"Aotearoa New Zealand's legal aid system is collapsing," Law Society president Tiana Epati said. "Legal aid lawyers are unable to cope with demand, are too poorly paid to deal with the complex cases they have, so they quit the legal aid system." Epati said vulnerable people were missing out on justice because they couldn't get legal aid and couldn't afford lawyers.
The research comes after the most senior member of the judiciary, Chief Justice Dame Helen Winklemann, last month told RNZ the legal aid system was"broken and may collapse if nothing is done about it".
Released today, the research, which surveyed 3000 lawyers, was conducted by Colmar Brunton on behalf of the Law Society.
Hourly rates for legal aid work haven't changed since 2008 and are around half what a Crown Prosecutor or independent counsel receives.
Well, that's due to them being higher in the pecking order. When a QC gets around a thousand dollars per hour, approx six times the rate for legal aid lawyers, it reminds us how justice retains its ancient structure as a privilege system.
Nobody expects Labour to reform the system. That would be sacrilege. Consequently the minister in charge presents a just-so story:
The 2021 review was cancelled by Justice Minister Kris Faafoi as he said it would not add any new information.
He met with the Law Society last week to discuss the report and had asked officials to look for ways to reduce the legal aid administration.
"The remuneration for legal aid lawyers was identified as an issue in a review of legal aid settings in 2018, but significant additional funding is required to address this. That work would be subject to budget processes and in the context of other spending demands facing the government in relation to New Zealand's response to the Covid pandemic."
My teina (younger sibling of same sex) is a Crown Prosecutor. I think he’s paid pretty well (we never discuss it, of course, he’s a lawyer) although the funding for Crown Lawyers is capped too.
They weren’t able to get govt funding for a protective perspex screen in Court, after one of his pregnant junior lawyers was hit in the head by a mobile phone thrown at her by a furious female defendant upon conviction. Perhaps Covid has remedied that problem.
The problem is probably partly that , like some with some other professionals, lawyers in private practice in most areas of specialist expertise are just too well paid.
I would like to know if stats are kept for the 20,000 people who cannot get legal aid what they require legal aid for.
Sometimes a person just needs a lawyer to explain something to them so they can do a review. Some cases are complex which generate a lot of paper work. I do not know if lawyers would be interested in the small jobs, I have noticed that tradies do not like the small jobs.
I do not know if a legal advocate would be the way to go a bit like a benefit rights advocate.
Civil and criminal cases probably the criminal cases get the legal aid. Some ACC cases have a criminal element to them such as not investigating to the level required (Lake Alice) and an un expected death at a DHB. When it comes to statements to officials from clinicians these can be flawed.
I do not understand why a Crown Prosecutor is necessarily paid more per hour than a lawyer providing legal aid, and I do not understand why firms are employed to provide prosecution services but individual lawyers for defence legal services. A better structure would be to have two new separate services provided by the Courts department – a Crown Prosecution Service and a Public legal defence service. Both would contract with individual lawyers in special circumstances, and defendants would be free to employ private lawyers should they wish, but it would clarify the difficulties with pay. Equal treatment under the law . . .
We have a PDS. If someone's charged with an offence that has a maximum sentence of less than 10 years and applies for legal aid they're assigned a lawyer from the list of legal aid lawyers, including those working for the PDS which provides about a third of legal aid lawyers.
It appears that the current pds system largely works through independent contractors who are invited to take each case. There is a "duty Solicitor" system to ensure that there is someone to talk to a defendant – I do not know how that is arranged, it may involve some assistance from law firms giving your lawyers experience. I do not see why more money per hour is spent on prosecutions, where I understand specific firms have had contracts for years – they are able to balance which cases get more senior staff, but it is still on a contract system.
For the amount of money spent, it may be more efficient and provide a better balanced service if the pds and prosecution teams were formed from a core of employed staff working full time; only calling in other contractors when needs exceed core demand. Such teams could build expertise while still allowing some flexibility for specialisation and career development. It would ensure that there is a reasonable balance between the expertise advising both prosecution and defence. As it is we appear to be heading towards a lot of defendants not getting competent legal advice . . . while we argue about whether pay rates should have increased since 2008.
The system is broken for access to legal aid and the cost of legal advice; immediate restructuring is required.
Were a comparison to be done with doctors, specialists and surgeons would the health system be more cost effective than lawyers, solicitors and barristers when it comes to wages?
I think the PDS employs its lawyers. There'd be no point contracting independent legal aid lawyers because they just do the work themselves anyway, whether as solicitors employed by a law firm or self-employed barristers. Lawyers put their hat in the ring for the legal aid lottery which includes lawyers employed by PDS.
I was under the impression that they are paid essentially on a 'piece work' basis, which I regard as not the same as full or part time employment. That will certainly work for some, but if we are running out of people willing to work the pay rate may be wrong – or they are colluding to get the rate up. I suspect there is some need for that sort of employment in small centres, but the same may also be true for prosecution lawyers.
So since there will shortly be several thousand wilfully unvaccinated people (coming from all professions high and low), how will the state cope with their continued responsibility to them?
This is the consequence of the laws and regulations that the government has put in place.
New Zealand cannot afford a rapid further expansion of its underclass into a well-led and hyper-informed grey economy and grey society. Gangs are already rapidly accelerating under this government, and their periphery will expand massively.
They are still citizens, they are still New Zealanders.
And they are going to be massive state liabilities as their needs grow rapidly in health, accommodation, schooling, policing, welfare, access to travel and public spaces, employment.
Before you build a wall to keep those safe within, check who you're walling out.
Yes. The system for granting exemptions has been reviewed and a new official process put in place. The number who will be able to gain such an exemption is likely to be small, but is not zero, and may change as we get new variants of covid or more clinical experience of the effect of vaccines on particular conditions. I presume this is being included in the development of a vaccine passport; it is possible that having an exemption will get some treated with the same attitude as those that have chosen not to be vaccinated; and that would be regretable.
since there will shortly be several thousand wilfully unvaccinated people (coming from all professions high and low), how will the state cope with their continued responsibility to them?
They have been unvaccinated since day one of the pandemic. One would expect the State to show respect and kindness to anyone taking up the option of being unvaccinated. Of course some of them will be unable to be vaccinated or perhaps will be waiting for an alternative vaccine.
But if someone chooses to not get vaccinated without an authentic medically-approved contraindication, they don't get to infect as many people as possible. If that means they can't deal with hundreds of people a day, or just the same 30 kids all day, that's their choice.
Teachers not getting vaccinated to protect themselves, colleagues and kids is pathetic. Teachers, just like all other workers, are forced to obey myriad other 'mandates' in order to keep their jobs, e.g. turn up to work on time, prepare lessons adequately, assess kids, provide extra curriculars, wear appropriate clothes etc. etc. One of the most irritating 'mandates' I ever expereinced was having to wear a tie in a Whangarei High school. Wearing a bloody tie every day was far more annoying than having to present an arm every 6 months for a Covid jab. Repeat ad finitum for thousands of other jobs.
And I'm impressed at how many on the left – that once upon a time stood to defend working people – are now cheering on and often actively demanding that people should loose those jobs for their convictions.
Agreed, but who would have known in 2019 that a pandemic was about to change everyone's lives and precipitate a lot of hard decisions. As for the vast majority of teachers I've met most have their students' welfare at heart, not their personal idiosyncratic opinions or ideas. Potentially bringing a nasty virus into the classroom, or staffroom doesn't seem to be sensible whatever your convictions.
“Gangs are already rapidly accelerating under this government, and their periphery will expand massively.”
……………………………….
Why has there been no in-depth investigative tv journalism done into this problem?
And also into whether the much-fanfared reduction in the prison muster is allied to the reported increase in violent crime that has been reported as now a thing in NZ?
Wellington Central is reported by police stats as at December 2020 as having suffered a significant rise in violent & anti-social incidents & actual crimes of violence, which is likely to be the product of policies putting more & more people with gang affiliations & problem behaviours into inner city motels & hotels
It’s rather disconcerting that there seems little in the way of Ministers & party spokespeople coming up with concrete answers to these problems beyond the usual hit ’em hard “lawn order” noises from the loikes of Soimon Bridges.
Or, maybe, when it comes to gangs – that IS the answer? The only major downside to that is there won’t be a single Māori whanau in the country that hasn’t got whanau members in gangs & even if some of those whanau are lowlife thugs, they’re still whanau & whanaungatanga applies. If the state trashes their mana; they trash the mana of the whanau & hapu too.
Outlaw motorcycle gangs in WA will be banned from wearing their club patches in public and forced to cover gang tattoos under new laws combating outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCG) in the state.
Laws unveiled on Wednesday will enable WA Police to disrupt illegal activities and eliminate bikie networks across the state.
Under the legislation expected to pass Parliament by late next month, WA Police will have the power to arrest anyone displaying bikie logos in public.
Displaying insignia including patched vests, flags and tattoos will result in a 12 month jail term and fines of up to $12,000 for individuals and $60,000 for corporations.
Bikies with gang tattoos that cannot be hidden with clothing will either need to be removed or covered up with make-up.
…
The laws will also prevent the “unlawful consorting between offenders” and disperse gang members who gather together in public places.
It applies to 46 organisations specifically named in the legislation, from outlaw motorcycle gangs to smaller street gangs.
…
“These people aren’t a social club, they are criminals, the peddle misery, pain and harm on the Western Australian community and we are aiming to disrupt them,” Mr Papalia said.
“This law will be the first in a series of laws and measures aimed at making it very uncomfortable, impossible we hope to be a bikie in Western Australia.”
Certainly a weird calculation of public health harm when patched gangs who decade upon decade deal meth and intimidation get sustained growth and increasing acceptance by the state, but failing two injections in one month gets you excluded near-fully from society with no end in sight or current limit to it.
If the state is prepared to force that degree of sanction on the unvaccinated, they should be consistent and apply even greater sanction to gang members.
It's not sitting well with me ,this segregation road we are traveling .
It's not the kiwi way , keep trying to get them vaccinated, but they need to be able to work , and as for this meme that they should pay their own medical expense, fuck right !!!
With you touching on gangs made me think of the recent protest at Parliament.
I don't think 4 gangs have ever ridden together before. Add to that the mix of trades, professionals, ethnicities and cultures. To write the crowd off as Trumpist rent a crowd is totally burying your head in the sand.
It's been common knowledge for a long time that these meth traders are happy to ride together in order to get rich. Could it be that Brian Tamaki is also involved
James Shaw live from Glasgow, asked by John Campbell about climate change getting worse. "There are two ways to answer that", "We have strengthened our targets" "We have increased our ambitions"
Asked by Campbell if Greta Thunberg is right in saying that this is just Blah, Blah, Blah.
James Shaw seemed stuck, before replying, "I don't think she is totally wrong".
Thunberg is either right or wrong.
Much like the Curates Egg, I might like to ask James Shaw, which part of Greta Thunberg's Blah, Blah, Blah does he consider is wrong.
Brilliant answer from the archetypal centrist politician! Mind you, he could have done the `glass half empty' framing better by observing that she ain't totally right.
That's where I differ from James, who is forever trying to signal his managerial consensus style of politics just like Jacinda.
Where I differ from you, Jenny, is in not defaulting to right/wrong temptation as if the world is really black and white.
Sure, all we ever get from these international conferences is a fudging of the issues. I'm with you on that. I bet most sideline commentators would agree nowadays. But notice how none of the others onsite here have joined me in diagnosing the process of democracy as root of the problem!
James keeps using that process to secure consensus, and we get incremental progress as output. Is it sufficient to solve the global problem? Of course not. He's part of the system now, so he's unwilling to admit that. Incrementalists will always hope for the best. Sometimes reality even validates their stance. However the scientist talking head on the tv news last night said the latest research indicates a global warming of 2.4 degrees by the end of this century. That's dire.
Nope, you must've been thinking of someone else. Closest I ever got was conducting the official proceedings of a Green Party Annual Conference, in my capacity as Convenor of the Standing Orders Committee and Constitution Working Group. It did involve addressing over a hundred delegates (& organising their decision-making).
It's certainly true that the legend `getting the Greens to agree on anything is like herding cats' was one of the first things I encountered at my first annual conference in '91. Just the type of challenge I like!
So it took several years hard word-smithing to reach the smooth consensus-producing output stage that I was referring to…
Dunno if I'd go that far. Yes, one can learn the relevant techniques, and apply them in other contexts, but only a fool would expect success.
Stuff like this is extremely context-dependent. There's an old saying about the right place & the right time, eh? I just happened to be the right person there & then. I was new to the scene, the competing primadonnas had all cancelled each other out into a mutual stalemate, I volunteered to solve the problem.
Technique was only part word-smithing. It also involved playing the role Alexander the Great played when confronted by the Gordian Knot: lateral-thinker, decisively so.
"…..none of the others onsite here have joined me in diagnosing the process of democracy as root of the problem!" Dennis Frank
I would be one of them. Democracy is not the problem.
Not if you accept that democracy is not limited to voting every three years.
That is a limited and highly proscribed form of democracy.
Democracy in its fullest form embraces the right to protest and demonstrate and apply pressure to demand change.
All politics is pressure. History shows that elected representatives of all parties, no matter what stripe, are not imune to political pressure. This pressure can take several forms and come from different places, from the streets, from the trade unions, from the corporate lobbyists with access cards to the Beehive.
Currently the overwhelming political pressure coming on our elected leaders, is coming from the powerful, well connected, well resourced BAU lobby.
I have been saying for a long time now that we live in an age where polticians need to become activists and activists need to become politicians.
I often think of the Labour MPs who took to the water in small boats to join with protesters against nuclear ships as a model.
