Maybe you should address the question ‘doc’ – just what is it about trolling that is so important to you? Why not put your vacuous views to loons and morons who will applaud you?
Oh dear another Marty Mars who takes the view that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a tr0ll.
Funny, that looks like a trolly comment to me.
How about you link to support your assertion that MM believes that all people who disagree with him are trolls, or say something that puts your comment in context? Otherwise you look like you are just trying to wind people up.
Yes I found the discussion (I assume that your comment about marty has been moved from there to Open Mike for being off topic). You have avoided answering my question. Nevermind, it’s pretty clear from your behaviour here and in the other thread that marty was right, you are being a troll.
Just ignore the trolls like NorthShoreDoc – they are doing it to add volume and derail the issues so that people can’t be bothered reading the feeds through.
[lprent: After he called BLip ‘Blimp’ (why do the dickheads want to provide clear violations of the policy like that – attention seeking masochists?), I had a read through his comments on the post and decided that was exactly what he was doing. Too low a standard to keep around in the debate. ]
You have such double standards. You allow people to call me SSLands, the implication being that I am a Nazi. I also told you that two frequent posters here were stalking me and tracking down my identity.
[lprent: You’re not an author. You are a commenter. We need authors far more than we need commenters. So we have more protections and exert more effort in protecting them, and we insist that commenters respect the job that authors do in providing this site with posts for commenters to argue in. This is reflected in the policy.
For commenters we don’t provide the same protections. Name calling isn’t that interesting to us unless it starts interfering with the flow of discussion in the comments.
With the IRL identity thing, what we protect on is where people make absolute statements (or statements that directly infer) about who a particular individual is in real life.
We don’t try to control the reaction when people state that they have particular experience or insight or authority on a particular topic. Then it is part of a robust debate that others can speculate about their actual experience and understanding. I see a lot of the latter from and about you, and I can’t recall ever seeing the former.
You’re welcome to link to specific examples identifying you. But remember that I will be looking at it with my knowledge – not yours. In other words I’d look at it based on what is actually there rather than what you with your greater knowledge about yourself might infer what is there. Much of the time I find that people tend to be overly self-centred about their own level of visibility. ]
But you are not an author. NorthShoreDoc appears to have been binned for his attitude towards an author which, if you have read it, violates the policy.
@ Dont worry.be happy (1) – doubt it, because Trump is a big money man and we all know how FJK just adores playing with the big powerful movers and shakers of the world.
However, here’s an interesting point to consider. If Trump had his way, Muslims would not be allowed to enter the US, not to live or as visitors. So where would this place NZ Ambassador to be to the US, Tim Groser who is Muslim, should in the dreadful event of Trump becoming President?
Check out Groser’s details on Wikipedia, which lists his religion as Islam, apparently having converted during the mid 1990s after marrying his Indonesian wife.
To quote one small section:
“ . . . . . .its provisions do little to nothing to protect our rights online or our autonomy over our own devices. For example, everything in the TPP that increases corporate rights and interests is binding, whereas every provision that is meant to protect the public interest is non-binding and is susceptible to get bulldozed by efforts to protect corporations.”
An interesting side-issue is this:
Assuming the TPP is eventually signed into law, will it apply retrospectively? (I’m guessing that it will.)
For example if I posted something on Youtube, say, 5 years ago, and it is subsequently found to breach copyright under the new TPP provisions, will I become liable?
That could get interesting because as far as I am aware, once you post something to Youtube, you cannot take it down at a later date – only Youtube seems to be able to do that. If i recall correctly, whatever you post there becomes, in some sense, the property of Youtube – but I could be wrong about that.
i’d appreciate the chance to read the collective wisdom of Standardistas on this.
(At this point I’d LOVE to paste here a picture of Alfred E Neumann from “Mad” magazine, along with a quote of his famous “What? Me worry?”. But perhaps I can’t do that now – at least not according to the new TPP rules . . . )
“That could get interesting because as far as I am aware, once you post something to Youtube, you cannot take it down at a later date – only Youtube seems to be able to do that. If i recall correctly, whatever you post there becomes, in some sense, the property of Youtube – but I could be wrong about that.”
It is possible to delete your content.
You still own the content but have given YT a license to distribute to other users, they (YT) can do (more or less) what they want with it as you will have noticed in the T&C’s when signing up.
A more detailed answer here from an actual lawyer: http://www.tubefilter.com/2010/08/27/ask-the-attorney-videos-youtube-who-owns-them/
@ Chooky, Yep now Labour has had some time to reflect on TPP (and looking at country of Labeling COOL, WTO decision etc, and TPP txt is much worse, border control and food biosecurity and so forth, not to mention Health, charter schools etc).
Are Labour prepared to actually have a clear view of Yes or No on TPP?
Are Labour prepared to actually have a clear view of Yes or No on TPP?
Whats happened is they’ve had a good look at it and they’ve realised that its not a bad deal for NZ, not great but not bad either so what they’ll be hoping is that if they ignore it then maybe their supporters will forget what Labour have said about the TPP in the past
Going on past history they’ll probably get away with it as well
Mentioned this yesterday but way down Open Mike. As excellent The Spinoff writer Alex Casey points out, not one woman was among Massey University’s most memorable quotes of the year. They do get a mention indirectly for being harrassed by the Prime Minister and farting on a beach. David Seymour’s pretty lame quote about the French loving the cock is supposedly one of the most amazing quotes of last year. As Guy Williams said on the Jono and Ben Show last Friday – is that the best they can come up with? This says more about the political and media environment that has been created under this government than anything else. About half of New Zealand (the half that doesn’t like this government and is progressive) is being locked out of mainstream discourse, or at least seen as being outside it.
On The Panel the other day, the giggling “liberal” Tim Watkin praised David Seymour’s “performance”, and asserted that Seymour “has had a very good year.”
Regarding the question of compliance with the OIA.
In my view – the answer is REALLY simple.
Fully implement and enforce the Public Records Act 2005.
That way information will not have to be sought through OIA or LGOIMA requests – public records will already be available for public scrutiny.
I did not find ANY reference in the Ombudsman’s report on the OIA to the Public Records Act.
How can you have transparency or accountability without proper written records which are available for public scrutiny?
How about splitting responsibility for the implementation and enforcement of the Public Records Act 2005?
Give the responsibility for the ‘creation and maintenance’ of Public Records to the Ombudsman.
Change the orientation of the Office of the Ombudsman from focusing on dealing with complaints from those who have been unable to access ‘official information’ – to proactively ensuring that ‘public offices’ have the proper systems in place so that public records ARE created, maintained and available for public scrutiny.
Arguably, the Office of the Ombudsman would need to ‘rejig’ and hire information management systems experts in order to assist public offices setting up systems to ‘create and maintain’ public records, because that role would be quite different to investigating complaints.
Wouldn’t that be WIN / WIN?
Arguably, the more work and effort put into the creation and maintenance of public records – the less work in dealing with complaints for alleged ‘non-compliance’ with the OIA?
In my view – the secret is to focus on the Public Records Act 2005 – and that will sort out the issue of compliance with the OIA.
As you have been advised here before (including linked evidence), the Public Records Act does not affect the *release* of information other than for archives over 25 years old. The OIA does. Don’t be a braying dunce.
(a) to provide for the continuation of the repository of public archives called the National Archives with the name Archives New Zealand (Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga); and
(b) to provide for the role of the Chief Archivist in developing and supporting government recordkeeping, including making independent determinations on the disposal of public records and certain local authority archives; and
(c) to enable the Government to be held accountable by—
(i) ensuring that full and accurate records of the affairs of
central and local government are created and maintained;
and
(ii) providing for the preservation of, and public access to,
records of long-term value; and
(d) to enhance public confidence in the integrity of public records and local
authority records; and
(e) to provide an appropriate framework within which public
offices and local authorities create and maintain public
records and local authority records, as the case may be; and
(f) through the systematic creation and preservation of public
archives and local authority archives, to enhance the
accessibility of records that are relevant to the historical and
cultural heritage of New Zealand and to New Zealanders’
sense of their national identity; and
(g) to encourage the spirit of partnership and goodwill envisaged
by the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi), as provided
for by section 7; and
(h) to support the safekeeping of private records.
_________________________________________________________________________________
How can you have transparency and accountability, without proper written records which are available for public scrutiny?
There is a law called the Public Records Act. It says state agencies have to create and store records. They do this.
There is another law called the Official Information Act (OIA) that manages how state agencies are meant to *release* information. This is where the problem is.
Please do the most basic research before you shoot your mouth off.
Show where I haven’t. I really cannot abide people polluting public discourse with falsehoods. You have had every opportunity to understand this and other topics. Yet you choose to keep flapping your gums instead. Find another hobby, eh.
As mentioned I’ve already provided your highness with a credible accounting of its contents. Perhaps you could cease your ornamental crochet and actualy read it. Toodle pip.
I had a look at it out of interest today Penny. The Public Records Act sets out the mandate and role of Archives New Zealand (formerly National Archives) and the Chief Archivist, as well as the requirements & standards for public records to be created & maintained by public offices and local authorities, the definition of public and local authority records, and provisions under which they’re to be archived and/or otherwise disposed of.
Also rules under which Archives NZ may accept deposit of Parliamentary records, Ministers’ papers, and private or other records of historical events, public offices or organisations, or any persons of historical, political or cultural significance – and any conditions as agreed between the Chief Archivist and the Clerk of the House, Minister or controlling public office as appropriate.
It provides for some classes of local of authority records to be declared “protected”. It also requires that public office records 25 years old more, or which or are being archived, must be classified as open access or restricted access. It similarly provides that a local authority record becomes a local authority archive when it is no longer in current use or has been in existence for 25 years, or more, and that it must also be classified as either open access or restricted access, regardless of where held. What is restricted is determined by the Chief Archivist or legistlation. Max restriction 25 years, renewable.
It then provides for archived open access records to be made available to the public for inspection free of charge (or subject to whatever reasonable charge the Chief Archivist specifies for research, copying, or other services provided to a requestor). And it also says local authorities must similarly provide free inspection of any archive not restricted (subject to any similar charge for services such as photocopying, research, transcription etc allowed under the Local Government Act 2002).
The Public Records Act is about the requirements & rules for creating & keeping public records, and for their subsequent archiving for posterity and/or disposal, Penny. It allows public access to “open” archived records. It doesn’t provide access to current (i.e. non-archived) public or local authority records, or to restricted archives. And it reposes responsibility for ensuring organisations meet these legal obligations for record-keeping, archiving and classification) in the Chief Archivist.
The general purpose of the Act as summarised in s.3 is specified more precisely in its succeeding sections, s,3 doesn’t override them in some way.
Sacha is right. This Act does not give a right of and rules around public access to current official information, the Official Information Act does that.
British War Vets have thrown their medals outside Downing Street in protest against the Government’s decision to bomb Syria and to bust the “mythology” of heroism connected to the military.
“Mr Griffin, who won his medal for serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and Macedonia, said it was a “powerful” and “incredible experience,” adding: “These are things we once treasured, so it’s a difficult thing to give away but we think it’s really important that we do that – both in protest against this war but also because want to get rid of the mythology around these things.” “
Myths and the military go hand in hand all over the place. After all, their very arena of operation, war, is the epitome of bullshit and lies. First casualty of war is truth. Who operates wars? The military.
Two popular myths;
One, that Anzac day is about the military. Well, f&%k the military, they are the pricks who sent the men to their useless deaths. Anzac day is about the people who died. The military should be shunted out of the annual commemorations.
