When does the God-awful summer “program” end on RNZ and civilization return?
I hate the way RNZ use the summer break to spend one month on a cost cutting shut down. The two idiots who do the afternoon show are one trick ponies whose get their jollies by banging on forever with their one big idea of playing bad music around some stupid theme. That gets old real, real quick. Shoot them. I’ll lie on the stand if you need an alibi.
And I hate the constant repeating of slight magazine trivia from Jim Mora and the rest of them as mind-numbingly tedious filler to make it seem like RNZ isn’t on auto-pilot.
I agree with all those sentiments. sigh and fill are dingbats without a doubt but there are more things to discuss about RNZ summer dumbdown. number one is they try and break in new post modern announcers who dont read the news scripts before they announce them and stumble over words that are just too big for them. secondly they go and get the worst right wingers for their road trip playlist songs. this morning it is kirk hope from business new zealand which is a total misnomer. business new zealand is in business solely to keep wages down. have you ever heard of a new business they have created or sponsored?
Jimmy Barnes would DETEST this creep.
Megan Whelan interviews Kirk Hope
RNZ National, Friday 12 Jan. 2018
Last Wednesday morning, listeners were subjected to a hapless, unprepared Megan Whelan providing an uninterrupted, uncritical sounding board to the disturbingly dishonest Robert Ayson:
Today, she had another soft-spoken, sinister ideologue on the program:
Business New Zealand Chief Executive Kirk Hope joins Megan to talk about his favourite tunes for a summer road trip. He also discusses the big issues facing companies in 2018 including the minimum wage increase, pay equity as well as what the future holds in the way businesses operate.
Unlike her failure last week, today she at least showed a little spirit and the glimmering of a social conscience as Hope smoothly pushed his nightmarish vision of a New Zealand organized like Communist China.
KIRK HOPE: ….and a band not many people have heard of, Grant Lee Buffalo.
MEGAN WHELAN Oh I loved Grant Lee Buffalo!
KIRK HOPE: But the next song I’ve chosen is “Singularity” by New Order. I thought New Order was just crap after 1983, but they’ve returned to form with this one. I was in Tokyo and I put a pair of headphones on and, as you do, I put Spotify on and I tell you this is the way you want to walk around Tokyo, listening to this kind of music!
…..The song plays. After it, Megan Whelan decides to get serious….
MEGAN WHELAN I talked recently to Richard Wagstaff of the CTU about the future of work.
KIRK HOPE: China is an example of a rapidly industrializing country which is also rapidly digitizing. It’s replaced the fulltime jobs of an industrial economy with trading. That’s the secret behind the success of Ali Baba! One or two people on line.
MEGAN WHELAN[clearly dubious] That’s significantly less secure, though.
KIRK HOPE: I’m not sure it is. We have to think about what it will look like. There’s a LOT of work to go on in the education system; our funding models, what’s happening at the secondary level.
MEGAN WHELAN Another thing with Richard—-I realize I’m sounding like a socialist revolutionary, and I don’t mean to, ha ha ha ha!—but he was worried about workers’ rights.
KIRK HOPE: People will have more flexibility. They might want to take six months off and travel.
MEGAN WHELAN Yeah but not a lot of people have this option. It’s different when it’s thrust on them. …. Anyway, what’s the last song you’ve chosen?
KIRK HOPE: I’ve chosen “Driving Wheels” by Jimmy Barnes. My mates and I drove from Wanaka to Dunedin in a Valiant Regal one New Year’s Eve many years ago, listening to the album for this, Freight Train Heart…..
MEGAN WHELAN Kirk Hope, thank you!
That’s enough of Kirk Hope, but here’s more Megan Whelan if you can bear it…
My radio alarm goes off at 6 am and RNZ comes on. Now, during summer. I hear the news straight up and then the music starts.
The music is awful; its even worse than what’s played on Matinee Idol during summer afternoons on RNZ. At least there they know when to mock and know when to salute the music and do so in an interesting way.
RNZ’s early morning music selection seems like it provides an excuse for RNZ to play stuff that probably hasn’t been played since it was first released (I can understand why – there was never an audience for it in the first place). Its ‘music’ without structure, melody, interesting lyrics or anything else that constitutes a good musical composition. Much of it is NZ music sad to say. In my opinion its simply tedious noise.
As a result I hang out for some of the “slight magazine shows”, such as the BBC’s “Witness Programme” so I don’t have to listen to such terrible music.
Be nice to get some alternative music – something that is not just a bloody noise to assail the ears first thing in the morning. “What the hell” is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Paul Brennen’s tracks he plays. I enjoy the blues and some country music which I know is not everybody’s choice, but I also enjoy classical music and anything which has a melody. There is one thing positive about the summer programme, it drives me out of bed to do something more constructive like watering plants etc.
Can I suggest that you, and Grantoc, should ask some convenient child to show you how to tune your radio to some other station?
Radios allow that you might be interested to know. Think of the amazing discoveries you will make. You might even find the Concert program.
Ah, the new thrills you are going to have if, instead of just complaining, you take advantage of the amazing new technology that exists on your bedside table.
I’m picturing you typing that with an insufferably smug expression on your face. “Look Mum! I’ve discovered sarcasm and condescension! Can I have a pat on the head now?”
All right, if you must.
Consider your head to be patted, you smug condescending prat.
I will have to ask you to take the head pat in absentia though.
I really don’t want to get nits from your unwashed noggin.
Nice to hear you enjoy classical music wk. Some people seem to think that anyone who enjoys classical music must be peculiar. They don’t know what they are missing.
Far preferable to Mora.
But I agree….it’s a bit like the kids are in charge. There’s one ‘Sound Engineer’ who keeps forgetting what a cue button is …. or whatever they call it these days. Though given RNZ financials, its probably a ‘Audition/Programme’ key designed by British Telecom
I replied, but it disappeared up its own rrrr’s
Summer time is a time for the kids and the up and coming to exercise their gloriousness.
EVEN the Auckland Sound ‘ engineer ‘ who still can’t cope with a ‘CUE’ button.
Once or twice
…Ok….. but constantly?
He….yes…HE has managed to destroy a couple of interviews I was interested in listening to without being overwritten by HIS wish to cue up the ‘cumming up’
I’d say…if it were down to me…knock off the fucking P and get some rest….and realise RNZ has an audience.
Either that, or you and the delightful Megan could hook up some time and create something you’re rilly rilly peshnit about.
Perhaps Mex (K) could help
Oh stop moaning about RNZ. Most people are enjoying it or slagging off Phil and Simon, in a rude way enjoyable to themselves and P &S just go on. The music is mostly okay and some new people are having an opportunity to show their stuff.
If you like concert music there is a whole special broadcast of it and Eva Rakich, is it, comes on every now and then and introduces some into the ‘mainstream’. The items they have got are interesting, they have BBC World also, and I think you are all uptight. Turn it off if it doesn’t suit and play some of your DVDs or maybe some of your tapes if you still have a machine for that. You will hear some stuff not heard for decades.
That’s how our rentier economic system works. Ticket clipping makes a few people rich for which they produce no value at all while everyone else is fucked over to the point where they can no longer support those rich bludgers.
Indeed. Thus it’s no surprise similar is happening here too.
Many moons ago I worked for a company that installed a similar regime. Employees would become contractors and would start the working week in debt to the company. Having to lease the van and equipment required off the company.
We all gave notice and left.
And as for the reasons the article highlighted (harder to decline) the employers then turned to WINZ for new recruits.
