Well worth reading is Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt about the privately owned Federal Reserve and how it creates money out of thin air demanding real world interest to pay for their scam.
John Key was selected to be part of the Foreign exchange committee to the Federal Reserve of New York. A position he was appointed too after his boss Stephen Bellotti left that committee. His boss shared this committee with Robert Rubin, the man responsible for the repeal of the Glass Steagall act and generally considered to be one of the most corrupt capitalists ever.
Here is what Ellen has to say about the QE2 and how all that money did not go to the economy to get it kick started but to off shore banks were it is hoarded to pay for big bonuses
Goff on Euthanasia (responding to Families First):
Mr Goff said that when his mother was terminally ill three years ago, stopped eating and wanted to die, the family refused to let her.
“She lived for three months, but those three months were entirely without quality and all of us now wonder whether we did the right thing,” he said.
“It’s a hard question. I think we should keep discussing it. I would want to have the choice.”
Many people who have had a close encounter with undignified, distressing death, like Goff, and me, think more discussion this is needed. Consider Choices about Euthanasia.
Cameron is all excited and has reported that Labour has been reported to the Police by the Electoral Commission. What heinous crime you may wonder that it has committed? Well it left a couple of words off the back of a brochure.
The section of the Electoral Act that provides the test on whether or not an advertisement is an election advertisement and needs a promoter statement is (take a deep breath):
“3A Meaning of election advertisement
(1) In this Act, election advertisement—
(a) means an advertisement in any medium that may reasonably be regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to do either or both of the following:
(i) to vote, or not to vote, for a type of candidate described or indicated by reference to views or positions that are, or are not, held or taken (whether or not the name of the candidate is stated):
(ii) to vote, or not to vote, for a type of party described or indicated by reference to views or positions that are, or are not, held or taken (whether or not the name of the party is stated); and
(b) includes—
(i) a candidate advertisement; and
(ii) a party advertisement.
(2) None of the following are election advertisements:
…
(b) contact information (as defined in subsection (3)) published in any medium by a member of Parliament that satisfies all of the following requirements:
(i) the information was published by a member of Parliament in the course of performing his or her role and functions as a member of Parliament; and
(ii) the information was prepared for publication and published by the member of Parliament using funding received under Vote Parliamentary Service; and
(iii) the information was routinely published in that medium before the commencement of the regulated period and continues to be published in that medium during the regulated period; and
(iv) the information is published during the regulated period no more often and to no greater extent than before the commencement of the regulated period; and
(v) the information is published during the regulated period in the same form and style as before the commencement of the regulated period; and
(vi) the information is not included, combined, or associated with an election advertisement (as defined in subsection (1)), or with any other information so as to constitute an election advertisement, that is published by—
(A) the member of Parliament; or
(B) the secretary of the party to which the member of Parliament belongs; or
(C) any other person with the authority of the member of Parliament:”
Labour thought that because it was approved by Parliamentary Services and contained Phil’s contact details it was not an electoral advertisement. The EC in a very technical interpretation has refused to accept this. Because section 204J says the Commission “must” report the matter to the police it has done so.
Labour has withdrawn the pamphlets and indicated that all future pamphlets will have the “authorised by …” statement.
Talk about Nanny State on steroids. Will DPF recommence his campaign against restrictions on freedom of speech? Will Cameron agree that this is nanny state gone wild?
Who pays for it if it’s an election advertisement vs not an election advertisement ? Doesn’t it come from a different pot of cash albeit all from the long suffering taxpayer.
Labour thought that because it was approved by Parliamentary Services and contained Phil’s contact details it was not an electoral advertisement.
What Labour might ‘think’ is not the point. Given the way it was unfairly accused of electoral malpractice in the past – and the recent inexcusable slackness of security of personal information – why didn’t the persons responsible for the pamphlet include the words “authorised by etc.” just to be on the safe side?
Some may say that it’s all very well with the benefit of hindsight to be critical, but I’m starting to have serious doubts about the ability of some of Labour’s internal HQ staff. These are all avoidable mishaps!
LAB approved the materials through Parliamentary Services. After examining the material it was independently considered (by Parliamentary Services) to not be party material or electioneering material.
And so the material, OK’d by Parliamentary Services, had the Parliamentary Services seal placed upon them.
Nice to know that Labour will place the blame anywhere but themselves
So why not just get it right the first time?
Is it because they’re:
Lazy
Arrogant
Incompetent
or all of the above
its not like this is the first time they’ve been in trouble over this kind of carry on and why does it seem as if its always Labour in the gun for this sort of thing? (apart from the VRWC influencing the MSM
No chris 73 you’re right. They’re not lazy and arrogant nor are they really stupid. I suspect the person(s) who made the mistake was(were) not part of the publicity team when the pledge card misadventure occurred and therefore didn’t learn from it. My understanding is that P.S. approved the pledge card too.
Q+A this morning devoted to all the young’ns and how they are going to be needed to keep us a first world country and so much of what I could gather, from amongst the jargon and cliches of those in the know, was that it was super high-tech that was going to get us there.
Just got the Internet Bill this morning (on-line) and suddenly thought, how in hell is a superannuatant ever going to be able to access or stay in touch with the world, unless this Super Duper Broadband world that Mr Joyce is promising us is actually next to free.
$90 a month just to access your money (banking), pay your bills (online) and phone the emergency services all on the basic pension of $251p.w.
Internet connection has become a societal necessity which is generally what happens to services that provide a public good. As such, it needs to be a government service paid for through taxes and not a private provided good that makes some non-productive shareholders a profit.
My refrigerator provides a public good and is considered a necessity. Why wasn’t it publicly provided? Another weird thing about refrigerators (and other goods and services that the govt mostly stays out of) is that they get cheaper, with more features, year on year. Some greedy capitalist keeps making better and cheaper fridges! How unproductive.
My refrigerator provides a public good and is considered a necessity.
You open up your refrigerator to use by your neighbourhood? That’s very generous of you.
they get cheaper, with more features, year on year.
Now let’s ask how this is accomplished. Could it be a combination of producing ever higher volumes of crap (economies of scale), designs which do more with fewer parts and materials (tech and design innovation), employing fewer workers (increased labour productivity), and locating manufacturing in the lowest cost countries possible (reduced labour costs).
All of that is certainly productive. Especially for the capitalist shareholders.
Some greedy capitalist keeps making better and cheaper fridges!
Capitalists don’t make fridges, workers do (e.g. engineers and production line staff)
In part 2 you did a pretty good job of describing the capitalist process. One that benefits both the producer and consumer. I’m struggling to see the problem.
Of course you are. It goes back to the lie you tried to slide in at the start – that capitalists make fridges.
