Are you a bargain hunter? A connoisseur of crap? A Sally Store shark?
Apparently, a new netflix show ‘Tidying up with Marie Kwondo’ has inspired many Kiwis to declutter lately. This has resulted in windfall hauls for various charity organisations.
So the message is, there’s bargains to be found for those wanting them.
I recommend blenders for fresh smoothies. Old books for learning from. Old clothes for a hipster disguise. I’m in the midst of a declutter myself though – out with the old in with the (not so) new? Change is good.
I loved punk for a similar reason to hipster fashion, go to op shop, rip stuff, pin stuff, add badges, wardrobe done. With the hipster look just find something hideous and wear it with confidence. Job done.
This short film, offered yesterday here on TS by some kind soul, is a great watch and on the topic of de-cluttering – in this instance, shedding an entire herd of cattle! I enjoyed it very much and thought how paltry my own de-cluttering challenge when compared to the subject of “73 cows”. https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2018/10/09/73-cows/
I really enjoyed that film and it did challenge my stance (a little). I will never condone factory farming or the concept of eating meat daily. I do however subscribe to dietary science and find after a week of dining from my garden I’m still a bit hungry. I eat meat weekly, or slightly less, when my body asks for it.
This is likely a lack of fats as much as protein, though I fared poorly growing beans this year so there is that missing.
I eat a range of herbs and veg every day.
I am open to suggestions as to what this ‘missing ingredient’ in my diet can be replaced with. If you start trying to push soy on me don’t bother, I’ll never eat that GE crap they’re destroying the Gulf of Mexico to farm for y’all.
You thought I might “start trying to push soy ” on you?
Nah!
Cricket-flour patties, WTP; they’re the buzz 🙂
If the cow farmer could only hook up with Charles Dowding…
On another topic…do we humans ever willingly accept less comfort than we have grown accustomed to? Has anyone real examples of voluntary change to less comfort? I’m thinking/remembering what it was like sleeping on sand. Every time you turn, even slightly, sand fills in behind you, preventing you from turning back; is comfort like that?
Cor, the deep questions so early in the day? I’m floundering. Must be some good reason why no bed of sand has entered the market. Nor have I ever heard of home-made examples. Perhaps we need to turn so frequently during the night that the sand effect you describe creates resistance. That would make it a non-user-friendly design.
Just in case you haven’t already noticed: “A new poll reveals a large majority of New Zealanders would support legalising recreational cannabis use in the Government’s 2020 referendum.” Forget decriminalisation! The public wants to go all the way!
Here’s evidence that the boomers are the mostly closet-fascists and closet-stalinists, dead-keen to suppress the rights of others:
Two thirds of all the younger generations are now rejecting prohibition! I’d better take back my oft-expressed dismissal of their collective intelligence. Those over 65 are two thirds in support of continuing prohibition. It’s a huge difference!
We judge people on their actions, and their attitudes. These rightist and leftist turkeys who pretend to support democracy while trying to get away with denying others their civil rights have never been anything other than scum.
You may think it stupid, but that’s obviously because you ain’t no real kiwi male. We call a spade a spade. Get with the program if you want to belong here.
I have fond memories from my student days in mid 70’s of being lectured on the perils of drugs by my stepmother while she had a gin in one hand and a tailormade in the other.
@Psycho Milt, What are you talking about? if you are 70 today, that would make you 20 yo in 1969, I know for a fact that there was plenty of pot smoking going in certain circles in NZ in ’69, just the same as today.
While it was smoked in certain circles in the 60s it was not smoked in most circles like the 80s. My parents had no idea what it smelt like. I used to mix it with drum tobacco and smoke it right under their noses. Once my father walked through the kitchen while i had a couple of big buds drying in the oven and he didn’t notice.
@solkta, that’s funny, because during the 1980’s there was pot pretty much everywhere I went…in one form or another.
I would say it would have been without doubt the most widely used recreational drug used in NZ during that time, after alcohol of course.
I turned 20 that year, and can report that I was still sceptical and too cautious. Not till March ’71 that I first tried it (to little apparent effect) due to feeling like I finally ought to jump on the bandwagon because the world was leaving me behind. I was a strange mix of radical and conservative, still am. But unlike what you say, I wasn’t hostile to users then. I recall viewing them with envy, in fact. Oh to be so adventurous! Casting your fate to the winds. Nah, too much of a challenge at the time so I wimped out…
A friend of mine, refugee from California, is still going strong in his late seventies. I think any correlation between cannabis users & early death would be established by now if real. I’ve never even heard of it being suggested.
Yeah, like fast drivers. Eliminate them due to the damage done. Easy. Just pass a law making it illegal to sell a car that drives faster than the speed limit. Industry can spin on a dime. Often does so. No problem.
So why don’t rightist govts do that? Freedom of choice. Milton Friedman. Neoliberal ideology. People want to be free to choose to break the law, speed when they want to. Same logic for cannabis. But Gabby, you know this already. Cruise control on cars has been there since the nineties. The tech exists to eliminate speeding. It’s really just that the right are full of shit. Go on, be honest, admit it.
Yes, pot does have adverse health effects, but so do a lot of other substances. We don’t lock someone up for smoking a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Even during the age of Prohibition in the USA, it was still not illegal for people to drink alcohol in their own home (they just couldn’t possess, sell, buy or transport it).
Old people are certainly not my favorites despite approaching membership. In uni it was the old farts who’d fight for the status quo and question those who questioned them. A bunch of oil aficionados.
But the young adults… They’d come to study group and we’d rant long and loud on alternative energy, agricultural diversification and more.
I still remember my first Jay Day at Uni. We had a biology lecture and almost the entire class showed up baked (we’d been having spots in the quad). The lecturer knew what was up immediately but didn’t know how to change tack.
I did some adult-reading recovery tutoring in a drug rehabilitation unit before, I think, Labour in Ruth Dyson’s time closed them down.
Talking to the chap I was helping, he told me that part of the steps he had to achieve towards wellness was to read a certain book on drug taking and write a summary of what he had learned. He found that he could read a whole page, know the words as he read them, but not be able to retain enough joined-up ideas and meaning by the end of the page to summarise what he had just read. Consequently the counsellors thought he wasn’t trying. I related the problem to them. They had not realised the brain function ‘numbing’ that the recovering people could be experiencing.
I understand that the brain does recover but the traces of cannabis regularly used, get into some tissues and take months of absistence before being drawn out to leave the brain which then can function better.
So that’s your secret you cunning person. Rosemary is more than just a pretty flower, smell and taste. Maybe you’ve come across the Elixir we have all been hoping for. I’ll definitely try it.
Have you ever done a detox? System cleansing is sometimes necessary due to the polluting effects of chemical food additives, micro-organisms, heavy metals. Rosemary is merely a system-maintenance agent. In my herbal tea mix, there’s around a dozen such.
There are only 2 ‘boomer’ cohorts in that list…and one one them is well in favour.
Generalisations/stereotypes are notoriously of little use…..about as accurate as ‘average’
That probably means you’re younger than me and are sufficiently pragmatic/ broadminded to accept the extended definition of boomer & take it more seriously. I’m bang in the middle of the group only in 30% approval, and untypical (nonconformist). In the counter-culture we’d grown to 1% of the whole generation, which seemed impressive growth at the time!
I kept tracking it & vaguely recall it trending around 5% at the end of the seventies. Just my estimation. Values polling is only an approximate indicator. I still saw them as trendy establishment liberals pretending to be radical. I wouldn’t have trusted them to support legalisation so never even checked if they did or not. Suit-wearers.
on the contrary …I dont take the labelling of generations seriously at all (except in the the misuse of its relevance)….folk are folk regardless and the curious thing is most of them age.
Pat
That might be wishful thinking. I think more of older retired folk around here anyway, in Nelson, are National supporters. They display similar characteristics – there is the birds of a feather thing as a general point. Refusal to understand this would mean that you would be less able to make personal predictions that would achieve accuracy when considering voting patterns etc.
im sure you are not suggesting that someone who is an empathetic open minded thoughtful individual receives a personality transplant for their 65th birthday GWS
Pat
There has been a trend observed that peiople become more conservative in old age. Also that older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them.
There has indeed been such a trend observed, conservative in that they less inclined to change i.e. maintain the views they have developed, so if you were of the view that drug reform was not a good idea when you were 30 odds are you will maintain that view at 40, 50 or 60 etc. This may be attributed to the predominant views/influences in the formative years ….and we also know that politics follow public opinion rather than lead it.
How this reduced appetite for risk is reflected in voting patterns is a topic of much debate.
As to the assertion that ‘older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’ a more accurate statement would be ‘people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’…..age is not key.
Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretences of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.
No wonder tradespeople are complaining their wages haven’t moved in 20 years while the cost of construction is skyrocketing as are all the defects. Time construction was not some immigration scam, but people with the right paperwork and the right NZ training or equivalent who speak and read English so can be safe on site and follow the plans or they really are skilled and paid $100k plus that high skills should be getting in NZ. Kiwis are expected to pay $30k for a degree to become a builder and take 3 or 4 years but being undercut by non/poor English speakers often bought in by migrants as a work scam or to be cheap labour, who will work for virtually nothing.
The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first instead they seem to be able to do anything for a foreigner with a problem, but somehow seems indifferent to the massive queues at the foodbanks for working Kiwis who can no longer survive on wages.
I saw a lot of indentured labour in Kuwait (even supervised some) and it still gnaws at my insides. It’s horrifying and disgusting that we’re now allowing it to happen here, and I’d like my elected representatives to do something about it – I’m looking at you, Iain Less-Galloway, you’re my MP as well as the relevant Minister. If we’ve signed FTAs that require us to allow this, please get on with reviewing and renegotiating or withdrawing from those FTAs, because they should never have been agreed to in the first place.
This is the standard method of running indentured labour:
1. In countries with lots of desperate people in poverty, you get local contractors to hire labour for you.
2. Those contractors sell the right to work for you to desperate locals. They can’t pay the amount the contractor is demanding, so the contractor ‘lends’ them the money on the basis they’ll soon be able to pay it back again once they’re earning allegedly big bucks working for you.
3. You have your staff pick the labourers up from the airport, take their passports off them and shoehorn them into run-down accommodation fit for a small fraction of the number of people.
4. These people are now effectively your slaves. They can’t go and work for anyone else because you have their passports. You can pay them whatever and whenever you feel like, and if anyone wants to make trouble about that you hold the threat of withdrawing sponsorship and putting them on the next plane home with nothing but a debt to the local contractor that will make them a slave to that contractor, who’s probably worse even than you.
Is this seriously what we want happening here? Because various incidents have demonstrated that it already is.
It most certainly is what some want, and you are correct to ask the question of ILG because the response to the exposure of its prevalence has been non existent….why?
It is also putting the better businesses out of work, who can not compete with the low tenders from companies with workers working at below market rates. Race to the bottom. Also it impacts on everyone as often when those firms get in cheap labour it backfires and a decade later you find out that the materials were also sub standard as is the work and currently the rate payers seem to be paying to fix it while the council blithely adds more liability to our books as well as the poor home owner who then finds out that they need to poor in $100k+ remedial work and actually might not even be able to live there anymore.
Capitalism will always shift to slavery of some form or another. People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.
And so they work to make sure that freedom is not available. They cut the welfare state by saying that people getting welfare are being paid too much, put in degrading conditions for getting welfare and put in place so many hoops for getting it as well.
And the whole lot is for the purpose of removing people’s freedom.
Out in place a UBI and watch as the poor/bad employers scream.
“People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.”
Not for the employer who the employee shifts to, or they wouldn’t offer better terms. That is capitalism at work, the freedom of the worker to negotiate better terms. Do you really not understand that?
You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.
I know you’re going to say that they are but they really aren’t.
First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. That’s a cost.
Because of the governments failure to run a full employment policy they can’t just walk to another job. Which means that they could be out of work for weeks or even months.
That is capitalism at work, the freedom of the worker to negotiate better terms. Do you really not understand that?
I understand it. Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? That they can only take what’s offered?
This is why the government keeps unemployment high. To actually prevent the workers from negotiating better terms and wages.
“You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.”
Of course they are. It’s called ‘resigning’.
“First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. ”
Wrong. They leave their old employer with potential outstanding leave entitlements, and start earning the very next day with their new employer. There are plenty of jobs.
“Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? ”
And a low unemployment rate increases the ability to negotiate. Thus the market provides the freedoms that workers don’t have under the dictates of socialism.
“This is why the government keeps unemployment high.”
The government wants low unemployment, because it increases it’s revenues and reduces it’s costs. If you seriously believe the government wants to keep unemployment high, you must think the current government is doing a pretty poor job!
@Psycho Milt +1, come to the Hawkes Bay if you want to see imported labour from impoverished pacific Island being used cynically to suppress wages and conditions. I brought this up with A. Little when I got the chance once, he blurted out some meaningless bullshit for an answer, which was really disappointing as I have always quite Little.
The problem with Little is the same problem with Labour NZ, ie. they seem to in their hearts, still really believe free market capitalism will answer all our problems, they really are liberal ideologues, this whole pragmatism bullshit that Ardern bangs on about is nothing more than a smoke screen for more of the same.
Same in Marlborough. I was in Blenheim for Christmas and found there’s now a big ugly barracks on the edge of town for the labourers imported from Vanuatu to work in the vineyards. I’ve seen better-looking prisons.
The police and immigration also seem also more willing politically to prosecute Pacific Islanders for ‘trafficking’ but less so for other nationals also in on the same wicket! Maybe not keen to displease Asian dual nationals who apparently bring in good political donations for politicians…
Evidence? That doesn’t sound correct. Are there any stats?
Asians? From where? You mean China don’t you or do you have an ethnicity breakdown to put up.
There have been 4 trafficking cases prosecuted in NZ, as far as I am aware it always concentrates on Pacific Island horticulture workers, while it seems that other types of rampant human trafficking aka among the massive 150k temp work permits per year last year on top of the 129,000 migrants coming. That is under Labour. To give an idea they were talking about 15,000 when they won the election. So that promise has defiantly not be kept.
For years now we have constant stories of workers paying for the work permits etc up front and then finding out there is no work and it is not all what is promised but they don’t get their money back. As far as I am concerned it falls under trafficking. Should people even be allowed to sell temporary work permits and internments to foreign people and profit from it?
if people were paying to come into NZ in a boat they would be called human traffickers. Instead they do some shady stuff, and are bringing people to NZ who pay for the privilege just like the people traffickers but because they are on bogus permits it is apparently ok to lie and cheat people and then rely on NZ taxpayers to bail everyone out and turn a blind eye to the process because they are too incompetent to close it down.
There is a marriage of words that some people are wrongly divorcing.
The term for what we need is ‘pragmatic idealism’.
Here pragmatic is an adjective qualifying the idealism that we need to drive us forward as a nation to some good goals. This will prevent a fast gallop headlong down the road signposted with fluffy feel-good names of destinations for Labour. Or for National the roads marked off with little spots of gold that only the first person to reach them gathers and pockets, leaving the later phalanx lost, confused and searching for a leader.
So that is the recipe, ‘pragmatic idealism’. Pragamatism as a noun will just turn the nation to an empty dust bowl with huge barrack-like prisons placed strategically apart.
This. On the nail; a very accurate post that reflects exactly what I’ve seen elsewhere. I’ve seen this exploitation up front and in person on one big overseas project; it’s ugly, ugly.
This is a story about desperate people living in over-populated countries where there is intense local competition for opportunity. Of course the intense desire to better oneself gets exploited in these circumstances.
Yes we can take action here in NZ to minimise the egregious abuse; but the root causes lie elsewhere. It reinforces yet again; no single nation state is able to address the big global scale challenges facing us.
It reinforces yet again; no single nation state is able to address the big global scale challenges facing us.
Does it?
Or does it show that the government is willing to accept these types of things in the name of trade?
As a nation we do have the choice of not trading with nations that allow this, to make sure that such exploitation doesn’t happen in our nation and that anyone of our nation who does support this in anyway ends up in jail. And we can even point to the UDHR to say why we’re not doing it.
Of course, that does mean dropping out of FTAs that breach the UDHR like the one with China. And not signing up to ones with nations like Saudi Arabia.
Sure, it’s not a global solution until everyone does it but it’s a step on the right path. And once we’ve done it we can apply pressure to others in the UN to do it. Somehow I think that some of the most exploited nations may actually be the first to step up.
It seems very clear now that the Chinese Government is behind dumping all these workers onto us here as the Chinese economy enters a slow down now.
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretenses of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued UNDER FALSE PRETENCES OF WORK (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?”
And shouldn’t they stop tying any type of visa to a specific employer rather than to an employment sector or specific project? It’s a recipe for exploitation – but unfortunately it’s all working as designed
AND
“The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
Since you’ll usually find cosy little relationships between hire companies (and others such as shitty tertiary education providers and charlatan Immigration Advisors that have not been properly monitored – as opposed to professionals with a proven record of ethical behaviour and subject to sanctions of the legal profession), YES, the best thing would be to prosecute and compensate their victims. And where they only possess PR, rescind it and deport. And where they have dual citizenship, we should seriously consider giving them a choice of which country they wish to retain their citizenship
AND
“The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first………….”
The government should be thinking of the welfare, rights and safety of ANYBODY that’s in the country regardless of their circumstances without favour
The government should close down any temporary work permit being issued unless the person has a job that is proved that can not be done by a New Zealander and is paying well above market rates (because at present employers get around it by for example offering pay rates that are unliveable or the same as 20 years ago, like horticulture workers or people being recruited through numerous third parties all taking a profit and so the end worker gets under minimum wages (ak Chorus subcontractors and construction workers). They should also have to provide accommodation and prove that it is not taking accomodation away from other people aka the job has to supply it in high shortage areas like Auckland, Hawkes bay, Wellington).
