Young fellas getting skills and education. Decent water quality provided. Stopping the need to buy water in plastic. A community acquires resilience, one tank at a time.
I remember reading about an Australian city where water tanks were being stolen regularly, as the area became drier and people bought tanks as insurance against running out of reticulated water. Not saying this will be a problem here but into the near-future, when drinking water becomes more of an issue, it will be, across the country. The concrete ones are harder to throw onto the back of a ute.
It might appear that way, gsays, but they talk out of both sides of their mouth, claiming hands-off, but acting hands-on (think Fast-tracking consents with no local input, for example).
Where there are opportunities like this those who are able can act though. A subsidy for buying water tanks would be wise and the pressure (pun intended) could be taken off community reticulation systems but of course, home-tank-owners might clamour for a rates-reduction as a result and that's not a sound local councils like to hear 🙂
As a rule of thumb, the right will decentralise when that means devolving decision-making, or providing business opportunities, to their kind of people. Such as the owners of charter schools or business/farmer-dominated rural councils.
The best counter to it is probably not a reflexive urge to centralise and control – that's too easily painted as coercive. Some sort of federated decentralisation might be better, though how it would be structured needs a lot of thought.
RW decentralisation and government funded/iwi led are contradiction in terms.
The right are very actively trying to undermine iwi-led.
We should of course be doing water tanks everywhere it makes sense to, and solar (passive, hot water, power generation) on every new build and retrofit those where it makes sense to.
One of the problems with 3 waters was the ideological commitment to centralisation, as if shit isn't going to hit the fan in the next few decades, as if the only problem we have is how to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
Which is interesting considering it has one of the highest proportion of land that is Maori freehold land in the country. It is also a part of the country where land confiscations did not take place.
Of more interest (than your lazy insinuations) is the dominance of the National party in that electorate working hard to improve the lives of all of their constituents, clearly.
Rural ratepayers get shafted with increasing costs for services they'll never get.
Can't even let my dog into the local Harbour due to the effluent…..a situation they've shoulder shrugged for years whilst taking the dosh for alot of new connections in raglan.
That’s on top of releasing sewage on an incoming tide now and again.
Rural ratepayers would do well to keep quiet about that.
The amount of roading alone that each rural ratepayer has, at council cost compared with urban ratepayers makes the idea that rural ratepayers are disproportionately subsidising urban services, a nonsense.
That "rural ratepayers subsidise urban services they don't use", is an often used agreement by rural businesses to try and get their rates bill reduced. To contribute less! to public services.
Ironically, in reality the subsidy goes in the opposite direction.
We had cause to engage with both local council and Waka Kotahi (am I allowed to still use that term?) advocating for a speed reduction on Railway Road as if enters Palmy from Bunnythump.
We were told by council that because it is an open road (100 kmh) it was a Waka Kotahi issue not Council.
Not sure if this is nation wide but rural ratepayers here are chipping in with town roads and ratepayers aren't funding rural roads.
See recent comments about that Bill in yesterday's Daily Review. The Greens were genuine, and good on them, but those other two parties were just being cynical poseurs.
Two factors, how long Assange has been in prison compared to the time of Manning before the pardon by Obama. And the harm to Assange caused by the prison conditions in the UK – he might not be fit to stand trial without some health spa time (risk he might die in a US prison).
Anyone seen any coverage of the Cass Review report – published yesterday and all over the UK papers.
Sorry Admin – I don’t know how to shrink the image.
The Cass report was good, it's measured, it lays it all out. This is a medical scandal. It's happening in NZ too.
The only quibble I have with it is that some blame is placed on the "toxicity" of the debate. No. There was one side simply refusing to debate (and we now know from the Cass report, refusing to release data). Then the other side was saying with increasingly loud and desperate voices: there is a problem here, we need to talk about this. And then the other side responded with various iterations of "STFU bigot", and a sustained campaign of harassment and vilification that continues to this day.
There really isn't much middle ground here. One side sterilised and destroyed the sexual function of a bunch of confused kids. The other side just wanted normal medical processes to be followed.
I tend to agree with the generalisation, and I think the debate can be characterised as you say (no debate vs wants to debate).
However seeing the sweaty balls memes in the Giggle v Tickle twitter discourse, that's a clear example of being cruel and intentionally inflammatory*. If someone did that here, I would moderate them.
*It's also stupid and incontinent and damages the good work being done.
I respect your POV but I never thought women had an obligation to be kind or to refrain from mocking the eminently mockable. After the sustained campaign of vilification of women, I am even less inclined. Fuck these people. They have hurt, really hurt, vulnerable kids. They still are.
yeah, any empathy disappeared when I saw a tweet saying RT and his male friends were using the women's toilets at the court after having heard how hard that was for some women.
And it's not like this isn't his first foray into colonisation.
I suppose what I was trying to say above was that when we cross that line, it changes us too. It's hard to hold to values when we give them up.
I guess I'm just quite angry. Mostly because the Cass review only came about because an MP literally had to change a law to force the clinics to release their own data. So they knew.
I always knew being proved right wouldn't make me happy but didn't realise how angry it would make me.
The stories of detrans people still have to hit NZ, or even The Standard. A lot of days my anger is about not being able to write posts here about it. No Debate is one of the most harmful politics I have ever seen.
Except this court case is not about ‘gender affirmation’ children and adolescents.
The case is about a grown man, who at a very late stage in his life, has had women feelz. Changes the sex on his birth certificate, which recognised him as being legally a women.
In the Anti-Discrimination Act discrimination on the basis of sex is included . When this act was written it meant: biological sex (what else could it mean?).
Mr Tickle being a biological man was not allowed into a natal women only app.Whereas female transgenders are.
In this court case Sall Grover, for which she had to fundraise half million dollar, has to proof that a male can not ever become a women, no matter how much plastic surgery he undergoes or not.
And does the – sex – in the discrimination Act need to be amended to mean biological sex?
The fact that this Mr Roxky Tickle took her to court, aided by donors which are being kept secret – is somehow not cruel?
Because that is what is being done here again and again – picking off a women one at the time. Remember the process is the punishment.
It does puzzle me..that they can't see it themselves..
This is why I won't bother. You have an a priori position that omnivores are inherently wrong.
