Thirty million dollars to guarantee 3000 jobs, a third of them high paying, for three years? Only a fool, or someone blinded by the childish religion of free market ideology, would see that as a bad out come.
So step right up John Roughan (and it is John, you can pick up the stink of his writing style a mile off) in the NZ Herald’s editorial this morning.
Hell, if we could build an aircraft factory that provided 3000 jobs in Hawkes Bay and an ship building industry in Northland that provided 3000 jobs and 3000 more jobs in railway workshops in Wellington and Dunedin for another ninety million over three years I’d say go for it. Forty million a year in the midst of a downturn to keep 12,000 jobs ticking along? A bargain! That fact that it took the political imperative of a flagship government policy of blind adherence to market doctrine to show some common sense is so mind bogglingly ironic you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
And the way in which the decision to offer the $30,000,000 has been promptly attacked by every right wing commentator in the country, is neat evidence of the sterile thinking and lack of imagination that dominates our economic debate or, as it was neatly put by the Chinese the other day, how “…hostage to a blinkered devotion to laissez-faire market ideology…” that debate is.
Additionally, there is the Government’s $30 million, which it says is the price that had to be paid to provide “greater certainty” for the smelter workers, the Southland region and the electricity industry. In each case, it does nothing of the sort. New Zealand Aluminium Smelters will be able to terminate the contract from January 2017 provided it gives 15 months’ notice. In effect, the earliest closure date for the smelter has been moved back just one year. It would have taken a longer-term deal to offer anything approaching greater job security for its workers.
So in effect the 30million is for a guaranteed 12 months work for the approxiamately 800 staff at the plant.
The start of a closure package for the smelter possibly with this govt bias to doing what the money masters overseas decree .How much more will it cost ?
Add in the rumored job restructuring, and that in interviews, govt ministers arent moving the discussion away from the meridian share float and i think we can safely call this for what it is
It has announced it will hold onto its struggling aluminium business, Pacific Aluminium, which it has been trying to sell.
Mr Walsh said the company had been unable to sell the business.
“Following a comprehensive review we have also determined that the divestment of Pacific Aluminium for value is not possible in the current environment and it will be reintegrated into the Rio Tinto Alcan group.”
Despite crying poor, Rio Tinto’s profit for the six months to the end of June was $US1.7 billion dollars.
What the 30 million dollars has brought is 4 years for the Southland economy and the smelter workers to transition away from the smelter and into other areas.
Every one knows the smelter’s going, but now people can see a time line and plan for it’s closure.
That’s what the 30 million dollars is all about and really it’s a very small price to pay .
It’s more the unofficial line.
No one is going to come out and say the smelter will close in exactly 4 years time, that would just cause a lot of short term pain for no reason at all.
What they’re doing is giving Southland time to develop other areas before they announce the closure.
Sudden change is not good for people and especially politicians.
your ignoring all evidence and focusing on how it sounds inside your head.
Its no big secret that the smelter will close and close soon – this deal only pushes the first possible closure date out by about a year
very little of the commentary is about helping southland
quite a bit of the commentary is about providing stability to the market for the upcoming share float
we now hear rumors that the workforce is being massively restructured
and the plant is likely to be sold and sold soon
as a said – if it was really about helping southland, shit, if it was even about pretending to help southland to distract from the share float, then that is what we would be hearing from ministers via the media
Yes framu I agree with you – very little about this is related to jobs or Southland – the share float is the real issue for them. Rio Tinto will pull out as soon as they want to, they have the weight to basically choose what is best for them and I don’t imagine they’ll give Southlanders too much consideration in that.
What the 30 million dollars has brought is 4 years for the Southland economy and the smelter workers to transition away from the smelter and into other areas.
No it hasn’t. That would have occurred if Rio Tinto said that they would be closing the smelter down over the next four years.
Every one knows the smelter’s going, but now people can see a time line and plan for it’s closure.
No they can’t as the smelter has been “saved” by taxpayer money for another year. Southland will probably expect another handout in 2017.
That’s what the 30 million dollars is all about and really it’s a very small price to pay .
No, it was just a waste of money made so as to boost Rio Tinto’s profits.
This site has just been launched to encourage people to have their will done and create a “bucket list” to maximise their remaining time in their current body.
Looks good. I thought it might be like the Public Trust who, in exchange for assisting you in writing a free will have themselves appointed executor and thus are able to extract large amounts of money in “expenses”. But this site doesn’t do that so I’m looking into it.
Two charities who will benefit from both my life and any dying I do will be Wellington Rape Crisis and the Beneficiary Education and Advisory Service as they both embody my moral and political values (although neither is actually a political organisation). I also know people in both organisations so feel confident any donation will be used with integrity and the upliftment of the wider community.
To create a will using our simple will creation tool, it costs only $NZ49.95. You then own the Will you create, and can be rest assured your family is protected. Live the day!
What you get:
Access to our easy 6 step Will creation tool
A PDF version of your Will for you to Print, Sign and have Witnessed.
Download your Will whenever you need to
Instruction sheet explaining what the clauses in your Will mean
Information explaining how to validate your Will
Comsumer NZ have a guide to making wills which seems to be available free online without needing to subscribe. Basic, but a good starting point.
I note that it was updated in August 2012, after Public Trust discontinued its freely available service (they still do some in very restricted circumstances.)
The first (using the Public Trsutee I wanted to leave half a lifetime’s earnings and expertise to a first son and family. WHAT a fucking hassle!
Still – I’m living out that will to this day: whereby my attempts to give a lifetime to date was to son, his wife and gradnson with I hoped was his due before I actually karked it. (i.e. so I could actually be assured that they would not have to encounter the struggle of student debt, neo-liberal inspired ugliness of greed and selfishness, and witness it whilst still alive)
The second (firstly by way of Ugly Trust, then money making solicitor – now I understand the true meaning of the term), my daughter and second born – to be left by former partner – wife and subsequent.
WHAT a complicated messs of bullshit and kakabeans.
It seems that when wants to live frugally, to live in minimalist lifestyle, to hand on one’s wealth to the next generation (ESPESCIALLY having witnessed most of my contemporaries having left a load of death, desperation and baby boomer debt and aspiration – with a lik and a promise), one can’t easily.
Instead, one has to hope that what a first child is given by me – hoping to give a start, is replicated by an estranged wife to the second. Thankfully it now has and will be.
I/we both (i.e. myself and an ex) CANNOT easily be leave the next generation an entitlement to the wealth of our lifetimes UNTIL we ekshly kik the proverbial. Far easier a foreigner or alien to come hither, lay claim to some form of ‘property’ at the expense of fellow nationals, jet in once a year (or less even), and leave their legacy.
Oh well – the best we can hope for is that the assholes won’t come near to any overflow from my wealth – until …. well let’s just say hopefully death is quick and easy, and if not , down to an undetected BIG BIG OD, whereby a first born gets mine, and the second gets my ex, AND any overflow benefits a local community (and anonymously, and those I hold dear).
But truely – easier said than done!
It’s a hard life being a once high earner, latterly and suddenly reduced to SFA when one identifies with the left rather than the right.
Things really are designed for the bullshit artists and the Jellybeans – the Keysters, the charletans, the aspirational rent seeker, contribute-nothing/collect-all Phil Steins.
They’re designed for the Keys, the En-tree-pren-ooooo-ers, the “Oim-so-great” money fuckers, rentiers and traders in misery and debt (seems I can’t easily just leave wealth anonymously for example)
…… still, that figures looking at a Natzi front bench with dishonestly earned wealth.
Best thing is it’s an incentive to stay alive!
Even better thing is that in the overall scheme of things, they won’t come out tops.
Never mind though – might have to be a grandson/daughter that pisses on graves rather than me
Yes, I’ve been thinking dying is too much hassle. Actually, the Mai Chen Will, for $50.00 looks like it will suit my needs – don’t have a spouse or children, but need to ensure I leave enough for my rels to pay my funeral and other death expenses.
Without a Will, I’m told it can take for ever for the rels to get the money to pay for me having been so inconsiderate as to die.
The blond hair has thinned and receded, the face, beaten by 60 years of the Queensland sun, is lined. But the toothy grin is still there.
Why, said Peter Beattie, this was the political battle of his life. It would take a 1.6 per cent swing to deliver the seat of Forde to his grasp. ”I am the underdog,” he insisted, keeping a straight face.
Ah, yes, but had he done any deals with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a frontbench seat, should he step over that 1.6 per cent barrier and get to Canberra … and did he have ambitions of replacing Mr Rudd as leader, he was asked? ”I’m happy to be a backbencher,” said the former nine-year premier of Queensland.
Key has no problem with using his mate Fletcher and others in the Police/Intelligence community to protect and extend his grip on power. Eagleton and his office can command theses forces at will.
Has Key used theses agencies to spy on Labour and the media?
Has Shearer been kept in his leader position (unwittingly) by theses manipulating pricks?
“Has Key used theses agencies to spy on Labour and the media?”
When (because of his track record with the truth) you can’t trust your PM a suggestion like this can’t be laughed at. Could even explain the Lab. “caucus leaks”.
What would Robertson do if he was offered ill gotten info and/or assistance by conduits of theses players?
Would Robertson find the opportunity to secure his succession to Shearer too tempting?
Adrian, look at the names of the board and bear in mind the links between board and hollowmen is likely golf/dinners/bbq’s etc all nice and social with no electronic records.
