“A reminder: from 1939 (and before), the Nazi threat was front-page news in every viewspaper, every day, for years. The threat of near-term climate collapse is an incomparably greater threat. That gives an idea of the awesome bias of corporate media in downplaying this threat.”
“UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That.
Just two years ago, amid global fanfare, the Paris climate accords were signed — initiating what seemed, for a brief moment, like the beginning of a planet-saving movement. But almost immediately, the international goal it established of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius began to seem, to many of the world’s most vulnerable, dramatically inadequate; the Marshall Islands’ representative gave it a blunter name, calling two degrees of warming “genocide.”
The alarming new report you may have read about this week from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which examines just how much better 1.5 degrees of warming would be than 2 — echoes the charge. “Amplifies” may be the better term. Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, the report declares, should the world warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which it will do as soon as 2040, if current trends continue. Nearly all coral reefs would die out, wildfires and heat waves would sweep across the planet annually, and the interplay between drought and flooding and temperature would mean that the world’s food supply would become dramatically less secure. Avoiding that scale of suffering, the report says, requires such a thorough transformation of the world’s economy, agriculture, and culture that “there is no documented historical precedent.” The New York Times declared that the report showed a “strong risk” of climate crisis in the coming decades; in Grist, Eric Holthaus wrote that “civilization is at stake.”
If you are alarmed by those sentences, you should be — they are horrifying. But it is, actually, worse than that — considerably worse. That is because the new report’s worst-case scenario is, actually, a best case. In fact, it is a beyond-best-case scenario. What has been called a genocidal level of warming is already our inevitable future. The question is how much worse than that it will get.”
In NZ – government cut benefits in 1991 but introduced grants which could be applied for of about $300 each year, okay for dentists etc.
Now the RW have just turned bennies into a profit centre for loans at high interest – which is appropriate for a business approach.
But people need to have grants available to them from government again. Give the help where it is needed, assist the people that government has impoverished through cutting tariffs so forcing local business to close, and then enforcing a low wage regime and bringing about working poverty.
Aiming too low their Greywarshark, if you wanted millions/billions for a stadium, marina, free or cheap public land and millions of dollars in hand outs to solve some big problem, the government would only be too happy to supply you with the cash.
Try either getting super rich so you can have lobbyists and be feted by government for being a ‘winner’ or set up your own charitable trust for the moneys to be deposited into.
Any ‘charity’ with “affordable” housing, kids, poverty, political or big item infrastructure is popular now. Expect to spend a considerable amount of the money you collect on actually lobbying, marketing and advertising to get the money, then pay your costs of administration, lawyers and accountants, ensure their is enough to cover wages costs of the above (millions is generally required) and anything left can be distributed with a lot of publicity, photo shots etc and a desperate cry, we need more money for this desperate need…
What we need to do is up the basic benefit to a liveable level and get rid of most if not all of the supplementary grants. The housing one for instance has turned out to be a grant for landlords. Respect beneficiaries and encourage rather than punish.
@TFG – Reinvent beneficiaries into professional sports lobbyists who need infrastructure for international events for the .01%, or developers and you will get more attention for your cause.
Look how many councils seem more interested in stadiums than council housing… they also seem happy to take away kids, amateurs and semi professional locals sports fields in the process…
But do agree, it would be easier to have set benefit rather than a complicated smorgasbord of add ons to benefits… but then making it simple and easy would probably make it easier for vulnerable people to get it, and that is not the purpose of welfare these days, it’s to make sure that the least needy get it, and the rest goes to those handy with the paperwork, and government friendly lobby groups to redistribute the rest.
Did you ever tried to get one of those grants greywarshark.?
Its not easy, generally they prefer to wait till your mouth is a seething pit of pain and infection before you can get the grant. Even though that means a more expensive potentially less successful trip to the dentist.
I agree in theory with the idea of government loans, but the application process needs to be handled very carefully, with the cost of NOT giving the loan being taken into account.
And definitely not done through the staff at work and income.
There needs to be a professional setup, maybe through kiwibank, where the applicants are treated like customers not scam artists and bludgers. Where staff are encouraged to give loans, not incentivised to turn people away.
I don’t have the link but popped into my feed the other day, some rich fucks will build a stadium sunk into the Auckland waterfront (with climate change around the corner, so we know that is the wrong location already, something that the IYI class probably did not bother to explore in their million dollar personal study for Phil Goff) and then Auckland council gives them billions in free land in one of the most expensive suburbs from the ratepayers/taxpayers so they can profit off housing…
What a winner – it’s free land for the right deals/people around Auckland these days. And sounds like ChCH is similar.
Phil REALLY wants that stadium.
I’m all for it as long as those involved go to prison for stupidity and fraud for their actions of stealing and misappropriating land from the public.
Why does this pathetic stadium idea keep coming up? We already have one on the Shore and Eden Park, multiple other facilities around Auckland, and rampant poverty and homelessness. Perhaps we could spend this money solving those problems before building a vanity trophy building directly in the path of rising sea levels?
Helen wants Eden Park shut down. It disturbs her beauty sleep on the occasional nights she spends there. Look at her moaning about the possibility of having a concert there.
And, as that song in the musical Damn Yankees says:
“Whatever Helen wants, Helen gets ……”
‘No jerks allowed’: the egalitarianism behind Norway’s winter wonderland
Norway have powered to the top of the Olympics medal table on a budget a 10th of Britain’s thanks to an inclusive approach based on camaraderie and grassroots participation
““Our vision is sport for all,” Tvedt says. “Before you are 12 you should have fun with sport. So we don’t focus on who the winner is before then. Instead we are very focused on getting children into our 11,000 local sports clubs. And we have 93% of children and young people regularly playing sport in these organisations.””
Sound like opposite to NZ neoliberal sports approach then, which is to sell off the schools lands and other public land, make it harder at grass roots level, make families shell out big bucks for uniforms and fees to be on special squads and drive their kids all over the show to play at dwindling sports areas adding to congestion… and winning and being good at sports being a big driver now into sports rather than inclusion (even for the bad kids at sports) and fun…
Nice to go back to sports actually at the schools during the curiculum, no driving around, uniforms or professionalism until they hit 14 years at least…
For a lot of kids sport as part of the school curriculum is a complete waste of time and often counter-productive in that it puts them off exercise, which should actually be fun.
SaveNZ @ 3.1.1.1:”“Before you are 12 you should have fun with sport. So we don’t focus on who the winner is before then.”
Hear. Hear.
Kids who are good at their sport love to rub it in.
Parents who love to win push their kids to win.
Parents and coaches who love to win make their team members feel bad.
Schools use winning as a mark of success.
Coaches who love to win use the best kids to win.
Meanwhile the bulk of “others” loose interest in sport and avoid participation.
@Alwyn – Since Aunty Helen was not that keen on a Macc’ers next to her house, not sure she wants listening high rises with massive price tags (and a few ‘affordable houses’ for the spin doctors to spin) ‘ in a dwindling historic area of Auckland..
Oh but wait rest of Auckland has to pay for that travel and congestion from those houses too… and the waster water, and the pollution… etc etc
It’s win win to be a developer these days when you get the poor to subsidise your luxury offerings and profits.
5 years to get the money together,
3 to get the land and consents,
2 to build it, and
at least a year to demolish Eden Park.
Then a further 3 to redevelop Eden Park.
That group would need either Chinese capital or a sovereign wealth fund to go through that kind of long haul.
