“Tony Blair’s presence in front of the Cenotaph is grotesque. It’s like having an arsonist attending the funeral of the victims of his fire starting. One million Iraqis dead, ME plunged into the abyss, Blair is a war criminal. ”
George Galloway.
“There is no Poppy large enough, no overcoat thick enough to hide the black evil hearts of the War Criminals amongst whom Corbyn was forced to linger in London this morning.”
“’ll use Twitter sparingly from now on, and only for either my latest column or when I’ve something I really want to say. Real life awaits. Given the planetary state of things, we’d all likely do better by spending more time with family, friends, animals & nature. Peace out.”
Some could infer that the govt has now moved regarding the teachers, to engaging in the PR war with the voter, placing a wedge between the teachers and the public. The phrasing of the $9,500 is of interest as it grosses 3 annual rises of 3% into 1, and has been used to destroy favourable public opinion towards teachers. That is something you could think another govt would use, the tactic shouldn’t employed by Labour 🤔
Hipkins said the proposed pay rise exceeded that of many other professions.
“I think that a $9500 pay rise is a pay rise that many other New Zealanders would certainly appreciate.” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12158332
Of course Hipkins is Labour Ed. Labour is a neoliberal party which seems to hope people will eventually forget that they unleashed neoliberalism in NZ and have never said sorry.
Didn’t you see the part where most new Teachers leave in the first few years, due to crippling workloads, unrealistic expectations from their employers, micro-management and the stultifying effect of Nationals dumbing down of education.
Before you even get into pay, about half of the earnings of a tradesman, or other equivalently educated, skilled trade. I.E. Lawyers, dentists and real estate agents.
The right wing say we should pay millions to managers and directors to ensure competence. Teachers are supposed to do it for love.
I know. I was one of them. I didn’t expect to earn the same as my real job, but I expected to earn enough to live on reasonably, and to go to the scale they told me I would be on, before I retrained for Teaching.
Not sure how big an issue it is, but I have heard in interviews and the mighty talk back radio, that one of the issues new teachers have is their obvious lack of experience.
Some schools being hesitant to hire too many newbies.
As I say, not sure how prevalent it is, as a lot of it seemed to be anecdotal
That’s across a lot of hiring practices – demanding two years experience. It makes things very hard for people who qualify in NZ because the job market is neither large nor extensive. Getting a job near one’s family and friends or your partner’s workplace is hard enough without such nonsense. Teachers used to have some protection in the first two years though – not sure if it’s still there.
A major problem is the requirement for continued training for the first two years. The Beginning Teacher had to be under a suitable Senior Teacher for two years as part of certification. That senior person was meant to broaden the junior teacher’s curriculum and classroom management strategies.
Many schools were caused headaches by Boards of Trustees failing to keep a balance of staff, through choosing younger staff… (close to their own age often).
Older Teachers were seen as costly, harder to manage and not progressive enough. That started a chain of failures and stressed teachers and boards.
Yeah, friend of mine did a midlife swap to teaching – gave notice in year one due to stress and was essentially saved by a good mentor teacher & principal. Now much in demand at a highend private school – one of the few who knows the NCEA stuff well enough to coach the younger & foreign imports – on top of her actual job.
But the systemic prejudice against kiwis is frankly huge, and not confined to teaching. The worthless English buffoons who’ve run the MSA for the last few decades pretty much killed the training path for kiwis – took me till I was thirty to get my coastal masters, not because I failed anything but because the useless deleted expletives wouldn’t recognize my seatime. Teaching in China, one of the blokes who owned the company I worked for had got his master foreign going by the time he was 19. He was from Hong Kong – which had the same UK descended qualification framework but without the obstructive culture that was allowed to ruin NZ’s system. And still does.
In the MSA’s case, now Maritime New Zealand, it was organizational incompetence, which seems to be intergenerational. Governments putting taxi drivers or real Estate agents in charge, and employing ex cops, doesn’t help. There are some good people in MNZ, but they tell me you have to keep your heads well down, if you have any real knowledge.
Having experience in New Zealand shipping, is a definite barrier to employment with MNZ.
The current international requirement for only one years sea time for a second mates certificate, and the like, is even more pandering to cost cutting shipowners.
Useless Management in NZ is systemic throughout the Public Service & Private Companies “the harder you suck the higher you get & it depends on who you know not what you know ?”.
Most Public Companies here in NZ have either been bankrupted through management incompetence or sold to offshore investors.
Government Departments and SOE’s run as little fiefdoms ?
“I can’t see how there can be a teacher shortage” – are you saying there isn’t one?
If so, where is your analysis to back that up?
If you don’t have that analysis – and I’m sure you don’t – or you are not saying there isn’t a shortage, then stop introducing distractions like this to every single discussion.
My dentist has just awarded himself a pay rise, of double that.
Average pay rises for top managers over 17%.
Civil service managers are now on hundreds of thousands.
Teachers used to be on the same as a backbencher.
I think they are being rather restrained, myself. Especially when you consider the rises are nowhere near that for all Teachers, and they are over several years.
Lastly. If you want to attract competent people from other jobs, you need to, at least, pay them enough to live in Auckland.
The time of expecting women with well paid husbands, to do the job for love and peanuts, is over.
Teachers are used as scapegoats, regularly chastised, blamed, painted as unsatisfactory servants just carrying on at a higher level from pre-school education. Their achievements and workload aren’t respected, and for decades also teach mentally unabled childre, those who are disturbed and mind-stressed from unhappy homes and from watching mind-warping television and videos, as well as those who are to be prepared for a regular working life if they can find that.
Just as government and leaders play games with them, expecting more but also increasing their difficulties, they do the same to the adults who have finished school, and they have difficulties finding that regular working life. All are easured all the time with forms to fill out. This is a society that is built around the idea that people are not good enough to be treated as satisfactory; niggling and fault-finding by those who have managed to climb the ladder is constant but those at the upper level somehow avoid much of it themselves.
“A University of Otago study shows CEO pay is increasing at almost five times the rate of the average worker.
Otago University Business School Accountancy and Finance researcher Dr Helen Roberts’ longitudinal study study, which adjusted for inflation, showed the proportion of CEOs paid over $500,000 per year had also increased approximately five-fold across three different compensation measures.
It showed chief executives were now paid 30 to 50 times more than the average wage of $60,000.”
“Chief executive pay packes often do not seem to relate to performance. Fonterra and Fletcher Building are good examples. Or CBL. The troubled insurer’s boss was paid $2.6 million in 2016 and the company was placed in voluntary administration in early 2018.
For context, the chief executive pay in the top 50 companies in New Zealand averaged average under NZ$2 million. That’s around 35 times the average worker pay.”
And that same CEO will have large investments in the stock market that has tripled in value in the last 9 years and he/she will own multiple houses that, as everybody knows, have gone up massively in value in the last 20 years.
The combination of massive salary increases and massive capital gains represents a huge shift in wealth to the top 5-10%.
at least you did not say capital gains where the ‘family home’ is tax free ha ha.
Problem with asset tax is, if you are not a CEO how the hell do you pay it on NZ wages? Can you imagine a teacher adding that tax on to their mortgage, rates and other expenses to pay?
Obviously fine if you work or have income from overseas and therefore can earn money in relation to cost of living. In NZ there is a disparity of wages including those middle class wages i.e. teachers and police which is why there is an issue with ‘asset’ taxes on NZ wages.
I’d prefer more targeted taxes aka stamp duty on assets over 5 million for example – business/farm/house. Even if it was the ‘family home’ you would still have to pay.
Also more investigation into ‘minimum’ turnover taxes aka comanies like Google that pay little taxes here have to pay a minimum of tax on turnovers over 10 million for example even if they make a ‘loss’.
And a financial transaction tax on banks and money coming into and out of NZ to get all those ‘profits’.
Some of the people inconvenienced by the teachers this week will be paid even less than teachers and work just as hard.
I have doubts about how far the model of individual unions seeking improvements for their members alone can be pushed. I would prefer to see increases in the ‘social wage’ that benefit all low and moderate income earners.
The rich and the powerful are pointing out the minor problems caused by people demanding to be paid enough while distracting from the major problems that they themselves cause such as under paying people.
Worse DTB, the rich demand private schools and suitable packages to attract the best teaching staff for their children. Further they take the funds from the General Education Budget, thus lowering the money for the rest.
Exactly. But the media now portray reasonable catch-up as beyond reasonable.. (Thanks, ERA..)
I have lived many years (I started in 1970) wishing that NZEI and my PPTA could actually work together. It appears that from the start of next year this may actually happen. The foolish promoters of the economy need to be taught that there are many things more important than what they think is good for the economy. Society matters far more than the economy, … the economy has to be a servant, not a master.
Worse DTB, the rich demand private schools and suitable packages to attract the best teaching staff for their children.
Oh yes, the rich believe in performance-based pay and meritocracy; the best get paid better, the better-paid are the best. They would say that, wouldn’t they?
This feeds into the urban myth that teachers in low-decile schools are generally inferior to teachers in high-decile ones with only the best carefully handpicked for private schools (the elite schools). Consequently, the low-decile schools are inferior too, which is obvious when you look at academic success of the students, now and in future.
This BS keeps self-perpetuating and even some of the poor are buying into it.
Don’t!
One’s pay (or wealth) is not a marker of one’s competence as a teacher.
But AB teachers aren’t unskilled and semi-skilled workers, and they are extensions of the socialising and informing role that parents do (if all is going well). Teachers are trained to carry out their role, unlike parents who struggle to get along with or without teachers strikes. Teachers are trying to maintain their numbers with training to expected levels of expertise in these difficult times. While we have teachers who care and try to help children through their school years to a level that enables them to manage in the world, we have some hope that they will be able to negotiate social wages for themselves as adults, if their parents have not learned enough to achieve that themselves.
‘Teach your children well, their parents hell will surely go by’.
Grey – I find comparisons between who is ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’ a bit odious. And I don’t really like the idea of people’s economic wellbeing coming down to how well they can make the case that they are more skilled than someone else, who therefore deserves less than they do.
I would like to see a sort of cross-occupational solidarity that assumes the baseline of a decent economic life for everyone, then places some relatively modest skill differentials (insofar as these can be determined) on top of that. If people are in occupational silos trying to do the best for themselves alone, that plays into the individualistic habits of mind that are part of our current predicament.
We aren’t and can’t all be the same AB. Chance to realise the fullness of oneself through work and opportunities and decent conditions in one’s community and the world would be a fine thing. But life and self management has to be learned, just scrambling along, dragging oneself up with no wise and caring help rarely results in a well-balanced and wise person. Teachers are worthy, should be nurtured and respected and have reasonable expectations placed on them in return.
They, and informed and thinking people, know too well today that they are the first rather than the second stage of support and introduction to life skills for many children in our society. That is why these skilled people need to get more attention than the unskilled, who in turn should get better conditions offered for their living and advancement. I don’t agree with the theory of communism, and everyone getting the same if that is what is behind your thinking.
Certainly would not get many to do my present job, without a skills and responsibility premium. We offered to train some staff. The response was, “you couldn’t pay me enough to take the responsibility”.
The lifestyle which made it an adventure for young people in the past, are long gone.
However there is no justification for jobs that I regard as semi-skilled, such as management in large companies, getting 35 times the average wage.
How much did teachers pay rise under the Natz and how much now under Labour would be a good comparison.
My gut feeling is that maybe the Natz did not give the teachers enough pay rises, and now labour are being blamed for it.
Plus the neoliberal immigration policies of the last 12 years in particular mean that it sounds like teachers would not have enough pay for even Kiwibuild ‘affordable’ houses up to $180k dual income.
