1. It’s not more money. Not a single extra cent.
2. How is feeding patients not front-line
3. Cheap pre-processed meals is not better
4. People will lose their jobs which means less money is those communities
5. A food issue re contamination will now be a national issue, encompass more hospitals, kill more people and be more difficult And costly to control.
6. Much more difficult to adjust diet to individual needs eg allergy to ginger, versus allergy to nuts, vs allergy to eggs, etc
7. Profit means a direct loss of money from the health sector for private gain. I’m assuming that every time Te company makes a dollar you’ll be saying “pay them less pay them less” and you’ll be supporting the transfer of profit back to the government so that more frontline health services can be delivered.
Ryman would be the classic example – profit massively increased but not being returned to govt through cheaper services which is supposed to be the point isn’t it. Your taxpayer money now building rest homes in Australia.
“1. It’s not more money. Not a single extra cent.”
big bruv’s point is that money that was spent on the food being done in the hospital can now be directed to other parts of the health system, since the privitisation of food is supposed to save money.
Beats me, I’m just re-stating what big bruv was saying, doesn’t mean I agree with him.
But it is possible to gain cost savings if the private provider is providing the service in a more efficient way: for the same or less amount of money you can get the same or better output, that’s called increased efficiency.
In this case I believe it is something about providing all of the countries hospital food from central locations, thus gaining efficiencies through economies of scale.
Of course there is no reason that the public/government couldn’t also harness efficiencies through economies of scale and make the same or better savings, except that they choose not to.
But it is possible to gain cost savings if the private provider is providing the service in a more efficient way: for the same or less amount of money you can get the same or better output, that’s called increased efficiency.
“Increased efficiency” – screw your workers and suppliers so that corporate shareholders can make a buck in other words.
Let’s not dance around semantics, we’ve been around this neoliberal speak long enough to know what it means.
Do you want to know how to truly increase efficiencies? Look at the big picture, not siloed accounting cost centres.
By the way, can we get away from the idea that removing money from working families is somehow “efficient”. Bloody hell, 30 years on and we’re still all dumbasses.
and as soon as a profit is attached to a scenario, that cost comes out of services so in order to supply the same service, costs rise. This is not complicated, unless you choose it to be.
Add in the costs and the logistical quagmire, creating a National Food Service is simply unworkable if saving money is the goal.
Which raises the obvious question . .
Is Quorn on the menu
We can look at the state funded homehelp services that were privatised in the 90s. Instead of services being run out of DHBs or by direct funding clients to contract employ their own workers, services were contracted out. We now have multiple businesses offering homehelp services in each area. That = multiple CEOs, and mutiple upper and middle management that didn’t exist before.
If every client hour is funded at something like $20 or $25, and the workers are getting $13 or $14/hr, that leaves on average $10/hr for administration of the system.
I’d love to see an audit of how much money was ‘saved’ by using this model, and a comparison with how DHB/MoH services could have been made more efficient.
(the MoH is now implementing direct to client funding again, precisely because agencies are often not able to deliver services that clients need within the funding).
It’s worse than that though. Apart from the lower wages I was in a meeting with a DHB group some time after this period where an accountant at the DHB gained my total respect for being the only DHB person to raise concern that staff in these private firms were doing many unpaid hours and that if the real hours of work were paid costs would rise significantly and how it was not fair on those workers.
It was clear both the DHB management and the private providers well knew about the free hours they were garnering and not paying for.
My family have oft worked in that sector and I know for a fact that they have done this regularly. The time travelling between clients is also not paid for in many, many cases and of course the client is using their own vehicle whereas this used to be provided.
These things are not cost saving they simply shift the cost to the worker while taking the savings out in profit.
These things are not cost saving they simply shift the cost to the worker while taking the savings out in profit.
Bingo!
That’s happening across the labour force especially for dependent contractors. All the costs are being dropped on the contractors so that the business can make a larger profit. Meanwhile, due to the increase in the number of those costs from one (the business) to many (the contractors) we actually have the costs increasing. There are people out there who are quite literally paying to go to work and the only way they can afford to live is because of things like WfF, the Accommodation Supplement and other government welfare payouts.
As you say, the costs have just been shifted but it saves nothing, it just makes a few people richer at everyone else’s expense.
Hey Big Bruv as you are a lover of privatisation I take it you are for the idea reported in the UK Daily Mail that in the spirit of Thatcherism they privatise her funeral and put it out to the lowest bidder.
No one can tell you anything because there is too much shit coming out of your head and spraying in all directions. Why should this topic be any different?
Now, now Te Reo. Let’s just stick to the facts please.
The minister said that the money saved would go back into front line health services, and this is a minister who keeps his word. That is just one of the differences between the way that Ryall has handled Health and the shocking and corrupt way that Labour ran the health portfolio.
As for nutrition, are you really suggesting that hospital food could get worse if it was contracted out to another firm?…lol
Hospital food can only get better under the model proposed by Ryall, nobody seriously believes that it could get any worse.
The times I’ve had family in hospital the food has been fine and much better that the food my wife got when in a private hospital.
It’s not an issue over quality.
And to add to my list above:
8. National typically destroy services in the public sector when these decisions are made so if it doesn’t work it will have gutted the hospital kitchens to make it more expensive for later governments to put it back
9. More arsehole trucks and truck drivers on the roads
10. Increased risk of failure
11. Less community resource in civil defence situations
“9. More arsehole trucks and truck drivers on the roads.”
Yes because at the moment all the raw cooking ingrediants that are used in the hospital kitchens are teleported in. Unfortunatly that will have to stop under this current outsourcing proposal as trucks although a bit smelly and large are in fact real.
You can talk and talk, but there will always be empty space in the packaging of a prepared meal. Plates can be stacked and minimise that space, but not if they’re full of bland factory food.
that is fine for rolling carts down a corridor but how is that a viable way to transport food safely hundreds of kilometres?
All food will have to be individually packaged as per airline food
and that is known to be an expensive and ongoing logistical science that i simply do not trust to someone where private profit against public good is the equation. If profit is the goal we all know where this scenario leads, reduced services and supply problems and rising costs. If you deny profit is the goal then I ask you why is it changing and what benefit can be brought to the Health Sector with this staggering change in the basic operation of its food Services?
big bruv, do you know why hospitals have generators?
Do you know why food is prepared on site?
This puts New Zealanders lives at considerable risk next time there is some form of disaster.
This government disgusts me – putting lives at risk so there is more money available to pay for rich farmers irrigation. I don’t want people like this in the same society as me. As far as I am concerned people like you are from another world. I have nothing in common with you or people like you. I spit in your face.
northshoredoc is correct, some foods are prepared ‘down the road’ or ‘across town’
This is however rather different from being prepared many hundreds of kilometres away.
The volume of potential hazards in this plan outweigh any and every short term financial gain. Even before you begin to take into account the ever growing social costs to the communities depending upon the food preparation staff, and the associated businesses and suppliers.
The other danger is that the greater the distance between point of preparation and hospital, the more change there is of contamination, which is going to be horrendously dangerous for immuno-comprimised patients.
So because you have never been in hospital or obviously never spoken to anyone who knows about hospital food why do you bother having your say despite your confession that you couldn’t say?
You just like stalking Draco don’t you? Good if you do, hopefully you will wake up soon to the sense his comments contain.
Draco makes me laugh. His comments are more baffling than sensible.
“never spoken to anyone who knows about hospital food”
I have known many people who have been in hospital. Draco doesn’t understand why people have a problem because he doesn’t have a problem with it. He seemingly doesn’t realise that other people aren’t Draco and don’t enjoy the things he does.
personally speaking, i too have to take a leak (Decker bladder and all that tucking to the left, but yes, for an obviously clever person, what will you contribute beyond wooden pip-fruit?
But that’s a tautology. Of course different people have problems with different things, even if we put it down crudely to “enjoyment”.
The question was why.
If we know the why, then issues can be addressed. If we make arbitrary changes without knowing why something might not be up to scratch, we risk repeating or even worsening the problem.
Maybe hospital food has a bad rap because of the way it was prepared thirty years ago?
Or maybe because anything you eat when you’re nauseous and in pain becomes associated with that experience?
Or maybe because bulk catering is always going to be a bit run-of-the-mill, but centrally-produced TV dinners will be worse?
Maybe a bit less salt or more options with condiments would make all the difference?
Or maybe the people bitching about hospital food are just playing up a tired old myth from decades ago in order to justify redundancies and giving airline food to people who are in no position to walk out of there?
“Or maybe the people bitching about hospital food are just playing up a tired old myth from decades ago in order to justify redundancies and giving airline food to people who are in no position to walk out of there?”
I like airline food (though my most recent experience wasn’t great)
“I’ve never had a problem with hospital food. Don’t understand why people say it’s horrible. It’s like they’ve got hold of a meme and won’t let it go.”
I’d struggle with hospital food, because it is so different from what I eat usually. Remember, people who are in hospital are often at their most vulnerable and/or feeling like shit. Food is very core to our sense of wellbeing, so I can understand why hospital food attracts criticism.
I’m guessing there is also the issue of any food prepared on a mass scale – it’s always going to have that overdone, been sitting waiting for too long look (and taste) about it.
I’m not sure how healthy it is or not. Can you still get butter in a hospital? 😉 (I think butter is healthy for most people).
I just had a short spell in Tga hospital. No butter only margarine and a “fruit” drink with breakfast that was water, sugar, colour flavouring. So I’m not sure how much emphasis is placed on the food being healthy.
I eat pretty basic fare at home and I’m not finicky about food, I eat most of the stuff the rest of the family wont touch because its old, or the bread thats a bit dry etc.
The food in Tga hospital was absolutely dire. Rock hard kumara, corned beef so salty it was inedible, the “hot” food was barely lukewarm which raises the issue of if it was ever heated properly in the first place. Another issue I noted was that the food was not as advertised for eg a quiche that was said to not contain green vegetables was full of broccoli. It wasnt an issue for me but if your not suppossed to be eating green veges for some reason…
Now I am not a fan of outsourcing and dont agree that this is a sensible approach for many reasons but imo the food at Tga hospital couldnt get any worse.
I’d eat airline food over what was served to me every time.
Ok, that sounds atrocious and obviously something needs to be done about it. I’ve never had anything like that served to me in hospital. Sure, it’s often had the been sitting round too long in the warmer feel to it but I doubt if delivering it from across town is going to change that.
Actually, what you describe is what you’d get if you put someone without experience or training in charge of the food and paid them SFA.
Or if some contractor somewhere was trying to fulfil a service contract as cheaply as possible and no one at the DHB with enough authority gives a fuck.
What bugs me about him most is that he links to his site and then has a link to the site that he’s quoting from. He almost never says anything in the posts himself or if he has he’s successfully hidden it in that awful format he uses.