Though he was killed four years ago, Troy Kastigar of Minnesota remains an articulate recruiter for al-Shabab, al Qaeda’s franchise in Somalia that has been part of a long-running Islamic insurgency against the internationally backed but very weak central government in the capital, Mogadishu.
IntelCenter, a private firm that tracks extremist media, providedproduced the video and an accompanying analysis tofor The Washington Times.
From the we control the production line of terrorists home made videos……
Learn what is behind the drive by the government, by the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income, to usher or push sick and disabled beneficiaries into open employment on the already competitive job market:
“Medical and Work Capability Assessments – Based on the controversial bio psycho-social model, aimed at disentitleing affected from welfare benefits and accident compensation: The Aylward Unum Link”:
‘An article summarising comprehensive, revealing research results’
As we know by now, WINZ are contracting out services to private, non-government operators, who will be paid handsome fees to place people with mental and other illlnesses, with disabilities, and also sole parents into jobs. The fact that such fees are paid on performance will in itself lead to the affected persons being pressured to take on jobs they get offered. Whether they may like such probably just casual, part time, unfulfilling, undemanding and low paid jobs or not, and whether they may cope or not, the expectation will be put onto them, so most will give in and accept being pushed into whatever jobs. It will be a risky experiment, likely to cause harm to at least some, and it will certainly not solve much, as most employers will only take on sick and disabled for the attractive fees they may also get. Once that subsidy is taken and pocketed, the incentive to keep the sick and disabled workers on will vanish.
There are some key players involved, and of course, the whole ideas stem from persons like a Professor Mansel Aylward from a department at Cardiff University, who also did nicely out of payments by controversial private disability insurer Unum Insurance from the US, who sponsored his work.
Key persons that promote his ideas in New Zealand include a Dr David Beaumont, who “advised” both ACC and MSD on policies, and he happens to run his own business called “Pathways To Work”, down on the South Island, earning from the government to place disabled and incapacitated into work.
The New Zealand government and Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennett have fallen for the disputed and perverted “bio psycho-social model” approach by Aylward and his colleagues (e.g. Gordon Waddel), and as it offers them an opportunity to rid WINZ off long term beneficiaries with health and disability issues, they just love the idea to outsource and have private agencies do the difficult jobs for them, similar to what has been going on in the UK for some years now.
National really don’t care if the systems they put in place work or not, for them, it’s all about profit and how they can divert taxpayer money to them and their rich mates.
I am getting a bit fed up with kweewee. Every time you turn round he is off complaining to the cops to get him out of hot water.
he is like the school yard creep who has found a way of keeping the troops in line but it all turns to crap when it is exposed to reality.
what a crybaby.
This may be of interest to some, the teachers union write to an aspiring charter school operator and his response.
Now about the clip telling Shearer…at first glance I thought it was done by someone from the right because the production values look quite high whereas something from the left would look cheap
However if you’re clued up enough to produce this then you’d know that Shearer is who the right want as leader so, on the balance of probabilities, I’d say its someone from the left
This is the version that right wing fan Sean “Plonkit” has been raving on about on his Radio Live show this morning. It appears to be the same clip that ‘The Daily Blog’ already published a week or so ago. It shows how slow mainstream media is these days, to catch on with what is happening.
We’ve had the debate – reality shows us that they’re a waste of time and money. Which brings us to the conclusion that National are destroying our education system for a reason.
Well no you’re wrong charter schools are not a waste of time or money, the reality is that the teachers unions (not the teachers) are trying to protect their racket
BS, the teachers and the teacher union (can’t have the latter without the former) are trying to protect our children from the destructive systems that NACT are putting in place.
Bollix the union is there to protect its members…teachers. Once you give parents choice you break the monopoly and thats what the union is scared of
Actually, the union is there to provide organised resistance to privatising and corporate forces.
“Protecting its members” is just a single aspect of that, because privatising and corporate forces benefit from attacking teachers, their families (and workers in general).
A lot of parents want the choice of a largely public education system – anyone who wants a private system can always choose to pay for it. Entirely. Without tax payer subsidies. By themselves.
What racket? The one where they work long hours, contribute to extracurricular activities without pay, deal with disruptive kids, endure idiot Tory parents who know everything, cop shit from all sides, and all for ridiculously low pay? Funny sort of racket. Nothing like the rackets enjoyed by PERFed out coppers who get contracts to drug test beneficiaries and sit on their asses raking it in, for example.
If teaching was as much a racket as these idiot Tories claim, they’d all be lining up to do it. Why aren’t they?
MO
I was just talking to a long-term teacher about how she has advocated for a part-time teacher aide which she has never been granted before.
She has a number of behavioural problems with ADHD etc and one boy who has never been managed by the other teachers so she was asked to take him on and has broken through and gained his interest and the ability to control his erratic behaviour.
She used her methods of being firm, setting standards of behaviour and insisting on them, giving direction and not standing over the negative one, and taking the recalcitrant ones through their behaviour faults so they understand what the problem is, and she is ready to encourage and praise and facilitate them. All this takes time, experience, fortitude, positive thinking, planning, intelligence, teacher learning and understanding etc.
And also you may not be well supported by your school management system even when you are successful and know you are a good teacher by the good results you have. And there is so much superior ignorant bullshit coming from either parents who don’t manage their own role well, or superior upper class types who want their moneys-worth of education and more, and the pollies sneer when they want to deflect attention from their own failures. And yet the teachers keep on because they are dedicated and they keep winning, eventually, and the class achieves and they know they have Done Good. It surely is not easy.
I was looking at some National Party people today and thinking about ones I know.
What would be a profile of them compared to the profile for Labour. These perceptions of themselves then drive the perceptions they have of the other party/ies.
National to me seem to be the sort who dye their hair (women) because its part of conforming to the stereotype of a well-dressed and presented woman, women would 99.5% wear makeup, dress fashionably. Men suits, smart casual, good cars. They see themselves as go-getters, no-nonsense, hard workers getting on with life, aiming to earn good money and spend it on attractive objects and items. Individualistic. Superior. Not highly principled.Vaguely concerned about international connections but mainly as to where they can gain most advantage. Not much principle. Snobbish, I’m better than you and them (the benes), feeling deserving so when they become benes in some way that’s different and fair to them as more useful citizens than other benes.
Labour is regarded by them as incompetent and full of wish lists and supporters are regarded by them as not highly principled, unlike National Partyites, well most of the time. Labour is for either the lower classes or for academics or professionals who have a serious lack of reality and judgment and want things for the country only available in lala land. The reasons behind most people voting for Labour is because they haven’t got the gumption to go for a party that is leading a group who ‘are going places’.
The National-drawn people are unable to analyse and critically and objectively view the politics we live under and methods. They don’t have a higherstandard that they will work towards, if they do have a vision it is kept for slogans alone, not to be implemented. They are not introverted, or thoughtful, or interested in studying history except to pick on certain events that illustrate that might is right or noting failures of power and control in the past, and noting how to avoid that recurring. In other words anything they learn will be selective and skewed to their future advantage.
Nicely put Rosetinted. In short: they’re selfish, self centred and shallow thinkers who don’t care about anyone outside their closed insular circles. They assuage their feelings of guilt by supporting charities and attending charity balls. Their ultimate ambition is to be considered a member of the Beautiful People. (sarc.)
Trying to point out politely (maybe too politely) that this is as big a piece of steaming cow dung as I’ve ever read on here and thats saying something
Its as accurate as me saying all lefties are pseudo-communist, envious, dole bludging, ne’er do wells
Who cares whether the paras were excellent. What about the content? Are voters like this or not? Are they driven by these perceptions or not? Why? How come we can’t run the country better than we do? Who is influential the pollies or the voters?
If you vote in a party because they seem overall to be better but have one really bad policy how does one stand against that mandate whitewash? I am government , therefore I have a mandate.
What’s the use of making silly patronising comments. If anyone makes silly comments they should be trying to be funny or satirical or something. If not they should go outside and stand on their head and let some blood rush into their brain. That’s how humans recharge themselves, I think I read it in a report from Russia or maybe China. Probably one of them that are on the other side of the world. They probably want to see things from our perspective../sarc
Agreed. It also looks like it will be a long session at the slow rate the answers are coming up (and not in question order). Still, some good questions from some good people, so Dunne is probably having trouble working out his spin.
EDIT – or his non-answers such as that to #4 that has just come up! LOL – how thick is he? And now #5 and #9.
I just got a letter from David Shearer … that’s nice … except it was paid for by me which is a long standing bone of contention be it Labour or National or whoever from the beehive. Tells me he will save me hundreds of dollars with my power bill … that is a laugh since the balance of probabilities is that it won’t and might cost me … but whatever these politicians have their funny ideas.
What really disturbed me was the ‘argument’ quotes from an old lady at a Grey Power meeting who said she was afraid to turn on a light or her electric blanket becuase of the effect on her power bill … shocking … that nobody bothered to explain power consumption and how little such things use …. shocking becuase nobody told her to think about the things which really eat up the power such as heater, water heating, and ovens, about drawing curtains as soon as the sun goes behind the hill and so on ….
So thankyou David for adding to my belief that Labour are a hopeless bunch.
My view is that besides setting up by Legislation a single desk ‘buyer’ of wholesale electricity the Labour/Green electricity reforms should take one more step,
Labour/Green should also set up a nationwide retailer charged with offering the cheapest price possible to consumers without incurring a financial loss…
They should go the whole hog and renationalise electricity, make it so that it’s supported by taxes and that every household gets a free amount of power – enough to run the basics. Anything above that free amount is charged for.