“Aye you’ve seen the shifting of employer costs to workers under the guise of contracting…”
Indeed. We did the numbers (of the previous year, which was a good year) to compare what it would be like under the new regime and of course, we (the employees) were the big losers. Hence, we quit.
is it ok to hold back evidence of mistreatment of animals so as to cause maximum impact damage to the farming industry , or should it be handed over straight away?
i say it should be handed over as soon as possible
Who is making those animals suffer bwaghorn? The businesspeople farming them or the protesters? You seem to be a bit confused about what seems very straightforward.
And the protesters are putting themselves at risk from vengeful farmers and those that are agriculture-connected. Also they need to have irrevocable evidence to bring about change for the better. It is no use sacrificing their time and life to get information that is easily refuted or just unverified observation. I hope that you would not be vengeful but I note that you are quick to change the focus away from those causing the harm.
It seems to me that you are suffering a case of Triangulation (psychology related) which is something that all who discuss and argue on TS ought to understand so as to increase the effectiveness of an argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(psychology)
Also the Karpman triangle where one person involved in discussion about a problem can shift in approach through three positions like the points of a triangle – Victim (We’re having it tough) – Rescuer (Now taking the side of the victim) – The Persecutor (It’s your fault, you bring about the bad outcome.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle
In your comment bwaghorn you turn on the protesters and become Persecutor, blaming them for withholding information so as to reveal a mass of evidence later at a hearing to judge whether there was bad treatment of animals. You think it should be released straight away to the authorities who could decide immediately to force a change in conditions. That is a theory and supposition on your part that the protesters have rejected as unlikely, from their experience in the past which would be greater than yours.
You present the farmers targeted, because you identify with them, as Victims.
And in the third point, you yourself are the principled Rescuer, wanting to help those receiving criticism in the agricultural sector.
So you are avoiding facing up to the object of the protest action, and presenting the protesters as unethical, (because you now accept there is bad treatment that the protesters themselves have established as fact through their action), and you now turn and blame them for it continuing. You should instead be blaming those carrying it out.
That is a very neat psychological trick that academics have had to study for a long time, observing,and finally explaining it as in the two examples given above.
” if they do not promptly hand over their evidence exposing animal cruelty to the authorities in a timely manner.”
as the usual suspects have turned up to defend their hobbie horse , i’ll type this slowly so you fallas can understand it,
know where does it say that the will let farmers off , what it says is they will turn a blind eye to radicals illegal spying on farmers if they hand over the evidence of the farmers crimes quickly , not let animals continue to suffer so they can get more wow factor.
i personaly potted a coworker to the gm of an outfit i worked at for animal abuse , (the guy was not coping and the gm feared he would suicide so nothing was done , as the guy was leaving).
while i dont condone illegal spying it helps me count to 10 when i ,ve been doing 10 hour days and a simple sheep is winding me up
I bet you can’t be bothered to research the issue and find out what is done to animals in factory farms.
Anti slavery campaigners were smeared as radicals.
Nelson Mandela and the ANC were smeared as radicals.
Sure. Industrial farming is nothing like slavery, because cows aren’t people. It doesn’t excuse animal crualty, but it does explain why someone might think you’re a sanctimonious dickhead and avoid the majority of your comments. So even if you had an argument, fewer people would read it than if you were a reasonable human being.
People like waghorn and pm would have decried anti slavery movements in the 1770s, calling the activists smug for be against slavery and cruel for not telling the authorities about who wrote a secret report on the inside of a slave ship.
But the purpose of the legislation is not to promote animal welfare – quite the opposite. The purpose is to identify, expose, punish and deter whistleblowers who report animal abuse.
There will need to be an anonymous release channel for whistleblowers, if this type of legislation is passed.
“It’s not common practice, just a few bad farmers letting the rest of us down” – this is the line we hear so much from the farming lobby (and that Mr and Ms meat, egg and dairy consumer want to hear, so that they don’t have to consider their role in creating the demand that sees animals (mis)treated as commodities rather than conscious, living beings). If groups like SAFE and Farmwatch need to gather evidence to show that a particular practice is widespread, then let them. We definitely don’t need this kind of law, and I doubt very much that we’ll have one imposed under this government. I wish animal welfare was a stronger priority for them, although I recognise that mine is a minority viewpoint.
…Mr and Ms meat, egg and dairy consumer want to hear, so that they don’t have to consider their role in creating the demand that sees animals (mis)treated as commodities rather than conscious, living beings).
Meanwhile, Mr and Ms meat, egg and dairy consumer are at least willing to acknowledge and face the fact that their diet involves killing animals, something rarely to be found among smug, moralising vegans.
I really doubt most New Zealand meat eaters are remotely aware of what industrial farming looks like.
In reality factory farming is the prolonged torture and cruel killing of billions of animals.
I recommend Jonathan Safran Soer’s book ‘Eating Animals.’
Particularly the chapters on the industrial ‘farming’ and killing of chickens and pigs.
There’s nothing smug about the book.
If you look a bit further up this thread I think you’ll find plenty of smug (insincere) moralising from BW. Not, from what I can tell, a vegan!
And this site is filled with people expounding on their political and ethical viewpoints, arguing with others and getting pretty smug at times, too. It’s by no means limited to people espousing veganism. How often have you noticed me smugly moralising about (or mentioning) my 30+ years of veganism? Note the comment above about recognising that mine is a minority viewpoint. Hardly hardline…
If you’re feeling defensive about your choice to continue eating animals, that’s your problem. I don’t eat animals and I don’t eat any products that come from animals. It’s not the main thing I choose to discuss on this site, but I’m not going to be bullied by name-calling into never mentioning it.
So, this is the first time you’ve publicly expressed the view here that people who don’t share your diet are moral failures. Big whoop. If you comment denouncing people like me for eating food, I’m going to comment pointing out my dislike of people doing that. Try not suggesting that people who don’t share your diet are moral failures, it works wonders.
“It also removes the possibility for whistleblowers to build evidence of systemic industry-wide cruelty by forcing them to report incidents in isolation only.
“Some of the most important developments in animal protection laws have stemmed from undercover surveillance and the work of journalists in bringing the realities of factory farming to the public.”
So, yeah, need to build up the evidence to show the systemic aspect of the abuse of animals else it will just be ignored.
The filming inside these factories which house the torture and killing of millions of sentient beings has to be stopped by the industrial farming lobby.
If people knew what happened there, they would be out of business.
The answer is to adopt a plant based diet permanently.
If people are serious about fixing our planet, then we know what we must do and we must do it.
One simple and easy sacrifice to make in the interests of preventing climate catastrophe.
There are animal rights and environmental issues surrounding the industrial processing of billions of sentient living animals into meat.
Clearly you don’t care about either the damage being done to the end by industrial animal agriculture nor the welfare of the sentient creatures who endure the barbaric conditions inside these factories.
Assumptions fucking much. Actually i will be protesting outside the rodeo tomorrow. I haven’t eaten mammal flesh for more than thirty years.
I usually don’t bother to engage in discussion with you as it is clearly pointless. You have made up your mind what is right for you and you are hell bent now on forcing that on everybody else. I do really care about both animal welfare and climate change and watching you run around alienating people is therefore painful.
Perhaps if you cared more for animals you might talk more about stricter laws and enforcement which would be much more achievable than universal veganism.
Perhaps if you cared more for people you might come to understand that some of us find it hard to meet our nutritional needs from just plants. I can’t eat most grains and nuts for health reasons for example, and eggs and fish are an important part of my diet.
Perhaps if you cared more for the environment you would understand that chickens and cows form an integral part of many permaculture systems.
My comments are about industrial farming, not permaculture.
I would have stricter laws. They would entail the closure of all industrial farming methods.
But catastrophic climate change is happening very soon unless we act.