Looking abroad, Germany’s largest opposition party, the AfD, calls for the denunciation of teachers who express political views, and Germany’s bourgeois left party, the SPD, traditional voting home of centre-left voters since WWII, falls to 15% in one poll, behind both the populist, right-wing AfD and the Greens. The Liberals and the actual (if very broad-based) left-wing party, “Die Linke”, both sit on 10% (too lazy to find a credible link for that one in English).
Beto O’Rourke gets a full hour on CNN as Cruz pulls out. There’s got to be some luck for a good Democrat who has forsworn all Superpac money and could just maybe take Texas. One day, LBJ, one day.
They call 100,000 phone numbers to get 1000 responses. A lot of people arent registered voters and because its mid terms even less bother to vote than the main election time
Wouldn’t it be Seymour’s Assisted Dying Legislation which was referred to a Select Committee in a Conscience vote back in January?
It might not have reached the third reading but it is certainly underway as a conscience matter.
Bradley Tuhi had monthly power bills of more than $1000, but there was no obvious reason why.
Genesis Energy has admitted a faulty power meter is to blame for a Christchurch man receiving exorbitant electricity bills for 12 months.
Bradley Tuhi’s monthly power bill peaked at $1105 in July, yet at the time Genesis Energy failed to accept it could be at fault.
Tuhi spent months trying to convince Genesis Energy it was not possible for him, his wife and step son to consume that much electricity at their fully-insulated, double-glazed, 10-year-old Governors Bay home that was heated using gas.
I dunno – 1-2 seems to have moved on from Baby’s First Cartesian Doubt (man-in-the-sky bless whoever came up with that line) and have now flicked through Cold-Reading for Dummies.
I reckon they are just incredibly stupid, but are so stupid they think they’re really smart. The sort of person who gets put forward as an example of Dunning-Kreuger and everybody assumes they’re just an extreme hypothetical rather than an actual case study.
I met someone like that in real life – incredibly stupid, but the mouth never stopped. We had about a dozen FB friends in common. There was one memorable party where they said something like “actually, I’m pretty smart”, and the room just stopped dead.
I discovered a few weeks back that I was still FB friends with them. We had no friends in common, even though I was still friends with the others in that crowd. A bit sad, really.
I think they are great. I can go to the website anytime and check a bar graph of how much power i have used each day and how much my bill will be based on an average of what i am using. Really easy to see the cost when i run an electric heater.
I thnk there are different types of meter. It is hard to get an understanding on what you find solkta and what power companies do when the system isn’t working to the best interests of the user.l
Can understand how that would be useful, we don’t use electric heaters, luckily the fire and heat transfer is enough to warm the house and heat the water.
Clothes drier seems to be the major power sucker at ours in the winter.
That poor man being stung by $1k monthly bills.
However it’s encouraging to know that our government is not going to sit on it’s hands while big corp monopolies are ripping off consumers.
I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for the guy. He says that he had a few power bills of $5-600 but didn’t start complaining till he got one of $750. Surely a prudent consumer would complain a lot earlier and change supplier if not resolved promptly long before they had paid more than $4300 too much!?
One of the useful spinoffs of having solar power is that I can read my power consumption, as well as production, in 15 minute increments if necessary. A daily report on a graph shows when the power is being used.
It was a digital meter., discs dont spin anymore
By pushing the button it can scroll through the voltage, the amps and the current kW being drawn
A hot water cylinder on draws 3 kW. or test with a bar heater that uses 1kW or 2kW depending on switch.
Out of curiosity what is the economic lifetime of a solar generation system?
Consumer New Zealand had a look at solar power in Auckland, Wellington and Hawkes Bay a little while ago. They seemed to think it was worth it in Hawkes Bay but not in Auckland or Christchurch.
The results will be on consumer.org.nz I don’t know whether they are free to access if you aren’t a subscriber.
Alwyn, the 25 years I’m quoting is what I understand to be the estimated useful life, conservatively assessed. The panels degrade over time.
A factor I did not mention is the increasing cost as electricity inevitably rises in price which will tilt the payback my way.
Funnily enough with the talk of costs, it was not the biggest factor by far. We are making some contribution to conserving power and fossil fuel, as some of the generated power goes into an EV.
“What Is the Lifespan of a Solar Panel? Photovoltaic (PV) modules typically come with 20 year warranties that guarantee that the panels will produce at least 80% of the rated power after 20 years of use. The general rule of thumb is that panels will degrade by about 1% each year.”
Googled from search for ‘ roof panels electricity longevity’.
Factoring that in, after 25 years I would have paid off the installation, recouped any interest I had forgone if I had made a straight investment at 4%, and made a profit of $4000 since I sell some 10% of my annual 2010 kw/hr (the first year’s total production) back to my provider at only 7c per kw/h.
So, it makes a little money, the installation continues to generate after 25 years and hopefully is still worth something at the time of house sale.
Meanwhile at the other end !! a computer is recording how many times you go to the toilet how many loads of washing you do weather you have three pieces of toast or two what time you get up an what time you go to bed how long you watch tv how many computers are switched on at any given time etc etc etc thats the bonus of having a smart meter all the information you can get for free paid for by the guy you did out of a job …in no time !!!
I work for one of the companies that has the contract to install and maintain the smart meters and…
1) There is a lot of trouble with them. We are forever having to get called out for faults such as part power, no hot water, etc. The technicians are put under pressure to install a certain amount of meters each day, and get minimal training, as such, they tend to incorrectly install them.
2) It is not cumpolsory to get the meters installed. You can refuse. They will tell you that they need to be installed by law, but there is no such law.
3) There are many different types of smart meters, some use the Vodafone network, communicating every half hour (they have a regular sim card installed), others have are connected to a mesh network, ie in a valley there may be 5-10 houses in a network and one of then sends the reads to the central server.
4) The old analogue meters lasted 50-60 years. And a lot of them are in pretty good condition. The smart meters are only designed to last 15-25 years and then are replaced. They are also unpredictable, easy to turn off remotely, but when it comes to reconnecting, it doesn’t always work.
We had a problem with our hot water after they installed a smart meter.
It was entirely a fault with the installation.
They were meant to connect it so that we had hot water available 24 hours/day. In fact they connected it through a meter that was intended only for a night store heater and that only heated the water for a limited number of hours/day. We still got charged through the main meter though.
We didn’t realise we had a major problem until we went away on holiday for a couple of weeks. When we got back the water didn’t heat up. It was only doing so in the middle of the night. We had our electrician in because we thought we had a problem with the hot water cylinder.
He told us it was wired wrongly. We had a terrible job getting the lines company to come back and fix it. They claimed that what was happening was impossible. They also said we would have to pay for them to come and look at it.
Finally they came, blushed, fixed it and paid the electricians bill.
Hi Millsy, I recently had a notice from Genesis that they would be installing a smart metre. I don’t want one, but when I read the fine print of the contract, it was specified that I must, under the terms of the contract, have one. Is that legal?
Sorry, there is no government mandate for smart meters as in other countries. You are still bound to have one as per the contract with your retailer. But you can have one without the modem so it is still manually read.
I think it’s high time some scrutiny was applied to the gang of old geezers who make up PTUA and Transport 2050. And why the hell Mike Lee (whom I’ve always respected as a great voice for Auckland) is having anything to do with them.
There is a studied benefit for the people of Onehunga, and along Dominion Road, and they quite rightly state that it is more than a benefit than for airport travellers.
