Despite the Green party very slender response to the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter controversy, and the likely hood of it being propped up by further government or Power Company subsidies. And despite the benefits accruing to the environment, and in particular the climate, if the Tiwai Smelter is allowed to close. The Green Party generally kept out of the debate.
The Green Party obviously did not want to be seen to be arguing for the closure of the smelter no matter how much the science demanded it.
But despite thier weak performance over Tiwai, the Green Party have decided to call a conference on climate change. This is tremendous news.
Despite their backpeddling overclimate change, for which their weak showing over Tiwai is just the latest manifestation. There is much that the Green Party does, that I find commendable. The Green Party are the main movers in the very powerful campaign against State asset sales. To which they have won the majority of parliament to. (Which made their silence over Tiwai so out of place. As the closure of Tiwai, as well as being a great boon to the climate, would pretty much torpedo the privatisation of Meridian Energy.)
So it is with great hope that I look forward to this parliamentary conference on climate change.
The Green Party have also announced a new initiative around public transport.
This also, is great, and I look forward to this as well. Good for them.
These are great initiatives.
It is not easy to swim against the tide.
I see that the detail for the climate change conference has yet to be announced. But I do see that it is being held in parliament on June 7 in the Legislative Council Chamber of parliament.
This is great news. All the other parties in parliament should feel obliged to send representatives to give their Party’s views on this pressing existential matter vital to all our futures.
By bringing the issue of climate change into the open, the voting public will be able to find out where all the parties stand.
This can only be a good thing.
The Labour Party in particular should be given a prominent place to lay out their position on climate change.
Personally I would love to see David Cunliffe speak for Labour on this issue. (That is if he has not been gagged).
I would also like to see Sir Peter Gluckman speak. He has been a strong advisor to the government on the need to take action against climate change.
If the major parties, Labour, National refuse to send representatives, or refuse to give civil servant Professor Gluckman leave to speak, or refuse to take part in this parliamentary conference, this in itself would be a clearer indication as to where they stand on Climate Change than if they attended and presented their views.
I have some questions:
Will the conference be open to the public to attend in any capacity?
Can the public make submissions towards the climate change conference?
Will there be a media presence?
Will the precedings be broadcast, or filmed, or otherwise recorded?
Apart from the politicians will there be any invited expert speakers?
The Greens could make a significant impact on energy use by re-instating a 40 hour working week, including closing business down on Sunday as a minimum and from Saturday lunch time as well.
Would be interesting to see the growth in energy use from allowing shops and businesses to open on weekends when that change occurred.
Such a change would benefit families and increase activity in sports, etc and reduce stress on families who would get a genuine break.
Yes Rob, National’s sort of meetings where they sell stuff off, pat each other on the back, and then have a few celebratory whiskys while laughing at pictures of poor people are much, much better. Real men of action, that lot.
Personally I would love to see David Cunliffe speak for Labour on this issue. (That is if he has not been gagged).
I think he’s still gagged Jenny.
Had a prominent member of the ABC club visit my local Labour monthly electorate meeting recently. During a discussion on Labour’s economic policies (still being formulated), this member listed the names of those colleagues who are involved in their preparation. He left out David Cunliffe. It would appear irrational vengeance for fabricated misdeeds still rules the caucus roost.
You’re kidding, right? If he’s gagged, somebody forgot to tell him, because I’ve heard him on the radio, seen him on the telly, read him in the papers and and a quick google search confirms he was fully ungagged as little as 13 hours ago:
In a celebration of human triumph over adversity. Tuhoe build for the future.
Using some of the money from their settlement for past injustices visited on them by the crown, Tuhoe are constructing a new completely sustainable headquarters as a long term asset for the generations to come.
No corporate ponzi schemes or financial wheeling and dealing this will be a real asset for their people and indeed for the wider community and the country.
All New Zealanders of good will, have cause to celebrate Tuhoe’s settlement with the crown and wish them every success with this ambitious and inspiring project.
Through all the years of brutality, theft, murder, injustice racism and unfair imprisonment inflicted on Tuhoe, Tuhoe have endured.
Much more than just environmentally friendly, Te Wharehou o Tuhoe is being built with the future in mind, to be an asset for future generations. Concerns about climate change and seismic events are incorporated into it’s structure.
The building is to be completely self sufficient.
And is being built to an exceptional international standard of care for people and the environment not attempted by anyone else anywhere in this country before. (A least not since Occupation)
TĆ«hoe Chairman Tamati Kruger said the decision to build the iwiâs new headquarters to such tough environmental standards reflects the environmental values of the TĆ«hoe people. âThough the cost may be higher initially, over the years the building will more than pay for itself. We hope itâs something that all the people of the Whakatane district will be proud of and will use as their own.â
Together with Kiwi building company Arrow International and architects Jasmax, TĆ«hoe will be trialing innovative building methods and overcoming many hurdles to meet the Living Building Challenge (LBC) guidelines, many of which are made tougher by New Zealandâs remote location.
âThis building is a lighthouse in a world awash with climate change and social inequality, it shows the way to a different future, where we value people and a healthy environment which supports life and the economy, not one at the expense of the otherâ
Jerome Partington, Jasmax
After a troubled past, Kruger says heâs excited TĆ«hoe has embraced the Living Building concept and will be creating something all New Zealanders can be truly proud of
If you have time, listen to the Radio NZ interview with the architect. Inspirational.
Meanwhile, three politicians, one of them (only just) still functioning, spray the praise around like particularly stupid tomcats marking their territory. A territory called Sycophancia….
1.) Convicted criminal and writer of some of the worst novels of the 20th century, Jeffrey Archer: “She changed this country for the better.”
2.) “She stood for British values and she was quite beautiful.”—Winston Peters, speaking on Te Karere, TV1, 10.8.13 (This only lends weight to rumours that he has started drinking again.)
3.) That piece of idiocy was immediately topped by this contribution by former MP Koro Wetere, who asserted, with a straight face: “She sold British public assets to strengthen the economy for her people.”
I see a business opportunity here: print up a big bunch of cards with the lyrics to “Ding, dong, the witch is dead” on them. Good luck getting a minute’s silence then…
John, take it easy. Everything is working out. We received your seven emails sent last night. Really, there’s no need to panic. Ferguson is on our side. He doesn’t want to go to jail either. The “smoking dope”jibe was planted. It gives the narrative sufficient tension to soothe the media plants’ desire to seem “balanced” in their reporting. People are watching now, these sorts of ruses are required. Don’t take it personally. Everyone knows that you have never smoked marijuana, except for that one time we have on film.
Fletcher is doing a “marrrrvellous” job – heh, geddit? Remember how he pulled it off? Lie to parliament then RETROSPECTIVELY change the record. Same thing here. You have the script – stick to it: “yes, mistakes were made, the law is so confusing, the people involved only ever had the best interests of New Zealand at heart, no point in going over old ground now, we’re going forward with this, national security means details can’t be discussed, the independent overview has determined no one suffered unjustifiable intrusion, no convictions were based on evidence illegally obtained, public confidence must be maintained, the law will be changed retrospectively. Also, we’re going to have one agency to handle everything and align with the Australian reorganisation”. Game over.
The only difficulty we are having with Operation Privatise NZ Security is when you do not stick to the script. What was that about a “long history” of supporting allies – what??? Pull your head in, stop panicking, and stick to the script. By the time you get home, the idea will have been planted into the public consciousness that the matter has been dealt with and now its just a case of going through the process. We have plans for another major story to “break” just before your return home and the chooks will be off chasing that. No need to fill you in at this stage but, rest assured, the situation is under control.
Get some sleep, see some sights, take your meds, practise your lines, and don’t speak to the media without checking your cell phone first.
Had a great long chuckle te other day when I heard a North Island iwi bemoaning the unfairness of the first-in-first-served principle that operates under the Resource Management Act in allocation of New Zealand’s natural resources.
Perhaps they had simply forgotten that the same principle underlies their own various, upheld, claims to New Zealand’s resources.
All the more reason to get behind the Wellington Benefit Rights service which has just become a registered charity : ) Laws may change, but the advocates endure…
There was a lot of rhetoric about the changes and claims the Government didn’t care, Bennett said, “I recognise that these are people’s lives and that they are living them in reality”. Well TG for that.
In this morningâs Herald she says, â⊠I think living on the full DPB is hard. I donât know how you can live on 50%.â
Yet Paula Bennettâs welfare reforms are the very vehicle by which more and more people are being sanctioned.
Sanctions can mean having your benefit cut by 50%, losing it altogether â or never being granted assistance in the first place.
The governmentâs own figures show that over the last six months an average 4,654 beneficiaries a month have had at least half their benefit taken from them, or had it cut completely.
Last month, in March 2013, 5,600 people were officially sanctioned.
National loves her. Sheâs doing a much better job than Jenny Shipley ever did at fronting harsh welfare changes.
Much better to have a Maori woman, a former solo mum, taking the lead, than a former school teacher from the white South Island heartlands.
And Bennett knows what sheâs doing.
She knows it even more than someone like Shipley, which makes her leadership role in this even worse. Paula Bennettâs seeming naivety and smiling, bubbly front mask a long, deep commitment to Nationalâs ideology â a belief in helping the already-rich get richer while the poor are forced into ever deeper poverty, no matter the downstream social and economic costs.
Iâm no psychologist, but Iâm sure thereâs a name for the psychopathy she so evidently displays â a complete disconnect between âcaring for peopleâ and the ideological principles which drive her political career.
freedom: Chilling statement from Bradley more so since the State is determined to not only with-hold disclosure of his statement, but the State is determined to find him guilty of all charges including “aiding the enemy.”
A man showing great courage and integrity under fire from his own country.
