Can someone put some pressure on WINZ to get people who have lost their job their benefit?
I have a friend who has been made redundant and with Christmas coming up, a mortgage to pay, kids and family to look after it becomes increasingly clear that some major distress is happening. WINZ has not responded after my friend was on the phone for almost 8 hours over a period since last week. Has been promised that a case worker will call within 48 hours. Yeah right! Of cause not.
Merry Christmas looks like the worst for especially those made redundant. Talk about insult to injury. My distain for this agency is right now without bounds.
Maybe it needs to be privatised or some other plan put in place because it clearly is not working if there is such lack of response.
I would like to know whether any prospective beneficiaries have gone into depression and worst still, could not see a way out of it due to lack of financial help.
Hah! Don't hold your breath Sunshine because it would appear this Current Mob have little to no intention of any meaningful repair of our Social Safety Net.
…the truly depressing bit starts around 27 minutes.
I always harboured doubts that it was entirely Winston applying the handbrake on enacting the reforms considered urgent by the WEAG…and to hear Our Leader opening her press conference with her calendar with much emphasis on her meetings with "business"…it's abandon ye all hope time.
Jacinda Ardern and her spokesperson for Winz Carmel Sepuloni were clear about what beneficiaries could expect should they get in again. Nothing. A wet handshake, a meaningless course in CV writing, a stern lecture about the vlaue of work and other then that nothing.
Under utilisation rate for women in NZ currently sits at almost 20% (per gov. ), not a word about that, 5.9 % unemployment is average, regional it looks much much worse, unemployed who have partners with jobs will be refused any help cause……partner, and so on and so forth.
Winz has been understaffed before Covid, and now its severely understaffed, but nothing is done. Reform to Winz will only come with a government that actually wants to reform, and the Labour is not the party that will reform anything.
My heart sank when sepuloni was again given that portfolio …(as it did when she first got it..)….and arderns' promise yesterday to do s.f.a. about what she said previously/time and time again ..was a top priority priority for her…poverty.. just has that heart sinking more and more…my son just noted that he thinks ardern will do/is doing an obama…acclaimed internationally…and doing s.f.a. domestically to earn any acclaim…she/labour are neoliberal incrementalists..’moderates’.she/they haven't changed those stripes/spots at all…and any optimism I may have had since the election re ardern/labour actually doing something meaningful..is well and truly down the crapper..and of course another question to ask is: is marama able to comment on this promise from ardern to do nothing with any sense of urgency about poverty..?..or is she muzzled by the deal the greens have with labour….?..and any labour loyalists here willing to defend arderns' promise to do s.f.a…?…
My heart sank when she got the ACC portfolio. The government will probably stall decisions to do with the Royal Commission of Inquiry. The ACC system is inadequate when it comes to anomalies related to historical sexual assault in or out of state care.
The problem reminds me of a bumper sticker that was put onto cars in the United States late in 1965.
This was after Lyndon Johnson, who claimed he didn't want a larger war in Vietnam, had run, and won, against Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election. Johnson had labelled Barry as being someone who wanted to increase the US troops in Vietnam whereas he, Lyndon wasn't planning to do so. At the time of the 1964 election there were US advisers but no ground troops involved directly.
Anyway the sticker read, and was quite accurate in its words, something like "They said if I voted for Goldwater there would be 200,000 US troops on Vietnam by the end of 1965. Well I did and there are".
Perhaps you should prepare a sticker that says something like "They said if I voted for ACT all benefits would be frozen for the next 3 years. Well I did and they have been".
Alwyn your claim and Barry Goldwaters LBJ's of no US ground troops in Vietnam pre 1964 is untrue officially it may have been true.
The US and even NZ had part of its Malaysian deployment on the ground in Vietnam the 1950s.NZ has always worked closely with the US even when it appears our politicians deny it.
Nothing can now be substantiated, but from what I have gathered from history and Establishment lies, I suspect you are telling the truth.
But that is because I sympathise. Alwyn will know only what suits him.
The US and even NZ had part of its Malaysian deployment on the ground in Vietnam the 1950s.
AFAIK the US never participated in the Malaysian crisis. It was a UK/Commonwealth military operation with NZ troops withdrawing from Malaya in 1960, returning along side other Commonwealth forces during the 1963/66 Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.
In 1963 New Zealand sent a civilian surgical team to Vietnam and later that a year small non-combatant force was deployed. 161 Battery was deployed to Vietnam in 1965 and in 1967 a forces medical team was sent. All forces were withdrawn in 1971.
In May 1967, a 182-strong rifle company dubbed Victor (V) was deployed from the 1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (1RNZIR) base in West Malaysia
and:
Over a five-year period, the nine New Zealand rifle companies rotating through Nui Dat engaged in a constant round of jungle patrols, ambushes, and cordon-and-search operations. Less than a week after arriving, Victor Company had its first enemy contact, leaving one Viet Cong killed, another possibly wounded and five suspects detained. [2] This inaugural, small-scale action characterised the pace and scale of infantry operations in Vietnam
But I suppose any ".govt.nz" web address can be a link to an alternative history /sarc
btw, over the years I've heard my share of the NZ civilian employees/CIA cross border incursions/atrocities/bounties/severed heads etc yarns from folk who knew someone who knew someone, and while there's likely a wee kernel of truth behind some of these, I'd rate them alongside the sewer staple of Goff/Clark spitting at returning servicemen, mostly bullshit.
Joe 90 your right about the US not being involved in Malaysia but the Domino effect of communism spreading through south east Asia was a US program of preventing the spread.NZ was a close ally of the US fighting alongside the US in Korea and sharing intelligence which has been the case through to the present day.
Two external options, see the local MP and call in a Beneficiary Advocate. An MP phoning the manager at an office is always an effective process time saver.
With the organisation, the key determinant is paperwork (check on-line what is required) and getting an in the office appointment time (sorting it all by phone – probably not enough unless paperwork can be scanned) – booking appointment times can be made by phone or on-line.
booking appointment times can be made by phone or on-line.
Although they will do everything possible to prevent you seeing a real person. They don't like that. Be prepared for being told it can all be done online (including scanning in the necessary documents), only to find their computer can't cope with the answers you've given and tells you to phone them. Then the performance involved there.
All done and dusted but still, I think they just don't want to help. Maybe they get a bonus for every person left to fend for themselves.
I am so glad that the Billions we have paid for Air NZ are going to a good cause (sarc).
Maybe they get a bonus for every person left to fend for themselves.
At one point they were, that and deliberately denying all entitlements. It was common knowledge in our circles but then they got sprung publicly, the powers that be got a bit embarrassed and the practice supposedly was stopped. But there's still a suspicion that it goes on to a degree. Certainly under National Governments it does.
Wendy Shoebridge ….driven to suicide by heartless WINZ system.
Monthly quotas were imposed at the Ministry of Social Development to prosecute beneficiaries, an inquest into the death of a woman accused of benefit fraud has heard.
"We had to get one prosecution per month. We had to get $30,000 of debt to be recovered per month,"a former MSD investigator told the inquest into the death of Wendy Shoebridge. "Four cases had to be cleared per month."
Shoebridge, a 41-year-old mother, was found dead in Lower Hutt on April 3, 2011.
The day before, she opened a letter saying she was to be referred for prosecution over an alleged $22,000 benefit fraud. After her death, that amount fell to about $5500.
It eventually found she had not committed any offence at all.
And Labour appointed as Chief Executive one of the architects of the toxic culture that existed even more so under National. Someone from an advocacy group should be made the CE to get some real change.
A labour government who has removed including non-qualified spouses in super making future spouses $130 per week worse off as they will have to go on benefit not super now to "modernise the benefit system" which basically means where there is one income (e.g. due to one partner having a disability or just any reason at all) the working partner will now have to work longer – such modern thinking, a labour government who charges the poorest 25% of their income to pay for their emergency accommodation to make it "fair" and to "help them" adjust when they get better accommodation – so helpful, a labour government who had the most public support ever to increase benefits once the WEAG report was published and chose not to and then created a two tier benefit system for predominantly white workers when COVID struck leaving the existing poor and disabled down at the bottom where apparently they belong even though it was pointed out how racist this was, how other countries were providing stimulus payments to the poorest as they spent all their money in the economy, that the most disadvantaged would find it even harder to find work now as they would be competing against the newly unemployed with job skills and that WINZ resources would no doubt be moved away from the existing clients to help the newly (mainly European) unemployed and the newly labour berefit like noisy orchardists and agriculturalists who can't get their overseas captive labour and lastly that emergency assistance payments had gone up rapidly as people were falling into more and more hardship both costing money, costing peoples time having to apply and costing staff time that could be better utilised to help people find work than process food grant after food grant after food grant..
In other words business as it has been with a few nice temporary factors like winter payments.
Real change will come if they:
1. Increase benefits as per WEAG
2. Put comprehensive rent controls in – I favour the New York type rent control where a rent board decides how much rents can go up each year – hint it isn't much.
3. Reduce the age of NZS back to 60 to level the playing field more for those with disabilities and Maori who have shorter life expectancy – just get the super back through taxation for those who both work and get NZS – the extra money will provide economic stimulus as well.
Of course none of these things will happen but lots of money will be spent on infrastructure projects, short-term work schemes and so on.
“I would like to know whether any prospective beneficiaries have gone into depression and worst still, could not see a way out of it due to lack of financial help.”
You might want to include current beneficiaries in that question.
Would he be better off to register a company and apply for a small business loan from the IRD at 0% if that is possible. I'm all for the small business support but I'm sure as repayment time approaches at least some will collapse the company rather than repay the money. Is the IRD taking a personal guarantee?
Maybe not for the IRD. but surely Winz could at least jam through a basic benefit for applicants and catch up with the detail later. Everyone else seems to be getting the high trust model. And no I don't warm to Carmel or the labour party handling of the wage paid workforce or those who need Winz.
Except they seem to divert excess resources to those on super – so the older's don't complain.
So you use this to attack those receiving superannuation…?…w t.f..!…one thing the ardern gummint mk 1. did for those on super..was nothing…but there was no complaint/lobbying from the oldies…'cos they know that poverty for sole-parent/the unemployed..and their children.. is far worse …..your imputation that ardern has been filling the coffers of the elderly to the detriment of those living in poverty..with 'excess resources'..is factually incorrect..and is bullshit-on-a-stick..
Didn't mean that to sound as an attack on superannuitants.
I was talking about the service level (not money) that superannuitants seem to get from Winz and I know some who feel deeply uncomfortable about it being so good when the rest of the service seems so bad. My point was that if Winz can do a decent service level for the supers then they could do the same for everyone else as well. Second point was "is the service level so high to stop any potential complainers" .
@ r. baron…Point taken…there is a seachange in attitude from how the unemployed etc. are treated…as to how superannuitants are looked after…it is palpable..that change…and yes..there is no reason why those in need of state support should be treated so shabbily by the govt. department tasked with caring for them..
Who said WINZ do a decent service for the elderly ? I advocated very recently for NZ Super clients ; waited for nearly an hour only to be told that a return call would be made in the next 24 hours. And when pressed for a more exact time we were told " What does it matter ? You have all the time in the world now".
ardern has been filling the coffers of the elderly to the detriment of those living in poverty..with 'excess resources'..is factually incorrect..and is bullshit-on-a-stick..
As always you've plumped for a gross generalisation, but there are clearly wealthy on super with mortgage free million dollar homes and large savings accounts. Aren't they having their considerable resources bumped up by a payment that could, and should, be used to assist the lowest income earners?
As for bullshit on a stick – Have you tried holding the other end?
Parliamentarians? I doubt that they will cut their cloth. 165k income, bonus, health and super paid for, transport etc…. yeah, it must be truly difficult.
