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.
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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.
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Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 26 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD).Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits.First published in 2021.All my ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Willis, Postdoctoral Researcher, CSIRO Xavier Boulenger/Shutterstock In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon ...
With our collective remembrance, and steadfast belief in our common humanity, we strengthen our hope and resolve to do what we can to foster dialogue and understanding, and to heal divisions in our pursuit of peace. ...
Principal reasons for the opposition is the loss of the public’s democratic right to have “a fair say” and the vital need for a government free from corruption, said Casey Cravens of Dunedin, president of the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater ...
Never mind the scoreboard – in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup decider, the real trans-Tasman battle was won before kickoff.First published in 2016. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the ...
I’m on the wrong side of 40, I never pursued creative work and now my job is killing my soul. Help! Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,May I start with the least original conversation opener you’re likely to hear around the motu at the moment, particularly in Wellington: ...
“Never again - No AUKUS” was the message of the wreath laid at this morning’s national ANZAC Day commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park this morning by the Stop AUKUS group. ...
Until this month, Auckland swimmer Hazel Ouwehand had never met a qualifying time in an Olympic event for a New Zealand team, even as a junior. Now she’s very likely off to the Paris Olympics after swimming well under the qualifying standard in the 100m butterfly twice – both in ...
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell.First published in 2022.The high school’s head girl and ...
Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association.First published in 2018.When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of ...
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?
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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