There is a great no-holds-barred section against the cowardice of the MSM and the people who staff it. A section which every journalist should make themselves watch, then go sit quietly for a few minutes and ponder.
i won’t mark a timestamp because it is best you watch the panel discussion in its entirety đ
Queenstown is changing its Council services delivery structure back in house. Comment was that some employees connected with Council-owned businesses had been spending too much time and money doing things they wanted rather than what the ratepayers wanted?? Sounds like blaming the workers who were just following the style that the old management had created.. Former Nat who became Mayor Warren (Mini) Cooper thinks its a good idea and is positive about it.
This fits in with my earlier expressed observation that being Right means you never say you have been wrong. Or you look for someone to blame for ineffective outcomes. Reminds me of The Simpsons where Homer confided his methods of dealing with criticism – he just looked for the newest immigrant worker with poor English capacity and blamed it on him. That’s how incompetents manage to survive.
This fits in with my earlier expressed observation that being Right means you never say you have been wrong.
Exactly and because these idiots never get held to account they never learn from their mistakes and so they go through life making the same mistake again and again and again and we’re the ones that end up paying for them.
Let’s be clear though, it’s not limited to politicians but it does seem to be a prerequisite for anyone wanting to climb a ‘corporatists’ ladder.
Next thing ya know these buffons will be promoting themselves as ‘change agents’. I notice elsewhere the corporatists are about to trot out the ‘kaizen’ buzz again (in the name if fishincy n fektivniss n produktivtee). It’s a shame those that initiate the buzz don’t seem to see the need to abide by it themselves – though I have to admit, they are the new Royalty after all!
Bearing in mind as well we currently have lots of baby boomers running businesses who are no longer building a business but a looking to maximise (loot) the last vestiges of profit from them for their retirement.
Low wages, youth rates, etc plays into their hands quite nicely.
Let’s not think that they are there for the long term.
fec,
from Morning Report;
Yep! Maori people committing offences are disproportionately prosecuted compared to non-maori, (30-40% more ) except for a “creeping” of the same “suggestion of a systematic bias” effect for Pasifika. Very little improvement concerning this matter since report in the 80s; let us be Blunt, James, effectively the MOJ and and related blue-tooth agencies are racist. Funnily enough felix, it was the MOJ hacked next.
Yep! Child Poverty in NZ has hovered between 20-25% now for over 20 years.
“-a persistent significant Public Health issue.
-these are (revolving) cohorts now spread across decades (penetrating into the present adult populations, with concomitant health, educational etc issues).
-compounding economic cost will eventually be unaffordable
–requires a societal response, like tobacco, (yet that in itself may take decades).
-Julie Peters, College of Public Health.
National Radio at 12:00 says Mr Key admits that he mislead the public in that he knew in July 2012 of the illegal nature of GCSB and not September 2012 as he publicly said. Throws into question that the “illegality” might have been within the context of Dotcom? Surely the illegality would have been a topic within that framework?
I wonder if the question of Mr Key’s credibility will be aired in the House today? Might come up in Q7 with Russel Norman.
Ian Fletcher : we got it “profoundly wrong”.
“poor performance tolerated because sacking staff = risk”
Key acknowledged that public confidence in GCSB “knocked”. Stout.
“Ian Fletcher : we got it âprofoundly wrongâ.”
Oh Dear….. what to do now what?
I know – let’s see if we can keep this circus running a little longer aye?
I’m not sure which (witch) of the MSN’s latest I saw the Fletch on – but here’s a public advisory:
He lies when his top right hand lip tightens – I should probably charge thousands for that
Questions to Ministers
Dotcom CaseâActions of Government Communications Security Bureau
1. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-LeaderâGreen) to the Minister responsible for the GCSB: Does he consider that he should have been informed about the unlawful bugging of Kim Dotcom earlier than Monday, 17 September 2012; if not, why not?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Minister responsible for the GCSB) : No. I was informed by the director of the Government Communications Security Bureau on 17 September, which was the first day I was in Wellington following travel to Russia and Japan, and the first opportunity I had to meet with the director in a secure environment once he had confirmed that it was likely an unlawful activity had taken place.
a Linn Sondek ME Dallion Rodney explains all these bolts lying in the cycle-ways not quite covering Subterranean Homesick Blues 461Ocean Boulevard Let It Flow : Rust Never Sleeps : A multi-layered transcription In deed. Will the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by. Impressed. đ
actually – you should be directing that question to those that inhabit that edifice on Murphy Street, and quite a few on Molesworth St.
We could see the SIS and GCSB directing their efforts towards tracing the sinners – Colin Moyle style
Tim you raise a subject which is unfinished business for me and a QC would need to be appointed before I could proceed in exposing dirty cops who I have dealt with in my cycles of police complaints (mainly cop involved in the incident with Moyle, who is a career cop).
17 April 1978 Sir Alfred North’s report was released into the December 1976 inquiry where perjury occurred. The full police evidence is still in lock up.
There is no way that the SIS or GCSB would spy on dirty crooked cops.
To some extent I have followed how Thomas was treated by the NZ Police and the denial and reluctance of the police to admit how they altered the course of Arthur’s life and that he is owed a public and written apology.
Did anyone else hear the RNZ News at 11am today? I’m certain I heard Steven Joyce say that the drop in post-grad study was probably/most likely due to an increase in the availability of jobs.
If so, thanx for that Stevie. Here’s me thinking it was more likely due to the fact that
a) students were finding it increasingly more difficult to survive, and rather than suffer another 2 years of hand-to-mouth, beg, borrowing and stealing, they figured there were easier ways….. and
b) because those made redundant from career positions and a lifetime of work, were no longer able to obtain any form of assistance in order to ‘retrain’, let alone pursue things of interest…..
and probably ..c) and d) as well.
I defer to Stevie Joyce’s superior intellect however!
Next thing you know he’ll be telling us that poverty and starvation is the best cure for the obesity problem.
In any event, my advice to the undergrad possessing salesman-like qualities, an aptitude for spin, dishonesty, and a passing interest in ethical behaviour is to stand for parliament – preferably for one of those parties that are right of the new ‘centre’ (sorry – err those of a neo-centrist position).
That’d be OK by me Rob, just as soon as they realise that using large corporate HR companies with template style matching criteria doesn’t necessarily make candidates suitable for ploymint tuneties too. Many a career has been built on it – which is one reason why (as someone else on here has noted) the same old same old fuckups with the same old same old weasels keep happening.
I hear all hospital kitchens are to be fully privatised now.
Don’t know how anyone is supposed to get better on the crap they will be feeding patients, but I guess longer stays and poorer healing is a small cost to pay.
Darien Fenton directed the salient issues to Ryall in Q.T.
“Health Benefits” (Ltd). imagine job losses will primarily be amongst provincially-based moderate “precariat” income workers. Yep.
appendix : get some campylobacter, C. perfringens (letting food sit) or Salmonella onboard in-flight and…well, at least folk will already be in the right location to be sick.
How can they be wrong? They’re talking about privatising another publicly funded service and killing off even more jobs to transfer more taxpayer funds to a private overseas owned corporation. That is their programme. You support that.
When you eventually get around to posting patient health and safety, more unemployed and more lower paid contract workers, I’m only going to reply with knowing the human cost to our fellow Kiwis “youâll go and vote NACT anyway”. You’re shit. đ
Here we go again… The contractors provide a lower than realistic bid, then raise the cost to the hospitals later + increases occur in food borne illnesses due to lax food H&S as workers are paid peanuts and not given enough sick days. So have to come into work just to make ends meet.
All in all, it ends up costing more than doing it in house, as food borne illnesses in a hospital situation can end up very, very expensive due to isolation, clean up and extra medical support, life support or deaths. And if the company collapses it’s even more fun.
But hey, it’s not like externalities and long term cost accounting has ever been popular with National /sigh
I think they’ll be working on shorter stays. They’ll get some failed idiot from the UK to come and say that post operative hospital care is as bad as drug addiction and doctors need to discharge patients far earlier, for their own good. In fact, I bet something like this will happen within the next year.
This is one thing that really annoys me about the right – their complete predictability and lack of imagination. They really are stupid in many ways, which is possibly what makes their ideologies so appealing. Anyone can grasp it in 3 seconds flat – private good, public bad, hate the poor, white is good, but keep the sheets in the wardrobe a bit longer yet.
Do we have a left wing political opposition? I haven’t noticed anything much resembling an organised one. I expect Labour might want to ensure that the private company doesn’t pay youth rates, and Winston would say the hospitals are full of Asians. The Greens say some good stuff, and Hone is in there by himself.
How about a response from the opposition like this.
“Mr Ryall proposes outsourcing. We imagine he has chosen this option as he cannot figure out how to demand that a patient’s family bring in all their food bedding and attend to all their other nursing needs. So he has chosen this as a waystation and then by gradually decreasing the service he will achieve his desired end. This will be headlined as – The patient’s family are in partnership with the Health system to meet their non medical needs- . This has been successfully trialed overseas in [insert name of very poor third world country]
Are the Nact’s so policy deficent that they think this is a good way to cut costs.
“
I reckon that the government could trial the out sourced meals for a few months down at parliament and report back to Ryall.
Visitors would have to supplement patient hospitals meals as the vitamin and mineral content will be reduced with reheating. I also suspect that food poisoning/salmonella would increase. Food poisoning can cause post infective arthritis and hepatitis.
Kitchens are a core function of hospitals. After all, a patient needs food, and having an in house kitchen makes it easier for nutritional requirements to be catered to.
I can see a lot going wrong with this proposal.
The question is. Are the unions and the left going to fight this, or roll over like they did with every other change?
Can we expect to see SFWU members demonstrating outside hospitals, and taking the streets every weekend?
A few National voters still see our public health system as a taonga, and Key kept their vote be promising no major shake ups in health, can we mobilse them?
Are we just going to sit on the internet and whine, or are we going to make an effort?