However, those PT travellers already have existing PT, and we should also be looking those who live in parts of Auckland who have abysmal PT, and see whether the social value of investing in that instead of improving existing services would be better served by delivering the HR option in this case.
Greater Auckland collates information that leads to certain outcomes, and does not consider the wider demographics (despite the name) of all Auckland residents.
The high cost of the delivery of LR, when so many of the less financially robust Aucklanders are being hit with higher transport costs because there is no reliable affordable public transport in their areas is a discussion point that is often missed at GA.
fine. but don’t roll a turd in glitter, polish it, then present some sort of botched add on a-la-EA & ubisoft as a PT solution from the CBD to the airport.
Either get trucks off the road round the aiport, get more people PT in more deprived areas so they don’t have to drive to the airport or do a proper job of fast PT from the airport to CBD.
Boosting capacity along Dominion Rd is for the many thousands of extra people who will move there over the next couple of decades. There is no more room in the city centre for buses to go to, let alone cars.
property porn. The best size for suburban apartments is up to 6 stories max not 15 . That would be repeating the failed ‘towers’ for low income residents.
I had this discussion with a Korean friend back in the day. It’s a function of land price. The more expensive the ground, the more sense it makes to build upward.
That said, smaller apartment buildings tended to be four stories over there – achievable on the private means of a family that built to provide retirement income.
In principle I agree with you Dof. Even further the great Jane Jacobs argued persuasively in Death and Life of Great American Cities that 2 storey terrace housing could easily house the same number of people as the post war tower blocks with the added advantage of giving everyone a front door onto their street and the resulting sense of ownership of their neighbourhood.
However some locations in a city suit high rise housing models, the CBD for example and I would argue that the transit park and ride areas mentioned in the article would be suitable areas for that sort of development too.
It started when Mr. Farrar (praise Him!) made the bizarrely untruthful claim that the “Sensible Sentencing” Trust provides “a network of support to families of victims.”
Sadly your dear old mother dropped me a note Moz – what you’ve put her through is quite unacceptable….and I quote.
‘I do apologise for our Morrissey’s behaviour. He really is an utter cunt. Takes after his father unfortunately.
Morrissey’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s always been what you would call a “problem child” very rude and disobedient from a very young age with a very strange obsession with disabled toilets. He’s never sparkled in the love department either having only one boyfriend as far as I can remember. That was a disaster as well. I remember the first time he brought Benjamin Longhair home and they went straight to Morrissey’s room. I could over hear their love talk quite clearly. Benjamin said “ooh Moz, I want you to show me something 8″ long, rock hard and full of spunk !
So Morrissey pulled a sock out from under his bed. It had been there for fucking months, I should know, its me what has to change his soiled sheets every week.’
I particularly like the part where Louise still thinks National increased benefits for the first time in 40 years. I’ve just fired her off an email (first time in my life I’ve ever knowingly engaged with the enemy) to politely enquire where mine is because I’m still waiting for it. I don’t anticipate a reply but had fun writing and sending it 🙂 Do Nats understand sarcasm?
The survey shows that more than 50% of households that get the Accommodation Supplement pay more than 5O% of their income in housing costs. I don’t see how people are better off?
The accommodation supplement does not increase rents. You could successfully argue it is a Govt funded top-up for employers (paying their employees) but you also need to take into account it is paid out to people on benefits who are not in a state provided house.
Rents are directly linked to supply and demand.
If (and it will not happen due to the political fallout) the accommodation supplement was stopped, then employers would need to step in and make-up at least some if not all of the difference.
The demand for housing will still be there, I see little room for rent reductions with or without the accommodation supplement.
If there were no AC in the 1st place, there would not be the mountain of money available $1.2b+ to fuel increases for rent. As those seeking private accomodation would not have the same ability to pay current prices, tempering rents and reducing the ability to fuel house price increases, as ROI’s wouldn’t be what they currently are.
Once implemented we are now faced with the continuation of AC as it would be impossible to remove this
I may be wrong BUT was not the AC implemented by Nats in the 90’s to allow for tenants to be no worse off should they rent a state house or private rental ?
“The Accommodation Supplement was introduced in July 1993 as a part of radical change in welfare policies announced by then Finance Minister Ruth Richardson in 1991 in her so-called ‘mother of all budgets’.”
“In 2001 the Labour Government reintroduced income related rent subsidies”
“It is sometimes argued that the Accommodation Supplement is a landlords’ subsidy and that as such any increase in the value of the Supplement will simply leak out to landlords in the form of higher rents. Remarkably there has been little analysis undertaken of either the income or price effects of the Accommodation Supplement and the two published studies appear to have been written to order to suit the argument that the payment is not a landlord subsidy17.”
Way to go Simon. Populist action?
“”National has launched a petition to repeal the Government’s new fuel taxes to “relieve some of the financial pressure” on Kiwis, the party’s leader Simon Bridges has said.”
Well I see Russell McVeagh are doing the right thing. http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=113094
When are the Labour Party going to insist on a resignation by Meka Whaitiri?
Or is it OK to bash your staff if you are a Labour Party member?
Its a nonsense. Its not a fine , as its a civil case.
Unenforceable in NZ, mainly as no NZ – Isreal treaty on reciprocal court cases and no NZ court would allow this sort of thing where there is no loss even if there was a treaty
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/in-depth/368436/universities-face-a-crisis-of-the-humanities …when the university senate [University of Otago] met on 26 September and decided to axe Otago’s art history programme from 2020.
There wasn’t much of a programme left to cut. Through a process of attrition, the department had been whittled down, since 2014, to 19 full-time students, three undergraduate papers and a single full-time lecturer….
Across 25 BA majors that RNZ classified as unambiguously part of the humanities, the number of degree and post-graduate level students actually rose during the global financial crisis, mirroring university enrolment patterns in other countries. From 2010, however, the numbers began to drop away again. There were 1000 fewer humanities students enrolled in 2017 than in 2008, despite an increase of almost 40,000 students across all degrees and subjects….
The current Tertiary Education Strategy, released in 2014, states this in bald terms: “This strategy focuses in particular on the economic benefits that result from tertiary education, and therefore on employment, higher incomes and better access to skilled employees for business as critical outcomes of tertiary education.”
NZ might be thinking of limiting organic growing methods in Sri Lanka, when we should be copying them, and instead demonstrating better systems for handling the vegetables.
There is talk about the need to grow more food for the world, but we don’t want to regard that as concern, it is talking about markets and money making. When business steps into a people-run economy, it is likely that traditional dealers will be swept aside in the shadow of mechanisation and export of crops for greater return that would normally have been bought by locals paying the local affordable prices.
I am concerned by this upbeat item from Radio nz. We don’t want to export our bizarre culture of destruction of ordinary people’s livelihoods and ability to manage their basic needs, in favour of higher education that produces nothing, with the obvious disconnect in access to a standard of living that is adequate for people living simply.
Most of what was grown in Sri Lanka was largely organic, with apparently minimal use of fertiliser.
“We did ask those questions around sprays, and didn’t see any evidence of it, at all.
“We understand fertiliser is used in rice production, and that’s one of the major crops for the 21 million people, but when the rice is harvested those paddocks are used to grow vegetables.”
Mr Chapman said portions of the fields were hand-tilled for vegetable growing.
He said there were similarities in that a lot of New Zealand growers were also inter-generational, so they’ve been very focused on sustainability of the land.
“As with New Zealand there is also a reducing number of people willing to work in the fields especially, where the work is largely done by hand.”