There should also be a limit to work permits per year like 15,000 of temporary work permits. A bottom line will automatically change the dynamic and the traffickers will be out of business, because at present the numbers of temp workers are limitless.
Foreign people who study in NZ should not be allowed to work as that has become a way to enter NZ and then use it later to find a fake job and get residency.
So many people are profiting off what is essentially NZ visas and citizenship and that is why we have ridiculous levels like 150,000 work permits last year alone, while jobseeker benefits are up and 129,000 new migrants when apparently Labour, Greens and NZ First were supposed to close the loopholes. There are more migrants than under the Natz, because the government and their officials have such ineffectual controls, so many lawyers are profiting off the scams with litigation as the laws here are not fit for purpose or being exploited, allowing people who pay little to no taxes here for most of their lives to retire here and criminal exploiters to live in NZ and scam here.
Agree with that every year we go the Red Cross Bookfair held in Hamilton. We use it as a giant lending library. Always come away with a large load of books, all sorts of reading material. When we have read the ones we do not need to keep we return them to the Red Cross for the next book fair We have picked up some great books there like Peter Wrights SpyCatcher and Neville Shute’s Slide Rule and they are nearly always in good condition.
Book fairs. what a great way to spend a day, book fair and brunch, my favorite. I’ve attended the Hamilton book fair a couple years ago and got ‘The Reader’s Digest Do It Yourself Manual (1965)’ – a 500 page hardcover book on building – from furniture and shelves etc through to houses, log cabins… All with hand tools. What a Treasure! BBQ areas, ponds, pagolas, retaining walls, paths, terraces…. amazing book.
My difficulty with book fairs is meeting people there. What’s the protocol; nod and keep searching? A quick howdy-do and … keep searching, or stop for a catch-up and watch your almost-treasures walk out the door with someone else? I love talking. I love foraging at book fairs; what to do, what to do?
Learning about – books plus. On Radio NZ this a.m. interesting, informative, leading to understanding, hopeful.
8.35 Erin Rhoads: A zero-waste quest
Erin Rhoads runs the Australian eco-lifestyle website The Rogue Ginger, and has written the book Waste Not, which gives suggestions for reducing consumption and waste – particularly of plastic – in every area of life, and every room in the house. She has been attempting to come as close to “zero waste” as possible since 2013. She also consults with businesses on waste reduction.
09:05 Dov Alfon: Stories from inside Israel’s military
Dov Alfon is an Israeli investigative journalist and former editor of the newspaper Haaretz, to which he still contributes from his home in Paris. Dov was formerly an intelligence officer in Unit 8200, the most secretive arm of the Israeli military,
and –
in his first work of fiction, A Long Night in Paris, he lays bare Israel’s secretive world of intelligence gathering. He received a Peace Through Media prize in 2011.
10:05 Anthony Cabraal: Tackling a broken culture of work
Anthony Cabraal is a member of Enspiral, a collective of businesses and freelancers that aims to support people who want to spend their lives changing the world. He is co-editor of the book Better Work Together, which discusses harnessing the “power of community” to transform businesses. He is interested in helping communities of people approach governance of companies, profits, leadership, staff retention, and other structural issues that make workplaces dysfunctional, in new and innovative ways.
10:35 John Cryan: How your gut affects your brain
Dr John Cryan, a neuropharmacologist and microbiome expert from the University College Cork, researches the interactions between the brain and the collection of microbes in the gut, and how that relationship affects stress, psychiatric health, and immune-related disorders. In his latest book, The Psychobiotic Revolution, Professor Cryan and colleague Ted Dinan write about research showing that beneficial microbes can improve mood.
Someone could put up audio when its through if they have time. I want to be on the Earth March, and want to be in two places at once, so I am a bit stretched!
And Halfcrown – this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there. (I like Nevil Shute – great humane, storyteller with interesting technical stuff too. I guess Slide Rule is about him personally?)
Polytoxicity: The Wild World of Chemical Exposure
26 March 15, 2017
toxic chemicals in hand sanitizer
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
There are about 85,000 chemicals registered under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment
Combining chemicals often magnifies their toxic effects; in the case of bisphenol-A (BPA), using hand sanitizer prior to handling a BPA-containing receipt may increase skin absorption 100-fold
About 1 in 11 public schools in the U.S. are located within 500 feet of highways, truck routes and other roads with heavy traffic, leaving millions of school kids breathing polluted air
By Dr. Mercola
Have you ever wondered how many chemicals you’re exposed to on any given day? How about your kids? It’s really anyone’s guess. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compile and keep a current list of chemical substances manufactured or processed in the U.S.
That list includes about 85,000 chemicals,1 but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment.
As noted in Chemical & Engineering News, “The agency is struggling to get a handle on which of those chemicals are in the marketplace today and how they are actually being used.”2
Very few chemicals on the market are tested for safety, but even those that are, are not necessarily safe. Part of this is because safety testing is typically done on just one chemical at a time, and under laboratory conditions.
The way you’re actually exposed to chemicals — in combination and under countless different real-world scenarios — may increase their toxicity exponentially.
The Toxic Reality of Using Hand Sanitizer, Eating and Holding a Receipt
A revealing example of just how toxic our world has become is the bisphenol-A (BPA) used in thermal paper (the type many receipts are made out of).
BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical linked to a number of health concerns, particularly in pregnant women, fetuses and young children, but also in adults, including high blood pressure, heart disease,3 obesity, fertility problems and more.
BPA is most often associated with plastics, personal care products and canned goods but, according to a 2014 study published in PLOS One, “Free BPA is applied to the outer layer of thermal receipt paper present in very high (∼20 mg BPA/g paper) quantities as a print developer.”4
This in itself is unsettling, considering very few people think twice about handling receipts (or handing one to a child). However, the study revealed that a very common scenario — using hand sanitizer prior to handling a receipt — maximizes the risk.
“Studies are revealing how variations and changes in the composition of the gut microbiota influence normal physiology and contribute to diseases ranging from inflammation to obesity. Accumulating data now indicate that the gut microbiota also communicates with the [Central Nervous System (CNS)]–possibly through neural, endocrine and immune pathways–and thereby influences brain function and behaviour. Studies … suggest a role for the gut microbiota in the regulation of anxiety, mood, cognition and pain. Thus, the emerging concept of a microbiota-gut-brain axis suggests that modulation of the gut microbiota may be a tractable strategy for developing novel therapeutics for complex CNS disorders.
and, published 2010:
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean … https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/613283.Princess
Rating: 4 – 26,738 votes
Start by marking “Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia” as Want to Read: … The true story of one of the princesses of the royal house of Al Saud in Saudi Arabia is told in a fashion that is both charming and riveting. The veil that guards the women of …
Yes it is. Nevil Shutes full name is Nevil Shute Norway. He explains why he only used Nevil Shute as his writing name (shit I am surprised no one picked up my typo) He was a mathematician working on the R101 Airship, Gives an insight into his political thinking and why he ended up in Australia writing novels about Australia and aircraft. A great engineer predicted metal fatigue long before it was understood what metal fatigue really was (No Highway). As I have said before I don’t recommend books as we all have our different tastes but it is a good read all about the British Aircraft industry in the ’20s and ’30s with great characters who he worked with like Alan Cobham and Geoffrey De Haviland.
“this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there.”
Oh I don’t know Grey I found Dr Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Sapiens” extremely good and he’s Jewish and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
but your recommendation has been noted and added to the list. Thanks
Yes, an essential perspective. The effect of social niche is often not factored into evaluation. Context is everything. As I’ve pointed out here before, all meaning is relative to context.
“humans are herd animals. If that herd happens to go from Stanford straight into the product manager program at Google, that’s what you do. There are a lot of people who were just on the assembly line from Stanford to Google to some little startup they sold for $50 million and that’s it. That track was just laid out for them, they just got on the treadmill and went down the assembly line and I don’t think most people understand how that works.”
The point is to learn how the culture of capitalism both forms and replicates. It replicates itself via the endeavour of the individuals it forms. Context produces matrix – recall the formative role of that being the feature of the movie. It created the social reality of the world. Only the minority rebels saw through it to the deeper reality in which it was embedded.
The paper concludes that fifty percent of the world’s billionaire wealth is non-meritocratic owing to either inheritance or a high presumption of cronyism. Another 15 percent is not meritocratic owing to presumption of monopoly. All of it is non-meritocratic owing to globalization. By contrast, crime and technology are found to be negligible sources of extreme wealth.
Is there a place for difference in earning?
Yes, yes there is.
But there should still be no unearned income and no one is worth more than, say, 30% more than the average wage.
Who defines ‘unearned income’? You or me? Or some unaccountable Central Committee of Comrades?
And who defines your 30% ratio? Same committee?
Take my own life for example … the annualised income ratio between my first job as an after-school bottle washer in a chemist shop, and the one I’m doing now is (in real terms) probably in the order of 1200% or more. Why do you think the version of me that’s 50 yrs older is being paid so much more? And how exactly do you think this should be regulated?
I think that DTB’s idea of having some proportionality from bottom to top is right. We have gone up on the Bell curve? and I would prefer not to see it rushing down the other side. Why not ease up a little so the gradient won’t be so steep? Forget percentages – they are just indicators that have too many variables to be tossed into an argument.
Say though the minimum wage is just getting by level at $20 an hour, and with thousing play being the game du jour for the irresponsible economists that is a basic, then what would 5 times be like, $100 an hour, $4,000 a 40 hour week making approx $200,000 per annum. Stop the competition for housing from immigrants by reducing immigration numbers, and refuse to sell our land and housing infrastructure to overseas hot-pants money off-loaders and pay at the highest $500,00 p.a. Half a million would give a very nice lifestyle and housing could settle down to being necessary infrastructure at more reasonable prices.
If people didn’t like it they could take their money and go elsewhere. We would not be worse off in the long run. If we were short of top talent we could pay some big bucks on a short term basis and buy it in. We could afford that.
This is one of those questions that has no empirical answer.
We can for instance easily reject the two extremes; one where one persons owns everything and has all the income, the other where everyone has exactly the same income and wealth. Neither of these extremes is feasible.
But they are useful markers to help think about the problem. In global terms it’s fair to say we are much closer to the first extreme of everyone owning everything, than perfect equality. So this strongly suggests which direction we need to move in … towards spreading income and wealth more evenly. I’ve clearly argued elsewhere that the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty is one of the four big moral challenges of our era.
But how would we know if we had gone too far?
I don’t think we can rely on individual opinion; each one of us would have a different answer. Nor can any fixed number be relied upon to account for the multiple dimensions which determine income, wealth and social capital.
Nor should we rely on just one mechanism; progressive taxation has long been the traditional tool the left has wielded, yet other nations have tended towards tighter distributions of income before taxation. Others have taxed capital, investment and expenditure in complex fashions, and so on.
There is also a complex relationship between opportunity and outcomes; these two being tension with each other. We tend to maximise one at the expense of the other.
Nor is it easy to account for exactly how brutal the drivers of inequality really are, and how deep they run into our psychological being. For instance; how many tens of millions of talented musicians are there? Yet probably less than 1000 of them account for the vast majority of music listened to. Last year I was working on a site with 13,000 people, yet barely 100 of them would count as the key technical leaders. If you want a formal expression of this, checkout Price’s Law.
Outstanding success is a very rare thing; it’s distribution is exceedingly skewed. The vast majority of people are firmly lodged right at the bottom. This is true of all fields of endeavour, across all societies.
The modern world has largely solved the problem of absolute poverty; but it has greatly exacerbated relative poverty; inequality challenges us in ways we’re only just beginning to understand. The left exists to address this question; but our grasp of it’s true nature and our dialog around it falls woefully short.
But they are useful markers to help think about the problem. In global terms it’s fair to say we are much closer to the first extreme of everyone owning everything, than perfect equality.
The first extreme you mention is one person owning everything and we’re actually getting pretty close to that. It is, after all, the inevitable result of capitalism. So is the collapse of society that it will bring about.
The solution isn’t actually everyone owning the same amount but nobody owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income. This would actually allow the labour market to work.
But how would we know if we had gone too far?
When we have increasing poverty while a few people have far more than they can either spend or use in their life time.
There is also a complex relationship between opportunity and outcomes; these two being tension with each other. We tend to maximise one at the expense of the other.
We don’t have equal opportunity nor do we have equal outcomes.
Outstanding success is a very rare thing; it’s distribution is exceedingly skewed.
Perhaps the problem is our definition of success. As you say, there are millions of talented musicians but, despite these people actually being successful, we don’t see them as such because they haven’t made millions.
The vast majority of people are firmly lodged right at the bottom.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
The ironic thing is that people like you JS come onto TS and stay as if you find it worthwhile, and then start criticising and nit-picking.
What on earth do you mean by “you accuse them of being thieves”
If you are going to try for TS interaction and discussion can you please explain your line of thinking. I for one am tired of the tossers who toss-off some remark that they think as profound or shrewd.
DTB once said being rich was only achieved by theft. I countered that the musician or artist who becomes rich does so from the benefits of their own talent rather than off the backs of the poor. He never answered it so I mentioned it here as it seemed relevant.
Also – fuck off. This open mike and I’ll say what I want. Don’t like it? Don’t read it
Don’t like personal criticism or seeking improvement John Selway.
Don’t come here!
This is Open Mike and I’ll say what I want.
You are a good example of someone who is highly individualistic and doesn’t care about the purpose of this blog, which is to look at what’s being done in NZ and see how we can do things better.
Not to stamp like a three year old and run around demanding things be done to suit oneself.
owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income.
Marx formulated his outdated theories in an era when the relationship between wealth and resources was poorly understood. It turned out Marx was completely wrong. By simple observation it’s clear that real wealth derives from a complex of factors; monetary and social capital, intelligence, talent, persistence and diligence, tolerance for risk, resilience, good looks, good luck and an energetic urban setting are some of the obvious ones.
In the early 1800’s it was natural to perceive labour in purely physical terms, but 200 years later this kind of ‘labour’ has almost zero global value. In a modern economy real value lies almost entirely elsewhere; and this is a trend that is rapidly accelerating.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
This is true to at least some extent; class is real and has real impacts. But the West has moved very strongly in the direction of an equality of opportunity in order to mitigate this. You just can’t have a perfect equality of outcome at the same time.
Almost all of those immediately come down to luck, anyway.
Frankly, all I’d do is make it illegal for the state to countenance <60 median income after housing costs (as a poverty line, i.e. so everyone under that line gets a cheque from the government so they meet that minimum), then adopt a progressive taxation policy on all income so that marginal tax rates on more than 9 times the gross median income are something like 90% (everything over roughly $440k at the moment).
It wouldn't be perfect, but I don't think it would be too far wrong.
The reason progressive taxation fell out of favour with the electorate was due to Labour using it to fund big govt, so the question is how to market it effectively. Can you foresee Labour learning it’s lesson and campaigning on the combination of promising to keep the cost of govt down while pitching for a mandate to bring back progressive taxation on income?
Yes. The genetic lottery is a capricious and often cruel thing; but exactly what should we do about it?
Until we understand inequality properly; that it’s roots lie far deeper than mere capitalism or neo-liberalism, we don’t stand a chance of addressing it effectively.
It’s my sense the answer lies less with how wealth is distributed, but in how it’s used. A society that makes put’s energy into ensuring those that the bottom of the heap, even those it might despise as ‘losers’ are not disrespected and discarded is the moral platform we need to re-build. The idea that each one of us, regardless of our lot in life, is of value and worth, is the key idea.
As I said, my position is that what we should do about it is make sure everyone has the basics and tax the fuck out of the disproportionaly wealthy so that their children don’t have dolt-45 level unearned advantages.
It got dismantled in the 1980s because more equal societies don’t stop people being corrupt fuckwits.
Getting an egalitarian and fair society is like quitting smoking. You do the good thing for a while, then someone succumbs to temptation. So you try again. And again. Forever.
Until we understand inequality properly; that it’s roots lie far deeper than mere capitalism or neo-liberalism, we don’t stand a chance of addressing it effectively.
Poverty is a direct result of capitalism. The whole system is designed to channel the wealth to the rich. That’s what it does and that wealth must come from the poor.
Get rid of the system that channels the wealth to the rich and we can do something about poverty.
We certainly won’t be able to do something about it until we accept that truth.
It’s my sense the answer lies less with how wealth is distributed, but in how it’s used.
In the context of economics distributed and used are the same.
We either distribute the wealth so that there is no poverty or we distribute it to the already wealthy and ensure that we do have poverty.
Poverty … both absolute and relative existed long, long before capitalism. The inescapable problem is that differences multiply; success attracts success. This applies to all fields of human endeavour, the first 10,000 hours are the hardest, after that it largely a matter of pursuing the endless opportunities that open up to competency and integrity.
And even then, outstanding success remains an exceedingly rare thing. Indeed according to Prices Law of the 7 billion humans on earth, it’s just 80,000 or so who contribute 50% of the creative value and innovation to the entire global output.
But the West has moved very strongly in the direction of an equality of opportunity in order to mitigate this.
No it hasn’t. In fact, over the last few decades it’s gone completely in the other direction as we’ve punished the poor for being poor while putting the rich, no matter how they got that wealth, upon pedestals.
So, rent, shareholding, inheritance, interest etcetera. For a more informed view read Why we can’t afford the rich.
And who defines your 30% ratio?
That was merely a suggestion. I have stated before that there should be both a minimum income (UBI) and a maximum income.
Why do you think the version of me that’s 50 yrs older is being paid so much more?
Because we’ve got the valuation of work massively wrong. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed over the last few years is that those people we need the most are paid the least while those we need the least are paid the most.
