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
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...
Back in May, Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki launched another political party. Despite consisting entirely of followers of their religion, they grandly called it "Coalition New Zealand", in a vain effort to suggest it was something broader. But when they applied for registration, submitters opposed the name, as ...
The following article is excerpted and translated from two articles in recent issues of Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the revolutionary workers group active in France. We don’t necessarily agree with everything in it – for instance, the 1956-62 war for independence involved rather more revolutionary forces than ...
The Pacific is on the front line of climate change, and if we don't cut emissions quickly, some countries are literally going to be underwater. Because of this, small Pacific states had tried to use this week's Pacific Islands Forum meeting to get Pacific countries to agree to ending coal ...
To Limit Another's Rights Is To Limit One's Own: Is it too much to expect senior members of our Government to be capable of explaining that we protect the rights of human-beings precisely because not even the most depraved act can cancel-out the fact that its perpetrator is also a ...
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...
This section builds on Part 1 of this series to provide a theoretical basis for the final instalment (part 3 – to come). Self-determination: law or resurgence — or both? International law promotes the principal of equal treatment and self-determination, which includes peoples’ rights to freely pursue their social, cultural and ...
Everyone was outraged yesterday to learn that the Christchurch shooting accused had been able to send mail from prison to his Nazi fans, apparently pushing more hate. "How could this possibly happen", people asked. Simple: because New Zealand is a civilised country, and so we let prisoners send and receive ...
If we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, we need to rapidly decarbonise our transport fleet. The good news: its starting to happen:The number of electric vehicles on New Zealand's roads have nearly tripled in the past two years. There are currently 15,453 registered electric vehicles (EVs), up ...
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Last week, the ongoing democracy protests in Hong Kong saw a pro-Hong Kong student assaulted at the University of Auckland. The Chinese consulate in Auckland followed this up with a press release "express[ing] its appreciation to the students for their spontaneous patriotism" - effectively condoning the assault and inciting further ...
Only those who close their eyes and minds to the evidence can still be in any doubt that we are facing a climate change crisis. The evidence is conclusive that the world is not only getting inexorably hotter, but also that the rising temperatures are creating a number of other ...
Rural communities are wailing about forestry conversions "taking land out of production" and putting it into locking up carbon. Its driven purely by economics: there's more money and lower costs in carbon than in sheep or beef, and if carbon prices rise, there'll be more net money than dairy even. ...
This week, the government introduced its (underwhelming) Abortion Legislation Bill. And despite having negotiated the text of the bill through the coalition process, Winston Peters is now suggesting that he will demand a referendum on it:NZ First leader Winston Peters has hinted that his party may only support the Government's ...
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...
Last night the police dramatically incresed their numbers at Ihumātao, shoving over protestors and threatening them with arrest. Despite police talk about the need to maintain "public order" and prevent a "breach of the peace", there appeared to be absolutely no justification for this: the protest camp is, was, and ...
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...
Today's abortion reform announcement is just the latest in a long line of disappointing decisions or outright failures from the Labour government. The 90-day law. KiwiBuild. A capital gains tax. Climate change. Every time they make one of those decisions, we hope for better next time. No repeal of the ...
The Greens used their party conference over the weekend to push for a rent-to-own scheme, where people would be able to work towards home ownership by renting from the government. Its a sensible policy, and one which could make a real difference to home ownership rates. But its also basicly ...
by Daphna Whitmore Over the past fortnight, thousands of people have come to the Ihumātao land protest in South Auckland. On 23 July police prepared to evict a few dozen people who had maintained the encampment at Ihumātao for the past three years. As hundreds of supporters arrived the ...
The following article is translated from an article in Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of the French revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle). The United States’ blacklisting of the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which took shape in Google’s ban on Huawei using its systems on its phones, marks a ...
There is a military phrase: “Full spectrum dominance”. It refers to the all-encompassing policy to dominate across all spheres of war. Lately, that has come to include the internet – in other words, cyberwarfare initiatives. That is in addition to land, sea, air and the like. Now, if ...
The IMF issued a Report on the state of the Economy as it is at present. Some of it points out significant issues that certainly warrant attention, but that we know already exist. Some of it is very much tied to the very obvious context of global concerns, that everyone ...
I'm glad to see the Lib Dems won.I had a moment of terror yesterday thinking that the Conservatives might cling on, due to a combination of Johnson's elevation to the premiership, the apparent uselessness of the Lib Dem candidate (who had failed to be elected in other constituencies) and the ...
