She makes the telling point “Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news.”
“Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea…”
Did you hear Deborah Hill Cone blithering about this yesterday on Jim Mora’s “The Panel”? She was full of scorn for the idea that there were any problems in London or in Great Britain: “What social issues are they protesting about? I didn’t know there WERE any social issues. ARE there social issues?”
The other people in the studio—Jim Mora, Sharon Brett-Kelly and Bernard Hickey—all decided to stay silent and let her rave.
But a little later, Hill Cone was at it again. “It’s all RELATIVE, isn’t it! These people in London are all so much better off than their parents were. They are all living comfortably.”
Sharon Brett-Kelly couldn’t let that go on unanswered. “Oh, the conditions in many parts of London are bleak and many people feel hopeless and abandoned. I have lived there, and I know how desperate the people there are.” Bernard Hickey agreed with Sharon Brett-Kelly.
Deborah Hill Cone could say nothing. She had no answer.
It’s a pity these vacuous voices of the smug right and the far right are not challenged more often in this forthright manner.
+1 – especially when she wore those dumb specs. She was ranting about being stuck in Queenstown and having to drive to ChCh to get back to Auckland the other week – bless her cotton socks, at least she can afford a holiday in the snow!
Read an interesting book a while back: “Hooligan – A history of respectable fears” (by Geoffrey Pearson). He identifies a recurring history of disorder and riots in working class English areas, nearly always accompanied by middle-class panic, outrage, and hand-wringing in the newspapers, often waxing nostalgic about how people were so much better behaved twenty years earlier. The irony is that things were pretty much the same twenty years earlier, just the folk devils had a different name (skinheads, football hooligans, mods, teds, larrikans, cads and roughs, garroters etc.).
Pearson’s point is that there has for centuries been a strong anti-police tradition in poor, working class English neighborhoods. It’s a class thing. But the media have nearly always defined it in terms of rampant criminality and moral decline. At this point in the London riots, the pattern seems to holding true.
… the media have nearly always defined it in terms of rampant criminality and moral decline. At this point in the London riots, the pattern seems to holding true.
The more bewildered commentators in the New Zealand media are repeating the same reactionary line. Here’s a selection of comments from yesterday…
NewstalkZB: The Mike Hosking Breakfast—Hosking talks to TVNZ’s London correspondent Paul Hobbs, who is presumably paid to live in London so he can interpret the situation there with increased insight. If so, TVNZ should demand its money back…
HOBBS: There’s nothing political about this at all! It’s just a sport for these young men! HOSKING: What are the reasons they’re giving for the rioting? HOBBS: There’s no rhyme or reason for any this. It’s just a SPORT! HOSKING: Have the police locked it down yet?
NewstalkZB Eight to Midnight with Kerre Woodham…
WOODHAM: Those little toe-rags. This is when I wish I was in the police! I’d love to turn a fire-hose on them! Those little TOE-RAGS! CALLER: I was talking to a friend of mine who knows what’s going on over there, and he says all this is because of the GIRL GANGS over there! WOODHAM: thoughtfully Hmmmmmm. That’s interesting. I had a caller earlier on who said it was the EASTERN EUROPEAN GANGS who are organizing it all. CALLER: There’s nothing spontaneous at all about these riots. It’s all highly structured. WOODHAM: Those little TOE-RAGS…
Lisa Owen on TVNZ7 news last night was going on about how people couldn’t be rioting because of austerity as they were taking all kinds of non-essential consumer items (especially the latest and most pricey electronic goods eg plasma TVs and laptops). She seemed to miss the significance of any class war angle, or of the significance of the focus of much looting – ie on the artefacts of a rampant consumer society.
She seemed to miss the significance of any class war angle, or of the significance of the focus of much looting – ie on the artefacts of a rampant consumer society.
I don’t think she misses the significance of it. I think—in fact I know—that she routinely self-censors. She knows it’s unacceptable to give any sort of political analysis. Everything is devoid of context, devoid of history. Riots just happen, and all the people in them are “toe-rags”.
Lisa Owen, Kerre Woodham, Mike Hosking and Paul Hobbs do not lack brains or understanding. What they lack is the courage to state what they and everybody else knows to be the truth.
Yeah, that’s classic. Same dynamics playing out. “Girl Gangs”, ha.
The Independent seems to partly get it: “There is a context of mistrust of the police here. After the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, the police allowed false reports that the Brazilian had been wearing a bulky coat and had run from officers to circulate without contradiction. And after the 2009 death of Ian Tomlinson, the police denied that the newspaper vendor had been pushed by an officer. It was only when a video emerged showing that this was the case that the police admitted the truth.”
And don’t forget the death of Harry Stanley in 1999 – when the police mistook a Scot with table leg for an Irishman with a gun. He lived in Hackney. The first inquest gave an open verdict. It took 5 years to get the police held accountable.
People shouldn’t assign a single motive to these rioters.
Undoubtedly there are people who want to breakout against their circumstances by opposing police and destroying property.
Equally, there are people who want to similarly breakout but they have respect for people and the effort they are making to put food on their own tables, and so do not destroy business and homes.
There are those who feel the pressure of a consumer society to gain status through possessions but who for too long have not been able to afford them and so they loot the shops to get them.
There are others who feel the same status pressure but choose not to loot from other worker and their by create more victims.
There are those who loot because they are organised by under world characters.