This form of street activism allied with activism in parliament proved to be enormously powerful, swaying two National MPs Mike Minogue and Marylyn Waring to vote for the Labour opposition Private Members Bill to ban nuclear ship visits. If this bill had been voted on, New Zealand would have been nuclear free in 1984. Prime Minister Muldoon, under political pressure from the militarists called a snap election to prevent the vote being taken.
The calcuation was that pressure could be put on the incoming Labour administration to water down any proposed anti-nuclear legislation. And so it was.
The plan was to put political pressure on the Lange Government to accept a US warship under the niether confirm nor deny arrangement. The USS Buchanon was dispatched from the US to Auckland, half way here, David Lange accepted a delegation in his Beehive office from the peace movement who told him that if the Buchanon was allowed to dock, the same protests that had brought down the Muldoon administration would be organised against his government. Lange phoned Washington and told them to turn the ship around. The next day David Lange was reported in the listener as saying that his most feared lobby was the anti-nuclear movement.
Rod Donald was a masterclass example of a skilled proponent of joining parliamentary and street activism. Originally in the Values Party, Donald joined Labour and turned the LECs into organising centres of anti-nuclear protests.
Using the same model of street activism joined with parlamentary activism, Donald spearheaded the movement to achieve MMP against a reluctant Bolger administration.
All politics is pressure.
Is James Shaw the sort of politician who would climb into a small boat to protest nuclear ships, or join a protest march for MMP, to put pressure on parliament to change direction?
Or more to the point, organise and lead protests to pressure pariament to take climate change seriously?
If we are to turn around our growing emissions we need more politicians like Rod Donald and less politicians like James Shaw.
Originally in the Values Party, Donald joined Labour and turned the LECs into organising centres of anti-nuclear protests.
Interesting, I didn't know that. Anyway, I see no evidence that protestors change govt policy nowadays like they did in bygone days. The duopoly are both addicted to the status quo.
The real evidence that you're wrong lies in the lack of consensus around the imagined positive alternative to neoliberalism. All the protestors seem capable of is sheeplike evasion of the topic. Sue Bradford's think-tank continues to produce no visible output. Have you even joined it?? If not, you're living proof that I'm right. Admit it!
…..I see no evidence that protestors change govt policy nowadays like they did in bygone days. The duopoly are both addicted to the status quo….
You have not been paying attention.
This is what democracy looks like
The Prime Minister was on her way to a scheduled appointment with the Indonesian ambassador. She saw a protest by Greenpeace on the steps of parliament, The Prime Minister ordered her driver to pull over, so she could check out what the Greenpeace protest was all about. (The Indonesian ambassador could wait).
Standing on the steps of parliament Jacinda Ardern, handed a megaphone, told the assembled protesters that in her role as Prime Minister she would see that her government would ban deep sea oil drilling.
Following this protest and the Prime Minister's statement on the steps of parliament, the Prime Minister followed up on her assurance to the protesters.
A later photo would catch Shane Jones making the infamous slap to his forehead gesture, as the Prime Minister went before the cameras to officialy announce a ban on deep sea oil drilling to the nation.
Shane Jones, a known schill for the fossil fuel lobby, was expressing their collective shock and horror that the Prime Minister of New Zealand had the temerity to defy them.
Shane slapped his forehead because he knew this decision would be doubly injurious – first to the Taranaki economy & secondly to NZ emissions, as Huntly would inevitably burn less gas & more brown Indonesian coal.
You say "I often think of the Labour MPs who took to the water in small boats to join with protesters against nuclear ships as a model.".
For the life of me I cannot think of a single Labour Party MP who did that. Fraser Colman was sent up the Mururoa by Norman Kirk but that was on a frigate. That ship, with a crew of about 250 could hardly be described as small. Rumour at the time also said that it wasn't a voluntary trip as Kirk was supposed to have had Colman's name on every slip of paper that went into the hat to pick the happy wanderer.
Richard Prebble did not get his nickname "Mad Dog" from his later Right Wing politics, but from his stunt at the wheel of small yacht with other MPs that he steered under the bow of a US nuclear war ship entering Wellington Harbour, almost snagging the yacht’s mast on the warships anchor.
After the protest when they reached shore they were met with police but no charges were laid.
I had never known the Prebble had done that. I guess it must have been the USS Texas in 1983. He really must have been mad at the time. I used to sail dinghies in Wellington Harbour many years ago and I would never have gone anywhere near a ship that size, even if it had been anchored.
The things one discovers about people you thought you knew. Thank you for the story.
James Shaw is exactly the wrong sort of leader the Green party needs at this moment…the last thing the world needs to fight climate change right now is another centrist pragmatist (even a Green one)…no what a party like the Green party needs right now and going forward, to be seen as being the serious climate change political party, is someone with real and deeply rooted progressive principles and who is not afraid to make enemies (and lots of them) defending them at every opportunity…someone brave and fearless, unlike James Shaw….so probably cut from the same cloth of someone like Sue Bradford or Helen Kelly would be a good starting point.
We can forget about Ardern and NZ Labour at this point,they have proven beyond doubt that they will never be the leaders desperately needed in the battle against climate change right now…which given their unwavering fundamentalist adherence to Free Market Liberalism in the face of an approaching tsunami should surprise no one except the stupid.
You're wrong inasmuch as Sue & Helen were both partisans. Democracy requires a leader to be able to compromise with opponents to get results because it is a numbers game. Consequently centrist winners are inevitable.
I do agree that James & Marama ought, in theory, to be able to walk & chew gum at the same time. Leadership of the Green movement is indeed missing in politics here.
It is well past time to stop pussyfooting around .If the Greens want to survive they need to disavow Labour and get back into activism for the environment and social justice. Atm they are becoming a laughing stock with their wokism and ineffective policy concessions from Labour.
Haven't had much time lately to trawl through print or even on-line media, so may have missed a great deal. All the same, it seems to me that Marama has been all but invisible since the 2020 election. Isn't the Green Party meant to have joint leaders? What is she (and Chloe, and all the other un-Shaws) up to?
@Dennis Frank, no you are wrong, this moment needs a leader (or leaders) who will stop with all the bullshit, and start dealing with this impending disaster with the urgency and preparing out citizens for radical changes it is going to require from each and every of us, we need leaders who can cut through the political divide in this moment of crisis (like the best Left wing politicians used to be so good at before these fucking death cult neo-liberal centrists infected Left wing politics with their terminal cancer)..the time for incrementalism has long long past, it is plainly obvious that things are going to start getting very messy in the not to distant future….the Progressive Left need to some how dislodge the extreme centrists from either Labour (won't happen) or The Greens, and to start offering a legitimate positive radical way forward that can mobilize a large part of the population…or The real Right will fill that space, of that you can be absolutely sure.
In times of crisis, the people always turn to the leader with the most resolute vision of the future..that can either be a good thing through the progressive Left or a Bad thing in the Right…forget about the neo- liberal centrists, they are going to be relegated to the dustbin of history pretty soon, because as everyone knows they never had a vision of the future, their ideology is and has always been short term, which was what made them such a negative and destructive force on the planet.
I don't get why you continue to evade the point about how democracy works. I agree about all that crisis psychology stuff, in principle, but don't see any relevance to how people do their politics in practice.
It's as if you share my belief that democracy is more problem than solution, while being unwilling to actually say so.
forget about the neoliberal centrists, they are going to be relegated to the dustbin of history pretty soon
Exactly what I assumed 30+ years ago when James Hansen first blew his climate whistle. Never underestimate the inertia of the sheeple!
Dennis, Perhaps Pro Bono work should be added to their Brief? Public Service work which is an expectation of the role? $159 per hour for Criminal Justice service. 7x the minimum wage. They were given the new schedule in March 2020 How many hours would they perform for the State each year? So a week at that rate for 30 hours $4770 plus expenses.
Currently many would consider that "not too shabby" But to keep up with costs…
Given the CPI for my teacher's pension has increased by aprox 25% in the same period (since 2008) the new rate should be aprox $198 per hour at least.
My reply button doesn’t work most times as well. But on another note for all the complainers and whingers …Germany is doing well, eh! 40,000 cases a day mostly all unvaxxed and a further 100,000 deaths projected. Thank you Labour, thank you Jacinda et al.
some numbers to your hysteria, to make it more palatable
Total doses given113M
People fully vaccinated55.9M
% fully vaccinated67.1%
some 30 million are due for a booster shot.
popultion Germany 83.24 million 2020
in the meantime in a our wee nation of 5 million we got us a totally preventable outbreak of Delta, started Vaccinating like our life depended on ( it does) after July 28th, don't ever mention those that have run out of their 6 month full coverage – everyone jabbed Jan to May, had to be bailed out with vaccines by the Spaniards and the Danes because of course we did not have enough to continue vaccinating realizing that the delivery of October 28th was a bit late, and are here now pretending we have beat Delta.
Next you tell us that the Danes with its 80% mark of vaccination and rising cases is also losing it.
Maybe you can just breathe for a moment, stop comparing a transit nation such as Germany to some lost islands at the bottom of the earth – next stop Antarctica – and understand that literally no one a. knows really what they do, and b. all hope and pray that what ever they do is working, and c. that the population will get the jabs when offered, and for what its worth, we are seeing the limitations of Jacinda and her Government – see protests. And it don't matter one bit that you are a supporter of this government, or I don't care about this government, or that they might not have voted at all cause why they fuck would they it won't matter much anyways to them, unless Jacinda forces people to get the jabs we too will look like England, – rising cases, Germany – rising cases, France – rising cases, Italy – raising cases, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland etc all ditto, and last but least, we go into summer they go into winter, all nicely locked up at home, sniffling noses and all.
Yes, orange and apples are fruit, and then all comparison stops.
"Totally preventable Delta" You lost me there as Delta is not the pushover you think it is. Or does that just fit in with your story? Every country has struggled with Delta, and most still are.
Yes, however most people in Auckland feel the virus can't be worse than the 12 week lockdown, especially as it has lowered cases not eliminated them. People have worked up anger, which is replacing caution. That will lead to even more cases with any easing. Jacinda Ardern says she has been kept awake at night…. no doubt torn, as not all the advice is good advice.
The media trying to pre-empt the PM's messages with their "guesses" and then their choice of "experts" often leads to muddled messaging.
Also, I think The Director General of Health has messaged in a very anglicised communication style. Sharing the podium with other ethnicities may have strengthened the message. It was very ethnocentristic.
The Herald gives Barry Soper's bile and sheer nastiness plenty of exposure today. I have personally witnessed that man having an apoplectic temper tantrum at a Parliamentary security officer who was simply doing his job, some years ago. It was the worst display I have ever seen in public. He oozes venom. He and his wife are a perfect pair. Their child will grow up having those two as parents!
Hospitality is always going to be a causualty of a pandemic due to the business not having the space to make a maximum turnover due to social distancing and taking off a mask to eat and drink, less foot traffic and people having less to spend in a pandemic.
No one wants to be the business who cannot open. Perhaps extra targeted assistance is warranted or the really hard decision needs to be made for the right reasons to close. A restart package might also help.
help with leases would be the biggest thing and people have been asking for it for a while now, but so far, nothing other then the wage subsidy, a bit of resurgence payment that either pay the lease or the rest but not both, and a wee bit of extra help for some affected businesses in Auckland.
In the meantime getting a part for an air conditioner from akl to rotorua takes two weeks and that is not taking any guarantees, and voila, no working if the environment needs to be cool for working. Don't ask me how i know that.
My daughter started back at work at St Lukes food court yesterday. But my son, who is a qualified, senior chef, is making takeaways for one of Auckland’s top restaurants and being paid the wage subsidy.
You beat me to the topic. He's a pathetic prick with the emotional maturity of a five year old. His beef today:
Jacinda Ardern travelled to and from Auckland on an Air Force jet. The fact that prime ministers get to travel regularly on RNZAF aircraft is something of which he, apparently, has never been aware? (sarc)
Having a little bit of knowledge of military matters, there will have been serious death threats and her security has been upgraded to the highest level. It is unlikely the public will be informed of the nature of the threats. I also noted she was driven around Auckland in a bullet proof SUV yesterday.
Of course, Soper knows as much but chooses to spread unsubstantiated muck instead.
Ardern's safety and welfare is not considered as being a priority for Soper. There was also a time restraint as I think Ardern was chairing an APEC meeting later in the day.
My wires are crossed Ardern will chair a virtual APEC meeting on 13 November 2021. In saying this she would need time to prepare herself for this. So a time restraint in visiting Auckland.
I thought it was a pretty good article. Being an Aucklander myself, I think the Jacinda's trip to Auckland to visit one company that has been able to trade through, and a vaccination centre was a complete waste of time. She should have visited some actual businesses effected by the lockdown.
so, you are saying that one out of date right wing hack is more balanced than another out of date right wing hack? given sopers alcohol consumption, young must have a very bad case of the d.t.
I think you will find Audrey very much wears rose tinted glasses…..she even rated Twyford (yes Twyford …the man that has cock ups named after him) a 7/10!!!!!
We still sometimes hear the expression "Oh shit, I've made a Twyford" here at work when someone fucks up.
I’m not ordinarily one to complain but Seamus works his damp oily little butt feathers off there, & after being up here for several hours still not one post in support of his efforts n prowess? 😳
Is it becos of the white flashes he’s got? Becos he’s not an All Black little shag? 😠
You brute you! Cheering Seamus along as he murders a poor little defenseless fish? I'll bet you would have been in the stands cheering along the gladiators as the slaughtered to Christians in the Colosseum.
Why don't you train Seamus properly. Teach him a vegan diet and make him stick to it. Yah boo sucks.
