Fisheries minister Semi Koroilavesau said the Pacific cannot protect its greatest resource through advocacy and action on its own.
"As stewards of the Ocean, our task is to lead, to be a beacon of Blue leadership that inspires the world to turn away from the model of development that harms our ocean and threatens to strip off our life given resources," he said.
Once the government breaks the supermarket duopoly & New Zealand Food & Grocery Council is successful in gaining better conditions for its members. How will we spend the $1/week that we are told is being gouged by the industry. FFS $1/week is going to make any difference to everyone’s financial position. It’s about time even blind govt supporters started to expect REAL action and not some pathetic side issue in distraction.
I expect it is a rough (very) calculation based on the Consumer statement that supermarkets are making excess profits of 1 million per day….there are approx 1.85 million households in NZ.
I am very skeptical of the numbers I have seen on this. Here in Brisbane we do 98% of our grocery shopping at ALDIs. Our average weekly spend to fill a trolley for two of us is $120pw. This is after a recent round of price rises.
Im not sure how they calculated the 'excess' profit, but 120 a week for 2 is slightly less than we spend…maybe by around the exchange rate.
It is probable however food inflation has some way to go given that the inputs to production have yet to work their way through….a lot of the stuff we are eating now will have been contracted some time ago and those contracts will be being reviewed as the new growing season approaches.
Yes they do…and apparently the basket of goods works out cheaper here…that is of course a comparison involving Countdown, the result may be even more favourable if compared to Pak n Save, or worse if compared to New World…..and of course we dont have Aldi.
Reds 120 AUD a week is pretty much our 140 NZD that we spend
Yes …I recall a few years ago Australia had very expensive bananas ($30 kg?) as to protect banana growers in Queensland they dont import and there was crop damage….an issue that will impact more and more markets worldwide as weather patterns become more erratic.
The peak of that coincided with a time when we had lots of Aussies in Queenstown and the local supermarkets did a loss leader on bananas, like a couple of dollars kg. Resulted in some seriously spun out Aussies
Section 3.54: If the average ROACE was 5.5% (our central estimate of WACC), the major grocery retailers’ profits would reduce by approximately $430m per year.101
Footnote 101: If the major grocery retailers’ average ROACE was 6.6% (our higher WACC estimate), their profits would reduce by approximately $365m per year.
Lots of technical stuff on methodology and various approaches to make realistic comparisons, some of which were challenged, of course. However, the take-home message is quite clear. NB this is excess profit, i.e. above and beyond what might be considered ‘reasonable’.
600 odd pages is why I dont know how they arrived at their million a day…..I dont dispute it, indeed it is probably erring on the side of caution and in any case is subjective….like most our concern is the ability to meet the cost and we are fortunate we no longer have to feed a horde of teenagers…my sympathies for those who do is great and solutions few.
‘kay, I’d hoped you could help – it will take me way too long to get my little head around it. From the little I can gather they tried their best to come up with the best-possible and most realistic estimates of excessive profit by making comparisons within NZ and with overseas.
Of course, everything is subjective, but that’s a weird benchmark and yardstick to use in debates like this!?
Life has become a lot more expensive for me too recently and I don’t expect it to level off any time soon. The supermarket profiteering is merely a drop in the ocean but it has been going on many years and unless something is done about it will continue to add to our living costs every day of the week.
Im guessing they took an industry wide margin (possibly international) and applied it to turnover and determined they were operating at a higher margin here….as always there are potential market peculiarities that may be claimed.
Yes the cost of living is becoming increasingly problematic, but as the saying goes the cure for high prices is high prices….eventually something breaks….thats no help of course while we live through it….for some us, again.
3.22 We have compared each of these [three] profitability measures against relevant benchmarks to assess the level of profitability and its persistence over time.
Funny that nobody at the moment seems to be talking much anymore about the housing crisis or the skyrocketing rents.
A lot of the supermarket market share has increased at restricting competition in building complexes such as malls across a broad range of goods.
A lot of ‘mum and dad’ stores had disappeared from shopping malls, she said.
“I used to think they left because of competition. I now realise they've left probably because the supermarket has declined their tenancy.”
Rich said restrictions in some leases had prohibited a range of retailing that went well beyond “core retail grocery”.
“Most New Zealanders would not think a supermarket is something that sells clothing, fashion, luggage, sports and fitness goods, appliances, shoes, computers, insurance, hairdressing services, banking, arts and crafts, or childcare services. But according to this lease, they do.”
The 6000-square-metre property has been sitting vacant for over a decade, with Foodstuffs purchasing the building from Tip Top for $8.25 million in 2009, for “strategic reasons”.
It is not clear whether Foodstuffs planned to develop on the site, but the purchase cramped further development of the neighbouring Countdown supermarket owned by rival company Progressive Enterprises.
"Funny that nobody at the moment seems to be talking much anymore about the housing crisis or the skyrocketing rent"
They are…and it has a much greater impact than even food or energy ….spend some time over at Interest.co and you will find that the economics of housing is the predominant topic of conversation….and for good reason, but it does get repetitive, you can only observe the obvious so many times before you begin to bore even yourself.
