Fran O’Sullivan describes ex-National/ACT leader Doctor Dullard Don Brash as ‘Principled’, really???,what ‘principles’ has a man that cheats on His wife with the secretary???,
Oh stick to politics bad 12. Don’t do a Brown on Brash. This is the sort of things that the RWT do and brings the private into public when it isn’t the public’s business.
Brash made it ‘the public’s business’ by declaring such principled infidelity in His book greywarbler, the fact that you are way too blind or dense to see the hypocrisy inherent in the scribblings,dribblings of O’Sullivan vis a vis Her treatment of Brash’s infidelity and Brown’s doesn’t surprise me at all…
You don’t need to be jerked about by just anything that a big man says.
Brash was a big man in NZ with everyone looking at him, so just think – if the people are going to pay more attention to infidelity than the nationwide policies and practices the pollie employs, infidelity might be a valuable tool to use to divert people’s attention from the rorts and mismanagement that should be noted.
Don’t throw round your specious ramblings bad12, you have no idea of what I think or would do so don’t attribute anything to me that I haven’t written. And even that might be satirical, not fact. So control your finely honed critiques mate.
From where i sit greywarbler it is you who is being ”jerked” around here, firstly by me who with deliberation left out the salient point of O’Sullivans hypocrisy vis a vis the Brash/Brown infidelities from my original comment, simply setting my hook knowing that someone easily ‘jerked around’ couldn’t help but bite which you did,
The rorts and irrational along with the racism of Brash have been more than noted here and elsewhere for years and there is no need for me to create any list of length to detail these,
The only things i have attributed to you greywarbler is an ability to be both dense and blind in the one comment, i see nothing about the scribble you use as the currency of your raving as having been wrongly ascribed by myself to you,
Making shit up, as if i have attributed something to you that i havn’t simply has me adding to your list of propensities bullshit along with blind and denseness…
The reality is that Brash promoted principled effective economic policies to help the disadvantaged by raising growth. Those policies are impossible right now in New Zealand because the population only elects left wing governments – and make no mistake the current government is a centre left very cautious government.
If we want higher growth there is no alternative but to adopt many of the policies Brash proposed in his taskforce report on closing the gap with Australia.
He is a principled guy. Just a terrible politician.
The reality is that Brash promoted principled effective economic policies to help the disadvantaged by raising growth.
LOL
Not only is “economic growth” history, but the kind of “growth” that Brash promotes is actually “uneconomic growth” where the vast share of proceeds goes to the top 10%, and the bottom 10% who really need it, just get more kickings.
Growth is not needed for prosperity for all in NZ, you fool. NZ is one of the world’s wealthy lands and there is currently more than enough to go around.
The problem is the current wealth distribution policies which concentrate that wealth at the top, as the evidence shows.
It is not growth that is needed it is new wealth distribution policies.
Growth is needing for one sole purpose – to pay the interest on the printed paper money that is called debt, and which now makes up a very substantial proportion of our economy – to no benefit.
Of course you wont see this srylands. You think that people are a tradeable commodity and should be placed in the same sorts of policy straitjackets that tend to the manufacture of plastic buckets. You need to get to first base first, before your mutterings can be considered in anything other than a rabid extremist light.
The reality is that Brash promoted principled effective economic policies to help the disadvantaged by raising growth.
Hasn’t worked before so I doubt if it’s going to work now.
Those policies are impossible right now in New Zealand because the population only elects left wing governments – and make no mistake the current government is a centre left very cautious government.
Two things:
1.) If we only voted for left wing governments then we’d have a better living standard now
2.) This present government is radical right-wing while pretending to be centre-right
If we want higher growth there is no alternative but to adopt many of the policies Brash proposed in his taskforce report on closing the gap with Australia.
We don’t want more growth as it’s unsustainable. What we need is better use and distribution of our resources. Time to stop giving them all the a select few.
What it’s done or hasn’t done doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a radical right-wing party and what it would like to do. We know Bill English wants to sell Kiwibank. I’m reasonably sure that, if they though that they could have gotten away from it, they would have sold all of our power companies.
bad12
Thanks for the sparring session. I will now leave you to apply your mind to the real problems we are facing in NZ which you do well. So have a good day. We have some sunshine, after rain, so all is well around here. There may even be a transient rainbow. I will attend to some useful tasks. Enjoyed talking to you.
Always a pleasure greywarbler, the cut and thrust of this morning’s first conversation aids in cutting away the fat of the nights sleep allowing the addressing of further topics to be seen and commented upon with renewed clarity,(i hope)…
The type of policies that Brash promoted have never ever helped the disadvantaged by raising growth. Never. And certainly Never Ever in New Zealand. The inequality between the richest and poorest has grown and grown and grown since Rogernomics, except during the Clarke years when it was pared back. Brash and his ilk are a disaster for a country that should have its government centred in social justice.