In addition the glut of spec houses being built in Auckland were based around a Ponzi scheme and Kiwis can’t afford or not interested in 1 million+ dollar McMansions and want/need that 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house with double garage and tiny section or 2 bedroom apartment with $13,000 a year body corporates and chance of leaks?
The ‘market driven’ developers have failed to build for the market of NZ and the high paid jobs were never created to keep the migrants or Kiwis in NZ with enough wages to live here without an overseas job to fund it? Aka once people get residency here, they leave their $20p/h insecure NZ job… NZ back where it started the ponzi but with much more liabilities and satellite families earning nothing but kids to teach, kids to give health care to, kids to commute to schools, WFF and tops ups to pay…
It would have to be a pretty flash apartment to have $13,000 body corporate fees. I have been looking at apartments around the $700,000 mark for a relative. Body corporate plus rates are around $5,000 to $6,000.
You have got to be joking Wayne! Just the insurance component on many apartments in Wellington exceeds $5000 to $6000. Now add $3000 p.a. for rates and varying amounts for future maintenance charges in the range of $1000 to five times that. One can be sure that $13,000 is not exceptional, particularly for older repurposed buildings. Also, you must realise that there are a number of apartments around that are at give-away prices as owners cannot afford the repair bills for earthquake and structural problems.
There are pockets of excellence in NZ in-between vast deserts of doubt and apathy. Many good ideas get buried by bureaucracy and/or suffocated by mediocre managers. Access to funding is like a 3,000-mile pilgrimage carrying a heavy load and with self-flagellation at each and every step, bare feet, I should add. It’s dire.
There are pockets of excellence in NZ in-between vast deserts of doubt and apathy.
Dear God is that such a true statement.
I’m sorry to say this; but it’s the one thing that becomes vividly apparent the moment you get on a plane and leave. If only NZ would learn to believe in itself the way our best rugby players and our world class sailors do … the country would be unstoppable.
Elite NZ athletes ‘learn to believe in themselves’ through expensive ongoing coaching and psychological support. Let’s invest in the equivalent for everyone else and reap the benefits.
Perhaps we could make lemonade out of something sour? The long spiritual walk of Spain the Carmino de Santiago is a selling point to meditative visitors and bucket-list tourists;, a spiritual and physical task that attracts thousands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago
Our pain and spiritual exercise of effort obtaining resources to try and save what is good in NZ from destruction and to nurture, build and develop better things in NZ, could be sold as a journey that attracts sympathetic tourists. Sell ourselves as a small green jewel in the world being threatened by the twin hazards of neoliberal freemarketing and runaway climate change. ‘Join us in our fevered attempts to rise above this tide’; better than an epic blockbuster.
/sarc or is it a step outside the square that could be the floating something that we grasp to save ourselves from drowning? I’ll leave you to conjecture what the something would be!
In 2010, Rocket Lab worked on a project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, a US Department of Defense agency. The result of this work was passed on to the US military in 2012.
In 2013, Rocket Lab received funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. Around this time Rocket Lab moved its company registration to the US and opened a corporate office in Los Angeles. In a recent TV interview, Peter Beck stated that he now spends his time betwwen LA and NZ.
In 2014, the US military and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin invested an undisclosed amount in Rocket Lab. Lockheed Martin is one of the US largest defence contractors, $35.2 billion in US military contracts last year. Rocket lab have refused to discuss the amount of funding they recieve from Lockheed Martin.
Is naive little NZ developing military and surveillance technology for the US?
I don’t think cube satellites are of much interest to the military. Way too small for serious comms and data use, and way too small for aerial surveillance. The camera lens needs to at least 30 cm is diameter to be of any serious military use. Way too big for a cube sat.
LM will just want Rocket Lab to be in its overall portfolio. After all LM won’t want to be completely reliant on military contracts. For instance the F35 project (largest single military contract in the world) will be complete in 10 years, and that probably accounts for 30% of current LM revenue.
Fireblade that is what concerns me. One thing to notice is that every new finding and invention gets looked at by ‘defence’ to see if they can use it to advantage. And they very likely be funding the tech.
And the othr thing that anything is moral if it makes a profit to these things parading themselves as people. So what if we are dependent for jobs on making butterfly bombs, rocket parts with impregnated mine material into every sq cm. etc?
How come the Opposition is doing all this quizzing of every meeting of some Ministers? It is as if they have taken over the snooping job of those detectives Thomson and Clark? What is the task they should be doing in their role?
3000 questions they asked of just Shane Jones, let alone anyone else, and that was a ploy they signalled early in the term of the new government. I would like to know exactly what the questions were? Clearly by dint of the number of questions there would be “gaps”. Likewise when you see the range of people he spoke to that seemed entirely normal, I doubt the same can be said of opposition “meetings” both during this term and prior.
The more people in NZ meet and talk with genuine intention the better off the country will be in the longterm.
One thing that has been absent other that weasel worded, relentless and empty badgering from the entire opposition party is what they would do to improve NZ and the lives of NZers, prior, within this term by positive example and if they ever, god forbid, got themselves back on the government side of the house without a major shift in dedication and intentions for NZ.
Goldsmith is obsessed with trying to hang something on Shane Jones, it appears to be an obsessive delusional trait with the National Party at present, maybe they have private investigators following all the Government MP’s, National have plenty in their coffers from their Asian Backers ?
Goldsmith appears to be working from the John Key & Crosby Textor Dirty Tricks Handbook ?
I was scratching my head as to what a good/easy issue to practice bipartisanship.
Treaty of Waitangi settlements.
Ongoing, big budget (not one term fiscal responsibility) fairly apolitical.
Who knows what could come of it?
Every human is better when we cooperate.
Jacinda Ardern told NZ this would be the most open transparent government ever, a none too subtle dig at National, so when the present government is less than transparent you think National shouldn’t remind voters of what Jacinda Ardern said
PR We had to learn of some meetings by National with their funders and masters through a fallout between friends.
Don’t come to this forum spouting the current Government is not transparent.
The last National Government was totally hiding meetings and schemes.
That is now being reflected in their shrinking support.
They are trying to build an impression of holding the government to account – severely handicapped by their own cavalier behavior in office. They may fool some of their base by it, but not much more.
Goldsmith is obsessed with trying to hang something on Shane Jones, it appears to be an obsessive delusional trait with the National Party at present, maybe they have private investigators following all the Government MP’s, National have plenty in their coffers from their Asian Backers ?
Goldsmith appears to be working from the John Key & Crosby Textor Dirty Tricks Handbook ?
Clare Curran was an incompetent Minister whose downfall in part brought about by questioning about her ‘meetings’. It might be unpleasant, but it is a legitimate part of opposition.
Am I the only that is slightly cynical and amused that the teachers strikes “just happen” to give both Auckland and Wellington teachers a long weekend?
“The whole weekend was supposed to be a show of western solidarity, and ended up proving its absence. Trump showed himself ill at ease with most of his European counterparts and the fleeting encounter with Putin was a reminder of his much greater affinity for autocrats.
He has claimed warm, even affectionate, relations with Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman, Rodrigo Duterte and now Brazil’s president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro.
Trump may have cut a lonely figure in Paris, but on the world stage, he is less and less isolated.”
Yes. This has been apparent from the outset and is alarming. The man is a god-awful lout and his election symptomatic of a deeply divided and troubled society.
Having said that, there may well be another side to this. In a world now increasingly dominated by dangerously authoritarian figures in places like Russia, China, Saudi, Brazil and so on … the liberal instincts of the west have proven an inadequate response.
It’s possibly worth remembering that just prior to WW2 Churchill was widely regarded with similar disdain by almost the entire educated, leadership class in Britain. They saw him too as an erratic, uncouth man with a patchy record. (The ‘appeasers’ were by no means confined to Chamberlain; if events had transpired just a little differently there is no doubt that Rudolf Hess’s attempt at a peace treaty might well have succeeded.)
Events play strange tricks with us, the leaders we need in peacetime are not necessarily the ones we need in times of trouble. I’m not trying to compare Trump with Churchill directly; but there are some parallels between the two men and their place in history that are worth thinking about.
I do think trump is a manifestation of his society, a consequence and predictable. To me he is dangerous, not just because of his ideas and beliefs but more because of the company he enjoys. He is like them and them ain’t good.
Churchill was the man of the times as was Hitler as is t.rump. The hardest thing for me in some ways is knowing that he is just the beginning and he will be far from the worst as the Empire crumbles little bit by little bit. T.rump is funny in some ways, amongst the carnage – other ones coming won’t be funny.
Yes. If I’m reading you correctly then I agree wholeheartedly. The potential for utter catastrophe is chilling and stalking us daily.
My optimism pivots on this one thing; that for fear of the consequences these leaders of the world will soon agree to set aside some portion of their unconstrained national sovereignty in favour of a wider common good. Events in Paris more than hint at this possibility:
Dozens of leaders, except Mr Trump, gathered in Paris later in the day for a peace forum.
Opening the event, Mrs Merkel said: “Most of the challenges today cannot be solved by one nation alone, but together. That’s why we need a common approach.
“If isolation wasn’t the solution 100 years ago, how can it be today in such an interconnected world?”
With US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting in the nearby audience, Macron said that “old demons are reawakening” and warned against ignoring the past as a lesson to the danger of nationalist sentiments.
Yes there does appear to be attempts to bring people together as per macrons speech. T.rump is diametrically opposed to that and him and his supporters are proud of that. This is their agenda. Thus the delusions perpetuate.
There is a coalescing occurring around very fundamentally different ways of looking at things.
Thanks for posting that marty-superb article. What a nasty prat Trump is.
I think the mid-term results have been poorly reported. The democrats now look like taking 35-36 seats in the House where early results showed more like 25. This is close to the “blue-wave” 40-seat gain they were after. The Democrats won 7 important Governor races.
In Florida the Senate race is now within 0.14 percent where the Republican spent $60 million (NZ$90m) of his own fortune on trying to get elected. The recount will be interesting.
Meanwhile there was a massive increase in young voters. Bodes well for 2020.
“The purpose of my work was never to destroy but always to create, to construct bridges, because we must live in the hope that humankind will draw together and that the better we understand each other the easier this will become.”
Alphonse Mucha
As he was inaugurated for a second term this evening, President Michael D Higgins said “ideas matter” and “history tells us that anti-intellectualism” is the “the weapon of authoritarian and anti-democratic forces in so many parts of our shared, vulnerable planet” .
“Our choice must be to actively extend and deepen democracy, to express it in wider forms and in new ways,” he said.
Not alone was “the very existence of our planet in its bio-diversity threatened but we have not yet slowed the pace of that destruction. We live with ongoing violence against women which must be ended.
“We must confront and challenge any excuses offered for the denial of the irreducible rights, of women who make up, let us not forget, a majority of humanity on this planet. It is important that we recognize the rights and culture of indigenous peoples. It is also important that each person is free to express their sexuality, gender or relationship,” he said.
There should be a set curriculum at all schools in NZ with schools able to add to these, but not to forego important factual stuff we should all know and understand.
And religion should not be taught, it should be part of a philosophy based curricu,um teaching about culture and how values are established.
However, University of Canterbury School of Teacher Education senior lecturer Dr Richard Manning …
Difficulties arose because of “perceived white backlash”. He had encountered history teachers who pushed back on teaching Māori history saying it was “all political correctness”.
> There should be a set curriculum at all schools in NZ with schools able to add to these, but not to forego important factual stuff we should all know and understand.
Sorry dude, schools have taught very little ‘factual stuff’ of any sort for some time.
You have to teach your own kids facts, or hope they pick it up in books.
Well, I don’t think kids learn a lot of facts at primary school, even compared to in my day (the 80s).
This is based on a sample size of 1 (my kid) plus what I hear from others and read in the media.
If you have information to the contrary I would be pleased to hear it.