They don’t, workers do, and the capitalists reward themselves from the economic surplus generated by the hard work of the engineers and the production staff by paying as few workers as possible as little as possible.
Marx described the relationship where one party (workers) produce the surplus economic value but where another party (the capitalist major shareholders) has all the power to choose what to do with the economic surplus as being exploitative.
By your logic every good is a public one.
No, it doesn’t. Not sure how you can believe that ‘benefiting Rusty’ = ‘the public good’ without some major brain contortions.
Capitalists take on the risk. Not every investment will see a return so it’s better for society to let people who are good at taking risk carry the burden.
Not every investment will see a return so it’s better for society to let people who are good at taking risk carry the burden.
BS as the Spirit Level proves. Having a small bunch of dictators living it up at everyone else’s expense is bad for society. And then there’s the fact, as the latest crash proves, that those dictators aren’t actually taking any risk – societies around the world have bailed them out when the risk came due.
As for the refrigerator not being supplied by a government owned, worker run factory is because the capitalists don’t want it that way? They wouldn’t be able to tell everyone how important they are and that they should have the bulk of the wealth if they weren’t needed.
So Rusty – why turn this into a Capitalist discussion. Your refrigerator analogy is spurious.
You have not addressed the issue of retirees being able to remain connected to this all singing all dancing technology.
The way I see it technology is rapidly advancing and to a greater exclusion of many in society. I have not seen a great reduction in the costs between ISPs.
Soon (in a couple of years) most of commerce will require an on-line interface with customer and supplier.
At the moment the basic phone provider is $50 plus. For internet, it is another $30 – $40. Cannot see the pension increasing to such an extent – what do they promise? Rate of increase tied to CPI.
That’s the end of the News of the World, thank God. But let’s not kid ourselves about the rest of the British media, and in particular the “liberal” media…
‘Extreme Dishonesty’ — The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and Venezuela
The headline of last Sunday’s Observer article on Venezuela set the tone for the slanted and opportunistic piece of political ‘reporting’ that followed: ‘Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for “assault” on democracy’.
And then the opening line launched into a barrage of spin: ‘Hugo Chávez has long considered Noam Chomsky one of his best friends in the west. He has basked in the renowned scholar’s praise for Venezuela’s socialist revolution and echoed his denunciations of US imperialism.’
The ironic sneer directed at the Venezuelan president apparently basking in Chomsky’s ‘praise’, and the sly hint of robotic ‘echoing’ of his buddy’s rants, were indicative of the bias, omissions and
deceptions to follow. Reporter Rory Carroll, the Guardian‘s South America correspondent, had just interviewed Chomsky and set about twisting the conversation into a propaganda piece. (For non-UK readers who may not know: the Observer is the Sunday sister publication of the Guardian newspaper).
Carroll’s skewed view was clear and upfront in his article: ‘Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an “assault” on Venezuela’s democracy.’ As we will see shortly, this was a highly partial and misleading account of Chomsky’s full remarks, leading him to declare afterwards that the newspaper had displayed ‘extreme dishonesty’ and that
Carroll’s article was ‘quite deceptive’.
The news hook was the publication of an open letter by Chomsky pleading for the release of Venezuelan judge María Lourdes Afiuni who is suffering from cancer. Afiuni, explains Carroll, ‘earned Chávez’s ire in December 2009 by freeing Eligio Cedeño, a prominent banker facing corruption charges.’ After just over a year in jail, awaiting trial on charges of corruption, the Venezuelan authorities ‘softened her confinement to house arrest’.
In the open letter, prepared together with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, Chomsky says: ‘Judge Afiuni had my sympathy and solidarity from the very beginning.
The way she was detained, the inadequate conditions of her imprisonment, the degrading treatment she suffered in the Instituto Nacional de Orientación Femenina, the dramatic erosion of her health
and the cruelty displayed against her, all duly documented, left me greatly worried about her physical and psychological wellbeing, as well as about her personal safety.’
He concludes with the plea: ‘I shall keep high hopes that President Chávez will consider a humanitarian act that will end the judge’s detention.’ Towards the end of Carroll’s article, the journalist injected some token balance: ‘The Chávez government deserved credit for sharply reducing poverty and for its policies of promoting self-governing communities and Latin
American unity, Chomsky said. “It’s hard to judge how successful they are, but if they are successful they would be seeds of a better world.” ‘
But the blatant spin of the headline and the article’s lead paragraphs had already done the required job – President Chávez is so extreme that even that radical lefty Noam Chomsky, one of his best friends in the West, has now denounced him.
Chomsky Responds… ‘Extreme Dishonesty’ And A ‘Quite Deceptive’ Report
Activists and bloggers were quick to email Noam Chomsky to ask for his response to Rory Carroll’s article in the Observer. In particular, Chomsky replied as follows to one aggressive challenger who made a series of personal attacks on him: ‘Let’s begin with the headline: complete deception. That continues throughout. You can tell by simply comparing the actual quotes with their comments. As I mentioned, and expected, the New York Times report of a similar interview is much more honest, again revealing the extreme dishonesty of the Guardian.
‘I’m sure you would understand if an Iranian dissident who charged Israel with crimes would also bring up the fact that charges from Iran and its supporters cannot be taken seriously in the light of Iran’s far worse abuses. If you don’t understand that, which I doubt, you really have some problems to think about. If you do understand it, as I assume, the same is true. That’s exactly why bringing up [the jailed US soldier Bradley] Manning (and much more) is highly relevant.’
Joe Emersberger, an activist based in Canada, also approached Chomsky for a reaction to the piece:
‘The Guardian/Observer version, as I anticipated, is quite deceptive. The report in the New York Times is considerably more honest. Both omit much of relevance that I stressed throughout, including the fact that criticisms from the US government or anyone who supports its actions can hardly be taken seriously, considering Washington’s far worse record without any of the real concerns that Venezuela faces, the Manning case for one [Manning is the alleged source for huge amounts of restricted material passed on to WikiLeaks], which is much worse than Judge Afiuni’s. And much else. There’s no transcript, unfortunately. I should know by now that I should insist on a transcript with the Guardian, unless it’s a writer I know and trust.’ (Joe Emersberger, ‘Chomsky Says UK Guardian Article “Quite Deceptive” About his Chavez Criticism’, Z Blogs, July 4, 2011).
In fact the very next day after Carroll’s article appeared, and no doubt stung by the rising tide of internet-based criticism, the Guardian took the unusual step of publishing what is presumably a full transcript of the interview. (Also unusually, the Guardian did not
allow reader comments to be posted under the transcript.) But the transcript only served to prove Chomsky’s point about the ‘deceptive’ nature of the printed article. His comparisons to the
justice system in the United States – in particular, the torture and abuse of Bradley Manning – were edited out. Carroll had asked him about the intervention of the Venezuelan executive in demanding a long jail sentence for Judge Afiuni.