Yet the way it has been conveyed in the media and the govt has framed it is that this questionable excess profit will not flow down to the consumer, the suppliers are also after a portion of this. As my original comment the benefits to the consumer are at best nominal. Inflation has been mentioned to add $150/ week to family budgets. And the govt brings out this distraction. Get REAL🤫
Inflation goes up & down. The profiteering has been going on for years and is sucking about $400M out of our pockets each year, give or take. I’d like to this to change and improve and it is something that we/Government can influence and control, global inflation pressures we cannot. This is as REAL as it gets!
There are two of us. One vegetarian. I only eat chicken as the cheapest meat. We go to the open air market for veges (farmers market in NZ is an oxymoron as it’s essentially just artisanal items for the audi set). Our weekly shop is no less than $185. We usually have two of our frozen meals; soups, etc, to pad out the week. Its a false economy as have to buy more the following week to replace the frozen stuff used. It’s ridiculous.
Well we would have GST added to that. 15%, now allowing say 10% =$132 Plus a delivery fee of $20 fortnightly so $284 fortnightly + add wine and cat food to arrive at just over $320. (plus exchange) We do not garden anymore though we cook from scratch, freeze and make bulk meals and freeze bases.
When we stayed in Australia Aldi would save at least a third of our shop costs, and Warehouse Chemist was good for other health needs.
Apparently, according to our son, electricity insurance/Body corps have risen, and petrol has risen sharply.
Mine is $180-$200 p/week.
That includes feeding a growing teen, petfood and cleaning, etc. products as well as food.
Supplemented by $40-$50 at the local greengrocer (I don't like supermarket fruit/veggies – local is better price and better quality); and $20-30 at the bakery (we do like our fresh bread)
The supermarket shop does include some luxuries – could probably cut around $30-40 – or even more if we had to.
Buy mostly at Pak n Save – and reckon I save around $30 each trip, over New World/Countdown. As I buy house brands of most products, and stock up on specials when they have good deals — the sort of budgeting you can afford to do, if you have a reasonable income….
My average supermarket shop has increased by $20-$30 since January this year. And, I simply don't buy some products (not paying $4 for a tiny stalk of broccoli – I'll buy it frozen, instead; wait for cheese on special, rather than paying $20/kg, etc.). There are some really strangely uneven price increases, too: bizarrely, the price of organic chicken was the same as Tegel in my last shop.
Ours is about $300 for 2 including the $50 box of organic local vegetables, the organic retailers for most things, and a bit of New World for cleaning stuff and food and medication for the two 17 year old cats.
And that's with me working south on a big windfarm 1 week out of 2.
Supposedly $400m excess profits, supplies are we are told screwed so wat. Conservatively 1/3 of this going back leaves $270m and there are 5.5m pop in NZ equates to$50/person but that is sorting what the govt is using. Don’t worry it will go the same as the $0.30/l that fuel Coys are making over and above. I wonder when we can expect to see these cost savings?? Eh Prime Minister
Thanks:, Herodotus. So its profits you are saying are $1 per head per week.
My father was a grocer. On some items he had a 6% mark-up, like butter (buy for 1/10 1/2, sell for 2/-). Other goods went for much higher mark-up. That mark-up went towards the profit, and after costs for rent, maintenance, staff wages, lighting, heating, refrigeration, phone, cleaning, tax, spoilage, and theft were deducted, there was the profit.
Let's say 5% of the cost of a sale is pure profit after all deductions, (I have no idea of the actua real figure), then the customer pays x20 the profit and the $1 per week per head becomes, TO THE CUSTOMER, $20 per head per week.
These are all rough figures, but the essence of your claim that it's only a $1 per head per week refers only to the absolute profit and the actual figure is several times that, depending on the ratio of profit to retail price.
Looking through the responses above engendered by your post at #2, the comment by Incognito at 2.1.1.1.1.2 above referring to ROACE might sum up what I've been trying to argue.
Incognito refers to a return on average capital expenditure is 5.5%, very close to my 5% pluck out of the air!
So, say the extra $1 profit for the supermarket comes from a $19 sale, meaning the consumer is paying $19 on a purchase to achieve that ROACE.
[please stop using this site to drop random links with no commentary. You’ve done this enough times now for us to consider it spamming. We have an expectation that people will contribute to debate by using their own words (and those can be backed up with quotes and links). Here’s the test to see if you are spamming. You’re in premod. Next time I see you drop a link like this I will ban you. If you haven’t read this mod note it will tell me that you’re not here to engage. – weka]
Could you wipe all my posts and my name from this site please?
[Why should we? We keep a record, for future reference. People should be allowed to see what comes around and goes around here on TS. You should have thought about your actions before you started spamming the site here with your propaganda links – Incognito]
So this "doing nothing Government" has been "on song" after all. So we will have Workers Associations as well as Business Associations. Well done Labour. This was meant to attach to Sacha’s comment. We just have to get the legislation over the line now.
The term “soft power” has been bandied about recently. China trying to develop their relationships in the Pacific being local examples.
This article from The Guardian gives an explanation of how soft power, over a long period of time, can influence policy. Russian soft power influence in Africa being the example.