…but wo takes being a spiteful small-minded hate-filled parasite to a whole new level.
And ironically it’s not caused by his depression, he’s just a complete scumbag lacking in the same basic understandings of human behaviour the rest of us have or have built that makes us not verbally shit on another person right off the bat.
Followed by uttering the litany of Yog-Sothoth three times while pouring blood (can be diluted, source doesn’t matter) onto the remains to prevent it from arising as a whale oil blog commentator/lesser-shoggoth.
It’s talking on twitter to people you know, and a pollie jumps in, and you talk to him. It’s called “Human stuff”. Generally considered a good thing, sometimes confuses, or bores, the children though.
Welcome to rape culture basics then, side-effects from delving deeper into rape culture 101 include raging at victim blaming in the news, not laughing at rape jokes, with occasional cluebattings of people making rape and other threats against females in your presence. Along with dismay and/or anger at politicians/governments not helping rape and domestic violence support services.
None probably, this is rape culture in the context of conservative rural areasâŠ
Yeah everyone knows to watch out for feral provincial types, rural men are animals and they hunt in godforsaken packs like hyenas. Shit, best to lock your daughters up at night if you ever wonder outside of bleeding liberal heart areas of urban Wellington or Auckland.
Probably it was that as far as the Mounties and the school etc were concerned it was Rehtaehâs fault for âdrinking too muchâ.
Of course, rural people are really stupid, judgemental and predictably unconscionable that way.
If you’d bother reading the gawker piece + had prior experience with other rape cases and the reactions to them you’d probably not be sounding like such a twit. As the usual rational used to brush of rape victims is blaming them, while the usual public attacks on them are of the slut/whore variety.
While per prior patterns of behaviour, generally rural areas in North America are less “nice” towards victims of sexual assault at both the police the social levels. Heck, the police in general often have patchy responses to rape and sexual assault victims, even in NZ that usual requires an inquiry or two to correct.
But hey, feel totes free to correct me with ye olde hard evidence :smugface:
(Note, Nick needzors sleep, thus the lack of linkage in this post, plus the computer be dying due to too many tabs open…)
You’re a smart guy and I do like you, but forget “rape culture”: you’re the perfect introduction to “bleeding heart intellectual elitist urban liberal culture”
This applies perfectly to the thread around 20.4.1.1.1 as well. So “smugface” that you really believe that you do know it all about patriarchal societies through the history of human civilisation, and that you are somehow superiorly and culturally fit in morals and values to judge them as being deficient (compared to what? How well we treat our own in modern day society?).
been reading about the types of things young people (and children) have been saying about their behaviour and peers on social media and the lack of awareness of content by parents / caregivers until teachers etc inform them. sigh.is not gonna end well.airplane food in an inpatient unit is not going to float your deflated boat any more than atypical anti-psychotics.
Yeah, it takes an awful amount of education (or personal experience) to get people to people to not abuse others for their sexuality, or in this case, being raped.
As for mental health care, Canada’s been in the shit in the past over it’s mental health inpatient care and suicide prevention if memory serves me right. And some of the mainstream suicide watch prevention methods are pretty fucking hopeless in terms of patients human rights, let alone reducing suicidal ideation.
By my count there are around 100-150 major pre-medieval human civilisations on different continents, the vast majority of which were likely to be patriarchial in nature.
Exactly how many of them are you familiar with that you could draw your conclusions?
Enough. The only times I’ve heard of women being treated well and not as objects to own has been in matriarchies and some nomadic tribes (which tended more to anarchy).
Even though April 9, 1948, is a day of infamy for Palestinians, few commemorative ceremonies will be held.
Sixty-Five years ago today organized Jewish terrorist groups, including the Irgun and Stern gangs, attacked the Village of Deir Yassin, a village whose population numbered some 600 people; 112 women children and old men were brutally butchered in a massacre that has been likened to the Babi Yar Nazi massacre of Jews in Kiev, Ukraine. To add insult to injury, some of the survivors were stripped, loaded on flat truck beds, paraded in a demeaning triumphal drive through Jerusalemâs Jewish neighborhoods, driven out of town, and shot to death. Under the cover of dark, 55 surviving children were loaded on trucks and dumped in a Jerusalem alleyway.
Close to 600 villages were bulldozed and permanently wiped off the map. Some ironies: the Israelis would change the name of the village to Kfar Shaul, move Holocaust survivors into homes that were not destroyed, build a mental institution on the site, and the site itself is within full view of the Holocaust Memorial, a site just recently visited by Barack Obama…
Morrissey Thanks. We need to remember such things.
Lest we forget as a devout promise takes on nightmare proportions when we allow the scope of attention to widen. It isn’t easy being a sentient human being with belief in our basic goodness.
better to be wide-mouthed frog with quick reflexes; young wide-mouth frog is left parent-less prior to the amphibian equivalent of weaning due to a temporary spike in the futures / derivatives / hedges / commodities market for what is between a wide-mouthed frog’s lips. young wmf commences bildungsroman / entwicklungsroman / erziehungsroman ,picaresque ,epic odyssey through local jungle food-hall questing of those just-so neighbours of varying species he / she meets in his / her ecological niche what it is they are to now sustain themselves with; request goes, to say, for example, a mole, “excuse me, but I’m a wide-mouth frog, can you please advise me what is appropriate on the menu for me to eat” (request, when telling joke is with fingers at side of own mouth stretching it, wide “hawo, i a vi mout fwog..”. Mole, for example replies, “well I don’t know what wide -mouth frogs eat but I’m a mole and I eat worms” (politicians)…and so on it goes until frog meets snake đ …”Well, I’m a snake and I eat wide-mouth frogs…”
Wide-mouth frog purses lips and exclaims “ooooh, iz zat wight”.
Andrew Williams on John Key in Parliament. Recounts Key’s history and states:
1. Key double crossed Blinglish in the leadership vote in 2003 despite pledging support for him.
2. Knew about his blind trust.
3. Forgot about his Westpac shares.
4. Forgot about his meeting with the Exclusive Bretheren.
5. Said he never met with Media works to discuss a $43 million loan despite the fact he had.
6. Said that S&P would downgrade NZ’s rating even though it said it would not.
7. Promised that Westpac’s banking would be opened up to competition but did not and then Simon Power went to work for them.
8. Says he cannot recall when he was told by the GCSB about Dotcom.
9. Could not recall shoulder tapping his mate Fletcher for the job of head of GCSB.
He ends up by saying we cannot trust Key and calls for an independent inquiry. Williams does well.
Ultimately that doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this discussion, even if it’s true, which I doubt very much given his usually high standard in the house.
The speech was good. The simple narrative needs to be repeated.
Except that he didn’t and has never claimed that he did. He obviously remembered quite well when pressed on the number he held and that proves that he had used the lesser number on purpose. Probably thinking that having less would magically decrease the amount of conflict of interest he was engaging in.
You may have noticed the ‘meat alternative’ Quorn that has recently appeared on our shelves.
Any of the science folk out there have any advice for us laymen. The manufacturer states it wants to be the first billion dollar meat alternative. Seems it is not a fungus or a mushroom, it is a mould grown in industrial vats. Now where’s that copy of Solyent Green?
Just asking and all, but if someone was to cut the fuel line on a person’s car, in order to intimidate them for a political purpose; that would be terrorism right? And the sort of thing that, in NZ, the SIS should be investigating right, paying attention to groups who routinely vilify the group to which the victim belonged?
I’d have thought most terrorism would be, but we’ve got terrorism laws now right, in this cold new post 9/11 era? So I assume parliament expects them to be used.
If what Iti was doing was possibly terrorism, then this was, surely.
“To think that somebody would attack a nurse for carrying out her duties is really quite deplorable,” said Hilary Graham-Smith of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation.
The centre has been conducting abortions since the early 1970s. And some pro-choice campaigners fear it could signal the beginning of a new era of extremism.
“We’d be concerned that this might be sort of an upscale of activism in terms of a fringe anti-choice movement that are looking to target abortion clinics,” said Dr Morgan Healy of ALRANZ (Abortion Law Reform Association).
In the 1980s a Christchurch clinic was torched, while on the same day an Auckland clinic was threatened with firebombing.
However pro-life campaigners are adamant they would draw the line at the kind of sabotage police are investigating.
“We’re not here to attack people, we’re not here to take away people’s rights but at the same time they take people’s rights away and they attack people in the womb,” said protester Trevor ‘Ofamo’oni.
The president of pro-life group Right To Life said extreme tactics are a thing of the past.
“The whole movement would be totally opposed to such an action,” Ken Orr told ONE News.
Don’t know where the terrorism law has ended up. It turned out to be useless in the Urewera case because as drafted it could only be legally applied to international terrorists, didn’t it? I thought the police have a counter-terrorism role as well? Is this in relation to the abortion clinic nurse whose car was interfered with referred to on TVOne newsotainment tonight?
Dr Collins outlined several requirements that would have had to be filled to meet the act’s criteria:
* That the act in question was a terror act (inducing terror in a civilian population or forcing a government to do or not do an act).
* That the act advanced an ideological, religious or political cause.
* That it resulted in one of five outcomes including death or serious injury, a serious risk to the safety of a population, or serious damage to property of great value
* That the act had taken place, which includes whether there was a credible threat or sufficient planning if it had not been carried out.
the bold one is the only one that is arguably not met, though I only count 4 of the 5 potential outcomes?
Yes, agreed PB. It was this quote from the Solicitor-General that made me think the act had focussed on external threats. There was quite a bit of discussion at the time as to why it was so difficult to apply to domestic terrorism. I could be wrong, but I vaguely recall that it was more aimed at identifying and stopping overseas terrorists or people connected to international terrorist groups from getting here, post 9/11.