. . Current Leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges gave the usual rah-rah speech to the Loyal & Faithful in Christchurch today (27 July). With National’s party polling and his own personal popularity sliding steadily in the polls, Mr Bridges has not much left to reverse his fortunes. ...
Those concerned for Langridge’s wellbeing say they hope he’ll change his mind when he sees the ocean coming. The protester who has vowed to stand outside Parliament every day until the Government announces a climate emergency says he accepts that his quest will most likely end in drowning. Ollie Langridge, ...
What will climate change do to our capital city? The Wellington City Council has updated its projections, ditching its optimistic 0.6m estimate for sea-level rise in favour of a more realistic 1.5m. And the result is devastating:Wellington City Council has unofficially ditched an optimistic sea-level rise scenario in favour of ...
Image Credit: How To Start a Blog – Beginner’s Guide for 2019 I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the report of the Small Business Council will help maintain the momentum for innovation and improvements in the sector. Mr Nash has thanked the members of the Small Business Council (SBC) who this week handed over their report, Empowering small businesses to aspire, succeed ...
Extra Police officers are being deployed from Northland to Southland with the graduation of a new wing of recruits from the Royal New Zealand Police College. “The graduation of 78 constables today means that 1524 new constables have been deployed since the government took office,” says Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Almost $600 million has been paid into taxpayers’ bank accounts in the past two months, after the first season of automatic tax assessments. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says the completion of this year’s tax refund season is a significant milestone. “The ability of Inland Revenue to run auto calculations for ...
Sunday, 18 August, 2019 - Environmental groups and well known New Zealanders are preparing to deliver a 55,000 strong petition to the steps of Parliament tomorrow, calling on the Government to protect the world’s smallest dolphin. ...
The Government’s proposed rescue plan must be strengthened because it is the last chance to save Māui dolphins from extinction and secure the future for Hector’s dolphins, Forest & Bird says. ...
Simon Shepherd: Roads, schools, hospitals, prisons, the building blocks that keep society functioning. And we don't have enough. It's called the infrastructure deficit and will be the focus of a major conference this coming week. The man charged with ...
New Zealand has been issued a stark challenge from Pacific leaders to dramatically upscale its action to address climate breakdown, Oxfam says, after a clear rallying cry from nations at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum. ...
Support for Recreational Dope Going ‘Up in Smoke’ Family First NZ is welcoming yet another poll showing plummeting support for legalising cannabis in New Zealand. The Horizon Research poll shows support for legalising has plummeted from 60% last ...
The prospect of ending wider cannabis prohibition looks increasingly unlikely. Over the last nine months, the percentage of New Zealanders who would vote for legalising the personal use of cannabis has declined at a near linear rate of around 10% per ...
“It’s disappointing that news out of the United States of hospitalisations linked to illegal street drugs is somehow seen as relevant to the New Zealand vaping scene,” says Ben Pryor, Director of Alt New Zealand – the largest Kiwi-owned vaping company. ...
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) welcomes the successful passing of Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill through parliament, by the New Zealand Government. ...
Today’s news from the Electoral Commission has provided the party with the clarity it was seeking around use of the word “Coalition” being used as the brand name of the party. ...
A recently released Otago University study has provided further evidence that low-quality housing is a significant problem in Aotearoa. This has prompted the Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ) Paul Evans to question “why ...
With the BNZ-Business NZ PMI signaling manufacturing is contracting , the Government needs to seriously consider tax relief, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called for an overhaul of the Public Services executive ranks as the Corrections debacle shows mis-management and incompetence at the highest level. Matthew Tukaki, Executive Director of the New Zealand Maori Council has said ...
Findings from the 2018 New Zealand Consumer Survey have been released and the results are in; 48 per cent of respondents consider their purchases based on how ethically employees are treated. ...
The responsibility for the fact that Westland Milk Products is now in the hands of an overseas conglomerate 25% owned by the Chinese government can be laid fair and square at our government's doorstep. ...
As Fonterra is projecting multi million dollar losses for the second year in a row, it is clear the writing is on the wall for dairy as more and more Kiwis turn to plant milks. 22nd August is International Plant Milk Day and there is now a different plant ...