People are going to have to be forced to make significant sacrifices if we are to mitigate the worst outcomes.
In World War 2, people’s food was rationed to help win the war.
Is it too much to ask that people are forced to move to a plant based diet to save the planet?
Clearly you don’t care about either the damage being done to the end by industrial animal agriculture nor the welfare of the sentient creatures who endure the barbaric conditions inside these factories.
Solkta:
I haven’t eaten mammal flesh for more than thirty years…
For someone whose supposed to love animals, and purports to have their best interests at heart, Ed/Paul certainly loves beating on that dead donkey of his.
This is the year when people have to begin the fightback against the right wing media. The easiest way is micropulse radio stations which are cheap to buy and incur no music royalties if there are no ads. These radio stations are low powered and line of sight and more effective than the msm whould have you believe.
If tribesmen in in the hindu kush can run their own in discrete valleys then what is stopping comparatively wealthy pakehas with disposable income from getting their arses into gear and taking the tories head on at their own game.
Are you sure atomising the shared public spaces is actually a good idea for a healthy civil society? rather than calling for more and more micro-services where people can have their views reinforced in tiny echo chambers wouldn’t it be better to campaign for a well funded publicly owned public service broadcasting network with a wide audience and a range of diverse voices?
+100 you’d also regenerate the local content production landscape as it’s been flogged off over the past years so we need the ‘local’ put back.
Drama, childrens, comedy, documentaries all get a lift if you adopt the ABC model from Oz. Light entertainment as one example is an easy category to make content for and TVNZ showed they can’t even get that right with appalling efforts.
TVNZ is our public broadcaster it just needs some legislation and funding to reshape it as a proper one and flush out the Kendricks and Co for proper broadcasters before it’s too late as they are a dying breed.
you dont understand. it is important that people have real input into the affairs of the community which is based on non profit social justice and the easiest way to do it is with local radio. especially when you play renaissance and pre renaissance music.
rnz can look after itself very well .
and the 60’s hippy revolution was backed by the first fm stations who cleaned up later and sold out when the wave receeded. Cant go back now but if you want a revolution NOW then you gotta know what you are doing.
I think there’s value in having community follow-up for people who’re fresh out of prison (for example). I don’t think the police are the right agency to be doing this, though.
Everything depends on the police involved – they can range from the kind who harass to the kind who give a damn and become genuinely supportive. These human factors are hard to measure from the outside, though the people they visit can probably work out what’s going on pdq.
Agreed – it can be all of those things – but it can be done in a way that is positive. Whether it should be done rather depends on how careful they are not to infringe rights, and to avoid alarming neighbours and so forth.
There is a behavioral aspect to some kinds of offending, and support can assist if it is genuine. It is the kind of thing that perhaps should be part of a rehabilitation system – and my understanding of burglary is that a very small number of active burglars may generate a considerable amount of loss and damage.
Yes – but there is some validity in the human contact angle, as well as the impressionistic assessment of whether things are going ok. It would be unwise to confine an assessment of a recovering alcoholic to phone calls, and to some extent the same might be true of burglars.
Do you suppose that the presumption of innocence extends to preventing the police from making enquiries? I think you’ll find it doesn’t. But successfully rehabilitated people – those who have managed to get their life back together – can probably be excluded from many enquiries.
Much would depend on what resources the police might have at their disposal to make a ‘helping hand’ approach actually helpful.
Calling around to someones home and making inquiries on no other grounds other than an individual’s past history does seem to rob one of the presumption of innocence, but I’m no legal expert.
“Climate change needs more action and less advocacy. Unlike other world issues such as racism, sexism and starvation, climate change will one day be unsolvable. We are losing control of the situation. We know what we need to do, we know what we can expect, we just have to act.”
George Monbiot on Theresa May’s 25 year environmental plan.
“It’s as if it were written with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. In terms of rhetoric, Theresa May’s 25-year environment plan is in some ways the best government document I’ve ever read. In terms of policy, it ranges from the pallid to the pathetic.
Those who wrote it are aware of the multiple crises we face. But, having laid out the depth and breadth of our predicaments, they propose to do almost nothing about them. I can almost hear the internal dialogue: “Yes, let’s change the world! Hang on a minute, what about our commitment to slashing regulations? What about maximising economic growth? What would the Conservatives’ major funders have to say about it? Oh all right, let’s wave our hands around instead.”
“The more an economy grows, the more resources it will consume. If it’s not plastic, it will be cardboard, and the cardboard is likely to be made from chewed-up rainforest. Clamp down on the use of cardboard, and something else will take its place. An economy that keeps growing on a planet that does not will inevitably burst through environmental limits, however sincere a government might be about seeking to reduce its impacts. The big conversation we need within government has still not begun. ”
I shall distil Monbiot’s passage into a few simple words.
Will be interesting to see what the Greens do about this
In 1999, speaking against an earlier party-hopping bill, Green co-leader Rod Donald reminded the House that “had this bill existed prior to the last [1999] election, we [Donald and Fitzsimons] would have been removed from this House and denied our opportunity to stay here for the full parliamentary term”.
Jim Anderton left Labour mid-term to set up NewLabour (which later merged into the Alliance).
And he did it in the 1980s and held his own electorate so not a good example.
In fact, any ‘party hopping’ prior to the 1996 election has no bearing on it.
Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons left the Alliance for the Greens
Which is untrue. The greens were part of the Alliance but were still The Greens. Donald and Fitzsimons would still have been Green MPs.
They didn’t leave their party – their party left The Alliance. And it could be argued that their seats were the Green Party share of the Alliance vote they should have kept them anyway.
As Donald said in the 1999 speech to Parliament, MPs are not “party robots”,
I don’t expect MPs to be ‘party robots’ but if they leave the party then they damn well shouldn’t keep their seat because they’re no longer representing those that voted for them on the party ticket.
Take the recent example of Green MPs Kennedy Graham and David Clendon publicly calling for the resignation of co-leader Metiria Turia. They were then excluded from the Green caucus and could have then been ejected from Parliament, after various bureaucratic processes had been gone through, if the current party-hopping legislation had been operational.
Exactly as it should be.
Resorting to legislation to get rid of an MP potentially involves the courts, which are not equipped to handle political or process disputes within parliamentary caucuses.
Then we need better law…
…Oh, wait.
It is safer, and more democratic, to leave decisions on the makeup of Parliament to the voters.
That’s what the party vote does. If an MP then leaves a party then they’ve removed themselves from that decision by the voters and should be removed from parliament.
Electorate MPs are more complex because they’ve actually been voted for by the electorate. We actually need the power of recall given to the voters so that an electorate can remove if they deem it necessary.
List MPs are there on the basis of their party’s share of the vote, it’s the party’s mandate, not the MP’s, therefore if they leave the party they loose the right to that party’s mandate and should be gone from parliament and replaced by the next person on that party’s list.
Electorate MPs have a personal mandate from their electorate, so it’s the MP’s mandate, not the party’s.
I’d argue that not allowing them to leave means that the party needs to take more care in their original selection and in how they treat and deal with them for the term of the government.
It’s a fixed term and if the party has screwed up then they need to live with it.
Just shoving any fuckwit on the list is best stopped by not being able to get rid of them til the next election.
Having an internal revolution and changing direction at the hierarchical level shouldn’t mean you can offload the MP’s you don’t like post the revolution.
Then there’s also the issue of the workers for those MP’s. It’s enough that they only have certainty of work for an electoral term without adding to the possibility that the may become out of work cause the party no longer loves an MP – or the MP no longer loves the party.
It’s not often I agree with Nick Smith (actually I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with him and there is some strong irony in some of what he says) but on this I do.