B.t.w…those rich boomers don't have to suck from the superannuation-trough…it's not compulsory..you have to apply for it…those rich taking it are just greedy bastards…end-of-story..
Not a separate issue at all as it speaks directly to your rejection of the premise that "ardern has been filling the coffers of the elderly to the detriment of those living in poverty", when that is exactly what happens when a wealthy senior takes the pension.
Of course, I didn’t generalise and claim all seniors – Just the wealthy ones with no morality and/or civic responsibility.
And there are also elderly whose rent takes most of their super and who have had to run their savings down to qualify for any supplements, making living a bit precarious.
And, all over the country pensioner units are being sold off in the larger cities.
Ah yes, just play one group of vulnerable against the other.
What about those BILLIONS! we, the taxpayer have forked out to give a 50% state company like Air NZ board some enormous share option and bonus pay. Or all those other companies with huge profits sponging of the low pay and slim middle class? Only a government where non of those sitting ever had anything like an "essential" job can come up with a farce like that.
I've spent some time thinking how shareholders could reign in the excesses of the managerial class who are the main beneficiaries of business profits at the expense of both labour and to some extent capital providers. Both capital providers and labour lose if a business goes broke but the managerial class just banks the gains.
Shareholders can pass meeting resolutions. The best I've come up with so far is for the top 5% to 10% of earners (based on FTE wages) in a company can earn only x times the median wagein the company , or maybe x times the FTE of the bottom 50%.
If there was a pool set for the top earners then they could could fight it out amongst them selves and pay the high priced technocrat they need more than the generalist manager. It's how to set that pool – and as I say these thoughts are a work in progress.
In the meantime Airnz shareholder aka the government should be on the phone. If they did not know then they need a CEO with a little more vision and political smarts.
"they need a CEO with a little more vision and political smarts.".
I'm sorry but the last CEO they had with those skills resigned and left the airline on September 25 last year. He has picked up a new job since that time.
Still he will probably have the responsibility as the share-holding Minister in about 3 years time. You can but hope.
Alwynger you must be joking you know nothing or are Gerry Brownlee.
All Airlines have suffered catastrophic losses to blame the CEO who was the former CEO of Walmart a business bigger than the whole of New Zealands economy .
He has been given a hospital pass.
He turned Walmarts fortunes around was on a massive income before he took on the role of CEO of Air NZ for pocket change .
He changed the way Walmart treated staff making sure staff were remunerated well as opposed to the minimum wage ideology of the founder and previous CEO's .
Now a vaccine is looking more hopeful we need his nouse and connections to rebuild Air New Zealand.
Why are you addressing your comment to me instead of to the Red Baron?
He (or she) is the one who was complaining about the nous of the current CEO of Air New Zealand.
Still I should not be surprised. You were the one who, the other day, seemed to think that I approved of Trump. Clearly your comprehension of things verges on the side of incoherence. You also seem to be quite incapable of even spelling my name. I guess your end of year school report should simply say "Must try harder"
Alwynger i take poetic license to take you to task over your continual whinging and untruths about any Left wing initiatives.
Your right up their with Gosman with your cynicism.
If you put facts up like how Mike Sabin resigned and NZfirst reduced The National majority even further would be good.
I did have dyslexia growing up not unlike Winston Churchill who struggled with school till he turned 19 then it suddenly disappeared where he went on to be one of the most influential people in history and is responsible for you not speaking Japanese or German and allowing you to have the freedom to speak at all.I was at the bottom of most of my classes during high school but not long before I turned 16 a light switched on and suddenly I went to the top of the class in most subjects except English comprehension.
Suddenly I could speed read whole books libraries of books .
When it comes to knowledge I am a library you are a cheap gossip magazine.
You make comments that Christopher luxton was a better CEO .At a time when international tourism grew exponentially ,its easy to look good when business expands without having to do much.
Your ACT party would have let AirNZ go to the wall no govt help.
What it is: Low-interest one-off loan of up to $10,000 + $1,800 for each full-time equivalent employee.
3% interest rate
repay over 5 years
no payments in first 2 years — but you can choose to make payments
payments handled by Inland Revenue.
No interest charged if you pay back the loan within a year.
Who can get it:
Smaller businesses struggling financially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including:
businesses with up 50 employees
sole traders
self-employed people.
As with any loan, you must also be able to show you can pay it back. Your business needs to be viable, with a plan to stay that way.
so again, its not just done by registering a company, you actually have to prove you have a viable business in order to get the business contingency loan, or alternatively you have to be on a WINZ benefit to apply for hte Self Employment Start Up.
If there is a 0% interest business loan other then that that is available through IRD please link as that would be interesting news.
What has he looking for a job got to do with a Failure of Winz to do the job they are paid to do? Namely answering the phones in a timely manner, scheduling person/person meetings to get paperwork sorted and benefits given should all legal requirements be met?
Janet, are you joking? Of cause my friend did (he or she). But that short time before Christmas coupled with a person being in their 50's seem to be the combination that really gets you into some serious trouble.
Euthanasia anybody?
But maybe you know how to get a handout like Air NZ or Briscoes. Very grateful for any hint.
My friend is looking for a job rest assured. Do you honestly believe you can feed a family on a benefit? Not to mention that this friend has worked all their life and find themselves for the first time in such situation. Do you actually understand what such event does to you psychologically? The anguish not to be able get bills paid, the sleepless nights, the worry. No wonder people kill themselves in droves here.
I don't have words for you comments really – you really don't know what the back ground is and put a judgement onto this person. Are you working for WINZ?
No I am not judging. I support the UBI theory where we do not have to be in your friends position, hanging on the whims of WINZ. We have a funny situation here in NZ at the moment. In front of me I have the latest Farmers Weekly … screaming out for workers in horticulture, diarying you name it. Screaming at the government for not bringing migrant workers in . Migrant workers who up and leave their wives and families for 6 months or more to pick up a dollar in NZ. They go home "rich " men in the societies they come from, but their being here has in the meantime held down wages, making it unattractive for ours to now go out and pick up these jobs.
Somehow we have to get this situation rebalanced , without migrant workers. In the end it will mean our food costs more…
This is true but equally one cannot expect someone to uproot the family, maybe renting the house (mortgaged) out and paying rent at the other end, new schools for the kids and all that for a few months. As a report recently showed, it is for the majority work at minimum rate. My friend has arthritis which really makes picking in the orchards etc not a viable option. I also think we need to be careful to abstain from asking every unemployed person to take up picking "for the good of the nation", it borders on forced labour.
BTW, I am very much for the UBI which would as a very desirable side effect by removing a large swat of bureaucrats who believe they can play god with peoples lives.
I agree with the advice about local MP and a beneficiary advocate.
Privatising WINZ would make it worse. There's not good reason why WINZ can't function well other than the ideologies of successive governments (Nat and Lab) that have fucked the system up so much. At the moment it's under staffing.
They will have billion of them by the end of the year.
We should have half of our share (M) 500,000 by mid-year. Plenty for the health workers/aged care workers, border workers, front of public workers and workers with pre existing conditions.
We also have stakes in other vaccines in development – such as the Oxford one. Hopefully another 1.5M of these as well.
That would be around 4M by the end of next year – about how many would take a vaccine.
All going well, If there is a global rollout of an effective vaccine by the middle of next year it will have been a remarkable achievement by the scientific and engineering community involved in its research and development and product.
At some level I must confess a small enjoyment about having the country to ourselves seeing home grown talent etc. ( but not at the price of a pandemic of course) .
But I'm not sure that I want to see everything just returning to the "old normal" without whittling out industries and settings that do not work for all of us.
But I'm not sure that I want to see everything just returning to the "old normal" without whittling out industries and settings that do not work for all of us.
Agreed – it would be nice for a bit of a reset in certain areas, hopefully there'll be further gains regarding flexibility with how and where people work and lessons learned about our country's vulnerabilities to circumstances out of our control.
I suspect I may be disappointed and we'll see the return of the previous normal.
You know, the labour 'market' is entirely too free already. Free to break our immigration laws in a systematic fashion. Free to enjoy the blind eye of corrupt officials and ministers unfit to exercise their warrants.
If government want NZ to work, they have to work themselves. We have those immigration rules for a very sound and well-established reason, and if, as seems to be the case, the government is so out of touch they don't understand that, all they need to do is see that the law is obeyed. Their job, in case any of them wants to pretend otherwise.
Do your job Mr Faafoi, or resign in favour of someone who will.
It's going to take at least 3 to 5yrs before Airlines get reestablished let alone the tourists trust in travel ,have enough money to travel.Airlines won't be doing discounting until the volume builds up.
Forget the pollsters. If you wanted to know the outcome of last week’s US election, you just had to ask Gabriel Byrne. I did, a month ago. I wish I had gone to the bookies.
Byrne was in London on the way back to his farm in Maine, where he lives with his wife and three-year-old daughter. It’ll be thin, he said, Biden’s margin is miles slimmer than anyone predicts. He called it in 2016, too.
“If you were in touch with the rage that was on the ground, you were not looking at Hillary Clinton and saying, she’s going to get elected. That rage is still on the ground. The 40 million who support Trump haven’t wavered one iota.”
When he emails on Thursday night, he blames the Democrats for the tight result. “This is the second time they’ve come up against a Gameshow Host and they’ve learned nothing. Again they seriously underestimated the level of anger among mostly blue-collar workers.”
I don’t need to ask if he feels any optimism; he has already been pretty clear. “At least it’s the end of that guy but, personally, I can’t stand Biden. An exceptionalist roaring about America as the moral leader of the world, all this crap. You can’t appeal to people in Maine or Wisconsin or Michigan by saying this is a battle for the soul of America. It’s just political garbage.
“Nothing much will change under Biden because his thing is: let’s return America to what it was. Well, what America was caused Trump. The Democrats rolled out the red carpet (for him).”
Principled, independent thought … concern not so much for the bloated self-absorption of Upper-Middle Clintonistas & Intersectionals … more for the interests of Blue Collar America (even those really yukky ones who have white skin & are male … Ewwww Yuck !!!) … well, it's Crazyville, isn't it ? You mark my words, those God-forsaken Ruskies are behind this !!! … Damn you, Putin, damn you to hell !!!
more for the interests of Blue Collar America (even those really yukky ones who have white skin & are male
And the black Americans who live in crime ridden cities who know that BLM's calls to abolish the police are nothing but disaster for them. Or the Latinos who migrated to the USA knowing that far from a racist hell hole, that it was their best opportunity to make a better life for themselves, look at arsonists burning down businesses … and their empathy lies firmly with owners of them.
“Nothing much will change under Biden because his thing is: let’s return America to what it was. Well, what America was caused Trump. The Democrats rolled out the red carpet (for him).”
She has shown that an ordinary person can achieve political success in the USA while at the same time eschewing donations from the wealthy and corporates.
@ad…so what did that 'actor' say that is factually incorrect…?…b.t.w…did you call 2016 for clinton .?..you are a man riddled with yr certainties ..so I doubt you sat on the fence…
Well, it's his perspective, but there's nothing particularly crazy in what he says. There's the usual conceit that he knows "blue collar workers" better than other wealthy people do, but there doesn't seem to be much of the thinly-veiled references to "soros" and all that veiled-nazi jazz.
Didn't you hear the election is over and Trump lost, republicans lost, moonbats lost and wingnuts lost. You don't go messing around with the opinion filters on the back of that sort of outcome!
An attempt to unseat the chairman of the West Coast Conservation Board has fallen flat.
"Keith Morfett was recently reappointed to the board for a second term by then-Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage.
But Ngai Tahu is challenging the minister's appointment process in the High Court after accusing the conservation board of ignoring its Treaty obligations and being in thrall to environmental groups such as Forest and Bird."