I don't care if someone is vegan. I care if they want the whole world to be vegan and ignore any evidence that contradicts their view. I also care about people who think there are no ethical consequences to eating animals. But you and I can't have a conversation about that because everything you stems from an ideological belief that you are right and omnivores are wrong. It's boring.
Before you go..could you please define what 'ethical' meat/dairy is..
..for those of us too dumb to automatically know..
I ask you because you have been promoting this 'ethical' animal bits idea..
And I struggle to see any difference between what those self-labelling as 'ethical' do…and the standard cruelties/indignities heaped on by the run of the mill animal-exploiters..
.."this is fanny the 'ethical' cow.. don't get too attached to her.. she's off to the slaughterhouse next week..and we dispatched her offspring last week..we get such a good price for our 'ethical'-veal..'
Before you go..could you please define what 'ethical' meat/dairy is..
Why would I bother when you already think it's bullshit. Why would I waste my time?
I like arguing with people who have different opinions, but there has to be an actual argument made on both sides. Running out a set of pre-determined talking points from a position of "I'm right/you're wrong" is as I said boring.
I'm a fan of the philosophical idea that we should be able to represent our opponents argument fairly. Not only can you not do that but you appear to not think it's a valuable think to do.
but I am plant based. I was vegetarian for a long time and when I added meat back into my diet, I still ate the same kind of diet plus meat. I’m don’t centre meat, I centre plants. That’s what plant based literally means, based on plants. Originally it was a term that allowed people to shift away from heavy meat eating. Now it’s a synonym for vegan, which makes it confusing and frankly dishonest.
A remarkably silly statement – all humans are adapted to eat an omnivorous diet.
It is possible (with a great deal of diet planning and management) to eat an exclusively vegetarian diet – and remain healthy. An exclusive vegan diet requires even more rigorous dietary planning (and is never a suitable option for the very young). Both hold very significant health risks, if the diet is not carefully planned.
No humans are carnivores (i.e.they obtain either all or the majority of their dietary requirements through meat). Scurvy will quickly kill off anyone who tried it.
An omnivorous diet (incorporating a wide variety of plants, meat, fish, fungi, etc.) – is almost never going to result in any health risks.
Dietary health risks in modern society are mostly associated with highly processed foods and/or overconsumption.
You seem to have missed the "if the diet is not carefully planned" – section of the sentence.
Even those with the most cursory acquaintance with vegetarianism/veganism know that you have to plan, to address the risk of Vitamin B12 deficiency – for example.
I see yr daily mail (heh..!) defense of advertisers..
..and raise you with my 25 yrs as a vegan..and 15 yrs before that as vegetarian..(never taken vitamin supplements).
I am old..I am fit/healthy..I am on no meds..last med check was told I have the lungs of a twenty-something..(which puzzled me..given the heroic amounts of weed/hashish I have consumed..but there ya go..)..
And mores the point I know people who have been vegan for longer than me…and are older than me..
..and the one thing we all share..is rude good health..
..and at the other end I would cite all the glowing with health vegan children I have known..with my son (now adult) another example..)
(Sorry..!..I can't stop chuckling at yr idea of a reliable source..the daily mail…really..?)
gut health issues in women who have been vegan long term, also something I have seen talked about a lot. Although some women reach this stage after only a few years.
btw, if you do that shit (making things up) on any post I put up about the politics of diet, I will simply ban you from the post. Best you get your head around the problem now.
Your anecdata fails to convince.
I know 3 centenarians who regularly enjoy a good fry up. I don't regard them as an advertisement for that dietary lifestyle. Rather, that they've survived that long, despite a diet full of fat, not because of it.
the reasons for old age health are complex, relating I think to early diet too, but the idea that animal fat is bad for us has pretty much been debunked now. Who knows why they lived so long, but it might be because of the fat rather than despite it. We need fat for joint health and brain health among other things.
As someone who was vegetarian for around 40 years before finally eliminating dairy from my diet I don't agree with your "with a great deal of diet planning and management" and "even more rigorous dietary planning".
The switch to a animal-free diet can be done progressively. Yes the dietary changes have to be made mindfully, and yes I've seen people who said they were vegans who didn't look particularly healthy.
But it's not as hard as you make out. Depends on the motivation of course. I decided to go meat-free when I read a short book that made the case that humans do not need to kill and eat animals to live and challenged me to consider how much cruelty is created when they do.
So we started cutting back meat, joined the NZ Vegetarian Society, started buying vegetarian cookbooks and so on. We looked into what the change was going to mean and learnt more as time went on.
It is an important point for people changing their diet for whatever reason to learn that if you remove certain things from your diet you need to find those from other sources.
I think that your comment is supporting my point. Vegetarianism requires some degree of mindfulness in dietary planning (what I describe as a 'great deal of planning and management' – you describe as progressive changes – but it's still planning which needs to happen.
Veganism requires a whole lot more.
However, finding balanced, healthy meals on a vegan diet can often be difficult and overwhelming.
If improperly planned, vegan diets may cause nutritional deficiencies and health problems.
in addition to my health improving, one of the best things about starting to eat meat again is just how easy it is to get the right nutrients compared to a vegetarian diet.
And we all know, you can't change biology; we can pretend we're herbivores; dress as herbivores, hang out in paddocks and act like herbivores, but we never can be, coz nature made us omnivores 🙂
this is true though. Humans can make choices to work outside material reality, and we get away with that to varying extents (or not, the world is riddled with the failures of men thinking we can transcend our bodies). But our physical bodies are evolved to be omnivorous. I guess it’s technically possible that over the long term humans could physically evolve to be vegan (how many generations would that need?), but I can’t see it at this point in time because being vegan without industrial civ is very hard to maintain.
It is naturally mostly men running the everyone can be vegan line. Women find out the hard way that we cannot use our minds to escape our bodies. There are reasons there are no vegan cultures. Childbearing is a nutrient demanding process and a vegan diet just doesn’t give enough women the stuff they need to keep reproducing over generations. Killing animals is hard. If humans could easily have stopped doing that we would have.
Veganism would be a step too far for me, but not for health reasons.
It is naturally mostly men running the everyone can be vegan line.
And (naturally?) mostly women swallowing it, vegan hook, line and sinker. This article, written by (naturally) a man [Jordi Casamitjana], seems fairly thorough, and balanced, despite the author’s activism.
