Apart from how pathetic Soimon was in the house yesterday, another significant own goal occurred. I hope people noticed!
Judith, fangs metaphorically dripping blood, a supercilious smile on her face, asked her usual biting question of Phil Twiford. It seems some first home buyers under the KiwiBuild scheme were able to raise the whole cost of a new home – a figure of $650,000 was mentioned.
How could this be possible, Jude demanded? You could see from her attitude she really thought she had Phil by the short and curlies this time. The baying chorus in the background thought so to! The implication being that KiwiBuild is being exploited by the wealthy:
Hon Judith Collins: Does the criteria for KiwiBuild pre-qualification reflect his statement that "this Government is committed to providing the opportunity for home ownership to families who are currently locked out of purchasing their first home."?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.
Hon Judith Collins: Is he concerned that official documents show that five of the pre-qualified KiwiBuild buyers had deposits of between $500,000 to $650,000—effectively, meaning they could buy their KiwiBuild house with cash?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No. The data the member is referring to is raw data, unchecked. It's very clear that, for a number of the entries, the data had been entered into the online form on the KiwiBuild website by prospective KiwiBuild buyers incorrectly. In fact, Radio New Zealand, who first reported this story, was told by the KiwiBuild unit that a number of the examples where people had entered what seemed to be a large deposit were cases where, in fact, people had assumed they were supposed to enter the total budget for the house. So, for the purposes that the member is trying to use it, the data is quite unreliable.
Egg (to mix a metaphor) on Jude’s face! She only managed a couple of lame follow-up questions before she shut up. Perhaps Jude’s source within KiwiBuild had set her up?
What Helen Clark lacked in charisma she more than made up for with competence and political nous. Bridges is lacking (and leaking!) in every department.
Well that's good in the circumstances isn't it Sanctuary?
Unfortunately, he has zero charisma and zero charm and zero gravitas so it just comes across as mindless, insincere and slightly hysterical.
You make it sound like something undesirable. I thought you were for the Left. If so you don't need to criticise the Right for not being up to much in your opinion. Let them wallow and encourage the Left to do the best they can with the constraints they have.
As Margaret Thorn said in the title of her book – her memoirs, ‘Stick out, keep left’, published posthumously in 1997.
I know this will be controversial and will probably reflect poorly on me, but I just can't help but feeling a little sorry for him…there I said it.
And yes of course I know and understand that his political ideology is wrong in the head, and hurts the most vulnerable in our society, that his ideology destroys workers rights and the planet etc and so on…actually now that I have typed this out..fuck him, hope it hurts, maybe it will teach him a lesson in humility, but I doubt it.
I'm hearing you and at a guess you feel that way because you are a caring person and that's nothing to feel bad about, instead having caring feels is something to be proud of.
Personally, I don't get angry re simon like I did with john key, instead I end up erupting into gales of laughter and disbelief that his party still backs him.
This week especially he seems to have completely lost his mojo (if he ever had any) question time yesterday was a shocker… I wonder what today will bring.
I hope everyone has taken the time to watch Melanie Reid's report on Oranga Tamariki's attempt to forcibly remove a newborn baby from his mother.
If these 'social workers' are the pick of the Hawke's Bay crop then no fucking wonder there has been little improvement in 'outcomes' for struggling families being 'supported by Oranga Tamariki.
To be honest, I began watching this program with my cynical hat in place…surely this baby is at extreme risk of harm?
There was risk…but not from the young mother…she was being punished for the failings of her family….a situation I am all too familiar with when it comes to CYFs. My last encounter of this nature was over ten years ago…and nothing has changed.
Arrogant, power crazed and incredibly stupid social workers employed by an organsiation that clearly couldn't coordinate a bonk in a brothel much less uplifting a baby from a maternity unit.
And now it appears Oranga Tamariki are suing Newsroom…
Our closest friend here in Australia is a social worker. We know her very well. She is the exact opposite of 'arrogant, power crazed and stupid'. She tells us often of the awful stress of a job where you never know when something terrible is going to go wrong … and while you had no control over it, you will get the blame.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills. It cannot deal with poverty, drugs, mental health, violence or abuse … that is the role of other agencies. Inevitably if a child if removed the mother will be aggrieved; yet no-one asks if the child was not removed and is then harmed what will the mother feel then? There can be no winners in this sad calculus.
There is every reason to demand excellence and high professional standards from social workers, who clearly have a difficult job to do. If the unit in Hawkes Bay is struggling a review and increased support is needed. If their managers are burned out and cynical, they need to be reassigned to other roles less critical.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills.
Err… Whatever the reason, we focus first and foremost on the needs of the child or young person. We work together with families and whānau to resolve any issues, and ensure whānau get the help and support they might need to provide a safe, stable and loving home.
(I am trying to provide excerpts that will convey just wrong those social workers were to treat this young family like criminals.)
Te Huia says whānau believed they were the right people to care for their own and were doing all they could to address and comply with OT’s concerns and expectations
Aside from both grandmothers leaving troubled and violent home lives, the young mother had attended antenatal courses and undertaken a family violence course. A care plan had been created which planned for the young mother and her baby to stay in a whare which supports young Māori mothers for the first six months where she would have around-the-clock care and a multi-disciplinary care team had been initiated around addressing the family’s needs.
Fair enough I overstated the position, but ultimately case workers will be held responsible for the child's welfare and this will always be their first priority.
Clearly it shouldn't be their only priority, helping families to the extent possible and keeping children safe with their whanau is obviously the desirable outcome. But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take. Maybe that does come back to a blame oriented internal culture as I suggested above.
But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take.
A cursory peruse of articles about children dying at the hands of whanau will disprove that statement. In many, many cases CYFs were involved and failed to keep the children safe. In at least one case they very probably caused the abuser to kill the children.
Yes…some kids need uplifting now…don't piss around…
Others, like the whanau above, had been making real efforts with coordinated help and those numpties rode rough shod over everyone.
RL There has been a lot of talk about agencies working together.
But if they are always treating crises and making them also at times, they probably can't set the wheels in motion to co-ordinate with other agencies. They need to be working with a partner in another agency perhaps who they can work well with and immediately work out best way to handle cases for effectiveness.
Rosemary M Here is a John Mortimer story – Rumpole and the Children of the Devil. I haven't watched it myself yet but it is based on a written story with the same name. I thought after your comments about Oranga Tamariki that you would like his window onto what he refers to ironically in the story as 'the caring profession'.
First he explains the background to the story – but his words are voiced by a woman – probably something to do with legal or technological ties.
Gabby. It just struck me that while CYFs, Oranga Tamariki (or whatever they are called today) demand that parents make significant changes in their lives in order to retain custody of their children, they themselves appear wholly incapable as a government agency of making the kinds of changes required to perform their role without causing further trauma.
Someone needs to remind them, again, that a mere name change is not good enough.
A fundamental culture change is needed…which is what they should be supporting that young mother to achieve.
First change I would make to give her and her two children a chance..try and make the average NZ accept that every one needs a roof over their head. Not a car roof, not a temporary shelter roof, not a kiwibuild (trickle down housing policy) but an actual place to call home to raise their children.
Last night around 400 children in the Hawkes Bay alone, slept in motels as a direct result of homelessness and unaffordable housing.
To say nothing of the hundreds who will have slept in overcrowded, possibly dysfunctional, possibly violent households..because they simply have no options.
Homelessness, and equally the constant grinding fear of homelessness, is basicaly the number one punishment our society is willing to inflict upon thousands of families and individuals..despite that fact it pretty much guarantees poor outcomes.
Wrap around services and 'plans' are all very well for this young woman, her babies and her partner…but even the best parent's in the world, are living on the edge of disaster if they are unable to settle in a home.
Years ago we used to foster kids from SIPS, after dealing with their relentless bullshit for a couple of years I had a big angry spin out and after a lots of calls managed to talk to someone well up the food chain. He asked me, "what is the one thing we can do to help make this work better for you and the children you foster", I said I want a flashing signal that flashes every time someone from your organization opens any of our files that says "Don't fuck these people around!", they couldn't have followed my very precise instructions because they kept doing exactly what I asked them not to do.
After caring for a baby in very similar circumstances to Reid's article and finding ourselves the only people on the stage batting for the young mum (to the point of putting in a complaint to the Children's Commission about CYF's handling of the case) we found ourselves on their shit list.
Despite either myself or my partner phoning the CYFs office every day for nearly two months to find out when the Care Plan for this infant was going to arrive we were chastised for 'not communicating' after we complained to the Commission.
We had spoken to a couple who had fostered some thirty years prior to us, and they were saying exactly the same things.
I was told at the outset by friends who knew what they were talking about, that while our intentions were good and right, we were like babes in the woods as far as CYF's were concerned, and it would probably end badly, which it didn't but it was a very unsatisfactory experience to say the least.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
We signed up for emergency and respite care so over 60 children got to have that same experience. There were none who did not need to be in care for at least a short time while the grown ups were assisted by Child, Youth and Family to get their shit sorted.
Trouble is, while we did our bit and kept the kids safe and happyish…CYFs often did sfa to sort out the family.
True that, we had one kid with us for quite a while (over 12 months) and he came out of CYF care while with us, even though this young man had been in their care in one form or another since he was a baby, they had not set up even one thing to help prepare him for his entry in to the wide world, they were in a word…useless.
Its all very well and good to carry on about 'uplifting', but what help are these young parents going to get in future?
Good point. And I don't think there was anyone in NZ (other than Tariana) who was cheering on the Whanau Ora concept louder than myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wh%C4%81nau_Ora
Sadly, and despite Tariana throwing family carers under the bus at the 2013 Budget in return for an extra 1.2 billion bucks towards Maori initiatives including WO…it seems to have come to sfa.
Hawkes Bay has horrendous stats for social dysfunction and you'd think with an active and engaged local iwi there would have been strides made…
BUT…in this particular case there were interventions being made and support structures in place which were ignored and dismissed by the OT social workers.
What are they trying to hide – nice the high charging lawyers are involved – that will help the situation get worse.
Children's agency Oranga Tamariki went to court yesterday seeking orders for cuts to a Newsroomvideo story on a controversial 'uplift' of a Māori baby.
The ministry engaged law firm Kensington Swan and partner Linda Clark to file an urgent memorandum with the Family Court asking for Newsroom to be ordered to change the story by investigations editor Melanie Reid.
marty mars…I have this theory. The un- announced uplifting of Maori babies in certain areas is obviously a problem. The deep involvement and activism from these Maori midwives (who seem to be seriously on to it) and their lawyer has led to them forming a plan to gain as much media publicity as possible…because that's simply how the system works.
They had Reid primed and ready to go on speed dial should another uplift be imminent.
Then they just sat back with the cameras rolling (so to speak) and let those Oranga Tamariki social workers damn themselves and the organisation they work for.
Seems like the OT case against Newsroom smacks of another Lashlie…
Whistleblower Celia Lashlie deserved to be sacked by the Special Education Service last year, her former boss, chief executive Peter Cowley, told MPs yesterday.
An uproar followed Ms Lashlie's dismissal after she spoke out about at-risk children by describing a blond, angelic five-year-old boy from Nelson who was headed for prison. The service said that she had breached client confidentiality. But a month later chairman Graham Lovelock had to resign when an inquiry found she had been unfairly treated.
I just watched the show – so bad. With 3 Māori babies a week being taken then they may have had a few choices but this process for this whānau and young mother seems so shocking.
This isn't going to be able to happen like this anymore – this is going to change.
I was aware of this when it happened but watching really drives how bad the whole thing is. I had to watch even though I didn't want to. It was horrible.
We refer to the question: What sort of creature man’s next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.
Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.
What 1863? Sure it's not 1963? Is that our curse that we can look and imagine so far into the future, and not make enough headway so that society takes note and the leaders consider that thinking as prescient and important and act in accordance with it. Oh for dreams like Back to the Future. The saddest two words in the English language – If only! Have we not looked for persons of a truly philosophic mind when we choose our leaders? Have we any now? And what classification of the minds of our civil servants – are they just basically practical and commonsense people wanting to meet targets so they can get their pay and hopefully, promotion?
Edit.
…giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.
Trundling down Onewa Rd this morning – able to use the T3 so not too bad, In the non-T3 lane, the looks on people's faces! Boredom, despair, and outright depression. How did this pointless, life-sapping stupidity come about?
And the signs from "tiny Dan the economist man" Bidois calling for AT to 'fix' Onewa Rd. No Dan – what we need to fix is the insane need for everyone to be on the road at the same time. It's clear that just about everyone works way too much. We need a much shorter working week and public transport free at the point of use. The realm of freedom begins where the realm of necessity ends.
There are a multitude of ways that a "four day week" can be applied other than the one most recently reported on as a success incl details of how accommodation was made for those who it did or did not suit.
It is all about thinking on your feet, productivity and outcomes and will be a vital part of "the future of work".
Most families have couples working a four day week planned to accommodate two days off immediately reduces the need for full-time or before and after childcare and children farmed out to that less. It can also be a five day but lesser hour day that also caters to younger children's need for adult care and the better productivity achieved in the Perpetual Guardian trial. Besides my husband's business I worked in the private sector as an employee eventually part-time by my choice but completed as many, and some times more, tasks in my 24 hours than others who just occupied their seats often chatting/fiddling for their eight hour day pay.