“That very quick summary might give an indication as to why I think it’s unnecessarily complicated and very, very difficult to apply. There will be circumstances where [the act] can be made to work, but certainly not in fundamentally domestic circumstances.”
Depends on the context, if it was say a business person or someone with extra-legal debts it would be a crime, but given it’s against someone working at a clinic providing abortion services, I’d class it as terrorism per anti-abortion acts in the USA. As does the FBI presently.
And political purposes generally fall into terrorism definitions historically, albeit with plenty of fuzziness depending on who’s in positions of power.
As for this:
…the SIS should be investigating right…
It depends on the threat level and reporting of prior threats, but I’d assume they’re keeping an eye on potential anti-abortion nuts at home and those we import from the USA. Much as they’ve likely bugged Kyle Chapman to hell and back (if he’s not an agent provocateur that is) to keep an eye on his various rwnj friends.
Yeah, thanks Morrissey at 21 above. We do need to know in the first place and remember, grieve really, in the second place. Gross inhumanity swept over.
Gotta say I’m a bit surprised you haven’t received the Zionist cacophany in answer.
“But they throw fucking stones at us !” – whimper bloody whimper – what ???
And for whomsoever – note I said Zionist, not Jewish.
F*** N(a)Ziland – people do NOT care, people are BRAINWASHED, people are ALL AFTER THEIR own, people have NO SOLIDARITY, people are TWO FACED, people are SELF SERVING, people are DIVISIVE, people believe CRAP, people do not bother to STAND UP, people have become the LAUGHING STOCK of any supposedly “developed” society, people let MAINSTREAM MEDIA distract and manipulate them, even ALLOW LIES AND DISTRACTION to take away their thoughts and attention, and where people SUCK UP to the BOSSES, the GOVERNMENT, the next best USELESS PARTY, the hopeless SHIT MEDIA and whatever goes wrong in this place. [Deleted]
Hey North, I do not know where you come from, but I TOTALLY MEAN it, as I have had to deal with WINZ jerks repeatedly, last time they did not believe my doctors records, so I was sent through hell. They never believe anyone, I just learned tonight, what they still do, and they are CULLING sick and disabled of benefits! This comes from someone working on the bloody frontline, and it is REAL!
They never believe you, they never give you time and credit, they hate you and consider us all that are seriously sick and diabled as FUCKING BLUDGERS!
Hey North, I do not know where you come from, but I TOTALLY MEAN it, as I have had to deal with WINZ jerks repeatedly, last time they did not believe my doctors records, so I was sent through hell. They never believe anyone, I just learned tonight, what they still do, and they are CULLING sick and disabled of benefits! This comes from someone working on the bloody frontline, and it is REAL!
They never believe you, they never give you time and credit, they hate you and consider us all that are seriously sick and diabled as FUCKING BLUDGERS!
So are you damned PROUD to be a New Zealander, when this goes on?
I met many Kiwis today, while busing and walking and else NOBODY TALKS, NOBODY RELATES, I met NO PERSON worth even socialising with.
Do you guys here not get it, part of the damned problem is this damend INTERNET communication, nobody knows how to interact face to face and normally anymore, that is also fucking up the whole left here. You guys thing you have clues and can fucking change things, look at the damned lack of results here, who bloody listens, who takes ACTION.
I said it, others said, it, without real street and other physical action, you life in damned cyber NO space, you are irrelevant, dreaming, dumb and ignorant. YOU are all losers and lost it long ago.
THERE IS NO ACTIVE LEFT IN NZ, THAT IS REALITY, IT IS DEAD!!!
I cannot believe the people of NZ tolerating such crap, even such a jerk being supported by the Ministry of Social Development and WiNZ, this is a NAZI country to me, we never have such SHIT in Europe, you guys better clean up your damned Bratt backyard, that is if you care!
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:Â AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
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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 weekâs 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 â but itâs 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:Â The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasuryâs forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
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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 â during an interview on RNZâs 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? âIt'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 âfutureâ 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 â 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 â as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP â 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 âstrenuouslyâ objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to âtheirâ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – âAn SEP,â he said, âis something that we canât see, or donât see, or our brain doesnât let us see, because we think that itâs somebody elseâs problem. Thatâs what SEP means. Somebody Elseâs Problem. The brain just edits it out, itâs like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper â released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today ….  Buzz from the Beehive There we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Petersâ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard âboilerplateâ Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of âbenignâ becoming âmalignâ and old truths giving way to ...
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This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
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Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
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Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
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Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
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The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of MÄori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
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Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Governmentâs Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. Itâs important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
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The Government is again adding to New Zealandâs growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
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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. Â ...
Todayâs 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 itâs 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. âThis is the second rise in unemployment ...
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This afternoonâs interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour childrenâs spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
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Our two-tiered system for veteransâ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veteransâ affairs spokesperson Greg OâConnor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxonâs management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonightâs court decision to overturn the summons of the Childrenâs Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about MÄori without evidence, says Te PÄti MÄori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. âThe 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 yearâs 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, Labourâs 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 countryâs 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 Governmentâs Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a âget out of jail freeâ 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 PÄti MÄori Justice Spokesperson, TÄkuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, MÄori 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 Zealandâs good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National governmentâs lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te PÄti MÄori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. âThis act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.â Said Te PÄti MÄori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for TÄmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te PÄti MÄori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mĆ TÄmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with MÄori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
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 Councilâs 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. âThese reforms are long overdue. New Zealandâs 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. âThree 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. âBeing 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 Canadaâs 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 ânext moveâ ...
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 Childrenâs Commissioner. âThe 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.    âThe 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. âOur Governmentâs thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening â  Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealandâs foreign policy, weâd 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. âCreating 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 Northlandâs 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. âThis 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 countryâs 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. âThe beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ć-RÄkau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mĆ Ć-RÄkau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ć-RÄkau 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 Governmentâs plan to supercharge New Zealandâs EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four â and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Governmentâs plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. âI 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 â 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 Governmentâs plan to restore law and order. âSpeaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealandâs human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). âNew Zealandâs goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. âIâm putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure âone stop shopâ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. âThe NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
WhÄnau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. âGiving these whÄnau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Governmentâs goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave OâSullivan (OBE). âOur sympathies are with the OâSullivan family with the sad news of Dave OâSullivanâs recent passing,â Mr Peters says. âHis contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmacâs largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff.  âAccess to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwisâ lives. Weâve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,â says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. âWe know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,â Dr Reti says. âEvery day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikoheâs new $14.7 million sports complex. âThe completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,â Mr Jones says. âThis facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Petersâ engagements in TĂŒrkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges.  âReturning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,â Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen â good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood â a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - Â It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Â Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Â Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. âOur Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealandâs hydrogen future, with the opening of the countryâs first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. âI want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealandâs own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealandâs energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. âThe report shows that New Zealandâs emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,â Mr Mitchell ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions â the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapƫ, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are âgoâ for tonightâs launch of Chinaâs next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workersâ hostel. The partyâs 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day â May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. MÄtou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Booksâ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if thereâs something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatuâs former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down â just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABCâs Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
Whatâs to blame for the coalitionâs choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Actâs Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the governmentâs proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
Whatâs more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A âratâ was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University Ken stocker/Shutterstock In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by menâs violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University Oleg Ivanov IL/Shutterstock Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this yearâs federal budget. Thatâs the type of non-emergency surgery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne Amna Artist/Shutterstock One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions â and air pollution â from transport. Is this view correct? Yes â but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney Mark and Anna Photography/Shutterstock As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, ârentvestingâ is being touted as a lifesaver. Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney Netflix The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews. Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and ...
Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoffâs morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
In 1995, Sally Clark went out on her own in a bold and unorthodox attempt to join an illustrious group of equestrian riders conquering the world. In the days of glovebox road maps, brick cell phones, and the hit song How Bizarre, Clark refused to follow Sir Mark Todd, Blyth ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beaglehole, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago niphon/Getty Images The number of people accessing medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand increased significantly between 2006 and 2022. But the disorder is still under-diagnosed and ...
To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. Thereâs nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
People trust other people more than institutions. So how can the media gain that trust through journalists without losing whatâs important about the institution? Anna Rawhiti-Connell reflects on two years of curating the news for The Bulletin.Amonth ago, armed cops descended on my neighbourhood as calls to âlock your ...
Opinion: PFAS â per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances â are a class of thousands of man-made chemicals used widely in everyday consumer items such as textiles, packaging, and cookware, popular for their water, grease and stain-repellent properties. However, the very properties that make PFAS so attractive to manufacturers are also what ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)’ This is the hottest book in New Zealand, number one with a bullet in its first week, selling more than any overseas title, and demand is so huge that it’s already been reprinted. A ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 3 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
A warning â suicide is discussed in this podcast New Zealand’s own long-running soap Shortland Street doesn’t hesitate to kill off its much-loved characters. But would TVNZ dare to kill off our favourite soap? That’s the fear as times get tough in television â even though it’s been pointed out ...
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Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan resistance leader has condemned the United Nations role in allowing Indonesia to âintegrateâ the Melanesian Pacific region in what is claimed to be an âegregious act of inhumanityâ on 1 May 1963. In an open letter to UN Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres, Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A key part of the Albanese governmentâs political strategy is to fill the news cycle with its presence and messaging. Ministers are deployed to the maximum, even when theyâve little to say. This week ...
Recent extreme weather events showed the importance of a well-functioning insurance system, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs minister Andrew Bayly. ...
By Jo Moir, RNZ News political editor, and Craig McCulloch, deputy political editor New Zealandâs Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his âtotally unacceptableâ attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. In an interview on RNZâs ...
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The Wellington-based Reserve Force soldier is now almost three years into his New Zealand Army career with 5th/7th Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. ...
‘
Some very good news from the Green Party.