Chomsky replied: ‘It’s obviously improper for the executive to intervene and impose a jail sentence without a trial. And I should say that the United States is in no position to complain about this. Bradley Manning has been imprisoned without charge, under torture, which is what solitary
confinement is. The president in fact intervened. Obama was asked about his conditions and said that he was assured by the Pentagon that they were fine. That’s executive intervention in a case of severe violation of civil liberties and it’s hardly the only one. That doesn’t change the judgment about Venezuela, it just says that what one hears in the United States one can dismiss.’
Chomsky added: ‘Venezuela has come under vicious, unremitting attack by the United States and the west generally – in the media and even in policy. After all the United States sponsored a military coup [in 2002] which failed and since then has been engaged in extensive subversion. And the onslaught […] against Venezuela in commentary is grotesque.’ Nothing of that appeared in the published Observer article. [* See Update below]
Also given scant notice were Chomsky’s observations about positive developments in Venezuela and Latin America generally in trying to overcome the horrendous impacts of over five centuries of European, and latterly also US, colonialism and exploitation: ‘I think what’s happened in Latin America in the past 10 years is probably the most exciting and positive development to take place in the world. For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence. Furthermore internally there was a model that was followed pretty closely by each of the countries: a very small Europeanised, often white elite that concentrated enormous wealth in the midst of incredible poverty. And this is a region, especially South America, which are very rich in resources which you would expect under proper conditions to develop far better than east Asia for example but it hasn’t happened.’
The above quotes by Chomsky are only extracts of the longest answers, by far, that he gave in his interview with Carroll. But they didn’t fit the journalist’s agenda of setting up Chomsky in ‘denouncing’ Chávez’s supposed ‘assault’ on democracy. Carroll once accurately declared that he is ‘not a champion of impartiality’. Indeed, Joe Emersberger has done much sterling work, exposing and challenging Carroll’s biased journalism from Latin America. Carroll and his editors clearly have supreme difficulty in answering Emersberger’s cogent emails, judging by their repeated
failure to respond.
Readers may recall that the Guardian has a dubious track record in recording and accurately reflecting the views of Noam Chomsky; that is, when it doesn’t conform to the usual pattern of completely ignoring him. The Guardian‘s smear of Chomsky in 2005 marked a real
low in the history of this ‘flagship’ newspaper of ‘liberal’ journalism. See ‘Smearing Chomsky – Guardian in the Gutter’, ‘Smearing Chomsky – The Guardian Backs Down’ and the external ombudsman’s report.
Perhaps what is most noteworthy about this whole episode is best summed up by Emersberger:
‘This is not the first time Rory Carroll has taken a highly selective interest in Chomsky’s views on Latin America. When Chomsky signed an open letter in 2008 critical of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Rory Carroll also jumped all over it. At about the same time, Chomsky signed an open letter to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe about far more grave matters but it was ignored by the Guardian. At the time, I asked Rory Carroll and his editors why they ignored it but they never replied to me. They also ignored an open letter to Uribe signed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and various other groups. I asked Carroll and his editors why that open letter was ignored and – as usual – no one responded.’
Concluding Remarks
Noam Chomsky was once famously described by the New York Times as ‘arguably the most important intellectual alive’. And yet, as mentioned earlier, the Guardian is normally happy to ignore him and his views. But when Chomsky expresses criticism of an official enemy
of the West, he suddenly does exist and matter for the Guardian. That indicates what we already knew: that the liberal press is perfectly aware of the importance of Chomsky’s work. They just ignore it because it undermines the wrong interests.
Rory Carroll’s article is a wonderful glimpse of the kind of status Chomsky would enjoy if he promoted the myth of the basic benevolence of the West, and focused on the crimes of official enemies. He would be feted as one of the most insightful and brilliant political commentators the world had ever seen. He would be far and away the world’s number one political talking head. His face would be all over the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent, the BBC, the New York Times and so on.
There is a humbling lesson here also, of course, for those people who are all over the media. In important ways, the media is a demeritocracy.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
July 6, 2011
Hello
Well, the transcript is there so everyone can judge the article, and Prof Chomsky’s response, for themselves.
Just one point: you say the article omitted Prof Chomsky’s references to Manning and US policy on Venezuela. About half-way there is this: “Its author remains fiercely critical of the US, which he said had tortured Bradley Manning, alleged source of the diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks, and continued to wage a “vicious, unremitting” campaign against Venezuela.
Best
Rory
July 6, 2011
Hello Rory,
Thanks for writing and pointing out that mistake – apologies. It should have read that you had given those points scant attention in comparison to the chosen spin of the ‘dishonest’ headline and main thrust of the ‘deceptive’ article. I’ll post an update.
As you rightly say, and as we noted in the alert, people can see for themselves to what extent the published article reflects what Noam Chomsky said in the interview.
Moreover, Joe Emersberger’s comments about your selective attention to Chomsky’s views, and your failure to respond to past challenges, remain unaddressed. And so do our concluding remarks about the default stance of the Guardian and the media when it comes to reporting Chomsky’s insightful observations: simply ignore them.
Best wishes
David Cromwell
Yeah, I certainly remember reading of the 2005 smear.
I haven’t got time today, but in one of the Open Mikes in the next few days, I’ll briefly outline a NZ Listener smear of Chomsky from a few years ago.
…in the next few days, I’ll briefly outline a NZ Listener smear of Chomsky from a few years ago.
I’ll look forward to reading that, my friend. I hardly bother nowadays to even glance at what was once an essential magazine. Which intellectual giant did Pamela Stirling, that formidable polymath of an editor, assign to the task of smearing Chomsky? Deborah Hill Cone? Joanne Black? Bill Ralston? Raybon Kan? Paul Lewis? The more I think of a possible contender for this Herculean task, the funnier it seems.
Thanks, Morrissey. Looks like it’ll probably be later in the week. I’m just a bit too busy at the moment and (possibly like you and one or two others here) I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I want to provide an effective context, before I outline the details. All takes time 🙂
Today’s Nation was once again an attack on Labour. The so called discussion on Capital Gains developed into a critizem of the Labour Policy.
Garner once again ,as he does every week ,finds fault with Goffs leadership.
What ever has Phil done to this creep?
Their is no doubt that with the Capital Gains tax announcement Labour is going to dominate the debate. However Nat’s will pull every trick they know to rubbish this. I’m looking forward to Friday’s statement by Phil on this. There is no doubt this could be just what Labour needs to boost the polls.
Now I have heard ,from a good source , that this Tory government is considering deregistering theTeachers Union .Anyone heard anything?
It certainly would not surprise me .
