With the US economy imploding some humour which is doing the rounds….
US RECESSION
The recession has hit everybody really hard…
My neighbor got a pre-declined credit card in the mail
CEO’s are now playing miniature golf.
Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
I saw a Mormon with only one wife.
If the bank returns your check marked “Insufficient Funds,” you call
them and ask if they meant you or them.
McDonald’s is selling the 1/4 ouncer.
Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America.
Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children’s
names.
My cousin had an exorcism but couldn’t afford to pay for it, and they
re-possessed her!
A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.
A picture is now only worth 200 words.
When Bill and Hillary travel together, they now have to share a room.
The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates.
Are electorates past their use by date? MSM can’t be bothered with most of them. Many MPs just use them to get publicity for party votes. Is it really time to ditch the electorates?
Or is it media and punditry convenience? A lot of people still complain that list MPs don’t have a proper mandate and see the party list as a major weakness of MMP.
You’ll know all about that one. Have you backed up your accusations? Like CT, Beehive? Try setting an example and newer posters here might follow it. How often does felix substantiate his insinuations? Being “honest” doesn’t seem to be the done thing here, stalking is.
Do you have anything to say about the topic I raised? I think that’s a significant democratic issue. Or are you just trolling again?
I was not going to comment on your proposal because it was really, really silly. You seem to be suggesting we only have list MPs. Also I know all of the Auckland Labour electorate MPs quite well and what you say is a reality free insult to them. They all work their electorates really hard. And there are List MPs who work hard at electorate issues.
Your comment was such a reality free one I was going to ignore it.
But it looks like you are trying to avoid responding to Felix’s request for the links. Where are they Pete Squirrel?
You seem to be ignoring what I actually said and have jumped to incorrect conclusions, again. If you had any clue about what I prefer of electorates you wouldn’t have jumped straight into troll mode.
<i>You seem to be ignoring what I actually said and have jumped to incorrect conclusions, again.</i>
I was actually having trouble understanding what you said. I avoided your link because I did not want to reward link whoring.
You previously said:
<i>Are electorates past their use by date? MSM can’t be bothered with most of them. Many MPs just use them to get publicity for party votes. Is it really time to ditch the electorates?</i>
I took offence at this because you are not acknowledging that many electorate MPs work damn hard. Your comment obviously shows you have not the faintest idea what they do.
You then jumped into agressive mode to avoid Felix’s request for promised links. Why don’t you provide the links to Felix?
Politically, in parliament, electorate MPs don’t really offer much. Conscience votes, when an MP should theoretically reflect their constituency, aren’t that common.
But MPs in electorates are a go-to point for anyone who is being screwed around by The System. This is a vital role that needs to be filled. Electorate MPs are the best way to do it.
If you’re upset with the party list letting people into parliament through a backdoor, and some electorate MPs slacking off and not doing as much as they should, the solution isn’t to get rid of electorate MPs.
One thing that could work is a suggestion I’ve made a few times here: make any incumbent MP who holds an electorate seat ineligible for placement on the party list. This would ensure that those MPs fully represent their electorate, because if they don’t, they’re gone. It would allow the public to vote bad MPs out of parliament, and really give some different weight and dynamics to electorate seats and the party list, rather than the peculiar ‘two shades of grey’ system we have now.
Interesting Idea Lanthanide. Personally I’d just extend it to any candidate that gets in the top 3 still has a chance to come in on the list. Afterall a close second or even a close third in a tight race, would still be a candidate a lot of people support, so perhaps deserves to be considered.
Or make it a percentage thing, any candidate that gets over 23% perhaps of the vote is still eligible to be on the party list. Then if there’s a 25, 23.9, 23.8, 23.7, 2.4 scenario, the fourth candidate which is only a fraction off the elected candidate still gets a chance.
Or perhaps some other formula, like just getting more than 5% of the vote?
Otherwise this would be the end of the green party as we know it and several others!
Oh yeah and what would happen to a party that has received say 10% of the overall party votes but has no eligible members due to missing out on these rules??
An interesting idea tho! Just needs a bit of fine tuning imo. Your current format is pretty much just FPP.
Perhaps… Make it that the MMP list order is determined by the ranking of %age votes that the candidates get! That would make sense imo!
Usually when you run away from a discussion you say you can’t be expected to keep up with all the threads you start. And fair enough I suppose, you do start a lot of them.
But in this instance no-one’s expecting you to keep up. You’ve been gone for a few days so I’ve waited patiently for your return so you can pick up where you left off.
Yet still you take no responsibility for what you wrote previously, saying you “can’t be bothered” with it.
Is there any situation in which a person can expect you to stand by what you say, Pete? Your words don’t evaporate when you close the browser, you know.
I’m not “running away”. I choose not to be continually stalked by trolls and then blamed for the blog being cluttered up with petty and precious off-topic attacks.
PG it was the same under FPP it was worse half the members of parliament slept or were drunk while in the debating chamber. Did bugger all for their constituents usually fobbed them off .Now with mmp we have a choice off several MPs so it keeps them on their toes.Its very hard to cover up scandals nowadays with the many different parties around all chasing the voter.
Riots in England, stock exchanges are crashing throughout the world and France and Germany are now in trouble. In the US the political system is clearly not fit for purpose.
Actually the more I think of it Bored the more I think that the events are linked. Adidas has effectively commandeered our community intellectual property (the All Blacks) and made them into a money maker for their share holders. They then go to the third world and use slave labour to manufacture jerseys with significance for locals for $10 or so, import them, and then set this astronomically high price. We are paying for what was communally owned culture.
They then use the profits to fund the elite (All Blacks themselves), and the rest goes to their shareholders.
And we are bombarded with images of their products and told that we have to buy. And for ordinary people particularly unemployed young this has become impossible.
So they suddenly realise they cannot afford them and the cultural behavioral norms get shattered and then it all breaks down. I am not surprised that the looters have been going for TVs and branded clothing.
We need to seriously change things and get our heads around this.
Yeah, I find it amusing how people pigeon hole events and claim that they are unrelated. Unintended consequences abound. Everything is linked….you then get twerps saying riots are unrelated to poverty, and the poverty is unrelated to the top echelon having all the cash….the denial is immense. Creaming the top off of the elites ill gotten cash are their symbiotic parasites, the Denial Industry (spindoctors, MSM, and most importantly “Brand” marketers). And we “buy” it…….
Yes, they keep buying, and buying, and buying. Label clothes. Label food. Label entertainment. And giving adidas more publicity is buying into it all.
We can choose to ignore Brand” marketers if we want to. I never buy sports clothing, I’m not going to pay a huge premium and be an ongoing “free” advertising billboard. It seems nuts, but there’s a lot of people that freely spend money, to be used by the brands twice.
We can choose to ignore Brand” marketers if we want to.
Indeed it is possible to avoid falling into the consumerism ‘trap’, if you are intelligent and mindful enough about your own behaviour. Unfortunately, advertisers make good use of what is known about human psychology to circumvent rational thinking when it comes to this kind of thing. Unsurprisingly, the result is that many people are convinced that they ‘need’ to have all these things. I am very hesistant to put all the blame on the individuals themselves. Instead, I see it as a societal problem – why do we allow large scale psychological manipulation in this way?
The trouble with our system is that it will fall apart if we do not work harder and harder to buy more and more shiny things that have fancy brandy things on them.
While engaged in this merry go round we have to consume more and more of our earth’s resources. And we have to jetson some humans on the way.
Of course anyone suggesting that this cannot continue are branded as being crazy.
@wtl I bet marketers know more about Pete G’s thinking than he knows himself. Perfect manipulable material to sell some product that is aimed at his category on the values chart. And we all have a place there too.
Bernays started this whole nonsense….he is as culpable as any of the great criminal politicos of the last century in establishing this “consumer” pacification of the population.
I looked up google looking for something that would show the sort of tool that marketers use for dividing society into types so they can be influenced in their thinking to buy or accept something. Pages 16 and 17 are interesting – one has a chart and one refers to Brit politics in 2005 and I think is a case study.
My 3.31 pm comment is useless. I was trying to correct it but the blog won’t let you if there is less than a minute left. So forget it. I havn’t been able to make the point I wanted to.
It is NOT possible to resist this all pervasive marketing psychological manipulation 100%. A jingle plays in the background and you instantly recognise McDonalds or Coke or whatever.
To pretend – like most people do – that you are smarter/better/more resistant/more independent than most is part of the illusion.
IE “I would never fall for something like that”, etc. Every damn fool thinks that, to the very last one.
People don’t try and escape from prison if they think that they are free.
a lot of people made noise about this very threat to the nature of a supporter’s allegiance when Adidas signed on. Some might remember for the 100 year celebrations there was a large banner image where Adidas appropriated the entire history of the All Blacks in one foul swoop. A brilliant arrogant and soul less piece of marketing that showed exactly what Adidas had in mind.
an agreement with Adidas was foretold when the game went professional anyway. their longstanding relationship with the IRB would have had it all tied up years before the ink was signed at the NZRU.. it never has been the same gane since, some good rugger but it’s all so $$$$ focused
( I have spent fifteen minutes trying to source an image of it but i guess that as it was a limited edition print they have locked it down pretty tight. )
@ms The $10 is for the making of the tops/jackets. I thought I heard that Adidas has taken NZ off some internet trading list presumably to stop people using the free market to get better prices than those being charged by a monopoly jackup.
Unfortunately Gareth after spending several days at Manukau District Court last month observing various cases I don’t think this one demonstrates inequalities within the legal system but rather the complete lack of justice that exists within it.
I hope that that staff and supporters of Te Papa make it clear to its management how inappropriate it is to have this person representing it overseas in any sort of official capacity.
have to love the British PM
standing up tall
talking of how ‘actions have consequences’
and ‘people think their rights outweigh their responsibilties’
when will those same words be directed towards the bankers, hedge fund managers, and every other thief that swagger through our streets, secure in the knowledge their riots not only go unpunished, they are usually rewarded with looser laws and easier access to more booty
especially this one
‘There is now a danger that rioting might feed into ethnic conflict.
it has already begun with three deaths last night that have suspcicons of racial undertones that supercede the riot activity. In England racial reactionaries will not be a pretty sight if it develops any more intensity.
There are many racial divides in England although much of the day to day seperatist activity is purely on cultural lines. The hard-nosed rascists in England are predominately of anglosaxon heritage and on the whole, have a level of thuggery that is beyond anyone’s ability to communicate with.
We have an opportunity here, Society is showing its best and its worst and we should all pay attention.
This is not the response to an act of terrorism, a war or a natural disaster. This is the result of complacency and double standards.
On a positive note, for every kid that has smashed a window there seems to be a dozen ready to clean it up. That at least is some consolation that our future still has a chance.
‘affect his mana’? what about the mana of our National Museum which is now dragged into the
quagmire of association with this act. A man with a serious job and according to the report, an arguably even more serious problem, gets released without conviction. The surface of this event is saturated by that blinding glare from the idol we dare not damage, alcohol.
Many readers would know elders of local Iwi who have fallen foul of alcohol and committed similar acts yet i do not recall seeing their mana used as a reason to discharge without conviction. There is a disturbing undercurrent in our justice system that is eroding the riverbed and the change in course this is presenting seems to be cutting through the fair fields and destroying the pathways of impartial judgement.
Booze is the single biggest factor when domestic pressure becomes domestic violence
There are not many options but perhaps we could start with prosecuting the guilty.
Osborne’s lawyer, Chris Pointer, said a conviction for domestic assault could prevent his client from entering some countries as part of his museum work. “This will have a … severe effect on Mr Osborne’s ability to do his job.”
A conviction would also “severely impact on his mana”.
You have $100 to invest. Your bank says: if you invest with us, we will give you 9% interest at the end of the year. Great, you say, I’m in.
11 Months down the track the bank comes back to you and says, sorry, been a bit of a fuck-up. We can only give you 9% on $70 but you will have to wait another couple of years for it, and one day in the future we may be able to give you back your other $30.