> Most of the kids these days seem pretty onto it.
I never said they weren’t ‘onto it’! I said they don’t learn a lot of facts at school! It doesn’t actually seem that controversial of a statement. I do not think many modern educators would seriously contend that they try to stuff kids’ heads with facts nowadays.
>Maybe the poor influence on your kids isn’t at school?
You seem like a decent bloke overall, I don’t know why you act like an asshole towards me. Should I just stop trying to engage you in conversation?
To sum up, I think Cleangreen thinks that the Ministry of Education in Wellington sets a list of information (not skills, not competencies, but facts) that kids must learn. I respond that if this was ever the case, it has not been so for decades.
“Onto it” as in knowing stuff. Facts. Their math seems pretty good. Same with basic NZ history and plants and stuff. Most of the sprogs I know love to interrupt discussions with vaguely-relevant crap they picked up somewhere.
Sure, there’s not so much rote learning, but this isn’t a bad thing. And in my day they just hit us if we didn’t remember whatever shit was being taught at the time.
I had a chat to a modern teacher in regards to rote learning vs enquiry learning (not sure what correct terminology is).
This was after watching my son get to a level at maths ok then largely struggle. From about year 8.
I came through with the times table, rote learnt in the 70s.
With that foundation, I found it easy to hold 2or 3 parts of the solution in mind before getting answer.
I don’t think the answer is one or the other but a combo, but we have a habit of throwing out all of the old when we have a new.
One interesting element is the ‘Key Competencies.’ Calls for teacher performance pay usually mention testing kids for how much the kids ‘know’ in subjects and paying teachers accordingly not on how essential competencies have been achieved and to what level.
In front of the world, America has shown everyone what a piss weak president they have. He would not walk a step to honour the American soldiers WWI. Because of rain drops.
In front of the great State of California the same piss weak president has poured out his piss weak insults on the devastated, the dead and dying in the fierce hell fires – fiddling like a mad man with his insipid tweets.
America is at its Weakest. Surely they can rid themselves of the current Whitehouse Fool.
Kia ora The Am Show It is alarming that the Pola Ice Cap’s could be melting faster than previously thought that will raze sea levels by mtr and not just cm there will be stronger storm and Hurricanes smashing the coastal community’s.
.Christina its cool that we are talking about Human Caused Climate Change its about time I have worked out what has happened a BLUE Tsunami thank’s for your word’s Christina.
Kiwi are kind when the telephon 24 hour TV fun razing money for to aid 3 world country’s was running Kiwi donated million’s we were one of the highest for donation’s per capital time’s were much easier in those day’s we had spear money.
That the internet correcting thing’s again the fuel community price app is a cool Idea that will keep the gas company’s honestest may be you could have other consumer good’s and services listed to your app will pump.
With our teachers strike they mone about there work load .
I will give a example of the kicks and work smarter theory its fact actually.
I was part of a organization that milked 5000.00 cow’s twice a day through one 80 bale shed the neighbour and the newbees could not milk 3500 2 80 bale sheds it was a finely run farming group .
Point the teacher have heap’s of tool at there disposal to teach tamariki with the internet at there disposal they just have to look outside of the square to come up with smart efficient teaching solution’s.
Also these strikes will hit the common poor tamariki the most if the parents have to take time off work to care for there tamariki the wealthy will just hire a carer
There is a glut of oil on the market and we have hundred’s of thousands of electric vehicles coming on stream and millions of solar panels wind turbines displacing oil Thanks to China’s manufacturing muscle and people like Mus .
Its good that the Anglican Church is backing the public inquiry into child abuse of
state care tamariki and the Religious groups that cared for tamariki . Ka kite ano P.S no flash video links I need some DIMP for my computer the sandflys keep attacking it
Here is the reason our fuel prices have dropped trump’s tricks have been countered
the world woke up to his moves to inflate oil prices his oil baron supporters net worth went up by billions
Also, the weekly estimates are not as accurate as the monthly figures, which are published on a roughly 2-month lag. As such, they should be taken with a grain of salt. However, the massive increase comes just days after the EIA reported a huge increase in production in the monthly data – at 11.346 mb/d in August, the U.S. oil industry has clearly been producing a lot more than previously thought. That lends some weight to the weekly figures.
Another previously-bullish factor was Iran. With Iran’s oil exports spiraling downwards at the end of the summer and into September, the oil market grew very concerned about adequate global supply and the rapidly dwindling volume of spare capacity. U.S. waivers on countries importing Iranian oil removed that threat. Washington still wants to tighten the screws – and in fact, the sudden bearishness in the market gives the Trump administration more leeway to do just that – but in the near-term, Iran will continue to export.
A third factor is OPEC+ production. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Russia and Libya have all increased production in recent months, offsetting the losses from Iran. Now, the group has a different problem on its hands. A technical committee to the OPEC+ coalition is set to meet this weekend where it will take stock of the oil market. They will also consider options going forward for managing the market, including the potential for a production cut in 2019 to avoid another market downturn. The 180-degree turn – from adding supply just a few months ago to now considering a cut – is a remarkable indicator that demonstrates how quickly the sentiment has turned.
Ka kite ano
Plunging Battery Costs To Trigger Energy Storage Boom YEA YES KA PAI
Bloomberg New Energy Finance has forecast a veritable boom in energy storage installations in the coming years with investments hitting US$1.2 trillion by 2040. Falling battery costs will be the driver behind this boom, with BNEF projecting a 52 percent drop in utility-scale lithium-ion systems by 2030. .
It is a fact that the cost of producing batteries for energy storage is falling. Cost reduction, after all, is a top priority for everyone from EV makers to utilities betting on energy storage as a future source of revenues
But what about energy storage installations’ effect on the grid? That should be all-round positive, except for utilities that generate power from non-renewable sources. They better start preparing because BNEF’s analysts projected energy storage may rise to 7 percent of the world’s total installed power generation capacity by 2040.
In more good news for renewables, while until about 2030 most energy storage installations will be utility-scale from about 2035 behind-the-meter facilities will begin to take over, which means they will probably be affordable by then, and Elon Musk’s concept of a household featuring a solar roof, a household battery pack, and an EV could become a reality not just for billionai Ka kite ano link below . P.S I could build a offgrid solar power system for a small family for $4000 all up .
I decided to wait and see what happened when I first seen reports on China lifting Ban on trade in endangered animal parts
The Chinese government announced on Monday that it would postpone a plan to lift the 25-year ban on the endangered animals, following a storm of international protest.
It’s important to send the strongest message that the value of wild populations of tigers and rhinos and their ecosystems is much greater than the value of their bones and horns. Ka pai China they get the big picture its te tangata its te tangata and we need Papatuanuku and all her creatures to be respected to have a prosperous future for all.
Link below ka kite ano
We need to protect OUR worlds forest and start planting billions of trees for our future
decedents to have a good life .There are many cases in OUR History that show’s a complete collapse of the environment and the society all because we did not respect mother nature .
The UK, France and Germany have called on the European commission to launch tough new action to halt deforestation by the end of the year.
A long-delayed EU action plan should be brought forward “as soon as possible”, says a letter to the commission sent by the Amsterdam Declaration group of countries, which also includes Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.
To help meet a UN goal of halting deforestation by 2020, the EU should show “a leadership role, mobilising its political and market leverage, and promoting broader international dialogue and cooperation”, the letter says.
Link below ka kite ano
Its people like Stan Lee who have provided us with fantastic comic books he has ignited
the imagination of billions of people and a lot have gone on to become the worlds greatest inventors condolences to his whano/family he will be missed he is in a higher place now
Stan Lee: Spider-Man, X-Men and Avengers creator dies aged 95
Born Stanley Martin Lieber on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 1922, Lee’s childhood was marked by the Great Depression. In his 2002 autobiography Excelsior!, Lee described how his father’s struggle to find a steady job had forever affected him: “It’s a feeling that the most important thing for a man to do is to have work to do, to be busy, to be needed,” he wrote.
At 17, Lee landed a job at a publishing company owned by his relative Martin Goodman, and began writing scripts for superhero and mystery comics. When Goodman fell out with his editor in 1941, Lee found himself editor-in-chief at just 19.
Link below ka kite ano. P.S my eldest grandson has a flash suit
Our Pacific cousins have a positive influence on Aotearoa society culturally and financially
“The [NZ Pacific Economy] report reveals Pacific peoples are contributing significantly to the economy despite some of the poor health, housing, education and employment outcomes experienced by many in their communities,” Robertson said.
Pasifika families and businesses are big contributors to NZ economy: Finance Minister Assets from about 1500 Pacific business employers and almost 500 not-for-profit organisations totalled up to $8.3b and, from those assets, the total value added was thought to be $3.1b annually. Ka kite ano link below.
ASB has joined the fray in the latest round of mortgage rate wars – dropping its one year fixed rate to match the record low 3.95 per cent offered by ANZ.
Its good to see ANZ bank start to the one year fixed interest rate drop that’s cool.
But I will still be after one of there board members /shonky but if you can save money go for it put all the saving on the mortgage .The low rate specials offered by ANZ, BNZ and Westpac are only available to home owners with a deposit or 20 per cent equity stake in their homes.
Its a buyers market now and about time thanks to the moves of our new Coalition Government. ka kite ano P.S we have other’s banks competing for your custom and the interest rate battle begins link below.
Kia ora Te Kaea I have to use my phone to get the post out the sandflys are attaking my other computer.
It will be a good trip for our Prime minister meeting all the heads of states talking about the Pacific relations and Climate change impacts on the Pacific and Aotearoa.
It been good seeing Te IWIs helping there tangata into housing that’s the best way to escape the poverty trap a lot of our tangata fall into.
Son of Zion are a cool banned music is good for te Wairua.
It would be nice if our government did advocate for Indigenous people consern.s at the gathering of our world leaders.
Ka kite ano P.S I will get some dimp tomorrow
Kia ora Newshub Paddy Andrew is letting the people go into the Pike River mine that will be of great relief for Berne and the family of all the people who have lost love ones in the mine.
Kate I have a post early on for the Great Comic writing legend Stan Lee.
Those fires in Northern Calafornia is a great desaster condolences to the people who have lost.
I say that the Shane Jones NZFirst billion tree program has had a minor hick up its what could happened to anyone when you have Papatuanukue and Tawhirirmate one can not pradict the weather.
It looks like they had a good day at the Addington race way in Christchurch Ra is shining to.
That’s what I wanted Sukieanne get her houners taken away for the atrocities that her government is doing to those poor people in Mayna.
We get half our meat from my sons they buy a beef so I dive into their freezers.
I do like my veggies to but I have to have some meat unprocessed we don’t eat as much meat as we used to.
That must have been a shock to SUE she is doing a fine job the new Auckland Prison told her that she needs to have a photo ID and finger print to she helps people who are having proroale problems we have seen a lot of people can’t get prole no fix abode if they can’t read a write
. Plastic water bottles leaching toxins well. I say know one has tested them for the effects on the fetus and the long term effects on anmials humans one to.
Ka kite ano P.S mind the spelling sandflys muppets
Some people try and play ECO MAORI they get the benefit of doubt they believe the lies the sandflys are spinning about ECO MAORI to them they get one chance.
I should listen to my instinct it’s always correct Ana to kai
The Crowd goes Wild Mulls and James.
Manu and Butterbean fight will be interesting. Monty ECO a South paw.
Mulls you lost weight can you still shuffle my moko is good at the shuffle they get their groove from the Wife my children give me shit when I have enough cups of tea to start to fluffel LOL.
The Addington races NZ trotting Cup was Winston there.
Butterbean has to get the message out drop the sugar us Pacific Islanders body’s are to effect at storing fat and sugar stuff up our health.
