Haven’t been able to find any English Regional percentage breakdowns yet (ie North-East, West Midlands, South-West, Greater London etc – but, then, that’s probably a plus from your point of view)
Trp said something about it yesterday, and I think it’s been in the media, as a reason for Labour doing badly (I’m rolling my eyes), but it sounded like the same old beat up to me, as you point out there wasn’t a real shift.
Yep, the Undecideds certainly comprise one of the reasons being touted for the “terrible night for us pollsters” (Chief Executive of YouGov ).
Others include: (1) the “Shy Conservative” (though they arguably overlap with the Undecideds – about which, more below), (2) The suggestion that Polls were, in fact, correct but last-minute swing to the Tories, (3) That Pollsters may have been “herding” (ie skewing their polls towards an average) – some analysts are suspicious about just how closely-aligned the various polls were in the final days, (4) Claims that the Final Result was, in fact, within the margin-of-error for most polls, (5) Becoming more challenging to contact a representative sample of voters, (6) The large-ish minority of Labour supporters (28% in one Ipsos-Mori Poll) who told pollsters they preferred Cameron as PM (speculation they could comprise a whole new category of “shy Tory”), (7) Current polling methods haven’t adjusted to the new era of electoral politics (ie the much greater fluidity of the electorate in recent years).
In terms of the argument that a disproportionate number of “Don’t Knows” went Tory on Election Day,…….. a couple of weeks back, I was looking through the detailed breakdowns of a particular poll and noticed that the Undecideds – when pushed to name which Party they were leaning towards – went heavily Conservative. Tories led Labour by more than 10 points among this group. It’s true that Undecideds are somewhat less likely to get out and actually vote on the Day than respondents who name a party on initial prompting, but 10+ points would still have some impact on the final result (not necessarily “shy” but certainly “hidden” Tories).
Labour were targeting 106 marginal seats – most were Tory-held, some LibDem-held.
Have a look at what happened in the most marginal Tory seats of all.
15 Most Marginal Tory Seats of 2010 (ie with smallest 2010 majorities over Labour)
Seat……………….2010 Tory maj over Lab…….2015 % Swing……………….Status
Warwickshire North…………….54……………..CON + 2.1…….LAB – 4.0……….Con Hold
Thurrock……………………………..92……………..CON – 3.1…….LAB – 4.0……….Con Hold
Hendon………………………………106…………….CON + 6.7……LAB – 0.6………Con Hold
Cardiff North………………………194…………….CON + 4.9……LAB + 1.2………Con Hold
Sherwood…………………………..214…………….CON + 5.8……LAB – 2.9……….Con Hold
Stockton South…………………..332…………….CON + 7.8……LAB – 1.3……….Con Hold
Lancaster & Fleetwood……….333…………….CON + 3.2……LAB + 7.0………Lab Gain
Broxtowe……………………………389…………….CON + 6.2…….LAB – 1.1………Con Hold
Amber Valley………………………536…………….CON + 5.4…….LAB – 2.7………Con Hold
Wolverhampton SW……………691…………….CON + 0.5…….LAB + 4.2……..Lab Gain
Waveney…………………………….769…………….CON + 2.1…….LAB – 1.0……..Con Hold
Carlisle……………………………….853…………….CON + 5.0…….LAB + 0.5………Con Hold
Morecombe & Lunesdale……866…………….CON + 4.0…… LAB – 4.6……..Con Hold
Weaver Vale……………………….991…………….CON + 4.6…….LAB + 5.2……..Con Hold
Lincoln………………………………1058……………CON + 5.1…… LAB + 4.3……..Con Hold
Labour won only 2 of the 15 seats it should have absolutely blitzed. And in a majority of the 13 ultra-marginals it failed in – its vote share actually fell while the Tories’ % rose.
Exactly Swordfish-great analysis. My sister lives in Lincoln and will be devastated. The turnout in Lincoln was 63%-pathetic in a marginal. Shows how disillusioned the UK electorate really is.
What has been missed a bit by the analysts is that Labour polled quite well in the north of England compared with last time. That is reflected in the Lancaster vote above, in Burnley and in a number of other results.
Yeah, I was only going to include Tory seats with majorities of less than 1000, but the City of Lincoln’s my old stomping ground. First went to the UK in 1983 in my late teens and spent most of the time in Lincoln/Nottingham area (where I had/have some distant relatives). Did some scrutineering for the Lincoln Labour Party on Election Day – sat next to a very large Tory woman from the Shire* – (and watched one or two Lincoln City games (“The Red Imps”) at Sincil Bank – bottom half of the 4th Division, trend towards pin-striped football Kit in 83 for some bizarre reason, possibly growing obsession with Corporate culture / Thatcherism of more than a few Football Club Execs).
Lincoln’s always been a bellwether seat, clearly still is.
* Yeah, I know, sexist of me to mention her weight. I feel bad about it, but there you go.
Not that bad an article, really. Armstrong has at least spotted the danger for his masters:
“The other lesson to take from Wednesday night’s function – and one National would be wise to heed – is Little’s capacity to surprise, something he first did with his “cut the crap” jibe at John Key. While well imbued with core Labour values, Little is less hung-up about what means are used to reach the goals associated with those values.”
I thought it is an okay article, too – TRP. Phil Ure is just twisting what he has read.
Little has an enormous job to make Labour into a workable election campaign “machine” again – and he’s going about it thoughtfully, carefully, and maybe a bit slowly for some but if you look back at his various statements you’ll see he’s positioning Labour as the Party for Work and Jobs – along with all the other social values that underpins Labour.
So quit sniping at him and let him get on with that job.
Your quotation marks around “radical ideas”, followed by that smarmy little (!), implies this is a quote from Andrew Little. It would be helpful if you provided a citation for that quote, otherwise people might think you were still deliberately twisting things no one has actually said.
You may engage however you wish, but if you don’t want people to point out that you’re implying things that aren’t true and which you can’t back up you should probably either back up your statements, use clearer punctuation, or stop making up lies to suit your political agenda.
I have taken the position of ignoring everything that p u writes on the basis that anyone who refuses to use punctuation and write in coherent sentences and paragraphs can have nothing to say of interest.
It just takes too much time out of my life to read people who write in a stream of thought, blurting manner. Give me someone who makes the effort to write clearly and thoughtfully and, even if I almost always disagree, I will take the time to take their thought on board.
Me too Hateatea, and completely agree about the value of inention in communicating. I sometimes will attempt to read one of his comments in a situation like this (where someone has responded to him in a meaningful way). Sometimes I read the first two lines or so to see if I can make any sense. If he drops vegan links in I’ll have a look because they’re usually fundamentalist and need challenging. I virtually never read the long ones, or even the whole of the short ones. Life’s too short :->
Yep, same here. Some of the subthreads is keyboard-mashing causes can be pretty funny, though.
Especially when he gets called on making shit up and then argues that someone has misinterpreted his intentionally-unorthodox punctuation, grammar, and sentence contstruction.
Double quotation marks would imply a quote. Single ones I would take to mean an implication that some policies were radical ideas rather than a quote, but as you point out it can be hard to tell with phil.
My understanding is that Little is suggesting backing of from certain policies that they’ve recevied feedback are wrong. I wouldn’t have seen Little as seeing those as radical policies, so without some back up, I’ll take it as phil’s interpretation.
It’s funny really, because Little is more likely to take Labour left, and the left calling him a right mover just playes into the right wing spinners’ agenda.
double are quotes which phil used, singles can be used imo to imply irony, sarcasm, disbelief – the exclamation mark implied to me extreme – irony, sarcasm or disbelief.
yep me too – but double around the initial quote commented on.
For me if I write, Little didn’t promise to shed those ‘radical ideas’ etc then I’m saying the ideas are not so radical in my opinion although Little may have thought or even believe they are. What phil means he can explain if he wants but that’s how I read it. Whether he actually promised radical ideas or not is a fair point that Stephanie has raised and tttt {(to tell the truth) just made that up 🙂 } I don’t know if he did or not…
The specific usage of ” vs ‘ isn’t set in stone (hell I have an English degree and I don’t know the “rules” around them).
I would happily accept the idea that phil was paraphrasing the “radical ideas” quote – but then what’s the point of putting “(!)” afterwards?
To me, the obvious interpretation of that is “what a shocking thing to say”. I don’t know why it’s there if pu isn’t trying to imply that Little did indeed say capital gains etc were “radical” ideas.
yep. I got called out on the use of double quotes a while back for something sarcastic I said about something Key had said and someone had a go at me because they thought I was literally making up quoting Key when I thought it was obvious I was taking the piss. I agree there are no set rules, which is why I talked about my impressions of phil’s comment. At this point, in all good conscience I can’t keep talking seriously about punctuation in this context (-;
” is often speech” ‘writing’
But since the advent of “bald neutralising” ” ” have often been used to highlight disagreement with the quoted idea – a bit like sic.
Also the POA publicity machine recently stated that it was essential to have the extended wharf other wise the new cruise ship ‘Quantum of the Seas’ would not be able to berth and New Zealand would miss out on lots of $$$$$$$ ‘cos the company would cancel the visit. ???????
What they didn’t say is that this new vessel whilst a little bigger in displacement is actually similar in size to the ‘Queen Mary II’ which has been here recently with no problems about berthing. She is just two metres shorter than the Quantum but draws 10.1m against the
Quantum’s 8.8m. The other difference is that QMII is rated at 30Knots against the Q’s 22.
TRP you are delusional if you think little has any traction with public as the polls high light labour is now seen as perennial losers globally ( UK Au Nz) No longer is any one buying core labour values beyond those areas trapped on govt handouts ( Scotland Qld etc) , the world has moved on, labours time ( 70 years ago ) has come and gone. All we are seeing now is a slow death, A left shift will simply accelerate the inevitable
we can’t all be landlords and bosses, really we still need a few people to work and get the various jobs that need doing done. You know, like Nurses, teachers, cleaners, admin staff, peeps working in Fonterra factories and the likes. If labour is dead as you say, who will look out for the workers? Surely not National? They have, over the last 7 years and previously under Shipley, shown that they do not believe workers worthy of consideration and might even consider the New Zealand Worker (resident and citizens) to be utterly replaceable by cheap, imported slave type labour from Asia and elsewhere?
What do you tell your children then, if you have any? Move overseas, cause here in NZ you are not going to have a chance to survive?
There needs to be a balance between (to parapharase Bush II) The Haves and The Have Nots or else we are going back to the dark ages where the workers were effectively owned by the Lord of the Manor.
Is that the future that you hope for Red Delusion?
Really what about a 40 hour week, overtime pay, accident compensation, retirement benefits, unemployment benefits, equal education opportunities, public health care and the likes do you not like and think we can do away with?
I’m looking forward to following the nature of work enquiry/report, as it will inform greatly as to how the country should proceed in the upcoming years.
I also look forward to the 40 hour week reducing to 35 or 30 hours for similar pay – this should be a major push from Labour to improve work-life balance (imagine a 4 day week for the same length shifts and same pay!) and also decrease unemployment as mechanisation increases.
hi sabine. i think both you and red delusion can be correct.
i was bought up in a staunch labour household, (my grandfather was an organizer all his life) and constantly told that labour were the party for the working person.
i dont think that relevance is true today.
the radical shift in the 80s to the neo liberal agenda was the final nail in the ciffin for me.
having labour move away from the workers doesnt mean we have to go without 40hour week, overtime etc
i do think the workers you listed do need representing but i feel we dont identify as strongly with our occupations as we used to do.
pollys are there to get elected or re-elected. so we will not be getting a visionary or a radical shake-up from the labour party.
you can argue that proposing raising the retirement age is an anti worker move.
also you can argue that it is a long overdue fiscally responsible move.
as to who is to represent these workers, politically, good question.
probably the mana crew, as i see the greens looking to move right and be seen as respectable enough not to scare the horses.
🙂 – I’d be calling him a lot worse, but then if we delved into it too much, we’d have to start having an in depth discussion on power relations (where Bridges is actually a 40 watt banana masquerading as something quite a few people think is worthwhile), and I’d be living in utter, absolute fear of being ‘sanctioned’.
Inplementing compulsory voting (which I am against) would be a gutsy, definitive, concrete policy statement. Not just talking about considering a policy of talking about policy. So unlikely to come out of Labour.
FYI – here is the EVIDENCE which proves the improvement in ‘transparency’ at Auckland Council, for which. in my opinion, I can claim some credit as a result of my uncompromising ‘one person rates revolt’?
Auckland Council has launched a section on its website providing information on a variety of council activities as part of a commitment to more openness and transparency.
The proactive publication of information on the More about the council webpage, which can be found via the Auckland Council Media centre helps to provide Aucklanders with better, timelier and more accurate information about how council works.
The first release of information includes Auckland Council Group staff numbers, information about annual average rates increases, debt, efficiency savings and progress updates on the NewCore project.
It also includes contracts awarded by the council with a value of $100,000 and greater from 1 July 2014 to 31 March 2015 and spends with suppliers with a value of $100,000 and more from 1 October 2014 to 31 March 2015.