Is Veganism Led by Women? [17 February 2023]
Despite all this uncertainty, let’s assume there are significantly more vegans identifying as women than as men. Why would that be? The Beet website has speculated the following reasons: 1) women are nurturing by nature, 2) women may be more interested in self-improvement than men, 3) men are afraid to give up their “grillmaster” rep, 4) women feel more pressure to be slim, 5) hormones, hormones, hormones, 6) women want to reap the benefits of anti-inflammatory diets, and 7) women want to take charge of their mental wellbeing. Some of these may be true factors, while others may be expected stereotypes.
The BBC has also speculated about it, stating that when women hold two incompatible beliefs, they are more likely to change their behaviour to reconcile them, while men, by comparison, tend to dig themselves in. Perhaps this psychological insight holds water as a 2022 study from Perez-Cueto et al. found that women tend to score lower in all barrier statements toward plant-based food consumption.
Men, Women, and Ghosts in Science [17 January 2006]
Baron-Cohen makes one point crystal clear: you cannot deduce the psychological characteristics of any person by knowing their sex.
…
Males tend to think narrowly and obsess, while females think broadly, taking into account balancing arguments. Classifying individuals in general terms, he concludes that among men, about 60% have a male brain, 20% have a balanced brain, and 20% have a female brain. Women show the inverse figures, with some 60% having a female brain.
yes, some of us do. There are people that do well on a vegetarian diet, and a smaller number on a vegan diet. There's no need to ignore the numbers of people whose health deteriorated and then recovered when they started eating animals again. The existence of us doesn't negate your choices.
“Plant-based” typically refers to one who eats a diet based primarily on plant foods, with limited to no animal-derived products. A whole foods, plant-based diet means that oils and processed packaged foods are likewise excluded.
The term “vegan” extends to one’s lifestyle choices beyond diet alone. A vegan lifestyle aims to avoid causing harm to animals in any way, including through products used or purchased.
Someone who is vegan also tends to take into account the potential negative environmental effects of animal products.
While these two terms are fundamentally different, they share similarities. Additionally, both are increasing in popularity and can be healthy ways of eating when planned properly.
With a plant-based diet,the vast majority of food comes from plants. The term originated in the health science community, where it was more appropriate than “vegetarian” or “vegan.” First, the term is divorced from any ethical connotation; and second, it doesn’t mean “never eating meat” or “never eating animal products.” Consumption of very small amounts of animal foods can be inconsequential when speaking of the health benefits of a diet, an important nuance for science that is not captured by the term “vegan” or “vegetarian.”
What does make it confusing though is considering wholefood plant-based diets because as FoK points out some vegans eat highly processed imitation meats and cheeses.
My wife and I sometimes say we are plant-based rather than vegan because the V word can be triggering for some people because of their preconceptions, and because we still wear wool. Replacing those garments that we've had sometimes for years is wasteful and not environmentally friendly to us. Does that mean we are dishonest?
I don't know and really don't care. We are doing what we can to reduce harm to animals, help the planet, and trying to maintain a healthy diet.
These ones tasted exceptionally good. If you ever get the chance, try Wood Blewits; they're excellent, as are Velvet Shanks. Both grow here (and, I suspect, In Ōtepoti).
I describe my diet as 'plant led'. I eat eggs and fish but no meat or dairy products. My husband eats a bit of wild venison but otherwise the same as me. We grow most of our vegetables supplemented by a few field mushrooms off the lawn this morning. Big plus we have discovered is that it's a pretty cheap yet healthy way of life.
vegan means no animal products at all. It's a word that has meaning. Plant based can mean people that eat mostly vegan but some animal products. So yes, it's dishonest to say plant based when one means vegan.
Luckily I don't expect other people to go vegan and I'm not trying to fool anyone, so I don't see where the dishonesty is.
The only person I might have been fooling by using the term interchangeably is myself, because for my own reasons I wear wool jerseys and leather work boots.
I'll use "plant-based diet with no animal products I'm aware of with an ethical foundation of being anti-exploitation of, and cruelty to animals, but not strictly vegan" then in future. 🙂
I thought plant-based did mean no animal products (which is why we've used it interchangeably thinking the difference was in the motivation) but I see I was wrong about that.
But I have looked at a number of definitions of "plant-based" and several say little or no meat or animal products. So talking about diets alone, is there any difference between a plant-based diet with no meat or animal products and a vegan diet? None that I can see.
Someone saying they eat a vegan diet is not the same as them saying they are a vegan (although it could be implied). It's why I guess you tick gluten-free, vegetarian or vegan for dietary requirements.
At the moment climate collapse is the thing and we need to dramatically reduce the amount of meat and dairy products NZ and many other countries produce and consume.
As Take The Jump says: Our current eating habits are not sustainable. We can make three changes to dramatically reduce emissions from the food we eat: Move to a mostly plant-based diet. This means replacing most of the meat and dairy we eat with plant-based alternatives that are lower in overall emissions. The closer to entirely plant-based the better, though not everyone may go all the way. The upper limit for meat consumption is 16 kg a year (so try a maximum of 300 g per week) and 90 kg of dairy (so try a maximum of 1.7 kg per week). Support our biodiversity and native forests by choosing wild pig, deer, or goat meat. Customary harvesting of seafood and some birds by local iwi is another sustainable practice.
So the more people who move to a totally or mostly plant-based diet, the happier I am. We reduce emissions and fewer animals have to die to feed humans. It's a win-win.
I fully understand some won't, and others as you say, can't. But I don't worry about that.
Thanks GA, makes sense to me. I’ll give those guidelines (300 g of meat + 1.7 kg of dairy per week) a go – think I’ve already got meat covered. Will be good for me, as well as our environment – a win-win, as you say.
That's a bit of a trouser-splitting leap there bella..?
..where does your quoted 'worthy' come from..I don't recall ever saying that…did you just make that up…?
..in a reasonably long life…lived in more than a few different cultures/countries…I have come across very few people I would not consider 'worthy''..(whatever that means..)..
A recent example of (perhaps?) being open to more than most I would cite my recent interactions with p-addict/child-smacking/patched gang member..