They should go the whole hog and renationalise beer, make it so that it’s supported by taxes and that every household gets a free amount of beer – enough to run the basics. Anything above that free amount is charged for.
That’s the lolly-water brewed by jafas, not the original recipe.
On an unrelated note, I can’t abide Export. But when they did that original recipe production run a few years back, I loved the depth of flavour. It’s almost as if going into uniform high-volume mass production somehow lowers the quality of the product…
Beer, is not essential infrastructure, nor is it an example of market failure.
It is also not reliant on large scale networks, the capital costs to start a brewery are not huge and you can brew plenty of your own, if the supply fails…
Cheaper power however. will also mean cheaper beer :-).
There’s a couple of differences that you seem incapable of realising:
1.) There are many types of beer that anyone can make, there is only one type of electricity
2.) The necessary integrated smart grid to bring about the best possible distribution of power is a natural monopoly. Having more of them just adds unnecessarily to the cost.
3.) Having the state, and thus the people, owning the generators and running them at cost is much, much cheaper than having private competing firms running them for a profit due to all the added bureaucracy that such competing firms introduce (which is cheaper? 1 CEO for $200k or 5 for $2m each) and the dead weight loss of profit.
Basically, what it comes down to is that you’re an ideological idiot.
Silly billy, Govt doesn’t have to grow and sell all food, the statutory producer boards did very well thank you, and have created giants like Fonterra.
You really are a bit ignorant of the socialist reality of NZ, aren’t you?
and you think that the Government running the generators at cost with no market will result in less bureaucracy?
I think red meat exporters and Fonterra quality control could have done with a bit MORE bureaucracy in recent times, from what we’ve seen reported, eh?
and you think that the Government running the generators at cost with no market will result in less bureaucracy?
Yep. Don’t need anywhere as much of it:-
1.) Don’t need advertising
2.) Don’t need multiple duplication of managers all doing the same job just for different companies
3.) Don’t need multiple office space and so freeing buildings for other uses
The market is supposed to be there so as to determine how much supply is needed. This rather remarkable outcome is determined through statistics and planning which a monopoly will actually be better suited to doing (comes down to their being only one type of electricity only). What competition does in this gathering data and planning is make it so that the information that one company gathers isn’t shared with the other companies which must result in the individual companies making the wrong decisions. We, the consumers, end up paying for those mistakes usually in the form of government handouts and guarantees.
Competition adds costs for no purpose and the market brings about failure. This is what we see in telecommunications. Twenty years of privatisation has left us with a network far below the standard it should be at and would be at if Telecom hadn’t been sold and the government having to put in extra taxpayer money to bring it up to that standard. The full costs to the public, once dividends are taken into account, are over $17 billion dollars and that’s just telecom – add Telstra, Vodafone, 2 degrees and it goes up even further.
didn’t you tell me the Government should grow and selll food?
Yep, just like farmers who own multiple farms do – they go out and hire managers.
“Labour/Green should also set up a nationwide retailer charged with offering the cheapest price possible to consumers without incurring a financial loss…”
Yes because around the world Government owned monopolies usually provide such excellent service.
Maybe the RMs can nationalise the supermarkets too. “NZ Food.” or “Kiwi Eat”
jcuknz
It’s a pity that Labour tend to bring up examples such as the one you mentioned as though it is a reflection of most of us. Is the old lady supposed to be representative for their constituents.
I remember someone from Auckland being quoted on how expensive electricity was. She was spending $300 a month. That was a hell of a lot and could not be given as an example of the average person in difficulty. What could have been said was that people who were finding electricity too dear could have an 0800 number to phone and be given assistance on how power could be saved, through a number of ways. Just making sure that she wasn’t heating the kitchen from turning on the stove might be one.
Picking on the saddest little story-with-photo to act as a mascot for a policy does not impress. The idea of Labour having no idea of what to do and just responding with a knee-jerk reaction to the poor and needy is not going to galvanise the population who think they know what they’ve got to try somebody who is making up policy as he goes. Of course that is what NACTs are doing really with their focus groups, but perception is everything these days.
Today’s ‘golden turd award’ for efforts to Jonolism goes to the Heralds economics editor Brian Fallow for this quote,
”4.3 billion dollars in profits due to ‘market inefficiencies’ during dry years, the exercise of unilateral market power imposes little cost on consumers when there is plenty of water”, unquote,
The above quote appears to be the ‘work’ of Professor Frank Wolak and can be found in the Herald article by Fallow in the economics section of the Herald on line,(click on the business section first), the headline for this spurious piece of Jonolism is titled, ”Setting the record straight on power” and it’s contents are about all we can expect from another of the card carrying Fifth Column Herald journalists who cannot bring themselves to address any issue truthfully,
Putting aside the term ‘market inefficiencies’ as who in their right mind knows what Fallow supposes Wolak means with it’s use it is simple to see the absolute LIE inherent in both the Professor’s words and Fallow’s repetition of them,
It’s simple, in ‘a market’ if the amount of water available to generate electricity was effected by ‘a dry year’ and this provoked ‘price increases’ then it is obvious to even the most dull that in the years when there is plenty of water there would be ‘price decreases’,
That of course is how a ‘real’ market is supposed to work, in a market where the consumer is in effect ‘trapped’,(how many of us can live without electricity), price ‘fixing’ will occur, and that is exactly what has occurred in the wholesale and retail of electricity pricing in New Zealand,
Price fixing occurs when during the dry years the wholesale price of electricity rises and the retail price charged then increases,
Price fixing becomes apparent when in the wet years the wholesale price either does not drop back to the level of the last wet year, or, the wholesale price of electricity drops for the retailer but the retailer does not pass on that wholesale price decrease to the consumer,
i would challenge that Jonolist Brian Fallow to create for us a chart of all the wholesalers and all the retailers showing everybody both the wholesale and retail prices of electricity by year and indicating dry and wet years,
Brian Fallows pathetic excuse of an excuse for the New Zealand electricity market’s Price Fixing over the past decade earns Him a coveted Golden Turd Award…
Interesting how Wolak’s words have changed. Here’s his first reference to the 4.3 billion:
By comparing the actual wholesale prices with hypothetical competitive benchmark prices, Professor Wolak estimated that the wholesale prices charged over the period 2001 to mid-2007 resulted in an extra $4.3 billion in earnings to all generators over those that they would have earned under competitive conditions. This suggests that wholesale prices were, on average, 18 per cent higher than they would have been if the wholesale market had been more competitive, and the gentailers had not been able to exert market power. Less competition was especially evident in the wholesale market during the dry years of 2001 and 2003, when additional earnings attributable to the exercise of market power are estimated at $1.5 billion in each of those years.
So we have an extra $4.3 billion being charged because of monopoly powers and then an extra $1.5 billion charged in each of the dry years.
”Setting the record straight on power” and it’s contents are about all we can expect from another of the card carrying Fifth Column Herald journalists who cannot bring themselves to address any issue truthfully, (bad12)
I don’t know these jonos but it sounds as if they couldn’t part their hair straight. (Is that why so many men shave their heads now?)
quite right bad12.
dont let him wrigle off the hook either.
too many posters here are busy with irrelevant minutae when the substantive issues, policies and the cretins that dreamed them up are never brought to book.
I dont give a shit about the market.
the question is who got the money?
A while ago, years, there was a OZ film about a Autistic kid, who would go into a fit when loud noises occurred. So now there’s adverts on late night TV for a noisy car, that its a branded as the thing to be seen driving. Now, living in a street with an excessive number of these extra noisy cars passing by, sometimes late at night, I was wondering wtf. Its like a local auction or car dealer has a range of these motors and has to drive them around the town at all hours.
The point here is that it is possible for companies to pay their workers a living wage, make money, and give their customers an excellent product, all at the same time. The idea that we have to choose between paying workers well and having successful businesses is just false. That choice only exists when the owners insist on squeezing billions out of their workers.
The low wages that John Key promised our businesses are solely to boost profits for the few. The lowering of wages is a process that’s been in place since 1984 and the Rogernomic Revolution and it is not doing our country, our society, any good.
That’s what I thought. It’s like if he was talking about Hone and said “You lost three debates, each time to a Maori” and then claimed it was OK because he was just being accurate.
The biggest politic mystery of my lifetime is why Goff didn’t join ACT with his mates. He could go out riding his midlife crisis machine with John Banks, with a lycra clad duck following along behind.
A new study showing the inequality within our health systems
The Burden of Disease study, which was released yesterday by the Ministry of Health, measured “health loss” or how much healthy life was lost due to premature death, illness or impairment.
Amongst the report’s findings was that Maori had about a 75 per cent higher rate of health loss than non-Maori.
The data confirmed research that Maori experienced higher exposures to risk factors for poor health, more injury, more disability and poorer outcomes when they interact with health services, the New Zealand Medical Association said.
“The fact health loss in Maori is almost 1.8 times higher than in non-Maori and that this occurs earlier on in life is unacceptable.
“Addressing these issues must be a priority for us all – government, society, industry and health professionals,” Dr Peterson said.
A priority for us all. I agree with that – it’s about time we took our collective heads out the sand and addressed this real and important issue – it will take us all making it a priority to make progress.
I think that the issues are systemic and therefore any solutions must come at the system level. There have been good initiatives that have encouraged Māori to interact with health services in better ways, those initiatives have broken down some barriers on both sides a bit. Until we reduce the risk factors for poor health, have fewer injuries and disability for Māori then these trends will continue. A big factor in those issues is poverty. All that iwi and whānau can do is keep encouraging their people to seek health assistance and knowledge. If we as a country made it a priority then we would be addressing all of the issues raised above, holistically and historically.