Some time back I pointed out that a CEOs million dollar bonus, if given to the work force, would have been a 40c per hour raise. That million dollars still came from the same pile – the corporate accounts – but the workers had just been declined a pay-rise. The point being that high pay-rates for some are preventing decent pay-rates for others.
You should, of course, be paid more than teenage you as experience and knowledge count but is the job that you do actually worth the amount that you’re paid? The evidence suggests that it’s possible you’re being paid too much.
And how exactly do you think this should be regulated?
A minimum and maximum wage and then let the market sort it out.
“Over and again your message translates to a hatred of the rich rather than any real concern for the poor.”
Hole in one. Draco is an admitted authoritarian who hates the rich (actually anyone who has riches because in Draco’s mind it all amounts to theft – even the artist who gets rich from their own efforts rather than from rents or inheritance)
Very useful if it works. I’m a terrible procrastinator and much of that is goal setting or failure to break them down so I get overwhelm of mental to do lists.
But there have been times in life I’ve juggled a dozen things seemingly effortlessly. With a plan, and a diary…
It never fails to amuse me how, as humans, we learn good helpful things then forget them just as easily. Like our default is to self sabotage.
Time management. That’s what I require right now. So simple I simply forgot.
I find that an attack of my chronic inertia seems to activate my congenital procrastination. particularly on hot days. I also forget that I have lost my memory somewhere.
WtB
Familiar story. But I like it. Perhaps there can be a society for the chronic procrastinator/fevered activator – goes like a see-saw. Who finds they tend to wait for a deadline and that sharpens your mind acutely and you can immediately judge how long each thing will take to a 3 minute accuracy?
I used to edit a monthly community paper. So I was writer, editor, sales, etc… 90% of it got done in the last week. Still managed to double circulation and triple the size in six months.
Then won > $6K with friends playing phone trivia, also coinciding with a nice sized holiday pay – and so went on a 6 week drinking jag (as you do) followed by a hospitalised detox.
6 months drinking in 6 weeks, now that’s efficiency.
Yes WtB some people waste their lives drinking too much over decades and end up with no life left and trying to detox. You did the short pressure-cooker course, and passed the third stage of wisdom successfully (learning from personal experience), and now have jumped that ravine and can journey on at a higher level. Poetic eh!
…….The brazen young hero, Lemminkäinen, is murdered for his womanizing, and his body is utterly destroyed, blasted into tiny pieces and cast into the black river Tuona that courses through the underworld. All his mother knows is that her beloved boy is missing so she searches the world over to find him, every difficult mile in vain. Finally, she asks the sun and it gives her the terrible, heart-shattering news. Okay, she says. I’m going to need a rake. Make me one, she tells her friend the blacksmith, and she descends into the darkness and begins to seek her boy anew. She rakes the river Tuona for untold days, in her wet shift in the cold rushing blackness, all the way to the ocean. Nothing. So, she turns and begins raking her way back upstream. And somewhere in the blending black days and weeks she finds…. a piece of his shirt. So, on she rakes. And she finds a bone, eventually a rib, finally a hip. On she rakes, maybe not even thinking enough to despair. Just striving to save her boy. Because if she thinks she possibly can, then how can she possibly stop?
Eventually, she finds all of him. And she begins to sew him back together. Every bit of sinew attached to every bone, every patch of flesh rejoined, every eyelash made right in her inconceivable toil. Finally, he is complete. And with a drop of honey to his lips, Lemminkäinen stirs and comes to life. His mother has fought long and hard and far, far beyond all limits of what we think of as hope. Her hope is no butterfly. It’s more like the monarch’s miraculous migration and the green-fuse force of life that drives it.
Jenny – How to Get There
Which day of the week do you decide to note the latest, but then shut down for the rest of the day and night ie nearly a whole day leaving the world to everyone else to worry about and resting your weary mind?
But is fear of the future the best way to engage with it? I’m inclined to go with Monty Python instead. And that line they made a song out of had already been traditional folk wisdom for a very long time!
“When Chapman died on 4 October 1989, the five remaining Pythons, as well as Chapman’s close friends and family, came together at his public memorial service to sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as part of Idle’s eulogy. In 2005, a survey by Music Choice showed that it was the third most popular song Britons would like played at their funerals. By 2014, it was the most popular.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Look_on_the_Bright_Side_of_Life
Were the young men who played football with blocks of ice on the deck of the Titanic brave, or just not aware of the true nature of the tragedy unfolding around them?
Did their levity in the face of the coming disaster help or hinder their chances of survival?
I would say that creating an air of carefree lightheartedness, would have led many, not to understand the peril they were all in. Even some who might otherwise have survived if they had been moved to action sooner.
If you are not afraid, you are not brave, you are just not fully aware of the danger.
Without fear there can be no courage.
Courage is acting despite your fear.
Speaking personally, Dennis, I don’t find your argument for levity in the face of the climate disaster compelling. To make light of the peril we are all in would, in my opinion, be a mistake.
P.S.
In the example you gave to back up your point; The mourners, at Graham Chapman’s funeral, were not themselves in any peril.
This tells me that you think the same way about climate change, that it will affect others, and not you, or those dear to you.
No, the precautionary principle must apply as regards public policy, but the problem with fear is that it tends to paralyze people. As with animals.
So to empower them, we must provide a positive alternative to a grim reality. One that opens up another pathway to the future which is viable. That gives them a useful basis on which to proceed.
Girls and I have been talking about this daily, usually as we return from a swim at the river or beach. Discussion about how we are going to work with the new climate also occurs.
The girls are now noticing the difference after five years of summer swimming at the same places. Visible marine life changes via sea temp’s; resulting in educating ourselves on sharing the water with stingrays etc.
For the next time a commentator (or economist, or member of government) suggests cutting minimum wages, or benefits, or employment protections is a good way of improving employment outcomes. This is often called making the labour market more flexible/responsive/dynamic.
At heart the argument seems illogical because its based on a fallacy.
“What started the discussion was the allegation that the level of employment in the long run is a result of people’s own rational intertemporal choices and that how much people work basically is a question of incentives.”
“Already this year I have outlined two critical underpinnings of our approach. First, our Budget Responsibility Rules. In order to make our bold and progressive programme credible we have to demonstrate to New Zealanders that we can deliver it. They want us to show that we understand their desire for a government that manages our finances responsibly.”
Sadly this policy is harmful, restrictions of government spending reduce employment and importantly this net effect is not automatically equalized away by the economy responding to government spending (though the sensibleness of the above approach rests on this). The upshot of this will be unemployment in NZ will not lower as quickly as is otherwise possible (even if its not excessive). It also seems likely that the government will be slow to react to shifts in the economy resulting in a continuing pattern of an observable large increase in unemployment followed by a slow drawn out recovery.
“The Labour Party believes in full employment- anyone who can work should be able to work. As Minister of Finance I will re-assert Labour’s historic mission of full employment. In the first term of government we will lower unemployment to 4%.”
The goal of 4% is not particularly high, NZ achieved close to 2% unemployment across the entire period between the mid 1930’s and the mid 1970’s when the country actually had a policy of full employment. Further the meaning of full-employment is these days up for grabs and in this context probably refers to the NAIRU rate (as he goes on to talk about monetary policy). The NAIRU rate only looks at unemployment and so infers that full employment can include significant under employment (people who while employed want more hours of work). Also the last we heard the reserve bank believed the NAIRU rate was about 4.5% unemployment and the economy was beyond full employment.
“And we want all parts of the economic apparatus working towards that goal. That is why we will expand the objectives of the Reserve Bank to include not just controlling inflation, but also maximising employment. We want to modernise our monetary policy, recognising that in 28 years a lot has changed, and we want it to work for us, not the other way around”
The problematic implication here is that the reserve bank can achieve full employment and significantly effect employment by manipulating monetary policy. In the longer term this is thought to be the best approach to maximizing employment and use of fiscal policy is discouraged for this purpose (also see surplus above). Unfortunately this is fallacious, based on the idea that the economy will equalize away the net effects of fiscal policy on employment (and bring inflation in line with government spending). The upshot of this policy choice is that the employment rate will ultimately track the fortunes of the NZ economy.
“These are policies that aim to make changes for workers and employers easier and quicker, and thereby reducing unemployment. This involves helping people find work in areas that need them, helping people get the skills they need to fill gaps in the labour force, and anything else that can help those without work, or in poor working conditions, to find new employment quickly, simply and without hassle.”
Now to be fair, some of the measures outlined above are possibly reasonable and may help with the responsiveness of the labour market. But ultimately this is still based on a fallacy that unemployment is reflective of peoples desire to work. As Robertson made clear ultimately the government will *not* itself be actively ensuring that employment is available for all, this will remain at the fortunes of the NZ economy. This undermines many of the suggested policies, while work and income may be accessible to more people including those in work, if they can’t find jobs or better jobs this will almost certainly turn into work and income holding their users responsible for not finding jobs or better jobs and looking at their incentives. Training programs can be helpful, however if there are none of the anticipated jobs at the end then these become problematic and a waste leaving students with debt or at least having wasted significant time and still needing to retrain. There are also likely some labour market reforms which favor employers but didn’t get mentioned in full detail.
Ultimately, as I see it, this policy is a continuation of NZ’s long standing employment policies and will amount to Labours softer touch in government, but nothing more.
It is important for Labour to sound as if it is ready to fit in with whatever the death spiders of the financial world are weaving. Labour needs the bluster of a blowfly that keeps on fighting the sticky web, then rests, then has another go and often evades the spiders fangs wanting to suck it dry of its life juices.
That’s where we are now, in the web and losing strength. Can we make it to carry on our sort of valuable contribution to the world, or are we losers?
The goal of 4% is not particularly high, NZ achieved close to 2% unemployment across the entire period between the mid 1930’s and the mid 1970’s when the country actually had a policy of full employment.
Is that supposed to be not particularly low?
Further the meaning of full-employment is these days up for grabs and in this context probably refers to the NAIRU rate (as he goes on to talk about monetary policy). The NAIRU rate only looks at unemployment and so infers that full employment can include significant under employment (people who while employed want more hours of work). Also the last we heard the reserve bank believed the NAIRU rate was about 4.5% unemployment and the economy was beyond full employment.
I think that your sentence gives the wrong impression patricia. We are in no position to have an opinion about John Key and what he does. This is the golden boy of the financially prominent and he has done so well for them here and even Australia, that they have given him a top award. 18 July 2017 > https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94826194/sir-john-key-receives-australias-highest-honour
We tolerate him because we have to, having very little say in anything of importance to this country. (Why it is important to keep goals in sight and focus and look to mix with people who have integrity and who care about and respect others).)
I have been in Wellington on holiday for a few weeks and am due to head back home to Tauranga on Tuesday. I don’t have my car with me and didn’t want to fork out for a flight so I am getting a bus but it makes me wonder why we don’t have a proper rail network. I would have thought a train could start in Wellington, head through Palmerston North then branch off somewhere central like Taupo to New Plymouth, Tauranga and Gisbourne with another line heading north through Hamilton to Auckland, then heading further – maybe ending up in the Bay of Islands.
It wouldnt have to visit every town but at least the major centres
Because the politicians decided that we should all drive cars. Cars are more expensive but they create more work than public transport and more unearned income for shareholders.
Maybe a clever person should start a kiwisaver fund that buys kiwis business. It s the best path to a public ownership of nz companies of a bunch non business minded strangers .
How would you combat the to many chiefs in the kitchen problems . How would they gain ownership without some sort of massive uprising?
Mine is a more easy to reach goal I believe.
Super Fund and Kiwisaver funds would have a good stake in New Zealand sharemarket. And the fear of state control of capital markets by state super funds was what Muldoon’s 1974 dancing cossacks add was about.
Yes but I thought that a hands off situation would present us with a
well balanced economy. But instead of the government making decisions it is Treasury and powerful people here and in other countries so we have a flexible exchange rate, and flexible this that and the other thing. We are Houdinis now. Perhaps we should turn around some of our accustomed behaviours after reflection, and find a new route.
It’s been an ideological battle in NZ politics for a very long time. Labour wan’t community or state /defacto state ownership of strategic assets, National wants private, preferably by their mates or donors, ownership.
NZ Super Fund and Kiwisaver are almost a guerrilla attack from behind the lines on the National view. And it may be working. Look to see what these funds do when NZ strategic and blue chip assets are being sold cheaply, bet they quietly buy. Otherwise they are playing in the international markets and doing quite nicely.
And both are very similar to what Labour’s 1974 scheme would have become by now, but probably 1/10 the size. Where we could have been with a good super / sovereign wealth fund from the mid 70’s haunts me a lot and I’ve detested the National party with a vengeance since that add aired.
Wellington – Bus issues: timeliness, capacity, transfers … and route changes
January 9, 2019 20 comments
On the electric bus front, the current 10 double-decker trial buses will soon start operating all day, with the assistance of the charging station at Reef Street. I am pushing for the next order of Transit’s electric double-decker buses to be brought forward (22 more – all fabricated in Tauranga).
California needs to prepare for the next fire season. They used to last 200-250 days in the year, and now have elongated to about 300 days. Yet the government is not paying fireman, for training, for what is required to prepare for more wildfires.
Some furloughed employees see an additional irony because the shutdown has delayed fire mitigation and training at a time when President Donald Trump has attacked California for poor forest management. But Whittington said most of his former co-workers are determined not to get involved in politics.
How long is California going to put up with this deadbeat USA government that seems bent on ruining the country and making grotesque visions of the USA democracy? They have started talking about seceding and being the country’s wealthiest state, but under water constraints that must cut its horticulture crops, it may become obvious that they need to handle their own problems and their own money. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/beleaguered-firefighters-put-hold-government-shutdown-n957456
I however wish some our Leftist prophets celebrated this magnificent civilisation ‘in the meanwhile’ whilist also criticizing the comfort-loving that will kill us. Sez a magniloquent comfort-lover.
sumsuch
You are so right. Do we enjoy what we have and be grateful and satisfied, also then, when we have had our plenty give what is left and still good so that others can have some too?
No, in general we are always trying for more. Some of us haven’t got past that grasp and hold mentality that saw people dumping good furniture and other stuff in the refuse rather than taking it to recycling – because letting one of those lazy b..s buy it cheap, no way.
Kia ora R & R I support equality for maori & our wahine they raise our tamariki so they deserve to be payed and respected for the great role wahine play in our society .
The way I see it is that Europee people are in most of the management jobs even on our farms and they give the best jobs to there M8 hence maori have a hard time climbing there ladder of life as the odds a heavly stacked against US . After all most jobs are filled by word of mouth first and for most . Maori must learn to do what the Europen do and look after Maori first wake up in all aspects of life jobs education sports culture. Ka kite ano P.S I back free snaitary prouducts for wahine at the least school tamariki
Eco Maori could see this he is waging a war on the mokopunas future backing carbon and rolling back all the good laws that protected OUR enviroment that Obama installed to protect the creatures wai and the enviroment and who will be better off if global warming runs rampant. ???????????????????????????????
F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.
The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.
The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.
Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.
And when a newly inaugurated Mr. Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Mr. Comey and later asked that he end an investigation into the president’s national security adviser, the requests set off discussions among F.B.I. officials about opening an inquiry into whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct that case.
F.B.I. officials viewed their decision to move quickly as validated when a comment the president made to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office shortly after he fired Mr. Comey was revealed days later.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia.
That’s taken off.”More recently, the president startled his own national security officials by suddenly announcing the withdrawal of troops from Syria, widely seen as handing a strategic victory to Russia and prompting the defense secretary James Mattis to quit. He also bizarrely endorsed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Holed up at the White House with no official engagements, Trump then turned his Twitter feed to the other subject dominating US politics: a partial government shutdown which, in its 22nd day, is now the longest in American history, eclipsing the previous record set during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Ka kite ano links below.
Victoria
New Victorian windfarm could provide 10% of state’s energy
Golden Plains approved by Andrews government and awaits federal consent to proceed
The managing director of a company that plans to construct Victoria’s largest windfarm says the project will supply enough power to replace up to a third of the generation of the decommissioned Hazelwood power station at less than $50/MWh.
The Victorian government has granted a planning permit for WestWind Energy’s $1.5bn Golden Plains windfarm, which will become one of the largest windfarms in the southern hemisphere.
The project is now awaiting federal approval to proceed.
Victoria’s blackouts, Hazelwood’s closure and the search for someone to blame
Read more
The windfarm would span 17,000 hectares on land 60km north-west of Geelong and generate more than 3000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year – enough to power more than 400,000 homes.
Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.
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“With this very large project and very good wind resource, combined with the latest wind turbine technology that’s now available, we can achieve a levelised cost of energy for this project that is below $50 per MW/h,” he said.
“If you put that into the context of electricity market prices from Victoria which for the past two years have hovered around $80 to $120 per MW/h, you can see the significance of this project for driving down electricity prices for all Victorians.” At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
Ka kite ano links below
At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
The neo alt right people can not sleep with all the Fame the Pacific people are getting at the minute they do what they do best and cheat and get a faulse story posted about
DJ the Rock. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has claimed the Daily Star fabrecated.The story, which appeared on Friday’s front page under the headline “The Rock Smacks Down Snowflakes” and was billed as an exclusive, was picked up by news outlets around the world
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It quoted the actor as allegedly saying that “generation snowflake or, whatever you want to call them, are actually putting us backwards” and “if you are not agreeing with them then they are offended – and that is not what so many great men and women fought for”.
However, Johnson, a former wrestler who has become one of the world’s biggest film stars, used an Instagram video to insist the quotes were fake.
“The interview never took place, never happened, never said any of those words, completely untrue, 100% fabricated, I was quite baffled when I woke up this morning,” he said.