It's inevitable that conflicts will arise between government environmental ideas and Maori. Please just stick to facts and avoid taking sides against Maori, 'pour encourager les autres'.
Matt King (ex MP for Northland) was given the opportunity for a pity-party on TVNZ1 Breakfast show this morning. No questions about his Twitter attacks with misinformation on climate change, no questions about name calling the PM and about the Labour Party creating a Nazi society, no questions about his actively flouting and encouraging others to flout Covid Rules but they did politely sympathize with his loss and branding him a nice guy. Not so convinced were the viewers apparently, feedback suggesting he should take a little responsibility instead of his sense of entitlement and blaming everyone but himself and his Party. Happy Days
Happy days indeed. Locals had road checks earlier in the year worried that covid-19 would come into the region. A bit of a fuss ensued but most locals were not phased about the politics. Being alive and well and having someone seeking to protect them was welcomed.
Of course there was a constituency to appeal to, to rouse and harness in election year. It is the Far North. We have red necks. King got in the car with family just to 'go for a drive to show then around'. Into the road checks no less. Fancy that, an opportunity, a cunning stunt.
A lot of them voted for him of course, most didn't.
A focus about the tide turning in mainly rural South Island has meant scant attention to the reality at the other end of the country.
In the two northernmost general electorates so solidly National for generations, that party was comprehensively thrashed. King should have stayed home, saved his petrol.
Matt was invited by Hone Harawira, to attend a Te Tai Tokerau Border Patrol for a day near Kaikohe, with Police presence! and he never turned up. He had been trying to rile his pākehā supporters about “the mareeees and their illegal road blocks”, but actually a number of non Māori in the North supported the Iwi Border Patrols.
Mr King tried to be the Trump of the North on Facebook, but regularly got fact checked and shamed, he never turned up to any invitations to debate any of the bs he put out there. A mate of mine saw him at the Dargaville A&P two years back, and King stuck his hand out, “not shaking your hand you effing fascist” was the response, King was shocked. Dunno where my mate got that classic line from but it sat the ex MP down for a minute.
King probably attended on the basis that it would be a pity-party.
TVNZ/RNZ may as well be corporate media as King's fair game and it would've been great TV watching him dance on the head of a pin if some actual journalism was practiced.
Hosking had a rant about the govts debt around covid response saying 42 organizations wanting up to $150 a week increases on benefits was causing eye watering increases in debt,and that NZ was the only country in the OECD that had increased the benefit rates by a lousy $25 other than Hong Kong .
Then Robertson comes on his show and quietly undoes all his BS.GrantRobertson also gives Hosking an update on how the economy has bounced back a lot quicker than expected.
Good on Robertson for his stellar work on the economy and his cool calm collected communication style .
[Second time: please stick to one e-mail address, thanks]
Health workers in New Zealand quarantine hotels are some of the worst protected in the developed world, according to a man in managed isolation who's helped kit out medical staff all over the world.
The organisation has financial difificulties partly from the pandemic impacting fund-raising. Peters was right to call for better government contribution.
Looks like Collins has already traded places with her deputy within minutes of his appointment. Void of original thought, of course, but ironically, may well be a good move.
“Dr Reti’s knowledge and history working in the health sector will be an asset as Parliament deals with the impact of Covid-19. His experience will be invaluable to me as deputy leader and I’m looking forward to working closer with him.”
After all, following the 2014 election National had 60 seats and Labour had 32.
Labour recovered enough to form the Government after the following election.
Now Labour have 65 and National have 33 which is pretty much the same thing. Who knows but history may repeat and we will have a change of Government in 2023. After all we aren't likely to have another pandemic are we?
We have created "a perfect storm" for diseases from wildlife to spill over into humans and spread quickly around the world, scientists warn.
Human encroachment on the natural world speeds up that process.
In the last 20 years, we've had six significant threats – SARS, MERS, Ebola, avian influenza and swine flu," Prof Matthew Baylis from the University of Liverpool told BBC News. "We dodged five bullets but the sixth got us.
"And this is not the last pandemic we are going to face, so we need to be looking more closely at wildlife disease."
As part of this close examination, he and his colleagues have designed a predictive pattern-recognition system that can probe a vast database of every known wildlife disease.
Across the thousands of bacteria, parasites and viruses known to science, this system identifies clues buried in the number and type of species they infect. It uses those clues to highlight which ones pose most of a threat to humans.
Do you think world leaders have worked out that the next time a pandemic erupts that shutting the planet down (human activity) for 6 weeks is the cheapest option.
The appropriate response will depend on how it spreads, infectiousness profile over time, and no doubt a bunch of other factors an infectious disease specialist could bore us all to tears with.
For instance, if the next one is some sort of turbo-hepatitis where the spread is mostly through food and transferring infectious material on surfaces, and people can be infectious for decades, then the appropriate response will be quite different to a shutdown.
We are lucky here in Godzone on how we do politics. On Stuff this morning there is video of Smith conceding Nelson to Rachel Boyack and while I am not in any way a fan of his he has to be commended for the gracious manner in which he did it and the exceptional way that the Nelson Labour crew treated him. Well done everybody. It is well worth a look just to reinforce how thankful we should be about how civilised we are here.
Well we probably should give these visa holders their money back. But 23,000 visa's which is probably not the lot, is an awful lot of competition for our young NEETS in the job market – for the 50,000 or so who enter it every year. Any chance of Labour rejiging this? Unlikely.
Working Holidays are an outcome of reciprocal agreements with other countries, so we could scrap them, but that would probably result the end of the equivalent schemes, so instead of competing with foreign workers, they would compete with young NZ workers who didn't go on their OEs.
Yeh Nah I haven't looked up any actual figures – don't even know if they exist in total but our birth cohorts are in the 50-60k a year zone hence around that number onto the labour market a year.
Now if we do straight number swaps eg we issue 10 to the UK and they issue 10 to NZ it is going to have a far greater impact on our labour market as we have a much smaller population. Some of the countries mentioned in the article are aslo unlikely I suspect to provide much in the way of kiwi jobs – some of the south americain countries. But 23K is a lot and that won't be all. I really can't see that number of Kiwis leaving . and the ones that stay have to compete with student visas and other low waged immigration as well.
further nats news, maureen pugh has gone from phucking useless ,to a promotion up the list, to whip. she is getting her numbers ready for a rural takeback of the nats! with dr shane as her deputy, that would cover most of the nats trad voters, just need to keep bridges around to appeal to the whiney suitwearers.
It's less a job, more a summer internship, duties amount to nodding on camera beside a leader who will be gone soon. Still, it puts him on the (very) short list for next leader, and they could do a lot worse – and probably will.
National deputy leaders of 2020, a brief history: Bennett – quit Parliament. Kaye – quit Parliament. Brownlee – lost seat. Reti – lost seat.
I don't think any party anywhere can boast such a record.
😳 Suggesting Democrats appoint Republicans to the most important cabinet positions, is the same as winning a championship and being asked to give it to the losing team.
Deeply disappointed in the cannabis referendum. The combination of punitive, vindictive sanctimonious, self righteous, fake christians and false moralists with the justice industry [cops lawyers judges corrections and would be counsellors looking for a gig] was too much for the referendumb to bear. plus the spiteful bastards against everything. The way Andrew Little brushed it off and then dodged a bullet by jettisoning justice was shameful.As a committed advocate for the working man I am never going to vote for the running dogs of capitalism but the "vote" will go to the greens next time
life will go on as normal. if Portugal is any example usage will decrease and the kidz who get upin front of the beak and say"it woz the drugz wot made me do it" will have to be responsible for their actions.
Cannabis is not the only problem with this government….and all the problems..inaction on poverty/environment/animal welfare etc etc..on and on it goes..can all be tracked back to the fact that labour is yet to realise it is clutching to a failed/bankrupt ideology…neoliberalism…as you look around the world its' failures are legion..increasing inequality..fucking up the environment…and doing basically nothing to fix the problems we have…and labour has long wed incrementalism to to that bankrupt neoliberalism…this is what has been the ideology of both our main parties since after the second lange govt and Ruth richardson's magic poverty wand was waved…helen clark/are/were neoliberal incrementalists to the core…(and they are now advising ardern..a fact that chills the blood)..and ardern/robertson learnt at the knees of clark/cullen…and what clark thought of from day one of each term and what drove her actions/inaction was the next election ..doing what she had to do to win that next election..(hence large wedges of middle-class welfare..and the poor can just rot..)…ardern/robertson are following in those shoes ..and the country cannot expect any meaningful change any time soon…(and when did it become the norm that for any pissant/small change that is made…we are made to wait eons for it to actually be enacted..?..when the f. did that delayed-gratification become the norm..?..)…as long as ardern/ labour fly that neoliberal flag..nothing much will change…but the warning for ardern is that what clark did so successfully will not work again…and she should know that when she/labour fail to deliver..that there is now another party the disappointed/disgruntled can turn to at the next election…who they know will do all the shit that needs doing…the greens…so if she doesn't deliver at the next election those tories disgusted with the current iteration/doings of the national party..will likely return home..and the left will turn en masse to the greens….and the centre will not be the certainty she now thinks it is…
I've just been saying on The Daily Blog in response to Martyn's criticism of Jacinda's neglect of the beneficiaries while spouting away about them in her slogans, if she thinks she can get away with that via her professional careerist apparatchiks and public popularity her neglect of the thinking Left will involve a serious cost.
The Maori Labour MPs, to be taken at all seriously, should have demanded the Welfare Experts Group Report to be adopted immediately. Duds.
The marijuana push-back suggests there's work to do and Labour's focus groups might have something to them. When America has gone full-on grass liberalisation it suggests timidity is the essential part of the Party. Why I voted Little for leader and have never voted for Labour.
The timidity was at the birth, though Trotter calls it realism, when the 1935 govt wouldn't put my g.great grandfather in the Legislative Council because of his outright socialism. He got nationalisation of the means of production passed at the British Labour AGM in 1908. If he'd stayed in England he would have been a Lord.
This column will be calling it out. There’s so much folx need to educate ourselves about and DO BETTER. From cis privilege to white privilege, whether it’s how to decolonise, how to handle the pronoun illiterates, this column will be an inclusive space, for ALL GENDERS and ALL IDENTITIES. It ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh, Colombia, 26 February 2021 The recent decision taken in California to place men and women in the same wings of prisons as a response to the violence meted out to trans prisoners is a nascent issue in Colombia, but sooner or later it will get here. ...
About 10 years ago there was a proliferation of home wares promoting ‘Keep calm and carry on’. This adage came from World War 2 posters produced by the British Government in an effort to boost the morale of its citizens. Typically printed as white lettering on a red background you ...
Having spent most of the pandemic alternately calling for mass-death by relaxing lockdowns "for the economy", and for those who breach lockdowns to face harsher and harsher punishments, the National Party has finally made a useful contribution by calling for people told to self-isolate to be paid directly: The ...
The Ombudsman is supposed to be our core watchdog on administrative decision-making. Their central job is to review decisions by public agencies to ensure they are fair and reasonable and followed a proper process. So its more than a little embarrassing that they've been called to account by the courts ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington For many, people life moved online in 2020. From preschool to dissertation defenses, first dates to weddings, video calls brought us together. To entertain ourselves, we streamed concerts and movies, played video games, and scrolled social media. Demand for internet ...
The Government has made a litany of mistakes over Covid, and we have been more than willing to forgive Labour these missteps and give them some leeway. Branko Marcetic says that when members of the public also make mistakes, we should be focusing on designing a wider system that insulates ...
Naïve optimism has been blinding everyone from Ashley Bloomfield to Case M. Josh Van Veen argues we need to be more aware of our biases in dealing with Covid – but especially the authorities. In the United States, naive optimism was at the heart of the Trump Administration’s failed ...