The poor bastards who bought bonds in Bluestar Group (Printing – Trans-Tasman) effectively kissed goodbye to their collective $140 Million yesterday by agreeing to a bank demand for restructure which sees overdue interest payments on $67 Million of the investment pushed out til 2013 and the remainder converted to a fancy-sounding ‘Participating Bond’ which accrue no interest and do not even have a confirmed (if any) pay back date.
Is it really about the money?
No.
Why? Because the poor old BNZ is third in line to recoup their $195 Million investment in Bluestar. Champ PE ($175 Million) were second, and who were first? You guessed it, the BOND HOLDERS. So in order to screw these suckers over and get themselves to the top of the queue the good ‘ol BNZ threatened receivership on Bluestar bond holders unless they voted themselves into third place, BNZ into first, Champ into second, and agreed to the financial rape of their investment.
For once, the ordinary investor had the opportunity to tell a bank to just fuck right off and they blew it. There is no way the BNZ would have placed Bluestar into receivership to be third in line for any payout (independent analysis put Bluestars worth at $4 Million – assets less liabilities).
Once again greed wins. These suckers deserve to lose every cent.
the tories dont even know what makes something politically correct. they dont know logic. it is what ever they say it is. and the red queens off her heard, go ask alice what the doormouse said.
Just need to pick up on a pet rankling rant here. The Christchurch City Council new draft plan is out and the foreword is attended to by the Council’s Bob Parker, which is entirely appropriate, and by Ecan, which is also appropriate. But it also attended to by Ngai Tahu, as if that organisation is somehow an equivalent governing body, which it is not. It is a body determined by privilege of birth and race and precludes the vast vast majority of Chch residents. It is not right. Ngai Tahu has a place for sure, but not here. Or many other places it gets placed. Sheesh, I know I always rant about this subject, but I need to because it is fundamentally wrong.
And please do not attach all sorts of assumptions to this – Ngai Tahu are fantastic and are a huge ‘asset’ to the city and its environs. And they will go from strength to strength and I wish them well.
It is just this type of placement of them within the city when it is founded on something so many NZers sought to escape from when immigrating here. They sought to escape because it breaches some fundamental facets of human nature – privilege of birth and race.
@vto – “It is a body determined by privilege of birth and race and precludes the vast vast majority of Chch residents. It is not right. Ngai Tahu has a place for sure, but not here. Or many other places it gets placed. Sheesh, I know I always rant about this subject, but I need to because it is fundamentally wrong.”
No you are fundamentally wrong vto. Ngai Tahu were at Otautahi (Christchurch) before you were and deserve to be present and heard when planning the new landscape.
prism, I fundamentally and very strongly disagree with that approach of “first in first served” for many reasons. But no time today to cover that large and intense issue in detail, sorry.
Though your statement that they “deserve to be present and heard when planning the new landscape” I don’t disagree with. It is the nature and scale of that “presence” to which I was referring.
edit: being a pedant, but how would you know whether they were here before me?
It’s not first in first served – the Treaty was signed between the crown and rangatira vto – equal participants – notwithstanding the lies and disinformation, omissions, cheating and evasions told to rangatira of course. I think most of us want to along and having tangata whenua there, is appropriate, indeed necessary – that is what looking forward is all about.
Yes I realise that mr marty and that is all fine and as it was done (the treaty etc). But you well know my opinion on it, which is, briefly, that it may well have been appropriate back then but the treaty is well past its use-by date. It does not take into account the world as it is today and for that reason alone it is fundamentally flawed and needs re-writing. It is no good holding onto contracts which can be frustrated or fail to take into account all parameters, especially in a political nation type setting. Doing so only leads to failure and frustration by sectors of society having less of a stake in society than others. (And this stakeless nature of some of London’s sectors is imo one of the main things which led to the riots)
Look, in saying that, I do not consider that everything should be thrown out and just forget the lot. I think it should be re-written – and a re-writing does not mean either of the parties has to miss out. Things just need changing.
And with regards to Chch and their input I think I said at the beginning and further on that they do have a place, an important place. I do not want them not to be there, they have one of the best and largest contributions to make in the region. Bring them on.
My point was that their placement alongside the Council and Ecan as if they are on some kind of similar governance footing is not right, based as it is on privilege of birth and race. That is all (even though a good argument can be made for such placement based on the out-of-date treaty).
Just got to add one more bit here. My response “first in first served” above was in response to prism’s point which stated that the reason Ngai Tahu should be there was because they were here first. Prism had no mention of the Treaty.
“Look, in saying that, I do not consider that everything should be thrown out and just forget the lot. I think it should be re-written – and a re-writing does not mean either of the parties has to miss out. Things just need changing.”
The Treaty is definately the Treaty – that’s why I advocate constitutional change (not the illusory one going on now) where Māori partnership and self determination can be entrenched. That is the road to equality. That is the way to ensure all parties are treated fairly with honour.
mr marty, if you’re around … ” that’s why I advocate constitutional change (not the illusory one going on now) where Māori partnership and self determination can be entrenched. That is the road to equality. That is the way to ensure all parties are treated fairly with honour.”
Self-determination for who? Just one group of people in NZ? That is no road to equality. That is a road to different structures for different people – which is inequality, according to the dictionary definition.
There is no harm in treating people fairly with honour, under the treaty, just as long as it is recognised that such treatment is under the treaty and the treaty, as you say, is the treaty, with its severe and unrealistic (in today’s world) expectations.
Do you seriously advocate that a form of self-determination, which is separatism, is sustainable and workable? What do all the other groups in NZ do about their own self-determination? Perhaps muslims would like a bit of self-determination too – under your idea, do they get to have that too? Or is it only for maori, because they are the only ones in the treaty so simply tough titty for the muslims – they just have to suck it up? Because that attitude is completely unsustainable. Feel free to explain in detail because I think your idea is way out of whack with reality.
It is sad that you don’t believe that people have the right to self determination – it isn’t seperatism as I have pointed out previously to you. Why are you so scared of empowering basic human rights – is it because of what you think you will lose. This “oh what about the muslims” leads me to wonder about you. Why can’t you argue your point honestly. Are muslims the indigenous people of this land? nah – didn’t think so. Got another group to analyse? push them up, it won’t take long. And that is the nub of the issue right there vto. Māori are not just another minority group shat on by the system, Māori are tangata whenua and for that and that reason alone Māori should have the opportunity to be true partners to the Crown, as agreed to in the Treaty, and add a unique voice to the solutions we need. That is not looking backwards, it is looking forward. It is not handout or grievance mode it is honestly dealing with the facts. The sooner you can just get over the fact that Māori are not going anywhere and that they are the partners with the Crown, the sooner we can all get on and build a country and society to be proud of.
marty mars, I am just going to ignore the assumptions you made about my beliefs, because you do indeed go right to the heart of issue, as I had asked in my previous post…
” Are muslims the indigenous people of this land? nah – didn’t think so. Got another group to analyse? push them up, it won’t take long. And that is the nub of the issue right there vto. Māori are not just another minority group shat on by the system, Māori are tangata whenua and for that and that reason alone Māori should have the opportunity to be true partners to the Crown,”
So you DO in fact believe that because Maori were here first they have a greater position within NZ. This is what prism said right at the start that I railed against. The attitude of “first in first served” is a poorly one which serves nobody in any setting, be it the dinner table each night, the weekly drop of money into the joint account, the allocation of resources like water under the RMA, and the status of immigrants to a new land. First in first served is a weak and selfish attitude and approach. Not to say it has no bearing on matters, but those matters are limited, especially as time passes.
You and I completely disagree right here at this junction. And it is a fundamental foundation stone from which you step off. It is a bad stone marty mars.
This applies no matter the race or place on earth.
As to the treaty, I have already outlined my view that it is a badly structured document. Ffs, the two versions don’t even say the same thing for a start!
But sure you can hang your hat on the crown entering into a poorly constructed contract. You can force them to follow through on their promises, even though those promises don’t always make good sense. It is worth being aware however that in legislation and in common law many many types of contract can be struck out for a whole bunch of reasons – like the contract makes no sense, mistakes were made in entering into them, or they are simply inequitable. For example, is there not a bill currently passing through Parliament deeming certain financial contracts illegal? Have you read the Contractual Mistakes Act?
While these acts and law deal with the daily machinations of life, they are based on centuries old wide and high principles of fairness and justice which are necessary to foster a good society. These principle apply equally to all aspects of life, including the relationship between different peoples.
You, marty, put the treaty above those principle of fairness and justice. That is clear from you last post. I say the treaty should be subject to those wider and highers principles of fairness and justice. My opinion is that the treaty needs re-writing for this and other reasons previously stated.
So there we have it. Good swap of ideas, but you and I strongly disagree on these two base foundation stones.
see when you say, “and the status of immigrants to a new land” I shake my head – it is not about first in first served – I say again – Māori are the indigenous people of this land – you can argue against that as you have but stop twisting what I am saying.
You are clear that you think Māori are just the first immigrant group and that is no reason for any ‘special’ consideration of them, their culture or beliefs. Have I got that right? If so – why? Why do you think this – that is what I’m after vto – I believe I understand what you think – why do you think it? You have said you have Māori blood – how do you work through that and your position? Of course they are personal questions that you don’t have to answer but I am sincerely interested because we are all in this waka together and we have to work through these issues to get our society sorted.
Well this is a problem. You haven’t explained why you think that because Maori are the indigenous people, the tangata whenua, the first people here, however you want to describe it, that that entitles them to a greater position in society. Why does their indigenous nature so entitle them? You have stated the position but provided no reason for it.
The reasons for me claiming that such first arrival or indigenous nature should have a far lesser status has been explained by me. By way of comparison to the “first in first served” approach. By reason that such privilege of birth and race leads to unfairness and trouble in society. That is why I do not think a society is sustainable with different sets of rules and structures for different peoples. It leads to a sense of frustration for those not so entitled and frustration leads to anger and then further trouble. That is why I do not want such an approach. It is based on birth and race. It is simply unfair. It leads to division. It leads to trouble – that is the reason. It is what many immigrants here escaped from.
And yes, all in NZ arrived as immigrants. Describing Maori as indigenous or something else does not subtract from their immigrant beginnings. As with all other immigrants. How are they not immigrants? Such ideas are not mutually exclusive.
As for my personal ancestry, that is minor but real. It was revealed only later in life, stemming from a time when such was kept hidden generations ago. Anyway, it makes no difference to my arguments in this thread. I am trying to make these arguments from an objective position. Subjective matters can arise once the broader settings are in place.
“You haven’t explained why you think that because Maori are the indigenous people, the tangata whenua, the first people here, however you want to describe it, that that entitles them to a greater position in society. Why does their indigenous nature so entitle them? You have stated the position but provided no reason for it.”
because they fit the description of indigenous people
“Indigenous peoples, or Natives, are ethnic groups who are native to a land or region, especially before the arrival and intrusion of a foreign and possibly dominating culture. They are a group of people whose members share a cultural identity that has been shaped by their geographical region. A variety of names are used in various countries to identify such groups of people, but they generally are regarded as the “original inhabitants” of a territory or region. Their right to self-determination may be materially affected by the later-arriving ethnic groups.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples
That is the simplist search i could do but there are many articles and sources about the nature of indigenous peoples and why they are special and important.
“By reason that such privilege of birth and race leads to unfairness and trouble in society. That is why I do not think a society is sustainable with different sets of rules and structures for different peoples. It leads to a sense of frustration for those not so entitled and frustration leads to anger and then further trouble.”
snap! that’s what is here already and that is why we need to make improvements. You keep playing the ‘not fair’ card – not fair for everyone, not fair for muslims, not fair for me but you are blind to the fact that it is not fair for Māori now.
I don’t think that wikipedia definition states a reason for their special status, it just describes what an indigenous people’s features are, which I don’t dispute. What I dispute is the nature and scale of the special nature. And how it relates to other people living in that same place. Your placement of that special nature differs quite considerably from mine. I guess that is as far as we can get at the moment.
