We have heard this kind of bullish bluster before from PM John Key in the North, with the result they got dusted up and thrashed by Peters in the blue ribbon seat of Northland.
Yesterday Key wisely chose to leave their lead snake oil salesman in Wellington, knowing Joy Stick Steven is too much of a target for ridicule. And fortunately they did as a group called the Whangarei Street Theatre Company bushwhacked John Key, Joyce and National with a stinging little ditty.
The happless Whangarei National MP Shane Reti came across as a bumbling light weight idiot in that news story. John Key would have been gutted Reti turned the question back on him. All he had to say was something like “I work very hard in my electorate and today’s celebration of 2 new museums is just one result of my work.” Anything rather than a woeful hot potato back to Key. In the end Key’s gate keeper girlfriend jumped in seeing the reporter had nailed a good hit already and time to kill it there before he landed another. So she acted quickly and said Let’s Go!, Key hit the high notes ” yeah see ya.”
He wandered off spewing. I laughed as I saw him snap at Reti as they walked into the distance, Reti was walking along like a little lapdog, very amusing. The video is on hub but I can post on here from some reason? Really is worth a look.
No that was out of camera shot. Thanks Sacha! Do you have the Dildo ditty video also? May as well have that for a laugh. I thought the lyrics were quite pleasant 🙂
No-one will notice because we’ll still be in a state of euphoria from seeing the new flag flying above our 37 gold medal winners at the Olympics from 2016. Oh, and hell freezing over.
I wonder if the Eastern Suburbs branch of the National Party that were so vocal at the Council meeting on 24 February had actually looked at the HNZ, MBIE and other Government submissions to the Unitary Plan. It is far denser than the Council’s response. Room for a lot of political mischief there – but we won’t see Auckland 2040 leading the charge.
The awakening begins!
In the Wall St Journal “Free Trade Loses Political Favor”
Republican backing fades as voters voice surprising skepticism; Pacific pact seen at risk
But one big surprise Tuesday was how loudly trade fears reverberated among Republican voters in the primary contests in Michigan and Mississippi—evidence, many observers say, of a widening undercurrent of skepticism on the right about who reaps the benefits from loosened trade restrictions.
In a June 2015 Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll, taken shortly after the fast-track vote, overall respondents, by 34% to 29% margin, said free trade hurt the U.S. But Republicans were far more negative than Democrats. GOP voters, by 38% to 28%, said free trade harmed the U.S., while Democrats said trade helped by a 35% to 29% edge.
Thanks Tautoko MM – keeping Standardistas informed on TPPA for the decade! Such a great help to know the latest, and remind us of its huge importance to our bite-sized wee country.
Don’t mention the climate change! although I’m still picking Dunedin as the first city in NZ to take AGW seriously. They’re now getting repeated and ongoing issues from weather events.
Overnight power outages in Dunedin from storm winds affected over 4,000 people, but it’s these photos in the ODT that have more warning in them. This is the low lying road between the city and all the Otago Peninsula settlements and currently is the only access onto the Peninsula. The top road has been close for some months from slips from a previous big storm.
Surface flooding at high tide isn’t unusual at certain times of the year, but these images show that it’s not going to take too much sea rise for that road to become pretty dysfunctional.
Otago Peninsula residents are angry a section of Highcliff Rd is set to remain closed until September, more than a year after a massive downpour swept it away during last June’s downpour.
Commiserations Weka – I’m thinking that smallish councils like Dunedin might not be able to afford all the massive repairs and upgrades (and sea walls) the climate change is going to bring on us. Even in Auck City, the Tamaki Drive – a major roadway in and out of Auck – is getting these huge swells, altho the damage so far is not as bad as in Dunedin.
So – is the govt going to get involved in helping sort out damaged infrastructure caused by climate change events ? Probably not while this current govt has its head in the sand on this matter.
Te Atatu Peninsula, one road in or out, Million Dollar Mac Mansions. It does not take a lot to cut that one of the rest of the AKL.
But hey, talking about property values in a vulnerable Suburb is much sexier then talking about what happens when the insurance decides to not insure these properties anymore.
NZ will have an influx of wealthy, entitled USians. Hell, the lefties are even talking about emmigrating if Trump wins the election, so I guess we will get some practice 👿
I wonder about the USA and how it has treated its Hurricane Katrina refugees from New Orleans? They were under great pressure at the time, with some very sobering news and video showing the sad consequences of sudden events. Have they been fair to the refugees they transported away from their locations, homes, loved ones and community.??
@Jenny, yep, if the councils can’t afford to fix the top road on the Otago Peninsula in a year then there’s not a hope in hell of them being able to change the Bay road around the harbour. Events are getting closer together, but we’re still not at the point where it’s sinking in. When we get mutiple issues starting pile up and people start complaining about how unfair it is we’re going to need strategies to teach people that this isn’t going away now, that we have to adapt. I think Dunedin is very interesting to watch because they’re leading the way without having the trauma that Chch has. They’ve commissioned a Peak Oil report for the city, and last year they had to acknowledge that a whole suburb (tens of thousands of people) wouldn’t survive the next 20 years. There are also many sustainability initiatives happening within the community.
(I don’t live in Dunedin btw, but have connections there and think it’s the hot spot for CC in NZ).
The Dunedin City Council has been like the National Government, it has gone after the things it wants to do and bugger all the things it should be doing. The whatsitsname stadium has been built so the old boys can sit in their colesseum and think of past glories as trained people run around with a ball for their enjoyment. Don’t worry about the expense, look at the advantages (to us, and some to Dunedin). What they are doing as weka spells out, is important, but they have to speed it up obviously. Money is going to be a problem.
(Will the stadium be able to be used as a place of refuge as the one in New Orleans was? Perhaps some more money needs to be spent on it to bring it up to speed for this role when it becomes essential to have a big safe space with services, and lots of toilets.)
And similarly the National Government does not want to waste its time in government in building stuff that is needed, it just has its Santa list to fulfil. Haven’t we been good boys and girls, and don’t we deserve…whatever. They have been good in their eyes mainly in getting into power, and then being able to ride the waves and swim through the high ones like surfers. Danger signs are for sissies, and it’s SEP time for cautionary infrastructure. That is their mindset. Actually surfers have had very caring moral people arise from their midst, so even comparing our politicians to them is an insult. Sorry surfers, you serve a purpose to illustrate how bad our power brokers are.
edited
“Will the stadium be able to be used as a place of refuge as the one in New Orleans was?”
It’s only a couple of metres above sea level, so won’t have a lot of freeboard there in a good storm surge. But that’s a couple of metres higher than a lot of South Dunedin or Momona airport, both of which are at sea level. Parts of the airport are below, so any sea level rise or surge is going to cause problems.
I don’t udnerstand what Bear Baby is? Can you explain. Is this about Key?
We can’t afford to concentrate on having a go at him and National to the extent that we ignore what is going on in the country. That’s what giving politicians celebrity status or presidential status does.
It diverts attention to one individual or a coterie, and is part of the plan to keep people from thinking seriously as citizens about what direction the country is being driven in. Probably this trivia is a major part of Crosby Textor directives (do you know who they are Queen Ursula), and though it’s not a new ploy for politicians, it is being done so slickly that it has successfully diverted us for far too long. Just watch the road, will you, says the back seat driver!
I know most of the time the music I put up is on the heavy side, the Industrial and Metal side of things. But today I have a wee gem of Blue Grass. This is a great song from Sean Watkins. He started out in, and is still part of Nickel Creek, I’d recommend doing a youtube search of this band if you like the song.
You need to scroll down the piece I’m afraid to listen to the song.
tldr, he needs 54% of the remaining unpledged delegates to catch up, then swing some pledged delgates. If if he does the first, the latter should happen easy enough.
But that first isn’t easy. He needs more and bigger upsets than Michigan.
The problem he has is when he wins it doesn’t get him enough delegates to off set his losses. Even after his big win in Michigan on the day over all he lost ground on Hillary because she thrashed him in Mississippi.
Winning the South means very little. To win as a democrat, you must win the North. You know, the money states. This is playing out bad for Hillary, very very bad.
I hope Bernie wins. The odds of that are not the best unfortunately. I don’t think Hilary is the end of the world. When you listen to her speak she does appear to be more detail focused where as Bernie is very much about passion. I only worry that:
1) Hilary is in for a harder fight against trump or Cruz than Sanders according to polls,
2) That her morals are more flexible and what she is saying now can’t really be taken as gospel for what she will do if she becomes president.
Yep, the revelation that Sanders accepted sub-$1000 donations from a few individuals that work as lobbyists for unions, civil liberties groups and other leftie organisations is going to spark a mass defection to Hillary.
That article is some funny shit. SCANDEL!!!!!! Bernie receives $3,200 total from individuals who happen to be lobbyists. Some of them donating as much as $500. This totally means he is not consistent on getting big money out of politics.
Of course that is $3,200 of a total $96,000,000 raised.
Steve Parry, former chairman of the board of trustees of Pukenui School, where Burrett became deputy principal in the late 90s, said the school had tried for some time to get rid of him but ran into stiff opposition from the teachers’ union NZEI.
“They were quite evasive and defensive of the guy – it frustrated us to a high level,” Parry said.
Nice try PR, but this is a gross failure of widespread proportion. Multiple opportunities were available to many people over a very long period of time and all those people have responsibility.
As do you and I. This didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in a country that is largely in denial about sexual abuse of children and while we have made some institutional changes since the 90s we’re still not very good at handling the very complex issues that arise. We’re the country that this week is going to spend a whole bunch of time talking about this one case as if it’s unusual or extreme and probably not talk about the fact that most children who are sexually abused are having that happen at home or other places that are supposed to be very safe. No-one wants to talk about that because then we would have to acknowledge that most sexual abuse isn’t being done by lone alcoholic freaks but by the men in our lives that we love and spend our days with. Until we are willing to have that conversation we are culturally sanctioning child rape.
Ok that’s fine but do you also agree that the NZEI put the interests of Robert Burrett ahead of the school children and that by their actions they helped him to commit those acts?
How would I know that PR? Or you for that matter. FFS, it’s a single short sentence quote and another sentence that is the interpretation of the journalist with no comment from the NZEI. The quote came from a Board of Trustees chair without any context at all. I don’t know if he’s being righteous or if he has anti-union prejudice like you. I also don’t know what other actions he took, if any, to protect the children he had a responsibility to protect.
You using the sexual abuse of children to push an anti-union agenda is despicable and if I was a moderator here I would ban you for such blatant flame tactics.
I suggest you don’t know what you are talking about PR, you have just picked up a bit about it in the newspaper or other media. It seems to me that the NZEI would have wanted a proper case made before a teacher was summarily dismissed. The fact that a Board member criticised the union doesn’t mean that it was a fair and reasonable judgment.
The Boards are often made up of confident, opinionated people from the community who run a successful business or such. It doesn’t mean that they are fully cognisant with all the laws, all the best practices, and follow the proper procedures in forming a case against a teacher employee. It may all be done on personal prejudice, against someone who doesn’t dress like them (scruffy) and on small evidence.
This from PR provided link at No.7. Steve Parry, former chairman of the board of trustees of Pukenui School, where Burrett became deputy principal in the late 90s, said the school had tried for some time to get rid of him but ran into stiff opposition from the teachers’ union NZEI.
“They were quite evasive and defensive of the guy – it frustrated us to a high level,” Parry said.
