it’s a pile of rightwing-shite/puffery – except for reason number six – which is a valid one..
(loved this tweet on that front page tho’..)
‘the scots voted to boot out the english – the english voted to work 80 hrs a week in the call-centre while pics of royal baby projected onto their eyeballs’
‘It’s a result that was made possible by a sheeplike, frightened and rancorous population that appears increasingly disposed to believe all the lies that it is told by its vile newspapers. It is an irrational, stupid and fearful vote by an electorate that doesn’t even recognize its own self-interest, let alone the interests of others, that has abandoned any commitment to even the most elementary principles of social justice; that didn’t couldn’t even see that Miliband’s tepid, focus-group-manufactured One Nation ‘fairness’ was still preferable to the dismal social cruelty that the government has already inflicted and which is certain to intensify in the next five years.
In doing so the English have demonstrated extraordinary political cowardice. Lacking the gumption to challenge the powerful, they have preferred to elect a government that victimizes the powerless. This is a population that prefers to doff the cap than bite the hand that it thinks feeds; that expresses its digusts with politicians by voting in the worst of them; that drapes itself in the Union Jack and doffs its collective hat to its masters in the hope that it can be like them; that would rather blame the Scots who want to fight austerity than fight it themselves.’
See my comment at the top. This has combined a number of the left wing nonsensical excuses for their failure to convince the electorate to vote for them.
And yet the SNP put forward more left wing policies to end austerity, tax the rich and protect the welfare state and got 56 out of 59 seats.
The turn out in Scotland was higher.
Offering Tory lite is not the solution. As a Tory yourself Gosman, you want Labour in NZ to come to the conclusion that they should simply mimic National Party policies.
The election results in Scotland and England prove you wrong.
Bland imitation of Tory policies by Labour in England resulted in electoral disaster.
Bold anti -austerity policies by the SNP resulted in a landslide.
I think the SNP’s ‘scottish wash’ of Scotland had far more to do with the first word in their party’s title and the rise of Scottish Nationalism than anything else.
“I think the SNP’s ‘scottish wash’ of Scotland had far more to do with the first word in their party’s title and the rise of Scottish Nationalism than anything else.”
If only there were some way of measuring the actual level of support for Scottish nationalism…
@Felix – turnout was particularly high in the Scottish seats I do not find it surprising that the SNP did so well to piggyback on the strong Scottish nationalism that is running through the country.
I find it strange that so many seem to believe that Labour in the UK only had to come out with more left policies to get over the line when my preferred party in the UK was well to the left of Labour and only secured a single seat.
I believe the first step to change in the UK is to reform the voting platform to make it more representative, however, the last time it was put to the public over there it was voted down convincingly.
when my preferred party in the UK was well to the left of Labour and only secured a single seat.
6.4M votes – a quarter of all votes cast in the election – were taken by the Lib Dems, Greens and UKIP put together. And between them they got just 10 MPs out of 650.
The DUP got a measly 0.18M votes and received 8 MPs.
That’s utterly fucked.
So to my mind Left and Right politics has relatively little to do with it; the unproportional UK electoral system is totally undemocratic.
Of course, UK Labour won’t support the move to a proportional electoral system because they’d lose a couple dozen more seats than they already have.
@CV When you’re a member of the political elite it matters not whether you’re to the right or left, more that you protect the rights and privileges of the political elite and maintain your nose in the trough.
As an example just take a look at our higher salaries commission and annual speakers tour junkets.
Offering Tory lite is not the solution. As a Tory yourself Gosman, you want Labour in NZ to come to the conclusion that they should simply mimic National Party policies.
QFT
The Left would get better results if it showed courage and commitment in it’s own policies rather than just trying to be slightly less to the right than the Political-Right. It is this latter that has had our society becoming ever more unequal and now collapsing under the weight of corruption in both government and private circles.
See my comment at the top. This has combined a number of the left wing nonsensical excuses for their failure to convince the electorate to vote for them.
Oh, I think you’ll find that they’ll be attacking the middle class outright as well so as to induce even more fear in the electorate and lower wages further. The end result being even more working poor and further enrichment of the already rich.
Labour has proposed withholding state support such as tax credits and Working For Families from people who are not enrolled to vote.
Mr Barnett said the submission was from the party, which did not set policy, and wanted the committee to investigate the idea – not necessarily recommend it.
Maybe these submissions from “the party” need to be “investigated” in private. There always seems to be at least one terrible idea for the herald to run with. This just makes Labour look like politicking hypocrites.
I checked out a few bits of what looked like hard info on that site that proved to be moderately accurate when I back checked them.
The people associated with the site are accurate. Phillip Raymond Nottingham was in court when Cameron Slater won his journalism appeal, and lost his ability to protect his sources. From the position of on of them, he was the arsehole who illegally took some photos of me in court that went up on Lauda Finem. I noticed him when he was commenting about how well Cameron Slater was doing, when in fact Slater was making a fool of himself with half baked irrelevant arguments. Apparently the other Nottingham brother was there as well but I didn’t notice him.
I did see Phillip Nottingham talking animatedly with a group of the other supporters of Cameron Slater to the great man himself. Which kind of points to the lie that the Lauda Finem authors don’t know him.
For instance some of the more coherent posts appear to be moderately accurate once you look at the verifiable facts. For instance…
Some of this stuff I’ve checked out over the years, and it appears to be quite accurate at a company level. The companies office runs a great site, and most bankruptcy information is available if you know where to look for it.
However the author of the LaudaFinemScam site appears to be someone with some severe anger issues directed at these two brothers running Lauda Finem. I also suspect that they spend considerable time looking at these two.
They can’t even get Keith Ng’s first name right (or spell Matthew Dentith or Alastair Thompson correctly) so that should be a big hint as to the quality of their information.
Very interesting read today from Laudafinem, very little to do with politics but a lot to do with an old “friend” of The Standard.
Has The Standard just been used to facilitate a conspiracy? Was the whole Rachinger thing just a beat-up to conceal a fraud?
Fascinating read about the underbelly of Auckland “business”.
Why are you taking LF seriously, Arandar?
[lprent: We had an identity hijacker astroturfing this morning – probably from Lauda Finem ]
Scoop has published the transcript of the interview between Lisa Owen and Simon Bridges re Auckland transport.
Lisa is a great interviewer isn’t she? Simon fluffs a great deal when you read his words rather than just listen. It does seem that the Government is blocking progress for Auckland perhaps to wait for a mayor like Banks or some other Right wing nut.
another column from Eric Watson in the NZH ,about Mothers Day this time.Is he trying to reinvent himself as some kind of kind,caring human being and if so…why!