As for things being unfair for Maori now, I am not blind to that and have never suggested otherwise. I don’t disagree and that is why I have suggested in previous posts that Maori should be assisted in righting this situation, but that it should be temporary, and that once that is achieved matters should be righted back to a balanced equality. And that ties in with my view on their special position – their indigenous nature does give them a special position, to protect them perhaps, to assist with the change imposed by worldwide demographic changes, etc, but again it must be temporary. Such a special position has limits and those limits decrease with the passage of time.
As I said, we disagree on the nature and scale of that special position. I have given my reasons and you have given me yours. We just have to disagree I think.
There are a couple of things which you haven’t answered s I recall … The issue of the treaty as a useful document given its hastily scratched together nature resulting in different versions, and its lack of ability to deal with a changing world, etc. The issue of how having different rules and settings for different people in one place leads to civil trouble, and how to deal with that. The issue of how you deal with other people also wanting their own self-determination. The correctness or otherwise of people having a place in society due to privilege, or not, of birth and race.
Don’t know if I will be back here for a while but will check in and see when I can. Good talks. Out for now.
I don’t get you vto – you have the so called privilege of birth and race don’t you?
Why does this get up your nose so much – I hear your ‘we are all one’ line but I cannot reconcile it with my concept of equality. Assimilation is not going to happen – unique valuable cultures will continue and grow because they are important – to the members and all our society. Many indigenous peoples just don’t believe the bullshit anymore – that they are lessor, inferior, lucky. The improvements for indigenous peoples will just keep on coming as momentum builds and it is a good thing because there are many many other ways of looking at the world than the dominant, bland, ‘culture’ most people live within.
I say the more that tangata whenua can be involved in all aspects of the rebuild, the better. And the more visible signs of that the even better too.
“I don’t get you vto – you have the so called privilege of birth and race don’t you?
Why does this get up your nose so much – I hear your ‘we are all one’ line but I cannot reconcile it with my concept of equality. Assimilation is not going to happen – unique valuable cultures will continue and grow because they are important – to the members and all our society. Many indigenous peoples just don’t believe the bullshit anymore – that they are lessor, inferior, lucky. The improvements for indigenous peoples will just keep on coming as momentum builds and it is a good thing because there are many many other ways of looking at the world than the dominant, bland, ‘culture’ most people live within.
I say the more that tangata whenua can be involved in all aspects of the rebuild, the better. And the more visible signs of that the even better too.”
You know, I agree with everything you say there. But what you miss is the fact that one of those cultures is lifted on a pedestal above all other cultures, by law in many many instances, by treaty. It is this that is wrong and which leads to trouble. I don’t think I can say it any simpler than that. It leads to trouble in any society in the world and there are many examples of varying degrees. We are all different, and as the French say vive la differenc, but we are also all equal. Otherwise fail.
It is a particular point only that I make but imo it is big.
Just going to add a prediction … what I suggest above (re-write the Treaty) that should happen, will happen. And it will be led by both Treaty partners, but more by Maori. Not the current generation involved in righting things and aligning things under the Treaty. Not the current young generation growing up into this new strong world for Maori. But perhaps the following generation – a leader with the wisdom of Solomon, or Ghandi, or Nelson Mandela, who will stand up, recognise the imbalance, recognise that the Treaty is no longer appropriate or needed, and suggest a rebalancing.
I can’t and won’t speak for marty, but for me, as Pākehā, I can’t just ignore the treaty.
I get what you are saying, and can see how it just describes a just society, but can’t see how we can get there from here in a just fashion.
The treaty is real. It exists. Wishing it away is pointless, and taking it away would be grave crime no matter what we were trying to do.
The reality is that as Pākehā my only claim to be of this land is via the treaty. The treaty is the thing I can point to and say this is why I have a right to be here. I can’t do that if the treaty is not honoured though.
The fact that it hasn’t been honoured affects my claim to be of here, rather than just living here.
For me to say to Māori that “well nah actually. Screw the treaty, I’m here by virtue of the fact I was born here same as you” I’m claiming what? That the past didn’t happen? That my families history isn’t real?
We can only draw a new picture with the consent of our partners. We haven’t honoured the treaty, they have. We have a hell of a lot of good will to make up and some huge debts of gratitude to pay before we can expect to be able to even start to converse about putting the treaty based relationship aside and forging a new one.
My pre-NZ heritage is celtic. Mostly Irish Catholic and a smattering of Scot. I’m not going to say that this gives me any understanding of Māori experience of colonisation, because it just fucking doesn’t. But I know from my own history that my mob weren’t anything like as forgiving as Māori have been.
And that humbles me greatly. I want to make this shit work.
Well there a few things in there. Firstly, I dont think I said it should be wished away or taken away. Not at all. I guess it could be described as recognising that there was an agreement about how two (see, two. one of the fundamental flaws that does not recognise the future, for a start) peoples could put in place a structure for living together in one place. That is fine. But it is that very structure that is now no longer appropriate because the world is vastly more complicated with more peoples, laws and rights, mobility, cultures, mixed up races (as we are all nealry). In fact, that is exactly it – the Treaty’s structure allowed no room for manouvre (I always spell that wrongue) as the world changed around it. This is a failing of the documenting and structuring put in place in that short and highly volatile moment in these hard lands back in 1840-odd. In that environment it is hardly surprising that they did not get a world class document drawn up, which took into account all the necessary bits such as change.
I don’t agree about your claim to be of here solely because of the treaty. Being born into a place and having ones families ashes thrown to the soils – at least for a generation or three – is enough (to put it crudely and briefly). In fact, Maori have a simialr idea as I recall. Keeping the fires burning it is called I think. Similar to many many cultures. Burying ones dead in a location, in most all human history, provides a link to a place too.
And re the last part and comparing your own ancestors acts and concluding they are lesser – I will just leave that for another day. I don’t think it is true and don’t want to get into an argument about who was the nastiest. Have you read some early accounts of Maori-Pakeha relations? They were as heinous and as heart-lifting as any anywhere.
Yes it will. Such is inevitable and cannot be stopped. Trying to prevent it, which is what you’re doing, is trying to stop the necessary change that will bring us together as one people. Will this mean that some cultural aspects will die out? Of course it does. Others, hopefully better, will emerge to replace them.
Trying to prevent that change will also bring about civil war. This too is inevitable unless the necessary changes are allowed to occur.
humans value difference and uniqueness. There is no assimilation utopia that I can see.
Only within very very narrow boundaries. In olden tribal days or in very conservative hierarchical societies it was barely tolerated.
Today we pretend to value difference and uniqueness. But in reality you don’t have to start acting and thinking too differently and uniquely to start losing friends.
And only a bit more than that, they will probably either lock you up or sedate you (or both).
This discussion is really important and I’m constantly challenged by it, especially since I have 2 grandchildren born a few months apart. One is blond, blue-eyed and is so fair his skin is almost transluscent. He doesn’t know it, but he has Maori ancestry. His cousin, although being brought up in a Pakeha family is clearly Maori – cannot be mistaken for any other ethnicity – and is in close contact with her Maori family. Both, of course, are beautiful, funny and smart, and seeing them together is an absolute delight.
What are their ‘rights’, their likely futures? Will the both get the same advantages, or will one be left behind? Does one deserve more, given the potential for discrimination in jobs, housing etc? Can one not be Maori because it has never been claimed? Or will we have a mixed-race utopia by the time they grow up?
I don’t have any sense of how the treaty, privilege and protection will play out for them, but the more discussions like this, the better IMO.
Change is inevitable alright but not towards your vision.
It’s not my vision – merely what will happen. You can not have two cultures next to each other without the people within them learning from each other especially when they happen to be in the same geographical area. Unless you want to go to an apartheid system of course which, really, is what you actually seem to be proposing.
When you try to put one of those groups above the other then there will be strife.
Whoa, the new draft City Plan for Christchurch looks superb. They have been working hard clearly, and it seems comprehensive, well though out and workable.
Exciting times down here over next decade that be for sure.
There going to be some central city property owners losing out big time methinks, as building heights are squashed from generally between 40m and 80m (12 to 25 stories) down to 4-5 to 7 stories. Big squashing of heights.
While the Christchurch opportunity is unique, what got me thinking was was the wider applicability and apparent value for money offered by some of the better ideas.
Community gardens – $300,000. Wifi $350,000. Covered outdoor markets for local produce and small business $2.2 million. Proper cycle lane network $22 million. Even the light rail system @ $410 million sounds achievable in the medium term.
Then I visit my hometown of Dunedin and I have to look at that ridiculous $198.3 million stadium and reflect on what might have been.
Dunedin screwed itself with that unimaginative monstrosity. I know people all around the South Island laughing at those guys, reading the news of ongoing budget shortfalls and saying “who can possibly act surprised”.
Jim Mora has Muriel Newman on his show this afternoon. She finds that our welfare problems
arise from not having fathers in the home as role models, that everyone should take any job they are offered because ‘once you have your foot on the ladder’ you rise up don’t you!
That woman is such a preachy bitch talking twaddle. She and those like her just repeat comfortable slogans that have been accepted by their set who hold themselves rigidly away from attempts at understanding those who haven’t advanced themselves as they have to comfort and status. Many women have made it good by marrying the right wealthy or high-status professional person but diss others as if they have been high achievers themselves. There is no-one so ignorant as the person who has made up their mind on an emotional basis and from self-satisfaction..
I switched that woman off who was saying the UK riots were caused by too much welfare… a welfare system creating a sense of entitlement, getting consumer goods on welfare … and then all the stupid stuff about absent fathers.
I switched that woman off who was saying the UK riots were caused by too much welfare…
Don’t switch her off, Vicky—do something about it! You should e-mail Jim Mora and tell him how concerned you are that he (or more likely his producer) has chosen someone as vacuous and ill-informed as Muriel Newman to comment on anything, leave alone such a serious topic.
I and several others have protested about Mora’s respectful and deferential treatment of the bloodthirsty S.S. fanatic Garth McVicar and his ghastly henchman Stephen Franks, both of whom should be persona non grata. The more criticism he gets from more decent people, the more likely Mora will be to listen.
Just switching off someone like Muriel Newman is not enough. You have to bring concerted pressure on those who are lazy enough or stupid enough to interview her.
Be polite, but firm and clear: tell him you want him to interview a guest who knows what she is talking about in future. That means NO MORE MURIEL NEWMAN.
I’ve given up on The Panel. To begin with, have you noticed that all of the guests spend the first 10 to 15 minutes telling everybody what exciting lives they lead. They have either been overseas and had a “simply wonderful time hahahahaha” or they’re about to go some place and have a “simply wonderful time haha etc”. As soon as the serious issues are discussed they all run for cover (including Mora with his heavy sighs) and express platitudes that mean bugger all. Occasionally someone calls their bluff (Brian Edwards comes to mind) and tells something like it really is. The collective drawing-in of horrified breath is almost audible. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion this country is now inhabited by a bunch of wankers and really… they deserve the government they’ve got.
@Anne – your desciption would apply to Kerre Woodham if Morrissey recorded her comments about the rioters right. She kept calling them toe-rags. What intelligent analysis.
To begin with, have you noticed that all of the guests spend the first 10 to 15 minutes telling everybody what exciting lives they lead
I certainly have noticed this. It’s deadly dull—in fact, it’s dead air. None of the guests have anything remotely interesting going on in their lives, and the regularity of the guests’ recycling and reappearing means it’s usually exactly the same ten minutes of trivia as the last time.
…Mora with his heavy sighs…
Ah, yes! The baffled sigh to indicate how perplexed yet deeply concerned he is. Unfortunately, it’s become ingrained into his on-air performance, and it’s as much a marker of Jim Mora as the affected, deliberate Oxbridge stammer is with Chris Laidlaw.
…and express platitudes that mean bugger all.
Actually, these seemingly mindless platitudes mean an awful lot. When someone like Barry Corbett or Islay McLeod or Neil Miller or (God save our mortal souls) Garth George says something bland and/or bordering on the moronic, it doesn’t mean “bugger all”, it means that the listeners are being treated with utter contempt.