Two, that the military fights to defend our freedoms etc etc crappy etc. The military answers to the crown, not us. It is there to protect the crown not us. And this is what the history shows, including here in NZ.
I have no idea why people respect the military. Probably same reason they vote for Donald Trump and John Key. The military should be feared, not respected. Feared because they more often turn their guns on the citizens than anyone else.
So killing doctors, nurses and patients is “liberating” them.
The most repellent propaganda masquerades as news on Al-Jazeera
Al Jazeera News, Thursday 10 December 2015, 8:00 a.m.
The Qatari dictatorship is, together with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States and the United Kingdom, the chief sponsor and supporter of Daesh/ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra and al Qaeda, collectively known by the mendacious title of “the moderate Syrian opposition”. Al Jazeera is the mouthpiece of the Qatari dictatorship. There is a sometimes subtle, but more often crude and audacious, bias in its news reportage and its selection of guests for its discussions.
First item up on this morning’s news was the most recent Afghani resistance attack, this time on a heavily fortified civilian and military airfield in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. At least 37 people, including many children, have been killed.
The “reporter” (one Rob Matheson, who is yet another of the ex-BBC hacks who infest Al Jazeera) then went on to say this:
The city of Kunduz was over-run by the Taliban in September. It was liberated after a series of coalition airstrikes.”
Of course, any viewer with a degree of sentience above that of a zombie would have been aware that the “coalition” (i.e. the U.S. military) went about “liberating” Kunduz by bombing Kunduz Hospital between 2:08 and 3:15 a.m. on Saturday October 3rd. When the Americans stopped their bombing, they had killed 31 patients, nurses and doctors. To deliberately ignore that, and to pretend that the Americans are “liberating” anyone, is propaganda at its most ruthless.
British war veterans have thrown away their medals outside Downing Street in protest against the Government’s decision to bomb Syria and to bust the “mythology” of heroism connected to the military.
To Tracey at 8.1
On same line of thought, what can be done about the disgusting ignorant insolence of our incoming minister of Climate Change, who according to TV One on screen said that the index ( of measures to reduce use of fossil fuels etc) is “by a bunch of environmentalists who criticise what any country’s doing”??!!! The peculiar grammar is as reported and not mine.
To Tracey at 8.1
On same line of thought, what can be done about the disgusting ignorant insolence of our incoming minister of Climate Change, who according to TV One on screen said that the index ( of measures to reduce use of fossil fuels etc) is “by a bunch of environmentalists who criticise what any country’s doing”??!!! The grammar is as reported and not mine.
while i am at the keyboard, i want to share with y’all the feelings of pride and enthusiasm for the future that i have.
went to prize-giving at my boys high school.
the calibre and achievements on display were inspiring.
the dux runner-up got a+ on 3 level 300 papers (calculus, physics) and he is in year 11!
the new head prefect was winner of the open korero, impromptu speech and a few other accolades.( my head was spinning at the list of achievements listed)
numerous sporting and other cultural highs as well.
its a small counterpoint to all the bad news stories we hear about our young men, time and time again.
Sorry, doesn’t count unless it’s at a charter school!
That’s what I’ve learned from reading a couple of other blog sites. Something not so good goes on at a non-charter school, the boot goes in hard and heavy. Good stuff happens but is ignored.
Microscopes and search parties are out though seeking something positive happening in a charter school and it’s BIG news.
Corruption happens in the Ministry of Education or Education Review Office and they don’t want to know.
Day to day there are immense successes in ‘ordinary’ schools with ‘extraordinary’ efforts and achievements.
Well done to the young men you mention, the adults who helped get them there and their peers who pushed and encouraged them to their success.
INteresting u-turn by National on the criminalisation of cartel behaviour by NZ businesses. Interestingly the “one law for all” ACT party doesn’t want criminlisation because it will be deterimental. And yet, beneficiaries and others,s craping by, need this kind of hammer posied over their heads… punishments yes, but prison? No, no no?
Yes, Guyon Espiner really held Goldsmith’s feet to the fire on this one.
And Goldsmith seemed to realise right from the start of the interview that he didn’t have a leg to stand on. He was hesitant and back footing it right from the beginning – his heart was nowhere near in it.
The only line he’d been given to defend the u-turn was some ridiculous claim that prison sentences would have a chilling effect on business innovation – of all things – and so be harmful to competition.
Some kind of straw-clutching at ‘co-opetition‘ presumably. Must have been a bit of a bright spark Ministerial advisor who gave him that one to run with. Went down like a lead balloon.
That rationale was never going to fly – far, far too subtle (in the sense of dancing on the head of a pin) and suspect for the average (and above average) listener.
If public records were CREATED and MAINTAINED and readily available for public scrutiny, then the information would not need to be requested under the OIA or LGOIMA ?
That’s my considered opinion.
You don’t have to agree with it.
FYI – having raised directly with the Board of Watercare earlier this year, the absence of any information on either their bills or their website that explains where monies received for water and wastewater services is actually SPENT, there has been a development.
Some details of awarded contracts are now available on their website, which was not previously the case.
It was Watercare’s alleged failure to comply with the Public Records Act which I brought to their attention, which, in my opinion, has resulted in this improvement, regarding ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ in the spending of public money.
The number of oligopolies that do us all in with grossly overpriced goods and services, barely regulated in this country, this move to not even lift a parliamentary finger is disgusting:
Poor people conspire in deceit to trick people out of their money – criminal charges, prison and opprobrium are rained down upon them.
Business people conspire in deceit to trick people out of their money – a measly fine, if you’re lucky, one day, sometime.
Why the difference Nacts?
Why the difference?
Why the difference?
What difference is there?
Shouldn’t business in fact operate to higher standards, not lower?
What a frikkin joke…
Know why our houses cost so much more than in Australia ? The anti-competitive behaviour of Fletchers. It is bullshit. The politicians I have met even openly acknowledge this, yet do nothing about it.
bullshit
bullshit
bullshit
Pay $350,000 to build your new house, rather than $250-300,000. That is the hard cold reality….
That is the difference
That is the difference that this government is happy for people to pay.
Liars, cheats and bullshit artists. Snakeoil merchants. Wide boys and grandma vendors. Nasty, greedy, selfish, individualists. Scam artists. Merchant bankers. Ponytail pullers. They all own shares in Fletchers. They all make the rules for Fletchers. Scum.
Crikey! From reading that Karen it seems OK for anyone to destroy anything that may harm your defence. Had the Chisolm enquiry been in a Courtroom would evasions/deletions be acceptable?
For Slater to be “broke” it seems that he/they must have had some pretty powerful legal support to be able tododge the bullets. Wonder who his legal team were and who paid for the 10s of thousands of dollars.
Delete this and that. Deny memory of this and that. Refer to the narrow frames of reference rather than the intent of the enquiry.
I think people have conveniently forgotten that Collinss did not cooperate and appears to have destroyed evidence… this nothing to hide nothing to fear former Minister for Justice and Police…
A bit in the enquiry had phone calls from Collins to Slater but not one from Slater to Collins according to the records. so no evidence of collusion. Yeah right.
Interesting to note how involved our PM is in GSB thse days. How knowledgeable he has become since relinquishing all responsibility and accountability for the secret services. Cortex, presumably paid for by taxpayers, is something he now wants to offer to all small and medium businesses. It may be a good idea, I don’t know, but it is a redirection of taxpayer money from say, health, to businesses. I assume the Taxpayers Union will be OUTRAGED at this form of subsidy? ACT will vote against it?
when I click on the reply button, my cursor now loads in the Name (Required) field instead of the Your Comment field. Any chance it could be set back to the comment field?
On my phone it’s doing that on the desktop theme. On the mobile theme it drops me to the comment box at bottom of page with the cursor not inserted anywhere.
the other thing that changed overnight is that when I click on a comment in the Comments list that is for a page I am already on, instead of it just jumping down the page to the comment, it now reloads the page to go to comment. Bit of a pain for those of still on rural broadband speeds.
(I haven’t checked another browser, this one is Firefox mac).
Ah drat. That was something that I’d disabled in the desktop theme to prevent bots, but had to enable to get the mobile theme to do replies.
That is something I should be able to hack in functions or the theme.
I’ll change it to do the same thing to the mobile theme as the desktop theme has. Just use javascript to move the comment section to the comment being replied to.
test iOS
..theme is pretty groovy on the iPhone
..interesting choice of font
..also the right sidebar is a slight annoyance but easily zoomed out of sight
I happen to like that particular font. It is whatever the font is used on Ubuntu.
I find it really fast and clear to read. Consequently I’ve changed all of my code editors to use it across linux, windows, and mac. Also on FBReader on my phone for reading ePubs.
There is a lot of reading in this site…
Ok, this is probably a problem in your browser if it is a desktop.
The comment reply on a desktop theme depends on using javascript to set the comment section to the appropriate place in the HTML and internally setting the right comment to reply to.
However if the javascript fails or has been disabled, it falls back to doing it the old fashioned way and loading comment. In this case what you will see is a reload of the page and somewhere in the address bar is a replytocomm=number where the number is that of the comment you are replying to.
It doesn’t do that on my firefox / linux or firefox / windows or even Lyn’s firefox / mac.
What it used to do before I changed the mobile theme was that when doing a reply, it would return a Gone screen because I’d disabled to replytocomm to limit pesky bots.
I’ll force a reload of the DCN caches just to make it isn’t server side. But it looks like something on the client side.
Javascript is enabled on my firefox. I just tried a safe mode restart to disable all addons, but that hasn’t changed anything.
The URL stays the same except the number changes as the page reloads.
This page reloading thing happened after the upgrade you just did, so if it’s my side does that mean that there is an incompatibility between my version of Firefox (42.0) and WordPress? Or do you mean that it’s actually my particular copy of Firefox that is the problem?
Apparently Cameron Slater’s Whaleoil site has been biting one of the hands that feeds him.
Xero’s boss said he has withdrawn funds from advertising on Whaleoil after what what he says a campaign critical of Xero steered by Rodney Hide on the site.
I guess if you lay down with wild dogs, don’t be surprised if you get up covered in flea bites or get bitten a few times!
I agree having a 500 year old tree is worth more than a slab of concrete.
I was reading a book today though about early european explorers visiting areas around Taupo and finding a lot of forest had already been burnt down by Maori. From what I could gather by burning off forest and scrubland reappearing where they could harvest fern root and where it was possibly easier to hunt birds, was vital for survival. Hawkes Bay and the Wairarapa were similarly burnt, scrubby landscapes I think.
If you could transport pre-european Maori back to today, it would be interesting to get their take on what parts of the land they would leave (sacred) and what parts they would use to their full advantage. I’m putting my own interpretation of traditional Maori there from a white perspective, and it’s probably a lot more complex and different.
@maui..from my limited knowledge( and speaking as a Pakeha with some Maori ancestry)…there are quite a few books out there on what plants and trees the old Maori looked after…generally they were conservationists, much more so than the early European settlers….some Maori Tohunga know a lot about all this…ie the old Maori were polytheistic and there were gods and spirituality in all nature and in their landscapes
Elsden Best ‘Forest Lore of the Maori ‘ is a detailed account and a great read …(I bought my copy years ago but it has gone up in price, judging from below ….not sure if there are new pbs editions)
Can also highly recommend Geoff Park’s classic, ‘Nga Uru Ora — the Groves of Life: Ecology and History in a New Zealand Landscape’ written by an ecologist on tour in his canoe ( you feel you are with him)
This book gives a great feel for the history and reverence the Maori felt towards their special places
There are books on edible plants and medicinal herbs
Anything on Maori spirituality by Rev. Dr. Maori Marsden is worth reading eg.