Finally in regard to some physically active occupations as per my husband's business of laying infrastructure once a contract was won and agreed it almost always had a fairly clear timeline. With some urging and encouragement he recognised that one option was four ten hour days that meant that travel and loading and unloading gear plus set-up was immediately effectively not required for the fifth day that was once worked.
Another aspect that worked had similar set-up savings and that was for example a good run and good planning often meant what may have been estimated as an approx eight week job may often be completed in seven or so weeks. Some businesses will have staff doing meaningless "maintenance" yes that must be done and the time is ideal but punitively requiring staff to turn up for hours for the rest of a week before the next job begins is pointless.
It also meant good will extended to staff work five days when necessary and have the option to accrue "lieu" days – eventually it became a bit of a tradition to have a few of those built up so around Easter no\ jobs were set down to start, all jobs were set to be completed and around that time the lieu days were added to the Easter break for a bit of a build up into winter.
Thinking as you seem to do that the benefits are not there and people need to work and functional in a one size fits all, rigid and inflexible work regime is of no use to anything particularly the productivity improvements NZ needs.
Unbelievably the relentless Russia conspiracy theorist and general nutter Rachel Maddow will moderate first Democratic debates. They could most probably have had more balance if it was hosted by someone from Fox…the clip from below is from 2018, and she still hasn't stopped going on and on and on and on and on and on…..
George Orwell's doublespeak in real time, right in front of our eyes….although this sort of thing coming straight from the hated Whitehouse will help Corbyn not hurt him IMO.
Pompeo pledges not to wait for Britain’s elections to ‘push back’ against Corbyn and anti-Semitism
"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo weighed in on British politics during a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders, saying he would not wait for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister of Britain to “push back” against him or any future actions he might take against Britain’s Jews."
Dianne Crossman, starts her drum beat again to raise the age, despite that such a move will plunge thousands of people into hardship. Especially those who have spent most of their lives in insecure jobs with very low incomes, or on benefits due to medical conditions. The thought of having to wait 2 more years to get NZ Super will break a lot of people. Not that she gives a shit.
Personally I think the age should be dropped back to 60, as I see there are a lot of 60-65 year olds in much hardship, thrown under the bus by their wealthy property owning peers who voted for lower taxes and benefit cuts.
Suggesting raising the age for the pension (superannuation) is a case of bias based on 'my' experience and knowledge trumping any other considerations. I think from my knowledge and experience that a lot of our policy makers, leaders and 'thinkers' come at their task with their minds clear and untramelled by any conflict or confusion of differing opinion and information.
She rightly points out that there are large numbers of older people who are very fit and who are continuing to work and earn past 65. She also points out that people are living longer, (and that can mean that they are receiving the pension for old age for a third of their adult lives).
But simply looking at the cost of the pension to those people, and arbitrarily shifting the threshold age up is a 'commonsense' response to the problem. Having to hunt for jobs when your abilities are not in demand is often hard and soul-breaking up to 65, so no extension of age is going to make the task easier and would be a nasty blow to people under stress of poverty. Also with the decreasing lack of full-time jobs that pay for all living costs in New Zealand, people over 65 filling some that would have been available to younger people, merely pushes the welfare cost down to a younger age. For someone who has a senior well-paying job, to work on for years prevents others on the ladder from rising and building their own savings for retirement, and their seniority and experience is not then fully realised and utilised by their employer.
This appears to be the case with Outgoing Retirement Commissioner Diane Maxwell. (Diana Crossan was Retirement Commissioner for ten years and was replaced by Diane Maxwell.) She is someone who has worked extremely hard in England, owned an advertising business, then in finance consultancy, retail banking and became Regulator of the Financial Markets Authority.
Diane Maxwell has been outspoken about the need to increase the pension age from 65….
Maori and Pacific people also currently have lower life expectancies but Maxwell said that was something to fix outside pension settings. "My partner is Samoan. My son is half-Samoan. I wouldn't want to raise him saying you get super earlier because you're Samoan – what does that say to him? It tells him it's a done deal. I don't think that's right."
Despite:
Researchers Michael Littlewood and Michael Chamberlain have said there is no need for panic.
In their response to Maxwell's 2016 review, they said: "We know that the population aged 65-plus will about double over coming decades and that the costs of healthcare and New Zealand Super will increase substantially if current settings remain. These two major government programmes will be the most directly affected by the ageing population. However, we also know that New Zealand's economy will grow and, barring catastrophes, we should as a country be able to afford more than we currently pay for the age-related programmes…
Forty-four per cent of people aged 65 to 69 are still working and that is expected to increase in future. Others continue even longer. Some of them are even serving as the country's deputy prime minister…
Maxwell said the country had passed a tipping point where most people at 65 were healthy, fit and active and did not see themselves as pensioners…
"If you think about the original intention of super in 1898 back then we weren't expected to make it much past that. Then it went to 60 then back to 65 but where we've got to now, our life expectancy is much longer. Women should expect to get to mid or late 80s, and men mid 80s, broadly. You used to get super for five years, then 10 and now 20 – soon it'll be 30. I'm not sure how we can fund people getting super for 30 years or more."
Then there is the need to examine our financial system. There are ways that government could manage the system of support better. Many of our wealthy percentage now live better than kings and queens of past centuries. But they should not necessarily be cut off from the pension scheme, as they form a small percentage in the nation. There are people who apply their minds to problems within society who can be asked to form working groups and work with academics from the age group who know the problems. They would co-operate and interact through a blog such as this. Suggestions leading to pilot schemes for testing would be more acceptable if they came from the older age group themselves. Everyone doing some volunteer part-time work that utilised their past skills, or new ones that they would like to train for, which would be extra to tasks already employing people as agreed by government, would result in the country running more smoothly and better understanding between age and social classes. And there would be a drop in cost for welfare in other areas. This would not be necessarily pleasing to the wealthy class however, who seem to feel obliged to keep impacting on opportunities for betterment of the strugglers.
An understanding that an increase in cost of pensions does not necessarily mean ruin for the country is also necessary. This requires an understanding of how money is a created asset of will, and the various factors governing its effectiveness in keeping a nation thriving, and in maintaining its value for trading exchanges. Economists have wandered off onto paths that are not appropriate to follow further into our fast-changing future. But new approaches must be formed by others outside the tight measures of historic systems which are grimly held onto by the relative few who want to hold their ephemeral assets, and see their physical assets maintain value.
As someone who argued that super should not be paid to those still working way back in 1983 (a corrrespondence with Anne Hercus, who later brought in surtax), I do support paying super rate benefits to those not working after the age of 60 (unable to work or find work) and of course the income supplement for power to those on super and or benefits.
This is important as the cost of paying super to those working is limiting revenue for public education, health and housing (which could be significanly higher and government still be within 30% GDP).
The cost of paying super to those still working is over $3B pa and is rising fast – will be $5Bpa by the end of the decade.
Given the public interest in this and its importance as a litmus test for New Zealand's judicial system there is shamefully little coverage of this in the New Zealand media.
Kim's fate is as important as Julian Assange's. If the New Zealand government sends Kim to a dungeon in the United States it will mark the end of democracy in this country – as if we haven't already seen which way things are going
I had to search on Google for this. I check the RNZ site regularly.
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom has resided in New Zealand since 2010 and the US case against the Megaupload founder has resulted in a lengthy extradition battle. While it was greenlighted in 2015, it has been repeatedly appealed in various courts since then, ultimately getting to the top judiciary.
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom himself has repeatedly stated that the whole case is an attempt by the US government to further stomp on “web freedom” and if he's prosecuted, any internet provider can be held liable for the “misuse” of their services by the users.
His legal team maintains that the file-sharing service platform itself cannot be blamed for any copyright infringement by the end users. Supporters of the internet entrepreneur share a similar opinion, arguing that it will set a very dangerous precedent – for internet-based businesses.
New Zealand's Court of Appeal has just ordered the NZ govt(which will be down to the justice minister,Little) to reconsider the Amy Adams granted extradition of a Korean accused of the murder of a sex worker in China.
This is because apparently we can't just accept China's assurances that the suspect, if found guilty will not be executed , or tortured
Can we accept any US assurances that Dotcom will be treated fairly and in line with human rights?
Dotcom's "crime" is way below the charge of murder
Speaking of dungeons..given todays announcement of the US formally and fully requesting Assanges extradition..lets revisit and give a massive eye roll at the Guardians wording last month re;America beginning formally requesting extradition…
"Julian Assange has declined a chance to consent to his extradition to the US at a hearing in London as Washington started pressing its case to take him across the Atlantic."
Slightly off topic; more aligned with Julian Assange's case than Dot Com's, but this demonstrates also, how hopelessly useless NZ media is compared to……well
Russia
Russia's three top newspapers – @Vedomosti, @ru_rbc, and @kommersant – are running identical front pages tomorrow in solidarity with @meduzaproject reporter Ivan Golunov, who is facing up to 20 years in prison in apparent retaliation for his work.
I guess it's diverse if Alexei Gromov says it's diverse.
It is widely known that major Russian media outlets — especially television — are controlled by the government. But who actually manages the Kremlin’s grip? This is the story of Alexey Gromov, a former diplomat who has gained great influence and power as Vladimir Putin’s media puppetmaster.
In the spring of 2017, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in about 100 Russian cities to protest political corruption and other problems in national government.
Western media and Russian Internet news outlets published stories about the marches, many focusing on the police who brutally dispersed the crowds and arrested nearly 2,000 protesters. But Russian viewers of the country’s television channels saw little of this. For most of them, the May 26 protests never happened at all.
Described as an unassuming man whose passions include collecting antique coins, Gromov is nonetheless a key manager of the Putin government’s control over what gets said — or not — in Russia’s major print and broadcast media. He is also a co-creator of RT, the international propaganda network formerly known as Russia Today.
Its always been well known that the print media in Russia is way more diverse, unlike our own, and the TV is more aligned to govt viewpoints.Nothing new here
It seems unlikely those who ordered Mr Golunov’s prosecution could have guessed his arrest would prove so controversial and end with disgrace and suspensions. The reporter is not well known beyond liberal circles. And the Russian journalistic community is hardly known for acts of solidarity. But the journalist’s plight provoked an unprecedented multi-level response that surprised almost everyone watching.
Within hours of his detention making the news, hundreds of journalists were picketing the headquarters of Moscow police. Even stars of state propaganda offered messages of support. On Monday, Russia’s leading broadsheets led with the same front page in support of Mr Golunov. Again, this was a historical first and the entire print-run was snapped up before lunchtime.
“I hope with this story something has changed in this profession,” said Ms Timchenko. “I hope that the next time we are offended, attacked or worse, we will respond as one.”
Indeed it does, though it isn't 'us', its mainstream New Zealand media, print, digital, radio and TV.
It must be said though there are some fantastic NZ journalists: Max Rushbroke, David Slack, Chris Trotter, Mihingarangi Forbes, Kirsty Johnstone, Bryan Bruce.
More than any other case, a political decision should not come into it.
Bit late for that. The circumstances of the dodgy assault on his home scream "political decision," so one more here or there doesn't make much difference.
2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions in relation to the alleged unauthorised access of Budget 2019 material?
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Bridges really is a glutton for punishment. IMO he is just making himself look like a fool acting like a broken record. LOL
The question by Amy Adams is of more interest IMO, because she appears to be trying to get around Trevor Mallard's Speaker ruling/warning yesterday in relation to her line of questioning of Robertson under Question 4. Mallard referred her to a ruling some years ago (2012) by Speaker Smith that it is not in the public interest to comment while an independent inquiry is underway.
As I mentioned in a reply I made earlier this morning @ 4.2.2,1. to one by mickysavage under Daily Review 11 June, the transcript of yesterday's Questions 1 and 2 by Bridges are worth reading carefully for the timeline and their exact wording – along with that of Question 4 where Adams (as a trained lawyer) tried to 'lead' Robertson in his answers to her questions but failed thanks to Mallard's preparation/anticipation of the tactic she used and Robertson's careful replies.
Here is the link to the transcript again for all yesterday's questions.
David Parker answered questions on behalf of minister responsible for the GCSB Andrew Little, giving a clear timeline of the events surrounding Hack-gate.
• 8:02pm – Treasury issued its press release advising there had been a deliberate and systemic hack and it had referred this to police
• 8:43pm – Mr Little's office first spoke to the GCSB
• 9:43pm – Mr Little spoke to the GCSB
• 9:52 pm – Mr Little contacted the prime minister's office
• 10:25pm – Mr Little contacted Finance Minister Grant Robertson via text message
(Wonder why the last Government was not put under the same intense scrutiny?)
[Note – I don’t like giving clickbaits to the Herald, but with this new comments system I seem unable to copy and paste into comments which is a real bore. The tool bar says that my browser doesn't enable pasting using the two paste icons in the tool bar and to use Control + Shift + V which does not work and just gives a row of vvvvvvvvvvvs ]
Agree re the last govt not having been subjected to the same level of scrutiny, but I really think that the “Bridges’ approach” is going to backfire on National in the longer term – and already is seen by many as a Wellington Beltway bore.
