Yesterday was the first day of the 2020 sitting year for Parliament. Usual business was suspended for the day to allow Members to remember and share their personal memories of the late Right Honorable Mike Moore. Speeches started with Jacinda Ardern as PM followed by leaders of the other political parties, with other individual MPs then following.
The initial speeches were fairly conservative eulogies with all leaders essentially in agreement over the huge contribution made by Mike Moore, but things loosened up when the other MPs stood to recall their memories.
In particular, Ron Mark started out using notes but quickly dispensed with these and launched into one of the most personal from the heart speeches I ever recall hearing in the House . At the same time it was one of the most humourous recounts of behind the scenes memories of Mark and Moore’s relationship since Mark’s time with the Labour Party when Mark ran unsuccessfully for Labour in the Selwyn electorate. Mark supported his recounting with an impressive number of Labour Party documents and policies attributable to Mike Moore. from his own personal archives.
If you watch nothing else, I urge you to watch Mark’s speech – it is 12 minutes you won’t regret!
The speeches following Mark by Brownlee, Damian O’Connor and Trevor Mallard also carried on with more personal and humourous memories. All in all a great send off for Mike. And impressive in the recognition of Yvonne’s contribution as Mike’s partner in life and politics.
Drat – the Mark video came up properly as a picture but doesn’t now.
I only partly saw on the news last night, a poll saying Ron Mark was by far the most preferred person to take over NZ First if Winston wasn't there. Result surprised me. Did anyone see the whole thing as I missed where the poll was taken. I've always presumed Shane Jones would be the eventual NZF leader.
That's interesting, Jimmy. I did not see that as I rarely watch TV – which News was it on? TVNZ or Newshub?
Re Jones taking over as Leader of NZF eventually, I don't believe that will happen for a number of reasons. I actually discussed this subject in a reply to Dennis Frank on open Mike at 2.1.1.2 http://11 February 2020 at 9:29 am Here is some of that reply (no point in re-inventing the wheel!):
The NZF party of today is a very different animal to the one that existed pre 2008 with Peters spending his time in the wilderness revamping the party into one supported by a much wider age range and range of views to that previously. Both Lprent and I have written here on TS on this many times over recent years.
Sure, Jonesy is a bit of a weak link but the other NZF MPs have been doing a very credible job in their various Ministerial roles and support roles – eg Tracey Martin and Ron Mark as well as Peters himself as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
We don't hear much of Fletcher Tabuteau, but IMO he, rather than Jonesy, is the one who is being groomed as the next leader as reflected in his roles not only as Deputy Leader, but also as understudy to both Peters and Jonesy as Parliamentary Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development.
To add to that, both Tracey Martin and Ron Mark have previously been Deputy Leader of NZF. As I understand it, because other members of Tracey Martin's family have had considerable influence on the Party (eg her mother Ann Martin was President for many years) it was considered better to spread the influence, hence Ron Mark becoming Deputy and he then handed onto Tabuteau.
Re Jones, I cannot provide any links but I seem to recall that Jones himself – both when he was still with Labour and since moving to NZF – has implied that he is not interested in party leadership roles and is more comfortable doing roles like his present one as "Champion of the Regions" and the similar role he undertook under the previous Nat Govt in relation to economic development etc in the Pacific. As I say, I cannot provide links to this but I have a pretty good memory despite older age.
Thanks for the heads-up Jimmy as I have now found the TV3 item and here is the link – another Tova O'Brien special as part of the Newshub poll released the other night.
The results are interesting with Ron Mark indeed coming out well ahead, both generally and with NZF voters.
I don't find that surprising, nor the fact that Fletcher Tabuteau barely rated as he keeps – or is kept – fairly low profile. Nevertheless Tabuteau has been associated with NZF since its inception 25 years ago at about 20 years of age, and at c 45/46 currently, he still has a lot of miles left on the clock. At 66, Mark is 20 years older and thus only seven years younger than Peters and I wonder whether he would really want the job.
I am surprised that Tracey Martin did not rate higher but she did take on a rather poisoned chalice (or challenge) in the form of Oranga Tamariki. I have a lot of respect for her in doing so as it is going to take a lot to turn that nightmare around.
Time will tell – and there is the possiblity that NZF may not make it at the upcoming election although I would be surprised if that actually happens. There are a lot of oldies who know who we have to thank for our Super Gold cards! LOL.
I was watching fom the balcony in parliament yesterday and I agree that Ron Marks contribution stood out – warm, funny, wise and clear. He would make a good NZ First leader, and sooner rather than later I think as I believe from my observations that Winston's health is starting to fail
What about the tens of thousands received by the National machine. Those which are visible paint a picture of influence on a very grand scale. Investigate that?
National have received several millions in total but of course all donations were deliberate and fairly legal.
I've never voted for Peters and NZ First but lets be fair…
National and ACT have been indulging in this kind of fiscal subterfuge for decades. ACT started doing it in the 1990s and National have been doing it even longer. Anyone with any historical political knowledge (which counts out half the current political journos) knows it.
If the media is going to call out NZ First fair enough. But tell the whole story and acknowledge the fact National and ACT do it too. I can't speak for Labour or the Greens but given their donations tend to be much smaller amounts – but more numerous in quantity – I think it is unlikely.
Edit: And if some smarty pants tries to misconstrue my last sentence:
90% of Labour’s donors are not rich people and they donate small amounts (less than $100) but probably do it more frequently.
The original comment was about NZ1st. There seems to be an effort round these parts to minimise Winston's shenanagins.
When NZ 1st say they will review their practices, I call bulldust.
The NZ1st foundation was formed with the guidance of Peter's lawyer. I don't believe for a moment that Peter's isn't aware of what was going on. It sounds pretty legal
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
This is what corruption looks like in an relatively non corrupt country.
For years we have suspected, but have had no real evidence that government policy on the racing industry was being bought.
The government has provided tax breaks to this morally corrupt industry, that feeds off gambling and animal cruelty.
Winston Peters is the Racing Minister. Can we really trust that he had no idea what was going on with the New Zealand First Foundation as he is claiming, when the Racing Industry that he serves was funneling money into it??
This real-time exercise in realpolitik for RNZ’s board and the Government illustrates where power lies in New Zealand. They only needed to look at the number and demographics of the Concert FM fans.
But given what has been going on at RNZ, all this was as much about a couple of commercially oriented master-of-the-universe egos as it was about creating an alternative network with instant appeal.
If Thompson and co had been more concerned about what they perceive as the problem, they could have quietly worked on a third network and allowed it to evolve and be discovered by the 'demographic' naturally. (Even built on the BRAND "The Wireless")
It ain't over yet. The bloody board either let themselves down too, or were too busy trying to be down with the kuds. When you look at their backgrounds though a majority would seem to be quite comfortable with what's been going on (over a long time)
"If you doubt the variety of young people, cast your mind back to your own class at secondary school, ranging as it did from the thug at the back to the scholar at the front, via the athlete in the middle and the aesthete to one side, plus the dubious creep who later, oh my god, went into local politics. In short, we young people, like you older people, are as various as the pebbles on the beach and any radio station that tries to appeal to all of us will appeal to none of us."
Personally I am not surprised that hierarchy at RNZ has exposed themselves in this way as being so out of touch with their local communities, just look at steady decline of National radio as a serious new source over the past couple of decades, it really is now a just hollow shell of it's former self, are real lightweight.
And now (and under Labour of course) they totally disregard and dismiss one of the very few sources that offers even a breath of high minded culture for free into our communities..fucking Liberals, always so lowbrow, always finding ways to make life just that bit more shitty and crappy….yuk.
IMO that is a very one-sided view of the situation and I am surprised and disappointed at Hickey's take on the situation. This view that only white elitists listen to Concert FM or listen to and participate in classical music is just so closed minded.
It takes no account of the contribution NZ's multicultural and in particular, Maori and Pacifica, communities for example have made to classical music both here in NZ and worldwide.
In opera alone, Maori account for a good proportion of NZ artists who have reached the world stage such as Inia Te Wiata, Keri Te Kanawa, Kawiti Waetford, ManaTe Hapuku, and Phillip Rhodes to name just a few.
In the same field, in more recent years, our Samoan community has also contributed an impressive array of world recognised stars – for example, Moses Mackay, Pene Patu and Amatai Patu both individually and together as Sol3 Mio – our own version of the Three Tenors. Other Samoan NZers on the world opera circuit include Marlena Devoe and Benson Wilson – as is Amina Edris both in her own right and in company with her husband, Pene Patu. Amina is Egyptian-born but raised and trained in opera in NZ.
I could go on – at length – but will leave it at that. Many of the above artists did not come from well off homes – far from it. And they have provided good role models for others to follow in their footsteps – and support for others to do so.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
In part it's a consequence of the way identity politics subsumes all individual interests and capacities. It casts a broad net over whole categories of people and dumps them into big silos with a couple of fat, lazy labels on them.
There is an overwhelming national interest in deplatforming classical music. /sarc.
Its a conclusion you can only reach by choosing not to think about who running ConcertFM benefits, and who running it opresses (e.g nobody).
And frankly the views suggesting its ConcertFM or Skypath are equally dim. What is the suggestion, that some roading contractors should take up radio engineering instead? The two are not economically or fiscally related so NZ should happily invest in both.
Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
My suspicion was that someone was looking at a line item in their budget, they didn't listen to it personally, and they just assumed that its core audience was the stereotypical old/rich/white crowd beloved by hollywood screenwriters.
it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
And invariably when they do this, they become more than anything else individuals, with a unique mix of heritage, family, experiences, interests and capacities. For example, someone may very well describe themselves as 'Samoan', but in reality this might be only one of many equally important aspects of who they are.
People do not choose one identity, they are a bewildering mix of them. While on the one hand we are social creatures driven to belong, we also value highly our freedom to choose where we belong, when and in which context. Much more nuanced than the crude idioms of identity politics allows for.
"Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves."
Your saying comment 3 is self descriptive? The problematic kinds of identity politics invariably involve talking in very broad generalisations about a group (or between groups) of which the author is not representative. Also very typically some form of amateur phychology is infered to imply which group is morally superior.
On the other hand cases of people self identifying are so harmless they barely appear worthy of mention (Elizibeth Warren not with-standing).
In this case the people who seem to identify as the down with the youf executive of RNZ seem to be getting the shit, and their beliefs are problematic for people who like listening to Classical Music. There is something pretty fubar with the framing of this in identity politics terms of some elite demographic vs whoever they are opressing by enjoying Classical music on the radio.
If this wasn't characteristic of these IP arguments I wouldn't be making this argument of course, but it is.
Except that the implicit assumption is that only the "elite demographic" listen to classical music, which is an assumption about all the various groups made without listeningto any of those groups to start with. Which has more in common with colonialism than it does with "identity politics".
Colonialism aye. In fact I think the only reason I am having this discussion is because of my unconscious Colonialism. Of course consciously I think its because I think having a discussion based on gross generalisations about caricatures of groups produces nonsense, but in the back there is always some colonialism going on there.