There are people who burn a building for no other reason than they want to break a taboo, get a buzz from it, and film it on their cell phone to up load to youtube, and in the mean time some poor person has lost their home, or their job, their income, their possessions, their means to get to work.
There are those who want to be part of a celebrity event and don’t care who gets hurt.
Traditionally events like this are cannibalistic. They eat their own community.
If they were really serious about “protesting” in equality and class oppression then they should target the rich, their institutions, their wealth.
His-story tells us that eventually the disaffected will attack the source of their great frustrations, whatever they may be, and the privileged, in whatever capacity, will become the stretched neck of inequity.
I’ve lived in London during bombings, riots, and never did they spread from city to city, suburb to surburb. Now sure there are always going to be a group of youngster hanging around waiting for trouble, especially with the contempt the boomers level at them, and add to the contempt of politicians who hate the poor and unemployed (who are also citizens), but when the economics of theft and fraud, stealing billions of unaccountantable bonuses while laying down decades of social, fiscal, and ecological debts, then it would surprised me if the riots had not have happened, but hey heinsight is easy. The media is doing a good job of trying to make this into a youth problem, avoiding talking about why everyone should be on the streets, and misdirecting the debate because the Police are obviously stretched and always on the back foot as technology keeps the rioters one step ahead.
But hey we have been here before, before radio riots and social uprisings would march through london to parliament and they were really angry. So we might be seeing a power change back to mobs and citizens brought on technology. so beware the future, not so may apathetic citizens.
Politicians had to do much better to keep the London mobs at bay, will have to.
I make no bones about this post being a plug for a TV program. In fact I give it the Jackal’s tick of approval and full endorsement. Covering current affairs with a focus on human rights, The Stream digs out priceless bits of info from the WWW. If you’re a blogger or political commentator, The Stream is a must watch program…
Actually, I tend to switch off when it comes on in the morning, and switch to RNZ. I’m developing a resistance to people enthusing over the latest e-/Internet development – been seeing it since the mid 90s. But in fact, AJ covers enough of the important news in the NewsHour and other morning shows.
My friend flatted with her when she was doing Steve Crow’s “Porn Idol” or whatever it was called, she’s a very sad individual indeed.
It’s all about being famous, and what she’s famous for isn’t even a consideration. Politics is just the latest attempt in a long line of attempts at being recognised.
Just as she wasn’t singing before she decided to “be a singer”, she probably didn’t have any political ideas before she decided to “be a politician”.
Pray Felix if she was to run for National how would we tell her apart from Maggie in the next Auckland power outage? Two faintly female forms in the gloaming and some mindless high pitched meandering right wing diatribe…..
when i was a kid i bred mice to sell to pet shops – until the fashion changed from coloured mice to white mice
left with tea chests full of mice i could not kill (being a budding Buddhist) i just kept feeding them and supplying them with the strips of torn up newspaper they used for nesting – and of course the daily task of cleaning their converted tea-chests
one day things changed – mice started eating their babies, buggering their peers, and generally going mad
’til i had to let them go (in the local bush) or watch them all die
population density – not measured in humans per square mile but in fear and despair per square politician – is what causes all societal breakdown
The main parts of the article are summed up in these paragraphs…
The Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill aims to save about $25 million over five years by freeing up 450 court days each year.
It introduces measures such as allowing courts to proceed in the absence of a defendant who does not have a reasonable excuse and reserving jury trials for the most serious and complex cases
In other words your right to be tried by your peers, and in person go west (Power seems intent on chucking away centuries of legal practiice and precedent such as habeus corpus). This is all in the name of efficiency and cost savings….justice denied in the face of the dollar.
Now where are all those good libertarians? This should be something they are up in arms about.
Jeez, 8 hours later and not one RWNJ appears to care about their personal liberties……Simon Power, you are free to lock the buggers up. Seeya Gos and TS…..
Police in London have released images of the “most wanted” suspects behind the ransacking of the English capital as stories emerge of the incredible behaviour of emboldened looters.
But I also think an equivalent approach would be to release images of the Most Wanted for pillaging the potential & necessary income for the least well-off in diverse countries.
Yeah, how about some of those hedge fund managers.
Apparently there has not been a single charge laid yet over the post-2008 financial collapse in the US. Compare with the 1980s Savings and Loan scandals in which hundreds of bankers were convicted and that was only around a paltry US$140 billion total fraud.
When are people like Roger Douglas, Prebble, Ruth Richardson, Faye Richer rail and Don Brash going to be charged for the money they have cost us over the last few decades.
“Steal a million you get a knighthood, Steal $100 you are put in jail”.
Nice to see the Mum’s and Dad’s investors have been playing the stock market again over the last couple of days. Surprise, surprise, all the losses have been recovered.
Same goes for the foreign currency traders. Who do these money-men think they are kidding. Let’s talk up a storm because we know we are going to be able to cash in on it any day soon…
Meanwhile life for the masses goes on as usual – shafted again.
Nice to hear 3 News bashing Sue Bradford and letting Petulant Bean have her say about the ‘massive fraud committed by beneficiaries” in the form of ‘over-payments’ although (was it Gower, I believe so?) did mutter quickly that most of the breath-taking amount was caused by WINZ staff messing up – as I can attest! I declare income, they forget to charge it, then when they ‘discover’ it, it’s added to my breath-taking debt. (There wouldn’t be a debt, if they did what they were supposed to do when I declare income… 🙁 )
Since WINZ are obviously so incompetent at paying you the correct amount of money, why don’t you work out what they should be paying you yourself? If they pay extra, put it in a bank account and don’t touch it (unless you need it for an emergency or something).