My thoughts on the above paras are that Mr Parry and his Board were frustrated when they couldn’t act just as they wanted, when they decided on action, and the Union said they needed to have more information and facts before they could proceed against this teacher. The Union cann’t want bad teachers to stay in the profession, but probably don’t accept Board’s bad opinions perhaps on flimsy evidence, as sufficient reason to sack a teacher.
edited
Oh, do piss off. The kids don’t pay union fees, so the answer is obviously that the union works for its members. If the case against the guy was so weak that the school board was unable to do anything about it, that’s not the union’s fault. Equally, now that the truth is out, I’m sure the union’s sympathy is with his victims.
You, however, are using the victims to try and make a sad and grubby political point. Shame on you, PR, shame on you.
Ok so there’re some fair points but the question for me is who is the NZEI advocating for, the teachers or the children?
The fact that the NZEI is a union representing teachers should give you a fairly broad hint as to the only possible or reasonable answer to that silly question.
Should the union be erring on the side of the children or the teachers…
That’s disingenous. What you’re actually asking is “Should a teacher’s union enthusiastically join a BoT’s attempt to dismiss one of its members without evidence?” To which the answer is “What? No! What’s wrong with you, man?”
Still using victims of sexual abuse to union bash PR?
If you have any actual evidence that the NZEI knew that Burret was a danger to the children he was around and did nothing and instead chose to support him, put it up.
You’ve got a funny idea about what teachers’ unions are for. They’re really not encouraged to interfere in professional standards. Not sure which rightwing party decided they should butt out and stick to union stuff.
“No-one wants to talk about that because then we would have to acknowledge that most sexual abuse isn’t being done by lone alcoholic freaks but by the men in our lives that we love and spend our days with”
Like how children spend a large part of their day with teachers?
I don’t know PR, are you related to a lot of male teachers? I’m talking about the men in your life. Father, brother, uncle, close family friend etc. Those are the men who have the opportunity. It’s actually quite hard to sexually abuse someone at school, which is why most children are sexually abused at home.
no, from experience let me tell you that it could be a stepfather, a brother, a father, an uncle, a grandfather, a friend of daddy or a priest.
and every now and then it is a teacher.
and you are still trying to score a point re Unions instead of trying to understand just how common sexual assault and rape is, and how often the victim is a child, and how often the perpetrator lives with the victims, and that my dear makes you just wrong and in this case a despicable troll.
Sabine didn’t demonise men, or even male teachers. She made a comment based on the fact that most sexual abuse of children is done by male relatives of the child.
I’d be interested to see the gender stats on teachers who sexually abuse students.
Just had to say that the boring rubbish that PR starts and you other ST’s get involved in answering is just that. BORING. BORING BORING!!!
BTW I wonder what PR stands for ?
not Public Relations , obviously,
could it be Pubus Retardus or Panis Revoltus
whatever……. he is Pain in the R
whatever the R stands for.
no bob, i don’t demonish male as the only ones, i only speak from my experience. My abuser was my stepfather and there you go.
Others, can speak from their experience.
And for what its worth, in this particular case that we are discussing here, a MAN abused several children at his place of work.
So you might want to deflect and point out all these women, but you are essentially no less a troll than Puckish Roque who would like to put the blame on the Teachers Union.
I have been banned indefinitely from commenting at Pete Georges YourNZ Blog.
Personally … I do not believe that the punishment fits the crime.
Am dying to know what “Timoti” wrote after my final comment last night … because he has also suffered the same fate as myself.
Everything I wrote in YourNZ was genuine from my personal point of view … and I am sorry that George has taken such drastic action … because I see it as being a very slippery slope downhill for the YourNZ Blog if this is to be Georges preferred method and style of moderation.
I am well aware of Georges legal situations … and I have never done anything to harm that … and in fact I have kept my mouth well and truly zipped … because of the details George has imparted to me personally outside the realm of his YourNZ blog.
Only time will tell if Georges blog is to survive.
Hmm, not sure that is a ban exactly, it looks like pre-moderation. How about a link to what you were doing that he doesn’t like?
I don’t know how he handles moderation there, but I do know he trolled this site for a long time with expert level awareness of how to inflame without getting an actual ban. So, irony.
Haven’t been able to find the last comment I wrote in there last night … so I assume George has removed it.
George took issue with something that I wrote in here the other night after he had been accusing me of being a troll over there … and his behavior towards me was pretty full on and he seemed so different to normal.
He told me off publicly in front of everybody …and told me never to write anything like that about him ever again.
I then asked him if he was censoring what I was allowed to say not just on his blog … but on other forums as well.
All I did was stick up for myself … and he didn’t like it.
Right now I feel like a little five year old girl who has been sent to sit on the “Naughty Step”. LOL.
I doubt that George will allow any of my comments to show on his blog ever again … because of the way he has been behaving towards me over the past several days.
Ha! Yes congrats, indeed, Mike C. I think you are correct that PG will prune your efforts in the future and only allow your safest comments through. Anything challenging will be scrapped.
Pete’s attitude to moderating has changed considerably. There’s two reasons for that; one is that his blog has been targeted by a couple of easily identifiable trolls with a hatred for him and a tendency to go to court with frivolous complaints. Mike C knows who I mean, but for similarly vexatious legal reasons, it’s not appropriate to speak further.
Secondly, his blog has simply got more popular and he is now somewhat overwhelmed with comments. Given that most commenters are righties who prefer not to think too hard before hitting the ‘post’ button, PG’s had to deal with all sorts of gibberish. that can be pretty time consuming.
For a one man show, he does OK. But I can understand his current frustration.
Anyhoo, I hope you’ll continue to comment here at TS, Mike C. You seem to fit in quite well.
A Maori academic makes a point about the desirability of a Maori police officer being used to dampen down tense situations when a Maori is the target – such as yesterday’s siege in the B.O.P. This idiot reporter suggests he’s being racist. No comprehension of what is basic commonsense, or a sensitivity towards Maori culture or protocol.
*facepalm*. I can’t believe that the state broadcaster allows such ignorance and in fact racism in its presenter. It wasn’t even like she was saying some people might see that as racist, she was expressing her own personal view and ignorance.
When I heard the other day that the Māori warden had talked the man with the gun down I thought ‘this!’, this is why we have to stop thinking that anti-racism is colourblindness. It’s not. Different cultures have different needs and the dominant culture has a responsibility to work with that.
I expect fox style reporting from nationals tv channel so I’m never disappointed. Weldons sorting out the other for his besties JK.
Fear, dogwhistle and division then some celebrity items to pad it out unless theres a positive property values piece to dangle in front of the aspirationals.
The only time I watch them is when they’re linked from here or twitter or when something interesting is going on and I want to see how it’s being covered. My tolerance is low I guess.
I watched it. Didn’t have a problem with it. The reporter asked a question many pakeha would ask, so why shouldn’t she be able to express that view? She got a good answer. So now she’s got something to think about.
For me it was the way she asked it. In 2016 a state broadcaster journalist should have a better awareness of the issues. She could have asked the question in a way that elicited a good answer without making out the dude was racist.
Yeah, I think the academic is being racist here. He is part of the community of New Zealand and he should be prepared to talk to police officers who are European and those of other races too. Similarly if he needs to be seen by a doctor or another member of the public services. Ideally there would be proportional representation of Maori in all public sectors to improve the service for all cultures but if that is not readily available then he’s either being dumb to suggest he wouldn’t talk to a European cop or he’s just trying to rile people up.
Maori culture or protocol is obviously important to those that follow it but if that involves refusing to talk to police then I don’t think it should be respected in that instance.
The academic was effectively putting himself in another person’s place. Assuming you are Pakeha… if you find yourself in big trouble and need assistance would you respond better if the police officer who came for you was Pakeha? Of course you would because that person has an innate understanding of your cultural background. It’s no different with Maori or Polynesian or any of the other ethnic minorities.
Nobody was being racist except the silly reporter who was out of her depth.
Another example would be a woman who’s been raped. Is it appropriate for male police to interview her? No, not only because she’s probably going to be more comfortable with women, but because the chances that the male police officer understands the issues well enough is way smaller.
I still think the guy was being more racist than the reporter there though…
It seems like pretty strong discrimination based on race to me to say you wouldn’t talk to a police officer of certain skin colour, with the assumption being that a person of a certain skin colour has a certain type of culture and certain bad beliefs that are so significant as to outweigh the fact that they are the person available. Like all people I think I would probably have biases towards people who are like me, yes… But personally I’d do my best to look past those and not request a different person…
Anyway in this case the matter was a bit more urgent than usual given the guy had shot some police officers. He was lucky he wasn’t shot back. Haha, once you get to the point when people are being shot then I think cultural sensitivity has to take a bit of a back seat.
What do you mean by that? In my opinion that academic has done nothing to try and improve race relations or increase trust in our police. It just seemed irresponsible.
What if you were deaf or spoke little or no English, so there were frequent communication issues between yourself and people who didn’t communicate in the same way you did?
What if the person knocking on your door works for an organisation that has a long history of treating deaf or ESL people badly?
And what if almost the only issues which would result in that person knocking on your door was highly serious and quite possibly legally perilous for you, regardless of whether you believe you might have done anything wrong?
Now put all those three together, and wouldn’t you want a translator there when you spoke to them?
If the person is deaf or does not speak English that is a different matter than being Maori. If the person did not speak English then yes I think every effort should be made to have a translator available because communication is very impractical without that… If the problem is urgent (say a medical problem or an urgent police matter) then I think the reasonable response would be to try to engage with the public servant as best as possible until further support is available.
I think you might be taking what the man said too literally. He’s making a point. He’s not saying that if he is in urgent need of assistance that the police have to send a Māori policeman.
Doesn’t help that the vid is badly truncated so we can’t see the context.
Maybe, agree it would be best to see what was said immediately before that particular line… Just felt he might not be improving people’s trust in police very much. But yeah more people in the police and healthcare and education with backgrounds representing the population can only be a good thing… But I think we need to expect people to meet the public workforce halfway and engage too even if things aren’t ideal.
It’s sad seeing the reaction to this, people saying Maori are too entitled where it’s really the ones saying that who are the entitled ones in real life.
Who was the reporter – not noted on the page or clip?
Maori liaison officers tend to have better local connections in regions with high Maori populations, funnily enough. They are also unlikely to stereotype Maori offenders, so will dig further for what’s behind the behaviour.
Both of those factors probably helped in this case. However I’m unimpressed with the lack of responsibility I’ve heard from the man’s mother. Needs to be hooked up with some wiser elders perhaps.
MSD investigates itself. Concluding. An inquiry showed MSD had taken all reasonable steps to prevent such a tragedy but the events were extreme, the individual was well motivated and was armed with a dangerous weapon. Tully found guilty is now finally to be housed at government expense. Did it have to lead to two dead? Was Tully offered housing? Is he terminally ill? Why would anyone kill, manipulate, be aggressive toward MSD staff! perplexed, no answers. What reasonable steps still failed?
The guy is a scumbag and, if what this articles suggests is true, then he was a ticking time bomb and eventually he would have gone off at someone else
Yeah, people become murderers like that for no reason 🙄
I can’t bring myself to read that article properly. Any reporter that uses a phrase like ‘he had a paddy’ obviously has no idea what journalism is and has no sense of irony in the NZ context. Well done jonolist for objectifying the man and taking us further from understanding the truth and being able to prevent it happening again (case in point, PR’s comment).