"Healthcare workers and medical aid workers have even reported receiving death threats from rural communities who associate the vaccine with "witchcraft".
2 Sounds like what some were prepared to tolerate in New Zealand
"PNG's overwhelmed health system and lack of vaccine protection is proving deadly.
With the nation's Covid death toll now at 413, even their morgues and funeral services are struggling.
The country's pandemic response controller, David Manning, recently authorised the mass burial of 200 bodies after the morgue in the capital of Port Moresby was filled beyond capacity. RNZ also reported the mortuary at Port Moresby General Hospital had reached full capacity and was filled with over 300 bodies, despite the limit being 60."
The become the best because they work, practice, train harder and longer than anyone else
"A lot of people ask me how do I get to the next level? Well…. you get to the next level by being the first one on the range and the last one to leave." – Jerry Miculek?
The clips are of the best in the world demonstrating why hes the best in the world (and just being generally awesome) along with a quote of his to back up my earlier assertion
And an excuse to watch someone hit a 1000 yard target with a pistol with iron sights and watch the same person fire six aimed shots reload and fire six more aimed shots (with a revolver) all within 2.99 seconds
The smarter you work the luckier you become. Smarter practice makes a better player.
Looking at golf DeChambeau would be taking Tigers mantel.But all his practice hasn't made him any better.My son in law a former professional rugby player now a coach.Knows that to much practice leads to more injuries and burnout.
In France rugby players were training like like football players a non contact sport.The result a very high injury rate and lacklustre performances. The next season he reduced training ,worked on skills and tactics his team went to the top of the league earning promotion until Covid struck.
The same can be said of many sports .NZ cricket NZ provincial teams don't get any where near the amount of Cricket compared to Australia, India,England or South Africa.Yet NZ punches well above its weight.
Fantastic match, just finished watching the replay.
Highlights include the see-saw nature of the final 6 overs, England crumpling under pressure, Mitchell/Nesham batting and the Indian chappy standing in front of The Mitchells in the crowd, jumping up excitedly every time the camera went on the former AB coach.
Whether it is Pakistan or Aussie, this squad has what it takes to beat either of 'em.
This squad is easily the best squad NZ has ever assembled, top and middle order strength in batting, a decent lower order (our number 10 and 11,Boult and Wagner, average 15 and 14 with the bat including a 50 each)
We've never had three bowlers average under 30 let alone 4, we've even got some decent spinners as well when required
But what excites we more is the depth in the team.
Will Young averages 42 in FC with 12 100s and thats not counting Ravindra, Phillips or Mitchell all of whom can bat middle order or replace De Grandhomme
BJ Watling is the best wicket-keeper batsman bar none yet Blundell and Seifert means the loss won't be as great as first feared
We've got variety in our pace attack with whatever combinations of swing, seam, speed, height, aggression and left-right bowling you want
The best part of the game as reported (I have yet to watch my recording) was the turning down of a run by Mitchell because he felt he had interfered with the bowler's attempt to field the ball.
The action of a true champion, respecting the rules, the opposition and the character of the game.
Thanks for your care and concern, Puckish, but the result is known to me, as the headline I quoted may have hinted at it…..
It’s not always the end or result that is worth the while but rather how they get there, ball by ball, run by run, action by action. I’m looking forward now to settle down after a day’s activity and watch it all unfold.
oh I'm sure people are taking notice. But most of us don't have access to internal polling that tells us why the drop. Is it just a normal post-emergency resetting of the swing vote? (I'm assuming the Greens didn't take a big jump). Or is there serious dissatisfaction from a chunk of 2020 Labour voters?
We will hash all that out (or not), but imagine if we had some actual research to be basing discussions on.
The fact that the Greens are 9 in both puzzles me. They haven't done anything for quite a while. Perhaps it's just a tactical shift away from Labour, by left-Labour voters. Fair-weather friends!
ok, nine is good. Might be the return from those that went Labour because of Ardern, and are disappointed by her centrism. Now that Labour aren't all huggy in the covid response, it's probably easier to want better action on housing and climate.
Being in power and trying to deal with Covid is a 'no-win' situation, and a juggle with the health of people and the economy. Slide the scale too much in one direction and you take a hit, and unfortunately this can drive poor decision making.
There is no equivalence Ad. Covid goes on and on, every day presenting sickness and causing decisions which keep a level of cortisol in the body much higher than usual, which leads to anxiety. The highest stress is losing a loved one or having to move. Both these events are happening with regularity along with "waiting for results".
"You don't make things worse" 1. Christchurch was controlled and had little input to major decisions which has led to poor outcomes for the water table. 2. Many are waiting for resolution more than 10 years later. The earthquake did not effect most areas of NZ. The GFC was made worse by austerity and failure to meet infrastructure needs on a number of levels. The press did not always press for answers, and those who did were removed.
I recall some polls had National (under Bridges even) and Act edging ahead of Labour/Greens until Covid hit
So its not a not a 'no-win' situation because it led directly to an election win, imho
However it could be (depending on how accurate the polls are and I have my doubts) the electorate telling Jacinda and the Labour party what they're thinking
Will Jacinda listen…don't know but its starting to get interesting again
In February 2020 Simon Bridges was a good bet for winning the election. His personal popularity was crap but Labour was on course to be one term government.
Rubbish, thus the quote "never let a good crisis go to waste".
The govt will gain in popularity even only if they handle it in a mediocre way. Take the last election, often called the Covid election by opposition, Labour had all the 1pm air times etc. and gained hugely to win a majority.
Didn't National do well after Christchurch earthquakes even though they may not have handled them well?
I have been surprised heading into out spring of discontent that such hadn't occurred earlier. Troubling and factious times for people. Labour got a sizeable lift with their successful handling of the first half of the covid pandemic (helped by an inept National Party admittedly). The realities of covid being driven home now we should expect some swing the other way. In 12 months time if things have settled down and life has returned to some normality for the population and we are steering our way through the covid endemic, accepting some things may not be that pretty along the way, I would pick a fair degree of the rancour and frustration will dissipate.
Local government is a very, very soft target to go beat down on.
If Labour were going to spend their political capital on something, it may as well be something worthwhile and on a target everyone hates and ignores anyway.
My FIL is quite up to date and knowledgable about this but hes actually going to a protest over this as well
Hes retired and its a bit of a drive and I don't think hes ever protested anything before so for him to do this shows the feelings some people have over it
I think Labour is going to be a bit surprised about this
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest! The clash between dreams & reality will always throw up a few surprises.
However I haven't seen any valid point emerge from opponents as yet. Just being conservative & clinging onto stuff won't work. That makes it seem as if conservatives still haven't figured out how to transcend kindergarten politics. Doesn't get them anywhere on an issue where most folk know the system is fucked and await suitable improvements.
So those who matter (pragmatic centrists) will expect National to describe system improvements that seem likely to work.
One positive thing to say about Jacinda Ardern is that her political antenna is/was always spot on, she knew which way the wind was blowing or at least which way to minimise bad news (no bad thing in a leader)
But this just seems…all wrong, like 3 waters is what you want to die on a hill on?
Its a hill to die on when you try to ram it through when everythings already tense and protest groups are active. Groundswell + Covid protesters + three waters could really make for large and disruptive protests that gain momentum.
Talking with an old friend yesterday – more than a friend really – who I know has has voted left all his life. We're talking an educated, experienced professional with a lot of street smarts. Way more than me. He still speaks well of Helen Clarks government for instance.
But he's not voting Labour this time.
It's not one single issue – it's an accumulation of political actions from this govt that he sees forming a disturbing pattern. He used the word 'betrayal'.
They’ve gone too far down the Jacinda cult of personality track, trading more or less completely on her carefully manufactured (& heavily choreographed) celebrity status.
When you look beyond the Jacinda front person, there’s not a lot of competence & confidence on show among the rest of the Ministerial front benches, imo.
Most Ministers we see ANYTHING of at all come across to me as low interest or defensive, as often quite ill-informed, & as generally underwhelming.
And some stuff being worked on almost furtively in the background (like He Puapua & Three Waters) is going to become hugely controversial.
Robertson, Hipkins and Little are the heavy lifters. The rest of Labour as you say, gave rise to the oppositions saying "Labour talent pool shallower than a car park puddle on a summers day"
I agree with your pick of Labour’s hard workers there, Jimmy.
Mahuta puts in solid effort too, but I’m a wee bit wary of her Māori Caucus agenda, & of her judgement when it comes to diplomacy. There’ve been times when I think her saying a helluva lot less would have been a lot more more diplomatic. Peters mastered this art.
“Staunch as, bro ” works well here in NZ sometimes, in some situations, but in some parts of the world mild & flowery phrases are the way to go, while the officials do the hard arguing & the grunt work with “the opposition””s minions – imo.
Labour needs to change tac urgently on the stupid idea of 3 waters.Given no mayor is in favour of this mandate.
It could loose labour the next election mandating after offering an opt out option.Once the Covid hysteria dies down people will not be happy having another govt bearaucracy taxing everyone including those councils who have invested heavily in upgrading their water services.They will be subsidising those who have let their infrastructure rundown.A massive Vote looser.
It is still pretty much the same as the last Roy Morgan poll with the Labour Green combination comfortably in front.
In my dreams I would like to see what would happen if National changed the leadership to a Luxon leader, Bridges deputy combination. I would pick an immediate swing of around 10% from Labour to National with only a minor hit, if any, on the ACT vote.
Just a dream mind but I would love to see how accurate my prediction would turn out. I don't know what Luxon would be like as PM, mind, but the intellectual fun would be in seeing what the polls did. Still a Luxon PM with a Bridges backup would probably be OK and anything would be better than the shambles that is the current Government.
Wouldn't surprise me, but it would be a honeymoon effect only. Reality would slim the margin down readily. Policies would kill the Nats. Unless Luxon has more of a brain than was evident in his corporate phase. He presents well but that just reduces the Ardern x-factor somewhat. They're still a bunch of useless losers no matter which angle you view them from.
Get a new leader thats not as divisive and they wont need to do a helluva lot about policy. I'm sure one of the drivers of the big vote split along gender lines is Judith.
There's alot of dissatisfaction around now wont take much to harness some of that.
Well how about the prediction that Luxon would be rejected by a large majority. A fundamentalist Chritstian as a Prime Minister is not a viable option.
We have already accepted an unmarried mother. I don't think we would have any problem with a homosexual male were she to give up and Grant become the Labour leader.
Why should anyone who says they hold Christian beliefs be a problem? You talk about being a fundamentalist Christian but I wouldn't think that there are very many people in the country who even know what that is supposed to mean. I certainly don't and I can't even be bothered trying to work it out.
If Luxon got anywhere near the top of his party, everyone would soon learn what a fundamentalist Christian of Luxon's ilk thinks – and as Garibaldi hints, it'd sink him and his party.
The World was built in 7 days and is only 4000 years old and males are the head of the household. Stuff like that Alwyn. Oh and Christ is coming again then we really get divided. Apologies to any true believers, I envy your certainty.
I take this to mean that the basic thing uniting them is a belief that the bible is literally true and if it is in the bible then it really happened.
As long as they just believe it and don't demand that I do so I guess I couldn't care less. I have a very simple set of beliefs. Primarily there isn't any such thing as a god and anyone who believes in such a thing is nuts. Then there are just different degrees of nuttiness, and as long as you don't make me behave according to your beliefs you can proclaim anything at all.
That doesn't mean that there isn't anything valuable in the beliefs of some religious groups. About half the commandments make sense as a way of living. The first 4 are simply silly, The rest aren't too bad as a guide to how we should treat other people.
As long as Luxon doesn't try and impose his way of living on me I think he is harmless. He certainly is likely to cause less damage that followers of some of the other main religions who believe that if they say something is true I have to also do so.
Early days, but the polls are going to get much more interesting over the next few months. The shine has gone off Ardern. Things Covid seem very muddled to my current occasionally-sleep-deprived-thus-addled brain but I’m picking up confusion & dissatisfaction more generally where before there was more clarity & support for Jacinda among my personal contacts.
The msm journos are hungry for a change of diet, imo. Some might also be getting a bit resentful & tired of the ‘grace & favour’ favourites style media conferences Ardern has been directing with more firmness than we are used to seeing from PMs.
Ardern down just 4 points in UMR to a still impressive 47% PPM … but plunges a massive (I'm guessing unprecedented) 13 points in the Curia poll to 34% (albeit most of those swinging into non-committal territory rather than across the aisle).
Lab/Green Govt still rating a little higher in the UMR a year into their 2nd term than Nat/ACT at the same point in their 2nd term – late 2012 (& hence, unsurprisingly, current Oppo doing a little worse than Lab/Green in late 2012) … putting aside the intricacies of other minor parties.
However much the left continues to extol the virtues of the working class, there is a growing divide between the views of the largely liberal and metropolitan make-up of the Labour hierarchy and the so-called Labour ‘core vote’.
Here it is worth noting the work of David Goodhart, much disparaged by the left but probably onto something. The liberal left, he says, is today dominated by people whose worldview is “universalistic, suspicious of most kinds of group or national attachment, and individualistic…they don’t “get” what most other people also get – loyalty, authority and the sacred’.
An electric backing gate, which pushes cows into the shed, came off its rollers. Fogo went to help put it back on but “it fell on me”.
He was wearing a motorcycle helmet when it happened, but his health quickly deteriorated, and he went home.
He went to Maniototo Hospital in Ranfurly and the sole person on that Saturday – a duty nurse – gave him a codeine tablet for his headache and sent him home.
“By Monday I was a mess.”
Fogo returned to work but could manage only a few hours at a time.
“That was when the fun started,” he said.