Got warned about link whoring here last time as I remember it, argued, and then required an education in the traditional manner about who actually ran this site.
I don’t really mind link whoring provided there is a *clear* description of what people will find in the link and it is relevant to the post or is in OpenMike. Unfortunately the ellipsis coding system appears remove clarity and leave the uncoded text as gibberish with a low information content.
Ummm. I wonder how efficient I could write code to drop … to a single dot at the end of a line, and to remove them from the start of a line.
Penny is usually ok. If they get too long then I have been known to edit out the cut’n’paste or warn. Similarly when she is excessiveky stricken with a capitals disease, I find that I can shrink the problem with style=”font-size:7px”. Like all good Samaritans I don’t find the lack of thanks for these selfless deeds to be a problem – but the reduction of diseased symptoms afterwards is always gratifying.
Link-whoring as far as I’m concerned is a behaviour that is designed to either leave lots of links around the net to raise google ratings via search engines spiders and/or designed to get people to click a link to see what is in there.
What I look for is something like this…
1. I get concerned when there is not enough information for readers to make an informed decision about if they should hit a link without hitting it. If there isn’t enough information to do that or what is provided is quite inaccurate when I click in, then I’ll deem it as come-on link-whoring.
2. If it is off-topic for the post or out of context for the thread then I’ll also treat it as a link-whoring behaviour. We aren’t here to provide random advertising space.
3. If it is in OpenMike as a top-level comment, then I expect to see an argument or announcement sufficient that people can comment against that rather than having to click the link. I also don’t expect to see too damn many of them. If I find your posts good enough when I click in then I’ll often add a site to the RSS feed
The idea is that if you want to leave links to your site, then you have to provide value for the readers of this site. I think that most people would think that those are acceptable and quite lenient guidelines.
My behaviour is usually quite abrupt. I usually just give an educational ban to anyone that I view as link-whoring. If repeated then I’ll reach for a semi-permanent ban pretty fast as it just wastes my time. I then add the site URL to the auto-spam to discourage people from going to sites that link-whore traffic.In extreme cases I’ll list the site in website blacklists.
The difference between Phil and Penny is that Penny, while still annoying, at least is posting about something relevant and is going good work. I don’t know what Phil says or does, because I can’t get past the …., but am guessing that as suggested it is straightout link whoring (of the sleazy not the power-whore kind).
are you contrarian in name only..?..there..contrarian..
..i have been writing this way for years..it isn’t done especially to annoy you..eh..?
..funnily enough..i find your voluntary-slavery to the irrationalities of the capital-letter/sentence regime/structure..quite quaint..( i mean..you don’t talk like that..?..)
..please explain to me the logic behind the (ugly/brutish) capital-letter..eh..?
..and ‘mr’/mrs’..?..w.t.f.is that all about..?
..a relic/consolation-prize-title from the british class system..
..(‘you are a peasant..but here..you can call yrslf mr..does that feel better..?..and you can even capitalise the ‘m’..’..)
..i can also do dashes instead of dots..? – if that would annoy less..?
..(also my caps lock is broken – .eh..? – someone broke in and superglued it..
“Allen Ginsberg, initially unimpressed, would later be one of its great proponents, and indeed, he was apparently influenced by Kerouac’s free-flowing prose method of writing in the composition of his masterpiece “Howl”. It was at about the time that Kerouac wrote The Subterraneans that he was approached by Ginsberg and others to formally explicate his style. Among the writings he set down specifically about his Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of 30 “essentials”.”
There’s a different communication system for writing and talking. Talking has clues like intonation, pauses, loudness, facial expressions to punctuate it. Writing has developed different conventions that most of us recognise.
PS: if it makes you happy to write like that, go for it. Just don’t expect everyone to read it. Some may like it. It just irritates my brain.
voluntary-slavery to the irrationalities of the capital-letter/sentence regime/structure..quite quaint
I find that under you faux-radical use of the ellipsis that your residual, indeed fundamental slavery to residual syntax and spelling a bourgeois-liberal compromise that is in fact a betrayal of the true syntactical liberationary movement.
To be truly free, half-measures are not enough, one m,ust abondon al!l conne£ction with conventional symbol-object meaning and argle blargle bleep!
heh. yes, it’s the repetitive use of the …. that hurts my brain. It’s the equivalent in speech of someone speaking in a monotone, or mumbling because it seemed cool and kinda natural when Brando did it. Or maybe like someone repetitively using one hand gesture when speaking
…Indeed, he is a deception, foisted upon us to imagine that by mild half-gestures we can be free.
../.>>>>>Do you imagine that the mere eye-bleedingly nonsensi…cal abuse of the ellipsis is “free”?
…Do you imagine even that the abandonment of syntax i…s “free”? No, it is not…!…. eh?
../…eh?
[link to blog]
….
eh….?…. eh? [link to blog]
… We must over come the quant supposition that words correspond to any fixed meaning, because that is totalitarian …eh …[link to blog] nonsense. When someone says “cat” and another person understands that they mean a furry ….eh?
…eh?
…animal that purrs and has claws, then clearly the two are subservient to an awful totalitarian system of language… eh? [link to blog]
To be truly free they must wigll….ejhiowuhfc!…eh?
and ony87ewrgerwhnnhu!…eh?
and furthermore, they must o23adoe….eh?
eh?… eh? …eh? …eh? …eh? [link to blog… eh?]
… comprehension is collusion… eh? No-one who is comprehensible to another is free, nor is the one who is able to comprehend…eh?
…eh? [link to… eh… blog… eh… eh… eh…eh…?????]
Lock him in a room with David Shearer and see what happens: “Eh? Um… Eh? Um…”
I’ve just realised that this could be the secret of perpetual motion. If we could somehow harness the energy of Phil Ure saying “…eh?” and provoking David Shearer to say “Um”, then our energy problems would be solved forever!
It hurst my brain too, not just visually, but why would someone who is intent on communicating then continuously use tools that undermine that communication?
yes. 21 of 35 for child poverty, 24 of 35 for homicide of children.
the commentator on tele-” Not the size of the economy that correlates with child-well-being equality, but government settings, e.g as in the U.K Child Poverty Act measures, looking at the income of families and school meals fro example.
anyway, Lyin’, cheatin’, hurtin’, that’s all they seem to do, yet there Time is Gonna Come…
FRANKIE BOYLE: The comedian tweeted: ‘All that Thatcher achieved was to ensure that people living in Garbage Camps a hundred years from now will think that Hitler was a woman.’
Thatcher’s Britain of legions of homeless sleeping in doorways would have been familiar to Hogarth. in Thatcher’s PM-ship, everything they Brit’s previously had been taught to value was reversed _ greed and selfishness became good, in Thatcher’s “ashprashinel” society, which Key is attempting to Kiwify.
Curran knowing? I’ve known poinsettias with more self-awareness. Put her in a pot with good soil and make sure she gets watered regularly. That’s all you can do with her.
So the meals will be delivered daily by ROAD. That would have worked really well in the CHCH quake when all the bridges were closed on SH 1 while checked, and all the casualties will starve whwn Wellington cops it.
It is interesting that after so many data disasters this year the Government is thinking of having one big collection of data. Imagine the damage that could be caused by a stuff up.
But I can hear the PR jargon already.
Of course the new system will be robust, it will feature world best practice, privacy will be given high priority, the technology will be cutting edge, and everyone will give 110% to make sure that it works.
From the GCSB’s website, at the top of the list of jobs that it does, comes . . .
Information Assurance (IA)
‘As communications technologies advance, the need to protect information carried by those technologies also grows.
There are two main reasons to protect information. Firstly the confidential information of the Government of New Zealand needs to be protected from unauthorised disclosure. This means that Government departments can communicate information securely. Secondly there is a requirement to protect information and infrastructure from corruption by malicious ‘attack’, the most common form of which is the humble computer virus.’
The problem lies with the technical difficulties of any such venture, it should be a non starter by default.
Not that this would prevent the private sector raking in vast quantities of public funds, while gaining even deeper access to the valuable data cache, while attempting to investigate the feasibility.
It’s a necessary step in the road to outsourcing IT services, those which are not already handled by the private sector, in any case. Part of any DC consolidation programme, will involve the Hardware/Software/Infrastructure as a service model being rolled out.
No, this is not an exercise that any NZ government should be embarking on, although I expect that the AKL Council will already be going through the phases of trying something similar, following the amalgamation, and no doubt being monitored centrally, by the same vendors who will be hoovering up Auckland money on Council the council programme.
Expect to see failure, blame and fault avoidance on all sides if this moves into initiation!
The problem lies with the technical difficulties of any such venture, it should be a non starter by default.
Not that this would prevent the private sector raking in vast quantities of public funds, while gaining even deeper access to the valuable data cache, while attempting to investigate the feasibility.
I think you’ll find that it’s feasibility has already been proved. And that’s just one that’s commercially available.
It’s a necessary step in the road to outsourcing IT services, those which are not already handled by the private sector, in any case.
It could be used to do that, yes, and this government is probably fantasising about the profits that they can divert to rich mates with it. But it is also, IMO, a necessary step in getting better government services. It’s ridiculous in this day and age that someone can deal with one government department, give all their details and then go to another government department only to find that you have to give the details again.
No, this is not an exercise that any NZ government should be embarking on…
Yes it is but it should be done in house by a dedicated government IT department.
Expect to see failure, blame and fault avoidance on all sides if this moves into initiation!
Under this government and with private contractors doing it? Yep, definitely. Get it done in house and blame can’t be shifted.
It’s ridiculous in this day and age that someone can deal with one government department, give all their details and then go to another government department only to find that you have to give the details again.
Be careful what you wish for mate. A little bit of inconvenience and some Chinese Walls might be a good thing, for the next time we get a Holland or a Muldoon in power.
Thats where its falling short for DTB lately – He is keen as to stick it into the government at most opportunities, rightly so, yet vents his displeasure about it being more difficult for the governments to coordinate the theft/selling off of your data!
Just upload it all to the google cloud and be done with it!
Hmmm . . . now where did John Key get that idea from? Oh, yeah . . .
. . . As a result of the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), the number of government data centers will shrink sharply from its current level of about 3,000 centers to about 1,800 by 2015 — a reduction rate of 40 percent. Eventual savings could be in the range of US$5 billion. The ability to implement a change of that magnitude is largely the result of a confluence of IT developments that have matured at about the same time . . .
. . . makes it easier to privatise when there’s only one entity involved, I guess.
+ 1 yes another opportunity for backers to plunder.
The play book after you identify the (A) service/product you utilise.
1. Outsource.
2. Then remove the capability and infrastructure from the organisation i.e, people, kitchen equipment, server rooms, call centre business knowledge etc
3. Outsourcer increases the charges , maximises their profits as they pitched a number that won the business not their intended eventual charge/true cost even.