Test of using the Blockquote facility to paste. ummmm ………
Timeline Tuesday, May 28
• 10:01am: In a press release, National publishes what it claims to be details of the 2019 Budget •
11:30am: Finance Minister Grant Robertson confirms some of the details in National's release are from Budget 2019 •
Afternoon: National releases more Budget details •
2pm: National says its method of accessing the Budget information on the Treasury website is closed down.
bull; Before 6pm: The Treasury asks the cybersecurity unit of the Government Communications Security Bureau about how confidential information on its website was accessed. The GCSB says the Treasury's computer network was not compromised, and the matter should be referred to the police, given that it's not what the GCSB normally responds to •
6pm: Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf refers the matter to the police •
7pm to 7:15pm: Makhlouf meets Robertson in his Beehive office and tells him that he has called in the police. Robertson says that Makhlouf described it as 2000 attempts to "hack" the system. Meeting is later attended by Jacinda Ardern's chief press secretary Andrew Campbell and deputy chief of staff Raj Nahna. •
7:20pm: Robertson calls Ardern to inform her of latest developments • 8:02pm: The Treasury issues a press release saying it has "sufficient evidence" that it had been "deliberately and systematically hacked". It cites the GCSB advice in saying it has been referred to the police. •
8:19pm: Robertson issues a press release, asking National not to release any further information because "the material is a result of a systematic hack". •
8:43pm: The GCSB contacts the office of GCSB Minister Andrew Little to say it doesn't believe any systematic hacking took place. Little is in a meeting. The GCSB contacts the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to pass on its concerns, and Ardern is told soon afterwards. •
9:43pm: Little speaks with the GCSB and then tries to call Robertson. The call is not answered. •
9.52pm: Little contacts Nahna in Ardern's office to pass on the GCSB's concerns. •
10.25pm: Little texts Robertson about the GCSB's concerns. ;.
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Treasury did not release the information early, it was obtained by the National Party using unauthorised access to confidential government information.
The time given is …. and they were also advised to take the matter of the National Party's unauthorised access to Treasury’s confidential information to the police.
It's my view that Bridges belatedly realised he committed a crime and is frantically diverting all over the shop in an attempt to set the agenda. A conviction would not just sink his political career, but call into question any future legal one as well.
And I know I'd never employ a lawyer who'd been so reckless as to leak the Budget and then crow about it after.
No wonder he cannot let it go; it's keeping him awake at night.
I think I may have accidentally stumbled on what was meant by a government that is 'transformational'. But it still doesn't explain the lack of "reinvention of government' or the lack of adequate "interaction with its citizens' (or various other things like being open and kind, or even some of the dithering).
I had been interrupted while doing a g-g-g-google on Oranga Tamariki (anxious to see why not much has changed, or is transformational), and government, then later (using the same unfulfilled g-g-g-google window) typing 'transformational'. Low and behold:
It possibly does explain things like demographic EXCEL spreadsheets and generic public servant managers entirely out of their depth though, and even deference to those 'officials' considered to be the experts. Maybe I should see 'Gabs' in a different light, and even why some of those 'progressive generic manager' types thought the use of T&C would be OK at the parliamentary corral. (Codes of Conduct, Purchase Agreements and Performance Appraisals ALL aside)
Maybe some of the failings are just down to 'The Computer Says NO'
In a former life as a Systems Programmer many years past, I've never forgotten what a couple of my managers said to me: One being one of those 10 pound Poms and expert in various network protocols, the other responsible for being the author of an entire operating system that supported our banking system for years.
"People should drive technology" and conversely "technology should not drive people".
By which they meant that people were the starting point, rather than here's a piece of technology, so now let's see what it can do for us.
Which is why we spent a lot of time determining what it was that 'people' – i.e. human beings' requirements were as the staring point, and if need be, developing and even manufacturing hardware to effect things like remote switching mechanisms, and 99.9% availability, etc. etc. etc.
I'm thinking that the day machinery is able to feel emotion, to empathise rather than sympathise and structure some templated version of a response, and the day it isn't versed in spin and obfuscation – unable to get its registers and storage knickers in a twist, is the day I'll renew my interest in things IT (as opposed to ICT). Probably also the day those generic managers will be out of business although really, they should be already ("ultimately, going forward")
is getting the right answer even if you weren’t planning it a good thing ?
many here have commented on the wrong direction the govt is heading re Kiwibuild (welfare for the middle class) instead of placing all the efforts into HNZ and those in need. Somehow we have in the short term got it right imo
If the government concentrated on one over the other, the house build programme would not carry widespread support – a recent poll showed people still support KiwiBuild.
KiwiBuild is a way to boost supply to constrain upward rents that is affordable – given the 30% government to GDP (and 20% debt target between now and 2022 this is important) limitation
PS It's inevitable sales will extend to those going from one bedroom flats and apartments to family homes.
The site went live at 9:30am on Tuesday and within minutes bookings for the 70 beds in huts along the track were full for December and January….
There has also been a rise in the number of New Zealand residents booking to walk the tracks.
DoC says the number of Kiwis booking has risen since last year and credits it to a "different pricing trial in place on four of the Great Walks". The Milford, Kepler, Routeburn and Abel Tasman Coast Tracks all have a special price for International visitors which is up to double the fees New Zealand residents will pay….
Further bookings for the Great Walk tracks are being released this week and are expected to be popular, Mr Taylor says, 'If it's anything like previous seasons you'll need to be in quick." Bookings for the tracks will come out on the following days:
Routeburn Track & Paparoa Track
Wednesday 12th June 2019, 9.30am
Abel Tasman Coast Track, Tongariro Northern Circuit & Kepler Track
Thursday 13th June 2019, 9.30am
(So get in Kiwis that can afford the cost to get in and enjoy. A great chance to enjoy your own scenic splendour while you can. Also it would be good if Kiwis had first dibs in the main holidays and in school holidays.) International visitors can have their opportunities outside our holidays- seems fair – we don't have that many.
I think we need more saints days and memorial days for past great luminaries!)
Vladimir Alexandrovich Kolokoltsev is a Russian politician and policeman who was the Moscow Police Commissioner from 2009 to 2012. He has been serving as Russian Minister of Internal Affairs from 21 May 2012.
Had a long meeting this morning with a couple of locals who carry some weight, left feeling rather uplifted as we are going to work together to help our community, especially the kids at the high school with mental health and bullying. Yay!!!!
In the past there have been various parent evenings or off campus talks, but those who attend aren't the people that necessarily need the help the most.
We want to get some prominent speakers to come and address the whole school, captive audience and all that. So are now taking steps to make it happen.
Found out the principal thinks that there is a mandate with the ministry of ed preventing such speakers coming to talk. So I rang the ministry of ed who said there is no such mandate. Made me wonder if there was such a mandate with the prior government. Turns out it's up to the BOT if they want it to happen, rather than the principal, and I know the BOT will be on our side with this 🙂
Will let you know how we get on. I've been racking my brains for a different anti bullying system as the one at school doesn't work. What I have figured out is, many of the bullies have their own issues. Am trying to find the common ground and it seems to be the mental health of all.
If I discover some awesome tools etc will def share. Kids around here are killing themselves, it's our towns dirty secret and needs to be addressed big time.
Feeling really positive about it all, it's great that a couple of well known high up community members are on board, that's a huge deal. Progress yay and motivation from the well being budget, excellent 🙂
That is the sort of action NZers should hope to see and be part of if they can, everything that can be improved or resolved is one problem less and is a "saving" – it is up to NZers to add momentum behind govt to improve NZers lives it is not just a money issue though that is necessary a changed mindset is crucial.
A good education will help you into a job and start to your adult life. An excellent education will place you above those with a good education.
Education Parents Gone Wild: High Drama Inside D.C.’s Most Elite Private School At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families. 5/6/2019
School officials have repeatedly warned parents, who represent the pinnacle of elite Washington, about their offensive conduct. In January, the head of the school, Bryan Garman, sent a remarkable letter to parents of seniors in which he demanded that they stop “the verbal assault of employees.” He also reiterated a policy banning them from recording conversations with counselors and making calls to counselors from blocked phone numbers. Garman also suggested that some parents were responsible for the “circulation of rumors about students….”
Anger, vitriol, and deceptiveness have come to define highly selective college admissions. In the now notorious Varsity Blues scandal, the desire from wealthy parents to get their children into such elite institutions as Yale and the University of Southern California led them to lie on applications and obtain fake SAT scores. At Sidwell Friends, one of America’s most famous Quaker schools, the desire manifested itself in bad behaviors—including parents spreading rumors about other students, ostensibly so that their children could get a leg up, the letter said. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/06/sidwell-friends-college-admissions-varsity-blues/591124/
(Sidwell Friends, run by the Quakers – Heaven Knows, Anything Goes!)
I think this shows Affluenza.
In 2007, British psychologist Oliver James asserted that there was a correlation between the increasing occurrence of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality: the more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens.[5] Referring to Vance Packard's thesis The Hidden Persuaders on the manipulative methods used by the advertising industry, James related the stimulation of artificial needs to the rise in affluenza. To highlight the spread of affluenza in societies with varied levels of inequality, James interviewed people in several cities including Sydney, Singapore, Auckland, Moscow, Shanghai, Copenhagen and New York.
In 2008 James wrote that higher rates of mental disorders were the consequence of excessive wealth-seeking in consumerist nations.[6] In a graph created from multiple data sources, James plotted "Prevalence of any emotional distress" and "Income inequality", attempting to show that English-speaking nations have nearly twice as much emotional distress as mainland Europe and Japan: 21.6 percent vs 11.5 percent
Chlöe Swarbrick got owned by the Hosk this morning There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers on legalising pot I was in Portugal last year ( Lisbon) and smelt it everywhere day and night To say legalising pot won’t increase its propensity in society is silly at best
No idea what you’re talking about but I agree that individual and/or anecdotal ‘evidence’ always trumps research papers, each and every time. For example, I once knew a person who had been heavy smoker all his life and he lived until he was 85. So, to say that smoking causes lung cancer and kills is just rubbish. BTW, he died a horrible death from colon cancer because he used to smoke fish.
There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers…
Thank you for declaring this preference for anecdata that supports your personal prejudice over actual research. It explains a lot about your comments.
Note the proviso “selective” PM End of day people will decide and I suspect the majority will go with common sense, real life experience and values over social science quackery A discipline dominated by leftwing bias and constructs
Twitter is an echo chamber of left Cinny, it not the real world Look I get it was a bit of ad hominium from Hoskins, but for this subject I do feel age and experience, having kids etc does have bearing on your credibility with this topic God listening to Chlöe was like listening to a 12 year old lecture you on climate change
What's most worrying, said Andrew Thurber, an associate professor of ocean ecology at the University of Oregon, is that nobody saw this year's event coming.
…"We didn't expect it, we didn't predict it," Dr Thurber said. "The models didn't predict this to be a bleaching year. Mo'orea wasn't supposed to bleach and yet all of a sudden something's shifted and it's an incredibly widespread event."
Coral bleaching happens when the sea temperature rises to a point that puts coral under intense stress, causing them to separate from the plant-like organisms that give their colours, as well as their oxygen, waste filtration and up to 90 percent of their energy….
"The only time that it last hit those temperatures was 2016, when it hit for a few days," Dr Thurber said. "It's hit it numerous, numerous times this year."
While Dr Thurber added that it was too early to conclude whether this was a trend being seen at Mo'orea, studies from other parts of the world paint a dire picture for much of the planet – and especially the Pacific's – coral reefs , particularly as the oceans continue to warm rapidly, in some cases up to 40 percent more than previously forecast….
Last year's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that if global warming was limited to 1.5 degrees celsius – the target set and signed up to by most governments under the Paris Agreement – coral reefs would still decline by between 70 and 90 percent.
And a study published in April by Australian scientists, which focussed on the Great Barrier Reef, found that global warming had hampered its ability to recover from large-scale bleaching in both 2016 and 2017. The researchers said the time between bleachings would shrink as global warming intensified.
"Dead corals don't make babies," said the study's lead author, Professor Terry Hughes from Australia's James Cook University, in a news release."We have noticed more events like that, high temperatures," Mr Siu said. "We've also seen more wave events coming from hurricanes."…
Coral reefs effectively act as the lungs of the ocean, producing more than half of the oxygen that humans breathe and, in turn, regulating both air and water temperatures.
Reefs are also home to about a quarter of all marine life, ranging from microscopic plankton, through to colourful reef fish, sharks and giant whales. This life is critical for communities like Mo'orea and Tahiti, which depend on them for food, protection, recreation and livelihoods.
Not waiting
When an 18-year-old Titouan Bernicot first saw the coral bleaching of 2016, he was surfing with his school friends. Shocked by what he saw, he wasn't going to wait for either the territorial or the French government to act.
"We started to realise the coral reefs give us everything in our lives," he said. The waves they surfed on. The fish they ate when they returned to Mo'orea's white shores. The jobs their parents relied on – tourism, the pearl industry, fishing. "Everything is all connected," he said. Motivated to act, Mr Bernicot and friends formed the Mo'orea Coral Gardeners, a group that set about trying to restore the island's reef. It started with them trying to replant coral cuttings in other parts of the reef.Three years later, Mr Bernicot's movement is bigger than he ever imagined….
Mr Bernicot said this year's bleaching has been disheartening. "This year, everyone is concerned," he said. But if anything, he added, it's given him further drive. His planting effort has intensified, and he's more motivated than ever.
"It's simple. If we do nothing, nothing is going to happen, and the reef will die." "If we do nothing my children will ask me, 'why didn't you do something?'"
Just what we didn't need. A great big retail chain spilling across land in Auckland that we could have grown food on and had social housing on.