I saw him last nite..he is on week whatever of no 'p'..gave up alcohol last week..and both he and his five children are just loving the new no-smacking life they are living…
See..!..someone deemed not 'worthy' by many…is actually..indeed that..
So I would argue against me being deemed exclusionary..
In part I argue my case here because nobody else is doing it..
..and so much written here on this existential crisis we all face..seems to ignore the role the eating/exploitation of animals plays..
..and I am just seeking to hopefully open people's eyes..to their own contradictions..
..to the horrors these animals experience..
..and to the dangers to us all their behaviour engenders ..
Parliament On Demand have changed the layout. To me the new is about 50% the user friendlieness as before. Finding a particular question on a particular day is hard. Can't easily skip the less interesting questions.
Sounds as though no-one should have any truck with this lot (they're operating in NZ, so be warned – not that many on this forum are likely to be clients).
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NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
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A good news story to kick off the day.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/513961/water-tank-installation-programme-changing-lives-in-the-far-north
Life changing and affirming in many ways.
Young fellas getting skills and education. Decent water quality provided. Stopping the need to buy water in plastic. A community acquires resilience, one tank at a time.
Excellent on a lot of levels.
I remember reading about an Australian city where water tanks were being stolen regularly, as the area became drier and people bought tanks as insurance against running out of reticulated water. Not saying this will be a problem here but into the near-future, when drinking water becomes more of an issue, it will be, across the country. The concrete ones are harder to throw onto the back of a ute.
As a tangent, in the past, it appears to be a right wing or tory view to 'de-centralise' this sort of thing.
To my mind, Aotearoa needs way more of this, government funded, Iwi lead initiatives that provide local solutions by locals.
This is the way to raise boats with the tide.
It might appear that way, gsays, but they talk out of both sides of their mouth, claiming hands-off, but acting hands-on (think Fast-tracking consents with no local input, for example).
Where there are opportunities like this those who are able can act though. A subsidy for buying water tanks would be wise and the pressure (pun intended) could be taken off community reticulation systems but of course, home-tank-owners might clamour for a rates-reduction as a result and that's not a sound local councils like to hear 🙂
As a rule of thumb, the right will decentralise when that means devolving decision-making, or providing business opportunities, to their kind of people. Such as the owners of charter schools or business/farmer-dominated rural councils.
The best counter to it is probably not a reflexive urge to centralise and control – that's too easily painted as coercive. Some sort of federated decentralisation might be better, though how it would be structured needs a lot of thought.
RW decentralisation and government funded/iwi led are contradiction in terms.
The right are very actively trying to undermine iwi-led.
We should of course be doing water tanks everywhere it makes sense to, and solar (passive, hot water, power generation) on every new build and retrofit those where it makes sense to.
One of the problems with 3 waters was the ideological commitment to centralisation, as if shit isn't going to hit the fan in the next few decades, as if the only problem we have is how to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
We are in the middle of the process of renewing our water and power systems.
Very excite!
All advice has been to keep away from hydronic solar and go with photovoltaic solar and heat an element in the water cylinder.
48volt system, 8kw solar panels ( mixture of existing and new) and an Aussie Selectronic inverter.
New Tauranga built 1000litre Marshall water cylinder heated with existing hydronic solar, solid fuel and electricity.
An acquaintance spent a long weekend barging/helicoptering four >30k litre tanks onto remote whānau land in the far North.
Come the following weekend, all four had disappeared.
Sounds as though too many people knew what was going on, and some were busy hatching plans even as those deliveries were being made.
The depth of Northland's multi-decade poverty and sickness inside that article is just disgusting.
Which is interesting considering it has one of the highest proportion of land that is Maori freehold land in the country. It is also a part of the country where land confiscations did not take place.
Of more interest (than your lazy insinuations) is the dominance of the National party in that electorate working hard to improve the lives of all of their constituents, clearly.
I think rural ratepayers are more than accustomed to contributing to services they don't benefit from.
At the risk if accusations of nepotism this initiative is a good example of a circut breaker of the neo-liberal doctrine of subcontracting everything.
Local government can help with the funding.
Agree about the circuit breaker. It gives people immediate benefit and builds local community resiliency
Rural ratepayers get shafted with increasing costs for services they'll never get.
Can't even let my dog into the local Harbour due to the effluent…..a situation they've shoulder shrugged for years whilst taking the dosh for alot of new connections in raglan.
That’s on top of releasing sewage on an incoming tide now and again.
Rural ratepayers would do well to keep quiet about that.
The amount of roading alone that each rural ratepayer has, at council cost compared with urban ratepayers makes the idea that rural ratepayers are disproportionately subsidising urban services, a nonsense.
That’s a very rw argument. Roads are a public good, not just for the people that live on them.
No. It is not.
That "rural ratepayers subsidise urban services they don't use", is an often used agreement by rural businesses to try and get their rates bill reduced. To contribute less! to public services.
Ironically, in reality the subsidy goes in the opposite direction.
that is though. We don't pay as individuals for the roads we use most.
We had cause to engage with both local council and Waka Kotahi (am I allowed to still use that term?) advocating for a speed reduction on Railway Road as if enters Palmy from Bunnythump.
We were told by council that because it is an open road (100 kmh) it was a Waka Kotahi issue not Council.
Not sure if this is nation wide but rural ratepayers here are chipping in with town roads and ratepayers aren't funding rural roads.
Was entirely charmed by the prospect of a place called "Bunnythump" – sadly google suggests that it's really "Bunnythorpe".
There's no truth to the rumour that a lot of Woodvillians live there either.
Oops, sorry about that.
Farewell James Shaw good work. Made a difference. Grew the vote.
Also shoutout to the Greens for yesterday helping turn both NZFirst and ACT on the Samoan citizenship bill into next reading. Well played.
See recent comments about that Bill in yesterday's Daily Review. The Greens were genuine, and good on them, but those other two parties were just being cynical poseurs.
Made it to Select Committee.
Isn't that what's promised with the referendum on Te Tiriti?
The Greens will take it for the win it is. A very important power-shot against Luxon from his Deputy Prime Ministers.
Very curious move by Biden to consider dropping all the charges against Assange yesterday.
Could it be possible he is coming around to the p.o.v. that whatever assange did…he has been punished enough…?
I can't think of any other geopolitical reason..
A $440billion nuclear submarine programme.
How is that a reason..?
