unlink it from wage growth and chanage it to CPI. Do thiose two things and things will look much sweeter. Ultimately both WILL happen because there is no alternative. Labour might as well take the credit. Because the next National Government led by J Key’s successor will do it.
Odd then that the US Federal Reserve can print $80B a week in interest free money for the big banks?
Odd then that the US and the EU can instantly come up with multi-billion dollar bail outs and loan guarantees for their preferred government in Ukraine?
Odd then that the 0.1% have stashed away several trillion dollars in tax havens and high value assets like gold?
Where is all this money coming from for these special pet projects?
Why do you say that austerity for the 99% is inevitable when there is clearly so much money being printed and stashed away by the 0.1%?
Actually, there’s plenty of alternatives but they absolutely trounce the status quo and so you don’t want to listen to them.
ha ha, fancy putting all this out there srylands. Your opinion is so shallow it is like talking to a child.
You think everything can and should be priced and that people on earth make decisions on the basis of self-interest.
So deluded.
@vto that’s it. you have put your finger on it. SorryLands is only 9.
“There is no alternative.”
srylands,
statements like that suggest your thought process is not qualified to strain week old soup, let alone create the banquet of circumstance required to grow a healthy society
Well said.
Anything out of slylands personal/political paradigm cannot be workable or acceptable, no matter how necessary, workable or acceptable it is.
slylands is driven by the myth of wealth = happy
as opposed to reality which is success = healthy and thriving
The usual Nazi rubbish from SSLands, still choosing i see to vomit an absolute pile of excrement without a shred of fact into the debate,
Here is the ACT Party view of this supposed ‘crisis in superannuation:
”Since 1980 the number of people over the age of 65 has doubled”. ”StatisticsNZ predicts this age group will double again by 2036”. ”In that time the cost of NZ Super is projected to increase from 9 billion dollars a year to 20 billion dollars a year”.unquote.
So, shock horror where exactly is the problem, doesn’t the rise in the cost of superannuation from the present 9 billion dollars to 20 billion dollars in 2036 just have you all shaking at the knees,
There is no problem with superannuation as has been shown by the ability to pay for a doubling of the number of superannuation payments from 1980 to the present day,
In 1980 GDP was 22,967 billions of dollars
In 2012 GDP was 208,688 billions of dollars,
This GDP growth was achieved through any number of financial and economic crisis, if we apply the same rate of growth to expected GDB in 2036 an entirely different picture of shock horror emerges,
The estimated GDP in 2036 394,400 billions of dollars
plus the contents of the Cullen Super fund now at 24 billion dollars and rising,
Estimated GDP 418,400 billions of dollars,
So using the exact same growth rate for the years 1980—2012 in billions of dollars we can estimate the growth in the GDP from 2012–2036 to arrive at a figure of,(adding in the Cullen Super fund), 418,400 billions of dollars doubling the present 2012 figure of GDP,
Crisis what Crisis, by 2036 the number of superannuation payments will have doubled as will the the growth of GDP,(based upon historical fact),which will simply mean that the Government will have doubled its income from taxation of that doubled GDP so where exactly is this crisis…
perhaps slylans is worried that the trend of falling tax revenue will continue til 2036, despite so called rockstar economy.
Firstly, there is no such thing as this is “happening all over the OECD”. The age for many mainland Euro countries is 60 to 65 years with Ireland 66 years. These are facts, so no stories please.
Secondly, if a state pays a benefit it has to be contributed to. So why not link it to the years worked rather then age reached. Lets say the tax contribution years of each person is 40 years – and please note this is based on individual contribution, no couples or diminishing into the wall paper if you are married.
This would mean that if you are at university slouching off for years on end it will not get you the good life. Equally if you start working young or in an apprenticeship that often means physical work, one would retire earlier. Thus the system would be fairer. If one chooses to continue working and is able it should not be a problem.
There is still a cap of the working age, lets say 67, by which time everybody would be entitlement to at least a minimum pension as it is paid now. The difference is that in the case of having the full 40 years contributed the pension is set at the average income of the last few years of work.