Cecile Meier walks us through some of the costs of a border system that has neither been able to safely scale up to meet need, nor able to find any reasonable way of prioritising entry into those scarce MIQ spaces. When Zane Gillbee hugged his family goodbye in South Africa ...
Technology lists, what’s this thing called “Deep Tech”, and thinking beyond the tech. Top “x” lists of technology developments, breakthroughs and trends aren’t hard to find. But how useful are they? MIT’s “Breakthrough Technologies” This time every year MIT’s Technology Review magazine produces a “10 breakthrough technologies” list. This ...
Having watched and read about the Conference of the Paranoid, Angry and just plain Crazy (CPAC), including the Orange Merkin’s return to the political centre stage, I am more convinced then ever that if US conservatism, and indeed the US itself, is to find its way back to some semblance ...
Back in 2019, following media revelations that bullying was widespread within the police, the Independent Police Conduct Authority announced that it would be investigating the issue. Today, they reported back, and found the police to be a completely toxic organisation: An independent report into police culture has described a ...
Dr Ben Gray*New Zealand has begun to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination programme, starting with those working at the border, including in the Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities. There have been calls for prioritising other groups such as those in South Auckland [1] and meat industry workers ...
The Climate Change Commission’s recommendations span the breadth of the economy. They are required to come up with sector-by-sector climate budgets consistent with getting New Zealand with net zero emissions under the Zero Carbon Act. The sector-by-sector budgets rest on underlying models. The models build predictions about what will happen ...
Revolution From Below: The original “Long March” was, of course, undertaken by Mao Zedong and what was left of his communist military forces. They did not, however, head off for the nearest school or university, government office or medical clinic. Their goal was not to infiltrate the institutions of capitalism, but ...
There are some genre authors who like to demonstrate their edgy, iconoclastic credentials by sticking the boot into J.R.R. Tolkien. Michael Moorcock springs to mind, with the much-beaten dead horse that is the Epic Pooh essay. Each to their own, I suppose, though seeing as Epic Pooh really boils ...
John SchwartzElizabeth Kolbert lives her stories. In the course of reporting her new book, “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” she got hit by a leaping carp near Ottawa, Illinois (“It felt like someone had slammed me in the shin with a Wiffle-ball bat”) and visited ...
New Zealand has an excellent Emissions Trading Scheme covering everything except agriculture – a non-trivial exclusion, but we can come back to that later. The ETS has a cap. Net emissions from the covered sector cannot exceed the cap. So any other regulations that affect sectors covered by the cap ...
Michael SchulsonDays before the inauguration of President Joe Biden, at a time when some Americans were animated by the false conviction that former President Donald J. Trump had actually won the November election, a man in Colorado began texting warnings to his family. The coming days, he wrote, would ...
Last year, Beef and Lamb New Zealand produced a bought-and-paid-for report claiming that their industry was already carbon neutral, so didn't need to do anything to reduce emissions. The report was full of obviously dodgy accounting - basicly, it didn't bother to follow international carbon accounting rules, because they would ...
Last year, the government chickened out on clean rivers, setting "water standards" that failed to properly control poisonous nitrates. So who was to blame? MPI: The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) opposed introducing a tough bottom line for nitrogen levels in rivers over concerns the economic impact would outweigh ...
Robert Greenberg, University of AucklandThe world was excited by the news last week that NASA’s Perseverance rover had successfully landed in a Martian crater. The rover will now set about collecting samples from what scientists say was an ancient lake fed by a river. The name of this exotic ...
Faith In The Essentials: Fenced-in, almost literally, by motorways. Located, seemingly permanently, at the bottom of politicians’ priority-lists. Heaped with praise for their cultural vibrancy, but not rewarded for it by the presence of white pupils in their public schools, South Aucklanders (like people of colour everywhere) provide their paler ...
Image credit:POLITICAL BLOG I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL ...
Since the pandemic began, the UK government has restricted protests in an effort to contain the plague. But of course, they're plotting to make these restrictions permanent: Concern over the government’s limitation of the right to protest during lockdown continues to mount after it emerged that the home secretary, ...
Completed reads for February: The Dream of Scipio, by CiceroThe Dragon Masters, by Jack Vance The Dream of Scipio is Pearman’s translation. A very quiet month in the reading department… but a truly excellent one in the writing department. Better yet, this was not merely short stories, but solid ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (Colombia, 18 February 2020) Two soldiers, Jhony Andrés Castillo Ospino and Jesús Alberto Muñoz Segovia, fell into the hands of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN; National Liberation Army). Their capture produced the usual reactions that they had been kidnapped when in fact they were prisoners ...
As much of the world is still implementing lockdowns, including New Zealand, it is a good time to see how Sweden has fared. After being demonised for a year for having relatively moderate restrictions the Swedish death toll is rather much in line with other years. Sweden followed the standard ...
Under The Influence Of The "Governance" Kool-Aid: The furore surrounding Mayor Andy Foster's "review" of the Wellington City Council's "governance" is but the latest example of the quite conscious delegitimization, and sinister re-framing, of spirited political opposition and debate as irresponsible, immature and “dysfunctional”. It shows how very far from ...
Hello there everybody. I’ve been asked by Mr Thinks to come on his blog today and speak my mind about stuff. The government has a lot to answer for. I was sitting there last week as Auckland came out of it’s latest lockdown and I knew the government was making ...
There are times when tikanga needs to be broken for tikanga to survive.I recently gave a presentation on Māori economic history based on my Not in Narrow Seas. Its most important message was that Māori proved to be a very adaptable people continually evolving as new opportunities arose. The European ...
Some of you may remember our blog post "A conundrum: our continued presence on Facebook" in which we detailed our misgivings about and decision to stick with Facebook for the time being. So these latest developments - reposted from the Cranky Uncle homepage - might come as a bit of surprise! ...
Image credit:Quick Data Lessons: Data Dredging Oh dear – another scientific paper claiming evidence of toxic effects from fluoridation. But a critical look at the paper shows evidence of p-hacking, data dredging and motivated reasoning to derive their conclusions. And it was published in a journal shown to be ...
We've had a housing crisis for the past decade, and successive governments have done nothing to solve it. Why not? Bernard Hickey gets it right when he says its all about protecting the rich: The Government is reluctant to push down house prices fearing they'll loses the support of ...
There’s more of the Obama legacy here and Deporter in Chief: Obama chucks out 2,000,000 and Can Trump really deport more people than Obama? and Obama, gay rights and the killing drones ...
My Department Right Or Wrong: Far from “politicians involving themselves in some Corrections matters” being a bad thing, their involvement – along with that of the Ombudsman – constitutes a necessary check upon the unreasonable and unlawful exercise of authority over prison inmates by prison staff. A Corrections Minister who ...
New Zealand is supposed to have a progressive tax system, which taxes people according to their ability to pay. But it turns out that the rich are cheating: The wealthiest New Zealanders pay just 12 per cent of their total income in tax on average, according to research from ...
Ground truths on warming When we think about rapid climate change of the kind we've accidentally unleashed and the warming of Earth systems inherent in the process, we tend to focus on phenomena in order of their immediate tangibility, their drama. Sea ice loss in the Arctic, atmospheric and ocean ...
by Daphna Whitmore The Department of Corrections has called in the police over a pamphlet that supports protests at Waikeria Prison, saying the material might incite another riot. The group People Against Prisons Aotearoa denies it advocates for riots and has said it “encourages persistent, peaceful protest action such as striking from ...
One theme in the literature dedicated to democratic theory is the notion of a “tyranny of the minority.” This is where the desire to protect the interests of and give voice to electoral minorities leads to a tail wagging the dog syndrome whereby minorities wind up having disproportionate influence in ...
I've just lodged my fourth complaint to the Ombudsman for deemed refusal of an OIA request by police this year. That brings their total to four for four - every request I have sent them has not been answered within the legal timeframe, even when they extend it to give ...
Will the health reforms proposed for the Labour Government make the system better or worse? Health commentator Ian Powell (formerly the Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists) gives his analysis of what change is most necessary, and what should be avoided. The review of the Health ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections An off-course polar vortex meandered toward the Mexican border, bringing with it frigid Arctic air rarely seen as far south as Texas. Frozen equipment rendered power generation systems in the state inoperable, forcing grid operators to begin rolling blackouts to customers then left to fend ...
Just as National once produced a “rock star economy” that Grant Robertson rejected as being only for the rich, the Labour Government has produced an economic “bounce back” that leaves out the poor. Branko Marcetic argues for a rise in benefit levels to give the poor a real bounce back. ...
Virginia has voted to abolish the death penalty: State lawmakers gave final approval on Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, a dramatic turnaround for a state that has executed more people than any other. The legislation repealing the death penalty now heads to the ...
Yesterday a New Zealand Judge issued a formal finding that the Department of Corrections had treated prisoners in a cruel, degrading and inhumane manner, illegally detaining them, using excessive force, denying them basic necessities unless they performed degrading rituals of submission first. Some of the conduct appears to be criminal: ...
The Herald reports that there is a "storm brewing for the Climate Change Commission". The "problem"? Polluters are unhappy with its economic projections saying that action will not be as costly as they have previously claimed: Last week a coalition of over a dozen New Zealand business and industry ...
You're Move: What would a genuinely powerful Maori Caucus do? What policies would it insist upon? More to the point, since the single most important question in politics is always “Or you’ll what?”, does the Maori Caucus possess the wherewithal to enforce its demands?THAT LABOUR’S MAORI CAUCUS is potentially powerful ...
This post is a mix of a few recent reports on trends, recent discoveries or developments. Topics covered are the future of work, the geopolitical shift from oil to semiconductors, transition to low carbon futures, disappearing Artic sea ice, and AI in health care. Yesterday’s Gone A Canadian report ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson One of the hottest years in U.S. history, 2020 was besieged by a record number of billion-dollar disasters, led by two of the most dangerous phenomena with links to climate change: wildfires and hurricanes. In its initial U.S. climate summary for 2020, ...
Just because something is bad, doesn’t mean it’s easy to criminalise. Graham Adams argues that the proposed ban on gay conversion therapy is messier than many realise, and he delves into some of the difficulties facing the Government in their promise to legislate. A highly successful petition has inadvertently ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Absolutely ridiculous’: top scientist slams UK government over coalmineExclusive:Prof Sir Robert Watson says backing of ...
Over the weekend we learned that Turkey plans to deport a New Zealand woman and her children who had fled Syria after previously joing the Islamic State. Which means that Andrew Little's tyrannical Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019 - rammed through under all-stages urgency on the basis of an ...
While it has made a lot of noise about inequality, Labour has resolutely avoided reversing the 1990 benefit cuts and improving living standards for the poorest in our society. Meanwhile, 70% of kiwis think they should: A survey has found seven out of 10 New Zealanders believe the government ...
Anti-Philosopher President? Emmanuel Macron and his party’s reaction to the terrorist atrocities committed on French soil targets the very same philosophical movements excited and emboldened by New Zealand’s own terrifying tragedy.IT IS NOT the sort of thought experiment New Zealanders are encouraged to conduct in these culturally sensitive times. Even ...
If Jacinda Ardern or ay of her Auckland-based cabinet ministers stepped outside this weekend, they would have realised that this afternoon’s cabinet decision on whether to move Auckland back to Level 1 has already been made. The residents of our biggest city have voted with their feet.While some places where ...
According to epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker, the decision to end the second Auckland lockdown after just three days was a ‘calculated risk’. The possibility of undetected community transmission cannot be ruled out. In the United States, modelling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that the ...
As I rose for the first time to speak from the Despatch Box in the House of Commons, I had the comfort of seeing that the Despatch Box had on it the inscription “A Gift from the People of New Zealand”. But I was also a little daunted, like so ...