Then when they want it paid back, it’s all sitting there, and may have got you a few extra dollars in interest, too.
My sister and her boyfriend, while studying for Phds and doing clinical psychology, ended up knowing the student loan/student allowance rules better than the people in the office on campus did, just based on the numbers of times they got it wrong or told them something that was wrong. In the end they stopped going.
WINZ get paid to get it right, but considering their numbers are being reduced as we speak what can we expect from a stressed out organisation.
My question is: I wonder which party the WINZ social workers will vote for?
Are they keen to bash the beneficiary along with Paula Bennett just because they see a few people doing the fraud bit or are they going to get rid of Bennett by considering the other beneficiaries that are actually real human beings enduring a financially hard time – a hard time, I might add, that anyone might experience.
Anyone know what the Petulant Bean’s work history is. How much of her adult life has she drawn her money from the public purse in one way or another – of course, a princely chunk now that she is a Minister of the Crown. Has she no conscience?
Yes, I did manage after a lot of trying, to apply, but you’ve missed my point, which is that your technology fails more often than not!
I will continue to try to contact your ‘clients’ to point this out. They should not be paying you when your service is so poor!
You’ve missed the point, Lanth.. They didn’t pay me ‘extra’! I rang up as I am supposed to do, to ‘declare earnings’. They’re supposed to reduce or cancel the following week’s payment depending on how much I earned. At least one woman didn’t know how to do that, or so I was told when I rang days later to ask why it hadn’t been done. Instead, she’d added the payment she should have reduced, to my debt. Another woman said “Oh, I’ll just add it to your debt then”, and I protested, saying “No, you have plenty of time to adjust my next payment” and she said something like “Meh, no, adding it to your debt is easier”.
This angers me so greatly, because many of us were told at a job seminar, that having a debt (or even having had one!) disqualifies us from applying for any government job. I think that’s a new thing, only since PB has been Minister, as under Labour they had no policy against hiring “bennies”. (It reminds me of what I learned during my brief sojourn on ATS : in the USA, almost all employers advertising vacancies state that they will not accept applications from anyone who is not currently employed! If that comes oin here, and it’s starting to, it may be necessary to stretch the truth – as I have in fact done, pretending casual work is permanent…)
Totally agree – the rules and WINZ admin re part time work and income need to be improved. Days worked and day paid can differ and support differs depending on which is taken as the basis for an income evaluation. Both methods create inequities and the whole thing is as clear as mud. IMO it should be administered in conjunction with IRD on a no fault basis. Any debts on part time work should be interest free and calculated quarterly using the kindest measure (one which creates the least debt) and then repaid gradually out of benefit or income or both.
WINZ has shown itself to be incapable of operating the system it designed and yet wants to prosecute individuals. There is a better way.
the removal of secondary income tax would be a start. That is a dinosaur from a different era and only hurts current employment options. It not only restricts the options for those under WINZ but everyday working people are also harmed by it. Many many people need two or three jobs to get by these days and secondary tax is a vehicle that needs a new WOF. We have a fully adequate range of tax rates to fairly accommodate the income tax generated. Secondary Income Tax is a pecuniary punishment.
During a Parliamentary debate today, National MP Chris Tremain made a number of inaccurate statements that were clearly designed to limit National’s responsibility for any negative consequences due to budget cuts. What made me cringe was this statement…
Chris “Dennis Plant” Tremain’s primary qualification is his Dad’s rugby playing.
Don’t forget his ability to put on a serious face as he poses as a backdrop to John Key in parliament. He’s learned how to nod assent every now and again, just to show that he’s listening…
Paul Hutchison said that about Franklin – no marching in the streets meant no one cared about having their local government assets stolen by Rodney Hide and their democracy removed by this government. There was a protest when Key went to a posh luncheon there with business interests that would have included the promise of even cheaper labour to decrease their expenses and maximise their profits. But it wasn’t a march down the street. This is NActMU’s Plan – enforce a police state because nobody protests. Their plan is progressing well.
Nobody is marching in the streets. New Zealanders are too busy trying to survive in 2 or 3 jobs to waste their energy on protesting; NActMU knows this. That is why they’re trying it on in Parliament. By the time New Zealanders do realise that marching in the street is all that’s left to them, it will be too late. It has always been too late, every time National have ruined the economy; everything will have been sold, and Kiwis’ sovereignty traded away.
Norman Finkelstein, one of the leading American intellectuals and a widely admired political dissident, has been banned from Israel. Now the Israeli government is trying to sabotage his excellent and popular website.
How much simpler if he was just another of those Palestinian untermenschen. Then they could simply kill him, or arrest him as a “terrorist”…
Recently the official website for Norman Finkelstein has come under various web attacks. We are currently trying to address the attacks. Unfortunately, while we are trying to address the issue, new posts will be delayed until a permanent solution is found.
Thank you for your comments and concerns. Please visit back frequently or sign up to the mailing list (left side bar) in order to receive an update to the situation.
