Another failure in court for the self described 'justice campaigner', better described as vexatious and hopeless.
[10] As to that, Mr Nottingham has entirely failed to persuade us that any of the material now sought is necessary for the due conduct of the appeals.
[12] This application is, therefore, an ill-assessed distraction from the issues on appeal. These must focus on the admissibility of the evidence adduced, the inferences properly to be drawn from that evidence and the directions given by the trial Judge, rather than on evidence neither before nor capable of being before the Court, or the background motives of those who did or did not give evidence, to the extent that was not already put in evidence. There is a limit. It has long since been crossed in this application.
So now on to the delayed appeal:
[2] The Solicitor-General has appealed Mr Nottingham’s sentence on the basis it is, she says, manifestly inadequate. Mr Nottingham has appealed both conviction and sentence. These appeals are to be heard by Criminal Appeal Division on 25 June 2019.
Reminds me of Labour refusing to rule out blocking KDC's deportation if it was ruled and them and the Greens hanging out at his mansion, in case he got in.
Politicians will do anything to get in.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: Trolls will do anything to get a false equivalence. Excellent diversion – however your reward will be that the next time I see you do that then you will get a ban. ]
What does he feel instead? As for Chris T, that remark above fully demonstrates his mean little mind, so remember how he is whenever he appears to be making some useful objective comment – it is just a front which he will soon resile from.
"There was good news for Kim Dotcom last night. David Cunliffe and Russel Norman said a Labour-Greens government might block Kim Dotcom from being extradicted to the US, should he lose his case (scheduled to start July 31).
"I've always said I didn’t support the extradition process," Mr Norman told 3News. "In a number of respects, I just don’t think it’s fair."
Mr Cunliffe offered more qualified support for the accused pirate, saying, telling the broadcaster, "Prima face, the current government’s operation against Mr Dotcom appears to have been outside the law in a number of respects."
In 3News' report, the Labour leader doesn't voice support for blocking extradition but later, when challenged on social media, 3News political editor Patrick Gower later said Mr Cunliffe said he was open to considering the option."
Extradition cases involve a judicially reviewable decision by a Minister. If Cunliffe had said that the Government were not open to considering the matter and would extradite him no matter what then that would have been perfect grounds for Dotcom to seek judicial review.
Perhaps you should read a little law? Then you might be able to understand what MS wrote.
Incidentally I agree completely with Norman's position. That means that I also agree with several courts who also have said that the police approach to such things as the search warrants and many other matters was appalling.
If you want to relitigate Kim DotCom, then stick to posts on the subject or OpenMike.
Reminds me of false equivalence and whataboutism but you’re right, National will deal with just about anybody to get back in power. They’ll throw out any convention, anything that stands in their way. They’ll fight dirtier than dirty, they’ll fight feral. The media will lap it up, of course.
One time political journalist turned tabloid shock-jock, Duncan Garner, must be under immense pressure from his bosses to bring in eyeballs and ears to the AM Show.
Here he takes an infantile and worryingly reckless position in aggressively demanding the PM tells him how she's going to vote in any cannabis referendum.
The PM of course quite correctly states that her position being made public would influence the vote, so she declined his advances.
CEAC supports NZTA estimate on speed limits being too high on most roads,
We often drive along the entire ‘East Coast Provincial Highway 2’ and it’s network ‘city’ links carrying heavy truck freight to our Ports,
Napier & Gisborne and in all cases we observe far to high speeds all vehicles are attempting to navigate the narrow winding hilly roads that plague these regions with single lane roads.
There is an urgent need to reduce the road speeds on these “primary second class roading network roads” to a lower speed. We often see evidence of truck crashes being attributed to these “soft roads” are unable to allow high speed travel safely for those heavy laden unstable vehicles when approaching many sharp corners, roundabouts and intersections.
When these obstacles are present, high sided laden logging and soft sided trucks are frequently seen to overturn on those locations.
Nick Leggett of the “Road Transport Forum” (RTF) is correct that a lower truck speed will increase the cost of consumer goods as freight cost will rise and we will all face those price rises, and has our support for that assumption.
In 2001 we attended a regional HBRC Land transport Committee Forum in Napier’s Marine Parade “War memorial” and the guest speaker was the current 2001 spokesperson of the (RTF) “Road Transport forum” a past National MP Tony Freidlander who began to address the forum with a statement ‘QUOTE’ “we have to face the facts that trucks are ‘not welcome’ so we need to make trucks more acceptable to the community.”
I later contacted Tony Friedlander when he returned to his home, and we both discussed how to solve the problem then, and we basically agreed NZ regional roads were not designed for trucks, and a better way was to have a separate “dedicated four lane truck route” as are seen most places overseas.
Our roads are referred to by some roading engineers as “soft roads” due to the ‘unstable soft clay base’ with a low weight bearing capability for trucks, so now when high weight laden trucks that are freely entering our roads that are unable to navigate our narrow winding roads that are actually collapsing the soft pavement of our roads under the weight of the heavier 63 tonne trucks we have all over most soft roads” in NZ the road surfaces are becoming very ‘uneven in contour’ making then difficult to drive on.
We approached three roading engineers about this issue of our (now named) “soft roads” inability to carry the laden weight of many (HPMV) 63 tonne trucks today; – and they advised us that we need a series of concrete steel reinforced slabs under base placed under our truck routes now.
We then looked around where we could find these type of roads that were now seen around NZ, and we found only a few sections of the Napier Hastings section of Highway two along the ‘Mangatere straight’ between Clive and Whakatu and that section was constructed with a concrete under-base during the 1940’s second world war era when the US Troops were stationed here and offered to construct this section to assist the movement of heavy trucks to take sheep carcasses to the US forces during the “Pacific war” in 1942 to 1945, and another advised us that the US offered to build an entire heavy road in NZ during that time during the war offering the same US highway standards they use so we missed that opportunity didn’t’ we?
I lived in Canada and Florida during 1960s to 1990s and saw many truck roads there were being dig up and concrete slabs were placed beneath them, so this is the reality that we need to ‘fund truck routes’ as a ‘toll road system’ as the US and EU does to build proper truck roads.
Meanwhile we must now move forward to restore rail freight and passenger services in our regions again as our ‘prime mover of freight’ as we had before so we can cope with road transport safely.
For the medium term now NZTA is right, we need to reduce the speed as NZTA correctly estimated and then plan to design new truck routes with the upgrades to those roads to a 21st century standard using the US style road building and toll road systems.
You can't compare the concrete roads the US have had (since ca 1950) with the situation in NZ. During and after the post war boom, the US built roading infrastructure using thick concrete. This was enabled by their vast limestone resources which they quarried extensively and their burgeoning economy.
In NZ we built thin flexible pavements using greywacke aggregate basecourse with a sprayed bituminous surface. These roads were fit for purpose until the demise of rail (under Prebble) and the expansion of trucked freight.
In the late 1990s Opus Central Labs were researching concrete roads for NZ while looking fondly across the Tasman to Australia's new Pacific Highway – which was concrete. They also looked at cement treated basecouse. Neither technology could be justified. NZ could not afford concrete roads and we don't have limestone quarries in the right places (transport of aggregates is the killer). And the lean mix cement basecouses crack and fail.
So we stick with unbound bases, chipseal and asphalt. What we need is less trucks!
In Christchurch there is a mile of concrete road. It runs from Papanui up Main North Road. It was laid certainly before 1950s and was intact for at least 70 years but the last I saw it, it had many star cracks ex earthquake, and each crack was filled with some sort of tar. Must have cost heaps to put down the original concrete road but it lasted for at least 70 years that I know of without much maintaining.
Cost effective? Very but the outlay must have been horrendous.
Well we certainly can't outlay anything to last 70 years. We very possibly will have felt the Alpine Fault earthquake by then already overdue on its 300 year average, movement. Also who knows what we will be doing. It will be good to have roads to drive our horse and carts along, real goers will set up skateboard marathons along them etc.
So adequate stuff till we get rail to take over much of the produce, localise production and processing again, and cut out glossy magazine production which weigh too much, encourage dissatisfaction amongst the wealthy as they see new toys and lounge suites, also using far too much ink, requiring much processing, and no good for toilet paper. And the piles of glossy magazines that look hardly read that accumulate at op shops will no more have to be dumped at expense to the charity and forming slimy lumps in landfill.
Glossy magazines like a lot of that glossy life that the wealthy live is just extraneous stuff and the in-reading will become gardening books and those on philosophy and the art of communication and living fully and how to learn different languages and laugh together and learn each others’ arts and cooking styles – see its already happening. May it be so!
There will be a lot less to cart around in trucks then, and I predict that will happen within ten years.
Well thanks very much. Bang. That is what happened to messengers with bad news.
We all really do need to read this and keep it in mind. I'm thinking I'm in a wooden house, etc etc. I'll also send a copy to my son. They are busy and doing okay and tend to want everything to be like it was last century when we had hopes for a recognisable, realisable future. So ta, after all.
One must allow for interference from some people when it takes their fancy.
The seven decorated pigeons were found at the aviary shortly after the antics of the bird decorator reached news headlines. Prior to the discovery, other birds such as sparrows had been found with tinsel wrapped around them.
Many of the sparrows had died as the decorations stopped them from being able to eat or drink
Since 2015, SPCA's Wellington Centre have had 30 cases of birds arriving at the centre either dead, or with injuries so severe they have had to be euthanised. Decorations were removed from the pigeons by SPCA's veterinary team, and they each underwent a full vet examination. SPCA's inspectors will continue to investigate the case, and are calling on Kilbirnie residents to help.
The concrete roads in NZ were mainly built by the US when they were here in the 1940's using NZ as a base for their operations in the Pacific. Many of those roads would have been new or enlargements of existing roads to the hospitals and supply bases they established around NZ. I remember one such road in Mangaroa, by Upper Hutt where they had a large supply base. Another was by the Silverstream Hospital. They had a massive presence here during WW2.
Thanks for that explanation. Now A.T. and I can finally put to rest the inevitable question 'why don't we have concrete roads like America' …which always comes up on our long and noisy road trips.
Mind you the roads on the US are now in a pretty deplorable state – as are their trains. You might recall a couple of weeks ago during "infrastructure week" when Nancy P and Adam S were "stood up" by the Orange Buffoon at the WH. They were there to discuss a $1T bipartisan Infrastructure package aimed at restoring the rapidly deteriorating National roading and rail. Of course Trump didn't really want to have any thing to do with anything that might actually improve things for average Americans, because he would rather have all the attention on himself, and went out to the Rose Garden to give a pre-arranged "impromptu talk" complete with fake outrage, pre-printed signs and script about how he was totally exonerated ,and how hard done by he was.