I already did. You responded by trying to start a discussion where you apply amateur phychology (motivated by Colonialism) to a group (ConcertFM audience) to negatively caricature that group. The argument is gibberish but you thus ignored the reasonable concerns over the decision (should RNZ be run like a commercial station?).
Who said anything about "motivated by colonialism"?
I just said that imposing a collection of labels upon others (rather than listening to what labels they might choose for themselves) was more like colonialism that it was like "identity politics".
In all the discussions about "elitist" concert radio listeners, have you seen an actual breakdown of the concertFM audience? Standard market research with self-reported socio-economic data? Because I haven't. Which suggests to me that any description of the concertFM audience is probably:
an assumption
that imposes labels like "elite"
upon the audience
instead of being based on the labels they select for themselves.
What you describe is imposition of labels with no regard for consent. "Identity politics" is about the freedom to honestly choose labels for oneself. From pronouns to any other aspect of identity.
The Pacifika and Maori contribution to classical music – particularly in vocal and choral – has been a revelation in the last 40 years.
It seriously worries me that a massive tradition of local music composition and performance is being proposed to simply be automated onto an AM station. WTF.
Well done to those who organised the petition – it clearly had an immediate effect upon our current Prime Minister .
Thank God for someone like Helen Clark who is giving it right back to them.
Which also reminds me of another NZ composer of worldwide reputation whose compositions range over and blend a number of different genres including electronic with orchestral – Rhian Sheehan.
[Funny that because I have known him most of his life (= wider whanau). LOL]
Rhian features quite often on RNZ National music shows and presumably elsewhere across the spectrum of music radio stations.
For something different, you could always visit your local planetarium, eg Auckland Planetarium/Skydome, as Rhian composes the music for many of the shows featured at many planetariums worldwide – eg I think the latest one is "We are Astronomers" narrated by former Dr Who, David Tarrant or I might be totally out of date.
Here is his Wikipedia entry but if you google his name there are plenty of local media reports on his background, his music compositions and their recognition overseas – eg he composed music for the opening/closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics amongst many other compositions for worldwide events etc.
And perhaps this interview will give you a little bit of an insight as to why Samoan and other Pacifica New Zealanders feature in our NZ music scene across all genres but particularly the choral genres including those associated with classical music.
I'll pick out the bits I like about Hickey's contribution:
He seemed to be learning in real time this week after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern used an interview on RNZ's Morning Report on Monday to express "frustration" that the planned "gutting" and relegation of Concert FM to a robo-station on AM had been announced before the Government had had to chance to come up with an alternative FM channel.
"I think we obviously didn't explain it clearly enough, and when we were talking about our plan, there was an assumption that it wouldn't be obvious initially that the FM transmission would be affected, and I think that was just a glitch in the communications," (struggling much?)
actually there's too many bits, and maybe I have a bit of a prejudice: liking to watch any wideboy being fed their chips
But there is unfortunately the truthiness in this:
"This real-time exercise in realpolitik for RNZ's board and the Government illustrates where power lies in New Zealand."
Oh how much easier it would be if gummints of whatever stripe, and masters-of the Universe in whatever pick-your-brand-Corp could just be up-front, open and honest.
Bullshit begets more bullshit (on the bright side though, it keeps a few spin meisters in immoral employment)
The politics within RNZ are something to behold – especially since the current reign, from the way people have been 'eased' out (under-appreciated) to the marketeers taking over. I'd say the board royally fucked up putting too much faith in their 'golden boy(s)'.
Thank you. Lisa Owen asks explicitly at 15.52 if the public backlash has prised concessions from the govt including the shelved frequencies. A minute later, Thompson confirms RNZ did not ask for those as part of their plans for a new youth service because there had been 'no signal' they were on offer.
Ministers do not tend to be forgiving about being manipulated..
Aligned with his commercial background, Jim is also a former officer in the New Zealand Army, and was awarded the Sword of Honour in recognition of his distinguished achievements in Officer training.
He currently holds governance roles with the following organisations:
Director of Auckland Transport
Director of Ngāti Awa Group Holdings Limited
Member of the MBIE Risk and Audit Committee
Managing Director of Mather Solutions Limited
Well done Jim! Gorjiss!
We could go through each of the board members such as the next on the list.
Problem is they still fucked up (even though I have a special interest in one of them not coming to grief)
I really don't give a fuck who gets thrown under the bus – put it down to the cistern they operate in. The board, the CEO or his decisions on recruiting a wonder-boy called Willy, but somebody/people should have the decency to resign, or be sacked
Probably though if you really want to be efficient and effective, Thompson and Mcalister should take the fall
This afternoon’s announcement was of an altogether greater magnitude, however. Not only would Concert remain on FM, but its staff would keep their jobs. The restructure plan had been scrapped, and a new strategy for Concert would be drafted.
…
In a statement yesterday, the RNZ board “welcomed the government’s decision to look at freeing up an additional FM transmission frequency and to explore funding options for a multi-media music brand” – a possible hint that a budget boost may be imminent.
The chair of the RNZ board, Jim Mather, said: “We hear that passion for Concert and look forward to completing the consultation process to consider other possible improvements to that service now we have been given the potential of additional FM capacity”.
It was great to see the Salvation Army report with it's set of succinct social indicators.
Since this government doesn't look like it is going to deliver a social indicator report before the election despite structuring their entire budget around it, the Salvation Army one will do nicely.
If I had time I'd do a full post on it so I hope someone else will.
Yesterday I was shown some images out of China that were downright chilling … while I'm reluctant to repeat claims I've no way to verify or source, there is a fear that the CCP is using this event as cover to disappear inconvenient people … and more. There are now 60m people confined to their apartments and no-one knows for how long. In this tense, paranoid atmosphere there is real potential for events to spin out of control.
But the worst part now is that no-one trusts the CCP regime to tell the truth. Not just about the virus from a medical perspective, but with regard to all the other things going on around it. It seems the govts reaction is to double down on the security, censorship and restrictions in an attempt retain control, but this only further undermines the trust that is essential to the social cohesion necessary to get through this.
The Chinese people are going through a very difficult time right now … no matter where they live. A bit of true humanity and kindness will go a long way.
One problem I'm having is the great wall (the fire wall) is blocking vpns which normally get around it. Almost all of the anarchists in China have gone silent. Not a peep – and that is making me more than a little anxious. Have been asking other mates online, and they are repeating pretty much what you are saying RedLogix about the disappearance process.
What worries me many of these anarchists are lifestyle types, who are not really that political. Moreover they like the cultural elements, the music scene and hanging around together. Some good music coming out of chinese underground, been really enjoying the little I get to hear.
The chances are that the good ol' ordinary flu is affecting hundreds or even thousands of times as many Chinese in this their winter flu season than this new virus. This is just Christmas for a headline inducing panic-desperate media in all it's dodgy persuasions.
It is also Christmas and all its birthdays for the mad over controlling CCP and with a bit of luck its over reaction may be its downfall.
Humans live more or less in a known equilibrium with influenza; some years it's a bit tricky and evolves into a slightly new form, other years the vaccines work well. But in essence most people have sufficient immunity, and it has a typical lethality rate below 0.1%. It’s serious, but a known adversary we understand.
This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. On the current numbers it seem like about 25% of people who become infected go on to develop a serious illness, and of these around 3% will die. Maybe 50m deaths inside the first year. That is much worse than seasonal influenza which typically kills around 0.5m each year.
This virus hits the 'sweet spot', long incubation period, efficient transmission including silent carriers and spreaders, multiple modes of transmission including airborne, a high fraction of serious illnesses that will hit the medical system, and sufficiently lethal to be heavily disruptive socially.
What we know about this bug is concerning already, and this is before it starts mutating on us. If it becomes seasonal, like many other coronavirus's, then all bets are off we would be into unknown territory where anything could happen. At that point the secondary social impacts will start to hurt.
The WHO has asked countries to be "as aggressive as possible" in fighting the newly-named COVID-19 coronavirus.
"If the world doesn't want to wake up and consider the virus as public enemy number one, I don't think we will learn from our lessons," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva.
"We are still in containment strategy and should not allow the virus to have a space to have local transmission," he said.
If Angola can contain Ebola I think are chances on this one are pretty good. The point I was making is how this is playing into the hands of the desperate, the media for drama and click bait and the CCP for control of its populace, having them locked away and terrified instead of on the street protesting.
Comparing one disease with another isn't necessarily useful. Already you've compared COVID-19 with influenza which is easily transmitted but with a very low fatality rate, and now with Ebola which is only transmittable via direct body fluid contact and this makes standard medical isolation and practices quite effective, even though it has a scarily high lethality.
Each disease must be treated on it's own terms, on the totality of it's character. This almost looks to be very difficult to contain, and sufficiently lethal to be quite disruptive. An unhappy combination that it would be unwise to ignore.
"This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. "
Is that not true of every new iteration of influenza?
It would need an expert to answer this properly, but it's my understanding it's not a binary black and white thing as your question implies, and the degree of novelty matters. Also every individual's immune system has a different history and character.
By contrast COVID-19 is totally novel, no-one has even partial immunity as far as I'm aware. That's why these new variants that have jumped from other species are so very worrisome; they will spread quickly and we have no idea what their potential range of mutations will be.
The super spreader in England was infecting people before he got symptoms and it has a long incubation period. Unless we want to inundate the medical services we want to slow it down as much as possible – hopefully until a vaccine is available.
Yeah.. and the Chinese authorities has put tens of millions of their own citizens under house arrest and is spraying down every city street just for shits and giggles.
No, its for the CCPs rabid desire for control. Plenty of virologists have stated that the spraying is ineffective as such viruses are very unlikely to survive outside or on such surfaces. But the images are good for mind control.
Yeah. Unless there's an insect vector and the spray is insecticide, the spray isn't going to do shit.
But it looks like something is being done.
My disagreement isn't that it's the CCP strengthening its control, I suspect it's more of a desperate holding action for control. The virus is going to be worst in impact, both directly and economically, on China. Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK. Stringing people up-style rioting.
Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK.
Our Chinese friend is translating material off the net for us that looks very much like the precursor to this. Last week she was not so worried, this week the tone has changed a lot.
We can speculate fruitlessly about the virus, it's behavior and how it might unfold globally. But what I was really wanting to emphasise is that the Chinese people in particular are going through a very difficult and worrisome time. If anyone has the chance to do so, now would be a good time to reach out to anyone Chinese you know. A little kindness at moments like this can go a very long way.
Not really a blame thing. It was simply an observation of when mass spraying might be effective in disease control as opposed to a simple morale-boosting exercise. Development of the Panama Canal being a case in point.
Still there as far as I know – but the French lost tens of thousands of workers to disease in their failed attempts, while the yanks focused on mosquito control (eradication and screens) and managed to significantly reduce their tropical disease fatalities.
The analysis of 22 studies reveals that human coronaviruses such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus or endemic human coronaviruses (HCoV) can persist on inanimate surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to 9 days, but can be efficiently inactivated by surface disinfection procedures with 62-71% ethanol, 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or 0.1% sodium hypochlorite within 1 minute.