Mr Chapman said while Sri Lanka could be classed as Third World, it had made incredible advances in education, which was free through to university level, and the literacy rate was now second to Japan among Asian countries.
“We asked for food but you gave us a stone with a certificate of higher learning on it” – that might be the way the land lies in future.
So the protestors broke the law to lie about 1080. If 1080 really killed so gazillions of birds, why couldn’t the protestors at least present actual 1080 victims? Seems legit lol.
You can see the red hands behind that evil spectre John Kerry early in this clip (from the 0:50 mark). There should also have been a whole lot of blood-red hands waving behind the awful BBC woman at about the 8:30 mark…
Can’t buy sex, hang out in bars or afford flowers.
Teeth not the best, clothes from The Warehouse or knock-offs.
No outlook of comfortable security, jewelry or sports cars.
Poor people are the most naturally charming, seductive and sexually satisfying people in the world because we have to be.
There was a reason every Elvis movie started with our hero sporting a skinny wallet. Check them out, even with his awful thesping, Broken arse Elvis is much sexier at the start of his movies than the rich Makegood at the end. If Elvis movies were true to life the final scene would end with the Starlet saying “Frankly, you’ve become a bit boring.”
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
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In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
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Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
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Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Lili Tokaduadua was only 15 when she left her family in Fiji to pursue her netball dream in New Zealand. She’d been playing the sport for 10 years and was offered a netball scholarship at Auckland’s Howick College. Now, in her first year out of high school, the 19-year-old defender ...
The beloved local grocers lost a legal challenge to stop a new cycleway outside their store. Joel MacManus reports. In the annals of New Zealand legal history, there are a few brave people who have dared to stand up to the powers that be, no matter how bleak the odds ...
How what we produce and what we eat connects us to the world beyond our shores, visualised. Walking around a supermarket or vege shop, it might be obvious that everything on the shelves came from somewhere. But you might ...
Professor Jemma Geoghegan, of the University of Otago, Otakou Whakaihu Waka, co-leads a Te Niwha project aimed at understanding how and where avian influenza could affect Aotearoa New Zealand, as the highly infectious H5N1 virus spreads globally. The virus has now spread to all continents except Oceania and was recently ...
Thirty years on from Rwanda’s genocide, is guilt over the atrocities is blinding the world to the true nature of its current leadership? The post The repressive underside of Rwanda’s regime appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: Last week, important recommendations for our criminal justice system were made by the international community. Every five years, each member of the United Nations has its human rights practices reviewed. This rolling event – the Universal Periodic Review – is the culmination of a government reporting on its human ...
Highly pathogenic avian influenza – H5N1, or bird flu – has been flying around the world since the late 1990s. New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands are so far free of it, but now it’s been discovered in mainland Antarctica and scientists say it’s only a matter of time ...
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The following interview with auto electrician and former caver Stu Berendt, 68, of Charleston on the West Coast, came about because he was part of the caving team that found the rare and amazing fossil remains of the giant Haast eagle, the subject of one of the year’s best books, ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eric Stokan, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County If you live in one of the most economically deprived neighborhoods in your city, you might think the government is directing a smaller share of public funds to your community. ...
Wansolwara The news media’s crucial role in climate change and environment journalism was the focus of The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme 2024 World Press Freedom Day celebrations. The European Union Ambassador to the Pacific, Barbara Plinkert, and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary General Henry Puna were the chief ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Adams, Professor of Corporate Law & Academic Director of UNE Sydney campus, University of New England Last August, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched legal proceedings against Qantas. The consumer watchdog accused the airline of selling thousands of tickets ...
This episode of A View From Afar was recorded LIVE on May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, May 5, 2024 at 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment ...
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We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+. If you love a dark comedy: Bodkin (Netflix, May 9)An English podcaster, an Irish podcaster and American podcaster walk into a pub and…make a TV show? ...
By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist A Pacific regionalism academic has called out New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS and says the security deal “raises serious questions for the Pacific region”. Auckland University of Technology academic Dr Marco de Jong ...
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The LIVE Recording of A View from Afar podcast will begin today at 12:45pm May 6, 2024 (NZST) which is Sunday evening, 8:30pm (USEST). In an analytical essay titled ‘A moment of friction’ political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan wrote how we are living within a decisive moment of ...
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The Student Volunteer Army is on the march, generating approximately 1.6 million hours of volunteering from roughly 35,000 secondary school students in just five years. For Rebekah Brown, the pathway to volunteering started with her singing coach. With a passion for the arts, the suggestion to volunteer at Acting Antics, ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luis Gómez Romero, Senior Lecturer in Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Legal Theory, University of Wollongong Fifty years ago, Australian feminist Anne Summers denounced “the ideology of sexism” governing over so many women’s lives. Unfortunately, sexism is as lethal today as it ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Boccabella, Associate Professor of Taxation Law, UNSW Sydney There’s a good reason your local volunteer-run netball club doesn’t pay tax. In Australia, various nonprofit organisations are exempt from paying income tax, including those that do charitable work, such as churches. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Deller, Casual Academic, Creative Writing and English Literature, Flinders University NetflixComedy is opening up spaces for silences to be broken and trauma stories to be told. In 2018, Hannah Gadsby started a revolution with Nanette, asking audiences to rethink ...
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The new Aotearoa histories curriculum is rich with potential. There’s still work to be done, but the education minister’s criticisms about ‘balance’ miss the mark, argues primary school teacher Jessie Moss. In 2015, Ōtorohanga College students presented to parliament a petition signed by more than 10,000 people calling for a ...
For too long our so-called national bird has maintained its stranglehold on the economy of regional New Zealand. Thanks to the fast track legislation, we will have our revenge. Theories abound on what ails New Zealand’s economy. National leader Chris Luxon has posited that we’re negative, wet, whiny, and inward-looking; ...
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For the past 12 years, Georgia-Rose Brown has balanced on the brink of making an Olympic Games – but always landed gracefully on the wrong side. Reaching the Olympics is a dream the gymnast has harboured since she was a six-year-old; a dream that would dwindle every four years, yet ...
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Media Lens is spot on.
“A reminder: from 1939 (and before), the Nazi threat was front-page news in every viewspaper, every day, for years. The threat of near-term climate collapse is an incomparably greater threat. That gives an idea of the awesome bias of corporate media in downplaying this threat.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/medialens
“UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That.
Just two years ago, amid global fanfare, the Paris climate accords were signed — initiating what seemed, for a brief moment, like the beginning of a planet-saving movement. But almost immediately, the international goal it established of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius began to seem, to many of the world’s most vulnerable, dramatically inadequate; the Marshall Islands’ representative gave it a blunter name, calling two degrees of warming “genocide.”
The alarming new report you may have read about this week from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which examines just how much better 1.5 degrees of warming would be than 2 — echoes the charge. “Amplifies” may be the better term. Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, the report declares, should the world warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which it will do as soon as 2040, if current trends continue. Nearly all coral reefs would die out, wildfires and heat waves would sweep across the planet annually, and the interplay between drought and flooding and temperature would mean that the world’s food supply would become dramatically less secure. Avoiding that scale of suffering, the report says, requires such a thorough transformation of the world’s economy, agriculture, and culture that “there is no documented historical precedent.” The New York Times declared that the report showed a “strong risk” of climate crisis in the coming decades; in Grist, Eric Holthaus wrote that “civilization is at stake.”