The $65,000 granted to Interislander so it can install electric vehicle chargers on its ferries is the most absurd waste of money yet to be delivered by the “Low Emissions” vehicle fund, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
Wellingtonians will have the chance to hear international child rights experts from Ireland, Scotland and Samoa speak at the Making Child Rights Real in Aotearoa New Zealand seminar to be held in the city on Wednesday 21 August. ...
Paul Evans, Chief Executive of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACENZ), is advocating a balanced approach to the development of productive land. ...
CPAG (Child Poverty Action Group) says that new research from the University of Otago provides a solid foundation for why the Government must not delay instating a comprehensive Warrant of Fitness for tenanted homes in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that an officer drove carelessly during a pursuit and that this was the primary cause of a collision with a motorcycle that injured the rider. ...
Responding to the Prime Minister’s commitment of $150 million in funding for climate change response in the Pacific, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says: “It is no secret that many Pacific nations lack serious oversight when it ...
AUT research not only shows an increase in political affiliation, but that candidates affiliated to a central political party are more likely to win seats in Auckland local government. ...
On the 23rd of August School Strike NZ will join Ollie Langridge in his 100th day of sitting outside of New Zealand Parliament calling for the government to declare a climate emergency. School Strike 4 Climate NZ also demand that Parliament acknowledge ...
You have stood up for what is fair, and I am sure you will speak for over 7 million people who have been muted and rendered voiceless in Indian occupied Kashmir for more than a 10 days now. I am writing to bring to your notice the plight of Kashmiri ...
In the last 10 months alone, 11 petitions have been delivered to Parliament calling for medicines to be funded by Pharmac. Today, another nine petitions have been launched by Patient Voice Aotearoa (PVA) members asking that life changing, saving and extending ...
When we were first working to get Miscanthus approved for import into New Zealand, the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) waived the fee for their work because they thought that having Miscanthus in New Zealand was so very much in the ...
PHARMAC’s recent decision to fund two additional drugs from December this year has been widely welcomed by patients and the general public alike. The drugs, Kadcyla and Ibrance, are used in the treatment of advanced lung and breast cancers and will ...
Animal rights organisation SAFE is urging the Government to include experts and advocates from outside the agriculture industry on its newly announced winter crop grazing taskforce. ...
The Government’s plans to prohibit housing on ‘productive’ farmland will serve as yet another regulatory tax on housing, and is a shameful breach of Jacinda Ardern’s promise to fix housing supply, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . ...
The latest round of the Ethnic Communities Development Fund opens today, supporting projects that grow the leadership and capability of ethnic groups, improve cultural understanding, and ensure our ethnic communities are a vibrant and celebrated part ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is warning of the dangers of hiking excise tax, in response to calls from a former Prime Minister for stronger action on alcohol harm. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It seems inevitable ...
LGNZ will be cautiously assessing the wider implications of the newly proposed National Position Statement on Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL), noting that that it traverses a number of highly complex policy areas including housing affordability and property ...
Horticulture New Zealand has welcomed the Government’s draft National Policy Statement on Highly Productive Land, saying it will help ensure that New Zealand can grow its own vegetables and fruit. ...
Background documents for Budget 2019 are now available from on the Treasury website: https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/information-release/budget-2019-information-release ...
The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry has welcomed a move by Crown agencies to lift confidentiality obligations on survivors of abuse in State care arising from settlement agreements with the Crown. ...
An evaluation of New Zealand’s first sexual violence court has confirmed that the approach taken in the judge-led pilot considerably reduces the time that cases take to reach trial. ...
The National Party is pleased to announce the appointment of Paula Bennett as our Campaign Chair for the 2020 General Election, President Peter Goodfellow says. ...
14 August 2019 – 18 senior business leaders and employment experts have been appointed as judges for New Zealand’s sixth annual Equal Pay Awards reflecting the breadth of companies who have entered. The Awards added three new categories in 2018: Innovation, ...
Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “This is more proof that bureaucrats do not make good tech tycoons, no matter how much taxpayer money they throw at geeks in Silicon Valley.” ...
August marks five years of the Community Finance initiative. In addition to its well established Financial Mentoring service, The Salvation Army has held more than 5800 financial conversations with Community Finance clients. The loan program helps ...
Today 14/8/19 on news hub AM show Duncan Garner asked National Party leader Simon Bridges ‘what would he do to combat climate change and improve the economy again if he is the next PM”. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/08/simon-bridges-says-most-kiwis-believe-system-gamed-at-last-election.html ...