Anger is justified. The question for me is where that anger at the deaths should be placed. Victimizing the dead as having tortured this arrogant, owed a living, down and out, into lashing out. Or more correctly asking how a man with no money to his name, a cycle, no housing managed to get hold of guns, bullets, no doubt with MSD grant money. Were staff to considerate tohim, unable to provide housing they throw money at him, and unwittingly arm him? He wanted to live where he grew up, such arrogance, he is now living housed far away from where he grew up.
It could have been so different, a universal income would negate the need fot Tully to seek WINZ help, a fully housing policy would make it easy to provide a damp home, but these policies dont exist, so WINZ knows individual s will turn up arrogant, demanding and require assistance, that they cant turn away, and can be put personally in the middle between govt intrasidence and this egotistical nightmare. Is it now to be a crime that sociopaths cant use WINZ?
What is Tullys history, is he dying, is he the product of one of our state or private religious institutions, or just the pamper son.
Future murderers do seek benefits from WINZ, is this to be the new policy that staff reasonable steps are not protection from harm and they have to accept that.
Where is worksafe? Did WINZ provide the grant to fund weapons!
Sorry to be pedantic but there is no way that anyone in NZ could get a WINZ grant to buy firearms. How we frame this is important in understanding what happened and in not creating more stigma around beneficiaries in general. Yes he might have used his main benefits to buy firearms. Or he might have managed to get the system to give him a grant for something else and used that to buy firearms but it’s difficult to do that now (WINZ generally don’t give out cash to the beneficiary), they pay directly to the supplier). Or he stole them, or whatever. I don’t think accessing firearms in NZ is that hard if you put your mind to it and move in the right circles.
I don’t blame the people that got shot. No-one deserves that. It’s pretty clear that there are institutional failures that contributed to the situation and often there are individuals in the system who support or condone those failures but mostly I see people who are themselves relatively powerless to change what is happening.
The thing that worries me is that the strategy that the MSD has taken post-shooting will just send the problem elsewhere as well as increasing the stress on already vulnerable people eg refusing people access to WINZ offices without ID. I would have less of a problem with that if I saw other strategies being put in place that acknowledge that people generally don’t commit murder in a vacuum, there are always contributory factors.
There are always contributory factors, yes. Things like being a malicious, aggressive and unreasonable person who always blames other people for the problems he brings down on himself through his own actions seems to crop up often as a contributory factor among male murderers. There’s no reason for any sympathy for someone like Tully.
No sympathy for Tully, just concerns that this will happen again as you are incapable of understanding that sociopaths arrogantly believe they have the same rights as everyone else. It struck me when one of the witnesses said Tully was arrogant, as if WINZ could deny a person a benefit for character issues. Obviously all tyes, blind, dumb, sociolpathic, etc all attend WINZ offices and where staff are pressured to deliever outcomes that puts them literally in the gunsights of men like Tully, we all need to ask how WINZ failed. ITs not right for WINZ to say they did everything reasonable, though true, staff had no means to house Tully. As thst means this event will inevitable recur. Its manslaughter to set a trap for WINZ staff, or for CCTV victims,of miners. Well it was once.
His promising start seems to have been derailed at some stage. He appeared before the Blenheim District Court in November, 2002, on threatening to kill and presenting a firearm charges.
The charges came from an incident where his landlord went to his Picton flat to serve an eviction notice. He found Tully cleaning a rifle and putting a silencer on it. He claimed Tully pointed the gun at him and threatened to “waste” him.
Tully was convicted and fined $500 on the two charges. Police also applied to confiscate three firearms found on Tully’s property.
By 2013, he was back in New Zealand drifting around camping grounds in North Canterbury. He spent time at the Waikuku Beach Holiday Park, the Riverland Holiday Park in Kaiapoi and the Rangiora Holiday Park.
An altercation at the Rangiora Holiday Park resulted in a complaint to the police. He was asked to leave several of the camping grounds because of his mouthy attitude.
When Tully moved to Ashburton, the Rangiora WINZ office warned staff about him.
Within about six weeks of his return to Ashburton, Police presented him with a trespass notice, forbidding him to enter the WINZ office. This didn’t stop him coming to the office on August 28 to speak to a case worker.
He was detained outside and after being told the police would be called said, “I’m going home.”
I’m sure there were some mitigating circumstances but I’m also sure that hes a complete piece of s**t
Mate, you’ve already demonstrated your judgement is impaired by using victims of child sexual abuse and very poor levels of information to union bash. No way I am going to trust your version of events about Tully that you are pulling out of the MSM. You appear to have no critical thinking skills alongside your moral vacuity.
Yes – he should have just quietly lived out the rest of his life on the dole without complaint right PR? Because that’s the future that having neo-liberal governments in power guarantees to an ever increasing group of New Zealanders.
He should have risen in arms and brought down the government. Jobs are essential and no amount of freemarket bullshit can take their place.
Economic violence is not privileged above actual violence. The neo-liberal rape of NZ ruined this man’s, and many other people’s lives. He acted against the lowest part of the oppressive aparatus – he should have cut off the head of the snake.
If he’d had a job he’d have been a law abiding citizen. He’s not the scumbag here – the scumbags are Key, English, Bennet and Rebstock.
It would be quite sufficient to displace the current government and throw them in jail. Beheadings or other punishment would await judicial process, but generally speaking only royalty get beheaded.
translation: “I’m making prejudicial, ill-informed, morally-questionable comment on a political blog because I’m lazy and I want an easy way to make political slurs and practice my lazy-troll arts”.
[r0b: deleted. With respect to your query and other followup comments by weka, the original comment came from a very unusual case that usually goes straight to spam. It was a mistake that some of them briefly appeared here. Sorry.]
Testing. Just checking if this comes through the system.
Right shows up okay
Now I’ll add:
Hi lprent
I am puzzled about why I can’t find a previous comment on Open Mike 11/3.
It was a vacuous little thing from some git called…
I wrote some paras in answer to it.
On the right hand comments column I see weka replied to it.
I can’t find it looking down the Open Mike 11/3 post.
I can’t bring it up when I try to link to it from search of my comments.
I can’t bring it up when I try to link to weka’s reply.
How can a number of comments just disappear like that?
If taken off usually there is a succinct point made in bold as to why.
I thought it was an interesting example of RW trolls taking on new identities and styles.
Can you throw light on this? Thanks in advance.
*********************************
Now on a separate comment I will put the name of the git I was talking about as I think it might have been dragged off the post, along with replies, as spam or something. I don’t know that is the case, but perhaps lprent can comment if this can make a number of comments disappear.
***************************************
Hi I put the name, waited a full minute and nothing. So can someone explain what has happened?
The commenter concerned sends a lot of stuff our way and it inevitably ends up in the trash, though the occasional one sneaks through. They’ve used multiple names, but the content is usually pretty similar. Mostly it’s musings on a broken relationship and completely unrelated to the thread it’s aimed at. I do think they’re a real person, btw.
I just tried putting her name in a comment and the comment didn’t appear. I’m assuming that her name is tagged to put any comment that contains it straight into moderation or spam trash.
If you try and open a comment that has a link to it and you instead go the top of the page that the comment was on it usually means the comment has been removed, or the comment is being edited.
Okay. Thanx for that weka and TRP. Andre I don’t know, if could be a spambot because it was some rubbish about some Baby Bear without reference to whom it referred.
But TRP says it is just some vacuous person assuming different guises to attempt to do something that the big people do, but which is over this person’s head.
‘Drop dead’ cut off time for making your on-line submission is midnight tonight Friday 11 March 2016,
Don’t forget to click Yes to this question:
“Do you wish to appear before the committee?”
Request to appear
You can request to appear before the committee.
The committee will decide whether or not it wishes to hear submissions.
Once this decision has been made, you will be contacted by committee staff.
Please note this may be at short notice.
Submissions are usually heard in public.
If you have any special requests related to appearing before the committee (for example, if you can not travel to Wellington or you wish to be heard in private), you can use the box below to contact committee staff.
Do you wish to appear before the committee?
No Yes ”
__________________________________________________________________________________
For information to help you make your submission – try here:
Two Polls in February … Roy Morgan = puts the Govt Bloc slightly ahead of the Oppo. Colmar Brunton = places the Oppo Bloc slightly ahead of the Govt.
So, Winnie either holds the balance of power or is very close to it.*
———————————————————————————————-
Labour = Roy Morgan 27, Colmar Brunton 32
Roy Morgan usually record a lower rating for Labour than both the Colmar Bruntons and the Reid Research Polls. So, nothing unusual there.
——————————————————————————————-
* Then, again, if you include the Maori Party amongst the Swing either way Centrists then the Roy Morgan suggests an absolute knife edge situation, with the Colmar Brunton recording a more substantial lead for the parties of Opposition+Maori
Pretty much where it was during the early months of 2014, but – on the bright-ish side – well up on both its June-September 2014 ratings and, of course, its particularly dismal Election result.
You may be using words that automatically trigger moderation. And it may take these folk a while outside their other obligations to respond. Can’t all be retirees.
A part of this morning's transport announcement which hasn't got a lot of attention yet: biofuels are back: “Our Government has agreed in principle to mandate a lower emitting biofuel blend across the transport sector. Over time this will prevent hundreds of thousands of tonnes of emissions from cars, ...
After almost twenty years of ignoring the Māori vote, National may run in the Māori seats again: A former National MP is excited the party could stand a candidate in the Māori electorate seats for the first time since 2002. One News reported last night that National's leader Judith ...
If one stubbornly clings to the Elimination strategy (I don’t support it, but that will have to wait for another occasion) then try to get it right. You need secure borders. We have attempted this with a very large measure of success. It has not been perfect as the Covid-19 Response ...
Diaspora: perception departs from reality In this collection of articles are two papers currently captivating the attention of people following the science and emergence of climate change, especially the rapid variety we've accidentally unleashed and which is now unfolding around us. The synthesis and review article Earth's Ice Imbalance by Slater ...
The ultra-rich have done very, very well out of the pandemic. Globally, the wealth of the ten richest people rose by US$540 billion last year, enough money to pay for the pandemic in its entirity. And in New Zealand, local billionaire Graeme Hart saw his wealth increase by almost NZ$3.5 ...
Postmodernism has long been looked upon as an indecipherable ideology and a source of amusement. In 1996 Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, had a hoax article published in ‘Social Text’ an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Anew study in Nature Sustainability incorporates the damages that climate change does to healthy ecosystems into standard climate-economics models. The key finding in the study by Bernardo Bastien-Olvera and Frances Moore from the University of California at Davis: The models have been underestimating the ...
In a recent interview with RNZ (14th of January), NZ Council of Civil Liberties Chair Thomas Beagle, in response to Simon Bridges condemnation of the post-Trump Twitter purge of local far Right and other accounts, said the following: “Cos the thing about freedom of expression is that it’s not just ...
Let’s be clear: if Trump is not politically killed off once and for all, he will become a MAGA Dracula, rising from the dead to haunt US politics for years to come and giving inspiration to his wretched family of grifters and thousands of deplorables well into the next decade. ...
Since its demise as an imperial power, and especially its deindustrialisation under Thatcher, the UK's primary economic engine has been its role as a money laundry, using its network of overseas territories as tax havens to enable rich people around the world to steal from the societies they live in. ...