They hardly need to persuade oz to sign up for that..eh..?
Australia has always been an eager bag-carrier for america…
So I don’t see that as any reason..
Though any Assange pardon would put the Espionage case against Trump in an indefensible position.
Two factors, how long Assange has been in prison compared to the time of Manning before the pardon by Obama. And the harm to Assange caused by the prison conditions in the UK – he might not be fit to stand trial without some health spa time (risk he might die in a US prison).
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68784298
Anyone seen any coverage of the Cass Review report – published yesterday and all over the UK papers.
Sorry Admin – I don’t know how to shrink the image.
I heard a reasonably long (3-4minutes) snippet on RNZ this morning.
From both 'sides' if th issue, sorry don't recall either woman's name, also from a transitioning person.
5m piece on Morning Report today. Was pretty good.
Govt won’t say if it will follow UK move on puberty blocker use
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018933794/govt-won-t-say-if-it-will-follow-uk-move-on-puberty-blocker-use
editing the comment to put width="100%" just before the final /> usually does it.
The Cass report was good, it's measured, it lays it all out. This is a medical scandal. It's happening in NZ too.
The only quibble I have with it is that some blame is placed on the "toxicity" of the debate. No. There was one side simply refusing to debate (and we now know from the Cass report, refusing to release data). Then the other side was saying with increasingly loud and desperate voices: there is a problem here, we need to talk about this. And then the other side responded with various iterations of "STFU bigot", and a sustained campaign of harassment and vilification that continues to this day.
There really isn't much middle ground here. One side sterilised and destroyed the sexual function of a bunch of confused kids. The other side just wanted normal medical processes to be followed.
I tend to agree with the generalisation, and I think the debate can be characterised as you say (no debate vs wants to debate).
However seeing the sweaty balls memes in the Giggle v Tickle twitter discourse, that's a clear example of being cruel and intentionally inflammatory*. If someone did that here, I would moderate them.
*It's also stupid and incontinent and damages the good work being done.
I respect your POV but I never thought women had an obligation to be kind or to refrain from mocking the eminently mockable. After the sustained campaign of vilification of women, I am even less inclined. Fuck these people. They have hurt, really hurt, vulnerable kids. They still are.
yeah, any empathy disappeared when I saw a tweet saying RT and his male friends were using the women's toilets at the court after having heard how hard that was for some women.
And it's not like this isn't his first foray into colonisation.
I suppose what I was trying to say above was that when we cross that line, it changes us too. It's hard to hold to values when we give them up.
I guess I'm just quite angry. Mostly because the Cass review only came about because an MP literally had to change a law to force the clinics to release their own data. So they knew.
I always knew being proved right wouldn't make me happy but didn't realise how angry it would make me.
the anger is entirely justified. We haven't come to the point of reckoning yet either. More anger to come I think.
JKR put up a tweet today at the end of a thread,
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1778106344295280884
The stories of detrans people still have to hit NZ, or even The Standard. A lot of days my anger is about not being able to write posts here about it. No Debate is one of the most harmful politics I have ever seen.
Weka:
"that's a clear example of being cruel "
Except this court case is not about ‘gender affirmation’ children and adolescents.
The case is about a grown man, who at a very late stage in his life, has had women feelz. Changes the sex on his birth certificate, which recognised him as being legally a women.
In the Anti-Discrimination Act discrimination on the basis of sex is included . When this act was written it meant: biological sex (what else could it mean?).
Mr Tickle being a biological man was not allowed into a natal women only app.Whereas female transgenders are.
In this court case Sall Grover, for which she had to fundraise half million dollar, has to proof that a male can not ever become a women, no matter how much plastic surgery he undergoes or not.
And does the – sex – in the discrimination Act need to be amended to mean biological sex?
The fact that this Mr Roxky Tickle took her to court, aided by donors which are being kept secret – is somehow not cruel?
Because that is what is being done here again and again – picking off a women one at the time. Remember the process is the punishment.
Trying to come up with a name for those walking examples of contradictions-in-terms…
…the animal-eating 'green'…
..would 'garnivore' do it..?
Perhaps Virtue Signal Resistant.
Or just stick with Omnivore.
Don't really agree with yr labelling/lessening of opposition to one of the factors driving us towards the environmental-cliff..
..as 'virtue signalling'..
..and someone already has dibs on 'omnivore'..
..I am trying to define/hook together those two contradictions…the 'green'…and the animal eater…
..and the more I look at it..'garnivore'..seems to do the business..
we could explain it to you but you would just deny it.
And you are short-listed/front runner for today's condescension-award..
Go on..!..have a go…
Explain to me the justifications used by carnivores..
It does puzzle me..that they can't see it themselves..
So..have a go…and I will try really really hard to 'understand it'…
This is why I won't bother. You have an a priori position that omnivores are inherently wrong.
I don't care if someone is vegan. I care if they want the whole world to be vegan and ignore any evidence that contradicts their view. I also care about people who think there are no ethical consequences to eating animals. But you and I can't have a conversation about that because everything you stems from an ideological belief that you are right and omnivores are wrong. It's boring.
Oh..ok..end with an ad hominem..if you must..
Before you go..could you please define what 'ethical' meat/dairy is..
..for those of us too dumb to automatically know..
I ask you because you have been promoting this 'ethical' animal bits idea..
And I struggle to see any difference between what those self-labelling as 'ethical' do…and the standard cruelties/indignities heaped on by the run of the mill animal-exploiters..
.."this is fanny the 'ethical' cow.. don't get too attached to her.. she's off to the slaughterhouse next week..and we dispatched her offspring last week..we get such a good price for our 'ethical'-veal..'
It is just wall-to-wall bullshit..really..
let me put it another way. When you say,
Why would I bother when you already think it's bullshit. Why would I waste my time?
I like arguing with people who have different opinions, but there has to be an actual argument made on both sides. Running out a set of pre-determined talking points from a position of "I'm right/you're wrong" is as I said boring.
I'm a fan of the philosophical idea that we should be able to represent our opponents argument fairly. Not only can you not do that but you appear to not think it's a valuable think to do.
I understand the difficulties you would have defending your 'ethical' meat oxymoron…
But you can't even define it..?
Wot if someone else asks you to define it..?
Will you answer them..?