You an i both know joe that this war is as much about propaganda as it is about the battles on the ground therefore the messages coming back from the conflict to us are in the main designed to obfuscate the true situations in order to promote one narrative or another and mostly in our neck of the woods that narrative is essentially pro ukrainian in nature so " the russians are losing " the russians are running out of missiles and ammunition " the russians are deserting " etc etc etc
Ive commented on these factors numerous times and ar'nt about to repeat myself further seems to me you"d have to have been living under a rock not to have heard the one about them running out of ammo .
For those wanting an up to date daily analysis Alexander Mercouris is hard to pass up .
You may find Schindler's take enlightening. His politics are far from my own but he's an historian of note who knows his stuff.
For all their defects, which are legion, the Russian military understands the crushing power of gunnery. For centuries, artillery and lots of it, applied on a massive scale to pound the enemy into submission, has been their signature move. Stalin called such gunnery his “God of War,” yet Russian artillery acumen long predates the Bolsheviks.
Sorry to nit pick, also the Red God caused the German Army Centre to spectacularly collapse in 44 & cut off Army Group Nth.
Which also meant that Germans had to abandon Ukraine in the Sth which had a flow on effect with Germany's last remaining Axis Allies in Eastern Europe.
French TV crew at one of the Mariupol region's cemeteries.
Thread.
We visited one of the cemeteries in #Marioupol last week. We saw there thousands of recent graves, surmounted by a number. On this side of the cemetery the numbers went beyond 3000
On most tombs there is only a number written in felt-tip pen and which is already being erased. Who are 768? 739? 442? 834? How did these inhabitants of Mariupol die? Will they be identified? Where are their relatives? Did they survive?
.
Sometimes we can read a name and a first name like that of Janna Dozorets, number 1423, born in 1957 and died in Mariupol on April 14, 2022.
Jane Clare Jones on form 🧵 🧵 on why gender critical feminists have their own politics separate from the right, and calling GC women nazis or accusing them of allying with the right is a massive ignorance.
Sometimes she locks her account overnight. Because gender critical feminists get targeted and harassed for saying things like biological sex matters, and women have a right to their own politics.
That thread is 🔥🔥🔥. Phew! Good summary. A snippet:
7. Who am I protecting?????
The fact you ask this question is gratuitous evidence of your refusal to grant the existence and interests of female people.
I am protecting the rights of female people to:
a) Exist in law as a sex class
b) Organise politically as a sex class
c) Speak the analysis of our own oppression along the axis of sex
d) Have spaces and resources dedicated to our own needs and interests as a sex class
e) Not be redefined in law as a sexist projection and have our needs and interests subjugated to male interests
I am also protectiong:
– Gender non conforming children from being needlessly medicalised
– Same sex oriented people's right to define their sexual orientation
– Lesbian women's sexual boundaries
– Due democratic process and transparency from policy capture by a sex denialist ideology
– The coherence of human meaning from political tyranny
– The functioning of a public sphere in which people are free to express their own perceptions of reality
I think calling GC women Nazis or associating them with the right is another way of avoiding the debate and trying to shut us up. What the left don’t realize is that in misrepresenting us in this way, it fractures and alienates many women from left wing politics where we have experienced solidarity.
The failure of the left and politicians within Labour and Greens not to critique the new gender ideology and pause before accepting and embracing it, leaves me mistrustful of them.
the uncritical acceptance of something referred to as gender identity is utterly baffling to me.
the term was first used by NZder Dr John Money (psychologist). His famous case was with twin boys, one of whom had had his penis irreversibly damaged during a botched circumcism. His suggestion to the parents was to bring this unfortunate child up as a girl. He saw the twins and part of his “therapy” was to get them to enact sex acts together. Both brothers committed suicide as young adults.
Yes, 10 years ago nobody was saying that of course some women have penises. Now we have men jumping on the bandwagon to mansplain who and what we are.https://thecritic.co.uk/mansplaining-womanhood
One need not be particularly incisive to notice Trump did his best to overthrow a valid electoral result.
The Stuff editor that acted to conceal the fact should lose his job – news media are to get the truth out, not to cover up crap like the capital riot. The occupy freaks are part of the same trash – fifty years ago they'd've been done for treason, and a good thing too.
Best turn to CNN for the actual Jan 6 coverage; incisive is not the word springing to mind describing Stuff.
If by occupy freaks you mean the anti-vaxxers not the Occupy lot from 2014, well, I'd have preferred to have seen them shown the respect of any political interest at all. Being a moron isn't yet treasonous.
Any National Party supporters that have purchased National branded tee-shirts will need to return them for a refund if their leader gets his wish of banning gang patches.
Your comment is really uncalled for. To firstly call another political party a gang is not only childish but really shows an increasingly desperate attempt to discredit other parties in a democratic country (it still is, isn't it?). Secondly, to minimize that NZ has become a literally lawless country with gang warfare going down the path like in South America is just pathethic. But then again not a surprise given that the labor government gave millions to the Mongrel Mob for drug prevention treatment. Oh well, that helped…sarc
Secondly, to minimize that NZ has become a literally lawless country with gang warfare going down the path like in South America is just pathethic. But then again not a surprise given that the labor government gave millions to the Mongrel Mob for drug prevention treatment. Oh well, that helped…sarc
Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant laden with hyperbole and BS. The irony of your own desperate childish comment is obviously lost on you.