I’m not sure if I understand what you mean by ‘systemic issues’.
I certainly agree with you on the reduction of risk factors for poor health and I’d like to see iwi and the DHBs work more closely together on issues around cardiovascular disease in particular and ensuring vaccinations are offered and up to date.
While I agree that poverty is a factor in health amongst Maori even after adjusting for incomes via the decile ratings within the various DHBs the Maori population is doing worse health wise than they deserve to.
Farrar’s bulls**t, echoing Wolak’s bulls**t, ‘it will reduce competition’, that presupposes that there is any meaningful competition in the market as it is now,
I dunno, but not that. Sure, fishing’s fun, but unless you are catching and releasing, (which is just torturing animals as far as I can tell) then it’s not just recreation.
The recreation/commercial split makes it looks like games vs work so of course the working people should get first dibs. Fuck that.
It’s all of our fish and if people want fish for dinner then they should be able to go and catch it.
If they can’t, or don’t want to, then yeah, people should be able to buy fish at the shop. As long as that doesn’t mean people who want to fish, can’t.
Calling it ‘recreational fishing’ implies that a NZer catching fish for the family dinner, is a less worthy use of the resource than selling it. And that’s just fucking daft.
Actually how about just “Fishing”? It’s the commercial fishers who are going beyond what ought to be anyone’s ordinary right, so they get the extra descriptor.
What’s confusing about it? Seemed pretty clear to me. It’s a law blog more than a news site, and it isn’t really explaining the case so much as the trial, and how it went for Wishart, he lost big time.
For legal types their attention to (spelling) detail is poor:
The jury found that the material published about former Wellington Treasury official and diplomat Lindsay Smallbone that related to matters of sexual perverion and more was also published recklessly.
The confusion was that at first I thought Wishart must have written the book, then wondered if Mrs London was his wife – had to ponder:
The 10 day trial related to material published in the book published by Wishart’s company and co-written by himself and his wife, Paulette London, regarding the abduction of Mrs London’s children off a London street decades ago.In the course of telling their story, which Mr Wishart considered to be essentially a biography, they described various activities that characterised Mr Smallbone as sexually perverse, voyeuristic and otherwise deviant.
Excuse me, I am having to beg here, for this to be copied in, aye?
I spent half an hour to get this loaded! It a a centenary for the Communist Party of Chile to celebrate, but that is not what we want in NZ, right, or wrong?
Anyway, I offer, music and dance to the occasion. I also observed some jihadist videos tonight, so just out of curiosity, dear John Key, dear SIS and GCSB, I must now be put onto your WATCH list, please, if you may have missed me so far. I am an ENEMY of the nation, and count me in, please!
That is because you lazy layabouts sucking the tax payer dry have nothing better to do. Fuck YOU all SIS, GCSB and hangers on that stupify and dumb down people. If you want to shut me out, you have to KILL me, thank you!
The Herald showing how to frame a question to change the debate.
No longer….an investigation in why we are dropping are standards.
Instead …’unrealistically high expectations”
Channeling Tory speak.
The Herald’s leading question
Should the 100% Pure slogan go?
Yes – it’s setting an unrealistically high expectation
No – it is still an important part of New Zealand’s image
Not sure
Where are these options?
Yes – being clean and green adds value to our exports, gives us a point of difference, preserves the environment for our grandchildren, provides healthier food for our population and creates better quality jobs for New Zealanders
No – the government needs to raise its game on environmental matters
Not sure
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
Dear friends, it’s been a covidious year,A testing time for all of us here—Citizens of an island nationIn a state of managed isolation,A team (someone said) five million strong,Making it up as we went along:Somehow in typical Kiwi fashion,Without any wild excess ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Dec 27, 2020 through Sat, Jan 2, 2021Editor's Choice7 Graphics That Show Why the Arctic Is in Trouble Arctic Sea Ice: NSIDC It’s no secret that the Arctic is ...
One of the books I read in 2020 was She, by H. Rider Haggard (1887). I thoroughly enjoyed it, as being an exemplar of a good old-fashioned adventure story. I also noted with amusement ...
Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick looks at the pandemic and the responses to it 30th December 2020 I have not written much about COVID19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in Dante’s Inferno, written many hundreds of ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
Some families in emergency housing are reporting their children are becoming emotionally distressed because of their living conditions. Demand for emergency accommodation has escalated this past year with the number of emergency housing grants increasing by half. Data showed nearly 10,000 people were given an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant between ...
Summer reissue: Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden are back for a second season of On the Rag, and where better to start than with the mysterious, exhausting world of wellness?First published June 23, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
With few Covid-19 infections and negiligible natural immunity, New Zealand faces being a victim of its own success when it is left till last to get the vaccines, argues Dr Parmjeet Parmar. ...
Steve Braunias reports on a literary cancelling. The Corrections department has refused to allow Jared Savage's best-selling book Gangland inside prison on the grounds that it "promotes violence and drug use". An inmate at Otago Corrections Facility in Dunedin was sent a copy of the book – but it was ...
New data from the CTU’s annual work life survey shows a snapshot of working people’s experiences and outlook heading out of 2020 and into the new year. Concerningly 42% of respondents cite workplace bullying as an issue in their workplace - a number ...
The dramatic capsize of American Magic brought out the best in the America's Cup sailing fraternity. But, Suzanne McFadden asks, what does it mean to the crippled New York Yacht Club campaign and to the Prada Cup? It was a scene as unreal as it was calamitous. Right at the moment the ...
An international player, selector and self-confessed cricket stats nerd, Penny Kinsella has now played a hand in recording the rich history of the women's game in New Zealand. Penny Kinsella’s cricketing career was perched on the cusp of change for the White Ferns. “My first tour to Australia, we ...
The current number of members of parliament is starting to get too low for the job we expect them to do, argues Alex Braae. As a general rule, with the possible exception of their families, nobody likes backbench MPs. But it’s nevertheless time we accepted that parliament should have more of ...
The experience in the Brazilian city of Manaus reveals how mistaken, and dangerous, the herd-immunity-by-infection theory really is. As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop ...
As New Zealand gears up to fight climate change, experts warn that we need to actually reduce emissions, not just plant trees to offset our greenhouse gases. ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
Good morning and welcome to this one-off edition of The Bulletin, covering major stories from the last few weeks.A quick preamble to this: Today’s special edition of The Bulletin is all about filling you in on some of the stories you might have missed over the summer period. Perhaps you had ...
Summer reissue: In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate.First published August 27, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
The contrast between the words of John F Kennedy and today’s anti-democratic demagogue is inescapable, writes Dolores Janiewski I still remember three eloquent speeches by an American president. One happened in January 1961 and spoke about a “torch being passed to a new generation”. Two years later and one day apart, ...
The debate over cutting down a large macrocarpa to make way for a new residential development has highlighted a wider agreement between developers and protesters: that we also need to be planting far more trees. At the corner of Great North Road and Ash Street in Avondale, a 150-year-old macrocarpa stands its ground ...
More infectious variants of Covid-19 are increasingly being intercepted at the country’s borders, but the minister running New Zealand’s response is resisting pressure to accelerate vaccination plans despite demands from health experts as well as political friends and foes, Justin Giovannetti reports.New Zealand’s first Covid-19 jabs will be administered in ...
As CEO of her iwi rūnanga, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was on the frontline protecting her community during the first outbreak of Covid-19. Now that more virulent strains threaten to breach our borders, the Māori Party co-leader calls on the government to introduce much stricter measures.As we enter the New Year I ...
The Prada Cup challenger series starts today. Suzanne McFadden goes behind the scenes of the world's only live yachting regatta to see what's in store for the next five weeks. At 6am on race days, Iain Murray wakes up and immediately checks the weather outside his Auckland window. “It’s all ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland This story contains spoilers for Bridgerton The first season of Bridgerton, Netflix’s new hit show based on Julia Quinn’s novels, premiered on December 25 last year. The show is set in London, during the ...
The New Zealand government believes its own negotiations with Rio Tinto will be resolved "fairly quickly" now there is certainty about the future of the Tiwai Point smelter. ...
Amanda Thompson and her family are attempting to cut back on the meat, so they gave all the vego sausies the local supermarket had to offer a hoon on the barbie. Here are the results.I was a vegetarian once. Even the best of us take a well-meaning wrong turn on ...
The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the call by Wellington City Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons for a shift to land value based rates charges. Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "Local government leaders across the country should join in Fitzsimons’s call ...
It’s been described as ‘pointless revenge’, but impeaching the president has a firm moral purpose, argues Michael Blake – setting a limit to what sorts of action a society will accept.A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted today to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection”. The vote will initiate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryan Cranston, Lead Academic Teacher – Politics & Social Science (Swinburne Online), Swinburne University of Technology In a historic vote today, Donald Trump became the only US president to be impeached twice. By a margin of 232–197, the Democrat-controlled US House of ...
Hurrah. The PM is back to posting her announcements on the government’s official website, her deputy is back in the business of self-congratulation, Rio Tinto is back in the business of sucking up cheap electricity to produce aluminium at Tiwai Point, near Bluff. And overseas students (some, anyway) can come ...
The electricity sector, Government and people of Southland are rejoicing after Tiwai Point aluminium smelter owner Rio Tinto announced the major industrial would be open until the end of 2024, Marc Daalder reports Stakeholders in the electricity sector and across Southland are celebrating the extension of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter's ...