All of the information in the section will be updated regularly to ensure it remains relevant and current.
Auckland Council CEO Stephen Town says the proactive publication of information aims to strengthen Aucklanders’ trust in the council.
“Central government and other local authorities already have similar initiatives, meaning Auckland Council will now be aligned with best practice across the public sector in New Zealand in making information more accessible to the public,” he says.
“In the future we will also be providing more details about how we work and what we do, including information about employee costs, travel expenses, key statistics about council activities and other useful information as and when it becomes available.”
In addition to the proactive publication of information, the council also today began publishing on its website Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act (LGOIMA) responses where the council deems the information to be in the interests of the wider public.
More about the council and LGOIMA responses are available to view now.
______________________________________________________________________________________
We will regularly publish details of awarded contracts and spend with suppliers.
These reports are for Auckland Council (excluding CCOs) and will be updated twice a year, in April and October.
Awarded contracts report
For contracts valued at $100,000 and greater awarded by the council during the period stated (including provisional spending commitments in some instances), this report lists:
a description of the goods and/or services being supplied
the general type of goods and/or services being supplied
the name of the successful supplier
the start date and end date of the contract.
Awarded Contracts Report (PDF 313KB)
Supplier spend report
This report lists the total spend per supplier (across all contracts and purchase orders) for the period stated, where the total is greater than $100,000.
Supplier spend report (PDF 265KB)
All procurement activity at Auckland Council, including tendering and awarding contracts, is subject to the Auckland Council Procurement Policy.
For reasons related to commercial sensitivity and privacy, we do not publish the details of sole traders (ie. individuals who are not contracting through a company).
Detailed information about spend and contracts may be commercially confidential.
We believe that the information we provide in the reports is accurate at the time of publication (subject to the report disclaimers). The information is subject to change if projects, priorities and timeframes are varied for awarded contracts or if financial reconciliations or adjustments are made in respect of prior payments.
And remember, Tim Barnett is the general secretary – he is neither Leader nor President – and has just ordinary member’ s voting rights on policy stuff.
It was part of Labour’s submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee.
From the Herald article:
Mr Barnett said the submission was from the party, which did not set policy, and wanted the committee to investigate the idea – not necessarily recommend it.
“It’s not party policy, it’s merely saying, what are the things that could be done? And in Australia that is the system which they formally adopt.
“There is widespread concern, not just Labour, with non-enrolment … there is pretty compelling evidence that there is a continuing pattern of people not enrolling.”
“And in Australia that is the system which they formally adopt.”
Yeah but Australia is also the country currently introducing fascist policy that means citizens lose social security entitlements if they don’t vaccinate their children. Just to make that really clear, they’re targeting beneficiaries as a class of people. So probably not the best country to use as a comparison at this time.
Gotta say the similarity to the vaccination idea is interesting too. The irresponsibility of those parents is astonishing, of course, so I suppose something has to be done. I suspect that beneficiaries are targeted in the enrolment suggestion because they make up a large number of the non- enrolled. If I get a chance later I’ll do some digging or maybe someone else can do some research on what and why Labour are proposing it. For me, footy calls. Ciao.
If this was about irresponsible parenting, the Australian government would make vaccination mandatory across the board. You don’t vaccinate your kids then you get fined and eventually go to prison. But it’s not about that at all, it’s about buying into narratives that beneficiaries are bad parents and punishing them accordingly.
There is nothing wrong with small numbers of unvaccinated kids. If governments want to improve vaccination numbers they can introduce better health policy so that the people who aren’t vaccinating but probably would given the chance can access better health care. But hey, why bother addressing education and poverty issues when you can just bene bash.
So the theory of herd immunity is wrong then? Herd immunity does not work? Do say more, Mr Scientific one. How about the medical ethics framework of patient consent before any treatment? Is that wrong too?
Oh fuck off with your distractions Draco the Scientific and answer the questions.
Does herd immunity require that 100% of persons be immunised for it to work.
Secondly. Do you believe that medical treatment must ethically obtain fully informed patient consent wherever possible, or do you believe that patient consent is a violable nice to have.
Several decades following the vaccine’s introduction, the measles death rate rose, largely because the vaccine made adults, expectant mothers and infants more vulnerable
Early in the last century, measles killed millions of people a year. Then, bit by bit in countries of the developed world, the death rate dropped, by the 1960s by 98% or more. In the U.K., it dropped by an astounding 99.96%. And then, the measles vaccine entered the market
After the vaccine’s introduction, the measles death rate continued to drop into the 1970s. Many scientists credit the continued decline entirely to the vaccine. Other scientists believe the vaccine played a minor role, if that, noting that most infectious diseases similarly petered out during the 20th century, including some, like scarlet fever, for which vaccines were never developed.
The credit for the century-long decline, scientists generally agree, goes to improved nutrition and improved health care, side effects of the West’s growing affluence. In the U.S., the death rate dropped by about 98%, from about 10 per 100,000 population a century ago to one fifth of one person by 1963, the year measles vaccines made their American debut. Both before and after vaccination started, victims tended to be poor
‘If you really want to know just how ignorant Lawrence Solomon is about vaccines, all you have to do is to take a look at this:
The CDC credits the vaccine with the elimination of measles deaths, but measles deaths ended a decade before the vaccine was in widespread use across the U.S., and deaths had all but ended prior to the first child receiving a shot. While the vaccine can perhaps take modest credit for accelerating the decline in the mid-1960s, it is a stretch to claim that eradication would not have occurred without the vaccine, particularly since the 20th century also saw the die-off of diseases like scarlet fever, for which no vaccine was ever developed.
This is an incredibly intellectually dishonest antivaccine talking point, so intellectually dishonest that it shocks me that anyone with half a brain can seriously argue it. Let’s just put it this way: Anyone who pulls out this tired old dishonest trope is so intellectually bankrupt that I don’t really feel obligated to do anything other than link to a post I did a long time ago about this trope, which I derogatorily labeled the “vaccines didn’t save us” lie.
It’s amazing that in 2014 the same old long discredited antivaccine tropes have found a new mouthpiece, but they have. And that mouthpiece is Lawrence Solomon. It’s not “conservative skepticism” that is falling short. It’s Lawrence Solomon. Sadly, it’s not surprising.’
The move to an artificially created vaccine for whooping cough is behind an increase in cases of the deadly disease in the US, a new study suggests.
The findings highlight the need to do similar research in Australia where whooping cough cases have spiralled upward in the past decade, co-author Associate Professor Manoj Gambhir, from the University of Monash, says.
“These results demonstrate that the resurgence in pertussis in the U.S. can be explained by past changes in vaccination policy. However, the authors’ findings also suggest that the efficacy of the currently-used acellular vaccine, while lower than that of the whole-cell vaccine, is not much lower (around 80% protection for the first three doses of acellular vaccine versus 90% for whole-cell), and booster doses may be sufficient to curtail epidemics while novel vaccine research continues.”
I believe that those are reasonable conclusions to make.
I do note that your rather transparent attempt to smear vaccination against pertussis.
I believe that those are reasonable conclusions to make
I believe people who accept the use of terms such as ‘doses’ and ‘booster shots’ when attempting to explain or accepting the manufactured explanation of ‘herd immunity’ are void of logical reasoning
I do note that your rather transparent attempt to smear vaccination against pertussis.
Q. Do you realise you just illustrated my belief – ‘void of logical reasoning’?
Further illogical reasoning from an alleged medical ‘professional’
That you don’t / won’t /can’t recall previous conversations which you and I have been involved in where I stated openly and succinctly my position causes me greater concern for any patients you have may have treated
I have called you out on your ‘bed side manner’ previously and you have shown it once again with an irrational abusive comment
Forgetful illogical abusive and egocentric are not desirable traits of those in the medical profession
To refresh your memory – I am anti compulsion and pro informed consent
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
3. I don’t need to nor do I have any wish to be polite to a troll on a political website as you may or may not have understood by now that the opinions expressed on this website are often done so with vigour.
That you believe I am a trolll serves only to enforce my understanding of your state of mind
1. I am pro informed consent also.
Q. Are you really ?
Q. Which information do you pass on to your patients before you stab them with chemicals that have side effects and adverse reactions which you clearly don’t understand the dangers of ?
If your version of ‘informed consent’ is reflected through contributions on this site you have no comprehension of what ‘informed consent’ is nor any right to claim that you do and should not be practicing medicine nor administering chemicals
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
You can’t recall what I have posted
3. I don’t need to nor do I have any wish to be polite to a troll on a political website as you may or may not have understood by now that the opinions expressed on this website are often done so with vigour.
You should proof read before you post comments not that it would assist with the glaring contradictions you repeatedly make
Q. Which information do you pass on to your patients before you stab them with chemicals that have side effects and adverse reactions which you clearly don’t understand the dangers of ?
If your version of ‘informed consent’ is reflected through contributions on this site you have no comprehension of what ‘informed consent’ is nor any right to claim that you do and should not be practicing medicine nor administering chemicals
Q. Do you think you language leaves anyone in any doubt as to your anti vaccination credentials.
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
You can’t recall what I have posted
A. yes I can… this site also has a very good search engine.
Q. Do you think you language leaves anyone in any doubt as to your anti vaccination credentials.
No because there are some who can read and comprehend english and accept the position I have stated previously including again to you today
What should leave no doubt is your lack of acknowledgement / appreciation of side effects adverse reactions and deaths caused by the ‘drug industry’ of which vaccination is a component sponsored by the the FDA / CDC
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
Stop projecting and start using the search engine you referred to
See if the search engine can tell you how many people in the USA alone die each year due to the ‘medical industry’ approved drugs in particular that are ‘approved’ by the FDA
Q. FDA approved drugs kill / injure [ ] people per year in the USA ?
Q. How many of your patients do you inform such easily identified statistics of before you prescribe /administer chemicals to them ?
Two kids from the same family at different schools – So what
No mention that ‘immunity’ is achieved through the body contracting a disease naturally
Quarantine is sensible and implicitly covers off natural immunity to those who understand how natural immunity is achieved
A: 🙄 although congratulations for finally outing your anti vaccination credentials
No mention of the how many of the 124 from last year were already ‘vaccinated’
A: None, this information is available on the public health website
Summary:
The murphy troll’s medical/scientific knowledge is woeful….. but oh no ! the chemicals the chemicals and the FDA/CDC MONEYMEN ILLUMINATI…Gaia will save us all.
Not only do you not understand ‘herd immunity’ which as an alleged medical professional is shameful but you do not even understand the even simpler definition of ‘trolll’
A: 🙄 although congratulations for finally outing your anti vaccination credentials
You either can’t read or you don’t comprehend the position I take has been stated very clearly to you on multiple occasions
Indications are you’re experiencing some sort of mental incapacity which is what I referred to earlier
Either way I hope you are no longer practicing and if you are I would suggest someone lodge a complaint to have your license removed for the public good
You should be struck off with the exhibition you put in through your comments
A: None, this information is available on the public health website
Yet you chose not to link to it then use a weak attempt at transference about getting me frothing – Oh dear
The murphy troll’s medical/scientific knowledge is woeful….. but oh no ! the chemicals the chemicals and the FDA/CDC MONEYMEN ILLUMINATI…Gaia will save us all.
WOW……You are disqualified as if you weren’t already
No I haven’t Draco. I’ve had conversations with pro-vaxxers on this site where I’ve made the argument that the govt should be putting effort into reaching people who would otherwise vaccinate but don’t due to poverty, inability to access, lack of awareness etc, instead of having a go at the people that choose not to vaccinate via informed consent processes. And that argument has been supported. In fact the NZ govt has processes in place that allow people to opt out. That’s because the very small numbers (maybe 3% at a guess) who consciously choose to not vaccinate via an education process don’t matter.
But I don’t really want to go another round on this. The actual point I was making is that the kind of coercion the Austrialian govt is using is discriminatory and therefore they’re not a good example to use for forcing parts of the population to do something against its will.
Unvaccinated people put those who can’t be vaccinated at increased risk as has been explained to you.
instead of having a go at the people that choose not to vaccinate via informed consent processes.
There’s no such thing as choosing not to vaccinate from informed consent. If you’re properly informed you choose to vaccinate. It really is that simple. Choosing not to vaccinate from ‘informed consent’ ends up with shit like this happening:
And it’s not as if Williams is unfamiliar with science. He has a science degree and he’s turning his invention, the WilliamsWarne homebrew machine, into a global success.
He’s not stupid. If anything, he was just a little bit too smart for his own good.
The Williams are the one in 10 parents who opt out when it comes to vaccination, not out of ignorance, but because they think they know everything. Williams said they believed they’d done their research but now admits they were out of their depth.
“Parents like us make the decision to not vaccinate on very little factual information about the actual consequences of the diseases.”
But it just didn’t stop me getting childhood illnesses.
My two vaccinated children, on the other hand, have rarely been ill, have had antibiotics maybe twice in their lives, if that (not like me who got so many illnesses which needed treatment with antibiotics that I developed a resistance to them, which led me to be hospitalized with penicillin-resistant quinsy at 21–you know that old fashioned disease that killed Queen Elizabeth I and which was almost wiped out through use of antibiotics).