In NZ we built thin flexible pavements using greywacke aggregate basecourse with a sprayed bituminous surface. These roads were fit for purpose until the demise of rail (under Prebble) and the expansion of trucked freight.
They also have the property of not being so damn hard to repair after major earthquakes.
Heavy concrete roads are a real pain when the ground shifts under them. While the roads from something like the large set of Kaikoura earthquakes might take a year or so to reform and repair deformed tarseal roads, it gets to be total pain with a rigid concrete road that fractures.
In NZ this is particularly noticeable with the US roads that were built here. This around Wellington and the Hutt in the earthquake zone look wrecked at the concrete layer compared to the ones in Auckland. Auckland is (for NZ) relatively earthquake free.
Even if an earthquake doesn't get 'em, if the ground underneath shifts just a little bit so you get a little bit of mismatch between the slabs – it's almost as bad as water torture. Schenectady NY to Scranton PA was several continuous hours of gadunk .. gadunk .. gadunk .. gadunk .. gadunk ..
Woulda thought they'd be somehow pegged together across the joints to prevent that mismatch. Maybe they were originally pegged with rebar but the winter salt rusted it out.
Hey was polled by Curia last night about preferred parties, leaders etc. some interesting things about it. They contacted us by l line. They didn’t ask for much in the way of demographic info. Initially spoke to husband who hates surveys and handed over to me.
didnt ask age, ethnicity asked about children under 18 years living at home. No income question. Then some rather odd IQ type questions.
the most interesting thing to me though was the leadership questions. They asked about jacinda, Winston, James Shaw, kelvin d,bridges and Paula b. No Judith………….is this an attempt by Curia to tip the leadership towards Bennett?
‘She worked as a solicitor for four different firms between 1981 and 1990, and then became principal of her own firm, Judith Collins & Associates (1990–2000). In the last two years before election to Parliament, she worked as special counsel for Minter Ellison Rudd Watts (2000–2002)’
‘She was active in legal associations, and was President of the Auckland District Law Society (1998–1999) and Vice-President of the New Zealand Law Society (1999–2000). She served as chairperson of the Casino Control Authority (1999–2002) and was a director of Housing New Zealand Limited (1999–2001)’
She also married a Samoan-Chinese policeman would certainly would have put the cat amongst the pigeons given her conservative background, so while I'm sure Hannah is a very competent women in her own right I don't think it'd be a fair fight…just ask Phil Twyford 🙂
Hey Jude don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart. Then you can start to make it better.
Hmmmm. I don't believe that Jude will make anything better. She is just National-production, Model A-, heartless but will appropriate ours if it suits her.
'He is calling for a prison-free society – which he said should be achievable given prisons did not exist in Aotearoa before Europeans arrived.'
Yeah nah
'In the society he envisaged, no-one would go to prison for non-violent offences, drugs would be legalized and anyone currently incarcerated for drug offences would be released.'
Can't see many people agreeing to letting fraudsters out, I actually agree with decriminalizing any and all drugs for personal use and I'd only agree to releasing them IF the only offence was drug possession for personal use
However (and I know its not scientific) but there does seem to be a massive correlation between drug use and mental illness in prison so they'd need somewhere secure to be sent to for treatment
'In extreme cases where offenders needed to be incarcerated for public safety, this would be done on an individual basis and would not rely on the existence of public prisons.'
I'd agree to this, stick them politicians and lawyers homes
Yeah the correlation between drug use and mental illness is a display of self-medication. With the proper care, at least some of that might be curtailed.
National and Labour have both dropped the ball on this, NZ needs more money pumped into mental health and drug addiction facilities to treat these people
I mean what do you do with prisoners that swallow razor blades, stand in the cells and hit their heads against the wall, self harm just because they don't want to be moved…answers on a post card please
Something else we should do is to supervise all placements of managers, Chief Executives to ensure that they have training in the sector suitable for the job. No more generic managers, everyone who is a NZ resident being able to do further training in appropriate leadership and management, and keep the neo lib ec. to a minimum and introduce some keynesian methods into management training.
Kick out the old economists who are stuck in the doorway from imbibing too much neo lib propaganda. Push them out, they can go away and get a fat-cat job where they still soak in RW bullshit.
We are a tiny country once punching above our weight, but now being badly coached. Seeing sport is the only thing that seems to have any traction in this country besides getting money, lets apply the same interest that we give to appropriate sports managers and coaches, with less bullying and no sexual harassment, and do a good job of building up our citizens to fighting fit! And regard every one of our citizens as a contender for the Gutsy NZr Most Improved annual awards. And look after our medical carers who are essential for any good, upward moving team.
I mean what do you do with prisoners that swallow razor blades, stand in the cells and hit their heads against the wall, ….
"I spoke of my concern that there were young men in Waikeria…who were not in the right place. "Disturbed people should not be incarcerated there, I said. With the help of government, grants, courts 'should be able to place people in supportive institutions.' Alternatives to imprisonment were a critical need."
(Marilyn Waring "The Political Years" Chapter '1980' p. 209)
Reading this book is producing much of my recent 'disillusionment' ,as almost every page is like going through a timewarp. There are seemingly no new issues, just variations on describing them and yet another 'We'll get it right this time!' fanfare announcement for change.
But what if the prisoner knew that what they were doing was a crime, and just happen to have a bit of mental illness?
homourous aside: I read recently that in 1979 the Swedes stopped regarding homosexuality as a mental illness after loads of people called in sick because they were feeling too gay to work that day…
There is a strong and underacknowledged correlation between brain injury, concussion in particular, and imprisonment. 50 to 80 % of people in criminal justice have a traumatic brain injury.
I can't really decide whether my opposition to puckish's view about mental hospitals vs prisons is because it doesn't reflect that people with mental issues are also dicks who commit crimes, while some criminals actually aren't all that bad but they have mental issues that mean they probably wouldn't have committed their crimes (e.g. TBI affecting impulse control, or FAS, or ADHD, or just general social alienation from lifelong learning disabilities). And some might be sane criminals who can be shuttled to prison, while others can be people who are totally in the domain of the mental health system.
Or is my opposition because prisons should be more rehabilitative than punitive, so should actually be able to provide decent mental health care for all but the most afflicted patient-prisoners?
Then there was a fascinating interview Kim Hill did with QC Mike Bungay when he retired; for it's time it was a masterpiece. At one point Mike said that in his long experience defending all sorts of people, about 85% of them were otherwise ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances they were either too weak or too damaged to control. The other 15% were truly bad people and he had no compunction about locking them up for as long as possible.
In answer to your question 'a mixture of both', that feels to me a decent starting point. Our prisons are necessary, but they are way overused. Instead of a prison muster of 10,000 or so, it should be 1,500.
We know there are numerous factors correlated with crime, inequality, colonisation, an uncontrolled temperament, brain injury and leaded petrol are just some that come to mind. This strongly suggests there is no one silver bullet and any strategies need to be multi-generational, and adaptable over time.
The good news is that globally serious crime rates are trending downwards from a peak in the 60's. The not so good news is that NZ crime rates remain stubbornly high for reasons that are not entirely obvious.
Back in 1980 there was a late night knock on the door of the grotty flat I shared with a friend in an Unnamed Central North Island city. On the door step, looking furtive and worse for wear, were a couple of refugees from Nambassa.
Long haired and bedraggled and glassy of eye they scuttled in and proceeded to impart to my flatmate a tale of woe involving drugs, a police checkpoint, their Cheech and Chongish effort to conceal said drugs in the engine compartment of their vehicle. As expected, accelerating away from the checkpoint the bundle under the bonnet fell into the moving parts of the engine with noisy and terminal results. The pair had been caught…if it can be described as such as neither had clearly had a rational thought in years…but one reacted with placid resignation (he was tired, man, and just wanted a sleep.)…while the other got angry and began ranting about police brutality etc. One was sent to Waikeria and the other to Tokanui.
The one they sent to Tok was released very shortly afterwards and allowed to roam free, while the other sent to Waikeria had a sleep and a feed and was feeling much better by the next day. Brain was functioning enough that when he was waiting in an interview room to speak with a lawyer he saw security was pretty much non existent and simply strolled out. Like iron filings to magnets the two met up along the road, scored, partied and ended up on said doorstep.
Nice enough chappies if scintillating conversation wasn't a priority, and although I'm 199% sure cannabis was the most harmless of their recreational chemicals of choice and availability, I guess they could be described as 'mostly harmless' and a danger only to themselves. They weren't bad, nor mad….at the most a little sad.
But that was in the days before some seriously strong cannabis and before kitchen sink chemists experimented on real human brains. The days before the widespread use of prescription pharmaceuticals and the huge associated profits.
By the mid eighties we were beginning to see more of the 'mad or bad or both' and fewer of the 'sad' at the rehab centre I was working in. It was hard to know if the disordered thinking and behaviour were due to the drugs and might wane when weaned off them, or the chemical abuse was to mask an existing psychiatric condition.
It might just be that there will have to be a meeting of the twain…combination prisons and mental health units…with clients being directed one way or another after substance withdrawal has cleared the pitch.
The massive correlation is not between drug use and mental illness in prison Puckish Rogue. It is that the people who go to prison are already addicted to drugs and or alcohol, which is due to their being mentally unwell, which is due to the crappy life they have had, which is due to the seemingly unbreakable cycle of trauma, neglect, abuse, and so on, among the sector of our society who are dis-privelleged.
'The plan also signals moves to bolster the army with a total of 6000 infantry men and women, by 2035. That signalled the defence force's expectation it would be required to respond to multiple incidents at once – more likely as a result of climate change, than any other reason.'
I want to see the army moving on climate change. Invites for the community to join in as well. Earthworks like water capture, planting riparian and shore habitats, clean-ups etc. The NZ public is not wary of the armed forces (aren't we lucky) and might take heart in seeing such dedication from our government/forces.
Thank you Auckland Zoo for joining the growing number of entities examining their waste streams. Not only is this directly beneficial to our environment, but it encourages other businesses by illuminating an alternative.
Recyclable steel drinking cups under the label 'Again Again'.
Yesterday in Western Springs Park the lions in the Zoo next door had a bit of a roaring competition, all the chooks following me suddenly shut up dead still and silent – for a few seconds anyway.
Poission If you get really good, you may be able to turn it into wine at will. Handy that. Or failing that, we will have to turn to small beer as they had in England for years. Perhaps now we are going back to the future, we need to introduce this brew again which may give us some vim and perhaps fermenting would kill off many of the bugs, but what could we do to get rid of heavy metal traces etc.?