This article is by Laura Biggs, from the Marxist-Feminist blog On the Woman Question. The term ‘sex work’ has come to replace the word ‘prostitution’ in contemporary discussions on the subject. This is not accidental. The phrase ‘sex work’ has been adopted by liberal feminists and powerful lobbyists in a ...
Sometimes it’s smaller, intensive studies that shed light on issues. Just reported results of daily sampling of COVID-19 patients indicate patients with the B.1.1.7 variant first observed in Kent, UK may have a longer infection compared to patients infected with non-B.1.1.7 variants. This is the variant seen in NZ’s most ...
Redline has just passed one million views – as I start writing this we have reached 1,000,015 views. It took us nearly seven years to reach our first 500,000 and just three months short of three years to reach our second 500,000, with 2019 being our best year, with over ...
. . As the rest of the world was perceived to be “going to hell in a handbasket with an out-of-control pandemic; ructions in Europe as Britain copes with “Brexit” chaos; Trumpism in the United States climaxing with the 6 January mob-led coup attempt in Washington’s Capitol; a deadly ...
The Green Party are calling on the Government to assess how the COVID-19 leave support scheme can be better improved, distributed and enforced so that workers can properly take leave when self-isolating. ...
We know that when our rural communities do well, all of New Zealand benefits. Labour is committed to supporting our regions so that, together, we can achieve even more. Here are just some of the ways we’re backing rural communities. ...
Government data today shows that the wealthiest New Zealanders aren’t paying their fair share of tax, whilst everyone else chips in, Green Party spokesperson on Finance Julie Anne Genter said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the change in the Reserve Bank’s remit to consider the impacts on housing when making financial decisions, but housing affordability shouldn’t be left to the Reserve Bank, Green Party Co-leader and Housing spokesperson Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Green Party welcomes the passing of the Local Electorate Act Māori Wards Amendment Bill which ensures Māori have a say on local issues across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
New UMR research reveals that 69 percent of New Zealanders agree that the government should increase the amount if income support paid to those on low incomes or not in paid work. ...
The Green Party are celebrating the Labour Government bringing forward the timeline to ban conversion therapy, and will push to ensure any draft bill properly protects all of our Rainbow communities. ...
The Green Party is joining the call for ‘brave policy action’ to address rapidly increasing inequality in New Zealand, which is likely to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Green MPs currently in Auckland, Marama Davidson, Chlöe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman, will remain in Auckland for the next 72 hours. Those in Auckland today for Big Gay Out who have flown home will self-isolate for 72 hours. These decisions will be subject to any new information that may arise ...
It’s Pride month, and as we celebrate our LGBTIA+ community, we’re taking the next steps towards a more inclusive Aotearoa. From investing in mental health services to banning harmful conversion therapy, we’re building a New Zealand where everyone can be safe, healthy and happy. ...
More than half of New Zealand’s estimated 12,000 border workforce have now received their first vaccinations, as a third batch of vaccines arrive in the country, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. As of midnight Tuesday, a total of 9,431 people had received their first doses. More than 70 percent ...
The Government has confirmed details of COVID-19 support for business and workers following the increased alert levels due to a resurgence of the virus over the weekend. Following two new community cases of COVID-19, Auckland moved to Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand moved to Alert Level ...
The Government remains committed to hosting the Women’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2022 should a decision be made by World Rugby this weekend to postpone this year’s tournament. World Rugby is recommending the event be postponed until next year due to COVID-19, with a final decision to ...
Community and social service support providers have again swung into action to help people and families affected by the current COVID-19 alert levels. “The Government recognises that in many instances social service, community, iwi and Whānau Ora organisations are best placed to provide vital support to the communities impacted by ...
The Government is following through on an election promise to conduct an independent review into PHARMAC, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Health Minister Andrew Little announced today. The Review will focus on two areas: How well PHARMAC performs against its current objectives and whether and how its performance against these ...
Some of the country’s most forward-thinking early-career conservationists are among recipients of a new scholarship aimed at supporting a new generation of biodiversity champions, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has awarded one-year postgraduate research scholarships of $15,000 to ten Masters students in the natural ...
I acknowledge our whānau overseas, joining us from Te Whenua Moemoeā, and I wish to pay respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today. I am very pleased to be part of the conversation on Indigenous business, and part ...
Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced today that main benefits will increase by 3.1 percent on 1 April, in line with the rise in the average wage. The Government announced changes to the annual adjustment of main benefits in Budget 2019, indexing main benefit increases to the average ...
A Deed of Settlement has been signed between Ngāti Maru and the Crown settling the iwi’s historical Treaty of Waitangi claims, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little announced today. The Ngāti Maru rohe is centred on the inland Waitara River valley, east to the Whanganui River and its ...
With a suite of Government income support packages available, Minister for Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni is encouraging people, and businesses, connected to the recent Auckland COVID-19 cases to check the Work and Income website if they’ve been impacted by the need to self-isolate. “If you are required to ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has expressed her condolences at the passing of long-serving former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare. “Our thoughts are with Lady Veronica Somare and family, Prime Minister James Marape and the people of Papua New Guinea during this time of great ...
E te tī, e te tā Tēnei te mihi maioha ki a koutou Ki te whenua e takoto nei Ki te rangi e tū iho nei Ki a tātou e tau nei Tēnā tātou. It’s great to be with you today, along with some of the ministerial housing team; Hon Peeni Henare, the ...
The Government is backing a new project to use drone technology to transform our understanding and protection of the Māui dolphin, Aotearoa’s most endangered dolphin. “The project is just one part of the Government’s plan to save the Māui dolphin. We are committed to protecting this treasure,” Oceans and Fisheries ...
Major water reform has taken a step closer with the appointment of the inaugural board of the Taumata Arowai water services regulator, Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. Former Director General of Health and respected public health specialist Dame Karen Poutasi will chair the inaugural board of Crown agency Taumata Arowai. “Dame ...
The newly completed Hibiscus Coast Bus Station will help people make better transport choices to help ease congestion and benefit the environment, Transport Minister Michael Wood and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said today. Michael Wood and Phil Goff officially opened the Hibiscus Coast Bus Station which sits just off the ...
New funding announced by Conservation Minister Kiri Allan today will provide work and help protect the unique values of Northland’s Te Ārai Nature Reserve for future generations. Te Ārai is culturally important to Te Aupōuri as the last resting place of the spirits before they depart to Te Rerenga Wairua. ...
Today the Government has taken a key step to support Pacific people to becoming Community Housing providers, says the Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio. “This will be great news for Pacific communities with the decision to provide Pacific Financial Capability Grant funding and a tender process to ...
Conservation Minister Kiri Allan is encouraging New Zealanders to have their say on a proposed marine mammal sanctuary to address the rapid decline of bottlenose dolphins in Te Pēwhairangi, the Bay of Islands. The proposal, developed jointly with Ngā Hapū o te Pēwhairangi, would protect all marine mammals of the ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges. Two of the appointees will take up their roles on 1 April, replacing sitting Judges who have reached retirement age. Kirsten Lummis, lawyer of Auckland has been appointed as a District Court Judge with jury jurisdiction to ...
Government announces list of life-shortening conditions guaranteeing early KiwiSaver access The Government changed the KiwiSaver rules in 2019 so people with life-shortening congenital conditions can withdraw their savings early The four conditions guaranteed early access are – down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s disease and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder An alternative ...
The Reserve Bank is now required to consider the impact on housing when making monetary and financial policy decisions, Grant Robertson announced today. Changes have been made to the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee’s remit requiring it to take into account government policy relating to more sustainable house prices, while working ...
The Labour Government will invest $6 million for 70 additional adult cochlear implants this year to significantly reduce the historical waitlist, Health Minister Andrew Little says. “Cochlear implants are life changing for kiwis who suffer from severe hearing loss. As well as improving an individual’s hearing, they open doors to ...
The Local Electoral (Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill passed its third reading today and will become law, Minister of Local Government Hon Nanaia Mahuta says. “This is a significant step forward for Māori representation in local government. We know how important it is to have diversity around ...
The Government has added 1,000 more transitional housing places as promised under the Aotearoa New Zealand Homelessness Action Plan (HAP), launched one year ago. Minister of Housing Megan Woods says the milestone supports the Government’s priority to ensure every New Zealander has warm, dry, secure housing. “Transitional housing provides people ...
A second batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived safely yesterday at Auckland International Airport, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says. “This shipment contained about 76,000 doses, and follows our first shipment of 60,000 doses that arrived last week. We expect further shipments of vaccine over the coming weeks,” Chris Hipkins said. ...
The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni has today announced $18 million to support creative spaces. Creative spaces are places in the community where people with mental health needs, disabled people, and those looking for social connection, are welcomed and supported to practice and participate in the arts ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little today welcomed Moriori to Parliament to witness the first reading of the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill. “This bill is the culmination of years of dedication and hard work from all the parties involved. “I am delighted to reach this significant milestone today,” Andrew ...
22,400 fewer children experiencing material hardship 45,400 fewer children in low income households on after-housing costs measure After-housing costs target achieved a year ahead of schedule Government action has seen child poverty reduce against all nine official measures compared to the baseline year, Prime Minister and Minister for Child Poverty ...
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Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage and Social Development Hon Carmel Sepuloni today launched a new Creative Careers Service, which is expected to support up to 1,000 creatives, across three regions over the next two years. The new service builds on the most successful aspects of the former Pathways to ...
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The shortlist for the prestigious Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, which carries prize money worth $10,000, was made public this morning. Our poetry editor Chris Tse is ecstatic. Here’s a sobering statistic: since 2001, only two non-Pākehā poets have won the poetry category at the book awards – David ...
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Can someone put some pressure on WINZ to get people who have lost their job their benefit?
I have a friend who has been made redundant and with Christmas coming up, a mortgage to pay, kids and family to look after it becomes increasingly clear that some major distress is happening. WINZ has not responded after my friend was on the phone for almost 8 hours over a period since last week. Has been promised that a case worker will call within 48 hours. Yeah right! Of cause not.
Merry Christmas looks like the worst for especially those made redundant. Talk about insult to injury. My distain for this agency is right now without bounds.
Maybe it needs to be privatised or some other plan put in place because it clearly is not working if there is such lack of response.
I would like to know whether any prospective beneficiaries have gone into depression and worst still, could not see a way out of it due to lack of financial help.
Can someone put some pressure on WINZ …?
Hah! Don't hold your breath Sunshine because it would appear this Current Mob have little to no intention of any meaningful repair of our Social Safety Net.
Last night weka posted this…
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/11/livestream-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-s-post-cabinet-press-conference.html
…the truly depressing bit starts around 27 minutes.
I always harboured doubts that it was entirely Winston applying the handbrake on enacting the reforms considered urgent by the WEAG…and to hear Our Leader opening her press conference with her calendar with much emphasis on her meetings with "business"…it's abandon ye all hope time.
Huge respect for these organisations…
https://medium.com/actionstation/open-letter-increase-income-support-before-christmas-7960c5100b10
…who at least gave it a go.
SSDD
I doubt anyone will take any of it onboard. Very soon we will know what carrier politicians are and not capable off.
Beneficiaries get the fob off because its soo good now, isn't it.
Jacinda Ardern and her spokesperson for Winz Carmel Sepuloni were clear about what beneficiaries could expect should they get in again. Nothing. A wet handshake, a meaningless course in CV writing, a stern lecture about the vlaue of work and other then that nothing.
Under utilisation rate for women in NZ currently sits at almost 20% (per gov. ), not a word about that, 5.9 % unemployment is average, regional it looks much much worse, unemployed who have partners with jobs will be refused any help cause……partner, and so on and so forth.
Winz has been understaffed before Covid, and now its severely understaffed, but nothing is done. Reform to Winz will only come with a government that actually wants to reform, and the Labour is not the party that will reform anything.