4. Organisation reduces services/passes on costs
5. Organisations looks to in source after impacts of (4) felt.
6. Proves alot more costly as (2) must be repeated using new builds and resources either no longer around or more expensive due to (5)
7. Pain and alot of effort to get back to A
Call centres in OZ have gone through this, business experience this all the time. Short term gains…..who cares about the rest atitude.
Michael Littlewood, Auckland University/Retirement Policy Research Centre:
YOU HAVE IT COMPLETELY WRONG
Dear Sir,
I just heard you talking on National Radio. Three things:
1) You said that household debt is only 19% of household assets so, when you look at the statistics no problem.
For goddsakes man rerun your stats and do it this way:
– Recalculate this ratio solely for the asset base and debt base of the bottom 80% of New Zealanders (by financial wealth or by income).
Because currently, using the 19% figure, you are ignoring who owns the assets and who owns the debts in this society. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE.
2) You said that over the long run, every house in the country has to be occupied and every person has to have housing, so no problem with housing affordability.
Cripes this is another neoliberal “the market will eventually return to equilibrium (because our mathematical theories assumes so, not because any empirical evidence has ever shown that it does)” type statement. Try this instead:
– What other behaviours are possible from working age market participants instead of say, moving to Shannon where housing is cheap? Maybe leaving this country in droves?
– Does your statement explain in the slightest why people are flooding to Auckland, one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the country? Perhaps the availability of jobs for short term day to day survival is a bigger factor, even if it means that it creates circumstances where long term viability for retirement is permanently diminished?
3) You said earlier in the 20th century plenty of people rented and did not own, so not much change from today, so no problem.
– FFS man. Have a look at the rates of elderly poverty pre 1935. There is a reason that the Labour Govt decided to make social housing widely available at next to no cost. The fact that our statistics of home ownership vs rental is heading back that way does NOT happen to be a good thing IMO.
Taking all the above into account, maybe there IS a ‘structural issue’ to be addressed in our economy? Maybe you should start asking median income earning NZ citizens under the age of 40 what they think instead of poring over incomplete statistics.
And you’re supposedly an expert on these issues. Sheeesh.
Sounds like a typical economist – everything he says is based upon his pet theory and has absolutely no connection to what is actually happening in the real world. IMO, the “economists” have a lot to answer for.
The world economy is mired in debt, due to the policies of Thatcher, no mainstream economists can criticize Thatcher, she was protected by the media and her legacy of division and crushing dissent has never been more evident in the last few days. She sucked, economist suck, individually they haven’t got a backbone, only in their collective national socialism for the few have they been able to hold together.
The economics of the past thirty years have been Thatcherism, our debt, our economic malaise, our reality, is due to her and her followers shear stupidity – that they could never take criticism without bitter counter attacks on the messenger.
When I get proved wrong I’m happy about it as I get to learn new stuff. The economists have been proven wrong both by reality and other people showing that their models and theory are BS and yet they fail to learn anything.
The one figure we do not see when comparing household debt is how much of it is borrowed to run or buy a business, something that generally doesn’t happen in all that many countries overseas. In the USA the family home is sacrosanct when a business fails. So of the figure often quoted a large portion of it is actually “commercial” debt.
Forest & Bird is asking New Zealanders to show their support for the Department of Conservation on Love DOC Day. Love DOC Day is a series of events around the country which will highlight the impacts of the cuts – the aim is to try to put pressure on DOC and the government to consider carefully before they make their final decision later this month.
What you can do:
. – . Send a 20-word message of support on a post-it note through Forest & Bird’s website.
. – . Print out this poster of the event and put it up in your worksite so everyone can see it.
. – . Wear a green armband or write a message of support on a sheet of paper/large post-it – take a photo and email it to lovedoc@forestandbird.org.nz tweet to #lovedoc or post it here – Forest and Bird will collate it and present it to DOC.
. – . Get to one of the stalls around the country being hosted by Forest and Bird 12pm-2pm on Thursday April 11th – go here to find one in your area.
Plowing.
I am a plow
I am a betrayer of cold and death
Endless fields come towards me
They carry spring’s dreams
Coming towards me, the moistened moon-
My antique exquisite body
I am grief
I hear the groans of roots being amputated
My heart is rolling and trembling
In black waves
Like a boat fighting the storm
Like a flag quietly hoisted in humiliation
I hand frozen clumps of deep earth to the sun
Making the tract claimed by loneliness and desolation
Yield a cheerful brook once again
I am serious love
I melt unlimited tenderness with an edge of steel
More sincere than an embrace and kisses
I force all wildness, poverty and hopelessness
Far away from the great land
I give my naked soul to love
Marching on forever, spreading eternal life-
Furrow upon furrow of trenches
Plot after plot of fields
Carry my longings that gradually stretch
And submerge into new green during a radiant season.
-Yang Lian : China.
Fair Go capitalism ; a “location premium fee” charged by car rental companies at Queenstown airport were designated a whole lotta other BS by retail staff, but generally the $15-46 “premium” was referred to as an “airport tax” (one after another these beautiful people just made sh*t up) Except, a local family business that charged no extra but absorbed rents into their overheads.
aard-Wolf
A lot of that japanese QE is now floating down here for the rates;dollar may go to 90US, well, at least a new PC will be about $99.99 at the Warehouse this year…oh well, the Chinese prefer hot to iced water.
wonder if a Poster will look into the dark hole that is the covered butts of the former Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Ec Dev staff concerning Pike River.
Massacre Sandhill
The rain the rain the rain
the rain upon the hill
the three horsemen came
the three horses
the rain came down in clouds
and cried
the rain the rain cried
until it washed the blood
back into the land again
the rain the rain cried
until there was only the drought.
-Grandfather Koori
…you do not know what a man is
torn and bleeding in a snare.
If you knew you would come
on the waves and on the wind
out of every borderland
with your hearts melting and sick
holding up your fists aloft
come to the rescue of what is yours.
If one day you come too late
and you find my body cold,
if you find my comrades dead
white as snow among their chains,
pick up our banners again
and our anguish and our dreams
and the names upon the walls
which we carved with loving care…
-(from A Short Letter to the World; above ground)
Darkness begets itself
When the burnt flesh is finally at rest,
The fires in the asylum grates will come up
And the wicks turn down to darkness in the madman’s
eyes.
Funny how more evidence of the herd behavior that will broach no criticism of Thatcher and her policies. Is then followed by NR by a deep inspection of the fiscal collapse where the winners are those that observed how assumptions of market players models had failed, and how playing the player (like in poker) would have seen the mass herding effect of all those Thatcherites and bet against them.
Thatcher legacy is clear, those who failed to understand her destructive effects is clearly a poor commentator on our current economic times. And I believe we are seeing a prolonged downturn because we can’t criticize openly her poor economic grasp of her own policies and its effects.
The boom of the last thirty years was due to a glut of oil from the middle east, and Thatcherites opening up the markets to soak up the all the potential in useless wastes of energy and resources.
Methinks a true knucklehead has nailed Key with the way this is written .. vacuous, vapid and inane .. let Key’s deeply insightful remarks speak for him on his welcome on Tiananmen Square ….
“Amnesty International ….. urged Key “to raise our human rights concerns” on the trip, as it released a new report showing China executed more prisoners than any other country.
Key said after the meeting that the issue of human rights was raised at his meeting with Li, although no specific details were given, with only talk of the “dialogue” between the two countries.
“Obviously it’s an area where we need to continue talking,” Key told reporters yesterday.
He said the ceremony was one “to die for” and that Li had explained it reflected the importance of the relationship.
“The premier said to me when the troops were walking past that ‘this is the welcome that we afford to a real friend, and it’s a sign of the way that we value your visit here’, and my visit to Beijing,” Key said.”
“So it’s deliberate, that they do that, it’s very nice of them and it’s a very grand ceremony.”
Yes Prime Minister Vapid, “to die for”. What an ignorant and stupidly vain man you truly are.
Many thanks to the knucklehead travelling with him.
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David Cunliffe
Revenue portfolio
Looming customer service crisis at IRD
David Cunliffe | Thursday, April 11, 2013 – 09:54
A mounting crisis in IRD’s customer service is unfair to honest New Zealanders who are trying to comply with their tax obligations, Labour’s Revenue Spokesperson David Cunliffe says.
“Peter Dunne swears his department is adequately staffed to deal with the rate changes which hit Kiwis in the pocket this month, despite slashing IRD’s workforce by seven per cent last year.
“He can swear until he’s blue in the face but his department is struggling. Many Kiwis trying to get through are simply played a recorded message then disconnected.
“Worse, Peter Dunne has admitted that a full quarter of the ‘lucky’ callers who do get through won’t have their enquiries fully resolved in that call.
“The third strike is Dunne’s confession that that the IRD have zero performance measures for postal transactions. None whatsoever!
“Kiwis are trying to complain to Peter Dunne but the phone is off the hook.
“The litany of flip-flops on uncosted new taxes and the crisis in customer service at the IRD shows the need for a complete change in the leadership and culture of New Zealand’s tax administration.
“Having to deal with the IRD is a certainty, but trying to get sense from the taxman in 2013 could make you wish for that other certainty in life,” David Cunliffe said.
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This is inspiring. Johnm posted in one of the Thatcher threads a link to photos of the Brixton party. Just look at all those young people who know what Thather did and who give a shit! It’s not often I feel political hope.
Herald Ministry of Justice’s Legal Aid Office sent:
“Confidential legal aid details of a Bay of Plenty man accused of breaching community work were mistakenly sent to a woman in a major privacy breach.”
Oops. Specially given Collins sarcastic response the other day at QT, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876909
it is a bit Rich (Ivor Lott) that former national MP Kate is to head a ministerial ref. group to oversee the 10M for people raising grandchildren; better be a top-up with that coupon; Slovenian banks are toxic too, don’t you know “Iran has gone nuclear”- Ahmadinejad, and now Israel is just looking for a dietary excuse to passover.
Jim Bolger (at Opportunities of Ageing Conference) hmmm;
-“We, along with other countries, will ultimately compete for immigrants and welcome refugees that we currently turn away.” (bet that went down like a cuppa cold tea with low-fat milk and Coro on hold for the America’s Cup).
-on how NZ will (not) provide solutions to cover cost of increasing super, low birth rates among the wheel-off and an ageing workforce (wish I had stayed stoned most of the time myself Jim, but then there are the sheep to share…the price of good ganja, unlike cheap booze is NOT dropping Judith, supply and demand and all those market fundamentals…)
yet, the scope (hats off to Roy Harper and BLiP) for production in boondocks is widening as
“Rural communities and networks disintegrate
-corporatization
-preference for contractual rather than permanent employment arrangements
-more dairying; nomadic share-milking herds
-more migrant workers”.
still, Christmas Time is coming…
(the rider would not wear the tie of slavery for all the Aprilias in Cuba; not while Thunderaces are as cheap as chips!)