DairyNZ Chief Executive Dr Tim Mackle is urging the Government to work with agricultural groups to drive real behaviour change on farm, instead of imposing a broad-based tax. Sector organisations have put forward an alternative Primary Sector Climate ...
Iwi forging closer relationship with Stats NZ over Māori data solutions The Data Iwi Leaders Group supports the findings of an independent review into the 2018 New Zealand Census – but says its failings provide a unique opportunity to co-design ...
“Any justification for paying exorbitant salaries to senior managers in business has just been buried in the Fonterra debacle” said Peter Malcolm spokesperson for Income Equality Aotearoa New Zealand Inc---“Closing the Gap” ...
Good on their own, even better with cheese – these crisp, moreish crackers are destined to become your new go-to savoury snack.These crackers have been on high rotation in our household – they’ve filled lunchboxes, accompanied fine cheeses on evening platters and been eaten by the fistful straight from the jar. ...
Lists are good and so are Sundays. We combine both those things in a new Spinoff feature. This week: Headlines from the past six months about the the Reserve Bank governor, Adrian OrrRBNZ prepares to stick its Orr inASB, March 29Banks Orr-struck yet againThe Australian, April 10Big banks brace for ...
Over 300 hours of interviews condensed into five episodes that cover the entirety of New Zealand’s comedy history – how do you even start to approach that? Sam Brooks interviews Paul Horan, the documentarian behind the show.It’s one of those projects that sounds utterly futile – how does one cover ...
Judgement prevents understanding, which in itself is a barrier to preventing unsafe behaviour. Are different approaches to harm reduction in the Rainbow community needed? Sex. Drugs. Carly Rae Jepsen. This is the iconography that tends to be massaged into mainstream conceptions of gay culture. Depictions in TV/film see us railing lines ...
The Spinoff is covering local elections across the country with a new pop-up section. To kick things off, Hayden Donnell went to a mayoral debate at Grey Power on the North Shore of Auckland.John Tamihere walked into the mayoral debate at North Shore Grey Power on Friday just minutes after ...
The Spinoff is covering local elections across the country with a new pop-up section. To kick things off, Hayden Donnell went to a mayoral debate at Grey Power on the North Shore of Auckland.John Tamihere walked into the mayoral debate at North Shore Grey Power on Friday just minutes after ...
Things I Learned at Art School is a new series featuring artists discussing how they do what they do and know what they know. In the second instalment, Megan Dunn talks to Berlin-based New Zealander Simon Denny about Michael Parekowhai, teaching and technology, and an idea involving the online shoe ...
With the acquisition of global rugby streaming leader RugbyPass, Sky might have just secured its future, writes Trevor McKewen.For several months now, the war between Sky and Spark Sport for the peerless prize of All Blacks and New Zealand rugby rights from 2021 onwards has been escalating. Every week, one ...
The Lightbulb asks innovators and entrepreneurs how they turned their ideas into reality. This week we talk to Jamie Cashmore, co-founder of Auckland-based edible packaging company Twiice. First of all, give us your elevator pitch for Twiice.Twiice is a company making edible coffee cups with plans to progress into other areas ...
The recent discovery of a fossil parrot the size of a human toddler is even more reason for Foulden Maar to be protected, writes the chairperson of Save Foulden Maar, Kimberley Collins.Last week, scientists discovered a new species of extinct parrot in the St Bathans Fauna. Weighing in at seven ...
Could a new hybrid of all the government’s major media holdings solve multiple media and government problems? Duncan Greive assesses the case.The media industry, despite what some of us might like to believe, really doesn’t matter all that much economically. Doesn’t employ all that many people. Relatively low wage. ...
The three governing parties are turning their attention to next year’s general election. RNZ‘s Jo Moir surveys the field.The night New Zealand First formed a government with Labour and the Greens, its leader Winston Peters quoted the song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.Almost two years later all three ...
Analysis: The botched census brings down a chief executive, there's another wave of speculation about Christopher Luxon standing for National and NZ First could sink an attempt to reverse the ban on prisoner voting. ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Wording has played a crucial role in a reportedly “fierce” Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu with Australia allegedly managing to alter documental terms to downplay its commitment to climate change mitigation. According to RNZ Pacific, a communiqué and separate statement on climate change was released ...