There's a massive difference between some level of persistence and that level being enough to realistically infect someone else walking on the same outdoor footpath.
This is a virus where someone went to a corporate workshop and only infected a few of the attendees after hours of close proximity. It's not like measles, where someone walking through the same terminal two hours later has a realistic chance of being infected.
On February 10, 2020, the Department of Justice recommended a seven to nine year sentence for Roger Stone on charges of obstructing a congressional investigation, making false statements to Congress, and witness tampering during the Russia investigation. Trump tweeted that the recommendation was “horrible and very unfair” and shortly after, a senior DOJ official intervened to overrule the front-line prosecutors and announced that they would be recommending a more lenient sentence. Four DOJ prosecutors have resigned from the case since the announcement.
What's the story Joe? Did Bernie pooh in your handbag or something. You seem to be keen to highlight perceive short-comings or cast doubt whenever possible.
The town you cite is the third least populated in New Hampshire. Billy-Bob could've had a BBQ and a significant portion of voters not shown up.
Looks like the big question will be which of Klobuchar, Warren, and Biden break the 15% threshold to be awarded delegates. Right now only Klobuchar is over.
Then the hocus-pocus wing-of-bat 2-eyes-of-newt weirdshit recipes different states have for allocating delegates breaks things up into several different levels, some of which can have an effective threshold greater than 15%.That's how Biden ended up with 6 delegates from Iowa and Klobuchar 1 despite have almost identical vote and SDE%
Plus giving out an effective leader's bonus due to rounding. That's how Buttigieg come out of Iowa with a 14 – 12 delegate lead over Sanders, despite only leading the SDE count by 0.1% (and lagging in the popular vote by 1.6%).
I should probably clarify that a bit more. As I understand it, the 15% threshold for allocating delegates applies at each of the sub-units, not at the state as a whole.
So with New Hampshire awarding 8 delegates from each of its two House districts, if Warren breaks 15% in one of those, she will get one delegate even if she is below 15% for the state as a whole.
That's how Klobuchar got one delegate from Iowa, despite being below 15% for the state as a whole. But Biden squeaked over 15% for Iowa as a whole, so he got allocated delegates from the pool that was determined by statewide vote and ended up with 6 total from Iowa.
With 22% reporting, the NYT have Bernie at 28% of the vote… as with Iowa that's basically half what he got in 2016.
I remain skeptical of Bernies chances, in part because the three big 'obviously moderates' candidates (Mayor Pete, Biden, Klobuchar) combined are currently at more than 50% of the vote. My gut feel remains that, down the campaign stretch as the field shrinks, Sanders will get overtaken by whichever candidate outlasts the others.
Or go a bit further on a national level, the moderates (Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden, Bloomberg) add up to around 55%, the liberals (Sanders, Warren, Yang, Gabbard) are just a bit over 40%. Kinda like the Clinton – Sanders split last time around.
Yes, less candidates last time, BUT I can't think of any other examples where a presidential hopeful has entered the primary a second time around and performed significantly worse than their first attempt.
Clinton was the anointed successor to Obama in '16 because she spent 8 years positioning herself as such. McCain ran distant second to Bush in '00, then Romney was second to McCain in '08 and they both were the obvious front runner for the title of next Republican nominee.
In contrast, Sanders seems like the just kind of walked away from the Democratic party apparatus in 2016 (he relinquished membership of the party not long after Trump's election) and left a huge vacuum that all these other candidates are now trying to fill.
I agree about his party membership, but the thing is that more candidates means a lot more pieces of cake. Which means smaller pieces. I don't think the different campaign years can be usefully compared on that basis.
ps: if you could think of such a candidate, you'd be the biggest nerd on a political nerd blog lol
Mike Huckabooboo actually won more delegates and was a very close third in popular vote % behind Romney's second in '08. But withdrew on Feb 1, 2016 after getting negligible support.
His 'firewall' is still the 4th voting state – South Carolina and its majority-minority voter composition. He has led basically every poll conducted in SC, but it's still a high risk strategy because he has already effectively given up on Nevada which is next.
There's a bunch of other articles floating around the intertoobz about Biden losing support among African-Americans, but they all seem to trace back to something from National Review, so …hmmm.
Phil your logic here is a bit off and is not supported by what data we have on the subject. Supporters of the big three moderate candiates Pete, Biden, Klobuchar arent just some moderate blob that will roll between the moderate candidates, in fact Biden supporters leading second choice is Bernie, furthmore bernie holds a good share in the second choice for Pete's supporters with a strong third (only three point behind bloomberg's lead).
The fall of Biden seems the most likley to happen soon and that will help Bernie more than Klobuchar or Pete both of whom are too much in the ascendency to consider dropping at the moment. And with warrens poor preformance tonight she might not be running to much longer either again, helping Bernie.
I recall seeing some 2nd preference numbers months ago, but I too would be interested in seeing an update. The older they are the more they might reflect name recognition rather than actual voting intent.
The voting data that we do have from Iowa showed there was very little shift to Bernie on the 2nd-preference from the unviable candidates (and Biden was often unviable at individual caucus sites) so I really don't know how to square the two pieces of intelligence. I still stand by the gut-feel that Bernie probably doesn't have the coalition to reach 50% of delegates outright, but I can easily imagine him having the single largest bloc at the convention.
… and if nobody comes to the convention with more than 50% of the pledged delegates to win it at the first round, then the superdelegates come into play for the subsequent rounds.
When fivethirtyeight looked at it back in December, they found that only about a third of Sanders and Warren supporters picked the other liberal as their second choice.
National just got ticked off by the Advertising Standards Authority for telling porkies in an advert last year and Simon Bridges says they're going to keep on doing it.
I mean, we all knew that National was planning to use outright lies to try to win the election but I didn't expect them to actually tell us in advance!
So IHC's done another survey and nothing's changed. Surprise, surprise.
IHC lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission 12 years ago. What the heck's happened to that? If IHC's behaviour around the sleepover case is anything to go by it'd be surprisng if it'll go anywhere. IHC's too far up the government's backside for that to happen.
Well that will destroy whatever social licence Rio Tinto have in Southland. I can see some interesting inadvertent alliances forming here. Who's going to have the balls, or stupidity, to defend Rio Tinto on in Southland Times, or on Dee Street.
may be indicative of their review result….'well fellas , we've worn out our welcome here…time to find a new mug to host us'…and dont worry, they’ll have their cheque books open
Having worked briefly on a major Rio site I can attest to the insane over-regulation and nit-picking that is endemic everywhere. Just to get a room in the camp I had to initial and sign a 48 page document of rules.
As frustrating as this decision must be for Southlanders, I'll bet the board has a process reason for this delay. The clue is here:
"It’s my understanding from conversations with Stewart that Rio Tinto’s rationale for refusing to take the dross was that it didn’t want any more liabilities on the Tiwai site before the company’s strategic review is completed at the end of March.”
Mr Parry said the original deal struck with all Southland councils, landowners and NZAS to move the dross stored throughout Southland was still in place.
"We remain committed to a solution that removes the material. NZAS has committed to contributing $1.75 million to the costs of safely removing and processing the material."
This looks more like a delay rather than reneging. Right now it's not even clear who the legal owner of this material is and the board's legal advisers may be cautious about accepting liability for it. The sums of money involved are literally petty cash to Rio Tinto, it will be safety and legal issues driving this.
I have to say that working for them was an exercise in demoralising frustration, so none of this surprises me.
Disposal of the dross has been an ongoing issue for the last 30 years at least. It just keeps getting moved around, and called different things every 10 years so people think it's another new problem.
Rio want it anywhere by their place so they don't have to deal with it when they remediate the Tiwai site on closure, which I'd say we will find out about after the review.
This is the same poll (i.e. same respondents) as the party vote poll earlier this week. It's noteworthy that Ardern's 63.3% must include some National voters, and a high percentage of National voters do not think Bridges is performing well.
It sounds geeky but is actually relevant that this is the same poll as the party vote results, because of the polling methodology. I don't have access to the script of course, but the order of questions usually starts with the party vote ("if there were an election tomorrow" etc). So … having answered "National", the respondent then answers Qs about the party leaders, and gives Bridges the thumbs down.
While it is not impossible for a party to win despite a leader with low ratings, it is very rare in modern democracies, with leader-focused campaigns – and hasn't happened in NZ under MMP (Brash 2005 and Clark 1996 came closest).
He certainly has no mates except Seymour who Peters characterised as being ACT's seventh leader- but there's only one vote and if there was a second ACT MP in the caucus, he wouldn't be.
The Opposition finance spokesperson , Paul Goldsmith, was described as the only candidate in democracies who took his own hoardings down before an election rather than putting them up!
Was chatting to a true blue supporter today who told me for the first time in his life he won't be voting national, because of 'that twat bridges'. I almost fell over.
Looking at that poll leader approval rating result, it appears that his view is shared by others.
That's the funny thing – the more Bridges looks like a dropkick, ACT will be a wasted vote. So the sensible tory will vote NZ1 to moderate the next government's policies, which could end up helping NZ1 over the line…
Bear in mind, too, that (as with Colmar Brunton), Reid Research …
(1) Present the Party Vote as a % of Decided voters only …
Whereas:
(2) Leader Performance (like Preferred PM) is presented as a % of All Respondents.
That means that non-Labour voters comprise an even larger slice of those who believe Ardern is Performing Well than might appear to be the case at first sight,
If the Reid Research % Don't Knows are anything close to the latest Colmar Brunton DKs … then that would mean a very large minority of those favourable to Ardern's Performance are non-Lab voters … Nats, Greens, NZFers along with those respondents who haven't made up their mind on the Party Vote.
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
David Farrar writes – Newstalk ZB report: The man responsible for a horror hit and run in central Wellington last year was on a suspended licence and was so drunk he later asked police, “Did I kill someone?” Jason Tuitama injured two women when he ran a red ...
Muriel Newman writes – Former US President Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” The fight for ...
Why Courts should have said Waitangi Tribunal could not summons Karen Chhour Gary Judd writes – In the High Court, Justice Isacs declined to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal to compel Minister for Children, Karen Chhour, to appear before it to be ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The number of voices raising concerns about the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill is rapidly growing. This is especially apparent now that Parliament’s select committee is listening to submissions from the public to evaluate the proposed legislation. Twenty-seven thousand submissions have been made to Parliament ...
An average of 166 New Zealand citizens left the country every day during the March quarter, up 54% from a year ago.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy and housing market is sinking into a longer recession through the winter after a slump in business and consumer confidence in ...
The government has made it abundantly clear they’re addicted to the smell of new asphalt. On Tuesday they introduced a new term to the country’s roading lexicon, the Roads of Regional Significance (RoRS), a little brother for the Roads of National (Party) Significance (RoNS). Driving ahead with Roads of Regional ...
School is outAnd I walk the empty hallwaysI walk aloneAlone as alwaysThere's so many lucky penniesLying on the floorBut where the hell are all the lucky peopleI can't see them any moreYesterday morning, I’d just sent out my newsletter on Tama Potaka, and I was struggling to make the coffee. ...