But no this monster is going to take business off established retailers large and small and undercut everybody and the profits will go offshore. There are people going to be employed. But there will be businesses closing down – stalemate. And Phil Goff is there smiling. It is supposed to be good. All this buying of land for business to tap into our veins and bleed us to death. But the land speculators will be smiling. They are on a gold mine.
And there will be more biggies. We have IKEA. FGS we are only a country of 4 million people and we have plenty of competition already. We have low wages so that NZrs can't afford what these stores are offering. But with luck they will be able to keep pumping food into themselves so they can have the strength to go out and buy, buy. Wanting the big stores is like star-struck rural innocents who get a supermarket and a mall and think they have made it. It has a superficial charm but the Walmart success for the owners has been a bad dream of small shop owners in the heart of town; it cuts them out.
We are presented with the big figures – gasp everyone.
Costco US $138 billion
750 Warehouse stores
Employs 245,000+ people
94m members worldwide (Best buys to members about $60 annual fee)
When we want to edge up our minimum wage – guess who will be against that. And threatening us with some legal action for loss of profits. Why a raise will be likened to some socialist plot to nationalise the country. Whoa!
That is an interesting thought for these interesting times. It could be that the foreign owners will decide to go green by adopting a no footprint-that-might-contain-money principle when they tidy up their finances for each quarter's market report. The site will be left clean and free from dirty lucre.
When I was posted to Melbourne many moons ago, my partner now wife and I went to Costco located in the Docklands area for a bit of a look. Unless you were prepared to buy in bulk and I mean bulk aka you have one of those big yankie F250 utes or bigger. It was rather pointless signing up for the annual fee as we would've probably bought a enough bog roll and tissues to last a year and as I had a five bedroom Defence House storage wasn't a issue for us two.
We got a better choice and better savings between Coles, Woollies, Aldi, IGA all within a 1-2km radius.
In other words Costco wasn't much chop for us two.
So just as we are trying to introduce the idea of buying less, and reusing and recycling, this crowd will be trying to sell in bulk offering cheap prices based on a single item but you have to buy 10 towels etc.
It catches the psychology of someone poor buying on price, but they can't control themselves from paying $15 when the only wanted one towel if it was $1.50. The shopper feels they got a deal at a bargain price, but don't recognise they're being sucked in and now have 9 towels on their hands that they have to store somewhere or give away or try and sell on themselves.
Agree with you on this. EKF mentioned Aldis a German chain that we use all the time. Key point of difference, smaller stores typically only about 1000m2 and lots of them. About one store per 20,000 people. All the key grocery and fresh food items are there, but a limited selection. Instead of dozen brands of say yoghurt there will be only two. Also they have a good line of in house organics.
The other fascinating thing they do, which is a bit of a hook I will admit, is that the centre aisle of the store is used for a constantly rotating selection of all sorts of things you don't expect, everything literally from power tools, clothing, appliances, workout gear, camping kit and the like. Often good quality and great prices. What they do is buy a line in bulk, then use the empty backloading from the grocery lines to rotate to the next store. It's often only there for a week or two at most so you have to make up your mind or you miss out.
The upshot is very good value for money. Two of us typically shop about once every ten days, and will fill a standard trolley for about A$130 – 150 depending on how many splurge items we got. On the whole I think we spend about 65% less on our groceries than in NZ.
They have the buying power and it's damn hard to compete with them. There will have to be a bond formed between NZ buyers and certified NZ owned stores so that we support each other. We have been conditioned to think globalised and our own enterprises have been sidelined and gone bust. If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is. When you think that technology is doing so many out of a job, how do the planners expect to people to manage. There is still an attitude of derision for 'lazy' people by others who hardly know how to do anything for themselves, and never waste time thinking!
If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is.
Not going to happen. People will buy best value for money … as they judge value.
Some purchases I make a point of buying local, because like you I do place a value on it, especially where there is added relationship value from sales and support expertise.
Then there is this interesting model with a Japanese chain Muji that has a subtly different business model, also reducing selection but offering product longevity and value.
“This will do.”
It’s an unusual emotion for a retail chain to evoke from its shoppers, but it’s exactly how Japanese powerhouse Muji wants consumers to feel when perusing its vast array of goods.
And it’s working.
The chain opened its first store in Melbourne in 2013 selling a selection of unbranded minimalist clothes, stationery and furniture.
Its strategy lends itself to its sustainable ethos — Muji focuses on recycling and wants to reduce waste in production and packaging.
The clothes are gender neutral and have no logos as part of its no-brand policy.
There is an inherent tension between the efficiency and innovation of globalisation and the desire to retain local identity and diversity. It's plays out at every scale, from villages, towns, cities and nations and largely it's a healthy thing.
not going to happen shark people will vote with their wallets as the way it should be. If the values you highlight are real Costco are rooted, however I suspect you are in a small minority ;
A very interesting article from the people who compile the World Peace Index, saying the CC is going to be a major threat to world peace in the coming years/ decades with the Asia Pacific region the biggest concern and according to the ABC up to a million Aussies will be affected “No shit Sherlock” was my response while the article.
Sugary drinks need the ass taxed out of them all forms of sugar in our food needs to be lowered ma te wa Papatuanuku was not made in a day Jacinda will sort our sugar problem in good time.
Lloyd it hotting up in British politics everyone knows my opinion on brexit and boris it raining here to m8 we need it we are on rain water tank supply.
Our Marae has just been refurbish and new carvings it makes me so proud te whanau have cared and love our Marae it gives Eco Maori a sore face.
Its cool to see you supporting Wahine in hard times the Wahine in the jails need all the help they can get Annah Strettons journey behind bars is the organization Anna has a new book The Raw TRUTH please buy her book and you will be helping these vaunrable Wahine.
Petra I back you in your opinion we need more Maori in management in Oranga tamariki even tho there was a court order for the up lifting of the pepe the glasses that the people who applied and signed the order would not understand the circumstances of the mother and the whanau reo people from a different worlds should not be making choices for the lower class common people you need people who love and understand te tangata to make a fair CALL. I can see we're Ryan is coming from some pepe need to be uplifted for their health and safety. My be a Kau matua needs to sign the papers a well to make the order fairer and un biased.
Eco Maori hopes that they find a cure for the illness of Aotearoa beautiful flightless Parrots the kakapo. I hope doc gets all the resources that they need to fix this problem.
World’s fattest parrot, the endangered kākāpō, could be wiped out by fungal infection
Seven of the birds native to New Zealand have died, with just 142 adults remaining
The world’s fattest parrot is facing an existential threat in the form of a dangerous fungal infection which has already endangered a fifth of its species.
Seven of New Zealand’s native kākāpō have died in recent months after falling victim to the respiratory disease aspergillosis. The latest was on Tuesday, where a 100-day-old chick died at the Auckland Zoo
The nocturnal and flightless parrot ingratiated itself with world after it mated with a zoologist’s head during a BBC documentary. The incident led it to being described as the “party parrot” and finding a life-long fan in Stephen Fry.
Kākāpō, whose males can grow to 4.8 pounds (2.2kg), were once found in large numbers all over New Zealand. However, habitat destruction and pest invasion forced the bird to edge of extinction.
Critically endangered kākāpō – the world's fattest parrot – has record breeding season
The discovery of a previously unknown population of kākāpō in the 1970s led to a resurgence of their numbers. The parrot was then the focus of a conservation effort that saw the bird’s population rise from a low of 51 ageing birds to three times that number.
This year, a team of more than 100 scientists, rangers and volunteers worked to make it the biggest breeding season on record.
Despite that effort, Auckland Zoo’s head of veterinary services Dr James Chatterton said the future of the birds hangs in the balance ka kite ano link below.
I Winston it is cool that the teachers strike has been called off and they have settled.
The statue smith is just spraying wai into the tawhirimate if he was still in power there would have been no extra money for tangata whenua O Aotearoa they were dishing it out in tax cuts.
Its good that there is a new kuakaupapa being built .
I agree with Jacinda we need to comite to mitigating climate change or our Pacific cousins will lose out
Awesome Mrs Mason for her transaction of a diary of Anne Frank's
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Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
Data released today by Statistics NZ shows that unemployment rose to 5.1%, with 33,000 more people out of work than last year said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “The latest data shows that employment fell in Aotearoa at its fastest rate since the GFC. Unemployment rose in 8 ...
The December labour market statistics have been released, showing yet another increase in unemployment. There are now 156,000 unemployed - 34,000 more than when National took office. And having thrown all these people out of work, National is doubling down on cruelty. Because being vicious will somehow magically create the ...
Boarded up homes in Kilbirnie, where work on a planned development was halted. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 5 are;Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announcedKāinga Ora would be stripped of ...
This week Kiwirail and Auckland Transport were celebrating the completion of the summer rail works that had the network shut or for over a month and the start of electric trains to Pukekohe. First up, here’s parts of the press release about the shutdown works. Passengers boarding trains in Auckland ...
Through its austerity measures, the coalition government has engineered a rise in unemployment in order to reduce inflation while – simultaneously – cracking down harder and harder on the people thrown out of work by its own policies. To that end, Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week added two ...
This year, we've seen a radical, white supremacist government ignoring its Tiriti obligations, refusing to consult with Māori, and even trying to legislatively abrogate te Tiriti o Waitangi. When it was criticised by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government sabotaged that body, replacing its legal and historical experts with corporate shills, ...
Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
President Trump on the day he announced tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, unleashing a shock to supply chains globally that is expected to slow economic growth and increase inflation for most large economies. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 9 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 3Politics: New Zealand Government cabinet meeting usually held early afternoon with post-cabinet news conference possible at 4 pm, although they have not been ...
Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
A battle between health officials and local councils is heating up, as one government party seeks to change the rules. The Bulletin’s Stewart Sowman-Lund explains. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
A global consultancy will lead the government's review of electricity markets, with a local firm offering advice and two groups of experts providing quality assurance. ...
New Public Service Minister Judith Collins is calling for a culture of saying 'yes', but being honest enough with ministers to "reconcile the vision with reality". ...
The future of nearly a third of all huts and tracks managed by the Department of Conservation is in limbo, as the agency faces a 30 percent shortfall in funding to maintain them. ...
Today I’ve had a bit on. I’m living in a 23.4 metre tug off the coast of Samoa and have been for a few weeks now. I’m on a top-secret mission to help save the planet from another potential environmental disaster.I’m currently tasked with looking out the window and making ...
The ‘loneliness epidemic’ is apparently spreading around the world, but what does it look like here in New Zealand? Rachel Judkins reports. It’s a beautiful summer evening in Cornwall Park, with families scattered on the grass and a live band playing a backing track to their laughter. Sprawled on a ...
The Act leader gets a telling-off from the principal and prime minister Christopher Luxon loses his cool in a heated question time. Echo Chamber is The Spinoff’s dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus. ...
A Government proposal to axe the only two jobs in New Zealand’s health sector of people who were working on a national strategy for palliative care has angered those in the sector, which is already under immense strain.It’s put another wedge between those who want terminally ill patients to live ...
The High Court isn’t the appropriate place to solve a South Island iwi’s claims over freshwater, the Crown says.Ngāi Tahu leaders, and the collective Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, are taking legal action against the Attorney-General, demanding to be involved in decision-making over freshwater. Iwi want the Crown to recognise ...
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Opinion: It was the 10th anniversary of UNESCO’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science this week, the theme being ‘Unpacking STEM Careers: Her Voice in Science’. It is 2025, but we still need a lot more of her voices in science.In New Zealand, a 2021 survey found that ...
NewsroomBy Dr Jennifer Kruger and Dr Kelly Burrowes
COMMENTARY:By Sawsan Madina I watched US President Donald Trump’s joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week in utter disbelief. Not that the idea, or indeed the practice, of ethnic cleansing of Palestine is new. But at that press conference the mask has fallen. Recently, fascism ...
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Jotham Napat has been elected as the new prime minister of Vanuatu. Napat was elected unopposed in Port Vila today, receiving 50 votes with two void votes. He is the country’s fifth prime minister in four years and will lead a coalition government made up of five political parties — ...
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Apart from how pathetic Soimon was in the house yesterday, another significant own goal occurred. I hope people noticed!
Judith, fangs metaphorically dripping blood, a supercilious smile on her face, asked her usual biting question of Phil Twiford. It seems some first home buyers under the KiwiBuild scheme were able to raise the whole cost of a new home – a figure of $650,000 was mentioned.
How could this be possible, Jude demanded? You could see from her attitude she really thought she had Phil by the short and curlies this time. The baying chorus in the background thought so to! The implication being that KiwiBuild is being exploited by the wealthy:
Hon Judith Collins: Does the criteria for KiwiBuild pre-qualification reflect his statement that "this Government is committed to providing the opportunity for home ownership to families who are currently locked out of purchasing their first home."?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: Yes.
Hon Judith Collins: Is he concerned that official documents show that five of the pre-qualified KiwiBuild buyers had deposits of between $500,000 to $650,000—effectively, meaning they could buy their KiwiBuild house with cash?
Hon PHIL TWYFORD: No. The data the member is referring to is raw data, unchecked. It's very clear that, for a number of the entries, the data had been entered into the online form on the KiwiBuild website by prospective KiwiBuild buyers incorrectly. In fact, Radio New Zealand, who first reported this story, was told by the KiwiBuild unit that a number of the examples where people had entered what seemed to be a large deposit were cases where, in fact, people had assumed they were supposed to enter the total budget for the house. So, for the purposes that the member is trying to use it, the data is quite unreliable.