“roll on, roll on down the highway, b b b baby, you just aint seen nothin’ yet!”
One big issue with buttcoins – the security for them is oft really shit, plus it’s very easy to mine new coins, so the price and exchange rates are as volatile as hell. Especially if a major wallet site owner decides to shut down their site and so manipulate the bittcoin market.
plus it’s very easy to mine new coins, so the price and exchange rates are as volatile as hell.
Only a very limited no. of new coins can now be mined though, as the original algorithm sets a maximum number of bitcoins allowable in existence, ever.
wonder if cigars and complementary single malt in the bottom desk drawer comes with the Scoop of chips (you know, like real gum-shoes get; didn’t know Bogey had a lisp…learn something ginger every day.)
There’s now bot-nets doing the mining and building a decent mining computer only takes a few high end graphics cards, so while the rate of mining may have reduced, with sufficient resources mining groups can make a pretty packet. At least while the exchange rate’s good.
And as far as I know, the security issues with wallets are still extant.
*sigh* so much nasties coming from the NAct government right now, it’s hard to keep up.
I have just been watching some of the debates on the changes to the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. Basically, opposition MPs say the government is, yet again, slipping in a load of little changes that amount to a shift in values away from protecting the environment. It includes some doodgy moves like the government slipping in a late SOP that diverges from what was being discussed in committee/ relation to public submissions.
I’m not worried, considering how much time, effort and money Labour have spent trying to smear John Key and they’ve ended with…well nothing to show for it
rights of people to go about their legally defined rights
Oh how convenient – so if their rights are “legally defined”, that is. arbitrarily defined by those who happen to be in power and not actual inherent rights, then it’s fine for them to have whatever rights those in power say they have. OK, got it…
There was this great satirical dystopia written about by Bruce Sterling in which there was one right, the right to death, so citizens were asked in quite calm terms whether they wanted to claim their “free” right.
Is that how you think of rights? If someone who wears a shiny hat calls it a right, then that is a right, and the only kind of right there can ever be?
Really, your strange reflexive faith in the “rightness” of “authority” is quite incomprehensible in a human being. It is appropriate in an animal perhaps – a dog in a pack deferring to the “Alpha” – but in a reasoning, conscious being? Surely not; every one of us has a conscience that can never be surrendered to another.
I wonder if you’ve ever heard on Stanley Milgram and his experiments on the psychology of obedience, or the Stanford Prison Experiment?… or just “being a good German”?
Defend the rights of people to go about their legally defined rights instead (whether you agree with those rights or not)
Really, this is an utter perversion of Voltaire’s famous statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I would say that your sentiments are Orwellian, but Orwell stood for decency, in saying “Democracy is the right to say what people do not want to hear.”
This talk about “legally defined rights”? That’s euphemy for fascism.
I see the Pig’s are openly applauding one of their own’s corrupt behavior again in regard to the Thomas case, this organization is so blinkered and up it’s own ass that we can no longer trust it along with GC…….Si……. and when will the nightmare end for Thomas.
I look forward to the mob (nz) applauding their own for their faithful and righteous service to manwomankind and everyone allowing it to occur without comment including the NZ Police, as the mob has in this case in return.
Trust no one except those you know intimately.
Hey, GCSB, Police, know who I am? Been snooping? Who you gonna call? fuckwits shove it up your arse
“As the Iraq War took off, I watched people who believed the government incapable of running a post office argue it could transform the Arab World into an oasis of democracy within a year. If the state built chicken factories in Alaska, paid ten times too much then staffed them with incompetents and felons, this was socialism, the ‘fatal conceit’ that events could be controlled by central planning. But in Basrah it was ‘reconstruction’, even as America’s own infrastructure deconstructed. ”
Q: Do you think David Stockton’s admission in the Federal Open Market Committee transcripts from 2007 that “the financial transmission mechanisms in most of the workhorse macro models that we use for forecasting are still rudimentary” may help us understand why policymakers underestimated the potential extent of the financial crisis?
A: It’s not just that economists can’t see banks, it’s that they can’t see why debt matters. This is the fundamental thing.
My analysis shows aggregate demand as income plus change in debt. Not only do neoclassical economists think that isn’t true but many of my Post-Keynesian colleagues haven’t got their heads around it yet. They think I’m doing double counting when I make that case.
I’ve proven that I’m not double counting. What it means is that I was looking for the impact of a change in debt and as soon as the change in debt slowed down I knew the crisis was going to start.
Because policymakers couldn’t comprehend that private debt plays any role in the economy at all, and you’ll see that still today, they weren’t even looking at it. They didn’t contemplate that there would be any macroeconomic impact coming from that side of finance so they didn’t have the causal mechanisms in place to know why they should bother about it.
I suppose that’s one reason why Cullen had no issues with massively escalating private debt when he was Finance Minister. That and the fact that the Treasury boffins reporting to him thought in exactly the same way.
Exactly. Our economists have advanced theories that have no basis in reality that our politicians have believed and then made policies on which, inevitably, is making the majority of people worse off. It’s good for the rich though.
♫ ♪ . . . Some of them knew fortune,
And some of them knew fame,
More of them knew hardship,
And died upon the plain,
They spread throughout the nation,
Rode the railroad cars,
Brought their songs and music,
To ease their lonely hearts.
That seems to be contradicted by the decision of the auditor-general that there is no particular process and any involvement by the PM is appointing his good friend (and that’s close to how the news reports sounded ) is OK.
Is this something lawyers would have a view on? Is the auditor-general or I/S correct? Should the appointment have been gazetted?
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
The tabling of the final report from the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care is a watershed moment for New Zealand. This comprehensive document lays bare the pervasive abuse and neglect experienced by children, young people, and adults in state and faith-based care from 1950 to 1999, and beyond. Among ...
Can anybody tell me why putting more money into front line health services is such a bad thing?
Another great move from Tony Ryall.
Who says any money will go into front line health services? And why do you think nutrition is not a front line health service?
1. It’s not more money. Not a single extra cent.
2. How is feeding patients not front-line
3. Cheap pre-processed meals is not better
4. People will lose their jobs which means less money is those communities
5. A food issue re contamination will now be a national issue, encompass more hospitals, kill more people and be more difficult And costly to control.
6. Much more difficult to adjust diet to individual needs eg allergy to ginger, versus allergy to nuts, vs allergy to eggs, etc
7. Profit means a direct loss of money from the health sector for private gain. I’m assuming that every time Te company makes a dollar you’ll be saying “pay them less pay them less” and you’ll be supporting the transfer of profit back to the government so that more frontline health services can be delivered.
Ryman would be the classic example – profit massively increased but not being returned to govt through cheaper services which is supposed to be the point isn’t it. Your taxpayer money now building rest homes in Australia.
“1. It’s not more money. Not a single extra cent.”
big bruv’s point is that money that was spent on the food being done in the hospital can now be directed to other parts of the health system, since the privitisation of food is supposed to save money.
I’d like to know how that works. Don’t private companies have to make a profit?
Beats me, I’m just re-stating what big bruv was saying, doesn’t mean I agree with him.
But it is possible to gain cost savings if the private provider is providing the service in a more efficient way: for the same or less amount of money you can get the same or better output, that’s called increased efficiency.
In this case I believe it is something about providing all of the countries hospital food from central locations, thus gaining efficiencies through economies of scale.
Of course there is no reason that the public/government couldn’t also harness efficiencies through economies of scale and make the same or better savings, except that they choose not to.
“Increased efficiency” – screw your workers and suppliers so that corporate shareholders can make a buck in other words.
Let’s not dance around semantics, we’ve been around this neoliberal speak long enough to know what it means.
Do you want to know how to truly increase efficiencies? Look at the big picture, not siloed accounting cost centres.
By the way, can we get away from the idea that removing money from working families is somehow “efficient”. Bloody hell, 30 years on and we’re still all dumbasses.
and as soon as a profit is attached to a scenario, that cost comes out of services so in order to supply the same service, costs rise. This is not complicated, unless you choose it to be.
Add in the costs and the logistical quagmire, creating a National Food Service is simply unworkable if saving money is the goal.
Which raises the obvious question . .
Is Quorn on the menu
We can look at the state funded homehelp services that were privatised in the 90s. Instead of services being run out of DHBs or by direct funding clients to contract employ their own workers, services were contracted out. We now have multiple businesses offering homehelp services in each area. That = multiple CEOs, and mutiple upper and middle management that didn’t exist before.
If every client hour is funded at something like $20 or $25, and the workers are getting $13 or $14/hr, that leaves on average $10/hr for administration of the system.
I’d love to see an audit of how much money was ‘saved’ by using this model, and a comparison with how DHB/MoH services could have been made more efficient.
(the MoH is now implementing direct to client funding again, precisely because agencies are often not able to deliver services that clients need within the funding).
It’s worse than that though. Apart from the lower wages I was in a meeting with a DHB group some time after this period where an accountant at the DHB gained my total respect for being the only DHB person to raise concern that staff in these private firms were doing many unpaid hours and that if the real hours of work were paid costs would rise significantly and how it was not fair on those workers.
It was clear both the DHB management and the private providers well knew about the free hours they were garnering and not paying for.
My family have oft worked in that sector and I know for a fact that they have done this regularly. The time travelling between clients is also not paid for in many, many cases and of course the client is using their own vehicle whereas this used to be provided.
These things are not cost saving they simply shift the cost to the worker while taking the savings out in profit.
Bingo!
That’s happening across the labour force especially for dependent contractors. All the costs are being dropped on the contractors so that the business can make a larger profit. Meanwhile, due to the increase in the number of those costs from one (the business) to many (the contractors) we actually have the costs increasing. There are people out there who are quite literally paying to go to work and the only way they can afford to live is because of things like WfF, the Accommodation Supplement and other government welfare payouts.
As you say, the costs have just been shifted but it saves nothing, it just makes a few people richer at everyone else’s expense.
Remembered another example.
Hotel industry mates were laughing at this and not expecting any savings to be made.
http://www.business.govt.nz/procurement/news/all-of-government-contract-for-travel-services-signed
Orbit in particular clip the ticket at both ends – charging fees to the government and charging fees to the hotels they “use”.
The fees they charge the hotels are also in US dollars.
They thought any intended savings will simply be eaten up by the hotel fees being passed back via increased accommodation costs.
Most government agencies already had good deals as the companies previously competed against each other for their business.
This is nothing else but privatisation by stealth, the same way as that right wing prat called Camoron is doing in the UK.
Privatisation by any means is something to be applauded.