‘The Fuller Picture – 2015 UK Elections: Voters abandoning parties or parties abandoning voters?’
(Currently a Research Associate at the INSYTE Group, Dr. Roslyn Fuller has previously lectured at Trinity College and the National University of Ireland. )
“Labour leader Ed Miliband is currently reaping what his predecessor Tony Blair sowed when he sold everyone down the river with the idea of ‘New Labour’ in 1997. New Labour, which Margaret Thatcher would one day wittily name as her greatest achievement turned out to include jumping into a neocon planned war in Iraq, pushing through privatization of public infrastructure, introducing tuition fees for university students, reorganizing the NHS to run like a private company, and giving the Bank of England full operational independence vis-a-vis the nation’s finances.”
New Labour was just an extension of Thatcher’s Conservatism. And here in NZ after Douglas we have just carried on in the same Douglasisms but with different labels. No wonder some voters are apathetic.
+100 agreed….and I think that the Blair ( friend of the Pope and Israel and Bush ) intervention in the Middle East … the “neocon planned war in Iraq” was particularly devastating for the British Labour Party
( Britain is largely secular and its people want peace..it was not their war…but a war imposed upon them)
…it was a BETRAYAL of democracy by a leader of the Labour Party into a war the British people did not want or believe in!…how could they EVER trust a Labour Party leader again after that !? ( better NOT to vote than vote Labour)
…and the British dont easily forget the consequent bombings of British civilians in retaliation in London…the buses and train…Blair brought carnage back on his own British people!….the sooner Blair is tried for crimes against humanity the sooner the wounds will heal …and the British Labour Party can move on…but only if they have a leader who truly represents them…and whom they can trust not to betray them again
the rightwing in UK Labour are going to use this defeat to push Labour Blairite again. The unions are discredited now as Red Ed was their choice and their failure.
Hass was in Australia so I think some folks here were quite onto it and got her across the ditch.
However, it would be great to have a speaking tour with more time to prepare. She deserves a big audience and with more time could probably get one.
At the same time, we need Palestinian activists doing speaking tours – otherwise it looks like they’re helpless victims who need others to speak for them and the only legitimate critics of Zionism are Jewish critics.
Some good news for a change – Auckland Council has voted not to reduce libarary hours and Eastern Bay Energy Trust looks set to become 100% shareholders in Horizon Energy buying out the 23% of share not in its ownership.
No problem. They have obviously picked up your email from somewhere else and used it.
I’ve just been going back through the comments and tagging the ones that are clearly not yours. Since they have been consistently either astroturfing to Lauda Finem posts or running the Whaleoil/Lauda Finem lines, it wasn’t that hard to do.
I have also been putting the emails and IP numbers of the person I think is probably responsible (based on IP and what they are writing) for my personal attention.
Paula Bennett is a machine. She is a programmed puppet. Listening to her fast breathless delivery of her latest hypocritical fudging of cruel, inadequate policies that continue the downward slide in conditions for NZ citizens who don’t have good money to provide their every need makes me ill.
And so does weaselly Nick Smith. They are just two examples of the willing foot soldiers of the economic movement that is taking us back to the poorhouse days, and those of the consignment of any who annoyed the wealthy to some harsh destiny.
Apropos of nothing, can I make a shout out to RDU, Chch’s student station? They’ve just moved into their new studios after years of slumming it in temporary accommodation, post earthquake. It’s taken a lot of work and a lot of hours from volunteers.
RDU is one of the things that makes it great to live in Christchurch and the Sunday arvo trifecta of Vintage Cuts (retro show), Throwing Shapes (americana -sort of) and Dubwise (uptown top ranking reggae and dub) is stonking radio.
There’s a live link on the main page and they’re also on Tune In and Mixcloud. Apparently you get bonus points for being the magic 100th liker of the Throwing Shapes fb page! https://www.facebook.com/throwingshapesradio?fref=ts
Hi Mickey, yes, I’ve deleted the old one and created another. Feckin nuisance. So many sites associated with the old one. But now, it seems, someone can continue to use it. I thought I’d stopped that by deleting it from my end but clearly not. As I said, I barely know which way’s up technically. Feels like I’d theft to me. But again, it’s only being used here as far as I know/hope. Arsehole. As LP said.
You should go back to gravatar on that email key and change the picture to something like this
Do you want me to change the email on all of your comments to your new email? Then when you put in a gravatar on that email all of your comments will update.
I guess changing to the new email would help as long as this bastard doesn’t get hold of it too. And I think Greywarshark’s suggestion that I take a new name/avatar would help too. If I knew how to change the pic/gravatar I would do but I don’t have a clue… will see help from a grandchild or someone else who does!
Arandar There is another way – you could use another name as your signature. It is allowed. I started using one, which then was used by an occasional commenter. I decided it was confusing and changed, which made a number of changes over years.
Your name is your identity, and can’t be changed all the time for that reason. People come to know your thinking and know whether to respect you or be irritated by you, sometimes getting a surprise! So it might be better to change your name/pseudonym if someone else is using it, nuisance as it is.
I forecast that if the social conditions continue to be degraded as at present, the cruise ships that now house thousands of tourists with discretionary cash (up to 6000) will be the jails of the future. The British housed their miscreants in hulks before they were sent to Australia and also to the USA as convicts.
It is estimated that some 50,000 British convicts were sent to colonial America, representing perhaps one-quarter of all British emigrants during the 18th century. The State of Georgia for example was first founded by James Edward Oglethorpe by using penal prisoners taken largely from debtors’ prison, creating a “Debtor’s Colony”…
The British also would often ship Irish and Scots to the Americas whenever rebellions took place in Ireland or Scotland, and they would be treated similar to the convicts, except that this also included women and children.
When that avenue closed in the 1780s after the American Revolution,
Britain began using parts of what is now known as Australia as penal settlements. ..
(Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 162,000 convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia)
Bermuda, off the North American continent, was also used during the Victorian period. Convicts housed in hulks were used to build the Royal Naval Dockyard there, and during the Second Boer War (1899-1902), Boer prisoners-of-war were sent to the archipelago and imprisoned on one of the smaller islands.
In colonial India, the British made various penal colonies. Two of the most infamous ones are on the Andaman Islands and Hijli. In the early days of settlement, Singapore was the recipient of Indian convicts, who were tasked with clearing the jungles for settlement and early public works.