Just shoving any fuckwit on the list is best stopped by not being able to get rid of them til the next election.
Your language says that you are not considering the matter in a balanced way. Political parties are a group of people trying to get into a position to have some sway in the country. They are trying to be part of the political process; they may do things wrongly but talking about them and those involved as ‘fuckwit’ doesn’t add anything to the discussion.
Calling an individual a ‘fuckwit’ when they obviously are failing to achieve anything worthwhile and make statements that fail to take in the reality of the position may be justified, but not some blanket dismissive. You have proved by the way you used that term generally that individually it might be applied to you.
I’ve used the extreme end of the spectrum i.e. the party selecting someone completely inappropriate to make the point that it should not be justified under any circumstance.
I’m not leaving any grey for the party to say ooops we got it wrong.
They need to take that care in the first place – not have an escape clause.
To an extent we have that in the way Party lists remain in place for the term of the Parliament. If a list member dies, leaves for a diplomatic post or fucks up and has to go, the Party is stuck with ringing in the next person on their list. Sure we see a bit of gymnastics to get the one the Party really wants, but it is a strong incentive for Parties to be reasonably circumspect on who’s on their lists.
I’m waiting to see what unfolds if there is a string of departures when the National leadership eventually blows open. Fully expect the new leader to try and reshape the caucus in their form. Maybe that’s what the squatter is about in his rather confused and paranoid rant.
Aye that’s why I like what we have and not what is proposed.
Examples from the early days of MMP I think are a poor case to justify change as I’m sure parties are now a little wiser in selecting their list MP’s than when MMP first came in – if they’re not then they should be.
There’s another interpretation of the squatter’s rant. Maybe he’s pissed that National won’t be able to induce defections of NZ first MPs, again.
I’m not so sure about the squatter’s assertion that the waka jumping bill allows the party to “fire” list MPs any more than the current arrangement allows a party to request the member to consider their future.
I’d argue that not allowing them to leave means that the party needs to take more care in their original selection and in how they treat and deal with them for the term of the government.
They’re allowed to leave it’s just that if they do and they’re a list MP then they also leave parliament.
Just shoving any fuckwit on the list is best stopped by not being able to get rid of them til the next election.
If they leave then they’ve removed themselves.
Then there’s also the issue of the workers for those MP’s. It’s enough that they only have certainty of work for an electoral term without adding to the possibility that the may become out of work cause the party no longer loves an MP – or the MP no longer loves the party.
Such risk obviously comes with the job and one of the reasons why they’re paid quite well.
Looks like the government’s plans are working to drive out the speculative class.
The article has the usual Herald bias, as the rag represents the rentier class, but it does provide some interesting facts if you can peel away the propaganda.
It’s always seen as a sensible investment to have a rental property. I don’t see it as speculative and it wouldn’t be a problem if Labour hadn’t gone feral and National hadn’t gone plutocratic and together they have skewed the country so badly.
See Jeremy Corbyn take on Margaret Thatcher about housing in 1990.
The link is at No. 17 here. The facts he was quoting were bad back then for Britain.
Well, yeah. But the fact is that the nats and labz were what they were, and so for the last thirty years people have bought a rental property on the basis that the capital value will increase enough for them to afford to pay off the property when they sell it down the line, and frequently make up the gap between their income and the mortgage with the rent the property gets.
Official figures prepared for the new housing minister estimate a shortfall of 45,000 houses in Auckland, with supply of new homes well behind increased demand.
It’s not ‘weather weirdness’ NZ Herald.
It’s climate change.
And the sooner you’re honest about this, the quicker New Zealand will start acting decisively to deal with it.
British politics.
First – Jeremy Corbyn v Margaret Thatcher on Housing in 1990
Housing – People sleeping on the streets, children brought up in b*Bs, but Councils have empty houses so there is no difficulty.
There would be many benefit for New Zealand if we banned plastic bags come on let’s get this environmentally friendly economy going don’t listen to the nay Sayers. We have all the raw materials to make paper bags what’s the problem we will create jobs come on
I think that Theo Spiering should take my advice on the solarpanel on cow sheds maybe Papatuanuku will let up on that cow disease and it mite stop spreading that’s my view on that subject P.S. I seen the thunder in action yesterday on thestandard many thanks to all my viewers ka pai ka kite ano
“Jim Anderton was New Zealand’s last significant social democratic politician. While some are claiming he pulled Labour Party back ‘from the brink’ and back to the ‘centre-left’ this is a convenient rewriting of history. The Labour Party today bears little resemblance to the Labour Party that Jim Anderton once knew.”
I read one comment saying that its a totally different country .I say that this country has a major influence on all the SOCIETIES on Papatuanuku/MotherEarth .So If we can voice All OUR concerns about the direction that we see that country going down If we let them Know NOW this will save a lot of pain and suffering in the future . Kia Kaha
Here is a song I like from the next generation Ka kite ano
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
Dear friends, it’s been a covidious year,A testing time for all of us here—Citizens of an island nationIn a state of managed isolation,A team (someone said) five million strong,Making it up as we went along:Somehow in typical Kiwi fashion,Without any wild excess ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Dec 27, 2020 through Sat, Jan 2, 2021Editor's Choice7 Graphics That Show Why the Arctic Is in Trouble Arctic Sea Ice: NSIDC It’s no secret that the Arctic is ...
One of the books I read in 2020 was She, by H. Rider Haggard (1887). I thoroughly enjoyed it, as being an exemplar of a good old-fashioned adventure story. I also noted with amusement ...
Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick looks at the pandemic and the responses to it 30th December 2020 I have not written much about COVID19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in Dante’s Inferno, written many hundreds of ...
I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL for your ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
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.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
Good morning and welcome to this one-off edition of The Bulletin, covering major stories from the last few weeks.A quick preamble to this: Today’s special edition of The Bulletin is all about filling you in on some of the stories you might have missed over the summer period. Perhaps you had ...
Summer reissue: In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate.First published August 27, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
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When does the God-awful summer “program” end on RNZ and civilization return?
I hate the way RNZ use the summer break to spend one month on a cost cutting shut down. The two idiots who do the afternoon show are one trick ponies whose get their jollies by banging on forever with their one big idea of playing bad music around some stupid theme. That gets old real, real quick. Shoot them. I’ll lie on the stand if you need an alibi.
And I hate the constant repeating of slight magazine trivia from Jim Mora and the rest of them as mind-numbingly tedious filler to make it seem like RNZ isn’t on auto-pilot.
GIVE THAT STATION MORE MONEY ALREADY!!!!
I agree with all those sentiments. sigh and fill are dingbats without a doubt but there are more things to discuss about RNZ summer dumbdown. number one is they try and break in new post modern announcers who dont read the news scripts before they announce them and stumble over words that are just too big for them. secondly they go and get the worst right wingers for their road trip playlist songs. this morning it is kirk hope from business new zealand which is a total misnomer. business new zealand is in business solely to keep wages down. have you ever heard of a new business they have created or sponsored?
Jimmy Barnes would DETEST this creep.
Megan Whelan interviews Kirk Hope
RNZ National, Friday 12 Jan. 2018
Last Wednesday morning, listeners were subjected to a hapless, unprepared Megan Whelan providing an uninterrupted, uncritical sounding board to the disturbingly dishonest Robert Ayson:
Today, she had another soft-spoken, sinister ideologue on the program:
Unlike her failure last week, today she at least showed a little spirit and the glimmering of a social conscience as Hope smoothly pushed his nightmarish vision of a New Zealand organized like Communist China.
KIRK HOPE: ….and a band not many people have heard of, Grant Lee Buffalo.