Hi,I wanted to check in and ask how you’re doing.This is perhaps a selfish act, of attempting to find others feeling a similar way to me — that is to say, a little hopeless at the moment.Misery loves company, that sort of deal.Some context.I wish I could say I got ...
I have hitherto been fairly quiet on the new season of Rings of Power, on the basis that the underwhelming first season did not exactly build excitement – and the rumours were fairly daft. The only real thing of substance to come out has been that they have re-cast Adar ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
“The thing is,” Chris Luxon says, leaning forward to make his point, “this has always been my thing.”“This goes all the way back to the first multinational I worked for. I was saying exactly the same thing back then. The name of our business needs to be more clear; people ...
Buzz from the Beehive It’s been a momentous few days for Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court decision which blocked a summons order from the Waitangi Tribunal for her. And today she has announced the Government is putting children first by introducing to ...
In 2014 former Australian army lawyer David McBride leaked classified military documents about Australian war crimes to the ABC. Dubbed "The Afghan Files", the documents led to an explosive report on Australian war crimes, the disbanding of an entire SAS unit, and multiple ongoing prosecutions. The journalist who wrote the ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – According to the respected Pew Research Centre, “In seven of eight [European] countries surveyed, the most trusted news outlet asked about is the public news organization in each country”. For example, “in Sweden, an overwhelming majority (90%) say they trust the public broadcaster SVT”. ...
David Farrar writes – Kata MacNamara reports: Details of Tony Blakely’s involvement in the New Zealand Government’s response to the pandemic raise serious questions about the work of the Covid-19 Royal Commission of Inquiry over which he presides. It has long been clear that Blakely, a ...
Chris Trotter writes – Are you a Brahmin or a Merchant? Or, are you merely one of those whose lives are profoundly influenced by the decisions of Brahmins and Merchants? Those are the questions that are currently shaping the politics of New Zealand and the entire West. ...
RNZ reports – It’s supposed to be a haven of healing and spiritual awakening but residents of the Kawai Purapura community say they’ve been hurt and deceived. It’s the successor to the former Centrepoint commune, and has been on the bush block opposite Albany shopping centre since 2008. It ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. Usually we have a video chat to go with this wrap, but were unable to do one this week. We’ll be back next week.Several reports ...
The Transport Minister has set a hard 'fiscal envelope' of $6.54 billion for transport capital spending. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The economy is settling into a state of suspended animation as the Government’s funding freezes and job cuts chill confidence and combine with stubbornly high interest rates to ...
To be precise, the term “anti- Zionism” refers to (a) criticism of the political movement that created a modern Jewish state on the historical land of Israel, and to (b)the subjugation of Palestinians by the Israeli state. By contrast, the term “anti-Semitism” means bigotry and racism directed at Jewish people, ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Because hurricanes are one of the big-ticket weather disasters that humanity has to face, climate misinformers spend a lot of effort muddying the waters on whether climate change is making hurricanes more damaging. With the official start to the hurricane ...
Yesterday the Mayor released what he calls his “plan to save public transport” which is part of his final proposal for the Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP). This comes following consultation on the draft version that occurred in March which showed, once again, that people want more done on transport, especially ...
And it's a pleasure that I have knownAnd it's a treasure that I have gainedAotearoa’s coalition government is fragile. It’s held together by the obsequious sycophancy of Christopher Luxon, who willingly contorts his party into the fringe positions of his junior coalition partners and is unwilling to contradict them. The ...
The Select Committee hearing submissions on the fast-track consenting legislation is starting to become a beat-up of regional councils. The inflexibility and slow workings of the Councils were prominent in two submissions yesterday. One, from the Coromandel Marine Farmers Association, simply said that the Waikato Regional Council’s planning decisions were ...
Back in April, the High Court surprised everyone by ruling that Ministers are above the law, at least as far as the Waitangi Tribunal is concerned. The reason for this ruling was "comity" - the idea that the different branches of government shouldn't interfere with each other's functions. Which makes ...
Buzz from the BeehiveTolling was mentioned when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government was re-introducing the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme, with 15 “crucial” projects to support economic growth and regional development across New Zealand. All RoNS would be four-laned, grade-separated highways, and all funding, financing, and ...
or the past 14 years, ever since the Spanish government cheated on an autonomy deal, Catalonia has reliably given pro-independence parties a majority of seats in their regional parliament. But now that seems to be over. Catalans went to the polls yesterday, and stripped the Catalan parties of their majority. ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ report: Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins said the Electoral Commission should make sure the system ran smoothly and “taking away the right of thousands of people to vote” was not the answer. “Thousands of people enroled and voted on the day. If ...
Don Brash writes – There was a rather revealing headline in the Herald on Sunday today (12 May). It read “One in 8 Auckland homes on market were bought during boom, may now sell for loss”. The first line of text noted that “New data shows one in ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – At a time when universities are understandably nervous regarding the establishment of the University Advisory Group (UAG) and the Science System Advisory Group (SSAG) it may seem strange – or even fool-hardy – to state that there are long-standing issues in the tertiary sector ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – A lack of perspective can make something quite large or important seem small or irrelevant. Against a backdrop of high-profile, negative statistics it is easy to overlook the positive. For instance, the fact that 64 percent of Maori are employed is rarely reported. For ...
Earlier this year, the Herald ran a series of articles amounting to a sustained campaign against raised pedestrian crossings, by reporter Bernard Orsman. A key part of that campaign concerned the raised crossings being installed as part of the Pt Chevalier to Westmere project, with at least 10 articles over ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 19 include:PM Christopher Luxon is expected to hold his weekly post-cabinet news conference at 4:00pm on Monday.Parliament is not sitting this week. It resumes next week for a two-week sitting session up to and ...
Hi,Thanks to all the beautiful Worms who came to the LA Webworm popup on Saturday.It was a way to celebrate the online store we launched last week — and it was super special.As I talk about a lot, I really value our community here — and it was a BLAST ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 5, 2024 thru Sat, May 11, 2024. (Unfortunate) Story of the week "Grief that stops at despair is an ending that I and many others, most notably ...
Last night the largest solar storm in decades resulted in Aurorae being seen across Aotearoa, causing many to ask why?Why was the sky pink? What was all this stuff about the power grid? Have we, as so many have wondered since the election, reached the end of days?I had a ...
We have been on the road in England, squeezing down narrow lanes, flying up the M6, loving hedgerows and villages and cathedrals, liking the 21st century less.There have been moments when it’s felt like a movie trope. The pub in Exford, lovely seventeenth century bar, almost more dogs than people, ...
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Michael Bassett writes – I’m not sure that it’s much comfort to anyone to know that the post-Covid surge in violent crimes, gang activity, ram raids, random shootings, thuggery and stabbings is occurring in other countries as well as New Zealand. These days, wagging school, out-of-control welfare and ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
"In future I should walk away," Green MP Julie Anne Genter says after complaints over an exchange in Parliament and from two members of the public. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Graffam, PhD Candidate in Theatre, Monash University Gianna Rizzo/Malthouse Music pumps; lights pulsate; two sweaty bodies sway together, touching, breathing in each other’s scent. A male body framed by downlight restlessly shifts between stances and gestures. He undresses. The intensity ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sandra van der Laan, Professor of Accounting, University of Sydney Mtaya/Shutterstock At some point, you or someone else will need to make a decision about your “send-off”. Most Australians die in an institution, such as a hospital or aged care facility. ...
Asia Pacific Report Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai — who is also Chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group — has reaffirmed MSG’s support of the pro-independence umbrella group Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) stance opposing the French government’s constitutional bill “unfreezing” the New Caledonia Electoral Roll. It is ...
Producer Susan Leonard remembers her father Ernie, a pioneer of Māori television, and how his legacy lives on in Pathfinders.My father was a fabulous man. His name was Ernie Leonard and he started in TV in the 1970s when it was still glamorous – when TVNZ made behind the ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk, and Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist The suspected ringleaders of the unrest in New Caledonia have been placed in home detention and the social network TikTok has been banned as French security forces struggle to restore law and order. The French ...
Multi-year appropriations - which give the government authority to spend money without reapplying annually - are loosening Parliament's control of the public purse, auditor-general says. ...
Dr. Eric Chuah who stood for a centrist NZ political party in the October 2023 NZ Elections for Maungakiekie Auckland will stand as a candidate for Tauranga City Council Ward of Matua-=Otumoetai and Mayor of Tauranga. ...
If you can’t get to the comedy fest, let us bring the comedy fest to you. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in full swing at the moment, with a veritable smorgasboard of comedy treats ...
A new poll commissioned by Unions Wellington shows an overwhelming majority of Wellingtonians oppose the Council’s plan to sell the 34% public stake in Wellington Airport. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aruna Sathanapally, Chief Executive, Grattan Institute, Grattan Institute A central focus of this week’s budget is the treasury’s forecast for inflation. By this time next year, inflation is projected to be back within the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target range. Inflation has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yolanda van Heezik, Professor of Ecology, University of Otago Getty Images Cities across Aotearoa New Zealand are trying to solve a housing crisis, with increasing residential density a key solution. But not everyone is happy about the resulting loss of natural ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Reeve, Deputy Program Director, Energy and Climate Change, Grattan Institute WDG Photo/Shutterstock For years, the electricity sector has been the poster child for emissions cuts in Australia. The sector achieved a stunning 26% drop in emissions over the past 15 ...
It’s often the last thing people want to do, but asking someone if they’re having suicidal thoughts is a critical first step to helping them. Content warning: this story discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. For a list of resources that can help if you or someone you know is feeling ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy J. Ralph, Associate Professor, Macquarie University The pyramids at Giza, like dozens of others, are located several kilometres west of the current path of the Nile.Alex Cimbal / Shutterstock The largest field of pyramids in Egypt – consisting of 31 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Diepstraten, Senior Research Officer, Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute ABO PHOTOGRAPHY/Shutterstock Receiving a cancer diagnosis is life-changing and can cause a range of concerns about ongoing health. Fear of cancer returning is one ...
Winston Peters has been on tour around the Pacific while two unrelated crises unfolded, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Two separate ...
This is the Mount Everest of artificial meatcraft.Ah, bacon. Pig’s gold. Toast’s consolation. Dawn’s savoury embrace. If meat was a currency, bacon would be the Benjamin Franklin. Or if you’re feeling patriotic, the Lord Rutherford. When it comes to fake bacon, the obvious question is: why bother? In the ...
From illegal milk to sprinkler bans and airplane ticket scams, Tyrone Barugh is on a one-man mission through New Zealand’s most obscure legal loopholes. I’m deep undercover, investigating Wellington’s criminal underworld. Inside this store, I’ve been told there is a million-dollar trade in illicit substances. A man dressed in black ...
It’s been a recess week at Parliament, which might indicate slim pickings for conversation topics for the Raw Politics team. But things are never dull in politics, especially with a new Government keen to follow through on its law and order promises, and a NZ First minister who wants to ...