If you’ve been on social media this week, you may well have come across a surge in interest in sea shanties. We asked a veteran of the style why. In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. If that sentence is even ...
Thirty million dollars to guarantee 3000 jobs, a third of them high paying, for three years? Only a fool, or someone blinded by the childish religion of free market ideology, would see that as a bad out come.
So step right up John Roughan (and it is John, you can pick up the stink of his writing style a mile off) in the NZ Herald’s editorial this morning.
Hell, if we could build an aircraft factory that provided 3000 jobs in Hawkes Bay and an ship building industry in Northland that provided 3000 jobs and 3000 more jobs in railway workshops in Wellington and Dunedin for another ninety million over three years I’d say go for it. Forty million a year in the midst of a downturn to keep 12,000 jobs ticking along? A bargain! That fact that it took the political imperative of a flagship government policy of blind adherence to market doctrine to show some common sense is so mind bogglingly ironic you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
And the way in which the decision to offer the $30,000,000 has been promptly attacked by every right wing commentator in the country, is neat evidence of the sterile thinking and lack of imagination that dominates our economic debate or, as it was neatly put by the Chinese the other day, how “…hostage to a blinkered devotion to laissez-faire market ideology…” that debate is.
To quote from the editorial:
So in effect the 30million is for a guaranteed 12 months work for the approxiamately 800 staff at the plant.
The start of a closure package for the smelter possibly with this govt bias to doing what the money masters overseas decree .How much more will it cost ?
well that didnt take long
Rio tinto rumored to fast track tiwai point sale.
Add in the rumored job restructuring, and that in interviews, govt ministers arent moving the discussion away from the meridian share float and i think we can safely call this for what it is
I wonder if they actually can sell it.
Despite crying poor, Rio Tinto’s profit for the six months to the end of June was $US1.7 billion dollars.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-08/rio-tinto-profit-result/4874382
What do zombie movies tell us about capitalism?
http://www.readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/zombies-in-utopia.html
Everything. Never be a debtor be, as one cut, one chance encounter, and you become a zombie too.
What the 30 million dollars has brought is 4 years for the Southland economy and the smelter workers to transition away from the smelter and into other areas.
Every one knows the smelter’s going, but now people can see a time line and plan for it’s closure.
That’s what the 30 million dollars is all about and really it’s a very small price to pay .
then that would be the official line – but its not
It’s more the unofficial line.
No one is going to come out and say the smelter will close in exactly 4 years time, that would just cause a lot of short term pain for no reason at all.
What they’re doing is giving Southland time to develop other areas before they announce the closure.
Sudden change is not good for people and especially politicians.
your ignoring all evidence and focusing on how it sounds inside your head.
Its no big secret that the smelter will close and close soon – this deal only pushes the first possible closure date out by about a year
very little of the commentary is about helping southland
quite a bit of the commentary is about providing stability to the market for the upcoming share float
we now hear rumors that the workforce is being massively restructured
and the plant is likely to be sold and sold soon
as a said – if it was really about helping southland, shit, if it was even about pretending to help southland to distract from the share float, then that is what we would be hearing from ministers via the media
we arent
What is agenda 21’s primary aim again – Oh yes, that’s right, it’s about driving people from the rural areas, and herding them into larger cities!
Take a look around small town NZ, both main islands, and see it in action on a daily basis!
Yes framu I agree with you – very little about this is related to jobs or Southland – the share float is the real issue for them. Rio Tinto will pull out as soon as they want to, they have the weight to basically choose what is best for them and I don’t imagine they’ll give Southlanders too much consideration in that.
edit @risi- yes 4 billion US
You missed the 4 BILLION $ profit margin they made clown
No it hasn’t. That would have occurred if Rio Tinto said that they would be closing the smelter down over the next four years.
No they can’t as the smelter has been “saved” by taxpayer money for another year. Southland will probably expect another handout in 2017.
No, it was just a waste of money made so as to boost Rio Tinto’s profits.
Hey hey fellow lefties,
This site has just been launched to encourage people to have their will done and create a “bucket list” to maximise their remaining time in their current body.
https://www.willtolive.co.nz
Looks good. I thought it might be like the Public Trust who, in exchange for assisting you in writing a free will have themselves appointed executor and thus are able to extract large amounts of money in “expenses”. But this site doesn’t do that so I’m looking into it.
Two charities who will benefit from both my life and any dying I do will be Wellington Rape Crisis and the Beneficiary Education and Advisory Service as they both embody my moral and political values (although neither is actually a political organisation). I also know people in both organisations so feel confident any donation will be used with integrity and the upliftment of the wider community.
I’m interested. But writing up the Will on their site is not free: costs $50.00
PS: Courtesy of Mai Chen.
Comsumer NZ have a guide to making wills which seems to be available free online without needing to subscribe. Basic, but a good starting point.
I note that it was updated in August 2012, after Public Trust discontinued its freely available service (they still do some in very restricted circumstances.)
http://search.consumer.org.nz/search?p=R&srid=S2-USCDR02&lbc=consumeronline&w=making%20a%20will&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.consumer.org.nz%2freports%2fwills&rk=1&uid=39883584&sid=2&ts=custom&rsc=BON%3at%3aq%3aa6jetiFc&method=and&isort=score
Wills are frought! Is that the word?
The first (using the Public Trsutee I wanted to leave half a lifetime’s earnings and expertise to a first son and family. WHAT a fucking hassle!
Still – I’m living out that will to this day: whereby my attempts to give a lifetime to date was to son, his wife and gradnson with I hoped was his due before I actually karked it. (i.e. so I could actually be assured that they would not have to encounter the struggle of student debt, neo-liberal inspired ugliness of greed and selfishness, and witness it whilst still alive)
The second (firstly by way of Ugly Trust, then money making solicitor – now I understand the true meaning of the term), my daughter and second born – to be left by former partner – wife and subsequent.
WHAT a complicated messs of bullshit and kakabeans.
It seems that when wants to live frugally, to live in minimalist lifestyle, to hand on one’s wealth to the next generation (ESPESCIALLY having witnessed most of my contemporaries having left a load of death, desperation and baby boomer debt and aspiration – with a lik and a promise), one can’t easily.
Instead, one has to hope that what a first child is given by me – hoping to give a start, is replicated by an estranged wife to the second. Thankfully it now has and will be.
I/we both (i.e. myself and an ex) CANNOT easily be leave the next generation an entitlement to the wealth of our lifetimes UNTIL we ekshly kik the proverbial. Far easier a foreigner or alien to come hither, lay claim to some form of ‘property’ at the expense of fellow nationals, jet in once a year (or less even), and leave their legacy.
Oh well – the best we can hope for is that the assholes won’t come near to any overflow from my wealth – until …. well let’s just say hopefully death is quick and easy, and if not , down to an undetected BIG BIG OD, whereby a first born gets mine, and the second gets my ex, AND any overflow benefits a local community (and anonymously, and those I hold dear).
But truely – easier said than done!
It’s a hard life being a once high earner, latterly and suddenly reduced to SFA when one identifies with the left rather than the right.
Things really are designed for the bullshit artists and the Jellybeans – the Keysters, the charletans, the aspirational rent seeker, contribute-nothing/collect-all Phil Steins.
They’re designed for the Keys, the En-tree-pren-ooooo-ers, the “Oim-so-great” money fuckers, rentiers and traders in misery and debt (seems I can’t easily just leave wealth anonymously for example)
…… still, that figures looking at a Natzi front bench with dishonestly earned wealth.
Best thing is it’s an incentive to stay alive!
Even better thing is that in the overall scheme of things, they won’t come out tops.
Never mind though – might have to be a grandson/daughter that pisses on graves rather than me
Yes, I’ve been thinking dying is too much hassle. Actually, the Mai Chen Will, for $50.00 looks like it will suit my needs – don’t have a spouse or children, but need to ensure I leave enough for my rels to pay my funeral and other death expenses.
Without a Will, I’m told it can take for ever for the rels to get the money to pay for me having been so inconsiderate as to die.
The blond hair has thinned and receded, the face, beaten by 60 years of the Queensland sun, is lined. But the toothy grin is still there.
Why, said Peter Beattie, this was the political battle of his life. It would take a 1.6 per cent swing to deliver the seat of Forde to his grasp. ”I am the underdog,” he insisted, keeping a straight face.
Ah, yes, but had he done any deals with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for a frontbench seat, should he step over that 1.6 per cent barrier and get to Canberra … and did he have ambitions of replacing Mr Rudd as leader, he was asked? ”I’m happy to be a backbencher,” said the former nine-year premier of Queensland.
Fyi,
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/comeback-hope-on-a-swing-and-a-prayer-20130808-2rkxy.html
Key has no problem with using his mate Fletcher and others in the Police/Intelligence community to protect and extend his grip on power. Eagleton and his office can command theses forces at will.
Has Key used theses agencies to spy on Labour and the media?
Has Shearer been kept in his leader position (unwittingly) by theses manipulating pricks?
“Has Key used theses agencies to spy on Labour and the media?”
When (because of his track record with the truth) you can’t trust your PM a suggestion like this can’t be laughed at. Could even explain the Lab. “caucus leaks”.
What would Robertson do if he was offered ill gotten info and/or assistance by conduits of theses players?
Would Robertson find the opportunity to secure his succession to Shearer too tempting?
Some say Robertson us the ultimate Machiavellian!
Who are these some?
Who knows, but it would be nice to know if there were any emails or telrphone messages between members of the Meridian board and Keys office?