Despite the Green party very slender response to the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter controversy, and the likely hood of it being propped up by further government or Power Company subsidies. And despite the benefits accruing to the environment, and in particular the climate, if the Tiwai Smelter is allowed to close. The Green Party generally kept out of the debate.
The Green Party obviously did not want to be seen to be arguing for the closure of the smelter no matter how much the science demanded it.
But despite thier weak performance over Tiwai, the Green Party have decided to call a conference on climate change. This is tremendous news.
http://www.greens.org.nz/events/climate-change-conference
Despite their backpeddling overclimate change, for which their weak showing over Tiwai is just the latest manifestation. There is much that the Green Party does, that I find commendable. The Green Party are the main movers in the very powerful campaign against State asset sales. To which they have won the majority of parliament to. (Which made their silence over Tiwai so out of place. As the closure of Tiwai, as well as being a great boon to the climate, would pretty much torpedo the privatisation of Meridian Energy.)
So it is with great hope that I look forward to this parliamentary conference on climate change.
The Green Party have also announced a new initiative around public transport.
http://www.greens.org.nz/events/reconnect-auckland-transport-campaign-launch
This also, is great, and I look forward to this as well. Good for them.
These are great initiatives.
It is not easy to swim against the tide.
I see that the detail for the climate change conference has yet to be announced. But I do see that it is being held in parliament on June 7 in the Legislative Council Chamber of parliament.
This is great news. All the other parties in parliament should feel obliged to send representatives to give their Party’s views on this pressing existential matter vital to all our futures.
By bringing the issue of climate change into the open, the voting public will be able to find out where all the parties stand.
This can only be a good thing.
The Labour Party in particular should be given a prominent place to lay out their position on climate change.
Personally I would love to see David Cunliffe speak for Labour on this issue. (That is if he has not been gagged).
I would also like to see Sir Peter Gluckman speak. He has been a strong advisor to the government on the need to take action against climate change.
If the major parties, Labour, National refuse to send representatives, or refuse to give civil servant Professor Gluckman leave to speak, or refuse to take part in this parliamentary conference, this in itself would be a clearer indication as to where they stand on Climate Change than if they attended and presented their views.
I have some questions:
Will the conference be open to the public to attend in any capacity?
Can the public make submissions towards the climate change conference?
Will there be a media presence?
Will the precedings be broadcast, or filmed, or otherwise recorded?
Apart from the politicians will there be any invited expert speakers?
Who will they be?
The Greens could make a significant impact on energy use by re-instating a 40 hour working week, including closing business down on Sunday as a minimum and from Saturday lunch time as well.
Would be interesting to see the growth in energy use from allowing shops and businesses to open on weekends when that change occurred.
Such a change would benefit families and increase activity in sports, etc and reduce stress on families who would get a genuine break.
Desc of sssmith
+1
I’m actually thinking that a 32 hour work week with a three day weekend is the go.
+1
Tremendous news, they are going to hold a meeting.
Just what we need some more chin waging, shinny arse development and post meet chardonnay swilling.
Except it’s the Greens, so there’s usually actual discussion and a good chance to get them to act.
Thats a Tui ad.
đ
Yes, cos all the political parties are so totes the same /sargasm
Yes Rob, National’s sort of meetings where they sell stuff off, pat each other on the back, and then have a few celebratory whiskys while laughing at pictures of poor people are much, much better. Real men of action, that lot.
I think he’s still gagged Jenny.
Had a prominent member of the ABC club visit my local Labour monthly electorate meeting recently. During a discussion on Labour’s economic policies (still being formulated), this member listed the names of those colleagues who are involved in their preparation. He left out David Cunliffe. It would appear irrational vengeance for fabricated misdeeds still rules the caucus roost.
You’re kidding, right? If he’s gagged, somebody forgot to tell him, because I’ve heard him on the radio, seen him on the telly, read him in the papers and and a quick google search confirms he was fully ungagged as little as 13 hours ago:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Labour-concerned-about-IRD-info-sharing/tabid/1607/articleID/293652/Default.aspx
So are they going to return the buses to public ownership/control?
Nothing from the Greens about whether they will do this. And I have asked them repeatedly, only to be met with silence.
More good news;
In a celebration of human triumph over adversity. Tuhoe build for the future.
Using some of the money from their settlement for past injustices visited on them by the crown, Tuhoe are constructing a new completely sustainable headquarters as a long term asset for the generations to come.
No corporate ponzi schemes or financial wheeling and dealing this will be a real asset for their people and indeed for the wider community and the country.
All New Zealanders of good will, have cause to celebrate Tuhoe’s settlement with the crown and wish them every success with this ambitious and inspiring project.
Through all the years of brutality, theft, murder, injustice racism and unfair imprisonment inflicted on Tuhoe, Tuhoe have endured.
Much more than just environmentally friendly, Te Wharehou o Tuhoe is being built with the future in mind, to be an asset for future generations. Concerns about climate change and seismic events are incorporated into it’s structure.
The building is to be completely self sufficient.
And is being built to an exceptional international standard of care for people and the environment not attempted by anyone else anywhere in this country before. (A least not since Occupation)
http://arrowinternational.co.nz/news.php?id=49
If you have time, listen to the Radio NZ interview with the architect. Inspirational.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2551126/tuhoe-building
Street parties break out around Britain. MeanwhileâŠ
the Daily Telegraph closes Thatcher comments due to abuse
“We have closed comments on every #Thatcher story today,” said editor Tony Gallagher. “Even our address to email tributes is filled with abuse.”
In response, one Twitter user asked: “What does that tell you about public opinion on spending ÂŁ3mil on her funeral?”
Read moreâŠ.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a471463/daily-telegraph-closes-margaret-thatcher-comments-due-to-abuse.html
Meanwhile, three politicians, one of them (only just) still functioning, spray the praise around like particularly stupid tomcats marking their territory. A territory called Sycophancia….
1.) Convicted criminal and writer of some of the worst novels of the 20th century, Jeffrey Archer: “She changed this country for the better.”
2.) “She stood for British values and she was quite beautiful.”—Winston Peters, speaking on Te Karere, TV1, 10.8.13 (This only lends weight to rumours that he has started drinking again.)
3.) That piece of idiocy was immediately topped by this contribution by former MP Koro Wetere, who asserted, with a straight face: “She sold British public assets to strengthen the economy for her people.”
I give Wetere the win but only just. Peters gets a commendation for his sexism though.
Wigan football club chairman wants one minute’s silence to be held before his side’s FA Cup semi-final game.
Good luck with that being observed, mate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22078110
Yes wouldn’t be a good look, the FA are ignoring Dave Whelan who risks the ire of Wigan supporters if he persists.
Heh, more likely they’ll chant “maggie maggie maggie, dead dead dead” if they’re asked to do that…
I see a business opportunity here: print up a big bunch of cards with the lyrics to “Ding, dong, the witch is dead” on them. Good luck getting a minute’s silence then…
Just read Ilargi Meijer on http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/the-lady-who-made-greed-look-good.html
Truly succinct.
Winston has expressed his admiration for MT many times.
Another reason why the left should be wary of going to bed with him,.
‘
Headlines you won’t see to day:
Instead the law breakers will be given a break, and the law they flouted will be scrapped.
Corruption and law breaking to be legalised
P-R-I-V-A-T-E * * * A-N-D * * * C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
TO: John Key
FROM: HQ
RE: Keep calm and carry on
John, take it easy. Everything is working out. We received your seven emails sent last night. Really, there’s no need to panic. Ferguson is on our side. He doesn’t want to go to jail either. The “smoking dope”jibe was planted. It gives the narrative sufficient tension to soothe the media plants’ desire to seem “balanced” in their reporting. People are watching now, these sorts of ruses are required. Don’t take it personally. Everyone knows that you have never smoked marijuana, except for that one time we have on film.
Fletcher is doing a “marrrrvellous” job – heh, geddit? Remember how he pulled it off? Lie to parliament then RETROSPECTIVELY change the record. Same thing here. You have the script – stick to it: “yes, mistakes were made, the law is so confusing, the people involved only ever had the best interests of New Zealand at heart, no point in going over old ground now, we’re going forward with this, national security means details can’t be discussed, the independent overview has determined no one suffered unjustifiable intrusion, no convictions were based on evidence illegally obtained, public confidence must be maintained, the law will be changed retrospectively. Also, we’re going to have one agency to handle everything and align with the Australian reorganisation”. Game over.
The only difficulty we are having with Operation Privatise NZ Security is when you do not stick to the script. What was that about a “long history” of supporting allies – what??? Pull your head in, stop panicking, and stick to the script. By the time you get home, the idea will have been planted into the public consciousness that the matter has been dealt with and now its just a case of going through the process. We have plans for another major story to “break” just before your return home and the chooks will be off chasing that. No need to fill you in at this stage but, rest assured, the situation is under control.
Get some sleep, see some sights, take your meds, practise your lines, and don’t speak to the media without checking your cell phone first.
We’re nearly there. Don’t fuck it up now.
Lynton and Mark
And what advice is blue state digital offering to Shearer?
Great work Lynton.
http://leejasper.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/immigration-wailing-banshee-of-racism.html
Had a great long chuckle te other day when I heard a North Island iwi bemoaning the unfairness of the first-in-first-served principle that operates under the Resource Management Act in allocation of New Zealand’s natural resources.
Perhaps they had simply forgotten that the same principle underlies their own various, upheld, claims to New Zealand’s resources.
… some people
Welfare bill passed into law today…http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8531385/Welfare-shake-up-passed-into-law
All the more reason to get behind the Wellington Benefit Rights service which has just become a registered charity : ) Laws may change, but the advocates endure…
There was a lot of rhetoric about the changes and claims the Government didn’t care, Bennett said, “I recognise that these are people’s lives and that they are living them in reality”. Well TG for that.