MEGAN WHELAN Oh I loved Grant Lee Buffalo!
KIRK HOPE: But the next song I’ve chosen is “Singularity” by New Order. I thought New Order was just crap after 1983, but they’ve returned to form with this one. I was in Tokyo and I put a pair of headphones on and, as you do, I put Spotify on and I tell you this is the way you want to walk around Tokyo, listening to this kind of music!
…..The song plays. After it, Megan Whelan decides to get serious….
MEGAN WHELAN I talked recently to Richard Wagstaff of the CTU about the future of work.
KIRK HOPE: China is an example of a rapidly industrializing country which is also rapidly digitizing. It’s replaced the fulltime jobs of an industrial economy with trading. That’s the secret behind the success of Ali Baba! One or two people on line.
MEGAN WHELAN [clearly dubious] That’s significantly less secure, though.
KIRK HOPE: I’m not sure it is. We have to think about what it will look like. There’s a LOT of work to go on in the education system; our funding models, what’s happening at the secondary level.
MEGAN WHELAN Another thing with Richard—-I realize I’m sounding like a socialist revolutionary, and I don’t mean to, ha ha ha ha!—but he was worried about workers’ rights.
KIRK HOPE: People will have more flexibility. They might want to take six months off and travel.
MEGAN WHELAN Yeah but not a lot of people have this option. It’s different when it’s thrust on them. …. Anyway, what’s the last song you’ve chosen?
KIRK HOPE: I’ve chosen “Driving Wheels” by Jimmy Barnes. My mates and I drove from Wanaka to Dunedin in a Valiant Regal one New Year’s Eve many years ago, listening to the album for this, Freight Train Heart…..
MEGAN WHELAN Kirk Hope, thank you!
That’s enough of Kirk Hope, but here’s more Megan Whelan if you can bear it…
My radio alarm goes off at 6 am and RNZ comes on. Now, during summer. I hear the news straight up and then the music starts.
The music is awful; its even worse than what’s played on Matinee Idol during summer afternoons on RNZ. At least there they know when to mock and know when to salute the music and do so in an interesting way.
RNZ’s early morning music selection seems like it provides an excuse for RNZ to play stuff that probably hasn’t been played since it was first released (I can understand why – there was never an audience for it in the first place). Its ‘music’ without structure, melody, interesting lyrics or anything else that constitutes a good musical composition. Much of it is NZ music sad to say. In my opinion its simply tedious noise.
As a result I hang out for some of the “slight magazine shows”, such as the BBC’s “Witness Programme” so I don’t have to listen to such terrible music.
Be nice to get some alternative music – something that is not just a bloody noise to assail the ears first thing in the morning. “What the hell” is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Paul Brennen’s tracks he plays. I enjoy the blues and some country music which I know is not everybody’s choice, but I also enjoy classical music and anything which has a melody. There is one thing positive about the summer programme, it drives me out of bed to do something more constructive like watering plants etc.
Can I suggest that you, and Grantoc, should ask some convenient child to show you how to tune your radio to some other station?
Radios allow that you might be interested to know. Think of the amazing discoveries you will make. You might even find the Concert program.
Ah, the new thrills you are going to have if, instead of just complaining, you take advantage of the amazing new technology that exists on your bedside table.
I’m picturing you typing that with an insufferably smug expression on your face. “Look Mum! I’ve discovered sarcasm and condescension! Can I have a pat on the head now?”
All right, if you must.
Consider your head to be patted, you smug condescending prat.
I will have to ask you to take the head pat in absentia though.
I really don’t want to get nits from your unwashed noggin.
🙂
It’s trending doncha know
Nice to hear you enjoy classical music wk. Some people seem to think that anyone who enjoys classical music must be peculiar. They don’t know what they are missing.
Love the music, can’t stand more of Mora!! Especially his rw pals.
Far preferable to Mora.
But I agree….it’s a bit like the kids are in charge. There’s one ‘Sound Engineer’ who keeps forgetting what a cue button is …. or whatever they call it these days. Though given RNZ financials, its probably a ‘Audition/Programme’ key designed by British Telecom
I replied, but it disappeared up its own rrrr’s
Summer time is a time for the kids and the up and coming to exercise their gloriousness.
EVEN the Auckland Sound ‘ engineer ‘ who still can’t cope with a ‘CUE’ button.
Once or twice
…Ok….. but constantly?
He….yes…HE has managed to destroy a couple of interviews I was interested in listening to without being overwritten by HIS wish to cue up the ‘cumming up’
I’d say…if it were down to me…knock off the fucking P and get some rest….and realise RNZ has an audience.
Either that, or you and the delightful Megan could hook up some time and create something you’re rilly rilly peshnit about.
Perhaps Mex (K) could help
Oh stop moaning about RNZ. Most people are enjoying it or slagging off Phil and Simon, in a rude way enjoyable to themselves and P &S just go on. The music is mostly okay and some new people are having an opportunity to show their stuff.
If you like concert music there is a whole special broadcast of it and Eva Rakich, is it, comes on every now and then and introduces some into the ‘mainstream’. The items they have got are interesting, they have BBC World also, and I think you are all uptight. Turn it off if it doesn’t suit and play some of your DVDs or maybe some of your tapes if you still have a machine for that. You will hear some stuff not heard for decades.
“At its very worst, it could be alleged that it is coordinated exploitation.”
http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=262348&fm=psp,tsf
That’s how our rentier economic system works. Ticket clipping makes a few people rich for which they produce no value at all while everyone else is fucked over to the point where they can no longer support those rich bludgers.
And the rich are always bludgers.
“That’s how our rentier economic system works”
Indeed. Thus it’s no surprise similar is happening here too.
Many moons ago I worked for a company that installed a similar regime. Employees would become contractors and would start the working week in debt to the company. Having to lease the van and equipment required off the company.
We all gave notice and left.
And as for the reasons the article highlighted (harder to decline) the employers then turned to WINZ for new recruits.
Aye you’ve seen the shifting of employer costs to workers under the guise of contracting ever since Robbin’ Douglas and his bunch of un-merry men.
Robbing the poor to give to the rich.
Whether it’s vehicles, whether it’s equipment, whether it’s uniforms, whether it’s sick leave,whether it’s redundancy,….
These are all costs that employers have shifted onto workers and convinced workers they are better off for it.
“Aye you’ve seen the shifting of employer costs to workers under the guise of contracting…”
Indeed. We did the numbers (of the previous year, which was a good year) to compare what it would be like under the new regime and of course, we (the employees) were the big losers. Hence, we quit.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/100480922/no-we-dont-need-aggag-laws-in-new-zealand
is it ok to hold back evidence of mistreatment of animals so as to cause maximum impact damage to the farming industry , or should it be handed over straight away?
i say it should be handed over as soon as possible
Those sort of laws should be seen for what they are – purchased politicians pushing the agenda of their donor corporate interests.
so you are ok for animals to suffer longer so it suits the filmers agenda , and so they can frame it for maximum impact , and edit it accordingly
The filmers’ agendas is to stop the torture and execution of billions of sentient beings in industrial killing factories.
Seems worth it to me.
Who is making those animals suffer bwaghorn? The businesspeople farming them or the protesters? You seem to be a bit confused about what seems very straightforward.
And the protesters are putting themselves at risk from vengeful farmers and those that are agriculture-connected. Also they need to have irrevocable evidence to bring about change for the better. It is no use sacrificing their time and life to get information that is easily refuted or just unverified observation. I hope that you would not be vengeful but I note that you are quick to change the focus away from those causing the harm.