My heart sank when sepuloni was again given that portfolio …(as it did when she first got it..)….and arderns' promise yesterday to do s.f.a. about what she said previously/time and time again ..was a top priority priority for her…poverty.. just has that heart sinking more and more…my son just noted that he thinks ardern will do/is doing an obama…acclaimed internationally…and doing s.f.a. domestically to earn any acclaim…she/labour are neoliberal incrementalists..’moderates’.she/they haven't changed those stripes/spots at all…and any optimism I may have had since the election re ardern/labour actually doing something meaningful..is well and truly down the crapper..and of course another question to ask is: is marama able to comment on this promise from ardern to do nothing with any sense of urgency about poverty..?..or is she muzzled by the deal the greens have with labour….?..and any labour loyalists here willing to defend arderns' promise to do s.f.a…?…
My heart sank when she got the ACC portfolio. The government will probably stall decisions to do with the Royal Commission of Inquiry. The ACC system is inadequate when it comes to anomalies related to historical sexual assault in or out of state care.
The problem reminds me of a bumper sticker that was put onto cars in the United States late in 1965.
This was after Lyndon Johnson, who claimed he didn't want a larger war in Vietnam, had run, and won, against Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election. Johnson had labelled Barry as being someone who wanted to increase the US troops in Vietnam whereas he, Lyndon wasn't planning to do so. At the time of the 1964 election there were US advisers but no ground troops involved directly.
Anyway the sticker read, and was quite accurate in its words, something like "They said if I voted for Goldwater there would be 200,000 US troops on Vietnam by the end of 1965. Well I did and there are".
Perhaps you should prepare a sticker that says something like "They said if I voted for ACT all benefits would be frozen for the next 3 years. Well I did and they have been".
Now just why did you think it would be different?
Alwyn your claim and Barry Goldwaters LBJ's of no US ground troops in Vietnam pre 1964 is untrue officially it may have been true.
The US and even NZ had part of its Malaysian deployment on the ground in Vietnam the 1950s.NZ has always worked closely with the US even when it appears our politicians deny it.
A close friend of mine fought in the secret war
Thanks Tricledrown
Nothing can now be substantiated, but from what I have gathered from history and Establishment lies, I suspect you are telling the truth.
But that is because I sympathise. Alwyn will know only what suits him.
The French pulled out from 1954 onwards so how were the viet Minh kept at bay for 10 years with officially only 200 helicopters and a few advisors
The US and even NZ had part of its Malaysian deployment on the ground in Vietnam the 1950s.
AFAIK the US never participated in the Malaysian crisis. It was a UK/Commonwealth military operation with NZ troops withdrawing from Malaya in 1960, returning along side other Commonwealth forces during the 1963/66 Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.
In 1963 New Zealand sent a civilian surgical team to Vietnam and later that a year small non-combatant force was deployed. 161 Battery was deployed to Vietnam in 1965 and in 1967 a forces medical team was sent. All forces were withdrawn in 1971.
But hey, link away to any alternative history.
/
There are now probably fake links to fake history, given 4 years of Trump, who did not start that process..
But I would beware of total trust in official records.
We all tread a wobbly tightrope.
Interesting to hear that the infantry units, forward air controllers, and special forces soldiers we sent to Vietnam were non-combatants.
From a NZ govt website:
and:
But I suppose any ".govt.nz" web address can be a link to an alternative history /sarc
161 were the first combatants deployed
btw, over the years I've heard my share of the NZ civilian employees/CIA cross border incursions/atrocities/bounties/severed heads etc yarns from folk who knew someone who knew someone, and while there's likely a wee kernel of truth behind some of these, I'd rate them alongside the sewer staple of Goff/Clark spitting at returning servicemen, mostly bullshit.
Ah ok fair call, missed the 1950s bit.
Joe 90.The first official combatants.
my friend who fought in Malaysia but was secretly deployed to Vietnam in the late 1950s along with other Kiwi Australian and British soldiers .
Joe 90 your right about the US not being involved in Malaysia but the Domino effect of communism spreading through south east Asia was a US program of preventing the spread.NZ was a close ally of the US fighting alongside the US in Korea and sharing intelligence which has been the case through to the present day.
Two external options, see the local MP and call in a Beneficiary Advocate. An MP phoning the manager at an office is always an effective process time saver.
With the organisation, the key determinant is paperwork (check on-line what is required) and getting an in the office appointment time (sorting it all by phone – probably not enough unless paperwork can be scanned) – booking appointment times can be made by phone or on-line.
All done and dusted but still, I think they just don't want to help. Maybe they get a bonus for every person left to fend for themselves.
I am so glad that the Billions we have paid for Air NZ are going to a good cause (sarc).
Maybe they get a bonus …
Wendy Shoebridge ….driven to suicide by heartless WINZ system.
Monthly quotas were imposed at the Ministry of Social Development to prosecute beneficiaries, an inquest into the death of a woman accused of benefit fraud has heard.
"We had to get one prosecution per month. We had to get $30,000 of debt to be recovered per month," a former MSD investigator told the inquest into the death of Wendy Shoebridge. "Four cases had to be cleared per month."
Shoebridge, a 41-year-old mother, was found dead in Lower Hutt on April 3, 2011.
The day before, she opened a letter saying she was to be referred for prosecution over an alleged $22,000 benefit fraud. After her death, that amount fell to about $5500.
It eventually found she had not committed any offence at all.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/87541297/compassion-for-vulnerable-from-woman-who-died-after-false-fraud-accusation
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/87347930/aggressive-prosecution-focus-at-msd-preceded-womans-death-inquest-told?rm=m
The case managers employed under 9 years of National were taught to be deliberately obstructive.
And Labour appointed as Chief Executive one of the architects of the toxic culture that existed even more so under National. Someone from an advocacy group should be made the CE to get some real change.
A labour government who has removed including non-qualified spouses in super making future spouses $130 per week worse off as they will have to go on benefit not super now to "modernise the benefit system" which basically means where there is one income (e.g. due to one partner having a disability or just any reason at all) the working partner will now have to work longer – such modern thinking, a labour government who charges the poorest 25% of their income to pay for their emergency accommodation to make it "fair" and to "help them" adjust when they get better accommodation – so helpful, a labour government who had the most public support ever to increase benefits once the WEAG report was published and chose not to and then created a two tier benefit system for predominantly white workers when COVID struck leaving the existing poor and disabled down at the bottom where apparently they belong even though it was pointed out how racist this was, how other countries were providing stimulus payments to the poorest as they spent all their money in the economy, that the most disadvantaged would find it even harder to find work now as they would be competing against the newly unemployed with job skills and that WINZ resources would no doubt be moved away from the existing clients to help the newly (mainly European) unemployed and the newly labour berefit like noisy orchardists and agriculturalists who can't get their overseas captive labour and lastly that emergency assistance payments had gone up rapidly as people were falling into more and more hardship both costing money, costing peoples time having to apply and costing staff time that could be better utilised to help people find work than process food grant after food grant after food grant..
In other words business as it has been with a few nice temporary factors like winter payments.
Real change will come if they:
1. Increase benefits as per WEAG
2. Put comprehensive rent controls in – I favour the New York type rent control where a rent board decides how much rents can go up each year – hint it isn't much.
3. Reduce the age of NZS back to 60 to level the playing field more for those with disabilities and Maori who have shorter life expectancy – just get the super back through taxation for those who both work and get NZS – the extra money will provide economic stimulus as well.
Of course none of these things will happen but lots of money will be spent on infrastructure projects, short-term work schemes and so on.
“I would like to know whether any prospective beneficiaries have gone into depression and worst still, could not see a way out of it due to lack of financial help.”
You might want to include current beneficiaries in that question.
Would he be better off to register a company and apply for a small business loan from the IRD at 0% if that is possible. I'm all for the small business support but I'm sure as repayment time approaches at least some will collapse the company rather than repay the money. Is the IRD taking a personal guarantee?
Maybe not for the IRD. but surely Winz could at least jam through a basic benefit for applicants and catch up with the detail later. Everyone else seems to be getting the high trust model. And no I don't warm to Carmel or the labour party handling of the wage paid workforce or those who need Winz.
Except they seem to divert excess resources to those on super – so the older's don't complain.
So you use this to attack those receiving superannuation…?…w t.f..!…one thing the ardern gummint mk 1. did for those on super..was nothing…but there was no complaint/lobbying from the oldies…'cos they know that poverty for sole-parent/the unemployed..and their children.. is far worse …..your imputation that ardern has been filling the coffers of the elderly to the detriment of those living in poverty..with 'excess resources'..is factually incorrect..and is bullshit-on-a-stick..
Didn't mean that to sound as an attack on superannuitants.
I was talking about the service level (not money) that superannuitants seem to get from Winz and I know some who feel deeply uncomfortable about it being so good when the rest of the service seems so bad. My point was that if Winz can do a decent service level for the supers then they could do the same for everyone else as well. Second point was "is the service level so high to stop any potential complainers" .
@ r. baron…Point taken…there is a seachange in attitude from how the unemployed etc. are treated…as to how superannuitants are looked after…it is palpable..that change…and yes..there is no reason why those in need of state support should be treated so shabbily by the govt. department tasked with caring for them..
Who said WINZ do a decent service for the elderly ? I advocated very recently for NZ Super clients ; waited for nearly an hour only to be told that a return call would be made in the next 24 hours. And when pressed for a more exact time we were told " What does it matter ? You have all the time in the world now".
And the return call never came.
As always you've plumped for a gross generalisation, but there are clearly wealthy on super with mortgage free million dollar homes and large savings accounts. Aren't they having their considerable resources bumped up by a payment that could, and should, be used to assist the lowest income earners?
As for bullshit on a stick – Have you tried holding the other end?
See my replies to the others –
Parliamentarians? I doubt that they will cut their cloth. 165k income, bonus, health and super paid for, transport etc…. yeah, it must be truly difficult.
@ the allen…means-testing of superannuitants is a separate issue…(one I have sympathy for)…you are conflating the two…
B.t.w…those rich boomers don't have to suck from the superannuation-trough…it's not compulsory..you have to apply for it…those rich taking it are just greedy bastards…end-of-story..
You are right , you do have to apply to be a superannuate, it is not automatic. Those who really don,t need it have applied for it.
Not a separate issue at all as it speaks directly to your rejection of the premise that "ardern has been filling the coffers of the elderly to the detriment of those living in poverty", when that is exactly what happens when a wealthy senior takes the pension.
Of course, I didn’t generalise and claim all seniors – Just the wealthy ones with no morality and/or civic responsibility.
@ the allen..your final sentence/question is meaningless…are you having a go @ humour..?
And there are also elderly whose rent takes most of their super and who have had to run their savings down to qualify for any supplements, making living a bit precarious.
And, all over the country pensioner units are being sold off in the larger cities.
All equally true and valid observations.
Ah yes, just play one group of vulnerable against the other.
What about those BILLIONS! we, the taxpayer have forked out to give a 50% state company like Air NZ board some enormous share option and bonus pay. Or all those other companies with huge profits sponging of the low pay and slim middle class? Only a government where non of those sitting ever had anything like an "essential" job can come up with a farce like that.
See above. I was on service level not money. All should enjoy the same service level as the supers.
And I'm as deeply unhappy about about AirNZ as a lot of other corporate behaviour I Have complained about on here
Indeed the service level is as unfair a playing field as the weekly pay cheques given.
One lot just have to prove to be old, the others tasked with myriad hoop jumping to often get much less.
I've spent some time thinking how shareholders could reign in the excesses of the managerial class who are the main beneficiaries of business profits at the expense of both labour and to some extent capital providers. Both capital providers and labour lose if a business goes broke but the managerial class just banks the gains.