Adrian, look at the names of the board and bear in mind the links between board and hollowmen is likely golf/dinners/bbq’s etc all nice and social with no electronic records.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/8/martyred-american-muslim-extremists-still-recruit/
From the we control the production line of terrorists home made videos……
Learn what is behind the drive by the government, by the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income, to usher or push sick and disabled beneficiaries into open employment on the already competitive job market:
“Medical and Work Capability Assessments – Based on the controversial bio psycho-social model, aimed at disentitleing affected from welfare benefits and accident compensation: The Aylward Unum Link”:
‘An article summarising comprehensive, revealing research results’
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/15188-medical-and-work-capability-assessments-based-on-the-bps-model-aimed-at-disentiteling-affected-from-welfare-benefits-and-acc-compo/
As we know by now, WINZ are contracting out services to private, non-government operators, who will be paid handsome fees to place people with mental and other illlnesses, with disabilities, and also sole parents into jobs. The fact that such fees are paid on performance will in itself lead to the affected persons being pressured to take on jobs they get offered. Whether they may like such probably just casual, part time, unfulfilling, undemanding and low paid jobs or not, and whether they may cope or not, the expectation will be put onto them, so most will give in and accept being pushed into whatever jobs. It will be a risky experiment, likely to cause harm to at least some, and it will certainly not solve much, as most employers will only take on sick and disabled for the attractive fees they may also get. Once that subsidy is taken and pocketed, the incentive to keep the sick and disabled workers on will vanish.
There are some key players involved, and of course, the whole ideas stem from persons like a Professor Mansel Aylward from a department at Cardiff University, who also did nicely out of payments by controversial private disability insurer Unum Insurance from the US, who sponsored his work.
http://unumusinsurance.blogspot.co.nz/2010/12/florida-appeals-court-rules-public_31.html
Key persons that promote his ideas in New Zealand include a Dr David Beaumont, who “advised” both ACC and MSD on policies, and he happens to run his own business called “Pathways To Work”, down on the South Island, earning from the government to place disabled and incapacitated into work.
http://www.pathwaystowork.co.nz/dr-david-beaumonts-message-to-doctors-conference-medical-certification-can-be-fraught-with-problems-for-gps
http://www.pathwaystowork.co.nz/contact-us
The New Zealand government and Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennett have fallen for the disputed and perverted “bio psycho-social model” approach by Aylward and his colleagues (e.g. Gordon Waddel), and as it offers them an opportunity to rid WINZ off long term beneficiaries with health and disability issues, they just love the idea to outsource and have private agencies do the difficult jobs for them, similar to what has been going on in the UK for some years now.
Shame on Paula Bennett and her consorts!
It’s shameful that the neo-liberals are still blindly adopting failed experiments from other countries.
A quick search on The Guardian site reveals a long list of documented problems with the English scheme. And now it is going to be foist on NZ
http://www.theguardian.com/society/atos
National really don’t care if the systems they put in place work or not, for them, it’s all about profit and how they can divert taxpayer money to them and their rich mates.
+1 So true
I am getting a bit fed up with kweewee. Every time you turn round he is off complaining to the cops to get him out of hot water.
he is like the school yard creep who has found a way of keeping the troops in line but it all turns to crap when it is exposed to reality.
what a crybaby.
Cosgrove slays English on Nine to Noon:
Government deal on Tiwai Point aluminium smelter
The clip is quite long because a fair proportion of it is English saying “umm, ahh, umm”
I am not a great Cosgrove fan, but that was a good interview by him, particularly his critique of English’s spin.
Loved Cosgrove’s comment at the end that English “could not run the bathwater, never mind a business …”
Yes cosgrove sorted english out in that interview and I too smiled at that bathwater comment veuto
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2013/08/union-bullying-target-responds/
This may be of interest to some, the teachers union write to an aspiring charter school operator and his response.
Now about the clip telling Shearer…at first glance I thought it was done by someone from the right because the production values look quite high whereas something from the left would look cheap
However if you’re clued up enough to produce this then you’d know that Shearer is who the right want as leader so, on the balance of probabilities, I’d say its someone from the left
Whoever it is they did a good job
What clip is that?
Maybe it is this one, that was published on TDB not long ago?
That is, unless there is a newer one out by now.
In any case, the pressure on Shearer is not getting less.
Sorry but I won’t be going to that shit-hole theatre to see any clip, can you do an honest review?
This is the version that right wing fan Sean “Plonkit” has been raving on about on his Radio Live show this morning. It appears to be the same clip that ‘The Daily Blog’ already published a week or so ago. It shows how slow mainstream media is these days, to catch on with what is happening.
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/VIDEO-Whos-behind-this-video/tabid/504/articleID/37188/Default.aspx
It appears to have been loaded onto YouTube on 24 July already.
You’re not interested in the charter school debate then?
Debate starts.
Charter schools are bad and evil.
Debate ends.
Succinct and accurate. Thanks BM.
We’ve had the debate – reality shows us that they’re a waste of time and money. Which brings us to the conclusion that National are destroying our education system for a reason.
Well no you’re wrong charter schools are not a waste of time or money, the reality is that the teachers unions (not the teachers) are trying to protect their racket
Wrong, every count.
Here’s what charter schools are about:
http://www.alternet.org/search/site/charter%20school
Read some of those articles and learn how they work in practice. Once you done some reading, you might be ready for a debate.
I can’t be arsed adding links where charter schools are shown to be good (to close to knock off time)
lol
can’t be arsed spouting tory propaganda unless you’re on the clock, eh? Don’t blame you.
BS, the teachers and the teacher union (can’t have the latter without the former) are trying to protect our children from the destructive systems that NACT are putting in place.
Bollix the union is there to protect its members…teachers. Once you give parents choice you break the monopoly and thats what the union is scared of
Yeah, teachers don’t give a crap about children. Duh.
Actually, the union is there to provide organised resistance to privatising and corporate forces.
“Protecting its members” is just a single aspect of that, because privatising and corporate forces benefit from attacking teachers, their families (and workers in general).
A lot of parents want the choice of a largely public education system – anyone who wants a private system can always choose to pay for it. Entirely. Without tax payer subsidies. By themselves.
+1
Well said. And if the government stopped subsidising the private schools in the country most would close.
What racket? The one where they work long hours, contribute to extracurricular activities without pay, deal with disruptive kids, endure idiot Tory parents who know everything, cop shit from all sides, and all for ridiculously low pay? Funny sort of racket. Nothing like the rackets enjoyed by PERFed out coppers who get contracts to drug test beneficiaries and sit on their asses raking it in, for example.
If teaching was as much a racket as these idiot Tories claim, they’d all be lining up to do it. Why aren’t they?
MO
I was just talking to a long-term teacher about how she has advocated for a part-time teacher aide which she has never been granted before.
She has a number of behavioural problems with ADHD etc and one boy who has never been managed by the other teachers so she was asked to take him on and has broken through and gained his interest and the ability to control his erratic behaviour.
She used her methods of being firm, setting standards of behaviour and insisting on them, giving direction and not standing over the negative one, and taking the recalcitrant ones through their behaviour faults so they understand what the problem is, and she is ready to encourage and praise and facilitate them. All this takes time, experience, fortitude, positive thinking, planning, intelligence, teacher learning and understanding etc.
And also you may not be well supported by your school management system even when you are successful and know you are a good teacher by the good results you have. And there is so much superior ignorant bullshit coming from either parents who don’t manage their own role well, or superior upper class types who want their moneys-worth of education and more, and the pollies sneer when they want to deflect attention from their own failures. And yet the teachers keep on because they are dedicated and they keep winning, eventually, and the class achieves and they know they have Done Good. It surely is not easy.
I was looking at some National Party people today and thinking about ones I know.
What would be a profile of them compared to the profile for Labour. These perceptions of themselves then drive the perceptions they have of the other party/ies.
National to me seem to be the sort who dye their hair (women) because its part of conforming to the stereotype of a well-dressed and presented woman, women would 99.5% wear makeup, dress fashionably. Men suits, smart casual, good cars. They see themselves as go-getters, no-nonsense, hard workers getting on with life, aiming to earn good money and spend it on attractive objects and items. Individualistic. Superior. Not highly principled.Vaguely concerned about international connections but mainly as to where they can gain most advantage. Not much principle. Snobbish, I’m better than you and them (the benes), feeling deserving so when they become benes in some way that’s different and fair to them as more useful citizens than other benes.
Labour is regarded by them as incompetent and full of wish lists and supporters are regarded by them as not highly principled, unlike National Partyites, well most of the time. Labour is for either the lower classes or for academics or professionals who have a serious lack of reality and judgment and want things for the country only available in lala land. The reasons behind most people voting for Labour is because they haven’t got the gumption to go for a party that is leading a group who ‘are going places’.
The National-drawn people are unable to analyse and critically and objectively view the politics we live under and methods. They don’t have a higherstandard that they will work towards, if they do have a vision it is kept for slogans alone, not to be implemented. They are not introverted, or thoughtful, or interested in studying history except to pick on certain events that illustrate that might is right or noting failures of power and control in the past, and noting how to avoid that recurring. In other words anything they learn will be selective and skewed to their future advantage.
Nicely put Rosetinted. In short: they’re selfish, self centred and shallow thinkers who don’t care about anyone outside their closed insular circles. They assuage their feelings of guilt by supporting charities and attending charity balls. Their ultimate ambition is to be considered a member of the Beautiful People. (sarc.)
You certainly are wearing rose-tinted glasses in your perception of both National and Labour voting people.