The actual point I was making is that the kind of coercion the Austrialian govt is using is discriminatory and therefore they’re not a good example to use for forcing parts of the population to do something against its will.
These points are actually why I’m for compulsory vaccination. It bypasses the ignorance that some people confuse for being informed, protects those that can’t be immunised and prevents political parties from attacking minority groups for political point scoring.
“Unvaccinated people put those who can’t be vaccinated at increased risk as has been explained to you.”
I was talking about public health policy, not abstract theory. And like I said, my point was about what it means to target groups of people by class. I’m not interested in a debate about forcing health care on people.
I was talking about public health policy, not abstract theory.
What abstract theory are you talking about?
I’m not interested in a debate about forcing health care on people.
And I pointed out that compulsory vaccination prevents the targeting that you want to stop. At which point I think I’ll just point you to this comment from OAB.
I’m not quite sure why an avowed anti-Big Pharma activist is citing Dr. Manoj Gambhir, given his close ties to the medical establishment and career-long support for vaccination programs. Under any other circumstances they’d be howling about his (wholly imagined) corruption and bias.
@ OAB The murphy troll continues to demonstrate his stupidity for all to see.
He is very unlike Weka who wishes to engage in a reasonable manner.
on the matter of pertussis vaccine it has always been one of the more problematic bacteria to get a strong and long lasting immune response to it with vaccines which is why researchers continue to try and look for improvements. It’s a hideous illness to contract in the very young and even in teens/adults can hang about for a long time.
I’m with Weka on this issue: compulsory medication is counter-productive and opposed by the medical profession. Targeting people by class is an abomination.
I’m with Weka on this issue: compulsory medication is counter-productive and opposed by the medical profession. Targeting people by class is an abomination.
So how do we get everyone to vaccinate while not targeting people by class?
I agree that compulsion has negative overtones that will get some peoples backs up. Better education can certainly help but, as the anti-vaxxers have shown, even that will be taken badly by some people.
nah, just providing evidence of cherry-picking. Big Pharma can’t be trusted, until whoops! Suddenly they can!
Then you need to be clear about that reference to The Murphy and others.
to be clear, it was a response to TM’s citation of the Gambhir study.
Thing is, what you said came across as an Ad Hominem against Gambhir while the study itself and its findings seemed quite reasonable.
@DtB I see what you mean – I’d hoped to avoid that by putting ‘wholly imagined’ in parentheses, and the links to ‘Big Pharma’ are only defamatory if you buy into that narrative.
So how do we get everyone to vaccinate while not targeting people by class?
Don’t use carrots/sticks that rely on class, e.g. benefits.
Heck, carrots/sticks are a bad way to go anyway – personally I’d ban the advertising of prescription meds, and take a damned close look at the boundary between “alternative” therapies and “practising medicine without a license”, and make “doctor” a restricted title, alongside public nuisance/recklessness charges against purveyors of some of the more dishonest anti-vax propaganda.
IMO the problem isn’t the number of nutters, it’s the avenues they have for publicity and claiming equivalence with legitimate researchers.
If you look at Andrew Little’s twitter you will see this is not Labour Party policy and not something he supports. The submission is from Tim Barnett and I don’t know how it went through. If this is Tim’s idea then he is in the wrong job IMO. This is an appalling idea and reeks of beneficiary bashing.
Fine to have enrolment forms to give out at government offices, but starving people into submission is not acceptable. If you want the poor to vote then maybe you should make sure your policies address their needs.
I hope Mr Barnett will face consequences for publicly putting his foot in his party’s mouth. Need way better message discipline than that. NZ does not need another party suggesting right-wing policies. He’s welcome to resign and join another which does, if it’s important to him.
so how come this brainfart ended up in the herald, again making the labour party look like the party of brainfarts?
really,
can someone speak to the guys in the party that have any say and make it clear to them that brainfarts are not helpful, and should only be uttered in the confines of ones most private room?
If I could distill the Labour Party’s woes over the last six years into just two words, I’d probably choose ‘bewildering stupidity’. The causes are manifold and complex, but the symptom is that Labour and its leaders often do bewildering, obviously stupid things despite the fact the things they are doing are obviously stupid. Think about David Shearer holding up dead fish in Parliament as his poll ratings flat-lined, or Goff dying his hair orange the day before making a major speech, or Cunliffe railing against secret trusts while financing his leadership campaign through secret trusts . . . The list is very, very long.
Sure, this isn’t as egregious as National’s Sky City deal, or sending our troops to Iraq so we can stay ‘part of the club’. But Key, Joyce et al have reasons for the questionable stuff they do. They have agendas. It’s deliberate; calculated. They have reasons! Labour just does random bewilderingly stupid shit for no comprehensible reason. All the time. People write columns about how Labour should ‘move to the center’, or the left or whatever, but addressing the bewildering stupidity issue should be their primary goal.
I just saw that. WTF are they thinking. Demanding that people behave in certain ways because they receive some state support paves the way for more right wing “do as I say” tactics.
Receiving some form of state support doesn’t give governments the right to run anyone’s life and feeds the meme that state support identifies reckless, lazy, uncaring people who need to be told what to do. Where is the evidence that supports this ? Why don’t they target the asset rich tax dodger who is also living off their fellow taxpayer and is selfish uncaring etc etc.
Oh and this is likely to alienate women
Can’t they spell stupid
It’s not ‘tactics’. It’s the law. Enrolment is compulsory in NZ and it makes sense for the government to try and enforce that law at a point at which they interact with the wilfully non enrolled. Enrolling is easy. Making receiving a state benefit conditional on taking a couple of minutes to sign a form isn’t particularly onerous.
Having said that, there is clearly going to be a minority who don’t want to enrol for compelling reasons. Visa overstayers, for example.
It may be the law but when people are so disenchanted and disinterested (or dodging debt collectors or abusive spouses) that they don’t bother compulsion is only going to increase resentment. Leave the enforcement to someone else.
Maybe I should have said “leave promoting this option to another party”.
And yes it may be the law but at this point, this is policing only one sub group that doesn’t enrol ? Are they even the biggest sub group? Do we know? Why target only this one? What happens if people enrol and don’t keep it up to date? What about people who are dropped off unbeknown to them?
Why not go around the schools and demand that all 17 year olds or university students enrol before they can receive tuition. Or you have to be enrolled to get a drivers licence, WOF, CAR rego, passport, house insurance or if you have an IRD number you have to be enrolled if eligible ? Have a bank account?
All good points. I suspect that this is indeed a target group that figures highly in the non enrolled numbers. Haven’t got time now, but if I get a chance, I’ll see if I can find the full submission and work out what is intended. Might be worth a post.
I imagine this idea has been mooted out of frustration with potential Labour voters who just don’t bother to get on the roll let alone actually vote. However I don’t think its the right way to go about it. Providing an incentive to enroll is a much better idea but how do you do that? You can’t offer money because all the people who have voluntarily enrolled (the bulk of the population) would be up in arms and rightly so.
Some may say the incentive would be in good policies but that ignores the fact that Labour and the Greens have consistently produced policies that would have assisted the poor, the unemployed and those who, for one reason or another, have been left feeling disenfranchised. But the potential recipients don’t even bother to acquaint themselves of such policies.
I guess the answer is acquiring money, money and more money so you can “sell” them to a resistant public. Oh dear…
This is a prevalent kind of comfy authoritarian middle class led Labour thinking, piling requirements on to beneficiaries and the under class so that they will maybe vote for you. And if you don’t comply you get your already miserable benefit taken off you or docked. It’s fucking absurd. But this is what the Labour Party has come to.
Yep. And irrespective of the value of investigating such a policy, the timing is beyond belief. Labour need to be rebuilding trust with voters, and this just undermines that.
“Making receiving a state benefit conditional on taking a couple of minutes to sign a form isn’t particularly onerous.”
Except as you point out for overstayers. Or people with highly dysfunctional lives for whom this kind of bureaucracy IS onerous. I’m sure we’ve had this conversation before, and your comment seems either largely ignorant of the realities of some of the most vulnerable people in NZ, or you think the impact on them is worth the gains of the policy. Both are politically unproductive as well as being punitive.
I forgot another sub group above. Why not make people enrol when they go for some form of medical treatment. That costs the state plenty and nothing onerous about signing a form while you wait and wait.
and why shouldn’t it? Why just target those on a particular sub group of
state support. And while they are there we could target vaccination measures, contraception for any kids they have that are 16 and over. and all the other welfare indignities. if it’s good enough for one group then it’s good enough for all.
You could do that, tax all income at %100 if you aren’t enrolled to vote. Makes more sense than the take away the benefit option. At least it is somewhat equitable and not just a stick to hit the vunerable with…
Except as you point out for overstayers. Or people with highly dysfunctional lives for whom this kind of bureaucracy IS onerous.
You can’t see your WINZ case officer until you make an appointment. (It’s a security precaution). What do you mean you don’t have money to get the phone or internet connected to make an appointment? See your WINZ case officer to sort that out. You’ll need to make an appointment.
The comfy middle class don’t have a fucking clue on how the other half of NZ live, is the issue.
Ok, so you have an appointment. But I don’t have a car and there’s not cheap public transport and the appointment is during the day when my mate with their car is at work.
Why did you miss your appointment? My kid was sick. Why didn’t you phone? I have no credit on my phone until next pay day.
etc, etc, etc ad nauseum
The list of barriers to what trp said is huge. His ignorance or lack of care on this matter is actually pretty gobsmacking for a leftie.
And once you’ve missed a couple of appointments even for reasons out of your control you get classed as a waste of time and its pretty much all over from there.
Or I have three kids under 5, no child support because father has done a runner , live 5 miles from the nearest library (or maybe in the wilds of the provinces 50 miles) don’t have a mate with a car and there is no public transport.
It’s actually a requirement that beneficiaries have a phone nowadays. This despite the fact that many beneficiaries can’t actually afford a phone. Even topping up a prepay by the minimum of $20 can be daunting.
nope the state benefits should not depend on wether someone has the money to call for an appointment, then find the way to a Winz office (no car could be an issue, busses? cost a lot of money that no benefit caters for, somone to look after the kids – ah just fuck it).
Oh so maybe they could go to a Library and use the computer there? And down load the paperwork to fill out and stuff….? See above, no car, no transport etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
Benefits should be given to people in Need. The only factor that should count in the giving out of benefits to people should be NEED! not an enrollment to the electoral votes.
The people that I know that did not vote the last time, where White, Male, Working, MIddle Class and they could not be fucked!
The ones that I know voted, included the mother on a 0 hour contract and winz benefits. The elderly lady that paid herself a taxi to get to vote, the rumanian migrants and so on and so on.
Again the ones that did not vote, white, working, male, middleclass and a can’t be arsed or fucked attitude. Go figure.
Once again – I just have to let you all know that probably what Tim Barnett was saying is NOT Labour Party policy, nor do I ever think it will be Labour Party policy, and they would not be stating its Labour Party policy.
Whoever it was putting up that submission was merely making a suggestion to the select committee.
I think the basic point is this: a comment from the general secretary :
“” <> “”
and it is not at all clear from that Herald story as to who in the Labour Party might have made such a submission – but it is quite clear that Tim Barnett is saying this is NOT a current LP policy, but its something other countries are doing and is this something NZ should look at. A question. Not a recommendation.
Its bad enough when the MSM twists things that Labour people say – its blinkin’ lousy when supposedly leftwing posters on The Standard do it too.
i wd submit that a component of a labour party ‘ submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee’…
..is not a matter of no significance…
(or are you saying it is..?..)
and how exactly is the reporting of this fact of this submission..’twisting things”..?
..this is what the submission – by the labour party (authored by whoever..?..won’t the proud parent stand up..?..)- to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee..said..
..and the comparison with australia – used by barnett – is putting the cart before the horse/comparing apples and oranges.. – as aust has compulsory-voting..we don’t..
..and jenny – if national were proposing something like this – would you not be protesting that..?..in this forum..?
Oops – dunno what happened to it, but my post above didn’t include the Barnett quote – about it being just a question to the committee, a request to investigate it – and that it is NOT Labour policy.
This is what he said. (And incidentally, I don’t agree with him on this matter, and I bet heaps of other Labour people don’t either !)
“It’s not party policy, it’s merely saying, what are the things that could be done? And in Australia that is the system which they formally adopt.”
Why would we want to follow the policies of a country that elected someone who might be related to a 20th century family called Abbottini, neighbours of Mussolini?
you test waters to see what the reaction is going to be like and then adjust your plans accordingly – and to ensure there is no further misunderstanding from you – I do not like the idea or the ideology behind it – I hope that is sufficient for an understanding, of what i am saying, from you.
Its not a brain-fart PU – from any official Labour Party policy or statement.
It was just one person’s comment.
Can you please get that into your head. refer to my post at 12.2
I miss the good old days when Labour said good/constructive things would happen that would benefit people’s lives, and then shortly afterwards, they did. When did it get so muddled and complicated? Is there any way we could go back to that kind of politics?