The list of countries that have had penal colonies is large. Some were for prisons to isolate criminals from society. Some were places to send dissidents, activists or enemy citizens during a war. Some were sources of free labour for building infrastructure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_colony
And this will be accepted as it was then before someone with a Name made a sacrifice of time, pleasure and money to work for change. It took a huge effort which I don’t know that can be replicated – I don’t know if now there is a sufficiently large moral group that believe in the nobility and worth of other human beings that would mobilise to do the same. Now it’s go with flow, complacency, self-involvement as presented by that great all-encompassing religion, Neo-Liberal Economics. We need to stop now the greedy, careless, inhuman philosophy that goes against everything we have lived by and the lives our parents worked (and died) to achieve, which they thought was established as a basis of life for ever.
Dunno if anyone’s noticed, but there’s no similarity whatsoever between elections here and in the UK. None. Zip. Scottish Independance issues are not in any way the same as Maori Sovereignty initiatives. What’s the eagerness to suggest connections between two dissimilar populations, histories, and cultures? Might as well say that oranges are just like the Labour Party, and tins of beans are like National, and then argue about how it could be that people buy more beans than oranges. The sheer enormity of facts and influences you’d have to ignore to suggest England’s people are the same as New Zealanders, is staggering.
Observation #2
Anyone alive today saying that “the left should move right, or, the left should be the right” is effectly lamenting their inability to crawl back up their father’s urethra. No one alive who considers themselves in any way materially successful hasn’t benefited from socialist government programs of constructive change. None. Zip. To say they haven’t is pure ignorance, to say they’ve suffered, is pure ignorance bordering on delusion. You can’t profit from selling a state owned asset unless the state once owned it. You can’t spring-board off state subsidies unless the state first subsidises your industry.
Observation #3
The availablity of cheap imported goods was outside the reach of the hoi polloi during the Muldoon era, and I was having a hard time tying down what has become better since we can now access cheap consumer technology. So far, I personally have gained from being able to buy a dishwasher. The idea of hand-washing dishes again, although there may be an undefined ecological or spiritual element over the period of a lifetime that I can’t yet appreciate, isn’t something I’d like to return to. Outside of that, pretty much everything is either the same, or worse, mostly worse – or at least the opportunites to follow alternate paths has been lost. When will we give up the idea of “getting ahead”, measured by material gain?
the reason for the surprising ongoing support for conservative parties here and overseas is due to the state of fear and uncertainty people feel like they are in
A third of the way through the RAID rebuild. It was a bit hairy for speed over the last hour as the RAID system rebuilt the disk array under the running database. Slowed down entering comments and most admin functions quite a lot.
Obama is publicly fighting with Elizabeth Warren over the TPP.
“The president’s rebuttal of Ms. Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who came to national prominence in part through her work with the Obama administration, underscored the schism within the Democratic Party over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal.
Ms. Warren, a former Harvard law professor, has become an outspoken leader of those Democrats who argue that the agreement would cost American jobs.
Mr. Obama’s comments came after he delivered a speech at the Nike headquarters in which he lashed out at liberal critics of the agreement, arguing that they were fighting an old fight even though he was negotiating what he called the most progressive trade deal in history.
He seemed most irritated at Ms. Warren’s suggestion that the trade pact could be used as a vehicle to undercut the financial overhaul that Mr. Obama signed in 2010 in response to the Wall Street excesses that led to the recession.”
““The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else,” he said. “And you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don’t stand the test of fact and scrutiny.”
This is remarkable stuff for Obama. All presidents are forged, in a sense, by the moments at which they come to public life. Obama entered politics during Bill Clinton’s presidency, when urban liberals were growing disgusted with the president’s strategy of “triangulation,” popularly interpreted as the idea that you can win broad support by picking fights with the ideologues in your own party. Obama has always been reflexively averse to anything that might be construed as him pushing back against his friends to score political points with everyone else.
Throughout his presidency, Obama has mostly avoided public feuds with what his first press secretary, Robert Gibbs, liked to call the “professional left” — even when it’s meant sidestepping important disagreements on policy. Democratic politicians and interest groups, in turn, have been cautious in their criticism, offering only muted resistance when Obama stepped up the war in Afghanistan, or when he nearly negotiated a deal that would have restructured entitlements.
But like a marriage in which the spouses pretend to be happier than they really are, Obama’s polite alliance with the populist left appears to be suddenly crumbling under the weight of free trade. The more Warren and Senate colleagues like Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown attack the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, joined by big unions and environmental groups, the more liberated Obama seems to feel in portraying them as reckless and backward-looking, much as Clinton might have done. He evidences none of the self-doubt or conflicted loyalty that seemed plain when they criticized him for being too cautious on Wall Street reform or health care.”
Sad to see 8 die on our roads in a single day at the end of “Road safety week”.
“Road safety week” is about as effective as the 101km/hour fine stunt the cops pulled in summer when the road toll climbed significantly because drivers were distracted by their speedometers.
Solution: Upgrade the roads instead of running ineffective marketing and revenue gathering campaigns.
“To me I wasn’t really emotional on it, but I thought it was a good buy. When I saw that couple, especially the girl burst out crying, I felt really really terrible.”
This story will have no impact whatsoever on the right, on the John Key voters, aside from the reality TV feel-good factor in the same vein that Stuff had framed the article.
To me however it screams out loud the dominance of the speculator in the market at the expense of real people and it screams that said speculator ordinarily could not give a shit about real people until one of them sees the distress first hand.
This story, the story that ordinary folk who want to buy are being outbid by speculators and Chinese with cheap money has been told for several years now.
John Key and Blinglish will call it the price of progress.
John Key and Blinglish will call it the price of progress.
They’ll call it anything except what it is – a housing bubble. And they’ll have to do that because to do anything else is to admit that the economy is in recession and that the housing bubble is probably the only thing keeping us out of a deflationary spiral.
@ weepus beard
I heard on Radionz last week, a man who is a recent resident in NZ, who had wanted to be in the running for a $400,000 residential land purchase. People queued up at the site sleeping in their cars and eventually were handed numbers to show their priority, but this man had missed out as his wife had to take their car and drop the children to school. Not being in a car he was left out of the priority list apparently. He was terribly upset. It is so hard in our competitive society to get a living and secure a home.
Another man said that he and another from his family had waited all night to ensure they were in the running. It seems the way in the NZ and the neo-lib western world that those who have the time and means can advantage themselves further while those who are struggling get locked out.