“You know it’s not a real DJ [Dwayne Johnson] interview if I’m insulting a group, a generation or anyone, because that’s not me.”
The Daily Star is overseen by the Independent Press Ka kite ano links below
Kia ora Newshub Auckland transport needs to listen to the people when warned about A road from the Oraki board being dangerous and asking for speed ristricting . I have my opinion on the people being named and shamed who attacked and robbed that old Wahine living by her self I will keep it to my self.
I say it’s a good move making Hamilton Bees testing for American foul brood dersase to eliminate the dease from Hamilton we need to change the way we farm from mono culture farming to many different crops in the same area and Organic farming to protect our Bees and insects awa & Tangaroa.
Its good to highlight the plastic that is used unnecessary on food products Tom we need to make everyone accountable for the plastic waste they make.
Good on Canada for granting that Saudi girl asilm she needed help the Saudis don’t treat there Wahine very respectfully. I Tau toko the Wellington Phoenix soccer club it would be good to see all Kiwis support the great game te Mokopunas could make a lot of putea playing Soccer Ka kite ano
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
Being and Being Bought (Spinifex Press, 2013) by Kajsa Ekis Ekman A synopsis and commentary of Chapters 1-2 by Daphna Whitmore Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book She opens the discussion with a definition of ...
I make no claims to having much legal knowledge, so I defer to those trained in this area.I am very much enjoying this twitter stream from m'learned friend in Edinburgh, deciphering the legal arguments around the Scottish court challenge to Boris Johnson, based on the charmingly obscure principle of Nobile ...
Ivory Folly? The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, upheld the right of the radical nationalist group, Action Zealandia to exercise their freedom of speech – not matter how distasteful that speech might be. A wiser community of students and scholars would have nodded their agreement and moved on. ...
If you are not convinced terrorist Organisation ‘Extinction Rebellion’ is very, very dangerous – watch this video at one of their recent meetings. Not only is this obviously mentally ill Woman begging the other terrorists to promote killing and “eating” babies and children, if you watch carefully other members nod ...
The Ombudsman has been surveying people about their knowledge of the OIA and the right to information. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that widespread:The Chief Ombudsman says too many New Zealanders were in the dark over their right to access official information. Peter Boshier said an independent survey released yesterday on ...
In the wake of last Friday's climate strike, Peter McKenzie had an article in The Spinoff about protest strategies. The school strike movement is "polite" and cooperates with those in power because that's its kaupapa - its led by schoolkids who understandably don't want to risk arrest. But there's more ...
So, the latest ruminations on the gnews from Westminster (Again, sorry; I'll stop making that pun right now). This follows on from, and likely repeats bits of, my last post, on the suggestion that a Government of National Unity (GNU) should be set up and then oversee a referendum before ...
New Zealand likes to think of itself as not a racist country (despite being founded on the racist dispossession and subjugation of Maori). But for years, we've had a racist refugee policy, which basicly excludes refugees from Africa and the Middle East unless they already have relatives here. Now, the ...
Several people have asked me whether a particular repeat litigant could be declared a vexatious litigant, in light of their recent decision to appeal an adverse High Court ruling. My nascent tweet thread was getting ridiculously long, so it became this blog post instead.The short answer is: no. The particular ...
Appealing To The Past: Action Zealandia, like so many of the organisations springing up on the far-Right, across what they call the “Anglosphere”, is born out of the profound confusion over what a man is supposed to be in the twenty-first century and, more importantly, what he is supposed to do.THE STATUE OF ...
The attempts of anti-democratic transactivists to (often violently) disrupt women’s rights organising is largely ignored by those sections of the left most prone to misogyny and authoritarianism in New Zealand. In Britain, however, scores of trade union and left activists added their names to a letter in July, defending ...
The Justice Committee has reported back on the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. The Bill would establish an independent, quasi-judicial body to investigate and review potential miscarriages of justice, and refer them back to the Court of appeal if required. It would be a vital backstop to our judiciary, help ...
by The Spark On September 14, a total of 22 drones and cruise missiles struck two oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the Abqaiq processing facility and the Khurais oil field. Abqaiq is the largest oil production facility in the world. For a few days afterwards, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national ...
How much will NeoLiberal irregulation of the building sector and subsequent leaky homes crisis cost us? $47 billion, according to a new book:The total cost to fix all of New Zealand's leaky homes would be $47 billion, probably. The estimate comes from a new book, Rottenomics written by journalist Peter ...
Below is the start of another excellent article on the Freer Lives blog. Click onto the link at the end of this extract to read the full article. The punch-a-terf, kill-a-terf message pervades social media, always righteously delivered, chin held high. By contrast, the dehumanised “terfs” themselves, that is gender-critical ...
The Reserve Bank is currently planning tighter banking regulation, requiring banks to hold enough local capital to survive a 1-in-200 year financial crisis in order to protect consumers. The big Aussies banks, those foreign leeches who suck $5 billion in profit out of our economy every year, don't like that, ...
Its the usual story: a police officer beats a handcuffed suspect so hard they break one of their own fingers. The IPCA investigates and concludes that the use of force was unlawful. And the police refuse to do anything about it:A man punched repeatedly in the face by a police ...
From time to time we add links to our blogroll. The latest blog we have added is Freer Lives. This is a Marxist gender-critical blog, based in Melbourne, Australia. On it you will find a bunch of excellent articles which use the tools of Marxist analysis to critique the rise ...
Last Friday say the largest protest in a generation, as 170,000 people joined the school strike and marched to demand real action on climate change. The demands of the school strike were simple and clear: declare a climate emergency, set a climate target of net-zero by 2040, impose a total ...
Labour is a rather middle of the road capitalist party and earlier this year we discussed how far from being ‘transformative’, Ardern’s government is. An article published this week in the Guardian, by Bryce Edwards (political scientist and commentator at Victoria University), looks at Ardern’s business as usual performance. Where ...
In the hours since my last interminable wittering about the possibility of a Government of National Unity (GNU) in Britain, there has been a slight maybe development:A Corbyn-led caretaker government could then sit for several months while it enacted and delivered a referendum with the support of smaller parties and ...
Jeremy Clarkson says much like Greta Thunberg, Anne Frank “didn’t like what was going on”, but “she didn’t have a tantrum about it.” Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has offered praise to historical figure Anne Frank, comparing her favourably to 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, who he attacked in ...
Press release by Speak Up For Women Lesbians from women’s rights group Speak Up For Women are furious at reports that Rainbow Tick are threatening Massey University with the removal of their ‘tick’ if they let the group’s event go ahead. The group has been under attack from trans ...
By Duncan Garner Before you jump down my throat, nobody cares about the environment more than me. I have a garden, and since my wife and I broke up, I’ve let it grow wildly out of control, so please don’t tell me I’m not doing enough for plants. They’re ten ...
Local government elections are upon us again. It is a fair bet that, when they are over, we will have all the usual complaints that, despite their undoubted importance, the turnout was depressingly low. So, why do local elections attract so little attention and involvement from the general public? I ...
Yesterday the High Court released its decision in Moncrief-Spittle v Regional Facilities Auckland Limited, on the (alleged) decision by the Auckland Council and Mayor Phil Goff to deny use of a public venue to a pair of visiting nazi grifters. Based on the information available back then, I said that ...
Image credit:45 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Blog I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. ...
So, more on the possibility of a Government of National Unity (GNU) in Britain.Two things, first. The numbers in parliament make things very difficult. And anyone who is saying X will happen or Y is impossible is spinning. We can not tell and will not know until votes are actually ...
The government is promising tough action against climate change via the Zero Carbon Bill and a strengthened ETS. Meanwhile, the Overseas investment Office is granting foreign coal companies permission to expand coal mining:Coal Action Network Aotearoa has slammed a decision by the Overseas Investment Office to allow Bathurst Coal to ...
Don't You Dare Let Them Down, Jacinda! Many New Zealanders, especially young New Zealanders, continue to believe that change – real change – is possible. Do we have criticisms about the way in which Jacinda’s government has gone about “transforming” New Zealand? Of course we do. But the very fact ...
. . With some historical and present context, it should become readily apparent to Pakeha that the occupation at Ihumātao is not a free-for-all conflict for any and everyone to become involved in. First, some important dates: . 1840 . The year in which the Treaty of Waitingi was signed. ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
Another busy week, from speaking with world leaders on the world stage about climate change, to equipping our school leavers with everything they need to get ahead in life. ...
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones says Air New Zealand has "an obligation to look after Kiwis", and urged the national carrier not to hike up their prices after Jetstar airline announced their withdrawal from regional flights this week. The Provincial Champion also expressed his disappointment at Jetstar’s decision on ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) will help fund a new dredge for the Port of Greymouth to ensure the regional fishing fleet have a reliable and productive harbour, Parliamentary Undersecretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today “Last year the movements of ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said he was "immensely disappointed" at the withdrawal of the Jetstar airline from regional routes. He has also warned national carrier Air New Zealand not to capitalise on the Australian budget airline’s decision by “gouging” regional air travellers. "Air New Zealand has historically challenged ...
International credit ratings agency Moody's gave a glowing assessment of New Zealand’s economy in its latest report, which ranks the country’s economic strength as "very high" while saying growth remains "robust". The report says it's expected New Zealand's economy will grow between 2.5 and 3 percent in the next few ...
The Coalition Government is allocating nearly $6 million to a campaign to stop Australian beekeepers marketing their products as "mānuka" honey. This move comes after Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones accused Australian honey producers of trying to steal what was indigenous to New Zealand. "The Aussies are trying to ...
The Provincial Growth Fund has provided $400,000 to Great South to help the agency drive Southland's regional economic development aspirations. The funding will allow Great South, which is Southland's economic development agency, to appoint a portfolio manager and a project support adviser, who will provide project management expertise and support ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Forestry The One Billion Trees Fund has just hit two significant milestones that will create more than 7,500 hectares of new forest cover, Forestry Minister Shane Jones says. Speaking at a celebratory dinner at Parliament to mark 100 years of the New Zealand Forestry Service, Minister ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed further details on the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s visit to New Zealand next month. Their Royal Highnesses will visit New Zealand from 17-23 November – their third joint visit to New Zealand and first in four years. They arrive in Auckland ...
Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, heads to Thailand today to attend the final Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting, as negotiations enter their final stages. “The RCEP Agreement would anchor New Zealand in a regional agreement that covers 16 countries, ...
Pacific young people living in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Otago regions will have access to support services that have proved successful in helping young people find new earning and learning opportunities. “Tupu Aotearoa is about changing Pacific young peoples’ lives. Our young people are talented, they are smart, they ...
Introduction As the Minister for ACC I thank you all for the work that you do supporting New Zealanders in their literally most vulnerable moments. From those who hold people’s lives in their hands, to the people who research technique, technology and trends, your work is highly valued. A special ...
Notes prepared for speeches in Christchurch – Wednesday 9 October 2019 Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There ...
Minister of Health Dr David Clark and Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare say this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is a reminder of why the Government’s work on mental health is so important. “This year the World Federation for Mental Health has made suicide prevention the main theme ...
Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni will represent the government at Australia’s Meeting of Cultural Ministers in Adelaide this week. “This year’s meeting is special because New Zealand is expected to become an International Member of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers at this Australian forum,” Carmel Sepuloni said. “The meeting is an opportunity to ...
The Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service has resolved 608 insurance and EQC claims in its first year in operation, Minister Megan Woods has announced. The government service, which celebrates its first birthday today, provides a one stop shop to help Cantabrians still battling to get their homes repaired or rebuilt ...
Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the outlook ...
The Government is acting swiftly to strengthen NZTA’s regulatory role following a review into the Transport Agency, and Ministry of Transport’s performance as its monitor, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. An independent review by Martin Jenkins has found NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the previous ...
The Netherlands and New Zealand have a long-standing and close relationship based on many shared interests and values. We value the rule of law, our democracies, and multilateralism. And we value our environment – at home and globally. Right now there are major global challenges in all of these areas – ...
The Government is putting right a decade’s worth of underpayment to nurses, doctors and other health workers, says Health Minister Dr David Clark. Initial sampling of District Health Boards payroll records has found that around $550-$650 million is owed to DHB staff to comply with the Holidays Act. It’s expected ...
A strong surplus and low debt show the economy is performing well, and means the Government is in a good position to meet the challenges of global economic uncertainty. “The surplus and low levels of debt show the economy is in good shape. This allows the Government to spend more ...
New applications from mining company OceanaGold to purchase land in Waihi for new tailings ponds associated with its gold mines have been approved. Minister of Finance Grant Robertson and Associate Minister of Finance David Parker considered the applications under the Overseas Investment Act. Earlier this year, applications from OceanaGold to ...
New Zealanders in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay will witness Māori, Pākehā and Pacific voyaging traditions come together today as the Tuia 250 Voyage flotilla assembles for the first time, Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Minister Kelvin Davis says. “Tuia 250 is a national commemoration and an opportunity for honest conversations ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker leaves tomorrow for Dubai, London and Berlin for a series of meetings to advance New Zealand’s trade interests. In Dubai he will visit New Zealand’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 where construction is underway. There he will meet Minister of State for International Cooperation, Her ...
Confirmation that PHARMAC will fund two new cancer drugs is further evidence of the good progress the Government is making to improve the treatment of New Zealand’s leading cause of death, Health Minister David Clark says. From 1 December PHARMAC will fund alectinib (Alecensa) for ALK positive advanced non-small cell ...
An additional $2.7 million has been announced for the Government Strategy for Women and Girls in Sport and Active Recreation on the first anniversary of the strategy’s launch. Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson gave the opening address to the first Sport NZ Women + Girls Summit in Wellington today, ...
As part of its work to ensure businesses can get the skilled workers they need, the Coalition Government is re-opening and re-setting the Parent Category visa programme, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. The move will: support skilled migrants who help fill New Zealand’s skills gaps by providing a pathway for ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has today announced Major General Evan Williams of the New Zealand Defence Force has been selected as the commander of a significant, longstanding peacekeeping mission in the Middle East. In December, Major General Williams takes over as Force Commander for the Multinational Force and Observers ...
A record number of nurses are now working to deliver health services to New Zealanders as the Government’s increased funding and new initiatives rebuild key workforces start to show results, Health Minister Dr David Clark says. • 1458 more DHB nurses since the Government took office • 106 more midwives ...
Farmer and former Nuffield scholar Mel Poulton has been appointed New Zealand’s Special Agricultural Trade Envoy, Minister for Trade and Export Growth, David Parker, and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, announced today. The position supports key Government objectives, including raising the value of New Zealand agricultural goods and services. Mel is ...
New Zealand’s Pacific and Māori voyaging heritage is acknowledged and celebrated today as waka of the Tuia 250 voyage flotilla arrive in Tūranga / Gisborne. “Today we celebrate Tangata Whenua, the first people of Aotearoa, and the triumphs of the voyaging tradition that brought our ancestors here from Polynesia 1000 ...
“Fijian Language Week starts on Sunday and the theme reminds us how important it is that we each have something to anchor ourselves to, something that can help us pause and feel in control in a rapidly changing world,” says Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio. “Family, culture, faith, ...
The Government is establishing an Airspace Integration Trials Programme to support the safe testing and development of advanced unmanned aircraft and accelerate their integration into the aviation system, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Megan Woods announced today. The Government will work with leading, innovative aviation industry partners to test and ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today welcomed the NZ Transport Agency’s decision to fund urgent safety improvements and confirm the designation of the Ōtaki to North of Levin highway. Safety upgrades will be made along 23.4km of the existing state highway, running along SH1 from the end of the Peka Peka ...
New Zealand playing its part in Asia-Pacific and globally are behind changes announced today to the Coalition Government’s three year refugee quota policy, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “We are proud to be a welcoming and inclusive nation committed to supporting some of the world’s most vulnerable people to rebuild ...
Creating thriving regions and inclusive local communities is the aim of the Welcoming Communities programme being rolled out across the country, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway today. A successful pilot of the scheme ran over the last 2 years led by Immigration New Zealand and involved ten councils across five regions ...
Takahē may be flightless but their population is flying high with the official count reaching 418 after a record breeding season that produced an estimated 65 juveniles, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. “The population reaching a high of 418 is great news for takahē which were considered ...
New Zealand is today taking action to reduce the potent global warming hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gases, Climate Minister James Shaw and Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. “The global agreement to reduce these potent greenhouse gases is another step in New Zealand’s commitment to reduce global warming. It is estimated ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsThe results of the local government elections appear to show that New Zealanders are generally supportive of a more diverse range of representatives, having voted in greater numbers for candidates from traditionally under-represented groups. The elections have therefore modernised our councils in a small but very significant ...
The Inquiry has today published Minute No 21. This Minute sets out how the Inquiry intends to proceed given that the Attorney-General the Hon David Parker has agreed to extend the Inquiry’s reporting date by three months to 31 March 2020. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grace Skrzypiec, Senior Lecturer, Flinders University Many Australian students don’t know the difference between banter and bullying, with some saying they joke about wishing their friend would “drown” or “die in a car crash”. More than 800 Australian students aged 11-16 took ...
But he did play a crucial role in helping journeyman Andy Foster knock over Justin Lester. Team Gone By Lunchtime size up the local elections, gaze plaintively at the dramas in the NZ First Party, and ask how bad the new poll is for Jacinda Ardern.Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and ...
In the fifth episode of Actually Interesting, The Spinoff’s monthly podcast exploring the effect Artificial Intelligence has on our lives, Russell Brown speaks to Ben Reid, executive director of the AI Forum, about the role of government in embracing and regulating AI.Subscribe to Actually Interesting via iTunes or listen on the player below.To ...
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.Local government Henry Cooke (Stuff): How to lose an election: Over-promise or under-deliver Simon Collins ...