Yeah yeah I know, things have “changed” and only “dinosaurs” want clear policy statements or action anymore. Hooray for TXTSPK and rumours… mumble mumble…
“Labour has proposed withholding state support such as tax credits and Working For Families from people who are not enrolled to vote.
The measure could be justified if it lifts New Zealand’s low voter turnout, the party says.
Getting the vote out is a priority for Labour and in its submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee, written by Labour’s general secretary Tim Barnett, the party argues for the idea to be considered.”
maybe such confusion would not be coming up if the supposed leftwing party of New Zealand would finally come up with something that would exite people.
You know….like building houses for young people so they can get married and have kids. ( i know of a few couples that would love to rent a nice place to start their lifes together, alas they are not making enough to cover $ 2200 per month before any expenses or food).
You know…. like promoting long tenancies in private rentals so that families with kids could send their kids to THE ONE SCHOOL for like two years in a row, instead of having to pack up and move about ever friggin 6 month.
You know…..like upping the benefits for unemployed, single parents, the young ones etc etc etc could have a phone to phone WINZ for an appointment and eat….I know its a novelty.
I only want Labour to speak about these things…not about finding a way to punish the already punished for not being on the electoral roll….
How does Labour suppose to punish those not on the roll and not on a benefit? Like National punishes Tax Evader? With even bigger loopholes?
ffs…this is why no one is bothering to Labour and some of their die hard supporters anymore, because of some fuckwit that wants to out do Paula Bennett.
It’s not banning poor people, but banning older vehicles. Sure, that will impact on poor people most under current conditions but we should be questioning if everyone should have a car anyway as doing so costs so much. Or perhaps that should be a question of if anyone should have cars.
A government with guts would make it law that all personal cars would be electric in 10/15 years. Just have to put ruc charges on them to pay for the roads.
I’m looking at heat exchange from brick paved back yards.
Wikipedia on geothermal energy is interesting. What other countries do to use this for domestic use rather than just industrial as we do is interesting. (I don’t think Maori use, which extends back centuries is being counted here.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating
This is the sort of thing that progressive, thoughtful, and smart countries are doing to use technology that could be thought of as green and sustainable. The cities of Reykjavík and Akureyri pipe hot water from geothermal plants under roads and pavements to melt snow. Geothermal desalination has been demonstrated.
Geothermal systems tend to benefit from economies of scale, so space heating power is often distributed to multiple buildings, sometimes whole communities.
This technique, long practiced throughout the world in locations such as Reykjavík, Iceland,[5] Boise, Idaho,[6] and Klamath Falls, Oregon[7] is known as district heating.[8] Turkey seems to be high in this use.
Background –
” Most high temperature geothermal heat is harvested in regions close to tectonic plate boundaries where volcanic activity rises close to the surface of the Earth. In these areas, ground and groundwater can be found with temperatures higher than the target temperature of the application….
even cold ground contains heat, below 6 metres (20 ft) the undisturbed ground temperature is consistently at the Mean Annual Air Temperature[3] and it may be extracted with a heat pump.”…
“Direct geothermal heating is far more efficient than geothermal electricity generation and has less demanding temperature requirements, so it is viable over a large geographical range.
If the shallow ground is hot but dry, air or water may be circulated through earth tubes or downhole heat exchangers which act as heat exchangers with the ground.”
Looking at an old BBC History magazine I saw they were recalling an earlier September attack on New York than 2001. This was in 1920 when ‘a cart packed with explosives was detonated’ outside the headquarters of JP Morgan. The perpetrators,causing 38 deaths, were never confirmed but may have been followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani.’
The site 23 Wall Street still bears the shrapnel scars of 90 years ago.
International “free trade pacts” (NAFTA, TPP, TAFTA) are supposed to increase global GDP, thereby making us all richer and effectively expanding the size of the earth and easing conflict. But growth in the full world has become uneconomic–increasing costs faster than benefits. It now makes us poorer, not richer. These secretly negotiated agreements among the elites are designed to benefit private global corporations, often at the expense of the public good of nations. Some think that strengthening global corporations by erasing national boundaries will reduce the likelihood of war. More likely we will just shift to feudal corporate wars in a post-national global commons, with corporate fiefdoms effectively buying national governments and their armies, supplemented by already existing private mercenaries.
In fact, that latter bit is inevitable. There’s no real difference between and the feudal society that preceded it. both are about putting a few people above everyone else in wealth and power and having everyone else pay for it.
Is Labour, or rather the hierarchy (cf. membership), trying immensely hard at working, full steam ahead and on the offensive, on connecting with ‘voters’ ?
Whatever was said in that select committee meting, tinfoilhat and Kiwiri – that is NOT Labour policy, nor has anyone raised it as a possible Labour policy.
IN 1984 we were taken unawares and they hid the economic agenda behind the antinuclear credentials. If they do the same again what are they going to fob us off with to try to pretend to be a Labour party.
It’s good of you to run with The Herald‘s framing of the issue. When they say “proposed”, what exactly did Labour say?
There are advantages and potential disadvantages to the approach, but it is utilised in other countries and we submit that it is incumbent on us to examine all options to see if they are feasible in our context.
That’s the way: it’s important to confine all ideas to the ones you approve of, and a good way to do that is to pretend discussion of outliers is exactly the same as supporting them.
Nice one.
As for the merits of the proposal. I think that before penalising non-enrolled voters, we should penalise anyone who adopts a deliberate strategy of voter discouragement.
+1 PU.
I can’t imagine how this appalling idea got to the submission stage. It may not be current policy, or even likely to become policy, but the idea that someone in a senior position in the Labour Party should even consider it is a good idea is beyond me. Very, very damaging.
No evidence Barnett sought coverage. Media will have been covering the committee, and the Labour Partry should simply be smart enough by now to not provide leads to them like this.
Not that I agree with the proposal to look at the idea (or maybe I do – seems logical to look at things that may provide the desired outcome) but it’s not in the realms of beneficiary bashing is it?
I thought working for families was an employment-related payment?
It’s worth taking a look at the comments on this crazy website National have set up to somehow try and get populous buy-in of this change the flag diversion.
Roughly 3/5 comments disagree with the proposed change altogether. This could turn into another Northland type misfire for Key and another nail in his coffin.
Something I hadn’t considered is raised by this comment:
“…the government tell us the cost to change the flag is $26,000,000 for referendum but the cost to change every flag in every school, building, businesses, NZ Army uniforms, vehicles, NZ Police, NZ Navy the list would be endless – it’s a joke. $26 million is only the start”
The archdruid has been very provocative over his last few posts I have thought but the logic is inescapable and like all great writers with ideas he presents them with a style and content that I find complete and beautiful.
Energy needed to extract energy, again, can’t be used for any other purpose. It doesn’t contribute to the energy surplus that makes economic development possible. As the energy industry itself takes a bigger bite out of each year’s energy production, every other economic activity loses part of the fuel that makes it run. That, in turn, is the core reason why the American economy is on the ropes, America’s infrastructure is falling to bits—and Americans in Detroit and Baltimore are facing a transition to Third World conditions, without electricity or running water.
I suspect, for what it’s worth, that the shutoff notices being mailed to tens of thousands of poor families in those two cities are a good working model for the way that industrial civilization itself will wind down. It won’t be sudden; for decades to come, there will still be people who have access to what Americans today consider the ordinary necessities and comforts of everyday life; there will just be fewer of them each year. Outside that narrowing circle, the number of economic nonpersons will grow steadily, one shutoff notice at a time.
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Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
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UK Results
UK
LAB 30.4……CON 36.9……..LD 7.9……….UKIP 12.6…….SNP 4.7……..GRN 3.8
LAB + 1.5……CON + 0.8……LD – 15.2……UKIP + 9.5……SNP + 3.1……GRN + 2.8
England
LAB 31.6…….CON 41.0…….LD 8.2……….UKIP 14.1……….GRN 4.2
LAB + 3.6……CON + 1.4……LD – 16.0……UKIP + 10.7……GRN + 3.2
Scotland
LAB 24.3……..CON 14.9……..LD 7.5……….UKIP 1.6………SNP 50.0………GRN 1.3
LAB – 17.7……CON – 1.8……LD – 11.3……UKIP + 0.9……SNP + 30.0……GRN + 0.7
Wales
LAB 36.9…….CON 27.2…….LD 6.5……….UKIP 13.6………PC 12.1……..GRN 2.6
LAB + 0.6……CON + 1.1……LD – 13.6……UKIP + 11.2……PC + 0.8……GRN + 2.1
Haven’t been able to find any English Regional percentage breakdowns yet (ie North-East, West Midlands, South-West, Greater London etc – but, then, that’s probably a plus from your point of view)
Be pretty cool if the National Party was getting 36.9% of the vote. No wonder the Conservatives fight proportionality, tooth and nail.
So does UK Labour. They are very comfy in a two party system.
Does that mean Labour’s vote increased from the last election?
Certainly does (though it’s cold comfort).
Labour’s share of the vote up 1.5 percentage points and raw number of votes up from 8.6 million (2010) to 9.3 million (2015).
Doesn’t it put paid to the idea that moving left was wrong?
Possibly
Unless it’s presented by the LP
UK Labour “moved left”? Must’ve blinked and missed it.
Trp said something about it yesterday, and I think it’s been in the media, as a reason for Labour doing badly (I’m rolling my eyes), but it sounded like the same old beat up to me, as you point out there wasn’t a real shift.
the reason the polls were so ‘out’..is because of the achilles-heel of pollsters..
..how they just ignore those who actually decide any election..
..the ‘undecideds’..
..all of which makes polling perhaps the most unscientific of practices..
..and as so many recent examples have shown/proven..
..both wildly inaccurate and irrelevant as far as any clear prediction of outcomes is concerned..
..the best they can hope for is the broadest of brush-strokes..
Yep, the Undecideds certainly comprise one of the reasons being touted for the “terrible night for us pollsters” (Chief Executive of YouGov ).
Others include: (1) the “Shy Conservative” (though they arguably overlap with the Undecideds – about which, more below), (2) The suggestion that Polls were, in fact, correct but last-minute swing to the Tories, (3) That Pollsters may have been “herding” (ie skewing their polls towards an average) – some analysts are suspicious about just how closely-aligned the various polls were in the final days, (4) Claims that the Final Result was, in fact, within the margin-of-error for most polls, (5) Becoming more challenging to contact a representative sample of voters, (6) The large-ish minority of Labour supporters (28% in one Ipsos-Mori Poll) who told pollsters they preferred Cameron as PM (speculation they could comprise a whole new category of “shy Tory”), (7) Current polling methods haven’t adjusted to the new era of electoral politics (ie the much greater fluidity of the electorate in recent years).
In terms of the argument that a disproportionate number of “Don’t Knows” went Tory on Election Day,…….. a couple of weeks back, I was looking through the detailed breakdowns of a particular poll and noticed that the Undecideds – when pushed to name which Party they were leaning towards – went heavily Conservative. Tories led Labour by more than 10 points among this group. It’s true that Undecideds are somewhat less likely to get out and actually vote on the Day than respondents who name a party on initial prompting, but 10+ points would still have some impact on the final result (not necessarily “shy” but certainly “hidden” Tories).
Tactical voting is another potential – not so much a last-minute swing to the tories, but a redistribution of votes on the right to make them count.
This nicely illustrates UK Labour’s woes…
Labour were targeting 106 marginal seats – most were Tory-held, some LibDem-held.
Have a look at what happened in the most marginal Tory seats of all.
15 Most Marginal Tory Seats of 2010 (ie with smallest 2010 majorities over Labour)
Seat……………….2010 Tory maj over Lab…….2015 % Swing……………….Status
Warwickshire North…………….54……………..CON + 2.1…….LAB – 4.0……….Con Hold
Thurrock……………………………..92……………..CON – 3.1…….LAB – 4.0……….Con Hold
Hendon………………………………106…………….CON + 6.7……LAB – 0.6………Con Hold
Cardiff North………………………194…………….CON + 4.9……LAB + 1.2………Con Hold
Sherwood…………………………..214…………….CON + 5.8……LAB – 2.9……….Con Hold
Stockton South…………………..332…………….CON + 7.8……LAB – 1.3……….Con Hold
Lancaster & Fleetwood……….333…………….CON + 3.2……LAB + 7.0………Lab Gain
Broxtowe……………………………389…………….CON + 6.2…….LAB – 1.1………Con Hold
Amber Valley………………………536…………….CON + 5.4…….LAB – 2.7………Con Hold
Wolverhampton SW……………691…………….CON + 0.5…….LAB + 4.2……..Lab Gain
Waveney…………………………….769…………….CON + 2.1…….LAB – 1.0……..Con Hold
Carlisle……………………………….853…………….CON + 5.0…….LAB + 0.5………Con Hold
Morecombe & Lunesdale……866…………….CON + 4.0…… LAB – 4.6……..Con Hold
Weaver Vale……………………….991…………….CON + 4.6…….LAB + 5.2……..Con Hold
Lincoln………………………………1058……………CON + 5.1…… LAB + 4.3……..Con Hold
Labour won only 2 of the 15 seats it should have absolutely blitzed. And in a majority of the 13 ultra-marginals it failed in – its vote share actually fell while the Tories’ % rose.