Auckland housing bubble. I don’t get that its a bubble…..
I know fuck all about economics- but I did read a couple of things over the years about house prices which stuck with me-
Thing one- Irish bubble was created by irish people frenziedly selling Ireland to themselves- and using the ‘profits’ to leverage huge loans to outbuild the imaginary demand- like a self designed Ponzi scheme.
Thing two- a quote I heard- ” The bubble must burst? Ask anyone with property in Manhattan NY if the bubble must burst? It’s been going for a hundred years!”
So can I respectfully offer the following statement-
The Auckland housing crisis is not a bubble- because the demand is driven by NEW/fresh money coming in from Asia- I mean if everyone in China wanted a house in Auckland they’d be selling for a Billion each. As long as the Chinese are willing to pay more- then the bubble will grow- but it will never burst, until we build more houses than the Chinese need.
The logical end for how things are going is that Auckland ends up a ChinaTown full of Billionaires, and we end up with a country full of multi-millionaires who sold their Auckland houses to the Chinese- but its still not a bubble…
Aucklanders being ‘priced out’ of the market is nothing new- it happened in Ponsonby, Epsom, Tamaki, ( fuck- even Ranui, Swanson, Riverhead!! )anywhere in fact where the house prices are high. And it was Aucklanders who did it to them.
All I know is that there have been other housing bubbles in NZ which have cost people an arm and a leg. They may have ended up living in a camping ground while they paid off a mortgage for a property they know longer owned because it had been sold at the new lower valuation by the bank when the bubble burst.
We must realise that we are living on borrowed money. Our economy is like a ponzi scheme. We keep getting foreign investment, and it is not just Chinese, but it is they who at present seem to have most of the new money. And not only is foreign investment in houses, its businesses also. This puts money into our economy but is virtually a loan, and the profits are repatriated back to the investors preferred tax haven. So we have to make exports increase to ensure that we can balance the outflow of profits from NZ, and to pay for all the imports of dross and heavy machinery and cars that we borrow money from Australian banks to spend our money on. The government is borrowing all the time to make up the shortfall in our exports to meet the payments required of us overseas.
If there is a spanner in the works for even a short period the house of cards is likely to topple, a depression start and credit would be withdrawn and the whole thing collapses. Pop! That is the bubble bursting. Houses used to be regarded as desirable investments for ordinary people and cost about four times the average annual salary or something like that. If the average salary is $70,000 as I read today, then that would be $280,000.
Houses can’t be considered as playthings for the rich. They can spend their bloody excess money on Picassos at $64 million or such, but it is wrong for people to have lose ability to have a home by outbidding by high-flyers from overseas or in NZ. The rentier financiers are screwing up our basic financial system to line their own pockets, making up their own laws and systems as they go.
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Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
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 Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori 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 Tāmaki 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 Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori 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 Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – 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 – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - 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. 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. 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. “Our 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 Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I 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 Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s 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. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
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http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/10-delusions-about-labour-defeat-watch-out
Much of that can be applied to what people here state about why the left in NZ is not doing so well.
it’s a pile of rightwing-shite/puffery – except for reason number six – which is a valid one..
(loved this tweet on that front page tho’..)
‘the scots voted to boot out the english – the english voted to work 80 hrs a week in the call-centre while pics of royal baby projected onto their eyeballs’
heh..!
so thanks 4 that chuckle there – chuckles..
on the replay of the nation – you can get to see m. hooten having one of his super-dickhead moments..
..it’s about/around houses vs. apartments..
..and his snarl at the gen-zero spokesperson – is his ‘moment’..
You referring to this episode?
A better synopsis of the British Election.
‘It’s a result that was made possible by a sheeplike, frightened and rancorous population that appears increasingly disposed to believe all the lies that it is told by its vile newspapers. It is an irrational, stupid and fearful vote by an electorate that doesn’t even recognize its own self-interest, let alone the interests of others, that has abandoned any commitment to even the most elementary principles of social justice; that didn’t couldn’t even see that Miliband’s tepid, focus-group-manufactured One Nation ‘fairness’ was still preferable to the dismal social cruelty that the government has already inflicted and which is certain to intensify in the next five years.
In doing so the English have demonstrated extraordinary political cowardice. Lacking the gumption to challenge the powerful, they have preferred to elect a government that victimizes the powerless. This is a population that prefers to doff the cap than bite the hand that it thinks feeds; that expresses its digusts with politicians by voting in the worst of them; that drapes itself in the Union Jack and doffs its collective hat to its masters in the hope that it can be like them; that would rather blame the Scots who want to fight austerity than fight it themselves.’
http://infernalmachine.co.uk/election-the-horror/
See my comment at the top. This has combined a number of the left wing nonsensical excuses for their failure to convince the electorate to vote for them.
And yet the SNP put forward more left wing policies to end austerity, tax the rich and protect the welfare state and got 56 out of 59 seats.
The turn out in Scotland was higher.
Offering Tory lite is not the solution. As a Tory yourself Gosman, you want Labour in NZ to come to the conclusion that they should simply mimic National Party policies.
The election results in Scotland and England prove you wrong.
Bland imitation of Tory policies by Labour in England resulted in electoral disaster.
Bold anti -austerity policies by the SNP resulted in a landslide.
I think the SNP’s ‘scottish wash’ of Scotland had far more to do with the first word in their party’s title and the rise of Scottish Nationalism than anything else.
it wasn’t only that tinfoil..
..i found the echoes between scotland and northland to be potent..
..both regions had been neglected by successive tory and labour govts..
..and both are regions where poverty/inequality bites hard..
..that explains why the strong anti-austerity policies from snp went down so well..
..labour here cd do worse than take those policies as homework to be done..
“I think the SNP’s ‘scottish wash’ of Scotland had far more to do with the first word in their party’s title and the rise of Scottish Nationalism than anything else.”
If only there were some way of measuring the actual level of support for Scottish nationalism…
oh wait
@Felix – turnout was particularly high in the Scottish seats I do not find it surprising that the SNP did so well to piggyback on the strong Scottish nationalism that is running through the country.
I find it strange that so many seem to believe that Labour in the UK only had to come out with more left policies to get over the line when my preferred party in the UK was well to the left of Labour and only secured a single seat.
I believe the first step to change in the UK is to reform the voting platform to make it more representative, however, the last time it was put to the public over there it was voted down convincingly.
6.4M votes – a quarter of all votes cast in the election – were taken by the Lib Dems, Greens and UKIP put together. And between them they got just 10 MPs out of 650.