But thanks for bringing up that very successful investment in that Mongrel Mob-run drug rehab programme in Central Hawke’s Bay. I’d say it has exceeded expectations in a positive sense.
A Mongrel Mob-run drug rehab programme in Central Hawke’s Bay is not only getting men off meth, it is getting them off “the intergenerational treadmill”.
I think you need to ask every taxpayer for that – the polls right now do not show that wide support you espouse. Drugs and related crime is connected to gangs, always has. I don't believe that there are exceptions. And perhaps you need to talk to the families of those who are affected by these drive by shootings etc. and tell them that all of that is hyperbole. Ignorance is not bliss in that instance. And there is absolutely no excuse for it. no matter whose party, group etc. anybody belongs to.
I'd happily hold that bonfire of gang patches. Hell I'd invite everyone to Eden Park for it. Doesn't matter that it would make no difference to membership. The social contract has long broken with this government and Police and it will take a few theatrical moves to bring it back.
People get so worried about looking to Australia for models of policing about gangs. Both National and Labour are doing it already.
A reporter who has covered gang violence for 15 years is clear that this is the worst he has seen it. It's quite unprecedented in West Auckland since 2020.
Tough new laws to hit organised crime including bikies
Wednesday, 8 December 2021
The Criminal Law (Unlawful Consorting and Prohibited Insignia) Bill 2021 has passed through Parliament
New crime of consorting contrary to an unlawful consorting notice will attract a maximum five-year jail term
New offence of displaying insignia of an identified organisation in a public place will attract a maximum 12 month jail term and fines of up to $12,000 or $60,000 for corporations
New offence of consorting contrary to a dispersal notice will attract a maximum 12 month jail term and $12,000 fine
Police now have the power to target individuals involved in serious and organised crime and disrupt their activities by banning them from associating with one another and wearing their patches.
Police will also have improved powers to prohibit consorting between convicted child sex offenders to better protect the community from the risk of future offending.
Tough new consorting and insignia laws have passed through State Parliament, making Western Australia the toughest jurisdiction for offenders and criminal organisations like outlaw bikie gangs to operate or expand their criminal activities.
The robust, fair and efficient laws give WA Police unprecedented powers to disrupt and restrict serious and organised crime through the introduction of three key reforms:
the prevention of unlawful consorting between offenders;
the prohibition of displaying insignia of identified organisations in public; and
powers to disperse gang members who gather together in public places.
Under the new crackdown, WA Police can issue an unlawful consorting notice on an offender, which prohibits the association with other offenders named in the notice for three years. If the notice is breached on two or more occasions, the offender may be charged and sentenced to a maximum of five years imprisonment.
The legislation identifies 46 organisations from across Australia and prohibits the display of their insignia in a public place. An insignia removal notice scheme will enable WA Police to issue a notice requiring the removal or modification of insignia that is being displayed in a public place. WA Police will have the power to remove or modify the insignia for failure to comply.
Finally, a dispersal notice scheme will give WA Police the power to issue and enforce dispersal notices with the intention of disrupting and restricting consorting between members of identified organisations occurring in a public place. A dispersal notice will prohibit a person from socialising with persons named in the notice for a period of seven days, with a breach attracting a 12 month prison sentence and a fine of $12,000.
The proposed laws include explicit safeguards, including oversight from the Ombudsman, to ensure that the new police powers are used appropriately and marginalised people in the community are not unfairly penalised.
I searched on that but not a lot to report that isn't behind a paywall. There do seem to have been a dozen or so arrests and charges brought using the new legislation.
This kind of legislation should not be measured in terms of Court appearances. It is best considered a tool that works best as a deterrent – like nuclear weapons best never used. But as with Ukraine, you find out what happens when you don't have them.
The conspiracy theory that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, is what fuels his campaign to return to office.
If anyone can, Ivanka Trump, the ultimate insider in the Trump camp, may have the ability to kill this conspiracy off, or at least marginalise its supporters within the Republican Party hierarchy, pretty much ending Trump's chances of being selected as the Republican presidential candidate.
In my opinion Ivanka Trump's testimony has yet to have its full impact.
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There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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Good talk ? I really hope there is ACTION ! For far too long Our Earths Oceans, incl the Pacific, have been raped.
Best wishes for the Ocean Advocates
Once the government breaks the supermarket duopoly & New Zealand Food & Grocery Council is successful in gaining better conditions for its members. How will we spend the $1/week that we are told is being gouged by the industry. FFS $1/week is going to make any difference to everyone’s financial position. It’s about time even blind govt supporters started to expect REAL action and not some pathetic side issue in distraction.
I'd be keen to see the source and/or the reasoning behind the $1 per week claim.
I expect it is a rough (very) calculation based on the Consumer statement that supermarkets are making excess profits of 1 million per day….there are approx 1.85 million households in NZ.
https://campaigns.consumer.org.nz/supermarkets
I am very skeptical of the numbers I have seen on this. Here in Brisbane we do 98% of our grocery shopping at ALDIs. Our average weekly spend to fill a trolley for two of us is $120pw. This is after a recent round of price rises.