Exactly Swordfish-great analysis. My sister lives in Lincoln and will be devastated. The turnout in Lincoln was 63%-pathetic in a marginal. Shows how disillusioned the UK electorate really is.
What has been missed a bit by the analysts is that Labour polled quite well in the north of England compared with last time. That is reflected in the Lancaster vote above, in Burnley and in a number of other results.
Yeah, I was only going to include Tory seats with majorities of less than 1000, but the City of Lincoln’s my old stomping ground. First went to the UK in 1983 in my late teens and spent most of the time in Lincoln/Nottingham area (where I had/have some distant relatives). Did some scrutineering for the Lincoln Labour Party on Election Day – sat next to a very large Tory woman from the Shire* – (and watched one or two Lincoln City games (“The Red Imps”) at Sincil Bank – bottom half of the 4th Division, trend towards pin-striped football Kit in 83 for some bizarre reason, possibly growing obsession with Corporate culture / Thatcherism of more than a few Football Club Execs).
Lincoln’s always been a bellwether seat, clearly still is.
* Yeah, I know, sexist of me to mention her weight. I feel bad about it, but there you go.
john armstrong has done a column enthusing over little dragging labour to the right/tory-lite..
(i’m not gonna link to it..)
Not that bad an article, really. Armstrong has at least spotted the danger for his masters:
“The other lesson to take from Wednesday night’s function – and one National would be wise to heed – is Little’s capacity to surprise, something he first did with his “cut the crap” jibe at John Key. While well imbued with core Labour values, Little is less hung-up about what means are used to reach the goals associated with those values.”
I thought it is an okay article, too – TRP. Phil Ure is just twisting what he has read.
Little has an enormous job to make Labour into a workable election campaign “machine” again – and he’s going about it thoughtfully, carefully, and maybe a bit slowly for some but if you look back at his various statements you’ll see he’s positioning Labour as the Party for Work and Jobs – along with all the other social values that underpins Labour.
So quit sniping at him and let him get on with that job.
“.. Phil Ure is just twisting what he has read…”
really..?
so little isn’t moving labour right..?
little is not endorsed as labour leader by rightwing-trouts..?
little didn’t promise to shed those ‘radical-ideas’ (!) of the 2014-campaign..?
am i imagining all that..?
Your quotation marks around “radical ideas”, followed by that smarmy little (!), implies this is a quote from Andrew Little. It would be helpful if you provided a citation for that quote, otherwise people might think you were still deliberately twisting things no one has actually said.
i disagree with yr interpretation of the use of the marks..
and if you don’t mind – i wd rather not engage with you..(for already stated previously reasons..)
You may engage however you wish, but if you don’t want people to point out that you’re implying things that aren’t true and which you can’t back up you should probably either back up your statements, use clearer punctuation, or stop making up lies to suit your political agenda.
Political Agendas
The irony
🙄
I have taken the position of ignoring everything that p u writes on the basis that anyone who refuses to use punctuation and write in coherent sentences and paragraphs can have nothing to say of interest.
It just takes too much time out of my life to read people who write in a stream of thought, blurting manner. Give me someone who makes the effort to write clearly and thoughtfully and, even if I almost always disagree, I will take the time to take their thought on board.
yawn..!..
Me too Hateatea, and completely agree about the value of inention in communicating. I sometimes will attempt to read one of his comments in a situation like this (where someone has responded to him in a meaningful way). Sometimes I read the first two lines or so to see if I can make any sense. If he drops vegan links in I’ll have a look because they’re usually fundamentalist and need challenging. I virtually never read the long ones, or even the whole of the short ones. Life’s too short :->
double-yawn…!
Yep, same here. Some of the subthreads is keyboard-mashing causes can be pretty funny, though.
Especially when he gets called on making shit up and then argues that someone has misinterpreted his intentionally-unorthodox punctuation, grammar, and sentence contstruction.
Double quotation marks would imply a quote. Single ones I would take to mean an implication that some policies were radical ideas rather than a quote, but as you point out it can be hard to tell with phil.
My understanding is that Little is suggesting backing of from certain policies that they’ve recevied feedback are wrong. I wouldn’t have seen Little as seeing those as radical policies, so without some back up, I’ll take it as phil’s interpretation.
It’s funny really, because Little is more likely to take Labour left, and the left calling him a right mover just playes into the right wing spinners’ agenda.
double are quotes which phil used, singles can be used imo to imply irony, sarcasm, disbelief – the exclamation mark implied to me extreme – irony, sarcasm or disbelief.
I’m seeing single quotes around radical ideas
yep me too – but double around the initial quote commented on.
For me if I write, Little didn’t promise to shed those ‘radical ideas’ etc then I’m saying the ideas are not so radical in my opinion although Little may have thought or even believe they are. What phil means he can explain if he wants but that’s how I read it. Whether he actually promised radical ideas or not is a fair point that Stephanie has raised and tttt {(to tell the truth) just made that up 🙂 } I don’t know if he did or not…
the clarity is murky
yep to that too, that’s pretty much how I took it.
The specific usage of ” vs ‘ isn’t set in stone (hell I have an English degree and I don’t know the “rules” around them).
I would happily accept the idea that phil was paraphrasing the “radical ideas” quote – but then what’s the point of putting “(!)” afterwards?
To me, the obvious interpretation of that is “what a shocking thing to say”. I don’t know why it’s there if pu isn’t trying to imply that Little did indeed say capital gains etc were “radical” ideas.
yep. I got called out on the use of double quotes a while back for something sarcastic I said about something Key had said and someone had a go at me because they thought I was literally making up quoting Key when I thought it was obvious I was taking the piss. I agree there are no set rules, which is why I talked about my impressions of phil’s comment. At this point, in all good conscience I can’t keep talking seriously about punctuation in this context (-;
“I would happily accept the idea that phil was paraphrasing the “radical ideas” quote – but then what’s the point of putting “(!)” afterwards?
To me, the obvious interpretation of that is “what a shocking thing to say”.”
It’s one interpretation. I read it as ironically expressing “shock horror” at the very notion of radical ideas in general.
Who really knows though. As far as I can tell, phil is the owner-operator of a punctuation system entirely of his own devising.
(And that’s not a slight on phil btw. It’s all punc rock to me.)
u get the chocolate fish..felix..
.’b’ is the correct answer…
…the owner-operator of a punctuation system entirely of his own devising.
Splitter!
is it a batchelors’ degree..?
from memory you learn that stuff at masters’ level..
@ oan..
“.. Splitter
A temporary fold at the tip/end of a penis usually caused by sitting in a uncomfortable position Ex. Crossed legs or wearing tight pants.
Resulting in a split stream while taking a piss..”
never had that happen..
..whoar..!
..oh..!..hang on..maybe…
” is often speech” ‘writing’
But since the advent of “bald neutralising” ” ” have often been used to highlight disagreement with the quoted idea – a bit like sic.
Stove on ” ”
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=f1BxO9yu1NIC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=stove+bald+neutralising&source=bl&ots=T7S3At5K1W&sig=ea-ci-iQ1oY_YRhQtusOZHw-Dy0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=irZNVcnxKuHHmAXy3ID4Dg&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=stove%20bald%20neutralising&f=false
Absolutely, a big “Aye” Jenny
Armstrong is right about Phil Twyford performing well.
rightwinger roughan has a (partial)-solution to/for the ak property-bubble..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11445580
and can i ask why labour don’t/didn’t have roughans’ idea as policy..?
..did they not think of it..?
..or did they shy away because it would financially effect/hurt all those property-owning/’investor’ labour mp’s..?
..if neither of those…
..why the f. not have this as policy..?..(in the 2014 election..and now..)
For real Kiwi’s especially Aucklanders who are interested in the Ports of Auckland battle between the Council & the POA there is an excellent article in today’s Herald here.:-
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11445757
Also the POA publicity machine recently stated that it was essential to have the extended wharf other wise the new cruise ship ‘Quantum of the Seas’ would not be able to berth and New Zealand would miss out on lots of $$$$$$$ ‘cos the company would cancel the visit. ???????
What they didn’t say is that this new vessel whilst a little bigger in displacement is actually similar in size to the ‘Queen Mary II’ which has been here recently with no problems about berthing. She is just two metres shorter than the Quantum but draws 10.1m against the
Quantum’s 8.8m. The other difference is that QMII is rated at 30Knots against the Q’s 22.
Go figure. If Bullshit was a brass band etc.
TRP you are delusional if you think little has any traction with public as the polls high light labour is now seen as perennial losers globally ( UK Au Nz) No longer is any one buying core labour values beyond those areas trapped on govt handouts ( Scotland Qld etc) , the world has moved on, labours time ( 70 years ago ) has come and gone. All we are seeing now is a slow death, A left shift will simply accelerate the inevitable
so, really what would your alternative be?
we can’t all be landlords and bosses, really we still need a few people to work and get the various jobs that need doing done. You know, like Nurses, teachers, cleaners, admin staff, peeps working in Fonterra factories and the likes. If labour is dead as you say, who will look out for the workers? Surely not National? They have, over the last 7 years and previously under Shipley, shown that they do not believe workers worthy of consideration and might even consider the New Zealand Worker (resident and citizens) to be utterly replaceable by cheap, imported slave type labour from Asia and elsewhere?
What do you tell your children then, if you have any? Move overseas, cause here in NZ you are not going to have a chance to survive?
There needs to be a balance between (to parapharase Bush II) The Haves and The Have Nots or else we are going back to the dark ages where the workers were effectively owned by the Lord of the Manor.
Is that the future that you hope for Red Delusion?
Really what about a 40 hour week, overtime pay, accident compensation, retirement benefits, unemployment benefits, equal education opportunities, public health care and the likes do you not like and think we can do away with?
I’m looking forward to following the nature of work enquiry/report, as it will inform greatly as to how the country should proceed in the upcoming years.
I also look forward to the 40 hour week reducing to 35 or 30 hours for similar pay – this should be a major push from Labour to improve work-life balance (imagine a 4 day week for the same length shifts and same pay!) and also decrease unemployment as mechanisation increases.
The 32 hour week should have happened back in the 1980s. Instead we had the First Act Government attacking working hours and wages.
+ 1 yep – fuck with computers we were promised 25 hours weeks or even less – we’ve been sucked in severely
hi sabine. i think both you and red delusion can be correct.
i was bought up in a staunch labour household, (my grandfather was an organizer all his life) and constantly told that labour were the party for the working person.
i dont think that relevance is true today.
the radical shift in the 80s to the neo liberal agenda was the final nail in the ciffin for me.
having labour move away from the workers doesnt mean we have to go without 40hour week, overtime etc
i do think the workers you listed do need representing but i feel we dont identify as strongly with our occupations as we used to do.
pollys are there to get elected or re-elected. so we will not be getting a visionary or a radical shake-up from the labour party.
you can argue that proposing raising the retirement age is an anti worker move.
also you can argue that it is a long overdue fiscally responsible move.
as to who is to represent these workers, politically, good question.
probably the mana crew, as i see the greens looking to move right and be seen as respectable enough not to scare the horses.
is simon bridges over-exuberant in his use of hair-oil..?
and does that have an environmental-impact..?
..and is that why he is so ‘oily’..?..in so so many ways..?
He’s trying for that Superman hairdo, where the hair never moves. But he’s looking more like Hosking’s misbarbered look.
spiv is as spiv does..
shouldn’t you be apologising for being sexist with that comment @PU ?
for calling bridges an oily-spiv..?
i don’t think so…
🙂 – I’d be calling him a lot worse, but then if we delved into it too much, we’d have to start having an in depth discussion on power relations (where Bridges is actually a 40 watt banana masquerading as something quite a few people think is worthwhile), and I’d be living in utter, absolute fear of being ‘sanctioned’.
in labours casting around for the reasons why they lost in 2014..
..i hope they don’t discount how toxic to so many of their erstwhile voters/supporters was their policy to raise the superannuation-age…
..and that heaping too much blame on the capital gains tax ‘rejection’..
..is pointing the bone at the wrong target..
And now they want to alienate the few voters that they have left, with this bullshit stunt.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11445759
Looks like LabourNZ will go the same way as LabourUK as just another also ran.
They’d be better off saying that they will be introducing compulsory voting. At least then people would be more willing to accept the penalties.
Inplementing compulsory voting (which I am against) would be a gutsy, definitive, concrete policy statement. Not just talking about considering a policy of talking about policy. So unlikely to come out of Labour.
FYI – here is the EVIDENCE which proves the improvement in ‘transparency’ at Auckland Council, for which. in my opinion, I can claim some credit as a result of my uncompromising ‘one person rates revolt’?
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/newseventsculture/OurAuckland/mediareleases/Pages/councilmovestoimprovetransparency.aspx
Council moves to improve transparency
8/05/2015
Auckland Council has launched a section on its website providing information on a variety of council activities as part of a commitment to more openness and transparency.