Ka kite ano P.S that’s the way guys support the Bowls teams and Showing heaps of Wahine Sports Stars on The Crowd goes Wild
Good morning The AM Show Azzes is having fun at the AMP Show.
There you go Winston Peters and Andrew Little The Coalition Government has helped the Pike River family to find the truth about the explosion.
This all happened because shonky made a unwise bet on COAL/Carbon. I have story that links shonky to Aotearoa losing 1 billion dollars of assets will tell when the time is right.
The road accidents =not enough investment in roads and a xtra 1 million people and cars = more accidents.
Lloyd the britexit I say it’s a can of worms they wish they never opened.
Robots are the future and AI Is a big threat to human kind and the World take it seriously one just. To see how the sandflys are behaveing with the technology tools help you to understand part of my concern of Artifical Intelligents every single thing we do will have computers integrated into it and if one App has that power we’ll people who make movies about this subject are warming US.
IF a person like trump gets the power of total control that AI can have we are in the SHIT.
It will be cool if Israel gets a title fight at the UFC.
There you go Berne Monk you want justice and accountability shonky was covering up the big mistake they made with the health and safety prosses at Pike River mine. Because the familys of the people who died are common people it’s worth the massive effort yous have put into getting justice a big WIN for the common tangata.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora The AM Show. The Pike River scandle is just one issue from shonky
The Britexit don’t count your chickens May I have read that Nigal Farr has been linked to the Muler Russian investorgation I smelt that far right money all over his actions.
I East Asia summit Tova I bet Mike Pence wanted to talk about more issues that the dumb trade tariff.??????????
It has been the reward of a lot of people’s hard work that has paid off with the Mountain Grilla coming of the most endangered list.
The Black Ferns are getting heaps of game time and coverage on TV
Ka kite ano. P.S flip flop
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
By Lorraine Ecarma in Cebu City The University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) will continue to stand against any threats to human rights, chancellor Clement Camposano has declared in response to the termination of a long-standing accord preventing military incursion on campus. In a Facebook post, Camposano said the academic ...
ANALYSIS:By Jennifer S. Hunt, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit different. If the last US presidential inauguration in 2017 debuted the phrase “alternative facts”, the ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby In spite of Papua New Guinea’s mandatory mask-wearing requirement under the National Pandemic Act 2020, many public servants attending a dedication service in Port Moresby have failed to wear one. They were issued masks before entering the Sir John Guise Indoor Complex but took ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University How do scabs form? — Talila, aged 8 Great question, Talila! Our skin has many different jobs. One is to act as a barrier, protecting us from harmful things in the ...
US President Donald Trump is pardoning former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is accused of fraud in a case involving funds for the border wall. ...
Joel Little with Lorde, Dera Meelan with Church & AP, Josh Fountain with Maala and Randa and Benee – producers make good songs great. Now a new fund from NZ on Air is putting the focus on them.Six months ago it looked like the music industry was on the brink ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denise Buiten, Senior Lecturer in Social Justice and Sociology, University of Notre Dame Australia On average, one child is killed by a parent almost every fortnight in Australia. Last week, three children — Claire, 7, Anna, 5, and Matthew, 3 — were ...
This commendable and realistic decision again underlines that it is the police, not government, who are largely responsible for the reduction in cannabis prosecutions over the past 15 years, writes Russell Brown.The news that New Zealand police have discontinued the annual Helicopter Recovery Operation, which has, each summer for more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington We will not be able to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us until the world’s population is mostly immune through vaccination ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s US inauguration live blog: inauguration news, analysis and reaction, updated throughout Wednesday and Thursday, NZ time. Reach me at catherine@thespinoff.co.nz.4.00pm: What will Trump be doing tomorrow?It’s pretty well known by now that outgoing president Donald Trump intends to throw out the rulebook when it comes to ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is calling out Mayor Phil Goff for his undignified comment that the claim made by Councillor Greg Sayers asking why Auckland Council is funding yoga classes is “bullshit.” Yesterday, Councillor Greg Sayers penned ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At 4am Thursday AEDT, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as president and vice president of the United States, replacing Donald Trump and Mike Pence. What follows is ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission. New Zealanders flocked to beaches and lakes this summer, but it wasn't enough to fill the gap left by international tourists in other regions. The tourism industry is struggling to fill a $6 billion hole left by international tourists ...
Summer reissue: Chef Monique Fiso joins us for a chat about Hiakai – her acclaimed Wellington restaurant, and the title of her stunning new book.First published November 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn ...
A new trough was brought to our attention this morning, although ethnicity will limit the numbers of eligible applicants. If you are non-Maori, it looks like you shouldn’t bother getting into the queue – but who knows?We learned of the trough from the Scoop website, where the Kapiti ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Britta Denise Hardesty, Principal Research Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, CSIRO Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing costs economies up to US$50 billion globally each year, and makes up to one-fifth of the global catch. It’s a huge problem not only for the ...
Police stopping major cannabis eradication operations has given the green light to drug dealers and gangs to expand operations, make more profit, and continue to wreak havoc on the most vulnerable in our society, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. ...
Varieties of merino wool footwear are emerging faster than Netflix series about British aristocracy. Michael Andrew takes a look at the rise of the shoe that almost everyone – including his 95-year-old grandma – is wearing.Some might say it all started with Allbirds. After all, to the average consumer, it ...
A new report from New Zealand’s Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) highlights the realities and challenges disabled people faced during the COVID-19 emergency. The report, Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic, Te Whakatinana i ngā Tika ...
The Maritime Union is questioning the reasons provided for ongoing delays at the Ports of Auckland. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Craig Harrison says there is a need for an honest conversation about what has gone wrong at the ...
As New Zealand faces a dire shortage of veterinarians, a petition has been launched urging the Government to reclassify veterinarians as critical workers so we can Get Vets into NZ. “New Zealand desperately needs veterinarians from overseas to counter ...
New Zealand is fast developing a reputation as a South Pacific vandal, says Greenpeace, as the government continues to fight against increased ocean protection. At the upcoming meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and Netsafe are urging parents and caregivers to be mindful of the online content their tamariki may be consuming in the lead up to the inauguration of president-elect of the United States of America Joe Biden ...
Care is at the centre of Auckland Zoo’s mandate, and it’s clear to see when you witness the staff doing their day-to-day jobs up close. Leonie Hayden went behind the scenes to talk to two people who would do anything for the animals they look after. “We were having this ...
The Game Animal Council (GAC) is applying its expertise in the use of firearms for hunting to work alongside Police, other agencies and stakeholder groups to improve the compliance provisions for hunters and other firearms users. The GAC has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Verica Rupar, Professor, Auckland University of Technology “The lie outlasts the liar,” writes historian Timothy Snyder, referring to outgoing president Donald Trump and his contribution to the “post-truth” era in the US. Indeed, the mass rejection of reason that erupted in a ...
The internet ain’t what it used to be, thanks to privacy issues, data leaks, censorship and hate speech. But a group of New Zealanders are working on a way to give power back to the people. A flood of headlines over the last week made it clear: the internet has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW’s Grand Challenges Program, UNSW The views of women and men can differ on important gendered issues such as abortion, gender equity and government spending priorities. Surprisingly, however, average differences in sex ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer S. Hunt, Lecturer in National Security, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle In Australia and around the world, research is showing changes in body weight, cooking, eating and drinking patterns associated with COVID lockdowns. Some changes have been positive, such as people cooking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hao Tan, Associate professor, University of Newcastle Australian coal exports to China plummeted last year. While this is due in part to recent trade tensions between Australia and China, our research suggests coal plant closures are a bigger threat to Australia’s export ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Head, Skin Health, Telethon Kids Institute A year ago, in late January 2020, Australia reported its first cases of COVID-19. Since then, we have seen almost 29,000 confirmed cases and 909 deaths. As cases climbed in Australian cities in 2020, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Emeritus Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne Political pressure forced the federal government in 2017 – when Scott Morrison was treasurer – to call the royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services sector. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle The Rise and Fall of Saint George is a story about place, belonging and community that taps into universal tensions of identity and faith in multicultural societies. Playing for ...
An in-depth analysis of media coverage of the euthanasia and cannabis referendums has found that while both sides of the euthanasia referendum were given reasonably fair and balanced coverage, the YES position in the cannabis debate received a heavily ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission Auckland has no plans to hand over the ownership of it assets under the government's planned water reforms, with Auckland Mayor Phil Goff saying his top priority is to ensure it stacks up for the city. Despite ...
Auckland Transport is putting nine new electric buses on the roads today, as it dramatically accelerates its plans to get rid of all its diesel buses – in a funding challenge to the council. Public transport operators are being told to not buy any more diesel buses or risk losing their council ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as they find out exactly what we’re voting on in the cannabis referendum, and discover how legalising weed is a women’s issue.First published August 4, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
A principal analyst for the Climate Change Commission says more needs to be done to reduce agricultural emissions or the country will miss its methane targets. ...
Despite promises of improvement, questions remain about colonoscopy services in Otago and Southland.David Williams reports The apology, when it came, was fulsome. “On behalf of the Southern DHB, I offer a sincere apology for lapses and inadequacies in colonoscopy services over the past several years,” district health board chair ...
New Zealand needs to be bold in making developers enhance the environment - not just limit its degradation, writes Stephen Knight-Lenihan All human activity should help restore the natural world. This is a concept that may resonate following the upheavals of 2020 and one which is beginning to appear in law. Imagine ...
Derek Challis, son of the legendary author Robin Hyde, died last Thursday. Michelle Leggott pays tribute He opens a suitcase and there they are, the precious manuscript notebooks written by his poet mother Iris Wilkinson aka Robin Hyde. We are in Dunedin for a Hyde conference. Yes, says Derek Arden ...
Former New Zealand gymnast Katya Nosova is now a champion bodybuilder, who was prepared to spend Christmas alone in quarantine to compete in the 'Olympics' of her sport. Katya Nosova was willing to do everything she could to pose on the world stage in her third Ms Olympia. Despite a ...
Concerts and some sports look likely to be on the move in Auckland after a big win for Eden Park – and politicians and officials may now want to win the public some control over the independent stadium. The advent of big concerts at Eden Park will, in all likelihood, mean ...
The issues political editor Justin Giovannetti will be keeping an eye on in 2021 (that have nothing to do with Covid-19).New Zealand will be busy in 2021. The border will remain closed to nearly all travellers and Covid-19 will continue to lead the news, but the country has a packed ...
A former case manager says that his experience working with beneficiaries suggests claims of a ‘complete shift’ in the service’s approach are laughable.A former Work and Income case manager who now works with beneficiaries engaging with the service has spoken out on a “toxic” culture which he says denies beneficiaries ...
ACC Minister Carmel Sepuloni must confirm whether the Government supports ACC’s apparent policy to make payouts for illegal overstayers , says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . Union spokesman Jordan Williams says, “Since when was it ACC policy to ...
By RNZ News An independent panel says Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial covid-19 outbreak, and criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) for not declaring an international emergency until 30 January. The experts reviewing the global handling of the pandemic, ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk Fiji’s NGO Coalition on Human Rights has called for stronger accountability and commitment to human rights at home in response to the country taking the world stage as the head of a UN body. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) elected Fiji’s ambassador Nazhat Shameem as ...
Danyl McLauchlan reviews Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions, which outlines the staggering systemic flaws in the funding and publication of scientific papers. Back in August of 2006 a number of New Zealand scientists were caught up in a media controversy about whether Māori had a genetic predisposition towards violent crime. It kicked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago America is currently experiencing its worst political and constitutional crisis since the civil war when the very survival of Abraham Lincoln’s government “of, by and for the people” was at stake. On ...