Last month OMV quit the Great South Basin and surrendered its offshore exploration permits outside of Taranaki. This month, Australian-owned Beach Energy has done the same: Beach Energy Resources New Zealand has decided to abandon all of its oil and gas exploration permits off the South Island coast, including ...
The new Northland case has been linked to the South African strain of Covid-19, one of a number of new, more contagious Covid variants. Here’s how they emerge and why. Let’s start with the basics. The genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for Covid-19 is a strand of RNA ...
MARVIN HUBBARD, US citizen by birth, New Zealand citizen by choice, Quaker and left-wing activist, has been broadcasting his show, "Community or Chaos", on Otago Access Radio for the best part of 30 years. On 24 November last year, I spoke with him about the outcome of the 2020 General ...
This is a guest blog post by Daniel Tamberg, Potsdam, co-founder and director of SCIARA GmbH. The non-profit organisation SCIARA is developing and operating a flexible software platform for scientific simulation games that allows thousands of players to explore, design and understand possible climate futures together. Decision-makers in politics, business, ...
Yesterday's Gone: Cold shivers are running up and down the spines of conservatives everywhere. Donald Trump may have gone, but all the signs point to there being something much more momentous in the wind-shift than a simple return to the status quo ante. A change is gonna come. ONE COULD ...
Is it possible to live and let live in the post-Trump era? The online campaign to vilify Christopher Liddell, ex-White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to Trump, makes for an interesting case study. Liddell is a New Zealander whose illustrious career in corporate America once earned him plaudits ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 17, 2021 through Sat, Jan 23, 2021Editor's Choice12 new books explore fresh approaches to act on climate changeAuthors explore scientific, economic, and political avenues for climate action ...
This discussion is from a Twitter thread by Martin Kulldorff on 20 December 2020. He is a Professor at Harvard Medical School specialising in disease surveillance methods, infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety. His Twitter handle is @MartinKulldorff #1 Public health is about all health outcomes, not just a single ...
The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look good. Unfair, but it raises the question of the purpose of economic forecasts. Certainly the public may treat them ...
Q: Will the COVID-19 vaccines prevent the transmission of the coronavirus and bring about community immunity (aka herd immunity)? A: Jury not in yet but vaccines do not have to be perfect to thwart the spread of infection. While vaccines induce protection against illness, they do not always stop actual ...
Joe Biden seems to be everything that Donald Trump was not – decent, straightforward, considerate of others, mindful of his responsibilities – but none of that means that he has an easy path ahead of him. The pandemic still rages, American standing in the world is grievously low, and the ...
Keana VirmaniFrom healthcare robots to data privacy, to sea level rise and Antarctica under the ice: in the four years since its establishment, the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund has supported over 30 projects.Rebecca Priestley, receiving the PM Science Communication Prize (Photo by Mark Tantrum) Associate Professor ...
Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Michael Cowling, CQUniversity AustraliaWe’ve probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end up spending hours downloading and updating before we can even play with our new toy. But ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Zero emission buses, cleaner cars and environmentally-friendly biofuels will soon be hitting New Zealand’s roads, as the Government delivers on its election promise to make our transport network more sustainable. ...
The Green Party is already delivering on its commitment for cleaner, climate-friendly transport through our Cooperation Agreement with the Government. ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
Prudence Steven QC, barrister of Christchurch has been appointed as an Environment Judge and District Court Judge to serve in Christchurch, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Ms Steven has been a barrister sole since 2008, practising in resource management and local government / public law. She was appointed a Queen’s ...
The Government is delivering on its first tranche of election promises to take action on climate change with a raft of measures that will help meet New Zealand’s 2050 carbon neutral target, create new jobs and boost innovation. “This will be an ongoing area of action but we are moving ...
The Government is investing up to $10 million to support 30 of the country’s top early-career researchers to develop their research skills. “The pandemic has had widespread impacts across the science system, including the research workforce. After completing their PhD, researchers often travel overseas to gain experience but in the ...
A Waitomo-based Jobs for Nature project will keep up to ten people employed in the village as the tourism sector recovers post Covid-19 Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “This $500,000 project will save ten local jobs by deploying workers from Discover Waitomo into nature-based jobs. They will be undertaking local ...
Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw spoke yesterday with President Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. “I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak with Mr. Kerry this morning about the urgency with which our governments must confront the climate emergency. I am grateful to him and ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta today announced three diplomatic appointments: Alana Hudson as Ambassador to Poland John Riley as Consul-General to Hong Kong Stephen Wong as Consul-General to Shanghai Poland “New Zealand’s relationship with Poland is built on enduring personal, economic and historical connections. Poland is also an important ...
Work begins today at Wainuiomata High School to ensure buildings and teaching spaces are fit for purpose, Education Minister Chris Hipkins says. The Minister joined principal Janette Melrose and board chair Lynda Koia to kick off demolition for the project, which is worth close to $40 million, as the site ...
A skilled and experienced group of people have been named as the newly established Oranga Tamariki Ministerial Advisory Board by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis today. The Board will provide independent advice and assurance to the Minister for Children across three key areas of Oranga Tamariki: relationships with families, whānau, and ...
The green light for New Zealand’s first COVID-19 vaccine could be granted in just over a week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. “We’re making swift progress towards vaccinating New Zealanders against the virus, but we’re also absolutely committed to ensuring the vaccines are safe and effective,” Jacinda Ardern said. ...
The Minister for ACC is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members to join the Board of ACC on 1 February 2021. “All three bring diverse skills and experience to provide strong governance oversight to lead the direction of ACC” said Hon Carmel Sepuloni. Bella Takiari-Brame from Hamilton ...
The Government is investing $9 million to upgrade a significant community facility in Invercargill, creating economic stimulus and jobs, Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene have announced. The grant for Waihōpai Rūnaka Inc to make improvements to Murihiku Marae comes from the $3 billion set ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
Three Ministers, led by the PM, joined in chorus today to warble about a bunch of measures aimed at helping to meet New Zealand’s 2050 carbon neutral target, create new jobs and boost innovation. Mind you, the measures mentioned seem to be more matters of decisions yet to be made ...
Michelle Kidd defines her role at Auckland’s specialist family violence court as te kaiwhakatere – the navigator. It’s a one-of-a-kind job, helping guide defendants through the court system. And there’s no one better suited to it than Whaea Michelle.First published November 24, 2020.Whaea Michelle is part of Frame, a series of short ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sallie Yea, Associate professor & Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe University Each year, thousands of men and boys labour under extremely exploitative conditions on commercial fishing vessels owned by Taiwanese, Chinese and South Korean companies. The Taiwanese fleet, which operates in all ...
Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis believes the Crown should maintain responsibility for the care and protection of at-risk and vulnerable children, regardless of their race. Moreover, he is confident his all-Maori team of advisers will not be taking race into account as they help to improve Oranga Tamariki’s care and protection of ...
It’s easy to sacrifice John Banks. It’s a lot harder for brands, sports organisations and government to truly stop funding racism. Are they willing to try?Yesterday John Banks, the former Auckland mayor and MP, became subject to one of the fastest firings in media history when audio covering his approving ...
A community is outraged after Auckland Council granted consent for a row of trees planted by local kids to be removed along a revitalised waterway in South Auckland, reports Justin Latif. An Auckland Council decision to give contractors the all-clear to chop down 12 mānuka and kānuka trees shading Māngere’s Tararata ...
Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu hopes that the recent changes to Oranga Tamariki leadership present an opportunity for a long overdue paradigm shift that will place whānau at the heart of the child welfare sector. Pouārahi Helen Leahy says that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rice, Professor of Management, University of New England Elon Musk is now the world’s richest person, edging out previous title holder Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. His rocketing fortune is due to the booming share price of Tesla, the maker of electric vehicles ...
There are now three returnees who contracted the virus in the Auckland isolation facility then left into the community while positive. These are some of the questions that need to be resolved. At 10.20pm last night the Ministry of Health confirmed that the two cases they’d been treating as probable ...
Having a hard time remembering to scan in on the NZ Covid Tracer app when you’re out and about? Get this song stuck in your head and you’ll never forget again.Learn the lyrics:Aotearoa, it’s time to get scanning!I mean if you think about it, it never really wasn’t time we ...
We conclude our week-long examination of New Zealand writer Roderick Finlayson with a review of his stories by John Newton Roger Hickin’s Cold Hub Press is one of the small miracles of contemporary New Zealand publishing. Over the last decade, on what can only be a shoe-string budget, the ...
Thursday 28th January, AUCKLAND: Drive Electric, the not-for-profit with one mission – making electric vehicle uptake in New Zealand mainstream, welcomes the announcement by the Government today as a sign of what’s to come through 2021, and we are confident ...
The Government announced today key policy decisions on the proposed clean car policies. The MIA has stated on many occasions that we support well thought out and constructive policies that will lead to an increased rate in the reduction of CO2 emissions from ...
Get wild, get cultured, get fed and then get to bed: the essential guide to a perfect few days in the southern city. There’s one thing that preoccupies the staff of The Spinoff almost as much as arranging popular food items into arbitrary lists, and that’s Dunedin. A quite remarkable ...
John Banks’ racist exchange with a Magic Talk listener on Tuesday was the latest in nearly 50 years of talkback controversies. Donna Chisholm has the receipts.John Banks axed over Māori ‘stone age culture’ comments on Magic Talk1972: On Radio I, sports talkback host Tim Bickerstaff launches a “Punch a Pom ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission.Two new community Covid-19 cases have been identified as the more infectious South African variant, but Auckland Mayor Phil Goff sayit would be "premature to go into lockdown now". The two new cases of Covid-19 identified in the ...
Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine in Southland to Fonterra’s ...
KiwiRail STOP Hauling COAL Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Dunn, Associate professor, University of Sydney The government is rolling out a new public information campaign this week to reassure the public about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which one expert has said “couldn’t be more crucial” to people actually getting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Therese O’Sullivan, Associate Professor, Edith Cowan University The COVID vaccine rollout has placed the issue of vaccination firmly in the spotlight. A successful rollout will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is vaccine acceptance. One potential hurdle to vaccine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernard Walker, Associate Professor in Organisations and Leadership, University of Canterbury Kiwis know what it’s like when life throws curveballs. We’ve had major quakes, floods, fires, an eruption, a terrorist attack and now a pandemic. In those situations, it’s the ability to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Irwin, Emeritus professor, Murdoch University While we continue to be occupied with the COVID pandemic, another life-threatening disease has emerged in northern Australia, one that’s cause for considerable alarm for the millions of dog owners around the country. This disease — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cath Ferguson, Academic, Edith Cowan University Almost half of Australian adults struggle with reading. Similar levels of struggling readers are reported in the United Kingdom and United States. This does not mean all struggling readers are illiterate. It means they often struggle ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abbas Shieh, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Design, Islamic Azad University The industrial revolution transformed cities, resulting in places of residence and work becoming more distant than ever before. This spatial segregation is still largely embedded in the design of our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Review: Occupation: Rainfall, written and directed by Luke Sparke Historically, when a sequel to a film was greenlit, you could rest assured this was because the first film made a ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 28, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Tourism suffers in the shadow of Covid-19, two new positive cases in Auckland confirmed, and National will contest the Māori electorates.The front page of the January 4 Greymouth Star carried grim tidings for several of the glacier towns on the ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Two people who left managed isolation on January 15 have been confirmed as positive Covid-19 cases, with the Ministry of Health urging anyone who visited the same locations during the same time period as the infected pair in Auckland to ...