Australia’s coal policy and its use of carry over credits to fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreement have come under fire and been major points of contention at this year’s 50th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Meeting in Funafuti, Tuvalu. READ MORE: ‘We should have done more for our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael O’Keefe, Head of Department, Politics and Philosophy, La Trobe University The Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu this week has ended in open division over climate change. Australia ensured its official communique watered down commitments to respond to climate change, gaining ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xanthe Mallett, Forensic Criminologist, University of Newcastle Even in death, the voice of Carl Williams is louder than that of his victims. Intimate prison letters written by the convicted murderer and drug trafficker to his ex-wife, Roberta – herself arrested this month ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brianna Chesser, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Justice, RMIT University In September 2018, a prominent Melbourne surgeon and academic was charged with rape and sexual assault for alleged offences committed a year earlier against a male doctor. The surgeon and doctor had ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Dearnaley, Associate Professor, University of Southern Queensland The blotched butterfly orchid (Sarcochilus weinthalii) looks fairly unremarkable when it’s not flowering, generally resembling the far more common orange blossom orchid. But when it flowers, it is exquisite. Dark purple blotches stand out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Cropper, Senior Lecturer, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne Almost every person throughout the existence of humankind has looked up at the night sky and seen more than just a random scattering of light. Constellations of stars have helped ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Desbrow, Associate Professor, Nutrition and Dietetics, Griffith University A recent study published in the journal Depression and Anxiety has attracted widespread media attention. Media reports said eating chocolate, in particular, dark chocolate, was linked to reduced symptoms of depression. Unfortunately, we ...
He’s the artist who launched a million memes and over a billion streams. Sam Brooks picks out Bazzi’s best moments so far, from his career-making breakthrough to his mature new mixtape Soulsearching.1. ‘Mine’“You’re so fuckin’ precious when you smile.”It’s the line that didn’t just launch a million memes, it’s the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Crosby, Professor, Monash University Since President Trump tweeted about imposing new tariffs on China, global equity markets have gone into a tailspin. Trump’s more recent announcement that the new tariffs would be delayed has not calmed the markets, with recent days ...
A new poem by Waikato poet Loren Thomas.to convince myself we’re dreamingwe were walking through suburbia houses kissing front lawns copied one after anotheryou tasted like mint leaves and chlorophyll that’s been pissed on by catsI held your hand and we walked towards the ocean dodging planks from dead train ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney The federal government wants to boost the number of migrants moving to regional areas in Australia to fill job vacancies and reduce the pressure on our cities. That’s why ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University There can be no doubt violence against women is a national crisis. On average in Australia, one woman every week is killed. A 2016 survey found one in four women experienced violence ...
One dignified resignation was a bouquet in a sea of brickbats this week as low levels of accountability had eyes rolling. James Elliott has the news of the week. ...
Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein on the band’s ninth studio album, working with St Vincent, and the departure of bandmate and drummer, Janet Weiss.It’s been almost five years since Sleater-Kinney broke their decade-long hiatus with an album that received almost near-universal praise. It was “raw”, “bristling”, “emotive”, “taut” – all adjectives you’d ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Colleen Murrell, Associate Professor, Journalism, Swinburne University of Technology When news of the stabbings in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon came through, one of the first tweets about the incident came from Sky News reporter Laura Jayes. Immediately it got retweeted and sent ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney2 An ...
When Emily Writes reviewed a life-changing sex toy, the response from orgasm-starved women was huge. So why are so many having so few orgasms, and what can be done?For the last two years I’ve been running a pretty small – about 600-odd member – group for mostly New Zealand women ...
When Josie Adams broke her laptop last week, she knew she’d never find love like that again. Can the Asus Chromebook Flip C213SA offer a new kind of technological relationship? She reviews how it stands up to everyday use and the cosmic forces that seek to destroy her.Last Thursday I ...
Wine should be fun, not intimidating, all you need is a little knowledge. Yvonne Lorkin co-founder and chief tasting officer of WineFriend provides some simple tips to help you empower your palate. Even I can get scared by wine. I’m usually super-meek and a tad feeble at high-brow, ‘industry’ wine tastings. ...
Pacific Media Watch NewsdeskBy Makereta Komai in Funafuti, Tuvalu Tonga’s Prime Minister, ‘Akilisi Pohiva, has delivered a stinging attack against regionalism and the Pacific Islands Forum’s stance of leaving no one behind, for failing to amicably resolve the issue of West Papua. Pohiva admitted the issue has divided ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Corrections, Christchurch mosque shootings Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): Upholding The Accused’s Right To Write Mark Daalder ...
Open Mike 12/01/2018 
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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