Sue Bradford –
In this morningâs Herald she says, â⊠I think living on the full DPB is hard. I donât know how you can live on 50%.â
Yet Paula Bennettâs welfare reforms are the very vehicle by which more and more people are being sanctioned.
Sanctions can mean having your benefit cut by 50%, losing it altogether â or never being granted assistance in the first place.
The governmentâs own figures show that over the last six months an average 4,654 beneficiaries a month have had at least half their benefit taken from them, or had it cut completely.
Last month, in March 2013, 5,600 people were officially sanctioned.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/04/10/the-strange-case-of-paula-bennett/
And we thought Shippley was bad…
back to Ruthanasia days
/shudder
Mum only got through that due to her step-father letting her have the rent occasionally…
Ruthanasia was having an unrefrigerated pie for supper, Bennet is the next morning’s agony
“And we thought Shippley was bad⊔
Ae. More from Bradford –
National loves her. Sheâs doing a much better job than Jenny Shipley ever did at fronting harsh welfare changes.
Much better to have a Maori woman, a former solo mum, taking the lead, than a former school teacher from the white South Island heartlands.
And Bennett knows what sheâs doing.
She knows it even more than someone like Shipley, which makes her leadership role in this even worse. Paula Bennettâs seeming naivety and smiling, bubbly front mask a long, deep commitment to Nationalâs ideology â a belief in helping the already-rich get richer while the poor are forced into ever deeper poverty, no matter the downstream social and economic costs.
Iâm no psychologist, but Iâm sure thereâs a name for the psychopathy she so evidently displays â a complete disconnect between âcaring for peopleâ and the ideological principles which drive her political career.
The changing pace of warming.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/probing_the_reasons_behind_the_changing_pace_of_warming/2637/
from the sharing is caring file:
A short film about the Bradley Manning story
http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?id=103309
and a panel discussion from boots on the ground
freedom: Chilling statement from Bradley more so since the State is determined to not only with-hold disclosure of his statement, but the State is determined to find him guilty of all charges including “aiding the enemy.”
A man showing great courage and integrity under fire from his own country.
There is a great no-holds-barred section against the cowardice of the MSM and the people who staff it. A section which every journalist should make themselves watch, then go sit quietly for a few minutes and ponder.
i won’t mark a timestamp because it is best you watch the panel discussion in its entirety đ
P.S., apologies, meant to include this link to Manning’s Statement
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/12/leaked-audio-of-bradley-mannin.html
Gee, who woulda thunk it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/disunited-in-mourning-police-fear-thatcher-funeral-may-turn-into-security-nightmare-8566452.html
Growing momentum to turn your back on next Wednesdays funeral cortege.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22079749
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Turn-Your-Back-on-Thatcher/163397390349663
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23turnyourback&src=typd
Queenstown is changing its Council services delivery structure back in house. Comment was that some employees connected with Council-owned businesses had been spending too much time and money doing things they wanted rather than what the ratepayers wanted?? Sounds like blaming the workers who were just following the style that the old management had created.. Former Nat who became Mayor Warren (Mini) Cooper thinks its a good idea and is positive about it.
This fits in with my earlier expressed observation that being Right means you never say you have been wrong. Or you look for someone to blame for ineffective outcomes. Reminds me of The Simpsons where Homer confided his methods of dealing with criticism – he just looked for the newest immigrant worker with poor English capacity and blamed it on him. That’s how incompetents manage to survive.
Exactly and because these idiots never get held to account they never learn from their mistakes and so they go through life making the same mistake again and again and again and we’re the ones that end up paying for them.
Let’s be clear though, it’s not limited to politicians but it does seem to be a prerequisite for anyone wanting to climb a ‘corporatists’ ladder.
Next thing ya know these buffons will be promoting themselves as ‘change agents’. I notice elsewhere the corporatists are about to trot out the ‘kaizen’ buzz again (in the name if fishincy n fektivniss n produktivtee). It’s a shame those that initiate the buzz don’t seem to see the need to abide by it themselves – though I have to admit, they are the new Royalty after all!
Nothing wrong with a bit of Kaizen mate. The problem being that even the Japanese are being destroyed right now, by the Koreans and the Chinese.
I agree there’s not …. just so long as its not the Kiwi corporate version (‘top’ down, and for everyone else but the ‘top’)
A lot of private sector management skill in this country – at every level – is laughably incompetent and self serving.
Bearing in mind as well we currently have lots of baby boomers running businesses who are no longer building a business but a looking to maximise (loot) the last vestiges of profit from them for their retirement.
Low wages, youth rates, etc plays into their hands quite nicely.
Let’s not think that they are there for the long term.
roll out the barrel…lets have a barrel of fun…
fec,
from Morning Report;
Yep! Maori people committing offences are disproportionately prosecuted compared to non-maori, (30-40% more ) except for a “creeping” of the same “suggestion of a systematic bias” effect for Pasifika. Very little improvement concerning this matter since report in the 80s; let us be Blunt, James, effectively the MOJ and and related blue-tooth agencies are racist. Funnily enough felix, it was the MOJ hacked next.
Yep! Child Poverty in NZ has hovered between 20-25% now for over 20 years.
“-a persistent significant Public Health issue.
-these are (revolving) cohorts now spread across decades (penetrating into the present adult populations, with concomitant health, educational etc issues).
-compounding economic cost will eventually be unaffordable
–requires a societal response, like tobacco, (yet that in itself may take decades).
-Julie Peters, College of Public Health.
National Radio at 12:00 says Mr Key admits that he mislead the public in that he knew in July 2012 of the illegal nature of GCSB and not September 2012 as he publicly said. Throws into question that the “illegality” might have been within the context of Dotcom? Surely the illegality would have been a topic within that framework?
I wonder if the question of Mr Key’s credibility will be aired in the House today? Might come up in Q7 with Russel Norman.
Ian Fletcher : we got it “profoundly wrong”.
“poor performance tolerated because sacking staff = risk”
Key acknowledged that public confidence in GCSB “knocked”. Stout.
“Ian Fletcher : we got it âprofoundly wrongâ.”
Oh Dear….. what to do now what?
I know – let’s see if we can keep this circus running a little longer aye?
I’m not sure which (witch) of the MSN’s latest I saw the Fletch on – but here’s a public advisory:
He lies when his top right hand lip tightens – I should probably charge thousands for that
Key admits that he mislead the public in that he knew in July 2012 of the illegal nature of GCSB and not September 2012
Neazor was not asked to the 17th September to review the problem.
Not just the public.
on a Lighter note, Buzzy Bee Baldrick,
a Linn Sondek ME Dallion Rodney explains all these bolts lying in the cycle-ways not quite covering Subterranean Homesick Blues 461Ocean Boulevard Let It Flow : Rust Never Sleeps : A multi-layered transcription In deed. Will the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by. Impressed. đ
has anyone here tried ‘breezing’..?
http://whoar.co.nz/2013/former-vice-mayor-allegedly-drove-90-mph-with-genitals-out-window/
phillip ure..
kind of a poor man’s frotage huh?
actually – you should be directing that question to those that inhabit that edifice on Murphy Street, and quite a few on Molesworth St.
We could see the SIS and GCSB directing their efforts towards tracing the sinners – Colin Moyle style
Tim you raise a subject which is unfinished business for me and a QC would need to be appointed before I could proceed in exposing dirty cops who I have dealt with in my cycles of police complaints (mainly cop involved in the incident with Moyle, who is a career cop).
17 April 1978 Sir Alfred North’s report was released into the December 1976 inquiry where perjury occurred. The full police evidence is still in lock up.
There is no way that the SIS or GCSB would spy on dirty crooked cops.
To some extent I have followed how Thomas was treated by the NZ Police and the denial and reluctance of the police to admit how they altered the course of Arthur’s life and that he is owed a public and written apology.
Did anyone else hear the RNZ News at 11am today? I’m certain I heard Steven Joyce say that the drop in post-grad study was probably/most likely due to an increase in the availability of jobs.
If so, thanx for that Stevie. Here’s me thinking it was more likely due to the fact that
a) students were finding it increasingly more difficult to survive, and rather than suffer another 2 years of hand-to-mouth, beg, borrowing and stealing, they figured there were easier ways….. and
b) because those made redundant from career positions and a lifetime of work, were no longer able to obtain any form of assistance in order to ‘retrain’, let alone pursue things of interest…..
and probably ..c) and d) as well.
I defer to Stevie Joyce’s superior intellect however!
Next thing you know he’ll be telling us that poverty and starvation is the best cure for the obesity problem.
In any event, my advice to the undergrad possessing salesman-like qualities, an aptitude for spin, dishonesty, and a passing interest in ethical behaviour is to stand for parliament – preferably for one of those parties that are right of the new ‘centre’ (sorry – err those of a neo-centrist position).
or C
” people are starting to realise that the endless collection of useless PG qualifications does not make you more employable”.
That’d be OK by me Rob, just as soon as they realise that using large corporate HR companies with template style matching criteria doesn’t necessarily make candidates suitable for ploymint tuneties too. Many a career has been built on it – which is one reason why (as someone else on here has noted) the same old same old fuckups with the same old same old weasels keep happening.
I hear all hospital kitchens are to be fully privatised now.
Don’t know how anyone is supposed to get better on the crap they will be feeding patients, but I guess longer stays and poorer healing is a small cost to pay.
To be centralised apparently. Auckland and Christchurch. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876642
Labour http://www.labour.org.nz/news/hospital-catering-contract-cold-comfort-for-patients-and-workers and Greens http://www.greens.org.nz/press-releases/outsourcing-hospital-food-will-cost-nz-long-run already pointing out the mass job losses and the likelihood that it will cost us in the long run.
Another day, another kick in the guts for New Zealand workers.
Darien Fenton directed the salient issues to Ryall in Q.T.