Occasionally someone calls their bluff (Brian Edwards comes to mind)…
Brian Edwards is occasionally very good—he once humiliated his blithe and woolly-minded fellow-Panelist Deborah Hill Cone after she claimed that she knew all about “working-class people”, even though she didn’t believe they actually existed. However, he is usually teamed up with Michelle Boag, a neighbour of his on Waiheke Island, and so he is usually restrained to the point of being tamed. He seems to bend over backwards to find common ground with her, no matter how extreme her comments. Boag, on the other hand, never makes any concessions at all to him.
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion this country is now inhabited by a bunch of wankers and really… they deserve the government they’ve got.
Come on, Anne! Don’t be discouraged. You’ve written a perfectly lucid and forceful critique for the benefit of readers of this forum, so why don’t you send it off as an email to Jim Mora himself? Here’s that address again… afternoons@radionz.co.nz
Might do just that Morrissey. Sent off an email to Kathryn Ryan after last Monday’s political discussion with Hooton and Bradford. Hooton effectively accused Goff of lying about whether he had seen the SIS briefing papers etc. and Ryan let him get away with it. I supplied her with the Stuff link where Tucker admits he has no signed verification that Goff had seen any papers. No acknowledgement of course.
I think that often she doesn’t know enough. I heard her on this morning’s programme saying how she often takes home lots of reading to prepare for the next show, but there’s precious little evidence of that. She not only routinely lets a notorious liar like Hooton effectively say what he wants each week, she also never challenges her often unreliable and extremely partisan “foreign correspondents”—in particular, the ex-Conservative M.P. Matthew Parris and the ignorant but shameless “middle east correspondent” Irris Makler.
No acknowledgement of course.
You should write to her again and demand an answer. It’s probably just idleness on her part, rather than any desire to silence you.
Morrissey, the whole show is dead air, occasionally punctuated by grossly offensive reptilian grunts and squawks and the distant screams of children being tortured.
I’m extremely grateful for the transcripts of the greatest hits you post here so I don’t have to let the black gas fill my ears.
@ Morrissey – I think you are wrong to think that Jim Mora gives a fart about people criticising him. My take on him is that he is smug and self-satisfied and has a right wing bias. He can ask the questions that the left might ask but only to set up a straw man. He is apparently good natured with a jovial laugh but it sounds hollow.
When I heard Newman was coming on the show, I assumed it was to deliver an apology. But apparently it isn’t 3 decades of neo-liberal economics that has bought us the riots, its the welfare state. What a wally! And to think she used to be the brains of ACT.
Even in the intellectual wasteland that is the far right of New Zealand politics, Muriel Newman is not, and never has been, regarded as any kind of “brains”. The nadir of her obscure and shamefully inept parliamentary career came when she published an advice book for young people, which told (in excruciatingly exhaustive detail) how to boil a jug of water. When she was hauled on television (the Holmes show, actually) to explain why she had written this piece of idiocy instead of attending to her parliamentary duties (whatever parliamentary duties the “brains of ACT” does) she was blitheringly incoherent.
She did, however, provide Pam Corkery her one and only opportunity to do something worthwhile in an otherwise wasted three years: Corkery (in the TV studio with Newman) damned the book as a “joke”, a “waste of time” and “irredeemably condescending” before contemptuously throwing it down on the floor.
Muriel Newman has a doctorate, apparently—from where?
The origin of her doctorate seems to be a closely guarded secret. If the truth were known it’s probably something to do with ‘Business Studies’ from an obscure American university. She is a former employee of Michael Hill, and I understand he originally set her up for a political career in ACT.
math is a real PhD and something I’d normally associate with real intelligence.
True. However, that doesn’t mean that she brings any rigour or even seriousness to her political thinking.
Intelligent people can say some imbecilic things—Richard Dawkins made some foolish and ignorant comments about “the middle east” a while ago, which showed he is about as intelligent a source of commentary on politics as Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.
As a male there is something reassuring to know that being a RWNJ is not specifically a male trait……bloggers are welcome to reply with who they think is the worst RWNJ woman …I think that American baggage who did the consulting on welfare reform.
I think that American baggage who did the consulting on welfare reform.
Paula Rebstock? Yes, indeed!
And while I am here, listening to 3 News talking about the wonderfulness of Cameron, and the evil of the young criminals who pretend their rioting is about something else…
Off the top of my head add to that list Judith Collins – (thin lipped, arrogant pollie who would have been a hit in 1930/40s Germany.)
Christine Rankin(who came within a whisker of destroying the internationally renowned – and widely copied – welfare system set in place by the 1935-49 Labour Govt.)
Add to list Dame Margaret Bazley
and I have formed an immediate (irrational?) dislike of Kay Giles, new Oz Chief Executive of Christchurch Polytechnic – making a nice strong case for paying the teaching staff below inflation increases etc.
Colonial Viper – By the way did you see the links on Bored at 2.56pm. On the guy that carried brainwashing into commercial use, and is related to Freud. That family made waves.
Ah yes thanks…I watched about 3/4 of that. Scary, society changing stuff. We’re all sheeple to some extent, and those who swear they are not usually more than most.
The old PR guy, the relative of Freud, had obviously lived a wealthy and well connected life. But what was his legacy to the world as a frail old man reflecting on past glories, nothing but a harvest of bitter fruit with a taste undisguisable by any luxuries or excess.
Scoop has Selwyn Manning’s response regarding an OIA request about the SIS Israeli spy issue:
Dear Mr Manning
Official Information Act Request
1. Thank you for your letter dated 5 August 2011 (received 9 August 2011) requesting a copy of any legal advice received in relation to Official Information Act (OIA) requests for briefing papers relating to the Israeli earthquake investigation.
2. I am declining your request on the grounds that to do so is necessary to maintain legal professional privilege.
3. If you are unhappy with my response you have the right to seek a review by the Office of the Ombudsmen under section 28 of the OIA.
I love how senior public servants always thank-you so kindly for your correspondence – even when you’ve just told them what a bunch of @#$^$#@ they are.
Oh, and I’m not necessarily referring to the DoS, Warren Tucker – just senior Pub. Servants in general. 😯
Ah, as predicted, Patrick Gower bashing bennies and showing Key with his concerned face on…
Re sickness beneficiaries, Gower says “Beehive sources say many can work”… What Beehive sources would that be then? And how do they know?
German physicist Harald Haas talks about internet connectivity technology that would make it possible to send data through LED light bulbs instead of via radio waves.
“According to recent polls, Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers. They are 12 percentage points more likely to believe the stimulus package caused job losses, 17 points more likely to believe Muslims want to establish Sharia law in America, 30 points more likely to say that scientists dispute global warming, and 31 points more likely to doubt President Obama’s citizenship.
At the height of the healthcare debate, more than two-thirds of Fox News viewers were convinced Obamacare would lead to a “government takeover”, provide healthcare to illegal immigrants, pay for abortions and let the government decide when to pull the plug on grandma.
In fact, a study by the University of Maryland revealed that the ignorance of Fox viewers actually increases the longer they watch the network.”
Spot on, TVOR.
The Nat/ACT etc bloc has gone from 60% down to 55.5% and the Labour/Green etc bloc up to 44.5% from 40%. The same movement again in another two months and it’s level pegging. And Roy Morgan is the most reliable of the polls, as far as that goes.
I predict the first RM poll of November will show that confidence in the Government is down to a pathetic 110 or below (128 now). Quite a lot below if the All Blacks have lost.
After WW2, many leaders and progressive thinkers put their heads together and formulated a plan so that such devastation and atrocities involved in the holocaust would not occur again…
David Cameron is a disgrace and a national embarrassment. I thought that Tony Blair was the most disgusting and dishonest politician produced by Britain in a generation, but Cameron brings something else to the table—sheer, unflappable, incorrigible Public School complacency and dimness.
A lot of people think a dim politician is a good thing, and that relatively smart ones like Blair are more dangerous. Watching Cameron in full graceless flight makes you wonder, though. Maybe a dim politician—Cameron, McCain, Key, Stephen Harper—is just as troubling as a slippery, smart one.
More riot related stuff, but from an unusual source. Joey Barton is a professional footballer with, shall we say, issues. But remarkably sound on the riots and man a of impeccable musical taste as well.
Interdependence, liberal economists believe, furthers peace – a sort of economic mutual assured destruction. If China or the United States were to attack the other, the attacker would suffer grave consequences. But as the US economy deteriorates from the Lost Decade of the 2000s through the post-2008 meltdown into what is increasingly looking like Marx’s classic crisis of late-stage capitalism, internationalisation looks more like a suicide pact.
But you can’t have interdependence when global productivity far exceeds global needs – and there aren’t any resources left anyway.
classic crisis of late-stage capitalism, internationalisation looks more like a suicide pact.
This is what the Euro looks like now.
But you can’t have interdependence when global productivity far exceeds global needs – and there aren’t any resources left anyway.
But there is a bad kind of interdependence left. When no sovereign state is self sufficient any longer because it has transferred away its industries…and can now no longer afford to buy the goods and services it needs from the countries that it used to buy them from…and can’t make do itself.
That is why I do not think a society is sustainable with different sets of rules and structures for different peoples. It leads to a sense of frustration for those not so entitled and frustration leads to anger and then further trouble.
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
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New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
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Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
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Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
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For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
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This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
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Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
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I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
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With the US economy imploding some humour which is doing the rounds….
US RECESSION
The recession has hit everybody really hard…
My neighbor got a pre-declined credit card in the mail
CEO’s are now playing miniature golf.
Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen.
I saw a Mormon with only one wife.
If the bank returns your check marked “Insufficient Funds,” you call
them and ask if they meant you or them.
McDonald’s is selling the 1/4 ouncer.
Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America.
Parents in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children’s
names.
My cousin had an exorcism but couldn’t afford to pay for it, and they
re-possessed her!
A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico.
A picture is now only worth 200 words.
When Bill and Hillary travel together, they now have to share a room.
The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is now managed by Somali pirates.
Are electorates past their use by date? MSM can’t be bothered with most of them. Many MPs just use them to get publicity for party votes. Is it really time to ditch the electorates?
Elecorate MP’s redundant, party lists rule?
Or is it media and punditry convenience? A lot of people still complain that list MPs don’t have a proper mandate and see the party list as a major weakness of MMP.
Hi Pete. Got any links for me yet or has it all gone down the memory hole again?
No, it’s gone into the “why the hell bother” basket.
Do
What happened there? I meant to say
Don’t you mean the “I don’t have the links” basket?
You’ll know all about that one. Have you backed up your accusations? Like CT, Beehive? Try setting an example and newer posters here might follow it. How often does felix substantiate his insinuations? Being “honest” doesn’t seem to be the done thing here, stalking is.
Do you have anything to say about the topic I raised? I think that’s a significant democratic issue. Or are you just trolling again?
Oh dear, I’m not sure you realise what you just admitted to.
If my standards are so woeful then why are you using them as the benchmark for your own behaviour?
Surely you’re better that that, Pete.
I think that’s a significant democratic issue
I was not going to comment on your proposal because it was really, really silly. You seem to be suggesting we only have list MPs. Also I know all of the Auckland Labour electorate MPs quite well and what you say is a reality free insult to them. They all work their electorates really hard. And there are List MPs who work hard at electorate issues.
Your comment was such a reality free one I was going to ignore it.
But it looks like you are trying to avoid responding to Felix’s request for the links. Where are they Pete Squirrel?
You seem to be ignoring what I actually said and have jumped to incorrect conclusions, again. If you had any clue about what I prefer of electorates you wouldn’t have jumped straight into troll mode.
See what Bryce Edwards says on it:
http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2011/08/fake-electorate-candidates.html
Slow down Pete, let’s clear up the discussion already underway before you started this new one. Links, please.
<i>You seem to be ignoring what I actually said and have jumped to incorrect conclusions, again.</i>
I was actually having trouble understanding what you said. I avoided your link because I did not want to reward link whoring.
You previously said:
<i>Are electorates past their use by date? MSM can’t be bothered with most of them. Many MPs just use them to get publicity for party votes. Is it really time to ditch the electorates?</i>
I took offence at this because you are not acknowledging that many electorate MPs work damn hard. Your comment obviously shows you have not the faintest idea what they do.