Now that is a fascinating image, you and the chooks, is it your charisma of were you leaving a Hansel and Gretel trail of wheat. Good enough for Reddit which seems to gather all the animal pics there ever have been.
It started with this HUGE rooster following me picking mushrooms off a field. It just followed me and the hens joined in. Slow day there I only saw a few other people so they were likely just cruising for food.
One morning very early I was there and it was all misted over. I rounded a corner and caught a guy red-handed with a knife and a duck. It was a large knife… Good morning says I, moving along quickly.
Simon never gives up but now seems a bit pathetic.
Hon SIMON BRIDGES to the Minister responsible for the GCSB: At what specific time on Tuesday, 28 May was he or his office first contacted by GCSB telling him that they had told Treasury that GCSB did not believe any hacking had taken place, and when did he relay that information to his ministerial colleagues or their offices?
Hon SIMON BRIDGES to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions in relation to the alleged unauthorised access of Budget 2019 material?
So this is how modern censorship works. Start by threatening to ban a video, roll back from that when pointed out historically correct and/or truthful, go on to demotising, finally, make the algorithm move it down the search.
Fun times people – how about you just put up with being offended occasionally, rather than demand ideas you disagree with, get censored?
I find the centre left sickening in it's wimpiness and utter lack of spine, yes it offends me! But I don't want to censor it.
Bridges tried really hard, and looked more and more desperate when each question about timing was answered fully. Nice to know that the Government timing was accurate and timely. Paula looked more and more beaten and neither looked in the least triumphant.
Bizarre stuff, so National are whining about being accused of unauthorised access of the site on the Weds & by Thurs they admit responsibility? It's hard to know what Bridges beef is. He even used the words "unauthorised access" in his question, does he not understand what those words mean? You would think he would shut up about it. #keepsimon
Bridges seems most upset that someone mentioned "hacking" when the GCSB clearly said later that it was "unauthorised access", and that people should apologise for calling him a hacker even though they didn't.
I don't understand why they keep raising the issue when it just gives the government an opportunity to highlight their (National's) incredible lack of integrity. It's like he's getting up and saying to Ardern "Please remind everyone about that time I carried out a data breach of a government agency, and when will the government apologise for suggesting I shouldn't have done it?"
Exactly. Despite all the sophistry from National, most people know damn well that if they treated their own employer's confidential information in the same manner, they'd out the door so fast they wouldn't bounce until next Monday.
It must irk the former prosecutor to be ‘accused’ of hacking. It seems he’d rather be ‘found guilty’ of the lesser charges of “unauthorised access” of a government computer system and publically releasing embargoed material. I didn’t know Simon had principles.
It sounds like a sporting contest. What did the coach think he was doing. An own goal, yet another in the long line of mistakes and fouls. The fans are getting restless etc . It is the people we elected to run the country plus the Opposition who are supposed to ensure we are being governed to a high standard.
I'd turf anyone out on their ass who kept repeating the same question after it had been answered. Wasting the time of the entire government to pander to the ego of this belligerent fuckstick.
I think that Bridges over the last few days has convinced himself that he was in a "Gotcha" time. He would imagine himself denouncing with clever stilletto questions, and then this sad Government and would collapse onto the floor of the Chamber, battered and defeated, and begging for mercy.
Then the reality hit and he and Paula grasped hands and realised that their Caucus was not amused or impressed and the Government showed nothing but an amused pity.
Yes Muttonbird. Paula sitting beside Simon today seemed to exude at first a cheering on of Simon but her body talk wilted as each question was answered succinctly. Oops! She quivered.
“From the very beginning, he was always concerned about policy. Always concerned about making a meaningful difference. He didn’t have time for the niceties,” Jane Sanders, the Senator’s wife and closest adviser, told me. “He has, over time, really become more—he’s still very issue oriented, but he’s placing focus on the people and the impact that those policies have.”
That new focus was evident this spring in a less familiar event format for Sanders: intimate, almost confessional town halls. A panel of three or four ordinary citizens would share stories of their hardships, and others in the audience would share their own tales, and Sanders would respond with a mix of awkward sympathy, synthesis of their situations and his stump speech.
In the theater of a Burlington, Iowa, school one afternoon, three panelists, all women, sat onstage with Sanders. The first, Carrie Duncan, spoke of her trouble getting health insurance: not having coverage when she worked in a school cafeteria in a nonunion job, getting coverage when she landed a union job in an ammunition plant and then losing it again because of rising costs. “The fat cats continue to grow richer by drinking from the big bowls of cream that us little cats get for them,” she said. “It’s time to make the fat cats meow!” A nurse practitioner named Teresa Krueger spoke of living with Type 1 diabetes and her work caring for patients with that condition, many of whom cannot afford insulin, which has surged in price over recent years.
Then came Pati French. “I’ve been married for 26 years and had three great kids,” she said. “We have had a good life. We have made lots of memories.” Then she told the story of her son. Trevor was into music and politics, and in 2016 he canvassed for Sanders. He also had a pill addiction. He struggled and then he got help and got sober and was seven months clean with his own job and apartment and was proud of himself. Then he felt a surge of anxiety, the old demons returning, and went to a clinic and got 140 pills and instructions to go see a counselor when a vacancy came up. But he didn’t get in before an accidental overdose killed him. “We have never been the same,” French said. Sanders, turning bright red and somber with emotion, reached out and gave her a few comforting pats.
The audience began to give their testimonies. A woman spoke of the dearth of mental health care resources and how she had lost two of her friends to suicide and seen others struggle to get help—“including myself, who I have almost lost many times.” A man who works at McDonald’s spoke of scraping by on nine bucks an hour. A man from the local steel plant spoke of jobs vanishing to India and the Czech Republic. And a woman who grew up on a family farm spoke of crop prices falling and bankruptcies climbing.
He may be watching our PM and her message very closely.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, the junior United States Senator and former Congressman from Vermont, began with Sanders's formal announcement on February 19, 2019.
In the UK Corbyn seems to stand strongly while emotions wash around him, and that staunchness itself provokes more emotion.
10/6/2019
In his speech before the interventions, the Labour leader said the party must unite to take on the “dangerously damaging policies” of the Tory leadership candidates, including tax cuts that will benefit the richest, attacks on abortion rights, and a “race-to-the-bottom no-deal Brexit”.
He said Labour was committed to working cross-party to stop no deal. “To break the Brexit deadlock, we need to go back to the people. Let the people decide the country’s future, either in a general election or through a public vote on any deal agreed by parliament,” he said.
Brussels is tuning in to the Westminster drama of the Tory leadership race – with both amazement and exasperation.
“People in Brussels are fed up that the political class in the UK has gone a little bit crazy,” Jean-Claude Piris, a former head of the European council’s legal service said. British politicians seemed to have gone “on holiday”, since gaining the extension, he added.
A professor who advocates for sex with robots and ran as a candidate for Fraser Anning’s far-right micro-party at the May election, has been awarded a Queen’s birthday honour.
Adrian Cheok was made a member of the Order of Australia for “significant service to international education”. (Inter-alia perhaps.)
The subbies are put under a lot of pressure by the big corporations companies that's the way I see it
Good Phil and the Auckland Council for declaring climate change a emergency ka pai and Christchurch Nelson have declared climate change as a emergency.
simon shonky was pro carbon so don't go complaining about Phil making good choices on climate change in Auckland.
Duncan the only one waffling is you any thing positive about policy and publicity on climate change is awesome.
That's the way Amanda you stand firm on your opinion the grey hair is genetic Mark.
The Helicopter crash in New York would have scared a lot of people it was good of the Pilot to crash the Helicopter on top of a building and not in the crowded streets of New York there could have been heaps of people losted .
YES people we need to donate more blood and plasma please to help our people who need it.
Flying taxis is awesome I hope it all works out for them the testing in real life with passengers and testing in cities airspace.
Coscos landing in Aotearoa is cool the retailers have had it to sweet in Aotearoa for to long a bit more competition is long overdue for the grocery trade.
With the flying taxis Simon that is the reason Aotearoa has to embrace 5G technologies that is needed for all the data the self flying taxis and cars need for them to operate safer. Someone is holding back humanity advance in technology . We need to take the advance in technology to combat climate change.
Eco Maori thanks Therasa May enshrining in LAW commitments to a net zero carbon emissions by 2050 ka pai
Theresa May has sought to cement some legacy in the weeks before she steps down as prime minister by enshrining in law a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, making Britain the first major economy to do so.
The commitment, to be made in an amendment to the Climate Change Act laid in parliament on Wednesday, would make the UK the first member of the G7 group of industrialised nations to legislate for net zero emissions, Downing Street said ka kite ano link below.
I agree we should not be concerned about the cost to mitigate climate change. Climate changes will cause heaps of damage and loss to the Papatuanuku/world so nitpicking about the cost of climate changes is irrelevant and just a DISTRACTION thrown up by oil barons and their PUPPETS.
Imagine if the Australian and UK governments declined to participate in the war in Iraq because the price of bombs was a bit high. Imagine if the US waited for the price of nuclear missiles to fall before participating in an arms race with Russia. Or imagine if we criticised people for spending more on their cars, clothes or food than was “necessary”.
'Big stick' energy bill: Coalition MP wants economy-wide power to break up big companies
The idea that we need to weigh the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions with the benefits of doing so is so widespread in Australia that it’s difficult to see how absurd – and uncommon – such an approach is. While economics textbooks suggest that we should solve all problems in such a manner, the simple fact is we solve almost no problems that way. Take cars for example.
Cars are a very expensive way to move around a city. The private costs of buying, fuelling and maintaining a car are relatively high, and then there are the social costs. Without massive public investment in roads, tunnels and bridges, cars are virtually worthless. And then there are the costs of noise pollution, air pollution and congestion that car drivers impose on other citizens Ka kite ano link below.
Teuku waka Marae it's sad to see the police involved and putting the story on Facebook I'm not sure whom is correct but putting people down on Facebook is not on.
I have stated that sips just gave them selves a Maori name but forgot the kauppa Maori that system needs to learn to love and respect Maori tangata it is good that the government has given $80 million the help Whanau Ora with all the tamariki in bad care it is well needed after the underfunding that national gave for the under privileged child services this is there MESS our new Government has to clean up Pene I know how you feel with your mahi kia kaha.
The worms will live in every hostIt's hard to pick which one they eat the mostThe horrible people, the horrible peopleIt's as anatomic as the size of your steepleCapitalism has made it this wayOld-fashioned fascism will take it awaySongwriter: Twiggy Ramirez Read more ...