Uh huh…no generalisations there at all
Lolz Winston, it was clearly written specifically as a generalisation.
th’ fuck are you on about?
Trying to point out politely (maybe too politely) that this is as big a piece of steaming cow dung as I’ve ever read on here and thats saying something
Its as accurate as me saying all lefties are pseudo-communist, envious, dole bludging, ne’er do wells
But to criticise a piece clearly intended to be written as a broad generalisation by calling it a generalisation?
That makes no sense. I might as well criticise your comment by saying it’s been typed into a browser.
W#inston
generalising ! Obviously you fit part of the profile – that you can’t coolly analyse.
Thanks for that. I thought the first three paras were excellent.
Who cares whether the paras were excellent. What about the content? Are voters like this or not? Are they driven by these perceptions or not? Why? How come we can’t run the country better than we do? Who is influential the pollies or the voters?
If you vote in a party because they seem overall to be better but have one really bad policy how does one stand against that mandate whitewash? I am government , therefore I have a mandate.
What’s the use of making silly patronising comments. If anyone makes silly comments they should be trying to be funny or satirical or something. If not they should go outside and stand on their head and let some blood rush into their brain. That’s how humans recharge themselves, I think I read it in a report from Russia or maybe China. Probably one of them that are on the other side of the world. They probably want to see things from our perspective../sarc
Ooops, managed to put the following on yesterday’s OM instead of todays.
This could be interesting at 1pm today
Dunne Tweet
“I am doing NBR ASK ME ANYTHING session 1pm today. Leave a question now: nbr.co.nz/ask-peter-dunne”
http://www.nbr.co.nz/ask-peter-dunne
Hes not off to a good start.
Couldn’t address the first question honestly.
Agreed. It also looks like it will be a long session at the slow rate the answers are coming up (and not in question order). Still, some good questions from some good people, so Dunne is probably having trouble working out his spin.
EDIT – or his non-answers such as that to #4 that has just come up! LOL – how thick is he? And now #5 and #9.
I just got a letter from David Shearer … that’s nice … except it was paid for by me which is a long standing bone of contention be it Labour or National or whoever from the beehive. Tells me he will save me hundreds of dollars with my power bill … that is a laugh since the balance of probabilities is that it won’t and might cost me … but whatever these politicians have their funny ideas.
What really disturbed me was the ‘argument’ quotes from an old lady at a Grey Power meeting who said she was afraid to turn on a light or her electric blanket becuase of the effect on her power bill … shocking … that nobody bothered to explain power consumption and how little such things use …. shocking becuase nobody told her to think about the things which really eat up the power such as heater, water heating, and ovens, about drawing curtains as soon as the sun goes behind the hill and so on ….
So thankyou David for adding to my belief that Labour are a hopeless bunch.
My view is that besides setting up by Legislation a single desk ‘buyer’ of wholesale electricity the Labour/Green electricity reforms should take one more step,
Labour/Green should also set up a nationwide retailer charged with offering the cheapest price possible to consumers without incurring a financial loss…
They should go the whole hog and renationalise electricity, make it so that it’s supported by taxes and that every household gets a free amount of power – enough to run the basics. Anything above that free amount is charged for.
Cannot disagree with you about nationalizing the whole ugly little soap opera that the ‘electricity market’ was always going to and has become,
That seems as easy as it being a matter of ‘will’, how to keep it that way tho i would dare suggest would take a one party state to achieve…
They should go the whole hog and renationalise beer, make it so that it’s supported by taxes and that every household gets a free amount of beer – enough to run the basics. Anything above that free amount is charged for.
Depends on the beer, do you want lion red, rheineck etc etc that lefties tend to drink…
You haven’t been allowed out for quite some time, have you?
In the people’s republic, everyone will have access to Speights (original recipe), bud.
Will it be compulsory?
What, the stuff that makes you fancy hoary old shepherds instead of nice young barmaids.
Yech!
There is an Aussie sheep joke in there somewhere.
Roll all the Lion Red, Waikato and Speights brewing into one operation (if it isn’t already) and repackage it as Victory Draught.
That’s the lolly-water brewed by jafas, not the original recipe.
On an unrelated note, I can’t abide Export. But when they did that original recipe production run a few years back, I loved the depth of flavour. It’s almost as if going into uniform high-volume mass production somehow lowers the quality of the product…
Who’da thunkit?
Thats a policy I can agree with
Drink black Mack and chardonnay myself.
Or a nice vibrant little Merlot.
Beer, is not essential infrastructure, nor is it an example of market failure.
It is also not reliant on large scale networks, the capital costs to start a brewery are not huge and you can brew plenty of your own, if the supply fails…
Cheaper power however. will also mean cheaper beer :-).
Sorry about srylands.
It assumes everyone is driven by ideology and incapable of considering the merits of a proposal against any other measure.
There’s a couple of differences that you seem incapable of realising:
1.) There are many types of beer that anyone can make, there is only one type of electricity
2.) The necessary integrated smart grid to bring about the best possible distribution of power is a natural monopoly. Having more of them just adds unnecessarily to the cost.
3.) Having the state, and thus the people, owning the generators and running them at cost is much, much cheaper than having private competing firms running them for a profit due to all the added bureaucracy that such competing firms introduce (which is cheaper? 1 CEO for $200k or 5 for $2m each) and the dead weight loss of profit.
Basically, what it comes down to is that you’re an ideological idiot.
“There are many types of beer that anyone can make, there is only one type of electricity”
Well, two really 😉 But that’s just splitting electrons
you’re a bright spark 🙂
Oh I’m a shocker 😀
Anymore bad puns and you know where you’re heading …
Hah!
lol
You are the ideological idiot. You ignore the role of markets. But you dismiss markets. Because you are an idiot.
That guy Wolak didn’t really work for you did he?
and you think that the Government running the generators at cost with no market will result in less bureaucracy? You ever worked in Government?
Oh damn I just remembered – didn’t you tell me the Government should grow and selll food?
Enough said.
You deserve to be ridiculed. Fortunately your state control wet dream will never happen.
Silly billy, Govt doesn’t have to grow and sell all food, the statutory producer boards did very well thank you, and have created giants like Fonterra.
You really are a bit ignorant of the socialist reality of NZ, aren’t you?
I think red meat exporters and Fonterra quality control could have done with a bit MORE bureaucracy in recent times, from what we’ve seen reported, eh?
Yep. Don’t need anywhere as much of it:-
1.) Don’t need advertising
2.) Don’t need multiple duplication of managers all doing the same job just for different companies
3.) Don’t need multiple office space and so freeing buildings for other uses
The market is supposed to be there so as to determine how much supply is needed. This rather remarkable outcome is determined through statistics and planning which a monopoly will actually be better suited to doing (comes down to their being only one type of electricity only). What competition does in this gathering data and planning is make it so that the information that one company gathers isn’t shared with the other companies which must result in the individual companies making the wrong decisions. We, the consumers, end up paying for those mistakes usually in the form of government handouts and guarantees.
Competition adds costs for no purpose and the market brings about failure. This is what we see in telecommunications. Twenty years of privatisation has left us with a network far below the standard it should be at and would be at if Telecom hadn’t been sold and the government having to put in extra taxpayer money to bring it up to that standard. The full costs to the public, once dividends are taken into account, are over $17 billion dollars and that’s just telecom – add Telstra, Vodafone, 2 degrees and it goes up even further.
Yep, just like farmers who own multiple farms do – they go out and hire managers.
“Labour/Green should also set up a nationwide retailer charged with offering the cheapest price possible to consumers without incurring a financial loss…”
Yes because around the world Government owned monopolies usually provide such excellent service.
Maybe the RMs can nationalise the supermarkets too. “NZ Food.” or “Kiwi Eat”
jcuknz
It’s a pity that Labour tend to bring up examples such as the one you mentioned as though it is a reflection of most of us. Is the old lady supposed to be representative for their constituents.
I remember someone from Auckland being quoted on how expensive electricity was. She was spending $300 a month. That was a hell of a lot and could not be given as an example of the average person in difficulty. What could have been said was that people who were finding electricity too dear could have an 0800 number to phone and be given assistance on how power could be saved, through a number of ways. Just making sure that she wasn’t heating the kitchen from turning on the stove might be one.
Picking on the saddest little story-with-photo to act as a mascot for a policy does not impress. The idea of Labour having no idea of what to do and just responding with a knee-jerk reaction to the poor and needy is not going to galvanise the population who think they know what they’ve got to try somebody who is making up policy as he goes. Of course that is what NACTs are doing really with their focus groups, but perception is everything these days.