I’m far more interested in the unprincipled stand he took for or against the invasion of Iraq, or the filthy way in which he played to racists’ fears of not going to the beach than anything that he may have done with any number of secretaries. A lot like Brown and his stance on the port, really. Or the ethnic cleansing in GI. The more time they spend exercising their one eyed trouser snakes, the less they have left to screw the rest of us.
Or deliberately whips up racial intolerance with populist speeches?
The fact that Fran O’Sullivan bats for the neoliberals tends to suggests she has a shaky moral compass herself.
There was a lot of absolute bullshit written on this site the other day about Don Brash.
It tends to happen once politicians are out of the public eye for a while. People imagine that they were actually good people who deserved respect despite their political differences.
No. Don Brash was and is a lying, deceitful, dishonest, duplicitous prick. And that’s AS WELL as his disgusting disgraceful political beliefs.
Anyone suffering under any illusions about him should listen to him talking to Kim Hill just now, he hasn’t changed a bit.
My abiding memory of Don Brash is, and probably always will be, in the 2011 election leaders debate where he was talking about climate change and CO2. He made the comment that putting agriculture under the emissions trading scheme didn’t make sense, because when a cow eats grass and then farts, the “CO2” being emitted is only the CO2 that had been taken up and stored by the grass anyway, so clearly there’s no net damage going on. Russell Norman was quite surprised that Don was so ignorant about methane, and earnestly went over to him during the ad break to tell him what the actual science is.
The time he was on Native Affairs, I think, talking about his one law for all stuff, and displaying his lack of clues in regard to what the Treaty says. At a suggestion that he might be pandering to racists, or that racism played a part, he talked about how there was no way he was a racist, not even ow, pulls out a Hundred Dollar note and says ‘See I put a Maori on the biggest dollar bill when I was Guvna of the RB’
maaaaaries… yeah, well, they’re not “mainstream” either…
Just a reminder of from No Right Turn of what Brash was willing to campaign on in 2005. Mr Bl**dy principled … a social liberal, he called himself.
Morning Report:
PRESENTER: Okay. Let’s have a look at some of the other things you said over the weekend. You talked about mainstream New Zealand. What does that mean precisely?
BRASH: It means the large number of New Zealanders whom this Government has neglected for the last six years. This Government has been trying to work hard for minority groups, small parts of the community…
PRESENTER: Which minority groups, which minority groups are we talking about?
BRASH: Well we know, for example, that the Government has been funding Maori programmes more generously than non-Maori programmes…
So if you’re Maori, you’re not a “mainstream” (meaning “real”) New Zealander in Dr Brash’s eyes. But it doesn’t stop there:
PRESENTER: Okay. So Maori is one of the minority groups. What other minority groups?
BRASH: Well we know also that Government has been focusing on prostitution legislation, civil union legislation, all that kind of stuff, which caters for a small minority of people, while neglecting…
In other words, this is about social liberalism, “political correctness”, Labour’s efforts to expand opportunity and erode privilege, and ensure that every New Zealander is treated fairly and equally, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. But its clear that Brash doesn’t agree with that struggle, because he doesn’t see gays as real New Zealanders:
PRESENTER: No, I just want to pick up on something else here. You talked about civil unions. Does that mean you do not regard gay people as mainstream New Zealanders?
BRASH: Well they’re clearly not, they’re a small minority of people, but let me be clear. I made it very clear in the debate on that issue that I thought this should be dealt with by referendum because it’s a big change in the civil institutions of society. I also said that in the referendum I would vote for it because I have no problem with same sex couples committing to live together faithfully as heterosexual couples do.
PRESENTER: You simply don’t regard gays as part of mainstream New Zealand?
BRASH: Well they are clearly, by definition, a small minority of New Zealanders…
My abiding memory of Don Brash is watching him lose the 2005 election debate (and election) when bumbling through describing who was and wasn’t a mainstream New Zealander, looking at Helen Clark and telling her she wasn’t one.
About the only good thing Muldoon did for NZ was to stop Brash from standing in and gaining a seat for the national party – somewhere on the North Shore I think, in the mid 70’s.
John Roughans piece of obsequious forelock tugging actually made both utterly contemptuous of his mind numbing weak willed desire to adore figures of authority, angry that his idiocy and authoritarian idolatry gets a regular platform and quite sick to my stomach that I had to see such nonsense.
It certainly helps explain his sado-mascochistic love of authoritarian capitalism. He gets off on being bossed around by those he thinks are his betters.