You might say that this is a good incentive to a/ not stay on the dole, b/ go from benefit to benefit without ever contributing anything and lastly everybody knows that they are not a drain on the next person. This can be run like any other pension scheme and does not need extensive set up costs, privatization with money being paid to shareholders instead of the retiree. The question is, is the average person out there ready to take responsibility?
The British system of the state pension is based on what a person pays in National Insurance while working.
But it tends to work against women because many take time out from work to look after children.
Many people want to work but can’t get jobs – so that impacts a lot on some sections of the popultaion.
And this is why most Euro countries have minimum pensions for women reaching the age of 60 and this is paid on an individual basis and not as the women being the left foot of a man.
Really, an incentive to get a job???what a load of fucking shit, there are not enough jobs in the economy so other than rotational employment everyone cannot work…
“The age for many mainland Euro countries is 60 to 65 years”
The effective retirement age is maybe more useful.
In several European countries it’s below 60 for men and lower than men by a couple of years for women. In the OECD only Japan and South Korea have an effective retirement age that is quite a lot older than the official retirement age.
Most Euro countries do not peg against reaching a certain age but rather on years of contribution to the retirement fund. Hence the age varies. However, 60 -65 is the minimum age by which one can get minimum retirement money without the nominal time of contributions. Yes, the effective retirement age is often lower. I know this first hand as my younger siblings are already retired whilst I have to put some considerable years into it here in NZ before I get some peanuts.
The super surcharge was, in effect, a method of means testing National Super, and I think that was introduced originally by Labour. Perhaps that was what English was referring to.
My guess from this is that Labour intend to have a means tested superannuation at 65 and non means test at 67 as a way of allowing those who wish/need to retire at 65 to be able to access superannuation if they are of limited means. Personally, I’d rather see more money being spent on those living in poverty than being paid out to 65 year olds who are still in full-time work earning over $100,000 a year.
The super for those on such high incomes would largely be lost in taxes. And having applied for NZ Super – it’s a trial – requires verification of identity, documented evidence of all income, all savings, etc as well as of all assets (whether than can be swapped for money or not) – it’s a bugger of a form to complete. For those who will lose the super gain in taxes anyway, it may not be worth the effort – though I guess they’d have accountants to do it for them.
That’s true, Karol – I was working full time when I first received Super and I was paying quite a bit more in taxes than I was getting back (and I wasn’t earning $100,000 either!) You have to pay secondary tax on either your income or your Super, so the tax payments are quite high
And after paying secondary tax you then fill in the correct forms and get the over paid tax back. You still end up paying the same amount of tax on income.
Just a quick update on the adviser the “royal” couple brought with them. Sir David Manning is quite a piece of work!
”Fixer” would be a better descriptive, but please, do tell us all more,(with proof or asked as a question),
Most English gangster clans have a ”Fixer” which saves the elite of such from having to dirty their hands,
i must hunt out the story i read,(online), that alleges that one particular ‘Woyal’ suffering from irreversible brain damage far from ‘falling’ to His death from the step of the particular remote mansion/castle He had been hidden away in, went over a nearby cliff allegedly with the help from another Sir in the form of a ‘Woyal Fixer’…
Go to the post. You will find all the proof you need. I never put anything out unless I can link to proof or I put it in a question. Hence the link in the comment. By the way calling someone a piece of work isn’t what you might call libelous is it?
Sorry book signed travellerev, i missed that one word in Blue reading your comment at speed on the first go round, yep have had a read and He is as you say he is…
Sorry book signed. I’m gonna keep that one in 😆
Thanks, interesting. So Sir David Manning was involved in preparing that dossier of mis-information in support of the UK joining the US in the 2003 attack on Iraq – misinformation about WMDs.
And so was our Chief GCSB boss, Ian Fletcher (working for Andrew Turnbull), ex- school buddy of John Key.
Letter to David Manning from Blair’s advisor.. – copied to Ian Fletcher.