Hi,It’s almost Christmas Day which means it is almost my birthday, where you will find me whimpering in the corner clutching a warm bottle of Baileys.If you’re out of ideas for presents (and truly desperate) then it is possible to gift a full Webworm subscription to a friend (or enemy) ...
This morning’s six standouts for me at 6.30am include:Rachel Helyer Donaldson’s scoop via RNZ last night of cuts to maternity jobs in the health system;Maddy Croad’s scoop via The Press-$ this morning on funding cuts for Christchurch’s biggest food rescue charity;Benedict Collins’ scoop last night via 1News on a last-minute ...
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 15, 2024 thru Sat, December 21, 2024. Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one published soleley by category. We are still interested in ...
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...
Welcome to the December 2024 Economic Bulletin. We have two monthly features in this edition. In the first, we discuss what the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update from Treasury and the Budget Policy Statement from the Minister of Finance tell us about the fiscal position and what to ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...
Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year. As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...
The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and , ...
“Like you said, I’m an unreconstructed socialist. Everybody deserves to get something for Christmas.”“ONE OF THOSE had better be for me!” Hannah grinned, fascinated, as Laurie made his way, gingerly, to the bar, his arms full of gift-wrapped packages.“Of course!”, beamed Laurie. Depositing his armful on the bar-top and selecting ...
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed a significant slowdown in the economy over the past six months, with GDP falling by 1% in September, and 1.1% in June said CTU Economist Craig Renney. “The data shows that the size of the economy in GDP terms is now smaller ...
One last thing before I quitI never wanted any moreThan I could fit into my headI still remember every single word you saidAnd all the shit that somehow came along with itStill, there's one thing that comforts meSince I was always caged and now I'm freeSongwriters: David Grohl / Georg ...
Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
Hi,If you’re a New Zealander — you know who Mike King is. He is the face of New Zealand’s battle against mental health problems. He can be loud and brash. He raises, and is entrusted with, a lot of cash. Last year his “I Am Hope” charity reported a revenue ...
Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
Oh, I weptFor daysFilled my eyesWith silly tearsOh, yeaBut I don'tCare no moreI don't care ifMy eyes get soreSongwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Kossoff. Read more ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
Just ten days ago, South Korea's president attempted a self-coup, declaring martial law and attempting to have opposition MPs murdered or arrested in an effort to seize unconstrained power. The attempt was rapidly defeated by the national assembly voting it down and the people flooding the streets to defend democracy. ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Kiwis planning a swim or heading out on a boat this summer should remember to stop and think about water safety, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop and ACC and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “New Zealand’s beaches, lakes and rivers are some of the most beautiful in the ...
The Government is urging Kiwis to drive safely this summer and reminding motorists that Police will be out in force to enforce the road rules, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“This time of year can be stressful and result in poor decision-making on our roads. Whether you are travelling to see ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
Legislation that will repeal all advertising restrictions for broadcasters on Sundays and public holidays has passed through first reading in Parliament today, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “As a growing share of audiences get their news and entertainment from streaming services, these restrictions have become increasingly redundant. New Zealand on ...
Today the House agreed to Brendan Horsley being appointed Inspector-General of Defence, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Mr Horsley’s experience will be invaluable in overseeing the establishment of the new office and its support networks. “He is currently Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, having held that role since June 2020. ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government has agreed to the final regulations for the levy on insurance contracts that will fund Fire and Emergency New Zealand from July 2026. “Earlier this year the Government agreed to a 2.2 percent increase to the rate of levy. Fire ...
The Government is delivering regulatory relief for New Zealand businesses through changes to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act. “The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill, which was introduced today, is the second Bill – the other being the Statutes Amendment Bill - that ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed further progress on the Hawke’s Bay Expressway Road of National Significance (RoNS), with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board approving funding for the detailed design of Stage 1, paving the way for main works construction to begin in late 2025.“The Government is moving at ...
The Government today released a request for information (RFI) to seeking interest in partnerships to plant trees on Crown-owned land with low farming and conservation value (excluding National Parks) Forestry Minister Todd McClay announced. “Planting trees on Crown-owned land will drive economic growth by creating more forestry jobs in our regions, providing more wood ...
Court timeliness, access to justice, and improving the quality of existing regulation are the focus of a series of law changes introduced to Parliament today by Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee. The three Bills in the Regulatory Systems (Justice) Amendment Bill package each improve a different part of the ...
A total of 41 appointments and reappointments have been made to the 12 community trusts around New Zealand that serve their regions, Associate Finance Minister Shane Jones says. “These trusts, and the communities they serve from the Far North to the deep south, will benefit from the rich experience, knowledge, ...
The Government has confirmed how it will provide redress to survivors who were tortured at the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit (the Lake Alice Unit). “The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that many of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Unit between 1972 and ...
It has been a busy, productive year in the House as the coalition Government works hard to get New Zealand back on track, Leader of the House Chris Bishop says. “This Government promised to rebuild the economy, restore law and order and reduce the cost of living. Our record this ...
“Accelerated silicosis is an emerging occupational disease caused by unsafe work such as engineered stone benchtops. I am running a standalone consultation on engineered stone to understand what the industry is currently doing to manage the risks, and whether further regulatory intervention is needed,” says Workplace Relations and Safety Minister ...
Mehemea he pai mō te tangata, mahia – if it’s good for the people, get on with it. Enhanced reporting on the public sector’s delivery of Treaty settlement commitments will help improve outcomes for Māori and all New Zealanders, Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka says. Compiled together for the ...
Mr Roger Holmes Miller and Ms Tarita Hutchinson have been appointed to the Charities Registration Board, Community and Voluntary Sector Minister Louise Upston says. “I would like to welcome the new members joining the Charities Registration Board. “The appointment of Ms Hutchinson and Mr Miller will strengthen the Board’s capacity ...
More building consent and code compliance applications are being processed within the statutory timeframe since the Government required councils to submit quarterly data, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “In the midst of a housing shortage we need to look at every step of the build process for efficiencies ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey is proud to announce the first three recipients of the Government’s $10 million Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund which will enable more Kiwis faster access to mental health and addiction support. “This fund is part of the Government’s commitment to investing in ...
New Zealand is providing Vanuatu assistance following yesterday's devastating earthquake, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. "Vanuatu is a member of our Pacific family and we are supporting it in this time of acute need," Mr Peters says. "Our thoughts are with the people of Vanuatu, and we will be ...
The Government welcomes the Commerce Commission’s plan to reduce card fees for Kiwis by an estimated $260 million a year, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.“The Government is relentlessly focused on reducing the cost of living, so Kiwis can keep more of their hard-earned income and live a ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour has welcomed the Early Childhood Education (ECE) regulatory review report, the first major report from the Ministry for Regulation. The report makes 15 recommendations to modernise and simplify regulations across ECE so services can get on with what they do best – providing safe, high-quality care ...
The Government‘s Offshore Renewable Energy Bill to create a new regulatory regime that will enable firms to construct offshore wind generation has passed its first reading in Parliament, Energy Minister Simeon Brown says.“New Zealand currently does not have a regulatory regime for offshore renewable energy as the previous government failed ...
A separate passport, citizenship and membership of the United Nations are only available to fully independent nations, Winston Peters' office says. ...
By Emma Andrews, Henare te Ua Māori Journalism Intern at RNZ News The New Zealand fuel company Z Energy is swapping out street names for “correct” kupu on service stops around the country, with the help of local hapū. When Z took over 226 fuel sites from Shell in 2010, ...
Summer reissue: Was it a false measurement, a full-blown conspiracy or just some mild incompetence? Mad Chapman uncovers the truth of Maddi Wesche’s final throw. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Old, Associate Professor, Biology, Zoology, Animal Science, Western Sydney University Dmitry Chulov, Shutterstock At this time of year, images of reindeer are everywhere. I’ve had a soft spot for reindeer ever since I was a little girl. Doesn’t everyone? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grozdana Manalo, Career Services Manager (Education), University of Sydney hedgehog94/Shutterstock Getting casual work over summer, or a part-time job that you might continue once your tertiary course starts, can be a great way to get workplace experience and earn some extra ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ty Ferguson, Research associate in exercise, nutrition and activity, University of South Australia Peera_Stockfoto/Shutterstock It’s never been easier to stay connected to work. Even when we’re on leave, our phones and laptops keep us tethered. Many of us promise ourselves we ...
The NZ Media Council upheld the complaint under principle four: comment and fact On 5 September 2024, The Spinoff published a brief article titled Made in Palestine, found in 1970s Hastings, which highlighted an upcoming art exhibition featuring photographs of vintage cosmetic products labelled “Made in Palestine.” The piece, described ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kasey Symons, Lecturer of Communication, Sports Media, Deakin University We are well and truly in cricket season. The Australian men’s cricket team is taking centre stage against India in the Border Gavaskar Trophy series while the Big Bash League is underway, as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Woods, Lecturer, Nursing, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University FTiare/Shutterstock Summer is here and for many that means going to the beach. You grab your swimmers, beach towel and sunscreen then maybe check the weather forecast. Did you think to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saman Khalesi, Senior Lecturer and Discipline Lead in Nutrition, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity Australia Dean Clarke/Shutterstock The holiday season can be a time of joy, celebration, and indulgence in delicious foods and meals. However, for many, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Late Night With The Devil. Maslow Entertainment Marketing is critical to the success of commercial films, and companies will often spend half as much again on top of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francisco Jose Testa, Lecturer in Earth Sciences (Mineralogy, Petrology & Geochemistry), University of Tasmania The Conversation As a kid, it was tough for me to grasp the massive time scale of Earth’s history. Now, with nearly two decades of experience as ...
Te Pāti Māori has had to adopt a new way of debating, operating and even thinking in Parliament in response to the Government’s “onslaught” against te ao Māori, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says.In an end-of-year interview with Newsroom, the Te Tai Hauauru MP reflected on how 2024 has differed from her ...
Opinion: The latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science report was announced earlier this month, yet it didn’t get the flurry of media attention and political hand-wringing that typically accompanies these announcements. This might be because it presented good news, or you could argue, no news; the results paint a ...
NewsroomBy Dr Lisa Darragh, Dr Raewyn Eden and Dr David Pomeroy
At long last, The Spinoff shells out for a nut ranking. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today.It recently came to The Spinoff’s attention ...
I was one of hundreds of people who lost my government job this week. Here’s exactly how it played out. The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a ...
Summer reissue: One anxiously attentive passenger pays attention to an in-flight safety video, and wonders ‘Why can’t I pick up my own phone?’ The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up ...