Dear Hon Judith Collins, Minister of Defence, and Hon Christopher Penk, Associate Minister of Defence I have written to you, to attempt to give you an insight into the incredible hardship of being an NZDF family. Whilst I cannot speak on behalf of serving personnel, I can speak from my ...
Analysis: What a difference a year makes. In mid 2023, Wayne Brown the Auckland Mayor was a politician diminished by a calamitous response to the region’s Anniversary Weekend storm emergency and later forced against his preference into a half sale only of the city’s airport shares. His demeanour among his ...
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New Zealand’s drug legislation hasn’t been overhauled in nearly 50 years, in spite of a recommendation from the Law Commission in 2011 to do so. Our Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1975 and is based on a United Nations framework set in 1961. Now a new organisation, Harm ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) A free copy of this amazing story of a woman who operated behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France was up for grabs this past fortnight. Readers were asked to share a story of wartime bravery, ...
Asia Pacific Report An open letter to The New Zealand Herald has challenged a full page Zionist advertisement this week for failing to acknowledge the “terrible injustices” suffered by the Palestinian people in Israel’s seven-month genocidal war on Gaza. In the latest of several international reports that have condemned genocide ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra When he was opposition leader, Bill Shorten faced Coalition criticism for attacking “the top end of town”, a phrase he used in his 2019 budget reply. Now Peter Dutton is finding the line “billions of ...
By Adam Burns, RNZ News reporter Worried New Caledonian expats in Aotearoa admit they are “terrified” for friends and family amid ongoing violence and civil unrest in the French Pacific territory. The death toll remained at four tonight, and hundreds have been injured after electoral changes sparked widespread rioting by ...
French President Emmanuel Macron has declared a state of emergency in New Caledonia after several days of civil unrest in the capital. Four people are dead due to the unrest and violence in the capital, Nouméa. France TV reports that a 22-year-old gendarme who had been seriously wounded has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland This week’s budget was Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ third and – for practical purposes – final for the current parliamentary term. Even if the 2025 election is delayed long enough to give ...
They held a noisy but peaceful demonstration against the ongoing genocide being carried out by the State of Israel, condemning the Israeli ambassador who was hosting an invitation-only event to celebrate the establishment of the State of Israel. ...
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Karen Chhour wants Oranga Tamiriki to establish more partnerships with Māori, despite introducing a bill to Parliament removing their obligation to do so. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole George, Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of Queensland New Caledonia’s capital city, Noumea, has endured widespread violent rioting over the past 48 hours. This crisis intensified rapidly, taking local authorities by surprise. Peaceful protests had been ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Senior research associate, University of Sydney Barely a day has gone by this month without politicians or commentators talking about online harms. There have been multiple high-profile examples spurring on the conversation. There was the circulation of videos of Bishop ...
With less than six months to go, it’s time to start paying attention to what could be the most consequential election of our lifetimes. It’s less than half a year until election day in the United States, which makes this a good opportunity to review what’s happened thus far in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ryan Storr, Research fellow, Swinburne University of Technology The topic of homophobia in sport has recently made headlines in Australia, with a series of homophobic incidents involving men’s AFL players. These homophobic incidents are usually well-reported in news media, but research ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ryan Storr, Research fellow, Swinburne University of Technology The topic of homophobia in sport has recently made headlines in Australia, with a series of homophobic incidents involving men’s AFL players. These homophobic incidents are usually well-reported in news media, but research ...
Asia Pacific Report France has declared a state of emergency on the Pacific territory of New Caledonia — New Zealand’s closest neighbour — after four people, including a police officer, have been killed in pro-independence riots over voting changes that further marginalise indigenous Kanaks, news agencies report. The move came ...
The biggest winner from the 2024 Ockham book awards talks to Madeleine Chapman about her fascination with stages of life, advocating for the arts, and what’s next. Last night, at a not-as-long-as-expected ceremony at Q Theatre in downtown Auckland, Emily Perkins won the Big Prize for the second time. Her ...
With funding ending for Archives New Zealand’s digitisation programme, Hera Lindsay Bird shares a taste of what’s being lost – because history isn’t just about the big-ticket items. On Tuesday morning the PSA held a snap protest outside the National Library in Wellington, urging the government to continue funding the ...
“North Korea would better serve its people by meaningfully re-engaging with the international community through diplomacy rather than threats” says Mr Peters. ...
Following comments from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in yesterday’s pre-budget speech that not adjusting tax brackets for inflation each year is “lazy”, the Taxpayers’ Union is releasing a new poll that reveals that the vast majority of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wendy Marie Cumming-Potvin, Associate Professor/ Director of Research (School of Education), Murdoch University Shutterstock Despite social change, LGBTQI+ people still face discrimination at school and in the community. Language for diverse genders and sexualities is continually changing. LGBTQI+ allyship is part ...
Should I tell her before I see someone else? Invent a story about being stuck overseas? Grow my hair long? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzHello Hera,I’ve been seeing my hairdresser for about 12 years, making this one of the longest relationships of my adult life (longer than my ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mona Nikidehaghani, Senior Lecturer in Accounting, University of Wollongong Many Australians with disability feel on the edge of a precipice right now. Recommendations from the disability royal commission and the NDIS review were released late last year. Now a draft NDIS reform ...
Yesterday was the first day of the 2020 sitting year for Parliament. Usual business was suspended for the day to allow Members to remember and share their personal memories of the late Right Honorable Mike Moore. Speeches started with Jacinda Ardern as PM followed by leaders of the other political parties, with other individual MPs then following.
Here is a link to the 12 speeches
https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?keyword=Government+Motion&from=2020-02-11&to=2020-02-11&subject=&person=&stage=
The initial speeches were fairly conservative eulogies with all leaders essentially in agreement over the huge contribution made by Mike Moore, but things loosened up when the other MPs stood to recall their memories.
In particular, Ron Mark started out using notes but quickly dispensed with these and launched into one of the most personal from the heart speeches I ever recall hearing in the House . At the same time it was one of the most humourous recounts of behind the scenes memories of Mark and Moore’s relationship since Mark’s time with the Labour Party when Mark ran unsuccessfully for Labour in the Selwyn electorate. Mark supported his recounting with an impressive number of Labour Party documents and policies attributable to Mike Moore. from his own personal archives.
If you watch nothing else, I urge you to watch Mark’s speech – it is 12 minutes you won’t regret!
The speeches following Mark by Brownlee, Damian O’Connor and Trevor Mallard also carried on with more personal and humourous memories. All in all a great send off for Mike. And impressive in the recognition of Yvonne’s contribution as Mike’s partner in life and politics.
Drat – the Mark video came up properly as a picture but doesn’t now.
I only partly saw on the news last night, a poll saying Ron Mark was by far the most preferred person to take over NZ First if Winston wasn't there. Result surprised me. Did anyone see the whole thing as I missed where the poll was taken. I've always presumed Shane Jones would be the eventual NZF leader.
That's interesting, Jimmy. I did not see that as I rarely watch TV – which News was it on? TVNZ or Newshub?
Re Jones taking over as Leader of NZF eventually, I don't believe that will happen for a number of reasons. I actually discussed this subject in a reply to Dennis Frank on open Mike at 2.1.1.2 http://11 February 2020 at 9:29 am Here is some of that reply (no point in re-inventing the wheel!):
To add to that, both Tracey Martin and Ron Mark have previously been Deputy Leader of NZF. As I understand it, because other members of Tracey Martin's family have had considerable influence on the Party (eg her mother Ann Martin was President for many years) it was considered better to spread the influence, hence Ron Mark becoming Deputy and he then handed onto Tabuteau.
Re Jones, I cannot provide any links but I seem to recall that Jones himself – both when he was still with Labour and since moving to NZF – has implied that he is not interested in party leadership roles and is more comfortable doing roles like his present one as "Champion of the Regions" and the similar role he undertook under the previous Nat Govt in relation to economic development etc in the Pacific. As I say, I cannot provide links to this but I have a pretty good memory despite older age.
Thanks for that. It was TV3 news I'm pretty sure.
Interesting comments too re: NZF.
Thanks for the heads-up Jimmy as I have now found the TV3 item and here is the link – another Tova O'Brien special as part of the Newshub poll released the other night.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/02/revealed-who-kiwis-think-should-be-nz-first-leader-if-winston-peters-stands-down.html
The results are interesting with Ron Mark indeed coming out well ahead, both generally and with NZF voters.
I don't find that surprising, nor the fact that Fletcher Tabuteau barely rated as he keeps – or is kept – fairly low profile. Nevertheless Tabuteau has been associated with NZF since its inception 25 years ago at about 20 years of age, and at c 45/46 currently, he still has a lot of miles left on the clock. At 66, Mark is 20 years older and thus only seven years younger than Peters and I wonder whether he would really want the job.
I am surprised that Tracey Martin did not rate higher but she did take on a rather poisoned chalice (or challenge) in the form of Oranga Tamariki. I have a lot of respect for her in doing so as it is going to take a lot to turn that nightmare around.
Time will tell – and there is the possiblity that NZF may not make it at the upcoming election although I would be surprised if that actually happens. There are a lot of oldies who know who we have to thank for our Super Gold cards! LOL.
I was watching fom the balcony in parliament yesterday and I agree that Ron Marks contribution stood out – warm, funny, wise and clear. He would make a good NZ First leader, and sooner rather than later I think as I believe from my observations that Winston's health is starting to fail
And who the heck takes Shane Jones seriously? The guy's a clown.
Horse gambling industry loves donating to Winston First https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/409320/nz-first-foundation-received-tens-of-thousands-of-dollars-from-donors-in-horse-racing-industry
What about the tens of thousands received by the National machine. Those which are visible paint a picture of influence on a very grand scale. Investigate that?
National have received several millions in total but of course all donations were deliberate and fairly legal.
Yep.
I've never voted for Peters and NZ First but lets be fair…
National and ACT have been indulging in this kind of fiscal subterfuge for decades. ACT started doing it in the 1990s and National have been doing it even longer. Anyone with any historical political knowledge (which counts out half the current political journos) knows it.
If the media is going to call out NZ First fair enough. But tell the whole story and acknowledge the fact National and ACT do it too. I can't speak for Labour or the Greens but given their donations tend to be much smaller amounts – but more numerous in quantity – I think it is unlikely.
Edit: And if some smarty pants tries to misconstrue my last sentence:
90% of Labour’s donors are not rich people and they donate small amounts (less than $100) but probably do it more frequently.
Whataboutism?
Yes the nats did that.
The original comment was about NZ1st. There seems to be an effort round these parts to minimise Winston's shenanagins.
When NZ 1st say they will review their practices, I call bulldust.
The NZ1st foundation was formed with the guidance of Peter's lawyer. I don't believe for a moment that Peter's isn't aware of what was going on. It sounds pretty legal
The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
This is what corruption looks like in an relatively non corrupt country.
For years we have suspected, but have had no real evidence that government policy on the racing industry was being bought.
The government has provided tax breaks to this morally corrupt industry, that feeds off gambling and animal cruelty.