The DUP got a measly 0.18M votes and received 8 MPs.
That’s utterly fucked.
So to my mind Left and Right politics has relatively little to do with it; the unproportional UK electoral system is totally undemocratic.
Of course, UK Labour won’t support the move to a proportional electoral system because they’d lose a couple dozen more seats than they already have.
@CV When you’re a member of the political elite it matters not whether you’re to the right or left, more that you protect the rights and privileges of the political elite and maintain your nose in the trough.
As an example just take a look at our higher salaries commission and annual speakers tour junkets.
QFT
The Left would get better results if it showed courage and commitment in it’s own policies rather than just trying to be slightly less to the right than the Political-Right. It is this latter that has had our society becoming ever more unequal and now collapsing under the weight of corruption in both government and private circles.
See my comment at the top. This has combined a number of the left wing nonsensical excuses for their failure to convince the electorate to vote for them.
Badgering… 👿
No. Accidentally posted twice.
Fair enough…
and this one is funny…
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/political-zombies-pick-over-election-bones-on-lawn-of-the-dead
and this one details what the tory-shites will do now..
open warfare on the poor..
..both the unemployed and the working-poor..
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/tories-conservatives-12bn-welfare-cuts
Oh, I think you’ll find that they’ll be attacking the middle class outright as well so as to induce even more fear in the electorate and lower wages further. The end result being even more working poor and further enrichment of the already rich.
System failure, Gossie.
London Protests: Violence Feared As Anti-Tory Demonstrations Meet Police
http://www.ibtimes.com/london-protests-violence-feared-anti-tory-demonstrations-meet-police-1915527
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11445759
Maybe these submissions from “the party” need to be “investigated” in private. There always seems to be at least one terrible idea for the herald to run with. This just makes Labour look like politicking hypocrites.
Labour lost because people have realised left wing silliness for what it is.
you’ve clearly been doing some deep thinking/analysis there..eh..?
..heh..!
(..rightwing and dumb as a sack of hammers..that one..)
welcome..!..we need as much humour-factor as we can get..
(..and a good name if thinking of becoming a blues/country-singer..
..’jimmy johnson plays/sings the blues’..
..as political-analysis/commentary clearly hasn’t worked out that well for you – can you hold a tune..?..)
“left wing silliness for what it is.”
And what is that then sunshine?
all praise the herb..!
jamaica has legalised pot..
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/jamaica-set-roll-out-green-carpet-pot-tourists
and while i am at it – there were some cool pot-stories while i was away..
http://whoar.co.nz/?s=marijuana
paula bennet giving a skin-crawling interview on q & a..
Good to see one of the panel reminded everyone that she pulled the ladder up on other people in her situation.
[lprent: someone hijacking a email address. Adding to permanent bans. By the look of it some kind of arsehole from Lauda Finem ]
Ahh yes – Lauda Finem…
https://laudafinemscam.wordpress.com/
Holy shit, hadn’t seen that before. Is the content style and dog’s breakfast design meant to mimic LF, or is that just how it is?
No idea really, but it seems to me a similar quality of “reporting” to LF.
I checked out a few bits of what looked like hard info on that site that proved to be moderately accurate when I back checked them.
The people associated with the site are accurate. Phillip Raymond Nottingham was in court when Cameron Slater won his journalism appeal, and lost his ability to protect his sources. From the position of on of them, he was the arsehole who illegally took some photos of me in court that went up on Lauda Finem. I noticed him when he was commenting about how well Cameron Slater was doing, when in fact Slater was making a fool of himself with half baked irrelevant arguments. Apparently the other Nottingham brother was there as well but I didn’t notice him.
I did see Phillip Nottingham talking animatedly with a group of the other supporters of Cameron Slater to the great man himself. Which kind of points to the lie that the Lauda Finem authors don’t know him.
For instance some of the more coherent posts appear to be moderately accurate once you look at the verifiable facts. For instance…
https://laudafinemscam.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/dermot-nottingham-habitual-criminal-recidivist-troll-blogger-known-scammer/
https://laudafinemscam.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/dermot-nottingham-conman-on-international-scam-site/
Some of this stuff I’ve checked out over the years, and it appears to be quite accurate at a company level. The companies office runs a great site, and most bankruptcy information is available if you know where to look for it.
However the author of the LaudaFinemScam site appears to be someone with some severe anger issues directed at these two brothers running Lauda Finem. I also suspect that they spend considerable time looking at these two.
They can’t even get Keith Ng’s first name right (or spell Matthew Dentith or Alastair Thompson correctly) so that should be a big hint as to the quality of their information.
Very interesting read today from Laudafinem, very little to do with politics but a lot to do with an old “friend” of The Standard.
Has The Standard just been used to facilitate a conspiracy? Was the whole Rachinger thing just a beat-up to conceal a fraud?
Fascinating read about the underbelly of Auckland “business”.
Why are you taking LF seriously, Arandar?
[lprent: We had an identity hijacker astroturfing this morning – probably from Lauda Finem ]
Just a more subtle style of tr$&ling is the m.o. of arander IMO.
Ever notice Arandar how LF attacks the same people Slater attacks?
[lprent: We had an identity hijacker astroturfing this morning – probably from Lauda Finem ]
Scoop has published the transcript of the interview between Lisa Owen and Simon Bridges re Auckland transport.
Lisa is a great interviewer isn’t she? Simon fluffs a great deal when you read his words rather than just listen. It does seem that the Government is blocking progress for Auckland perhaps to wait for a mayor like Banks or some other Right wing nut.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1505/S00101/the-nation-transport-minister-simon-bridges.htm
it was one of her best..
corin dann also does well in his interview of bennett..(mainly by asking ‘just what is the problem you are trying to solve?’..)..
..and showing how that policy also is ideologically-driven..
and robertson..in the main..is just spouting aspirational-shite..
..and yes..the bone has been well and truly pointed at the capital gains tax policy..
..robertson pours a bucket of blame on it for losing two elections..
..(how reassuring/comforting it must be for robertson/labour to have such a handy scapegoat for their collective-failures..eh..?..
..no mention of how toxic the raising super age policy was..what a vote-killer that was..)
..and he’s just killed the sth island vote..
..threatening to send coloured-folks/’furriners’/immigrants their way..
..they like being/staying ‘white’ down there..
‘johnny foreigner’ causes sth islanders to just narrow their eyes..
another column from Eric Watson in the NZH ,about Mothers Day this time.Is he trying to reinvent himself as some kind of kind,caring human being and if so…why!