Summer reissue: Why do those Lange-Douglas years cast such a long shadow 40 years on? The Spinoff needs to double the number of paying members we have to continue telling these kinds of stories. Please read our open letter and sign up to be a member today. First published June ...
An unrelenting faith in “swift transition” has driven Tauranga Whai to their first Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa championship. At a boisterous Queen Elizabeth Youth Centre, the visiting Tokomanawa Queens were blown away 90-71 in the final.Whai led by 20 points at halftime as their urgent movement and unflinching faith in three-point shooting from anywhere ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 23 December appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The Government’s social housing agency has backed out of a billion-dollar infrastructure alliance that would have built about 6000 new homes in Auckland – less than 18 months after signing a five-year extension.Labour says the decision to rip up the contract and sell off existing state houses could lead to ...
ByKoroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor New Zealand’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) says impending bad weather for Port Vila is now the most significant post-quake hazard. A tropical low in the Coral Sea is expected to move into Vanuatu waters, bringing heavy rainfall. Authorities have issued warnings to people ...
Cosmic CatastropheThe year draws to a close.King Luxon has grown tired of the long eveningsListening to the dreary squabbling of his Triumvirate.He strolls up to the top floor of the PalaceTo consult with his Astronomer Royal.The Royal Telescope scans the skies,And King Luxon stares up into the heavensFrom the terrestrial ...
Spinoff editor Mad Chapman and books editor Claire Mabey debate Carl Shuker’s new novel about… an editor. Claire: Hello Mad, you just finished The Royal Free – overall impressions? Mad: Hi Claire, I literally just put the book down and I would have to say my immediate impression is ...
Christmas and its buildup are often lonely, hard and full of unreasonable expectations. Here’s how to make it to Jesus’s birthday and find the little bit of joy we all deserve. Have you found this year relentless? Has the latest Apple update “fucked up your life”? Have you lost two ...
Despite overwhelming public and corporate support, the government has stalled progress on a modern day slavery law. That puts us behind other countries – and makes Christmas a time of tragedy rather than joy, argues Shanti Mathias. Picture the scene on Christmas Day. Everyone replete with nice things to eat, ...
Asia Pacific Report “It looks like Hiroshima. It looks like Germany at the end of World War Two,” says an Israeli-American historian and professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University about the horrifying reality of Gaza. Professor Omer Bartov, has described Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza as an ...
The New Zealand government coalition is tweaking university regulations to curb what it says is an increasingly “risk-averse approach” to free speech. The proposed changes will set clear expectations on how universities should approach freedom of speech issues. Each university will then have to adopt a “freedom of speech statement” ...
Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone New York prosecutors have charged Luigi Mangione with “murder as an act of terrorism” in his alleged shooting of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month. This news comes out at the same time as ...
Pacific Media Watch The union for Australian journalists has welcomed the delivery by the federal government of more than $150 million to support the sustainability of public interest journalism over the next four years. Combined with the announcement of the revamped News Bargaining Initiative, this could result in up to ...
MONDAY“Merry Xmas, and praise the Lord,” said Sheriff Luxon, and smiled for the camera. There was a flash of smoke when the shutter pressed down on the magnesium powder. The sheriff had arranged for a photographer from the Dodge Gazette to attend a ceremony where he handed out food parcels to ...
It’s a little under two months since the White Ferns shocked the cricketing world, deservedly taking home the T20 World Cup. Since then the trophy has had a tour around the country, five of the squad have played in the WBBL in Australia while most others have returned to domestic ...
Another failure in court for the self described 'justice campaigner', better described as vexatious and hopeless.
So now on to the delayed appeal:
https://yournz.org/2019/06/11/nottingham-fails-in-court-again/
How much of our money has this guy wasted? Sick of seeing his spite filled name.
Reminds me of Labour refusing to rule out blocking KDC's deportation if it was ruled and them and the Greens hanging out at his mansion, in case he got in.
Politicians will do anything to get in.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: Trolls will do anything to get a false equivalence. Excellent diversion – however your reward will be that the next time I see you do that then you will get a ban. ]
The they-all-do-it defence.
I’m not sure Simon Bridges has a feel for politics at all.
What does he feel instead? As for Chris T, that remark above fully demonstrates his mean little mind, so remember how he is whenever he appears to be making some useful objective comment – it is just a front which he will soon resile from.
Proof please.
"There was good news for Kim Dotcom last night. David Cunliffe and Russel Norman said a Labour-Greens government might block Kim Dotcom from being extradicted to the US, should he lose his case (scheduled to start July 31).
"I've always said I didn’t support the extradition process," Mr Norman told 3News. "In a number of respects, I just don’t think it’s fair."
Mr Cunliffe offered more qualified support for the accused pirate, saying, telling the broadcaster, "Prima face, the current government’s operation against Mr Dotcom appears to have been outside the law in a number of respects."
https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/dotcom-sets-deadline-internet-party-self-destruct-ck-151704
In 3News' report, the Labour leader doesn't voice support for blocking extradition but later, when challenged on social media, 3News political editor Patrick Gower later said Mr Cunliffe said he was open to considering the option."
Good attempted diversion.
Extradition cases involve a judicially reviewable decision by a Minister. If Cunliffe had said that the Government were not open to considering the matter and would extradite him no matter what then that would have been perfect grounds for Dotcom to seek judicial review.
Holy false equivalence.
Me – "Reminds me of Labour refusing to rule out blocking KDC's deportation if it was ruled "
You "Proof please."
Me – Proof
You – "Good attempted diversion. "
Perhaps you should read a little law? Then you might be able to understand what MS wrote.
Incidentally I agree completely with Norman's position. That means that I also agree with several courts who also have said that the police approach to such things as the search warrants and many other matters was appalling.
If you want to relitigate Kim DotCom, then stick to posts on the subject or OpenMike.
Perhaps Micky wanted proof about Labour and the the Greens hanging out at KDC's mansion…?
MS You are talking about Dotcom not the Bish.
If Kim's been practising his kickpunching Ian LazyGalloway might bestir himself.
Reminds me of false equivalence and whataboutism but you’re right, National will deal with just about anybody to get back in power. They’ll throw out any convention, anything that stands in their way. They’ll fight dirtier than dirty, they’ll fight feral. The media will lap it up, of course.
Understood
And I am sure you will consistent with whataboutism the other way.
I’m fond of analogies.
'And I am sure you will consistent with whataboutism the other way.'
On a political blog in NZ ?……… are you drunk ?
One time political journalist turned tabloid shock-jock, Duncan Garner, must be under immense pressure from his bosses to bring in eyeballs and ears to the AM Show.
Here he takes an infantile and worryingly reckless position in aggressively demanding the PM tells him how she's going to vote in any cannabis referendum.
The PM of course quite correctly states that her position being made public would influence the vote, so she declined his advances.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/06/jacinda-ardern-duncan-garner-clash-over-cannabis-legalisation-stance.html
It's not possible for prices to go up indefinitely. We are at or near the top…first home buyers would be foolish to buy anything at this point.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018698951/fletcher-living-homes-in-central-christchurch-struggle-to-find-buyers
CEAC supports NZTA estimate on speed limits being too high on most roads,
We often drive along the entire ‘East Coast Provincial Highway 2’ and it’s network ‘city’ links carrying heavy truck freight to our Ports,
Napier & Gisborne and in all cases we observe far to high speeds all vehicles are attempting to navigate the narrow winding hilly roads that plague these regions with single lane roads.
There is an urgent need to reduce the road speeds on these “primary second class roading network roads” to a lower speed. We often see evidence of truck crashes being attributed to these “soft roads” are unable to allow high speed travel safely for those heavy laden unstable vehicles when approaching many sharp corners, roundabouts and intersections.
When these obstacles are present, high sided laden logging and soft sided trucks are frequently seen to overturn on those locations.
Nick Leggett of the “Road Transport Forum” (RTF) is correct that a lower truck speed will increase the cost of consumer goods as freight cost will rise and we will all face those price rises, and has our support for that assumption.
In 2001 we attended a regional HBRC Land transport Committee Forum in Napier’s Marine Parade “War memorial” and the guest speaker was the current 2001 spokesperson of the (RTF) “Road Transport forum” a past National MP Tony Freidlander who began to address the forum with a statement ‘QUOTE’ “we have to face the facts that trucks are ‘not welcome’ so we need to make trucks more acceptable to the community.”
I later contacted Tony Friedlander when he returned to his home, and we both discussed how to solve the problem then, and we basically agreed NZ regional roads were not designed for trucks, and a better way was to have a separate “dedicated four lane truck route” as are seen most places overseas.
Our roads are referred to by some roading engineers as “soft roads” due to the ‘unstable soft clay base’ with a low weight bearing capability for trucks, so now when high weight laden trucks that are freely entering our roads that are unable to navigate our narrow winding roads that are actually collapsing the soft pavement of our roads under the weight of the heavier 63 tonne trucks we have all over most soft roads” in NZ the road surfaces are becoming very ‘uneven in contour’ making then difficult to drive on.
We approached three roading engineers about this issue of our (now named) “soft roads” inability to carry the laden weight of many (HPMV) 63 tonne trucks today; – and they advised us that we need a series of concrete steel reinforced slabs under base placed under our truck routes now.
We then looked around where we could find these type of roads that were now seen around NZ, and we found only a few sections of the Napier Hastings section of Highway two along the ‘Mangatere straight’ between Clive and Whakatu and that section was constructed with a concrete under-base during the 1940’s second world war era when the US Troops were stationed here and offered to construct this section to assist the movement of heavy trucks to take sheep carcasses to the US forces during the “Pacific war” in 1942 to 1945, and another advised us that the US offered to build an entire heavy road in NZ during that time during the war offering the same US highway standards they use so we missed that opportunity didn’t’ we?
I lived in Canada and Florida during 1960s to 1990s and saw many truck roads there were being dig up and concrete slabs were placed beneath them, so this is the reality that we need to ‘fund truck routes’ as a ‘toll road system’ as the US and EU does to build proper truck roads.
Meanwhile we must now move forward to restore rail freight and passenger services in our regions again as our ‘prime mover of freight’ as we had before so we can cope with road transport safely.
For the medium term now NZTA is right, we need to reduce the speed as NZTA correctly estimated and then plan to design new truck routes with the upgrades to those roads to a 21st century standard using the US style road building and toll road systems.
You can't compare the concrete roads the US have had (since ca 1950) with the situation in NZ. During and after the post war boom, the US built roading infrastructure using thick concrete. This was enabled by their vast limestone resources which they quarried extensively and their burgeoning economy.