Scans revealed he had suffered injuries to his head and neck, and he was advised not to return to work.
He was recuperating at home when a fellow dairy farmworker dropped off a letter advising him that he and his wife had 10 days to vacate their home on the farm.
The letter, sent by Graeme Martin of Otago Rural Management, said Fogo’s absence from work was causing “operational and management issues” for the company, and his occupation of the home was “placing constraints on both staff requirements and the allocation of accommodation”.
Not really. I read an article about the trial on Newshub’s website earlier today but haven’t been following the case & don’t even know how many days in it is.
Defendant’s moved for a mistrial. Judge has taken it under advisement, I read.
Quite a contrast with the days n days of tv coverage given to George Floyd’s murder.
Personally speaking I don't think he should have been there in the first place however that he was is not illegal
2. The kid is not guilty and in fact it shouldn't have even gone to trial, surely there is no clearer case of self-defence than this
3. The kid had the wrong political affiliation, purely and simply this is about politics. He was even booted off gofundme to try to raise funds for his defence
4. One of the dead was a pedo so not going to cry over that
5. The witness's for the prosecutors ending up proving Kyles claim of self-defence
6. The kid looks absolutely shattered
7. I really hope the kid sues every damn media company he can
Prosecutors in the criminal trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who shot and killed two protesters last year in Kenosha, Wis., will not be able to refer to the people he shot as "victims," a judge has ruled, while defense attorneys may be able to call them "arsonists" or "looters."
In a proceeding about the ground rules for the upcoming trial, prosecutors and defense lawyers debated whether certain language, witnesses or evidence would be allowed. The trial begins next week.
"The word 'victim' is a loaded, loaded word. And I think 'alleged victim' is a cousin to it," Judge Bruce Schroeder said on Monday, asking prosecutors to instead use the terms "complaining witness" or "decedent" to refer to those shot by Rittenhouse.
Haven't bothered to watch it, because nothing you've said seems to indicate that it's actually relevant to whether the judge is "blinded by ideology".
You want to talk about pedos and whatnot, fine. Heck, maybe shapiro's telling the truth for once in his life. But how is it relevant to the administration of the trial?
Rittenhouse travelled across state lines with an assault rifle while underage to clip his hero ticket, and shot three people. Maybe he gets away with it, maybe not. But both sides have laid their grounds for appeal, so regardless of what happens next week it probably won't be the end of it.
"Haven't bothered to watch it," well of course not, wouldn't want any pesky new information to change your view now would you
This is where you lied:
"Rittenhouse travelled across state lines with an assault rifle"
He did not have an assault rifle, he had an AR-15-type rifle.
May not mean much to you but an assault rifle can be operated in semi and fully automatic mode whereas an AR-15 is only capable of semi-automatic fire plus there are laws in Wisconsin around assault rifles
This what the media do though and thats to try to make things sound more dangerous than they are in an effort to smear and make people like you think what they want you to think and you've swallowed the medias line hook, line and sinker, well done.
Also Kyle Rittenhouse broke no laws so it doesn't matter if he 'travelled across state lines' or not
I'm not asking you to watch the whole thing because heaven forbid your delicate little mind becomes sullied by a different view point
I am asking you to watch these parts at 1.42, 2.38 and 3.27 also watch the prosecutions witnesses at 4.22 and 6.32 in their own words because its video and drone footage and the prosecutions own witnesses
'You think the difference in lower receiver counts as a substantive element in the description of his actions?'
Yes and heres why.
The phrase 'assault rifle' conjures up images and emotions in people and make them think negatively
So instead of saying Kyle was carrying a semi-auto (which he was) you say he was carrying am assault rifle (which he wasn't)
Also don't you think its important to be accurate, especially when the information is very easily found
''You want to talk about pedos and whatnot, fine. Heck, maybe shapiro's telling the truth for once in his life. But how is it relevant to the administration of the trial?
Seriously?
Maybe hes telling the truth?
You jump into the conversation and you don't even know the basic facts about the case?
Were you bored or just trying to hijack the thread?
The men shot by Kyle were bad men, child molesters, domestic abusers, druggies
So yes when those type of people jump into riots and threaten and chase and produce firearms and aim them then yes their backgrounds are relevant
Dude, I just wanted to know what your link had to do with the comment that preceded it.
I guess the answer is "nothing".
As for gun types, the kid had a similar gun to what the chch prick used, so I'm not sure calling it an "assault rifle" conjures up emotions more negative than that.
The men shot by Kyle were bad men, child molesters, domestic abusers, druggies
what are you, three? Are you trying to rustle up a legal defense, or just an excuse to not give a shit if Rittenhouse did actually do something legally wrong?
So innocent until proven guilty doesn’t count or do you know every single fire arm law in Wisconsin?
That’s why I used the term “That seems to be contrary”…
As opposed to your unqualified claims of innocence.
'what are you, three? Are you trying to rustle up a legal defense, or just an excuse to not give a shit if Rittenhouse did actually do something legally wrong?'
Heres what I said about that:
So yes when those type of people jump into riots and threaten and chase and produce firearms and aim them then yes their backgrounds are relevant
They have shown themselves in the past to be violent, to be dangerous so their backgrounds are very relevant especially given that lawsuits are floating about (a guilty conviction means money)
Also interesting CNN whitewashing the convictions:
They're the same thing. Prosecution tried to introduce his prior behaviour, judge said no. There's probably a youtube vid somewhere to expain it to you.
But if shapiro is showing a bias in what evidence he presents similar to the bias the links in 4.3 imply the judge is showing, maybe your clip was tangentially relevant after all.
But if you cast your net a bit wider, you might find the information you seek.
I know what the judge said couldn't be admitted, so I know more than you, obviously. I just don't give a shit about semantic differences between the types of gun people use to kill each other.
Today's 2 polls have interesting detail on individual National MPs. There is no public appetite for Bridges at all, they might as well pick Bishop (but won't, because he's not conservative enough for caucus).
Reti doesn't register so that only leaves Luxon as the new leader, when he's done nothing to show he's ready. Which explains why Collins hangs on.
A few months ago I'd have put good money on her being rolled by Xmas. No more than 50-50 now.
Southern DHB board member resigns over vaccine mandate conflict
Good.
"RNZ reported it saw emails in which Beekhuis wrote: “I'm writing, as a publicly elected official of the Southern DHB, to say that it's abhorrent that you would enforce a vaccine mandate on your staff. It's completely amoral, unethical, and medically unnecessary.”
It seems the woman would have been happy for the Southern Health Board district to have a 0% Covid vaccination rate.
Anyone who ignores the advantages of covid vaccination in minimising the effects of the virus who is in a position of power, is endangering public health.
Well who would have thought! Natural selection in action. 🙂
People are now dying from COVID-19 at a rate 3 times higher in counties where former President Donald Trump won at least 60% of the vote than in counties where President Joe Biden won a similar percentage, according to a New York Times analysis of the data.
And that partisan gap – which didn’t emerge until the widespread availability of vaccines in the spring of 2021 – has consistently widened over the last 5 months.
The gap, according to the Times, accelerated at its fastest rate yet in October, coming out to 25 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents in counties where Trump won more than 60% of the vote, versus 7.8 deaths per 100k in counties where Biden did the same.
I guess that's one way of improving the intellect levels in the population. But the Repugnants had better watch out! Their base is crumbling. Mind you with dopes like Cruz at the helm and telling them what to think what more can you expect.
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TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
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Well, that's due to them being higher in the pecking order. When a QC gets around a thousand dollars per hour, approx six times the rate for legal aid lawyers, it reminds us how justice retains its ancient structure as a privilege system.
Nobody expects Labour to reform the system. That would be sacrilege. Consequently the minister in charge presents a just-so story:
So there! Messy little detail nicely tidied up… https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/455427/legal-aid-thousands-turned-away-by-lawyers-in-collapsing-system
My teina (younger sibling of same sex) is a Crown Prosecutor. I think he’s paid pretty well (we never discuss it, of course, he’s a lawyer) although the funding for Crown Lawyers is capped too.
They weren’t able to get govt funding for a protective perspex screen in Court, after one of his pregnant junior lawyers was hit in the head by a mobile phone thrown at her by a furious female defendant upon conviction. Perhaps Covid has remedied that problem.
The problem is probably partly that , like some with some other professionals, lawyers in private practice in most areas of specialist expertise are just too well paid.
I would like to know if stats are kept for the 20,000 people who cannot get legal aid what they require legal aid for.
Sometimes a person just needs a lawyer to explain something to them so they can do a review. Some cases are complex which generate a lot of paper work. I do not know if lawyers would be interested in the small jobs, I have noticed that tradies do not like the small jobs.
I do not know if a legal advocate would be the way to go a bit like a benefit rights advocate.
Civil and criminal cases probably the criminal cases get the legal aid. Some ACC cases have a criminal element to them such as not investigating to the level required (Lake Alice) and an un expected death at a DHB. When it comes to statements to officials from clinicians these can be flawed.
I do not understand why a Crown Prosecutor is necessarily paid more per hour than a lawyer providing legal aid, and I do not understand why firms are employed to provide prosecution services but individual lawyers for defence legal services. A better structure would be to have two new separate services provided by the Courts department – a Crown Prosecution Service and a Public legal defence service. Both would contract with individual lawyers in special circumstances, and defendants would be free to employ private lawyers should they wish, but it would clarify the difficulties with pay. Equal treatment under the law . . .
Are the roles of a lawyer, a solicitor, a barrister and a QC different when it comes to the district court, the high Court and the supreme court?
I know that there are prosecutors and defence lawyers, solicitors and barristers as well as QCs. Once a case goes to a court the cost would go up.
We have a PDS. If someone's charged with an offence that has a maximum sentence of less than 10 years and applies for legal aid they're assigned a lawyer from the list of legal aid lawyers, including those working for the PDS which provides about a third of legal aid lawyers.
https://pds.govt.nz/
So the PDS would be a bill of rights issue??
It appears that the current pds system largely works through independent contractors who are invited to take each case. There is a "duty Solicitor" system to ensure that there is someone to talk to a defendant – I do not know how that is arranged, it may involve some assistance from law firms giving your lawyers experience. I do not see why more money per hour is spent on prosecutions, where I understand specific firms have had contracts for years – they are able to balance which cases get more senior staff, but it is still on a contract system.
For the amount of money spent, it may be more efficient and provide a better balanced service if the pds and prosecution teams were formed from a core of employed staff working full time; only calling in other contractors when needs exceed core demand. Such teams could build expertise while still allowing some flexibility for specialisation and career development. It would ensure that there is a reasonable balance between the expertise advising both prosecution and defence. As it is we appear to be heading towards a lot of defendants not getting competent legal advice . . . while we argue about whether pay rates should have increased since 2008.
The system is broken for access to legal aid and the cost of legal advice; immediate restructuring is required.
Were a comparison to be done with doctors, specialists and surgeons would the health system be more cost effective than lawyers, solicitors and barristers when it comes to wages?
I think the PDS employs its lawyers. There'd be no point contracting independent legal aid lawyers because they just do the work themselves anyway, whether as solicitors employed by a law firm or self-employed barristers. Lawyers put their hat in the ring for the legal aid lottery which includes lawyers employed by PDS.
I was under the impression that they are paid essentially on a 'piece work' basis, which I regard as not the same as full or part time employment. That will certainly work for some, but if we are running out of people willing to work the pay rate may be wrong – or they are colluding to get the rate up. I suspect there is some need for that sort of employment in small centres, but the same may also be true for prosecution lawyers.
If that's your impression then I guess you're right.
So since there will shortly be several thousand wilfully unvaccinated people (coming from all professions high and low), how will the state cope with their continued responsibility to them?
This is the consequence of the laws and regulations that the government has put in place.
New Zealand cannot afford a rapid further expansion of its underclass into a well-led and hyper-informed grey economy and grey society. Gangs are already rapidly accelerating under this government, and their periphery will expand massively.
They are still citizens, they are still New Zealanders.
And they are going to be massive state liabilities as their needs grow rapidly in health, accommodation, schooling, policing, welfare, access to travel and public spaces, employment.
Before you build a wall to keep those safe within, check who you're walling out.
+100 Also those who have health issues reluctant to take the risks with a vax in education/health etc losing or already lost their job.
If they have genuine health issues can they not get an exemption?
Most won't. That's when the "Team of 5 Million" nonsense gets its first test.
As it was for this individual… valid reasons/concerns with existing medication. See ya
Yes. The system for granting exemptions has been reviewed and a new official process put in place. The number who will be able to gain such an exemption is likely to be small, but is not zero, and may change as we get new variants of covid or more clinical experience of the effect of vaccines on particular conditions. I presume this is being included in the development of a vaccine passport; it is possible that having an exemption will get some treated with the same attitude as those that have chosen not to be vaccinated; and that would be regretable.
since there will shortly be several thousand wilfully unvaccinated people (coming from all professions high and low), how will the state cope with their continued responsibility to them?
They have been unvaccinated since day one of the pandemic. One would expect the State to show respect and kindness to anyone taking up the option of being unvaccinated. Of course some of them will be unable to be vaccinated or perhaps will be waiting for an alternative vaccine.
No doubt those who have health reasons for not being vaccinated will be making their case to whomever.
The teachers who lose their jobs because they simply don't like people being made to do things they don't want to do?
I wonder how they handled working in schools where kids are made to wear uniforms.
If you get to find them guilty of hypocrisy, what will you further strip them of?
I guess they'll be content with their hypocrisy in their new employment not in schools.
There's no doubt that servicing rent and generating food will focus anyone's mind.
Ought we now ought to go the Singapore route and extend the social contract of basic welfare and public entitlements only to the vaccinated?