I'm fine with having that conversation with other people. I won't have it with you for reasons I've already explained clearly.
Human
Aahh!..well…that opens a big philosophical worm-hole..
..are we 'meant' to eat everything that walks/swims on the planet..?
..are they there for us to use/exploit/eat as we please..?
..is that how it is all meant to work..?
..and is that believed 'cos of what the bible sez..?
..or is it just habituation..?
..and/or should we live in peace with fellow earth-dwellers..?
But as a name for animal-eating 'greens'..?..it fails to define…
..'garnivore' it still is…
grarnivore works better.
Nah..!..too clumsy/contrived.. doesn't sound good to the ear..
Vegan is to eating what transsexual is to female: a minor category a few get overly excited about
So ad..you all gung-ho about this factor driving us towards the environmental cliff..eh..?
Nothing to see there..eh..?
Sticking yr hand up as a garnivore..eh..?
..can you explain what 'ethical' meat is…?..weka seems to shy away from that basic question..
unless they are doing paleo etc, I'd call them plant based.
??..puzzled by that one..
.. surely calling animal-eating 'greens' plant-based..
..is just another contradict-in-terms..?
how so? I eat plants, lots of them. Plant based.
And you eat what you call 'ethical' meat/dairy..
You are an exemplar of the afor-mentioned 'garnivore'..
You most certainly are not 'plant-based'..
And could you please define for me just what 'ethical' meat is..?
..what exactly makes it 'ethical'..and somehow ok to chow down upon..?
but I am plant based. I was vegetarian for a long time and when I added meat back into my diet, I still ate the same kind of diet plus meat. I’m don’t centre meat, I centre plants. That’s what plant based literally means, based on plants. Originally it was a term that allowed people to shift away from heavy meat eating. Now it’s a synonym for vegan, which makes it confusing and frankly dishonest.
I have never before heard of carnivores being 'plant-based'..
You are either vegetarian..or carnivore..
You can't be both at the same time..eh..?
That's another example of the 'contradiction in terms' I referred to before..
And in fact calling yourself plant-based when you eat animals could be deemed (to use your words) both 'confusing' and 'dishonest'
Weka is correct, you are wrong.
Happy to help.
Sez the flesh-addict..heh..!
No surprises there..eh..?
A remarkably silly statement – all humans are adapted to eat an omnivorous diet.
It is possible (with a great deal of diet planning and management) to eat an exclusively vegetarian diet – and remain healthy. An exclusive vegan diet requires even more rigorous dietary planning (and is never a suitable option for the very young). Both hold very significant health risks, if the diet is not carefully planned.
No humans are carnivores (i.e.they obtain either all or the majority of their dietary requirements through meat). Scurvy will quickly kill off anyone who tried it.
An omnivorous diet (incorporating a wide variety of plants, meat, fish, fungi, etc.) – is almost never going to result in any health risks.
Dietary health risks in modern society are mostly associated with highly processed foods and/or overconsumption.
That's a bit silly..a vegetarian/vegan diet has 'very significant health risks'..?
I'm just gonna laugh that one out of the room..
..what 'health risks'..exactly..?
You seem to have missed the "if the diet is not carefully planned" – section of the sentence.
Even those with the most cursory acquaintance with vegetarianism/veganism know that you have to plan, to address the risk of Vitamin B12 deficiency – for example.
this woman's story is common, I'm surprised you didn't know Phil. Maybe you're just not listening.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7072647/VIRPI-MIKKONEN-admits-vegan-diet-ruined-health-brought-early-menopause.html
Um..!
I see yr daily mail (heh..!) defense of advertisers..
..and raise you with my 25 yrs as a vegan..and 15 yrs before that as vegetarian..(never taken vitamin supplements).
I am old..I am fit/healthy..I am on no meds..last med check was told I have the lungs of a twenty-something..(which puzzled me..given the heroic amounts of weed/hashish I have consumed..but there ya go..)..
And mores the point I know people who have been vegan for longer than me…and are older than me..
..and the one thing we all share..is rude good health..
..and at the other end I would cite all the glowing with health vegan children I have known..with my son (now adult) another example..)
(Sorry..!..I can't stop chuckling at yr idea of a reliable source..the daily mail…really..?)
Nutritionists talking about it the negative impact on women's health too.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/women-dairy-meat-free-diet-nutrition-b1995624.html
gut health issues in women who have been vegan long term, also something I have seen talked about a lot. Although some women reach this stage after only a few years.
https://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/nutrition/how-my-vegan-diet-ruined-my-gut/news-story/d4b4fbd47581301e965d0d6a3d61cf4f
this progression, also very common in women.
https://www.newsweek.com/vegan-vegetarian-diet-health-problems-meat-1795305
So ya just hafta eat animals..to be healthy..eh..?
That's quite an extravagant claim…
..how to explain me..and all those other vegans I know..?..many of them women..
..why aren't we guzzling multiple pills…on zimmer frames..as are so many of our contemporaries..?
No, ya don’t. You just made that up. This is why I won’t debate it with you. The links are for other people to see.
btw, if you do that shit (making things up) on any post I put up about the politics of diet, I will simply ban you from the post. Best you get your head around the problem now.
What have I made up..?
You have been arguing how unhealthy a vegan diet is..
It is hard to not conclude that you are arguing that you have to eat meat to be healthy..is it not..?
And if you are also moderating any post you put up on diet…I will not be taking part…eh..?
I see it inevitably turning pear-ahaped..with the power imbalance not favouring me ..
So..go for it..
I will be interested to see what others have to say..
In this thread I have said pretty much all I need to say on the topic .
And in your upcoming piece..will you define/explain just what 'ethical' meat/dairy is..?
Your anecdata fails to convince.
I know 3 centenarians who regularly enjoy a good fry up. I don't regard them as an advertisement for that dietary lifestyle. Rather, that they've survived that long, despite a diet full of fat, not because of it.
the reasons for old age health are complex, relating I think to early diet too, but the idea that animal fat is bad for us has pretty much been debunked now. Who knows why they lived so long, but it might be because of the fat rather than despite it. We need fat for joint health and brain health among other things.
What evidence do you have for your last sentence..?
(And sorry..daily mail doesn't quite cut it..eh..?..)
(sigh..!)..I am forced to say that..'cos of daily mail claims..that are being cited/relied upon..