Maori Marsden , “The Natural World and Natural Resources: Maori Value Systems and perspectives” ( paper for Ministry for Environment,1989)and ‘Maori Values and Environmental Management'( New Zealand Natural Resources Unit, Manata Maori,1991)
All this just scratches the surface of a forgotten history and spirituality which is very Gaia/ Papatuanuku centred and relevant today
I was reading “Forest Lore of the Maori”, so you nailed it! I was looking up what food sources Maori traditionally used and find it quite interesting. Thanks for the links, I have thought about buying Nga Uru Ora for ages.
Nga Uru Ora is fantastic…I think it is out of print by Victoria University( they should reprint because it is a classic)….but you can get it on Amazon and I expect from various secondhand book shops
While I don’t dispute that there is considerable credentials to Maori conservation it is important to note that there was quite considerable clearance of native forest prior to the arrival of European settlers.
The trees were meant to be cut down to create car parking on the site which the council supported. The council planners could asked for the house to be built around the trees – but why do their job when you can just rubber stamp everything?
The consultants noted the trees as ‘high value vegetation’ burying it within a 70 page report. The developers then have gone to court to downgrade the environmental conditions on other sites they own.
Don’t worry, Auckland property developers are not developing for the local market that might enjoy the trees!
Um, yes any new development in that near area really does need off-street parking. It’s very narrow and windy, and even as it is I wouldn’t be surprised if rubbish trucks are sometimes blocked from getting through. But the right way to do it is follow the example set by the neighbouring property (number44) and several others on the street and build a parking deck out on poles just off the street at street level.
I’m only a few houses down the street from the place in question, BTW.
in Wellington single lanes up the sides of very steep inner city treed hills adds to the frisson and character of the place…(and yes they do build pole garage platforms where they can if lucky)
Aucklanders need to get some CLASS and STYLE and put the trees first…before their cars
Auckland was a beautiful area …now trashed by the roads and cars and car parks
“Recent claims that the US bombed a Syrian military installation may be a telling example of how Washington and its allies intend to escalate their war on the Syrian regime and NOT against terrorists. It would appear Assad remains target number one.
CrossTalking with Martin Jay, Marcus Papadopoulos, and Ivan Eland.”
Many citizens and residents across the Auckland region are deeply concerned about proposed zoning changes that may lead to non-notified multi-story developments, in which they will potentially have no say, but will potentially have a huge impact on their lives and immediate environment.
Has lawful ‘due process’ been followed regarding the Auckland ‘Spatial Plan’ and subsequent amendments?
Were the Auckland population growth projections which spawned legislation such as that for the ‘Special Housing Areas’ (SHAs), lawfully and evidentially based?
Will proposed changes to the RMA make things worse?
Groups and concerned citizens who want to meet to discuss these issues, and co-ordinate ideas and action to help stop the Auckland region effectively becoming a ‘dictatorship for developers’, are most welcome to attend.
Meeting convened by Penny Bright, assisted by fellow concerned citizens.
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RNZ this morning has the first story another investigative series by Guyon Espiner, this time into political lobbying. The first story focuses on lobbying by government agencies, specifically transpower, Pharmac, and assorted universities, and how they use lobbyists to manipulate public opinion and gather intelligence on the Ministers who oversee ...
Nick Matzke writes – Dear NZ Herald, I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland. I teach evolutionary biology, but I also have long experience in science education and (especially) political attempts to insert pseudoscience into science curricula in ...
James Shaw has again said the Greens would be better ‘in the tent’ with Labour than out, despite Labour’s policy bonfire last week torching much of what the Government was doing to reduce emissions. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Green Party has never been more popular than in some ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler Poor air quality is a long-standing problem in Los Angeles, where the first major outbreak of smog during World War II was so intense that some residents thought the city had been attacked by chemical weapons. Cars were eventually discovered ...
Yesterday I was reading an excellent newsletter from David Slack, and I started writing a comment “Sounds like some excellent genetic heritage…” and then I stopped.There was something about the phrase genetic heritage that stopped me in tracks. Is that a phrase I want to be saying? It’s kind of ...
Brian Easton writes – Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go ...
This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War. While it strongly opposed the US-led invasion, New Zealand’s then Labour-led government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark did deploy military engineers to try to help rebuild Iraq in mid-2003. With violence soaring, their 12-month deployment ended without being renewed ...
After seventy years, Auckland’s motorway network is finally finished. In July 1953 the first section of motorway in Auckland was opened between Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Mt Wellington Highway. The final stage opens to traffic this week with the completion of the motorway part of the Northern Corridor Improvements project. Aucklanders ...
National’s appointment of Todd McClay as Agriculture spokesperson clearly signals that the party is in trouble with the farming vote. McClay was not an obvious choice, but he does have a record as a political scrapper. The party needs that because sources say it has been shedding farming votes ...
Rays of white light come flooding into my lounge, into my face from over the top of my neighbour’s hedge. I have to look away as the window of the conservatory is awash in light, as if you were driving towards the sun after a rain shower and suddenly blinded. ...
The columnists in Private Eye take pen names, so I have not the least idea who any of them are. But I greatly appreciate their expert insight, especially MD, who writes the medical column, offering informed and often damning critique of the UK health system and the politicians who keep ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Mar 12, 2023 thru Sat, Mar 18, 2023. Story of the Week Guest post: What 13,500 citations reveal about the IPCC’s climate science report IPCC WG1 AR6 SPM Report Cover - Changing ...
Buzz from the Beehive The building of financial capability was brought into our considerations when Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced she had dipped into the government’s coffers for $3 million for “providers” to help people and families access community-based Building Financial Capability services. That wording suggests some ...
Do you ever come across something that makes you go Hmmmm?You mean like the song?No, I wasn’t thinking of the song, but I am now - thanks for that. I was thinking of things you read or hear that make you stop and go Hmmmm.Yeah, I know what you mean, ...
By the end of the week, the dramas over Stuart Nash overshadowed Hipkins’ policy bonfire. File photo: Lynn GrieveasonTLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included:PM Chris Hipkins’ announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but ...
When word went out that Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would be making an announcement about Stuart Nash on the tiles at parliament at 2:45pm yesterday, the assumption was that it was over. That we had reached tipping point for Nash’s time as minister. But by 3pm - when, coincidentally, the ...
Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go on to attack physics by citing Newton.So ...
Photo by Walker Fenton on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on Riverside (we’ve moved from Zoom) for our chat about the week’s news with ...
In a nice bit of news, my 2550-word deindustrial science-fiction piece, The Dream of Florian Neame, has been accepted for publication at New Maps Magazine (https://www.new-maps.com/). I have published there before, of course, with Of Tin and Tintagel coming out last year. While I still await the ...
And so this is Friday, and what have we learned?It was a week with all the usual luggage: minister brags and then he quits, Hollywood red carpet is full of twits. And all the while, hanging over the trivial stuff: existential dread, and portents of doom.Depending on who you read ...
When I changed the name of this newsletter from The Daily Read to Nick’s Kōrero I was a bit worried whether people would know what Kōrero meant or not. I added a definition when I announced the change and kind of assumed people who weren’t familiar with it would get ...
There was a time when a political party’s publicity people would counsel against promoting a candidate as queer. No matter which of two dictionary meanings the voting public might choose to apply – the old meaning of odd, strange, weird, or aberrant, or the more recent meaning of gay, homosexual ...
Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for the next hour, including:PM Chris Hipkins announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but which blew up ...
Even though concern over the climate change threat is becoming more mainstream, our governments continue to opt out of the difficult decisions at the expense of time, and cost for future generations. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Now we have a climate liability number to measure the potential failure of the ...
Thomas Cranmer writesLike it or not, the culture wars have entered New Zealand politics and look set to broaden and intensify. The culture wars are often viewed as an exclusively American phenomenon, but the reality is that they are becoming increasingly prominent in countries around the world, ...
Here’s an analogy for the Stuart Nash saga. If people are to be forgiven for their sins,Catholic dogma requires two factors to be present. There has to be a sincere act of confession about what has been done, but also a sincere act of contrition, which signals a painful ...
Here’s an analogy for the Stuart Nash saga. If people are to be forgiven for their sins,Catholic dogma requires two factors to be present. There has to be a sincere act of confession about what has been done, but also a sincere act of contrition, which signals a painful ...
Human Destabilisers: Russia now has a new strategic weapon – migratory waves of unwelcome human-beings. Desperate people with different coloured skins and different religious beliefs arriving at, or actually breaching, the national borders of Russia’s enemies can wreak as much havoc, culturally and politically, as a hypersonic missile exploding in the ...
Hi,After Webworm contributor Hayden Donnell wrote his latest piece, ‘RIP to Millennials Killing Everything’, he delivered this exciting and important bonus content.It will make more sense if you’ve read his piece.David. Read more ...
Hi,Before we get to Hayden’s column — RIP to Millennials Killing Everything — a quick observation.There was a day last week where it had suddenly reached 10pm and I hadn’t eaten all day. Hunger had suddenly gripped me with a panicky all-consuming force, so I jumped onto Uber Eats and ...
We add some of the CMIP6 models to the updateable MSU comparisons. After my annual update, I was pointed to some MSU-related diagnostics for many of the CMIP6 models (24 of them at least) from Po-Chedley et al. (2022) courtesy of Ben Santer. These are slightly different to what ...
In a memorable Pulp Fiction scene, Vincent inadvertently shoots their backseat passenger in the head. This leads our heroes Jules and Vincent to express alarm about their predicament.We're on a city street in broad daylight here!says Vincent. We gotta get this car off the roads. You know cops tend to ...
Primary, secondary and kindergarten teachers are all on strike today, demanding higher pay and an end to systematic understaffing. While the former is important - wages should at least keep up with inflation - its the latter which is the real issue. As with the health system, teachers have been ...
So the teachers are on strike, marching across Aotearoa today to press their demands for better pay and working conditions.Children remained in bed this brisk morning, many no doubt quite pleased about a day off school. Parents perhaps taking the day off to look after the kids, or working from ...
After the Cold War the consensus among Western military strategists was that the era of Big Wars, defined as peer conflict between large states with full spectrum military technologies, was at an end, at least for the foreseeable future. The … Continue reading → ...
Dairy giant Fonterra has posted a 50% lift in net profit to $546m, doubled its interim dividend, and is proposing a return of capital of 50c a share, injecting a note of optimism into the nation’s dairy industry. Fonterra’s strong performance is against a backdrop of market volatility. It ...
Buzz from the Beehive The bothersome economic news today is that New Zealand’s GDP fell by 0.6% in the December quarter, weaker than market forecasts of a fall of around 0.2% and much weaker than the Reserve Bank’s assumption of a 0.7% rise. This followed the even-more-bothersome news yesterday that ...
Ouch: Hipkins’ policy bonfire has resulted in an expensive self-administered removal of a Budgetary foot with an explosive device. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Bonfires can be dangerous things when they get out of control. They also create a lot of smoke and heat and burn the grass. ...
* Dr Bryce Edwards writes – I teach a first-year course at Victoria University of Wellington about government and the political process in New Zealand. In “Introduction to Government and Law”, students learn there are rules preventing senior public servants from getting involved in big political debates – as we ...