It seems to me that you are suffering a case of Triangulation (psychology related) which is something that all who discuss and argue on TS ought to understand so as to increase the effectiveness of an argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(psychology)
Also the Karpman triangle where one person involved in discussion about a problem can shift in approach through three positions like the points of a triangle – Victim (We’re having it tough) – Rescuer (Now taking the side of the victim) – The Persecutor (It’s your fault, you bring about the bad outcome.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle
In your comment bwaghorn you turn on the protesters and become Persecutor, blaming them for withholding information so as to reveal a mass of evidence later at a hearing to judge whether there was bad treatment of animals. You think it should be released straight away to the authorities who could decide immediately to force a change in conditions. That is a theory and supposition on your part that the protesters have rejected as unlikely, from their experience in the past which would be greater than yours.
You present the farmers targeted, because you identify with them, as Victims.
And in the third point, you yourself are the principled Rescuer, wanting to help those receiving criticism in the agricultural sector.
So you are avoiding facing up to the object of the protest action, and presenting the protesters as unethical, (because you now accept there is bad treatment that the protesters themselves have established as fact through their action), and you now turn and blame them for it continuing. You should instead be blaming those carrying it out.
That is a very neat psychological trick that academics have had to study for a long time, observing,and finally explaining it as in the two examples given above.
” if they do not promptly hand over their evidence exposing animal cruelty to the authorities in a timely manner.”
as the usual suspects have turned up to defend their hobbie horse , i’ll type this slowly so you fallas can understand it,
know where does it say that the will let farmers off , what it says is they will turn a blind eye to radicals illegal spying on farmers if they hand over the evidence of the farmers crimes quickly , not let animals continue to suffer so they can get more wow factor.
i personaly potted a coworker to the gm of an outfit i worked at for animal abuse , (the guy was not coping and the gm feared he would suicide so nothing was done , as the guy was leaving).
while i dont condone illegal spying it helps me count to 10 when i ,ve been doing 10 hour days and a simple sheep is winding me up
I bet you can’t be bothered to research the issue and find out what is done to animals in factory farms.
Anti slavery campaigners were smeared as radicals.
Nelson Mandela and the ANC were smeared as radicals.
Nelson Mandela was not, however, a sanctimonious tosser.
Debate the issue.
Drop the name calling.
Don’t you mean THE issue? Veganism that is.
Keep trying to derail the debate away from the mistreatment of animals.
This is a debate on industrial farming and whistle blowing.
Not veganism.
Ironic supersonic!
My first comment on this thread stated
“I really doubt most New Zealand meat eaters are remotely aware of what industrial farming looks like.”
Completely relevant to industrial farming and whistleblowers.
The reason for people’s ignorance is a lack of transparency in the industry.
and quickly devolved to:
“The answer is to adopt a plant based diet permanently.”
People like waghorn and pm…
Hypocrite.
Debate the issue.
Drop the name calling.
Your abusive hypocrisy isn’t a debate: that’s the issue. Lift your game.
Sure. Industrial farming is nothing like slavery, because cows aren’t people. It doesn’t excuse animal crualty, but it does explain why someone might think you’re a sanctimonious dickhead and avoid the majority of your comments. So even if you had an argument, fewer people would read it than if you were a reasonable human being.
People like waghorn and pm would have decried anti slavery movements in the 1770s, calling the activists smug for be against slavery and cruel for not telling the authorities about who wrote a secret report on the inside of a slave ship.
🙄
Absolutely.
Puppet politicians delivering laws for their corporate overlords.
But the purpose of the legislation is not to promote animal welfare – quite the opposite. The purpose is to identify, expose, punish and deter whistleblowers who report animal abuse.
There will need to be an anonymous release channel for whistleblowers, if this type of legislation is passed.
Clever idea though, using the guise of animal welfare to ride their high horse and help push it through.
“It’s not common practice, just a few bad farmers letting the rest of us down” – this is the line we hear so much from the farming lobby (and that Mr and Ms meat, egg and dairy consumer want to hear, so that they don’t have to consider their role in creating the demand that sees animals (mis)treated as commodities rather than conscious, living beings). If groups like SAFE and Farmwatch need to gather evidence to show that a particular practice is widespread, then let them. We definitely don’t need this kind of law, and I doubt very much that we’ll have one imposed under this government. I wish animal welfare was a stronger priority for them, although I recognise that mine is a minority viewpoint.
…Mr and Ms meat, egg and dairy consumer want to hear, so that they don’t have to consider their role in creating the demand that sees animals (mis)treated as commodities rather than conscious, living beings).
Meanwhile, Mr and Ms meat, egg and dairy consumer are at least willing to acknowledge and face the fact that their diet involves killing animals, something rarely to be found among smug, moralising vegans.
I really doubt most New Zealand meat eaters are remotely aware of what industrial farming looks like.
In reality factory farming is the prolonged torture and cruel killing of billions of animals.
I recommend Jonathan Safran Soer’s book ‘Eating Animals.’
Particularly the chapters on the industrial ‘farming’ and killing of chickens and pigs.
There’s nothing smug about the book.
If you look a bit further up this thread I think you’ll find plenty of smug (insincere) moralising from BW. Not, from what I can tell, a vegan!
And this site is filled with people expounding on their political and ethical viewpoints, arguing with others and getting pretty smug at times, too. It’s by no means limited to people espousing veganism. How often have you noticed me smugly moralising about (or mentioning) my 30+ years of veganism? Note the comment above about recognising that mine is a minority viewpoint. Hardly hardline…
If you’re feeling defensive about your choice to continue eating animals, that’s your problem. I don’t eat animals and I don’t eat any products that come from animals. It’s not the main thing I choose to discuss on this site, but I’m not going to be bullied by name-calling into never mentioning it.
Maybe BWaghorn and Ed can get their own post where the “debate” can continue at their level.
of all the nasty shit you put on here comparing me to ed is the lowest i’ve seen ,
cheers arse wipe
I didn’t: Red-Blooded did. Cheers.
So, this is the first time you’ve publicly expressed the view here that people who don’t share your diet are moral failures. Big whoop. If you comment denouncing people like me for eating food, I’m going to comment pointing out my dislike of people doing that. Try not suggesting that people who don’t share your diet are moral failures, it works wonders.
Your question was answered in the article:
So, yeah, need to build up the evidence to show the systemic aspect of the abuse of animals else it will just be ignored.
The filming inside these factories which house the torture and killing of millions of sentient beings has to be stopped by the industrial farming lobby.
If people knew what happened there, they would be out of business.
The answer is Veganuary. It’s like the month of January but without meat.
The answer is to adopt a plant based diet permanently.
If people are serious about fixing our planet, then we know what we must do and we must do it.
One simple and easy sacrifice to make in the interests of preventing climate catastrophe.
Stop
Eating
Meat
You are doing it again – conflating animal rights and environmental arguments.
There are animal rights and environmental issues surrounding the industrial processing of billions of sentient living animals into meat.
Clearly you don’t care about either the damage being done to the end by industrial animal agriculture nor the welfare of the sentient creatures who endure the barbaric conditions inside these factories.
So you make smart comments instead.
Debate the actual issue.
Assumptions fucking much. Actually i will be protesting outside the rodeo tomorrow. I haven’t eaten mammal flesh for more than thirty years.
I usually don’t bother to engage in discussion with you as it is clearly pointless. You have made up your mind what is right for you and you are hell bent now on forcing that on everybody else. I do really care about both animal welfare and climate change and watching you run around alienating people is therefore painful.
Perhaps if you cared more for animals you might talk more about stricter laws and enforcement which would be much more achievable than universal veganism.
Perhaps if you cared more for people you might come to understand that some of us find it hard to meet our nutritional needs from just plants. I can’t eat most grains and nuts for health reasons for example, and eggs and fish are an important part of my diet.