Manaaki Rangatahi report that young people experiencing homelessness are being further traumatized within the emergency accommodation where they have sought safety. Often these environments are unsafe, and unsuitable for young people to live in, and rangatahi ...
Can you figure out which of the above is the real Jacinda Ardern? Probably! But one day, that might not be true.There are many reasons to believe the internet shouldn’t exist. Social media empires exerting, intentionally or not, their control over sovereign governments. Baby Shark. Your aunt on Facebook.It pains ...
The Point of Order Ministers on a Mission Monitor has flickered only fleetingly for much of the month. More than once, the minister to trigger it has been David Parker, who set it off again yesterday with an announcement that shows how he has been spending our money. He welcomed ...
Ban Bomb Day event at the New Brighton Pier, 9am, on January 22nd, 2021 January 22nd, 2021, marks the first day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Enters into Force and becomes international law. Aotearoa NZ is one of the ...
Why are New Zealand’s 2 Minute Noodles called 3 Minute Noodles in the UK? It’s a puzzle that has taken hold of Dylan Reeve and refuses to let go.I’m a child of the 80s and 90s. I watched a lot of TV and was a big fan of aggressively marketed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonatan A Lassa, Senior Lecturer, Humanitarian Emergency and Disaster Management, College of Indigenous Futures, Arts and Society, Charles Darwin University News of storms battering parts of Queensland and the threat posed by Cyclone Kimi reminded me of a recent experience I’d had. ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that the use of force to effect the arrest of a wanted offender in Auckland was justified and proportionate to the risk he posed. A man, who was well known to Police, was wanted by Police for an aggravated ...
A distinctly colonial institution, banking has long ignored te ao Māori. Teaho Pihama believes investment in tikanga Māori at Kiwibank can have significant, positive outcomes for Māori.In early 90s Tāmaki Makaurau, when Teahooterangi (Teaho) Pihama was growing up riding his bike around the streets of Kingsland until the streetlights came ...
Donald Trump’s awful presidency expires at midday on Wednesday [US time] when Air Force One will have deposited him in Florida. He retreats to his Mar-a-Lago resort and Joseph R Biden Junior takes command of the White House. Trump’s has been an unpleasant presidency, brought about largely by his own ...
The New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) has elected its National President for 2021. The election took place last Friday at an NZUSA Special General Meeting (SGM) in Wellington. Andrew Lessells, 22, was elected to serve as the National ...
Think twice before you accept that surprise school reunion invite, writes Chris Schulz.It started with a Facebook notification. A school reunion was being organised. It sounded fun, with a fancy dress party set to be held in the city where I grew up, Whanganui. I hadn’t seen some of my ...
Unlike the US, there is very little NZ precedent for politicians to issue discretionary pardons – creating a challenge for those like Prof Sean Davison who might have a humanitarian claim to mercy. ...
Schools have told the Education Review Office that some children lost 10 weeks of learning in last year's lockdowns, but the overall impact of the pandemic is still unclear. In a report based on surveys of thousand of students, teachers and principals during and after last year's national and Auckland ...
The government seems to still be in holiday mode when in the past two weeks alone we have had six homicides, countless firearms incidents, and police needing to arm themselves against gangs almost every second day," says Sensible Sentencing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Crawford, Associate Professor in Construction and Environmental Assessment, University of Melbourne Over the past few years, Australians have embraced online food delivery services such as UberEats, Deliveroo and Menulog. But home-delivered food comes with a climate cost, and single-use packaging is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland When the coronavirus pandemic hit Australia in March 2020, the Morrison government took bold and imaginative action. The most notable examples were its income support programs – JobKeeper, paying a A$750 weekly ...
Ocean Ute, which arrived at Port Taranaki yesterday, is the second live export ship to arrive in New Zealand this year. Taranaki Animal Rights Group has two demonstrations planned for today. A protest at midday and a vigil at 6.30pm tonight . The number ...
The Department of Corrections is well within its rights to refuse Jared Savage’s “Gangland” book from being read by inmates and it is outrageous that resources and time are now potentially going to be wasted in court about it, says Sensible ...
John Wight
“Tony Blair’s presence in front of the Cenotaph is grotesque. It’s like having an arsonist attending the funeral of the victims of his fire starting. One million Iraqis dead, ME plunged into the abyss, Blair is a war criminal. ”
George Galloway.
“There is no Poppy large enough, no overcoat thick enough to hide the black evil hearts of the War Criminals amongst whom Corbyn was forced to linger in London this morning.”
Rachel Stewart
“’ll use Twitter sparingly from now on, and only for either my latest column or when I’ve something I really want to say. Real life awaits. Given the planetary state of things, we’d all likely do better by spending more time with family, friends, animals & nature. Peace out.”
Some could infer that the govt has now moved regarding the teachers, to engaging in the PR war with the voter, placing a wedge between the teachers and the public. The phrasing of the $9,500 is of interest as it grosses 3 annual rises of 3% into 1, and has been used to destroy favourable public opinion towards teachers. That is something you could think another govt would use, the tactic shouldn’t employed by Labour 🤔
Hipkins said the proposed pay rise exceeded that of many other professions.
“I think that a $9500 pay rise is a pay rise that many other New Zealanders would certainly appreciate.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12158332
Hopkins is just another neoliberal politician.
He is no socialist.
He does not represent the working class.
He is not Labour.
Who is Hopkins?
Hipkins!
A member of the elite.
Of course Hipkins is Labour Ed. Labour is a neoliberal party which seems to hope people will eventually forget that they unleashed neoliberalism in NZ and have never said sorry.
Hipkins is right at home.
So that will solve the shortage!!!!
Yea Right
I can’t see how there can be a teacher shortage, we train thousands of new teachers every year.
Where do they all go? do they all have teaching jobs?
Didn’t you see the part where most new Teachers leave in the first few years, due to crippling workloads, unrealistic expectations from their employers, micro-management and the stultifying effect of Nationals dumbing down of education.
Before you even get into pay, about half of the earnings of a tradesman, or other equivalently educated, skilled trade. I.E. Lawyers, dentists and real estate agents.
The right wing say we should pay millions to managers and directors to ensure competence. Teachers are supposed to do it for love.
I know. I was one of them. I didn’t expect to earn the same as my real job, but I expected to earn enough to live on reasonably, and to go to the scale they told me I would be on, before I retrained for Teaching.
But hasn’t that all been changed under this Government ? There should be a massive increase in people wanting to train as teachers now.
Nope. Labour are still holding on to the delusional tradition that a new government doesn’t change the policies set by the previous government.
And the reality is that it’s going to take time to recognise the damage that the right-wing policies are doing and then fix them.
Not sure how big an issue it is, but I have heard in interviews and the mighty talk back radio, that one of the issues new teachers have is their obvious lack of experience.
Some schools being hesitant to hire too many newbies.
As I say, not sure how prevalent it is, as a lot of it seemed to be anecdotal
That’s across a lot of hiring practices – demanding two years experience. It makes things very hard for people who qualify in NZ because the job market is neither large nor extensive. Getting a job near one’s family and friends or your partner’s workplace is hard enough without such nonsense. Teachers used to have some protection in the first two years though – not sure if it’s still there.
A major problem is the requirement for continued training for the first two years. The Beginning Teacher had to be under a suitable Senior Teacher for two years as part of certification. That senior person was meant to broaden the junior teacher’s curriculum and classroom management strategies.
Many schools were caused headaches by Boards of Trustees failing to keep a balance of staff, through choosing younger staff… (close to their own age often).
Older Teachers were seen as costly, harder to manage and not progressive enough. That started a chain of failures and stressed teachers and boards.
Yeah, friend of mine did a midlife swap to teaching – gave notice in year one due to stress and was essentially saved by a good mentor teacher & principal. Now much in demand at a highend private school – one of the few who knows the NCEA stuff well enough to coach the younger & foreign imports – on top of her actual job.
But the systemic prejudice against kiwis is frankly huge, and not confined to teaching. The worthless English buffoons who’ve run the MSA for the last few decades pretty much killed the training path for kiwis – took me till I was thirty to get my coastal masters, not because I failed anything but because the useless deleted expletives wouldn’t recognize my seatime. Teaching in China, one of the blokes who owned the company I worked for had got his master foreign going by the time he was 19. He was from Hong Kong – which had the same UK descended qualification framework but without the obstructive culture that was allowed to ruin NZ’s system. And still does.
> the obstructive culture that was allowed to ruin NZ’s system
Do you think this is largely grounded in protectionism – those that are already ‘in’ pulling up the ladder after them?
A.
In the case of the MSA, yes.
Most cultures do this in their own country in fact – it’s a colonial legacy that this strange version of it remains so prevalent in NZ.
In the MSA’s case, now Maritime New Zealand, it was organizational incompetence, which seems to be intergenerational. Governments putting taxi drivers or real Estate agents in charge, and employing ex cops, doesn’t help. There are some good people in MNZ, but they tell me you have to keep your heads well down, if you have any real knowledge.
Having experience in New Zealand shipping, is a definite barrier to employment with MNZ.
The current international requirement for only one years sea time for a second mates certificate, and the like, is even more pandering to cost cutting shipowners.
All NZ companies, hate paying for training.
Experience, short term contracts and long trial periods.
Don’t forget, young. Skilled older tradespeople, who are often better with the stroppy kids, not wanted.
Only seems to apply to New Zealand trained Teachers?
Useless Management in NZ is systemic throughout the Public Service & Private Companies “the harder you suck the higher you get & it depends on who you know not what you know ?”.
Most Public Companies here in NZ have either been bankrupted through management incompetence or sold to offshore investors.
Government Departments and SOE’s run as little fiefdoms ?
In one word Management in NZ is “Useless” IMHO.
“I can’t see how there can be a teacher shortage” – are you saying there isn’t one?
If so, where is your analysis to back that up?
If you don’t have that analysis – and I’m sure you don’t – or you are not saying there isn’t a shortage, then stop introducing distractions like this to every single discussion.
A couple from my kids school shot the gap to Dubai as soon as there 1 1/2 ? Probation was up .
My dentist has just awarded himself a pay rise, of double that.
Average pay rises for top managers over 17%.
Civil service managers are now on hundreds of thousands.
Teachers used to be on the same as a backbencher.
I think they are being rather restrained, myself. Especially when you consider the rises are nowhere near that for all Teachers, and they are over several years.
Lastly. If you want to attract competent people from other jobs, you need to, at least, pay them enough to live in Auckland.
The time of expecting women with well paid husbands, to do the job for love and peanuts, is over.
Teachers are used as scapegoats, regularly chastised, blamed, painted as unsatisfactory servants just carrying on at a higher level from pre-school education. Their achievements and workload aren’t respected, and for decades also teach mentally unabled childre, those who are disturbed and mind-stressed from unhappy homes and from watching mind-warping television and videos, as well as those who are to be prepared for a regular working life if they can find that.
Just as government and leaders play games with them, expecting more but also increasing their difficulties, they do the same to the adults who have finished school, and they have difficulties finding that regular working life. All are easured all the time with forms to fill out. This is a society that is built around the idea that people are not good enough to be treated as satisfactory; niggling and fault-finding by those who have managed to climb the ladder is constant but those at the upper level somehow avoid much of it themselves.
“A University of Otago study shows CEO pay is increasing at almost five times the rate of the average worker.
Otago University Business School Accountancy and Finance researcher Dr Helen Roberts’ longitudinal study study, which adjusted for inflation, showed the proportion of CEOs paid over $500,000 per year had also increased approximately five-fold across three different compensation measures.
It showed chief executives were now paid 30 to 50 times more than the average wage of $60,000.”
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/ceo-pay-increases-five-times-average-rate
“Chief executive pay packes often do not seem to relate to performance. Fonterra and Fletcher Building are good examples. Or CBL. The troubled insurer’s boss was paid $2.6 million in 2016 and the company was placed in voluntary administration in early 2018.