Interesting opinion piece on why calling Tony Blair a war criminal is a distortion of history:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/08/tony-blair-labour-pride-war-criminal-iraq
A million excess deaths in Iraq in the years since the Blair/Bush led war. Yes, that’s war criminal level activity right there, regardless of whether or not Blair was a Saint on every other day of the week.
And that’s also ignoring how Blair further increased the political capture exercised by the City of London bankers.
TRP,
One day I think and hope the Standardistas are going to look at your comments and think he is getting more and more blatant in his shill behavior by the day. You’re not even pretending anymore!
Cheers, Ev, as usual you haven’t got a clue. I’m not defending Blair, but pointing out an interesting, if contrarian, opinion piece. Not everything is an conspiracy, you know.
Hey Tau, you don’t get to call yourself a maverick. If you’re a maverick then other people will say it.
If you have to say it yourself, chances are that everyone else just thinks you’re a dick.
Sarah Palin, eh? Although in her case I think it was shorthand for “bimbo out of her depth”.
a mavrick stands up to the failed neo lib experiment they dont run toward it with their arms out stretching yelling
” me too. gimme gimme gimme”
Damn thought you were describing Hone’s love affair with Kim Schmitz there for a minute
From TV3 News last night. Simon (the moron) Bridges opens up 450,000 hectares of conservation land for oil and gas exploration including Victoria Forest Park, described by DOC as “pristine and untouched” and has no idea it exists or where it is. You have to watch this.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Minister-didnt-know-park-was-in-drilling-plan/tabid/1607/articleID/339311/Default.aspx
Yes, lots of jokes on Twitter last night at Bridge’s expense. Is it me, or is Bridge’s usual bad-John-key-imitation of mangled speech less noticeable than usual in that vid? – His more natural speech coming out when caught on the back foot?
Yes I noticed that too. His usual yokel drawl seems to be a bit of an act.
Don’t want to sound smarter than the boss, eh?
wondered about that too
Appalling political and policy illiteracy.
Minister Smith needs to require review of all such proposed decisions.
Incompetent government.
NRT on it:
my bold
I cant stand that person, he has sold his soul and tries to have everybody else doing the same. Brrr…
From the Daily Blog : interesting comment
…I have to agree with Martin Bradbury that “If the Greens are serious about being the main part in a Labour led Government, they have to start finding bridges to build with Winston.”
“Is Kennedy Graham the Green’s secret weapon and are they getting rid of him too soon?”
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/04/05/is-graham-kennedy-the-greens-secret-weapon-and-are-they-getting-rid-of-him-too-soon/
i have to wonder which Labour Party ‘Bomber’ is referring to when He says that ”285,000 kids growing up in poverty and a climate damaged enviroment can’t afford blah blah blah”,
In light of my comment (7.2.1) above it appears that Labour will happily indulge in climate damaging mining and if the Green component of any Labour/Green Government objects to this the Labour Party as Andrew Little is quoted by RadioNZ National News will happily seek the votes of National to pass any needed Legislation,
As far as addressing child poverty i have yet to see a labour Party policy that in any way addresses such poverty, as by the time all these jobs,jobs,jobs, which appears to be the sum total of the ‘plan’ materialize those kids will have lived their whole childhoods in that poverty and suffer the consequences of it for the remainder of their lives…
It would cost about 1.5% of GDP (=$3B p.a.) to totally eradicate child poverty from NZ. And of course, it’s not a “cost” it’s an investment in the future of New Zealand.
Funny how no political party seems to be giving us what we need.
To be clear, I am not talking about a “Ministry of Children” with another 200 head count in Wellington.
as someone said today…
the rich deserve more money to motivate them, the poor need less.
Kenneth Galbraith
How about saving potentially billions of dollars at both local and central government level, by OPENING THE BOOKS and CUTTING OUT THE CONTRACTORS?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1111/S00095/wheres-nationals-corporate-welfare-reform.htm
Here’s an ACTION PLAN:
http://www.pennybright4mayor.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ANTI-CORRUPTION-WHITE-COLLAR-CRIME-CORPORATE-WELFARE-ACTION-PLAN-Ak-Mayoral-campaign-19-July-2013-2.pdf
“Where the people lead – the politicians will follow?”