How does that compare to your experience in NZ?
Im not sure how they calculated the 'excess' profit, but 120 a week for 2 is slightly less than we spend…maybe by around the exchange rate.
It is probable however food inflation has some way to go given that the inputs to production have yet to work their way through….a lot of the stuff we are eating now will have been contracted some time ago and those contracts will be being reviewed as the new growing season approaches.
Interest nz has a comparative calculator with woolworths and countdown ,we come out slightly cheaper on same comparative baskets.
https://www.interest.co.nz/charts/prices/grocery-prices
i buy in bulk usually from the market gardeners for fruit and vege where most in season products are 99c kilo.eg spuds,onions,pumpkin apples.
Yes they do…and apparently the basket of goods works out cheaper here…that is of course a comparison involving Countdown, the result may be even more favourable if compared to Pak n Save, or worse if compared to New World…..and of course we dont have Aldi.
Reds 120 AUD a week is pretty much our 140 NZD that we spend
Aldi is more home brands (where you dont pay for the brands name)
Cold spell for Brisbane must limit seasonal goods, ( its warmer on the Chathams right now 16c vs Brisbane 13c)
Yes …I recall a few years ago Australia had very expensive bananas ($30 kg?) as to protect banana growers in Queensland they dont import and there was crop damage….an issue that will impact more and more markets worldwide as weather patterns become more erratic.
The peak of that coincided with a time when we had lots of Aussies in Queenstown and the local supermarkets did a loss leader on bananas, like a couple of dollars kg. Resulted in some seriously spun out Aussies
It’s well outside my area of expertise, but maybe not yours.
https://comcom.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/278403/Market-Study-into-the-retail-grocery-sector-Final-report-8-March-2022.pdf
Section 3.54: If the average ROACE was 5.5% (our central estimate of WACC), the major grocery retailers’ profits would reduce by approximately $430m per year.101
Footnote 101: If the major grocery retailers’ average ROACE was 6.6% (our higher WACC estimate), their profits would reduce by approximately $365m per year.
Lots of technical stuff on methodology and various approaches to make realistic comparisons, some of which were challenged, of course. However, the take-home message is quite clear. NB this is excess profit, i.e. above and beyond what might be considered ‘reasonable’.
600 odd pages is why I dont know how they arrived at their million a day…..I dont dispute it, indeed it is probably erring on the side of caution and in any case is subjective….like most our concern is the ability to meet the cost and we are fortunate we no longer have to feed a horde of teenagers…my sympathies for those who do is great and solutions few.
‘kay, I’d hoped you could help – it will take me way too long to get my little head around it. From the little I can gather they tried their best to come up with the best-possible and most realistic estimates of excessive profit by making comparisons within NZ and with overseas.
Of course, everything is subjective, but that’s a weird benchmark and yardstick to use in debates like this!?
Life has become a lot more expensive for me too recently and I don’t expect it to level off any time soon. The supermarket profiteering is merely a drop in the ocean but it has been going on many years and unless something is done about it will continue to add to our living costs every day of the week.
Im guessing they took an industry wide margin (possibly international) and applied it to turnover and determined they were operating at a higher margin here….as always there are potential market peculiarities that may be claimed.
Yes the cost of living is becoming increasingly problematic, but as the saying goes the cure for high prices is high prices….eventually something breaks….thats no help of course while we live through it….for some us, again.
Funny that nobody at the moment seems to be talking much anymore about the housing crisis or the skyrocketing rents.
A lot of the supermarket market share has increased at restricting competition in building complexes such as malls across a broad range of goods.
And predatory aquisition of adjacent property
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122542884/former-tip-top-building-in-wellington-to-be-demolished-after-sitting-derelict-for-more-than-a-decade
"Funny that nobody at the moment seems to be talking much anymore about the housing crisis or the skyrocketing rent"
They are…and it has a much greater impact than even food or energy ….spend some time over at Interest.co and you will find that the economics of housing is the predominant topic of conversation….and for good reason, but it does get repetitive, you can only observe the obvious so many times before you begin to bore even yourself.
Yes, you’re quite right. I should visit interest & co more often but time …
Yet the way it has been conveyed in the media and the govt has framed it is that this questionable excess profit will not flow down to the consumer, the suppliers are also after a portion of this. As my original comment the benefits to the consumer are at best nominal. Inflation has been mentioned to add $150/ week to family budgets. And the govt brings out this distraction. Get REAL🤫
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/463870/households-facing-150-a-week-extra-in-costs-as-inflation-and-interest-rates-rise-asb-bank
Inflation goes up & down. The profiteering has been going on for years and is sucking about $400M out of our pockets each year, give or take. I’d like to this to change and improve and it is something that we/Government can influence and control, global inflation pressures we cannot. This is as REAL as it gets!
There are two of us. One vegetarian. I only eat chicken as the cheapest meat. We go to the open air market for veges (farmers market in NZ is an oxymoron as it’s essentially just artisanal items for the audi set). Our weekly shop is no less than $185. We usually have two of our frozen meals; soups, etc, to pad out the week. Its a false economy as have to buy more the following week to replace the frozen stuff used. It’s ridiculous.