Egg (to mix a metaphor) on Jude’s face! She only managed a couple of lame follow-up questions before she shut up. Perhaps Jude’s source within KiwiBuild had set her up?
This opposition really is a total shambles!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/113382143/kiwibuild-applicants-earning-just-11000-able-to-raise-650000
Wonder if they ever issue a correction?
Oh dear simon has done it again…..shameful interview on RNZ this morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=265&v=sbTzDVlzTmU
I think I know what the issue is….. he doesn't listen.
A man with boy’s ears 😉
What he does is relentlessly and robotically repeats bumper sticker slogans that they've clearly got a good reaction for from focus groups.
Unfortunately, he has zero charisma and zero charm and zero gravitas so it just comes across as mindless, insincere and slightly hysterical.
In particular, a leader have to have charisma, and Simon just doesn't.
What Helen Clark lacked in charisma she more than made up for with competence and political nous. Bridges is lacking (and leaking!) in every department.
Well that's good in the circumstances isn't it Sanctuary?
Unfortunately, he has zero charisma and zero charm and zero gravitas so it just comes across as mindless, insincere and slightly hysterical.
You make it sound like something undesirable. I thought you were for the Left. If so you don't need to criticise the Right for not being up to much in your opinion. Let them wallow and encourage the Left to do the best they can with the constraints they have.
As Margaret Thorn said in the title of her book – her memoirs, ‘Stick out, keep left’, published posthumously in 1997.
https://www.artybees.co.nz/thorn-margaret/stick-out-keep-left-autobiography-margaret-thorn
I know this will be controversial and will probably reflect poorly on me, but I just can't help but feeling a little sorry for him…there I said it.
And yes of course I know and understand that his political ideology is wrong in the head, and hurts the most vulnerable in our society, that his ideology destroys workers rights and the planet etc and so on…actually now that I have typed this out..fuck him, hope it hurts, maybe it will teach him a lesson in humility, but I doubt it.
I know this will be controversial and will probably reflect poorly on me, but I just can't help but feeling a little sorry for him…there I said it.
He reminds me of …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NUjWiRp-vc
and…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzA3Q1HS0I0
Theoretically hilarious, but I could never see the funny side. Kinda pathetic.
Empathy and compassion aren't just for our friends
good for you Adrian!
I'm hearing you and at a guess you feel that way because you are a caring person and that's nothing to feel bad about, instead having caring feels is something to be proud of.
Personally, I don't get angry re simon like I did with john key, instead I end up erupting into gales of laughter and disbelief that his party still backs him.
This week especially he seems to have completely lost his mojo (if he ever had any) question time yesterday was a shocker… I wonder what today will bring.
I hope everyone has taken the time to watch Melanie Reid's report on Oranga Tamariki's attempt to forcibly remove a newborn baby from his mother.
If these 'social workers' are the pick of the Hawke's Bay crop then no fucking wonder there has been little improvement in 'outcomes' for struggling families being 'supported by Oranga Tamariki.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/113395638/new-zealands-own-stolen-generation-the-babies-taken-by-oranga-tamariki
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018699080/nz-s-own-stolen-generation
Has anyone heard a peep out of Anne Tolley about it all?
Has anyone heard a peep out of Anne Tolley about it all?
I wouldn't expect to, would you?
Where's Sepuloni? Off pretending she gives a damn about disability issues…https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/minister-disability-issues-visit-united-nations-and-canada
And Martin….denies and denies….https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2019/05/oranga-tamariki-isn-t-snatching-babies-children-s-minister-tracey-martin.html
To be honest, I began watching this program with my cynical hat in place…surely this baby is at extreme risk of harm?
There was risk…but not from the young mother…she was being punished for the failings of her family….a situation I am all too familiar with when it comes to CYFs. My last encounter of this nature was over ten years ago…and nothing has changed.
Arrogant, power crazed and incredibly stupid social workers employed by an organsiation that clearly couldn't coordinate a bonk in a brothel much less uplifting a baby from a maternity unit.
And now it appears Oranga Tamariki are suing Newsroom…
Our closest friend here in Australia is a social worker. We know her very well. She is the exact opposite of 'arrogant, power crazed and stupid'. She tells us often of the awful stress of a job where you never know when something terrible is going to go wrong … and while you had no control over it, you will get the blame.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills. It cannot deal with poverty, drugs, mental health, violence or abuse … that is the role of other agencies. Inevitably if a child if removed the mother will be aggrieved; yet no-one asks if the child was not removed and is then harmed what will the mother feel then? There can be no winners in this sad calculus.
There is every reason to demand excellence and high professional standards from social workers, who clearly have a difficult job to do. If the unit in Hawkes Bay is struggling a review and increased support is needed. If their managers are burned out and cynical, they need to be reassigned to other roles less critical.
Oranga Tamariki is however tasked with just one job, protecting children. It is not there to fix families or solve social ills.
Err… Whatever the reason, we focus first and foremost on the needs of the child or young person. We work together with families and whānau to resolve any issues, and ensure whānau get the help and support they might need to provide a safe, stable and loving home.
https://www.orangatamariki.govt.nz/how-we-get-involved/overview/
Did you actually watch the video RL?
I did. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/06/12/623624/the-midwife-fighting-for-her-patients-babies
(I am trying to provide excerpts that will convey just wrong those social workers were to treat this young family like criminals.)
Te Huia says whānau believed they were the right people to care for their own and were doing all they could to address and comply with OT’s concerns and expectations
Aside from both grandmothers leaving troubled and violent home lives, the young mother had attended antenatal courses and undertaken a family violence course. A care plan had been created which planned for the young mother and her baby to stay in a whare which supports young Māori mothers for the first six months where she would have around-the-clock care and a multi-disciplinary care team had been initiated around addressing the family’s needs.
Fair enough I overstated the position, but ultimately case workers will be held responsible for the child's welfare and this will always be their first priority.
Clearly it shouldn't be their only priority, helping families to the extent possible and keeping children safe with their whanau is obviously the desirable outcome. But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take. Maybe that does come back to a blame oriented internal culture as I suggested above.
But it seems that all too often that's a gamble OT staff are not willing to take.
A cursory peruse of articles about children dying at the hands of whanau will disprove that statement. In many, many cases CYFs were involved and failed to keep the children safe. In at least one case they very probably caused the abuser to kill the children.
Yes…some kids need uplifting now…don't piss around…
Others, like the whanau above, had been making real efforts with coordinated help and those numpties rode rough shod over everyone.
And what of the partner of the woman involved?
RL There has been a lot of talk about agencies working together.
But if they are always treating crises and making them also at times, they probably can't set the wheels in motion to co-ordinate with other agencies. They need to be working with a partner in another agency perhaps who they can work well with and immediately work out best way to handle cases for effectiveness.
Rosemary M Here is a John Mortimer story – Rumpole and the Children of the Devil. I haven't watched it myself yet but it is based on a written story with the same name. I thought after your comments about Oranga Tamariki that you would like his window onto what he refers to ironically in the story as 'the caring profession'.
First he explains the background to the story – but his words are voiced by a woman – probably something to do with legal or technological ties.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jilyC-KUYHE
How would you avoid punishing her for the failings of her family?
Gabby. It just struck me that while CYFs, Oranga Tamariki (or whatever they are called today) demand that parents make significant changes in their lives in order to retain custody of their children, they themselves appear wholly incapable as a government agency of making the kinds of changes required to perform their role without causing further trauma.
Someone needs to remind them, again, that a mere name change is not good enough.
A fundamental culture change is needed…which is what they should be supporting that young mother to achieve.
Words of wisdom and experience that sounds Rosemary. It is no wonder that you get a bit testy FTTT.
First change I would make to give her and her two children a chance..try and make the average NZ accept that every one needs a roof over their head. Not a car roof, not a temporary shelter roof, not a kiwibuild (trickle down housing policy) but an actual place to call home to raise their children.
Last night around 400 children in the Hawkes Bay alone, slept in motels as a direct result of homelessness and unaffordable housing.
To say nothing of the hundreds who will have slept in overcrowded, possibly dysfunctional, possibly violent households..because they simply have no options.
Homelessness, and equally the constant grinding fear of homelessness, is basicaly the number one punishment our society is willing to inflict upon thousands of families and individuals..despite that fact it pretty much guarantees poor outcomes.
Wrap around services and 'plans' are all very well for this young woman, her babies and her partner…but even the best parent's in the world, are living on the edge of disaster if they are unable to settle in a home.
Years ago we used to foster kids from SIPS, after dealing with their relentless bullshit for a couple of years I had a big angry spin out and after a lots of calls managed to talk to someone well up the food chain. He asked me, "what is the one thing we can do to help make this work better for you and the children you foster", I said I want a flashing signal that flashes every time someone from your organization opens any of our files that says "Don't fuck these people around!", they couldn't have followed my very precise instructions because they kept doing exactly what I asked them not to do.
Sounds like nothing has changed.
After caring for a baby in very similar circumstances to Reid's article and finding ourselves the only people on the stage batting for the young mum (to the point of putting in a complaint to the Children's Commission about CYF's handling of the case) we found ourselves on their shit list.
Despite either myself or my partner phoning the CYFs office every day for nearly two months to find out when the Care Plan for this infant was going to arrive we were chastised for 'not communicating' after we complained to the Commission.
We had spoken to a couple who had fostered some thirty years prior to us, and they were saying exactly the same things.
SSDD.
Oh CYF's that's right must have blocked that out.
I was told at the outset by friends who knew what they were talking about, that while our intentions were good and right, we were like babes in the woods as far as CYF's were concerned, and it would probably end badly, which it didn't but it was a very unsatisfactory experience to say the least.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
That being said I don't regret for minute the decision to get involved, the kids who came through got to exist in a pretty happy, somewhat functional and loving home for a while, and that was not nothing for some of them.
We signed up for emergency and respite care so over 60 children got to have that same experience. There were none who did not need to be in care for at least a short time while the grown ups were assisted by Child, Youth and Family to get their shit sorted.
Trouble is, while we did our bit and kept the kids safe and happyish…CYFs often did sfa to sort out the family.
True that, we had one kid with us for quite a while (over 12 months) and he came out of CYF care while with us, even though this young man had been in their care in one form or another since he was a baby, they had not set up even one thing to help prepare him for his entry in to the wide world, they were in a word…useless.
Its all very well and good to carry on about 'uplifting', but what help are these young parents going to get in future?
Or are they going to be sent home with a few pamphlets and a list of 0800 numbers and expected to flounder around on their own?
Its all very well and good to carry on about 'uplifting', but what help are these young parents going to get in future?
Good point. And I don't think there was anyone in NZ (other than Tariana) who was cheering on the Whanau Ora concept louder than myself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wh%C4%81nau_Ora
Sadly, and despite Tariana throwing family carers under the bus at the 2013 Budget in return for an extra 1.2 billion bucks towards Maori initiatives including WO…it seems to have come to sfa.
Hawkes Bay has horrendous stats for social dysfunction and you'd think with an active and engaged local iwi there would have been strides made…
BUT…in this particular case there were interventions being made and support structures in place which were ignored and dismissed by the OT social workers.
What are they trying to hide – nice the high charging lawyers are involved – that will help the situation get worse.
marty mars…I have this theory. The un- announced uplifting of Maori babies in certain areas is obviously a problem. The deep involvement and activism from these Maori midwives (who seem to be seriously on to it) and their lawyer has led to them forming a plan to gain as much media publicity as possible…because that's simply how the system works.
They had Reid primed and ready to go on speed dial should another uplift be imminent.
Then they just sat back with the cameras rolling (so to speak) and let those Oranga Tamariki social workers damn themselves and the organisation they work for.
Seems like the OT case against Newsroom smacks of another Lashlie…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=940577
Whistleblower Celia Lashlie deserved to be sacked by the Special Education Service last year, her former boss, chief executive Peter Cowley, told MPs yesterday.
An uproar followed Ms Lashlie's dismissal after she spoke out about at-risk children by describing a blond, angelic five-year-old boy from Nelson who was headed for prison. The service said that she had breached client confidentiality. But a month later chairman Graham Lovelock had to resign when an inquiry found she had been unfairly treated.
I just watched the show – so bad. With 3 Māori babies a week being taken then they may have had a few choices but this process for this whānau and young mother seems so shocking.
This isn't going to be able to happen like this anymore – this is going to change.
I just watched the show
You have to watch it to get the full impact. If nothing else methinks an award is in the future for Newsroom. Good work.
I was aware of this when it happened but watching really drives how bad the whole thing is. I had to watch even though I didn't want to. It was horrible.
Fake News?
You aint seen nothing yet.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-clones-voice-speech-patterns
What 1863? Sure it's not 1963? Is that our curse that we can look and imagine so far into the future, and not make enough headway so that society takes note and the leaders consider that thinking as prescient and important and act in accordance with it. Oh for dreams like Back to the Future. The saddest two words in the English language – If only! Have we not looked for persons of a truly philosophic mind when we choose our leaders? Have we any now? And what classification of the minds of our civil servants – are they just basically practical and commonsense people wanting to meet targets so they can get their pay and hopefully, promotion?
Edit.
Trundling down Onewa Rd this morning – able to use the T3 so not too bad, In the non-T3 lane, the looks on people's faces! Boredom, despair, and outright depression. How did this pointless, life-sapping stupidity come about?