Shareholders can pass meeting resolutions. The best I've come up with so far is for the top 5% to 10% of earners (based on FTE wages) in a company can earn only x times the median wagein the company , or maybe x times the FTE of the bottom 50%.
If there was a pool set for the top earners then they could could fight it out amongst them selves and pay the high priced technocrat they need more than the generalist manager. It's how to set that pool – and as I say these thoughts are a work in progress.
In the meantime Airnz shareholder aka the government should be on the phone. If they did not know then they need a CEO with a little more vision and political smarts.
"they need a CEO with a little more vision and political smarts.".
I'm sorry but the last CEO they had with those skills resigned and left the airline on September 25 last year. He has picked up a new job since that time.
Still he will probably have the responsibility as the share-holding Minister in about 3 years time. You can but hope.
Alwynger you must be joking you know nothing or are Gerry Brownlee.
All Airlines have suffered catastrophic losses to blame the CEO who was the former CEO of Walmart a business bigger than the whole of New Zealands economy .
He has been given a hospital pass.
He turned Walmarts fortunes around was on a massive income before he took on the role of CEO of Air NZ for pocket change .
He changed the way Walmart treated staff making sure staff were remunerated well as opposed to the minimum wage ideology of the founder and previous CEO's .
Now a vaccine is looking more hopeful we need his nouse and connections to rebuild Air New Zealand.
You really are delusional aren't you?
Why are you addressing your comment to me instead of to the Red Baron?
He (or she) is the one who was complaining about the nous of the current CEO of Air New Zealand.
Still I should not be surprised. You were the one who, the other day, seemed to think that I approved of Trump. Clearly your comprehension of things verges on the side of incoherence. You also seem to be quite incapable of even spelling my name. I guess your end of year school report should simply say "Must try harder"
Alwynger i take poetic license to take you to task over your continual whinging and untruths about any Left wing initiatives.
Your right up their with Gosman with your cynicism.
If you put facts up like how Mike Sabin resigned and NZfirst reduced The National majority even further would be good.
I did have dyslexia growing up not unlike Winston Churchill who struggled with school till he turned 19 then it suddenly disappeared where he went on to be one of the most influential people in history and is responsible for you not speaking Japanese or German and allowing you to have the freedom to speak at all.I was at the bottom of most of my classes during high school but not long before I turned 16 a light switched on and suddenly I went to the top of the class in most subjects except English comprehension.
Suddenly I could speed read whole books libraries of books .
When it comes to knowledge I am a library you are a cheap gossip magazine.
Alwyn shifting the blame lame.
You make comments that Christopher luxton was a better CEO .At a time when international tourism grew exponentially ,its easy to look good when business expands without having to do much.
Your ACT party would have let AirNZ go to the wall no govt help.
As for government loans to start a business….here
Who can get it
You may be able to get a Self-employment start up payment if:
The maximum payout is $10,000 in one year, and you or your partner will need to be already receiving a WINZ benefit.
see here : https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/a-z-benefits/self-employment-start-up-payment.html
Covid contingency small business loan – administered by IRD
https://www.business.govt.nz/news/covid-19-support-for-small-businesses/
so again, its not just done by registering a company, you actually have to prove you have a viable business in order to get the business contingency loan, or alternatively you have to be on a WINZ benefit to apply for hte Self Employment Start Up.
If there is a 0% interest business loan other then that that is available through IRD please link as that would be interesting news.
First question , has he gone looking for work ?
What has he looking for a job got to do with a Failure of Winz to do the job they are paid to do? Namely answering the phones in a timely manner, scheduling person/person meetings to get paperwork sorted and benefits given should all legal requirements be met?
Janet, are you joking? Of cause my friend did (he or she). But that short time before Christmas coupled with a person being in their 50's seem to be the combination that really gets you into some serious trouble.
Euthanasia anybody?
But maybe you know how to get a handout like Air NZ or Briscoes. Very grateful for any hint.
Well actually "Christmas coming and being in their 50.s " sounds a bit like an excuse not to be looking for a job .
My friend is looking for a job rest assured. Do you honestly believe you can feed a family on a benefit? Not to mention that this friend has worked all their life and find themselves for the first time in such situation. Do you actually understand what such event does to you psychologically? The anguish not to be able get bills paid, the sleepless nights, the worry. No wonder people kill themselves in droves here.
I don't have words for you comments really – you really don't know what the back ground is and put a judgement onto this person. Are you working for WINZ?
No I am not judging. I support the UBI theory where we do not have to be in your friends position, hanging on the whims of WINZ. We have a funny situation here in NZ at the moment. In front of me I have the latest Farmers Weekly … screaming out for workers in horticulture, diarying you name it. Screaming at the government for not bringing migrant workers in . Migrant workers who up and leave their wives and families for 6 months or more to pick up a dollar in NZ. They go home "rich " men in the societies they come from, but their being here has in the meantime held down wages, making it unattractive for ours to now go out and pick up these jobs.
Somehow we have to get this situation rebalanced , without migrant workers. In the end it will mean our food costs more…
This is true but equally one cannot expect someone to uproot the family, maybe renting the house (mortgaged) out and paying rent at the other end, new schools for the kids and all that for a few months. As a report recently showed, it is for the majority work at minimum rate. My friend has arthritis which really makes picking in the orchards etc not a viable option. I also think we need to be careful to abstain from asking every unemployed person to take up picking "for the good of the nation", it borders on forced labour.
BTW, I am very much for the UBI which would as a very desirable side effect by removing a large swat of bureaucrats who believe they can play god with peoples lives.
I agree with the advice about local MP and a beneficiary advocate.
Privatising WINZ would make it worse. There's not good reason why WINZ can't function well other than the ideologies of successive governments (Nat and Lab) that have fucked the system up so much. At the moment it's under staffing.
IMO Carmel Sepuloni should be replaced.
Pfizer's vaccine looking promising but still a fair bit of follow up to do.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/09/covid-19-vaccine-from-pfizer-and-biontech-is-strongly-effective-early-data-from-large-trial-indicate/
I'm becoming more confident that we'll see a vaccine available for us in NZ towards the middle of next year.
They will have billion of them by the end of the year.
We should have half of our share (M) 500,000 by mid-year. Plenty for the health workers/aged care workers, border workers, front of public workers and workers with pre existing conditions.
We also have stakes in other vaccines in development – such as the Oxford one. Hopefully another 1.5M of these as well.
That would be around 4M by the end of next year – about how many would take a vaccine.
All going well, If there is a global rollout of an effective vaccine by the middle of next year it will have been a remarkable achievement by the scientific and engineering community involved in its research and development and product.
Australia is already manufacturing 30 million doses in the hope the trials are safe.So they can be ready to go immediately the OK is given.
At some level I must confess a small enjoyment about having the country to ourselves seeing home grown talent etc. ( but not at the price of a pandemic of course) .
But I'm not sure that I want to see everything just returning to the "old normal" without whittling out industries and settings that do not work for all of us.
But I'm not sure that I want to see everything just returning to the "old normal" without whittling out industries and settings that do not work for all of us.
Agreed – it would be nice for a bit of a reset in certain areas, hopefully there'll be further gains regarding flexibility with how and where people work and lessons learned about our country's vulnerabilities to circumstances out of our control.
I suspect I may be disappointed and we'll see the return of the previous normal.
flexibility with how and where people work
You know, the labour 'market' is entirely too free already. Free to break our immigration laws in a systematic fashion. Free to enjoy the blind eye of corrupt officials and ministers unfit to exercise their warrants.
If government want NZ to work, they have to work themselves. We have those immigration rules for a very sound and well-established reason, and if, as seems to be the case, the government is so out of touch they don't understand that, all they need to do is see that the law is obeyed. Their job, in case any of them wants to pretend otherwise.
Do your job Mr Faafoi, or resign in favour of someone who will.
It's going to take at least 3 to 5yrs before Airlines get reestablished let alone the tourists trust in travel ,have enough money to travel.Airlines won't be doing discounting until the volume builds up.
Word is circulating that we are expecting to have vaccinations rolling out by mid 2021. (Not sure which particular vaccine it will be.)
Not sure if there will be a mutation which could be ineffective with the new vaccine.
Would a different vaccine be required for each mutation or strain?
Treetop Very likely like the current flu vaccine
.
Oh no ! … actor Gabriel Byrne a "convergence moonbat" too ?
http://web.archive.org/web/20201108220809/https://amp.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/08/gabriel-byrne-its-an-obscenity-to-tell-innocent-children-theyre-going-to-hell
Principled, independent thought … concern not so much for the bloated self-absorption of Upper-Middle Clintonistas & Intersectionals … more for the interests of Blue Collar America (even those really yukky ones who have white skin & are male … Ewwww Yuck !!!) … well, it's Crazyville, isn't it ? You mark my words, those God-forsaken Ruskies are behind this !!! … Damn you, Putin, damn you to hell !!!
more for the interests of Blue Collar America (even those really yukky ones who have white skin & are male
And the black Americans who live in crime ridden cities who know that BLM's calls to abolish the police are nothing but disaster for them. Or the Latinos who migrated to the USA knowing that far from a racist hell hole, that it was their best opportunity to make a better life for themselves, look at arsonists burning down businesses … and their empathy lies firmly with owners of them.
Denial and blame and loathing and all the stages of grief just get rolled up into one tired F-grade actor's armwaving.
Before his next Oscar nomination he needs a good sized paper bag for an inhale session.
The old, anyone to the left of control has to be part of chaos, trick.
You don't agree with this then?
“Nothing much will change under Biden because his thing is: let’s return America to what it was. Well, what America was caused Trump. The Democrats rolled out the red carpet (for him).”
my bold
No.
That quote is as stupid as it sounds.
Call me when AOC achieves something in politics other getting re-elected.
AOC already has achieved something huge.
She has shown that an ordinary person can achieve political success in the USA while at the same time eschewing donations from the wealthy and corporates.
Nothing new in that. Not even particularly remarkable.
@ad…so what did that 'actor' say that is factually incorrect…?…b.t.w…did you call 2016 for clinton .?..you are a man riddled with yr certainties ..so I doubt you sat on the fence…
Well, it's his perspective, but there's nothing particularly crazy in what he says. There's the usual conceit that he knows "blue collar workers" better than other wealthy people do, but there doesn't seem to be much of the thinly-veiled references to "soros" and all that veiled-nazi jazz.
Didn't you hear the election is over and Trump lost, republicans lost, moonbats lost and wingnuts lost. You don't go messing around with the opinion filters on the back of that sort of outcome!
So, what you're saying is that everyone lost and there's still a bunch of elected dictators in power?
I'm saying you know the guy won you know the thing and so you know the bank is now in charge.
Agree with Gabriel.
Too simple for Trump to say, I concede pending on the recount.
An attempt to unseat the chairman of the West Coast Conservation Board has fallen flat.
"Keith Morfett was recently reappointed to the board for a second term by then-Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage.
But Ngai Tahu is challenging the minister's appointment process in the High Court after accusing the conservation board of ignoring its Treaty obligations and being in thrall to environmental groups such as Forest and Bird."
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/west-coast/morfett-reappointed-conservation-board
"in thrall to environmental groups such as Forest and Bird." ? ! Well that might not be what Ngai Tahu's in thrall of….maybe Money?
It's inevitable that conflicts will arise between government environmental ideas and Maori. Please just stick to facts and avoid taking sides against Maori, 'pour encourager les autres'.
Ah…..any reading of my Posts/Comments on here would see that I dont "take sides against Maori"…….
However I dont see Ngai Tahu as particularly "Enviro" or…Green. Quite the Business First Org.
And this was Forest and Bird they were chipping at….
My View…and I will stand by it.!