By RNZ Pacific A Solomon Islands province has agreed to lease a large island to a Chinese developer to develop into a special economic zone, weeks after the country opened diplomatic ties with China. But already cracks abound; there has been no official announcement and the provincial premier says the ...
The New Zealand First MP and Minister Shane Jones is still backing the firearms ban, despite being pictured with what appears to be an AR-15 semi-automatic while holidaying in Asia. ...
Everyone needs to be concerned about the draft National Policy Statement on Urban Development that the Ministry for the Environment has released. It is incompatible with the spirit of transparency and inclusiveness. ...
Prodigal Son is a new crime procedural coming hot and fresh to TVNZ 1 on Mondays at 8.30pm.Jean Sergent has a few reasons why you should be watching it. If you like serial killer shows, Michael Sheen, dark drama, Michael Sheen, twisted family dynamics, or Michael Sheen – strap yourself ...
Voters in the 2019 local elections have elected the largest number of new mayors in 30 years, with 26 candidates set to don mayoral chains for the first time later this month. ...
A team of investigators dedicated to stamping out violent extremism online is being set up with the government announcing $17 million in funding over four years. ...
In a major boost to efforts to counter violent extremism on the internet, the Government has promised $17m over four years to the Censorship Compliance Unit. ...
The final dinner party on Married at First Sight NZ brought an ugly misogyny to light. But it was far from the first time sexism reared its head this season, writes Alex Casey.It began with a man being edited out of the show after his domestic violence charges came to ...
The Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO) is recommending members hold on to potentially illegal shotgun shells containing steel shot until the law banning certain types of ammunition is clarified. ...
New collaborative gifting platform Joyable is looking to shake up how we group-purchase gifts. Co-founders (and sisters) Rochelle Sheldon and Kimberley Crossman explain how their latest venture works. Joyable (not to be confused with the social anxiety-reducing app of the same name) is a somewhat left-field move for co-founder Rochelle ...
The extraordinary battle for the Tron has ended in a way no one quite saw coming, with the city relinquishing its stranglehold on the title of New Zealand’s most embarrassing council. Angela Cuming reports.The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a ...
On the eve of the announcement of the winner of the 2019 Booker prize, Spinoff books editor Catherine Woulfe outs herself as a giant know-nothing. Booker time. Tomorrow morning I will sit there refreshing Twitter like the drinking bird on The Simpsons. A winner will be announced. And I’ll be gripped ...
National's claim that things only went south when Phil Twyford took charge of transport is not supported by us at CEAC and we see that this begun in 2008 as we witnessed the change then while working as a partnership group with NZTA then. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Churchill, Research Fellow in Sociology, University of Melbourne There’s an old maxim: not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. But there are some things we should count, and gender and sexual diversity are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Pollock, Climatologist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology Northern Australia is likely to see fewer cyclones than usual this season, but hot, dry weather will increase the risk of fire and heatwaves across eastern and southern Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology today released ...
We are in The Good Time for avocados. Alex Casey talked to an expert on how to make the most of it. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. A time when a new avocado headline is published somewhere in New Zealandeverysingleday. A time when it is ...
Sexual harassment and assault are an issue in all walks of life, but addressing the problem is particularly difficult when the perpetrator holds public office. Today campaigner Carrie Buckmaster launches a parliamentary petition calling for more transparency on the issue.The ongoing Labour Party scandal around handling of sexual harassment allegations ...
Dunedin’s new mayor Aaron Hawkins is the first official Green Party mayor in NZ and, arguably, the first to represent the city’s student population as much as its older residents. Josie Adams, who guessed he would win, asked him ten questions about his win.The Spinoff local election ...
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare (F&P) has upgraded its full year guidance again after gaining the right to sell its new full face mask in the United States. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Shadow foreign minister Penny Wong says Australia needs to “define the boundaries” of its engagement with China now the relationship between the two countries is in a new phase. Focusing on China policy in a ...
Canon Rugby in Focus: Ireland awaits an All Blacks team that will be well-rested. Perhaps too well-rested. Rested and ready, or a game short and not match fit. Those are the two scenarios that will have All Blacks fans fretting this week ahead of ...
With the government recently announcing a desire to help our cities grow up and out, leading New Zealand IoT expert Kriv Naicker today questioned whether New Zealand is falling behind in the use of smart city technology to help achieve this goal. ...
You famously said climate change was this generation’s nuclear-free moment. But when Extinction Rebellion uses the tactics of the Nuclear Free movement, you say you aren’t impressed. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Regina Jefferies, Affiliate, Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW In the past five years, more than 95,000 people who arrived by plane have lodged a claim for asylum in Australia, new statistics show. Labor’s Immigration Spokesperson, Senator Kristina ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karen Waller, PhD candidate, University of Sydney Organs from potential donors once rejected as being unsafe to transplant may not be as risky as once thought, new Australian research shows. Our study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, suggests organs from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Merrilyn Delporte, PhD Candidate, Queensland University of Technology Australia’s refugee policy has led to a two-track education system. Those processed offshore, and deemed refugees by the time they have arrived in Australia, are entitled to fee support for university. But the almost ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, Grattan Institute Congestion charging should be introduced in Australia’s largest cities, as Grattan Institute’s latest report shows. Our analysis also finds that the people who commute to the Melbourne and Sydney CBDs by driving are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David C. Ribar, Professorial Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Australia, like the United States, makes it hard for people who get benefits to stay on them. It’s not simply a matter of withdrawing benefits as people get jobs and work more hours ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ana Silkatcheva, Doctoral Candidate (Oriental Studies – Islamic Art and Archaeology), University of Oxford; Curatorial Researcher, Nicholson Collection, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney In 2005, the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) opened Australia’s first permanent galleries of Islamic art. ...
Council's can expected more pressure from their own ranks to tackle climate change with a new crop of young councillors determined to fight it head on. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Analysis that hits the mark after a big weekend of local elections, new party poll released, and Dunedinites turn out to clean up in honour of killed student.By now, you probably know whether or not you have a new local ...
Would any of the politicians who opposed the marriage equality bill have voted differently if it had passed today? Greta Yeoman asked them.Just over five years ago, New Zealand politicians voted 77-44 to legalise gay marriage, making this country the 13th in the world to do so. Of the 44 ...
We have been on a collision course with freshwater in this country for over a century, writes Dr Jonathan West. Time to make some uncomfortable choices. ...
Teenager Ella Benn has lost part of her left leg, and part of her right lung, to cancer. But with the guidance of a Paralympic legend, she's determined to be a swimming star in her own right. ...
Spark Sport’s six year deal with New Zealand cricket has dealt another blow to Sky TV. The company’s share price has sunk to an all-time low and as Mark Jennings writes, its future existence depends on winning rugby rights. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The ALP has announced an inquiry into the head office of the NSW ALP, after weeks of shocking revelations at the Independent Commission against Corruption about scandals in the handling of donations. The review, announced ...
The new Canterbury Regional Council is set to have a 50-50 gender balance, a younger average age, and people from backgrounds including law, science, farming, insurance and landscape architecture. ...
Aucklanders did not turn out in their droves to vote for incumbent Phil Goff but nor did they embrace the erratic campaigning of challenger John Tamihere. ...
Four of NZ's six largest cities changed mayors on Saturday, three through incumbents being ousted at the local polls. The new crew now need to be the change they promised. ...
Hayden Donnell identifies who did well, and who got massively owned, in the 2019 local elections.The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here.Most of these winners and losers lists fail to capture the nuances ...
Sophie Handford, one of the country's youngest new councillors, hadn't expected to get elected and was at a barn dance when she found out the results. ...
Arms Bill a Legislative Colander: Must Be Rewritten SUNDAY 13 OCTOBER 2019 The Arms Bill has been written so poorly than it must be abandoned and rewritten, according to the Council of Licenced Firearm Owners, COLFO. ...
In one of the biggest surprises of the local elections, Andy Foster has seized the Wellington mayoralty from Justin Lester. In this cheat sheet, we answer some of the big questions about Andy Foster, such as ‘who is Andy Foster?’ The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff ...
Wellington mayoral frontrunner Andy Foster says if he gets into office his backer Sir Peter Jackson won't be influencing what happens within the new council. ...
Fritters are a New Zealand classic and these ones, packed with fresh spring produce, make a perfect light lunch or dinner.Spring is well and truly upon us – my garden has exploded and I take such pleasure in being able to harvest its bounty on a daily basis. We are ...
Anna Knox, who spent four years living in Saudi Arabia, has been waiting for a book like Celestial Bodies – a story that shakes up entrenched ideas of women in the Middle East. Early on in Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies, Abdullah, son of Sulayman the Merchant, describes his family home in the ...
Madeleine Chapman celebrates the girl truths of Netflix’s hit show about puberty, Big Mouth.Girls are horny too. Girls are angry too. How to have an orgasm. The episode titles of Big Mouth are literal and accurate. Girls are horny too! Girls are angry too! How to have an orgasm!Big Mouth follows ...
Open Mike 12/01/2019 
Two years ago Catalans braved police batons and rubber bullets to vote overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum. Today, Spain jailed nine politicians who organised and supported that referendum process for a combined total of a hundred years for "sedition", after a trial that was little more than a judicial ...2 hours ago
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...3 days ago
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...3 days ago
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...3 days ago
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If you are not white or privileged, this message is not intended for you.
(even as a metaphor).
Almost as good as this one…
Are you a bargain hunter? A connoisseur of crap? A Sally Store shark?
Apparently, a new netflix show ‘Tidying up with Marie Kwondo’ has inspired many Kiwis to declutter lately. This has resulted in windfall hauls for various charity organisations.
So the message is, there’s bargains to be found for those wanting them.
I recommend blenders for fresh smoothies. Old books for learning from. Old clothes for a hipster disguise. I’m in the midst of a declutter myself though – out with the old in with the (not so) new? Change is good.
I loved punk for a similar reason to hipster fashion, go to op shop, rip stuff, pin stuff, add badges, wardrobe done. With the hipster look just find something hideous and wear it with confidence. Job done.
Happy hunting!
This short film, offered yesterday here on TS by some kind soul, is a great watch and on the topic of de-cluttering – in this instance, shedding an entire herd of cattle! I enjoyed it very much and thought how paltry my own de-cluttering challenge when compared to the subject of “73 cows”.
https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2018/10/09/73-cows/
I really enjoyed that film and it did challenge my stance (a little). I will never condone factory farming or the concept of eating meat daily. I do however subscribe to dietary science and find after a week of dining from my garden I’m still a bit hungry. I eat meat weekly, or slightly less, when my body asks for it.
This is likely a lack of fats as much as protein, though I fared poorly growing beans this year so there is that missing.
I eat a range of herbs and veg every day.
I am open to suggestions as to what this ‘missing ingredient’ in my diet can be replaced with. If you start trying to push soy on me don’t bother, I’ll never eat that GE crap they’re destroying the Gulf of Mexico to farm for y’all.
You thought I might “start trying to push soy ” on you?
Nah!
Cricket-flour patties, WTP; they’re the buzz 🙂
If the cow farmer could only hook up with Charles Dowding…
On another topic…do we humans ever willingly accept less comfort than we have grown accustomed to? Has anyone real examples of voluntary change to less comfort? I’m thinking/remembering what it was like sleeping on sand. Every time you turn, even slightly, sand fills in behind you, preventing you from turning back; is comfort like that?
Cor, the deep questions so early in the day? I’m floundering. Must be some good reason why no bed of sand has entered the market. Nor have I ever heard of home-made examples. Perhaps we need to turn so frequently during the night that the sand effect you describe creates resistance. That would make it a non-user-friendly design.
Just in case you haven’t already noticed: “A new poll reveals a large majority of New Zealanders would support legalising recreational cannabis use in the Government’s 2020 referendum.” Forget decriminalisation! The public wants to go all the way!
Here’s evidence that the boomers are the mostly closet-fascists and closet-stalinists, dead-keen to suppress the rights of others:
18 – 24 years: 68 percent agree
25 – 34 years: 75 percent agree
33 – 44 years: 72 percent agree
45 – 54 years: 58 percent agree
55 – 64 years: 58 percent agree
65 – 74 years: 30 percent agree
75yrs or over: 37 percent agree
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/2020-cannabis-referendum-would-easily-pass-poll-says.html
Two thirds of all the younger generations are now rejecting prohibition! I’d better take back my oft-expressed dismissal of their collective intelligence. Those over 65 are two thirds in support of continuing prohibition. It’s a huge difference!
You think they are “closet-fascists and closet-stalinists” from a poll on making weed legal?
How very “judgmental” of you.
And rather stupid
We judge people on their actions, and their attitudes. These rightist and leftist turkeys who pretend to support democracy while trying to get away with denying others their civil rights have never been anything other than scum.
You may think it stupid, but that’s obviously because you ain’t no real kiwi male. We call a spade a spade. Get with the program if you want to belong here.
Chris T
You are judgmental of the individual Dennis Frank for honestly decrying a recalcitrant group resisting practical change, as stupid.
You are repressing an individual – he was expressing a considered opinion about a group in society. So you are the one who is stupid.
100% bang on greywarshark.
Chris is just a “carping critic with no logic”
So you think the 32% of under 24s against it are “closet-fascists and closet-stalinists”
Brilliant
Another brilliant generalisation
Thy’re old enough to see the damage it’s done in praxis franxie.
Most have never tried it and fill up on alcohol daily. Try again.
Thy’re old enough to see the damage it’s done…
Most people over 70 in this country have as much acquaintance with the smoking of marijuana and its effects as I do with aerobatics in a jet fighter.
I have fond memories from my student days in mid 70’s of being lectured on the perils of drugs by my stepmother while she had a gin in one hand and a tailormade in the other.
@Psycho Milt, What are you talking about? if you are 70 today, that would make you 20 yo in 1969, I know for a fact that there was plenty of pot smoking going in certain circles in NZ in ’69, just the same as today.
While it was smoked in certain circles in the 60s it was not smoked in most circles like the 80s. My parents had no idea what it smelt like. I used to mix it with drum tobacco and smoke it right under their noses. Once my father walked through the kitchen while i had a couple of big buds drying in the oven and he didn’t notice.
@solkta, that’s funny, because during the 1980’s there was pot pretty much everywhere I went…in one form or another.
I would say it would have been without doubt the most widely used recreational drug used in NZ during that time, after alcohol of course.
Isn’t that what i said?
What Soltka said. Most 20-year-olds in 1969 weren’t smoking dope and didn’t look kindly on the kind of people who did.
I turned 20 that year, and can report that I was still sceptical and too cautious. Not till March ’71 that I first tried it (to little apparent effect) due to feeling like I finally ought to jump on the bandwagon because the world was leaving me behind. I was a strange mix of radical and conservative, still am. But unlike what you say, I wasn’t hostile to users then. I recall viewing them with envy, in fact. Oh to be so adventurous! Casting your fate to the winds. Nah, too much of a challenge at the time so I wimped out…
Most people over 65 are the generation who discovered the joys of weed first, mind you those that did are probably already dead.
A friend of mine, refugee from California, is still going strong in his late seventies. I think any correlation between cannabis users & early death would be established by now if real. I’ve never even heard of it being suggested.
3.2.2 True. Fear of the unknown.
Yeah, like fast drivers. Eliminate them due to the damage done. Easy. Just pass a law making it illegal to sell a car that drives faster than the speed limit. Industry can spin on a dime. Often does so. No problem.
So why don’t rightist govts do that? Freedom of choice. Milton Friedman. Neoliberal ideology. People want to be free to choose to break the law, speed when they want to. Same logic for cannabis. But Gabby, you know this already. Cruise control on cars has been there since the nineties. The tech exists to eliminate speeding. It’s really just that the right are full of shit. Go on, be honest, admit it.
Yes, pot does have adverse health effects, but so do a lot of other substances. We don’t lock someone up for smoking a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Even during the age of Prohibition in the USA, it was still not illegal for people to drink alcohol in their own home (they just couldn’t possess, sell, buy or transport it).
Old people are certainly not my favorites despite approaching membership. In uni it was the old farts who’d fight for the status quo and question those who questioned them. A bunch of oil aficionados.
But the young adults… They’d come to study group and we’d rant long and loud on alternative energy, agricultural diversification and more.
I still remember my first Jay Day at Uni. We had a biology lecture and almost the entire class showed up baked (we’d been having spots in the quad). The lecturer knew what was up immediately but didn’t know how to change tack.
“Questions?”… …. ……. ……………..
😀
I did some adult-reading recovery tutoring in a drug rehabilitation unit before, I think, Labour in Ruth Dyson’s time closed them down.
Talking to the chap I was helping, he told me that part of the steps he had to achieve towards wellness was to read a certain book on drug taking and write a summary of what he had learned. He found that he could read a whole page, know the words as he read them, but not be able to retain enough joined-up ideas and meaning by the end of the page to summarise what he had just read. Consequently the counsellors thought he wasn’t trying. I related the problem to them. They had not realised the brain function ‘numbing’ that the recovering people could be experiencing.
I understand that the brain does recover but the traces of cannabis regularly used, get into some tissues and take months of absistence before being drawn out to leave the brain which then can function better.
Any fogging of the mind can be dispelled by drinking a herbal tea in which dried & powdered rosemary leaves are a primary component. Works like magic!
So that’s your secret you cunning person. Rosemary is more than just a pretty flower, smell and taste. Maybe you’ve come across the Elixir we have all been hoping for. I’ll definitely try it.
Have you ever done a detox? System cleansing is sometimes necessary due to the polluting effects of chemical food additives, micro-organisms, heavy metals. Rosemary is merely a system-maintenance agent. In my herbal tea mix, there’s around a dozen such.
There are only 2 ‘boomer’ cohorts in that list…and one one them is well in favour.