No. I don't agree with Singapore's policy.
But if someone chooses to not get vaccinated without an authentic medically-approved contraindication, they don't get to infect as many people as possible. If that means they can't deal with hundreds of people a day, or just the same 30 kids all day, that's their choice.
Teachers not getting vaccinated to protect themselves, colleagues and kids is pathetic. Teachers, just like all other workers, are forced to obey myriad other 'mandates' in order to keep their jobs, e.g. turn up to work on time, prepare lessons adequately, assess kids, provide extra curriculars, wear appropriate clothes etc. etc. One of the most irritating 'mandates' I ever expereinced was having to wear a tie in a Whangarei High school. Wearing a bloody tie every day was far more annoying than having to present an arm every 6 months for a Covid jab. Repeat ad finitum for thousands of other jobs.
Koff
Somehow I doubt teachers took up the profession knowing their continued employment would be based on taking a medical treatment…
And I'm impressed at how many on the left – that once upon a time stood to defend working people – are now cheering on and often actively demanding that people should loose those jobs for their convictions.
Agreed, but who would have known in 2019 that a pandemic was about to change everyone's lives and precipitate a lot of hard decisions. As for the vast majority of teachers I've met most have their students' welfare at heart, not their personal idiosyncratic opinions or ideas. Potentially bringing a nasty virus into the classroom, or staffroom doesn't seem to be sensible whatever your convictions.
“Gangs are already rapidly accelerating under this government, and their periphery will expand massively.”
……………………………….
Why has there been no in-depth investigative tv journalism done into this problem?
And also into whether the much-fanfared reduction in the prison muster is allied to the reported increase in violent crime that has been reported as now a thing in NZ?
Wellington Central is reported by police stats as at December 2020 as having suffered a significant rise in violent & anti-social incidents & actual crimes of violence, which is likely to be the product of policies putting more & more people with gang affiliations & problem behaviours into inner city motels & hotels
It’s rather disconcerting that there seems little in the way of Ministers & party spokespeople coming up with concrete answers to these problems beyond the usual hit ’em hard “lawn order” noises from the loikes of Soimon Bridges.
Or, maybe, when it comes to gangs – that IS the answer? The only major downside to that is there won’t be a single Māori whanau in the country that hasn’t got whanau members in gangs & even if some of those whanau are lowlife thugs, they’re still whanau & whanaungatanga applies. If the state trashes their mana; they trash the mana of the whanau & hapu too.
Gangs are already rapidly accelerating under this government, and their periphery will expand massively.
Given the NZ gangs might well out-gun our police and military combined – it’s not hard to imagine that ‘periphery’ becoming a lot more visible.
By contrast in WA the massively popular Labour State govt will be legislating to make gang membership pretty much intolerable.
Want my vote Labour? This is how you get my vote.
Our society is seen as fascist by some because people are forced to wear masks.
I wonder how those of that view would see the banning of wearing of certain clothes.
Certainly a weird calculation of public health harm when patched gangs who decade upon decade deal meth and intimidation get sustained growth and increasing acceptance by the state, but failing two injections in one month gets you excluded near-fully from society with no end in sight or current limit to it.
If the state is prepared to force that degree of sanction on the unvaccinated, they should be consistent and apply even greater sanction to gang members.
Its certainly got the karen I know very excited
Reminds me; I’ve got an unopened letter a few days old from Nicola Willis. Spose I should open it see what she wants me & me neighbours to know… 😐
It's not sitting well with me ,this segregation road we are traveling .
It's not the kiwi way , keep trying to get them vaccinated, but they need to be able to work , and as for this meme that they should pay their own medical expense, fuck right !!!
(Not you personally Ad)
With you touching on gangs made me think of the recent protest at Parliament.
I don't think 4 gangs have ever ridden together before. Add to that the mix of trades, professionals, ethnicities and cultures. To write the crowd off as Trumpist rent a crowd is totally burying your head in the sand.
It's been common knowledge for a long time that these meth traders are happy to ride together in order to get rich. Could it be that Brian Tamaki is also involved
Yes agree. I posted on the veracity of this protest yesterday.
Several is an understatement at 90 percent nationwide thats a few hundred thousand.
The Minister of Blah, Blah,Blah.
TVNZ Breakfast this morning
James Shaw live from Glasgow, asked by John Campbell about climate change getting worse. "There are two ways to answer that", "We have strengthened our targets" "We have increased our ambitions"
Asked by Campbell if Greta Thunberg is right in saying that this is just Blah, Blah, Blah.
James Shaw seemed stuck, before replying, "I don't think she is totally wrong".
Thunberg is either right or wrong.
Much like the Curates Egg, I might like to ask James Shaw, which part of Greta Thunberg's Blah, Blah, Blah does he consider is wrong.
"I don't think she is totally wrong"
Brilliant answer from the archetypal centrist politician! Mind you, he could have done the `glass half empty' framing better by observing that she ain't totally right.
That's where I differ from James, who is forever trying to signal his managerial consensus style of politics just like Jacinda.
Where I differ from you, Jenny, is in not defaulting to right/wrong temptation as if the world is really black and white.
Sure, all we ever get from these international conferences is a fudging of the issues. I'm with you on that. I bet most sideline commentators would agree nowadays. But notice how none of the others onsite here have joined me in diagnosing the process of democracy as root of the problem!
James keeps using that process to secure consensus, and we get incremental progress as output. Is it sufficient to solve the global problem? Of course not. He's part of the system now, so he's unwilling to admit that. Incrementalists will always hope for the best. Sometimes reality even validates their stance. However the scientist talking head on the tv news last night said the latest research indicates a global warming of 2.4 degrees by the end of this century. That's dire.
That's dire….
no its deadly.
🤔 Did you say you were once a lecturer, Dennis, out of interest?
Nope, you must've been thinking of someone else. Closest I ever got was conducting the official proceedings of a Green Party Annual Conference, in my capacity as Convenor of the Standing Orders Committee and Constitution Working Group. It did involve addressing over a hundred delegates (& organising their decision-making).
There was I believing what you said Dennis.
Then I came to this " organising their decision-making". That really is too much. Organising 100 Green Party members is simply impossible to believe.
It's certainly true that the legend `getting the Greens to agree on anything is like herding cats' was one of the first things I encountered at my first annual conference in '91. Just the type of challenge I like!
So it took several years hard word-smithing to reach the smooth consensus-producing output stage that I was referring to…
"the smooth consensus-producing output stage". You really managed that?
Dennis for Speaker of the House of Representatives. You would be a miracle worker.
Dunno if I'd go that far. Yes, one can learn the relevant techniques, and apply them in other contexts, but only a fool would expect success.
Stuff like this is extremely context-dependent. There's an old saying about the right place & the right time, eh? I just happened to be the right person there & then. I was new to the scene, the competing primadonnas had all cancelled each other out into a mutual stalemate, I volunteered to solve the problem.
Technique was only part word-smithing. It also involved playing the role Alexander the Great played when confronted by the Gordian Knot: lateral-thinker, decisively so.
Dennis did say that his friend, a lecturer (engineering?) was anti-vax in spite of his education.
Yep, that would've been what Gezza was thinking of.
That’s correct, Dennis. Thanks ianmac. 👍🏼
"…..none of the others onsite here have joined me in diagnosing the process of democracy as root of the problem!" Dennis Frank
I would be one of them. Democracy is not the problem.
Not if you accept that democracy is not limited to voting every three years.
That is a limited and highly proscribed form of democracy.
Democracy in its fullest form embraces the right to protest and demonstrate and apply pressure to demand change.
All politics is pressure. History shows that elected representatives of all parties, no matter what stripe, are not imune to political pressure. This pressure can take several forms and come from different places, from the streets, from the trade unions, from the corporate lobbyists with access cards to the Beehive.
Currently the overwhelming political pressure coming on our elected leaders, is coming from the powerful, well connected, well resourced BAU lobby.
I have been saying for a long time now that we live in an age where polticians need to become activists and activists need to become politicians.
I often think of the Labour MPs who took to the water in small boats to join with protesters against nuclear ships as a model.
This form of street activism allied with activism in parliament proved to be enormously powerful, swaying two National MPs Mike Minogue and Marylyn Waring to vote for the Labour opposition Private Members Bill to ban nuclear ship visits. If this bill had been voted on, New Zealand would have been nuclear free in 1984. Prime Minister Muldoon, under political pressure from the militarists called a snap election to prevent the vote being taken.
The calcuation was that pressure could be put on the incoming Labour administration to water down any proposed anti-nuclear legislation. And so it was.
The plan was to put political pressure on the Lange Government to accept a US warship under the niether confirm nor deny arrangement. The USS Buchanon was dispatched from the US to Auckland, half way here, David Lange accepted a delegation in his Beehive office from the peace movement who told him that if the Buchanon was allowed to dock, the same protests that had brought down the Muldoon administration would be organised against his government. Lange phoned Washington and told them to turn the ship around. The next day David Lange was reported in the listener as saying that his most feared lobby was the anti-nuclear movement.
Rod Donald was a masterclass example of a skilled proponent of joining parliamentary and street activism. Originally in the Values Party, Donald joined Labour and turned the LECs into organising centres of anti-nuclear protests.
Using the same model of street activism joined with parlamentary activism, Donald spearheaded the movement to achieve MMP against a reluctant Bolger administration.
All politics is pressure.
Is James Shaw the sort of politician who would climb into a small boat to protest nuclear ships, or join a protest march for MMP, to put pressure on parliament to change direction?
Or more to the point, organise and lead protests to pressure pariament to take climate change seriously?
If we are to turn around our growing emissions we need more politicians like Rod Donald and less politicians like James Shaw.
The Greens are steady between 8-9% and no-one including their members is requiring anything more from them.
Originally in the Values Party, Donald joined Labour and turned the LECs into organising centres of anti-nuclear protests.
Interesting, I didn't know that. Anyway, I see no evidence that protestors change govt policy nowadays like they did in bygone days. The duopoly are both addicted to the status quo.
The real evidence that you're wrong lies in the lack of consensus around the imagined positive alternative to neoliberalism. All the protestors seem capable of is sheeplike evasion of the topic. Sue Bradford's think-tank continues to produce no visible output. Have you even joined it?? If not, you're living proof that I'm right. Admit it!
You have not been paying attention.
This is what democracy looks like
The Prime Minister was on her way to a scheduled appointment with the Indonesian ambassador. She saw a protest by Greenpeace on the steps of parliament, The Prime Minister ordered her driver to pull over, so she could check out what the Greenpeace protest was all about. (The Indonesian ambassador could wait).
Standing on the steps of parliament Jacinda Ardern, handed a megaphone, told the assembled protesters that in her role as Prime Minister she would see that her government would ban deep sea oil drilling.
Following this protest and the Prime Minister's statement on the steps of parliament, the Prime Minister followed up on her assurance to the protesters.
A later photo would catch Shane Jones making the infamous slap to his forehead gesture, as the Prime Minister went before the cameras to officialy announce a ban on deep sea oil drilling to the nation.
Shane Jones, a known schill for the fossil fuel lobby, was expressing their collective shock and horror that the Prime Minister of New Zealand had the temerity to defy them.
We need more of this sort of leadership.
Shane slapped his forehead because he knew this decision would be doubly injurious – first to the Taranaki economy & secondly to NZ emissions, as Huntly would inevitably burn less gas & more brown Indonesian coal.
( see genesis-carbon-dioxide-levels-up-82-per-cent-compared-to-previous-years )
I doubt the PM made an impromptu decision after spotting Greenpeace abseilers.
& I wouldn't be surprised if the "appointment with the Indonesian ambassador" touched on securing coal imports.
You say "I often think of the Labour MPs who took to the water in small boats to join with protesters against nuclear ships as a model.".
For the life of me I cannot think of a single Labour Party MP who did that. Fraser Colman was sent up the Mururoa by Norman Kirk but that was on a frigate. That ship, with a crew of about 250 could hardly be described as small. Rumour at the time also said that it wasn't a voluntary trip as Kirk was supposed to have had Colman's name on every slip of paper that went into the hat to pick the happy wanderer.
Who were the Labour MPs you had in mind?
Richard Prebble did not get his nickname "Mad Dog" from his later Right Wing politics, but from his stunt at the wheel of small yacht with other MPs that he steered under the bow of a US nuclear war ship entering Wellington Harbour, almost snagging the yacht’s mast on the warships anchor.
After the protest when they reached shore they were met with police but no charges were laid.
I had never known the Prebble had done that. I guess it must have been the USS Texas in 1983. He really must have been mad at the time. I used to sail dinghies in Wellington Harbour many years ago and I would never have gone anywhere near a ship that size, even if it had been anchored.
The things one discovers about people you thought you knew. Thank you for the story.
James Shaw is exactly the wrong sort of leader the Green party needs at this moment…the last thing the world needs to fight climate change right now is another centrist pragmatist (even a Green one)…no what a party like the Green party needs right now and going forward, to be seen as being the serious climate change political party, is someone with real and deeply rooted progressive principles and who is not afraid to make enemies (and lots of them) defending them at every opportunity…someone brave and fearless, unlike James Shaw….so probably cut from the same cloth of someone like Sue Bradford or Helen Kelly would be a good starting point.
We can forget about Ardern and NZ Labour at this point,they have proven beyond doubt that they will never be the leaders desperately needed in the battle against climate change right now…which given their unwavering fundamentalist adherence to Free Market Liberalism in the face of an approaching tsunami should surprise no one except the stupid.
You're wrong inasmuch as Sue & Helen were both partisans. Democracy requires a leader to be able to compromise with opponents to get results because it is a numbers game. Consequently centrist winners are inevitable.