THE GOVERNMENT TODAY ANNOUNCED THAT IT’S CHANGING THE FLAG TO A CONDOM, BECAUSE IT MORE ACCURATELY REFLECTS THE GOVERNMENT’S POLITICAL STANCE. A CONDOM ALLOWS FOR INFLATION, HALTS PRODUCTION, DESTROYS THE NEXT GENERATION, PROTECTS A BUNCH OF DICKS, & GIVES YOU A SENSE OF SECURITY WHILE UR ACTUALLY BEING SCREWED
A friend sent me this. Don’t know if it has been posted here before.
We sure as fuck are being screwed.
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Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
The December labour market statistics have been released, showing yet another increase in unemployment. There are now 156,000 unemployed - 34,000 more than when National took office. And having thrown all these people out of work, National is doubling down on cruelty. Because being vicious will somehow magically create the ...
Boarded up homes in Kilbirnie, where work on a planned development was halted. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 5 are;Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announcedKāinga Ora would be stripped of ...
This week Kiwirail and Auckland Transport were celebrating the completion of the summer rail works that had the network shut or for over a month and the start of electric trains to Pukekohe. First up, here’s parts of the press release about the shutdown works. Passengers boarding trains in Auckland ...
Through its austerity measures, the coalition government has engineered a rise in unemployment in order to reduce inflation while – simultaneously – cracking down harder and harder on the people thrown out of work by its own policies. To that end, Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week added two ...
This year, we've seen a radical, white supremacist government ignoring its Tiriti obligations, refusing to consult with Māori, and even trying to legislatively abrogate te Tiriti o Waitangi. When it was criticised by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government sabotaged that body, replacing its legal and historical experts with corporate shills, ...
Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
The lead witness in Ngāi Tahu’s freshwater claim says the case raises an “existentialist question” for his people.“My greatest fear is that we will have our connection with our land and waterways extinguished,” Te Maire Tau (Ngāi Tahu/Ngāi Tūāhuriri) said in the Christchurch High Court, before Justice Melanie Harland. The university history ...
New Zealand employers are well-used to the constant evolution of employment and workplace health and safety law – but we think the scope of changes in this area may still surprise in 2025. In our view, the number of changes under active consideration and the potential practical impact of those ...
As New Zealand woke to Waitangi Day, 1600 athletes and their support crew began to descend on the sleepy west coast town of Greymouth, ready to take on the iconic multisport race, the Coast to Coast.Among the cars laden with kayaks, bikes and enough race food to feed a small ...
I collect sailing books, especially solo sailing adventures. I sail a lot and when in meetings, I think about sailing rather than focus on the dry PowerPoint presentations of earnest landlubbers. Just quietly, I also offer dead sailors drinks and occasionally good books over the side when I am at ...
Over the past few weeks, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has had public tiffs with the leaders of both the Cook Islands and Kiribati.The issues: first Peters put foreign aid to Kiribati under review after President Taneti Maamau cancelled a meeting with him. Then this week, Peters accused the PM of ...
Proposed changes to the Fisheries Act 1996 could see on-board cameras, introduced to protect endangered marine and seabird species, shut off from public view. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith explains.Minister for oceans and fisheries Shane Jones was in his element on Wellington’s waterfront on Wednesday morning. While waves crashed onto the rocks ...
The prime minister has had a bad week, and it’s barely Thursday. This week’s Luxon low points, ranked.8. Bad poll, part oneA Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll released on Monday showed that Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori could form a government. Christopher Luxon is down 3.8 points at ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Appiah Takyi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Planning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Street vending is a major economic activity in most of Ghana’s urban areas. The vendors bring everyday goods to residents and commuters at affordable prices in ...
Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – The United States shares the pathologies of all dying empires with their mixture of buffoonery, rampant corruption, military fiascos, economic collapse and savage state repression.ANALYSIS: By Chris Hedges The billionaires, Christian fascists, grifters, psychopaths, imbeciles, narcissists and deviants who ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government has secured bipartisan support for a major new regime covering political donations and spending, after making significant concessions. The government agreed to increase the proposed threshold above which donations must be disclosed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra With the election only months away, the Labor government finds itself suddenly battling with the Trump administration for an exemption from new US tariffs on steel and aluminium. The opposition has supported the effort, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julee McDonagh, Senior Research Fellow of Frailty Research, University of Wollongong PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock Ageing is a normal part of the life course. It doesn’t matter how many green smoothies you drink, or how many “anti-ageing” skin care products you ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Critical Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University The Conversation, CC BY-SAAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people. Colonial commemorations ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hazel, Associate Professor, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide Masarik/Shutterstock In some overseas countries, pets can travel with their owners in a plane’s cabin, in a carrier under a seat. In Australia, pets must travel in the ...
A raft of proposed legislation changes to the media and screen industry have been announced this morning – we read through it all all so you don’t have to. What’s all this then? This morning the Ministry for Culture and Heritage released its draft proposed changes to media and screen ...
David Seymour's recent off-road parliamentary excursion led to a reprimand from the Speaker, who also said the rules didn't apply to this instance. What are the rules? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Morgenbesser, Associate Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Griffith University Many Americans have watched in horror as Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has been permitted to tear through various offices of the United States government in recent ...
By Patrick Decloitre,RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls has announced he will travel to New Caledonia later this month to pursue talks on the French territory’s political future. These discussions on February 22 follow preliminary talks held last week in Paris in “bilateral” mode ...