“Health Benefits” (Ltd). imagine job losses will primarily be amongst provincially-based moderate “precariat” income workers. Yep.
appendix : get some campylobacter, C. perfringens (letting food sit) or Salmonella onboard in-flight and…well, at least folk will already be in the right location to be sick.
How nice. Even fewer jobs in our small centres. How many in Ryall’s electorate I wonder?
I don’t agree with moves like this. I believe the short term saving will lead to long term losses.
And yet you’ll go and vote NACT anyway.
No party is 100% correct in their decisions (ie Shearer) this is one of the times they’re wrong.
How can they be wrong? They’re talking about privatising another publicly funded service and killing off even more jobs to transfer more taxpayer funds to a private overseas owned corporation. That is their programme. You support that.
What losses do you foresee?
Actually, don’t bother. It’s a rat trap, Billy.
When you eventually get around to posting patient health and safety, more unemployed and more lower paid contract workers, I’m only going to reply with knowing the human cost to our fellow Kiwis “youâll go and vote NACT anyway”. You’re shit. đ
T_T
Here we go again… The contractors provide a lower than realistic bid, then raise the cost to the hospitals later + increases occur in food borne illnesses due to lax food H&S as workers are paid peanuts and not given enough sick days. So have to come into work just to make ends meet.
All in all, it ends up costing more than doing it in house, as food borne illnesses in a hospital situation can end up very, very expensive due to isolation, clean up and extra medical support, life support or deaths. And if the company collapses it’s even more fun.
But hey, it’s not like externalities and long term cost accounting has ever been popular with National /sigh
+1
good thing that hospitals are not full of patients with variable and challenging dietary requirements đ
I think they’ll be working on shorter stays. They’ll get some failed idiot from the UK to come and say that post operative hospital care is as bad as drug addiction and doctors need to discharge patients far earlier, for their own good. In fact, I bet something like this will happen within the next year.
This is one thing that really annoys me about the right – their complete predictability and lack of imagination. They really are stupid in many ways, which is possibly what makes their ideologies so appealing. Anyone can grasp it in 3 seconds flat – private good, public bad, hate the poor, white is good, but keep the sheets in the wardrobe a bit longer yet.
So predictable and transparent yet our left wing political opposition is outflanked at every turn?
That’s what happens when you let PR hacks manage your messages…
Do we have a left wing political opposition? I haven’t noticed anything much resembling an organised one. I expect Labour might want to ensure that the private company doesn’t pay youth rates, and Winston would say the hospitals are full of Asians. The Greens say some good stuff, and Hone is in there by himself.
How about a response from the opposition like this.
“Mr Ryall proposes outsourcing. We imagine he has chosen this option as he cannot figure out how to demand that a patient’s family bring in all their food bedding and attend to all their other nursing needs. So he has chosen this as a waystation and then by gradually decreasing the service he will achieve his desired end. This will be headlined as – The patient’s family are in partnership with the Health system to meet their non medical needs- . This has been successfully trialed overseas in [insert name of very poor third world country]
Are the Nact’s so policy deficent that they think this is a good way to cut costs.
“
I reckon that the government could trial the out sourced meals for a few months down at parliament and report back to Ryall.
Visitors would have to supplement patient hospitals meals as the vitamin and mineral content will be reduced with reheating. I also suspect that food poisoning/salmonella would increase. Food poisoning can cause post infective arthritis and hepatitis.
Kitchens are a core function of hospitals. After all, a patient needs food, and having an in house kitchen makes it easier for nutritional requirements to be catered to.
I can see a lot going wrong with this proposal.
The question is. Are the unions and the left going to fight this, or roll over like they did with every other change?
Can we expect to see SFWU members demonstrating outside hospitals, and taking the streets every weekend?
A few National voters still see our public health system as a taonga, and Key kept their vote be promising no major shake ups in health, can we mobilse them?
Are we just going to sit on the internet and whine, or are we going to make an effort?
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2013/04/brislen-and-robertson-square-off-in-unedifying-spectacle-on-twitter/#more-90017
Now I’m no expert but I’m guessing telling the deputy leader of a political party “fuck you” is probably not the best way to get any future work…
That’s hilarious. I don’t know what’s the funniest part.
Is it Failoil lecturing Paul Brislen(!) about internet behaviour?
Is that the part where he sotto voice suggests his idiot minions might want to email Paul’s employer?
Is it the suggestion that Paul’s employer’s think Fail’s complaint might not be ridiculous?
Is it that he is persisting in pretending that the little Twitter maps are insightful in any way whatsoever?
What an absolute tool that man is.
shit.
Actually clicked on it.
Regret.
Revulsion.
Dirty.
I mean, I’m all for calling someone a fuckwit (obviously), but wo takes being a spiteful small-minded hate-filled parasite to a whole new level.
And ironically it’s not caused by his depression, he’s just a complete scumbag lacking in the same basic understandings of human behaviour the rest of us have or have built that makes us not verbally shit on another person right off the bat.
Empty your cache AT ONCE McFlock! Then piss on it quick!
Then burn the whole machine. And run it over. And piss on it again.
Followed by uttering the litany of Yog-Sothoth three times while pouring blood (can be diluted, source doesn’t matter) onto the remains to prevent it from arising as a whale oil blog commentator/lesser-shoggoth.
that is an Excellent and Very funny observation of knickers
Yeah, pretty much did that sans pissing on the cpu đ
Ha… thanks for the warning.
Probably just thought it was funny.
Can anyone with experience in business let me know if thats considered effective networking?
It’s talking on twitter to people you know, and a pollie jumps in, and you talk to him. It’s called “Human stuff”. Generally considered a good thing, sometimes confuses, or bores, the children though.
Twitter is an excellent idiot detection system.
Now Iâm no expert…
Hurrah! He’s finally written something honest!
I don’t mind admitting I don’t know everything.
Good man. A measured and intelligent reply to my attempt to provoke.
Well done, chris73.
Caught me off guard
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/04/09/why/
Fuck.
Clear case of rape and the police did nothing, the rapist shits even photographed themselves in the act.
Fuck.
I don’t know as well. Kind of wish I hadn’t read it.
Welcome to rape culture basics then, side-effects from delving deeper into rape culture 101 include raging at victim blaming in the news, not laughing at rape jokes, with occasional cluebattings of people making rape and other threats against females in your presence. Along with dismay and/or anger at politicians/governments not helping rape and domestic violence support services.
One question comes: Who were the rapists and what were their connections to the
richgovernment?None probably, this is rape culture in the context of conservative rural areas…
Probably it was that as far as the Mounties and the school etc were concerned it was Rehtaeh’s fault for “drinking too much”.
Yeah everyone knows to watch out for feral provincial types, rural men are animals and they hunt in godforsaken packs like hyenas. Shit, best to lock your daughters up at night if you ever wonder outside of bleeding liberal heart areas of urban Wellington or Auckland.
Of course, rural people are really stupid, judgemental and predictably unconscionable that way.
đ
If you’d bother reading the gawker piece + had prior experience with other rape cases and the reactions to them you’d probably not be sounding like such a twit. As the usual rational used to brush of rape victims is blaming them, while the usual public attacks on them are of the slut/whore variety.
While per prior patterns of behaviour, generally rural areas in North America are less “nice” towards victims of sexual assault at both the police the social levels. Heck, the police in general often have patchy responses to rape and sexual assault victims, even in NZ that usual requires an inquiry or two to correct.
But hey, feel totes free to correct me with ye olde hard evidence :smugface:
(Note, Nick needzors sleep, thus the lack of linkage in this post, plus the computer be dying due to too many tabs open…)
“smugface”?
lol what are you 12?
đ
You’re a smart guy and I do like you, but forget “rape culture”: you’re the perfect introduction to “bleeding heart intellectual elitist urban liberal culture”
This applies perfectly to the thread around 20.4.1.1.1 as well. So “smugface” that you really believe that you do know it all about patriarchal societies through the history of human civilisation, and that you are somehow superiorly and culturally fit in morals and values to judge them as being deficient (compared to what? How well we treat our own in modern day society?).
đ
“bleeding heart intellectual elitist urban liberal culture”
đ
been reading about the types of things young people (and children) have been saying about their behaviour and peers on social media and the lack of awareness of content by parents / caregivers until teachers etc inform them. sigh.is not gonna end well.airplane food in an inpatient unit is not going to float your deflated boat any more than atypical anti-psychotics.
Yeah, it takes an awful amount of education (or personal experience) to get people to people to not abuse others for their sexuality, or in this case, being raped.
As for mental health care, Canada’s been in the shit in the past over it’s mental health inpatient care and suicide prevention if memory serves me right. And some of the mainstream suicide watch prevention methods are pretty fucking hopeless in terms of patients human rights, let alone reducing suicidal ideation.
What is it with the Anglo Saxon culture and the way they treat women?
It’s not just the Anglo-Saxons. It’s all of the patriarchal societies throughout history.
This.
Yes, because both of you are so knowledgeable about the range of patriarchal civilisations throughout the last five thousand years of human history.
đ
By my count there are around 100-150 major pre-medieval human civilisations on different continents, the vast majority of which were likely to be patriarchial in nature.
Exactly how many of them are you familiar with that you could draw your conclusions?
Enough. The only times I’ve heard of women being treated well and not as objects to own has been in matriarchies and some nomadic tribes (which tended more to anarchy).
Remember Deir Yassin
by RAOUF J. HALABY
Even though April 9, 1948, is a day of infamy for Palestinians, few commemorative ceremonies will be held.