And the signs from "tiny Dan the economist man" Bidois calling for AT to 'fix' Onewa Rd. No Dan – what we need to fix is the insane need for everyone to be on the road at the same time. It's clear that just about everyone works way too much. We need a much shorter working week and public transport free at the point of use. The realm of freedom begins where the realm of necessity ends.
“we need a much shorter working eeek” huh?
how short would you life it?
What wage will you have to pay people per hour to be able to live off the shortened week?
how much more are you willing to pay for goods now NZ has this “much shorter week”?
a lot of roles need to be covered so we will need more people in jobs? Where are we going to get them from?
There are a multitude of ways that a "four day week" can be applied other than the one most recently reported on as a success incl details of how accommodation was made for those who it did or did not suit.
It is all about thinking on your feet, productivity and outcomes and will be a vital part of "the future of work".
Most families have couples working a four day week planned to accommodate two days off immediately reduces the need for full-time or before and after childcare and children farmed out to that less. It can also be a five day but lesser hour day that also caters to younger children's need for adult care and the better productivity achieved in the Perpetual Guardian trial. Besides my husband's business I worked in the private sector as an employee eventually part-time by my choice but completed as many, and some times more, tasks in my 24 hours than others who just occupied their seats often chatting/fiddling for their eight hour day pay.
Finally in regard to some physically active occupations as per my husband's business of laying infrastructure once a contract was won and agreed it almost always had a fairly clear timeline. With some urging and encouragement he recognised that one option was four ten hour days that meant that travel and loading and unloading gear plus set-up was immediately effectively not required for the fifth day that was once worked.
Another aspect that worked had similar set-up savings and that was for example a good run and good planning often meant what may have been estimated as an approx eight week job may often be completed in seven or so weeks. Some businesses will have staff doing meaningless "maintenance" yes that must be done and the time is ideal but punitively requiring staff to turn up for hours for the rest of a week before the next job begins is pointless.
It also meant good will extended to staff work five days when necessary and have the option to accrue "lieu" days – eventually it became a bit of a tradition to have a few of those built up so around Easter no\ jobs were set down to start, all jobs were set to be completed and around that time the lieu days were added to the Easter break for a bit of a build up into winter.
Thinking as you seem to do that the benefits are not there and people need to work and functional in a one size fits all, rigid and inflexible work regime is of no use to anything particularly the productivity improvements NZ needs.
The "right" are quite bereft of ideas aren't they? National haven't had one in a long while.
Unbelievably the relentless Russia conspiracy theorist and general nutter Rachel Maddow will moderate first Democratic debates. They could most probably have had more balance if it was hosted by someone from Fox…the clip from below is from 2018, and she still hasn't stopped going on and on and on and on and on and on…..
God Bless John Stewart.
George Orwell's doublespeak in real time, right in front of our eyes….although this sort of thing coming straight from the hated Whitehouse will help Corbyn not hurt him IMO.
Pompeo pledges not to wait for Britain’s elections to ‘push back’ against Corbyn and anti-Semitism
"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo weighed in on British politics during a closed-door meeting with Jewish leaders, saying he would not wait for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister of Britain to “push back” against him or any future actions he might take against Britain’s Jews."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pompeo-pledges-not-to-wait-for-britains-elections-to-push-back-against-corbyn-and-anti-semitism/2019/06/07/dfeaa180-9c27-4495-9322-3d16b7d1541a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a08adb8c0f44
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113409891/can-new-zealands-superannuation-age-remain-at-65
Dianne Crossman, starts her drum beat again to raise the age, despite that such a move will plunge thousands of people into hardship. Especially those who have spent most of their lives in insecure jobs with very low incomes, or on benefits due to medical conditions. The thought of having to wait 2 more years to get NZ Super will break a lot of people. Not that she gives a shit.
Personally I think the age should be dropped back to 60, as I see there are a lot of 60-65 year olds in much hardship, thrown under the bus by their wealthy property owning peers who voted for lower taxes and benefit cuts.
Suggesting raising the age for the pension (superannuation) is a case of bias based on 'my' experience and knowledge trumping any other considerations. I think from my knowledge and experience that a lot of our policy makers, leaders and 'thinkers' come at their task with their minds clear and untramelled by any conflict or confusion of differing opinion and information.
She rightly points out that there are large numbers of older people who are very fit and who are continuing to work and earn past 65. She also points out that people are living longer, (and that can mean that they are receiving the pension for old age for a third of their adult lives).
But simply looking at the cost of the pension to those people, and arbitrarily shifting the threshold age up is a 'commonsense' response to the problem. Having to hunt for jobs when your abilities are not in demand is often hard and soul-breaking up to 65, so no extension of age is going to make the task easier and would be a nasty blow to people under stress of poverty. Also with the decreasing lack of full-time jobs that pay for all living costs in New Zealand, people over 65 filling some that would have been available to younger people, merely pushes the welfare cost down to a younger age. For someone who has a senior well-paying job, to work on for years prevents others on the ladder from rising and building their own savings for retirement, and their seniority and experience is not then fully realised and utilised by their employer.
This appears to be the case with Outgoing Retirement Commissioner Diane Maxwell. (Diana Crossan was Retirement Commissioner for ten years and was replaced by Diane Maxwell.) She is someone who has worked extremely hard in England, owned an advertising business, then in finance consultancy, retail banking and became Regulator of the Financial Markets Authority.
Diane Maxwell has been outspoken about the need to increase the pension age from 65….
Maori and Pacific people also currently have lower life expectancies but Maxwell said that was something to fix outside pension settings. "My partner is Samoan. My son is half-Samoan. I wouldn't want to raise him saying you get super earlier because you're Samoan – what does that say to him? It tells him it's a done deal. I don't think that's right."
Despite:
Researchers Michael Littlewood and Michael Chamberlain have said there is no need for panic.
In their response to Maxwell's 2016 review, they said: "We know that the population aged 65-plus will about double over coming decades and that the costs of healthcare and New Zealand Super will increase substantially if current settings remain. These two major government programmes will be the most directly affected by the ageing population. However, we also know that New Zealand's economy will grow and, barring catastrophes, we should as a country be able to afford more than we currently pay for the age-related programmes…
Forty-four per cent of people aged 65 to 69 are still working and that is expected to increase in future. Others continue even longer. Some of them are even serving as the country's deputy prime minister…
Maxwell said the country had passed a tipping point where most people at 65 were healthy, fit and active and did not see themselves as pensioners…
"If you think about the original intention of super in 1898 back then we weren't expected to make it much past that. Then it went to 60 then back to 65 but where we've got to now, our life expectancy is much longer. Women should expect to get to mid or late 80s, and men mid 80s, broadly. You used to get super for five years, then 10 and now 20 – soon it'll be 30. I'm not sure how we can fund people getting super for 30 years or more."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/113409891/can-new-zealands-superannuation-age-remain-at-65
Also see 'Diane Maxwell – PressReader'
And: Profile: Diane Maxwell 2015 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11504524
Then there is the need to examine our financial system. There are ways that government could manage the system of support better. Many of our wealthy percentage now live better than kings and queens of past centuries. But they should not necessarily be cut off from the pension scheme, as they form a small percentage in the nation. There are people who apply their minds to problems within society who can be asked to form working groups and work with academics from the age group who know the problems. They would co-operate and interact through a blog such as this. Suggestions leading to pilot schemes for testing would be more acceptable if they came from the older age group themselves. Everyone doing some volunteer part-time work that utilised their past skills, or new ones that they would like to train for, which would be extra to tasks already employing people as agreed by government, would result in the country running more smoothly and better understanding between age and social classes. And there would be a drop in cost for welfare in other areas. This would not be necessarily pleasing to the wealthy class however, who seem to feel obliged to keep impacting on opportunities for betterment of the strugglers.
An understanding that an increase in cost of pensions does not necessarily mean ruin for the country is also necessary. This requires an understanding of how money is a created asset of will, and the various factors governing its effectiveness in keeping a nation thriving, and in maintaining its value for trading exchanges. Economists have wandered off onto paths that are not appropriate to follow further into our fast-changing future. But new approaches must be formed by others outside the tight measures of historic systems which are grimly held onto by the relative few who want to hold their ephemeral assets, and see their physical assets maintain value.
As someone who argued that super should not be paid to those still working way back in 1983 (a corrrespondence with Anne Hercus, who later brought in surtax), I do support paying super rate benefits to those not working after the age of 60 (unable to work or find work) and of course the income supplement for power to those on super and or benefits.
This is important as the cost of paying super to those working is limiting revenue for public education, health and housing (which could be significanly higher and government still be within 30% GDP).
The cost of paying super to those still working is over $3B pa and is rising fast – will be $5Bpa by the end of the decade.
The grossly under- reported Kim Dotcom case is a litmus test for democracy in New Zealand
Given the public interest in this and its importance as a litmus test for New Zealand's judicial system there is shamefully little coverage of this in the New Zealand media.
Kim's fate is as important as Julian Assange's. If the New Zealand government sends Kim to a dungeon in the United States it will mark the end of democracy in this country – as if we haven't already seen which way things are going
I had to search on Google for this. I check the RNZ site regularly.
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom has resided in New Zealand since 2010 and the US case against the Megaupload founder has resulted in a lengthy extradition battle. While it was greenlighted in 2015, it has been repeatedly appealed in various courts since then, ultimately getting to the top judiciary.
The founder of file-sharing service Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, has entered the final appeal battle to try and challenge his extradition to the US, where he faces decades behind bars for copyright infringement charges.
The appeal hearings kicked off in New Zealand's Supreme Court on Monday. If the appeal fails, it will be up to the country's interior minister to decide whether to actually greenlight the extradition.
Dotcom himself has repeatedly stated that the whole case is an attempt by the US government to further stomp on “web freedom” and if he's prosecuted, any internet provider can be held liable for the “misuse” of their services by the users.
His legal team maintains that the file-sharing service platform itself cannot be blamed for any copyright infringement by the end users. Supporters of the internet entrepreneur share a similar opinion, arguing that it will set a very dangerous precedent – for internet-based businesses.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48582958
New Zealand's Court of Appeal has just ordered the NZ govt(which will be down to the justice minister,Little) to reconsider the Amy Adams granted extradition of a Korean accused of the murder of a sex worker in China.
This is because apparently we can't just accept China's assurances that the suspect, if found guilty will not be executed , or tortured
Can we accept any US assurances that Dotcom will be treated fairly and in line with human rights?
Dotcom's "crime" is way below the charge of murder
I'll be watching Little on this one
This is likely to end up in Andrew Little's lap, and will be a test of independence for this government
Speaking of dungeons..given todays announcement of the US formally and fully requesting Assanges extradition..lets revisit and give a massive eye roll at the Guardians wording last month re;America beginning formally requesting extradition…
"Declined a chance"
Chance of a life time folks..and he's 'declined'.
Good grief.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-justice-assange/us-formally-asks-uk-to-extradite-wikileaks-assange-idUSKCN1TC24R
Slightly off topic; more aligned with Julian Assange's case than Dot Com's, but this demonstrates also, how hopelessly useless NZ media is compared to……well
Russia
Russia's three top newspapers –
@Vedomosti,@ru_rbc, and@kommersant – are running identical front pages tomorrow in solidarity with@meduzaproject reporter Ivan Golunov, who is facing up to 20 years in prison in apparent retaliation for his work.https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1137821497387601921
All the charges have been dropped and some police under investigation
Yep, there is a real diversity of voice in print news over there
Makes us look pathetic
I guess it's diverse if Alexei Gromov says it's diverse.
It is widely known that major Russian media outlets — especially television — are controlled by the government. But who actually manages the Kremlin’s grip? This is the story of Alexey Gromov, a former diplomat who has gained great influence and power as Vladimir Putin’s media puppetmaster.
In the spring of 2017, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in about 100 Russian cities to protest political corruption and other problems in national government.
Western media and Russian Internet news outlets published stories about the marches, many focusing on the police who brutally dispersed the crowds and arrested nearly 2,000 protesters. But Russian viewers of the country’s television channels saw little of this. For most of them, the May 26 protests never happened at all.
Described as an unassuming man whose passions include collecting antique coins, Gromov is nonetheless a key manager of the Putin government’s control over what gets said — or not — in Russia’s major print and broadcast media. He is also a co-creator of RT, the international propaganda network formerly known as Russia Today.
https://www.proekt.media/portrait/alexey-gromov-eng
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/the-man-behind-the-kremlins-control-of-the-russian-media
Its always been well known that the print media in Russia is way more diverse, unlike our own, and the TV is more aligned to govt viewpoints.Nothing new here
Likely more partisan than diverse.
It seems unlikely those who ordered Mr Golunov’s prosecution could have guessed his arrest would prove so controversial and end with disgrace and suspensions. The reporter is not well known beyond liberal circles. And the Russian journalistic community is hardly known for acts of solidarity. But the journalist’s plight provoked an unprecedented multi-level response that surprised almost everyone watching.
Within hours of his detention making the news, hundreds of journalists were picketing the headquarters of Moscow police. Even stars of state propaganda offered messages of support. On Monday, Russia’s leading broadsheets led with the same front page in support of Mr Golunov. Again, this was a historical first and the entire print-run was snapped up before lunchtime.
“I hope with this story something has changed in this profession,” said Ms Timchenko. “I hope that the next time we are offended, attacked or worse, we will respond as one.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ivan-golunov-released-house-arrest-police-drugs-charge-journalist-a8953801.html
"Makes us look pathetic"
Indeed it does, though it isn't 'us', its mainstream New Zealand media, print, digital, radio and TV.