In NZ we built thin flexible pavements using greywacke aggregate basecourse with a sprayed bituminous surface. These roads were fit for purpose until the demise of rail (under Prebble) and the expansion of trucked freight.
In the late 1990s Opus Central Labs were researching concrete roads for NZ while looking fondly across the Tasman to Australia's new Pacific Highway – which was concrete. They also looked at cement treated basecouse. Neither technology could be justified. NZ could not afford concrete roads and we don't have limestone quarries in the right places (transport of aggregates is the killer). And the lean mix cement basecouses crack and fail.
So we stick with unbound bases, chipseal and asphalt. What we need is less trucks!
Well said.
In Christchurch there is a mile of concrete road. It runs from Papanui up Main North Road. It was laid certainly before 1950s and was intact for at least 70 years but the last I saw it, it had many star cracks ex earthquake, and each crack was filled with some sort of tar. Must have cost heaps to put down the original concrete road but it lasted for at least 70 years that I know of without much maintaining.
Cost effective? Very but the outlay must have been horrendous.
I recall marveling over that when driving over it. Concrete roads, it was alien to me.
Well we certainly can't outlay anything to last 70 years. We very possibly will have felt the Alpine Fault earthquake by then already overdue on its 300 year average, movement. Also who knows what we will be doing. It will be good to have roads to drive our horse and carts along, real goers will set up skateboard marathons along them etc.
So adequate stuff till we get rail to take over much of the produce, localise production and processing again, and cut out glossy magazine production which weigh too much, encourage dissatisfaction amongst the wealthy as they see new toys and lounge suites, also using far too much ink, requiring much processing, and no good for toilet paper. And the piles of glossy magazines that look hardly read that accumulate at op shops will no more have to be dumped at expense to the charity and forming slimy lumps in landfill.
Glossy magazines like a lot of that glossy life that the wealthy live is just extraneous stuff and the in-reading will become gardening books and those on philosophy and the art of communication and living fully and how to learn different languages and laugh together and learn each others’ arts and cooking styles – see its already happening. May it be so!
There will be a lot less to cart around in trucks then, and I predict that will happen within ten years.
And poetry! Bring back poetry.
Today's fare….
You liked my like
I like that you liked my like so I liked
your like of my like and you liked in reply
A like of my like of your like of my like.
I'm looking for a suitable icon WtB.
Haven't used this one before. 😮
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/e/ed/Carcharodons_Banner.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110218062759
I take back my like. Then what? If you turned that poetry into pottery I could throw it at you.
I was taking it easy on you. The second verse involves a dick pic – modern love…
“You liked my like
I like that you liked my like so I liked
your like of my like and you liked in reply
A like of my like of your like of my like.”
I like it
AF8 will change the lives of all NZ.
There will be significant power outages in both islands for around a month.
No power,no food,no fuel no jobs.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/90364889/magnitude82-the-disaster-scenario-on-new-zealands-most-dangerous-fault
Well thanks very much. Bang. That is what happened to messengers with bad news.
We all really do need to read this and keep it in mind. I'm thinking I'm in a wooden house, etc etc. I'll also send a copy to my son. They are busy and doing okay and tend to want everything to be like it was last century when we had hopes for a recognisable, realisable future. So ta, after all.
I think part of our communications set up could involve homing pigeons.
Here is some detail:
http://www.livingthecountrylife.com/animals/chickens-poultry/how-raise-homing-pigeons/
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/77451800/racing-pigeons-fly-the-coop-and-return-under-enthusiast-with-80-birds
https://www.nzpoultryassociationsinc.co.nz/south-island-contacts/
https://www.nzpoultryassociationsinc.co.nz/south-island-clubs-and-activities/clubs/
http://www.prnz.org.nz/news-and-articles/rota-virus
One must allow for interference from some people when it takes their fancy.
The seven decorated pigeons were found at the aviary shortly after the antics of the bird decorator reached news headlines. Prior to the discovery, other birds such as sparrows had been found with tinsel wrapped around them.
Many of the sparrows had died as the decorations stopped them from being able to eat or drink
Since 2015, SPCA's Wellington Centre have had 30 cases of birds arriving at the centre either dead, or with injuries so severe they have had to be euthanised. Decorations were removed from the pigeons by SPCA's veterinary team, and they each underwent a full vet examination. SPCA's inspectors will continue to investigate the case, and are calling on Kilbirnie residents to help.
The concrete roads in NZ were mainly built by the US when they were here in the 1940's using NZ as a base for their operations in the Pacific. Many of those roads would have been new or enlargements of existing roads to the hospitals and supply bases they established around NZ. I remember one such road in Mangaroa, by Upper Hutt where they had a large supply base. Another was by the Silverstream Hospital. They had a massive presence here during WW2.
I think you miss the point Hamish S.
Thanks for the detail cleangreen – you are well informed. And we better.
Thanks for that explanation. Now A.T. and I can finally put to rest the inevitable question 'why don't we have concrete roads like America' …which always comes up on our long and noisy road trips.
Mind you the roads on the US are now in a pretty deplorable state – as are their trains. You might recall a couple of weeks ago during "infrastructure week" when Nancy P and Adam S were "stood up" by the Orange Buffoon at the WH. They were there to discuss a $1T bipartisan Infrastructure package aimed at restoring the rapidly deteriorating National roading and rail. Of course Trump didn't really want to have any thing to do with anything that might actually improve things for average Americans, because he would rather have all the attention on himself, and went out to the Rose Garden to give a pre-arranged "impromptu talk" complete with fake outrage, pre-printed signs and script about how he was totally exonerated ,and how hard done by he was.
They also have the property of not being so damn hard to repair after major earthquakes.
Heavy concrete roads are a real pain when the ground shifts under them. While the roads from something like the large set of Kaikoura earthquakes might take a year or so to reform and repair deformed tarseal roads, it gets to be total pain with a rigid concrete road that fractures.
In NZ this is particularly noticeable with the US roads that were built here. This around Wellington and the Hutt in the earthquake zone look wrecked at the concrete layer compared to the ones in Auckland. Auckland is (for NZ) relatively earthquake free.
Personally I think that the US roads are going to get wasted when they get another New Madrid cycle of earthquakes
Even if an earthquake doesn't get 'em, if the ground underneath shifts just a little bit so you get a little bit of mismatch between the slabs – it's almost as bad as water torture. Schenectady NY to Scranton PA was several continuous hours of gadunk .. gadunk .. gadunk .. gadunk .. gadunk ..
Woulda thought they'd be somehow pegged together across the joints to prevent that mismatch. Maybe they were originally pegged with rebar but the winter salt rusted it out.
Hey was polled by Curia last night about preferred parties, leaders etc. some interesting things about it. They contacted us by l line. They didn’t ask for much in the way of demographic info. Initially spoke to husband who hates surveys and handed over to me.
didnt ask age, ethnicity asked about children under 18 years living at home. No income question. Then some rather odd IQ type questions.
the most interesting thing to me though was the leadership questions. They asked about jacinda, Winston, James Shaw, kelvin d,bridges and Paula b. No Judith………….is this an attempt by Curia to tip the leadership towards Bennett?
Jude doesn't need no stinkin' polls, the ground swell support will be enough to sweep her into power!
Jude is coming!!
Is that Jude or Judas?
After June comes July, not Jude 😉
Jude comes whenever she likes…wait what?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/06/judith-collins-tempering-talk-of-national-leadership-coup.html
Gee she comes across well though, intelligent, personable, charismatic…a real leader, the kind of leader the National party, nay NZ, deserves
I'll bet she wouldn't do a deal with Brian Tamaki
But will she deal with Hannah? Brian might ride the Harley but Hannah is wearing the trousers, I reckon.
Not much of a contest, I mean in all seriousness here are Judes credentials:
‘In 1977 and 1978 she studied at the University of Canterbury. In 1979 she switched to the University of Auckland, and obtained first an LLB and then a LLM (Hons) and later a Master of Taxation Studies (MTaxS)’
‘She worked as a solicitor for four different firms between 1981 and 1990, and then became principal of her own firm, Judith Collins & Associates (1990–2000). In the last two years before election to Parliament, she worked as special counsel for Minter Ellison Rudd Watts (2000–2002)’
‘She was active in legal associations, and was President of the Auckland District Law Society (1998–1999) and Vice-President of the New Zealand Law Society (1999–2000). She served as chairperson of the Casino Control Authority (1999–2002) and was a director of Housing New Zealand Limited (1999–2001)’
She also married a Samoan-Chinese policeman would certainly would have put the cat amongst the pigeons given her conservative background, so while I'm sure Hannah is a very competent women in her own right I don't think it'd be a fair fight…just ask Phil Twyford 🙂
Is that a “Yes”?
This is what Jude'll do to Hannah (metaphorically speaking of course)
https://giphy.com/gifs/fighting-fight-11jokITGudhl8Q
To use your own word, nay.
Hey Jude don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart. Then you can start to make it better.
Hmmmm. I don't believe that Jude will make anything better. She is just National-production, Model A-, heartless but will appropriate ours if it suits her.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/113359223/nzs-prisons-a-colonial-eyesore-that-should-be-abolished-expert-says
'He is calling for a prison-free society – which he said should be achievable given prisons did not exist in Aotearoa before Europeans arrived.'
Yeah nah
'In the society he envisaged, no-one would go to prison for non-violent offences, drugs would be legalized and anyone currently incarcerated for drug offences would be released.'
Can't see many people agreeing to letting fraudsters out, I actually agree with decriminalizing any and all drugs for personal use and I'd only agree to releasing them IF the only offence was drug possession for personal use
However (and I know its not scientific) but there does seem to be a massive correlation between drug use and mental illness in prison so they'd need somewhere secure to be sent to for treatment
'In extreme cases where offenders needed to be incarcerated for public safety, this would be done on an individual basis and would not rely on the existence of public prisons.'
I'd agree to this, stick them politicians and lawyers homes
https://tenor.com/view/dodgeball-kidding-just-gif-4407682
Yeah the correlation between drug use and mental illness is a display of self-medication. With the proper care, at least some of that might be curtailed.
National and Labour have both dropped the ball on this, NZ needs more money pumped into mental health and drug addiction facilities to treat these people
I mean what do you do with prisoners that swallow razor blades, stand in the cells and hit their heads against the wall, self harm just because they don't want to be moved…answers on a post card please
We are seeing more funding directed to mental health and addictions so hopefully it's not all sopped up by middle men.
Person's suffering deep trauma require love and care, not cages.