Sixty-Five years ago today organized Jewish terrorist groups, including the Irgun and Stern gangs, attacked the Village of Deir Yassin, a village whose population numbered some 600 people; 112 women children and old men were brutally butchered in a massacre that has been likened to the Babi Yar Nazi massacre of Jews in Kiev, Ukraine. To add insult to injury, some of the survivors were stripped, loaded on flat truck beds, paraded in a demeaning triumphal drive through Jerusalemâs Jewish neighborhoods, driven out of town, and shot to death. Under the cover of dark, 55 surviving children were loaded on trucks and dumped in a Jerusalem alleyway.
Close to 600 villages were bulldozed and permanently wiped off the map. Some ironies: the Israelis would change the name of the village to Kfar Shaul, move Holocaust survivors into homes that were not destroyed, build a mental institution on the site, and the site itself is within full view of the Holocaust Memorial, a site just recently visited by Barack Obama…
Read more….
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/09/deir-yassin-massacre-remembered/
Morrissey Thanks. We need to remember such things.
Lest we forget as a devout promise takes on nightmare proportions when we allow the scope of attention to widen. It isn’t easy being a sentient human being with belief in our basic goodness.
better to be wide-mouthed frog with quick reflexes; young wide-mouth frog is left parent-less prior to the amphibian equivalent of weaning due to a temporary spike in the futures / derivatives / hedges / commodities market for what is between a wide-mouthed frog’s lips. young wmf commences bildungsroman / entwicklungsroman / erziehungsroman ,picaresque ,epic odyssey through local jungle food-hall questing of those just-so neighbours of varying species he / she meets in his / her ecological niche what it is they are to now sustain themselves with; request goes, to say, for example, a mole, “excuse me, but I’m a wide-mouth frog, can you please advise me what is appropriate on the menu for me to eat” (request, when telling joke is with fingers at side of own mouth stretching it, wide “hawo, i a vi mout fwog..”. Mole, for example replies, “well I don’t know what wide -mouth frogs eat but I’m a mole and I eat worms” (politicians)…and so on it goes until frog meets snake đ …”Well, I’m a snake and I eat wide-mouth frogs…”
Wide-mouth frog purses lips and exclaims “ooooh, iz zat wight”.
Yep, definitely need to remember that Israel was birthed in the spilling of innocent blood.
Israel is a colonisation project. It is also consider by the Yanks to be a strategic ally in the Middle East.
So Israel can basically do what it likes without much protest from the West.
Andrew Williams on John Key in Parliament. Recounts Key’s history and states:
1. Key double crossed Blinglish in the leadership vote in 2003 despite pledging support for him.
2. Knew about his blind trust.
3. Forgot about his Westpac shares.
4. Forgot about his meeting with the Exclusive Bretheren.
5. Said he never met with Media works to discuss a $43 million loan despite the fact he had.
6. Said that S&P would downgrade NZ’s rating even though it said it would not.
7. Promised that Westpac’s banking would be opened up to competition but did not and then Simon Power went to work for them.
8. Says he cannot recall when he was told by the GCSB about Dotcom.
9. Could not recall shoulder tapping his mate Fletcher for the job of head of GCSB.
He ends up by saying we cannot trust Key and calls for an independent inquiry. Williams does well.
Williams is a self important drunk same as his boss, just because he disses a dickhead like Key doesn’t make him any less of a drunken buffoon
Ultimately that doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this discussion, even if it’s true, which I doubt very much given his usually high standard in the house.
The speech was good. The simple narrative needs to be repeated.
Yeah it was a bloody good speech.
Needs to be repeated at every opportunity for the next [x] months.
Except that he didn’t and has never claimed that he did. He obviously remembered quite well when pressed on the number he held and that proves that he had used the lesser number on purpose. Probably thinking that having less would magically decrease the amount of conflict of interest he was engaging in.
You may have noticed the ‘meat alternative’ Quorn that has recently appeared on our shelves.
Any of the science folk out there have any advice for us laymen. The manufacturer states it wants to be the first billion dollar meat alternative. Seems it is not a fungus or a mushroom, it is a mould grown in industrial vats. Now where’s that copy of Solyent Green?
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00253-002-0931-x#page-1
http://www.foodrevolution.org/askjohn/35.htm
http://jcp.bmj.com/content/55/11/876.2.full
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fcn/gras_notices/grn000091.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn
http://www.quorn.us/about-quorn/
Just asking and all, but if someone was to cut the fuel line on a person’s car, in order to intimidate them for a political purpose; that would be terrorism right? And the sort of thing that, in NZ, the SIS should be investigating right, paying attention to groups who routinely vilify the group to which the victim belonged?
It’d be more of a criminal act and a police matter I would’ve thought.
I’d have thought most terrorism would be, but we’ve got terrorism laws now right, in this cold new post 9/11 era? So I assume parliament expects them to be used.
If what Iti was doing was possibly terrorism, then this was, surely.
When did this happen, Pb?
Auckland, last month: http://t.co/y3e2w4Cc4V
Fuck. Any of Slater and Farrar’s lot been laying low for a few weeks?
I could probably whip up a little list for the SIS to be starting with.
Fuck, if they start up in CHCH and I hear about it I’ll be pulling hours on escort volunteering.
And Ken Orr’s a lying sack of shit, I really doubt he’d do anything to stop an attack on property if he heard about it.
Don’t know where the terrorism law has ended up. It turned out to be useless in the Urewera case because as drafted it could only be legally applied to international terrorists, didn’t it? I thought the police have a counter-terrorism role as well? Is this in relation to the abortion clinic nurse whose car was interfered with referred to on TVOne newsotainment tonight?
I can’t remember why the Urewera one fell apart, think it was more about proving level of actual intent and planning than international stuff.
Yes, you’re right. Fairly succint explanation of the problems with the terrorism act in that case is here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10474950
The last bit suggests the act was aimed more at external terrorist threats.
Cheers.
the bold one is the only one that is arguably not met, though I only count 4 of the 5 potential outcomes?
Yes, agreed PB. It was this quote from the Solicitor-General that made me think the act had focussed on external threats. There was quite a bit of discussion at the time as to why it was so difficult to apply to domestic terrorism. I could be wrong, but I vaguely recall that it was more aimed at identifying and stopping overseas terrorists or people connected to international terrorist groups from getting here, post 9/11.
“That very quick summary might give an indication as to why I think it’s unnecessarily complicated and very, very difficult to apply. There will be circumstances where [the act] can be made to work, but certainly not in fundamentally domestic circumstances.”
Depends on the context, if it was say a business person or someone with extra-legal debts it would be a crime, but given it’s against someone working at a clinic providing abortion services, I’d class it as terrorism per anti-abortion acts in the USA. As does the FBI presently.
And political purposes generally fall into terrorism definitions historically, albeit with plenty of fuzziness depending on who’s in positions of power.
As for this:
It depends on the threat level and reporting of prior threats, but I’d assume they’re keeping an eye on potential anti-abortion nuts at home and those we import from the USA. Much as they’ve likely bugged Kyle Chapman to hell and back (if he’s not an agent provocateur that is) to keep an eye on his various rwnj friends.
Yeah, thanks Morrissey at 21 above. We do need to know in the first place and remember, grieve really, in the second place. Gross inhumanity swept over.
Gotta say I’m a bit surprised you haven’t received the Zionist cacophany in answer.
“But they throw fucking stones at us !” – whimper bloody whimper – what ???
And for whomsoever – note I said Zionist, not Jewish.
[Deleted]
I like being minimalised for speaking the truth, but then again, that is how it works. Thanks.
Mate, slow down.
Hey North, I do not know where you come from, but I TOTALLY MEAN it, as I have had to deal with WINZ jerks repeatedly, last time they did not believe my doctors records, so I was sent through hell. They never believe anyone, I just learned tonight, what they still do, and they are CULLING sick and disabled of benefits! This comes from someone working on the bloody frontline, and it is REAL!
They never believe you, they never give you time and credit, they hate you and consider us all that are seriously sick and diabled as FUCKING BLUDGERS!
And society is NO BETTER, look this thread up:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10876345
So are you damned PROUD to be a New Zealander, when this goes on?
I met many Kiwis today, while busing and walking and else NOBODY TALKS, NOBODY RELATES, I met NO PERSON
Hey North, I do not know where you come from, but I TOTALLY MEAN it, as I have had to deal with WINZ jerks repeatedly, last time they did not believe my doctors records, so I was sent through hell. They never believe anyone, I just learned tonight, what they still do, and they are CULLING sick and disabled of benefits! This comes from someone working on the bloody frontline, and it is REAL!
They never believe you, they never give you time and credit, they hate you and consider us all that are seriously sick and diabled as FUCKING BLUDGERS!
And society is NO BETTER, look this thread up:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10876345
So are you damned PROUD to be a New Zealander, when this goes on?
I met many Kiwis today, while busing and walking and else NOBODY TALKS, NOBODY RELATES, I met NO PERSON worth even socialising with.
Do you guys here not get it, part of the damned problem is this damend INTERNET communication, nobody knows how to interact face to face and normally anymore, that is also fucking up the whole left here. You guys thing you have clues and can fucking change things, look at the damned lack of results here, who bloody listens, who takes ACTION.
I said it, others said, it, without real street and other physical action, you life in damned cyber NO space, you are irrelevant, dreaming, dumb and ignorant. YOU are all losers and lost it long ago.
THERE IS NO ACTIVE LEFT IN NZ, THAT IS REALITY, IT IS DEAD!!!
There is always the “last straw” and “solution” I think of every day and night, but “enjoy” yourselves, I will not spoil the fun.
Auckland City Mission really “cares”, I suppose, the Bratt and extreme way, ok:
http://www.aucklandcitymission.org.nz/uploads/file/Calder%20Centre/Sickness%20Benefit%20explanation.pdf
I cannot believe the people of NZ tolerating such crap, even such a jerk being supported by the Ministry of Social Development and WiNZ, this is a NAZI country to me, we never have such SHIT in Europe, you guys better clean up your damned Bratt backyard, that is if you care!