I teach a first year course at Victoria University of Wellington about government and the political process in New Zealand. In “Introduction to Government and Law”, students learn there are rules preventing senior public servants from getting involved in big political debates – as we have recently witnessed with Rob ...
An issue of integrity has claimed the first ministerial scalp in Prime Minister Chris Hipkins’ premiership. Police Minister Stuart Nash lasted mere weeks in the role after admitting in a radio interview this morning that he had called Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to ask him if police were going to ...
For some time now we’ve known that the cost and completion timeframe for the City Rail Link would increase. Yesterday we finally learned by just how much. Costs City Rail Link Ltd (CRL Ltd) today confirms it has submitted a formal funding request to its Sponsors – the Crown and ...
The Government’s decision to back peddle on lowering speed limits is hitting potholes. At this stage, although it is part of the Government’s reprioritisation efforts to free up money to alleviate cost of living increases, the speed limit change looks unlikely to do that. And it appears that it ...
The University of Otago – the oldest university in New Zealand – towers over my home city of Dunedin. When classes are on, something like a fifth of Dunedin’s population are university students. It is also the largest employer in the South Island. To say that this is a ...
Last weekend brought the latest instalment in Stuff’s bravura satirical series Of course you can afford a house! Just dig deeper!I love how much their appreciation of humour has evolved in just a few short years since the days when I would get to produce, for a few meagre dollars, ...
Australia’s move to strengthen its defence capability with five nuclear-powered attack submarines underlines how relatively defenceless New Zealand is in the Pacific. Kiwis may gasp that the Labor government in Australia recognises it must outlay $400bn on the nuclear subs, but this ensures that Australia is not exposed ...
Ironically, a repurposed Auckland Ratepayers Alliance placard (with a demand for climate action on the front) featured at the recent climate march. Voting ratepayers don’t want ‘bureaucrats in cushy council jobs’ borrowing or increasing rates, even when the need for investment is becoming increasingly obvious. So is council cost-cutting a ...
The quarterly ETS auction was held today. In the past, these have seen collusion by big players to game the price and force a dump of extra credits from the cost-containment reserve (essentially, trying to pick stuff up cheap now in the belief that it will be more valuable later). ...
Buzz from the Beehive Exempting bikes, electric bikes and scooters from fringe benefit tax looked like something of a sop for a Green Party that had good grounds to grumble after a bunch of climate change measures was tossed on to the PM’s policy bonfire. The combustibles included the clean car ...
Today is a Member's Day, the first of the year. Unfortunately it also looks to be a boring one. First, there's a two hour debate on the budget policy statement (somehow inexplicably "member's business", despite it being fundamentally a government thing). Then there's a couple of "private bills" - people ...
Most days, Chris Hipkins and James Shaw seem a bit like the Seals and Crofts of the centre-left: Earnest, inoffensive, and capable of quite nice harmonies at times. They blow gently through the jasmine in your mind, but you know they’re never going to rock your world. Back in 2020, ...
The reflection gazed back at him. Pale and a little paunchy, he wasn’t a well man.He had a toga made from a fitted sheet and it kept bunching up under his armpits.His Laurel wreath was made from some Christmas tree branches he’d found in the shed, not a real pine ...
Yesterday we covered the government’s latest policy/delivery changes with a focus on light rail. But there was another important transport part of the announcement: The government will also intends to scale back its road safety plans. The programmes that are being reprioritised include: Significantly narrowing the speed reduction programme to ...
Unbridled Consumption: This civilisation we have built (we being the whole human species) is the most astonishingly wonderful thing homo sapiens has ever seen. We love it. We cannot imagine how awful life would be without it. And, we most certainly are not going to co-operate with anyone who advises ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Let’s start with the absolute truisms.Politics is the art of the possibleHalf of something is better than all of nothingLet us now consider these with reference to the Under New Management government.What is a supporter of progressive politics to make of the abandonment of various policies, as announced in recent post-cabinet ...
Chris Hipkins has surprised even some of his closest friends and backers with the bounce he has secured for Labour in public polls since he became Prime Minister. He has been put to the test since he took over from Jacinda Ardern in the top job, and has shown a ...
Buzz from the Beehive It was a big day for the stopping or slowing of a second tranche of government programmes, an exercise which Beehive publicists are pitching as measures to allow the Government to focus more time, energy and resources on “the bread and butter issues” facing New Zealanders. ...
Last night there was a One News political poll which was welcomed by the left and will cause some concern in the opposition camp. A poll that showed no path to victory for ACT and National and which would likely result in another Labour/Greens government, possibly with the inclusion, or ...
Our young renters can vote Labour or Green as often as they like, but will end up paying the price of more and bigger climate emergencies, while also paying most of their after-tax income on rent with little hope of owning their own homes. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR:PM ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Labour’s shift in focus is working. Under Jacinda Ardern they were a party and government focused on the voters and ideologies of liberal Grey Lynn and Wellington Central. Now under Prime Minister Chris Hipkins Labour has a laser-like focus directed at ...
Labour’s shift in focus is working. Under Jacinda Ardern they were a party and government focused on the voters and ideologies of liberal Grey Lynn and Wellington Central. Now under Prime Minister Chris Hipkins Labour has a laser-like focus directed at the working class politics of places like West Auckland ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Chris Baraniuk It was an engineering problem that had bugged Zhibin Yu for years — but now he had the perfect chance to fix it. Stuck at home during the first UK lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, the thermal engineer suddenly had all ...
Hi,I just wanted to say hello as this week really gets going, and check in about a few things. They’re a series of fractured random thoughts, so bear with me! First up — I haven’t watched the Oscars in ages and I’m really glad I watched yesterday. It felt like ...
Yesterday the Prime Minister laid out the next tranche of plans to scale back the ambition of Labour’s policy/delivery programme – and this time the Auckland light rail project gets a mention. “I can also confirm today that we will roll out transport projects in Auckland in stages. “Reducing transport ...
The Hipkins Government revealed its true colours yesterday as it chopped a whole series of “nice to have” policies — many of them promoted by the Greens — and instead diverted the savings to relieve the impact of inflation. His approach is all about taking action; no more excuses, ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised in their State of the Planet speech today. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party after the election must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised today. ...
You will never truly understand, from the pictures you’ve seen in the newspapers or on the six o-clock news, the sheer scale of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. ...
We’re boosting incomes and helping ease cost of living pressures on Kiwis through a range of bread and butter support measures that will see pensioners, students, families, and those on main benefits better off from the start of next month. ...
The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government. ...
“Cabinet needs to do better - and today has shown exactly why we need Green Ministers in cabinet, so we can prioritise action to cut climate pollution and support people to make ends meet,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson. ...
Biggest increase in food prices for over three decades shows the need for an excess profit tax on corporations to help people put food on the table. ...
The Green Party has today launched a submission guide to help Aucklanders give crucial input and prevent potentially disastrous Auckland Council budget proposals. ...
With calls growing for inquiries and action on bank profits, the Greens say the Government has all the information it needs to act now and put a levy on banks. ...
As large parts of Aotearoa recover from two of the worst climate disasters we have ever experienced, it would be a huge mistake for the Government to deprioritise climate action from future transport investments, the Green Party says. ...
The Green Party is celebrating the signing of a historic United Nations Ocean Treaty, and calls on the new Oceans and Fisheries Minister to urgently step up protection for Aotearoa’s oceans. ...
This year has seen a series of extreme weather events, unparalleled in New Zealand’s recent history. From Cape Reinga in the far north down to the Tararua Ranges, families and businesses across the country have suffered enormous loss and hardship. While the severe weather hasn’t directly affected every part of ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has today appointed Ginny Andersen as Minister of Police. “Ginny Andersen has a strong and relevant background in this important portfolio,” Chris Hipkins said. “Ginny Andersen worked for the Police as a non-sworn staff member for around 10 years and has more recently been chair of ...
Six further bailey bridge sites confirmed Four additional bridge sites under consideration 91 per cent of damaged state highways reopened Recovery Dashboards for impacted regions released The Government has responded quickly to restore lifeline routes after Cyclone Gabrielle and can today confirm that an additional six bailey bridges will ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for China tomorrow, where she will meet with her counterpart, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in Beijing. This will be the first visit by a New Zealand Minister to China since 2019, and follows the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions between New Zealand and China. ...
Education Ministers from across the Pacific will gather in Tāmaki Makaurau this week to share their collective knowledge and strategic vision, for the benefit of ākonga across the region. New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti will host the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers (CPEM) for three days from today, ...
A vital transport link for communities and local businesses has been restored following Cyclone Gabrielle with the reopening of State Highway 5 (SH5) between Napier and Taupō, Associate Minister of Transport Kiri Allan says. SH5 reopened to all traffic between 7am and 7pm from today, with closure points at SH2 (Kaimata ...
Internal Affairs Minister Barbara Edmonds has thanked generous New Zealanders who took part in the special Lotto draw for communities affected by Cyclone Gabrielle. Held on Saturday night, the draw raised $11.7 million with half of all ticket sales going towards recovery efforts. “In a time of need, New Zealanders ...
The Government has announced funding of $3 million for providers to help people, and whānau access community-based Building Financial Capability services. “Demand for Financial Capability Services is growing as people face cost of living pressures. Those pressures are increasing further in areas affected by flooding and Cyclone Gabrielle,” Minister for ...
Minister of Education, Hon Jan Tinetti, has announced appointments to the Board of Education New Zealand | Manapou ki te Ao. Tracey Bridges is joining the Board as the new Chair and Dr Therese Arseneau will be a new member. Current members Dr Linda Sissons CNZM and Daniel Wilson have ...
Fifteen ākonga Māori from across Aotearoa have been awarded the prestigious Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships and Awards for 2023, Associate Education Minister and Ngarimu Board Chair, Kelvin Davis announced today. The recipients include doctoral, masters’ and undergraduate students. Three vocational training students and five wharekura students, ...
High Court Judge Jillian Maree Mallon has been appointed a Judge of the Court of Appeal, and District Court Judge Andrew John Becroft QSO has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Mallon graduated from Otago University in 1988 with an LLB (Hons), and with ...
The economy has continued to show its resilience despite today’s GDP figures showing a modest decline in the December quarter, leaving the Government well positioned to help New Zealanders face cost of living pressures in a challenging global environment. “The economy had grown strongly in the two quarters before this ...
Aucklanders now have more ways to get around as Transport Minister Michael Wood opened the direct State Highway 1 (SH1) to State Highway 18 (SH18) underpass today, marking the completion of the 48-kilometre Western Ring Route (WRR). “The Government is upgrading New Zealand’s transport system to make it safer, more ...
This section contains briefings received by incoming ministers following changes to Cabinet in January. Some information may have been withheld in accordance with the Official Information Act 1982. Where information has been withheld that is indicated within the document. ...
Aotearoa New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta reaffirmed her commitment to working together with the new Government of Fiji on issues of shared importance, including on the prioritisation of climate change and sustainability, at a meeting today, in Nadi. Fiji and Aotearoa New Zealand’s close relationship is underpinned by the Duavata ...
The Government is delivering a coastal shipping lifeline for businesses, residents and the primary sector in the cyclone-stricken regions of Hawkes Bay and Tairāwhiti, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan announced today. The Rangitata vessel has been chartered for an emergency coastal shipping route between Gisborne and Napier, with potential for ...
The Government will progress to the next stage of the NZ Battery Project, looking at the viability of pumped hydro as well as an alternative, multi-technology approach as part of the Government’s long term-plan to build a resilient, affordable, secure and decarbonised energy system in New Zealand, Energy and Resources ...