If they did deregister the PPTA or the Primary NZEI or could only to pick a fight. The grounds for deregistering have to be pretty compelling and it is many years decades(?) since it was done to a union.
Can’t believe that since the other day when Anne Tolley was asked if any action was planned against theNZEI re NS, she said dismissively no but they will be helping schools to understand NS (!!!) and maybe next year they will look at other means. Good reason to make sure that Tolley is not there next year to do any more damage.
Yes Postman its the media that are to blame for Goffs ineptitude as a leader. He’s never to blame in the lefts eyes, which is of course a socialist mantra, “he’s not to blame its society’s fault” (and anyone with more money than you). If Goff wants traction he needs a personality transplant and policy that resonates with the voters. Goff repeating the same behaviour and tired speeches and expecting a different result, is the epitome of being deranged.
There was another large earthquake off the East coast of Honshu, Japan today. It measured magnitude 7. This coincides with a general increase in the number of all magnitude earthquakes over recent years…
“The latest 3 News Reid Research poll is out and has National opening up its already massive gap over Labour.
One of the real winners in this poll is the rise and rise of the Greens; who seem to now be feeding off Labour’s misery and taking their voters.
National was up 2.1 points on 55.1 percent support while Labour slipped 2.9 points to 29.9 percent. The Greens went up 2.6 points to 9.1 percent.”
Priceless.
[lprent: Also completely off topic and looks to me like it was meant to be diversionary. If I see you do again I will kick you out of commenting for while. Moving to OpenMike.
Oh buggerit – that was too much work. Banned for a week for wasting my time. ]
It’s just showing the volatility of the polls. This one won’t be affected much if at all by the CGT, and certainly won’t be affected by the weekend’s Act.
Wow, like that’s never happened before… I can hardly wait for some MP to say the rules were confusing… others did it too… It’s not fair to just prosecute Labour….
Labour had prior confirmation from Parliamentary Services that those materials were not considered party promotional materials or electioneering materials.
You really are a dipshit, just man up and say “we screwed up”
Maybe in future you might want to go for advice elsewhere…you know the saying “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and I probably work for Labour”
Labour originally sought and gained sign offs from Parliamentary Services on the flyers etc. i.e. an independent assessment, that the material was not party material and was not electioneering material.
Labour was therefore allowed to use the Parliamentary Services seal on the material, which would not have been permitted had the material been judged at the time to be Labour Party promotional material or electioneering material.
Do Parliamentary Services indemnify political parties from being accountable under the law ?
You seem to think so and Labour’s previous behaviour seems to imply that – but what are the rules? Remember the rules – in this case the laws passed by MPs for MPs. Can’t say they are confusing and claim to be competent at the same time.
Are Labour incompetent or are they self serving muppets who think they are above the law ?
Labour sought out early expert advice, and that independent advice came back that those materials were not party promotional or electioneering materials.
Now that call might have been wrong in the final analysis (we’ll wait and see), but Labour took a lot of care to get this right from the start.
So here we go.. The law was confusing… Others were doing it too…
Oh dear, Labour hasn’t got the numbers to retrospectively validate under urgency.
How handy would the conventional ‘not in the public interest to prosecute’ be?
What about that convention that parliament can’t use the excuse a law was confusing because they wrote it and they voted to get it enacted? OK we let that one go for a while when it was convenient with the EFA, but is it gone forever ?
Well, as I mentioned above, Labour had the material checked and vetted by Parliamentary Services, and at the time it was independently assessed as not being party promotional material nor electioneering material.
So here we go again… The ref made a bad call… the rules were changed…
Sorry CV – the people who make the laws and pass the laws need to understand the laws.
So I guess if they had it checked by Parliamentary Services then they will be confident they didn’t break the law and they will be happy to see it tested in court ?
Remember the Judiciary… I know previously Labour have shown a preference for retrospective validation rather than take their chances in court but they might not get that option this time. But hey PS said it was OK so should be an open and shut case where they are not found guilty – right ?
Actually, Key has just dominated the news over big free trade trip to india – staged romance at the Taj and filmed with Bollywood’s Brangelina all that aspirational stuff. Yet only pulled 2%, and is that not the margin of error?? Gloat all you like Chris , but you know as well as most of us – National’s popularity rides of on Key and lets face it, the public will wake up..
Why are the police being so vindictive in prosecuting Arie Smith-Voorkamp? They are even bullying TV1’s Sunday programme for running the story tonight about his arrest and alleged beating for taking two lightbulbs from an abandoned building. Even the building’s owners didn’t want him charged until the police apparently bullied them too. Something unpleasant going on in the police culture.
Absolutely true, Hilary! I watched Sunday for possibly the second time ever, and was very impressed by Arie and by the building’s owners. His reason (that it was a shame to leave electrical fittings in a building that might collapse) would seem perfectly reasonable to someone with Aspergers who wants to become an electrician! He wasn’t looting anything, just rescuing something…
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Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
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Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
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Well worth reading is Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt about the privately owned Federal Reserve and how it creates money out of thin air demanding real world interest to pay for their scam.
John Key was selected to be part of the Foreign exchange committee to the Federal Reserve of New York. A position he was appointed too after his boss Stephen Bellotti left that committee. His boss shared this committee with Robert Rubin, the man responsible for the repeal of the Glass Steagall act and generally considered to be one of the most corrupt capitalists ever.
Here is what Ellen has to say about the QE2 and how all that money did not go to the economy to get it kick started but to off shore banks were it is hoarded to pay for big bonuses
Goff on Euthanasia (responding to Families First):
Many people who have had a close encounter with undignified, distressing death, like Goff, and me, think more discussion this is needed. Consider Choices about Euthanasia.
Cameron is all excited and has reported that Labour has been reported to the Police by the Electoral Commission. What heinous crime you may wonder that it has committed? Well it left a couple of words off the back of a brochure.
The section of the Electoral Act that provides the test on whether or not an advertisement is an election advertisement and needs a promoter statement is (take a deep breath):
“3A Meaning of election advertisement
(a) means an advertisement in any medium that may reasonably be regarded as encouraging or persuading voters to do either or both of the following:
(i) to vote, or not to vote, for a type of candidate described or indicated by reference to views or positions that are, or are not, held or taken (whether or not the name of the candidate is stated):
(ii) to vote, or not to vote, for a type of party described or indicated by reference to views or positions that are, or are not, held or taken (whether or not the name of the party is stated); and
(b) includes—
(i) a candidate advertisement; and
(ii) a party advertisement.