If you are alarmed by those sentences, you should be — they are horrifying. But it is, actually, worse than that — considerably worse. That is because the new report’s worst-case scenario is, actually, a best case. In fact, it is a beyond-best-case scenario. What has been called a genocidal level of warming is already our inevitable future. The question is how much worse than that it will get.”
Read the whole article here
https://t.co/KF98AlJgt9?amp=1
In NZ – government cut benefits in 1991 but introduced grants which could be applied for of about $300 each year, okay for dentists etc.
Now the RW have just turned bennies into a profit centre for loans at high interest – which is appropriate for a business approach.
But people need to have grants available to them from government again. Give the help where it is needed, assist the people that government has impoverished through cutting tariffs so forcing local business to close, and then enforcing a low wage regime and bringing about working poverty.
Aiming too low their Greywarshark, if you wanted millions/billions for a stadium, marina, free or cheap public land and millions of dollars in hand outs to solve some big problem, the government would only be too happy to supply you with the cash.
Try either getting super rich so you can have lobbyists and be feted by government for being a ‘winner’ or set up your own charitable trust for the moneys to be deposited into.
Any ‘charity’ with “affordable” housing, kids, poverty, political or big item infrastructure is popular now. Expect to spend a considerable amount of the money you collect on actually lobbying, marketing and advertising to get the money, then pay your costs of administration, lawyers and accountants, ensure their is enough to cover wages costs of the above (millions is generally required) and anything left can be distributed with a lot of publicity, photo shots etc and a desperate cry, we need more money for this desperate need…
What we need to do is up the basic benefit to a liveable level and get rid of most if not all of the supplementary grants. The housing one for instance has turned out to be a grant for landlords. Respect beneficiaries and encourage rather than punish.
@TFG – Reinvent beneficiaries into professional sports lobbyists who need infrastructure for international events for the .01%, or developers and you will get more attention for your cause.
Look how many councils seem more interested in stadiums than council housing… they also seem happy to take away kids, amateurs and semi professional locals sports fields in the process…
But do agree, it would be easier to have set benefit rather than a complicated smorgasbord of add ons to benefits… but then making it simple and easy would probably make it easier for vulnerable people to get it, and that is not the purpose of welfare these days, it’s to make sure that the least needy get it, and the rest goes to those handy with the paperwork, and government friendly lobby groups to redistribute the rest.
Godmother
+100
Did you ever tried to get one of those grants greywarshark.?
Its not easy, generally they prefer to wait till your mouth is a seething pit of pain and infection before you can get the grant. Even though that means a more expensive potentially less successful trip to the dentist.
I agree in theory with the idea of government loans, but the application process needs to be handled very carefully, with the cost of NOT giving the loan being taken into account.
And definitely not done through the staff at work and income.
There needs to be a professional setup, maybe through kiwibank, where the applicants are treated like customers not scam artists and bludgers. Where staff are encouraged to give loans, not incentivised to turn people away.
I don’t have the link but popped into my feed the other day, some rich fucks will build a stadium sunk into the Auckland waterfront (with climate change around the corner, so we know that is the wrong location already, something that the IYI class probably did not bother to explore in their million dollar personal study for Phil Goff) and then Auckland council gives them billions in free land in one of the most expensive suburbs from the ratepayers/taxpayers so they can profit off housing…
What a winner – it’s free land for the right deals/people around Auckland these days. And sounds like ChCH is similar.
Phil REALLY wants that stadium.
I’m all for it as long as those involved go to prison for stupidity and fraud for their actions of stealing and misappropriating land from the public.
Why does this pathetic stadium idea keep coming up? We already have one on the Shore and Eden Park, multiple other facilities around Auckland, and rampant poverty and homelessness. Perhaps we could spend this money solving those problems before building a vanity trophy building directly in the path of rising sea levels?
Helen wants Eden Park shut down. It disturbs her beauty sleep on the occasional nights she spends there. Look at her moaning about the possibility of having a concert there.
And, as that song in the musical Damn Yankees says:
“Whatever Helen wants, Helen gets ……”
‘No jerks allowed’: the egalitarianism behind Norway’s winter wonderland
Norway have powered to the top of the Olympics medal table on a budget a 10th of Britain’s thanks to an inclusive approach based on camaraderie and grassroots participation
““Our vision is sport for all,” Tvedt says. “Before you are 12 you should have fun with sport. So we don’t focus on who the winner is before then. Instead we are very focused on getting children into our 11,000 local sports clubs. And we have 93% of children and young people regularly playing sport in these organisations.””
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/22/norway-winter-olympics-success
Sound like opposite to NZ neoliberal sports approach then, which is to sell off the schools lands and other public land, make it harder at grass roots level, make families shell out big bucks for uniforms and fees to be on special squads and drive their kids all over the show to play at dwindling sports areas adding to congestion… and winning and being good at sports being a big driver now into sports rather than inclusion (even for the bad kids at sports) and fun…
Nice to go back to sports actually at the schools during the curiculum, no driving around, uniforms or professionalism until they hit 14 years at least…
For a lot of kids sport as part of the school curriculum is a complete waste of time and often counter-productive in that it puts them off exercise, which should actually be fun.
SaveNZ @ 3.1.1.1:”“Before you are 12 you should have fun with sport. So we don’t focus on who the winner is before then.”
Hear. Hear.
Kids who are good at their sport love to rub it in.
Parents who love to win push their kids to win.
Parents and coaches who love to win make their team members feel bad.
Schools use winning as a mark of success.
Coaches who love to win use the best kids to win.
Meanwhile the bulk of “others” loose interest in sport and avoid participation.
‘No jerks allowed’
????
What about….us?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2018/09/max-key-launches-instagram-account-documenting-john-key-s-personal-life.html
@Alwyn – Since Aunty Helen was not that keen on a Macc’ers next to her house, not sure she wants listening high rises with massive price tags (and a few ‘affordable houses’ for the spin doctors to spin) ‘ in a dwindling historic area of Auckland..
Oh but wait rest of Auckland has to pay for that travel and congestion from those houses too… and the waster water, and the pollution… etc etc
It’s win win to be a developer these days when you get the poor to subsidise your luxury offerings and profits.
You lie through your teeth which are false you little worm alwyn.
Are you incapable of accepting people making accurate statements about your favourite goddess?
It is you who are lying. My statement was accurate.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/07/former-prime-minister-helen-clark-opposes-eden-park-charity-concert.html
ps. I did not choose the photo of Ms Clark in the article.
That is a lovely photo of Ms Clark.
Here’s a lovely photo of Mrs Shipley.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/107619078/dame-jenny-shipley-prepares-to-give-evidence-in-mainzeal-high-court-trial
It would take:
5 years to get the money together,
3 to get the land and consents,
2 to build it, and
at least a year to demolish Eden Park.
Then a further 3 to redevelop Eden Park.
That group would need either Chinese capital or a sovereign wealth fund to go through that kind of long haul.
But Save NZ climate change is NOT around the corner … IT IS HERE !
Read again from Eds post above :
https://t.co/KF98AlJgt9?amp=1
Looking abroad, Germany’s largest opposition party, the AfD, calls for the denunciation of teachers who express political views, and Germany’s bourgeois left party, the SPD, traditional voting home of centre-left voters since WWII, falls to 15% in one poll, behind both the populist, right-wing AfD and the Greens. The Liberals and the actual (if very broad-based) left-wing party, “Die Linke”, both sit on 10% (too lazy to find a credible link for that one in English).