This morning I was made aware of a media interview in which Minister Stuart Nash criticised a decision of the Court and said he had contacted the Police Commissioner to suggest the Police appeal the decision. The phone call took place in 2021 when he was not the Police Minister. ...
The Government’s sharp focus on trade continues with Aotearoa New Zealand set to host Trade Ministers and delegations from 10 Asia Pacific economies at a meeting of Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Commission members in July, Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O’Connor announced today. “New Zealand ...
$25 million boost to support more businesses with clean-up in cyclone affected regions, taking total business support to more than $50 million Demand for grants has been strong, with estimates showing applications will exceed the initial $25 million business support package Grants of up to a maximum of $40,000 per ...
80 per cent of 2021 Resident Visas applications have been processed – three months ahead of schedule Residence granted to 160,000 people 84,000 of 85,000 applications have been approved Over 160,000 people have become New Zealand residents now that 80 per cent of 2021 Resident Visa (2021RV) applications have been ...
The Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques travels to Melbourne, Australia today to represent New Zealand at the fourth Sub-Regional Meeting on Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Security. “The Government is committed to reducing the threat of terrorism ...
The health and safety practices at our nation’s ports will be improved as part of a new industry-wide action plan, Workplace Relations and Safety, and Transport Minister Michael Wood has announced. “Following the tragic death of two port workers in Auckland and Lyttelton last year, I asked the Port Health ...
Bikes, electric bikes and scooters will be added to the types of transport exempted from fringe benefit tax under changes proposed today. Revenue Minister David Parker said the change would allow bicycles, electric bicycles, scooters, electric scooters, and micro-mobility share services to be exempt from fringe benefit tax where they ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta will hold bilateral meetings with Fiji this week. The visit will be her first to the country since the election of the new coalition Government led by Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sitiveni Rabuka. The visit will be an opportunity to meet kanohi ki ...
The Government is introducing the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill to ensure the recovery and rebuild from Cyclone Gabrielle is streamlined and efficient with unnecessary red tape removed. The legislation is similar to legislation passed following the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes that modifies existing legislation in order to remove constraints ...
Approximately 1.4 million people will benefit from increases to rates and thresholds for social assistance to help with the cost of living Superannuation to increase by over $100 a pay for a couple Main benefits to increase by the rate of inflation, meaning a family on a benefit with children ...
$1 billion in savings which will be reallocated to support New Zealanders with the cost of living A range of transport programmes deferred so Waka Kotahi can focus on post Cyclone road recovery Speed limit reduction programme significantly narrowed to focus on the most dangerous one per cent of state ...
The remaining state of national emergency over the Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay regions will end on Tuesday 14 March, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. Minister McAnulty gave notice of a national transition period over these regions, which will come into effect immediately following the end of the ...
The Government is today delivering on one of its commitments as part of the New Zealand Government’s Dawn Raids apology, welcoming a cohort of emerging Pacific leaders to Aotearoa New Zealand participating in the He Manawa Tītī Scholarship Programme. This cohort will participate in a bespoke leadership training programme that ...
Industry Transformation Plan to transform advanced manufacturing through increased productivity and higher-skilled, higher-wage jobs into a globally-competitive low-emissions sector. Co-created and co-owned by business, unions and workers, government, Māori, Pacific peoples and wider stakeholders. A plan to accelerate the growth and transformation of New Zealand’s advanced manufacturing sector was launched ...
New Zealand will provide support for Pacific countries to prevent the spread of harmful animal diseases, Associate Minister of Agriculture Meka Whaitiri said. The Associate Minister is attending a meeting of Pacific Ministers during the Pacific Week of Agriculture and Forestry in Nadi, Fiji. “Highly contagious diseases such as African ...
The Public Transport Futures project will deliver approximately: 100 more buses providing a greater number of seats to a greater number of locations at a higher frequency Over 470 more bus shelters to support a more enjoyable travel experience Almost 200 real time display units providing accurate information on bus ...
All but six schools and kura have reopened for onsite learning All students in the six closed schools or kura are being educated in other schools, online, or in alternative locations Over 4,300 education hardpacks distributed to support students Almost 38,000 community meals provided by suppliers of the Ka Ora ...
A new health centre has opened with financial support from the Government and further investment has been committed to projects that will accelerate Māori economic opportunities, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan says. Community health provider QE Health will continue its long history in Rotorua with the official opening of the ...
The new three year NZ UK Working Holiday Visas (WHV) will now be delivered earlier than expected, coming into force by July this year in time to support businesses through the global labour shortages Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says. The improved WHV, successfully negotiated alongside the NZ UK Free trade ...
It seems like only yesterday that we launched the discussion document Enabling Investment in Offshore Renewable Energy, which is the key theme for this Forum. Everyone in this room understands the enormous potential of offshore wind in Aotearoa New Zealand – and particularly this region. Establishing a regime to pave ...
Police has reached a major milestone filing over 28,000 charges related to Operation Cobalt. “I’m extremely proud of the fantastic work that our Police has been doing to crack down on gangs, and keep our communities safe. The numbers speak for themselves – with over 28,000 charges, Police are getting ...
The Government will provide $15 million in the short term to local councils to remove rubbish, as a longer-term approach is developed, the Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. “Several regions are facing significant costs associated with residential waste removal, which has the potential to become a public ...
$15 million of immediate reimbursement for marae, iwi, recognised rural and community groups $2 million for community food providers $0.5 million for additional translation services Increasing the caps of the Community and Provider funds The Government has announced $17.5 million to further support communities and community providers impacted by Cyclone ...
The Government’s approach of using frontline service providers to address inequities for Māori with mental health and addiction needs is making good progress in many communities, a new report says. An independent evaluation into the Māori Access and Choice programme, commissioned by Te Whatu Ora has highlighted the programme’s success ...
A new investigation on the role of lobbyists raises fresh questions about whether we need better disclosure of who they are and who they work for, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Flip Grater decided to give up her career in music to pursue her other passion of vegan delicatessens. Now, her meat-free versions of chorizo, pastrami, and turkey have launched her business and landed her products in foodstuffs supermarkets. She talks to Simon Pound about Grater Goods’ rapid success, and expanding ...
“This is it; 2023 will be the last opportunity New Zealand has to get a government that will confront the climate emergency with the urgency it demands,” says the Green Party’s co-leader and climate change spokesperson, James Shaw. Speaking after ...
Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, released its ‘synthesis report’, summarising six previous reports. Greenpeace says that the latest report confirms the industrial drivers of climate change, its dire planetary impacts, and ...
Phase One Ventures chief executive Mahesh Muralidhar has been selected by local party members as National’s candidate in Auckland Central for the 2023 General Election. “I want to thank our local party members for backing me to campaign for ...
On the holy terror and absolute love of parenting Picked up by Octavia outside the book shop, the kid and I clambered into the back, to the soundtrack of classic hits from what seemed to be a tape she was playing. We were thankful to get in. The sun ...
A new investigative series from RNZ reveals just how broken the government communications machine is, writes Duncan Greive.Investigative journalist Guyon Espiner is peeling back the lid on the world of external lobbyists and corporate affairs strategists employed by the public sector. His new series, being published on RNZ this ...
Fresh from a Melbourne rally that attracted neo-Nazi supporters, British anti-transgender rights speaker Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is scheduled to appear at two events in Aotearoa. So what’s the lowdown? Another controversial international speaker wants to visit New Zealand, and, as expected, reaction has covered the full spectrum from outrage to support. ...
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With a number of events planned down the length of the country, the scene at this weekend’s ‘Stop Co-Governance’ rally in Orewa could be just the first of many Social media erupted with pictures of distorted faces, pulled into expressions of anger or yelling gleefully into the camera. The mugshots ...
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The second week of the Auckland Arts Festivals showed the versatility of the city’s spaces, even when not matched entirely correctly with shows. Sam Brooks reviews (with assistance from Shanti Mathias).I often dismay at the lack of performance spaces we have in Auckland, and it takes something like the ...
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New Zealand’s new minister of police will be one of the freshest faces around the cabinet table. Ginny Andersen, the MP for Hutt South, has been named as the new minister taking over from Stuart Nash. Andersen first became an MP in 2017 and only became a minister for the ...
The government has announced further roading reconnections, several weeks on from Cyclone Gabrielle. Earlier this morning it was confirmed the link between Napier and Taupō had been reestablished. And now, transport minister Michael Wood said another six bailey bridges would be constructed. “Our immediate priority has been to reopen lifeline ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has slammed the revelation that government agencies and State Owned Enterprises are spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on lobbying firms as revealed by Radio NZ this morning. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney Sydney World Pride and Mardi Gras 2023 were a huge success. Sydney was activated in a way rarely seen – block and street parties, cultural festivals and dance parties for ...
For the first time since 2019, a New Zealand minister will head to China this week. Foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta will meet with her Chinese counterpart Qin Gang in Beijing. “I intend to discuss areas where we cooperate, such as on trade, people-to-people and climate and environmental issues. I will ...
The Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has completed his investigation into complaints about Auckland Council’s role in the National Erebus Memorial project. The complaints relate to the council’s approval and consents process for the memorial site in ...
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The first edition felt like a breath of fresh, local music-filled air. This year, with many of the same headliners as 2008 (and every year since), the long-running Wellington festival has grown stale. It’s finally time to admit that on a cold night in Palmy 20 years ago, I felt ...
The anti-transgender activist that provoked aggressive protests in Australia over the weekend may not be able to enter New Zealand. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, the British anti-transgender campaigner, is scheduled to visit New Zealand next weekend for two public events. But according to a new statement from Immigration NZ, her ability to ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is pleased to hear that the Minister of Local Government, Kieran McAnulty, has invited concerned mayors to the Beehive to discuss the Three Waters reforms but believe he should meet with the country’s largest ...
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Whether the anti-trans campaigner can enter the country without a visa is now up in the air. Controversy surrounds the upcoming visit by Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, the British anti-transgender campaigner on a global tour who is scheduled to visit New Zealand next weekend for two public events. During an appearance in Melbourne ...
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Oh dear another Marty Mars who takes the view that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a tr0ll.
100+ comments a day on a blog site that broadly speaking finds your views inane or offensive and you think you’re not a troll…
Why not hang out on Whale oil or kiwiblog with the rest of the toxic waste?
100+ comments a day…….I don’t think so, do you have me confused with someone else ?
Why do you suggest my views are inane and offensive ?
Maybe you should address the question ‘doc’ – just what is it about trolling that is so important to you? Why not put your vacuous views to loons and morons who will applaud you?
As I’ve suggested to others on this thread Stuart, why don’t you answer my question ?
Why do you suggest my views are inane and offensive ?
Why have you accused me of making 100+ comments a day at this site ?
I do not suggest ‘doc’ – I state.
Answer the question – why all this trolling? RL issues?
“I do not suggest ‘doc’ – I state.”
You may not suggest but you certainly lie.
my views are inane and offensive ?
On this subject, they look like bog-standard ignorance to me. Nothing to be ashamed of. You’re much more incisive on matters medical but.
Oh dear another Marty Mars who takes the view that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a tr0ll.
Funny, that looks like a trolly comment to me.
How about you link to support your assertion that MM believes that all people who disagree with him are trolls, or say something that puts your comment in context? Otherwise you look like you are just trying to wind people up.
Yes I found the discussion (I assume that your comment about marty has been moved from there to Open Mike for being off topic). You have avoided answering my question. Nevermind, it’s pretty clear from your behaviour here and in the other thread that marty was right, you are being a troll.