Winston Peters is the Racing Minister. Can we really trust that he had no idea what was going on with the New Zealand First Foundation as he is claiming, when the Racing Industry that he serves was funneling money into it??
The whole idea of having a Minister for Racing is about as idiotic as you can get imo. Now we have the proof of what it is all about.
And yes this industry is based on animal cruelty and gambling.
He should at the very least be stood down from that Portfolio pending the investigation.
How on earth can he remain there?
Dodgy as ****
Concert FM hoopla shows whose views count the most https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/02/12/1030591/concert-fms-lesson-in-realpolitik
and then there's this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018733749/former-prime-minister-helen-clark-on-concert-changes just a few minutes ago.
Both Hickey and Clark have good points to make.
But given what has been going on at RNZ, all this was as much about a couple of commercially oriented master-of-the-universe egos as it was about creating an alternative network with instant appeal.
Joe Bennett – in his normal mischievous way is on Stuff this morning channeling a 'yoof': https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/119415619/dear-rnz-bosses-young-people-arent-an-homogeneous-herd
If Thompson and co had been more concerned about what they perceive as the problem, they could have quietly worked on a third network and allowed it to evolve and be discovered by the 'demographic' naturally. (Even built on the BRAND "The Wireless")
It ain't over yet. The bloody board either let themselves down too, or were too busy trying to be down with the kuds. When you look at their backgrounds though a majority would seem to be quite comfortable with what's been going on (over a long time)
"If you doubt the variety of young people, cast your mind back to your own class at secondary school, ranging as it did from the thug at the back to the scholar at the front, via the athlete in the middle and the aesthete to one side, plus the dubious creep who later, oh my god, went into local politics. In short, we young people, like you older people, are as various as the pebbles on the beach and any radio station that tries to appeal to all of us will appeal to none of us."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/119415619/dear-rnz-bosses-young-people-arent-an-homogeneous-herd
Gotta love Joe Bennet…straight to the point
🙂 Maybe he's done his chips on "The Panel" like Martyn Bradbury did.
I doubt it would bother him much
Personally I am not surprised that hierarchy at RNZ has exposed themselves in this way as being so out of touch with their local communities, just look at steady decline of National radio as a serious new source over the past couple of decades, it really is now a just hollow shell of it's former self, are real lightweight.
And now (and under Labour of course) they totally disregard and dismiss one of the very few sources that offers even a breath of high minded culture for free into our communities..fucking Liberals, always so lowbrow, always finding ways to make life just that bit more shitty and crappy….yuk.
IMO that is a very one-sided view of the situation and I am surprised and disappointed at Hickey's take on the situation. This view that only white elitists listen to Concert FM or listen to and participate in classical music is just so closed minded.
It takes no account of the contribution NZ's multicultural and in particular, Maori and Pacifica, communities for example have made to classical music both here in NZ and worldwide.
In opera alone, Maori account for a good proportion of NZ artists who have reached the world stage such as Inia Te Wiata, Keri Te Kanawa, Kawiti Waetford, ManaTe Hapuku, and Phillip Rhodes to name just a few.
In the same field, in more recent years, our Samoan community has also contributed an impressive array of world recognised stars – for example, Moses Mackay, Pene Patu and Amatai Patu both individually and together as Sol3 Mio – our own version of the Three Tenors. Other Samoan NZers on the world opera circuit include Marlena Devoe and Benson Wilson – as is Amina Edris both in her own right and in company with her husband, Pene Patu. Amina is Egyptian-born but raised and trained in opera in NZ.
I could go on – at length – but will leave it at that. Many of the above artists did not come from well off homes – far from it. And they have provided good role models for others to follow in their footsteps – and support for others to do so.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
But I am surprised and disappointed at the ignorance and closed mindedness that has emerged, including on here at TS, as the Concert FM issue has emerged.
In part it's a consequence of the way identity politics subsumes all individual interests and capacities. It casts a broad net over whole categories of people and dumps them into big silos with a couple of fat, lazy labels on them.
There is an overwhelming national interest in deplatforming classical music. /sarc.
Its a conclusion you can only reach by choosing not to think about who running ConcertFM benefits, and who running it opresses (e.g nobody).
And frankly the views suggesting its ConcertFM or Skypath are equally dim. What is the suggestion, that some roading contractors should take up radio engineering instead? The two are not economically or fiscally related so NZ should happily invest in both.
Funny, I was thinking the opposite.
Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
My suspicion was that someone was looking at a line item in their budget, they didn't listen to it personally, and they just assumed that its core audience was the stereotypical old/rich/white crowd beloved by hollywood screenwriters.
it's about people choosing how they describe themselves.
And invariably when they do this, they become more than anything else individuals, with a unique mix of heritage, family, experiences, interests and capacities. For example, someone may very well describe themselves as 'Samoan', but in reality this might be only one of many equally important aspects of who they are.
People do not choose one identity, they are a bewildering mix of them. While on the one hand we are social creatures driven to belong, we also value highly our freedom to choose where we belong, when and in which context. Much more nuanced than the crude idioms of identity politics allows for.
You described identity politics and then followed that description with a sentence that demonstrates you don't realise what you did.
"Because what you call "identity politics" isn't about dumping labels on people, it's about people choosing how they describe themselves."
Your saying comment 3 is self descriptive? The problematic kinds of identity politics invariably involve talking in very broad generalisations about a group (or between groups) of which the author is not representative. Also very typically some form of amateur phychology is infered to imply which group is morally superior.
On the other hand cases of people self identifying are so harmless they barely appear worthy of mention (Elizibeth Warren not with-standing).
"Let's not treat [people who identify as X] like shit" can be problematic for people who disagree with that statement.
In this case the people who seem to identify as the down with the youf executive of RNZ seem to be getting the shit, and their beliefs are problematic for people who like listening to Classical Music. There is something pretty fubar with the framing of this in identity politics terms of some elite demographic vs whoever they are opressing by enjoying Classical music on the radio.
If this wasn't characteristic of these IP arguments I wouldn't be making this argument of course, but it is.
Except that the implicit assumption is that only the "elite demographic" listen to classical music, which is an assumption about all the various groups made without listening to any of those groups to start with. Which has more in common with colonialism than it does with "identity politics".
Colonialism aye. In fact I think the only reason I am having this discussion is because of my unconscious Colonialism. Of course consciously I think its because I think having a discussion based on gross generalisations about caricatures of groups produces nonsense, but in the back there is always some colonialism going on there.
Now tell us how you feel about "identity politics".
I already did. You responded by trying to start a discussion where you apply amateur phychology (motivated by Colonialism) to a group (ConcertFM audience) to negatively caricature that group. The argument is gibberish but you thus ignored the reasonable concerns over the decision (should RNZ be run like a commercial station?).
Who said anything about "motivated by colonialism"?
I just said that imposing a collection of labels upon others (rather than listening to what labels they might choose for themselves) was more like colonialism that it was like "identity politics".
In all the discussions about "elitist" concert radio listeners, have you seen an actual breakdown of the concertFM audience? Standard market research with self-reported socio-economic data? Because I haven't. Which suggests to me that any description of the concertFM audience is probably:
instead of being based on the labels they select for themselves.
What you describe is imposition of labels with no regard for consent. "Identity politics" is about the freedom to honestly choose labels for oneself. From pronouns to any other aspect of identity.
Fully agree with you 100%.
The Pacifika and Maori contribution to classical music – particularly in vocal and choral – has been a revelation in the last 40 years.
It seriously worries me that a massive tradition of local music composition and performance is being proposed to simply be automated onto an AM station. WTF.
Well done to those who organised the petition – it clearly had an immediate effect upon our current Prime Minister .
Thank God for someone like Helen Clark who is giving it right back to them.
Same question – who are some of those composers for us to be aware of?
Go to ConcertFM while you still can and find out.
Or go to your nearest arts festival.
They are played and discussed at both.
Educate yourself.
If it's a 'massive tradition', I'd expect to already know more than Lilburn and Psathas.
Like I said, tune in more and you'll learn.
The facilities are there for you to do so.
Where do I tune in to hear more local electronica compositions?
GeorgeFM apparently – and googling electronica music NZ will give you masses of links to actual events etc.
GeorgeFM is awesome on Sundays. During the week not so much.
https://www.georgefm.co.nz/home/shows/george-weekends.html
When listened to online via a good USB DAC (digital to analogue converter) it sounds better than CD quality.
(CDs ripped to FLAC (lossless format) also sound better than a CD played directly)
Which also reminds me of another NZ composer of worldwide reputation whose compositions range over and blend a number of different genres including electronic with orchestral – Rhian Sheehan.
[Funny that because I have known him most of his life (= wider whanau). LOL]
Rhian features quite often on RNZ National music shows and presumably elsewhere across the spectrum of music radio stations.
For something different, you could always visit your local planetarium, eg Auckland Planetarium/Skydome, as Rhian composes the music for many of the shows featured at many planetariums worldwide – eg I think the latest one is "We are Astronomers" narrated by former Dr Who, David Tarrant or I might be totally out of date.
Rhian features quite often on RNZ National music shows and presumably elsewhere across the spectrum of music radio stations.
Student radio, that's all. Love his work.
Oh, and Gareth Farr.
That's a good list of performers. Which composers would you say are contributing to New Zealand's musical culture?
As Ad said, go educate yourself. There is plenty out there including on Google
So here are one or two snippets to get you started:
NZ Samoan Composer – Opeloge Ah Sam
https://www.creativenz.govt.nz/news/passionate-composer-and-performer-awarded-samoa-artist-in-residency
NZ Composer of Greek origin – Peter Psathas
Here is his Wikipedia entry but if you google his name there are plenty of local media reports on his background, his music compositions and their recognition overseas – eg he composed music for the opening/closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics amongst many other compositions for worldwide events etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Psathas
Here is another link that lists quite a few "Samoan Voice" composers etc
https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/visit/whats-on/war-memorial/first-world-war-centenary/wwi-samoa-voices-from-the-pacific/artist-biographies
And perhaps this interview will give you a little bit of an insight as to why Samoan and other Pacifica New Zealanders feature in our NZ music scene across all genres but particularly the choral genres including those associated with classical music.
https://e-tangata.co.nz/arts/igelese-ete-from-just-a-bunch-of-chords-to-moana-and-beyond/
I'll pick out the bits I like about Hickey's contribution:
He seemed to be learning in real time this week after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern used an interview on RNZ's Morning Report on Monday to express "frustration" that the planned "gutting" and relegation of Concert FM to a robo-station on AM had been announced before the Government had had to chance to come up with an alternative FM channel.
"I think we obviously didn't explain it clearly enough, and when we were talking about our plan, there was an assumption that it wouldn't be obvious initially that the FM transmission would be affected, and I think that was just a glitch in the communications," (struggling much?)
actually there's too many bits, and maybe I have a bit of a prejudice: liking to watch any wideboy being fed their chips
But there is unfortunately the truthiness in this:
"This real-time exercise in realpolitik for RNZ's board and the Government illustrates where power lies in New Zealand."