Tony Blair’s Toxic Legacy ?
‘The Fuller Picture – 2015 UK Elections: Voters abandoning parties or parties abandoning voters?’
(Currently a Research Associate at the INSYTE Group, Dr. Roslyn Fuller has previously lectured at Trinity College and the National University of Ireland. )
“Labour leader Ed Miliband is currently reaping what his predecessor Tony Blair sowed when he sold everyone down the river with the idea of ‘New Labour’ in 1997. New Labour, which Margaret Thatcher would one day wittily name as her greatest achievement turned out to include jumping into a neocon planned war in Iraq, pushing through privatization of public infrastructure, introducing tuition fees for university students, reorganizing the NHS to run like a private company, and giving the Bank of England full operational independence vis-a-vis the nation’s finances.”
http://rt.com/op-edge/256481-uk-elections-voters-parties/
( Lessons for the New Zealand Labour Party?)
New Labour was just an extension of Thatcher’s Conservatism. And here in NZ after Douglas we have just carried on in the same Douglasisms but with different labels. No wonder some voters are apathetic.
+100 agreed….and I think that the Blair ( friend of the Pope and Israel and Bush ) intervention in the Middle East … the “neocon planned war in Iraq” was particularly devastating for the British Labour Party
( Britain is largely secular and its people want peace..it was not their war…but a war imposed upon them)
…it was a BETRAYAL of democracy by a leader of the Labour Party into a war the British people did not want or believe in!…how could they EVER trust a Labour Party leader again after that !? ( better NOT to vote than vote Labour)
…and the British dont easily forget the consequent bombings of British civilians in retaliation in London…the buses and train…Blair brought carnage back on his own British people!….the sooner Blair is tried for crimes against humanity the sooner the wounds will heal …and the British Labour Party can move on…but only if they have a leader who truly represents them…and whom they can trust not to betray them again
the rightwing in UK Labour are going to use this defeat to push Labour Blairite again. The unions are discredited now as Red Ed was their choice and their failure.
Oh for sure. That is why I am picking Chuka Ummana for the leadership. One of the prominite Blairites.
The irony is that there was still a lot a Blairite influence of the party’s policies. Somee of them even went further than Blair went.
Seems like the light blue pseudo-tory party in the UK is about to become slightly deeper blue.
You have to admire how effective the right wing are at this game.
+111
It’s just amazing that the executives in the Left parties don’t see it or perhaps they do and are helping it along.
Interesting take-down of O Winfrey….as a neolib shill…and perhaps pertinent to the way elections go here and in, topically :-), the UK
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/may/09/oprah-winfrey-neoliberal-capitalist-thinkers
Israeli journalist Amira Hass has been doing a small speaking tour of NZ, speaking about dissidence in times of Bantustanisation. A fascinating talk. There’s a report on her Auckland meeting here:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/amira-hass-israeli-jewish-dissidence-in-times-of-bantustanisation/
+100…Yes and this is a good article too
‘The Israeli architecture of destruction – and the ‘hidden violence’ against Palestine’
By Dr David Robie
– See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/05/09/the-israeli-architecture-of-destruction-and-the-hidden-violence-against-palestine/#sthash.k9BMljSw.dpuf
Hass was in Australia so I think some folks here were quite onto it and got her across the ditch.
However, it would be great to have a speaking tour with more time to prepare. She deserves a big audience and with more time could probably get one.
At the same time, we need Palestinian activists doing speaking tours – otherwise it looks like they’re helpless victims who need others to speak for them and the only legitimate critics of Zionism are Jewish critics.
Phil
+100 the Palestinian side is one full of bravery in a mighty struggle up against the might of Israeli and it’s backers.
They give the bird to all and sundry who challenge it’s right to continue expansion into occupied territory.
Some good news for a change – Auckland Council has voted not to reduce libarary hours and Eastern Bay Energy Trust looks set to become 100% shareholders in Horizon Energy buying out the 23% of share not in its ownership.
Baltimore socialists on the anger in Baltimore:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/the-anger-in-baltimore/
FGS! The comment above is not me! I’m not happy that it’s possible for someone to use my name and photo to say what I’d not say – ever.
[I see you have had some difficulty in the past. Do you have another email address you can use? – MS]
Thank you Lynn. Appreciate your prompt attention.
No problem. They have obviously picked up your email from somewhere else and used it.
I’ve just been going back through the comments and tagging the ones that are clearly not yours. Since they have been consistently either astroturfing to Lauda Finem posts or running the Whaleoil/Lauda Finem lines, it wasn’t that hard to do.
I have also been putting the emails and IP numbers of the person I think is probably responsible (based on IP and what they are writing) for my personal attention.
Paula Bennett is a machine. She is a programmed puppet. Listening to her fast breathless delivery of her latest hypocritical fudging of cruel, inadequate policies that continue the downward slide in conditions for NZ citizens who don’t have good money to provide their every need makes me ill.
And so does weaselly Nick Smith. They are just two examples of the willing foot soldiers of the economic movement that is taking us back to the poorhouse days, and those of the consignment of any who annoyed the wealthy to some harsh destiny.
Apropos of nothing, can I make a shout out to RDU, Chch’s student station? They’ve just moved into their new studios after years of slumming it in temporary accommodation, post earthquake. It’s taken a lot of work and a lot of hours from volunteers.
RDU is one of the things that makes it great to live in Christchurch and the Sunday arvo trifecta of Vintage Cuts (retro show), Throwing Shapes (americana -sort of) and Dubwise (uptown top ranking reggae and dub) is stonking radio.
http://www.rdu.org.nz/
There’s a live link on the main page and they’re also on Tune In and Mixcloud. Apparently you get bonus points for being the magic 100th liker of the Throwing Shapes fb page! https://www.facebook.com/throwingshapesradio?fref=ts
Too bad UCSA privatised it…
Hi Mickey, yes, I’ve deleted the old one and created another. Feckin nuisance. So many sites associated with the old one. But now, it seems, someone can continue to use it. I thought I’d stopped that by deleting it from my end but clearly not. As I said, I barely know which way’s up technically. Feels like I’d theft to me. But again, it’s only being used here as far as I know/hope. Arsehole. As LP said.
You should go back to gravatar on that email key and change the picture to something like this
Do you want me to change the email on all of your comments to your new email? Then when you put in a gravatar on that email all of your comments will update.