The watchlist of 'offensive or unreasonable' babies' names is to be reviewed, to include more names from other languages. Generations of the Īhaka family have played a meaningful role in bringing Te Reo and stories of Māori to our wider community. Archdeacon Sir Kīngi Matutaera Īhaka (Te Aupōuri, 1921-93) was known as the orator of ...
After Morocco’s flagrant violation of the terms of the ceasefire in Western Sahara on Friday 13 November 2020 war broke out between the two sides. In the midst of this war Tauranga based Ballance Agri-Nutrients has decided to carry on importing phosphate ...
Nicholas Agar suggests that our handling of the pandemic could be partly down to our distinctive Treaty of Waitangi relationship, and Māori ideas that enabled us to make it through without tens of thousands of deaths A mission for universities in the coming decade will be a deep understanding of the meaning ...
A young girl who once sent $5 to an embattled America's Cup team is now among the women on the water helping run the contest for the Auld Mug. As an eager and generous nine-year-old, Melanie Roberts posted a letter, with a $5 note, to OneAustralia’s America’s Cup team. It was 1995, ...
At 5am today, cock’s crow, the embargo lifted on the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist. Here are the books in the race, followed by thoughts from poetry editor Chris Tse and books editor Catherine Woulfe. A shortlist of four books in each category will be announced March 3, with ...
Ignoring those QR codes when you drop into the supermarket? Can’t be bothered when you grab a coffee? The people serving you notice, and you’re freaking them out.So far, New Zealanders’ use of the Covid-19 Tracer app has been notably woeful. Food industry workers who’ve watched streams of customers walk ...
Steve Braunias reveals the longlist of the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards Apart from one or two unfortunate omissions which cast doubt on the sanity and intellectual acumen of judges, especially the nobodies who judged this year's non-fiction, the longlist for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards is ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea’s biggest hospital is straining to provide medical services to the growing population of the capital Port Moresby – with an estimated growth rate of 3 percent annually, a medical executive says. Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Nationals who attend Thursday’s memorial service in Tweed Heads for Doug Anthony, who died last month aged 90, may muse on the contrast between the state of their party when he led it and now. ...
Returning to quarantine-free travel in 2021 doesn't just need a vaccine, but a way to check whether arriving passengers are actually immune to the virus. A smart Kiwi science start-up is working with a global biometrics giant to make that happen. A deal signed between Kiwi research and development company Orbis Diagnostics, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlyn Forster, PhD Candidate, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney This summer’s wetter conditions have created great conditions for flowering plants. Flowers provide sweet nectar and protein-rich pollen, attracting many insects, including bees. Commercial honey bees are also thriving: ...
Lotto scratchie tickets featuring the pop band Six60 are being withdrawn after a public backlash. In a statement, Lotto NZ said there had been a mutual decision made with the band to remove the tickets from sale following the negative feedback, and it offered an apology. The band faced criticism, both ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Shell-crushing predation was already in full swing half a billion years ago, as our new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals. A hyena devouring ...
Vodafone has suspended advertising on the radio station amid calls for talkback host John Banks to be taken off air after yet another racist outburst. Alex Braae reports. In an alarming segment of talkback radio, former Auckland mayor John Banks endorsed the views of a caller who described Māori as a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland When a COVID-19 case was found in Northland last Sunday, Aotearoa’s second-longest period with no detected community case came to an end. ESR scientists worked late into Sunday night to obtain a whole genome sequence ...
He has the perfect moustache, an exceptional mullet, and he uses terms like ‘face hole’ on national TV. Who or what is Dr Joel Rindelaub?I was drawn in by the moustache, but it was the mullet that really kept me there. Watching TVNZ’s Breakfast yesterday morning I was fixated. Often, ...
We’ll never be royals with nearly a quarter of declined baby names featuring “Royal” in some form or another. Te Tari Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs has released the list of names declined in 2020 by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and ...
After a raft of inquiries delving into and recommending what should be done about the politically beleaguered Orangi Tamaraki, along with the briefing papers we suppose he has been given, we imagined Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis would have no more need for expert advice. Wrong. He has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University There’s a common assumption men take longer than women to poo. People say so on Twitter, in memes, and elsewhereonline. But is that right? What could explain it? And if ...
Just as sexuality is a spectrum, so too is asexuality. In Ace of Hearts, members of New Zealand’s asexual community talk about the challenges and misconceptions of identifying as ace.First published November 17, 2020.Ace of Hearts is part of Frame, a series of short documentaries produced by Wrestler for The Spinoff.“A ...
Sam Brooks wasn’t allowed to watch kids TV as a kid. Now, as a 30 year old man, he watches it for the first time.My mother’s approach to parenting was unorthodox. I wrote weekly book reports on top of my actual homework, I did maths equations in Roman numerals and ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk More leading Indonesian figures have made racial slurs against Natalius Pigai, former chair of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) – and all West Papuans, says United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda. “Since the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1963, Indonesian ...
“The Government’s failure to even conduct a standard cost-benefit analysis for the most expensive infrastructure project in New Zealand’s history is mind-bogglingly arrogant,” says New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke. “A ...
The Ministry of Health is today drawing backlash from the local New Zealand vaping industry following its release of proposed regulations for the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act. Vaping Trade Association New Zealand (VTANZ) President, ...
Sophie Gilmour and Simon Day are joined by special guest Hugo Baird, co-owner of Grey Lynn’s Honey Bones and Lilian, to talk about opening new pub Hotel Ponsonby.Auckland is a city of many bars but few really good pubs – the kind of places you’d be just as comfortable going ...
The appointment of an advisory board for Oranga Tamariki is welcome and should be a step toward a total transformation of the care and protection system to a by Māori, for Māori approach, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft said today. Minister ...
Taking control of your financial wellbeing can have cascading positive impacts for your life and it can also be fun. With the help of the team at Kiwi Wealth, we’ve compiled some simple tricks for balancing your books in 2021. There’s something about the beginning of a new year, especially after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of Technology As we know, getting into New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. There are practicalities, such as high airfare and managed isolation costs. And there are legal requirements, including pre-flight testing, mandatory ...
New Zealand faces the risk of a generation being locked out of the housing market unless land is freed up and more houses built, National Party leader Judith Collins says. ...
On Sunday, Stuff published a months-long investigation by Alison Mau detailing allegations of harassment and exploitation within the local music industry.The piece, ‘Music industry professionals demand change after speaking out about its dark side’, includes allegations of inappropriate behaviour and abuse of power by male artists, international acts and executives; ...
“The Government is all at sea on timelines for Australia and New Zealand’s respective vaccine roll-outs, with the worst news coming from the mouth of Pfizer Australia CEO Anne Harris,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “Yesterday, under increasing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he pledged to vastly increase refugee resettlement in the US. If history is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Baumann, Casual Academic, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Lanicek, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History and Jewish History, UNSW On January 27 communities worldwide commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz — the largest complex of concentration camps and extermination centres during the Holocaust. This is the first year the International ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorinda Cramer, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Australian Catholic University The summer break is over, marking a return to the office. For some, this ends almost a year of working from home in lockdown. Some analysts are predicting it might also mark an enduring ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 27, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
We have heard this kind of bullish bluster before from PM John Key in the North, with the result they got dusted up and thrashed by Peters in the blue ribbon seat of Northland.
Yesterday Key wisely chose to leave their lead snake oil salesman in Wellington, knowing Joy Stick Steven is too much of a target for ridicule. And fortunately they did as a group called the Whangarei Street Theatre Company bushwhacked John Key, Joyce and National with a stinging little ditty.
From the piece seen on te tele, Key and co got worked in Whangarei ….
another bit of flotsam fell off the old key tub
The happless Whangarei National MP Shane Reti came across as a bumbling light weight idiot in that news story. John Key would have been gutted Reti turned the question back on him. All he had to say was something like “I work very hard in my electorate and today’s celebration of 2 new museums is just one result of my work.” Anything rather than a woeful hot potato back to Key. In the end Key’s gate keeper girlfriend jumped in seeing the reporter had nailed a good hit already and time to kill it there before he landed another. So she acted quickly and said Let’s Go!, Key hit the high notes ” yeah see ya.”
He wandered off spewing. I laughed as I saw him snap at Reti as they walked into the distance, Reti was walking along like a little lapdog, very amusing. The video is on hub but I can post on here from some reason? Really is worth a look.
yeah put it up if it shows key snapping at reti, hee hee
No that was out of camera shot. Thanks Sacha! Do you have the Dildo ditty video also? May as well have that for a laugh. I thought the lyrics were quite pleasant 🙂
Not seen that one. Very infrequent engager with TV ‘news’ these days and am not on Bookface.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/could-national-lose-whangarei-2016031019
ha ha politicians make me laugh… with despair ….
one, Key’s tell-tale squeaky voice when under pressure, at the end … squeak squeak “see ya later see ya..” wave wave squeak
two, Winston peters talking about the diplomatic corps when asked about Shane Jones standing for NZF… ha, more like Winston bjeikle-petersen every day
National losing Whangarei?
No-one will notice because we’ll still be in a state of euphoria from seeing the new flag flying above our 37 gold medal winners at the Olympics from 2016. Oh, and hell freezing over.
Maps show the ironic effect of Auckland Councillors withdrawing intensification advice to the independent hearings panel: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/298650/housing-nz-pitches-highest-density-plan-for-auckland
I wonder if the Eastern Suburbs branch of the National Party that were so vocal at the Council meeting on 24 February had actually looked at the HNZ, MBIE and other Government submissions to the Unitary Plan. It is far denser than the Council’s response. Room for a lot of political mischief there – but we won’t see Auckland 2040 leading the charge.
The awakening begins!
In the Wall St Journal
“Free Trade Loses Political Favor”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/free-trade-loses-political-favor-1457571366
Thanks Tautoko MM – keeping Standardistas informed on TPPA for the decade! Such a great help to know the latest, and remind us of its huge importance to our bite-sized wee country.
Don’t mention the climate change! although I’m still picking Dunedin as the first city in NZ to take AGW seriously. They’re now getting repeated and ongoing issues from weather events.
Overnight power outages in Dunedin from storm winds affected over 4,000 people, but it’s these photos in the ODT that have more warning in them. This is the low lying road between the city and all the Otago Peninsula settlements and currently is the only access onto the Peninsula. The top road has been close for some months from slips from a previous big storm.
Surface flooding at high tide isn’t unusual at certain times of the year, but these images show that it’s not going to take too much sea rise for that road to become pretty dysfunctional.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/375836/warning-gale-force-winds-otago-today
Otago Peninsula residents are angry a section of Highcliff Rd is set to remain closed until September, more than a year after a massive downpour swept it away during last June’s downpour.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/371174/lengthy-road-closure-frustrates
Commiserations Weka – I’m thinking that smallish councils like Dunedin might not be able to afford all the massive repairs and upgrades (and sea walls) the climate change is going to bring on us. Even in Auck City, the Tamaki Drive – a major roadway in and out of Auck – is getting these huge swells, altho the damage so far is not as bad as in Dunedin.
So – is the govt going to get involved in helping sort out damaged infrastructure caused by climate change events ? Probably not while this current govt has its head in the sand on this matter.
Te Atatu Peninsula, one road in or out, Million Dollar Mac Mansions. It does not take a lot to cut that one of the rest of the AKL.