..as evidence of a deleterious effect..from not eating animals…
( Doesn't that even sound silly..?..)
And if googling for daily mail articles..can I suggest you ask ..'does bacon cause cancers..?..
You might find it to be quite revelatory..
You could then ask the same question about red meat..
And then ask it about dairy…
As someone who was vegetarian for around 40 years before finally eliminating dairy from my diet I don't agree with your "with a great deal of diet planning and management" and "even more rigorous dietary planning".
The switch to a animal-free diet can be done progressively. Yes the dietary changes have to be made mindfully, and yes I've seen people who said they were vegans who didn't look particularly healthy.
But it's not as hard as you make out. Depends on the motivation of course. I decided to go meat-free when I read a short book that made the case that humans do not need to kill and eat animals to live and challenged me to consider how much cruelty is created when they do.
So we started cutting back meat, joined the NZ Vegetarian Society, started buying vegetarian cookbooks and so on. We looked into what the change was going to mean and learnt more as time went on.
It is an important point for people changing their diet for whatever reason to learn that if you remove certain things from your diet you need to find those from other sources.
But it becomes easier as you go along.
I think that your comment is supporting my point. Vegetarianism requires some degree of mindfulness in dietary planning (what I describe as a 'great deal of planning and management' – you describe as progressive changes – but it's still planning which needs to happen.
Veganism requires a whole lot more.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-meal-plan#_noHeaderPrefixedContent
Both require more than an omnivore diet.
in addition to my health improving, one of the best things about starting to eat meat again is just how easy it is to get the right nutrients compared to a vegetarian diet.
Biologically we're all omnivores.
And we all know, you can't change biology; we can pretend we're herbivores; dress as herbivores, hang out in paddocks and act like herbivores, but we never can be, coz nature made us omnivores 🙂
this is true though. Humans can make choices to work outside material reality, and we get away with that to varying extents (or not, the world is riddled with the failures of men thinking we can transcend our bodies). But our physical bodies are evolved to be omnivorous. I guess it’s technically possible that over the long term humans could physically evolve to be vegan (how many generations would that need?), but I can’t see it at this point in time because being vegan without industrial civ is very hard to maintain.
It is naturally mostly men running the everyone can be vegan line. Women find out the hard way that we cannot use our minds to escape our bodies. There are reasons there are no vegan cultures. Childbearing is a nutrient demanding process and a vegan diet just doesn’t give enough women the stuff they need to keep reproducing over generations. Killing animals is hard. If humans could easily have stopped doing that we would have.
Veganism would be a step too far for me, but not for health reasons.
And (naturally?) mostly women swallowing it, vegan hook, line and sinker. This article, written by (naturally) a man [Jordi Casamitjana], seems fairly thorough, and balanced, despite the author’s activism.
Humans have choice and we can evolve. We don't have to kill and eat sentient beings.
yes, some of us do. There are people that do well on a vegetarian diet, and a smaller number on a vegan diet. There's no need to ignore the numbers of people whose health deteriorated and then recovered when they started eating animals again. The existence of us doesn't negate your choices.
I agree entirely, Grey Area; I was just making a trans logic joke – or something like that.
I believe humans have, can and will transcend their biological selves, by exercising choice, discretion, kindness and forgiveness.
"I believe humans have, can and will transcend their biological selves, by exercising choice, discretion, kindness and forgiveness".
Even members of the current government. 😀
The human ones.
Now it’s a synonym for vegan, which makes it confusing and frankly dishonest.
It can be used by some as a synonym for vegan but there is a difference and I don't agree that stems from dishonesty.
What’s the Difference Between a Plant-Based and Vegan Diet?
“Plant-based” typically refers to one who eats a diet based primarily on plant foods, with limited to no animal-derived products. A whole foods, plant-based diet means that oils and processed packaged foods are likewise excluded.
The term “vegan” extends to one’s lifestyle choices beyond diet alone. A vegan lifestyle aims to avoid causing harm to animals in any way, including through products used or purchased.
Someone who is vegan also tends to take into account the potential negative environmental effects of animal products.
While these two terms are fundamentally different, they share similarities. Additionally, both are increasing in popularity and can be healthy ways of eating when planned properly.
Or as Forks over Knives puts it about being plant-based:
With a plant-based diet, the vast majority of food comes from plants. The term originated in the health science community, where it was more appropriate than “vegetarian” or “vegan.” First, the term is divorced from any ethical connotation; and second, it doesn’t mean “never eating meat” or “never eating animal products.” Consumption of very small amounts of animal foods can be inconsequential when speaking of the health benefits of a diet, an important nuance for science that is not captured by the term “vegan” or “vegetarian.”
What does make it confusing though is considering wholefood plant-based diets because as FoK points out some vegans eat highly processed imitation meats and cheeses.
My wife and I sometimes say we are plant-based rather than vegan because the V word can be triggering for some people because of their preconceptions, and because we still wear wool. Replacing those garments that we've had sometimes for years is wasteful and not environmentally friendly to us. Does that mean we are dishonest?
I don't know and really don't care. We are doing what we can to reduce harm to animals, help the planet, and trying to maintain a healthy diet.
Today, I saw and picked a handful of Lawyer's Wig (Coprinus comatus) mushrooms, brought them home, cooked and ate them. They were delicious!
Tomorrow, I plan to hunt-for, gather, dehydrate and store, Larch boletes and Peppery boletes, which I'll add to some dish or other in the winter-time.
Fungi! Tis the season!
Lawyer's wig is one of my favourite fungi, hardly ever see it, got to be quick!
These ones tasted exceptionally good. If you ever get the chance, try Wood Blewits; they're excellent, as are Velvet Shanks. Both grow here (and, I suspect, In Ōtepoti).
haven’t seen either of those! I get lots of birch boletes, pretty happy with them.
I describe my diet as 'plant led'. I eat eggs and fish but no meat or dairy products. My husband eats a bit of wild venison but otherwise the same as me. We grow most of our vegetables supplemented by a few field mushrooms off the lawn this morning. Big plus we have discovered is that it's a pretty cheap yet healthy way of life.
vegan means no animal products at all. It's a word that has meaning. Plant based can mean people that eat mostly vegan but some animal products. So yes, it's dishonest to say plant based when one means vegan.
