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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Please note: I’ve delayed my “What can we do?” article for this video.The video above shows Destiny Church members assaulting staff and librarians as they pushed through to a room of terrified parents and young children.It was posted to social media last night.But if you read Sinead Boucher’s Stuff, you ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is sea level rise exaggerated? Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, not stagnating or decreasing. Warming global temperatures cause land ice ...
Here is a scenario, but first a historical parallel. Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the ...
I’ve spent the last couple of days in Hamilton covering Waikato University’s annual NZ Economics Forum, where (arguably) three of the most influential people in our political economy right now laid out their thinking in major speeches about the size and role of Government, their views on for spending, tax ...
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
A ballot for a single member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Employment Relations (Collective Agreements in Triangular Relationships) Amendment Bill (Adrian Rurawhe) The bill would extend union rights to employees in triangular relationships, where they are (nominally) employed by one party, but ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
“The ACT Party can’t be bothered putting an MP on one of the Justice subcommittees hearing submissions on their own Treaty Principles Bill,” Labour Justice Spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
The Government’s newly announced funding for biodiversity and tourism of $30-million over three years is a small fraction of what is required for conservation in this country. ...
The Government's sudden cancellation of the tertiary education funding increase is a reckless move that risks widespread job losses and service reductions across New Zealand's universities. ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Stone, Principal Research Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Having dense breasts is a clear risk factor for breast cancer. It can also make cancers hard to spot on mammograms. Yet you ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The National Anti-Corruption Commission will finally investigate whether six people referred to it by the royal commission into Robodebt engaged in corrupt conduct. This follows an independent reconsideration by former High Court judge Geoffrey ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University Last week in Europe, the United States sent some very strong messages it is prepared to upend the established global order. US Vice President JD Vance warned a stunned Munich ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Reserve Bank has delivered the expected modest rate cut of a quarter of a percentage point, and we’re set for the predictable frenzy of speculation about an April election. The cut is unlikely to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra The Reserve Bank cut official interest rates on Tuesday, the first decrease in four years, saying inflationary pressures are easing “a little more quickly than expected”. However, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Reserve Bank has delivered the expected modest rate cut of a quarter of a percentage point, and we’re set for the predictable frenzy of speculation about an April election. The cut is unlikely to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allan Fels, Professor Allan Fels, Professor of Law, Economics and Business at the University of Melbourne and Monash University., The University of Melbourne Australia is creeping towards adding a divestiture power to its Competition and Consumer Act. Under such a law, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arjen Vaartjes, PhD Student, Quantum Physics, UNSW Sydney Dmitriy Rybin / Shutterstock What makes something quantum? This question has kept a small but dedicated fraction of the world’s population – most of them quantum physicists – up at night for decades. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch University Australia’s minister for home affairs announced on Sunday that the federal government has struck a deal with Nauru to “resettle” three non-citizens from what’s come to be known as the “NZYQ cohort”. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University (From left to right): Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano before signing the Munich Agreement, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany.German Federal Archives/Wikimedia Commons Ukraine ...
The purpose was to establish the facts and provide an independent assessment of government agency activity in relation to allegations that personal data may have been misused during the 2023 General Election. ...
Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster said he is carefully reviewing the referrals raised in the two reports. That work will be done in the context the Privacy Act and the need to ensure individuals’ rights to privacy is protected and respected. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bhavna Middha, ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University The average Australian household size has decreased from 4.5 people per household in 1911 to 2.5 people in 2024. At the same time, the average house size has increased, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Page Jeffery, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Sydney suriyachan/Shutterstock When the Australian government passed legislation in November last year banning young people under 16 from social media, it included exemptions for platforms “that are primarily for the purposes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leslie Roberson, Postdoctoral research fellow, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland If you’ve ever been stopped by quarantine officers at the airport, you might think Australia’s international border is locked down like a fortress. But when it comes ...
Duncan Sarkies’ latest novel, Star Gazers, is about the collapse of democracy in a society of alpaca breeders. Here are some things his intensive research revealed. 1 How greed works, psychologicallyYes, I guess I already understood greed, but I could never understand why people who already have everything they ...
The proposed cuts would see only two full time Telehealth data and digital roles, and one Planning, Funding and Outcomes (PFO) role remain, reduced from 17 Telehealth support roles (including vacant roles). Roles proposed to be cut include Telehealth ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling for Ministers to end funding for Te Kurahuna programmes and workshop grifters that have received millions in taxpayer funding, despite the Government’s supposed focus on cutting costs. ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist, in Avarua, Rarotonga More than 400 people have taken to the streets to protest against Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown’s recent decisions, which have led to a diplomatic spat with New Zealand. The protest, led by Opposition MP and Cook Islands United Party ...
In the second episode, Brynley Stent and Kura Forrester unearth some truths about dating on a dance floor in South Canterbury. Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club is a brand new documentary series for The Spinoff following award-winning comedians and friends Brynley Stent and Kura Forrester as they embark ...
The first half of a billion-dollar pipe that will drastically reduce wastewater overflows in the Auckland isthmus is now in operation. As I biked south, I thought about all the poo sloshing beneath my wheels. Tubes of it disgorging from U-bends, into wastewater pipes laid under our streets that become ...
🚐 The vulnerability continues as the pair head to the Hunt Ball in South Canterbury in search of a rich farmer, before getting some sage relationship advice from Brynley’s Dad and Oma. ❣️ Bryn & Ku’s Singles Club follows comedians Brynley Stent and Kura Forrester as they head out on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joel Garrett, Lecturer in Exercise Science and Physiology, Griffith University Australia’s love affair with the major football codes – the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) – is well documented. However, one aspect that stands out to many observers, ...
The White Lotus is back for season three. Here’s what we made of episode one. The third White Lotus season rinses and repeats – and thank God for that. Turns out there is enough comedic and dramatic juice in resort-set ensemble satires on privilege in the modern world, ...
Founder, journalist and author Tim Burrowes joins Duncan Greive to discuss a torrid decade in Australian media and whether there are reasons to be optimistic amid the carnage. Tim Burrowes is the author of a book and a Substack called Unmade, which are truly essential guides to media in ...
The self-appointed apostle says he could be to Christopher Luxon what Elon Musk is to Donald Trump, and his track record speaks for itself.Who is New Zealand’s answer to Elon Musk? The Herald’s tech insider, Chris Keall, put the question to his LinkedIn acolytes the other day. “If Luxon ...
The last good thing at the supermarket is gone. Mad Chapman mourns the Cadbury mini egg cartons. When life is overwhelming and it feels like every story around you is a bad news story, there are a few things that can be relied upon to instil a sense of calm, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Parker, Honorary Professorial Fellow, Melbourne CSHE, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock Judges in Australian courtrooms have a lot of power. They can decide on someone’s guilt and the punishment for it, including lengthy prison time. But what if they get ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Birrell, Researcher, Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock Australians are waiting an average of 12 years to seek treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, our new research shows. While ...
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.