But hey, talking about property values in a vulnerable Suburb is much sexier then talking about what happens when the insurance decides to not insure these properties anymore.
And then you have the Mayors (bipartisan! ) of Florida asking the moderators of the Miami debate to include ‘some question’ on Climate Change as they are a. already affected, and b. expect a catastrophe that would see millions of people needing to ‘evacuate’ at once.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/florida-mayors-ask-rubio-about-climate-change.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/29/opinions/sutter-miami-beach-survive-climate/
https://floridaclimateinstitute.org/events/upcoming/florida/1276-dec-2015-sea-level-rise-summit-a-warming-arctic-shared-futures-from-alaska-to-florida-tba-fl
The question is not if and how but when and do we have enough time to prepare and will the other states accept the internally displaced floridians.
Wonder how the US will treats its environmental refugees?
NZ will have an influx of wealthy, entitled USians. Hell, the lefties are even talking about emmigrating if Trump wins the election, so I guess we will get some practice 👿
I wonder about the USA and how it has treated its Hurricane Katrina refugees from New Orleans? They were under great pressure at the time, with some very sobering news and video showing the sad consequences of sudden events. Have they been fair to the refugees they transported away from their locations, homes, loved ones and community.??
What?
@Jenny, yep, if the councils can’t afford to fix the top road on the Otago Peninsula in a year then there’s not a hope in hell of them being able to change the Bay road around the harbour. Events are getting closer together, but we’re still not at the point where it’s sinking in. When we get mutiple issues starting pile up and people start complaining about how unfair it is we’re going to need strategies to teach people that this isn’t going away now, that we have to adapt. I think Dunedin is very interesting to watch because they’re leading the way without having the trauma that Chch has. They’ve commissioned a Peak Oil report for the city, and last year they had to acknowledge that a whole suburb (tens of thousands of people) wouldn’t survive the next 20 years. There are also many sustainability initiatives happening within the community.
(I don’t live in Dunedin btw, but have connections there and think it’s the hot spot for CC in NZ).
The Dunedin City Council has been like the National Government, it has gone after the things it wants to do and bugger all the things it should be doing. The whatsitsname stadium has been built so the old boys can sit in their colesseum and think of past glories as trained people run around with a ball for their enjoyment. Don’t worry about the expense, look at the advantages (to us, and some to Dunedin). What they are doing as weka spells out, is important, but they have to speed it up obviously. Money is going to be a problem.
(Will the stadium be able to be used as a place of refuge as the one in New Orleans was? Perhaps some more money needs to be spent on it to bring it up to speed for this role when it becomes essential to have a big safe space with services, and lots of toilets.)
And similarly the National Government does not want to waste its time in government in building stuff that is needed, it just has its Santa list to fulfil. Haven’t we been good boys and girls, and don’t we deserve…whatever. They have been good in their eyes mainly in getting into power, and then being able to ride the waves and swim through the high ones like surfers. Danger signs are for sissies, and it’s SEP time for cautionary infrastructure. That is their mindset. Actually surfers have had very caring moral people arise from their midst, so even comparing our politicians to them is an insult. Sorry surfers, you serve a purpose to illustrate how bad our power brokers are.
edited
“Will the stadium be able to be used as a place of refuge as the one in New Orleans was?”
It’s only a couple of metres above sea level, so won’t have a lot of freeboard there in a good storm surge. But that’s a couple of metres higher than a lot of South Dunedin or Momona airport, both of which are at sea level. Parts of the airport are below, so any sea level rise or surge is going to cause problems.
I don’t udnerstand what Bear Baby is? Can you explain. Is this about Key?
We can’t afford to concentrate on having a go at him and National to the extent that we ignore what is going on in the country. That’s what giving politicians celebrity status or presidential status does.
It diverts attention to one individual or a coterie, and is part of the plan to keep people from thinking seriously as citizens about what direction the country is being driven in. Probably this trivia is a major part of Crosby Textor directives (do you know who they are Queen Ursula), and though it’s not a new ploy for politicians, it is being done so slickly that it has successfully diverted us for far too long. Just watch the road, will you, says the back seat driver!
“What to Fear”
A song which makes you feel empowered.
I know most of the time the music I put up is on the heavy side, the Industrial and Metal side of things. But today I have a wee gem of Blue Grass. This is a great song from Sean Watkins. He started out in, and is still part of Nickel Creek, I’d recommend doing a youtube search of this band if you like the song.
You need to scroll down the piece I’m afraid to listen to the song.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/hear-sean-watkins-political-new-song-what-to-fear-20160120
It’s also on his web page,
http://www.seanwatkins.com
Good breakdown here on what sanders needs to do to get the nom:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/10/11189908/bernie-sanders-can-win
tldr, he needs 54% of the remaining unpledged delegates to catch up, then swing some pledged delgates. If if he does the first, the latter should happen easy enough.
But that first isn’t easy. He needs more and bigger upsets than Michigan.
The problem he has is when he wins it doesn’t get him enough delegates to off set his losses. Even after his big win in Michigan on the day over all he lost ground on Hillary because she thrashed him in Mississippi.
Winning the South means very little. To win as a democrat, you must win the North. You know, the money states. This is playing out bad for Hillary, very very bad.
And never under estimate sexism in the USA.
I hope Bernie wins. The odds of that are not the best unfortunately. I don’t think Hilary is the end of the world. When you listen to her speak she does appear to be more detail focused where as Bernie is very much about passion. I only worry that:
1) Hilary is in for a harder fight against trump or Cruz than Sanders according to polls,
2) That her morals are more flexible and what she is saying now can’t really be taken as gospel for what she will do if she becomes president.
Well here one for all the Bernie haters.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/03/09/19405/lobbyists-who-love-bernie-sanders
Yep, the revelation that Sanders accepted sub-$1000 donations from a few individuals that work as lobbyists for unions, civil liberties groups and other leftie organisations is going to spark a mass defection to Hillary.
That article is some funny shit. SCANDEL!!!!!! Bernie receives $3,200 total from individuals who happen to be lobbyists. Some of them donating as much as $500. This totally means he is not consistent on getting big money out of politics.
Of course that is $3,200 of a total $96,000,000 raised.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/77703452/concerns-raised-about-child-rapist-robert-burrett-more-than-30-years-ago
Steve Parry, former chairman of the board of trustees of Pukenui School, where Burrett became deputy principal in the late 90s, said the school had tried for some time to get rid of him but ran into stiff opposition from the teachers’ union NZEI.
“They were quite evasive and defensive of the guy – it frustrated us to a high level,” Parry said.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/part-of-the-union-lyrics-the-strawbs.html
Nice try PR, but this is a gross failure of widespread proportion. Multiple opportunities were available to many people over a very long period of time and all those people have responsibility.
As do you and I. This didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in a country that is largely in denial about sexual abuse of children and while we have made some institutional changes since the 90s we’re still not very good at handling the very complex issues that arise. We’re the country that this week is going to spend a whole bunch of time talking about this one case as if it’s unusual or extreme and probably not talk about the fact that most children who are sexually abused are having that happen at home or other places that are supposed to be very safe. No-one wants to talk about that because then we would have to acknowledge that most sexual abuse isn’t being done by lone alcoholic freaks but by the men in our lives that we love and spend our days with. Until we are willing to have that conversation we are culturally sanctioning child rape.
Ok that’s fine but do you also agree that the NZEI put the interests of Robert Burrett ahead of the school children and that by their actions they helped him to commit those acts?
How would I know that PR? Or you for that matter. FFS, it’s a single short sentence quote and another sentence that is the interpretation of the journalist with no comment from the NZEI. The quote came from a Board of Trustees chair without any context at all. I don’t know if he’s being righteous or if he has anti-union prejudice like you. I also don’t know what other actions he took, if any, to protect the children he had a responsibility to protect.
You using the sexual abuse of children to push an anti-union agenda is despicable and if I was a moderator here I would ban you for such blatant flame tactics.
I suggest you don’t know what you are talking about PR, you have just picked up a bit about it in the newspaper or other media. It seems to me that the NZEI would have wanted a proper case made before a teacher was summarily dismissed. The fact that a Board member criticised the union doesn’t mean that it was a fair and reasonable judgment.
The Boards are often made up of confident, opinionated people from the community who run a successful business or such. It doesn’t mean that they are fully cognisant with all the laws, all the best practices, and follow the proper procedures in forming a case against a teacher employee. It may all be done on personal prejudice, against someone who doesn’t dress like them (scruffy) and on small evidence.
This from PR provided link at No.7.
Steve Parry, former chairman of the board of trustees of Pukenui School, where Burrett became deputy principal in the late 90s, said the school had tried for some time to get rid of him but ran into stiff opposition from the teachers’ union NZEI.
“They were quite evasive and defensive of the guy – it frustrated us to a high level,” Parry said.
My thoughts on the above paras are that Mr Parry and his Board were frustrated when they couldn’t act just as they wanted, when they decided on action, and the Union said they needed to have more information and facts before they could proceed against this teacher. The Union cann’t want bad teachers to stay in the profession, but probably don’t accept Board’s bad opinions perhaps on flimsy evidence, as sufficient reason to sack a teacher.
edited
Ok so there’re some fair points but the question for me is who is the NZEI advocating for, the teachers or the children?
Should the union be erring on the side of the children or the teachers, whose interests are more important here
The NZEI have a part to play in this
Oh, do piss off. The kids don’t pay union fees, so the answer is obviously that the union works for its members. If the case against the guy was so weak that the school board was unable to do anything about it, that’s not the union’s fault. Equally, now that the truth is out, I’m sure the union’s sympathy is with his victims.
You, however, are using the victims to try and make a sad and grubby political point. Shame on you, PR, shame on you.
Ok so there’re some fair points but the question for me is who is the NZEI advocating for, the teachers or the children?
The fact that the NZEI is a union representing teachers should give you a fairly broad hint as to the only possible or reasonable answer to that silly question.
Should the union be erring on the side of the children or the teachers…
That’s disingenous. What you’re actually asking is “Should a teacher’s union enthusiastically join a BoT’s attempt to dismiss one of its members without evidence?” To which the answer is “What? No! What’s wrong with you, man?”
Still using victims of sexual abuse to union bash PR?
If you have any actual evidence that the NZEI knew that Burret was a danger to the children he was around and did nothing and instead chose to support him, put it up.
You’ve got a funny idea about what teachers’ unions are for. They’re really not encouraged to interfere in professional standards. Not sure which rightwing party decided they should butt out and stick to union stuff.
Dishonest trole cites selectively to infer union support for a child sex offender.
/
There were no issues around his behaviour with children,” Parry said.
Union bashing is more important to PR than preventing sexual abuse.
“No-one wants to talk about that because then we would have to acknowledge that most sexual abuse isn’t being done by lone alcoholic freaks but by the men in our lives that we love and spend our days with”
Like how children spend a large part of their day with teachers?
I don’t know PR, are you related to a lot of male teachers? I’m talking about the men in your life. Father, brother, uncle, close family friend etc. Those are the men who have the opportunity. It’s actually quite hard to sexually abuse someone at school, which is why most children are sexually abused at home.
no, from experience let me tell you that it could be a stepfather, a brother, a father, an uncle, a grandfather, a friend of daddy or a priest.
and every now and then it is a teacher.
and you are still trying to score a point re Unions instead of trying to understand just how common sexual assault and rape is, and how often the victim is a child, and how often the perpetrator lives with the victims, and that my dear makes you just wrong and in this case a despicable troll.