It must be said though there are some fantastic NZ journalists: Max Rushbroke, David Slack, Chris Trotter, Mihingarangi Forbes, Kirsty Johnstone, Bryan Bruce.
If the Supreme Court finds the KDC should be extradited, I am pretty sure that is what will happen.
All KDC's points are being fully argued in the Supreme Court, probably more fully than any other litigant in New Zealand history.
He either wins or loses in the Supreme Court. More than any other case, a political decision should not come into it.
If he loses, then he should be extradited. If he wins, then he stays.
More than any other case, a political decision should not come into it.
Bit late for that. The circumstances of the dodgy assault on his home scream "political decision," so one more here or there doesn't make much difference.
We will never give up thinks Simon.
Today in the House:
2. Hon SIMON BRIDGES to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all her Government’s statements and actions in relation to the alleged unauthorised access of Budget 2019 material?
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Bridges really is a glutton for punishment. IMO he is just making himself look like a fool acting like a broken record. LOL
The question by Amy Adams is of more interest IMO, because she appears to be trying to get around Trevor Mallard's Speaker ruling/warning yesterday in relation to her line of questioning of Robertson under Question 4. Mallard referred her to a ruling some years ago (2012) by Speaker Smith that it is not in the public interest to comment while an independent inquiry is underway.
As I mentioned in a reply I made earlier this morning @ 4.2.2,1. to one by mickysavage under Daily Review 11 June, the transcript of yesterday's Questions 1 and 2 by Bridges are worth reading carefully for the timeline and their exact wording – along with that of Question 4 where Adams (as a trained lawyer) tried to 'lead' Robertson in his answers to her questions but failed thanks to Mallard's preparation/anticipation of the tactic she used and Robertson's careful replies.
Here is the link to the transcript again for all yesterday's questions.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20190611_20190611_04
The Timeline published on Scoop:
David Parker answered questions on behalf of minister responsible for the GCSB Andrew Little, giving a clear timeline of the events surrounding Hack-gate.
• 8:02pm – Treasury issued its press release advising there had been a deliberate and systemic hack and it had referred this to police
• 8:43pm – Mr Little's office first spoke to the GCSB
• 9:43pm – Mr Little spoke to the GCSB
• 9:52 pm – Mr Little contacted the prime minister's office
• 10:25pm – Mr Little contacted Finance Minister Grant Robertson via text message
(Wonder why the last Government was not put under the same intense scrutiny?)
Thanks, That seems to be a shortened version of the long timeline published in Derek Cheng's non-paywalled article in The Herald this morning.
Link –
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12239460
[Note – I don’t like giving clickbaits to the Herald, but with this new comments system I seem unable to copy and paste into comments which is a real bore. The tool bar says that my browser doesn't enable pasting using the two paste icons in the tool bar and to use Control + Shift + V which does not work and just gives a row of vvvvvvvvvvvs ]
Agree re the last govt not having been subjected to the same level of scrutiny, but I really think that the “Bridges’ approach” is going to backfire on National in the longer term – and already is seen by many as a Wellington Beltway bore.
Test of using the Blockquote facility to paste. ummmm ………
The Paste as plain text (Ctrl + Shift + V) icon doesn’t work for me either and I use Ctrl + V, i.e. without Shift.
This is when using Microsoft Edge.
Well David Carsehole was very 'good' at putting an end to inconvenient questions.
4.Hon AMY ADAMS to the Minister of Finance: Does he accept that clause 3.27 of the Cabinet Manual states he is individually accountable for Treasury’s actions in relation to the early release of Budget 2019 information, and at what specific time did Treasury first receive advice from the GCSB relating to the use of the term “hack”?
Treasury did not release the information early, it was obtained by the National Party using unauthorised access to confidential government information.
The time given is …. and they were also advised to take the matter of the National Party's unauthorised access to Treasury’s confidential information to the police.
It's my view that Bridges belatedly realised he committed a crime and is frantically diverting all over the shop in an attempt to set the agenda. A conviction would not just sink his political career, but call into question any future legal one as well.
And I know I'd never employ a lawyer who'd been so reckless as to leak the Budget and then crow about it after.
No wonder he cannot let it go; it's keeping him awake at night.
I think I may have accidentally stumbled on what was meant by a government that is 'transformational'. But it still doesn't explain the lack of "reinvention of government' or the lack of adequate "interaction with its citizens' (or various other things like being open and kind, or even some of the dithering).
I had been interrupted while doing a g-g-g-google on Oranga Tamariki (anxious to see why not much has changed, or is transformational), and government, then later (using the same unfulfilled g-g-g-google window) typing 'transformational'. Low and behold:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformational_Government
It possibly does explain things like demographic EXCEL spreadsheets and generic public servant managers entirely out of their depth though, and even deference to those 'officials' considered to be the experts. Maybe I should see 'Gabs' in a different light, and even why some of those 'progressive generic manager' types thought the use of T&C would be OK at the parliamentary corral. (Codes of Conduct, Purchase Agreements and Performance Appraisals ALL aside)
Maybe some of the failings are just down to 'The Computer Says NO'
In a former life as a Systems Programmer many years past, I've never forgotten what a couple of my managers said to me: One being one of those 10 pound Poms and expert in various network protocols, the other responsible for being the author of an entire operating system that supported our banking system for years.
"People should drive technology" and conversely "technology should not drive people".
By which they meant that people were the starting point, rather than here's a piece of technology, so now let's see what it can do for us.
Which is why we spent a lot of time determining what it was that 'people' – i.e. human beings' requirements were as the staring point, and if need be, developing and even manufacturing hardware to effect things like remote switching mechanisms, and 99.9% availability, etc. etc. etc.
I'm thinking that the day machinery is able to feel emotion, to empathise rather than sympathise and structure some templated version of a response, and the day it isn't versed in spin and obfuscation – unable to get its registers and storage knickers in a twist, is the day I'll renew my interest in things IT (as opposed to ICT). Probably also the day those generic managers will be out of business although really, they should be already ("ultimately, going forward")
is getting the right answer even if you weren’t planning it a good thing ?
many here have commented on the wrong direction the govt is heading re Kiwibuild (welfare for the middle class) instead of placing all the efforts into HNZ and those in need. Somehow we have in the short term got it right imo
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/113402379/while-kiwibuild-falters-state-house-build-rockets-ahead-with-ninefold-increase-over-three-years
If the government concentrated on one over the other, the house build programme would not carry widespread support – a recent poll showed people still support KiwiBuild.
KiwiBuild is a way to boost supply to constrain upward rents that is affordable – given the 30% government to GDP (and 20% debt target between now and 2022 this is important) limitation
PS It's inevitable sales will extend to those going from one bedroom flats and apartments to family homes.
It would be nice to see a bit more made of this.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018699171/milford-track-huts-booked-out-in-minutes-for-summer
The site went live at 9:30am on Tuesday and within minutes bookings for the 70 beds in huts along the track were full for December and January….
There has also been a rise in the number of New Zealand residents booking to walk the tracks.
DoC says the number of Kiwis booking has risen since last year and credits it to a "different pricing trial in place on four of the Great Walks". The Milford, Kepler, Routeburn and Abel Tasman Coast Tracks all have a special price for International visitors which is up to double the fees New Zealand residents will pay….
Further bookings for the Great Walk tracks are being released this week and are expected to be popular, Mr Taylor says, 'If it's anything like previous seasons you'll need to be in quick." Bookings for the tracks will come out on the following days:
Routeburn Track & Paparoa Track
Wednesday 12th June 2019, 9.30am
Abel Tasman Coast Track, Tongariro Northern Circuit & Kepler Track
Thursday 13th June 2019, 9.30am
Rakiura Track, Whanganui Journey & Lake Waikaremoana Track
Friday 14th June, 9.30am
(So get in Kiwis that can afford the cost to get in and enjoy. A great chance to enjoy your own scenic splendour while you can. Also it would be good if Kiwis had first dibs in the main holidays and in school holidays.) International visitors can have their opportunities outside our holidays- seems fair – we don't have that many.
I think we need more saints days and memorial days for past great luminaries!)
…it would be good if Kiwis had first dibs in the main holidays and in school holidays.
That is an excellent idea. You should email DOC and suggest it. It could become an actual thing….Kiwi families doing the Great Walks.
Poots and his kleptocrat mates losing their grip?
https://twitter.com/AlexNicest/status/1138458186602680320
This statement gives a bit more information
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1138452417262100481
According to Wikipedia
Vladimir Alexandrovich Kolokoltsev is a Russian politician and policeman who was the Moscow Police Commissioner from 2009 to 2012. He has been serving as Russian Minister of Internal Affairs from 21 May 2012.
Pooty might be eyeing up his dacha.
Had a long meeting this morning with a couple of locals who carry some weight, left feeling rather uplifted as we are going to work together to help our community, especially the kids at the high school with mental health and bullying. Yay!!!!
Double yay Cinny. What methods do you propose to use. Is there a helpful therapeutic tool that is available?
In the past there have been various parent evenings or off campus talks, but those who attend aren't the people that necessarily need the help the most.
We want to get some prominent speakers to come and address the whole school, captive audience and all that. So are now taking steps to make it happen.
Found out the principal thinks that there is a mandate with the ministry of ed preventing such speakers coming to talk. So I rang the ministry of ed who said there is no such mandate. Made me wonder if there was such a mandate with the prior government. Turns out it's up to the BOT if they want it to happen, rather than the principal, and I know the BOT will be on our side with this 🙂
Will let you know how we get on. I've been racking my brains for a different anti bullying system as the one at school doesn't work. What I have figured out is, many of the bullies have their own issues. Am trying to find the common ground and it seems to be the mental health of all.
If I discover some awesome tools etc will def share. Kids around here are killing themselves, it's our towns dirty secret and needs to be addressed big time.
Feeling really positive about it all, it's great that a couple of well known high up community members are on board, that's a huge deal. Progress yay and motivation from the well being budget, excellent 🙂
That is the sort of action NZers should hope to see and be part of if they can, everything that can be improved or resolved is one problem less and is a "saving" – it is up to NZers to add momentum behind govt to improve NZers lives it is not just a money issue though that is necessary a changed mindset is crucial.
Annual net migration has remained at high levels since the December 2014 year, Stats NZ said today.
“Since late 2014, annual net migration has ranged between 48,000 and 64,000,” population indicators manager Tehseen Islam said.
“The only previous time net migration was at these levels was for a short period in the early 2000s.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1906/S00128/net-migration-remains-high.htm
(I presume they mean that this means high immigration levels rather than high emigration levels – migration just means movement.)
A good education will help you into a job and start to your adult life. An excellent education will place you above those with a good education.
Education
Parents Gone Wild: High Drama Inside D.C.’s Most Elite Private School
At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families. 5/6/2019
School officials have repeatedly warned parents, who represent the pinnacle of elite Washington, about their offensive conduct. In January, the head of the school, Bryan Garman, sent a remarkable letter to parents of seniors in which he demanded that they stop “the verbal assault of employees.” He also reiterated a policy banning them from recording conversations with counselors and making calls to counselors from blocked phone numbers. Garman also suggested that some parents were responsible for the “circulation of rumors about students….”
Anger, vitriol, and deceptiveness have come to define highly selective college admissions. In the now notorious Varsity Blues scandal, the desire from wealthy parents to get their children into such elite institutions as Yale and the University of Southern California led them to lie on applications and obtain fake SAT scores. At Sidwell Friends, one of America’s most famous Quaker schools, the desire manifested itself in bad behaviors—including parents spreading rumors about other students, ostensibly so that their children could get a leg up, the letter said.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/06/sidwell-friends-college-admissions-varsity-blues/591124/
(Sidwell Friends, run by the Quakers – Heaven Knows, Anything Goes!)
I think this shows Affluenza.
In 2007, British psychologist Oliver James asserted that there was a correlation between the increasing occurrence of affluenza and the resulting increase in material inequality: the more unequal a society, the greater the unhappiness of its citizens.[5] Referring to Vance Packard's thesis The Hidden Persuaders on the manipulative methods used by the advertising industry, James related the stimulation of artificial needs to the rise in affluenza. To highlight the spread of affluenza in societies with varied levels of inequality, James interviewed people in several cities including Sydney, Singapore, Auckland, Moscow, Shanghai, Copenhagen and New York.
In 2008 James wrote that higher rates of mental disorders were the consequence of excessive wealth-seeking in consumerist nations.[6] In a graph created from multiple data sources, James plotted "Prevalence of any emotional distress" and "Income inequality", attempting to show that English-speaking nations have nearly twice as much emotional distress as mainland Europe and Japan: 21.6 percent vs 11.5 percent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza
Chlöe Swarbrick got owned by the Hosk this morning There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers on legalising pot I was in Portugal last year ( Lisbon) and smelt it everywhere day and night To say legalising pot won’t increase its propensity in society is silly at best
*naive*
Relying on your age rather than your arguments, as the husk did, do not "own" an argument.
As for Portugal, you must still be feeling the effects, going by your punctuation.
Should that be does not vs “do not” Flocky
muphry strikes again, lol
Still, just because he's 54 doesn't mean hosking knows a darn thing.
He also implied people with no children are naive. Not a position I'd expect Hoskings to take.
And the truth is Hoskings lost it and started ranting which is a sure sign he himself felt he lost the argument.