For context, the chief executive pay in the top 50 companies in New Zealand averaged average under NZ$2 million. That’s around 35 times the average worker pay.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/106499178/what-to-do-about-the-everincreasing-rate-of-ceo-pay
And that same CEO will have large investments in the stock market that has tripled in value in the last 9 years and he/she will own multiple houses that, as everybody knows, have gone up massively in value in the last 20 years.
The combination of massive salary increases and massive capital gains represents a huge shift in wealth to the top 5-10%.
We need an asset tax and a land tax.
at least you did not say capital gains where the ‘family home’ is tax free ha ha.
Problem with asset tax is, if you are not a CEO how the hell do you pay it on NZ wages? Can you imagine a teacher adding that tax on to their mortgage, rates and other expenses to pay?
Obviously fine if you work or have income from overseas and therefore can earn money in relation to cost of living. In NZ there is a disparity of wages including those middle class wages i.e. teachers and police which is why there is an issue with ‘asset’ taxes on NZ wages.
I’d prefer more targeted taxes aka stamp duty on assets over 5 million for example – business/farm/house. Even if it was the ‘family home’ you would still have to pay.
Also more investigation into ‘minimum’ turnover taxes aka comanies like Google that pay little taxes here have to pay a minimum of tax on turnovers over 10 million for example even if they make a ‘loss’.
And a financial transaction tax on banks and money coming into and out of NZ to get all those ‘profits’.
yep agree….like the turnover tax but not set at a pathetically low token level like in the UK
Some of the people inconvenienced by the teachers this week will be paid even less than teachers and work just as hard.
I have doubts about how far the model of individual unions seeking improvements for their members alone can be pushed. I would prefer to see increases in the ‘social wage’ that benefit all low and moderate income earners.
That is how we got descent wages and welfare in the first place. Bit by bit. Mostly by striking. The horror.
Nationwide strikes in support are illegal. Otherwise you may find that many of the people you are so concerned about, support Teachers.
Increases in the social wage, means Government share of the economy must increase. Taxes on the rich may have to go up! Horrors.
Quality Teaching and education, is part of the “social wage”, by the way.
+111
Exactly.
The rich and the powerful are pointing out the minor problems caused by people demanding to be paid enough while distracting from the major problems that they themselves cause such as under paying people.
Worse DTB, the rich demand private schools and suitable packages to attract the best teaching staff for their children. Further they take the funds from the General Education Budget, thus lowering the money for the rest.
Exactly. But the media now portray reasonable catch-up as beyond reasonable.. (Thanks, ERA..)
I have lived many years (I started in 1970) wishing that NZEI and my PPTA could actually work together. It appears that from the start of next year this may actually happen. The foolish promoters of the economy need to be taught that there are many things more important than what they think is good for the economy. Society matters far more than the economy, … the economy has to be a servant, not a master.
NZEI have always been too terrified of upsetting parents and far too into self-sacrifice.
Oh yes, the rich believe in performance-based pay and meritocracy; the best get paid better, the better-paid are the best. They would say that, wouldn’t they?
This feeds into the urban myth that teachers in low-decile schools are generally inferior to teachers in high-decile ones with only the best carefully handpicked for private schools (the elite schools). Consequently, the low-decile schools are inferior too, which is obvious when you look at academic success of the students, now and in future.
This BS keeps self-perpetuating and even some of the poor are buying into it.
Don’t!
One’s pay (or wealth) is not a marker of one’s competence as a teacher.
But AB teachers aren’t unskilled and semi-skilled workers, and they are extensions of the socialising and informing role that parents do (if all is going well). Teachers are trained to carry out their role, unlike parents who struggle to get along with or without teachers strikes. Teachers are trying to maintain their numbers with training to expected levels of expertise in these difficult times. While we have teachers who care and try to help children through their school years to a level that enables them to manage in the world, we have some hope that they will be able to negotiate social wages for themselves as adults, if their parents have not learned enough to achieve that themselves.
‘Teach your children well, their parents hell will surely go by’.
Grey – I find comparisons between who is ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’ a bit odious. And I don’t really like the idea of people’s economic wellbeing coming down to how well they can make the case that they are more skilled than someone else, who therefore deserves less than they do.
I would like to see a sort of cross-occupational solidarity that assumes the baseline of a decent economic life for everyone, then places some relatively modest skill differentials (insofar as these can be determined) on top of that. If people are in occupational silos trying to do the best for themselves alone, that plays into the individualistic habits of mind that are part of our current predicament.
We aren’t and can’t all be the same AB. Chance to realise the fullness of oneself through work and opportunities and decent conditions in one’s community and the world would be a fine thing. But life and self management has to be learned, just scrambling along, dragging oneself up with no wise and caring help rarely results in a well-balanced and wise person. Teachers are worthy, should be nurtured and respected and have reasonable expectations placed on them in return.
They, and informed and thinking people, know too well today that they are the first rather than the second stage of support and introduction to life skills for many children in our society. That is why these skilled people need to get more attention than the unskilled, who in turn should get better conditions offered for their living and advancement. I don’t agree with the theory of communism, and everyone getting the same if that is what is behind your thinking.
Certainly would not get many to do my present job, without a skills and responsibility premium. We offered to train some staff. The response was, “you couldn’t pay me enough to take the responsibility”.
The lifestyle which made it an adventure for young people in the past, are long gone.
However there is no justification for jobs that I regard as semi-skilled, such as management in large companies, getting 35 times the average wage.
How much did teachers pay rise under the Natz and how much now under Labour would be a good comparison.
My gut feeling is that maybe the Natz did not give the teachers enough pay rises, and now labour are being blamed for it.
Plus the neoliberal immigration policies of the last 12 years in particular mean that it sounds like teachers would not have enough pay for even Kiwibuild ‘affordable’ houses up to $180k dual income.
In addition the glut of spec houses being built in Auckland were based around a Ponzi scheme and Kiwis can’t afford or not interested in 1 million+ dollar McMansions and want/need that 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom house with double garage and tiny section or 2 bedroom apartment with $13,000 a year body corporates and chance of leaks?
The ‘market driven’ developers have failed to build for the market of NZ and the high paid jobs were never created to keep the migrants or Kiwis in NZ with enough wages to live here without an overseas job to fund it? Aka once people get residency here, they leave their $20p/h insecure NZ job… NZ back where it started the ponzi but with much more liabilities and satellite families earning nothing but kids to teach, kids to give health care to, kids to commute to schools, WFF and tops ups to pay…
It would have to be a pretty flash apartment to have $13,000 body corporate fees. I have been looking at apartments around the $700,000 mark for a relative. Body corporate plus rates are around $5,000 to $6,000.
You have got to be joking Wayne! Just the insurance component on many apartments in Wellington exceeds $5000 to $6000. Now add $3000 p.a. for rates and varying amounts for future maintenance charges in the range of $1000 to five times that. One can be sure that $13,000 is not exceptional, particularly for older repurposed buildings. Also, you must realise that there are a number of apartments around that are at give-away prices as owners cannot afford the repair bills for earthquake and structural problems.
Hipkins use of that is bullshit and propaganda, an easily used line to be picked up by people like Michael Barnett.
Last week Hipkins had it at $10,000 so it’s already dropped!
Congratulations to Rocketlab on their successful launch of their rocket last night.
In New Zealand; who’da thought?
There are pockets of excellence in NZ in-between vast deserts of doubt and apathy. Many good ideas get buried by bureaucracy and/or suffocated by mediocre managers. Access to funding is like a 3,000-mile pilgrimage carrying a heavy load and with self-flagellation at each and every step, bare feet, I should add. It’s dire.
There are pockets of excellence in NZ in-between vast deserts of doubt and apathy.
Dear God is that such a true statement.
I’m sorry to say this; but it’s the one thing that becomes vividly apparent the moment you get on a plane and leave. If only NZ would learn to believe in itself the way our best rugby players and our world class sailors do … the country would be unstoppable.
And yes big congrats to RocketLab !!
Elite NZ athletes ‘learn to believe in themselves’ through expensive ongoing coaching and psychological support. Let’s invest in the equivalent for everyone else and reap the benefits.
Perhaps we could make lemonade out of something sour? The long spiritual walk of Spain the Carmino de Santiago is a selling point to meditative visitors and bucket-list tourists;, a spiritual and physical task that attracts thousands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago
Our pain and spiritual exercise of effort obtaining resources to try and save what is good in NZ from destruction and to nurture, build and develop better things in NZ, could be sold as a journey that attracts sympathetic tourists. Sell ourselves as a small green jewel in the world being threatened by the twin hazards of neoliberal freemarketing and runaway climate change. ‘Join us in our fevered attempts to rise above this tide’; better than an epic blockbuster.
/sarc or is it a step outside the square that could be the floating something that we grasp to save ourselves from drowning? I’ll leave you to conjecture what the something would be!
The Rocket Lab launch is interesting.
In 2010, Rocket Lab worked on a project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, a US Department of Defense agency. The result of this work was passed on to the US military in 2012.
In 2013, Rocket Lab received funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. Around this time Rocket Lab moved its company registration to the US and opened a corporate office in Los Angeles. In a recent TV interview, Peter Beck stated that he now spends his time betwwen LA and NZ.
In 2014, the US military and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin invested an undisclosed amount in Rocket Lab. Lockheed Martin is one of the US largest defence contractors, $35.2 billion in US military contracts last year. Rocket lab have refused to discuss the amount of funding they recieve from Lockheed Martin.
Is naive little NZ developing military and surveillance technology for the US?
I don’t think cube satellites are of much interest to the military. Way too small for serious comms and data use, and way too small for aerial surveillance. The camera lens needs to at least 30 cm is diameter to be of any serious military use. Way too big for a cube sat.
LM will just want Rocket Lab to be in its overall portfolio. After all LM won’t want to be completely reliant on military contracts. For instance the F35 project (largest single military contract in the world) will be complete in 10 years, and that probably accounts for 30% of current LM revenue.
Fireblade that is what concerns me. One thing to notice is that every new finding and invention gets looked at by ‘defence’ to see if they can use it to advantage. And they very likely be funding the tech.
And the othr thing that anything is moral if it makes a profit to these things parading themselves as people. So what if we are dependent for jobs on making butterfly bombs, rocket parts with impregnated mine material into every sq cm. etc?
More information about the Rocket Lab, US and Lockheed Martin connections.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12159204
How come the Opposition is doing all this quizzing of every meeting of some Ministers? It is as if they have taken over the snooping job of those detectives Thomson and Clark? What is the task they should be doing in their role?
Deflecting away from their 3 terms of damage and the car crash that is bridges and Bennett’s handling of bagman JLR.
A full time job.
3000 questions they asked of just Shane Jones, let alone anyone else, and that was a ploy they signalled early in the term of the new government. I would like to know exactly what the questions were? Clearly by dint of the number of questions there would be “gaps”. Likewise when you see the range of people he spoke to that seemed entirely normal, I doubt the same can be said of opposition “meetings” both during this term and prior.
The more people in NZ meet and talk with genuine intention the better off the country will be in the longterm.
One thing that has been absent other that weasel worded, relentless and empty badgering from the entire opposition party is what they would do to improve NZ and the lives of NZers, prior, within this term by positive example and if they ever, god forbid, got themselves back on the government side of the house without a major shift in dedication and intentions for NZ.
Goldsmith is obsessed with trying to hang something on Shane Jones, it appears to be an obsessive delusional trait with the National Party at present, maybe they have private investigators following all the Government MP’s, National have plenty in their coffers from their Asian Backers ?
Goldsmith appears to be working from the John Key & Crosby Textor Dirty Tricks Handbook ?
