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.
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.
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
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In announcing changes to the school lunches programme, David Seymour said kids would no longer be served ‘woke’ foods. To clear up any confusion, The Spinoff has compiled a guide to the wokeness levels of some common food items. Apple = NOT WOKE Avocado = WOKE Avocado, smashed = EVEN ...
The Minister Responsible for GCSB and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security have been notified of this review, and have been provided a finalised Terms of Reference. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Minglu Chen, Senior Lecturer, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Robert Way/Shutterstock As the past few years have illustrated so clearly, the Australia-China relationship is complicated. As such, it is crucial for Australians to develop a more nuanced understanding of ...
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Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Jane Arthur, author of Brown Bird, and former bookseller at Good Books.The book I wish I’d writtenI have been working on not comparing myself to others. On accepting that what I can ...
The final decision on the Wellington District Plan makes it official: High-density housing is legal across most of Wellington. Housing minister Chris Bishop has announced his decision on the Wellington District Plan, approving a series of amendments to radically upzone most of Wellington, allowing tens of thousands of new townhouses ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to ...
RNZ News As Israel presses ahead with strikes in Rafah and seizing the Rafah crossing from Egypt, aid agencies are sounding the alarm of a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”. Rafah was “significant” because it was the only part in Gaza that had not been terribly damaged by the conflict, United Nations ...
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Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
Productivity apps now make up a big chunk of the software market. But do they work? And why do they all have AI integrations?Despite being firmly on the record as a physical planner fan, I sometimes dream of something better than my pretty diary and its scrawled, ugly, interior ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the names of deceased people, and describes ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. First Nations people in Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University Netflix Baby Reindeer’s phenomenal success has much to do with its writer and lead, Richard Gadd, who plays Donny in a tender semi-autobiographical account of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking. Gadd’s story has ...
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The inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones has turned up a new witness who says he saw two teenagers and a small child in a high vis vest in the area where the boy’s body was found the day he died. Lachie’s body was discovered face up ...
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Simeon Brown, Chris Luxon, and Wayne Brown climbed into a hole and announced a plan to solve Auckland’s water woes. This is how it’ll work. New Zealand’s pipes are munted. They’re cracked and leaking, and struggling to handle all the extra poos excreted by our rising population. It’s a big, ...
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Comment: The weekly Monday post-Cabinet press conference is a useful forum for observing Christopher Luxon and how he is developing into the job of Prime Minister. He attempts to convey the impression of a man of action, speaking fast, delivering memorised National Party strategies in a connect-the-slogans kind of way, ...
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
https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1325937738311413760
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.