Can you explain where the capitalist notion of competition sits in this one when it will be given to a monopoly?
No, he can’t.
It is one volume supply contract in the market, that will be tendered for. Pretty easy to define.
Not according to the figures. Privatisation costs far more and provides less of a service than a state monopoly.
‘
Oh, look what the amnesty has dragged in. Jeeeze . . . the things you see when you ain’t got your rifle.
Ha.
Hey Big Bruv as you are a lover of privatisation I take it you are for the idea reported in the UK Daily Mail that in the spirit of Thatcherism they privatise her funeral and put it out to the lowest bidder.
For the sake of efficiency just put her body in the ground and hammer some stakes in. You know, just to mark the spot.
No one can tell you anything because there is too much shit coming out of your head and spraying in all directions. Why should this topic be any different?
Now, now Te Reo. Let’s just stick to the facts please.
The minister said that the money saved would go back into front line health services, and this is a minister who keeps his word. That is just one of the differences between the way that Ryall has handled Health and the shocking and corrupt way that Labour ran the health portfolio.
As for nutrition, are you really suggesting that hospital food could get worse if it was contracted out to another firm?…lol
Hospital food can only get better under the model proposed by Ryall, nobody seriously believes that it could get any worse.
The farce is strong with this one …
The times I’ve had family in hospital the food has been fine and much better that the food my wife got when in a private hospital.
It’s not an issue over quality.
And to add to my list above:
8. National typically destroy services in the public sector when these decisions are made so if it doesn’t work it will have gutted the hospital kitchens to make it more expensive for later governments to put it back
9. More arsehole trucks and truck drivers on the roads
10. Increased risk of failure
11. Less community resource in civil defence situations
“9. More arsehole trucks and truck drivers on the roads.”
Yes because at the moment all the raw cooking ingrediants that are used in the hospital kitchens are teleported in. Unfortunatly that will have to stop under this current outsourcing proposal as trucks although a bit smelly and large are in fact real.
Look at the amount of packaging around a couple of kilos of veges or meat.
Now look at the amount of packaging around a microwave dinner.
That difference will go on the roads.
Obviously no use of plastic plates and heating lids in your world either, which is what is being used currently.
You can talk and talk, but there will always be empty space in the packaging of a prepared meal. Plates can be stacked and minimise that space, but not if they’re full of bland factory food.
that is fine for rolling carts down a corridor but how is that a viable way to transport food safely hundreds of kilometres?
All food will have to be individually packaged as per airline food
and that is known to be an expensive and ongoing logistical science that i simply do not trust to someone where private profit against public good is the equation. If profit is the goal we all know where this scenario leads, reduced services and supply problems and rising costs. If you deny profit is the goal then I ask you why is it changing and what benefit can be brought to the Health Sector with this staggering change in the basic operation of its food Services?
the food I’ve had on planes is worse than the food in hospitals.
big bruv, do you know why hospitals have generators?
Do you know why food is prepared on site?
This puts New Zealanders lives at considerable risk next time there is some form of disaster.
This government disgusts me – putting lives at risk so there is more money available to pay for rich farmers irrigation. I don’t want people like this in the same society as me. As far as I am concerned people like you are from another world. I have nothing in common with you or people like you. I spit in your face.
The vast amount of hospital food is not prepared on site in NZ at the moment and hasn’t been for some time.
Sure, the potatoes are grown elsewhere, and various other…
northshoredoc is correct, some foods are prepared ‘down the road’ or ‘across town’
This is however rather different from being prepared many hundreds of kilometres away.
The volume of potential hazards in this plan outweigh any and every short term financial gain. Even before you begin to take into account the ever growing social costs to the communities depending upon the food preparation staff, and the associated businesses and suppliers.
The other danger is that the greater the distance between point of preparation and hospital, the more change there is of contamination, which is going to be horrendously dangerous for immuno-comprimised patients.
He’s National minister ergo, he’s lying. There won’t be any savings but there will be profits.
Yes.
I’ve never had a problem with hospital food. Don’t understand why people say it’s horrible. It’s like they’ve got hold of a meme and won’t let it go.
I think we’ll find that it can get worse. That’s the normal mode of operation in private businesses doing government services after all.
“I’ve never had a problem with hospital food. Don’t understand why people say it’s horrible.”
Shorter Draco:
“I don’t mind it therefore it is fine and everyone else is wrong”
So, what’s wrong with hospital food?
Sure, it’s not 5 star restaurant quality but then it’s not a 5 star restaurant. It’s edible, probably healthy and that’s all it really needs to be.
I have never been in hospital so couldn’t say but because YOU don’t mind it doesn’t mean everyone else should be fine with it.
So you really can add nothing to the conversation then?
That’s a change.
DTB didn’t say everyone else should be fine with it.
Just asked wtf was wrong with it.
As far as you know, absolutely nothing is wrong with it.
So because you have never been in hospital or obviously never spoken to anyone who knows about hospital food why do you bother having your say despite your confession that you couldn’t say?
You just like stalking Draco don’t you? Good if you do, hopefully you will wake up soon to the sense his comments contain.
Draco makes me laugh. His comments are more baffling than sensible.
“never spoken to anyone who knows about hospital food”
I have known many people who have been in hospital. Draco doesn’t understand why people have a problem because he doesn’t have a problem with it. He seemingly doesn’t realise that other people aren’t Draco and don’t enjoy the things he does.
personally speaking, i too have to take a leak (Decker bladder and all that tucking to the left, but yes, for an obviously clever person, what will you contribute beyond wooden pip-fruit?
But that’s a tautology. Of course different people have problems with different things, even if we put it down crudely to “enjoyment”.
The question was why.
If we know the why, then issues can be addressed. If we make arbitrary changes without knowing why something might not be up to scratch, we risk repeating or even worsening the problem.
Maybe hospital food has a bad rap because of the way it was prepared thirty years ago?
Or maybe because anything you eat when you’re nauseous and in pain becomes associated with that experience?
Or maybe because bulk catering is always going to be a bit run-of-the-mill, but centrally-produced TV dinners will be worse?
Maybe a bit less salt or more options with condiments would make all the difference?
Or maybe the people bitching about hospital food are just playing up a tired old myth from decades ago in order to justify redundancies and giving airline food to people who are in no position to walk out of there?
“Or maybe the people bitching about hospital food are just playing up a tired old myth from decades ago in order to justify redundancies and giving airline food to people who are in no position to walk out of there?”
I like airline food (though my most recent experience wasn’t great)
that is slick Continental
Generally, so do I, although the coffee bites.
But I wouldn’t want to live on it for two weeks while I have tubes in my arms and various other places and a general amount of discomfort.
That’s why cruise ships don’t use airline food service rules, from what I’ve heard.
“I’ve never had a problem with hospital food. Don’t understand why people say it’s horrible. It’s like they’ve got hold of a meme and won’t let it go.”
I’d struggle with hospital food, because it is so different from what I eat usually. Remember, people who are in hospital are often at their most vulnerable and/or feeling like shit. Food is very core to our sense of wellbeing, so I can understand why hospital food attracts criticism.
I’m guessing there is also the issue of any food prepared on a mass scale – it’s always going to have that overdone, been sitting waiting for too long look (and taste) about it.
I’m not sure how healthy it is or not. Can you still get butter in a hospital? 😉 (I think butter is healthy for most people).
Butter IS healthy for most people Weka; it is a staple down the club-house; all good things in moderation; (spotted the slippery royal). 😉
I just had a short spell in Tga hospital. No butter only margarine and a “fruit” drink with breakfast that was water, sugar, colour flavouring. So I’m not sure how much emphasis is placed on the food being healthy.
I eat pretty basic fare at home and I’m not finicky about food, I eat most of the stuff the rest of the family wont touch because its old, or the bread thats a bit dry etc.
The food in Tga hospital was absolutely dire. Rock hard kumara, corned beef so salty it was inedible, the “hot” food was barely lukewarm which raises the issue of if it was ever heated properly in the first place. Another issue I noted was that the food was not as advertised for eg a quiche that was said to not contain green vegetables was full of broccoli. It wasnt an issue for me but if your not suppossed to be eating green veges for some reason…
Now I am not a fan of outsourcing and dont agree that this is a sensible approach for many reasons but imo the food at Tga hospital couldnt get any worse.
I’d eat airline food over what was served to me every time.
Ok, that sounds atrocious and obviously something needs to be done about it. I’ve never had anything like that served to me in hospital. Sure, it’s often had the been sitting round too long in the warmer feel to it but I doubt if delivering it from across town is going to change that.
Actually, what you describe is what you’d get if you put someone without experience or training in charge of the food and paid them SFA.
Or if some contractor somewhere was trying to fulfil a service contract as cheaply as possible and no one at the DHB with enough authority gives a fuck.
Sounds awful. It also wasn’t my experience when I was in hospital. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and choice of food.
how do the bastards sleep at night..?
http://whoar.co.nz/2013/special-report-state-of-our-children-commentwhoar/
“….how do they f*cken sleep at night..?
..all of them..from key/bennett down to their foot-soldier zealots/lackies in work and income..
..those doing the face-to-face cutting..those who get to stare into their victims’ eyes..
..how do they all f*cken sleep at night..?..”
(cont..)
phillip ure..
Phillip, both you and Penny Bright have the most irritating manner of posting.
Penny with her shouty caps and long screeds and you with your:
“..gibberish..”
“..more gibberish..”
Wouldn’t it be easier to write sentences?
What bugs me about him most is that he links to his site and then has a link to the site that he’s quoting from. He almost never says anything in the posts himself or if he has he’s successfully hidden it in that awful format he uses.
Classic link whoring.
Yeah – he was a menace on kiwiblog for the same reason.
Got warned about link whoring here last time as I remember it, argued, and then required an education in the traditional manner about who actually ran this site.
I don’t really mind link whoring provided there is a *clear* description of what people will find in the link and it is relevant to the post or is in OpenMike. Unfortunately the ellipsis coding system appears remove clarity and leave the uncoded text as gibberish with a low information content.
Ummm. I wonder how efficient I could write code to drop … to a single dot at the end of a line, and to remove them from the start of a line.
Penny is usually ok. If they get too long then I have been known to edit out the cut’n’paste or warn. Similarly when she is excessiveky stricken with a capitals disease, I find that I can shrink the problem with style=”font-size:7px”. Like all good Samaritans I don’t find the lack of thanks for these selfless deeds to be a problem – but the reduction of diseased symptoms afterwards is always gratifying.
so..iprent/monitor..just to clarify..posting a link to an original piece is ‘link-whoring’..and not allowed..?
but you say that if i put an explanation as to what the original comment is about..that is ok..?
phillip ure..
Link-whoring as far as I’m concerned is a behaviour that is designed to either leave lots of links around the net to raise google ratings via search engines spiders and/or designed to get people to click a link to see what is in there.