You then jumped into agressive mode to avoid Felix’s request for promised links. Why don’t you provide the links to Felix?
Politically, in parliament, electorate MPs don’t really offer much. Conscience votes, when an MP should theoretically reflect their constituency, aren’t that common.
But MPs in electorates are a go-to point for anyone who is being screwed around by The System. This is a vital role that needs to be filled. Electorate MPs are the best way to do it.
If you’re upset with the party list letting people into parliament through a backdoor, and some electorate MPs slacking off and not doing as much as they should, the solution isn’t to get rid of electorate MPs.
One thing that could work is a suggestion I’ve made a few times here: make any incumbent MP who holds an electorate seat ineligible for placement on the party list. This would ensure that those MPs fully represent their electorate, because if they don’t, they’re gone. It would allow the public to vote bad MPs out of parliament, and really give some different weight and dynamics to electorate seats and the party list, rather than the peculiar ‘two shades of grey’ system we have now.
Interesting Idea Lanthanide. Personally I’d just extend it to any candidate that gets in the top 3 still has a chance to come in on the list. Afterall a close second or even a close third in a tight race, would still be a candidate a lot of people support, so perhaps deserves to be considered.
Or make it a percentage thing, any candidate that gets over 23% perhaps of the vote is still eligible to be on the party list. Then if there’s a 25, 23.9, 23.8, 23.7, 2.4 scenario, the fourth candidate which is only a fraction off the elected candidate still gets a chance.
Or perhaps some other formula, like just getting more than 5% of the vote?
Otherwise this would be the end of the green party as we know it and several others!
Oh yeah and what would happen to a party that has received say 10% of the overall party votes but has no eligible members due to missing out on these rules??
An interesting idea tho! Just needs a bit of fine tuning imo. Your current format is pretty much just FPP.
Perhaps… Make it that the MMP list order is determined by the ranking of %age votes that the candidates get! That would make sense imo!
Well, because if you were honest you’d back up what you say.
How are you going to win votes if your word can’t be counted on from one day to the next?
You know it’s a funny thing Pete.
Usually when you run away from a discussion you say you can’t be expected to keep up with all the threads you start. And fair enough I suppose, you do start a lot of them.
But in this instance no-one’s expecting you to keep up. You’ve been gone for a few days so I’ve waited patiently for your return so you can pick up where you left off.
Yet still you take no responsibility for what you wrote previously, saying you “can’t be bothered” with it.
Is there any situation in which a person can expect you to stand by what you say, Pete? Your words don’t evaporate when you close the browser, you know.
I’m not “running away”. I choose not to be continually stalked by trolls and then blamed for the blog being cluttered up with petty and precious off-topic attacks.
No, you start conversations and then pretend they never happened when you want to start a new one.
Links please.
He is Gosman mk2
Gosman usually has a point to make, even if it appears to be from another universe.
Pete usually doesn’t say anything, just waffles on. A lot of the time I honestly can’t follow what he’s talking about, so don’t usually reply to him.
PG it was the same under FPP it was worse half the members of parliament slept or were drunk while in the debating chamber. Did bugger all for their constituents usually fobbed them off .Now with mmp we have a choice off several MPs so it keeps them on their toes.Its very hard to cover up scandals nowadays with the many different parties around all chasing the voter.
Riots in England, stock exchanges are crashing throughout the world and France and Germany are now in trouble. In the US the political system is clearly not fit for purpose.
And in New Zealand Adidas has cancelled its black is beautiful party.
Its PR have realized that they cannot spin the charging of something costing ten bucks to manufacture with an exorbitant $220 charge for locals.
The end of the world is nigh …
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?_r=1&hp
Nice summary MS….its going down, the slippery slide continues as the deck chairs are re arranged on the Titanic.
Actually the more I think of it Bored the more I think that the events are linked. Adidas has effectively commandeered our community intellectual property (the All Blacks) and made them into a money maker for their share holders. They then go to the third world and use slave labour to manufacture jerseys with significance for locals for $10 or so, import them, and then set this astronomically high price. We are paying for what was communally owned culture.
They then use the profits to fund the elite (All Blacks themselves), and the rest goes to their shareholders.
And we are bombarded with images of their products and told that we have to buy. And for ordinary people particularly unemployed young this has become impossible.
So they suddenly realise they cannot afford them and the cultural behavioral norms get shattered and then it all breaks down. I am not surprised that the looters have been going for TVs and branded clothing.
We need to seriously change things and get our heads around this.
Yeah, I find it amusing how people pigeon hole events and claim that they are unrelated. Unintended consequences abound. Everything is linked….you then get twerps saying riots are unrelated to poverty, and the poverty is unrelated to the top echelon having all the cash….the denial is immense. Creaming the top off of the elites ill gotten cash are their symbiotic parasites, the Denial Industry (spindoctors, MSM, and most importantly “Brand” marketers). And we “buy” it…….
And we “buy” it…….
Yes, they keep buying, and buying, and buying. Label clothes. Label food. Label entertainment. And giving adidas more publicity is buying into it all.
We can choose to ignore Brand” marketers if we want to. I never buy sports clothing, I’m not going to pay a huge premium and be an ongoing “free” advertising billboard. It seems nuts, but there’s a lot of people that freely spend money, to be used by the brands twice.
Indeed it is possible to avoid falling into the consumerism ‘trap’, if you are intelligent and mindful enough about your own behaviour. Unfortunately, advertisers make good use of what is known about human psychology to circumvent rational thinking when it comes to this kind of thing. Unsurprisingly, the result is that many people are convinced that they ‘need’ to have all these things. I am very hesistant to put all the blame on the individuals themselves. Instead, I see it as a societal problem – why do we allow large scale psychological manipulation in this way?
The trouble with our system is that it will fall apart if we do not work harder and harder to buy more and more shiny things that have fancy brandy things on them.
While engaged in this merry go round we have to consume more and more of our earth’s resources. And we have to jetson some humans on the way.
Of course anyone suggesting that this cannot continue are branded as being crazy.
@wtl I bet marketers know more about Pete G’s thinking than he knows himself. Perfect manipulable material to sell some product that is aimed at his category on the values chart. And we all have a place there too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ8ZvYNlxiM
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html
Bernays started this whole nonsense….he is as culpable as any of the great criminal politicos of the last century in establishing this “consumer” pacification of the population.
I looked up google looking for something that would show the sort of tool that marketers use for dividing society into types so they can be influenced in their thinking to buy or accept something. Pages 16 and 17 are interesting – one has a chart and one refers to Brit politics in 2005 and I think is a case study.
Your type
My 3.31 pm comment is useless. I was trying to correct it but the blog won’t let you if there is less than a minute left. So forget it. I havn’t been able to make the point I wanted to.
It is NOT possible to resist this all pervasive marketing psychological manipulation 100%. A jingle plays in the background and you instantly recognise McDonalds or Coke or whatever.
To pretend – like most people do – that you are smarter/better/more resistant/more independent than most is part of the illusion.
IE “I would never fall for something like that”, etc. Every damn fool thinks that, to the very last one.
People don’t try and escape from prison if they think that they are free.
a lot of people made noise about this very threat to the nature of a supporter’s allegiance when Adidas signed on. Some might remember for the 100 year celebrations there was a large banner image where Adidas appropriated the entire history of the All Blacks in one foul swoop. A brilliant arrogant and soul less piece of marketing that showed exactly what Adidas had in mind.
an agreement with Adidas was foretold when the game went professional anyway. their longstanding relationship with the IRB would have had it all tied up years before the ink was signed at the NZRU.. it never has been the same gane since, some good rugger but it’s all so $$$$ focused
( I have spent fifteen minutes trying to source an image of it but i guess that as it was a limited edition print they have locked it down pretty tight. )
@ms The $10 is for the making of the tops/jackets. I thought I heard that Adidas has taken NZ off some internet trading list presumably to stop people using the free market to get better prices than those being charged by a monopoly jackup.
But I thought all corporates loved the free market, unhindered globalised trade? 🙄
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5425894/Te-Papa-manager-avoids-assault-conviction
Just another example of the inequalities in our justice system which seek to protect the privledged…
Unfortunately Gareth after spending several days at Manukau District Court last month observing various cases I don’t think this one demonstrates inequalities within the legal system but rather the complete lack of justice that exists within it.
I hope that that staff and supporters of Te Papa make it clear to its management how inappropriate it is to have this person representing it overseas in any sort of official capacity.
As in people that have admitted assualt/domestic abuse are often discharged without conviction? Or they are convicted but given minor sentences?
sorry Gareth, missed your post somehow when i also posted that below.
Nice to see our P.M. getting involved in the All Black -Adidas jersey debate.
As Barak Obama said to Donald Trump…”That’s the kind of decision that would keep me awake all night.”
have to love the British PM
standing up tall
talking of how ‘actions have consequences’
and ‘people think their rights outweigh their responsibilties’
when will those same words be directed towards the bankers, hedge fund managers, and every other thief that swagger through our streets, secure in the knowledge their riots not only go unpunished, they are usually rewarded with looser laws and easier access to more booty
Seamus Milne pulls the discussion together on the London riots quite well here.
I don’t always go along with his analyses but he’s hit a number of nails on the head this time.
especially this one
‘There is now a danger that rioting might feed into ethnic conflict.
it has already begun with three deaths last night that have suspcicons of racial undertones that supercede the riot activity. In England racial reactionaries will not be a pretty sight if it develops any more intensity.
There are many racial divides in England although much of the day to day seperatist activity is purely on cultural lines. The hard-nosed rascists in England are predominately of anglosaxon heritage and on the whole, have a level of thuggery that is beyond anyone’s ability to communicate with.
We have an opportunity here, Society is showing its best and its worst and we should all pay attention.
This is not the response to an act of terrorism, a war or a natural disaster. This is the result of complacency and double standards.
On a positive note, for every kid that has smashed a window there seems to be a dozen ready to clean it up. That at least is some consolation that our future still has a chance.
@freedom 9.46am – Just what I was thinking.
Freedom 9.46 Good comment, but it was well said in his best empathetic Etonian accent.
so then what about a massive depopulation in 2017?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5425657/Te-Papa-manager-avoids-assault-conviction
plead guilty, claim priviledge, get off
‘affect his mana’? what about the mana of our National Museum which is now dragged into the
quagmire of association with this act. A man with a serious job and according to the report, an arguably even more serious problem, gets released without conviction. The surface of this event is saturated by that blinding glare from the idol we dare not damage, alcohol.
Many readers would know elders of local Iwi who have fallen foul of alcohol and committed similar acts yet i do not recall seeing their mana used as a reason to discharge without conviction. There is a disturbing undercurrent in our justice system that is eroding the riverbed and the change in course this is presenting seems to be cutting through the fair fields and destroying the pathways of impartial judgement.
Booze is the single biggest factor when domestic pressure becomes domestic violence
There are not many options but perhaps we could start with prosecuting the guilty.
Too right, we pay taxes to pay this guys slalry, plus keep the Courts running…..it pisses me off.
Nepotism alive in well in NZ, Jokey Hen appoints another incompetent to a big bucks position….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/5427907/Prendergast-to-head-tourism-board
I was unaware Kerry Prendergast was related to the PM.
And some more absolute bollocks from the Courts….read this for PC crap and absolute disdain for the victim.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/5425657/Te-Papa-manager-avoids-assault-conviction
Osborne’s lawyer, Chris Pointer, said a conviction for domestic assault could prevent his client from entering some countries as part of his museum work. “This will have a … severe effect on Mr Osborne’s ability to do his job.”
A conviction would also “severely impact on his mana”.
Bollocks, if he were a Honky like me…….
The search function appears to be disabled – nothing is showing in results since 31 July. Does Lyn or anyone know about that?
[lprent: Damn. I do now. Means that the cron job on the new server isn’t running. I will fix tonight. Thanks. ]
Imagine for a minute…
You have $100 to invest. Your bank says: if you invest with us, we will give you 9% interest at the end of the year. Great, you say, I’m in.