Beto O’Rourke gets a full hour on CNN as Cruz pulls out. There’s got to be some luck for a good Democrat who has forsworn all Superpac money and could just maybe take Texas. One day, LBJ, one day.
NYTimes is currently polling that Texas Senate race and in that poll at least, Cruz looks comfortable.
Fivethirtyeight tracks a solid 5-8 poll margin.
Aye well, one day……
They call 100,000 phone numbers to get 1000 responses. A lot of people arent registered voters and because its mid terms even less bother to vote than the main election time
I’m sure someone will have posted this before, but Chris Trotter nails it here in regard to why we need the “Waka Jumping” Bill.
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-political-amnesia-of-winston-peters.html
I’m a Green voter and have never understood why the Greens can’t get it that this Bill is needed-at least in the end they voted for it.
Thats right . MPs have had to toe the party line …since for ever.
When was the last conscience vote ? The Marrriage equality one ?
Wouldn’t it be Seymour’s Assisted Dying Legislation which was referred to a Select Committee in a Conscience vote back in January?
It might not have reached the third reading but it is certainly underway as a conscience matter.
Yeah but that’s not a confidence and supply issue-should be a free vote.
A Conscience vote on Confidence and Supply?
I really don’t think I am going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Maybe our own electricity meters are being hacked too?
Bloody disgusting this is!!!!!!
Electricity Authority heads should now roll over this!!!!!!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/107733440/faulty-smart-meter-to-blame-for-1100-power-bill
Bradley Tuhi had monthly power bills of more than $1000, but there was no obvious reason why.
Genesis Energy has admitted a faulty power meter is to blame for a Christchurch man receiving exorbitant electricity bills for 12 months.
Bradley Tuhi’s monthly power bill peaked at $1105 in July, yet at the time Genesis Energy failed to accept it could be at fault.
Tuhi spent months trying to convince Genesis Energy it was not possible for him, his wife and step son to consume that much electricity at their fully-insulated, double-glazed, 10-year-old Governors Bay home that was heated using gas.
Always been a bit suss on the smart meter, do most households have them now?
We ended up writing on the meter box, ‘if you attempt to install a smart meter you will be prosecuted by the home owner’.
Good on you Cinny. Wise.
That must of had them shivering in their boots.
Got a hug from the meter reader, does that count?
When’s your 49th birthday James ?
what that got to do with the subject in hand?
About as much as your comment to Cinny..
You could be turning 50 this year…
Are you turning 50?
I think you have some mental health issues.
I dunno – 1-2 seems to have moved on from Baby’s First Cartesian Doubt (man-in-the-sky bless whoever came up with that line) and have now flicked through Cold-Reading for Dummies.
I reckon they are just incredibly stupid, but are so stupid they think they’re really smart. The sort of person who gets put forward as an example of Dunning-Kreuger and everybody assumes they’re just an extreme hypothetical rather than an actual case study.
I met someone like that in real life – incredibly stupid, but the mouth never stopped. We had about a dozen FB friends in common. There was one memorable party where they said something like “actually, I’m pretty smart”, and the room just stopped dead.
I discovered a few weeks back that I was still FB friends with them. We had no friends in common, even though I was still friends with the others in that crowd. A bit sad, really.
I think they are great. I can go to the website anytime and check a bar graph of how much power i have used each day and how much my bill will be based on an average of what i am using. Really easy to see the cost when i run an electric heater.
I thnk there are different types of meter. It is hard to get an understanding on what you find solkta and what power companies do when the system isn’t working to the best interests of the user.l
Can understand how that would be useful, we don’t use electric heaters, luckily the fire and heat transfer is enough to warm the house and heat the water.
Clothes drier seems to be the major power sucker at ours in the winter.
That poor man being stung by $1k monthly bills.
However it’s encouraging to know that our government is not going to sit on it’s hands while big corp monopolies are ripping off consumers.
I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for the guy. He says that he had a few power bills of $5-600 but didn’t start complaining till he got one of $750. Surely a prudent consumer would complain a lot earlier and change supplier if not resolved promptly long before they had paid more than $4300 too much!?
My nephew’s power bill for 4 winter months was $1900. And he has gas water heating and gas stove. He seems to be unconcerned.
Wow, that’s enormous.
You could do that simply by looking at the little disc in your meter. If it was spinning too fast then you were using too much power
Yes if someone really wanted to they could read their analogue meter every day and make their own graphs and estimates.
One of the useful spinoffs of having solar power is that I can read my power consumption, as well as production, in 15 minute increments if necessary. A daily report on a graph shows when the power is being used.
It was a digital meter., discs dont spin anymore
By pushing the button it can scroll through the voltage, the amps and the current kW being drawn
A hot water cylinder on draws 3 kW. or test with a bar heater that uses 1kW or 2kW depending on switch.
So many benefits to solar, hopefully we can afford it one day, that would be awesome.
Dont do it. The cost will outweigh any ‘free power’ . Most of your power drawdown is evening and night when sun doesnt shine ( or low in sky)
Dukeofurl,
I still generate over 2000 kw off a 1.4kw array per year. That’s $600 p.a. The array cost $5500.
I use 90% in my home and sell 10% back to my supplier. That is 1800kw at 30c kw/h or $540 plus 200 kw/h at 7c is $14. Per annum income of $540.
I will recuperate my outlay in ten years.
$5500 at 4% is $220 pa. Over ten years $2200 income. That would take another five years to recuperate.
I will recuperate my money in 15 years.
Ten years free power at least saving $6000.
Out of curiosity what is the economic lifetime of a solar generation system?
Consumer New Zealand had a look at solar power in Auckland, Wellington and Hawkes Bay a little while ago. They seemed to think it was worth it in Hawkes Bay but not in Auckland or Christchurch.
The results will be on consumer.org.nz I don’t know whether they are free to access if you aren’t a subscriber.
Alwyn, the 25 years I’m quoting is what I understand to be the estimated useful life, conservatively assessed. The panels degrade over time.
A factor I did not mention is the increasing cost as electricity inevitably rises in price which will tilt the payback my way.
Funnily enough with the talk of costs, it was not the biggest factor by far. We are making some contribution to conserving power and fossil fuel, as some of the generated power goes into an EV.
I hope that all makes sense.
@mac1.
Thank you. I didn’t realize that the panels lasted that long.
“What Is the Lifespan of a Solar Panel? Photovoltaic (PV) modules typically come with 20 year warranties that guarantee that the panels will produce at least 80% of the rated power after 20 years of use. The general rule of thumb is that panels will degrade by about 1% each year.”
Googled from search for ‘ roof panels electricity longevity’.
Factoring that in, after 25 years I would have paid off the installation, recouped any interest I had forgone if I had made a straight investment at 4%, and made a profit of $4000 since I sell some 10% of my annual 2010 kw/hr (the first year’s total production) back to my provider at only 7c per kw/h.
So, it makes a little money, the installation continues to generate after 25 years and hopefully is still worth something at the time of house sale.
Meanwhile at the other end !! a computer is recording how many times you go to the toilet how many loads of washing you do weather you have three pieces of toast or two what time you get up an what time you go to bed how long you watch tv how many computers are switched on at any given time etc etc etc thats the bonus of having a smart meter all the information you can get for free paid for by the guy you did out of a job …in no time !!!
What complete and utter bollocks. All it does is measure the amount of power coming in.
I work for one of the companies that has the contract to install and maintain the smart meters and…
1) There is a lot of trouble with them. We are forever having to get called out for faults such as part power, no hot water, etc. The technicians are put under pressure to install a certain amount of meters each day, and get minimal training, as such, they tend to incorrectly install them.