Penny Bright
http://www.dodgyjohnhasgone.com
AAA+++
why do so many who dont support the greens, wont vote for them, think their advice is needed?
…because they know the Greens are smart …and they themselves are dumb?….too dumb to vote Green….but smart enough to know that the Greens make sense
Crim Dot Con says that he has an electorate MP (Not Hone) agreed to sign up to the Internet party
If this is true then there is a current electorate MP who is lying to his electorate and party now because every single one has denied being in the Crim’s pocket. There is no electorate MP who could survive as an MP having lied and deceived the public like that.
Crim Dot Con is a liar desperate to avoid extradition and jail time.
Will Mana ignore their principles and take his thirty silver coins.
If so they have no mana.
fisiani are you on a mission?…to nowhere?
classic Chooky
Comedy gold
im picking Claire Curran but by the well worn trail up to the coatesville mansion it seems anyone of those clowns would sell their soul for a dollar
I thought Dotcom talked of an “elected MP”. That is not necessarily the same thing as an electorate MP. Bearing in mind his first language is not English, then its possible he was referring to an MP elected by the voters to be an MP which would include list MPs elected via the party vote.
chooky caught a fish.
hohoho.
I am reading an old Simenon story first published in 1954. It’s about a French village and called Maigret Goes to School.
This is a quote that took my fancy, describing the Deputy Mayor –
“The expression on his face combined the cunning self-assurance of the peasant with that of the politician skilled in juggling with the village elections.”
And the postman, who has lost a hand which has been replaced with a hook, complaining about the forms he has to deliver from the government:-
Simenon is an observer of the human character. He notes that a war veteran who ostensibly was fighting for his fellow citizens and country and the wellbeing of the whole country, can then turn at the end of the war and resent his fellows their life and the efforts to go forward in an improved way with a new life and children for the future.
So thinking about oneself and resenting others getting help with the duties of their roles and consideration for their situation is not new. And that applies to war veterans needing help and not getting it also.
it describes bm in yesterday’s thread about poverty.
I think National are genuinely worried. On FB they are pulling out all the stops
still, gotta be better than the alternative
i agree they are in 2011 they hid the snarl… now its snarly and smug
clever poster too.
The Rock Bottom Economy:
”Two thirds of the way through the current financial year the ‘tax take’ is now 1.1 Billion Dollars below estimates”,
Shortfalls:
GST down by 3.2%,
Business taxes down by 6.8%,
We were told when the ‘tax take’ was light by 500 million dollars that this was due to ‘slower than usual’ tax payments from the business sector,
Considering that hole in the Government revenue stream has now more than doubled to 1.1 Billion Dollars we can only view such an excuse as bullshit, more lies form this National Government, it would appear from such a sizable hole in that Government revenue stream that ‘business’ has found a new means of tax avoidance and considering the doubling of the amount that business has not paid in due taxation it would appear that more of those in business are using such a ‘loophole’ to avoid paying due taxation,
Considering the ‘upward trend’ in non-compliance from the business sector to pay due taxation the estimate for the full year of increase in tax avoidance/evasion will leave the Government income for the year 1.7 –2 billion dollars less than what the GDP growth would suggest is due…
and yet apparently 50% of businesses are feeling really great ” moving forward”.
The board of kiwirail didn’t know their ferry was using significant amounts of lubrication, above the norm, and let the ferry sail!@#@ Inevitably leading to a failure costing millions to fix…!!!
Tax revenues down. Key ideological delusion thought lowering tax would raise revenue.
Sad, really sad, that Key actually thinks neo-liberal deregulate actually creates growth.
No. The growth of the last thirty years has been due to year on year falls in the cost
of energy. The glut of cheap high density petroleum.
And now that’s over, the way to increase govt revenue, create more jobs, a more efficient economy, is to pull back on government largess to industries and tax payers, and let manage the economy so the most have the best opportunity to compete and innovate. And you don’t do that by giving relief to those who have already ensconced themselves and use the tax cut to solidify their positions (as they have). Innovation comes from stress, Key’s soft on industrial approach is naive now, was naive for the last thirty years, since it hands an easy ride, and so boost the financial sector. We don’t generate new science by dictate to scientist what they can research, we don’t generate new ideas and new products, new innovations by helping those who have a systemic interest in keeping the status quo.