Here are some other people we should love and care for, and they would return all we gave them, with interest.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/391720/junior-doctors-strikes-district-health-boards-pay-more-than-19m-for-cover
Something else we should do is to supervise all placements of managers, Chief Executives to ensure that they have training in the sector suitable for the job. No more generic managers, everyone who is a NZ resident being able to do further training in appropriate leadership and management, and keep the neo lib ec. to a minimum and introduce some keynesian methods into management training.
Kick out the old economists who are stuck in the doorway from imbibing too much neo lib propaganda. Push them out, they can go away and get a fat-cat job where they still soak in RW bullshit.
We are a tiny country once punching above our weight, but now being badly coached. Seeing sport is the only thing that seems to have any traction in this country besides getting money, lets apply the same interest that we give to appropriate sports managers and coaches, with less bullying and no sexual harassment, and do a good job of building up our citizens to fighting fit! And regard every one of our citizens as a contender for the Gutsy NZr Most Improved annual awards. And look after our medical carers who are essential for any good, upward moving team.
I mean what do you do with prisoners that swallow razor blades, stand in the cells and hit their heads against the wall, ….
"I spoke of my concern that there were young men in Waikeria…who were not in the right place. "Disturbed people should not be incarcerated there, I said. With the help of government, grants, courts 'should be able to place people in supportive institutions.' Alternatives to imprisonment were a critical need."
(Marilyn Waring "The Political Years" Chapter '1980' p. 209)
Reading this book is producing much of my recent 'disillusionment' ,as almost every page is like going through a timewarp. There are seemingly no new issues, just variations on describing them and yet another 'We'll get it right this time!' fanfare announcement for change.
SSDD
Its not that hard to understand is it, prisons should be for criminals and hospitals should be for the mentally ill and never the twain should meet
But what if the prisoner knew that what they were doing was a crime, and just happen to have a bit of mental illness?
homourous aside: I read recently that in 1979 the Swedes stopped regarding homosexuality as a mental illness after loads of people called in sick because they were feeling too gay to work that day…
After a couple of days you generally need to produce a doctors note, I'm not sure what you'd produce to prove you're gay…
So good. So many of early TV's gay characters were widely loved, shame about the laws/haters.
Remember these guys
Wouldn't be allowed to make programs like those these days…
There is a strong and underacknowledged correlation between brain injury, concussion in particular, and imprisonment. 50 to 80 % of people in criminal justice have a traumatic brain injury.
https://www.ted.com/talks/kim_gorgens_the_surprising_connection_between_brain_injuries_and_crime?language=en
Yeah very true.
I can't really decide whether my opposition to puckish's view about mental hospitals vs prisons is because it doesn't reflect that people with mental issues are also dicks who commit crimes, while some criminals actually aren't all that bad but they have mental issues that mean they probably wouldn't have committed their crimes (e.g. TBI affecting impulse control, or FAS, or ADHD, or just general social alienation from lifelong learning disabilities). And some might be sane criminals who can be shuttled to prison, while others can be people who are totally in the domain of the mental health system.
Or is my opposition because prisons should be more rehabilitative than punitive, so should actually be able to provide decent mental health care for all but the most afflicted patient-prisoners?
Or a mixture of both?
Then there was a fascinating interview Kim Hill did with QC Mike Bungay when he retired; for it's time it was a masterpiece. At one point Mike said that in his long experience defending all sorts of people, about 85% of them were otherwise ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances they were either too weak or too damaged to control. The other 15% were truly bad people and he had no compunction about locking them up for as long as possible.
In answer to your question 'a mixture of both', that feels to me a decent starting point. Our prisons are necessary, but they are way overused. Instead of a prison muster of 10,000 or so, it should be 1,500.
We know there are numerous factors correlated with crime, inequality, colonisation, an uncontrolled temperament, brain injury and leaded petrol are just some that come to mind. This strongly suggests there is no one silver bullet and any strategies need to be multi-generational, and adaptable over time.
The good news is that globally serious crime rates are trending downwards from a peak in the 60's. The not so good news is that NZ crime rates remain stubbornly high for reasons that are not entirely obvious.
…and never the twain should meet
Back in 1980 there was a late night knock on the door of the grotty flat I shared with a friend in an Unnamed Central North Island city. On the door step, looking furtive and worse for wear, were a couple of refugees from Nambassa.
Long haired and bedraggled and glassy of eye they scuttled in and proceeded to impart to my flatmate a tale of woe involving drugs, a police checkpoint, their Cheech and Chongish effort to conceal said drugs in the engine compartment of their vehicle. As expected, accelerating away from the checkpoint the bundle under the bonnet fell into the moving parts of the engine with noisy and terminal results. The pair had been caught…if it can be described as such as neither had clearly had a rational thought in years…but one reacted with placid resignation (he was tired, man, and just wanted a sleep.)…while the other got angry and began ranting about police brutality etc. One was sent to Waikeria and the other to Tokanui.
The one they sent to Tok was released very shortly afterwards and allowed to roam free, while the other sent to Waikeria had a sleep and a feed and was feeling much better by the next day. Brain was functioning enough that when he was waiting in an interview room to speak with a lawyer he saw security was pretty much non existent and simply strolled out. Like iron filings to magnets the two met up along the road, scored, partied and ended up on said doorstep.
Nice enough chappies if scintillating conversation wasn't a priority, and although I'm 199% sure cannabis was the most harmless of their recreational chemicals of choice and availability, I guess they could be described as 'mostly harmless' and a danger only to themselves. They weren't bad, nor mad….at the most a little sad.
But that was in the days before some seriously strong cannabis and before kitchen sink chemists experimented on real human brains. The days before the widespread use of prescription pharmaceuticals and the huge associated profits.
By the mid eighties we were beginning to see more of the 'mad or bad or both' and fewer of the 'sad' at the rehab centre I was working in. It was hard to know if the disordered thinking and behaviour were due to the drugs and might wane when weaned off them, or the chemical abuse was to mask an existing psychiatric condition.
It might just be that there will have to be a meeting of the twain…combination prisons and mental health units…with clients being directed one way or another after substance withdrawal has cleared the pitch.
I wouldn't mind seeing something like this being built:
But I doubt any government would have the courage to do so, its not exactly a vote winner but it'd be the right thing to do
Depends on whether they were like that when they got there, or whether it's a reaction to their environment.
The massive correlation is not between drug use and mental illness in prison Puckish Rogue. It is that the people who go to prison are already addicted to drugs and or alcohol, which is due to their being mentally unwell, which is due to the crappy life they have had, which is due to the seemingly unbreakable cycle of trauma, neglect, abuse, and so on, among the sector of our society who are dis-privelleged.
(I must be bored…)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/113363745/nz-military-20b-shopping-list-planes-boats-soldiers-satellites-and-drones
'The plan also signals moves to bolster the army with a total of 6000 infantry men and women, by 2035. That signalled the defence force's expectation it would be required to respond to multiple incidents at once – more likely as a result of climate change, than any other reason.'
Good but I wonder how the teachers will react…
I want to see the army moving on climate change. Invites for the community to join in as well. Earthworks like water capture, planting riparian and shore habitats, clean-ups etc. The NZ public is not wary of the armed forces (aren't we lucky) and might take heart in seeing such dedication from our government/forces.
The military spend up equation is simple. Increased risks (climate change, super power confrontations) = increased military spending.
https://keithwoodford.wordpress.com
Very interesting read on why the government's policy settings around foreign buyers buying farms for planted
Short term gain for long term pain.
Thank you Auckland Zoo for joining the growing number of entities examining their waste streams. Not only is this directly beneficial to our environment, but it encourages other businesses by illuminating an alternative.
Recyclable steel drinking cups under the label 'Again Again'.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/113386075/single-use-cups-a-thing-of-the-past-at-auckland-zoo
Yesterday in Western Springs Park the lions in the Zoo next door had a bit of a roaring competition, all the chooks following me suddenly shut up dead still and silent – for a few seconds anyway.
They will have to drink the water.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018699006/only-70-percent-of-auckland-public-water-fountains-drinkable-clean
Poission If you get really good, you may be able to turn it into wine at will. Handy that. Or failing that, we will have to turn to small beer as they had in England for years. Perhaps now we are going back to the future, we need to introduce this brew again which may give us some vim and perhaps fermenting would kill off many of the bugs, but what could we do to get rid of heavy metal traces etc.?
Yeah I questioned a Watercare guy testing a reservoir out West.
"Would you drink Auckland water?"
"No".
Nah … he was probably taking the piss.
Now that is a fascinating image, you and the chooks, is it your charisma of were you leaving a Hansel and Gretel trail of wheat. Good enough for Reddit which seems to gather all the animal pics there ever have been.
It started with this HUGE rooster following me picking mushrooms off a field. It just followed me and the hens joined in. Slow day there I only saw a few other people so they were likely just cruising for food.
One morning very early I was there and it was all misted over. I rounded a corner and caught a guy red-handed with a knife and a duck. It was a large knife… Good morning says I, moving along quickly.
Simon never gives up but now seems a bit pathetic.
Wasn't it 3minutes 42 seconds after the time the Junior Staffer took down the petition?
So this is how modern censorship works. Start by threatening to ban a video, roll back from that when pointed out historically correct and/or truthful, go on to demotising, finally, make the algorithm move it down the search.
Fun times people – how about you just put up with being offended occasionally, rather than demand ideas you disagree with, get censored?
I find the centre left sickening in it's wimpiness and utter lack of spine, yes it offends me! But I don't want to censor it.
Oh the video, Pocahontas from Biographics.
After that lot in the House I almost feel sorry for Bridges. Not his party. If that's the best the abject lot can up with they deserve what they get.
….but Judith's floral technicolor dreamcoat is amazing.
Bridges tried really hard, and looked more and more desperate when each question about timing was answered fully. Nice to know that the Government timing was accurate and timely. Paula looked more and more beaten and neither looked in the least triumphant.
To Robertson:
https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=207106
To Jacinda:
https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=207110
Bizarre stuff, so National are whining about being accused of unauthorised access of the site on the Weds & by Thurs they admit responsibility? It's hard to know what Bridges beef is. He even used the words "unauthorised access" in his question, does he not understand what those words mean? You would think he would shut up about it. #keepsimon
Bridges seems most upset that someone mentioned "hacking" when the GCSB clearly said later that it was "unauthorised access", and that people should apologise for calling him a hacker even though they didn't.
What a dummy Bridges is. Unauthorised access it certainly was!
Jesus Christ how bad can Bridges get. That's just an embarrassment.
Ardern ate him alive, Peters passed her the salt and pepper.
Ikr, what a crack up 🙂
Even funnier, the public don't give a flying fork about simons 'leaks' and yet he still thinks it's a big deal.