(2) None of the following are election advertisements:
…
(b) contact information (as defined in subsection (3)) published in any medium by a member of Parliament that satisfies all of the following requirements:
(i) the information was published by a member of Parliament in the course of performing his or her role and functions as a member of Parliament; and
(ii) the information was prepared for publication and published by the member of Parliament using funding received under Vote Parliamentary Service; and
(iii) the information was routinely published in that medium before the commencement of the regulated period and continues to be published in that medium during the regulated period; and
(iv) the information is published during the regulated period no more often and to no greater extent than before the commencement of the regulated period; and
(v) the information is published during the regulated period in the same form and style as before the commencement of the regulated period; and
(vi) the information is not included, combined, or associated with an election advertisement (as defined in subsection (1)), or with any other information so as to constitute an election advertisement, that is published by—
(A) the member of Parliament; or
(B) the secretary of the party to which the member of Parliament belongs; or
(C) any other person with the authority of the member of Parliament:”
Labour thought that because it was approved by Parliamentary Services and contained Phil’s contact details it was not an electoral advertisement. The EC in a very technical interpretation has refused to accept this. Because section 204J says the Commission “must” report the matter to the police it has done so.
Labour has withdrawn the pamphlets and indicated that all future pamphlets will have the “authorised by …” statement.
Talk about Nanny State on steroids. Will DPF recommence his campaign against restrictions on freedom of speech? Will Cameron agree that this is nanny state gone wild?
Who pays for it if it’s an election advertisement vs not an election advertisement ? Doesn’t it come from a different pot of cash albeit all from the long suffering taxpayer.
Labour thought that because it was approved by Parliamentary Services and contained Phil’s contact details it was not an electoral advertisement.
What Labour might ‘think’ is not the point. Given the way it was unfairly accused of electoral malpractice in the past – and the recent inexcusable slackness of security of personal information – why didn’t the persons responsible for the pamphlet include the words “authorised by etc.” just to be on the safe side?
Some may say that it’s all very well with the benefit of hindsight to be critical, but I’m starting to have serious doubts about the ability of some of Labour’s internal HQ staff. These are all avoidable mishaps!
I know this is probably a foriegn concept but why don’t Labour dot the eyes and cross the tees
All something like this does is reinforce the notion that the Labour party are arrogant, lazy and think the rules don’t apply to them
Chris, LAB got Parliamentary Services confirmation that this stuff was not considered party/electioneering material and could wear the seal as such.
Pull the other one
So instead of trying to stop issues that they’ve have had in the past they just keep on repeating them
Ok so fair point, Labour arn’t lazy or arrogant they’re just really stupid
Thanks for clearing that up
LAB approved the materials through Parliamentary Services. After examining the material it was independently considered (by Parliamentary Services) to not be party material or electioneering material.
And so the material, OK’d by Parliamentary Services, had the Parliamentary Services seal placed upon them.
Nice to know that Labour will place the blame anywhere but themselves
So why not just get it right the first time?
Is it because they’re:
Lazy
Arrogant
Incompetent
or all of the above
its not like this is the first time they’ve been in trouble over this kind of carry on and why does it seem as if its always Labour in the gun for this sort of thing? (apart from the VRWC influencing the MSM
No chris 73 you’re right. They’re not lazy and arrogant nor are they really stupid. I suspect the person(s) who made the mistake was(were) not part of the publicity team when the pledge card misadventure occurred and therefore didn’t learn from it. My understanding is that P.S. approved the pledge card too.
So wouldn’t it make sense to have someone oversee these things so errors arn’t made?
Naah wheres the fun in that…
Agreed Chris 73. (minus second remark)
The moral of the story… don’t rely (only) on Parliamentary Services for electoral law advice.
Sometimes life really is that simple
Btw, my 5:33pm comment was based on your previous comment which you changed while I was typing mine up. 🙂
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5261850/Legal-aid-plea-is-sick-investor
so very sick of this empty wallet BS by big boys who lost their toys, after stealing everyone else’s
Q+A this morning devoted to all the young’ns and how they are going to be needed to keep us a first world country and so much of what I could gather, from amongst the jargon and cliches of those in the know, was that it was super high-tech that was going to get us there.
Just got the Internet Bill this morning (on-line) and suddenly thought, how in hell is a superannuatant ever going to be able to access or stay in touch with the world, unless this Super Duper Broadband world that Mr Joyce is promising us is actually next to free.
$90 a month just to access your money (banking), pay your bills (online) and phone the emergency services all on the basic pension of $251p.w.
Any suggestions?
Internet connection has become a societal necessity which is generally what happens to services that provide a public good. As such, it needs to be a government service paid for through taxes and not a private provided good that makes some non-productive shareholders a profit.
My refrigerator provides a public good and is considered a necessity. Why wasn’t it publicly provided? Another weird thing about refrigerators (and other goods and services that the govt mostly stays out of) is that they get cheaper, with more features, year on year. Some greedy capitalist keeps making better and cheaper fridges! How unproductive.
You open up your refrigerator to use by your neighbourhood? That’s very generous of you.
Now let’s ask how this is accomplished. Could it be a combination of producing ever higher volumes of crap (economies of scale), designs which do more with fewer parts and materials (tech and design innovation), employing fewer workers (increased labour productivity), and locating manufacturing in the lowest cost countries possible (reduced labour costs).
All of that is certainly productive. Especially for the capitalist shareholders.
Capitalists don’t make fridges, workers do (e.g. engineers and production line staff)
By your logic every good is a public one.
In part 2 you did a pretty good job of describing the capitalist process. One that benefits both the producer and consumer. I’m struggling to see the problem.
Of course you are. It goes back to the lie you tried to slide in at the start – that capitalists make fridges.
They don’t, workers do, and the capitalists reward themselves from the economic surplus generated by the hard work of the engineers and the production staff by paying as few workers as possible as little as possible.
Marx described the relationship where one party (workers) produce the surplus economic value but where another party (the capitalist major shareholders) has all the power to choose what to do with the economic surplus as being exploitative.
No, it doesn’t. Not sure how you can believe that ‘benefiting Rusty’ = ‘the public good’ without some major brain contortions.
I would like to see you try to build a fridge without capital.
I would like to see capital build a fridge without workers.
Moreover, capital can come from different sources.
It does not have to come from a small group of private major shareholders who do none of the actual work which goes into a fridge.
Fridges are probably built mostly by robots.
Capital accumulation can only come from savings.
Capitalists take on the risk. Not every investment will see a return so it’s better for society to let people who are good at taking risk carry the burden.
I’d like to know where you think these people actually exist lol
Untrue. The siphoning off of the economic surplus produced by workers allows capital accumulation by major shareholders at a rapid rate.
BS as the Spirit Level proves. Having a small bunch of dictators living it up at everyone else’s expense is bad for society. And then there’s the fact, as the latest crash proves, that those dictators aren’t actually taking any risk – societies around the world have bailed them out when the risk came due.