Well we would have GST added to that. 15%, now allowing say 10% =$132 Plus a delivery fee of $20 fortnightly so $284 fortnightly + add wine and cat food to arrive at just over $320. (plus exchange) We do not garden anymore though we cook from scratch, freeze and make bulk meals and freeze bases.
When we stayed in Australia Aldi would save at least a third of our shop costs, and Warehouse Chemist was good for other health needs.
Apparently, according to our son, electricity insurance/Body corps have risen, and petrol has risen sharply.
Mine is $180-$200 p/week.
That includes feeding a growing teen, petfood and cleaning, etc. products as well as food.
Supplemented by $40-$50 at the local greengrocer (I don't like supermarket fruit/veggies – local is better price and better quality); and $20-30 at the bakery (we do like our fresh bread)
The supermarket shop does include some luxuries – could probably cut around $30-40 – or even more if we had to.
Buy mostly at Pak n Save – and reckon I save around $30 each trip, over New World/Countdown. As I buy house brands of most products, and stock up on specials when they have good deals — the sort of budgeting you can afford to do, if you have a reasonable income….
My average supermarket shop has increased by $20-$30 since January this year. And, I simply don't buy some products (not paying $4 for a tiny stalk of broccoli – I'll buy it frozen, instead; wait for cheese on special, rather than paying $20/kg, etc.). There are some really strangely uneven price increases, too: bizarrely, the price of organic chicken was the same as Tegel in my last shop.
Ours is about $300 for 2 including the $50 box of organic local vegetables, the organic retailers for most things, and a bit of New World for cleaning stuff and food and medication for the two 17 year old cats.
And that's with me working south on a big windfarm 1 week out of 2.
Damned if I know where it goes.
Supposedly $400m excess profits, supplies are we are told screwed so wat. Conservatively 1/3 of this going back leaves $270m and there are 5.5m pop in NZ equates to$50/person but that is sorting what the govt is using. Don’t worry it will go the same as the $0.30/l that fuel Coys are making over and above. I wonder when we can expect to see these cost savings?? Eh Prime Minister
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/minister-expects-to-see-fuel-prices-drop-18c-32c-a-litre-because-of-new-petrol-company-rules/7BVIJ65L54YLD4J66AGTDRCPEQ/
And for the savings in Australia they don’t have GST on all their grocery items like we do.
Thanks:, Herodotus. So its profits you are saying are $1 per head per week.
My father was a grocer. On some items he had a 6% mark-up, like butter (buy for 1/10 1/2, sell for 2/-). Other goods went for much higher mark-up. That mark-up went towards the profit, and after costs for rent, maintenance, staff wages, lighting, heating, refrigeration, phone, cleaning, tax, spoilage, and theft were deducted, there was the profit.
Let's say 5% of the cost of a sale is pure profit after all deductions, (I have no idea of the actua real figure), then the customer pays x20 the profit and the $1 per week per head becomes, TO THE CUSTOMER, $20 per head per week.
These are all rough figures, but the essence of your claim that it's only a $1 per head per week refers only to the absolute profit and the actual figure is several times that, depending on the ratio of profit to retail price.
Looking through the responses above engendered by your post at #2, the comment by Incognito at 2.1.1.1.1.2 above referring to ROACE might sum up what I've been trying to argue.
Incognito refers to a return on average capital expenditure is 5.5%, very close to my 5% pluck out of the air!
So, say the extra $1 profit for the supermarket comes from a $19 sale, meaning the consumer is paying $19 on a purchase to achieve that ROACE.
Muriel Newman has this to say…
[deleted]
[please stop using this site to drop random links with no commentary. You’ve done this enough times now for us to consider it spamming. We have an expectation that people will contribute to debate by using their own words (and those can be backed up with quotes and links). Here’s the test to see if you are spamming. You’re in premod. Next time I see you drop a link like this I will ban you. If you haven’t read this mod note it will tell me that you’re not here to engage. – weka]
mod note. This was your third strike.
You’re a fine prime example why we need a Three Strikes Law in NZ![cheeky cheeky](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/tongue_smile.png?x42494)
Could you wipe all my posts and my name from this site please?
[Why should we? We keep a record, for future reference. People should be allowed to see what comes around and goes around here on TS. You should have thought about your actions before you started spamming the site here with your propaganda links – Incognito]
International support for Fair Pay Agreements here, as expected.
https://twitter.com/AotearoaSam/status/1535215066508775424
Ouch.
https://twitter.com/btlane/status/1535335524671823872
So this "doing nothing Government" has been "on song" after all. So we will have Workers Associations as well as Business Associations. Well done Labour. This was meant to attach to Sacha’s comment. We just have to get the legislation over the line now.
I believe the Nats will remove FPAs as soon as they get power again.
The term “soft power” has been bandied about recently. China trying to develop their relationships in the Pacific being local examples.
This article from The Guardian gives an explanation of how soft power, over a long period of time, can influence policy. Russian soft power influence in Africa being the example.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/the-congolese-student-fighting-with-pro-russia-separatists-in-ukraine?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Russia's indescriminate killing spree visualized.
https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/1534470176292454400
Especially remarkable since they've been " running out of ammunition " for so long joe !!!