Goldie will only ever get pompous crap out of that flatulating blowhard.
I was scratching my head as to what a good/easy issue to practice bipartisanship.
Treaty of Waitangi settlements.
Ongoing, big budget (not one term fiscal responsibility) fairly apolitical.
Who knows what could come of it?
Every human is better when we cooperate.
Well when you proclaim to wanting the most open and transparent government ever then you have to expect the opposition will hold you to that
What? The patently ridiculous and time wasting crap from National, has nothing to do with “holding the Government to account”.
It is just designed to prevent this Government achieving anything.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/watch-jacinda-ardern-admits-government-not-most-open-transparent-after-questioning-simon-bridges-in-parliament
Jacinda Ardern told NZ this would be the most open transparent government ever, a none too subtle dig at National, so when the present government is less than transparent you think National shouldn’t remind voters of what Jacinda Ardern said
PR We had to learn of some meetings by National with their funders and masters through a fallout between friends.
Don’t come to this forum spouting the current Government is not transparent.
The last National Government was totally hiding meetings and schemes.
That is now being reflected in their shrinking support.
Bbbut they had hats. The meetings were in other hats. It was all ok.
Wally Haumaha clean as a whistle according to the latest QC Report another Natzi beat up by the little worm Christopher Bishop down the shitter ?
I think ‘clean as a whistle’ is a bit of a stretch.
You mean the integrity of the process has been maintained.
They are trying to build an impression of holding the government to account – severely handicapped by their own cavalier behavior in office. They may fool some of their base by it, but not much more.
Goldsmith is obsessed with trying to hang something on Shane Jones, it appears to be an obsessive delusional trait with the National Party at present, maybe they have private investigators following all the Government MP’s, National have plenty in their coffers from their Asian Backers ?
Goldsmith appears to be working from the John Key & Crosby Textor Dirty Tricks Handbook ?
Clare Curran was an incompetent Minister whose downfall in part brought about by questioning about her ‘meetings’. It might be unpleasant, but it is a legitimate part of opposition.
National think that being in opposition involves getting back power at all costs..
Their MP’s are tasked as being snipers, taking endless shots at the coalition, in the hope of winging as many as possible.
Representing New Zealanders in Parliament is obviously not part of their job description.
Am I the only that is slightly cynical and amused that the teachers strikes “just happen” to give both Auckland and Wellington teachers a long weekend?
Yes
Yes except for the opposition party, that will be way up there to the level of any one of their 3000 questions, you’d fit right in there.
Go away christy
Also less disruptive for parents and children..
Parents tend to whinge that the least those stroppy commie teachers could do is strike on the edge of the weekend christy.
Good article on the t.rump debacle.
“The whole weekend was supposed to be a show of western solidarity, and ended up proving its absence. Trump showed himself ill at ease with most of his European counterparts and the fleeting encounter with Putin was a reminder of his much greater affinity for autocrats.
He has claimed warm, even affectionate, relations with Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, Mohammed bin Salman, Rodrigo Duterte and now Brazil’s president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro.
Trump may have cut a lonely figure in Paris, but on the world stage, he is less and less isolated.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/11/thumbs-up-from-putin-as-trump-rains-on-armistice-parade
Yes. This has been apparent from the outset and is alarming. The man is a god-awful lout and his election symptomatic of a deeply divided and troubled society.
Having said that, there may well be another side to this. In a world now increasingly dominated by dangerously authoritarian figures in places like Russia, China, Saudi, Brazil and so on … the liberal instincts of the west have proven an inadequate response.
It’s possibly worth remembering that just prior to WW2 Churchill was widely regarded with similar disdain by almost the entire educated, leadership class in Britain. They saw him too as an erratic, uncouth man with a patchy record. (The ‘appeasers’ were by no means confined to Chamberlain; if events had transpired just a little differently there is no doubt that Rudolf Hess’s attempt at a peace treaty might well have succeeded.)
Events play strange tricks with us, the leaders we need in peacetime are not necessarily the ones we need in times of trouble. I’m not trying to compare Trump with Churchill directly; but there are some parallels between the two men and their place in history that are worth thinking about.
I do think trump is a manifestation of his society, a consequence and predictable. To me he is dangerous, not just because of his ideas and beliefs but more because of the company he enjoys. He is like them and them ain’t good.
Churchill was the man of the times as was Hitler as is t.rump. The hardest thing for me in some ways is knowing that he is just the beginning and he will be far from the worst as the Empire crumbles little bit by little bit. T.rump is funny in some ways, amongst the carnage – other ones coming won’t be funny.
Yes. If I’m reading you correctly then I agree wholeheartedly. The potential for utter catastrophe is chilling and stalking us daily.
My optimism pivots on this one thing; that for fear of the consequences these leaders of the world will soon agree to set aside some portion of their unconstrained national sovereignty in favour of a wider common good. Events in Paris more than hint at this possibility:
https://news.sky.com/story/armistice-day-in-europe-macron-warns-against-nationalism-as-wwi-remembered-11551693
Another link:
https://www.businessinsider.com/r-with-trump-sitting-nearby-macron-calls-nationalism-a-betrayal-2018-11/?r=AU&IR=T
Yes there does appear to be attempts to bring people together as per macrons speech. T.rump is diametrically opposed to that and him and his supporters are proud of that. This is their agenda. Thus the delusions perpetuate.
There is a coalescing occurring around very fundamentally different ways of looking at things.
Thanks for posting that marty-superb article. What a nasty prat Trump is.
I think the mid-term results have been poorly reported. The democrats now look like taking 35-36 seats in the House where early results showed more like 25. This is close to the “blue-wave” 40-seat gain they were after. The Democrats won 7 important Governor races.
In Florida the Senate race is now within 0.14 percent where the Republican spent $60 million (NZ$90m) of his own fortune on trying to get elected. The recount will be interesting.
Meanwhile there was a massive increase in young voters. Bodes well for 2020.
Sanders for president? (Corbyn for PM?).
A good thought from Alphonse Mucha 1860-1939
Ideas matter.
As he was inaugurated for a second term this evening, President Michael D Higgins said “ideas matter” and “history tells us that anti-intellectualism” is the “the weapon of authoritarian and anti-democratic forces in so many parts of our shared, vulnerable planet” .
“Our choice must be to actively extend and deepen democracy, to express it in wider forms and in new ways,” he said.
Not alone was “the very existence of our planet in its bio-diversity threatened but we have not yet slowed the pace of that destruction. We live with ongoing violence against women which must be ended.
“We must confront and challenge any excuses offered for the denial of the irreducible rights, of women who make up, let us not forget, a majority of humanity on this planet. It is important that we recognize the rights and culture of indigenous peoples. It is also important that each person is free to express their sexuality, gender or relationship,” he said.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/president-michael-d-higgins-says-ideas-matter-as-he-is-inaugurated-for-second-term-1.3694089
When is New Zealand going to have its own President. ?
There should be a set curriculum at all schools in NZ with schools able to add to these, but not to forego important factual stuff we should all know and understand.
And religion should not be taught, it should be part of a philosophy based curricu,um teaching about culture and how values are established.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/107206925/new-zealands-schooltaught-colonial-history-is-racist-and-needs-changing–say-teachers
However, University of Canterbury School of Teacher Education senior lecturer Dr Richard Manning …
Difficulties arose because of “perceived white backlash”. He had encountered history teachers who pushed back on teaching Māori history saying it was “all political correctness”.
> There should be a set curriculum at all schools in NZ with schools able to add to these, but not to forego important factual stuff we should all know and understand.
Sorry dude, schools have taught very little ‘factual stuff’ of any sort for some time.
You have to teach your own kids facts, or hope they pick it up in books.
A.
Maybe they just don’t teach “alternative facts”?
Have you got school age kids??
A.
I do, a 10 year old, she gets taught facts, thanks for your concern though.
Wasn’t talking to you,
Besides, I also have a primary school age kid and not a lot of facts going on. More emphasis on doing their own research…
A.
lol
Because possession grants more expertise than merely knowing a few through friends, maybe?
Most of the kids these days seem pretty onto it. Maybe the poor influence on your kids isn’t at school?
Well, I don’t think kids learn a lot of facts at primary school, even compared to in my day (the 80s).
This is based on a sample size of 1 (my kid) plus what I hear from others and read in the media.
If you have information to the contrary I would be pleased to hear it.
> Most of the kids these days seem pretty onto it.
I never said they weren’t ‘onto it’! I said they don’t learn a lot of facts at school! It doesn’t actually seem that controversial of a statement. I do not think many modern educators would seriously contend that they try to stuff kids’ heads with facts nowadays.
>Maybe the poor influence on your kids isn’t at school?
You seem like a decent bloke overall, I don’t know why you act like an asshole towards me. Should I just stop trying to engage you in conversation?
To sum up, I think Cleangreen thinks that the Ministry of Education in Wellington sets a list of information (not skills, not competencies, but facts) that kids must learn. I respond that if this was ever the case, it has not been so for decades.
A.
“Onto it” as in knowing stuff. Facts. Their math seems pretty good. Same with basic NZ history and plants and stuff. Most of the sprogs I know love to interrupt discussions with vaguely-relevant crap they picked up somewhere.
Sure, there’s not so much rote learning, but this isn’t a bad thing. And in my day they just hit us if we didn’t remember whatever shit was being taught at the time.
Heel yes I wish I was taught the new way . ..
Imagine being taught to think rather than remember .
> Most of the sprogs I know love to interrupt discussions with vaguely-relevant crap they picked up somewhere.
Bet it wasn’t at school
A.
Unless it’s about dinosaurs or superheroes, you’d probably lose that bet.
I had a chat to a modern teacher in regards to rote learning vs enquiry learning (not sure what correct terminology is).
This was after watching my son get to a level at maths ok then largely struggle. From about year 8.
I came through with the times table, rote learnt in the 70s.
With that foundation, I found it easy to hold 2or 3 parts of the solution in mind before getting answer.
I don’t think the answer is one or the other but a combo, but we have a habit of throwing out all of the old when we have a new.
Yep. We have gone away from simply regurgitating long lists of facts, without understanding!
Rote recitation only works for times tables and the alphabet.
> Rote recitation only works for times tables and the alphabet.
That is just not so.
A.
Worked for me.
No, I mean you can learn other things through rote recitation, I have done it.
e.g. conjugation of verbs in a foreign language.
A.
The NZ curriculum for those who haven’t looked at it.
http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/English/Learning-areas
http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum#collapsible7
One interesting element is the ‘Key Competencies.’ Calls for teacher performance pay usually mention testing kids for how much the kids ‘know’ in subjects and paying teachers accordingly not on how essential competencies have been achieved and to what level.
These California wildfires are getting apocalyptic:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/officials-order-evacuations-camp-fire-threatens-8000-acres/story?id=59065896
And the lout in charge makes outrageous claims as usual:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/11/politics/california-wildfires-trump-tweets/index.html
they did not vote for him. So there.
Here’s a needle in a haystack, but it’s a start. Headline acknowledging climate change:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/11/la-fire-chief-climate-change-california-wildfires
Skyrocket consciousness. When your ass is on fire, you’ll move.
It’s A Pity
In front of the world, America has shown everyone what a piss weak president they have. He would not walk a step to honour the American soldiers WWI. Because of rain drops.
In front of the great State of California the same piss weak president has poured out his piss weak insults on the devastated, the dead and dying in the fierce hell fires – fiddling like a mad man with his insipid tweets.
America is at its Weakest. Surely they can rid themselves of the current Whitehouse Fool.
Kia ora The Am Show It is alarming that the Pola Ice Cap’s could be melting faster than previously thought that will raze sea levels by mtr and not just cm there will be stronger storm and Hurricanes smashing the coastal community’s.