Generalisations/stereotypes are notoriously of little use…..about as accurate as ‘average’
That probably means you’re younger than me and are sufficiently pragmatic/ broadminded to accept the extended definition of boomer & take it more seriously. I’m bang in the middle of the group only in 30% approval, and untypical (nonconformist). In the counter-culture we’d grown to 1% of the whole generation, which seemed impressive growth at the time!
I kept tracking it & vaguely recall it trending around 5% at the end of the seventies. Just my estimation. Values polling is only an approximate indicator. I still saw them as trendy establishment liberals pretending to be radical. I wouldn’t have trusted them to support legalisation so never even checked if they did or not. Suit-wearers.
on the contrary …I dont take the labelling of generations seriously at all (except in the the misuse of its relevance)….folk are folk regardless and the curious thing is most of them age.
Pat
That might be wishful thinking. I think more of older retired folk around here anyway, in Nelson, are National supporters. They display similar characteristics – there is the birds of a feather thing as a general point. Refusal to understand this would mean that you would be less able to make personal predictions that would achieve accuracy when considering voting patterns etc.
im sure you are not suggesting that someone who is an empathetic open minded thoughtful individual receives a personality transplant for their 65th birthday GWS
Pat
There has been a trend observed that peiople become more conservative in old age. Also that older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them.
There has indeed been such a trend observed, conservative in that they less inclined to change i.e. maintain the views they have developed, so if you were of the view that drug reform was not a good idea when you were 30 odds are you will maintain that view at 40, 50 or 60 etc. This may be attributed to the predominant views/influences in the formative years ….and we also know that politics follow public opinion rather than lead it.
How this reduced appetite for risk is reflected in voting patterns is a topic of much debate.
As to the assertion that ‘older people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’ a more accurate statement would be ‘people tend to support the status quo when it is in a place that is positive for them’…..age is not key.
Again, folk are folk…and they age.
Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretences of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/379947/jobs-on-offer-but-still-no-visa-fix-for-chinese-workers
No wonder tradespeople are complaining their wages haven’t moved in 20 years while the cost of construction is skyrocketing as are all the defects. Time construction was not some immigration scam, but people with the right paperwork and the right NZ training or equivalent who speak and read English so can be safe on site and follow the plans or they really are skilled and paid $100k plus that high skills should be getting in NZ. Kiwis are expected to pay $30k for a degree to become a builder and take 3 or 4 years but being undercut by non/poor English speakers often bought in by migrants as a work scam or to be cheap labour, who will work for virtually nothing.
The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first instead they seem to be able to do anything for a foreigner with a problem, but somehow seems indifferent to the massive queues at the foodbanks for working Kiwis who can no longer survive on wages.
I saw a lot of indentured labour in Kuwait (even supervised some) and it still gnaws at my insides. It’s horrifying and disgusting that we’re now allowing it to happen here, and I’d like my elected representatives to do something about it – I’m looking at you, Iain Less-Galloway, you’re my MP as well as the relevant Minister. If we’ve signed FTAs that require us to allow this, please get on with reviewing and renegotiating or withdrawing from those FTAs, because they should never have been agreed to in the first place.
This is the standard method of running indentured labour:
1. In countries with lots of desperate people in poverty, you get local contractors to hire labour for you.
2. Those contractors sell the right to work for you to desperate locals. They can’t pay the amount the contractor is demanding, so the contractor ‘lends’ them the money on the basis they’ll soon be able to pay it back again once they’re earning allegedly big bucks working for you.
3. You have your staff pick the labourers up from the airport, take their passports off them and shoehorn them into run-down accommodation fit for a small fraction of the number of people.
4. These people are now effectively your slaves. They can’t go and work for anyone else because you have their passports. You can pay them whatever and whenever you feel like, and if anyone wants to make trouble about that you hold the threat of withdrawing sponsorship and putting them on the next plane home with nothing but a debt to the local contractor that will make them a slave to that contractor, who’s probably worse even than you.
Is this seriously what we want happening here? Because various incidents have demonstrated that it already is.
It most certainly is what some want, and you are correct to ask the question of ILG because the response to the exposure of its prevalence has been non existent….why?
It is also putting the better businesses out of work, who can not compete with the low tenders from companies with workers working at below market rates. Race to the bottom. Also it impacts on everyone as often when those firms get in cheap labour it backfires and a decade later you find out that the materials were also sub standard as is the work and currently the rate payers seem to be paying to fix it while the council blithely adds more liability to our books as well as the poor home owner who then finds out that they need to poor in $100k+ remedial work and actually might not even be able to live there anymore.
Apparently so because its happening here.
Capitalism will always shift to slavery of some form or another. People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.
And so they work to make sure that freedom is not available. They cut the welfare state by saying that people getting welfare are being paid too much, put in degrading conditions for getting welfare and put in place so many hoops for getting it as well.
And the whole lot is for the purpose of removing people’s freedom.
Out in place a UBI and watch as the poor/bad employers scream.
Maybe we will end up as in Israel – crowded to the max. No graciousness.
(https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/traffic-congestion-in-israel-yalla-solutions/
You really do write some unadulterated bs.
“People being free to leave work and get another job on the same day for better pay or even just better conditions minimises the capitalists profits.”
Not for the employer who the employee shifts to, or they wouldn’t offer better terms. That is capitalism at work, the freedom of the worker to negotiate better terms. Do you really not understand that?
You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.
I know you’re going to say that they are but they really aren’t.
First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. That’s a cost.
Because of the governments failure to run a full employment policy they can’t just walk to another job. Which means that they could be out of work for weeks or even months.
I understand it. Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? That they can only take what’s offered?
This is why the government keeps unemployment high. To actually prevent the workers from negotiating better terms and wages.
“You miss the point that workers are, presently, not free to leave their present employment.”
Of course they are. It’s called ‘resigning’.
“First off, if they leave they have no income for 13 weeks. ”
Wrong. They leave their old employer with potential outstanding leave entitlements, and start earning the very next day with their new employer. There are plenty of jobs.
“Do you not understand that a high unemployment rate removes the ability of workers to negotiate? ”
And a low unemployment rate increases the ability to negotiate. Thus the market provides the freedoms that workers don’t have under the dictates of socialism.
“This is why the government keeps unemployment high.”
The government wants low unemployment, because it increases it’s revenues and reduces it’s costs. If you seriously believe the government wants to keep unemployment high, you must think the current government is doing a pretty poor job!
@Psycho Milt +1, come to the Hawkes Bay if you want to see imported labour from impoverished pacific Island being used cynically to suppress wages and conditions. I brought this up with A. Little when I got the chance once, he blurted out some meaningless bullshit for an answer, which was really disappointing as I have always quite Little.
The problem with Little is the same problem with Labour NZ, ie. they seem to in their hearts, still really believe free market capitalism will answer all our problems, they really are liberal ideologues, this whole pragmatism bullshit that Ardern bangs on about is nothing more than a smoke screen for more of the same.
Same in Marlborough. I was in Blenheim for Christmas and found there’s now a big ugly barracks on the edge of town for the labourers imported from Vanuatu to work in the vineyards. I’ve seen better-looking prisons.
The police and immigration also seem also more willing politically to prosecute Pacific Islanders for ‘trafficking’ but less so for other nationals also in on the same wicket! Maybe not keen to displease Asian dual nationals who apparently bring in good political donations for politicians…
Evidence? That doesn’t sound correct. Are there any stats?
Asians? From where? You mean China don’t you or do you have an ethnicity breakdown to put up.
There have been 4 trafficking cases prosecuted in NZ, as far as I am aware it always concentrates on Pacific Island horticulture workers, while it seems that other types of rampant human trafficking aka among the massive 150k temp work permits per year last year on top of the 129,000 migrants coming. That is under Labour. To give an idea they were talking about 15,000 when they won the election. So that promise has defiantly not be kept.
For years now we have constant stories of workers paying for the work permits etc up front and then finding out there is no work and it is not all what is promised but they don’t get their money back. As far as I am concerned it falls under trafficking. Should people even be allowed to sell temporary work permits and internments to foreign people and profit from it?
if people were paying to come into NZ in a boat they would be called human traffickers. Instead they do some shady stuff, and are bringing people to NZ who pay for the privilege just like the people traffickers but because they are on bogus permits it is apparently ok to lie and cheat people and then rely on NZ taxpayers to bail everyone out and turn a blind eye to the process because they are too incompetent to close it down.
Ta – here’s one for your files
Marlborough wine contractor ordered to pay $127k for exploiting migrant workers https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/379825/marlborough-wine-contractor-ordered-to-pay-127k-for-exploiting-migrant-workers
When did the PM talk about pragmatism? ???
I thought that was a National mp. “We are pragmatists”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/107442623/kindness-not-hate—jacinda-arderns-message-to-donald-trump-and-the-world
https://e-tangata.co.nz/korero/jacinda-lofty-goals-and-small-town-values/
Of course, she’s still following capitalism which, itself, is not pragmatic. In fact, its a denial of pragmatism.
There is a marriage of words that some people are wrongly divorcing.
The term for what we need is ‘pragmatic idealism’.
Here pragmatic is an adjective qualifying the idealism that we need to drive us forward as a nation to some good goals. This will prevent a fast gallop headlong down the road signposted with fluffy feel-good names of destinations for Labour. Or for National the roads marked off with little spots of gold that only the first person to reach them gathers and pockets, leaving the later phalanx lost, confused and searching for a leader.
So that is the recipe, ‘pragmatic idealism’. Pragamatism as a noun will just turn the nation to an empty dust bowl with huge barrack-like prisons placed strategically apart.
On the job
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5rJb2gNsXI
@PM
This. On the nail; a very accurate post that reflects exactly what I’ve seen elsewhere. I’ve seen this exploitation up front and in person on one big overseas project; it’s ugly, ugly.
This is a story about desperate people living in over-populated countries where there is intense local competition for opportunity. Of course the intense desire to better oneself gets exploited in these circumstances.
Yes we can take action here in NZ to minimise the egregious abuse; but the root causes lie elsewhere. It reinforces yet again; no single nation state is able to address the big global scale challenges facing us.
Does it?
Or does it show that the government is willing to accept these types of things in the name of trade?
As a nation we do have the choice of not trading with nations that allow this, to make sure that such exploitation doesn’t happen in our nation and that anyone of our nation who does support this in anyway ends up in jail. And we can even point to the UDHR to say why we’re not doing it.
Of course, that does mean dropping out of FTAs that breach the UDHR like the one with China. And not signing up to ones with nations like Saudi Arabia.
Sure, it’s not a global solution until everyone does it but it’s a step on the right path. And once we’ve done it we can apply pressure to others in the UN to do it. Somehow I think that some of the most exploited nations may actually be the first to step up.
SaveNZ. 100%.
Yes I support your logic.
It seems very clear now that the Chinese Government is behind dumping all these workers onto us here as the Chinese economy enters a slow down now.
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued under false pretenses of work (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?
The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
“Shouldn’t the government stop all these temporary work visas being issued UNDER FALSE PRETENCES OF WORK (and a hefty fee to the middleman) taking up accommodation in shortages?”
And shouldn’t they stop tying any type of visa to a specific employer rather than to an employment sector or specific project? It’s a recipe for exploitation – but unfortunately it’s all working as designed
AND
“The best thing the government could do, is prosecute the recruitment company and make them pay the Chinese workers money back and then Close the scam.”
Since you’ll usually find cosy little relationships between hire companies (and others such as shitty tertiary education providers and charlatan Immigration Advisors that have not been properly monitored – as opposed to professionals with a proven record of ethical behaviour and subject to sanctions of the legal profession), YES, the best thing would be to prosecute and compensate their victims. And where they only possess PR, rescind it and deport. And where they have dual citizenship, we should seriously consider giving them a choice of which country they wish to retain their citizenship
AND
“The government should be thinking of Kiwi welfare, rights and safety first………….”
The government should be thinking of the welfare, rights and safety of ANYBODY that’s in the country regardless of their circumstances without favour
The government should close down any temporary work permit being issued unless the person has a job that is proved that can not be done by a New Zealander and is paying well above market rates (because at present employers get around it by for example offering pay rates that are unliveable or the same as 20 years ago, like horticulture workers or people being recruited through numerous third parties all taking a profit and so the end worker gets under minimum wages (ak Chorus subcontractors and construction workers). They should also have to provide accommodation and prove that it is not taking accomodation away from other people aka the job has to supply it in high shortage areas like Auckland, Hawkes bay, Wellington).
There should also be a limit to work permits per year like 15,000 of temporary work permits. A bottom line will automatically change the dynamic and the traffickers will be out of business, because at present the numbers of temp workers are limitless.
Foreign people who study in NZ should not be allowed to work as that has become a way to enter NZ and then use it later to find a fake job and get residency.
Former migrants or non NZ citizens should not be allowed to offer work permits or job sponsorship or marriage with residency to others. (aka Sroubek and his wife getting residency and these cases, https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/376220/10k-11-days-and-one-failed-deportation, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12123831) so that the Ponzi scam is closed.
So many people are profiting off what is essentially NZ visas and citizenship and that is why we have ridiculous levels like 150,000 work permits last year alone, while jobseeker benefits are up and 129,000 new migrants when apparently Labour, Greens and NZ First were supposed to close the loopholes. There are more migrants than under the Natz, because the government and their officials have such ineffectual controls, so many lawyers are profiting off the scams with litigation as the laws here are not fit for purpose or being exploited, allowing people who pay little to no taxes here for most of their lives to retire here and criminal exploiters to live in NZ and scam here.
Nice one Bleeple
“Old books for learning from”
Agree with that every year we go the Red Cross Bookfair held in Hamilton. We use it as a giant lending library. Always come away with a large load of books, all sorts of reading material. When we have read the ones we do not need to keep we return them to the Red Cross for the next book fair We have picked up some great books there like Peter Wrights SpyCatcher and Neville Shute’s Slide Rule and they are nearly always in good condition.
Book fairs. what a great way to spend a day, book fair and brunch, my favorite. I’ve attended the Hamilton book fair a couple years ago and got ‘The Reader’s Digest Do It Yourself Manual (1965)’ – a 500 page hardcover book on building – from furniture and shelves etc through to houses, log cabins… All with hand tools. What a Treasure! BBQ areas, ponds, pagolas, retaining walls, paths, terraces…. amazing book.
My difficulty with book fairs is meeting people there. What’s the protocol; nod and keep searching? A quick howdy-do and … keep searching, or stop for a catch-up and watch your almost-treasures walk out the door with someone else? I love talking. I love foraging at book fairs; what to do, what to do?
Learning about – books plus. On Radio NZ this a.m. interesting, informative, leading to understanding, hopeful.
8.35 Erin Rhoads: A zero-waste quest
Erin Rhoads runs the Australian eco-lifestyle website The Rogue Ginger, and has written the book Waste Not, which gives suggestions for reducing consumption and waste – particularly of plastic – in every area of life, and every room in the house. She has been attempting to come as close to “zero waste” as possible since 2013. She also consults with businesses on waste reduction.
09:05 Dov Alfon: Stories from inside Israel’s military
Dov Alfon is an Israeli investigative journalist and former editor of the newspaper Haaretz, to which he still contributes from his home in Paris. Dov was formerly an intelligence officer in Unit 8200, the most secretive arm of the Israeli military,
and –
in his first work of fiction, A Long Night in Paris, he lays bare Israel’s secretive world of intelligence gathering. He received a Peace Through Media prize in 2011.
10:05 Anthony Cabraal: Tackling a broken culture of work
Anthony Cabraal is a member of Enspiral, a collective of businesses and freelancers that aims to support people who want to spend their lives changing the world. He is co-editor of the book Better Work Together, which discusses harnessing the “power of community” to transform businesses. He is interested in helping communities of people approach governance of companies, profits, leadership, staff retention, and other structural issues that make workplaces dysfunctional, in new and innovative ways.
10:35 John Cryan: How your gut affects your brain
Dr John Cryan, a neuropharmacologist and microbiome expert from the University College Cork, researches the interactions between the brain and the collection of microbes in the gut, and how that relationship affects stress, psychiatric health, and immune-related disorders. In his latest book, The Psychobiotic Revolution, Professor Cryan and colleague Ted Dinan write about research showing that beneficial microbes can improve mood.
Someone could put up audio when its through if they have time. I want to be on the Earth March, and want to be in two places at once, so I am a bit stretched!
And Halfcrown – this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there. (I like Nevil Shute – great humane, storyteller with interesting technical stuff too. I guess Slide Rule is about him personally?)
I highly rate Dr Cryan I read a ton of his stuff when researching autism. He’ll be an eye opener for many.
Dr Cryan is excellent and many before him has explained the effects “our toxic world”
try also the book called “Our toxic World” by Our Toxic World: A Wake Up Call Paperback – October, 2003 by Doris Rapp (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Toxic-World-Wake-Call/dp/1880509083
Just a short brief in this link below will chill your bones as enter into a poisoned world.
By Dr. Mercola
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/03/15/the-wild-world-of-chemical-exposure.aspx
Dr. Mercola’s Natural Health Newsletter
Polytoxicity: The Wild World of Chemical Exposure
26 March 15, 2017
toxic chemicals in hand sanitizer
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
There are about 85,000 chemicals registered under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment
Combining chemicals often magnifies their toxic effects; in the case of bisphenol-A (BPA), using hand sanitizer prior to handling a BPA-containing receipt may increase skin absorption 100-fold
About 1 in 11 public schools in the U.S. are located within 500 feet of highways, truck routes and other roads with heavy traffic, leaving millions of school kids breathing polluted air
By Dr. Mercola
Have you ever wondered how many chemicals you’re exposed to on any given day? How about your kids? It’s really anyone’s guess. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compile and keep a current list of chemical substances manufactured or processed in the U.S.