Cite?
You an i both know joe that this war is as much about propaganda as it is about the battles on the ground therefore the messages coming back from the conflict to us are in the main designed to obfuscate the true situations in order to promote one narrative or another and mostly in our neck of the woods that narrative is essentially pro ukrainian in nature so " the russians are losing " the russians are running out of missiles and ammunition " the russians are deserting " etc etc etc
Ive commented on these factors numerous times and ar'nt about to repeat myself further seems to me you"d have to have been living under a rock not to have heard the one about them running out of ammo .
For those wanting an up to date daily analysis Alexander Mercouris is hard to pass up .
You've got nothing so you made shit up. Henceforth, anything you pull out of your arse can be assumed to be a fucking lie.
Goodo
/
The Ukrainian Military are almost out of Artillery Rds for it's WarPac Era Artillery pieces
Some of the Western Supplied 155m Artillery pieces have almost shot out their barrels & need replacing.
Thence the need for Western Supplied MLRS atm, to take the pressure off its Artillery Gun Units.
[Please check and correct your user name in the next comment, thanks]
Mod note
Sorry, didn't realise I managed to mangled my user name.?
Mind you it got below 15deg overnight here in Darwin's Rural Area, so I had a few other things on my mind this morning 😂.
All good. Mods don’t mind too much, generally, but when they’re busy they want to avoid dying by a thousand minor ‘cuts’.
Get the fire going.
You may find Schindler's take enlightening. His politics are far from my own but he's an historian of note who knows his stuff.
For all their defects, which are legion, the Russian military understands the crushing power of gunnery. For centuries, artillery and lots of it, applied on a massive scale to pound the enemy into submission, has been their signature move. Stalin called such gunnery his “God of War,” yet Russian artillery acumen long predates the Bolsheviks.
https://topsecretumbra.substack.com/p/military-history-repeats-in-ukraine
https://twitter.com/20committee
Actually it was called the Red God.
Sorry to nit pick, also the Red God caused the German Army Centre to spectacularly collapse in 44 & cut off Army Group Nth.
Which also meant that Germans had to abandon Ukraine in the Sth which had a flow on effect with Germany's last remaining Axis Allies in Eastern Europe.
I can see you struggle with concepts like dates and the passage of time
French TV crew at one of the Mariupol region's cemeteries.
Thread.
We visited one of the cemeteries in #Marioupol last week. We saw there thousands of recent graves, surmounted by a number. On this side of the cemetery the numbers went beyond 3000
https://twitter.com/alexdalsbaek/status/1534897804186894338
.
On most tombs there is only a number written in felt-tip pen and which is already being erased. Who are 768? 739? 442? 834? How did these inhabitants of Mariupol die? Will they be identified? Where are their relatives? Did they survive?
.
Sometimes we can read a name and a first name like that of Janna Dozorets, number 1423, born in 1957 and died in Mariupol on April 14, 2022.
https://threadreaderapp-com.translate.goog/thread/1534897804186894338.html?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Rumour/innuendo to get Mr can't see me pants going.
https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-bodyguards-collect-his-poop-every-time-travels-abroad-report-2022-6
If I was Putin I'd say that's good progress and lock it in.
Given Tsar Poot's latest rambles, I think Tsar Poot's has locked it in Eddie.
Jane Clare Jones on form 🧵 🧵 on why gender critical feminists have their own politics separate from the right, and calling GC women nazis or accusing them of allying with the right is a massive ignorance.
https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1535207092331728896
Only approved people can read that account. All others see is the rather critical response.
Sometimes she locks her account overnight. Because gender critical feminists get targeted and harassed for saying things like biological sex matters, and women have a right to their own politics.
Ok, but you've linked to something most people can't read.
I think she locked it after I was looking at it. Or maybe I didn't see she had locked it. It will probably be visible tomorrow.
Her account is unlocked now.
That thread is 🔥🔥🔥. Phew! Good summary. A snippet:
Which he should know, but why bother being educated about politics when one can run lazy slurs instead.
True, but @janeclarejones merciless dissections are a public service.
and a delight! and such a relief.
I think calling GC women Nazis or associating them with the right is another way of avoiding the debate and trying to shut us up. What the left don’t realize is that in misrepresenting us in this way, it fractures and alienates many women from left wing politics where we have experienced solidarity.
The failure of the left and politicians within Labour and Greens not to critique the new gender ideology and pause before accepting and embracing it, leaves me mistrustful of them.
the uncritical acceptance of something referred to as gender identity is utterly baffling to me.
the term was first used by NZder Dr John Money (psychologist). His famous case was with twin boys, one of whom had had his penis irreversibly damaged during a botched circumcism. His suggestion to the parents was to bring this unfortunate child up as a girl. He saw the twins and part of his “therapy” was to get them to enact sex acts together. Both brothers committed suicide as young adults.
Yes, 10 years ago nobody was saying that of course some women have penises. Now we have men jumping on the bandwagon to mansplain who and what we are.https://thecritic.co.uk/mansplaining-womanhood
very good article, captures the film perfectly
Insteresting perspective. I think Matt Walsh meets a different audiencc. I understand the film has gained lots of exposure.