“no, from experience let me tell you that it could be a stepfather, a brother, a father, an uncle, a grandfather, a friend of daddy or a priest.
and every now and then it is a teacher”
I can tell you that you demonising males as the only perpetrators of sexual assault doesn’t help either:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/77388275/sex-scandal-teacher-vows-not-to-teach-ahead-of-hearing
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/69080716/female-teacher-admits-affair-with-students
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/575523/Teacher-struck-off-over-sex-with-pupil
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/71453747/Teacher-said-affair-with-pupil-made-her-feel-special
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/758602/Teacher-struck-off-over-sex-notes-to-boy
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/74899898/Stacey-Reriti-teacher-who-sexually-violated-schoolboy-is-struck-off-teachers-register
I agree that the Union was correct to stand by their member until they were proven guilty, but don’t try to make this a male only issue.
Sabine didn’t demonise men, or even male teachers. She made a comment based on the fact that most sexual abuse of children is done by male relatives of the child.
I’d be interested to see the gender stats on teachers who sexually abuse students.
Just had to say that the boring rubbish that PR starts and you other ST’s get involved in answering is just that. BORING. BORING BORING!!!
BTW I wonder what PR stands for ?
not Public Relations , obviously,
could it be Pubus Retardus or Panis Revoltus
whatever……. he is Pain in the R
whatever the R stands for.
I find it boring too.
no bob, i don’t demonish male as the only ones, i only speak from my experience. My abuser was my stepfather and there you go.
Others, can speak from their experience.
And for what its worth, in this particular case that we are discussing here, a MAN abused several children at his place of work.
So you might want to deflect and point out all these women, but you are essentially no less a troll than Puckish Roque who would like to put the blame on the Teachers Union.
better trolls. really.
I have been banned indefinitely from commenting at Pete Georges YourNZ Blog.
Personally … I do not believe that the punishment fits the crime.
Am dying to know what “Timoti” wrote after my final comment last night … because he has also suffered the same fate as myself.
Everything I wrote in YourNZ was genuine from my personal point of view … and I am sorry that George has taken such drastic action … because I see it as being a very slippery slope downhill for the YourNZ Blog if this is to be Georges preferred method and style of moderation.
I am well aware of Georges legal situations … and I have never done anything to harm that … and in fact I have kept my mouth well and truly zipped … because of the details George has imparted to me personally outside the realm of his YourNZ blog.
Only time will tell if Georges blog is to survive.
Do you have a link?
http://yournz.org/2016/03/11/open-forum-friday-69/
Hmm, not sure that is a ban exactly, it looks like pre-moderation. How about a link to what you were doing that he doesn’t like?
I don’t know how he handles moderation there, but I do know he trolled this site for a long time with expert level awareness of how to inflame without getting an actual ban. So, irony.
@Weka
Haven’t been able to find the last comment I wrote in there last night … so I assume George has removed it.
George took issue with something that I wrote in here the other night after he had been accusing me of being a troll over there … and his behavior towards me was pretty full on and he seemed so different to normal.
He told me off publicly in front of everybody …and told me never to write anything like that about him ever again.
I then asked him if he was censoring what I was allowed to say not just on his blog … but on other forums as well.
All I did was stick up for myself … and he didn’t like it.
Right now I feel like a little five year old girl who has been sent to sit on the “Naughty Step”. LOL.
I doubt that George will allow any of my comments to show on his blog ever again … because of the way he has been behaving towards me over the past several days.
Ah ok, thanks for explaining, that makes sense.
I’m tempted to say congratulations 😉
Ha! Yes congrats, indeed, Mike C. I think you are correct that PG will prune your efforts in the future and only allow your safest comments through. Anything challenging will be scrapped.
Pete’s attitude to moderating has changed considerably. There’s two reasons for that; one is that his blog has been targeted by a couple of easily identifiable trolls with a hatred for him and a tendency to go to court with frivolous complaints. Mike C knows who I mean, but for similarly vexatious legal reasons, it’s not appropriate to speak further.
Secondly, his blog has simply got more popular and he is now somewhat overwhelmed with comments. Given that most commenters are righties who prefer not to think too hard before hitting the ‘post’ button, PG’s had to deal with all sorts of gibberish. that can be pretty time consuming.
For a one man show, he does OK. But I can understand his current frustration.
Anyhoo, I hope you’ll continue to comment here at TS, Mike C. You seem to fit in quite well.
@TeReoPutake
So the Wedding is still on then ???
Good to know Buddy … because it’s been a weird few days.
@Weka
Thanks ??? LOL.
Hope it does as PG is like that eccentric retiree many of us know tinkering away in the shed.
Harmless and entertaining as long as you can walk away when you have had enough.
but he keeps following you to work, and insisting you listen to his reckons. #baduncle
Listen to this One News reporter:
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/maori-academic-if-cop-knocks-door-hed-better-im-shutting?autoPlay=4795576343001
A Maori academic makes a point about the desirability of a Maori police officer being used to dampen down tense situations when a Maori is the target – such as yesterday’s siege in the B.O.P. This idiot reporter suggests he’s being racist. No comprehension of what is basic commonsense, or a sensitivity towards Maori culture or protocol.
*facepalm*. I can’t believe that the state broadcaster allows such ignorance and in fact racism in its presenter. It wasn’t even like she was saying some people might see that as racist, she was expressing her own personal view and ignorance.
When I heard the other day that the Māori warden had talked the man with the gun down I thought ‘this!’, this is why we have to stop thinking that anti-racism is colourblindness. It’s not. Different cultures have different needs and the dominant culture has a responsibility to work with that.
I expect fox style reporting from nationals tv channel so I’m never disappointed. Weldons sorting out the other for his besties JK.
Fear, dogwhistle and division then some celebrity items to pad it out unless theres a positive property values piece to dangle in front of the aspirationals.
The only time I watch them is when they’re linked from here or twitter or when something interesting is going on and I want to see how it’s being covered. My tolerance is low I guess.
I watched it. Didn’t have a problem with it. The reporter asked a question many pakeha would ask, so why shouldn’t she be able to express that view? She got a good answer. So now she’s got something to think about.
For me it was the way she asked it. In 2016 a state broadcaster journalist should have a better awareness of the issues. She could have asked the question in a way that elicited a good answer without making out the dude was racist.
Fair enough. I don’t expect much from the younger crop of journalists these days. Perhaps I should.
Yeah, I think the academic is being racist here. He is part of the community of New Zealand and he should be prepared to talk to police officers who are European and those of other races too. Similarly if he needs to be seen by a doctor or another member of the public services. Ideally there would be proportional representation of Maori in all public sectors to improve the service for all cultures but if that is not readily available then he’s either being dumb to suggest he wouldn’t talk to a European cop or he’s just trying to rile people up.
Maori culture or protocol is obviously important to those that follow it but if that involves refusing to talk to police then I don’t think it should be respected in that instance.
The academic was effectively putting himself in another person’s place. Assuming you are Pakeha… if you find yourself in big trouble and need assistance would you respond better if the police officer who came for you was Pakeha? Of course you would because that person has an innate understanding of your cultural background. It’s no different with Maori or Polynesian or any of the other ethnic minorities.
Nobody was being racist except the silly reporter who was out of her depth.
Another example would be a woman who’s been raped. Is it appropriate for male police to interview her? No, not only because she’s probably going to be more comfortable with women, but because the chances that the male police officer understands the issues well enough is way smaller.
I still think the guy was being more racist than the reporter there though…
It seems like pretty strong discrimination based on race to me to say you wouldn’t talk to a police officer of certain skin colour, with the assumption being that a person of a certain skin colour has a certain type of culture and certain bad beliefs that are so significant as to outweigh the fact that they are the person available. Like all people I think I would probably have biases towards people who are like me, yes… But personally I’d do my best to look past those and not request a different person…
Anyway in this case the matter was a bit more urgent than usual given the guy had shot some police officers. He was lucky he wasn’t shot back. Haha, once you get to the point when people are being shot then I think cultural sensitivity has to take a bit of a back seat.
Stupid is as stupid does.
What do you mean by that? In my opinion that academic has done nothing to try and improve race relations or increase trust in our police. It just seemed irresponsible.
What if you were deaf or spoke little or no English, so there were frequent communication issues between yourself and people who didn’t communicate in the same way you did?
What if the person knocking on your door works for an organisation that has a long history of treating deaf or ESL people badly?
And what if almost the only issues which would result in that person knocking on your door was highly serious and quite possibly legally perilous for you, regardless of whether you believe you might have done anything wrong?
Now put all those three together, and wouldn’t you want a translator there when you spoke to them?
Yes I would.
If the person is deaf or does not speak English that is a different matter than being Maori. If the person did not speak English then yes I think every effort should be made to have a translator available because communication is very impractical without that… If the problem is urgent (say a medical problem or an urgent police matter) then I think the reasonable response would be to try to engage with the public servant as best as possible until further support is available.
I think you might be taking what the man said too literally. He’s making a point. He’s not saying that if he is in urgent need of assistance that the police have to send a Māori policeman.
Doesn’t help that the vid is badly truncated so we can’t see the context.
Maybe, agree it would be best to see what was said immediately before that particular line… Just felt he might not be improving people’s trust in police very much. But yeah more people in the police and healthcare and education with backgrounds representing the population can only be a good thing… But I think we need to expect people to meet the public workforce halfway and engage too even if things aren’t ideal.
It’s sad seeing the reaction to this, people saying Maori are too entitled where it’s really the ones saying that who are the entitled ones in real life.
Who was the reporter – not noted on the page or clip?
Maori liaison officers tend to have better local connections in regions with high Maori populations, funnily enough. They are also unlikely to stereotype Maori offenders, so will dig further for what’s behind the behaviour.
Both of those factors probably helped in this case. However I’m unimpressed with the lack of responsibility I’ve heard from the man’s mother. Needs to be hooked up with some wiser elders perhaps.
Nadine Chalmers-Ross I think. Ex business/financial reporter.
ta
MSD investigates itself. Concluding. An inquiry showed MSD had taken all reasonable steps to prevent such a tragedy but the events were extreme, the individual was well motivated and was armed with a dangerous weapon. Tully found guilty is now finally to be housed at government expense. Did it have to lead to two dead? Was Tully offered housing? Is he terminally ill? Why would anyone kill, manipulate, be aggressive toward MSD staff! perplexed, no answers. What reasonable steps still failed?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/77612963/russell-john-tully-went-from-nicest-bloke-to-killer
The guy is a scumbag and, if what this articles suggests is true, then he was a ticking time bomb and eventually he would have gone off at someone else
Yeah, people become murderers like that for no reason 🙄
I can’t bring myself to read that article properly. Any reporter that uses a phrase like ‘he had a paddy’ obviously has no idea what journalism is and has no sense of irony in the NZ context. Well done jonolist for objectifying the man and taking us further from understanding the truth and being able to prevent it happening again (case in point, PR’s comment).
Anger is justified. The question for me is where that anger at the deaths should be placed. Victimizing the dead as having tortured this arrogant, owed a living, down and out, into lashing out. Or more correctly asking how a man with no money to his name, a cycle, no housing managed to get hold of guns, bullets, no doubt with MSD grant money. Were staff to considerate tohim, unable to provide housing they throw money at him, and unwittingly arm him? He wanted to live where he grew up, such arrogance, he is now living housed far away from where he grew up.