For thirty years we have dropped the ball, and been lied to by the self proclaimed geniuses of high finance. It was just one giant right wing monetary scam.
but kate and wills are here!!!!
Yeah, Key could so easily have told us of the forth coming election after they leave.
Just the indignity of having to explain to a government official that your child has died and you need to travel aboard to keep getting basic income assistance to eat. This when Collins, paid for by tax payers, to fly, to live it up in hotels, to get free feeds, can have a private dinner (not so private she didn’t have to inform the ambassador about). I mean its the same abuse surely, using tax payers money to do with it for some purpose that you shouldn’t. In a beneficiary were to travel overseas, wined and dined because of who their husband is, because of their husbands company, Ms Bennett would be out drolling how she saved money, but should that person be a minister!!!
. There is a disconnect between the rhetoric of a “rock star economy” promoted by a writer at the NZ Herald, and more than 40 people turning up at an information evening for a probation officer position in Wellington a few days ago.
Hey! I have seen TWO photos of Katherine where she did not have a smile on her face. She looked quite nice.
who read the dinkum oil by chalkie in todays dompost. “how the forex traders fixed the market”. Ithink I heard that around here lately too. good job if you can get it.
Labour, National, Labour, National, Labour/Greens? (a final step to far?)
Does the National Labour Business As Usual duopoly preclude any Labour/Green government?
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/labour-rejects-green-party-coalition-offer-5898618
Is Labour’s refusal to stand up to the fossil fuel lobby behind their refusal to work with the Greens?
Yeah, after that ballsup you’ve really got to ask who’s actually running the Labour Party. It certainly isn’t the members.
As an increasingly greater number of people within my social and work circles have been saying, as I have heard many times in recent months, some Labour MPs would prefer to be in control of a losing Labour Party than not be in control of a winning Labour Party.
Good luck to Cunliffe!
Loved to Death
I simply want to express how pissed off I am that Labour’s caucus have rejected a formal coalition with the Greens – as reported on the tv news tonight.
I am unlikely ever to vote Greens for a whole bunch of reasons. I also delivered and donated for them at the last election.
There is little to be gained by Labour for doing this – it is abundantly clear that there will be little shifting of the major blocs (at least those visible to public polling) leading up to election. In fact Labour’s David Cunliffe has admitted as much by stating regularly that it will not be fresh voters that win Labour the election, but instead it will be those who already have a predisposition to vote Labour anyway but who simply chose not to vote last time.
We have also heard regularly on television and on sites such as this that the vast majority of those who vote Labour would prefer a Labour-Green coalition. Like my wife and I.
The rump end of Labour’s caucus are simply chickenshit conservative egotists who think they can go it alone until the very end, but in fact are signalling that they would prefer not to have to deal with the Greens at all.
The Greens could quite well determine that there is less to be gained by being pushed around and excluded like they were last time Labour was in power, and decide it’s better not to have a progressive government if it means having to be relentlessly done over by Labour’s bullying thugs.
We met these hard-assed ugly caucus members head on when we changed the rules to force the Labour membership to have a say in the leader. We met them again when we campaigned successfully to get David Cunliffe to be leader of the Labour Party. They were bitter fights, but on the surface at least unity was re-established in order to gain re-election.
And now we get to meet them again, that same sad bitter old rump without courage or whit to get another job (while National completely clears house for the next generation). They are a pathetic excuse for a caucus if they explicitly slap down a generous and constructive coalition offer from the Greens. Labour’s caucus could not generate a united political vision throughout the entire leadership debate, and have just made Cunliffe go on television and state it in black and white.
I am in complete despair at the coldness and meanness of the Labour caucus response. I noted Cunliffe’s careful wording. However the optimism and youth of the Greens look a whole lot more attractive right now.
Shame on the Labour caucus.