As Benjamin Netanyahu threatens to resume war, Hamas outlines widespread Israeli ceasefire violations in document sent to the mediators.By Jeremy Scahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Dropsite News Hamas officials submitted a two-page report to mediators yesterday listing a wide range of Israeli violations of the Gaza ceasefire since ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Murray Print, Professor of Education, University of Sydney A federal parliamentary inquiry has just recommended civics and citizenship become a compulsory part of the Australian Curriculum, which covers the first year of school to Year 10. The committee also recommended a ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: Claire Baylis, author of Dice and guest at the forthcoming HamLit programme at the Hamilton Arts Festival. The book I wish I’d writtenMy mind seems surprisingly unwilling ...
The courts should deal with illegal fishing, not the "court of public opinion", Shane Jones says, as he announces proposed changes to the Quota Management System. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan McElhone, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Monash University A London court has found Sam Kerr not guilty of the racially aggravated harassment of Metropolitan Police officer Stephen Lovell. As captain of the Australian women’s national soccer team, Kerr was widely condemned when ...
Could iwi and hapū be the unexpected solution to the government’s asset dilemma? David Seymour pressured the prime minister into an unwelcome conversation, and in the couple of weeks since the Act leader raised the issue in his state of the nation speech, privatisation has shifted from absent in the ...
Human rights advocates must uphold human dignity, rights and justice, while rejecting the discriminatory tactics we oppose, writes Taimor Hazou.Two weeks ago the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) launched a campaign inviting New Zealanders to call a hotline if they suspected an Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldier that had ...
Immigration New Zealand figures shows more people have been looking at the ETA and visitor visa pages on the website, however fewer people have applied to come or to extend their stay. ...
Great commentary from a lady stuck in a house in the middle of the London riots.
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-08-09/panic-streets-london
She makes the telling point “Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news.”
“Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea…”
Did you hear Deborah Hill Cone blithering about this yesterday on Jim Mora’s “The Panel”? She was full of scorn for the idea that there were any problems in London or in Great Britain: “What social issues are they protesting about? I didn’t know there WERE any social issues. ARE there social issues?”
The other people in the studio—Jim Mora, Sharon Brett-Kelly and Bernard Hickey—all decided to stay silent and let her rave.
But a little later, Hill Cone was at it again. “It’s all RELATIVE, isn’t it! These people in London are all so much better off than their parents were. They are all living comfortably.”
Sharon Brett-Kelly couldn’t let that go on unanswered. “Oh, the conditions in many parts of London are bleak and many people feel hopeless and abandoned. I have lived there, and I know how desperate the people there are.” Bernard Hickey agreed with Sharon Brett-Kelly.
Deborah Hill Cone could say nothing. She had no answer.
It’s a pity these vacuous voices of the smug right and the far right are not challenged more often in this forthright manner.
I resent those fekkers using up my tax dollars up on their fat salaries at Radio NZ, Hill Cone can take a fly jump.
The woman is a fracking idiot!
+1 – especially when she wore those dumb specs. She was ranting about being stuck in Queenstown and having to drive to ChCh to get back to Auckland the other week – bless her cotton socks, at least she can afford a holiday in the snow!
Read an interesting book a while back: “Hooligan – A history of respectable fears” (by Geoffrey Pearson). He identifies a recurring history of disorder and riots in working class English areas, nearly always accompanied by middle-class panic, outrage, and hand-wringing in the newspapers, often waxing nostalgic about how people were so much better behaved twenty years earlier. The irony is that things were pretty much the same twenty years earlier, just the folk devils had a different name (skinheads, football hooligans, mods, teds, larrikans, cads and roughs, garroters etc.).
Pearson’s point is that there has for centuries been a strong anti-police tradition in poor, working class English neighborhoods. It’s a class thing. But the media have nearly always defined it in terms of rampant criminality and moral decline. At this point in the London riots, the pattern seems to holding true.
… the media have nearly always defined it in terms of rampant criminality and moral decline. At this point in the London riots, the pattern seems to holding true.
The more bewildered commentators in the New Zealand media are repeating the same reactionary line. Here’s a selection of comments from yesterday…
NewstalkZB: The Mike Hosking Breakfast—Hosking talks to TVNZ’s London correspondent Paul Hobbs, who is presumably paid to live in London so he can interpret the situation there with increased insight. If so, TVNZ should demand its money back…
HOBBS: There’s nothing political about this at all! It’s just a sport for these young men!
HOSKING: What are the reasons they’re giving for the rioting?
HOBBS: There’s no rhyme or reason for any this. It’s just a SPORT!
HOSKING: Have the police locked it down yet?
NewstalkZB Eight to Midnight with Kerre Woodham…
WOODHAM: Those little toe-rags. This is when I wish I was in the police! I’d love to turn a fire-hose on them! Those little TOE-RAGS!
CALLER: I was talking to a friend of mine who knows what’s going on over there, and he says all this is because of the GIRL GANGS over there!
WOODHAM: thoughtfully Hmmmmmm. That’s interesting. I had a caller earlier on who said it was the EASTERN EUROPEAN GANGS who are organizing it all.
CALLER: There’s nothing spontaneous at all about these riots. It’s all highly structured.