It could have been so different, a universal income would negate the need fot Tully to seek WINZ help, a fully housing policy would make it easy to provide a damp home, but these policies dont exist, so WINZ knows individual s will turn up arrogant, demanding and require assistance, that they cant turn away, and can be put personally in the middle between govt intrasidence and this egotistical nightmare. Is it now to be a crime that sociopaths cant use WINZ?
What is Tullys history, is he dying, is he the product of one of our state or private religious institutions, or just the pamper son.
Future murderers do seek benefits from WINZ, is this to be the new policy that staff reasonable steps are not protection from harm and they have to accept that.
Where is worksafe? Did WINZ provide the grant to fund weapons!
Sorry to be pedantic but there is no way that anyone in NZ could get a WINZ grant to buy firearms. How we frame this is important in understanding what happened and in not creating more stigma around beneficiaries in general. Yes he might have used his main benefits to buy firearms. Or he might have managed to get the system to give him a grant for something else and used that to buy firearms but it’s difficult to do that now (WINZ generally don’t give out cash to the beneficiary), they pay directly to the supplier). Or he stole them, or whatever. I don’t think accessing firearms in NZ is that hard if you put your mind to it and move in the right circles.
I don’t blame the people that got shot. No-one deserves that. It’s pretty clear that there are institutional failures that contributed to the situation and often there are individuals in the system who support or condone those failures but mostly I see people who are themselves relatively powerless to change what is happening.
The thing that worries me is that the strategy that the MSD has taken post-shooting will just send the problem elsewhere as well as increasing the stress on already vulnerable people eg refusing people access to WINZ offices without ID. I would have less of a problem with that if I saw other strategies being put in place that acknowledge that people generally don’t commit murder in a vacuum, there are always contributory factors.
There are always contributory factors, yes. Things like being a malicious, aggressive and unreasonable person who always blames other people for the problems he brings down on himself through his own actions seems to crop up often as a contributory factor among male murderers. There’s no reason for any sympathy for someone like Tully.
What makes you think I have sympathy for Tully in regards to him being a murderer?
No sympathy for Tully, just concerns that this will happen again as you are incapable of understanding that sociopaths arrogantly believe they have the same rights as everyone else. It struck me when one of the witnesses said Tully was arrogant, as if WINZ could deny a person a benefit for character issues. Obviously all tyes, blind, dumb, sociolpathic, etc all attend WINZ offices and where staff are pressured to deliever outcomes that puts them literally in the gunsights of men like Tully, we all need to ask how WINZ failed. ITs not right for WINZ to say they did everything reasonable, though true, staff had no means to house Tully. As thst means this event will inevitable recur. Its manslaughter to set a trap for WINZ staff, or for CCTV victims,of miners. Well it was once.
Well let me help you out then:
His promising start seems to have been derailed at some stage. He appeared before the Blenheim District Court in November, 2002, on threatening to kill and presenting a firearm charges.
The charges came from an incident where his landlord went to his Picton flat to serve an eviction notice. He found Tully cleaning a rifle and putting a silencer on it. He claimed Tully pointed the gun at him and threatened to “waste” him.
Tully was convicted and fined $500 on the two charges. Police also applied to confiscate three firearms found on Tully’s property.
By 2013, he was back in New Zealand drifting around camping grounds in North Canterbury. He spent time at the Waikuku Beach Holiday Park, the Riverland Holiday Park in Kaiapoi and the Rangiora Holiday Park.
An altercation at the Rangiora Holiday Park resulted in a complaint to the police. He was asked to leave several of the camping grounds because of his mouthy attitude.
When Tully moved to Ashburton, the Rangiora WINZ office warned staff about him.
Within about six weeks of his return to Ashburton, Police presented him with a trespass notice, forbidding him to enter the WINZ office. This didn’t stop him coming to the office on August 28 to speak to a case worker.
He was detained outside and after being told the police would be called said, “I’m going home.”
I’m sure there were some mitigating circumstances but I’m also sure that hes a complete piece of s**t
Mate, you’ve already demonstrated your judgement is impaired by using victims of child sexual abuse and very poor levels of information to union bash. No way I am going to trust your version of events about Tully that you are pulling out of the MSM. You appear to have no critical thinking skills alongside your moral vacuity.
Yes – he should have just quietly lived out the rest of his life on the dole without complaint right PR? Because that’s the future that having neo-liberal governments in power guarantees to an ever increasing group of New Zealanders.
He should have risen in arms and brought down the government. Jobs are essential and no amount of freemarket bullshit can take their place.
Not the dole, he was on a disability benefit by the by
“He should have risen in arms and brought down the government”
What exactly do you mean by that? Are you saying he was justified in killing or that he should have killed more?
Economic violence is not privileged above actual violence. The neo-liberal rape of NZ ruined this man’s, and many other people’s lives. He acted against the lowest part of the oppressive aparatus – he should have cut off the head of the snake.
If he’d had a job he’d have been a law abiding citizen. He’s not the scumbag here – the scumbags are Key, English, Bennet and Rebstock.
“He acted against the lowest part of the oppressive aparatus – he should have cut off the head of the snake.”
So whose head should he have cut off?
It would be quite sufficient to displace the current government and throw them in jail. Beheadings or other punishment would await judicial process, but generally speaking only royalty get beheaded.
But since you ask: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NLV24qTnlg
Lol.
NZ doesn’t have a disability benefit. What are you talking about?
That’s why originally I posted this: “if what this articles suggests is true”
translation: “I’m making prejudicial, ill-informed, morally-questionable comment on a political blog because I’m lazy and I want an easy way to make political slurs and practice my lazy-troll arts”.
[r0b: deleted. With respect to your query and other followup comments by weka, the original comment came from a very unusual case that usually goes straight to spam. It was a mistake that some of them briefly appeared here. Sorry.]
No worries r0b, good to have a reminder that we can’t always see from here what needs to be done, or the work that goes into it.
Testing. Just checking if this comes through the system.
Right shows up okay
Now I’ll add:
Hi lprent
I am puzzled about why I can’t find a previous comment on Open Mike 11/3.
It was a vacuous little thing from some git called…
I wrote some paras in answer to it.
On the right hand comments column I see weka replied to it.
I can’t find it looking down the Open Mike 11/3 post.
I can’t bring it up when I try to link to it from search of my comments.
I can’t bring it up when I try to link to weka’s reply.
How can a number of comments just disappear like that?
If taken off usually there is a succinct point made in bold as to why.
I thought it was an interesting example of RW trolls taking on new identities and styles.
Can you throw light on this? Thanks in advance.
*********************************
Now on a separate comment I will put the name of the git I was talking about as I think it might have been dragged off the post, along with replies, as spam or something. I don’t know that is the case, but perhaps lprent can comment if this can make a number of comments disappear.
***************************************
Hi I put the name, waited a full minute and nothing. So can someone explain what has happened?
greywarshark, if your git was [deleted] looked like a spambot to me, rather than a living breathing troll.
The commenter concerned sends a lot of stuff our way and it inevitably ends up in the trash, though the occasional one sneaks through. They’ve used multiple names, but the content is usually pretty similar. Mostly it’s musings on a broken relationship and completely unrelated to the thread it’s aimed at. I do think they’re a real person, btw.
I just tried putting her name in a comment and the comment didn’t appear. I’m assuming that her name is tagged to put any comment that contains it straight into moderation or spam trash.
If you try and open a comment that has a link to it and you instead go the top of the page that the comment was on it usually means the comment has been removed, or the comment is being edited.
Okay. Thanx for that weka and TRP. Andre I don’t know, if could be a spambot because it was some rubbish about some Baby Bear without reference to whom it referred.
But TRP says it is just some vacuous person assuming different guises to attempt to do something that the big people do, but which is over this person’s head.
Concerned about the TPPA?
Haven’t yet made your submission?
Online submission form
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee
INTERNATIONAL TREATY EXAMINATION OF THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT (TPPA)
https://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/ECommitteeSubmission/9abe7211-f3d1-471d-8a0b-a5a9010ca2cc/CreateSubmission
‘Drop dead’ cut off time for making your on-line submission is midnight tonight Friday 11 March 2016,
Don’t forget to click Yes to this question:
“Do you wish to appear before the committee?”
Request to appear
You can request to appear before the committee.
The committee will decide whether or not it wishes to hear submissions.
Once this decision has been made, you will be contacted by committee staff.
Please note this may be at short notice.
Submissions are usually heard in public.
If you have any special requests related to appearing before the committee (for example, if you can not travel to Wellington or you wish to be heard in private), you can use the box below to contact committee staff.
Do you wish to appear before the committee?
No Yes ”
__________________________________________________________________________________
For information to help you make your submission – try here:
http://itsourfuture.org.nz/take-action/
Cheers!
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
No
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/298683/court-hands-over-govt-kauri-export-emails
This could turn out very interesting. I wonder how often the kauri export division of oriveda will get a mention.
Go the The Northland Environmental Protection Society!
National might need to extend their chooks house, there seems be be quite a few chickens coming home to roost at the moment.
Popcorn April!
What with a certain court case, certainly.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/03/public_polls_february_2016.html
Remarkably consistent from both National and the Greens as for Labour…well at least they’re trying
Two Polls in February …
Roy Morgan = puts the Govt Bloc slightly ahead of the Oppo.
Colmar Brunton = places the Oppo Bloc slightly ahead of the Govt.
So, Winnie either holds the balance of power or is very close to it.*
———————————————————————————————-
Labour = Roy Morgan 27, Colmar Brunton 32
Roy Morgan usually record a lower rating for Labour than both the Colmar Bruntons and the Reid Research Polls. So, nothing unusual there.
——————————————————————————————-
* Then, again, if you include the Maori Party amongst the Swing either way Centrists then the Roy Morgan suggests an absolute knife edge situation, with the Colmar Brunton recording a more substantial lead for the parties of Opposition+Maori
And a lack of evidence that Labour is polling any stronger now than it was in 2014.
Pretty much where it was during the early months of 2014, but – on the bright-ish side – well up on both its June-September 2014 ratings and, of course, its particularly dismal Election result.
@TeReoPutake and Weak
It’s really hard and time consuming to write a basic or quick comment in the Standard Blog.
You have to scroll down miles and miles sometimes … to write a comment … which is somewhat off putting for new members.
Georges Blog has a better set up … aside from his up vote and down vote system … amongst several other things. LOL.
YourNZ has been taken over by Rachinger.
Heard from me first.
Heh, haven’t heard from Rachinger in a long time.
“Wiki” not “Weak”.
My apologies Wiki … I hate predictive text sometimes.
Rachinger? Figures. Their dodgy thinking and arguing style is very similar.
To be fair, the beige badger only has to handle dozens of visitors a day rather than thousands.
@Weka
Sorry again.
I wonder if George is worried about Rachinger taking over his YourNZ blog?
Something ain’t right over there.
@The Standard
So … you are also moderating and deleting my comments.
You may be using words that automatically trigger moderation. And it may take these folk a while outside their other obligations to respond. Can’t all be retirees.
@Sacha
What words would those be “Sacha”?
I am new to this forum … so how am I supposed to know?
My ESP abilities seem to be on the blink lately.
Such as names of people who would likely be regarded as unwelcome here .. #blowholes
and yes that’s my real “name”, Francie