Just ignore the trolls like NorthShoreDoc – they are doing it to add volume and derail the issues so that people can’t be bothered reading the feeds through.
[lprent: After he called BLip ‘Blimp’ (why do the dickheads want to provide clear violations of the policy like that – attention seeking masochists?), I had a read through his comments on the post and decided that was exactly what he was doing. Too low a standard to keep around in the debate. ]
You have such double standards. You allow people to call me SSLands, the implication being that I am a Nazi. I also told you that two frequent posters here were stalking me and tracking down my identity.
[lprent: You’re not an author. You are a commenter. We need authors far more than we need commenters. So we have more protections and exert more effort in protecting them, and we insist that commenters respect the job that authors do in providing this site with posts for commenters to argue in. This is reflected in the policy.
For commenters we don’t provide the same protections. Name calling isn’t that interesting to us unless it starts interfering with the flow of discussion in the comments.
With the IRL identity thing, what we protect on is where people make absolute statements (or statements that directly infer) about who a particular individual is in real life.
We don’t try to control the reaction when people state that they have particular experience or insight or authority on a particular topic. Then it is part of a robust debate that others can speculate about their actual experience and understanding. I see a lot of the latter from and about you, and I can’t recall ever seeing the former.
You’re welcome to link to specific examples identifying you. But remember that I will be looking at it with my knowledge – not yours. In other words I’d look at it based on what is actually there rather than what you with your greater knowledge about yourself might infer what is there. Much of the time I find that people tend to be overly self-centred about their own level of visibility. ]
But you are not an author. NorthShoreDoc appears to have been binned for his attitude towards an author which, if you have read it, violates the policy.
It’s from another post where the doc is working – I have corrected his bogus assumption.
Will the Key government stand up and tell Trump he cannot enter NZ ? Hate speech and all that…..
@ Dont worry.be happy (1) – doubt it, because Trump is a big money man and we all know how FJK just adores playing with the big powerful movers and shakers of the world.
However, here’s an interesting point to consider. If Trump had his way, Muslims would not be allowed to enter the US, not to live or as visitors. So where would this place NZ Ambassador to be to the US, Tim Groser who is Muslim, should in the dreadful event of Trump becoming President?
Check out Groser’s details on Wikipedia, which lists his religion as Islam, apparently having converted during the mid 1990s after marrying his Indonesian wife.
With Tim Groser handling our diplomacy, there’s a reasonable chance we’ll be at war with the USA by then so he’ll be recalled anyway,
/yes, joking
Curioser and curioser ! Aren’t there some well documented Groser/alcohol incidents about?
Not much of a Muslim.
Bar tabs while travelling IIRC.
@Mary_a
That explains his economic terrorism of our country then by signing us up to TPP in between drinks ….
And watching rugby games!
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2015/12/09/gordon-campbell-on-tim-grosers-new-job-in-washington/
very interesting read ….
Read all about how to stuff up the TPPA negotiations with particular respect to Pharmac AND insult the Japanese at the same time!
And this is the man chosen to be our representative in Washington!
There is an interesting summary of “How the TPP Will Affect You and Your Digital Rights” at:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/how-tpp-will-affect-you-and-your-digital-rights
To quote one small section:
“ . . . . . .its provisions do little to nothing to protect our rights online or our autonomy over our own devices. For example, everything in the TPP that increases corporate rights and interests is binding, whereas every provision that is meant to protect the public interest is non-binding and is susceptible to get bulldozed by efforts to protect corporations.”
All-in-all its pretty sobering reading!
An interesting side-issue is this:
Assuming the TPP is eventually signed into law, will it apply retrospectively? (I’m guessing that it will.)
For example if I posted something on Youtube, say, 5 years ago, and it is subsequently found to breach copyright under the new TPP provisions, will I become liable?
That could get interesting because as far as I am aware, once you post something to Youtube, you cannot take it down at a later date – only Youtube seems to be able to do that. If i recall correctly, whatever you post there becomes, in some sense, the property of Youtube – but I could be wrong about that.
i’d appreciate the chance to read the collective wisdom of Standardistas on this.
(At this point I’d LOVE to paste here a picture of Alfred E Neumann from “Mad” magazine, along with a quote of his famous “What? Me worry?”. But perhaps I can’t do that now – at least not according to the new TPP rules . . . )
“That could get interesting because as far as I am aware, once you post something to Youtube, you cannot take it down at a later date – only Youtube seems to be able to do that. If i recall correctly, whatever you post there becomes, in some sense, the property of Youtube – but I could be wrong about that.”
It is possible to delete your content.
You still own the content but have given YT a license to distribute to other users, they (YT) can do (more or less) what they want with it as you will have noticed in the T&C’s when signing up.
A more detailed answer here from an actual lawyer:
http://www.tubefilter.com/2010/08/27/ask-the-attorney-videos-youtube-who-owns-them/
For more on T&C’s and what you are signing away (netwide), watch this:
https://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/terms-and-conditions-may-apply
Thanks for the advice and links Grumpystilskin – I’ll have a look at that.
Yes and the NZ Labour Party supports this…because it is not opposing it like the Greens and NZF
‘Flouting The Rules: Why has Andrew Little rejected a winning TPPA strategy for a guaranteed loser? ‘
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/10/14/flouting-the-rules-why-has-andrew-little-rejected-a-winning-tppa-strategy-for-a-guaranteed-loser/
@ Chooky, Yep now Labour has had some time to reflect on TPP (and looking at country of Labeling COOL, WTO decision etc, and TPP txt is much worse, border control and food biosecurity and so forth, not to mention Health, charter schools etc).
Are Labour prepared to actually have a clear view of Yes or No on TPP?
Sort of, doesn’t have a winning ring to it.
Are Labour prepared to actually have a clear view of Yes or No on TPP?
Whats happened is they’ve had a good look at it and they’ve realised that its not a bad deal for NZ, not great but not bad either so what they’ll be hoping is that if they ignore it then maybe their supporters will forget what Labour have said about the TPP in the past
Going on past history they’ll probably get away with it as well
@Puckish Rogue
If you look at Labour election history you might find they are not ‘getting away with sitting on the fence on neoliberal issues’.
Instead they are haemorrhaging their existing voters and putting them off voting.
But at least we seem to agree nobody knows whether Labour agree with TPP or not.
By not being clear and firm on the TPP issue they are doing the Labour equivalent of Natz Panda, cancer treatments anyone?
@ Puckish Rogue…so you are PR advocating for the Labour Party now?
….that is a bit of a worry because you are a right wing Nact supporter are you not?
….show the depths to which Labour has sunk…it is now a lighter version of jonkey nact
….time for a new REAL Labour Party with Mana
I do vote right but Seymours performance thus far may well make me consider voting Act
If Act get a couple of seats it might mean the demise of Peter Dunne and I think that’s something we can all get behind
Pucky you are naughty
Mentioned this yesterday but way down Open Mike. As excellent The Spinoff writer Alex Casey points out, not one woman was among Massey University’s most memorable quotes of the year. They do get a mention indirectly for being harrassed by the Prime Minister and farting on a beach. David Seymour’s pretty lame quote about the French loving the cock is supposedly one of the most amazing quotes of last year. As Guy Williams said on the Jono and Ben Show last Friday – is that the best they can come up with? This says more about the political and media environment that has been created under this government than anything else. About half of New Zealand (the half that doesn’t like this government and is progressive) is being locked out of mainstream discourse, or at least seen as being outside it.
http://thespinoff.co.nz/09-12-2015/media-are-new-zealands-quotes-of-the-year-really-all-by-men/
Yeah, I was fairly underwhelmed by about 1/2 the list, particularly David Seymour’s.
On The Panel the other day, the giggling “liberal” Tim Watkin praised David Seymour’s “performance”, and asserted that Seymour “has had a very good year.”
More Tim Watkin…..
Regarding the question of compliance with the OIA.
In my view – the answer is REALLY simple.
Fully implement and enforce the Public Records Act 2005.
That way information will not have to be sought through OIA or LGOIMA requests – public records will already be available for public scrutiny.
I did not find ANY reference in the Ombudsman’s report on the OIA to the Public Records Act.
How can you have transparency or accountability without proper written records which are available for public scrutiny?
How about splitting responsibility for the implementation and enforcement of the Public Records Act 2005?
Give the responsibility for the ‘creation and maintenance’ of Public Records to the Ombudsman.
Change the orientation of the Office of the Ombudsman from focusing on dealing with complaints from those who have been unable to access ‘official information’ – to proactively ensuring that ‘public offices’ have the proper systems in place so that public records ARE created, maintained and available for public scrutiny.
Arguably, the Office of the Ombudsman would need to ‘rejig’ and hire information management systems experts in order to assist public offices setting up systems to ‘create and maintain’ public records, because that role would be quite different to investigating complaints.
Wouldn’t that be WIN / WIN?
Arguably, the more work and effort put into the creation and maintenance of public records – the less work in dealing with complaints for alleged ‘non-compliance’ with the OIA?
In my view – the secret is to focus on the Public Records Act 2005 – and that will sort out the issue of compliance with the OIA.
Anyone else share that view?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
As you have been advised here before (including linked evidence), the Public Records Act does not affect the *release* of information other than for archives over 25 years old. The OIA does. Don’t be a braying dunce.
Have you actually READ the Public Records Act 2005 Sacha?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate
In order to assist Sacha – the ‘Purposes’ of the Public Records Act 2005.
(Particularly s. 3 (c) (i) ? )
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2005/0040/latest/DLM345536.html
3 Purposes of Act
The purposes of this Act are—
(a) to provide for the continuation of the repository of public archives called the National Archives with the name Archives New Zealand (Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga); and
(b) to provide for the role of the Chief Archivist in developing and supporting government recordkeeping, including making independent determinations on the disposal of public records and certain local authority archives; and
(c) to enable the Government to be held accountable by—
(i) ensuring that full and accurate records of the affairs of
central and local government are created and maintained;
and
(ii) providing for the preservation of, and public access to,
records of long-term value; and
(d) to enhance public confidence in the integrity of public records and local
authority records; and
(e) to provide an appropriate framework within which public
offices and local authorities create and maintain public
records and local authority records, as the case may be; and
(f) through the systematic creation and preservation of public
archives and local authority archives, to enhance the
accessibility of records that are relevant to the historical and
cultural heritage of New Zealand and to New Zealanders’
sense of their national identity; and
(g) to encourage the spirit of partnership and goodwill envisaged
by the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi), as provided
for by section 7; and
(h) to support the safekeeping of private records.
_________________________________________________________________________________
How can you have transparency and accountability, without proper written records which are available for public scrutiny?
Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
There is a law called the Public Records Act. It says state agencies have to create and store records. They do this.
There is another law called the Official Information Act (OIA) that manages how state agencies are meant to *release* information. This is where the problem is.
Please do the most basic research before you shoot your mouth off.
ka-ching!
“Please do the most basic research before you shoot your mouth off.”
I respectfully suggest that you follow your own advice ‘Sacha’.
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Show where I haven’t. I really cannot abide people polluting public discourse with falsehoods. You have had every opportunity to understand this and other topics. Yet you choose to keep flapping your gums instead. Find another hobby, eh.
As mentioned I’ve already provided your highness with a credible accounting of its contents. Perhaps you could cease your ornamental crochet and actualy read it. Toodle pip.