WOODHAM: Those little TOE-RAGS…
Lisa Owen on TVNZ7 news last night was going on about how people couldn’t be rioting because of austerity as they were taking all kinds of non-essential consumer items (especially the latest and most pricey electronic goods eg plasma TVs and laptops). She seemed to miss the significance of any class war angle, or of the significance of the focus of much looting – ie on the artefacts of a rampant consumer society.
She seemed to miss the significance of any class war angle, or of the significance of the focus of much looting – ie on the artefacts of a rampant consumer society.
I don’t think she misses the significance of it. I think—in fact I know—that she routinely self-censors. She knows it’s unacceptable to give any sort of political analysis. Everything is devoid of context, devoid of history. Riots just happen, and all the people in them are “toe-rags”.
Lisa Owen, Kerre Woodham, Mike Hosking and Paul Hobbs do not lack brains or understanding. What they lack is the courage to state what they and everybody else knows to be the truth.
Yeah, that’s classic. Same dynamics playing out. “Girl Gangs”, ha.
The Independent seems to partly get it: “There is a context of mistrust of the police here. After the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, the police allowed false reports that the Brazilian had been wearing a bulky coat and had run from officers to circulate without contradiction. And after the 2009 death of Ian Tomlinson, the police denied that the newspaper vendor had been pushed by an officer. It was only when a video emerged showing that this was the case that the police admitted the truth.”
There is no doubt that the cops are lying ineffective wankers. When there is no respect for the cops, these sorts of things are bound to happen.
Those girl gangs are a menace, I tells ya, a menace!
And don’t forget the death of Harry Stanley in 1999 – when the police mistook a Scot with table leg for an Irishman with a gun. He lived in Hackney. The first inquest gave an open verdict. It took 5 years to get the police held accountable.
People shouldn’t assign a single motive to these rioters.
Undoubtedly there are people who want to breakout against their circumstances by opposing police and destroying property.
Equally, there are people who want to similarly breakout but they have respect for people and the effort they are making to put food on their own tables, and so do not destroy business and homes.
There are those who feel the pressure of a consumer society to gain status through possessions but who for too long have not been able to afford them and so they loot the shops to get them.
There are others who feel the same status pressure but choose not to loot from other worker and their by create more victims.
There are those who loot because they are organised by under world characters.
There are people who burn a building for no other reason than they want to break a taboo, get a buzz from it, and film it on their cell phone to up load to youtube, and in the mean time some poor person has lost their home, or their job, their income, their possessions, their means to get to work.
There are those who want to be part of a celebrity event and don’t care who gets hurt.
Traditionally events like this are cannibalistic. They eat their own community.
If they were really serious about “protesting” in equality and class oppression then they should target the rich, their institutions, their wealth.
His-story tells us that eventually the disaffected will attack the source of their great frustrations, whatever they may be, and the privileged, in whatever capacity, will become the stretched neck of inequity.
Live updates:
http://thewestlondoner.wordpress.com/
I’ve lived in London during bombings, riots, and never did they spread from city to city, suburb to surburb. Now sure there are always going to be a group of youngster hanging around waiting for trouble, especially with the contempt the boomers level at them, and add to the contempt of politicians who hate the poor and unemployed (who are also citizens), but when the economics of theft and fraud, stealing billions of unaccountantable bonuses while laying down decades of social, fiscal, and ecological debts, then it would surprised me if the riots had not have happened, but hey heinsight is easy. The media is doing a good job of trying to make this into a youth problem, avoiding talking about why everyone should be on the streets, and misdirecting the debate because the Police are obviously stretched and always on the back foot as technology keeps the rioters one step ahead.
But hey we have been here before, before radio riots and social uprisings would march through london to parliament and they were really angry. So we might be seeing a power change back to mobs and citizens brought on technology. so beware the future, not so may apathetic citizens.
Politicians had to do much better to keep the London mobs at bay, will have to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14462271
http://thewestlondoner.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/london26.jpg
The Stream
I make no bones about this post being a plug for a TV program. In fact I give it the Jackal’s tick of approval and full endorsement. Covering current affairs with a focus on human rights, The Stream digs out priceless bits of info from the WWW. If you’re a blogger or political commentator, The Stream is a must watch program…
Actually, I tend to switch off when it comes on in the morning, and switch to RNZ. I’m developing a resistance to people enthusing over the latest e-/Internet development – been seeing it since the mid 90s. But in fact, AJ covers enough of the important news in the NewsHour and other morning shows.
Does anyone know who this RWNJ is?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Liz-Shaw-Candidate-for-Auckland-Central-2011/151939684879425
a very strange person
http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=liz+shaw+candidate&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
She will never live this down……goodbye Liz.
Her best policy is too build a bridge from Australia to NZ.
Or she has one to relocate Christchurch to Albany…
Edit: I notice those particular policies didn’t make her list. Must have been talked out of them
A strange person indeed but hardly a RWNJ and more a very sad person who’s best ignored.
She’s been around since about 2004-05.
I think she hit the headlines for appearing in a porn magazine while saying she wanted to be PM one day.
I recall crossing swords with her on studentz.co.nz before it merged into varsity.co.nz
Her policies are all over the place.
No, but she has the same name as a Doctor Who character! 😀
My friend flatted with her when she was doing Steve Crow’s “Porn Idol” or whatever it was called, she’s a very sad individual indeed.