Luckily I don't expect other people to go vegan and I'm not trying to fool anyone, so I don't see where the dishonesty is.
The only person I might have been fooling by using the term interchangeably is myself, because for my own reasons I wear wool jerseys and leather work boots.
I'll use "plant-based diet with no animal products I'm aware of with an ethical foundation of being anti-exploitation of, and cruelty to animals, but not strictly vegan" then in future. 🙂
I thought plant-based did mean no animal products (which is why we've used it interchangeably thinking the difference was in the motivation) but I see I was wrong about that.
But I have looked at a number of definitions of "plant-based" and several say little or no meat or animal products. So talking about diets alone, is there any difference between a plant-based diet with no meat or animal products and a vegan diet? None that I can see.
Someone saying they eat a vegan diet is not the same as them saying they are a vegan (although it could be implied). It's why I guess you tick gluten-free, vegetarian or vegan for dietary requirements.
At the moment climate collapse is the thing and we need to dramatically reduce the amount of meat and dairy products NZ and many other countries produce and consume.
As Take The Jump says: Our current eating habits are not sustainable. We can make three changes to dramatically reduce emissions from the food we eat: Move to a mostly plant-based diet. This means replacing most of the meat and dairy we eat with plant-based alternatives that are lower in overall emissions. The closer to entirely plant-based the better, though not everyone may go all the way. The upper limit for meat consumption is 16 kg a year (so try a maximum of 300 g per week) and 90 kg of dairy (so try a maximum of 1.7 kg per week). Support our biodiversity and native forests by choosing wild pig, deer, or goat meat. Customary harvesting of seafood and some birds by local iwi is another sustainable practice.
So the more people who move to a totally or mostly plant-based diet, the happier I am. We reduce emissions and fewer animals have to die to feed humans. It's a win-win.
I fully understand some won't, and others as you say, can't. But I don't worry about that.
Thanks GA, makes sense to me. I’ll give those guidelines (300 g of meat + 1.7 kg of dairy per week) a go – think I’ve already got meat covered. Will be good for me, as well as our environment – a win-win, as you say.
If only Vegan Greens can be 'worthy' in your book – you're going to end up in an increasingly isolated minority.
That's a bit of a trouser-splitting leap there bella..?
..where does your quoted 'worthy' come from..I don't recall ever saying that…did you just make that up…?
..in a reasonably long life…lived in more than a few different cultures/countries…I have come across very few people I would not consider 'worthy''..(whatever that means..)..
A recent example of (perhaps?) being open to more than most I would cite my recent interactions with p-addict/child-smacking/patched gang member..
I saw him last nite..he is on week whatever of no 'p'..gave up alcohol last week..and both he and his five children are just loving the new no-smacking life they are living…
See..!..someone deemed not 'worthy' by many…is actually..indeed that..
So I would argue against me being deemed exclusionary..
In part I argue my case here because nobody else is doing it..
..and so much written here on this existential crisis we all face..seems to ignore the role the eating/exploitation of animals plays..
..and I am just seeking to hopefully open people's eyes..to their own contradictions..
..to the horrors these animals experience..
..and to the dangers to us all their behaviour engenders ..
.. that's all…
But happy to throw derogatory terms around "flesh-addict"
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-11-04-2024/#comment-1996022
Every comment you make on this topic implies that those who make other choices are less 'worthy' than you are.
I would say that you have to be the least enticing advocate for Veganism I've ever seen.
Are you denying that addiction to flesh-eating is a thing..?
It is a major reason for the lack of movement on this issue..
..(flesh)-addicts doing what their monkey sez..
Horrified by the very idea their heroin/alcohol/flesh (name yr poison) could be taken away from them..
Flesh-eating has all the marks of heroin addiction..and the like..
No matter the well-documented cancer-causing from red meat..bacon..etc..eh .?
The environmental damage caused .
The cruelties to the animals..
Monkey must have it's flesh…
..this is a definition of addiction…the ability to ignore the damage done..(c.f. ciggy-smoking..)
You may not like to think of yrslf as an addict.. it’s called denial..eh..?
And don’t worry..you aren’t alone..you are in the majority..
I'm pointing out that your increasingly extravagant language is alienating.
If you truly do desire to convince, rather than posture, you might reflect on why you are failing to do so.
Whether I am ' failing to do so'..is in the eye of the casual reader..
That is the value of such debates..the reader is left to evaluate the merits of the opposing arguments..
..and to make up their own mind..
So it's sorted then..
.'garnivore' it is…
(Next stop..
..urban dictionary..)
Well, 'sorted' in your own mind, which is apparently the only one that is important to you.
You will no doubt note, and discard, the fact that you seem to have garnered zero support on the site for your concept.
Wot..?..you and weka..?..right ho..!..noted..
As I said ..I am writing for the casual reader..
..and they are the jury on the worth or not of my burblings/arguments..
..not my antagonists…they are just a foil..
(And hey..!..you are on the wrong side of history..eh..?..)
So..in summary..you and fellow garnivores (patent pending)..
..are able to ignore the environmental impacts from farming flesh..(how so..?)
Are able to ignore the suffering/cruelties done to the animals you eat..
..and are able to also ignore the cancer health warnings about bacon/red meat..
(That's quite the trifecta..eh..?..)
..none of that science at all challenges the power of yr flesh-eating addiction..eh..?
(Would you like some bacon with that..?..)
My 'concept'..?
u might just pip weka at the post for todays condescension-award with that one..
I totally support Philip's ideas on this topic. Just so you know.
Whew…!… it's been a long thread..
I think I need a joint..
(Reaches for grinder..)
Parliament On Demand have changed the layout. To me the new is about 50% the user friendlieness as before. Finding a particular question on a particular day is hard. Can't easily skip the less interesting questions.
Progress of sorts – I suppose.
Sounds as though no-one should have any truck with this lot (they're operating in NZ, so be warned – not that many on this forum are likely to be clients).
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/10/im-a-victim-of-scammers-but-revolut-says-no-to-a-refund
The new ministry of information. Only ideologically correct news, of course.
/
https://twitter.com/actparty/status/1777922547700453492
Headline should be:..
'Trust in act is plummeting'..
His very own podium of truth.. except it's a news letter, and an email..