What I look for is something like this…
1. I get concerned when there is not enough information for readers to make an informed decision about if they should hit a link without hitting it. If there isn’t enough information to do that or what is provided is quite inaccurate when I click in, then I’ll deem it as come-on link-whoring.
2. If it is off-topic for the post or out of context for the thread then I’ll also treat it as a link-whoring behaviour. We aren’t here to provide random advertising space.
3. If it is in OpenMike as a top-level comment, then I expect to see an argument or announcement sufficient that people can comment against that rather than having to click the link. I also don’t expect to see too damn many of them. If I find your posts good enough when I click in then I’ll often add a site to the RSS feed
The idea is that if you want to leave links to your site, then you have to provide value for the readers of this site. I think that most people would think that those are acceptable and quite lenient guidelines.
My behaviour is usually quite abrupt. I usually just give an educational ban to anyone that I view as link-whoring. If repeated then I’ll reach for a semi-permanent ban pretty fast as it just wastes my time. I then add the site URL to the auto-spam to discourage people from going to sites that link-whore traffic.In extreme cases I’ll list the site in website blacklists.
so..draco..damned if i do..and damned if i don’t..eh..?
..the above link is one of those ‘successful hidden’ original ones..
..phillip ure..
The difference between Phil and Penny is that Penny, while still annoying, at least is posting about something relevant and is going good work. I don’t know what Phil says or does, because I can’t get past the …., but am guessing that as suggested it is straightout link whoring (of the sleazy not the power-whore kind).
I’ve never found Penny’s posts annoying. The post lays out the info and provides necessary links. What’s the issue?
True, Tigger, for the most part. They’re just a bit long sometimes.
are you contrarian in name only..?..there..contrarian..
..i have been writing this way for years..it isn’t done especially to annoy you..eh..?
..funnily enough..i find your voluntary-slavery to the irrationalities of the capital-letter/sentence regime/structure..quite quaint..( i mean..you don’t talk like that..?..)
..please explain to me the logic behind the (ugly/brutish) capital-letter..eh..?
..and ‘mr’/mrs’..?..w.t.f.is that all about..?
..a relic/consolation-prize-title from the british class system..
..(‘you are a peasant..but here..you can call yrslf mr..does that feel better..?..and you can even capitalise the ‘m’..’..)
..i can also do dashes instead of dots..? – if that would annoy less..?
..(also my caps lock is broken – .eh..? – someone broke in and superglued it..
..i took it as a sign – eh..?..
..wouldn’t you..?..)
..phillip ure..
Truman Capote on Kerouac: “That’s not writing, that’s typing”
From the Kerouac article in Wikipedia:
“Allen Ginsberg, initially unimpressed, would later be one of its great proponents, and indeed, he was apparently influenced by Kerouac’s free-flowing prose method of writing in the composition of his masterpiece “Howl”. It was at about the time that Kerouac wrote The Subterraneans that he was approached by Ginsberg and others to formally explicate his style. Among the writings he set down specifically about his Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of 30 “essentials”.”
There’s a different communication system for writing and talking. Talking has clues like intonation, pauses, loudness, facial expressions to punctuate it. Writing has developed different conventions that most of us recognise.
PS: if it makes you happy to write like that, go for it. Just don’t expect everyone to read it. Some may like it. It just irritates my brain.
This is ‘loudshirt’ typing isn’t it ..phillip ure..
….?
..ure..
voluntary-slavery to the irrationalities of the capital-letter/sentence regime/structure..quite quaint
I find that under you faux-radical use of the ellipsis that your residual, indeed fundamental slavery to residual syntax and spelling a bourgeois-liberal compromise that is in fact a betrayal of the true syntactical liberationary movement.
To be truly free, half-measures are not enough, one m,ust abondon al!l conne£ction with conventional symbol-object meaning and argle blargle bleep!
niu…qehfuwyer….bhfqeiuofn,,,asdijlfncq!…
67834…ohvsajlny!
…. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn…
Su…relyy…ou u…nder…s…tand…?… eh?
Only then we will achieve true understanding and freedom. Oh damn, that was coherent…
Vogon?
http://www.reddit.com/r/vogonpoetrycircle/
heh. yes, it’s the repetitive use of the …. that hurts my brain. It’s the equivalent in speech of someone speaking in a monotone, or mumbling because it seemed cool and kinda natural when Brando did it. Or maybe like someone repetitively using one hand gesture when speaking
Progressives who dislike free spirits. I love it.
Free? He is not free!
[link to blog]
…Indeed, he is a deception, foisted upon us to imagine that by mild half-gestures we can be free.
../.>>>>>Do you imagine that the mere eye-bleedingly nonsensi…cal abuse of the ellipsis is “free”?
…Do you imagine even that the abandonment of syntax i…s “free”? No, it is not…!…. eh?
../…eh?
[link to blog]
….
eh….?…. eh? [link to blog]
… We must over come the quant supposition that words correspond to any fixed meaning, because that is totalitarian …eh …[link to blog] nonsense. When someone says “cat” and another person understands that they mean a furry ….eh?
…eh?
…animal that purrs and has claws, then clearly the two are subservient to an awful totalitarian system of language… eh? [link to blog]
To be truly free they must wigll….ejhiowuhfc!…eh?
and ony87ewrgerwhnnhu!…eh?
and furthermore, they must o23adoe….eh?
eh?… eh? …eh? …eh? …eh? [link to blog… eh?]
… comprehension is collusion… eh? No-one who is comprehensible to another is free, nor is the one who is able to comprehend…eh?
…eh? [link to… eh… blog… eh… eh… eh…eh…?????]
Lock him in a room with David Shearer and see what happens: “Eh? Um… Eh? Um…”
“Eh? Um… Eh? Um…”
I’ve just realised that this could be the secret of perpetual motion. If we could somehow harness the energy of Phil Ure saying “…eh?” and provoking David Shearer to say “Um”, then our energy problems would be solved forever!
Surely that’s a typo and should be ‘perpetual commotion’.
..eh..
..um..
..man..
..ure..
not so much group-think..as group-write…eh..?..(heh..!..)
..ya gotta laff..!..eh..?
..’cos tears stain..
..phillip ure..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription
Your group attack just looks like bullying to me.
Being clever isn’t the same as being right.
OR SHOUTING.
It hurst my brain too, not just visually, but why would someone who is intent on communicating then continuously use tools that undermine that communication?
yes. 21 of 35 for child poverty, 24 of 35 for homicide of children.
the commentator on tele-” Not the size of the economy that correlates with child-well-being equality, but government settings, e.g as in the U.K Child Poverty Act measures, looking at the income of families and school meals fro example.
anyway, Lyin’, cheatin’, hurtin’, that’s all they seem to do, yet there Time is Gonna Come…
freakin Paper Plus Publishers!
Terrific summary of some of the best comments about Thatcher from, er, the Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306589/Margaret-Thatcher-Crawling-woodwork-old-Lefties-spewing-bile-Lady-Thatcher.html
Liked this one –
FRANKIE BOYLE: The comedian tweeted: ‘All that Thatcher achieved was to ensure that people living in Garbage Camps a hundred years from now will think that Hitler was a woman.’
Glenda JacksonMP “tribute” to Thatcher
Worth a listen
Thank God for people like Glenda Jackson!
Worth every minute, including the speakers reply to the right.
The tory who got his arse handed to him by the speaker, surely he’s Armando Iannucci’s inspiration for the character of Peter Manion, no?
An example perhaps, of how our own pathetic speaker might improve his approach !
Yeah that was a pretty impressive display in defense of free speech.
Is he the Speaker? Or a deputy speaker/chair of some sort?
edit: I see he’s the Speaker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bercow
Glenda Jackson – fabulous !
Yep, our parliament could learn a lot about how a Speaker should operate just from that short piece.
The speakers smackdown was a thing of beauty.
‘
” ‘ Aspirational‘ . . . where one knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”.
Love ya, Glenda.
Love ya Oscar too.
Absolutely brilliant!
Thatcher’s Britain of legions of homeless sleeping in doorways would have been familiar to Hogarth. in Thatcher’s PM-ship, everything they Brit’s previously had been taught to value was reversed _ greed and selfishness became good, in Thatcher’s “ashprashinel” society, which Key is attempting to Kiwify.
So awesome to see the staunchness of Jackson.
Unintended irony alert! CV, look away!
http://www.labour.org.nz/news/collins-cyberbullies-whistle-blowers
Ahh politicians, bless their complete lack of sensibilities 🙂
Best laugh of the morning TRP
Hehe
Unintended irony? Are you sure Curran isn’t just a knowing hypocrite?
Curran knowing? I’ve known poinsettias with more self-awareness. Put her in a pot with good soil and make sure she gets watered regularly. That’s all you can do with her.
Heh!
we took the claim of “burglars” personally, yet it was all Ferengi to see.
Another smiling assassin ass.
So the meals will be delivered daily by ROAD. That would have worked really well in the CHCH quake when all the bridges were closed on SH 1 while checked, and all the casualties will starve whwn Wellington cops it.
It’ll be even better when the meal production centre is reduced to a pile of rubble and the kitchens crushed under 200 tonnes of building materials.
according to the Southern Fault Quake boffins, dinner will be served sometime in the next 50 years.
“and all the casualties will starve whwn Wellington cops it.”
Kitchens aside, surely we are no longer under the illusion that when the next big quake hits, NZ will have an adequate response?
The response will be… Wellington won’t be rebuilt.
I always figured that Otaki should be the capital of NZ
for the size of the town they have plenty of decent coffee and surely that is the most crucial requirement for any capital
tea hee
One data centre to rule them all?
It is interesting that after so many data disasters this year the Government is thinking of having one big collection of data. Imagine the damage that could be caused by a stuff up.
But I can hear the PR jargon already.
Of course the new system will be robust, it will feature world best practice, privacy will be given high priority, the technology will be cutting edge, and everyone will give 110% to make sure that it works.
But why do I find this proposal scary?
Dangerous Enthusiasms!
From the GCSB’s website, at the top of the list of jobs that it does, comes . . .
Information Assurance (IA)
‘As communications technologies advance, the need to protect information carried by those technologies also grows.
There are two main reasons to protect information. Firstly the confidential information of the Government of New Zealand needs to be protected from unauthorised disclosure. This means that Government departments can communicate information securely. Secondly there is a requirement to protect information and infrastructure from corruption by malicious ‘attack’, the most common form of which is the humble computer virus.’
http://www.gcsb.govt.nz/our-work/ia.html
Maybe they’ve been a little bit distracted this last little while.
Nothing wrong with the idea just so long as it is done properly and there are at least two real time backups in different locales.
Because it’s being done by a National government?