Perhaps if you cared more for the environment you would understand that chickens and cows form an integral part of many permaculture systems.
My comments are about industrial farming, not permaculture.
I would have stricter laws. They would entail the closure of all industrial farming methods.
But catastrophic climate change is happening very soon unless we act.
People are going to have to be forced to make significant sacrifices if we are to mitigate the worst outcomes.
In World War 2, people’s food was rationed to help win the war.
Is it too much to ask that people are forced to move to a plant based diet to save the planet?
NO, your comments are about VEGANISM. Animal rights and climate change are just the issues you hang it off.
“The answer is to adopt a plant based diet permanently. … we know what we must do and we must do it.”
Yes must must do it to save the planet.
Ed:
Solkta:
Deja vue all over again.
For someone whose supposed to love animals, and purports to have their best interests at heart, Ed/Paul certainly loves beating on that dead donkey of his.
This is the year when people have to begin the fightback against the right wing media. The easiest way is micropulse radio stations which are cheap to buy and incur no music royalties if there are no ads. These radio stations are low powered and line of sight and more effective than the msm whould have you believe.
If tribesmen in in the hindu kush can run their own in discrete valleys then what is stopping comparatively wealthy pakehas with disposable income from getting their arses into gear and taking the tories head on at their own game.
Are you sure atomising the shared public spaces is actually a good idea for a healthy civil society? rather than calling for more and more micro-services where people can have their views reinforced in tiny echo chambers wouldn’t it be better to campaign for a well funded publicly owned public service broadcasting network with a wide audience and a range of diverse voices?
+100%, Sanctuary.
+100 you’d also regenerate the local content production landscape as it’s been flogged off over the past years so we need the ‘local’ put back.
Drama, childrens, comedy, documentaries all get a lift if you adopt the ABC model from Oz. Light entertainment as one example is an easy category to make content for and TVNZ showed they can’t even get that right with appalling efforts.
TVNZ is our public broadcaster it just needs some legislation and funding to reshape it as a proper one and flush out the Kendricks and Co for proper broadcasters before it’s too late as they are a dying breed.
Yes absolutely. tc.
you dont understand. it is important that people have real input into the affairs of the community which is based on non profit social justice and the easiest way to do it is with local radio. especially when you play renaissance and pre renaissance music.
rnz can look after itself very well .
R.P., could you expand this idea a bit.
It’s a bit truncated.
you have to pay if you want the playlist.
and the 60’s hippy revolution was backed by the first fm stations who cleaned up later and sold out when the wave receeded. Cant go back now but if you want a revolution NOW then you gotta know what you are doing.
Once a criminal, always a criminal?
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/347909/police-cold-calling-strategy-labelled-creepy
Two words
Social Investment
Coppers have been doing it for years, actually started in 1976 with this toy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Law_Enforcement_System in Whanganui.
I think there’s value in having community follow-up for people who’re fresh out of prison (for example). I don’t think the police are the right agency to be doing this, though.
Everything depends on the police involved – they can range from the kind who harass to the kind who give a damn and become genuinely supportive. These human factors are hard to measure from the outside, though the people they visit can probably work out what’s going on pdq.
Some may find it embarrassing with the neighbours or any visiting guests wondering why the police are calling.
Some may find it intimidating, thinking they are being watched or are going to be pinned for any burglaries in the neighbourhood.
Some may find it a total infringement of their rights, being innocent of any recent crime but being harassed nonetheless.
Agreed – it can be all of those things – but it can be done in a way that is positive. Whether it should be done rather depends on how careful they are not to infringe rights, and to avoid alarming neighbours and so forth.
There is a behavioral aspect to some kinds of offending, and support can assist if it is genuine. It is the kind of thing that perhaps should be part of a rehabilitation system – and my understanding of burglary is that a very small number of active burglars may generate a considerable amount of loss and damage.
They could simply call (on the phone) to see if help is required.
Yes – but there is some validity in the human contact angle, as well as the impressionistic assessment of whether things are going ok. It would be unwise to confine an assessment of a recovering alcoholic to phone calls, and to some extent the same might be true of burglars.
Isn’t this something that parole officers would be for if we actually had a decent rehabilitation system?
Yes – there should probably be some overlap between the functions in fact.
So the friendly offer of support has now turned into an assessment, leading to the presumption of innocence taking a further step backwards.
Do you suppose that the presumption of innocence extends to preventing the police from making enquiries? I think you’ll find it doesn’t. But successfully rehabilitated people – those who have managed to get their life back together – can probably be excluded from many enquiries.
Much would depend on what resources the police might have at their disposal to make a ‘helping hand’ approach actually helpful.
Calling around to someones home and making inquiries on no other grounds other than an individual’s past history does seem to rob one of the presumption of innocence, but I’m no legal expert.
George Monbiot.
“Wouldn’t it be great if journalists asked themselves “what is important?” rather than “what is topical?”.“
Edgar McGregor
“Climate change needs more action and less advocacy. Unlike other world issues such as racism, sexism and starvation, climate change will one day be unsolvable. We are losing control of the situation. We know what we need to do, we know what we can expect, we just have to act.”
George Monbiot on Theresa May’s 25 year environmental plan.
“It’s as if it were written with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. In terms of rhetoric, Theresa May’s 25-year environment plan is in some ways the best government document I’ve ever read. In terms of policy, it ranges from the pallid to the pathetic.
Those who wrote it are aware of the multiple crises we face. But, having laid out the depth and breadth of our predicaments, they propose to do almost nothing about them. I can almost hear the internal dialogue: “Yes, let’s change the world! Hang on a minute, what about our commitment to slashing regulations? What about maximising economic growth? What would the Conservatives’ major funders have to say about it? Oh all right, let’s wave our hands around instead.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/11/theresa-may-plastic-plan-economy-consume
One notable line.
“A plastic-free aisle in supermarkets will not deliver a plastic-free isle.”
And his conclusion.
“The more an economy grows, the more resources it will consume. If it’s not plastic, it will be cardboard, and the cardboard is likely to be made from chewed-up rainforest. Clamp down on the use of cardboard, and something else will take its place. An economy that keeps growing on a planet that does not will inevitably burst through environmental limits, however sincere a government might be about seeking to reduce its impacts. The big conversation we need within government has still not begun. ”
I shall distil Monbiot’s passage into a few simple words.
We need to rid ourselves of capitalism.
Or die.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11971853
Will be interesting to see what the Greens do about this
In 1999, speaking against an earlier party-hopping bill, Green co-leader Rod Donald reminded the House that “had this bill existed prior to the last [1999] election, we [Donald and Fitzsimons] would have been removed from this House and denied our opportunity to stay here for the full parliamentary term”.
“Will be interesting to see what the Greens do about this”
Indeed.
Instead of a green belly, we will see true yellow belly of the Greens…
The flipside is when you have an MP who remains too long in the party and does as much as possible to burn it down before leaving.
Party hopping is much less damaging than that.
And he did it in the 1980s and held his own electorate so not a good example.
In fact, any ‘party hopping’ prior to the 1996 election has no bearing on it.
Which is untrue. The greens were part of the Alliance but were still The Greens. Donald and Fitzsimons would still have been Green MPs.
They didn’t leave their party – their party left The Alliance. And it could be argued that their seats were the Green Party share of the Alliance vote they should have kept them anyway.
I don’t expect MPs to be ‘party robots’ but if they leave the party then they damn well shouldn’t keep their seat because they’re no longer representing those that voted for them on the party ticket.
Exactly as it should be.
Then we need better law…
…Oh, wait.