2) It is not cumpolsory to get the meters installed. You can refuse. They will tell you that they need to be installed by law, but there is no such law.
3) There are many different types of smart meters, some use the Vodafone network, communicating every half hour (they have a regular sim card installed), others have are connected to a mesh network, ie in a valley there may be 5-10 houses in a network and one of then sends the reads to the central server.
4) The old analogue meters lasted 50-60 years. And a lot of them are in pretty good condition. The smart meters are only designed to last 15-25 years and then are replaced. They are also unpredictable, easy to turn off remotely, but when it comes to reconnecting, it doesn’t always work.
Thanks millsy useful to know, good to have facts re the general use.
No hot water isnt a meter fault. Normally its fault with the water heater itself. You know this Millsy
It can either be an issue with the meter or water heater.
We had a problem with our hot water after they installed a smart meter.
It was entirely a fault with the installation.
They were meant to connect it so that we had hot water available 24 hours/day. In fact they connected it through a meter that was intended only for a night store heater and that only heated the water for a limited number of hours/day. We still got charged through the main meter though.
We didn’t realise we had a major problem until we went away on holiday for a couple of weeks. When we got back the water didn’t heat up. It was only doing so in the middle of the night. We had our electrician in because we thought we had a problem with the hot water cylinder.
He told us it was wired wrongly. We had a terrible job getting the lines company to come back and fix it. They claimed that what was happening was impossible. They also said we would have to pay for them to come and look at it.
Finally they came, blushed, fixed it and paid the electricians bill.
Hi Millsy, I recently had a notice from Genesis that they would be installing a smart metre. I don’t want one, but when I read the fine print of the contract, it was specified that I must, under the terms of the contract, have one. Is that legal?
Sorry, there is no government mandate for smart meters as in other countries. You are still bound to have one as per the contract with your retailer. But you can have one without the modem so it is still manually read.
For those advocating for a HR link from Auckland Airport to Puhunui…
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2018/10/12/over-estimating-the-importance-of-city-airport-trips/
I think it’s high time some scrutiny was applied to the gang of old geezers who make up PTUA and Transport 2050. And why the hell Mike Lee (whom I’ve always respected as a great voice for Auckland) is having anything to do with them.
There is a studied benefit for the people of Onehunga, and along Dominion Road, and they quite rightly state that it is more than a benefit than for airport travellers.
However, those PT travellers already have existing PT, and we should also be looking those who live in parts of Auckland who have abysmal PT, and see whether the social value of investing in that instead of improving existing services would be better served by delivering the HR option in this case.
Greater Auckland collates information that leads to certain outcomes, and does not consider the wider demographics (despite the name) of all Auckland residents.
The high cost of the delivery of LR, when so many of the less financially robust Aucklanders are being hit with higher transport costs because there is no reliable affordable public transport in their areas is a discussion point that is often missed at GA.
fine. but don’t roll a turd in glitter, polish it, then present some sort of botched add on a-la-EA & ubisoft as a PT solution from the CBD to the airport.
Either get trucks off the road round the aiport, get more people PT in more deprived areas so they don’t have to drive to the airport or do a proper job of fast PT from the airport to CBD.
Light rail to the airport. lol.
“those PT travellers already have existing PT”
Boosting capacity along Dominion Rd is for the many thousands of extra people who will move there over the next couple of decades. There is no more room in the city centre for buses to go to, let alone cars.
15 storey apartment buildings. This will send the nimbyists into a frenzy
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/107775894/auckland-park-and-rides-the-1-billion-deal
property porn. The best size for suburban apartments is up to 6 stories max not 15 . That would be repeating the failed ‘towers’ for low income residents.
I had this discussion with a Korean friend back in the day. It’s a function of land price. The more expensive the ground, the more sense it makes to build upward.
That said, smaller apartment buildings tended to be four stories over there – achievable on the private means of a family that built to provide retirement income.
In principle I agree with you Dof. Even further the great Jane Jacobs argued persuasively in Death and Life of Great American Cities that 2 storey terrace housing could easily house the same number of people as the post war tower blocks with the added advantage of giving everyone a front door onto their street and the resulting sense of ownership of their neighbourhood.
However some locations in a city suit high rise housing models, the CBD for example and I would argue that the transit park and ride areas mentioned in the article would be suitable areas for that sort of development too.
dukeofurl
+1000
Major storm brewing up on Kiwiblog
It started when Mr. Farrar (praise Him!) made the bizarrely untruthful claim that the “Sensible Sentencing” Trust provides “a network of support to families of victims.”
Let the fireworks begin….
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/10/lovely_libby.html/comment-page-1#comment-2331165
Crikey!
Speaking of fireworks, William Shatner and Jacinda are about to open Rocket Labs new factory.
Any Trekkies on the kb?
Link for livestream, which starts soon apparently.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12141427
The only storm brewing up is the one between your ears Morrissey.
You do know the difference between the SST and SSGT?
SST – PO Box 701 Napier
SSTG – PO Box 701 Napier both at 32 Hastings St Napier, a small office bloc.
Who knew that they are using ‘catfishing’ techniques
What storm?
A storm of abuse, Jimmy.
http://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/absurd-ss-supporting-victims-families.html
What a pathetic trolling little creep you are Moz.
My friend, could you please expand on that interesting observation?
Sadly your dear old mother dropped me a note Moz – what you’ve put her through is quite unacceptable….and I quote.
‘I do apologise for our Morrissey’s behaviour. He really is an utter cunt. Takes after his father unfortunately.
Morrissey’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s always been what you would call a “problem child” very rude and disobedient from a very young age with a very strange obsession with disabled toilets. He’s never sparkled in the love department either having only one boyfriend as far as I can remember. That was a disaster as well. I remember the first time he brought Benjamin Longhair home and they went straight to Morrissey’s room. I could over hear their love talk quite clearly. Benjamin said “ooh Moz, I want you to show me something 8″ long, rock hard and full of spunk !
So Morrissey pulled a sock out from under his bed. It had been there for fucking months, I should know, its me what has to change his soiled sheets every week.’
Oooooohhh, Mullet, you are AWFUL.
But I like you!
Let’s be frank Moz, you have an EQ/IQ which would worry a moron.
Sad, pathetic and forever alone, poor Moz is doomed and destined to forever inhabit the disabled toilet of his tortured and diseased mind. Arse.
Let’s be frank Moz, you have an EQ/IQ which would worry a moron.
Do morons worry about such things? Maybe they have a dim apprehension there’s something wrong, but…. Anyway, it’s an interesting point you make.
Sad, pathetic and forever alone, poor Moz is doomed and destined to forever inhabit the disabled toilet of his tortured and diseased mind.
Yes, I guess I’m kind of an Aaron Smith in some ways.
Arse.
Indeed.
Still delusional.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1810/S00105/kiwis-better-off-under-the-national-government.htm
I particularly like the part where Louise still thinks National increased benefits for the first time in 40 years. I’ve just fired her off an email (first time in my life I’ve ever knowingly engaged with the enemy) to politely enquire where mine is because I’m still waiting for it. I don’t anticipate a reply but had fun writing and sending it 🙂 Do Nats understand sarcasm?
The survey shows that more than 50% of households that get the Accommodation Supplement pay more than 5O% of their income in housing costs. I don’t see how people are better off?