I had a look at it out of interest today Penny. The Public Records Act sets out the mandate and role of Archives New Zealand (formerly National Archives) and the Chief Archivist, as well as the requirements & standards for public records to be created & maintained by public offices and local authorities, the definition of public and local authority records, and provisions under which they’re to be archived and/or otherwise disposed of.
Also rules under which Archives NZ may accept deposit of Parliamentary records, Ministers’ papers, and private or other records of historical events, public offices or organisations, or any persons of historical, political or cultural significance – and any conditions as agreed between the Chief Archivist and the Clerk of the House, Minister or controlling public office as appropriate.
It provides for some classes of local of authority records to be declared “protected”. It also requires that public office records 25 years old more, or which or are being archived, must be classified as open access or restricted access. It similarly provides that a local authority record becomes a local authority archive when it is no longer in current use or has been in existence for 25 years, or more, and that it must also be classified as either open access or restricted access, regardless of where held. What is restricted is determined by the Chief Archivist or legistlation. Max restriction 25 years, renewable.
It then provides for archived open access records to be made available to the public for inspection free of charge (or subject to whatever reasonable charge the Chief Archivist specifies for research, copying, or other services provided to a requestor). And it also says local authorities must similarly provide free inspection of any archive not restricted (subject to any similar charge for services such as photocopying, research, transcription etc allowed under the Local Government Act 2002).
The Public Records Act is about the requirements & rules for creating & keeping public records, and for their subsequent archiving for posterity and/or disposal, Penny. It allows public access to “open” archived records. It doesn’t provide access to current (i.e. non-archived) public or local authority records, or to restricted archives. And it reposes responsibility for ensuring organisations meet these legal obligations for record-keeping, archiving and classification) in the Chief Archivist.
The general purpose of the Act as summarised in s.3 is specified more precisely in its succeeding sections, s,3 doesn’t override them in some way.
Sacha is right. This Act does not give a right of and rules around public access to current official information, the Official Information Act does that.
British War Vets have thrown their medals outside Downing Street in protest against the Government’s decision to bomb Syria and to bust the “mythology” of heroism connected to the military.
“Mr Griffin, who won his medal for serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and Macedonia, said it was a “powerful” and “incredible experience,” adding: “These are things we once treasured, so it’s a difficult thing to give away but we think it’s really important that we do that – both in protest against this war but also because want to get rid of the mythology around these things.” “
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/veterans-throw-away-their-war-medals-in-disgust-at-british-air-strikes-in-syria-a6765446.html
+100 Manuka AOR…very moving
the “mythology” of heroism connected to the military.
Busted by Kipling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Light_Brigade
Agree completely with the British vets.
Myths and the military go hand in hand all over the place. After all, their very arena of operation, war, is the epitome of bullshit and lies. First casualty of war is truth. Who operates wars? The military.
Two popular myths;
One, that Anzac day is about the military. Well, f&%k the military, they are the pricks who sent the men to their useless deaths. Anzac day is about the people who died. The military should be shunted out of the annual commemorations.
Two, that the military fights to defend our freedoms etc etc crappy etc. The military answers to the crown, not us. It is there to protect the crown not us. And this is what the history shows, including here in NZ.
I have no idea why people respect the military. Probably same reason they vote for Donald Trump and John Key. The military should be feared, not respected. Feared because they more often turn their guns on the citizens than anyone else.
So killing doctors, nurses and patients is “liberating” them.
The most repellent propaganda masquerades as news on Al-Jazeera
Al Jazeera News, Thursday 10 December 2015, 8:00 a.m.
The Qatari dictatorship is, together with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States and the United Kingdom, the chief sponsor and supporter of Daesh/ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra and al Qaeda, collectively known by the mendacious title of “the moderate Syrian opposition”. Al Jazeera is the mouthpiece of the Qatari dictatorship. There is a sometimes subtle, but more often crude and audacious, bias in its news reportage and its selection of guests for its discussions.
First item up on this morning’s news was the most recent Afghani resistance attack, this time on a heavily fortified civilian and military airfield in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. At least 37 people, including many children, have been killed.
The “reporter” (one Rob Matheson, who is yet another of the ex-BBC hacks who infest Al Jazeera) then went on to say this:
Of course, any viewer with a degree of sentience above that of a zombie would have been aware that the “coalition” (i.e. the U.S. military) went about “liberating” Kunduz by bombing Kunduz Hospital between 2:08 and 3:15 a.m. on Saturday October 3rd. When the Americans stopped their bombing, they had killed 31 patients, nurses and doctors. To deliberately ignore that, and to pretend that the Americans are “liberating” anyone, is propaganda at its most ruthless.
http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/12/08/kunduz-msf-hospital-us-bombing-survivor-i-want-my-story-to-be-heard/
British war veterans have thrown away their medals outside Downing Street in protest against the Government’s decision to bomb Syria and to bust the “mythology” of heroism connected to the military.
“Mr Griffin, who won his medal for serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and Macedonia, said it was a “powerful” and “incredible experience,” adding: “These are things we once treasured, so it’s a difficult thing to give away but we think it’s really important that we do that – both in protest against this war but also because want to get rid of the mythology around these things. “ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/veterans-throw-away-their-war-medals-in-disgust-at-british-air-strikes-in-syria-a6765446.html
Good for them. I dare cameron to call them “rent-a-crowd”
To Tracey at 8.1
On same line of thought, what can be done about the disgusting ignorant insolence of our incoming minister of Climate Change, who according to TV One on screen said that the index ( of measures to reduce use of fossil fuels etc) is “by a bunch of environmentalists who criticise what any country’s doing”??!!! The peculiar grammar is as reported and not mine.
To Tracey at 8.1
On same line of thought, what can be done about the disgusting ignorant insolence of our incoming minister of Climate Change, who according to TV One on screen said that the index ( of measures to reduce use of fossil fuels etc) is “by a bunch of environmentalists who criticise what any country’s doing”??!!! The grammar is as reported and not mine.
while i am at the keyboard, i want to share with y’all the feelings of pride and enthusiasm for the future that i have.
went to prize-giving at my boys high school.
the calibre and achievements on display were inspiring.
the dux runner-up got a+ on 3 level 300 papers (calculus, physics) and he is in year 11!
the new head prefect was winner of the open korero, impromptu speech and a few other accolades.( my head was spinning at the list of achievements listed)
numerous sporting and other cultural highs as well.
its a small counterpoint to all the bad news stories we hear about our young men, time and time again.
well done gentlemen.
Fantastic gsays.
I agree the calibre of so many of the young men and women coming out of our schools is quite outstanding.
Sorry, doesn’t count unless it’s at a charter school!
That’s what I’ve learned from reading a couple of other blog sites. Something not so good goes on at a non-charter school, the boot goes in hard and heavy. Good stuff happens but is ignored.
Microscopes and search parties are out though seeking something positive happening in a charter school and it’s BIG news.
Corruption happens in the Ministry of Education or Education Review Office and they don’t want to know.
Day to day there are immense successes in ‘ordinary’ schools with ‘extraordinary’ efforts and achievements.
Well done to the young men you mention, the adults who helped get them there and their peers who pushed and encouraged them to their success.
Great Stuff GSays
INteresting u-turn by National on the criminalisation of cartel behaviour by NZ businesses. Interestingly the “one law for all” ACT party doesn’t want criminlisation because it will be deterimental. And yet, beneficiaries and others,s craping by, need this kind of hammer posied over their heads… punishments yes, but prison? No, no no?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1512/S00293/goldsmith-drops-bid-to-criminalise-cartel-behaviour.htm
Paul Goldsmith gave an appallingly poor interview about this on Morning Report. It was on Monday morning I think, and I would guess has been archived.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201782073/criminal-sanctions-exit-cartel-bill-is-a-govt-u-turn
Yes, Guyon Espiner really held Goldsmith’s feet to the fire on this one.
And Goldsmith seemed to realise right from the start of the interview that he didn’t have a leg to stand on. He was hesitant and back footing it right from the beginning – his heart was nowhere near in it.
The only line he’d been given to defend the u-turn was some ridiculous claim that prison sentences would have a chilling effect on business innovation – of all things – and so be harmful to competition.
Some kind of straw-clutching at ‘co-opetition‘ presumably. Must have been a bit of a bright spark Ministerial advisor who gave him that one to run with. Went down like a lead balloon.
That rationale was never going to fly – far, far too subtle (in the sense of dancing on the head of a pin) and suspect for the average (and above average) listener.
My point is simple.
If public records were CREATED and MAINTAINED and readily available for public scrutiny, then the information would not need to be requested under the OIA or LGOIMA ?
That’s my considered opinion.
You don’t have to agree with it.
FYI – having raised directly with the Board of Watercare earlier this year, the absence of any information on either their bills or their website that explains where monies received for water and wastewater services is actually SPENT, there has been a development.
Some details of awarded contracts are now available on their website, which was not previously the case.
It was Watercare’s alleged failure to comply with the Public Records Act which I brought to their attention, which, in my opinion, has resulted in this improvement, regarding ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ in the spending of public money.
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
The hypocrisy is eye-watering, agreed.
The number of oligopolies that do us all in with grossly overpriced goods and services, barely regulated in this country, this move to not even lift a parliamentary finger is disgusting:
– Building products
– Banking
– Airport landing charges
– Airlines (now slightly better)
– Supermarkets
– Insurers
– Water suppliers
– Electricity generators
– (and more)
And you wonder where the Nats get their donations from …
+100
Poor people conspire in deceit to trick people out of their money – criminal charges, prison and opprobrium are rained down upon them.
Business people conspire in deceit to trick people out of their money – a measly fine, if you’re lucky, one day, sometime.
Why the difference Nacts?
Why the difference?
Why the difference?
What difference is there?
Shouldn’t business in fact operate to higher standards, not lower?
What a frikkin joke…
Know why our houses cost so much more than in Australia ? The anti-competitive behaviour of Fletchers. It is bullshit. The politicians I have met even openly acknowledge this, yet do nothing about it.
bullshit
bullshit
bullshit
Pay $350,000 to build your new house, rather than $250-300,000. That is the hard cold reality….
That is the difference
That is the difference that this government is happy for people to pay.
Liars, cheats and bullshit artists. Snakeoil merchants. Wide boys and grandma vendors. Nasty, greedy, selfish, individualists. Scam artists. Merchant bankers. Ponytail pullers. They all own shares in Fletchers. They all make the rules for Fletchers. Scum.
Peter Aranyi has written a fantastic article about the content of the Chisholm Report that “cleared ” Judith Collins.
It will be the first of a series:
http://www.thepaepae.com/the-chisholm-inquiry-who-was-actually-on-trial/36207/
Crikey! From reading that Karen it seems OK for anyone to destroy anything that may harm your defence. Had the Chisolm enquiry been in a Courtroom would evasions/deletions be acceptable?
For Slater to be “broke” it seems that he/they must have had some pretty powerful legal support to be able tododge the bullets. Wonder who his legal team were and who paid for the 10s of thousands of dollars.
Delete this and that. Deny memory of this and that. Refer to the narrow frames of reference rather than the intent of the enquiry.
Yes, someone paid for a QC to help keep Dirty Politics out of the last few weeks of the election period.
I think people have conveniently forgotten that Collinss did not cooperate and appears to have destroyed evidence… this nothing to hide nothing to fear former Minister for Justice and Police…
🙄
A bit in the enquiry had phone calls from Collins to Slater but not one from Slater to Collins according to the records. so no evidence of collusion. Yeah right.