I do agree that James & Marama ought, in theory, to be able to walk & chew gum at the same time. Leadership of the Green movement is indeed missing in politics here.
If they stay 6-8% James and Marama don't need to do more.
And Chloe's electorate means they can do even less than 5%.
I don't see any groundswell of Green members wanting any more from them.
Well said Adrian.
It is well past time to stop pussyfooting around .If the Greens want to survive they need to disavow Labour and get back into activism for the environment and social justice. Atm they are becoming a laughing stock with their wokism and ineffective policy concessions from Labour.
Haven't had much time lately to trawl through print or even on-line media, so may have missed a great deal. All the same, it seems to me that Marama has been all but invisible since the 2020 election. Isn't the Green Party meant to have joint leaders? What is she (and Chloe, and all the other un-Shaws) up to?
@Dennis Frank, no you are wrong, this moment needs a leader (or leaders) who will stop with all the bullshit, and start dealing with this impending disaster with the urgency and preparing out citizens for radical changes it is going to require from each and every of us, we need leaders who can cut through the political divide in this moment of crisis (like the best Left wing politicians used to be so good at before these fucking death cult neo-liberal centrists infected Left wing politics with their terminal cancer)..the time for incrementalism has long long past, it is plainly obvious that things are going to start getting very messy in the not to distant future….the Progressive Left need to some how dislodge the extreme centrists from either Labour (won't happen) or The Greens, and to start offering a legitimate positive radical way forward that can mobilize a large part of the population…or The real Right will fill that space, of that you can be absolutely sure.
In times of crisis, the people always turn to the leader with the most resolute vision of the future..that can either be a good thing through the progressive Left or a Bad thing in the Right…forget about the neo- liberal centrists, they are going to be relegated to the dustbin of history pretty soon, because as everyone knows they never had a vision of the future, their ideology is and has always been short term, which was what made them such a negative and destructive force on the planet.
I don't get why you continue to evade the point about how democracy works. I agree about all that crisis psychology stuff, in principle, but don't see any relevance to how people do their politics in practice.
It's as if you share my belief that democracy is more problem than solution, while being unwilling to actually say so.
forget about the neoliberal centrists, they are going to be relegated to the dustbin of history pretty soon
Exactly what I assumed 30+ years ago when James Hansen first blew his climate whistle. Never underestimate the inertia of the sheeple!
Maybe James Shaw should just STFU until the results of COP 26 are out.
There's useful stuff in the final text he could actually discuss instead of his bullshit eyeroll denaibility of 'I was here but never really here'.
Thunberg's "cocky little sprite" act will wear fast unless she leads a movement that can truly test the power of a government.
Still, she's got group singing.
One day Thuneberg will try something really televisual like try to levitate the Pentagon 300 feet in the air through group chanting.
The plan to levitate the Pentagon was the perfect absurdly inspiring protest for the time | by Stephanie Buck | Timeline
Then again COP26 might not be the main game.
Indeed it's a key part of the game.
It's just the inability to hold such bilateral arrangements to international scrutiny that makes such discussions so much weaker.
Dennis, Perhaps Pro Bono work should be added to their Brief? Public Service work which is an expectation of the role? $159 per hour for Criminal Justice service. 7x the minimum wage. They were given the new schedule in March 2020 How many hours would they perform for the State each year? So a week at that rate for 30 hours $4770 plus expenses.
Currently many would consider that "not too shabby" But to keep up with costs…
Given the CPI for my teacher's pension has increased by aprox 25% in the same period (since 2008) the new rate should be aprox $198 per hour at least.
Good income lessens the chance of bribes.
Sorry, this did not attach for some reason..my bad?
Maybe you forgot to hit the reply button, but no worries – happened to me sometimes so I now always check the posting.
Yeah, that type of innovative thinking is helpful & you could send Kris your suggestion & ask him to get officials to assess the merit & report back.
It is also a sterling example for having a maximum wage.
My reply button doesn’t work most times as well. But on another note for all the complainers and whingers …Germany is doing well, eh! 40,000 cases a day mostly all unvaxxed and a further 100,000 deaths projected. Thank you Labour, thank you Jacinda et al.
some numbers to your hysteria, to make it more palatable
Total doses given113M
People fully vaccinated55.9M
% fully vaccinated67.1%
some 30 million are due for a booster shot.
popultion Germany 83.24 million 2020
in the meantime in a our wee nation of 5 million we got us a totally preventable outbreak of Delta, started Vaccinating like our life depended on ( it does) after July 28th, don't ever mention those that have run out of their 6 month full coverage – everyone jabbed Jan to May, had to be bailed out with vaccines by the Spaniards and the Danes because of course we did not have enough to continue vaccinating realizing that the delivery of October 28th was a bit late, and are here now pretending we have beat Delta.
Next you tell us that the Danes with its 80% mark of vaccination and rising cases is also losing it.
Maybe you can just breathe for a moment, stop comparing a transit nation such as Germany to some lost islands at the bottom of the earth – next stop Antarctica – and understand that literally no one a. knows really what they do, and b. all hope and pray that what ever they do is working, and c. that the population will get the jabs when offered, and for what its worth, we are seeing the limitations of Jacinda and her Government – see protests. And it don't matter one bit that you are a supporter of this government, or I don't care about this government, or that they might not have voted at all cause why they fuck would they it won't matter much anyways to them, unless Jacinda forces people to get the jabs we too will look like England, – rising cases, Germany – rising cases, France – rising cases, Italy – raising cases, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland etc all ditto, and last but least, we go into summer they go into winter, all nicely locked up at home, sniffling noses and all.
Yes, orange and apples are fruit, and then all comparison stops.
"Totally preventable Delta" You lost me there as Delta is not the pushover you think it is. Or does that just fit in with your story? Every country has struggled with Delta, and most still are.
Yes, however most people in Auckland feel the virus can't be worse than the 12 week lockdown, especially as it has lowered cases not eliminated them. People have worked up anger, which is replacing caution. That will lead to even more cases with any easing. Jacinda Ardern says she has been kept awake at night…. no doubt torn, as not all the advice is good advice.
The media trying to pre-empt the PM's messages with their "guesses" and then their choice of "experts" often leads to muddled messaging.
Also, I think The Director General of Health has messaged in a very anglicised communication style. Sharing the podium with other ethnicities may have strengthened the message. It was very ethnocentristic.
The Herald gives Barry Soper's bile and sheer nastiness plenty of exposure today. I have personally witnessed that man having an apoplectic temper tantrum at a Parliamentary security officer who was simply doing his job, some years ago. It was the worst display I have ever seen in public. He oozes venom. He and his wife are a perfect pair. Their child will grow up having those two as parents!
Does the hospitality trade have a point, are they being shat on, is the PM seeing for herself?
Hospitality is always going to be a causualty of a pandemic due to the business not having the space to make a maximum turnover due to social distancing and taking off a mask to eat and drink, less foot traffic and people having less to spend in a pandemic.
Bollix, been into a mall food court lately?
The government, again, is picking winners and losers
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/11/prime-minister-jacinda-defends-allowing-cosmetic-botox-visits-in-auckland-but-not-haircuts.html
What is your point about mall food courts?
Mall food courts offer variety, cost is usually fairly priced and they are crowded.
Yeah some can open, some can't.
Government picking winners, again
No one wants to be the business who cannot open. Perhaps extra targeted assistance is warranted or the really hard decision needs to be made for the right reasons to close. A restart package might also help.
help with leases would be the biggest thing and people have been asking for it for a while now, but so far, nothing other then the wage subsidy, a bit of resurgence payment that either pay the lease or the rest but not both, and a wee bit of extra help for some affected businesses in Auckland.
In the meantime getting a part for an air conditioner from akl to rotorua takes two weeks and that is not taking any guarantees, and voila, no working if the environment needs to be cool for working. Don't ask me how i know that.
I will not ask.
So what are the rules around which can open or not?
You are no longer allowed to sit down in an Auckland food court. Takeaway only so far less busy.
My daughter started back at work at St Lukes food court yesterday. But my son, who is a qualified, senior chef, is making takeaways for one of Auckland’s top restaurants and being paid the wage subsidy.
"The Health advice" There.. fixed it for you
You beat me to the topic. He's a pathetic prick with the emotional maturity of a five year old. His beef today:
Jacinda Ardern travelled to and from Auckland on an Air Force jet. The fact that prime ministers get to travel regularly on RNZAF aircraft is something of which he, apparently, has never been aware? (sarc)
Having a little bit of knowledge of military matters, there will have been serious death threats and her security has been upgraded to the highest level. It is unlikely the public will be informed of the nature of the threats. I also noted she was driven around Auckland in a bullet proof SUV yesterday.
Of course, Soper knows as much but chooses to spread unsubstantiated muck instead.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-barry-soper-why-jacinda-ardern-used-a-defence-force-jet-for-her-flying-auckland-visit/FE2V3YSW57KFMBFKIJP47YIKNI/
Ardern's safety and welfare is not considered as being a priority for Soper. There was also a time restraint as I think Ardern was chairing an APEC meeting later in the day.
My wires are crossed Ardern will chair a virtual APEC meeting on 13 November 2021. In saying this she would need time to prepare herself for this. So a time restraint in visiting Auckland.
I thought it was a pretty good article. Being an Aucklander myself, I think the Jacinda's trip to Auckland to visit one company that has been able to trade through, and a vaccination centre was a complete waste of time. She should have visited some actual businesses effected by the lockdown.
I was about to say this myself and this will really start to bite Labour in the butt
That says more about you than the article. Soper is incapable of writing anything balanced.
At least Soper is more balanced than the Audrey Young rating system.
so, you are saying that one out of date right wing hack is more balanced than another out of date right wing hack? given sopers alcohol consumption, young must have a very bad case of the d.t.
I think you will find Audrey very much wears rose tinted glasses…..she even rated Twyford (yes Twyford …the man that has cock ups named after him) a 7/10!!!!!
We still sometimes hear the expression "Oh shit, I've made a Twyford" here at work when someone fucks up.
nice try at deflection. yes young does wear BLUE rose tinted glasses. having venn as a dad would do that.
So you want her to mingle with heaps of pe6then go back to Wellington??
Maybe you think it would be good for to catch and transport covid ,but the grownups obviously think differently.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300341098/housing-minister-corrects-record-after-clerical-error-leaves-off-475000-in-sponsored-media-stories
'clerical error'
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/11/kainga-ora-hid-the-fact-it-was-using-labour-candidate-arena-williams-in-taxpayer-funded-advertising.html
Initially Kāinga Ora included a paragraph disclosing her candidacy, but then pulled the mention – saying "it keeps Kāinga Ora's powder dry too!"
Takes away scrutiny from housing issues I suppose
Very dodgy at best. Blatant corruption at worst.
Now now I'm sure its all above board
Huh? So at a time when homelessness and state house waiting lists are ballooning, KO go out and spend 500k on 'sponsored content'?
.
Seamus Shag catches a fish – possibly a baby eel.
https://vimeo.com/404400243
Aww … c’mon folks. ☹️
I’m not ordinarily one to complain but Seamus works his damp oily little butt feathers off there, & after being up here for several hours still not one post in support of his efforts n prowess? 😳
Is it becos of the white flashes he’s got? Becos he’s not an All Black little shag? 😠
You brute you! Cheering Seamus along as he murders a poor little defenseless fish? I'll bet you would have been in the stands cheering along the gladiators as the slaughtered to Christians in the Colosseum.
Why don't you train Seamus properly. Teach him a vegan diet and make him stick to it. Yah boo sucks.
Cripes❗️ 😮
Have you had a recent head injury, alwyn, by any chance? 🤔
☘🐧
Papua New Guinea
1 Sounds like New Zealand
"Healthcare workers and medical aid workers have even reported receiving death threats from rural communities who associate the vaccine with "witchcraft".
2 Sounds like what some were prepared to tolerate in New Zealand
"PNG's overwhelmed health system and lack of vaccine protection is proving deadly.
With the nation's Covid death toll now at 413, even their morgues and funeral services are struggling.
The country's pandemic response controller, David Manning, recently authorised the mass burial of 200 bodies after the morgue in the capital of Port Moresby was filled beyond capacity. RNZ also reported the mortuary at Port Moresby General Hospital had reached full capacity and was filled with over 300 bodies, despite the limit being 60."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/papua-new-guinea-covid-why-only-17-per-cent-are-fully-vaccinated/DX3OSLMH4JLY4BFIIA7KPEBWC4/
The witch doctor influence is ingrained in PNG society. This is an extra hurdle to over come to save lives.
How good were the Black Caps, they've definitely exceeded expectations.
The thing I'm liking about this team is they're not just relying on one or two players to win games but everyones contributing
'A champion team will always beat a team of champions'
What about that missed catch!!!
The harder you work the luckier you become
The smarter you work the luckier you become. These days overwork means burnout. Calvinistic morals have past there used by date.
Wrong.
The become the best because they work, practice, train harder and longer than anyone else
"A lot of people ask me how do I get to the next level? Well…. you get to the next level by being the first one on the range and the last one to leave." – Jerry Miculek?
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHG-ibZaKM
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ3XwizTqDw
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFoxfjORvh8&t=183s
it's not FB PR, if you want to post youtubes, please give some explanation of what is in them (and probably not so many).
The clips are of the best in the world demonstrating why hes the best in the world (and just being generally awesome) along with a quote of his to back up my earlier assertion
And an excuse to watch someone hit a 1000 yard target with a pistol with iron sights and watch the same person fire six aimed shots reload and fire six more aimed shots (with a revolver) all within 2.99 seconds
Which is just so damned cool
that would have been a great intro 👍
The smarter you work the luckier you become. Smarter practice makes a better player.