As for the refrigerator not being supplied by a government owned, worker run factory is because the capitalists don’t want it that way? They wouldn’t be able to tell everyone how important they are and that they should have the bulk of the wealth if they weren’t needed.
This is a classic reply
If I didn’t have a fridge would I not get sick from spoiled food and therefore use more public health resources?
No eat fresh food 😛
So Rusty – why turn this into a Capitalist discussion. Your refrigerator analogy is spurious.
You have not addressed the issue of retirees being able to remain connected to this all singing all dancing technology.
The way I see it technology is rapidly advancing and to a greater exclusion of many in society. I have not seen a great reduction in the costs between ISPs.
Soon (in a couple of years) most of commerce will require an on-line interface with customer and supplier.
At the moment the basic phone provider is $50 plus. For internet, it is another $30 – $40. Cannot see the pension increasing to such an extent – what do they promise? Rate of increase tied to CPI.
Exactly.
Difficult now we no longer own Telecom of course.
That’s the end of the News of the World, thank God. But let’s not kid ourselves about the rest of the British media, and in particular the “liberal” media…
‘Extreme Dishonesty’ — The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and Venezuela
http://chomsky.info/onchomsky/20110706.htm
MediaLens July 6, 2011
The headline of last Sunday’s Observer article on Venezuela set the tone for the slanted and opportunistic piece of political ‘reporting’ that followed: ‘Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for “assault” on democracy’.
And then the opening line launched into a barrage of spin: ‘Hugo Chávez has long considered Noam Chomsky one of his best friends in the west. He has basked in the renowned scholar’s praise for Venezuela’s socialist revolution and echoed his denunciations of US imperialism.’
The ironic sneer directed at the Venezuelan president apparently basking in Chomsky’s ‘praise’, and the sly hint of robotic ‘echoing’ of his buddy’s rants, were indicative of the bias, omissions and
deceptions to follow. Reporter Rory Carroll, the Guardian‘s South America correspondent, had just interviewed Chomsky and set about twisting the conversation into a propaganda piece. (For non-UK readers who may not know: the Observer is the Sunday sister publication of the Guardian newspaper).
Carroll’s skewed view was clear and upfront in his article: ‘Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an “assault” on Venezuela’s democracy.’ As we will see shortly, this was a highly partial and misleading account of Chomsky’s full remarks, leading him to declare afterwards that the newspaper had displayed ‘extreme dishonesty’ and that
Carroll’s article was ‘quite deceptive’.
The news hook was the publication of an open letter by Chomsky pleading for the release of Venezuelan judge María Lourdes Afiuni who is suffering from cancer. Afiuni, explains Carroll, ‘earned Chávez’s ire in December 2009 by freeing Eligio Cedeño, a prominent banker facing corruption charges.’ After just over a year in jail, awaiting trial on charges of corruption, the Venezuelan authorities ‘softened her confinement to house arrest’.
In the open letter, prepared together with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, Chomsky says: ‘Judge Afiuni had my sympathy and solidarity from the very beginning.
The way she was detained, the inadequate conditions of her imprisonment, the degrading treatment she suffered in the Instituto Nacional de Orientación Femenina, the dramatic erosion of her health
and the cruelty displayed against her, all duly documented, left me greatly worried about her physical and psychological wellbeing, as well as about her personal safety.’
He concludes with the plea: ‘I shall keep high hopes that President Chávez will consider a humanitarian act that will end the judge’s detention.’ Towards the end of Carroll’s article, the journalist injected some token balance: ‘The Chávez government deserved credit for sharply reducing poverty and for its policies of promoting self-governing communities and Latin
American unity, Chomsky said. “It’s hard to judge how successful they are, but if they are successful they would be seeds of a better world.” ‘
But the blatant spin of the headline and the article’s lead paragraphs had already done the required job – President Chávez is so extreme that even that radical lefty Noam Chomsky, one of his best friends in the West, has now denounced him.
Chomsky Responds…
‘Extreme Dishonesty’ And A ‘Quite Deceptive’ Report
Activists and bloggers were quick to email Noam Chomsky to ask for his response to Rory Carroll’s article in the Observer. In particular, Chomsky replied as follows to one aggressive challenger who made a series of personal attacks on him: ‘Let’s begin with the headline: complete deception. That continues throughout. You can tell by simply comparing the actual quotes with their comments. As I mentioned, and expected, the New York Times report of a similar interview is much more honest, again revealing the extreme dishonesty of the Guardian.
‘I’m sure you would understand if an Iranian dissident who charged Israel with crimes would also bring up the fact that charges from Iran and its supporters cannot be taken seriously in the light of Iran’s far worse abuses. If you don’t understand that, which I doubt, you really have some problems to think about. If you do understand it, as I assume, the same is true. That’s exactly why bringing up [the jailed US soldier Bradley] Manning (and much more) is highly relevant.’
Joe Emersberger, an activist based in Canada, also approached Chomsky for a reaction to the piece:
‘The Guardian/Observer version, as I anticipated, is quite deceptive. The report in the New York Times is considerably more honest. Both omit much of relevance that I stressed throughout, including the fact that criticisms from the US government or anyone who supports its actions can hardly be taken seriously, considering Washington’s far worse record without any of the real concerns that Venezuela faces, the Manning case for one [Manning is the alleged source for huge amounts of restricted material passed on to WikiLeaks], which is much worse than Judge Afiuni’s. And much else. There’s no transcript, unfortunately. I should know by now that I should insist on a transcript with the Guardian, unless it’s a writer I know and trust.’ (Joe Emersberger, ‘Chomsky Says UK Guardian Article “Quite Deceptive” About his Chavez Criticism’, Z Blogs, July 4, 2011).
In fact the very next day after Carroll’s article appeared, and no doubt stung by the rising tide of internet-based criticism, the Guardian took the unusual step of publishing what is presumably a full transcript of the interview. (Also unusually, the Guardian did not
allow reader comments to be posted under the transcript.) But the transcript only served to prove Chomsky’s point about the ‘deceptive’ nature of the printed article. His comparisons to the
justice system in the United States – in particular, the torture and abuse of Bradley Manning – were edited out. Carroll had asked him about the intervention of the Venezuelan executive in demanding a long jail sentence for Judge Afiuni.
Chomsky replied: ‘It’s obviously improper for the executive to intervene and impose a jail sentence without a trial. And I should say that the United States is in no position to complain about this. Bradley Manning has been imprisoned without charge, under torture, which is what solitary
confinement is. The president in fact intervened. Obama was asked about his conditions and said that he was assured by the Pentagon that they were fine. That’s executive intervention in a case of severe violation of civil liberties and it’s hardly the only one. That doesn’t change the judgment about Venezuela, it just says that what one hears in the United States one can dismiss.’