It’s all about being famous, and what she’s famous for isn’t even a consideration. Politics is just the latest attempt in a long line of attempts at being recognised.
Just as she wasn’t singing before she decided to “be a singer”, she probably didn’t have any political ideas before she decided to “be a politician”.
She should be running for National really.
Jesus F Christ – have you seen those pictures?????
I thought she would still be in hiding.
Pray Felix if she was to run for National how would we tell her apart from Maggie in the next Auckland power outage? Two faintly female forms in the gloaming and some mindless high pitched meandering right wing diatribe…..
i was reading her facebook post she says she is far right wing
This lady says it all.
when i was a kid i bred mice to sell to pet shops – until the fashion changed from coloured mice to white mice
left with tea chests full of mice i could not kill (being a budding Buddhist) i just kept feeding them and supplying them with the strips of torn up newspaper they used for nesting – and of course the daily task of cleaning their converted tea-chests
one day things changed – mice started eating their babies, buggering their peers, and generally going mad
’til i had to let them go (in the local bush) or watch them all die
population density – not measured in humans per square mile but in fear and despair per square politician – is what causes all societal breakdown
http://thepeakoilpoet.blogspot.com/2011/08/london-bridge-is-falling-down-tpop.html
http://thepeakoilpoet.blogspot.com/2011/08/peak-people.html
and for fun
http://thepeakoilpoet.blogspot.com/2011/08/great-australian-poem.html
tPoP
meanwhile your right to a fair and honest trial slips further out of reach as we are left to trust the Maori Party and Act to save what is left of our Justice System
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5421373/Govt-works-to-shore-up-support-for-justice-bill
The main parts of the article are summed up in these paragraphs…
The Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill aims to save about $25 million over five years by freeing up 450 court days each year.
It introduces measures such as allowing courts to proceed in the absence of a defendant who does not have a reasonable excuse and reserving jury trials for the most serious and complex cases
In other words your right to be tried by your peers, and in person go west (Power seems intent on chucking away centuries of legal practiice and precedent such as habeus corpus). This is all in the name of efficiency and cost savings….justice denied in the face of the dollar.
Now where are all those good libertarians? This should be something they are up in arms about.
Jeez, 8 hours later and not one RWNJ appears to care about their personal liberties……Simon Power, you are free to lock the buggers up. Seeya Gos and TS…..
Opportunist crimes should be punished:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/5421331/Britains-most-wanted-Looters-tried-on-shoes-in-rampage
But I also think an equivalent approach would be to release images of the Most Wanted for pillaging the potential & necessary income for the least well-off in diverse countries.
Yeah, how about some of those hedge fund managers.
Apparently there has not been a single charge laid yet over the post-2008 financial collapse in the US. Compare with the 1980s Savings and Loan scandals in which hundreds of bankers were convicted and that was only around a paltry US$140 billion total fraud.
When are people like Roger Douglas, Prebble, Ruth Richardson, Faye Richer rail and Don Brash going to be charged for the money they have cost us over the last few decades.
“Steal a million you get a knighthood, Steal $100 you are put in jail”.
Is there any other band wagon this prat would like to jump on?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby-world-cup-2011/news/article.cfm?c_id=522&objectid=10744212
Can I ask said Prime Minister to admit he has under taxed the rich and ‘fix’ his governments mistakes?
And the next US president could be…..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/aug/09/michael-moore-matt-damon-us-president
Nice to see the Mum’s and Dad’s investors have been playing the stock market again over the last couple of days. Surprise, surprise, all the losses have been recovered.
Same goes for the foreign currency traders. Who do these money-men think they are kidding. Let’s talk up a storm because we know we are going to be able to cash in on it any day soon…
Meanwhile life for the masses goes on as usual – shafted again.
Nice to hear 3 News bashing Sue Bradford and letting Petulant Bean have her say about the ‘massive fraud committed by beneficiaries” in the form of ‘over-payments’ although (was it Gower, I believe so?) did mutter quickly that most of the breath-taking amount was caused by WINZ staff messing up – as I can attest! I declare income, they forget to charge it, then when they ‘discover’ it, it’s added to my breath-taking debt. (There wouldn’t be a debt, if they did what they were supposed to do when I declare income… 🙁 )
Since WINZ are obviously so incompetent at paying you the correct amount of money, why don’t you work out what they should be paying you yourself? If they pay extra, put it in a bank account and don’t touch it (unless you need it for an emergency or something).
Then when they want it paid back, it’s all sitting there, and may have got you a few extra dollars in interest, too.
My sister and her boyfriend, while studying for Phds and doing clinical psychology, ended up knowing the student loan/student allowance rules better than the people in the office on campus did, just based on the numbers of times they got it wrong or told them something that was wrong. In the end they stopped going.
Easy to say, Lanth, harder to do when you’re broke with bills to pay.
Besides, why should she have to?
Yes Felix,
WINZ get paid to get it right, but considering their numbers are being reduced as we speak what can we expect from a stressed out organisation.
My question is: I wonder which party the WINZ social workers will vote for?
Are they keen to bash the beneficiary along with Paula Bennett just because they see a few people doing the fraud bit or are they going to get rid of Bennett by considering the other beneficiaries that are actually real human beings enduring a financially hard time – a hard time, I might add, that anyone might experience.
Anyone know what the Petulant Bean’s work history is. How much of her adult life has she drawn her money from the public purse in one way or another – of course, a princely chunk now that she is a Minister of the Crown. Has she no conscience?