That list includes about 85,000 chemicals,1 but even the EPA is largely in the dark about what that actually means for people’s health and the environment.
As noted in Chemical & Engineering News, “The agency is struggling to get a handle on which of those chemicals are in the marketplace today and how they are actually being used.”2
Very few chemicals on the market are tested for safety, but even those that are, are not necessarily safe. Part of this is because safety testing is typically done on just one chemical at a time, and under laboratory conditions.
The way you’re actually exposed to chemicals — in combination and under countless different real-world scenarios — may increase their toxicity exponentially.
The Toxic Reality of Using Hand Sanitizer, Eating and Holding a Receipt
A revealing example of just how toxic our world has become is the bisphenol-A (BPA) used in thermal paper (the type many receipts are made out of).
BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical linked to a number of health concerns, particularly in pregnant women, fetuses and young children, but also in adults, including high blood pressure, heart disease,3 obesity, fertility problems and more.
BPA is most often associated with plastics, personal care products and canned goods but, according to a 2014 study published in PLOS One, “Free BPA is applied to the outer layer of thermal receipt paper present in very high (∼20 mg BPA/g paper) quantities as a print developer.”4
This in itself is unsettling, considering very few people think twice about handling receipts (or handing one to a child). However, the study revealed that a very common scenario — using hand sanitizer prior to handling a receipt — maximizes the risk.
I don’t know how you went from Dr Cryan on the gut microbiome to ‘our toxic world’ to Dr Mercola, but you did it.
Here’s a taste:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22968153
“Studies are revealing how variations and changes in the composition of the gut microbiota influence normal physiology and contribute to diseases ranging from inflammation to obesity. Accumulating data now indicate that the gut microbiota also communicates with the [Central Nervous System (CNS)]–possibly through neural, endocrine and immune pathways–and thereby influences brain function and behaviour. Studies … suggest a role for the gut microbiota in the regulation of anxiety, mood, cognition and pain. Thus, the emerging concept of a microbiota-gut-brain axis suggests that modulation of the gut microbiota may be a tractable strategy for developing novel therapeutics for complex CNS disorders.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678197/erin-rhoads-a-zero-waste-quest
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678201/dov-alfon-stories-from-inside-israel-s-military
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678205/anthony-cabraal-tackling-a-broken-culture-of-work
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678206/john-cryan-how-your-gut-affects-your-brain
and an extra – on Canada, the venturing woman and Saudi Arabia.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018678196/spotlight-on-saudi-arabia-s-guardianship-of-women
and, published 2010:
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean …
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/613283.Princess
Rating: 4 – 26,738 votes
Start by marking “Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia” as Want to Read: … The true story of one of the princesses of the royal house of Al Saud in Saudi Arabia is told in a fashion that is both charming and riveting. The veil that guards the women of …
” I guess Slide Rule is about him personally?”
Yes it is. Nevil Shutes full name is Nevil Shute Norway. He explains why he only used Nevil Shute as his writing name (shit I am surprised no one picked up my typo) He was a mathematician working on the R101 Airship, Gives an insight into his political thinking and why he ended up in Australia writing novels about Australia and aircraft. A great engineer predicted metal fatigue long before it was understood what metal fatigue really was (No Highway). As I have said before I don’t recommend books as we all have our different tastes but it is a good read all about the British Aircraft industry in the ’20s and ’30s with great characters who he worked with like Alan Cobham and Geoffrey De Haviland.
“this Israeli book may be special; there isn’t that much sane thinking available to us from there.”
Oh I don’t know Grey I found Dr Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Sapiens” extremely good and he’s Jewish and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
but your recommendation has been noted and added to the list. Thanks
The thing about books, is that there are lots of info in them that you simply cannot find online.
+100%
The invisibility of class and the advantages of social capital: https://www.damemagazine.com/2018/07/17/the-self-made-billionaire-is-a-myth/
Yes, an essential perspective. The effect of social niche is often not factored into evaluation. Context is everything. As I’ve pointed out here before, all meaning is relative to context.
“humans are herd animals. If that herd happens to go from Stanford straight into the product manager program at Google, that’s what you do. There are a lot of people who were just on the assembly line from Stanford to Google to some little startup they sold for $50 million and that’s it. That track was just laid out for them, they just got on the treadmill and went down the assembly line and I don’t think most people understand how that works.”
The point is to learn how the culture of capitalism both forms and replicates. It replicates itself via the endeavour of the individuals it forms. Context produces matrix – recall the formative role of that being the feature of the movie. It created the social reality of the world. Only the minority rebels saw through it to the deeper reality in which it was embedded.
Extreme Wealth is Not Merited
Is there a place for difference in earning?
Yes, yes there is.
But there should still be no unearned income and no one is worth more than, say, 30% more than the average wage.
Who defines ‘unearned income’? You or me? Or some unaccountable Central Committee of Comrades?
And who defines your 30% ratio? Same committee?
Take my own life for example … the annualised income ratio between my first job as an after-school bottle washer in a chemist shop, and the one I’m doing now is (in real terms) probably in the order of 1200% or more. Why do you think the version of me that’s 50 yrs older is being paid so much more? And how exactly do you think this should be regulated?
I think that DTB’s idea of having some proportionality from bottom to top is right. We have gone up on the Bell curve? and I would prefer not to see it rushing down the other side. Why not ease up a little so the gradient won’t be so steep? Forget percentages – they are just indicators that have too many variables to be tossed into an argument.
Say though the minimum wage is just getting by level at $20 an hour, and with thousing play being the game du jour for the irresponsible economists that is a basic, then what would 5 times be like, $100 an hour, $4,000 a 40 hour week making approx $200,000 per annum. Stop the competition for housing from immigrants by reducing immigration numbers, and refuse to sell our land and housing infrastructure to overseas hot-pants money off-loaders and pay at the highest $500,00 p.a. Half a million would give a very nice lifestyle and housing could settle down to being necessary infrastructure at more reasonable prices.
If people didn’t like it they could take their money and go elsewhere. We would not be worse off in the long run. If we were short of top talent we could pay some big bucks on a short term basis and buy it in. We could afford that.
This is one of those questions that has no empirical answer.
We can for instance easily reject the two extremes; one where one persons owns everything and has all the income, the other where everyone has exactly the same income and wealth. Neither of these extremes is feasible.
But they are useful markers to help think about the problem. In global terms it’s fair to say we are much closer to the first extreme of everyone owning everything, than perfect equality. So this strongly suggests which direction we need to move in … towards spreading income and wealth more evenly. I’ve clearly argued elsewhere that the elimination of the extremes of wealth and poverty is one of the four big moral challenges of our era.
But how would we know if we had gone too far?
I don’t think we can rely on individual opinion; each one of us would have a different answer. Nor can any fixed number be relied upon to account for the multiple dimensions which determine income, wealth and social capital.
Nor should we rely on just one mechanism; progressive taxation has long been the traditional tool the left has wielded, yet other nations have tended towards tighter distributions of income before taxation. Others have taxed capital, investment and expenditure in complex fashions, and so on.
There is also a complex relationship between opportunity and outcomes; these two being tension with each other. We tend to maximise one at the expense of the other.
Nor is it easy to account for exactly how brutal the drivers of inequality really are, and how deep they run into our psychological being. For instance; how many tens of millions of talented musicians are there? Yet probably less than 1000 of them account for the vast majority of music listened to. Last year I was working on a site with 13,000 people, yet barely 100 of them would count as the key technical leaders. If you want a formal expression of this, checkout Price’s Law.
Outstanding success is a very rare thing; it’s distribution is exceedingly skewed. The vast majority of people are firmly lodged right at the bottom. This is true of all fields of endeavour, across all societies.
The modern world has largely solved the problem of absolute poverty; but it has greatly exacerbated relative poverty; inequality challenges us in ways we’re only just beginning to understand. The left exists to address this question; but our grasp of it’s true nature and our dialog around it falls woefully short.
The first extreme you mention is one person owning everything and we’re actually getting pretty close to that. It is, after all, the inevitable result of capitalism. So is the collapse of society that it will bring about.
The solution isn’t actually everyone owning the same amount but nobody owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income. This would actually allow the labour market to work.
When we have increasing poverty while a few people have far more than they can either spend or use in their life time.
We don’t have equal opportunity nor do we have equal outcomes.
Perhaps the problem is our definition of success. As you say, there are millions of talented musicians but, despite these people actually being successful, we don’t see them as such because they haven’t made millions.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
The ironic thing being that if a musician does become successful you accuse them of being thieves
The ironic thing is that people like you JS come onto TS and stay as if you find it worthwhile, and then start criticising and nit-picking.
What on earth do you mean by “you accuse them of being thieves”
If you are going to try for TS interaction and discussion can you please explain your line of thinking. I for one am tired of the tossers who toss-off some remark that they think as profound or shrewd.
DTB once said being rich was only achieved by theft. I countered that the musician or artist who becomes rich does so from the benefits of their own talent rather than off the backs of the poor. He never answered it so I mentioned it here as it seemed relevant.
Also – fuck off. This open mike and I’ll say what I want. Don’t like it? Don’t read it
🙂
Don’t like personal criticism or seeking improvement John Selway.
Don’t come here!
This is Open Mike and I’ll say what I want.
You are a good example of someone who is highly individualistic and doesn’t care about the purpose of this blog, which is to look at what’s being done in NZ and see how we can do things better.
Not to stamp like a three year old and run around demanding things be done to suit oneself.
owning resources, land, houses and other items that bring in unearned income.
Marx formulated his outdated theories in an era when the relationship between wealth and resources was poorly understood. It turned out Marx was completely wrong. By simple observation it’s clear that real wealth derives from a complex of factors; monetary and social capital, intelligence, talent, persistence and diligence, tolerance for risk, resilience, good looks, good luck and an energetic urban setting are some of the obvious ones.
In the early 1800’s it was natural to perceive labour in purely physical terms, but 200 years later this kind of ‘labour’ has almost zero global value. In a modern economy real value lies almost entirely elsewhere; and this is a trend that is rapidly accelerating.
Which I seems to be largely because people don’t have the right ‘class’.
This is true to at least some extent; class is real and has real impacts. But the West has moved very strongly in the direction of an equality of opportunity in order to mitigate this. You just can’t have a perfect equality of outcome at the same time.
Almost all of those immediately come down to luck, anyway.
Frankly, all I’d do is make it illegal for the state to countenance <60 median income after housing costs (as a poverty line, i.e. so everyone under that line gets a cheque from the government so they meet that minimum), then adopt a progressive taxation policy on all income so that marginal tax rates on more than 9 times the gross median income are something like 90% (everything over roughly $440k at the moment).
It wouldn't be perfect, but I don't think it would be too far wrong.
The reason progressive taxation fell out of favour with the electorate was due to Labour using it to fund big govt, so the question is how to market it effectively. Can you foresee Labour learning it’s lesson and campaigning on the combination of promising to keep the cost of govt down while pitching for a mandate to bring back progressive taxation on income?
They promised to keep government cost down last election. It is a promise I think they should not make at the next election. And tax is under review.
immediately come down to luck
Yes. The genetic lottery is a capricious and often cruel thing; but exactly what should we do about it?
Until we understand inequality properly; that it’s roots lie far deeper than mere capitalism or neo-liberalism, we don’t stand a chance of addressing it effectively.
It’s my sense the answer lies less with how wealth is distributed, but in how it’s used. A society that makes put’s energy into ensuring those that the bottom of the heap, even those it might despise as ‘losers’ are not disrespected and discarded is the moral platform we need to re-build. The idea that each one of us, regardless of our lot in life, is of value and worth, is the key idea.
As I said, my position is that what we should do about it is make sure everyone has the basics and tax the fuck out of the disproportionaly wealthy so that their children don’t have dolt-45 level unearned advantages.
We tried that, and while it worked for a while, because we didn’t have an effective moral defense for it … it all got dismantled in the 1980’s.
I’m not against strong progressive taxation; but I’d argue that by itself it’s a fragile tool.
And what Dennis said at 4:25
It got dismantled in the 1980s because more equal societies don’t stop people being corrupt fuckwits.
Getting an egalitarian and fair society is like quitting smoking. You do the good thing for a while, then someone succumbs to temptation. So you try again. And again. Forever.
Poverty is a direct result of capitalism. The whole system is designed to channel the wealth to the rich. That’s what it does and that wealth must come from the poor.
Get rid of the system that channels the wealth to the rich and we can do something about poverty.
We certainly won’t be able to do something about it until we accept that truth.
In the context of economics distributed and used are the same.
We either distribute the wealth so that there is no poverty or we distribute it to the already wealthy and ensure that we do have poverty.
So far, we’ve chosen the latter course.
Poverty is a direct result of capitalism.
Poverty … both absolute and relative existed long, long before capitalism. The inescapable problem is that differences multiply; success attracts success. This applies to all fields of human endeavour, the first 10,000 hours are the hardest, after that it largely a matter of pursuing the endless opportunities that open up to competency and integrity.
And even then, outstanding success remains an exceedingly rare thing. Indeed according to Prices Law of the 7 billion humans on earth, it’s just 80,000 or so who contribute 50% of the creative value and innovation to the entire global output.
Random linky: https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/
No it hasn’t. In fact, over the last few decades it’s gone completely in the other direction as we’ve punished the poor for being poor while putting the rich, no matter how they got that wealth, upon pedestals.
Any income that doesn’t come from work.
So, rent, shareholding, inheritance, interest etcetera. For a more informed view read Why we can’t afford the rich.
That was merely a suggestion. I have stated before that there should be both a minimum income (UBI) and a maximum income.
Because we’ve got the valuation of work massively wrong. One of the interesting things I’ve noticed over the last few years is that those people we need the most are paid the least while those we need the least are paid the most.
Some time back I pointed out that a CEOs million dollar bonus, if given to the work force, would have been a 40c per hour raise. That million dollars still came from the same pile – the corporate accounts – but the workers had just been declined a pay-rise. The point being that high pay-rates for some are preventing decent pay-rates for others.
You should, of course, be paid more than teenage you as experience and knowledge count but is the job that you do actually worth the amount that you’re paid? The evidence suggests that it’s possible you’re being paid too much.
A minimum and maximum wage and then let the market sort it out.
The evidence suggests that it’s possible you’re being paid too much.
Interesting you should frame it like that; why not suggest that the bottle washer version of me was being paid too little?
Over and again your message translates to a hatred of the rich rather than any real concern for the poor.
He probably was.
No it doesn’t. That’s just you twisting my words to make yourself feel better as you’re one of the rentiers who should not exist.
you’re one of the rentiers who should not exist.
I scarcely have to twist anything. Not so much as a tinsey tweak ….
“Over and again your message translates to a hatred of the rich rather than any real concern for the poor.”
Hole in one. Draco is an admitted authoritarian who hates the rich (actually anyone who has riches because in Draco’s mind it all amounts to theft – even the artist who gets rich from their own efforts rather than from rents or inheritance)
He hates more than he empathises
No, it was just Red twisting things because he didn’t like the truth.
While I have your ear do you wanna get on to getting those citations I asked you for?
This on procrastination – do you suffer from this? Apparently it’s in our genes – so does that mean it is inevitable and we should just let it rule? This from Canadian who looks into our underlying drives.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018677711/piers-steel-why-we-procrastinate-and-how-to-stop
I’m going to read that link when I get round tuit
Hah. Those round tu-its, I understand if you can collect enough of them you can clad a house in them like cedar shingles.
But who’s going to hang them .
Very useful if it works. I’m a terrible procrastinator and much of that is goal setting or failure to break them down so I get overwhelm of mental to do lists.
But there have been times in life I’ve juggled a dozen things seemingly effortlessly. With a plan, and a diary…
It never fails to amuse me how, as humans, we learn good helpful things then forget them just as easily. Like our default is to self sabotage.
Time management. That’s what I require right now. So simple I simply forgot.
I find that an attack of my chronic inertia seems to activate my congenital procrastination. particularly on hot days. I also forget that I have lost my memory somewhere.
WtB
Familiar story. But I like it. Perhaps there can be a society for the chronic procrastinator/fevered activator – goes like a see-saw. Who finds they tend to wait for a deadline and that sharpens your mind acutely and you can immediately judge how long each thing will take to a 3 minute accuracy?
I used to edit a monthly community paper. So I was writer, editor, sales, etc… 90% of it got done in the last week. Still managed to double circulation and triple the size in six months.
Then won > $6K with friends playing phone trivia, also coinciding with a nice sized holiday pay – and so went on a 6 week drinking jag (as you do) followed by a hospitalised detox.
6 months drinking in 6 weeks, now that’s efficiency.
Yes WtB some people waste their lives drinking too much over decades and end up with no life left and trying to detox. You did the short pressure-cooker course, and passed the third stage of wisdom successfully (learning from personal experience), and now have jumped that ravine and can journey on at a higher level. Poetic eh!
Be afraid
Be very afraid
Oceans Are Warming Faster Than Predicted
“Earth’s seas are absorbing excess heat 40 percent faster than previous estimates”
Chelsea Harvey – Scientific American, January 11, 2019
New Zealand seas in 2018 hottest since records began, dire warning for marine life
Michael Neilson, General/Māori Affairs reporter – NZ HeraldNZ Herald, January 11, 2019
‘
by Erika Spanger-Siegfried, Senior Analyst in the Climate and Energy program at UCS – Union Of Concerned Scientists, December 30, 2018
An ancient pre-literate myth; metaphor for the effort we need to recover our badly wounded climate.
Jenny – How to Get There
Which day of the week do you decide to note the latest, but then shut down for the rest of the day and night ie nearly a whole day leaving the world to everyone else to worry about and resting your weary mind?