Today’s ‘golden turd award’ for efforts to Jonolism goes to the Heralds economics editor Brian Fallow for this quote,
”4.3 billion dollars in profits due to ‘market inefficiencies’ during dry years, the exercise of unilateral market power imposes little cost on consumers when there is plenty of water”, unquote,
The above quote appears to be the ‘work’ of Professor Frank Wolak and can be found in the Herald article by Fallow in the economics section of the Herald on line,(click on the business section first), the headline for this spurious piece of Jonolism is titled, ”Setting the record straight on power” and it’s contents are about all we can expect from another of the card carrying Fifth Column Herald journalists who cannot bring themselves to address any issue truthfully,
Putting aside the term ‘market inefficiencies’ as who in their right mind knows what Fallow supposes Wolak means with it’s use it is simple to see the absolute LIE inherent in both the Professor’s words and Fallow’s repetition of them,
It’s simple, in ‘a market’ if the amount of water available to generate electricity was effected by ‘a dry year’ and this provoked ‘price increases’ then it is obvious to even the most dull that in the years when there is plenty of water there would be ‘price decreases’,
That of course is how a ‘real’ market is supposed to work, in a market where the consumer is in effect ‘trapped’,(how many of us can live without electricity), price ‘fixing’ will occur, and that is exactly what has occurred in the wholesale and retail of electricity pricing in New Zealand,
Price fixing occurs when during the dry years the wholesale price of electricity rises and the retail price charged then increases,
Price fixing becomes apparent when in the wet years the wholesale price either does not drop back to the level of the last wet year, or, the wholesale price of electricity drops for the retailer but the retailer does not pass on that wholesale price decrease to the consumer,
i would challenge that Jonolist Brian Fallow to create for us a chart of all the wholesalers and all the retailers showing everybody both the wholesale and retail prices of electricity by year and indicating dry and wet years,
Brian Fallows pathetic excuse of an excuse for the New Zealand electricity market’s Price Fixing over the past decade earns Him a coveted Golden Turd Award…
Interesting how Wolak’s words have changed. Here’s his first reference to the 4.3 billion:
So we have an extra $4.3 billion being charged because of monopoly powers and then an extra $1.5 billion charged in each of the dry years.
Source: http://www.comcom.govt.nz/the-commission/media-centre/media-releases/detail/2009/commercecommissionfindsthatelectri
Yes Wolak obviously has 2 faces, perhaps He has been reminded by the Government that it is they who ultimately control His pay packet,
The real, and only question that needs be asked is ”has anyone had their electricity retailer lower the price they charge per kilowatt hour, ever”…
”Setting the record straight on power” and it’s contents are about all we can expect from another of the card carrying Fifth Column Herald journalists who cannot bring themselves to address any issue truthfully, (bad12)
I don’t know these jonos but it sounds as if they couldn’t part their hair straight. (Is that why so many men shave their heads now?)
quite right bad12.
dont let him wrigle off the hook either.
too many posters here are busy with irrelevant minutae when the substantive issues, policies and the cretins that dreamed them up are never brought to book.
I dont give a shit about the market.
the question is who got the money?
A while ago, years, there was a OZ film about a Autistic kid, who would go into a fit when loud noises occurred. So now there’s adverts on late night TV for a noisy car, that its a branded as the thing to be seen driving. Now, living in a street with an excessive number of these extra noisy cars passing by, sometimes late at night, I was wondering wtf. Its like a local auction or car dealer has a range of these motors and has to drive them around the town at all hours.
If a Business Won’t Pay a Living Wage, It Shouldn’t Exist
The low wages that John Key promised our businesses are solely to boost profits for the few. The lowering of wages is a process that’s been in place since 1984 and the Rogernomic Revolution and it is not doing our country, our society, any good.
Naughty old Goff, eh
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9023655/Phil-Goff-slammed-for-sexist-comments
Weird thing to say. Even weirder that he doesn’t think it’s weird.
That’s what I thought. It’s like if he was talking about Hone and said “You lost three debates, each time to a Maori” and then claimed it was OK because he was just being accurate.
Well to be fair, for a guy to be beaten by a women is pretty embarrasing because women are obviously inferior to men
Hope that clears it up 🙂
Or teasing Paul Foster-Ponyclub for losing to a chubby gay. Just being accurate.
Yes but at least he lost to a man and not a woman…
Yes, if I remember correctly ,the list goes something like this
worst:
– a Gay Woman
– a Woman
– a Gay man
– a Maori Man
– every one else fairly much equal
– White Man top of the heap obviously.
I’d like to think you were being ironic, but that’s not far removed from the tripe you usually post here.
The biggest politic mystery of my lifetime is why Goff didn’t join ACT with his mates. He could go out riding his midlife crisis machine with John Banks, with a lycra clad duck following along behind.
A new study showing the inequality within our health systems
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10910616
A priority for us all. I agree with that – it’s about time we took our collective heads out the sand and addressed this real and important issue – it will take us all making it a priority to make progress.
Do you have any suggestions at to how iwi and whanau might address this along with the health sector ?
I think that the issues are systemic and therefore any solutions must come at the system level. There have been good initiatives that have encouraged Māori to interact with health services in better ways, those initiatives have broken down some barriers on both sides a bit. Until we reduce the risk factors for poor health, have fewer injuries and disability for Māori then these trends will continue. A big factor in those issues is poverty. All that iwi and whānau can do is keep encouraging their people to seek health assistance and knowledge. If we as a country made it a priority then we would be addressing all of the issues raised above, holistically and historically.
I’m not sure if I understand what you mean by ‘systemic issues’.
I certainly agree with you on the reduction of risk factors for poor health and I’d like to see iwi and the DHBs work more closely together on issues around cardiovascular disease in particular and ensuring vaccinations are offered and up to date.
While I agree that poverty is a factor in health amongst Maori even after adjusting for incomes via the decile ratings within the various DHBs the Maori population is doing worse health wise than they deserve to.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/08/fallow_on_power.html
Just in case anyone missed this
See 17 above. Wolak was misquoted in the Herald article (17.1)
Farrar’s bulls**t, echoing Wolak’s bulls**t, ‘it will reduce competition’, that presupposes that there is any meaningful competition in the market as it is now,
As a consumer i see none…
So you don’t think generators compete?
Oh Farrar is your channel…..
So has Phil Goff apologize yet?
Hi Brett.. You’re obviously busy to be trolling here…
justasking if mr temper is man enough to say sorry.
He won’t, it seems. But it shows how backward some of the attitudes are among some of the senior Labour MPs.
Russians.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/58649/russia-s-anti-gay-law-spelled-out-in-plain-english
http://www.policymic.com/articles/57373/russian-neo-nazis-are-torturing-gays-on-youtube
George weighs in.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/08/george-takei-explains-why-we-need-to-learn-from-history-and-not-hold-the-winter-olympics-in-russia/
Pretty swish advocacy website about the future of what’s wrongly called ‘recreational fishing’:
http://www.legasea.co.nz/index.php
Beaut astro-turfing.
Who for? this guy made it:
https://twitter.com/Scorz_/status/365730398375919616
Big game/charter operators I reckon.
“wrongly called ‘recreational fishing’”
What should it properly be called?
I dunno, but not that. Sure, fishing’s fun, but unless you are catching and releasing, (which is just torturing animals as far as I can tell) then it’s not just recreation.
The recreation/commercial split makes it looks like games vs work so of course the working people should get first dibs. Fuck that.
It’s all of our fish and if people want fish for dinner then they should be able to go and catch it.
If they can’t, or don’t want to, then yeah, people should be able to buy fish at the shop. As long as that doesn’t mean people who want to fish, can’t.
Calling it ‘recreational fishing’ implies that a NZer catching fish for the family dinner, is a less worthy use of the resource than selling it. And that’s just fucking daft.
Yeah I get you now. Food Fishing?
Actually how about just “Fishing”? It’s the commercial fishers who are going beyond what ought to be anyone’s ordinary right, so they get the extra descriptor.
+1
It all seems to be about the commercialisation of every resource we have and then the transfer of those resources into private hands.
Here’s a bit of friday news:
http://lawfuel.co.nz/news/944/major-defamation-loss-for-wishart
That news item is badly written and confusing. This is a better explanation of the case as of July 29.
.
What’s confusing about it? Seemed pretty clear to me. It’s a law blog more than a news site, and it isn’t really explaining the case so much as the trial, and how it went for Wishart, he lost big time.
For legal types their attention to (spelling) detail is poor:
The confusion was that at first I thought Wishart must have written the book, then wondered if Mrs London was his wife – had to ponder:
The US dictatorship is flexing its muscles:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23627656
“Snowden link to encrypted email service closes”
This may appear trivial to some, it is damned serious!
Excuse me, I am having to beg here, for this to be copied in, aye?
I spent half an hour to get this loaded! It a a centenary for the Communist Party of Chile to celebrate, but that is not what we want in NZ, right, or wrong?
Anyway, I offer, music and dance to the occasion. I also observed some jihadist videos tonight, so just out of curiosity, dear John Key, dear SIS and GCSB, I must now be put onto your WATCH list, please, if you may have missed me so far. I am an ENEMY of the nation, and count me in, please!
That is because you lazy layabouts sucking the tax payer dry have nothing better to do. Fuck YOU all SIS, GCSB and hangers on that stupify and dumb down people. If you want to shut me out, you have to KILL me, thank you!
Viva Chile, viva la revolution, via Novo Zelandia, por favor!
Fuck Key, Natzional, fuck the government and the brainwashing crap society imposed on people that should be free and speak freely!!!!
Celebrating 100 years of the Communist Party of Chile is worth this:
But since posting this my browser and internet connection is going crazy, I do not wonder more as to why!
We live in a SURVEILLANCE DICTATORSHIP! Get it, or keep on slumbering!
Good night, I better sign off, and keep on the fight and struggle, they hate you for doing so!!!
The Herald showing how to frame a question to change the debate.
No longer….an investigation in why we are dropping are standards.
Instead …’unrealistically high expectations”
Channeling Tory speak.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10910755
The Herald’s leading question
Should the 100% Pure slogan go?
Yes – it’s setting an unrealistically high expectation
No – it is still an important part of New Zealand’s image
Not sure
Where are these options?
Yes – being clean and green adds value to our exports, gives us a point of difference, preserves the environment for our grandchildren, provides healthier food for our population and creates better quality jobs for New Zealanders
No – the government needs to raise its game on environmental matters
Not sure