Rhetorical question, that.
You’ve missed the point, Lanth.. They didn’t pay me ‘extra’! I rang up as I am supposed to do, to ‘declare earnings’. They’re supposed to reduce or cancel the following week’s payment depending on how much I earned.
At least one woman didn’t know how to do that, or so I was told when I rang days later to ask why it hadn’t been done. Instead, she’d added the payment she should have reduced, to my debt. Another woman said “Oh, I’ll just add it to your debt then”, and I protested, saying “No, you have plenty of time to adjust my next payment” and she said something like “Meh, no, adding it to your debt is easier”.
This angers me so greatly, because many of us were told at a job seminar, that having a debt (or even having had one!) disqualifies us from applying for any government job. I think that’s a new thing, only since PB has been Minister, as under Labour they had no policy against hiring “bennies”. (It reminds me of what I learned during my brief sojourn on ATS : in the USA, almost all employers advertising vacancies state that they will not accept applications from anyone who is not currently employed! If that comes oin here, and it’s starting to, it may be necessary to stretch the truth – as I have in fact done, pretending casual work is permanent…)
Totally agree – the rules and WINZ admin re part time work and income need to be improved. Days worked and day paid can differ and support differs depending on which is taken as the basis for an income evaluation. Both methods create inequities and the whole thing is as clear as mud. IMO it should be administered in conjunction with IRD on a no fault basis. Any debts on part time work should be interest free and calculated quarterly using the kindest measure (one which creates the least debt) and then repaid gradually out of benefit or income or both.
WINZ has shown itself to be incapable of operating the system it designed and yet wants to prosecute individuals. There is a better way.
the removal of secondary income tax would be a start. That is a dinosaur from a different era and only hurts current employment options. It not only restricts the options for those under WINZ but everyday working people are also harmed by it. Many many people need two or three jobs to get by these days and secondary tax is a vehicle that needs a new WOF. We have a fully adequate range of tax rates to fairly accommodate the income tax generated. Secondary Income Tax is a pecuniary punishment.
Well folks, just heard on TV3 today that John Key is going to announce welfare reforms at the National conference this weekend.
Hang onto your hats folks, its going to be one hell of a ride….
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1108/S00272/police-and-air-force-training-exercise-in-auckland.htm
wow – it could also be training to rescue John Key when people try to tell him what they think of him selling off our assets.
Disgusting that we may have to pay to visit our third biggest island. What’s the actual purpose of this bill? It’s not like Rakiura is 100% Conservation land. If it was, I could understand.
National Challenges NZ to Riot
During a Parliamentary debate today, National MP Chris Tremain made a number of inaccurate statements that were clearly designed to limit National’s responsibility for any negative consequences due to budget cuts. What made me cringe was this statement…
Unsurprising. Chris “Dennis Plant” Tremain’s primary qualification is his Dad’s rugby playing.
Chris “Dennis Plant” Tremain’s primary qualification is his Dad’s rugby playing.
Don’t forget his ability to put on a serious face as he poses as a backdrop to John Key in parliament. He’s learned how to nod assent every now and again, just to show that he’s listening…
Ha! Yeah the pair of them are like a couple of nodding dogs on the back shelf of Key’s limo.
It’s no wonder NZ is on the slide then with that level of “intelligence” in power. My favorite from his speech today was:
“There were a number of economists, actually more than a number…”
This is who you voted into power New Zealand. Wake the fuck up!
Jackal,
Paul Hutchison said that about Franklin – no marching in the streets meant no one cared about having their local government assets stolen by Rodney Hide and their democracy removed by this government. There was a protest when Key went to a posh luncheon there with business interests that would have included the promise of even cheaper labour to decrease their expenses and maximise their profits. But it wasn’t a march down the street. This is NActMU’s Plan – enforce a police state because nobody protests. Their plan is progressing well.
Nobody is marching in the streets. New Zealanders are too busy trying to survive in 2 or 3 jobs to waste their energy on protesting; NActMU knows this. That is why they’re trying it on in Parliament. By the time New Zealanders do realise that marching in the street is all that’s left to them, it will be too late. It has always been too late, every time National have ruined the economy; everything will have been sold, and Kiwis’ sovereignty traded away.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/
Norman Finkelstein’s website is under attack by
ChinaIsraelNorman Finkelstein, one of the leading American intellectuals and a widely admired political dissident, has been banned from Israel. Now the Israeli government is trying to sabotage his excellent and popular website.
How much simpler if he was just another of those Palestinian untermenschen. Then they could simply kill him, or arrest him as a “terrorist”…
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/
NORMANFINKELSTEIN.COM WEB ATTACKS UPDATE.
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THE GOVERNMENT TODAY ANNOUNCED THAT IT’S CHANGING THE FLAG TO A CONDOM, BECAUSE IT MORE ACCURATELY REFLECTS THE GOVERNMENT’S POLITICAL STANCE. A CONDOM ALLOWS FOR INFLATION, HALTS PRODUCTION, DESTROYS THE NEXT GENERATION, PROTECTS A BUNCH OF DICKS, & GIVES YOU A SENSE OF SECURITY WHILE UR ACTUALLY BEING SCREWED
A friend sent me this. Don’t know if it has been posted here before.
We sure as fuck are being screwed.