But is fear of the future the best way to engage with it? I’m inclined to go with Monty Python instead. And that line they made a song out of had already been traditional folk wisdom for a very long time!
“When Chapman died on 4 October 1989, the five remaining Pythons, as well as Chapman’s close friends and family, came together at his public memorial service to sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as part of Idle’s eulogy. In 2005, a survey by Music Choice showed that it was the third most popular song Britons would like played at their funerals. By 2014, it was the most popular.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Look_on_the_Bright_Side_of_Life
Were the young men who played football with blocks of ice on the deck of the Titanic brave, or just not aware of the true nature of the tragedy unfolding around them?
Did their levity in the face of the coming disaster help or hinder their chances of survival?
I would say that creating an air of carefree lightheartedness, would have led many, not to understand the peril they were all in. Even some who might otherwise have survived if they had been moved to action sooner.
If you are not afraid, you are not brave, you are just not fully aware of the danger.
Without fear there can be no courage.
Courage is acting despite your fear.
Speaking personally, Dennis, I don’t find your argument for levity in the face of the climate disaster compelling. To make light of the peril we are all in would, in my opinion, be a mistake.
P.S.
In the example you gave to back up your point; The mourners, at Graham Chapman’s funeral, were not themselves in any peril.
This tells me that you think the same way about climate change, that it will affect others, and not you, or those dear to you.
No, the precautionary principle must apply as regards public policy, but the problem with fear is that it tends to paralyze people. As with animals.
So to empower them, we must provide a positive alternative to a grim reality. One that opens up another pathway to the future which is viable. That gives them a useful basis on which to proceed.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/379964/mock-funeral-for-planet-earth-in-nelson
Alhough it isnt the earth at risk of demise the sentiment is clear
Thanks for the links Jenny.
Girls and I have been talking about this daily, usually as we return from a swim at the river or beach. Discussion about how we are going to work with the new climate also occurs.
The girls are now noticing the difference after five years of summer swimming at the same places. Visible marine life changes via sea temp’s; resulting in educating ourselves on sharing the water with stingrays etc.
Will share the info with them.
For the next time a commentator (or economist, or member of government) suggests cutting minimum wages, or benefits, or employment protections is a good way of improving employment outcomes. This is often called making the labour market more flexible/responsive/dynamic.
At heart the argument seems illogical because its based on a fallacy.
“What started the discussion was the allegation that the level of employment in the long run is a result of people’s own rational intertemporal choices and that how much people work basically is a question of incentives.”
https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/cutting-wages-the-wrong-medicine/
Sadly the Future of Work is failing to understand these fallacies at all,
https://www.labour.org.nz/speech_by_grant_robertson_the_future_of_work_and_labour_s_economic_vision
“Already this year I have outlined two critical underpinnings of our approach. First, our Budget Responsibility Rules. In order to make our bold and progressive programme credible we have to demonstrate to New Zealanders that we can deliver it. They want us to show that we understand their desire for a government that manages our finances responsibly.”
Sadly this policy is harmful, restrictions of government spending reduce employment and importantly this net effect is not automatically equalized away by the economy responding to government spending (though the sensibleness of the above approach rests on this). The upshot of this will be unemployment in NZ will not lower as quickly as is otherwise possible (even if its not excessive). It also seems likely that the government will be slow to react to shifts in the economy resulting in a continuing pattern of an observable large increase in unemployment followed by a slow drawn out recovery.
“The Labour Party believes in full employment- anyone who can work should be able to work. As Minister of Finance I will re-assert Labour’s historic mission of full employment. In the first term of government we will lower unemployment to 4%.”
The goal of 4% is not particularly high, NZ achieved close to 2% unemployment across the entire period between the mid 1930’s and the mid 1970’s when the country actually had a policy of full employment. Further the meaning of full-employment is these days up for grabs and in this context probably refers to the NAIRU rate (as he goes on to talk about monetary policy). The NAIRU rate only looks at unemployment and so infers that full employment can include significant under employment (people who while employed want more hours of work). Also the last we heard the reserve bank believed the NAIRU rate was about 4.5% unemployment and the economy was beyond full employment.
“And we want all parts of the economic apparatus working towards that goal. That is why we will expand the objectives of the Reserve Bank to include not just controlling inflation, but also maximising employment. We want to modernise our monetary policy, recognising that in 28 years a lot has changed, and we want it to work for us, not the other way around”
The problematic implication here is that the reserve bank can achieve full employment and significantly effect employment by manipulating monetary policy. In the longer term this is thought to be the best approach to maximizing employment and use of fiscal policy is discouraged for this purpose (also see surplus above). Unfortunately this is fallacious, based on the idea that the economy will equalize away the net effects of fiscal policy on employment (and bring inflation in line with government spending). The upshot of this policy choice is that the employment rate will ultimately track the fortunes of the NZ economy.
“These are policies that aim to make changes for workers and employers easier and quicker, and thereby reducing unemployment. This involves helping people find work in areas that need them, helping people get the skills they need to fill gaps in the labour force, and anything else that can help those without work, or in poor working conditions, to find new employment quickly, simply and without hassle.”
Now to be fair, some of the measures outlined above are possibly reasonable and may help with the responsiveness of the labour market. But ultimately this is still based on a fallacy that unemployment is reflective of peoples desire to work. As Robertson made clear ultimately the government will *not* itself be actively ensuring that employment is available for all, this will remain at the fortunes of the NZ economy. This undermines many of the suggested policies, while work and income may be accessible to more people including those in work, if they can’t find jobs or better jobs this will almost certainly turn into work and income holding their users responsible for not finding jobs or better jobs and looking at their incentives. Training programs can be helpful, however if there are none of the anticipated jobs at the end then these become problematic and a waste leaving students with debt or at least having wasted significant time and still needing to retrain. There are also likely some labour market reforms which favor employers but didn’t get mentioned in full detail.
Ultimately, as I see it, this policy is a continuation of NZ’s long standing employment policies and will amount to Labours softer touch in government, but nothing more.
It is important for Labour to sound as if it is ready to fit in with whatever the death spiders of the financial world are weaving. Labour needs the bluster of a blowfly that keeps on fighting the sticky web, then rests, then has another go and often evades the spiders fangs wanting to suck it dry of its life juices.
That’s where we are now, in the web and losing strength. Can we make it to carry on our sort of valuable contribution to the world, or are we losers?
Good analogy greywarshark,
I for one have seen the total sellout of our NZ media to corporate control and influence.
I recall when Labour MP’s all solidly said that they want to see a government operated neutral balanced free from commercial media provided.
But we have since have just seen RNZ captured by the right wing element.
RNZ is just another right wing element of the National Party now.
Labour must take control the media; – or it will lose in 2020; – be sure of this.
Is that supposed to be not particularly low?
The NAIRU is non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment. In other words, it’s the rate of unemployment that prevents wages rising but still allows profits to rise. It is for this reason that all the benefits of increased productivity over the last few decades have gone to the rich rather than everyone. And, yes, New Zealand too.
Looks like Robinson and the Labour Party are still following the failed capitalist model.
Well we are still tolerating spiders in our midst. i.e Key in ANZ.
I think that your sentence gives the wrong impression patricia. We are in no position to have an opinion about John Key and what he does. This is the golden boy of the financially prominent and he has done so well for them here and even Australia, that they have given him a top award. 18 July 2017 >
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/94826194/sir-john-key-receives-australias-highest-honour
We tolerate him because we have to, having very little say in anything of importance to this country. (Why it is important to keep goals in sight and focus and look to mix with people who have integrity and who care about and respect others).)
I have been in Wellington on holiday for a few weeks and am due to head back home to Tauranga on Tuesday. I don’t have my car with me and didn’t want to fork out for a flight so I am getting a bus but it makes me wonder why we don’t have a proper rail network. I would have thought a train could start in Wellington, head through Palmerston North then branch off somewhere central like Taupo to New Plymouth, Tauranga and Gisbourne with another line heading north through Hamilton to Auckland, then heading further – maybe ending up in the Bay of Islands.
It wouldnt have to visit every town but at least the major centres
Because the politicians decided that we should all drive cars. Cars are more expensive but they create more work than public transport and more unearned income for shareholders.
Which shareholders?
Gas stations
Service garages
Oil companies
Road construction companies
All of these have owners that get income from others work. And the list goes on.
Maybe a clever person should start a kiwisaver fund that buys kiwis business. It s the best path to a public ownership of nz companies of a bunch non business minded strangers .
That’s just legitimising the continued ownership and unearned income.
My preference is that businesses becomes self-owned and controlled solely by those who work there.
There are some exceptions with natural monopolies that everyone needs at which point they should be state owned and provided as a government service.
How would you combat the to many chiefs in the kitchen problems . How would they gain ownership without some sort of massive uprising?
Mine is a more easy to reach goal I believe.
The whole point is that they don’t gain ownership.
And the government can always buy everything in the country.
So, government buys the business, sets it as a self-owned business and then leaves it alone as the people who work there run it. A total free-market.
It’s within the current paradigm but the current paradigm is a failure.
I think that idea has some merit – especially ones in which we would like to have a monopoly or near.
NZ Super Fund held 10% of Z Energy in 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Energy
Super Fund and Kiwisaver funds would have a good stake in New Zealand sharemarket. And the fear of state control of capital markets by state super funds was what Muldoon’s 1974 dancing cossacks add was about.
https://teara.govt.nz/mi/interactive/32721/dancing-cossacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Cossacks_advertisement
Yes but I thought that a hands off situation would present us with a
well balanced economy. But instead of the government making decisions it is Treasury and powerful people here and in other countries so we have a flexible exchange rate, and flexible this that and the other thing. We are Houdinis now. Perhaps we should turn around some of our accustomed behaviours after reflection, and find a new route.
It’s been an ideological battle in NZ politics for a very long time. Labour wan’t community or state /defacto state ownership of strategic assets, National wants private, preferably by their mates or donors, ownership.
NZ Super Fund and Kiwisaver are almost a guerrilla attack from behind the lines on the National view. And it may be working. Look to see what these funds do when NZ strategic and blue chip assets are being sold cheaply, bet they quietly buy. Otherwise they are playing in the international markets and doing quite nicely.
And both are very similar to what Labour’s 1974 scheme would have become by now, but probably 1/10 the size. Where we could have been with a good super / sovereign wealth fund from the mid 70’s haunts me a lot and I’ve detested the National party with a vengeance since that add aired.
Tremendously proud of our local MP Damien O’Connor.
The only downer about him being so very busy in government is…. we haven’t see him around as much at this time of year.
Hope he’s had a chance to enjoy a break with his loved ones over the summer holidays.
He’s one of the good guys,
Excellent article in today’s Nelson Mail.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/109466288/grappling-with-the-big-issues-all-part-of-the-job-for-mp-damien-oconnor
Wellington – Bus issues: timeliness, capacity, transfers … and route changes
January 9, 2019 20 comments
On the electric bus front, the current 10 double-decker trial buses will soon start operating all day, with the assistance of the charging station at Reef Street. I am pushing for the next order of Transit’s electric double-decker buses to be brought forward (22 more – all fabricated in Tauranga).
Daran Ponter – Wellington Regional Councillor
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=115387
California needs to prepare for the next fire season. They used to last 200-250 days in the year, and now have elongated to about 300 days. Yet the government is not paying fireman, for training, for what is required to prepare for more wildfires.
Some furloughed employees see an additional irony because the shutdown has delayed fire mitigation and training at a time when President Donald Trump has attacked California for poor forest management. But Whittington said most of his former co-workers are determined not to get involved in politics.
How long is California going to put up with this deadbeat USA government that seems bent on ruining the country and making grotesque visions of the USA democracy? They have started talking about seceding and being the country’s wealthiest state, but under water constraints that must cut its horticulture crops, it may become obvious that they need to handle their own problems and their own money.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/beleaguered-firefighters-put-hold-government-shutdown-n957456
The only thing that matters.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/09/trump-threatens-to-cut-off-federal-funding-for-california-wildfire-relief.html
There is only one issue as there was in September 1939. Climate change now, or, 100 times WW 2. Christ help us, says an atheist.
I however wish some our Leftist prophets celebrated this magnificent civilisation ‘in the meanwhile’ whilist also criticizing the comfort-loving that will kill us. Sez a magniloquent comfort-lover.
sumsuch
You are so right. Do we enjoy what we have and be grateful and satisfied, also then, when we have had our plenty give what is left and still good so that others can have some too?
No, in general we are always trying for more. Some of us haven’t got past that grasp and hold mentality that saw people dumping good furniture and other stuff in the refuse rather than taking it to recycling – because letting one of those lazy b..s buy it cheap, no way.
Kia ora R & R I support equality for maori & our wahine they raise our tamariki so they deserve to be payed and respected for the great role wahine play in our society .
The way I see it is that Europee people are in most of the management jobs even on our farms and they give the best jobs to there M8 hence maori have a hard time climbing there ladder of life as the odds a heavly stacked against US . After all most jobs are filled by word of mouth first and for most . Maori must learn to do what the Europen do and look after Maori first wake up in all aspects of life jobs education sports culture. Ka kite ano P.S I back free snaitary prouducts for wahine at the least school tamariki
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
Some Eco Maori Music for the Minute.
Eco Maori could see this he is waging a war on the mokopunas future backing carbon and rolling back all the good laws that protected OUR enviroment that Obama installed to protect the creatures wai and the enviroment and who will be better off if global warming runs rampant. ???????????????????????????????
F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.
The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.
The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.
Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.
And when a newly inaugurated Mr. Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Mr. Comey and later asked that he end an investigation into the president’s national security adviser, the requests set off discussions among F.B.I. officials about opening an inquiry into whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct that case.
F.B.I. officials viewed their decision to move quickly as validated when a comment the president made to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office shortly after he fired Mr. Comey was revealed days later.
“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia.
That’s taken off.”More recently, the president startled his own national security officials by suddenly announcing the withdrawal of troops from Syria, widely seen as handing a strategic victory to Russia and prompting the defense secretary James Mattis to quit. He also bizarrely endorsed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Holed up at the White House with no official engagements, Trump then turned his Twitter feed to the other subject dominating US politics: a partial government shutdown which, in its 22nd day, is now the longest in American history, eclipsing the previous record set during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/politics/fbi-trump-russia-inquiry.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
Victoria
New Victorian windfarm could provide 10% of state’s energy
Golden Plains approved by Andrews government and awaits federal consent to proceed
The managing director of a company that plans to construct Victoria’s largest windfarm says the project will supply enough power to replace up to a third of the generation of the decommissioned Hazelwood power station at less than $50/MWh.
The Victorian government has granted a planning permit for WestWind Energy’s $1.5bn Golden Plains windfarm, which will become one of the largest windfarms in the southern hemisphere.
The project is now awaiting federal approval to proceed.
Victoria’s blackouts, Hazelwood’s closure and the search for someone to blame
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The windfarm would span 17,000 hectares on land 60km north-west of Geelong and generate more than 3000 gigawatt hours of electricity per year – enough to power more than 400,000 homes.
Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.Tobias Geiger, the managing director of WestWind Energy, said the large scale project would be able to supply energy at low cost.
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“With this very large project and very good wind resource, combined with the latest wind turbine technology that’s now available, we can achieve a levelised cost of energy for this project that is below $50 per MW/h,” he said.
“If you put that into the context of electricity market prices from Victoria which for the past two years have hovered around $80 to $120 per MW/h, you can see the significance of this project for driving down electricity prices for all Victorians.” At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
Ka kite ano links below
At $50/MWh — just 5 cents per kWh — the Golden Plains windfarm will produce power for less than the market cost of fuel alone for many coal and all gas power stations,” he said.
“And it’s big — expected to provide between 8–10% of Victoria’s energy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/13/new-victorian-wind-farm-could-provide-10-of-states-energy
The neo alt right people can not sleep with all the Fame the Pacific people are getting at the minute they do what they do best and cheat and get a faulse story posted about
DJ the Rock. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has claimed the Daily Star fabrecated.The story, which appeared on Friday’s front page under the headline “The Rock Smacks Down Snowflakes” and was billed as an exclusive, was picked up by news outlets around the world
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It quoted the actor as allegedly saying that “generation snowflake or, whatever you want to call them, are actually putting us backwards” and “if you are not agreeing with them then they are offended – and that is not what so many great men and women fought for”.
However, Johnson, a former wrestler who has become one of the world’s biggest film stars, used an Instagram video to insist the quotes were fake.
“The interview never took place, never happened, never said any of those words, completely untrue, 100% fabricated, I was quite baffled when I woke up this morning,” he said.
“You know it’s not a real DJ [Dwayne Johnson] interview if I’m insulting a group, a generation or anyone, because that’s not me.”
The Daily Star is overseen by the Independent Press Ka kite ano links below
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/12/the-rock-says-daily-star-interview-criticising-millennials-100-fabricated-dwayne-johnson P.S alt right are low down dirty cheats
Kia ora Newshub Auckland transport needs to listen to the people when warned about A road from the Oraki board being dangerous and asking for speed ristricting . I have my opinion on the people being named and shamed who attacked and robbed that old Wahine living by her self I will keep it to my self.
I say it’s a good move making Hamilton Bees testing for American foul brood dersase to eliminate the dease from Hamilton we need to change the way we farm from mono culture farming to many different crops in the same area and Organic farming to protect our Bees and insects awa & Tangaroa.
Its good to highlight the plastic that is used unnecessary on food products Tom we need to make everyone accountable for the plastic waste they make.
Good on Canada for granting that Saudi girl asilm she needed help the Saudis don’t treat there Wahine very respectfully. I Tau toko the Wellington Phoenix soccer club it would be good to see all Kiwis support the great game te Mokopunas could make a lot of putea playing Soccer Ka kite ano