I felt he conveyed the thoughts of many being lectured by naive 24 yr old who really knows or has experience squat
Only the hypersensitive and insecure right wing snowflakes would feel they were being lectured to.
No idea what you’re talking about but I agree that individual and/or anecdotal ‘evidence’ always trumps research papers, each and every time. For example, I once knew a person who had been heavy smoker all his life and he lived until he was 85. So, to say that smoking causes lung cancer and kills is just rubbish. BTW, he died a horrible death from colon cancer because he used to smoke fish.
I knew a bloke who drove his Maserati blind drunk all the time and he never crashed.
There is a time when a bit of life experience under your belt makes a difference, than simply quoting selective research papers…
Thank you for declaring this preference for anecdata that supports your personal prejudice over actual research. It explains a lot about your comments.
Note the proviso “selective” PM End of day people will decide and I suspect the majority will go with common sense, real life experience and values over social science quackery A discipline dominated by leftwing bias and constructs
Are you sure… twitter seems to think otherwise….
https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=news&q=hosking&src=tren
Twitter is an echo chamber of left Cinny, it not the real world Look I get it was a bit of ad hominium from Hoskins, but for this subject I do feel age and experience, having kids etc does have bearing on your credibility with this topic God listening to Chlöe was like listening to a 12 year old lecture you on climate change
What do you think propensity means beewee?
Dunno gabs, maybe some one who likes to put child like cute little ee on the end on every one handle continuously and thinks it’s hilarious 😊
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/391859/barren-underworld-coral-bleaching-and-the-perilous-forecast-for-pacific-reefs
What's most worrying, said Andrew Thurber, an associate professor of ocean ecology at the University of Oregon, is that nobody saw this year's event coming.
…"We didn't expect it, we didn't predict it," Dr Thurber said. "The models didn't predict this to be a bleaching year. Mo'orea wasn't supposed to bleach and yet all of a sudden something's shifted and it's an incredibly widespread event."
Coral bleaching happens when the sea temperature rises to a point that puts coral under intense stress, causing them to separate from the plant-like organisms that give their colours, as well as their oxygen, waste filtration and up to 90 percent of their energy….
"The only time that it last hit those temperatures was 2016, when it hit for a few days," Dr Thurber said. "It's hit it numerous, numerous times this year."
While Dr Thurber added that it was too early to conclude whether this was a trend being seen at Mo'orea, studies from other parts of the world paint a dire picture for much of the planet – and especially the Pacific's – coral reefs , particularly as the oceans continue to warm rapidly, in some cases up to 40 percent more than previously forecast….
Last year's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that if global warming was limited to 1.5 degrees celsius – the target set and signed up to by most governments under the Paris Agreement – coral reefs would still decline by between 70 and 90 percent.
And a study published in April by Australian scientists, which focussed on the Great Barrier Reef, found that global warming had hampered its ability to recover from large-scale bleaching in both 2016 and 2017. The researchers said the time between bleachings would shrink as global warming intensified.
"Dead corals don't make babies," said the study's lead author, Professor Terry Hughes from Australia's James Cook University, in a news release."We have noticed more events like that, high temperatures," Mr Siu said. "We've also seen more wave events coming from hurricanes."…
Coral reefs effectively act as the lungs of the ocean, producing more than half of the oxygen that humans breathe and, in turn, regulating both air and water temperatures.
Their rigid shape also acts as a barrier, their friction slowing the force of waves and acting as a barrier against waves and erosion, both of which are increasing with climate change.
Reefs are also home to about a quarter of all marine life, ranging from microscopic plankton, through to colourful reef fish, sharks and giant whales. This life is critical for communities like Mo'orea and Tahiti, which depend on them for food, protection, recreation and livelihoods.
Not waiting
When an 18-year-old Titouan Bernicot first saw the coral bleaching of 2016, he was surfing with his school friends. Shocked by what he saw, he wasn't going to wait for either the territorial or the French government to act.
"We started to realise the coral reefs give us everything in our lives," he said. The waves they surfed on. The fish they ate when they returned to Mo'orea's white shores. The jobs their parents relied on – tourism, the pearl industry, fishing. "Everything is all connected," he said.
Motivated to act, Mr Bernicot and friends formed the Mo'orea Coral Gardeners, a group that set about trying to restore the island's reef. It started with them trying to replant coral cuttings in other parts of the reef.Three years later, Mr Bernicot's movement is bigger than he ever imagined….
Mr Bernicot said this year's bleaching has been disheartening. "This year, everyone is concerned," he said. But if anything, he added, it's given him further drive. His planting effort has intensified, and he's more motivated than ever.
"It's simple. If we do nothing, nothing is going to happen, and the reef will die." "If we do nothing my children will ask me, 'why didn't you do something?'"
Just what we didn't need. A great big retail chain spilling across land in Auckland that we could have grown food on and had social housing on.
But no this monster is going to take business off established retailers large and small and undercut everybody and the profits will go offshore. There are people going to be employed. But there will be businesses closing down – stalemate. And Phil Goff is there smiling. It is supposed to be good. All this buying of land for business to tap into our veins and bleed us to death. But the land speculators will be smiling. They are on a gold mine.
And there will be more biggies. We have IKEA. FGS we are only a country of 4 million people and we have plenty of competition already. We have low wages so that NZrs can't afford what these stores are offering. But with luck they will be able to keep pumping food into themselves so they can have the strength to go out and buy, buy. Wanting the big stores is like star-struck rural innocents who get a supermarket and a mall and think they have made it. It has a superficial charm but the Walmart success for the owners has been a bad dream of small shop owners in the heart of town; it cuts them out.
All about it. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12238980
Costco's coming: World's second-largest retailer unveils NZ store
We are presented with the big figures – gasp everyone.
Costco US $138 billion
750 Warehouse stores
Employs 245,000+ people
94m members worldwide (Best buys to members about $60 annual fee)
When we want to edge up our minimum wage – guess who will be against that. And threatening us with some legal action for loss of profits. Why a raise will be likened to some socialist plot to nationalise the country. Whoa!
I wonder if they'll somehow manage to make no profit here as well.
That is an interesting thought for these interesting times. It could be that the foreign owners will decide to go green by adopting a no footprint-that-might-contain-money principle when they tidy up their finances for each quarter's market report. The site will be left clean and free from dirty lucre.
When I was posted to Melbourne many moons ago, my partner now wife and I went to Costco located in the Docklands area for a bit of a look. Unless you were prepared to buy in bulk and I mean bulk aka you have one of those big yankie F250 utes or bigger. It was rather pointless signing up for the annual fee as we would've probably bought a enough bog roll and tissues to last a year and as I had a five bedroom Defence House storage wasn't a issue for us two.
We got a better choice and better savings between Coles, Woollies, Aldi, IGA all within a 1-2km radius.
In other words Costco wasn't much chop for us two.
So just as we are trying to introduce the idea of buying less, and reusing and recycling, this crowd will be trying to sell in bulk offering cheap prices based on a single item but you have to buy 10 towels etc.
It catches the psychology of someone poor buying on price, but they can't control themselves from paying $15 when the only wanted one towel if it was $1.50. The shopper feels they got a deal at a bargain price, but don't recognise they're being sucked in and now have 9 towels on their hands that they have to store somewhere or give away or try and sell on themselves.
Agree with you on this. EKF mentioned Aldis a German chain that we use all the time. Key point of difference, smaller stores typically only about 1000m2 and lots of them. About one store per 20,000 people. All the key grocery and fresh food items are there, but a limited selection. Instead of dozen brands of say yoghurt there will be only two. Also they have a good line of in house organics.
The other fascinating thing they do, which is a bit of a hook I will admit, is that the centre aisle of the store is used for a constantly rotating selection of all sorts of things you don't expect, everything literally from power tools, clothing, appliances, workout gear, camping kit and the like. Often good quality and great prices. What they do is buy a line in bulk, then use the empty backloading from the grocery lines to rotate to the next store. It's often only there for a week or two at most so you have to make up your mind or you miss out.
The upshot is very good value for money. Two of us typically shop about once every ten days, and will fill a standard trolley for about A$130 – 150 depending on how many splurge items we got. On the whole I think we spend about 65% less on our groceries than in NZ.
They have the buying power and it's damn hard to compete with them. There will have to be a bond formed between NZ buyers and certified NZ owned stores so that we support each other. We have been conditioned to think globalised and our own enterprises have been sidelined and gone bust. If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is. When you think that technology is doing so many out of a job, how do the planners expect to people to manage. There is still an attitude of derision for 'lazy' people by others who hardly know how to do anything for themselves, and never waste time thinking!
If we want a country where people can earn a living at a job that pays for a person's livelihood which we are told is so important, then people are going to have to put their money where there mouth is.
Not going to happen. People will buy best value for money … as they judge value.
Some purchases I make a point of buying local, because like you I do place a value on it, especially where there is added relationship value from sales and support expertise.
Then there is this interesting model with a Japanese chain Muji that has a subtly different business model, also reducing selection but offering product longevity and value.
There is an inherent tension between the efficiency and innovation of globalisation and the desire to retain local identity and diversity. It's plays out at every scale, from villages, towns, cities and nations and largely it's a healthy thing.
not going to happen shark people will vote with their wallets as the way it should be. If the values you highlight are real Costco are rooted, however I suspect you are in a small minority ;
A very interesting article from the people who compile the World Peace Index, saying the CC is going to be a major threat to world peace in the coming years/ decades with the Asia Pacific region the biggest concern and according to the ABC up to a million Aussies will be affected “No shit Sherlock” was my response while the article.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-12/climate-change-hazards-global-peace-index-report/11198144
Well that went well
Not
Link about Afghans
[lprent: Worst link I have seen for a while. I reduced it to a readable form. ]
Kia ora The Am Show.
Sugary drinks need the ass taxed out of them all forms of sugar in our food needs to be lowered ma te wa Papatuanuku was not made in a day Jacinda will sort our sugar problem in good time.
Lloyd it hotting up in British politics everyone knows my opinion on brexit and boris it raining here to m8 we need it we are on rain water tank supply.
Our Marae has just been refurbish and new carvings it makes me so proud te whanau have cared and love our Marae it gives Eco Maori a sore face.
Its cool to see you supporting Wahine in hard times the Wahine in the jails need all the help they can get Annah Strettons journey behind bars is the organization Anna has a new book The Raw TRUTH please buy her book and you will be helping these vaunrable Wahine.
Petra I back you in your opinion we need more Maori in management in Oranga tamariki even tho there was a court order for the up lifting of the pepe the glasses that the people who applied and signed the order would not understand the circumstances of the mother and the whanau reo people from a different worlds should not be making choices for the lower class common people you need people who love and understand te tangata to make a fair CALL. I can see we're Ryan is coming from some pepe need to be uplifted for their health and safety. My be a Kau matua needs to sign the papers a well to make the order fairer and un biased.
Ka kite ano
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Eco Maori hopes that they find a cure for the illness of Aotearoa beautiful flightless Parrots the kakapo. I hope doc gets all the resources that they need to fix this problem.
World’s fattest parrot, the endangered kākāpō, could be wiped out by fungal infection
Seven of the birds native to New Zealand have died, with just 142 adults remaining
The world’s fattest parrot is facing an existential threat in the form of a dangerous fungal infection which has already endangered a fifth of its species.
Seven of New Zealand’s native kākāpō have died in recent months after falling victim to the respiratory disease aspergillosis. The latest was on Tuesday, where a 100-day-old chick died at the Auckland Zoo
The nocturnal and flightless parrot ingratiated itself with world after it mated with a zoologist’s head during a BBC documentary. The incident led it to being described as the “party parrot” and finding a life-long fan in Stephen Fry.
Kākāpō, whose males can grow to 4.8 pounds (2.2kg), were once found in large numbers all over New Zealand. However, habitat destruction and pest invasion forced the bird to edge of extinction.
Critically endangered kākāpō – the world's fattest parrot – has record breeding season
The discovery of a previously unknown population of kākāpō in the 1970s led to a resurgence of their numbers. The parrot was then the focus of a conservation effort that saw the bird’s population rise from a low of 51 ageing birds to three times that number.
This year, a team of more than 100 scientists, rangers and volunteers worked to make it the biggest breeding season on record.
Despite that effort, Auckland Zoo’s head of veterinary services Dr James Chatterton said the future of the birds hangs in the balance ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/13/worlds-fattest-parrot-endangered-kakapo-fungal-infection-new-zealand
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/PWoDSGfSu6o
Kia ora Newshub.
That's the way Paddy it's reporters like you who keep everyone honest
That's cool more funding for cancer research that uses our bodies own defense systems to I'd and eliminate the cancer ka pai.
There was a lot of mist around the motu Mike this morning.
The defense forces needs reliable equipment so the 2 billion spend on the defense forces is long overdue shonky gave tax cuts muppet.
It would be scary whirlpool dryers catching fire I glad we didn't buy that make.
Malisa genetic gain in bovine animals is very important I quite liked the field days to heal of new equipment
Ka kite ano
Kia ora te ao Maori news.
I Winston it is cool that the teachers strike has been called off and they have settled.
The statue smith is just spraying wai into the tawhirimate if he was still in power there would have been no extra money for tangata whenua O Aotearoa they were dishing it out in tax cuts.
Its good that there is a new kuakaupapa being built .
I agree with Jacinda we need to comite to mitigating climate change or our Pacific cousins will lose out
Awesome Mrs Mason for her transaction of a diary of Anne Frank's
Ka kite ano.