Oh how much easier it would be if gummints of whatever stripe, and masters-of the Universe in whatever pick-your-brand-Corp could just be up-front, open and honest.
Bullshit begets more bullshit (on the bright side though, it keeps a few spin meisters in immoral employment)
I haven't followed closely. Did the board fuck up, or where they playing the government?
The politics within RNZ are something to behold – especially since the current reign, from the way people have been 'eased' out (under-appreciated) to the marketeers taking over. I'd say the board royally fucked up putting too much faith in their 'golden boy(s)'.
Nobody has said. Jim Mather in particular seems too savvy to make such a stuff-up.
Board signed off Dec…around 17 minute mark
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018733670
Thank you. Lisa Owen asks explicitly at 15.52 if the public backlash has prised concessions from the govt including the shelved frequencies. A minute later, Thompson confirms RNZ did not ask for those as part of their plans for a new youth service because there had been 'no signal' they were on offer.
Ministers do not tend to be forgiving about being manipulated..
I doubt any Ministers were manipulated somehow
Savvy as he may be:
Aligned with his commercial background, Jim is also a former officer in the New Zealand Army, and was awarded the Sword of Honour in recognition of his distinguished achievements in Officer training.
He currently holds governance roles with the following organisations:
Well done Jim! Gorjiss!
We could go through each of the board members such as the next on the list.
Problem is they still fucked up (even though I have a special interest in one of them not coming to grief)
I really don't give a fuck who gets thrown under the bus – put it down to the cistern they operate in. The board, the CEO or his decisions on recruiting a wonder-boy called Willy, but somebody/people should have the decency to resign, or be sacked
Probably though if you really want to be efficient and effective, Thompson and Mcalister should take the fall
Both.
Toby Manhire ponders that question in light of today's developments: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/12-02-2020/a-crescendo-just-crushed-the-concert-restructure-so-what-next-for-rnz/
It was great to see the Salvation Army report with it's set of succinct social indicators.
Since this government doesn't look like it is going to deliver a social indicator report before the election despite structuring their entire budget around it, the Salvation Army one will do nicely.
If I had time I'd do a full post on it so I hope someone else will.
Link to report: https://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/article/bring-everyone-together
Yesterday I was shown some images out of China that were downright chilling … while I'm reluctant to repeat claims I've no way to verify or source, there is a fear that the CCP is using this event as cover to disappear inconvenient people … and more. There are now 60m people confined to their apartments and no-one knows for how long. In this tense, paranoid atmosphere there is real potential for events to spin out of control.
But the worst part now is that no-one trusts the CCP regime to tell the truth. Not just about the virus from a medical perspective, but with regard to all the other things going on around it. It seems the govts reaction is to double down on the security, censorship and restrictions in an attempt retain control, but this only further undermines the trust that is essential to the social cohesion necessary to get through this.
The Chinese people are going through a very difficult time right now … no matter where they live. A bit of true humanity and kindness will go a long way.
One problem I'm having is the great wall (the fire wall) is blocking vpns which normally get around it. Almost all of the anarchists in China have gone silent. Not a peep – and that is making me more than a little anxious. Have been asking other mates online, and they are repeating pretty much what you are saying RedLogix about the disappearance process.
What worries me many of these anarchists are lifestyle types, who are not really that political. Moreover they like the cultural elements, the music scene and hanging around together. Some good music coming out of chinese underground, been really enjoying the little I get to hear.
The chances are that the good ol' ordinary flu is affecting hundreds or even thousands of times as many Chinese in this their winter flu season than this new virus. This is just Christmas for a headline inducing panic-desperate media in all it's dodgy persuasions.
It is also Christmas and all its birthdays for the mad over controlling CCP and with a bit of luck its over reaction may be its downfall.
Humans live more or less in a known equilibrium with influenza; some years it's a bit tricky and evolves into a slightly new form, other years the vaccines work well. But in essence most people have sufficient immunity, and it has a typical lethality rate below 0.1%. It’s serious, but a known adversary we understand.
This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. On the current numbers it seem like about 25% of people who become infected go on to develop a serious illness, and of these around 3% will die. Maybe 50m deaths inside the first year. That is much worse than seasonal influenza which typically kills around 0.5m each year.
This virus hits the 'sweet spot', long incubation period, efficient transmission including silent carriers and spreaders, multiple modes of transmission including airborne, a high fraction of serious illnesses that will hit the medical system, and sufficiently lethal to be heavily disruptive socially.
What we know about this bug is concerning already, and this is before it starts mutating on us. If it becomes seasonal, like many other coronavirus's, then all bets are off we would be into unknown territory where anything could happen. At that point the secondary social impacts will start to hurt.
WHO wakes up.
The WHO has asked countries to be "as aggressive as possible" in fighting the newly-named COVID-19 coronavirus.
"If the world doesn't want to wake up and consider the virus as public enemy number one, I don't think we will learn from our lessons," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva.
"We are still in containment strategy and should not allow the virus to have a space to have local transmission," he said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/china-coronavirus-outbreak-latest-updates-200211012218330.html
Large scale infection of health workers.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050077/least-500-wuhan-medical-staff-infected-coronavirus
If Angola can contain Ebola I think are chances on this one are pretty good. The point I was making is how this is playing into the hands of the desperate, the media for drama and click bait and the CCP for control of its populace, having them locked away and terrified instead of on the street protesting.
Comparing one disease with another isn't necessarily useful. Already you've compared COVID-19 with influenza which is easily transmitted but with a very low fatality rate, and now with Ebola which is only transmittable via direct body fluid contact and this makes standard medical isolation and practices quite effective, even though it has a scarily high lethality.
Each disease must be treated on it's own terms, on the totality of it's character. This almost looks to be very difficult to contain, and sufficiently lethal to be quite disruptive. An unhappy combination that it would be unwise to ignore.
"This new coronavirus is a concern because no-one has any immunity to it; potentially every human alive could become infected; and it's now clear that it's very transmittable. "
Is that not true of every new iteration of influenza?
It would need an expert to answer this properly, but it's my understanding it's not a binary black and white thing as your question implies, and the degree of novelty matters. Also every individual's immune system has a different history and character.
By contrast COVID-19 is totally novel, no-one has even partial immunity as far as I'm aware. That's why these new variants that have jumped from other species are so very worrisome; they will spread quickly and we have no idea what their potential range of mutations will be.
The super spreader in England was infecting people before he got symptoms and it has a long incubation period. Unless we want to inundate the medical services we want to slow it down as much as possible – hopefully until a vaccine is available.
Following comments on another story I see that he has recovered. Sorry no link was just screenshot in comments.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/uknews/10942974/coronavirus-drug-dealer-prisoner-uk-jail-outbreak/
But this development does not sound good . Overcrowded prisons and virus sounds recipe for disaster.
Yeah.. and the Chinese authorities has put tens of millions of their own citizens under house arrest and is spraying down every city street just for shits and giggles.
No, its for the CCPs rabid desire for control. Plenty of virologists have stated that the spraying is ineffective as such viruses are very unlikely to survive outside or on such surfaces. But the images are good for mind control.
Yeah. Unless there's an insect vector and the spray is insecticide, the spray isn't going to do shit.
But it looks like something is being done.
My disagreement isn't that it's the CCP strengthening its control, I suspect it's more of a desperate holding action for control. The virus is going to be worst in impact, both directly and economically, on China. Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK. Stringing people up-style rioting.
Hungry and scared people can be bullied only so far before they riot, and not nice like in HK.
Our Chinese friend is translating material off the net for us that looks very much like the precursor to this. Last week she was not so worried, this week the tone has changed a lot.
We can speculate fruitlessly about the virus, it's behavior and how it might unfold globally. But what I was really wanting to emphasise is that the Chinese people in particular are going through a very difficult and worrisome time. If anyone has the chance to do so, now would be a good time to reach out to anyone Chinese you know. A little kindness at moments like this can go a very long way.
An insect vector??
Really!
Blame the fleas (or rats, while not insects, they are definitely loathsome, yes?)
Not really a blame thing. It was simply an observation of when mass spraying might be effective in disease control as opposed to a simple morale-boosting exercise. Development of the Panama Canal being a case in point.
How's the canal faring just now, do you know?
It's so busy that the biggest issue facing it is draining the lake that's the high point of the canal.
Still there as far as I know – but the French lost tens of thousands of workers to disease in their failed attempts, while the yanks focused on mosquito control (eradication and screens) and managed to significantly reduce their tropical disease fatalities.
https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30046-3/fulltext
There's a massive difference between some level of persistence and that level being enough to realistically infect someone else walking on the same outdoor footpath.
This is a virus where someone went to a corporate workshop and only infected a few of the attendees after hours of close proximity. It's not like measles, where someone walking through the same terminal two hours later has a realistic chance of being infected.
I will just leave this here.
that didn't display, but the URL inside the tag was like 3 pages long. I've deleted it. Try a link instead.
You also got caught in the spam filter, which might have been that URL, or you may have a typo in your email address.
What you're just leaving here is the sentence: "I will just leave this here."
Brilliant piece of conceptual art.
4’33”
I hadn't heard this before. Still reeling.
Stuff/Marlborough Express- Thomas Coughlan:
Can't find a link but for Bridges is this a sort of squirmy half U-turn?
Ruling them out…unless it suits me not to…I'm ruling them out. For now. Unless it suits me not to. To get power. Otherwise, ruled out. 100%.
That clear?
Fucker's gone full despot.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1227352806992072704
On February 10, 2020, the Department of Justice recommended a seven to nine year sentence for Roger Stone on charges of obstructing a congressional investigation, making false statements to Congress, and witness tampering during the Russia investigation. Trump tweeted that the recommendation was “horrible and very unfair” and shortly after, a senior DOJ official intervened to overrule the front-line prosecutors and announced that they would be recommending a more lenient sentence. Four DOJ prosecutors have resigned from the case since the announcement.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/foia/doj-roger-stone-reduced-sentencing/
Thread.
https://twitter.com/Stonekettle/status/1008502343594373120
[…]
https://twitter.com/Stonekettle/status/1227379680719888384
They have uniforms.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1227249776162418695
And then there were ??
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1227397210574381056
Pity, as he was one of the more interesting candidates.
New Hampshire should be a comfortable win for Bernie.
Perhaps.
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1227393878879350784
What's the story Joe? Did Bernie pooh in your handbag or something. You seem to be keen to highlight perceive short-comings or cast doubt whenever possible.
The town you cite is the third least populated in New Hampshire. Billy-Bob could've had a BBQ and a significant portion of voters not shown up.
Not even that – Carroll county is 3rd smallest, with 47k people. The town in question has only 4k of that 47k.
It's a non-random sample of 4000 people, probably only 3,000 votes. Maybe bernie farted while visiting it, or they got pissed he didn't visit at all.
I think it's still 10, since Bennet has dropped out as well.
Early indications form NH – Bernie gets a good start with 14% counted.