As American as apple pie. Just add cream.
https://i.imgflip.com/4lpyqg.jpg
Matt King (ex MP for Northland) was given the opportunity for a pity-party on TVNZ1 Breakfast show this morning. No questions about his Twitter attacks with misinformation on climate change, no questions about name calling the PM and about the Labour Party creating a Nazi society, no questions about his actively flouting and encouraging others to flout Covid Rules but they did politely sympathize with his loss and branding him a nice guy. Not so convinced were the viewers apparently, feedback suggesting he should take a little responsibility instead of his sense of entitlement and blaming everyone but himself and his Party. Happy Days
Happy days indeed. Locals had road checks earlier in the year worried that covid-19 would come into the region. A bit of a fuss ensued but most locals were not phased about the politics. Being alive and well and having someone seeking to protect them was welcomed.
Of course there was a constituency to appeal to, to rouse and harness in election year. It is the Far North. We have red necks. King got in the car with family just to 'go for a drive to show then around'. Into the road checks no less. Fancy that, an opportunity, a cunning stunt.
A lot of them voted for him of course, most didn't.
A focus about the tide turning in mainly rural South Island has meant scant attention to the reality at the other end of the country.
In the two northernmost general electorates so solidly National for generations, that party was comprehensively thrashed. King should have stayed home, saved his petrol.
Matt was invited by Hone Harawira, to attend a Te Tai Tokerau Border Patrol for a day near Kaikohe, with Police presence! and he never turned up. He had been trying to rile his pākehā supporters about “the mareeees and their illegal road blocks”, but actually a number of non Māori in the North supported the Iwi Border Patrols.
Mr King tried to be the Trump of the North on Facebook, but regularly got fact checked and shamed, he never turned up to any invitations to debate any of the bs he put out there. A mate of mine saw him at the Dargaville A&P two years back, and King stuck his hand out, “not shaking your hand you effing fascist” was the response, King was shocked. Dunno where my mate got that classic line from but it sat the ex MP down for a minute.
Sounds a bit 'Rick' from The Young Ones.
And Awesome Willow-Jean win ! : )
King probably attended on the basis that it would be a pity-party.
TVNZ/RNZ may as well be corporate media as King's fair game and it would've been great TV watching him dance on the head of a pin if some actual journalism was practiced.
Hosking fearmongering undone by Robertson.
Hosking had a rant about the govts debt around covid response saying 42 organizations wanting up to $150 a week increases on benefits was causing eye watering increases in debt,and that NZ was the only country in the OECD that had increased the benefit rates by a lousy $25 other than Hong Kong .
Then Robertson comes on his show and quietly undoes all his BS.GrantRobertson also gives Hosking an update on how the economy has bounced back a lot quicker than expected.
Good on Robertson for his stellar work on the economy and his cool calm collected communication style .
[Second time: please stick to one e-mail address, thanks]
[Second time: please stick to one e-mail address, thanks]
edit
Are we concreted in on some Covid-19 decisions that should be constantly revised?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/430230/man-in-miq-blown-away-seeing-staff-only-wearing-surgical-masks
Health workers in New Zealand quarantine hotels are some of the worst protected in the developed world, according to a man in managed isolation who's helped kit out medical staff all over the world.
And we care don’t we for St Johns. Management may be being too neo lib perhaps pay high at top but workers?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018772011/paramedics-vote-for-strike-action-we-feel-st-john-don-t-really-care
The organisation has financial difificulties partly from the pandemic impacting fund-raising. Peters was right to call for better government contribution.
St John's shouldn't even be a private organisation.
What to do when your caucus is now only 33?
Bridges for Finance?
Reti for Deputy?
What to do with Nick Smith?
How to bury Paul Goldsmith?
Erica Stanford anyone?
What stars will rise in the firmament in 2021 from the political ash-heap of 2020?
Anyone feeling it?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/national-mps-meet-to-decide-their-next-deputy-leader-after-their-devastating-election-loss/SUBI3OEOSHWRCNV4QJMWGBSD2M/
Erica Stanford would be the obvious candidate to take over the Blue-Green mantle from Nick Smith. Such as it is, anyways.
The slippery old eel Nick Smith will he slither away or hang around time for this environmental disaster to go.
I'd quite like for him to asphyxiate quietly in one of our many polluted waterways.
Do you think that National will be more united with 33 caucus members?
Looks like Collins has already traded places with her deputy within minutes of his appointment. Void of original thought, of course, but ironically, may well be a good move.
“Dr Reti’s knowledge and history working in the health sector will be an asset as Parliament deals with the impact of Covid-19. His experience will be invaluable to me as deputy leader and I’m looking forward to working closer with him.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/123350020/shane-reti-elected-unopposed-as-new-deputy-leader-of-the-national-party
Lol good one Chris.
You never know what might happen.
After all, following the 2014 election National had 60 seats and Labour had 32.
Labour recovered enough to form the Government after the following election.
Now Labour have 65 and National have 33 which is pretty much the same thing. Who knows but history may repeat and we will have a change of Government in 2023. After all we aren't likely to have another pandemic are we?
Well not until the next one.
Do you think world leaders have worked out that the next time a pandemic erupts that shutting the planet down (human activity) for 6 weeks is the cheapest option.
The appropriate response will depend on how it spreads, infectiousness profile over time, and no doubt a bunch of other factors an infectious disease specialist could bore us all to tears with.
For instance, if the next one is some sort of turbo-hepatitis where the spread is mostly through food and transferring infectious material on surfaces, and people can be infectious for decades, then the appropriate response will be quite different to a shutdown.
Unfortunately I am forced to agree with you.
Can I change the last sentence to "After all, perhaps we will be lucky enough not to have another pandemic so quickly"?
Alwyn your lame claim doesn't add up how come National only had a 2 seat majority relying on the relying on the Maori Party.
Labour Greens Maori Party have a 30 seat majority given the Maori Party will not go with National again.
Alwynger your living in the past first past the post.
We are lucky here in Godzone on how we do politics. On Stuff this morning there is video of Smith conceding Nelson to Rachel Boyack and while I am not in any way a fan of his he has to be commended for the gracious manner in which he did it and the exceptional way that the Nelson Labour crew treated him. Well done everybody. It is well worth a look just to reinforce how thankful we should be about how civilised we are here.
yes, even with polies you despise , you know they still have NZ best interest at heart . looking at many of the overseas polies? maybe not.
Well we probably should give these visa holders their money back. But 23,000 visa's which is probably not the lot, is an awful lot of competition for our young NEETS in the job market – for the 50,000 or so who enter it every year. Any chance of Labour rejiging this? Unlikely.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/123334850/working-holiday-visa-holders-stuck-offshore-beg-for-extensions-to-entry-date
Working Holidays are an outcome of reciprocal agreements with other countries, so we could scrap them, but that would probably result the end of the equivalent schemes, so instead of competing with foreign workers, they would compete with young NZ workers who didn't go on their OEs.
Yeh Nah I haven't looked up any actual figures – don't even know if they exist in total but our birth cohorts are in the 50-60k a year zone hence around that number onto the labour market a year.
Now if we do straight number swaps eg we issue 10 to the UK and they issue 10 to NZ it is going to have a far greater impact on our labour market as we have a much smaller population. Some of the countries mentioned in the article are aslo unlikely I suspect to provide much in the way of kiwi jobs – some of the south americain countries. But 23K is a lot and that won't be all. I really can't see that number of Kiwis leaving . and the ones that stay have to compete with student visas and other low waged immigration as well.
Well Dr Reti, I hope you've packed your magic undies, 'cause you've sure got a shitty new job.
Especially when his leader says she's looking forward to working "closer" with him.
further nats news, maureen pugh has gone from phucking useless ,to a promotion up the list, to whip. she is getting her numbers ready for a rural takeback of the nats! with dr shane as her deputy, that would cover most of the nats trad voters, just need to keep bridges around to appeal to the whiney suitwearers.
It's less a job, more a summer internship, duties amount to nodding on camera beside a leader who will be gone soon. Still, it puts him on the (very) short list for next leader, and they could do a lot worse – and probably will.
National deputy leaders of 2020, a brief history: Bennett – quit Parliament. Kaye – quit Parliament. Brownlee – lost seat. Reti – lost seat.
I don't think any party anywhere can boast such a record.
heh
It's Farrar's 'dream' team. History shows that what goes on in that head's reverie is likely to be some sort of hallucinogenic weirdness.
Deeply disappointed in the cannabis referendum. The combination of punitive, vindictive sanctimonious, self righteous, fake christians and false moralists with the justice industry [cops lawyers judges corrections and would be counsellors looking for a gig] was too much for the referendumb to bear. plus the spiteful bastards against everything. The way Andrew Little brushed it off and then dodged a bullet by jettisoning justice was shameful.As a committed advocate for the working man I am never going to vote for the running dogs of capitalism but the "vote" will go to the greens next time
and if they decriminalise?
life will go on as normal. if Portugal is any example usage will decrease and the kidz who get upin front of the beak and say"it woz the drugz wot made me do it" will have to be responsible for their actions.
it was more how you would respond if they decriminalised…would you then vote for them?
Cannabis is not the only problem with this government….and all the problems..inaction on poverty/environment/animal welfare etc etc..on and on it goes..can all be tracked back to the fact that labour is yet to realise it is clutching to a failed/bankrupt ideology…neoliberalism…as you look around the world its' failures are legion..increasing inequality..fucking up the environment…and doing basically nothing to fix the problems we have…and labour has long wed incrementalism to to that bankrupt neoliberalism…this is what has been the ideology of both our main parties since after the second lange govt and Ruth richardson's magic poverty wand was waved…helen clark/are/were neoliberal incrementalists to the core…(and they are now advising ardern..a fact that chills the blood)..and ardern/robertson learnt at the knees of clark/cullen…and what clark thought of from day one of each term and what drove her actions/inaction was the next election ..doing what she had to do to win that next election..(hence large wedges of middle-class welfare..and the poor can just rot..)…ardern/robertson are following in those shoes ..and the country cannot expect any meaningful change any time soon…(and when did it become the norm that for any pissant/small change that is made…we are made to wait eons for it to actually be enacted..?..when the f. did that delayed-gratification become the norm..?..)…as long as ardern/ labour fly that neoliberal flag..nothing much will change…but the warning for ardern is that what clark did so successfully will not work again…and she should know that when she/labour fail to deliver..that there is now another party the disappointed/disgruntled can turn to at the next election…who they know will do all the shit that needs doing…the greens…so if she doesn't deliver at the next election those tories disgusted with the current iteration/doings of the national party..will likely return home..and the left will turn en masse to the greens….and the centre will not be the certainty she now thinks it is…
ok….but it was a specific question in relation to R P McMurphy's post "Deeply disappointed in the cannabis referendum…."
Im quite sure that there will be many rationales for people not to vote Labour should they so choose
I've just been saying on The Daily Blog in response to Martyn's criticism of Jacinda's neglect of the beneficiaries while spouting away about them in her slogans, if she thinks she can get away with that via her professional careerist apparatchiks and public popularity her neglect of the thinking Left will involve a serious cost.
The Maori Labour MPs, to be taken at all seriously, should have demanded the Welfare Experts Group Report to be adopted immediately. Duds.
Reading the comments above we all seem to be seething about the neglect of beneficiaries.
The marijuana push-back suggests there's work to do and Labour's focus groups might have something to them. When America has gone full-on grass liberalisation it suggests timidity is the essential part of the Party. Why I voted Little for leader and have never voted for Labour.
The timidity was at the birth, though Trotter calls it realism, when the 1935 govt wouldn't put my g.great grandfather in the Legislative Council because of his outright socialism. He got nationalisation of the means of production passed at the British Labour AGM in 1908. If he'd stayed in England he would have been a Lord.