The majority of red herrings being flopped around are by the likes of you and blimp.
Can you stop trolling on this site please?
+1
Interesting to note how involved our PM is in GSB thse days. How knowledgeable he has become since relinquishing all responsibility and accountability for the secret services. Cortex, presumably paid for by taxpayers, is something he now wants to offer to all small and medium businesses. It may be a good idea, I don’t know, but it is a redirection of taxpayer money from say, health, to businesses. I assume the Taxpayers Union will be OUTRAGED at this form of subsidy? ACT will vote against it?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11558741
[r0b: Your comments are going into moderation because of extra text in the name field, which I am deleting…]
17 horrifying mental health facts that have been delivered to Jeremy Hunt
And those policies will also be increasing the number of suicides that are mentioned at 1. and 2. of the article.
And National are implementing the same or similar punitive policies here.
There were two major updates that went into the site last night.
WordPress upgraded to version 4.4
The mobile display had an upgrade and a change to a theme that allowed replies to comments rather than just comments to a post
when I click on the reply button, my cursor now loads in the Name (Required) field instead of the Your Comment field. Any chance it could be set back to the comment field?
Same happens on both counts for me weka. Am in Auck. PC and mobile.
Is that in the mobile theme like Tracey or the desktop theme?
It should be easy to fix either way.
That’s on my laptop. Will have a look on both themes on phone later.
Happening to me on the desktop theme too, with cookies to remember my name.
On my phone it’s doing that on the desktop theme. On the mobile theme it drops me to the comment box at bottom of page with the cursor not inserted anywhere.
Very odd. I can see that it is meant to be setting it in the code…..
Looks like I will have to fix this during the weekend
the other thing that changed overnight is that when I click on a comment in the Comments list that is for a page I am already on, instead of it just jumping down the page to the comment, it now reloads the page to go to comment. Bit of a pain for those of still on rural broadband speeds.
(I haven’t checked another browser, this one is Firefox mac).
Ah drat. That was something that I’d disabled in the desktop theme to prevent bots, but had to enable to get the mobile theme to do replies.
That is something I should be able to hack in functions or the theme.
I’ll change it to do the same thing to the mobile theme as the desktop theme has. Just use javascript to move the comment section to the comment being replied to.
Hopefully tonight.
test iOS
..theme is pretty groovy on the iPhone
..interesting choice of font
..also the right sidebar is a slight annoyance but easily zoomed out of sight
I happen to like that particular font. It is whatever the font is used on Ubuntu.
I find it really fast and clear to read. Consequently I’ve changed all of my code editors to use it across linux, windows, and mac. Also on FBReader on my phone for reading ePubs.
There is a lot of reading in this site…
curiously I find it easier to read as body text than headings. often the reverse with many fonts.
Which font?
TS mobile site uses this font: http://font.ubuntu.com (or a clone of it)… it’s kinda retro cool
To be precise it is in the google fonts as
baumans
https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Baumans
It was one of the fonts around in ubuntu
Ok, this is probably a problem in your browser if it is a desktop.
The comment reply on a desktop theme depends on using javascript to set the comment section to the appropriate place in the HTML and internally setting the right comment to reply to.
However if the javascript fails or has been disabled, it falls back to doing it the old fashioned way and loading comment. In this case what you will see is a reload of the page and somewhere in the address bar is a replytocomm=number where the number is that of the comment you are replying to.
It doesn’t do that on my firefox / linux or firefox / windows or even Lyn’s firefox / mac.
What it used to do before I changed the mobile theme was that when doing a reply, it would return a Gone screen because I’d disabled to replytocomm to limit pesky bots.
I’ll force a reload of the DCN caches just to make it isn’t server side. But it looks like something on the client side.
Javascript is enabled on my firefox. I just tried a safe mode restart to disable all addons, but that hasn’t changed anything.
The URL stays the same except the number changes as the page reloads.
This page reloading thing happened after the upgrade you just did, so if it’s my side does that mean that there is an incompatibility between my version of Firefox (42.0) and WordPress? Or do you mean that it’s actually my particular copy of Firefox that is the problem?
I’ll go test Safari.
hmm, going into moderation now.
Outstanding work Lyn.
Much easier commenting from the cellphone.
Thankyou.
hear, hear, cheers lprent
Apparently Cameron Slater’s Whaleoil site has been biting one of the hands that feeds him.
Xero’s boss said he has withdrawn funds from advertising on Whaleoil after what what he says a campaign critical of Xero steered by Rodney Hide on the site.
I guess if you lay down with wild dogs, don’t be surprised if you get up covered in flea bites or get bitten a few times!
More like advertising doesn’t get you a free pass
Xero story – note further unsavory connections on the political right – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11559030
Why are these ancient trees of Aotearoa allowed to be cut down?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/74965502/kauri-tree-saved-at-11th-hour-again
Yes, even if they have no aesthetic or ecological or Maori forest lore sense, those developers (John Lenihan and Jane Greensmith) are stupid!
The land is is worth so much more with ancient trees on it!.
In some places (eg in Sydney and USA) architects build around trees rather than cut them down. It gives their buildings a unique edge and focus
http://blazepress.com/2015/07/10-beautiful-buildings-that-have-incorporated-trees-instead-of-cutting-them-down/
http://www.theonlinecentral.com/inventive-buildings-whose-architects-refused-to-cut-down-local-trees/
http://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=16695
http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/trees-shrubs/protecting-trees-from-construction-damage/
I agree having a 500 year old tree is worth more than a slab of concrete.
I was reading a book today though about early european explorers visiting areas around Taupo and finding a lot of forest had already been burnt down by Maori. From what I could gather by burning off forest and scrubland reappearing where they could harvest fern root and where it was possibly easier to hunt birds, was vital for survival. Hawkes Bay and the Wairarapa were similarly burnt, scrubby landscapes I think.
If you could transport pre-european Maori back to today, it would be interesting to get their take on what parts of the land they would leave (sacred) and what parts they would use to their full advantage. I’m putting my own interpretation of traditional Maori there from a white perspective, and it’s probably a lot more complex and different.
@maui..from my limited knowledge( and speaking as a Pakeha with some Maori ancestry)…there are quite a few books out there on what plants and trees the old Maori looked after…generally they were conservationists, much more so than the early European settlers….some Maori Tohunga know a lot about all this…ie the old Maori were polytheistic and there were gods and spirituality in all nature and in their landscapes
Elsden Best ‘Forest Lore of the Maori ‘ is a detailed account and a great read …(I bought my copy years ago but it has gone up in price, judging from below ….not sure if there are new pbs editions)
http://www.smithsbookshop.co.nz/bookshop/5102307.php
Can also highly recommend Geoff Park’s classic, ‘Nga Uru Ora — the Groves of Life: Ecology and History in a New Zealand Landscape’ written by an ecologist on tour in his canoe ( you feel you are with him)
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nga_uruora
This book gives a great feel for the history and reverence the Maori felt towards their special places
There are books on edible plants and medicinal herbs
Anything on Maori spirituality by Rev. Dr. Maori Marsden is worth reading eg.
Maori Marsden , “The Natural World and Natural Resources: Maori Value Systems and perspectives” ( paper for Ministry for Environment,1989)and ‘Maori Values and Environmental Management'( New Zealand Natural Resources Unit, Manata Maori,1991)
All this just scratches the surface of a forgotten history and spirituality which is very Gaia/ Papatuanuku centred and relevant today
I was reading “Forest Lore of the Maori”, so you nailed it! I was looking up what food sources Maori traditionally used and find it quite interesting. Thanks for the links, I have thought about buying Nga Uru Ora for ages.
Nga Uru Ora is fantastic…I think it is out of print by Victoria University( they should reprint because it is a classic)….but you can get it on Amazon and I expect from various secondhand book shops
While I don’t dispute that there is considerable credentials to Maori conservation it is important to note that there was quite considerable clearance of native forest prior to the arrival of European settlers.
“Why are these ancient trees of Aotearoa allowed to be cut down?”
because money doesn’t grow on trees, so what use are they?
The trees were meant to be cut down to create car parking on the site which the council supported. The council planners could asked for the house to be built around the trees – but why do their job when you can just rubber stamp everything?
The consultants noted the trees as ‘high value vegetation’ burying it within a 70 page report. The developers then have gone to court to downgrade the environmental conditions on other sites they own.
Don’t worry, Auckland property developers are not developing for the local market that might enjoy the trees!
car parks with trees look good too….but better not to have the car park
Um, yes any new development in that near area really does need off-street parking. It’s very narrow and windy, and even as it is I wouldn’t be surprised if rubbish trucks are sometimes blocked from getting through. But the right way to do it is follow the example set by the neighbouring property (number44) and several others on the street and build a parking deck out on poles just off the street at street level.
I’m only a few houses down the street from the place in question, BTW.
in Wellington single lanes up the sides of very steep inner city treed hills adds to the frisson and character of the place…(and yes they do build pole garage platforms where they can if lucky)
Aucklanders need to get some CLASS and STYLE and put the trees first…before their cars
Auckland was a beautiful area …now trashed by the roads and cars and car parks
This makes sense:
‘Syrian chessboard’
https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/325182-syrian-chessboard-us-syria/
“Recent claims that the US bombed a Syrian military installation may be a telling example of how Washington and its allies intend to escalate their war on the Syrian regime and NOT against terrorists. It would appear Assad remains target number one.
CrossTalking with Martin Jay, Marcus Papadopoulos, and Ivan Eland.”
Maybe they’ve decided to copy the Russian Federation’s example of escalating its war on the Syrian regime’s opponents and NOT against terrorists…
?…link?
Essential reading for NZ’ers wanting to be less ignorant about the state of their Nation…
http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/annual-update-key-results-2014-15-nzhs-dec15-1.docx
FYI.
___________________________________________________________________________________
In Auckland – is it ‘DEMOCRACY’ just for developers, and a DICTATORSHIP for the rest of us?
URGENT! Pre-Christmas Public Meeting to inform, network and organise re: proposed Auckland Unitary Plan / zoning/ RMA changes.
WHEN: Saturday 12 December 2015
TIME: 10.30am – 12.30pm
WHERE: Tamaki Ex-Services Assn Hall
Corner Turua St / Polygon Rd
ST HELIERS
MAP: http://www.eventfinda.co.nz/venue/auckland-tamaki-ex-services-hall
Many citizens and residents across the Auckland region are deeply concerned about proposed zoning changes that may lead to non-notified multi-story developments, in which they will potentially have no say, but will potentially have a huge impact on their lives and immediate environment.
Has lawful ‘due process’ been followed regarding the Auckland ‘Spatial Plan’ and subsequent amendments?
Were the Auckland population growth projections which spawned legislation such as that for the ‘Special Housing Areas’ (SHAs), lawfully and evidentially based?
Will proposed changes to the RMA make things worse?
Groups and concerned citizens who want to meet to discuss these issues, and co-ordinate ideas and action to help stop the Auckland region effectively becoming a ‘dictatorship for developers’, are most welcome to attend.
Meeting convened by Penny Bright, assisted by fellow concerned citizens.
So what changes to Auckland’s proposed Unitary Plan would you instigate Penny?
Are you for or against the proposed changes to the RMA that are going before the House, which enable huge numbers more activities to be non-notified?
Couple of easy ones for you, since you’re holding a public meeting on the subject.
For anyone interested in an informed view on Auckland’s population projections: http://voakl.net/2013/06/15/population-trends/
That link and others previously drawn to Ms Bright’s attention here.