Chomsky added: ‘Venezuela has come under vicious, unremitting attack by the United States and the west generally – in the media and even in policy. After all the United States sponsored a military coup [in 2002] which failed and since then has been engaged in extensive subversion. And the onslaught […] against Venezuela in commentary is grotesque.’ Nothing of that appeared in the published Observer article. [* See Update below]
Also given scant notice were Chomsky’s observations about positive developments in Venezuela and Latin America generally in trying to overcome the horrendous impacts of over five centuries of European, and latterly also US, colonialism and exploitation: ‘I think what’s happened in Latin America in the past 10 years is probably the most exciting and positive development to take place in the world. For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence. Furthermore internally there was a model that was followed pretty closely by each of the countries: a very small Europeanised, often white elite that concentrated enormous wealth in the midst of incredible poverty. And this is a region, especially South America, which are very rich in resources which you would expect under proper conditions to develop far better than east Asia for example but it hasn’t happened.’
The above quotes by Chomsky are only extracts of the longest answers, by far, that he gave in his interview with Carroll. But they didn’t fit the journalist’s agenda of setting up Chomsky in ‘denouncing’ Chávez’s supposed ‘assault’ on democracy. Carroll once accurately declared that he is ‘not a champion of impartiality’. Indeed, Joe Emersberger has done much sterling work, exposing and challenging Carroll’s biased journalism from Latin America. Carroll and his editors clearly have supreme difficulty in answering Emersberger’s cogent emails, judging by their repeated
failure to respond.
Readers may recall that the Guardian has a dubious track record in recording and accurately reflecting the views of Noam Chomsky; that is, when it doesn’t conform to the usual pattern of completely ignoring him. The Guardian‘s smear of Chomsky in 2005 marked a real
low in the history of this ‘flagship’ newspaper of ‘liberal’ journalism. See ‘Smearing Chomsky – Guardian in the Gutter’, ‘Smearing Chomsky – The Guardian Backs Down’ and the external ombudsman’s report.
Perhaps what is most noteworthy about this whole episode is best summed up by Emersberger:
‘This is not the first time Rory Carroll has taken a highly selective interest in Chomsky’s views on Latin America. When Chomsky signed an open letter in 2008 critical of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Rory Carroll also jumped all over it. At about the same time, Chomsky signed an open letter to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe about far more grave matters but it was ignored by the Guardian. At the time, I asked Rory Carroll and his editors why they ignored it but they never replied to me. They also ignored an open letter to Uribe signed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and various other groups. I asked Carroll and his editors why that open letter was ignored and – as usual – no one responded.’
Concluding Remarks
Noam Chomsky was once famously described by the New York Times as ‘arguably the most important intellectual alive’. And yet, as mentioned earlier, the Guardian is normally happy to ignore him and his views. But when Chomsky expresses criticism of an official enemy
of the West, he suddenly does exist and matter for the Guardian. That indicates what we already knew: that the liberal press is perfectly aware of the importance of Chomsky’s work. They just ignore it because it undermines the wrong interests.
Rory Carroll’s article is a wonderful glimpse of the kind of status Chomsky would enjoy if he promoted the myth of the basic benevolence of the West, and focused on the crimes of official enemies. He would be feted as one of the most insightful and brilliant political commentators the world had ever seen. He would be far and away the world’s number one political talking head. His face would be all over the Guardian, the Observer, the Independent, the BBC, the New York Times and so on.
There is a humbling lesson here also, of course, for those people who are all over the media. In important ways, the media is a demeritocracy.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write to:
Rory Carroll, the Guardian‘s South America correspondent
Email: rory.carr…@guardian.co.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/rorycarroll72
Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor
Email: alan.rusbrid…@guardian.co.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/arusbridger
Please blind-copy us in on any exchanges or forward them to us later at:
edi…@medialens.org
* Update
July 4, 2011
Dear Rory Carroll,
Hope you’re well there.
Noam Chomsky says your Observer piece yesterday was ‘quite deceptive’ and ‘omit[s] much of relevance that I stressed throughout’.
http://bit.ly/jiG736
What’s your response, please?
Best wishes
David Cromwell and David Edwards
Co-Editors, Media Lens
http://www.medialens.org
July 6, 2011
Hello
Well, the transcript is there so everyone can judge the article, and Prof Chomsky’s response, for themselves.
Just one point: you say the article omitted Prof Chomsky’s references to Manning and US policy on Venezuela. About half-way there is this: “Its author remains fiercely critical of the US, which he said had tortured Bradley Manning, alleged source of the diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks, and continued to wage a “vicious, unremitting” campaign against Venezuela.
Best
Rory
July 6, 2011
Hello Rory,
Thanks for writing and pointing out that mistake – apologies. It should have read that you had given those points scant attention in comparison to the chosen spin of the ‘dishonest’ headline and main thrust of the ‘deceptive’ article. I’ll post an update.
As you rightly say, and as we noted in the alert, people can see for themselves to what extent the published article reflects what Noam Chomsky said in the interview.
Moreover, Joe Emersberger’s comments about your selective attention to Chomsky’s views, and your failure to respond to past challenges, remain unaddressed. And so do our concluding remarks about the default stance of the Guardian and the media when it comes to reporting Chomsky’s insightful observations: simply ignore them.
Best wishes
David Cromwell
Yeah, I certainly remember reading of the 2005 smear.
I haven’t got time today, but in one of the Open Mikes in the next few days, I’ll briefly outline a NZ Listener smear of Chomsky from a few years ago.
Excellent work above, Morrissey.
…in the next few days, I’ll briefly outline a NZ Listener smear of Chomsky from a few years ago.
I’ll look forward to reading that, my friend. I hardly bother nowadays to even glance at what was once an essential magazine. Which intellectual giant did Pamela Stirling, that formidable polymath of an editor, assign to the task of smearing Chomsky? Deborah Hill Cone? Joanne Black? Bill Ralston? Raybon Kan? Paul Lewis? The more I think of a possible contender for this Herculean task, the funnier it seems.
Hurry and post it up, please.
Thanks, Morrissey. Looks like it’ll probably be later in the week. I’m just a bit too busy at the moment and (possibly like you and one or two others here) I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I want to provide an effective context, before I outline the details. All takes time 🙂
Full transcript of the interview here
http://www.zcommunications.org/noam-chomsky-on-venezuela-the-transcript-by-noam-chomsky
Todays Nation was once again mainly an attack onthe
Today’s Nation was once again an attack on Labour. The so called discussion on Capital Gains developed into a critizem of the Labour Policy.
Garner once again ,as he does every week ,finds fault with Goffs leadership.
What ever has Phil done to this creep?