.Christina its cool that we are talking about Human Caused Climate Change its about time I have worked out what has happened a BLUE Tsunami thank’s for your word’s Christina.
Kiwi are kind when the telephon 24 hour TV fun razing money for to aid 3 world country’s was running Kiwi donated million’s we were one of the highest for donation’s per capital time’s were much easier in those day’s we had spear money.
That the internet correcting thing’s again the fuel community price app is a cool Idea that will keep the gas company’s honestest may be you could have other consumer good’s and services listed to your app will pump.
With our teachers strike they mone about there work load .
I will give a example of the kicks and work smarter theory its fact actually.
I was part of a organization that milked 5000.00 cow’s twice a day through one 80 bale shed the neighbour and the newbees could not milk 3500 2 80 bale sheds it was a finely run farming group .
Point the teacher have heap’s of tool at there disposal to teach tamariki with the internet at there disposal they just have to look outside of the square to come up with smart efficient teaching solution’s.
Also these strikes will hit the common poor tamariki the most if the parents have to take time off work to care for there tamariki the wealthy will just hire a carer
There is a glut of oil on the market and we have hundred’s of thousands of electric vehicles coming on stream and millions of solar panels wind turbines displacing oil Thanks to China’s manufacturing muscle and people like Mus .
Its good that the Anglican Church is backing the public inquiry into child abuse of
state care tamariki and the Religious groups that cared for tamariki . Ka kite ano P.S no flash video links I need some DIMP for my computer the sandflys keep attacking it
Here is the reason our fuel prices have dropped trump’s tricks have been countered
the world woke up to his moves to inflate oil prices his oil baron supporters net worth went up by billions
Also, the weekly estimates are not as accurate as the monthly figures, which are published on a roughly 2-month lag. As such, they should be taken with a grain of salt. However, the massive increase comes just days after the EIA reported a huge increase in production in the monthly data – at 11.346 mb/d in August, the U.S. oil industry has clearly been producing a lot more than previously thought. That lends some weight to the weekly figures.
Another previously-bullish factor was Iran. With Iran’s oil exports spiraling downwards at the end of the summer and into September, the oil market grew very concerned about adequate global supply and the rapidly dwindling volume of spare capacity. U.S. waivers on countries importing Iranian oil removed that threat. Washington still wants to tighten the screws – and in fact, the sudden bearishness in the market gives the Trump administration more leeway to do just that – but in the near-term, Iran will continue to export.
A third factor is OPEC+ production. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Russia and Libya have all increased production in recent months, offsetting the losses from Iran. Now, the group has a different problem on its hands. A technical committee to the OPEC+ coalition is set to meet this weekend where it will take stock of the oil market. They will also consider options going forward for managing the market, including the potential for a production cut in 2019 to avoid another market downturn. The 180-degree turn – from adding supply just a few months ago to now considering a cut – is a remarkable indicator that demonstrates how quickly the sentiment has turned.
Ka kite ano
Plunging Battery Costs To Trigger Energy Storage Boom YEA YES KA PAI
Bloomberg New Energy Finance has forecast a veritable boom in energy storage installations in the coming years with investments hitting US$1.2 trillion by 2040. Falling battery costs will be the driver behind this boom, with BNEF projecting a 52 percent drop in utility-scale lithium-ion systems by 2030. .
It is a fact that the cost of producing batteries for energy storage is falling. Cost reduction, after all, is a top priority for everyone from EV makers to utilities betting on energy storage as a future source of revenues
But what about energy storage installations’ effect on the grid? That should be all-round positive, except for utilities that generate power from non-renewable sources. They better start preparing because BNEF’s analysts projected energy storage may rise to 7 percent of the world’s total installed power generation capacity by 2040.
In more good news for renewables, while until about 2030 most energy storage installations will be utility-scale from about 2035 behind-the-meter facilities will begin to take over, which means they will probably be affordable by then, and Elon Musk’s concept of a household featuring a solar roof, a household battery pack, and an EV could become a reality not just for billionai Ka kite ano link below . P.S I could build a offgrid solar power system for a small family for $4000 all up .
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Plunging-Battery-Costs-To-Trigger-Energy-Storage-Boom.html
I decided to wait and see what happened when I first seen reports on China lifting Ban on trade in endangered animal parts
The Chinese government announced on Monday that it would postpone a plan to lift the 25-year ban on the endangered animals, following a storm of international protest.
It’s important to send the strongest message that the value of wild populations of tigers and rhinos and their ecosystems is much greater than the value of their bones and horns. Ka pai China they get the big picture its te tangata its te tangata and we need Papatuanuku and all her creatures to be respected to have a prosperous future for all.
Link below ka kite ano
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/12/campaigners-welcome-china-u-turn-over-rhino-and-tiger-products
We need to protect OUR worlds forest and start planting billions of trees for our future
decedents to have a good life .There are many cases in OUR History that show’s a complete collapse of the environment and the society all because we did not respect mother nature .
The UK, France and Germany have called on the European commission to launch tough new action to halt deforestation by the end of the year.
A long-delayed EU action plan should be brought forward “as soon as possible”, says a letter to the commission sent by the Amsterdam Declaration group of countries, which also includes Italy, the Netherlands and Norway.
To help meet a UN goal of halting deforestation by 2020, the EU should show “a leadership role, mobilising its political and market leverage, and promoting broader international dialogue and cooperation”, the letter says.
Link below ka kite ano
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/12/eu-states-call-for-tough-action-on-deforestation-to-meet-2020-un-goal-amsterdam-declaration
Its people like Stan Lee who have provided us with fantastic comic books he has ignited
the imagination of billions of people and a lot have gone on to become the worlds greatest inventors condolences to his whano/family he will be missed he is in a higher place now
Stan Lee: Spider-Man, X-Men and Avengers creator dies aged 95
Born Stanley Martin Lieber on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in 1922, Lee’s childhood was marked by the Great Depression. In his 2002 autobiography Excelsior!, Lee described how his father’s struggle to find a steady job had forever affected him: “It’s a feeling that the most important thing for a man to do is to have work to do, to be busy, to be needed,” he wrote.
At 17, Lee landed a job at a publishing company owned by his relative Martin Goodman, and began writing scripts for superhero and mystery comics. When Goodman fell out with his editor in 1941, Lee found himself editor-in-chief at just 19.
Link below ka kite ano. P.S my eldest grandson has a flash suit
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/12/stan-lee-spider-man-x-men-avengers-marvel-universe-dies
Our Pacific cousins have a positive influence on Aotearoa society culturally and financially
“The [NZ Pacific Economy] report reveals Pacific peoples are contributing significantly to the economy despite some of the poor health, housing, education and employment outcomes experienced by many in their communities,” Robertson said.
Pasifika families and businesses are big contributors to NZ economy: Finance Minister Assets from about 1500 Pacific business employers and almost 500 not-for-profit organisations totalled up to $8.3b and, from those assets, the total value added was thought to be $3.1b annually. Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12159122
ASB has joined the fray in the latest round of mortgage rate wars – dropping its one year fixed rate to match the record low 3.95 per cent offered by ANZ.
Its good to see ANZ bank start to the one year fixed interest rate drop that’s cool.
But I will still be after one of there board members /shonky but if you can save money go for it put all the saving on the mortgage .The low rate specials offered by ANZ, BNZ and Westpac are only available to home owners with a deposit or 20 per cent equity stake in their homes.
Its a buyers market now and about time thanks to the moves of our new Coalition Government. ka kite ano P.S we have other’s banks competing for your custom and the interest rate battle begins link below.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12159386
Kia ora Te Kaea I have to use my phone to get the post out the sandflys are attaking my other computer.
It will be a good trip for our Prime minister meeting all the heads of states talking about the Pacific relations and Climate change impacts on the Pacific and Aotearoa.
It been good seeing Te IWIs helping there tangata into housing that’s the best way to escape the poverty trap a lot of our tangata fall into.
Son of Zion are a cool banned music is good for te Wairua.
It would be nice if our government did advocate for Indigenous people consern.s at the gathering of our world leaders.
Ka kite ano P.S I will get some dimp tomorrow
Kia ora Newshub Paddy Andrew is letting the people go into the Pike River mine that will be of great relief for Berne and the family of all the people who have lost love ones in the mine.
Kate I have a post early on for the Great Comic writing legend Stan Lee.
Those fires in Northern Calafornia is a great desaster condolences to the people who have lost.
I say that the Shane Jones NZFirst billion tree program has had a minor hick up its what could happened to anyone when you have Papatuanukue and Tawhirirmate one can not pradict the weather.
It looks like they had a good day at the Addington race way in Christchurch Ra is shining to.
That’s what I wanted Sukieanne get her houners taken away for the atrocities that her government is doing to those poor people in Mayna.
We get half our meat from my sons they buy a beef so I dive into their freezers.
I do like my veggies to but I have to have some meat unprocessed we don’t eat as much meat as we used to.
That must have been a shock to SUE she is doing a fine job the new Auckland Prison told her that she needs to have a photo ID and finger print to she helps people who are having proroale problems we have seen a lot of people can’t get prole no fix abode if they can’t read a write
. Plastic water bottles leaching toxins well. I say know one has tested them for the effects on the fetus and the long term effects on anmials humans one to.
Ka kite ano P.S mind the spelling sandflys muppets
Some people try and play ECO MAORI they get the benefit of doubt they believe the lies the sandflys are spinning about ECO MAORI to them they get one chance.
I should listen to my instinct it’s always correct Ana to kai
The Crowd goes Wild Mulls and James.
Manu and Butterbean fight will be interesting. Monty ECO a South paw.
Mulls you lost weight can you still shuffle my moko is good at the shuffle they get their groove from the Wife my children give me shit when I have enough cups of tea to start to fluffel LOL.
The Addington races NZ trotting Cup was Winston there.
Butterbean has to get the message out drop the sugar us Pacific Islanders body’s are to effect at storing fat and sugar stuff up our health.
Ka kite ano P.S that’s the way guys support the Bowls teams and Showing heaps of Wahine Sports Stars on The Crowd goes Wild
Good morning The AM Show Azzes is having fun at the AMP Show.
There you go Winston Peters and Andrew Little The Coalition Government has helped the Pike River family to find the truth about the explosion.
This all happened because shonky made a unwise bet on COAL/Carbon. I have story that links shonky to Aotearoa losing 1 billion dollars of assets will tell when the time is right.
The road accidents =not enough investment in roads and a xtra 1 million people and cars = more accidents.
Lloyd the britexit I say it’s a can of worms they wish they never opened.
Robots are the future and AI Is a big threat to human kind and the World take it seriously one just. To see how the sandflys are behaveing with the technology tools help you to understand part of my concern of Artifical Intelligents every single thing we do will have computers integrated into it and if one App has that power we’ll people who make movies about this subject are warming US.
IF a person like trump gets the power of total control that AI can have we are in the SHIT.
It will be cool if Israel gets a title fight at the UFC.
There you go Berne Monk you want justice and accountability shonky was covering up the big mistake they made with the health and safety prosses at Pike River mine. Because the familys of the people who died are common people it’s worth the massive effort yous have put into getting justice a big WIN for the common tangata.
Ka kite ano
Kia ora The AM Show. The Pike River scandle is just one issue from shonky
The Britexit don’t count your chickens May I have read that Nigal Farr has been linked to the Muler Russian investorgation I smelt that far right money all over his actions.
I East Asia summit Tova I bet Mike Pence wanted to talk about more issues that the dumb trade tariff.??????????
It has been the reward of a lot of people’s hard work that has paid off with the Mountain Grilla coming of the most endangered list.
The Black Ferns are getting heaps of game time and coverage on TV
Ka kite ano. P.S flip flop
You can talk muppet puppet