11 Months down the track the bank comes back to you and says, sorry, been a bit of a fuck-up. We can only give you 9% on $70 but you will have to wait another couple of years for it, and one day in the future we may be able to give you back your other $30.
How impressed would you be?
Do things like this actually happen?
Weeeeeell, yes they do!
Another group of suckers (investors) take a bath
The poor bastards who bought bonds in Bluestar Group (Printing – Trans-Tasman) effectively kissed goodbye to their collective $140 Million yesterday by agreeing to a bank demand for restructure which sees overdue interest payments on $67 Million of the investment pushed out til 2013 and the remainder converted to a fancy-sounding ‘Participating Bond’ which accrue no interest and do not even have a confirmed (if any) pay back date.
Is it really about the money?
No.
Why? Because the poor old BNZ is third in line to recoup their $195 Million investment in Bluestar. Champ PE ($175 Million) were second, and who were first? You guessed it, the BOND HOLDERS. So in order to screw these suckers over and get themselves to the top of the queue the good ‘ol BNZ threatened receivership on Bluestar bond holders unless they voted themselves into third place, BNZ into first, Champ into second, and agreed to the financial rape of their investment.
For once, the ordinary investor had the opportunity to tell a bank to just fuck right off and they blew it. There is no way the BNZ would have placed Bluestar into receivership to be third in line for any payout (independent analysis put Bluestars worth at $4 Million – assets less liabilities).
Once again greed wins. These suckers deserve to lose every cent.
the tories dont even know what makes something politically correct. they dont know logic. it is what ever they say it is. and the red queens off her heard, go ask alice what the doormouse said.
Just need to pick up on a pet rankling rant here. The Christchurch City Council new draft plan is out and the foreword is attended to by the Council’s Bob Parker, which is entirely appropriate, and by Ecan, which is also appropriate. But it also attended to by Ngai Tahu, as if that organisation is somehow an equivalent governing body, which it is not. It is a body determined by privilege of birth and race and precludes the vast vast majority of Chch residents. It is not right. Ngai Tahu has a place for sure, but not here. Or many other places it gets placed. Sheesh, I know I always rant about this subject, but I need to because it is fundamentally wrong.
And please do not attach all sorts of assumptions to this – Ngai Tahu are fantastic and are a huge ‘asset’ to the city and its environs. And they will go from strength to strength and I wish them well.
It is just this type of placement of them within the city when it is founded on something so many NZers sought to escape from when immigrating here. They sought to escape because it breaches some fundamental facets of human nature – privilege of birth and race.
@vto – “It is a body determined by privilege of birth and race and precludes the vast vast majority of Chch residents. It is not right. Ngai Tahu has a place for sure, but not here. Or many other places it gets placed. Sheesh, I know I always rant about this subject, but I need to because it is fundamentally wrong.”
No you are fundamentally wrong vto. Ngai Tahu were at Otautahi (Christchurch) before you were and deserve to be present and heard when planning the new landscape.
prism, I fundamentally and very strongly disagree with that approach of “first in first served” for many reasons. But no time today to cover that large and intense issue in detail, sorry.
Though your statement that they “deserve to be present and heard when planning the new landscape” I don’t disagree with. It is the nature and scale of that “presence” to which I was referring.
edit: being a pedant, but how would you know whether they were here before me?
It’s not first in first served – the Treaty was signed between the crown and rangatira vto – equal participants – notwithstanding the lies and disinformation, omissions, cheating and evasions told to rangatira of course. I think most of us want to along and having tangata whenua there, is appropriate, indeed necessary – that is what looking forward is all about.
Yes I realise that mr marty and that is all fine and as it was done (the treaty etc). But you well know my opinion on it, which is, briefly, that it may well have been appropriate back then but the treaty is well past its use-by date. It does not take into account the world as it is today and for that reason alone it is fundamentally flawed and needs re-writing. It is no good holding onto contracts which can be frustrated or fail to take into account all parameters, especially in a political nation type setting. Doing so only leads to failure and frustration by sectors of society having less of a stake in society than others. (And this stakeless nature of some of London’s sectors is imo one of the main things which led to the riots)
Look, in saying that, I do not consider that everything should be thrown out and just forget the lot. I think it should be re-written – and a re-writing does not mean either of the parties has to miss out. Things just need changing.
And with regards to Chch and their input I think I said at the beginning and further on that they do have a place, an important place. I do not want them not to be there, they have one of the best and largest contributions to make in the region. Bring them on.
My point was that their placement alongside the Council and Ecan as if they are on some kind of similar governance footing is not right, based as it is on privilege of birth and race. That is all (even though a good argument can be made for such placement based on the out-of-date treaty).
But thanks for keeping me on my toes ..
Just got to add one more bit here. My response “first in first served” above was in response to prism’s point which stated that the reason Ngai Tahu should be there was because they were here first. Prism had no mention of the Treaty.
“Look, in saying that, I do not consider that everything should be thrown out and just forget the lot. I think it should be re-written – and a re-writing does not mean either of the parties has to miss out. Things just need changing.”
The Treaty is definately the Treaty – that’s why I advocate constitutional change (not the illusory one going on now) where Māori partnership and self determination can be entrenched. That is the road to equality. That is the way to ensure all parties are treated fairly with honour.
mr marty, if you’re around … ” that’s why I advocate constitutional change (not the illusory one going on now) where Māori partnership and self determination can be entrenched. That is the road to equality. That is the way to ensure all parties are treated fairly with honour.”
Self-determination for who? Just one group of people in NZ? That is no road to equality. That is a road to different structures for different people – which is inequality, according to the dictionary definition.
There is no harm in treating people fairly with honour, under the treaty, just as long as it is recognised that such treatment is under the treaty and the treaty, as you say, is the treaty, with its severe and unrealistic (in today’s world) expectations.
Do you seriously advocate that a form of self-determination, which is separatism, is sustainable and workable? What do all the other groups in NZ do about their own self-determination? Perhaps muslims would like a bit of self-determination too – under your idea, do they get to have that too? Or is it only for maori, because they are the only ones in the treaty so simply tough titty for the muslims – they just have to suck it up? Because that attitude is completely unsustainable. Feel free to explain in detail because I think your idea is way out of whack with reality.
It is sad that you don’t believe that people have the right to self determination – it isn’t seperatism as I have pointed out previously to you. Why are you so scared of empowering basic human rights – is it because of what you think you will lose. This “oh what about the muslims” leads me to wonder about you. Why can’t you argue your point honestly. Are muslims the indigenous people of this land? nah – didn’t think so. Got another group to analyse? push them up, it won’t take long. And that is the nub of the issue right there vto. Māori are not just another minority group shat on by the system, Māori are tangata whenua and for that and that reason alone Māori should have the opportunity to be true partners to the Crown, as agreed to in the Treaty, and add a unique voice to the solutions we need. That is not looking backwards, it is looking forward. It is not handout or grievance mode it is honestly dealing with the facts. The sooner you can just get over the fact that Māori are not going anywhere and that they are the partners with the Crown, the sooner we can all get on and build a country and society to be proud of.
marty mars, I am just going to ignore the assumptions you made about my beliefs, because you do indeed go right to the heart of issue, as I had asked in my previous post…
” Are muslims the indigenous people of this land? nah – didn’t think so. Got another group to analyse? push them up, it won’t take long. And that is the nub of the issue right there vto. Māori are not just another minority group shat on by the system, Māori are tangata whenua and for that and that reason alone Māori should have the opportunity to be true partners to the Crown,”
So you DO in fact believe that because Maori were here first they have a greater position within NZ. This is what prism said right at the start that I railed against. The attitude of “first in first served” is a poorly one which serves nobody in any setting, be it the dinner table each night, the weekly drop of money into the joint account, the allocation of resources like water under the RMA, and the status of immigrants to a new land. First in first served is a weak and selfish attitude and approach. Not to say it has no bearing on matters, but those matters are limited, especially as time passes.
You and I completely disagree right here at this junction. And it is a fundamental foundation stone from which you step off. It is a bad stone marty mars.
This applies no matter the race or place on earth.
As to the treaty, I have already outlined my view that it is a badly structured document. Ffs, the two versions don’t even say the same thing for a start!
But sure you can hang your hat on the crown entering into a poorly constructed contract. You can force them to follow through on their promises, even though those promises don’t always make good sense. It is worth being aware however that in legislation and in common law many many types of contract can be struck out for a whole bunch of reasons – like the contract makes no sense, mistakes were made in entering into them, or they are simply inequitable. For example, is there not a bill currently passing through Parliament deeming certain financial contracts illegal? Have you read the Contractual Mistakes Act?
While these acts and law deal with the daily machinations of life, they are based on centuries old wide and high principles of fairness and justice which are necessary to foster a good society. These principle apply equally to all aspects of life, including the relationship between different peoples.
You, marty, put the treaty above those principle of fairness and justice. That is clear from you last post. I say the treaty should be subject to those wider and highers principles of fairness and justice. My opinion is that the treaty needs re-writing for this and other reasons previously stated.
So there we have it. Good swap of ideas, but you and I strongly disagree on these two base foundation stones.
…. so what do we do next? …
see when you say, “and the status of immigrants to a new land” I shake my head – it is not about first in first served – I say again – Māori are the indigenous people of this land – you can argue against that as you have but stop twisting what I am saying.
You are clear that you think Māori are just the first immigrant group and that is no reason for any ‘special’ consideration of them, their culture or beliefs. Have I got that right? If so – why? Why do you think this – that is what I’m after vto – I believe I understand what you think – why do you think it? You have said you have Māori blood – how do you work through that and your position? Of course they are personal questions that you don’t have to answer but I am sincerely interested because we are all in this waka together and we have to work through these issues to get our society sorted.
Well this is a problem. You haven’t explained why you think that because Maori are the indigenous people, the tangata whenua, the first people here, however you want to describe it, that that entitles them to a greater position in society. Why does their indigenous nature so entitle them? You have stated the position but provided no reason for it.
The reasons for me claiming that such first arrival or indigenous nature should have a far lesser status has been explained by me. By way of comparison to the “first in first served” approach. By reason that such privilege of birth and race leads to unfairness and trouble in society. That is why I do not think a society is sustainable with different sets of rules and structures for different peoples. It leads to a sense of frustration for those not so entitled and frustration leads to anger and then further trouble. That is why I do not want such an approach. It is based on birth and race. It is simply unfair. It leads to division. It leads to trouble – that is the reason. It is what many immigrants here escaped from.
And yes, all in NZ arrived as immigrants. Describing Maori as indigenous or something else does not subtract from their immigrant beginnings. As with all other immigrants. How are they not immigrants? Such ideas are not mutually exclusive.
As for my personal ancestry, that is minor but real. It was revealed only later in life, stemming from a time when such was kept hidden generations ago. Anyway, it makes no difference to my arguments in this thread. I am trying to make these arguments from an objective position. Subjective matters can arise once the broader settings are in place.
“You haven’t explained why you think that because Maori are the indigenous people, the tangata whenua, the first people here, however you want to describe it, that that entitles them to a greater position in society. Why does their indigenous nature so entitle them? You have stated the position but provided no reason for it.”
because they fit the description of indigenous people
“Indigenous peoples, or Natives, are ethnic groups who are native to a land or region, especially before the arrival and intrusion of a foreign and possibly dominating culture. They are a group of people whose members share a cultural identity that has been shaped by their geographical region. A variety of names are used in various countries to identify such groups of people, but they generally are regarded as the “original inhabitants” of a territory or region. Their right to self-determination may be materially affected by the later-arriving ethnic groups.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples
That is the simplist search i could do but there are many articles and sources about the nature of indigenous peoples and why they are special and important.
“By reason that such privilege of birth and race leads to unfairness and trouble in society. That is why I do not think a society is sustainable with different sets of rules and structures for different peoples. It leads to a sense of frustration for those not so entitled and frustration leads to anger and then further trouble.”
snap! that’s what is here already and that is why we need to make improvements. You keep playing the ‘not fair’ card – not fair for everyone, not fair for muslims, not fair for me but you are blind to the fact that it is not fair for Māori now.