I guess changing to the new email would help as long as this bastard doesn’t get hold of it too. And I think Greywarshark’s suggestion that I take a new name/avatar would help too. If I knew how to change the pic/gravatar I would do but I don’t have a clue… will see help from a grandchild or someone else who does!
@ Arndar
As the famous Marx Bros said –
A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
― Groucho Marx
Have a look at http://thestandard.org.nz/faq/gravatar/#GravatarSignup
Just pick something arbitrary for your “email address” here.
Arandar There is another way – you could use another name as your signature. It is allowed. I started using one, which then was used by an occasional commenter. I decided it was confusing and changed, which made a number of changes over years.
Your name is your identity, and can’t be changed all the time for that reason. People come to know your thinking and know whether to respect you or be irritated by you, sometimes getting a surprise! So it might be better to change your name/pseudonym if someone else is using it, nuisance as it is.
That works. We don’t require a valid email. Just a shared secret known between you and the site.
I forecast that if the social conditions continue to be degraded as at present, the cruise ships that now house thousands of tourists with discretionary cash (up to 6000) will be the jails of the future. The British housed their miscreants in hulks before they were sent to Australia and also to the USA as convicts.
It is estimated that some 50,000 British convicts were sent to colonial America, representing perhaps one-quarter of all British emigrants during the 18th century. The State of Georgia for example was first founded by James Edward Oglethorpe by using penal prisoners taken largely from debtors’ prison, creating a “Debtor’s Colony”…
The British also would often ship Irish and Scots to the Americas whenever rebellions took place in Ireland or Scotland, and they would be treated similar to the convicts, except that this also included women and children.
When that avenue closed in the 1780s after the American Revolution,
Britain began using parts of what is now known as Australia as penal settlements. ..
(Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 162,000 convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia)
Bermuda, off the North American continent, was also used during the Victorian period. Convicts housed in hulks were used to build the Royal Naval Dockyard there, and during the Second Boer War (1899-1902), Boer prisoners-of-war were sent to the archipelago and imprisoned on one of the smaller islands.
In colonial India, the British made various penal colonies. Two of the most infamous ones are on the Andaman Islands and Hijli. In the early days of settlement, Singapore was the recipient of Indian convicts, who were tasked with clearing the jungles for settlement and early public works.
The list of countries that have had penal colonies is large. Some were for prisons to isolate criminals from society. Some were places to send dissidents, activists or enemy citizens during a war. Some were sources of free labour for building infrastructure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_colony
And this will be accepted as it was then before someone with a Name made a sacrifice of time, pleasure and money to work for change. It took a huge effort which I don’t know that can be replicated – I don’t know if now there is a sufficiently large moral group that believe in the nobility and worth of other human beings that would mobilise to do the same. Now it’s go with flow, complacency, self-involvement as presented by that great all-encompassing religion, Neo-Liberal Economics. We need to stop now the greedy, careless, inhuman philosophy that goes against everything we have lived by and the lives our parents worked (and died) to achieve, which they thought was established as a basis of life for ever.
Observation #1
Dunno if anyone’s noticed, but there’s no similarity whatsoever between elections here and in the UK. None. Zip. Scottish Independance issues are not in any way the same as Maori Sovereignty initiatives. What’s the eagerness to suggest connections between two dissimilar populations, histories, and cultures? Might as well say that oranges are just like the Labour Party, and tins of beans are like National, and then argue about how it could be that people buy more beans than oranges. The sheer enormity of facts and influences you’d have to ignore to suggest England’s people are the same as New Zealanders, is staggering.
Observation #2
Anyone alive today saying that “the left should move right, or, the left should be the right” is effectly lamenting their inability to crawl back up their father’s urethra. No one alive who considers themselves in any way materially successful hasn’t benefited from socialist government programs of constructive change. None. Zip. To say they haven’t is pure ignorance, to say they’ve suffered, is pure ignorance bordering on delusion. You can’t profit from selling a state owned asset unless the state once owned it. You can’t spring-board off state subsidies unless the state first subsidises your industry.
Observation #3
The availablity of cheap imported goods was outside the reach of the hoi polloi during the Muldoon era, and I was having a hard time tying down what has become better since we can now access cheap consumer technology. So far, I personally have gained from being able to buy a dishwasher. The idea of hand-washing dishes again, although there may be an undefined ecological or spiritual element over the period of a lifetime that I can’t yet appreciate, isn’t something I’d like to return to. Outside of that, pretty much everything is either the same, or worse, mostly worse – or at least the opportunites to follow alternate paths has been lost. When will we give up the idea of “getting ahead”, measured by material gain?
You may disagree.
#Idontcare.
observation #lastone:
the reason for the surprising ongoing support for conservative parties here and overseas is due to the state of fear and uncertainty people feel like they are in
And the inability of other parties to get serious about concrete change which addresses peoples economic fears and uncertainties.
So ‘Arandar’ over and out. With thanks to all who leapt to help and advise.
Back one day – a new/old me. Cheers.
A third of the way through the RAID rebuild. It was a bit hairy for speed over the last hour as the RAID system rebuilt the disk array under the running database. Slowed down entering comments and most admin functions quite a lot.
# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid10]
md0 : active raid6 sda[10] sdf[8] sdc[6] sdd1[2] sdb[3] sde[7]
7813523456 blocks super 1.2 level 6, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [6/5] [UUUU_U]
[======>…………..] recovery = <b>33.5%</b> (656097088/1953380864) finish=1097.8min speed=19694K/sec
bitmap: 4/15 pages [16KB], 65536KB chunk
unused devices: <none>
[/code]
Incidentally that bit of bash reporting was inserted using the short codes for https://wordpress.org/plugins/syntaxhighlighter/
I think it should work for everyone.
Attention Auckland!
Re the coming housing bubble:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEmAwhSUUAAxjiL.jpg:large
Sharon Murdoch
The #housingbubble explained. @SundayStarTimes
The roots of Syria’s civil war.
http://symboliamag.tumblr.com/post/87016370523/yearsoflivingdangerously-this
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/03/02/study_climate_change_helped_spark_syrian_civil_war.html
Veteran activist Don Franks on Tim Barnett’s proposal to punish people for not registering to vote:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/labour-party-obey-or-starve/
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-obama-is-happy-to-fight-elizabeth-warren-on-118537612596.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/us/politics/obama-calls-elizabeth-warren-absolutely-wrong-on-trans-pacific-trade-deal.html?_r=0
Obama is publicly fighting with Elizabeth Warren over the TPP.
“The president’s rebuttal of Ms. Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who came to national prominence in part through her work with the Obama administration, underscored the schism within the Democratic Party over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal.