The proactive publication of information on the More about the council webpage, which can be found via the Auckland Council Media centre helps to provide Aucklanders with better, timelier and more accurate information about how council works.
The first release of information includes Auckland Council Group staff numbers, information about annual average rates increases, debt, efficiency savings and progress updates on the NewCore project.
It also includes contracts awarded by the council with a value of $100,000 and greater from 1 July 2014 to 31 March 2015 and spends with suppliers with a value of $100,000 and more from 1 October 2014 to 31 March 2015.
All of the information in the section will be updated regularly to ensure it remains relevant and current.
Auckland Council CEO Stephen Town says the proactive publication of information aims to strengthen Aucklanders’ trust in the council.
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This, in my opinion, is a VERY belated start, for which I should not have had to put my freehold home ‘on the line’.
Penny Bright
http://www.pennybright4mayor.org.nz
is this a ‘brain-fart’..?..or not..?
‘Labour has proposed withholding state support such as tax credits and Working For Families – from people who are not enrolled to vote.’
(this is an idea proposed by tim barnett..)
more from barnett:..
‘Asked if withheld state support could include benefits – Mr Barnett said there could be more of an issue with targeting such a defined group.’
..is this what passes for ‘new ideas’ in labour..?
Where did you find this, Phillip Ure ?
And remember, Tim Barnett is the general secretary – he is neither Leader nor President – and has just ordinary member’ s voting rights on policy stuff.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11445759
It was part of Labour’s submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee.
From the Herald article:
Mr Barnett said the submission was from the party, which did not set policy, and wanted the committee to investigate the idea – not necessarily recommend it.
“It’s not party policy, it’s merely saying, what are the things that could be done? And in Australia that is the system which they formally adopt.
“There is widespread concern, not just Labour, with non-enrolment … there is pretty compelling evidence that there is a continuing pattern of people not enrolling.”
“And in Australia that is the system which they formally adopt.”
Yeah but Australia is also the country currently introducing fascist policy that means citizens lose social security entitlements if they don’t vaccinate their children. Just to make that really clear, they’re targeting beneficiaries as a class of people. So probably not the best country to use as a comparison at this time.
Gotta say the similarity to the vaccination idea is interesting too. The irresponsibility of those parents is astonishing, of course, so I suppose something has to be done. I suspect that beneficiaries are targeted in the enrolment suggestion because they make up a large number of the non- enrolled. If I get a chance later I’ll do some digging or maybe someone else can do some research on what and why Labour are proposing it. For me, footy calls. Ciao.
If this was about irresponsible parenting, the Australian government would make vaccination mandatory across the board. You don’t vaccinate your kids then you get fined and eventually go to prison. But it’s not about that at all, it’s about buying into narratives that beneficiaries are bad parents and punishing them accordingly.
There is nothing wrong with small numbers of unvaccinated kids. If governments want to improve vaccination numbers they can introduce better health policy so that the people who aren’t vaccinating but probably would given the chance can access better health care. But hey, why bother addressing education and poverty issues when you can just bene bash.
<blockquoteThere is nothing wrong with small numbers of unvaccinated kids.
You’ve been proven wrong on that several times already.
So the theory of herd immunity is wrong then? Herd immunity does not work? Do say more, Mr Scientific one. How about the medical ethics framework of patient consent before any treatment? Is that wrong too?
I didn’t say that did I?
How about the ethics of inflicting others with disease which could easily have been avoided?
Oh fuck off with your distractions Draco the Scientific and answer the questions.
Does herd immunity require that 100% of persons be immunised for it to work.
Secondly. Do you believe that medical treatment must ethically obtain fully informed patient consent wherever possible, or do you believe that patient consent is a violable nice to have.
Why should I answer questions when you’re twisting my words?
Herd immunity breaks down when it dips below a certain level. This is evidenced in practice in the U.S. recently re: outbreaks of measles.
Any way, you’re completely shit at science CV so not surprised at your confusion.
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/lawrence-solomon-the-untold-story-of-measles
Several decades following the vaccine’s introduction, the measles death rate rose, largely because the vaccine made adults, expectant mothers and infants more vulnerable
Early in the last century, measles killed millions of people a year. Then, bit by bit in countries of the developed world, the death rate dropped, by the 1960s by 98% or more. In the U.K., it dropped by an astounding 99.96%. And then, the measles vaccine entered the market
After the vaccine’s introduction, the measles death rate continued to drop into the 1970s. Many scientists credit the continued decline entirely to the vaccine. Other scientists believe the vaccine played a minor role, if that, noting that most infectious diseases similarly petered out during the 20th century, including some, like scarlet fever, for which vaccines were never developed.
The credit for the century-long decline, scientists generally agree, goes to improved nutrition and improved health care, side effects of the West’s growing affluence. In the U.S., the death rate dropped by about 98%, from about 10 per 100,000 population a century ago to one fifth of one person by 1963, the year measles vaccines made their American debut. Both before and after vaccination started, victims tended to be poor
‘If you really want to know just how ignorant Lawrence Solomon is about vaccines, all you have to do is to take a look at this:
The CDC credits the vaccine with the elimination of measles deaths, but measles deaths ended a decade before the vaccine was in widespread use across the U.S., and deaths had all but ended prior to the first child receiving a shot. While the vaccine can perhaps take modest credit for accelerating the decline in the mid-1960s, it is a stretch to claim that eradication would not have occurred without the vaccine, particularly since the 20th century also saw the die-off of diseases like scarlet fever, for which no vaccine was ever developed.
This is an incredibly intellectually dishonest antivaccine talking point, so intellectually dishonest that it shocks me that anyone with half a brain can seriously argue it. Let’s just put it this way: Anyone who pulls out this tired old dishonest trope is so intellectually bankrupt that I don’t really feel obligated to do anything other than link to a post I did a long time ago about this trope, which I derogatorily labeled the “vaccines didn’t save us” lie.
It’s amazing that in 2014 the same old long discredited antivaccine tropes have found a new mouthpiece, but they have. And that mouthpiece is Lawrence Solomon. It’s not “conservative skepticism” that is falling short. It’s Lawrence Solomon. Sadly, it’s not surprising.’
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/07/07/a-conservative-failure-of-skepticism-over-vaccines/
Doc you have too much riding on your methods and practices and so you stick to your guns because that is all you have…
Q. Care to contest the graph ?
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/04/24/4222316.htm
The move to an artificially created vaccine for whooping cough is behind an increase in cases of the deadly disease in the US, a new study suggests.
The findings highlight the need to do similar research in Australia where whooping cough cases have spiralled upward in the past decade, co-author Associate Professor Manoj Gambhir, from the University of Monash, says.
According to the authors of the study
“These results demonstrate that the resurgence in pertussis in the U.S. can be explained by past changes in vaccination policy. However, the authors’ findings also suggest that the efficacy of the currently-used acellular vaccine, while lower than that of the whole-cell vaccine, is not much lower (around 80% protection for the first three doses of acellular vaccine versus 90% for whole-cell), and booster doses may be sufficient to curtail epidemics while novel vaccine research continues.”
I believe that those are reasonable conclusions to make.
I do note that your rather transparent attempt to smear vaccination against pertussis.
I believe that those are reasonable conclusions to make
I believe people who accept the use of terms such as ‘doses’ and ‘booster shots’ when attempting to explain or accepting the manufactured explanation of ‘herd immunity’ are void of logical reasoning
I do note that your rather transparent attempt to smear vaccination against pertussis.
Q. Do you realise you just illustrated my belief – ‘void of logical reasoning’?
Q Do you realise you’re an ill informed anti vax troll
…ill-informed anti vax tr*ll who cites Big Pharma funded research and appeals to the authority of Big Pharma funded scientists.
Like a clown, only boring and lame.
Further illogical reasoning from an alleged medical ‘professional’
That you don’t / won’t /can’t recall previous conversations which you and I have been involved in where I stated openly and succinctly my position causes me greater concern for any patients you have may have treated
I have called you out on your ‘bed side manner’ previously and you have shown it once again with an irrational abusive comment
Forgetful illogical abusive and egocentric are not desirable traits of those in the medical profession
To refresh your memory – I am anti compulsion and pro informed consent
@ The murphy troll
1. I am pro informed consent also.
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
3. I don’t need to nor do I have any wish to be polite to a troll on a political website as you may or may not have understood by now that the opinions expressed on this website are often done so with vigour.
@ The murphy troll
That you believe I am a trolll serves only to enforce my understanding of your state of mind
1. I am pro informed consent also.
Q. Are you really ?
Q. Which information do you pass on to your patients before you stab them with chemicals that have side effects and adverse reactions which you clearly don’t understand the dangers of ?
If your version of ‘informed consent’ is reflected through contributions on this site you have no comprehension of what ‘informed consent’ is nor any right to claim that you do and should not be practicing medicine nor administering chemicals
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
You can’t recall what I have posted
3. I don’t need to nor do I have any wish to be polite to a troll on a political website as you may or may not have understood by now that the opinions expressed on this website are often done so with vigour.
You should proof read before you post comments not that it would assist with the glaring contradictions you repeatedly make
@ The Murphy Troll
1. I am pro informed consent also.
Q. Are you really ?
A. Yes
Q. Which information do you pass on to your patients before you stab them with chemicals that have side effects and adverse reactions which you clearly don’t understand the dangers of ?
If your version of ‘informed consent’ is reflected through contributions on this site you have no comprehension of what ‘informed consent’ is nor any right to claim that you do and should not be practicing medicine nor administering chemicals
Q. Do you think you language leaves anyone in any doubt as to your anti vaccination credentials.
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
You can’t recall what I have posted
A. yes I can… this site also has a very good search engine.
Q. Do you think you language leaves anyone in any doubt as to your anti vaccination credentials.
No because there are some who can read and comprehend english and accept the position I have stated previously including again to you today
What should leave no doubt is your lack of acknowledgement / appreciation of side effects adverse reactions and deaths caused by the ‘drug industry’ of which vaccination is a component sponsored by the the FDA / CDC
2. The drivel you post has far less to do with informed consent and far more to do with promoting an anti vaccination position through half truths, mistruth and misrepresentation.
Stop projecting and start using the search engine you referred to
See if the search engine can tell you how many people in the USA alone die each year due to the ‘medical industry’ approved drugs in particular that are ‘approved’ by the FDA
Q. FDA approved drugs kill / injure [ ] people per year in the USA ?
Q. How many of your patients do you inform such easily identified statistics of before you prescribe /administer chemicals to them ?
Credentials indeed
@ The murphy troll
Oh no the chemicals the chemicals !!
Just a little something to get the murphey troll frothing…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11447327
No doubt it is all a plot by the FDA and CDC ..
Oh no the chemicals the chemicals !!
You claim to be a medical professional yet post and comment like an illiterate
Q. What is the pupose of the link ?
Two kids from the same family at different schools – So what
No mention that ‘immunity’ is achieved through the body contracting a disease naturally
Quarantine is sensible and implicitly covers off natural immunity to those who understand how natural immunity is achieved
No mention of the how many of the 124 from last year were already ‘vaccinated’
You appear to still have no idea of what ‘herd immunity’ is or how it is achieved
Hint: You wont find it through vaccination
Hint2: Doses / Boosters
Summary:
A non event article which provides no useful information and appears to serve no purpose whatsoever
Bravo
@The murphey troll
Q. What is the pupose of the link ?
A: To get you frothing
Two kids from the same family at different schools – So what
No mention that ‘immunity’ is achieved through the body contracting a disease naturally
Quarantine is sensible and implicitly covers off natural immunity to those who understand how natural immunity is achieved
A: 🙄 although congratulations for finally outing your anti vaccination credentials
No mention of the how many of the 124 from last year were already ‘vaccinated’
A: None, this information is available on the public health website
Summary:
The murphy troll’s medical/scientific knowledge is woeful….. but oh no ! the chemicals the chemicals and the FDA/CDC MONEYMEN ILLUMINATI…Gaia will save us all.
A: To get you frothing
Not only do you not understand ‘herd immunity’ which as an alleged medical professional is shameful but you do not even understand the even simpler definition of ‘trolll’
A: 🙄 although congratulations for finally outing your anti vaccination credentials
You either can’t read or you don’t comprehend the position I take has been stated very clearly to you on multiple occasions
Indications are you’re experiencing some sort of mental incapacity which is what I referred to earlier
Either way I hope you are no longer practicing and if you are I would suggest someone lodge a complaint to have your license removed for the public good
You should be struck off with the exhibition you put in through your comments
A: None, this information is available on the public health website
Yet you chose not to link to it then use a weak attempt at transference about getting me frothing – Oh dear
The murphy troll’s medical/scientific knowledge is woeful….. but oh no ! the chemicals the chemicals and the FDA/CDC MONEYMEN ILLUMINATI…Gaia will save us all.