Looking at golf DeChambeau would be taking Tigers mantel.But all his practice hasn't made him any better.My son in law a former professional rugby player now a coach.Knows that to much practice leads to more injuries and burnout.
In France rugby players were training like like football players a non contact sport.The result a very high injury rate and lacklustre performances. The next season he reduced training ,worked on skills and tactics his team went to the top of the league earning promotion until Covid struck.
The same can be said of many sports .NZ cricket NZ provincial teams don't get any where near the amount of Cricket compared to Australia, India,England or South Africa.Yet NZ punches well above its weight.
+100
Outstanding performance Black Caps.
20/20 is just hit and giggle. Give me the 5-day game.
Yeah but we already won that so might as well add another… best generation of cricketers we've ever had.
Yes Sir.
Fantastic match, just finished watching the replay.
Highlights include the see-saw nature of the final 6 overs, England crumpling under pressure, Mitchell/Nesham batting and the Indian chappy standing in front of The Mitchells in the crowd, jumping up excitedly every time the camera went on the former AB coach.
Whether it is Pakistan or Aussie, this squad has what it takes to beat either of 'em.
Agreed.
This squad is easily the best squad NZ has ever assembled, top and middle order strength in batting, a decent lower order (our number 10 and 11,Boult and Wagner, average 15 and 14 with the bat including a 50 each)
We've never had three bowlers average under 30 let alone 4, we've even got some decent spinners as well when required
But what excites we more is the depth in the team.
Will Young averages 42 in FC with 12 100s and thats not counting Ravindra, Phillips or Mitchell all of whom can bat middle order or replace De Grandhomme
BJ Watling is the best wicket-keeper batsman bar none yet Blundell and Seifert means the loss won't be as great as first feared
We've got variety in our pace attack with whatever combinations of swing, seam, speed, height, aggression and left-right bowling you want
Halcyon days indeed
…and the best captain and batsman ( sorry, batter goes on hotdogs) in the modern era.
Yeah its fair to say Kane has eclipsed Crowe as NZs finest
"A champion team will always beat a team of champions".
True. Oh well the New Zealand team will get second then when they play the final.
Heresy!
The best part of the game as reported (I have yet to watch my recording) was the turning down of a run by Mitchell because he felt he had interfered with the bowler's attempt to field the ball.
The action of a true champion, respecting the rules, the opposition and the character of the game.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/cricket/black-caps/300451664/sportsmanship-again-to-the-fore-as-black-caps-make-t20-world-cup-final
Since you haven't watched the game I won't ruin it for you by telling you result
Thanks for your care and concern, Puckish, but the result is known to me, as the headline I quoted may have hinted at it…..
It’s not always the end or result that is worth the while but rather how they get there, ball by ball, run by run, action by action. I’m looking forward now to settle down after a day’s activity and watch it all unfold.
Yes Leadership and sporting players doing it by by example. Great bunch.
Two new polls out; Labour taking a hiding into the low '40s.
Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Labour down in two polls, as support crumbles – NZ Herald
kind of useless beyond the very broad strokes unless they also poll on why.
Two polls saying the same thing in big jumps is good enough for any Cabinet.
oh I'm sure people are taking notice. But most of us don't have access to internal polling that tells us why the drop. Is it just a normal post-emergency resetting of the swing vote? (I'm assuming the Greens didn't take a big jump). Or is there serious dissatisfaction from a chunk of 2020 Labour voters?
We will hash all that out (or not), but imagine if we had some actual research to be basing discussions on.
The fact that the Greens are 9 in both puzzles me. They haven't done anything for quite a while. Perhaps it's just a tactical shift away from Labour, by left-Labour voters. Fair-weather friends!
ok, nine is good. Might be the return from those that went Labour because of Ardern, and are disappointed by her centrism. Now that Labour aren't all huggy in the covid response, it's probably easier to want better action on housing and climate.
Being in power and trying to deal with Covid is a 'no-win' situation, and a juggle with the health of people and the economy. Slide the scale too much in one direction and you take a hit, and unfortunately this can drive poor decision making.
not to mention the unrelenting stress.
You're too kind. National did fine in polling coming out of the GFC and the Christchurch earthquakes (at least for the first year).
The minimum expectation is that in government you don't make things worse.
There is no equivalence Ad. Covid goes on and on, every day presenting sickness and causing decisions which keep a level of cortisol in the body much higher than usual, which leads to anxiety. The highest stress is losing a loved one or having to move. Both these events are happening with regularity along with "waiting for results".
"You don't make things worse" 1. Christchurch was controlled and had little input to major decisions which has led to poor outcomes for the water table. 2. Many are waiting for resolution more than 10 years later. The earthquake did not effect most areas of NZ. The GFC was made worse by austerity and failure to meet infrastructure needs on a number of levels. The press did not always press for answers, and those who did were removed.
Really?
I recall some polls had National (under Bridges even) and Act edging ahead of Labour/Greens until Covid hit
So its not a not a 'no-win' situation because it led directly to an election win, imho
However it could be (depending on how accurate the polls are and I have my doubts) the electorate telling Jacinda and the Labour party what they're thinking
Will Jacinda listen…don't know but its starting to get interesting again
Correct
In February 2020 Simon Bridges was a good bet for winning the election. His personal popularity was crap but Labour was on course to be one term government.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/409476/new-political-poll-shows-national-scraping-into-power-and-nz-first-out-of-parliament
Then COVID hit.
There are only 24 hours in a day.
Crikey. True?
My watch dial says there’s there’s only 12❗️ 😳
If I ever catch the shyster who sold me this dud I’ll shove it up him where the sun never shines! 😡
Rubbish, thus the quote "never let a good crisis go to waste".
The govt will gain in popularity even only if they handle it in a mediocre way. Take the last election, often called the Covid election by opposition, Labour had all the 1pm air times etc. and gained hugely to win a majority.
Didn't National do well after Christchurch earthquakes even though they may not have handled them well?
I have been surprised heading into out spring of discontent that such hadn't occurred earlier. Troubling and factious times for people. Labour got a sizeable lift with their successful handling of the first half of the covid pandemic (helped by an inept National Party admittedly). The realities of covid being driven home now we should expect some swing the other way. In 12 months time if things have settled down and life has returned to some normality for the population and we are steering our way through the covid endemic, accepting some things may not be that pretty along the way, I would pick a fair degree of the rancour and frustration will dissipate.
3 waters is a nail in coffin
they were well warned
Local government is a very, very soft target to go beat down on.
If Labour were going to spend their political capital on something, it may as well be something worthwhile and on a target everyone hates and ignores anyway.
I'm not so sure that the average punter fully understands the 3 Waters fiasco. Not enough to shift the dial on a poll more than a point or 2.
Yeah I agree with your logic while not seeing any evidence of a fiasco as yet…
My FIL is quite up to date and knowledgable about this but hes actually going to a protest over this as well
Hes retired and its a bit of a drive and I don't think hes ever protested anything before so for him to do this shows the feelings some people have over it
I think Labour is going to be a bit surprised about this
Labour is going to be a bit surprised
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest! The clash between dreams & reality will always throw up a few surprises.
However I haven't seen any valid point emerge from opponents as yet. Just being conservative & clinging onto stuff won't work. That makes it seem as if conservatives still haven't figured out how to transcend kindergarten politics. Doesn't get them anywhere on an issue where most folk know the system is fucked and await suitable improvements.
So those who matter (pragmatic centrists) will expect National to describe system improvements that seem likely to work.
3 Waters is not a fiasco. It will prove a successful strategy.
One positive thing to say about Jacinda Ardern is that her political antenna is/was always spot on, she knew which way the wind was blowing or at least which way to minimise bad news (no bad thing in a leader)
But this just seems…all wrong, like 3 waters is what you want to die on a hill on?
Gotta wait for the select committee process to produce an output before we see if it really is a dog's breakfast. So far just fear-mongering.
Its a hill to die on when you try to ram it through when everythings already tense and protest groups are active. Groundswell + Covid protesters + three waters could really make for large and disruptive protests that gain momentum.
Talking with an old friend yesterday – more than a friend really – who I know has has voted left all his life. We're talking an educated, experienced professional with a lot of street smarts. Way more than me. He still speaks well of Helen Clarks government for instance.
But he's not voting Labour this time.
It's not one single issue – it's an accumulation of political actions from this govt that he sees forming a disturbing pattern. He used the word 'betrayal'.
The next government under David Seymour will no doubt resurrect his faith in politicians. The Act/National/Tamaki parties will make a great coalition.
They’ve gone too far down the Jacinda cult of personality track, trading more or less completely on her carefully manufactured (& heavily choreographed) celebrity status.
When you look beyond the Jacinda front person, there’s not a lot of competence & confidence on show among the rest of the Ministerial front benches, imo.
Most Ministers we see ANYTHING of at all come across to me as low interest or defensive, as often quite ill-informed, & as generally underwhelming.
And some stuff being worked on almost furtively in the background (like He Puapua & Three Waters) is going to become hugely controversial.
Robertson, Hipkins and Little are the heavy lifters. The rest of Labour as you say, gave rise to the oppositions saying "Labour talent pool shallower than a car park puddle on a summers day"
I agree with your pick of Labour’s hard workers there, Jimmy.
Mahuta puts in solid effort too, but I’m a wee bit wary of her Māori Caucus agenda, & of her judgement when it comes to diplomacy. There’ve been times when I think her saying a helluva lot less would have been a lot more more diplomatic. Peters mastered this art.
“Staunch as, bro ” works well here in NZ sometimes, in some situations, but in some parts of the world mild & flowery phrases are the way to go, while the officials do the hard arguing & the grunt work with “the opposition””s minions – imo.
Sorry Mod.
My reply to Jimmy’s gone into the ether. Suspect an email addy screwup has it parked in Moderation. 😰
Where are the competent National Bods? Talk about that little problem of “shallow puddles”
So presumably he will vote Green.
Labour needs to change tac urgently on the stupid idea of 3 waters.Given no mayor is in favour of this mandate.
It could loose labour the next election mandating after offering an opt out option.Once the Covid hysteria dies down people will not be happy having another govt bearaucracy taxing everyone including those councils who have invested heavily in upgrading their water services.They will be subsidising those who have let their infrastructure rundown.A massive Vote looser.
It is still pretty much the same as the last Roy Morgan poll with the Labour Green combination comfortably in front.
In my dreams I would like to see what would happen if National changed the leadership to a Luxon leader, Bridges deputy combination. I would pick an immediate swing of around 10% from Labour to National with only a minor hit, if any, on the ACT vote.
Just a dream mind but I would love to see how accurate my prediction would turn out. I don't know what Luxon would be like as PM, mind, but the intellectual fun would be in seeing what the polls did. Still a Luxon PM with a Bridges backup would probably be OK and anything would be better than the shambles that is the current Government.
Wouldn't surprise me, but it would be a honeymoon effect only. Reality would slim the margin down readily. Policies would kill the Nats. Unless Luxon has more of a brain than was evident in his corporate phase. He presents well but that just reduces the Ardern x-factor somewhat. They're still a bunch of useless losers no matter which angle you view them from.
Get a new leader thats not as divisive and they wont need to do a helluva lot about policy. I'm sure one of the drivers of the big vote split along gender lines is Judith.
There's alot of dissatisfaction around now wont take much to harness some of that.
Well how about the prediction that Luxon would be rejected by a large majority. A fundamentalist Chritstian as a Prime Minister is not a viable option.
"not a viable option". Why on earth not?
We have already accepted an unmarried mother. I don't think we would have any problem with a homosexual male were she to give up and Grant become the Labour leader.
Why should anyone who says they hold Christian beliefs be a problem? You talk about being a fundamentalist Christian but I wouldn't think that there are very many people in the country who even know what that is supposed to mean. I certainly don't and I can't even be bothered trying to work it out.
If Luxon got anywhere near the top of his party, everyone would soon learn what a fundamentalist Christian of Luxon's ilk thinks – and as Garibaldi hints, it'd sink him and his party.
The World was built in 7 days and is only 4000 years old and males are the head of the household. Stuff like that Alwyn. Oh and Christ is coming again then we really get divided. Apologies to any true believers, I envy your certainty.
I take this to mean that the basic thing uniting them is a belief that the bible is literally true and if it is in the bible then it really happened.
As long as they just believe it and don't demand that I do so I guess I couldn't care less. I have a very simple set of beliefs. Primarily there isn't any such thing as a god and anyone who believes in such a thing is nuts. Then there are just different degrees of nuttiness, and as long as you don't make me behave according to your beliefs you can proclaim anything at all.
That doesn't mean that there isn't anything valuable in the beliefs of some religious groups. About half the commandments make sense as a way of living. The first 4 are simply silly, The rest aren't too bad as a guide to how we should treat other people.
As long as Luxon doesn't try and impose his way of living on me I think he is harmless. He certainly is likely to cause less damage that followers of some of the other main religions who believe that if they say something is true I have to also do so.
Early days, but the polls are going to get much more interesting over the next few months. The shine has gone off Ardern. Things Covid seem very muddled to my current occasionally-sleep-deprived-thus-addled brain but I’m picking up confusion & dissatisfaction more generally where before there was more clarity & support for Jacinda among my personal contacts.
The msm journos are hungry for a change of diet, imo. Some might also be getting a bit resentful & tired of the ‘grace & favour’ favourites style media conferences Ardern has been directing with more firmness than we are used to seeing from PMs.
They could go looking to make mischief now.
.