I don’t think that wikipedia definition states a reason for their special status, it just describes what an indigenous people’s features are, which I don’t dispute. What I dispute is the nature and scale of the special nature. And how it relates to other people living in that same place. Your placement of that special nature differs quite considerably from mine. I guess that is as far as we can get at the moment.
As for things being unfair for Maori now, I am not blind to that and have never suggested otherwise. I don’t disagree and that is why I have suggested in previous posts that Maori should be assisted in righting this situation, but that it should be temporary, and that once that is achieved matters should be righted back to a balanced equality. And that ties in with my view on their special position – their indigenous nature does give them a special position, to protect them perhaps, to assist with the change imposed by worldwide demographic changes, etc, but again it must be temporary. Such a special position has limits and those limits decrease with the passage of time.
As I said, we disagree on the nature and scale of that special position. I have given my reasons and you have given me yours. We just have to disagree I think.
There are a couple of things which you haven’t answered s I recall … The issue of the treaty as a useful document given its hastily scratched together nature resulting in different versions, and its lack of ability to deal with a changing world, etc. The issue of how having different rules and settings for different people in one place leads to civil trouble, and how to deal with that. The issue of how you deal with other people also wanting their own self-determination. The correctness or otherwise of people having a place in society due to privilege, or not, of birth and race.
Don’t know if I will be back here for a while but will check in and see when I can. Good talks. Out for now.
I don’t get you vto – you have the so called privilege of birth and race don’t you?
Why does this get up your nose so much – I hear your ‘we are all one’ line but I cannot reconcile it with my concept of equality. Assimilation is not going to happen – unique valuable cultures will continue and grow because they are important – to the members and all our society. Many indigenous peoples just don’t believe the bullshit anymore – that they are lessor, inferior, lucky. The improvements for indigenous peoples will just keep on coming as momentum builds and it is a good thing because there are many many other ways of looking at the world than the dominant, bland, ‘culture’ most people live within.
I say the more that tangata whenua can be involved in all aspects of the rebuild, the better. And the more visible signs of that the even better too.
“I don’t get you vto – you have the so called privilege of birth and race don’t you?
Why does this get up your nose so much – I hear your ‘we are all one’ line but I cannot reconcile it with my concept of equality. Assimilation is not going to happen – unique valuable cultures will continue and grow because they are important – to the members and all our society. Many indigenous peoples just don’t believe the bullshit anymore – that they are lessor, inferior, lucky. The improvements for indigenous peoples will just keep on coming as momentum builds and it is a good thing because there are many many other ways of looking at the world than the dominant, bland, ‘culture’ most people live within.
I say the more that tangata whenua can be involved in all aspects of the rebuild, the better. And the more visible signs of that the even better too.”
You know, I agree with everything you say there. But what you miss is the fact that one of those cultures is lifted on a pedestal above all other cultures, by law in many many instances, by treaty. It is this that is wrong and which leads to trouble. I don’t think I can say it any simpler than that. It leads to trouble in any society in the world and there are many examples of varying degrees. We are all different, and as the French say vive la differenc, but we are also all equal. Otherwise fail.
It is a particular point only that I make but imo it is big.
Just going to add a prediction … what I suggest above (re-write the Treaty) that should happen, will happen. And it will be led by both Treaty partners, but more by Maori. Not the current generation involved in righting things and aligning things under the Treaty. Not the current young generation growing up into this new strong world for Maori. But perhaps the following generation – a leader with the wisdom of Solomon, or Ghandi, or Nelson Mandela, who will stand up, recognise the imbalance, recognise that the Treaty is no longer appropriate or needed, and suggest a rebalancing.
Betcha.
I can’t and won’t speak for marty, but for me, as Pākehā, I can’t just ignore the treaty.
I get what you are saying, and can see how it just describes a just society, but can’t see how we can get there from here in a just fashion.
The treaty is real. It exists. Wishing it away is pointless, and taking it away would be grave crime no matter what we were trying to do.
The reality is that as Pākehā my only claim to be of this land is via the treaty. The treaty is the thing I can point to and say this is why I have a right to be here. I can’t do that if the treaty is not honoured though.
The fact that it hasn’t been honoured affects my claim to be of here, rather than just living here.
For me to say to Māori that “well nah actually. Screw the treaty, I’m here by virtue of the fact I was born here same as you” I’m claiming what? That the past didn’t happen? That my families history isn’t real?
We can only draw a new picture with the consent of our partners. We haven’t honoured the treaty, they have. We have a hell of a lot of good will to make up and some huge debts of gratitude to pay before we can expect to be able to even start to converse about putting the treaty based relationship aside and forging a new one.
My pre-NZ heritage is celtic. Mostly Irish Catholic and a smattering of Scot. I’m not going to say that this gives me any understanding of Māori experience of colonisation, because it just fucking doesn’t. But I know from my own history that my mob weren’t anything like as forgiving as Māori have been.
And that humbles me greatly. I want to make this shit work.
Well there a few things in there. Firstly, I dont think I said it should be wished away or taken away. Not at all. I guess it could be described as recognising that there was an agreement about how two (see, two. one of the fundamental flaws that does not recognise the future, for a start) peoples could put in place a structure for living together in one place. That is fine. But it is that very structure that is now no longer appropriate because the world is vastly more complicated with more peoples, laws and rights, mobility, cultures, mixed up races (as we are all nealry). In fact, that is exactly it – the Treaty’s structure allowed no room for manouvre (I always spell that wrongue) as the world changed around it. This is a failing of the documenting and structuring put in place in that short and highly volatile moment in these hard lands back in 1840-odd. In that environment it is hardly surprising that they did not get a world class document drawn up, which took into account all the necessary bits such as change.
I don’t agree about your claim to be of here solely because of the treaty. Being born into a place and having ones families ashes thrown to the soils – at least for a generation or three – is enough (to put it crudely and briefly). In fact, Maori have a simialr idea as I recall. Keeping the fires burning it is called I think. Similar to many many cultures. Burying ones dead in a location, in most all human history, provides a link to a place too.
And re the last part and comparing your own ancestors acts and concluding they are lesser – I will just leave that for another day. I don’t think it is true and don’t want to get into an argument about who was the nastiest. Have you read some early accounts of Maori-Pakeha relations? They were as heinous and as heart-lifting as any anywhere.
Yes it will. Such is inevitable and cannot be stopped. Trying to prevent it, which is what you’re doing, is trying to stop the necessary change that will bring us together as one people. Will this mean that some cultural aspects will die out? Of course it does. Others, hopefully better, will emerge to replace them.
Trying to prevent that change will also bring about civil war. This too is inevitable unless the necessary changes are allowed to occur.
sorry but your borg logic is flawed – humans value difference and uniqueness. There is no assimilation utopia that I can see.
“Trying to prevent change will bring about a civil war.” Really? Change is inevitable alright but not towards your vision.
Only within very very narrow boundaries. In olden tribal days or in very conservative hierarchical societies it was barely tolerated.
Today we pretend to value difference and uniqueness. But in reality you don’t have to start acting and thinking too differently and uniquely to start losing friends.
And only a bit more than that, they will probably either lock you up or sedate you (or both).
This discussion is really important and I’m constantly challenged by it, especially since I have 2 grandchildren born a few months apart. One is blond, blue-eyed and is so fair his skin is almost transluscent. He doesn’t know it, but he has Maori ancestry. His cousin, although being brought up in a Pakeha family is clearly Maori – cannot be mistaken for any other ethnicity – and is in close contact with her Maori family. Both, of course, are beautiful, funny and smart, and seeing them together is an absolute delight.
What are their ‘rights’, their likely futures? Will the both get the same advantages, or will one be left behind? Does one deserve more, given the potential for discrimination in jobs, housing etc? Can one not be Maori because it has never been claimed? Or will we have a mixed-race utopia by the time they grow up?
I don’t have any sense of how the treaty, privilege and protection will play out for them, but the more discussions like this, the better IMO.
I’ve got a nephew like that. His brother is obviously of Maori descent but he’s pure albino.
No, it’s not my logic that is flawed but yours.
No, they don’t.
It’s not my vision – merely what will happen. You can not have two cultures next to each other without the people within them learning from each other especially when they happen to be in the same geographical area. Unless you want to go to an apartheid system of course which, really, is what you actually seem to be proposing.
When you try to put one of those groups above the other then there will be strife.
Whoa, the new draft City Plan for Christchurch looks superb. They have been working hard clearly, and it seems comprehensive, well though out and workable.
Exciting times down here over next decade that be for sure.
Well done to the people at the Council.
There going to be some central city property owners losing out big time methinks, as building heights are squashed from generally between 40m and 80m (12 to 25 stories) down to 4-5 to 7 stories. Big squashing of heights.
Yeah I was very impressed by most of it.
While the Christchurch opportunity is unique, what got me thinking was was the wider applicability and apparent value for money offered by some of the better ideas.
Community gardens – $300,000. Wifi $350,000. Covered outdoor markets for local produce and small business $2.2 million. Proper cycle lane network $22 million. Even the light rail system @ $410 million sounds achievable in the medium term.
Then I visit my hometown of Dunedin and I have to look at that ridiculous $198.3 million stadium and reflect on what might have been.
Dunedin screwed itself with that unimaginative monstrosity. I know people all around the South Island laughing at those guys, reading the news of ongoing budget shortfalls and saying “who can possibly act surprised”.
Jim Mora has Muriel Newman on his show this afternoon. She finds that our welfare problems
arise from not having fathers in the home as role models, that everyone should take any job they are offered because ‘once you have your foot on the ladder’ you rise up don’t you!
That woman is such a preachy bitch talking twaddle. She and those like her just repeat comfortable slogans that have been accepted by their set who hold themselves rigidly away from attempts at understanding those who haven’t advanced themselves as they have to comfort and status. Many women have made it good by marrying the right wealthy or high-status professional person but diss others as if they have been high achievers themselves. There is no-one so ignorant as the person who has made up their mind on an emotional basis and from self-satisfaction..
I switched that woman off who was saying the UK riots were caused by too much welfare… a welfare system creating a sense of entitlement, getting consumer goods on welfare … and then all the stupid stuff about absent fathers.
I switched that woman off who was saying the UK riots were caused by too much welfare…
Don’t switch her off, Vicky—do something about it! You should e-mail Jim Mora and tell him how concerned you are that he (or more likely his producer) has chosen someone as vacuous and ill-informed as Muriel Newman to comment on anything, leave alone such a serious topic.
I and several others have protested about Mora’s respectful and deferential treatment of the bloodthirsty S.S. fanatic Garth McVicar and his ghastly henchman Stephen Franks, both of whom should be persona non grata. The more criticism he gets from more decent people, the more likely Mora will be to listen.
Just switching off someone like Muriel Newman is not enough. You have to bring concerted pressure on those who are lazy enough or stupid enough to interview her.
That e-mail address is…
afternoons@radionz.co.nz
Be polite, but firm and clear: tell him you want him to interview a guest who knows what she is talking about in future. That means NO MORE MURIEL NEWMAN.
I’ve given up on The Panel. To begin with, have you noticed that all of the guests spend the first 10 to 15 minutes telling everybody what exciting lives they lead. They have either been overseas and had a “simply wonderful time hahahahaha” or they’re about to go some place and have a “simply wonderful time haha etc”. As soon as the serious issues are discussed they all run for cover (including Mora with his heavy sighs) and express platitudes that mean bugger all. Occasionally someone calls their bluff (Brian Edwards comes to mind) and tells something like it really is. The collective drawing-in of horrified breath is almost audible. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion this country is now inhabited by a bunch of wankers and really… they deserve the government they’ve got.
@Anne – your desciption would apply to Kerre Woodham if Morrissey recorded her comments about the rioters right. She kept calling them toe-rags. What intelligent analysis.
your desciption would apply to Kerre Woodham if Morrissey recorded her comments about the rioters right.