Their is no doubt that with the Capital Gains tax announcement Labour is going to dominate the debate. However Nat’s will pull every trick they know to rubbish this. I’m looking forward to Friday’s statement by Phil on this. There is no doubt this could be just what Labour needs to boost the polls.
Now I have heard ,from a good source , that this Tory government is considering deregistering theTeachers Union .Anyone heard anything?
It certainly would not surprise me .
If they did deregister the PPTA or the Primary NZEI or could only to pick a fight. The grounds for deregistering have to be pretty compelling and it is many years decades(?) since it was done to a union.
Can’t believe that since the other day when Anne Tolley was asked if any action was planned against theNZEI re NS, she said dismissively no but they will be helping schools to understand NS (!!!) and maybe next year they will look at other means. Good reason to make sure that Tolley is not there next year to do any more damage.
Yes Postman its the media that are to blame for Goffs ineptitude as a leader. He’s never to blame in the lefts eyes, which is of course a socialist mantra, “he’s not to blame its society’s fault” (and anyone with more money than you). If Goff wants traction he needs a personality transplant and policy that resonates with the voters. Goff repeating the same behaviour and tired speeches and expecting a different result, is the epitome of being deranged.
Wow you’re strange.
The NZ media is pretty soft on questioning Key and pretty hard on pulling down Goff. That’s obvious.
Hope we get the guy from BBC’s Hardtalk to run one of our election leaders debates 🙂
Why not Kim Hill no right winger would set foot in the studio
The week that was 3 – 10 July
Earthquakes on the Increase
There was another large earthquake off the East coast of Honshu, Japan today. It measured magnitude 7. This coincides with a general increase in the number of all magnitude earthquakes over recent years…
How do you know activity is increasing?
We haven’t been measuring it comprehensively for long, so it would be very difficult to know trends apart from very short term fluctuations.
Felt it in tokyo. A long steady rocking for about 30 sec.
TV3 tonight:
“The latest 3 News Reid Research poll is out and has National opening up its already massive gap over Labour.
One of the real winners in this poll is the rise and rise of the Greens; who seem to now be feeding off Labour’s misery and taking their voters.
National was up 2.1 points on 55.1 percent support while Labour slipped 2.9 points to 29.9 percent. The Greens went up 2.6 points to 9.1 percent.”
Priceless.
[lprent: Also completely off topic and looks to me like it was meant to be diversionary. If I see you do again I will kick you out of commenting for while. Moving to OpenMike.
Oh buggerit – that was too much work. Banned for a week for wasting my time. ]
It’s just showing the volatility of the polls. This one won’t be affected much if at all by the CGT, and certainly won’t be affected by the weekend’s Act.
Forgot to add – John Key up in poplularity to 50.5 and Goff slips [again] down to 6.9.
Double priceless.
Another day, another big poll lead for National,
Time to panic, Labour.
Theres a couple of people that will be shitting bricks tonight:
http://whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz/index.php/2011/07/the-coup-is-on-labourishistory/
Stuff: Labour pamphlets breached rules
Wow, like that’s never happened before… I can hardly wait for some MP to say the rules were confusing… others did it too… It’s not fair to just prosecute Labour….
Labour had prior confirmation from Parliamentary Services that those materials were not considered party promotional materials or electioneering materials.
You really are a dipshit, just man up and say “we screwed up”
Maybe in future you might want to go for advice elsewhere…you know the saying “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and I probably work for Labour”
Labour originally sought and gained sign offs from Parliamentary Services on the flyers etc. i.e. an independent assessment, that the material was not party material and was not electioneering material.
Labour was therefore allowed to use the Parliamentary Services seal on the material, which would not have been permitted had the material been judged at the time to be Labour Party promotional material or electioneering material.
Yeah keep repeating the line, maybe you’ll convince yourself
CV
Do Parliamentary Services indemnify political parties from being accountable under the law ?
You seem to think so and Labour’s previous behaviour seems to imply that – but what are the rules? Remember the rules – in this case the laws passed by MPs for MPs. Can’t say they are confusing and claim to be competent at the same time.
Are Labour incompetent or are they self serving muppets who think they are above the law ?
Labour sought out early expert advice, and that independent advice came back that those materials were not party promotional or electioneering materials.
Now that call might have been wrong in the final analysis (we’ll wait and see), but Labour took a lot of care to get this right from the start.
So here we go.. The law was confusing… Others were doing it too…
Oh dear, Labour hasn’t got the numbers to retrospectively validate under urgency.
How handy would the conventional ‘not in the public interest to prosecute’ be?
What about that convention that parliament can’t use the excuse a law was confusing because they wrote it and they voted to get it enacted? OK we let that one go for a while when it was convenient with the EFA, but is it gone forever ?
Well, as I mentioned above, Labour had the material checked and vetted by Parliamentary Services, and at the time it was independently assessed as not being party promotional material nor electioneering material.
So here we go again… The ref made a bad call… the rules were changed…
Sorry CV – the people who make the laws and pass the laws need to understand the laws.
So I guess if they had it checked by Parliamentary Services then they will be confident they didn’t break the law and they will be happy to see it tested in court ?
Remember the Judiciary… I know previously Labour have shown a preference for retrospective validation rather than take their chances in court but they might not get that option this time. But hey PS said it was OK so should be an open and shut case where they are not found guilty – right ?
Well it’s a matter for the police now, however Labour did take plenty of care to get this right and sought independent advice in the process to do so.
Its things like this that remind people why Labour were voted out of parliament
Not following the rules
Blaming others for errors
Overwhelming arrogance
Say ten hail Marys and try to sin no more
Actually, Key has just dominated the news over big free trade trip to india – staged romance at the Taj and filmed with Bollywood’s Brangelina all that aspirational stuff. Yet only pulled 2%, and is that not the margin of error?? Gloat all you like Chris , but you know as well as most of us – National’s popularity rides of on Key and lets face it, the public will wake up..
I have no doubt that Labour will get back into power, just not this election
(As for gloating wait until after the election ;))
Why are the police being so vindictive in prosecuting Arie Smith-Voorkamp? They are even bullying TV1’s Sunday programme for running the story tonight about his arrest and alleged beating for taking two lightbulbs from an abandoned building. Even the building’s owners didn’t want him charged until the police apparently bullied them too. Something unpleasant going on in the police culture.
Absolutely true, Hilary! I watched Sunday for possibly the second time ever, and was very impressed by Arie and by the building’s owners. His reason (that it was a shame to leave electrical fittings in a building that might collapse) would seem perfectly reasonable to someone with Aspergers who wants to become an electrician! He wasn’t looting anything, just rescuing something…
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[lprent: Read this again. ]
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[lprent: Read this again. ]