Ardern down just 4 points in UMR to a still impressive 47% PPM … but plunges a massive (I'm guessing unprecedented) 13 points in the Curia poll to 34% (albeit most of those swinging into non-committal territory rather than across the aisle).
Two different countries, huh?
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Lab/Green Govt still rating a little higher in the UMR a year into their 2nd term than Nat/ACT at the same point in their 2nd term – late 2012 (& hence, unsurprisingly, current Oppo doing a little worse than Lab/Green in late 2012) … putting aside the intricacies of other minor parties.
.
Interesting breakdowns / crosstabs from Curia poll:
Hamish Rutherford on Twitter: "A few grabs from the full TPU poll. First, preferred PM. Luxon not far behind Collins, Ardern well ahead, but down 13 points. Chris Bishop ahead of Bridges and John Key https://t.co/DVsPbu2k8V" / Twitter
Although some of the geographic stats look a little dodgy (for Wellington & Rural).
Socio-economic breakdown:
[Least deprived to Most deprived]
That is revealing. Maybe this speaks to it:
Labour is going to need that 9 per cent Green vote to form a coalition.
To be fair, a coalition government is the norm – a one-party majority under MMP is unique so far.
True
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/300449291/audio-files-reveal-difficult-upbringing-of-cleo-smiths-alleged-abductor-terence-kelly
A reminder of how generations of abuse affect us today.
Thanks. Yes, that is very sad. We could prevent so much suffering by being nicer to people earlier.
Enjoy the golden telephone Mr Martin. Fucking dog of a man.
An electric backing gate, which pushes cows into the shed, came off its rollers. Fogo went to help put it back on but “it fell on me”.
He was wearing a motorcycle helmet when it happened, but his health quickly deteriorated, and he went home.
He went to Maniototo Hospital in Ranfurly and the sole person on that Saturday – a duty nurse – gave him a codeine tablet for his headache and sent him home.
“By Monday I was a mess.”
Fogo returned to work but could manage only a few hours at a time.
“That was when the fun started,” he said.
Scans revealed he had suffered injuries to his head and neck, and he was advised not to return to work.
He was recuperating at home when a fellow dairy farmworker dropped off a letter advising him that he and his wife had 10 days to vacate their home on the farm.
The letter, sent by Graeme Martin of Otago Rural Management, said Fogo’s absence from work was causing “operational and management issues” for the company, and his occupation of the home was “placing constraints on both staff requirements and the allocation of accommodation”.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/126893282/i-thought-all-my-brains-had-blown-out-mans-fiveyear-battle-after-work-accident
Anyone following the Kyle Rittenhouse case?
Shows just how screwed up the American legal system, social media, legacy media, tech overloads really are
And how screwed up America is when a kid thinks there might be trouble in town so gets a gun and goes there to sort it out.
Not really. I read an article about the trial on Newshub’s website earlier today but haven’t been following the case & don’t even know how many days in it is.
Defendant’s moved for a mistrial. Judge has taken it under advisement, I read.
Quite a contrast with the days n days of tv coverage given to George Floyd’s murder.
What are your main “takeaways”?
2. The kid is not guilty and in fact it shouldn't have even gone to trial, surely there is no clearer case of self-defence than this
3. The kid had the wrong political affiliation, purely and simply this is about politics. He was even booted off gofundme to try to raise funds for his defence
4. One of the dead was a pedo so not going to cry over that
5. The witness's for the prosecutors ending up proving Kyles claim of self-defence
6. The kid looks absolutely shattered
7. I really hope the kid sues every damn media company he can
Fits with my reading of the Newshub article & my watching of many Al Jazeera news reports & their video footage at the time.
I reckon you’ve got all of those points bang on correct.
I watched the kid break down today and it'll take a long time for him, if ever, to get over this and I doubt he ever will
It's fixed. Every time the prosecution makes headway or catches the murderous thug lying, the judge wades in to get him off the hook.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1458521835151269893
Prosecutors in the criminal trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who shot and killed two protesters last year in Kenosha, Wis., will not be able to refer to the people he shot as "victims," a judge has ruled, while defense attorneys may be able to call them "arsonists" or "looters."
In a proceeding about the ground rules for the upcoming trial, prosecutors and defense lawyers debated whether certain language, witnesses or evidence would be allowed. The trial begins next week.
"The word 'victim' is a loaded, loaded word. And I think 'alleged victim' is a cousin to it," Judge Bruce Schroeder said on Monday, asking prosecutors to instead use the terms "complaining witness" or "decedent" to refer to those shot by Rittenhouse.
https://www.wpr.org/prosecutors-cannot-call-those-shot-kyle-rittenhouse-victims-looters-ok
You're wrong.
Watch this (with your blinks off)
Pay special attention to the footage at 1.42, 2.38 and 3.27 also watch the prosecutions witnesses at 4.22 and 6.32 in their own words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FF7nlWQuRU
How does that relate to not being allowed to use the word "victim" but to call them "arsonists"?
I'm sure a lawyer can jump in here but in this instance calling them victims might be unfairly prejudicial or something?
And calling them an arsonist isn't?
See I was more referring to the testimony where prosecutors own witness said that the guy who was shot said if he caught them alone he'd kill them
Then the footage showing Kyle being chased and assulted
Then the testimony, again from the prosecutors own witness, stating that the guy shot was lunging towards the rifle
Hey, I'm sure shapiro edited it really well.
I still don't see how that video relates to the suggestion that the judge is biasing the trial while breaking silences with his trump-rally ringtones.
Edited it? Thats what you've got, edited?
You think the footage where Kyles being chased was edited or where he was surrounded was edited
Are you really that blinded by ideology?
Haven't bothered to watch it, because nothing you've said seems to indicate that it's actually relevant to whether the judge is "blinded by ideology".
You want to talk about pedos and whatnot, fine. Heck, maybe shapiro's telling the truth for once in his life. But how is it relevant to the administration of the trial?
Rittenhouse travelled across state lines with an assault rifle while underage to clip his hero ticket, and shot three people. Maybe he gets away with it, maybe not. But both sides have laid their grounds for appeal, so regardless of what happens next week it probably won't be the end of it.
I haven't always agreed with you McFlock but I never took you for a liar
Are you that desperate to score a 'point'?
liar?
I haven't watched it.
He took his rifle across state lines, no? Shot three people?
Both sides have grounds for an appeal – one on prejudicial language, the other suggesting bad faith by the prosecution?
Where am I wrong?
"Haven't bothered to watch it," well of course not, wouldn't want any pesky new information to change your view now would you
This is where you lied:
"Rittenhouse travelled across state lines with an assault rifle"
He did not have an assault rifle, he had an AR-15-type rifle.
May not mean much to you but an assault rifle can be operated in semi and fully automatic mode whereas an AR-15 is only capable of semi-automatic fire plus there are laws in Wisconsin around assault rifles
This what the media do though and thats to try to make things sound more dangerous than they are in an effort to smear and make people like you think what they want you to think and you've swallowed the medias line hook, line and sinker, well done.
Also Kyle Rittenhouse broke no laws so it doesn't matter if he 'travelled across state lines' or not
Really? You think the difference in lower receiver counts as a substantive element in the description of his actions?
Well, then, I stand corrected, for whatever it's worth.
As for new info to change my view, fuck ben shapiro. If you need him to argue your point, good luck with that.
Dude had rifle while under the age of 18. That seems to be contrary to at least one wisconsin law.
I'm not asking you to watch the whole thing because heaven forbid your delicate little mind becomes sullied by a different view point
I am asking you to watch these parts at 1.42, 2.38 and 3.27 also watch the prosecutions witnesses at 4.22 and 6.32 in their own words because its video and drone footage and the prosecutions own witnesses
'You think the difference in lower receiver counts as a substantive element in the description of his actions?'
Yes and heres why.
The phrase 'assault rifle' conjures up images and emotions in people and make them think negatively
So instead of saying Kyle was carrying a semi-auto (which he was) you say he was carrying am assault rifle (which he wasn't)
Also don't you think its important to be accurate, especially when the information is very easily found
''You want to talk about pedos and whatnot, fine. Heck, maybe shapiro's telling the truth for once in his life. But how is it relevant to the administration of the trial?
Seriously?
Maybe hes telling the truth?
You jump into the conversation and you don't even know the basic facts about the case?
Were you bored or just trying to hijack the thread?
The men shot by Kyle were bad men, child molesters, domestic abusers, druggies
So yes when those type of people jump into riots and threaten and chase and produce firearms and aim them then yes their backgrounds are relevant
As for biases here the president linking a 17 year old to white supremacists but hey lets talk about the judge: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8791801/Kyle-Rittenhouses-attorneys-say-sue-Joe-Biden-libel.html
So innocent until proven guilty doesn't count or do you know every single fire arm law in Wisconsin?
Dude, I just wanted to know what your link had to do with the comment that preceded it.
I guess the answer is "nothing".
As for gun types, the kid had a similar gun to what the chch prick used, so I'm not sure calling it an "assault rifle" conjures up emotions more negative than that.
what are you, three? Are you trying to rustle up a legal defense, or just an excuse to not give a shit if Rittenhouse did actually do something legally wrong?
That’s why I used the term “That seems to be contrary”…
As opposed to your unqualified claims of innocence.
'what are you, three? Are you trying to rustle up a legal defense, or just an excuse to not give a shit if Rittenhouse did actually do something legally wrong?'
Heres what I said about that:
So yes when those type of people jump into riots and threaten and chase and produce firearms and aim them then yes their backgrounds are relevant
They have shown themselves in the past to be violent, to be dangerous so their backgrounds are very relevant especially given that lawsuits are floating about (a guilty conviction means money)
Also interesting CNN whitewashing the convictions:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/us/kyle-rittenhouse-shooting-victims-trial/index.html
Versus
https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/2021/03/12/kenosha-shooting/
By that logic, Rittenhouse's prior behaviour should also be relevant, no? But the judge disagreed.
'By that logic, Rittenhouse's prior behaviour should also be relevant, no? '
I would like to know about his background
Didn't Ben Shapiro tell you what the judge said was inadmissable? There's a surprise.
Reread what I typed and try again
They're the same thing. Prosecution tried to introduce his prior behaviour, judge said no. There's probably a youtube vid somewhere to expain it to you.
But if shapiro is showing a bias in what evidence he presents similar to the bias the links in 4.3 imply the judge is showing, maybe your clip was tangentially relevant after all.
But if you cast your net a bit wider, you might find the information you seek.
How about, and this is just a suggestion, that instead of saying if you instead watch the actual clips
I know, I know you want to remain unsullied and clean so you couldn't possibly watch anything of his
In which case maybe you shouldn't comment since you clearly don't know what you're talking about
I know what the judge said couldn't be admitted, so I know more than you, obviously. I just don't give a shit about semantic differences between the types of gun people use to kill each other.
The babbling chihuahua with the bed made of money?
Fucking sad.
/
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/455465/eight-arrests-after-major-cocaine-bust-in-canterbury
Great work from the Police. While it's often easy to criticize them you never know how hard they are working behind the scenes.
Tautoko that. 👍🏼 👮🏻
Today's 2 polls have interesting detail on individual National MPs. There is no public appetite for Bridges at all, they might as well pick Bishop (but won't, because he's not conservative enough for caucus).
Reti doesn't register so that only leaves Luxon as the new leader, when he's done nothing to show he's ready. Which explains why Collins hangs on.
A few months ago I'd have put good money on her being rolled by Xmas. No more than 50-50 now.
(edit: swordfish data at 11.6.2.1)
Failed to arrive on station, imo. Luxon’s a dead in the water smoking hulk before he’s even mission-ready, imo.
National are in serious leadership trouble. Collins is a gaffe-prone disaster. Someone is going to have to come out of left field like Ardern did.
They could probably sell Willis; she seems to have the smarts, the RAM, the intellectual equipment, & the gonads to pull it off.
When you listen to what she believes, he's as awful as the rest of them 🙂
Is there an “s” missing in there, after the comma, in front of “he’s”?
If not, I can’t make any sense out of that.
Yep; wandering "s"
More worried by gonads pulling it off, myself..
Jude is just starting to make her run, next election Jude the Magnificent will be on the throne
You heard it here first
On the throne or barfing into one? I'm not sure she'll be anywhere near the Election. I love your blind optimism though.
Shes timing her run to perfection and her 5-d chess is so off the scale that even I, her closest confident, don't know what shes doing
Is she still mates with dirty politics whale oil skater?
Fake news
Reti seems competent and fairly knowledgeable so he will never register.
Southern DHB board member resigns over vaccine mandate conflict
Good.
"RNZ reported it saw emails in which Beekhuis wrote: “I'm writing, as a publicly elected official of the Southern DHB, to say that it's abhorrent that you would enforce a vaccine mandate on your staff. It's completely amoral, unethical, and medically unnecessary.”
This came after she voted against a Southern District Health Board motion last week calling for a commitment to at least 90 per cent Covid-19 vaccination rates across communities."
It seems the woman would have been happy for the Southern Health Board district to have a 0% Covid vaccination rate.
Anyone who ignores the advantages of covid vaccination in minimising the effects of the virus who is in a position of power, is endangering public health.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126960883/southern-dhb-board-member-resigns-over-vaccine-mandate-conflict
Well said, Pete.
Gobsmacked when I read about that earlier today.
Deserves to be voted off the board – wonder how she’ll do a the next local body eleckies?
0.9%
good riddance
Well who would have thought! Natural selection in action. 🙂
I guess that's one way of improving the intellect levels in the population. But the Repugnants had better watch out! Their base is crumbling. Mind you with dopes like Cruz at the helm and telling them what to think what more can you expect.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/nov/07/ted-cruz-condemns-big-bird-covid-vaccines