I did record it right. Those comments are verbatim. I have lots more by her and her esteemed colleagues, by the way…
To begin with, have you noticed that all of the guests spend the first 10 to 15 minutes telling everybody what exciting lives they lead
I certainly have noticed this. It’s deadly dull—in fact, it’s dead air. None of the guests have anything remotely interesting going on in their lives, and the regularity of the guests’ recycling and reappearing means it’s usually exactly the same ten minutes of trivia as the last time.
…Mora with his heavy sighs…
Ah, yes! The baffled sigh to indicate how perplexed yet deeply concerned he is. Unfortunately, it’s become ingrained into his on-air performance, and it’s as much a marker of Jim Mora as the affected, deliberate Oxbridge stammer is with Chris Laidlaw.
…and express platitudes that mean bugger all.
Actually, these seemingly mindless platitudes mean an awful lot. When someone like Barry Corbett or Islay McLeod or Neil Miller or (God save our mortal souls) Garth George says something bland and/or bordering on the moronic, it doesn’t mean “bugger all”, it means that the listeners are being treated with utter contempt.
Occasionally someone calls their bluff (Brian Edwards comes to mind)…
Brian Edwards is occasionally very good—he once humiliated his blithe and woolly-minded fellow-Panelist Deborah Hill Cone after she claimed that she knew all about “working-class people”, even though she didn’t believe they actually existed. However, he is usually teamed up with Michelle Boag, a neighbour of his on Waiheke Island, and so he is usually restrained to the point of being tamed. He seems to bend over backwards to find common ground with her, no matter how extreme her comments. Boag, on the other hand, never makes any concessions at all to him.
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion this country is now inhabited by a bunch of wankers and really… they deserve the government they’ve got.
Come on, Anne! Don’t be discouraged. You’ve written a perfectly lucid and forceful critique for the benefit of readers of this forum, so why don’t you send it off as an email to Jim Mora himself? Here’s that address again…
afternoons@radionz.co.nz
Might do just that Morrissey. Sent off an email to Kathryn Ryan after last Monday’s political discussion with Hooton and Bradford. Hooton effectively accused Goff of lying about whether he had seen the SIS briefing papers etc. and Ryan let him get away with it. I supplied her with the Stuff link where Tucker admits he has no signed verification that Goff had seen any papers. No acknowledgement of course.
…and Ryan let him get away with it.
I think that often she doesn’t know enough. I heard her on this morning’s programme saying how she often takes home lots of reading to prepare for the next show, but there’s precious little evidence of that. She not only routinely lets a notorious liar like Hooton effectively say what he wants each week, she also never challenges her often unreliable and extremely partisan “foreign correspondents”—in particular, the ex-Conservative M.P. Matthew Parris and the ignorant but shameless “middle east correspondent” Irris Makler.
No acknowledgement of course.
You should write to her again and demand an answer. It’s probably just idleness on her part, rather than any desire to silence you.
“It’s deadly dull—in fact, it’s dead air. “
Morrissey, the whole show is dead air, occasionally punctuated by grossly offensive reptilian grunts and squawks and the distant screams of children being tortured.
I’m extremely grateful for the transcripts of the greatest hits you post here so I don’t have to let the black gas fill my ears.
I’m extremely grateful for the transcripts of the greatest hits you post here so I don’t have to let the black gas fill my ears.
It’s a helluva job, but someone has to do it.
@ Morrissey – I think you are wrong to think that Jim Mora gives a fart about people criticising him. My take on him is that he is smug and self-satisfied and has a right wing bias. He can ask the questions that the left might ask but only to set up a straw man. He is apparently good natured with a jovial laugh but it sounds hollow.
When I heard Newman was coming on the show, I assumed it was to deliver an apology. But apparently it isn’t 3 decades of neo-liberal economics that has bought us the riots, its the welfare state. What a wally! And to think she used to be the brains of ACT.
And to think she used to be the brains of ACT.
Even in the intellectual wasteland that is the far right of New Zealand politics, Muriel Newman is not, and never has been, regarded as any kind of “brains”. The nadir of her obscure and shamefully inept parliamentary career came when she published an advice book for young people, which told (in excruciatingly exhaustive detail) how to boil a jug of water. When she was hauled on television (the Holmes show, actually) to explain why she had written this piece of idiocy instead of attending to her parliamentary duties (whatever parliamentary duties the “brains of ACT” does) she was blitheringly incoherent.
She did, however, provide Pam Corkery her one and only opportunity to do something worthwhile in an otherwise wasted three years: Corkery (in the TV studio with Newman) damned the book as a “joke”, a “waste of time” and “irredeemably condescending” before contemptuously throwing it down on the floor.
Muriel Newman has a doctorate, apparently—from where?
Does anybody know?
The origin of her doctorate seems to be a closely guarded secret. If the truth were known it’s probably something to do with ‘Business Studies’ from an obscure American university. She is a former employee of Michael Hill, and I understand he originally set her up for a political career in ACT.
There shall be daily beatings and half rations for the paupers until morale improves!
Wiki says Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey, PhD in mathematics.
I’d love to get her on something, but it doesn’t look like a fake degree is it (unless she never completed, of course).
math is a real PhD and something I’d normally associate with real intelligence.
Somebody should be able to search and see if she published any papers from her thesis.
Nothing on a Google Scholar search.
math is a real PhD and something I’d normally associate with real intelligence.
True. However, that doesn’t mean that she brings any rigour or even seriousness to her political thinking.
Intelligent people can say some imbecilic things—Richard Dawkins made some foolish and ignorant comments about “the middle east” a while ago, which showed he is about as intelligent a source of commentary on politics as Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck.
As a male there is something reassuring to know that being a RWNJ is not specifically a male trait……bloggers are welcome to reply with who they think is the worst RWNJ woman …I think that American baggage who did the consulting on welfare reform.
Paula Rebstock? Yes, indeed!
And while I am here, listening to 3 News talking about the wonderfulness of Cameron, and the evil of the young criminals who pretend their rioting is about something else…
Here is a short, hastily assembled list of some of the most vicious right wing women in New Zealand…
1.) Michelle Boag (PR trout, feared and hated National Party eminence grise and ex-squeeze of Murray McCully)
2.) Deborah Coddington (the only woman Lindsay Perigo ever fancied)
3.) Deborah (“Slurp”) Hill Cone (one of the smuggest, most self-satisfied women in New Zealand)
4.) Robyn Langwell (the smuggest, most self-satisfied woman in New Zealand)
5.) Lesley Max (rabid, harsh-voiced, invective-spitting late-night talkshow caller, and merciless scourge of the Palestinians)
6.) “Doctor” Muriel Newman (alarmingly frivolous and lightweight, and so hopeless in parliament she actually made Pam Corkery look good)
7.) Fran (“Um, ah, y’ know”) O’Sullivan (along with the pitiful Karl Du Fresne, perhaps the world’s No. 1 fan of ex-Australian P.M. John Howard)
8,) Ellen Read (charmless and deeply complacent NBR hackette)
9.) Pamela Stirling (clueless, barely literate destroyer of the Listener)
10.) Janet Wilson (Bill Ralston’s horrifying other half)
11.) Kerre Woodham (NewstalkZB chatterbox, fervent admirer of Chinese Communist regime)
Off the top of my head add to that list
Judith Collins – (thin lipped, arrogant pollie who would have been a hit in 1930/40s Germany.)
Christine Rankin(who came within a whisker of destroying the internationally renowned – and widely copied – welfare system set in place by the 1935-49 Labour Govt.)
Judith Collins – (thin lipped, arrogant pollie who would have been a hit in 1930/40s Germany
I’ve always thought she is a dead ringer for the James Bond villainess Rosa Klebb.
Christine Rankin
Of course! How could I forget her?
and you forgot their current queen, though she is oft in absentia
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P4r7dAveA6Q/TjhcMa_jpVI/AAAAAAAAKs4/mEwTHe745hw/s400/bio_img_jenny_shipley.jpg
I tried, thanks so much for bringing back the memory 😛
Add to list
Dame Margaret Bazley
and I have formed an immediate (irrational?) dislike of
Kay Giles, new Oz Chief Executive of Christchurch Polytechnic – making a nice strong case for paying the teaching staff below inflation increases etc.
all fraking sociopaths
Freud would have a field day.
Colonial Viper – By the way did you see the links on Bored at 2.56pm. On the guy that carried brainwashing into commercial use, and is related to Freud. That family made waves.
Ah yes thanks…I watched about 3/4 of that. Scary, society changing stuff. We’re all sheeple to some extent, and those who swear they are not usually more than most.
The old PR guy, the relative of Freud, had obviously lived a wealthy and well connected life. But what was his legacy to the world as a frail old man reflecting on past glories, nothing but a harvest of bitter fruit with a taste undisguisable by any luxuries or excess.
Ruth Richardson …
Scoop has Selwyn Manning’s response regarding an OIA request about the SIS Israeli spy issue:
I love how senior public servants always thank-you so kindly for your correspondence – even when you’ve just told them what a bunch of @#$^$#@ they are.
Oh, and I’m not necessarily referring to the DoS, Warren Tucker – just senior Pub. Servants in general. 😯
Ah, as predicted, Patrick Gower bashing bennies and showing Key with his concerned face on…
Re sickness beneficiaries, Gower says “Beehive sources say many can work”… What Beehive sources would that be then? And how do they know?
German physicist Harald Haas talks about internet connectivity technology that would make it possible to send data through LED light bulbs instead of via radio waves.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/1202
Excellent article in the Guardian about Fox News:
“According to recent polls, Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers. They are 12 percentage points more likely to believe the stimulus package caused job losses, 17 points more likely to believe Muslims want to establish Sharia law in America, 30 points more likely to say that scientists dispute global warming, and 31 points more likely to doubt President Obama’s citizenship.
At the height of the healthcare debate, more than two-thirds of Fox News viewers were convinced Obamacare would lead to a “government takeover”, provide healthcare to illegal immigrants, pay for abortions and let the government decide when to pull the plug on grandma.
In fact, a study by the University of Maryland revealed that the ignorance of Fox viewers actually increases the longer they watch the network.”
Stories of the rapid demise of the Labour Party appear premature.
Labour 32%, Greens 7%, NZF 4%.
The gap between the blocs has halved in 2 months and the ‘right direction’ numbers have soured as well. Nice.
Spot on, TVOR.
The Nat/ACT etc bloc has gone from 60% down to 55.5% and the Labour/Green etc bloc up to 44.5% from 40%. The same movement again in another two months and it’s level pegging. And Roy Morgan is the most reliable of the polls, as far as that goes.
I predict the first RM poll of November will show that confidence in the Government is down to a pathetic 110 or below (128 now). Quite a lot below if the All Blacks have lost.
No Human Rights for Rioters
After WW2, many leaders and progressive thinkers put their heads together and formulated a plan so that such devastation and atrocities involved in the holocaust would not occur again…
David Cameron is a disgrace and a national embarrassment. I thought that Tony Blair was the most disgusting and dishonest politician produced by Britain in a generation, but Cameron brings something else to the table—sheer, unflappable, incorrigible Public School complacency and dimness.
A lot of people think a dim politician is a good thing, and that relatively smart ones like Blair are more dangerous. Watching Cameron in full graceless flight makes you wonder, though. Maybe a dim politician—Cameron, McCain, Key, Stephen Harper—is just as troubling as a slippery, smart one.
Sounds like Cameron and Key are birds of a feather.
More riot related stuff, but from an unusual source. Joey Barton is a professional footballer with, shall we say, issues. But remarkably sound on the riots and man a of impeccable musical taste as well.
ps, Spurs/Everton postponed due to riot.
Tied to a drowning man
But you can’t have interdependence when global productivity far exceeds global needs – and there aren’t any resources left anyway.
This is what the Euro looks like now.
But there is a bad kind of interdependence left. When no sovereign state is self sufficient any longer because it has transferred away its industries…and can now no longer afford to buy the goods and services it needs from the countries that it used to buy them from…and can’t make do itself.
To Vto, agreed! 🙂