“I simply want to express how pissed off I am that Labour’s caucus have rejected a formal coalition with the Greens – as reported on the tv news tonight.”
Well, it’s a good thing that’s not what happened, eh. All that actually has happened is that Labour has decided against using coalition style language prior to the election (and before the negotiations that will form the Labour led Government). It’s not my preference, as a supporter of explicit pre-election blocs, but it ain’t the end of the world.
Labour had better figure out how people are reacting to such lack of cooperativeness – because yes it isn’t the end of the world – but I could see Labour becoming a minor party if they persist in competing with the other main (biggest) party of the left.
Humans get further cooperating with their associates. If they want to compete – how about they focus on National and Act as their targets to compete against? (…now there is a novel idea)
I am having a similar reaction – the only clause out for Labour in my book, is that if this was reported in a manner that made it look particularly bad for Labour – One News is usually fairly fair (unlike 3News) – however I am suspending drawing firm conclusions until I find out more via other sources.
The items that were mentioned by One News that the Greens had presented to Labour sounded sensible and very workable. I agree with Russel Norman’s comment – that people wish to see the future government and how these parties will work together.
If this item is confirmed accurate – Labour have managed to lower their chances of a vote from me – they will just have to access how many others will react in a similar way ( – because obviously just one person being put off matters very little 🙂 ) I am sorry for the members who did a wonderful job of getting their voices heard in changing the Leadership rules and let’s be very clear if Labour was going to get my support it would be due to these members’ efforts. yet now after hearing this news, I am unlikely to vote Labour.
This lack of cooperation and particularly not providing a decent reason for this choice by Labour, simply makes Labour look really pathetic and power-trippy in my view. A cooperative, ‘can do’ attitude is needed on this matter of the parties they are most likely going to be working with – not a misaligned cupidity toward power they may not even get if they don’t start showing some cohesion with their peers and assertiveness toward issues that matter to people. Or at least explaining where they are coming from.
This looked pathetic Labour just pathetic is my initial reaction – final conclusions, as mentioned earlier, are pending.
On the surface it doesn’t look great does it. You’d think that a united Left coalition would stand in positive contrast to National which is essentially on its own.
Maybe Labour have some strategic reason?? Dunno.
Here’s the link to the clip
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/labour-rejects-green-party-coalition-offer-5898618
“Maybe Labour have some strategic reason??”
I guess that the floating centre vote may not switch to Labour is there was a formal coalition with the Greens. Although no formal coalition may send some floating Lab/Green votes to the Greens it’s not going to hurt the overall left-ish vote. I think Labour have made the correct decision here.
This was one of the thoughts I had too – however Winston is likely to have captured this market of these types of voters and what about the issue of people who don’t see Labour ‘as being any different from National’? – from my point of view this perception is wrong – Labour governments are a lot different to National because they invest in people and people issues that bear fruit in the future – however perceptions count for a lot with elections and if Labour made some sort of clear stand that would counter such perceptions it would be excellent. It may be that this defining of Labour as different to National is more of an issue – it is certainly the comment I hear most regularly.
Instead of making clear statements, however Labour choose to go all woolly about parties that they are going to have to work with. It would have been good to have a clear explanation of why it was that Labour rejected this coalition plan and a positive comment re the Greens whilst doing so. Instead we are just left in the dark – left to guess – why Labour wouldn’t find some common ground with the Greens. What are the chances of Labour getting enough votes to be in Government without them?
That sounds reasonable but is it in consistent with their stated goal of turning out the disenfranchised 800,000 non vote?
It’s not inconsistent with the goal of turning out the disenfranchised vote. I’m generally a Labour voter (not sure this year), but I’m not concerned about where the left vote goes in terms of left-ish parties – as long as it goes somewhere – maybe the outrage will send a few more people to the ballot box to vote Greens or Mana?
BL – Labour and the Greens have both been pretty clear about what they agree on. I guess from a personal perspective I know a few people that are thinking about switching from Nat to Lab, but won’t have a bar of the Greens. Whereas people who are going vote left will do so anyway.