Looks like the big question will be which of Klobuchar, Warren, and Biden break the 15% threshold to be awarded delegates. Right now only Klobuchar is over.
I thought the threshold was only for caucus states?
It's for all states.
Then the hocus-pocus wing-of-bat 2-eyes-of-newt weirdshit recipes different states have for allocating delegates breaks things up into several different levels, some of which can have an effective threshold greater than 15%.That's how Biden ended up with 6 delegates from Iowa and Klobuchar 1 despite have almost identical vote and SDE%
Plus giving out an effective leader's bonus due to rounding. That's how Buttigieg come out of Iowa with a 14 – 12 delegate lead over Sanders, despite only leading the SDE count by 0.1% (and lagging in the popular vote by 1.6%).
https://www.270towin.com/content/thresholds-for-delegate-allocation-2020-democratic-primary-and-caucus
https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/NH-D
https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/IA-D
Thanks for that.
I should probably clarify that a bit more. As I understand it, the 15% threshold for allocating delegates applies at each of the sub-units, not at the state as a whole.
So with New Hampshire awarding 8 delegates from each of its two House districts, if Warren breaks 15% in one of those, she will get one delegate even if she is below 15% for the state as a whole.
That's how Klobuchar got one delegate from Iowa, despite being below 15% for the state as a whole. But Biden squeaked over 15% for Iowa as a whole, so he got allocated delegates from the pool that was determined by statewide vote and ended up with 6 total from Iowa.
With 22% reporting, the NYT have Bernie at 28% of the vote… as with Iowa that's basically half what he got in 2016.
I remain skeptical of Bernies chances, in part because the three big 'obviously moderates' candidates (Mayor Pete, Biden, Klobuchar) combined are currently at more than 50% of the vote. My gut feel remains that, down the campaign stretch as the field shrinks, Sanders will get overtaken by whichever candidate outlasts the others.
Or go a bit further on a national level, the moderates (Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden, Bloomberg) add up to around 55%, the liberals (Sanders, Warren, Yang, Gabbard) are just a bit over 40%. Kinda like the Clinton – Sanders split last time around.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/national/
Again, only 2 significant candidates in 2016, vs half a dozen in 2020.
Biden is looking done at the moment. Bernie looks good, but the mayor and Warren are also still in the race.
Yes, less candidates last time, BUT I can't think of any other examples where a presidential hopeful has entered the primary a second time around and performed significantly worse than their first attempt.
Clinton was the anointed successor to Obama in '16 because she spent 8 years positioning herself as such. McCain ran distant second to Bush in '00, then Romney was second to McCain in '08 and they both were the obvious front runner for the title of next Republican nominee.
In contrast, Sanders seems like the just kind of walked away from the Democratic party apparatus in 2016 (he relinquished membership of the party not long after Trump's election) and left a huge vacuum that all these other candidates are now trying to fill.
I agree about his party membership, but the thing is that more candidates means a lot more pieces of cake. Which means smaller pieces. I don't think the different campaign years can be usefully compared on that basis.
ps: if you could think of such a candidate, you'd be the biggest nerd on a political nerd blog lol
Mike Huckabooboo actually won more delegates and was a very close third in popular vote % behind Romney's second in '08. But withdrew on Feb 1, 2016 after getting negligible support.
How many nerd points do I get?
you get to roll the 20-sided die to find out
Re: Biden.
His 'firewall' is still the 4th voting state – South Carolina and its majority-minority voter composition. He has led basically every poll conducted in SC, but it's still a high risk strategy because he has already effectively given up on Nevada which is next.
Fivethirtyeight's average still has Biden in the polling lead for South Carolina, but his trendline has done a BASE jump.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/south-carolina/
AP news has a piece on Biden's SC firewall starting to crumble.
https://apnews.com/3cbd9aca529f3f1b1385318b082bb049
There's a bunch of other articles floating around the intertoobz about Biden losing support among African-Americans, but they all seem to trace back to something from National Review, so …hmmm.
Phil your logic here is a bit off and is not supported by what data we have on the subject. Supporters of the big three moderate candiates Pete, Biden, Klobuchar arent just some moderate blob that will roll between the moderate candidates, in fact Biden supporters leading second choice is Bernie, furthmore bernie holds a good share in the second choice for Pete's supporters with a strong third (only three point behind bloomberg's lead).
The fall of Biden seems the most likley to happen soon and that will help Bernie more than Klobuchar or Pete both of whom are too much in the ascendency to consider dropping at the moment. And with warrens poor preformance tonight she might not be running to much longer either again, helping Bernie.
It would be good to see Warren drop out and have a large chunk of her supporters move to Bernie, but I suspect she will limp on for quite a while yet…
Have you links for the second choice voting that you mention? I would to see those stats.
I recall seeing some 2nd preference numbers months ago, but I too would be interested in seeing an update. The older they are the more they might reflect name recognition rather than actual voting intent.
The voting data that we do have from Iowa showed there was very little shift to Bernie on the 2nd-preference from the unviable candidates (and Biden was often unviable at individual caucus sites) so I really don't know how to square the two pieces of intelligence. I still stand by the gut-feel that Bernie probably doesn't have the coalition to reach 50% of delegates outright, but I can easily imagine him having the single largest bloc at the convention.
… and if nobody comes to the convention with more than 50% of the pledged delegates to win it at the first round, then the superdelegates come into play for the subsequent rounds.
When fivethirtyeight looked at it back in December, they found that only about a third of Sanders and Warren supporters picked the other liberal as their second choice.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voters-second-choice-candidates-show-a-race-that-is-still-fluid/
I'm quite surprised no one is talking about this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/409298/bridges-says-national-won-t-tone-down-ads-after-asa-ruling
National just got ticked off by the Advertising Standards Authority for telling porkies in an advert last year and Simon Bridges says they're going to keep on doing it.
I mean, we all knew that National was planning to use outright lies to try to win the election but I didn't expect them to actually tell us in advance!
inorite – who is dumb enough to tell the truth about lying? lol
Brief audio clip behind each static picture – note again in the second one the word 'believe' being used:
https://twitter.com/antihobbes/status/1227354837521584131
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/409346/survey-paints-grim-picture-of-schooling-for-children-with-disabilities
So IHC's done another survey and nothing's changed. Surprise, surprise.
IHC lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission 12 years ago. What the heck's happened to that? If IHC's behaviour around the sleepover case is anything to go by it'd be surprisng if it'll go anywhere. IHC's too far up the government's backside for that to happen.
"Gore district mayor Tracy Hicks was forthright in his condemnation of NZAS and Rio Tinto.
"I've had a gutsful of their shilly-shallying.
"We have been working with Rio Tinto for the last three years and have bent over backwards to keep them engaged.
"All they do is thumb their nose at us and the people of Mataura." "
Fuckers
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/devastated-anger-deal-move-toxic-chemicals-falls-over
Well that will destroy whatever social licence Rio Tinto have in Southland. I can see some interesting inadvertent alliances forming here. Who's going to have the balls, or stupidity, to defend Rio Tinto on in Southland Times, or on Dee Street.
"Fuckers"
x 1000
About time someone grew a pair and told Rio Tinto to depart these shores.
Which territorial authority is in charge here?
Paging Mr. Guyton.
may be indicative of their review result….'well fellas , we've worn out our welcome here…time to find a new mug to host us'…and dont worry, they’ll have their cheque books open
Having worked briefly on a major Rio site I can attest to the insane over-regulation and nit-picking that is endemic everywhere. Just to get a room in the camp I had to initial and sign a 48 page document of rules.
As frustrating as this decision must be for Southlanders, I'll bet the board has a process reason for this delay. The clue is here:
This looks more like a delay rather than reneging. Right now it's not even clear who the legal owner of this material is and the board's legal advisers may be cautious about accepting liability for it. The sums of money involved are literally petty cash to Rio Tinto, it will be safety and legal issues driving this.
I have to say that working for them was an exercise in demoralising frustration, so none of this surprises me.
Disposal of the dross has been an ongoing issue for the last 30 years at least. It just keeps getting moved around, and called different things every 10 years so people think it's another new problem.
Rio want it anywhere by their place so they don't have to deal with it when they remediate the Tiwai site on closure, which I'd say we will find out about after the review.
"Shilly-shallying"???
That's the best old Tracy can do?
Bending over backwards….what a silly tactic.
Approval ratings for Ardern and Bridges
This is the same poll (i.e. same respondents) as the party vote poll earlier this week. It's noteworthy that Ardern's 63.3% must include some National voters, and a high percentage of National voters do not think Bridges is performing well.
It sounds geeky but is actually relevant that this is the same poll as the party vote results, because of the polling methodology. I don't have access to the script of course, but the order of questions usually starts with the party vote ("if there were an election tomorrow" etc). So … having answered "National", the respondent then answers Qs about the party leaders, and gives Bridges the thumbs down.
While it is not impossible for a party to win despite a leader with low ratings, it is very rare in modern democracies, with leader-focused campaigns – and hasn't happened in NZ under MMP (Brash 2005 and Clark 1996 came closest).
Winston said in his speech today that Bridges is at minus 32% on the +- scale.
He also asked Bridges if he had a Warrant to practice Law? No answer.
Bridges will rue his stance versus NZF.
He certainly has no mates except Seymour who Peters characterised as being ACT's seventh leader- but there's only one vote and if there was a second ACT MP in the caucus, he wouldn't be.
The Opposition finance spokesperson , Paul Goldsmith, was described as the only candidate in democracies who took his own hoardings down before an election rather than putting them up!
Electoral chicanery we should not forget.
Is he implying that the lad has let his practising registration lapse? So all the chest-thumping about being a thrusting lawyer is but a fond memory..
Was chatting to a true blue supporter today who told me for the first time in his life he won't be voting national, because of 'that twat bridges'. I almost fell over.
Looking at that poll leader approval rating result, it appears that his view is shared by others.
Who will they vote for I wonder – or just not vote?
Winston said in the House musingly, "Since the popular vote was over 70% for Jacinda, there must have been a fair few National voting for Jacinda?"
Uncooked, I did ask who else he wouldn't be voting for and the reply was, NZ First or act.
Another person then entered the room so our conservation ended.
Will ask him after the election who he ended up voting for, he knows I support red and green.
Ianmac 🙂 I'd say Winnie is 100% correct with that comment.
That's the funny thing – the more Bridges looks like a dropkick, ACT will be a wasted vote. So the sensible tory will vote NZ1 to moderate the next government's policies, which could end up helping NZ1 over the line…
Bear in mind, too, that (as with Colmar Brunton), Reid Research …
(1) Present the Party Vote as a % of Decided voters only …
Whereas:
(2) Leader Performance (like Preferred PM) is presented as a % of All Respondents.
That means that non-Labour voters comprise an even larger slice of those who believe Ardern is Performing Well than might appear to be the case at first sight,
If the Reid Research % Don't Knows are anything close to the latest Colmar Brunton DKs … then that would mean a very large minority of those favourable to Ardern's Performance are non-Lab voters … Nats, Greens, NZFers along with those respondents who haven't made up their mind on the Party Vote.