WOW……You are disqualified as if you weren’t already
@ The MT
😆 and 🙄
No I haven’t Draco. I’ve had conversations with pro-vaxxers on this site where I’ve made the argument that the govt should be putting effort into reaching people who would otherwise vaccinate but don’t due to poverty, inability to access, lack of awareness etc, instead of having a go at the people that choose not to vaccinate via informed consent processes. And that argument has been supported. In fact the NZ govt has processes in place that allow people to opt out. That’s because the very small numbers (maybe 3% at a guess) who consciously choose to not vaccinate via an education process don’t matter.
But I don’t really want to go another round on this. The actual point I was making is that the kind of coercion the Austrialian govt is using is discriminatory and therefore they’re not a good example to use for forcing parts of the population to do something against its will.
Unvaccinated people put those who can’t be vaccinated at increased risk as has been explained to you.
There’s no such thing as choosing not to vaccinate from informed consent. If you’re properly informed you choose to vaccinate. It really is that simple. Choosing not to vaccinate from ‘informed consent’ ends up with shit like this happening:
and this:
These points are actually why I’m for compulsory vaccination. It bypasses the ignorance that some people confuse for being informed, protects those that can’t be immunised and prevents political parties from attacking minority groups for political point scoring.
“Unvaccinated people put those who can’t be vaccinated at increased risk as has been explained to you.”
I was talking about public health policy, not abstract theory. And like I said, my point was about what it means to target groups of people by class. I’m not interested in a debate about forcing health care on people.
What abstract theory are you talking about?
And I pointed out that compulsory vaccination prevents the targeting that you want to stop. At which point I think I’ll just point you to this comment from OAB.
Unvaccinated people put those who can’t be vaccinated at increased risk as has been explained to you.
Go do some more reading
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/04/24/4222316.htm
I’m not quite sure why an avowed anti-Big Pharma activist is citing Dr. Manoj Gambhir, given his close ties to the medical establishment and career-long support for vaccination programs. Under any other circumstances they’d be howling about his (wholly imagined) corruption and bias.
It smacks of desperation. Probably dishonesty, too.
“And I pointed out that compulsory vaccination prevents the targeting that you want to stop”
Yep, and I call that facism.
@ OAB The murphy troll continues to demonstrate his stupidity for all to see.
He is very unlike Weka who wishes to engage in a reasonable manner.
on the matter of pertussis vaccine it has always been one of the more problematic bacteria to get a strong and long lasting immune response to it with vaccines which is why researchers continue to try and look for improvements. It’s a hideous illness to contract in the very young and even in teens/adults can hang about for a long time.
Most of us are probably due for a booster.
http://www.australianprescriber.com/magazine/32/2/36/8
@The Murphey
You should probably read that article yourself as it has nothing to do with what I said.
@OAB
That seems to be an Ad Hominem rather than an argument.
I’m with Weka on this issue: compulsory medication is counter-productive and opposed by the medical profession. Targeting people by class is an abomination.
@Draco – nah, just providing evidence of cherry-picking. Big Pharma can’t be trusted, until whoops! Suddenly they can!
@Draco – nah, just providing evidence of cherry-picking. Big Pharma can’t be trusted, until whoops! Suddenly they can!
Your interpretation is incorrect as well as senseless
If you applied even simplistic reasoning you should be able to work out why
@Draco – to be clear, it was a response to TM’s citation of the Gambhir study.
The Murphey, 7th March: the fraudulent and corrupt practices of the pharmaceutical and vaccine industry
The Murphey, 10th May: *cites a Big Pharma funded study conducted by Big Pharma employees*
QED.
The Murphey, 7th March: the fraudulent and corrupt practices of the pharmaceutical and vaccine industry
The Murphey, 10th May: *cites a Big Pharma funded study conducted by Big Pharma employees*
Comprehension is as weak as your interpretations and logic are
Q. What is it you are seeking to prove / disprove exactly ?
😆
Proof is what Mathematicians do. I’m just calling attention to your tactics.
I’m just calling attention to your tactics
Q. What is it you are seeking to achieve in doing so ?
@OAB
So how do we get everyone to vaccinate while not targeting people by class?
I agree that compulsion has negative overtones that will get some peoples backs up. Better education can certainly help but, as the anti-vaxxers have shown, even that will be taken badly by some people.
Then you need to be clear about that reference to The Murphy and others.
Thing is, what you said came across as an Ad Hominem against Gambhir while the study itself and its findings seemed quite reasonable.
@DtB I see what you mean – I’d hoped to avoid that by putting ‘wholly imagined’ in parentheses, and the links to ‘Big Pharma’ are only defamatory if you buy into that narrative.
Still, it was unclear.
Don’t use carrots/sticks that rely on class, e.g. benefits.
Heck, carrots/sticks are a bad way to go anyway – personally I’d ban the advertising of prescription meds, and take a damned close look at the boundary between “alternative” therapies and “practising medicine without a license”, and make “doctor” a restricted title, alongside public nuisance/recklessness charges against purveyors of some of the more dishonest anti-vax propaganda.
IMO the problem isn’t the number of nutters, it’s the avenues they have for publicity and claiming equivalence with legitimate researchers.
Mr Barnett said the submission was from the party ..
Can clarification be sought as to who exactly comprised this collective group of people called “the party” who had put together the submission?
I will ask friends and workmates who are NZLP members as to whether they are indeed “the party” who were *party* to that submission.
If you look at Andrew Little’s twitter you will see this is not Labour Party policy and not something he supports. The submission is from Tim Barnett and I don’t know how it went through. If this is Tim’s idea then he is in the wrong job IMO. This is an appalling idea and reeks of beneficiary bashing.
Fine to have enrolment forms to give out at government offices, but starving people into submission is not acceptable. If you want the poor to vote then maybe you should make sure your policies address their needs.
I hope Mr Barnett will face consequences for publicly putting his foot in his party’s mouth. Need way better message discipline than that. NZ does not need another party suggesting right-wing policies. He’s welcome to resign and join another which does, if it’s important to him.
Tim is way brighter than to propose this off his own back. I suspect this is someone else’s brainfart. And a brainfart it is …
Interesting. Hope that person is visibly disciplined then. You guys really cannot afford any more of this.
so how come this brainfart ended up in the herald, again making the labour party look like the party of brainfarts?
really,
can someone speak to the guys in the party that have any say and make it clear to them that brainfarts are not helpful, and should only be uttered in the confines of ones most private room?
please
thanka
Mr Barnett said the submission was from the party
Dim-post, some time ago, still on the money:
I just saw that. WTF are they thinking. Demanding that people behave in certain ways because they receive some state support paves the way for more right wing “do as I say” tactics.
Receiving some form of state support doesn’t give governments the right to run anyone’s life and feeds the meme that state support identifies reckless, lazy, uncaring people who need to be told what to do. Where is the evidence that supports this ? Why don’t they target the asset rich tax dodger who is also living off their fellow taxpayer and is selfish uncaring etc etc.
Oh and this is likely to alienate women
Can’t they spell stupid
It’s not ‘tactics’. It’s the law. Enrolment is compulsory in NZ and it makes sense for the government to try and enforce that law at a point at which they interact with the wilfully non enrolled. Enrolling is easy. Making receiving a state benefit conditional on taking a couple of minutes to sign a form isn’t particularly onerous.
Having said that, there is clearly going to be a minority who don’t want to enrol for compelling reasons. Visa overstayers, for example.
i actually see that proposal as a potent-example of the authoritarian-left running out of control…
..a w.t.f..!
It may be the law but when people are so disenchanted and disinterested (or dodging debt collectors or abusive spouses) that they don’t bother compulsion is only going to increase resentment. Leave the enforcement to someone else.
Who is ‘someone else’? Both enrolment and benefits are administered by the government. So who else do you have in mind? Contractors?
Maybe I should have said “leave promoting this option to another party”.
And yes it may be the law but at this point, this is policing only one sub group that doesn’t enrol ? Are they even the biggest sub group? Do we know? Why target only this one? What happens if people enrol and don’t keep it up to date? What about people who are dropped off unbeknown to them?
Why not go around the schools and demand that all 17 year olds or university students enrol before they can receive tuition. Or you have to be enrolled to get a drivers licence, WOF, CAR rego, passport, house insurance or if you have an IRD number you have to be enrolled if eligible ? Have a bank account?
All good points. I suspect that this is indeed a target group that figures highly in the non enrolled numbers. Haven’t got time now, but if I get a chance, I’ll see if I can find the full submission and work out what is intended. Might be worth a post.
Thanks TRP – if it’s a goal then a broadbrush rather than specific targeting has to be better.
I imagine this idea has been mooted out of frustration with potential Labour voters who just don’t bother to get on the roll let alone actually vote. However I don’t think its the right way to go about it. Providing an incentive to enroll is a much better idea but how do you do that? You can’t offer money because all the people who have voluntarily enrolled (the bulk of the population) would be up in arms and rightly so.
Some may say the incentive would be in good policies but that ignores the fact that Labour and the Greens have consistently produced policies that would have assisted the poor, the unemployed and those who, for one reason or another, have been left feeling disenfranchised. But the potential recipients don’t even bother to acquaint themselves of such policies.
I guess the answer is acquiring money, money and more money so you can “sell” them to a resistant public. Oh dear…
Making receiving a state benefit conditional on taking a couple of minutes to sign a form isn’t particularly onerous.
Q. Onerous for whom ?
This is a prevalent kind of comfy authoritarian middle class led Labour thinking, piling requirements on to beneficiaries and the under class so that they will maybe vote for you. And if you don’t comply you get your already miserable benefit taken off you or docked. It’s fucking absurd. But this is what the Labour Party has come to.
Yep. And irrespective of the value of investigating such a policy, the timing is beyond belief. Labour need to be rebuilding trust with voters, and this just undermines that.
Not particularly onerous for ‘The State’ ….
To force people to comply ….
To the demands of ‘The State’ ….
Whatever the demands consist of….
It is ‘The Law’ …..
You want more people voting you give thrm decent people and policies to vote for.
It isnt rocket science.
Seems to have eluded some thus far
Beneficiaries don’t even vote for Labour anymore so it’s obviously not a ploy to get more votes from us. Just add it to the bashing list.
“Making receiving a state benefit conditional on taking a couple of minutes to sign a form isn’t particularly onerous.”
Except as you point out for overstayers. Or people with highly dysfunctional lives for whom this kind of bureaucracy IS onerous. I’m sure we’ve had this conversation before, and your comment seems either largely ignorant of the realities of some of the most vulnerable people in NZ, or you think the impact on them is worth the gains of the policy. Both are politically unproductive as well as being punitive.
I forgot another sub group above. Why not make people enrol when they go for some form of medical treatment. That costs the state plenty and nothing onerous about signing a form while you wait and wait.
If it is a requirement which applies equally to unenrolled millionaires, then I’m all for it.
and why shouldn’t it? Why just target those on a particular sub group of
state support. And while they are there we could target vaccination measures, contraception for any kids they have that are 16 and over. and all the other welfare indignities. if it’s good enough for one group then it’s good enough for all.
One nation you know..
You could do that, tax all income at %100 if you aren’t enrolled to vote. Makes more sense than the take away the benefit option. At least it is somewhat equitable and not just a stick to hit the vunerable with…
You can’t see your WINZ case officer until you make an appointment. (It’s a security precaution). What do you mean you don’t have money to get the phone or internet connected to make an appointment? See your WINZ case officer to sort that out. You’ll need to make an appointment.
The comfy middle class don’t have a fucking clue on how the other half of NZ live, is the issue.
Exactly – those on a benefit frequently don’t have the resouces to even contact the state
+1000 CV
Ok, so you have an appointment. But I don’t have a car and there’s not cheap public transport and the appointment is during the day when my mate with their car is at work.
Why did you miss your appointment? My kid was sick. Why didn’t you phone? I have no credit on my phone until next pay day.
etc, etc, etc ad nauseum
The list of barriers to what trp said is huge. His ignorance or lack of care on this matter is actually pretty gobsmacking for a leftie.
And once you’ve missed a couple of appointments even for reasons out of your control you get classed as a waste of time and its pretty much all over from there.
Or I have three kids under 5, no child support because father has done a runner , live 5 miles from the nearest library (or maybe in the wilds of the provinces 50 miles) don’t have a mate with a car and there is no public transport.
” You can fill out the ‘forms’ online”
“I don’t have the money for a computer let alone the internet”
“You can use the internet for free at the local library”
“I don’t have money for transport”
“Do you live close enough to walk”
“I am on an ‘invalid’ benefit”
” We will continue to send the paper forms by post”
Catch 22
It’s actually a requirement that beneficiaries have a phone nowadays. This despite the fact that many beneficiaries can’t actually afford a phone. Even topping up a prepay by the minimum of $20 can be daunting.
nope the state benefits should not depend on wether someone has the money to call for an appointment, then find the way to a Winz office (no car could be an issue, busses? cost a lot of money that no benefit caters for, somone to look after the kids – ah just fuck it).
Oh so maybe they could go to a Library and use the computer there? And down load the paperwork to fill out and stuff….? See above, no car, no transport etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
Benefits should be given to people in Need. The only factor that should count in the giving out of benefits to people should be NEED! not an enrollment to the electoral votes.