It's hilarious.
Thanks for the links Ian 🙂
I don't understand why they keep raising the issue when it just gives the government an opportunity to highlight their (National's) incredible lack of integrity. It's like he's getting up and saying to Ardern "Please remind everyone about that time I carried out a data breach of a government agency, and when will the government apologise for suggesting I shouldn't have done it?"
Exactly. Despite all the sophistry from National, most people know damn well that if they treated their own employer's confidential information in the same manner, they'd out the door so fast they wouldn't bounce until next Monday.
Someone might even name a planet after him
It must irk the former prosecutor to be ‘accused’ of hacking. It seems he’d rather be ‘found guilty’ of the lesser charges of “unauthorised access” of a government computer system and publically releasing embargoed material. I didn’t know Simon had principles.
Ianmac @ 13.2 . Jacinda makes mince meat of Simon. He looks ridiculous.
#lets keep Simon
#let's d’oh this
# let's d'oh this
Simon's effort in Parliament was pathetic.
It's like fizzle, phut, phut….is that it?
It sounds like a sporting contest. What did the coach think he was doing. An own goal, yet another in the long line of mistakes and fouls. The fans are getting restless etc . It is the people we elected to run the country plus the Opposition who are supposed to ensure we are being governed to a high standard.
I'd turf anyone out on their ass who kept repeating the same question after it had been answered. Wasting the time of the entire government to pander to the ego of this belligerent fuckstick.
Judgement Simon?
I think that Bridges over the last few days has convinced himself that he was in a "Gotcha" time. He would imagine himself denouncing with clever stilletto questions, and then this sad Government and would collapse onto the floor of the Chamber, battered and defeated, and begging for mercy.
Then the reality hit and he and Paula grasped hands and realised that their Caucus was not amused or impressed and the Government showed nothing but an amused pity.
There is certainly quite the disconnect going on between where he thinks he stands, and where he's headed.
Problem for Pulla is that she is tied to Bridges and when he goes, she goes.
Yes Muttonbird. Paula sitting beside Simon today seemed to exude at first a cheering on of Simon but her body talk wilted as each question was answered succinctly. Oops! She quivered.
I think she can untie herself faster than Houdini.
Time to chuck the towel over the ropes Goodfellas, your guy's throwing air punches and his legs are going.
Perhaps he should wear a mouth guard when in the ring?
Bernie Sanders a study of his new approach and his background from Time.
His approach has changed from going straight to policy, to being involved in the personal struggles. He is listening to the stories.
https://time.com/longform/bernie-sanders-2020/
“From the very beginning, he was always concerned about policy. Always concerned about making a meaningful difference. He didn’t have time for the niceties,” Jane Sanders, the Senator’s wife and closest adviser, told me. “He has, over time, really become more—he’s still very issue oriented, but he’s placing focus on the people and the impact that those policies have.”
That new focus was evident this spring in a less familiar event format for Sanders: intimate, almost confessional town halls. A panel of three or four ordinary citizens would share stories of their hardships, and others in the audience would share their own tales, and Sanders would respond with a mix of awkward sympathy, synthesis of their situations and his stump speech.
In the theater of a Burlington, Iowa, school one afternoon, three panelists, all women, sat onstage with Sanders. The first, Carrie Duncan, spoke of her trouble getting health insurance: not having coverage when she worked in a school cafeteria in a nonunion job, getting coverage when she landed a union job in an ammunition plant and then losing it again because of rising costs. “The fat cats continue to grow richer by drinking from the big bowls of cream that us little cats get for them,” she said. “It’s time to make the fat cats meow!” A nurse practitioner named Teresa Krueger spoke of living with Type 1 diabetes and her work caring for patients with that condition, many of whom cannot afford insulin, which has surged in price over recent years.
Then came Pati French. “I’ve been married for 26 years and had three great kids,” she said. “We have had a good life. We have made lots of memories.” Then she told the story of her son. Trevor was into music and politics, and in 2016 he canvassed for Sanders. He also had a pill addiction. He struggled and then he got help and got sober and was seven months clean with his own job and apartment and was proud of himself. Then he felt a surge of anxiety, the old demons returning, and went to a clinic and got 140 pills and instructions to go see a counselor when a vacancy came up. But he didn’t get in before an accidental overdose killed him. “We have never been the same,” French said. Sanders, turning bright red and somber with emotion, reached out and gave her a few comforting pats.
The audience began to give their testimonies. A woman spoke of the dearth of mental health care resources and how she had lost two of her friends to suicide and seen others struggle to get help—“including myself, who I have almost lost many times.” A man who works at McDonald’s spoke of scraping by on nine bucks an hour. A man from the local steel plant spoke of jobs vanishing to India and the Czech Republic. And a woman who grew up on a family farm spoke of crop prices falling and bankruptcies climbing.
He may be watching our PM and her message very closely.
The 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, the junior United States Senator and former Congressman from Vermont, began with Sanders's formal announcement on February 19, 2019.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders_2020_presidential_campaign
In the UK Corbyn seems to stand strongly while emotions wash around him, and that staunchness itself provokes more emotion.
10/6/2019
In his speech before the interventions, the Labour leader said the party must unite to take on the “dangerously damaging policies” of the Tory leadership candidates, including tax cuts that will benefit the richest, attacks on abortion rights, and a “race-to-the-bottom no-deal Brexit”.
He said Labour was committed to working cross-party to stop no deal. “To break the Brexit deadlock, we need to go back to the people. Let the people decide the country’s future, either in a general election or through a public vote on any deal agreed by parliament,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/10/jeremy-corbyn-lambasted-by-labour-mps-in-worst-meeting-as-leader
The EU on the UK – UGH!
Brussels is tuning in to the Westminster drama of the Tory leadership race – with both amazement and exasperation.
“People in Brussels are fed up that the political class in the UK has gone a little bit crazy,” Jean-Claude Piris, a former head of the European council’s legal service said. British politicians seemed to have gone “on holiday”, since gaining the extension, he added.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/11/eu-view-of-tory-leadership-candidates-deeply-critical-say-sources
And just for a bit of a change:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/11/kim-jong-nam-half-brother-north-korea-leader-was-cia-informant
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/11/fraser-anning-candidate-given-queens-birthday-honour
A professor who advocates for sex with robots and ran as a candidate for Fraser Anning’s far-right micro-party at the May election, has been awarded a Queen’s birthday honour.
Adrian Cheok was made a member of the Order of Australia for “significant service to international education”. (Inter-alia perhaps.)
Kia ora The Am Show.
The subbies are put under a lot of pressure by the big corporations companies that's the way I see it
Good Phil and the Auckland Council for declaring climate change a emergency ka pai and Christchurch Nelson have declared climate change as a emergency.
simon shonky was pro carbon so don't go complaining about Phil making good choices on climate change in Auckland.
Duncan the only one waffling is you any thing positive about policy and publicity on climate change is awesome.
That's the way Amanda you stand firm on your opinion the grey hair is genetic Mark.
The Helicopter crash in New York would have scared a lot of people it was good of the Pilot to crash the Helicopter on top of a building and not in the crowded streets of New York there could have been heaps of people losted .
YES people we need to donate more blood and plasma please to help our people who need it.
Flying taxis is awesome I hope it all works out for them the testing in real life with passengers and testing in cities airspace.
Coscos landing in Aotearoa is cool the retailers have had it to sweet in Aotearoa for to long a bit more competition is long overdue for the grocery trade.
With the flying taxis Simon that is the reason Aotearoa has to embrace 5G technologies that is needed for all the data the self flying taxis and cars need for them to operate safer. Someone is holding back humanity advance in technology . We need to take the advance in technology to combat climate change.
Ka kite ano
Eco Maori thanks Therasa May enshrining in LAW commitments to a net zero carbon emissions by 2050 ka pai
Theresa May has sought to cement some legacy in the weeks before she steps down as prime minister by enshrining in law a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, making Britain the first major economy to do so.
The commitment, to be made in an amendment to the Climate Change Act laid in parliament on Wednesday, would make the UK the first member of the G7 group of industrialised nations to legislate for net zero emissions, Downing Street said ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/11/theresa-may-commits-to-net-zero-uk-carbon-emissions-by-2050
https://youtu.be/QAB6aXOfUmU
I agree we should not be concerned about the cost to mitigate climate change. Climate changes will cause heaps of damage and loss to the Papatuanuku/world so nitpicking about the cost of climate changes is irrelevant and just a DISTRACTION thrown up by oil barons and their PUPPETS.
Imagine if the Australian and UK governments declined to participate in the war in Iraq because the price of bombs was a bit high. Imagine if the US waited for the price of nuclear missiles to fall before participating in an arms race with Russia. Or imagine if we criticised people for spending more on their cars, clothes or food than was “necessary”.
'Big stick' energy bill: Coalition MP wants economy-wide power to break up big companies
The idea that we need to weigh the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions with the benefits of doing so is so widespread in Australia that it’s difficult to see how absurd – and uncommon – such an approach is. While economics textbooks suggest that we should solve all problems in such a manner, the simple fact is we solve almost no problems that way. Take cars for example.
Cars are a very expensive way to move around a city. The private costs of buying, fuelling and maintaining a car are relatively high, and then there are the social costs. Without massive public investment in roads, tunnels and bridges, cars are virtually worthless. And then there are the costs of noise pollution, air pollution and congestion that car drivers impose on other citizens Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/11/its-cheap-to-tackle-climate-change-but-that-isnt-the-reason-to-do-it
Kia ora Newshub.
It a shame all the tamariki being taken from there mother and whanau.
Condolences to the boy who was run over by a truck in Auckland today.
If you look at that man who killed Nicole you can see he is emotion less phyco Paddy I won't say anymore.
UBER air flying electric power taxis is cool I say if technology was not held back by the ruling class this would have happened years ago.
Eco Maori will believe that Kim's brother was caught in the spiders web reference Ambush in the night Bob Marley.
Its very cool Mel and his 50 + brass band he is turning 100 congressional Mel .
Ka kite ano.
Kia ora te ao Maori news.
Teuku waka Marae it's sad to see the police involved and putting the story on Facebook I'm not sure whom is correct but putting people down on Facebook is not on.
I have stated that sips just gave them selves a Maori name but forgot the kauppa Maori that system needs to learn to love and respect Maori tangata it is good that the government has given $80 million the help Whanau Ora with all the tamariki in bad care it is well needed after the underfunding that national gave for the under privileged child services this is there MESS our new Government has to clean up Pene I know how you feel with your mahi kia kaha.
Ka kite ano