The problem lies with the technical difficulties of any such venture, it should be a non starter by default.
Not that this would prevent the private sector raking in vast quantities of public funds, while gaining even deeper access to the valuable data cache, while attempting to investigate the feasibility.
It’s a necessary step in the road to outsourcing IT services, those which are not already handled by the private sector, in any case. Part of any DC consolidation programme, will involve the Hardware/Software/Infrastructure as a service model being rolled out.
No, this is not an exercise that any NZ government should be embarking on, although I expect that the AKL Council will already be going through the phases of trying something similar, following the amalgamation, and no doubt being monitored centrally, by the same vendors who will be hoovering up Auckland money on Council the council programme.
Expect to see failure, blame and fault avoidance on all sides if this moves into initiation!
I think you’ll find that it’s feasibility has already been proved. And that’s just one that’s commercially available.
It could be used to do that, yes, and this government is probably fantasising about the profits that they can divert to rich mates with it. But it is also, IMO, a necessary step in getting better government services. It’s ridiculous in this day and age that someone can deal with one government department, give all their details and then go to another government department only to find that you have to give the details again.
Yes it is but it should be done in house by a dedicated government IT department.
Under this government and with private contractors doing it? Yep, definitely. Get it done in house and blame can’t be shifted.
Don’t know much about delivering these sorts of prgrammes do you Draco!
Consolidation translates to outsourcing (that is the sole intent), so your comments about *in house*, makes no sense at all!
Didn’t notice too many government departments in that link you claim to be proof of feasibility link bro!
Be careful what you wish for mate. A little bit of inconvenience and some Chinese Walls might be a good thing, for the next time we get a Holland or a Muldoon in power.
Thats where its falling short for DTB lately – He is keen as to stick it into the government at most opportunities, rightly so, yet vents his displeasure about it being more difficult for the governments to coordinate the theft/selling off of your data!
Just upload it all to the google cloud and be done with it!
See what he thinks of inconvenience then!
‘
Hmmm . . . now where did John Key get that idea from? Oh, yeah . . .
. . . makes it easier to privatise when there’s only one entity involved, I guess.
+ 1 yes another opportunity for backers to plunder.
The play book after you identify the (A) service/product you utilise.
1. Outsource.
2. Then remove the capability and infrastructure from the organisation i.e, people, kitchen equipment, server rooms, call centre business knowledge etc
3. Outsourcer increases the charges , maximises their profits as they pitched a number that won the business not their intended eventual charge/true cost even.
4. Organisation reduces services/passes on costs
5. Organisations looks to in source after impacts of (4) felt.
6. Proves alot more costly as (2) must be repeated using new builds and resources either no longer around or more expensive due to (5)
7. Pain and alot of effort to get back to A
Call centres in OZ have gone through this, business experience this all the time. Short term gains…..who cares about the rest atitude.
Michael Littlewood, Auckland University/Retirement Policy Research Centre:
YOU HAVE IT COMPLETELY WRONG
Dear Sir,
I just heard you talking on National Radio. Three things:
1) You said that household debt is only 19% of household assets so, when you look at the statistics no problem.
For goddsakes man rerun your stats and do it this way:
– Recalculate this ratio solely for the asset base and debt base of the bottom 80% of New Zealanders (by financial wealth or by income).
Because currently, using the 19% figure, you are ignoring who owns the assets and who owns the debts in this society. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE.
2) You said that over the long run, every house in the country has to be occupied and every person has to have housing, so no problem with housing affordability.
Cripes this is another neoliberal “the market will eventually return to equilibrium (because our mathematical theories assumes so, not because any empirical evidence has ever shown that it does)” type statement. Try this instead:
– What other behaviours are possible from working age market participants instead of say, moving to Shannon where housing is cheap? Maybe leaving this country in droves?
– Does your statement explain in the slightest why people are flooding to Auckland, one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the country? Perhaps the availability of jobs for short term day to day survival is a bigger factor, even if it means that it creates circumstances where long term viability for retirement is permanently diminished?
3) You said earlier in the 20th century plenty of people rented and did not own, so not much change from today, so no problem.
– FFS man. Have a look at the rates of elderly poverty pre 1935. There is a reason that the Labour Govt decided to make social housing widely available at next to no cost. The fact that our statistics of home ownership vs rental is heading back that way does NOT happen to be a good thing IMO.
Taking all the above into account, maybe there IS a ‘structural issue’ to be addressed in our economy? Maybe you should start asking median income earning NZ citizens under the age of 40 what they think instead of poring over incomplete statistics.
And you’re supposedly an expert on these issues. Sheeesh.
a “little” wood indeed
Q: Who is the Auckland Airport CEO
A: ____________________________
ha, “mass market retail” says it all
Sounds like a typical economist – everything he says is based upon his pet theory and has absolutely no connection to what is actually happening in the real world. IMO, the “economists” have a lot to answer for.
No one in the world knows economics like Draco. NO ONE.
The world economy is mired in debt, due to the policies of Thatcher, no mainstream economists can criticize Thatcher, she was protected by the media and her legacy of division and crushing dissent has never been more evident in the last few days. She sucked, economist suck, individually they haven’t got a backbone, only in their collective national socialism for the few have they been able to hold together.
The economics of the past thirty years have been Thatcherism, our debt, our economic malaise, our reality, is due to her and her followers shear stupidity – that they could never take criticism without bitter counter attacks on the messenger.
When I get proved wrong I’m happy about it as I get to learn new stuff. The economists have been proven wrong both by reality and other people showing that their models and theory are BS and yet they fail to learn anything.
Au contraire ad hominum, AGAIN………
ad hominem
Not sure if he is an economist per se, but he is a career think tanker!
Situation always seem different from inside the warm, safe confines of the think tank!
I wonder where his views place amongst the other academics at AKL University!
The one figure we do not see when comparing household debt is how much of it is borrowed to run or buy a business, something that generally doesn’t happen in all that many countries overseas. In the USA the family home is sacrosanct when a business fails. So of the figure often quoted a large portion of it is actually “commercial” debt.
‘
another “Mandarin”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwFp2y2i9yo
Theme
1M Chinese visitors per year in 5 years time, or 400,000? somebody needs an abacus Martin.
Plowing.
I am a plow
I am a betrayer of cold and death
Endless fields come towards me
They carry spring’s dreams
Coming towards me, the moistened moon-
My antique exquisite body
I am grief
I hear the groans of roots being amputated
My heart is rolling and trembling
In black waves
Like a boat fighting the storm
Like a flag quietly hoisted in humiliation
I hand frozen clumps of deep earth to the sun
Making the tract claimed by loneliness and desolation
Yield a cheerful brook once again
I am serious love
I melt unlimited tenderness with an edge of steel
More sincere than an embrace and kisses
I force all wildness, poverty and hopelessness
Far away from the great land
I give my naked soul to love
Marching on forever, spreading eternal life-
Furrow upon furrow of trenches
Plot after plot of fields
Carry my longings that gradually stretch
And submerge into new green during a radiant season.
-Yang Lian : China.
Fair Go capitalism ; a “location premium fee” charged by car rental companies at Queenstown airport were designated a whole lotta other BS by retail staff, but generally the $15-46 “premium” was referred to as an “airport tax” (one after another these beautiful people just made sh*t up) Except, a local family business that charged no extra but absorbed rents into their overheads.
aard-Wolf
A lot of that japanese QE is now floating down here for the rates;dollar may go to 90US, well, at least a new PC will be about $99.99 at the Warehouse this year…oh well, the Chinese prefer hot to iced water.
wonder if a Poster will look into the dark hole that is the covered butts of the former Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Ec Dev staff concerning Pike River.
Massacre Sandhill
The rain the rain the rain
the rain upon the hill
the three horsemen came
the three horses
the rain came down in clouds
and cried
the rain the rain cried
until it washed the blood
back into the land again
the rain the rain cried
until there was only the drought.
-Grandfather Koori
…you do not know what a man is
torn and bleeding in a snare.
If you knew you would come
on the waves and on the wind
out of every borderland
with your hearts melting and sick
holding up your fists aloft
come to the rescue of what is yours.
If one day you come too late
and you find my body cold,
if you find my comrades dead
white as snow among their chains,
pick up our banners again
and our anguish and our dreams
and the names upon the walls
which we carved with loving care…
-(from A Short Letter to the World; above ground)
Darkness begets itself
When the burnt flesh is finally at rest,
The fires in the asylum grates will come up
And the wicks turn down to darkness in the madman’s
eyes.
-Peter. Porter.
The Artist Taxi Driver Update on the U$K Austerity Class War :-(. Thatcher Special.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj4dQbfkoTE&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=5
I am back…Thatcher is dead, but her tyranny is still alive..I bought a pig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2y5VKnFgSI&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=4
**Thatcher Special Edition** BBC Sucks O Cocks News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Tcd3q60wI&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=3
OMFG!! Thatchers funeral..You Pay???? £8Million
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFWC14RQNBA&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=2
**recalled Parliament Special** BBC Sucks O Cocks News
“Podgy faced Cameron has just nearly broken down in tears whilst putting Thatcher up there with Lloyd George, Churchill and Attlee. What a soaking wet toss rag he really is.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rNKuXosPL4&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=1
Thatcher Eulogy Live from Houses of Parliament. ” Just heard ATOS have declared Thatcher fit to work.” 🙂
🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
Chunkymark, he’s screaming what we’re all thinking …
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20130411-0953-uk_correspondent_dame_ann_leslie-048.mp3
Funny how more evidence of the herd behavior that will broach no criticism of Thatcher and her policies. Is then followed by NR by a deep inspection of the fiscal collapse where the winners are those that observed how assumptions of market players models had failed, and how playing the player (like in poker) would have seen the mass herding effect of all those Thatcherites and bet against them.
Thatcher legacy is clear, those who failed to understand her destructive effects is clearly a poor commentator on our current economic times. And I believe we are seeing a prolonged downturn because we can’t criticize openly her poor economic grasp of her own policies and its effects.
The boom of the last thirty years was due to a glut of oil from the middle east, and Thatcherites opening up the markets to soak up the all the potential in useless wastes of energy and resources.
Methinks a true knucklehead has nailed Key with the way this is written .. vacuous, vapid and inane .. let Key’s deeply insightful remarks speak for him on his welcome on Tiananmen Square ….
“Amnesty International ….. urged Key “to raise our human rights concerns” on the trip, as it released a new report showing China executed more prisoners than any other country.
Key said after the meeting that the issue of human rights was raised at his meeting with Li, although no specific details were given, with only talk of the “dialogue” between the two countries.
“Obviously it’s an area where we need to continue talking,” Key told reporters yesterday.
He said the ceremony was one “to die for” and that Li had explained it reflected the importance of the relationship.