The people that I know that did not vote the last time, where White, Male, Working, MIddle Class and they could not be fucked!
The ones that I know voted, included the mother on a 0 hour contract and winz benefits. The elderly lady that paid herself a taxi to get to vote, the rumanian migrants and so on and so on.
Again the ones that did not vote, white, working, male, middleclass and a can’t be arsed or fucked attitude. Go figure.
hi trp, can you or anyone else enlighten me as to why enrollment is compulsory?
cheers.
Once again – I just have to let you all know that probably what Tim Barnett was saying is NOT Labour Party policy, nor do I ever think it will be Labour Party policy, and they would not be stating its Labour Party policy.
Whoever it was putting up that submission was merely making a suggestion to the select committee.
I think the basic point is this: a comment from the general secretary :
“” <> “”
and it is not at all clear from that Herald story as to who in the Labour Party might have made such a submission – but it is quite clear that Tim Barnett is saying this is NOT a current LP policy, but its something other countries are doing and is this something NZ should look at. A question. Not a recommendation.
Its bad enough when the MSM twists things that Labour people say – its blinkin’ lousy when supposedly leftwing posters on The Standard do it too.
i wd submit that a component of a labour party ‘ submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee’…
..is not a matter of no significance…
(or are you saying it is..?..)
and how exactly is the reporting of this fact of this submission..’twisting things”..?
..this is what the submission – by the labour party (authored by whoever..?..won’t the proud parent stand up..?..)- to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee..said..
..and the comparison with australia – used by barnett – is putting the cart before the horse/comparing apples and oranges.. – as aust has compulsory-voting..we don’t..
..and jenny – if national were proposing something like this – would you not be protesting that..?..in this forum..?
Oops – dunno what happened to it, but my post above didn’t include the Barnett quote – about it being just a question to the committee, a request to investigate it – and that it is NOT Labour policy.
This is what he said. (And incidentally, I don’t agree with him on this matter, and I bet heaps of other Labour people don’t either !)
“It’s not party policy, it’s merely saying, what are the things that could be done? And in Australia that is the system which they formally adopt.”
Why would we want to follow the policies of a country that elected someone who might be related to a 20th century family called Abbottini, neighbours of Mussolini?
this is now the lead-story on the herald online..
..isn’t that great publicity for labour..?..(these things stick in peoples’ minds..)
and i think my original question:..’is this a brain-fart’?..
has been answered..in the affirmative..
not a brain fart but a testing of the waters
why “test” polluted “waters”..?
please..!..tell me what you think is possibly ‘good’ about this idea..?
..tell me how it is not just a total authoritarian brain-fart..
did I say anything was good about it?
you test waters to see what the reaction is going to be like and then adjust your plans accordingly – and to ensure there is no further misunderstanding from you – I do not like the idea or the ideology behind it – I hope that is sufficient for an understanding, of what i am saying, from you.
Its not a brain-fart PU – from any official Labour Party policy or statement.
It was just one person’s comment.
Can you please get that into your head. refer to my post at 12.2
it wasn’t “just a comment”..j.k..
..it was a labour party submission to a select committee..
..there is a difference..eh..?
I miss the good old days when Labour said good/constructive things would happen that would benefit people’s lives, and then shortly afterwards, they did. When did it get so muddled and complicated? Is there any way we could go back to that kind of politics?
Yeah yeah I know, things have “changed” and only “dinosaurs” want clear policy statements or action anymore. Hooray for TXTSPK and rumours… mumble mumble…
“Labour has proposed withholding state support such as tax credits and Working For Families from people who are not enrolled to vote.
The measure could be justified if it lifts New Zealand’s low voter turnout, the party says.
Getting the vote out is a priority for Labour and in its submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee, written by Labour’s general secretary Tim Barnett, the party argues for the idea to be considered.”
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11445759
It makes it pretty clear who made the submission…if the Herald got it wrong….sue them.
If this is even remotely a Labour policy…well…ffs…has Labour gone all “club them and drag em by the hair” on us?
For some people…not voting is a concious action.
A declaration that there are none worth voting for.
Perhaps….non voting and non enrollment should be seen as a criticism of the whole godamn political circus.
Those who would rule should do better.
maybe such confusion would not be coming up if the supposed leftwing party of New Zealand would finally come up with something that would exite people.
You know….like building houses for young people so they can get married and have kids. ( i know of a few couples that would love to rent a nice place to start their lifes together, alas they are not making enough to cover $ 2200 per month before any expenses or food).
You know…. like promoting long tenancies in private rentals so that families with kids could send their kids to THE ONE SCHOOL for like two years in a row, instead of having to pack up and move about ever friggin 6 month.
You know…..like upping the benefits for unemployed, single parents, the young ones etc etc etc could have a phone to phone WINZ for an appointment and eat….I know its a novelty.
I only want Labour to speak about these things…not about finding a way to punish the already punished for not being on the electoral roll….
How does Labour suppose to punish those not on the roll and not on a benefit? Like National punishes Tax Evader? With even bigger loopholes?
ffs…this is why no one is bothering to Labour and some of their die hard supporters anymore, because of some fuckwit that wants to out do Paula Bennett.
http://ecosalon.com/25-percent-of-cars-cause-90-percent-of-air-pollution-study-finds/
It’s poor people driving which causes the problems. Ban them from the roads.
I’d also like to see rich people who drive Hummers and Porsche cayenne’s banned.
#buildroadsboosteconomy
If roads weren’t so rough, the older engines wouldn’t work so hard. Resurface all roads to be glass smooth.
I hadn’t really considered that until I started riding my bike. On that I can feel the rough roads slowing me down, making it harder.
It’s not banning poor people, but banning older vehicles. Sure, that will impact on poor people most under current conditions but we should be questioning if everyone should have a car anyway as doing so costs so much. Or perhaps that should be a question of if anyone should have cars.
A government with guts would make it law that all personal cars would be electric in 10/15 years. Just have to put ruc charges on them to pay for the roads.
Need to go to RUCs on all vehicles anyway so as to kill the subsidies that trucks get from cars.
I’m looking at heat exchange from brick paved back yards.
Wikipedia on geothermal energy is interesting. What other countries do to use this for domestic use rather than just industrial as we do is interesting. (I don’t think Maori use, which extends back centuries is being counted here.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating
This is the sort of thing that progressive, thoughtful, and smart countries are doing to use technology that could be thought of as green and sustainable.
The cities of Reykjavík and Akureyri pipe hot water from geothermal plants under roads and pavements to melt snow. Geothermal desalination has been demonstrated.
Geothermal systems tend to benefit from economies of scale, so space heating power is often distributed to multiple buildings, sometimes whole communities.
This technique, long practiced throughout the world in locations such as Reykjavík, Iceland,[5] Boise, Idaho,[6] and Klamath Falls, Oregon[7] is known as district heating.[8] Turkey seems to be high in this use.
Background –
” Most high temperature geothermal heat is harvested in regions close to tectonic plate boundaries where volcanic activity rises close to the surface of the Earth. In these areas, ground and groundwater can be found with temperatures higher than the target temperature of the application….
even cold ground contains heat, below 6 metres (20 ft) the undisturbed ground temperature is consistently at the Mean Annual Air Temperature[3] and it may be extracted with a heat pump.”…
“Direct geothermal heating is far more efficient than geothermal electricity generation and has less demanding temperature requirements, so it is viable over a large geographical range.
If the shallow ground is hot but dry, air or water may be circulated through earth tubes or downhole heat exchangers which act as heat exchangers with the ground.”
Buggered if I can find it but I recall reading about a project in either Germany or The Netherlands using roads to heat houses.
Found this though.
http://www.icax.co.uk/asphalt_solar_collector.html
Try this link – there’s loads of info in the WWW on this topic: http://www.solaroad.nl/en/faq/
@ swordfish (above) went to sincil bank in February-saw the imps lose to chester 1-0.
Looking at an old BBC History magazine I saw they were recalling an earlier September attack on New York than 2001. This was in 1920 when ‘a cart packed with explosives was detonated’ outside the headquarters of JP Morgan. The perpetrators,causing 38 deaths, were never confirmed but may have been followers of the Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani.’
The site 23 Wall Street still bears the shrapnel scars of 90 years ago.
War and Peace and the Steady-State Economy
In fact, that latter bit is inevitable. There’s no real difference between and the feudal society that preceded it. both are about putting a few people above everyone else in wealth and power and having everyone else pay for it.
Shakes head in disbelief….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11445759
“Labour has proposed withholding state support such as tax credits and Working For Families from people who are not enrolled to vote.
The measure could be justified if it lifts New Zealand’s low voter turnout, the party says.”
Yup. And is being discussed above at 12 and 13.
Is Labour, or rather the hierarchy (cf. membership), trying immensely hard at working, full steam ahead and on the offensive, on connecting with ‘voters’ ?
Whatever was said in that select committee meting, tinfoilhat and Kiwiri – that is NOT Labour policy, nor has anyone raised it as a possible Labour policy.
Forget about the UK. Worry about us.
Labour is going 1984 again.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11445759
As if National is not punishing beneficiaries enough already.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11445665
It predates the internet (so hard to find links), but i remember Roger Douglas doing pretty much exactly the same thing.
IN 1984 we were taken unawares and they hid the economic agenda behind the antinuclear credentials. If they do the same again what are they going to fob us off with to try to pretend to be a Labour party.
It’s good of you to run with The Herald‘s framing of the issue. When they say “proposed”, what exactly did Labour say?
So, not “proposed” then.
come on oan..!..don’t give us the raw prawn..
..it was indeed ‘proposed’..in a labour party submission to the electoral reform select committee..
..and we have the party secretary seemingly pimping it to the media..
..so it was ‘proposed’..with bells on…eh..?
Yes, Phil, people who want to spin it in a negative light (something you and The Herald have in common) will spin it in a negative light.
As Chomsky says, the key is to severely limit the areas that can be discussed, and allow robust discussion withing those narrow constraints.
Bravo.
please do enlighten us with the ‘positive’ aspects of this pile of steaming shit of an idea..
..i am not the only one seeming to be unable to see them..
..do bring us up to speed..
..and nothing is being ‘spun’..
..this is a proposal in a labour party submission to a parliamentary select committee..
..what are you finding so difficult to understand about that..?
..i am not spinning it..i am seriously slagging it..
..for the piece of shite idea it is..
..and i am gobsmacked that it got that far through the labour party internal processes..without someone ring alarm bells..
..so many bloody questions raised with just that..
..it only took me a nano-second to smell the rot..
..who/which grouping within labour think this is a ‘goer’..?
..and pushed it through..?
..are there no internal checks and balances within labour..?
That’s the way: it’s important to confine all ideas to the ones you approve of, and a good way to do that is to pretend discussion of outliers is exactly the same as supporting them.
Nice one.
As for the merits of the proposal. I think that before penalising non-enrolled voters, we should penalise anyone who adopts a deliberate strategy of voter discouragement.
“…a deliberate strategy of voter discouragement.”
The expression “political suicide” comes to mind.
Godallmighty….this is so depressing…
+1 PU.
I can’t imagine how this appalling idea got to the submission stage. It may not be current policy, or even likely to become policy, but the idea that someone in a senior position in the Labour Party should even consider it is a good idea is beyond me. Very, very damaging.
it will be used in parliament as a routine by the right..against labour..
No evidence Barnett sought coverage. Media will have been covering the committee, and the Labour Partry should simply be smart enough by now to not provide leads to them like this.
“…the Labour Partry should simply be smart enough by now to not provide leads to them like this.”
You’d think, wouldn’t you?
Maybe someone in the Labour Party is really smart…or thinks he/she is?
There seem more than a few in there who are not as smart as they believe. I wish they would get out of the way.
Not that I agree with the proposal to look at the idea (or maybe I do – seems logical to look at things that may provide the desired outcome) but it’s not in the realms of beneficiary bashing is it?
I thought working for families was an employment-related payment?
i just saw this tweet..
“..Sam Lotu-Iiga quoted Nelson Mandela as he opened a private prison run by a company with a terrible human rights record & I wish I was joking..”
It’s worth taking a look at the comments on this crazy website National have set up to somehow try and get populous buy-in of this change the flag diversion.
http://www.standfor.co.nz/#entries
Roughly 3/5 comments disagree with the proposed change altogether. This could turn into another Northland type misfire for Key and another nail in his coffin.
Something I hadn’t considered is raised by this comment:
“…the government tell us the cost to change the flag is $26,000,000 for referendum but the cost to change every flag in every school, building, businesses, NZ Army uniforms, vehicles, NZ Police, NZ Navy the list would be endless – it’s a joke. $26 million is only the start”
good point sage..!
..chrs 4 the heads-up…
The archdruid has been very provocative over his last few posts I have thought but the logic is inescapable and like all great writers with ideas he presents them with a style and content that I find complete and beautiful.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2015/05/the-whisper-of-shutoff-valve.html
There’s pictures on John Key’s facebook page of him handling a puppy and showing it to Prince Harry https://www.facebook.com/pmjohnkey
Kinda weird.. is it that hair/fur thing again..