Ms. Warren, a former Harvard law professor, has become an outspoken leader of those Democrats who argue that the agreement would cost American jobs.
Mr. Obama’s comments came after he delivered a speech at the Nike headquarters in which he lashed out at liberal critics of the agreement, arguing that they were fighting an old fight even though he was negotiating what he called the most progressive trade deal in history.
He seemed most irritated at Ms. Warren’s suggestion that the trade pact could be used as a vehicle to undercut the financial overhaul that Mr. Obama signed in 2010 in response to the Wall Street excesses that led to the recession.”
““The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else,” he said. “And you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don’t stand the test of fact and scrutiny.”
This is remarkable stuff for Obama. All presidents are forged, in a sense, by the moments at which they come to public life. Obama entered politics during Bill Clinton’s presidency, when urban liberals were growing disgusted with the president’s strategy of “triangulation,” popularly interpreted as the idea that you can win broad support by picking fights with the ideologues in your own party. Obama has always been reflexively averse to anything that might be construed as him pushing back against his friends to score political points with everyone else.
Throughout his presidency, Obama has mostly avoided public feuds with what his first press secretary, Robert Gibbs, liked to call the “professional left” — even when it’s meant sidestepping important disagreements on policy. Democratic politicians and interest groups, in turn, have been cautious in their criticism, offering only muted resistance when Obama stepped up the war in Afghanistan, or when he nearly negotiated a deal that would have restructured entitlements.
But like a marriage in which the spouses pretend to be happier than they really are, Obama’s polite alliance with the populist left appears to be suddenly crumbling under the weight of free trade. The more Warren and Senate colleagues like Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown attack the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, joined by big unions and environmental groups, the more liberated Obama seems to feel in portraying them as reckless and backward-looking, much as Clinton might have done. He evidences none of the self-doubt or conflicted loyalty that seemed plain when they criticized him for being too cautious on Wall Street reform or health care.”
Sad to see 8 die on our roads in a single day at the end of “Road safety week”.
“Road safety week” is about as effective as the 101km/hour fine stunt the cops pulled in summer when the road toll climbed significantly because drivers were distracted by their speedometers.
Solution: Upgrade the roads instead of running ineffective marketing and revenue gathering campaigns.
Stop people driving – just get computers to do the driving for them.
Anyone else think this story is an acute and vivid snapshot of the struggle in Auckland?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/68324088/good-samaritan-investor-takes-pity-on-young-auckland-buyers
The startling quote for me was this…
This story will have no impact whatsoever on the right, on the John Key voters, aside from the reality TV feel-good factor in the same vein that Stuff had framed the article.
To me however it screams out loud the dominance of the speculator in the market at the expense of real people and it screams that said speculator ordinarily could not give a shit about real people until one of them sees the distress first hand.
This story, the story that ordinary folk who want to buy are being outbid by speculators and Chinese with cheap money has been told for several years now.
John Key and Blinglish will call it the price of progress.
They’ll call it anything except what it is – a housing bubble. And they’ll have to do that because to do anything else is to admit that the economy is in recession and that the housing bubble is probably the only thing keeping us out of a deflationary spiral.
@ weepus beard
I heard on Radionz last week, a man who is a recent resident in NZ, who had wanted to be in the running for a $400,000 residential land purchase. People queued up at the site sleeping in their cars and eventually were handed numbers to show their priority, but this man had missed out as his wife had to take their car and drop the children to school. Not being in a car he was left out of the priority list apparently. He was terribly upset. It is so hard in our competitive society to get a living and secure a home.
Another man said that he and another from his family had waited all night to ensure they were in the running. It seems the way in the NZ and the neo-lib western world that those who have the time and means can advantage themselves further while those who are struggling get locked out.
Auckland housing bubble. I don’t get that its a bubble…..
I know fuck all about economics- but I did read a couple of things over the years about house prices which stuck with me-
Thing one- Irish bubble was created by irish people frenziedly selling Ireland to themselves- and using the ‘profits’ to leverage huge loans to outbuild the imaginary demand- like a self designed Ponzi scheme.
Thing two- a quote I heard- ” The bubble must burst? Ask anyone with property in Manhattan NY if the bubble must burst? It’s been going for a hundred years!”
So can I respectfully offer the following statement-
The Auckland housing crisis is not a bubble- because the demand is driven by NEW/fresh money coming in from Asia- I mean if everyone in China wanted a house in Auckland they’d be selling for a Billion each. As long as the Chinese are willing to pay more- then the bubble will grow- but it will never burst, until we build more houses than the Chinese need.
The logical end for how things are going is that Auckland ends up a ChinaTown full of Billionaires, and we end up with a country full of multi-millionaires who sold their Auckland houses to the Chinese- but its still not a bubble…
Aucklanders being ‘priced out’ of the market is nothing new- it happened in Ponsonby, Epsom, Tamaki, ( fuck- even Ranui, Swanson, Riverhead!! )anywhere in fact where the house prices are high. And it was Aucklanders who did it to them.
Am I wrong?
All I know is that there have been other housing bubbles in NZ which have cost people an arm and a leg. They may have ended up living in a camping ground while they paid off a mortgage for a property they know longer owned because it had been sold at the new lower valuation by the bank when the bubble burst.
We must realise that we are living on borrowed money. Our economy is like a ponzi scheme. We keep getting foreign investment, and it is not just Chinese, but it is they who at present seem to have most of the new money. And not only is foreign investment in houses, its businesses also. This puts money into our economy but is virtually a loan, and the profits are repatriated back to the investors preferred tax haven. So we have to make exports increase to ensure that we can balance the outflow of profits from NZ, and to pay for all the imports of dross and heavy machinery and cars that we borrow money from Australian banks to spend our money on. The government is borrowing all the time to make up the shortfall in our exports to meet the payments required of us overseas.
If there is a spanner in the works for even a short period the house of cards is likely to topple, a depression start and credit would be withdrawn and the whole thing collapses. Pop! That is the bubble bursting. Houses used to be regarded as desirable investments for ordinary people and cost about four times the average annual salary or something like that. If the average salary is $70,000 as I read today, then that would be $280,000.
Houses can’t be considered as playthings for the rich. They can spend their bloody excess money on Picassos at $64 million or such, but it is wrong for people to have lose ability to have a home by outbidding by high-flyers from overseas or in NZ. The rentier financiers are screwing up our basic financial system to line their own pockets, making up their own laws and systems as they go.