I think rejecting a coalition with the Greens is a safe strategy for the left generally, maybe there are many who would prefer Labour to be bold… Interesting that this is leading the news, not Simon Bridges, because it’s not news at all, imo. When was the formal proposal put forward? It’s talked about before and I don’t think there has ever been an indication that Labour would agree to such a deal if it was proposed.
If the concern is that being explicit will turn centrists off, then the make up of the left wing block is important.
Voters who won’t vote Labour ‘because of the Greens’, will be at least as aware of what sort of coalition they will need to form as anyone else.
If Labour keep distancing themselves from the Greens in order to woo ‘centrists’, and this causes left voters to switch to the greens, then those centrists will notice that.
Labour can’t help anyone by pretending. there are people who really don’t want a left wing government. They are called tories, and they vote for National, and Labour should stop trying to woo them. They should woo the people who are likely to be wooed.
I largely think the athe blue/green thing is a myth. They are far more blue, than green, but if there is a block of Nat voters labour should target, it’s them. Those voters don’t vote green because of whatever reason, but Labour is far closer to those voters than the Greens are.
I respect what you’re writing, but I can’t really see a downside for the left block in general due to Labour’s position. Although I can see a downside for Labour. Lab voters who prefer an alliance with the Greens, are very unlikely to move to the right if they’re annoyed with Labour. I do agree it’s not going to necessarily maximise the Labour vote, but I doubt it will damage the left vote.
I definitely think there are disaffected National voters who will vote Labour if they think Labour is not ‘giving in’ to the Greens. I’m not calling for Labour to go after that vote, far from it, I just think the Left might lose more than it gains by explicitly agreeing to a coalition with the Greens.
As for the Blue-Greens, yes, I agree they are an almost extinct species. I reckon their environmental perspective is likely to be a consumerist one, not a social one. I think that if they exist they’re unlikely to vote Green, but are even more unlikely to vote a Green party explicitly coalescing with Labour. The Greens recognised that last election when they refused to ‘rule out’ National (I think they found that the Blue-Greens are mostly blue, but).
My first thought was:
party vote Green to give Labour truly green & social justice credentials, or
party vote Winston to give Labour a strong super(annuation age-retention) spine.
Labour caucus – losers; fail.
Winston? nope nope nope.
Only vote for winston if you care more about having Winston on TV, than you do about who the next PM will be.
Yes, that is true.
Seems like such an arrangement would benefit the Greens more than Labour both in potential votes and subsequent power in a coalition government. If such a coalition failed to take the treasury benches they’d have far more MP’s, perhaps even nearing a parity with Labour. A cynical play by the Greens, Labour are smart to reject it, they’d be signing the death warrant of the party.
I can certainly see your point, however I see the Green’s proposal as more in touch with the voters than Labour’s position on this one (and quite a few other issues too). i.e if 70% of left wing voters would like to see a working relationship between Labour and the Greens – the Greens proposal delivers that and also gives us voters something very defined to base our decisions on – i.e if we want a more Labour flavour it makes it clear to vote Labour and if we want Greens to have that much influence – we vote Greens. This is still the case – yet the Green’s proposal emphasises this – and this doesn’t necessarily mean that more people would vote Greens.
Labour could have responded by putting forward some limits i.e. no finance portfolios (for example) and then the ball would be in the Green’s court.
“Seems like such an arrangement would benefit the Greens more than Labour both in potential votes and subsequent power in a coalition government”
Can you explain your reasoning? I know a few voters who currently say they’ll vote Green simply to force Labour to work with them. They feel burned by Labour’s constant pandering to soft tories like Winston and Dunne. They don’t agree with the Greens on a lot of things, prefer Labour on many, but would simply rather Labour be negotiating with the Greens than with Winston or Dunne.
This announcement is likely to have confirmed they’ll be voting Green. 68% of Labour voters said they’d rather Lab work with the Greens than with Winston in a CB poll late last year. Those are Labour voters at risk of voting Green to force that party to do what they want. A deal like that proposed would leave them comfortably red.
I wonder if we will see a post on this subject at The Standard?
I wonder if I will be banned for asking this question?