I think the interview with the gender studies lecturer shows up how incoherant the arguements are.
We’re not fond of NZME at TS, and Bryan Gould does ask a reasonable question here.
https://bryangould.com/nzme-and-trump/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nzme-and-trump
I doubt that an answer will ever be given.
Alternatively Gould is not particularly incisive and doesn't have a useful following.
Still, Gould could always come here and join the rest of the old irrelevant wets.
One need not be particularly incisive to notice Trump did his best to overthrow a valid electoral result.
The Stuff editor that acted to conceal the fact should lose his job – news media are to get the truth out, not to cover up crap like the capital riot. The occupy freaks are part of the same trash – fifty years ago they'd've been done for treason, and a good thing too.
Best turn to CNN for the actual Jan 6 coverage; incisive is not the word springing to mind describing Stuff.
If by occupy freaks you mean the anti-vaxxers not the Occupy lot from 2014, well, I'd have preferred to have seen them shown the respect of any political interest at all. Being a moron isn't yet treasonous.
They were threatening to hang the PM – that's near enough for treason – moron is a plea in mitigation.
Any National Party supporters that have purchased National branded tee-shirts will need to return them for a refund if their leader gets his wish of banning gang patches.
Your comment is really uncalled for. To firstly call another political party a gang is not only childish but really shows an increasingly desperate attempt to discredit other parties in a democratic country (it still is, isn't it?). Secondly, to minimize that NZ has become a literally lawless country with gang warfare going down the path like in South America is just pathethic. But then again not a surprise given that the labor government gave millions to the Mongrel Mob for drug prevention treatment. Oh well, that helped…sarc
Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant laden with hyperbole and BS. The irony of your own desperate childish comment is obviously lost on you.
But thanks for bringing up that very successful investment in that Mongrel Mob-run drug rehab programme in Central Hawke’s Bay. I’d say it has exceeded expectations in a positive sense.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/128728109/inside-kahukura-the-mongrel-mobled-drug-rehabilitation-programme
So, it has been working very well, which is a reason to celebrate and do more of this kind!
I think you need to ask every taxpayer for that – the polls right now do not show that wide support you espouse. Drugs and related crime is connected to gangs, always has. I don't believe that there are exceptions. And perhaps you need to talk to the families of those who are affected by these drive by shootings etc. and tell them that all of that is hyperbole. Ignorance is not bliss in that instance. And there is absolutely no excuse for it. no matter whose party, group etc. anybody belongs to.
Well, I don’t live in South America and I don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese, so that could be a bit of a problem.
What should I be asking every taxpayer? I mean every single one?? And do I need to talk all the families as well???
Please stop your absurdism here, thanks; your comments won’t be taken seriously as they stand.
The overwhelming majority of people are sensible, socially connected and decent….that fact is always worth remembering
Yeah, man. Since 1936.
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I'd happily hold that bonfire of gang patches. Hell I'd invite everyone to Eden Park for it. Doesn't matter that it would make no difference to membership. The social contract has long broken with this government and Police and it will take a few theatrical moves to bring it back.
People get so worried about looking to Australia for models of policing about gangs. Both National and Labour are doing it already.
Politicians look to Australia for advice about how to curb gangs | Stuff.co.nz
A reporter who has covered gang violence for 15 years is clear that this is the worst he has seen it. It's quite unprecedented in West Auckland since 2020.
The Front Page: Inside New Zealand's fight against escalating gang violence – NZ Herald
A believable plank for National is that Labour as soft on crime and crime is out of control.
As in so many other policy areas, it's now going to be very hard to turn that perception around.
EDit: Bang on queue National unveils its anti-gang plan on tv tonight. He’s not a political moron.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300610874/we-need-action-against-gangs-right-now-chris-luxon-details-new-gang-plan
"I'd happily hold that bonfire of gang patches"
I on the other hand like it that I can easily identify undesirables out in public and can give them a wide berth.
To borrow one of Luxons overused tropes it's bumper sticker stuff to say he'll stop people from gathering, and I'm no lawyer.
I think I have pointed to the WA experience before. Wildly popular Labour State govt passed this legislation late last year:
Cheers yes. Probably deserves a post on itself now that National have put out fresh policy on it .
Has there been any measurable effect at WA, or is it too early?
I searched on that but not a lot to report that isn't behind a paywall. There do seem to have been a dozen or so arrests and charges brought using the new legislation.
This kind of legislation should not be measured in terms of Court appearances. It is best considered a tool that works best as a deterrent – like nuclear weapons best never used. But as with Ukraine, you find out what happens when you don't have them.
OMG what a way to go… Fact and Fiction combine – Augustus alive again
Defanging the viper
The conspiracy theory that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, is what fuels his campaign to return to office.
If anyone can, Ivanka Trump, the ultimate insider in the Trump camp, may have the ability to kill this conspiracy off, or at least marginalise its supporters within the Republican Party hierarchy, pretty much ending Trump's chances of being selected as the Republican presidential candidate.
In my opinion Ivanka Trump's testimony has yet to have its full impact.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/us-canada/300610972/long-since-checked-out-ivanka-trumps-january-6-testimony-exposes-family-strain