“The premier said to me when the troops were walking past that ‘this is the welcome that we afford to a real friend, and it’s a sign of the way that we value your visit here’, and my visit to Beijing,” Key said.”
“So it’s deliberate, that they do that, it’s very nice of them and it’s a very grand ceremony.”
Yes Prime Minister Vapid, “to die for”. What an ignorant and stupidly vain man you truly are.
Many thanks to the knucklehead travelling with him.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8534978/New-co-operation-agreements-with-China
Mg ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9_5mmoImR8 )
fro the Scrap Yard 😉
Scene
16:2 All a mans ways seem important to him but motives are weighed by the Lord.
Wow, another crayon in the paint box!
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David Cunliffe
Revenue portfolio
Looming customer service crisis at IRD
David Cunliffe | Thursday, April 11, 2013 – 09:54
A mounting crisis in IRD’s customer service is unfair to honest New Zealanders who are trying to comply with their tax obligations, Labour’s Revenue Spokesperson David Cunliffe says.
“Peter Dunne swears his department is adequately staffed to deal with the rate changes which hit Kiwis in the pocket this month, despite slashing IRD’s workforce by seven per cent last year.
“He can swear until he’s blue in the face but his department is struggling. Many Kiwis trying to get through are simply played a recorded message then disconnected.
“Worse, Peter Dunne has admitted that a full quarter of the ‘lucky’ callers who do get through won’t have their enquiries fully resolved in that call.
“The third strike is Dunne’s confession that that the IRD have zero performance measures for postal transactions. None whatsoever!
“Kiwis are trying to complain to Peter Dunne but the phone is off the hook.
“The litany of flip-flops on uncosted new taxes and the crisis in customer service at the IRD shows the need for a complete change in the leadership and culture of New Zealand’s tax administration.
“Having to deal with the IRD is a certainty, but trying to get sense from the taxman in 2013 could make you wish for that other certainty in life,” David Cunliffe said.
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David Shearer with his wife AnuschkaDavid Shearer’s wife AnuschkaLabour Leader David Shearer
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This is inspiring. Johnm posted in one of the Thatcher threads a link to photos of the Brixton party. Just look at all those young people who know what Thather did and who give a shit! It’s not often I feel political hope.
http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2013/04/hundreds-attend-thatcher-street-party-in-windrush-square-brixton-big-photo-report/
Johnm’s other links
http://thestandard.org.nz/i-thank-margaret-thatcher/#comment-617355
Herald Ministry of Justice’s Legal Aid Office sent:
“Confidential legal aid details of a Bay of Plenty man accused of breaching community work were mistakenly sent to a woman in a major privacy breach.”
Oops. Specially given Collins sarcastic response the other day at QT,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10876909
on Bitcoin
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10876905
on The Arcane 😉
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/168310.The_Arcanum
it is a bit Rich (Ivor Lott) that former national MP Kate is to head a ministerial ref. group to oversee the 10M for people raising grandchildren; better be a top-up with that coupon; Slovenian banks are toxic too, don’t you know “Iran has gone nuclear”- Ahmadinejad, and now Israel is just looking for a dietary excuse to passover.
Jim Bolger (at Opportunities of Ageing Conference) hmmm;
-“We, along with other countries, will ultimately compete for immigrants and welcome refugees that we currently turn away.” (bet that went down like a cuppa cold tea with low-fat milk and Coro on hold for the America’s Cup).
-on how NZ will (not) provide solutions to cover cost of increasing super, low birth rates among the wheel-off and an ageing workforce (wish I had stayed stoned most of the time myself Jim, but then there are the sheep to share…the price of good ganja, unlike cheap booze is NOT dropping Judith, supply and demand and all those market fundamentals…)
yet, the scope (hats off to Roy Harper and BLiP) for production in boondocks is widening as
“Rural communities and networks disintegrate
-corporatization
-preference for contractual rather than permanent employment arrangements
-more dairying; nomadic share-milking herds
-more migrant workers”.
still, Christmas Time is coming…
(the rider would not wear the tie of slavery for all the Aprilias in Cuba; not while Thunderaces are as cheap as chips!)
“roll on, roll on down the highway, b b b baby, you just aint seen nothin’ yet!”
One big issue with buttcoins – the security for them is oft really shit, plus it’s very easy to mine new coins, so the price and exchange rates are as volatile as hell. Especially if a major wallet site owner decides to shut down their site and so manipulate the bittcoin market.
Only a very limited no. of new coins can now be mined though, as the original algorithm sets a maximum number of bitcoins allowable in existence, ever.
wonder if cigars and complementary single malt in the bottom desk drawer comes with the Scoop of chips (you know, like real gum-shoes get; didn’t know Bogey had a lisp…learn something ginger every day.)
There’s now bot-nets doing the mining and building a decent mining computer only takes a few high end graphics cards, so while the rate of mining may have reduced, with sufficient resources mining groups can make a pretty packet. At least while the exchange rate’s good.
And as far as I know, the security issues with wallets are still extant.
For more detail, the total number of bitcoins in existance is set to 21M. The constraining algorithm has behaviour described here
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply#Currency_with_Finite_Supply
*sigh* so much nasties coming from the NAct government right now, it’s hard to keep up.
I have just been watching some of the debates on the changes to the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. Basically, opposition MPs say the government is, yet again, slipping in a load of little changes that amount to a shift in values away from protecting the environment. It includes some doodgy moves like the government slipping in a late SOP that diverges from what was being discussed in committee/ relation to public submissions.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8538887/No-probe-into-Fletchers-GCSB-appointment
and Labour is…denied, again. Never mind.
Don’t worry, there’s Dotcom’s “white paper” next week. And Key will have to come back from China to
front questionsanswer for his lies to Parliament.There’s speculation that he won’t have the numbers to get his way on GCSB reform too.
Lot’s of fun left in this dead meat.
I’m not worried, considering how much time, effort and money Labour have spent trying to smear John Key and they’ve ended with…well nothing to show for it
But hey keep on trying
Nothing? lol you need to get out more.
Or get out-of-it less.
I love apostrophes almost as much as turnips
‘
FIFY now DIAF
Parentheses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_homo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Homo_%28book%29
Icons (horses for courses) 😉
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10876922
Tamihana Thrupp, The Cowboy (presbyterian) Minister from Tuhoe! Excellent kaupapa.
caught in the spot-light
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10876733
Scary Possums
‘
I wonder if the head of Treasury’s Economic Modelling, Chicken Entrails and Necromancy Unit has factored in climate change? Unlikely.
that is Very funny tracking.
Defend the right to peaceful protest:
Sign Greenpeace’s Rejection of the Anadarko agreement
Defend the rights of people to go about their legally defined rights instead (whether you agree with those rights or not)
So defend the rights of people to protest whether you agree with those rights or not?
If the populace don’t want to give those corporations that right then they don’t have that right – no matter what the government says.
rights of people to go about their legally defined rights
Oh how convenient – so if their rights are “legally defined”, that is. arbitrarily defined by those who happen to be in power and not actual inherent rights, then it’s fine for them to have whatever rights those in power say they have. OK, got it…
There was this great satirical dystopia written about by Bruce Sterling in which there was one right, the right to death, so citizens were asked in quite calm terms whether they wanted to claim their “free” right.
Is that how you think of rights? If someone who wears a shiny hat calls it a right, then that is a right, and the only kind of right there can ever be?
Really, your strange reflexive faith in the “rightness” of “authority” is quite incomprehensible in a human being. It is appropriate in an animal perhaps – a dog in a pack deferring to the “Alpha” – but in a reasoning, conscious being? Surely not; every one of us has a conscience that can never be surrendered to another.
I wonder if you’ve ever heard on Stanley Milgram and his experiments on the psychology of obedience, or the Stanford Prison Experiment?… or just “being a good German”?
Defend the rights of people to go about their legally defined rights instead (whether you agree with those rights or not)
Really, this is an utter perversion of Voltaire’s famous statement, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I would say that your sentiments are Orwellian, but Orwell stood for decency, in saying “Democracy is the right to say what people do not want to hear.”
This talk about “legally defined rights”? That’s euphemy for fascism.
+1
I see the Pig’s are openly applauding one of their own’s corrupt behavior again in regard to the Thomas case, this organization is so blinkered and up it’s own ass that we can no longer trust it along with GC…….Si……. and when will the nightmare end for Thomas.
Yes I agree and I am disgusted with the Police.
I look forward to the mob (nz) applauding their own for their faithful and righteous service to manwomankind and everyone allowing it to occur without comment including the NZ Police, as the mob has in this case in return.
Trust no one except those you know intimately.
Hey, GCSB, Police, know who I am? Been snooping? Who you gonna call? fuckwits shove it up your arse
If you haven’t already read this http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/04/11/breaking-worse-than-we-thought-rebecca-kitteridge-and-the-new-community-of-spooks/ then you will find it interesting, no wonder Key just wants this to go away, as it starting to look like he has been using the our spy agencies along with the swine to his own ends, since 2010.
Bill Birch look at my life
I’m not a lot like you were ..
Old man look at my life
..
Old man
24 and there so much more
llive alone in a paradise
..
old man
where the embers of goodness reside in few
Bill Birch failure at the end as they always dooooo
“As the Iraq War took off, I watched people who believed the government incapable of running a post office argue it could transform the Arab World into an oasis of democracy within a year. If the state built chicken factories in Alaska, paid ten times too much then staffed them with incompetents and felons, this was socialism, the ‘fatal conceit’ that events could be controlled by central planning. But in Basrah it was ‘reconstruction’, even as America’s own infrastructure deconstructed. ”
http://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/richard-cooke/2013/04/11/1365657734/why-i-am-not-conservative-any-more great article.
Interview with Steve Keen
I suppose that’s one reason why Cullen had no issues with massively escalating private debt when he was Finance Minister. That and the fact that the Treasury boffins reporting to him thought in exactly the same way.
Exactly. Our economists have advanced theories that have no basis in reality that our politicians have believed and then made policies on which, inevitably, is making the majority of people worse off. It’s good for the rich though.
‘
that is a beautiful “live” link BLiP; brought tears to me sodden eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BqOxd585kY&feature=youtu.be
Precis: Two trillion dollars flows from the poor countries to the rich every year.
Some time ago NRT posted about the legality of the prime minister being involved in an appointment process
http://www.norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/not-ok.html
That seems to be contradicted by the decision of the auditor-general that there is no particular process and any involvement by the PM is appointing his good friend (and that’s close to how the news reports sounded ) is OK.
Is this something lawyers would have a view on? Is the auditor-general or I/S correct? Should the appointment have been gazetted?
Charming.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/police-may-make-arrests-as-margaret-thatcher-funeral-protests-loom-29185955.html
Simon Bridges will be into this ‘pre-emptive’ gig.