The accomodation supplement has fast become a means to increase rents, with a hefty subsidy by the tax payer. The calculation is like watching a cat chase it’s tail.
The supplement is increased to cover past rent increases only to fuel current and future increases.
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/57062/accommodation-supplement-landlord-subsidy-punching-big-hole-govt-books-due
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei attacked the Accommodation Supplement in Parliament last year, saying it was merely a subsidy for landlords
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/331777/govt-pulled-u-turn-on-accommodation-supplement
Millsy, landlords are ok 👌
The accommodation supplement does not increase rents. You could successfully argue it is a Govt funded top-up for employers (paying their employees) but you also need to take into account it is paid out to people on benefits who are not in a state provided house.
Rents are directly linked to supply and demand.
If (and it will not happen due to the political fallout) the accommodation supplement was stopped, then employers would need to step in and make-up at least some if not all of the difference.
The demand for housing will still be there, I see little room for rent reductions with or without the accommodation supplement.
If there were no AC in the 1st place, there would not be the mountain of money available $1.2b+ to fuel increases for rent. As those seeking private accomodation would not have the same ability to pay current prices, tempering rents and reducing the ability to fuel house price increases, as ROI’s wouldn’t be what they currently are.
Once implemented we are now faced with the continuation of AC as it would be impossible to remove this
I may be wrong BUT was not the AC implemented by Nats in the 90’s to allow for tenants to be no worse off should they rent a state house or private rental ?
“The Accommodation Supplement was introduced in July 1993 as a part of radical change in welfare policies announced by then Finance Minister Ruth Richardson in 1991 in her so-called ‘mother of all budgets’.”
“In 2001 the Labour Government reintroduced income related rent subsidies”
“It is sometimes argued that the Accommodation Supplement is a landlords’ subsidy and that as such any increase in the value of the Supplement will simply leak out to landlords in the form of higher rents. Remarkably there has been little analysis undertaken of either the income or price effects of the Accommodation Supplement and the two published studies appear to have been written to order to suit the argument that the payment is not a landlord subsidy17.”
https://www.cpag.org.nz/assets/A%20Policy%20of%20Cynical%20Neglect%20-%20%28Final%29.pdf
I guess the jury is out Herodotus…I concede there may be some correlation but not to any significant degree.
Way to go Simon. Populist action?
“”National has launched a petition to repeal the Government’s new fuel taxes to “relieve some of the financial pressure” on Kiwis, the party’s leader Simon Bridges has said.”
Well I see Russell McVeagh are doing the right thing.
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=113094
When are the Labour Party going to insist on a resignation by Meka Whaitiri?
Or is it OK to bash your staff if you are a Labour Party member?
Liar ! You get booted off for such falsehoods you know.
She grabbed her by the arm as she came from behind her.
By your standard grabbing a ponytail from behind is ‘bashing’
It’s ok to lie if you’re a nat. They do it all the time.
When’s wally going to let that teat go?
New Zealand
12:46 pm today
NZ activists fined nearly $19k by Israeli court over Lorde’s concert cancellation
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/349388/nz-activists-sued-over-lorde-concert-cancellations
Its a nonsense. Its not a fine , as its a civil case.
Unenforceable in NZ, mainly as no NZ – Isreal treaty on reciprocal court cases and no NZ court would allow this sort of thing where there is no loss even if there was a treaty
Geddes pulls it all apart and throws it in the bin.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/12-10-2018/can-an-israeli-court-really-make-nzers-pay-19000-for-an-open-letter-to-lorde/
well she cant sing!
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/in-depth/368436/universities-face-a-crisis-of-the-humanities
…when the university senate [University of Otago] met on 26 September and decided to axe Otago’s art history programme from 2020.
There wasn’t much of a programme left to cut. Through a process of attrition, the department had been whittled down, since 2014, to 19 full-time students, three undergraduate papers and a single full-time lecturer….
Across 25 BA majors that RNZ classified as unambiguously part of the humanities, the number of degree and post-graduate level students actually rose during the global financial crisis, mirroring university enrolment patterns in other countries. From 2010, however, the numbers began to drop away again. There were 1000 fewer humanities students enrolled in 2017 than in 2008, despite an increase of almost 40,000 students across all degrees and subjects….
The current Tertiary Education Strategy, released in 2014, states this in bald terms: “This strategy focuses in particular on the economic benefits that result from tertiary education, and therefore on employment, higher incomes and better access to skilled employees for business as critical outcomes of tertiary education.”
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/in-depth/365540/why-being-made-redundant-in-nz-is-so-tough
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/in-depth/366084/the-reality-of-life-on-the-minimum-wage-in-nz
NZ might be thinking of limiting organic growing methods in Sri Lanka, when we should be copying them, and instead demonstrating better systems for handling the vegetables.
There is talk about the need to grow more food for the world, but we don’t want to regard that as concern, it is talking about markets and money making. When business steps into a people-run economy, it is likely that traditional dealers will be swept aside in the shadow of mechanisation and export of crops for greater return that would normally have been bought by locals paying the local affordable prices.
I am concerned by this upbeat item from Radio nz. We don’t want to export our bizarre culture of destruction of ordinary people’s livelihoods and ability to manage their basic needs, in favour of higher education that produces nothing, with the obvious disconnect in access to a standard of living that is adequate for people living simply.
Most of what was grown in Sri Lanka was largely organic, with apparently minimal use of fertiliser.
“We did ask those questions around sprays, and didn’t see any evidence of it, at all.
“We understand fertiliser is used in rice production, and that’s one of the major crops for the 21 million people, but when the rice is harvested those paddocks are used to grow vegetables.”
Mr Chapman said portions of the fields were hand-tilled for vegetable growing.
He said there were similarities in that a lot of New Zealand growers were also inter-generational, so they’ve been very focused on sustainability of the land.
“As with New Zealand there is also a reducing number of people willing to work in the fields especially, where the work is largely done by hand.”
Mr Chapman said while Sri Lanka could be classed as Third World, it had made incredible advances in education, which was free through to university level, and the literacy rate was now second to Japan among Asian countries.
“We asked for food but you gave us a stone with a certificate of higher learning on it” – that might be the way the land lies in future.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/country/368530/sri-lanka-an-example-for-plant-based-diet-horticulture-nz
Protected birds left at parliament by anti-1080 protestors were completely unrelated to 1080.
So the protestors broke the law to lie about 1080. If 1080 really killed so gazillions of birds, why couldn’t the protestors at least present actual 1080 victims? Seems legit lol.
A powerful symbolic protest:
Red hands wave behind blood-stained U.S. Secretary of State
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-redhands/red-stained-hands-wave-in-protest-at-u-s-hearing-on-syria-idUSBRE98319L20130904
You can see the red hands behind that evil spectre John Kerry early in this clip (from the 0:50 mark). There should also have been a whole lot of blood-red hands waving behind the awful BBC woman at about the 8:30 mark…
Poor people are naturally sexy.
Can’t buy sex, hang out in bars or afford flowers.
Teeth not the best, clothes from The Warehouse or knock-offs.
No outlook of comfortable security, jewelry or sports cars.
Poor people are the most naturally charming, seductive and sexually satisfying people in the world because we have to be.
There was a reason every Elvis movie started with our hero sporting a skinny wallet. Check them out, even with his awful thesping, Broken arse Elvis is much sexier at the start of his movies than the rich Makegood at the end. If Elvis movies were true to life the final scene would end with the Starlet saying “Frankly, you’ve become a bit boring.”