That’s what the party vote does. If an MP then leaves a party then they’ve removed themselves from that decision by the voters and should be removed from parliament.
Electorate MPs are more complex because they’ve actually been voted for by the electorate. We actually need the power of recall given to the voters so that an electorate can remove if they deem it necessary.
Yes!! 1000% DracoTB, they should seek a new mandate from the voters.
Yeah, spot on Draco
List MPs are there on the basis of their party’s share of the vote, it’s the party’s mandate, not the MP’s, therefore if they leave the party they loose the right to that party’s mandate and should be gone from parliament and replaced by the next person on that party’s list.
Electorate MPs have a personal mandate from their electorate, so it’s the MP’s mandate, not the party’s.
Good explanation Graeme. Makes it clear for the unsure.
I’d argue that not allowing them to leave means that the party needs to take more care in their original selection and in how they treat and deal with them for the term of the government.
It’s a fixed term and if the party has screwed up then they need to live with it.
Just shoving any fuckwit on the list is best stopped by not being able to get rid of them til the next election.
Having an internal revolution and changing direction at the hierarchical level shouldn’t mean you can offload the MP’s you don’t like post the revolution.
Then there’s also the issue of the workers for those MP’s. It’s enough that they only have certainty of work for an electoral term without adding to the possibility that the may become out of work cause the party no longer loves an MP – or the MP no longer loves the party.
It’s not often I agree with Nick Smith (actually I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with him and there is some strong irony in some of what he says) but on this I do.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/100357490/house-of-representatives-or-party-poodles
Just shoving any fuckwit on the list is best stopped by not being able to get rid of them til the next election.
Your language says that you are not considering the matter in a balanced way. Political parties are a group of people trying to get into a position to have some sway in the country. They are trying to be part of the political process; they may do things wrongly but talking about them and those involved as ‘fuckwit’ doesn’t add anything to the discussion.
Calling an individual a ‘fuckwit’ when they obviously are failing to achieve anything worthwhile and make statements that fail to take in the reality of the position may be justified, but not some blanket dismissive. You have proved by the way you used that term generally that individually it might be applied to you.
You take the comment far too non-contextually.
I’ve used the extreme end of the spectrum i.e. the party selecting someone completely inappropriate to make the point that it should not be justified under any circumstance.
I’m not leaving any grey for the party to say ooops we got it wrong.
They need to take that care in the first place – not have an escape clause.
To an extent we have that in the way Party lists remain in place for the term of the Parliament. If a list member dies, leaves for a diplomatic post or fucks up and has to go, the Party is stuck with ringing in the next person on their list. Sure we see a bit of gymnastics to get the one the Party really wants, but it is a strong incentive for Parties to be reasonably circumspect on who’s on their lists.
I’m waiting to see what unfolds if there is a string of departures when the National leadership eventually blows open. Fully expect the new leader to try and reshape the caucus in their form. Maybe that’s what the squatter is about in his rather confused and paranoid rant.
Aye that’s why I like what we have and not what is proposed.
Examples from the early days of MMP I think are a poor case to justify change as I’m sure parties are now a little wiser in selecting their list MP’s than when MMP first came in – if they’re not then they should be.
There’s another interpretation of the squatter’s rant. Maybe he’s pissed that National won’t be able to induce defections of NZ first MPs, again.
I’m not so sure about the squatter’s assertion that the waka jumping bill allows the party to “fire” list MPs any more than the current arrangement allows a party to request the member to consider their future.
They’re allowed to leave it’s just that if they do and they’re a list MP then they also leave parliament.
If they leave then they’ve removed themselves.
Such risk obviously comes with the job and one of the reasons why they’re paid quite well.
Young Nats
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/campus/university-of-otago/students-excluded-sadistic-flat-initiation
I thought it was the Daisycutter sports New Year’s bash ?
Sadly, Mullet, there was a shortage of sadists at the last one. A stark contrast to 2005.
Goat runs amok in Carrickfergus
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2016/dec/06/goat-runs-amok-in-carrickfergus-video
Looks like the government’s plans are working to drive out the speculative class.
The article has the usual Herald bias, as the rag represents the rentier class, but it does provide some interesting facts if you can peel away the propaganda.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=11973924
If person owns just one property as a rental property, do they fit into the “speculative” class?
They certainly fit into the ‘rentier’ class.
Yes, if likely capital gains were a significant part of their motivation to purchase it.
Otherwise… probably.
It’s always seen as a sensible investment to have a rental property. I don’t see it as speculative and it wouldn’t be a problem if Labour hadn’t gone feral and National hadn’t gone plutocratic and together they have skewed the country so badly.
See Jeremy Corbyn take on Margaret Thatcher about housing in 1990.
The link is at No. 17 here. The facts he was quoting were bad back then for Britain.
Well, yeah. But the fact is that the nats and labz were what they were, and so for the last thirty years people have bought a rental property on the basis that the capital value will increase enough for them to afford to pay off the property when they sell it down the line, and frequently make up the gap between their income and the mortgage with the rent the property gets.
@ Ed
“Mum and dad investors ‘fleeing’ property…”
Who will fill the void?
Institutional investors?
And will tenants be any better off?
Perhaps the Government could buy them and turn them into state homes?
More building permits issued in Auckland since 2005 in November.
Official figures prepared for the new housing minister estimate a shortfall of 45,000 houses in Auckland, with supply of new homes well behind increased demand.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/98519361/weve-inherited-a-disaster-official-figures-show-45000-home-shortfall-in-auckland
It’s not ‘weather weirdness’ NZ Herald.
It’s climate change.
And the sooner you’re honest about this, the quicker New Zealand will start acting decisively to deal with it.
30 degrees in Invercargill
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11974054
Record marine heatwave
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11973975
Zzzzzz….. The vinyl’s scratched..
Ah well, you just ignore it all then.
Go back to sleep, mikes.
Nothing to see here.
Trump cancels UK trip because of fear of mass protests.
Good news.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/12/donald-trump-visit-to-london-called-off-amid-fears-of-mass-protests
“Of 21 Winter Olympic Cities, Many May Soon Be Too Warm to Host the Games.”
https://t.co/ah8TwqdbLD?amp=1
British politics.
First – Jeremy Corbyn v Margaret Thatcher on Housing in 1990
Housing – People sleeping on the streets, children brought up in b*Bs, but Councils have empty houses so there is no difficulty.
Jeremy Corbyn v Margaret Thatcher
Theresa May v Tony Blair
then question on Brexit
There would be many benefit for New Zealand if we banned plastic bags come on let’s get this environmentally friendly economy going don’t listen to the nay Sayers. We have all the raw materials to make paper bags what’s the problem we will create jobs come on
I think that Theo Spiering should take my advice on the solarpanel on cow sheds maybe Papatuanuku will let up on that cow disease and it mite stop spreading that’s my view on that subject P.S. I seen the thunder in action yesterday on thestandard many thanks to all my viewers ka pai ka kite ano
Steve Cowan nails it.
“Jim Anderton was New Zealand’s last significant social democratic politician. While some are claiming he pulled Labour Party back ‘from the brink’ and back to the ‘centre-left’ this is a convenient rewriting of history. The Labour Party today bears little resemblance to the Labour Party that Jim Anderton once knew.”
http://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.co.nz/2018/01/jim-anderton-new-zealands-last-social.html?m=1
I read one comment saying that its a totally different country .I say that this country has a major influence on all the SOCIETIES on Papatuanuku/MotherEarth .So If we can voice All OUR concerns about the direction that we see that country going down If we let them Know NOW this will save a lot of pain and suffering in the future . Kia Kaha
Here is a song I like from the next generation Ka kite ano