Don Brash’s incredible ignorance
Radio NZ National, Saturday 12 April 2014
That silly old goat Don Brash has a book to sell: it’s called Incredible Luck. Earlier this week, on Jim Mora’s Panel show, Michelle Boag claimed, preposterously, that Brash was “incredibly honest”, and “the most honest politician New Zealand had ever seen.” She repeated that silly lie—“Brash is honest”—at least ten times. Her fellow Panelists, Brian (“Boag’s Bitch”) Edwards and host Jim Mora did not even so much as demur as Boag raved on about the superlative qualities of her good friend. In fact, Mora asked, in apparent high seriousness: “WHY is he so honest?”
This morning I listened, in ever mounting horror, to Brash being interviewed by Kim Hill, who struggled throughout to conceal her disdain for the old bigot. Amongst all the other nonsense, there was one thing above all else that the old racist said that highlighted the poverty of his “thinking”. I sent off an urgent email to Kim Hill….
Incredible Stupidity
Dear Kim,
So, according to Don Brash, Māori “didn’t have a written language”, they “worshipped rocks and stones”, they “didn’t invent the wheel” and were “a primitive stone-age people”. Those are inflammatory, ignorant statements of the type that one might hear on a particularly dire talkback radio show in the small hours of the morning.
He clearly knows next to nothing about Māori culture, and he hasn’t the slightest interest in learning about it.
Brash is more than an embarrassment; he’s a national disgrace.
Cheers, Moz. Just for the record, Edwards did point out that a serial marital cheater can’t be considered honest.
Re: your email, aren’t the first 3 of Brash’s claim actually facts, even if delivered in a facetious manner by Orewa Man? Happy to be corrected, it’s not an area in which I can claim any expertise.
All 4 of them are actually facts. It’s not Brash’s fault that the vast audience hearing these statements thinks they’re racist.
These sorts of statements are usually made by people trying to be racist and divisive, so people hearing them assume that anyone speaking them must be racist. That’s really not the case for Brash, I don’t think.
Yes, they are facts. It’s also a fact that ancient Britons were animists and didn’t have a written language. And it wasn’t an ancient Briton that invented the wheel. Does that mean that British culture is less valuable than other cultures?
According to the cutting intellect that is Don Brash, that is exactly what it means.
You are of course correct, vto. Having not heard the interview myself, all I can rely on is Morrissey’s email. But as we all know, Morrissey routinely takes things out of context and has trouble separating his imaginings of what was said vs what was actually said, so it’s impossible to know why Brash was bringing these points up and what point he was trying to make in doing so.
Good points TRP but you are attempting to interfere with the fluid flow of a good tirade. It’s the way it sounds that’s important, not every little detail, so we shouldn’t be picky about facts, they spoil the effect.
I think the fourth point (stone age) isn’t factually correct anyway. Maori society was well along the usual continuum in terms of cooperation, agriculture etc. The use of stone tools has more to do with what resources were available in aotearoa, rather than as a marker of development.
Good point on the stone age thing, although I think you need to be a bit broader: it’s a reflection of the resources available within the pacific as well as Aotearoa.
It took Europeans (and other cultures) thousands of years to move beyond stone, and Maori certainly weren’t in Aoteroa for that long, and their antecedents in the pacific simply didn’t have the resources available.
‘didn’t have a written language’ yet somehow could remember the multiple strands of whakapapa for numerous generations, the uses of materials and plants and so on. And could convey that information between generations.
‘worsphipped rocks and stones’ yes so unlike worshipping a dude on a cross that lived in the middle east.
‘didn’t invent the wheel’ yet used wheels such as logs for rolling waka into the water and so on but no axle or cart – wouldn’t be too easy to move them around this land now would it.
‘primitive stone-age people’ who lived within the boundaries of sustainability, caring for nature and a sophisticated social interaction system used as a model by some today.
So yes all facts from brash but in the way they are used they are supposed to show the inferiority of tangata whenua and the superiority of those that arrived here later.
Just a bit of a lol at your expense getting all precious, but more as in to say no need to make spurious argument to counter what a silly old tory man says, and start worrying about Hone selling his/your mana for .com’s beads and blankets this weekend.
Oh english humor – how droll and excruciatingly boring.
Don’t worry about Hone and Mana – everything is sweet there mate very sweet indeed. Best you watch out for pox ridden blankets that might come your (political) way eh.
There are no worries about Hone ‘selling’ anything, the alliance being proposed does not require the Mana Party to alter any of its policies and i would suggest the same will be the case for the Internet Party…
Well done Morrissey, that response from Brash was sickening and highlighted the enormous ignorance and social ineptness of the man. Very strange man, they seem to gravitate towards Act…and National.
He’s just another boring old fart, really – full of crap and with a hugely over-inflated sense of his own importance, What gets me exercised is how these silly old twits gain such traction politically. It’s fairly depressing when you think about it
Yeah but I gotta tell you something JanM – have you ever listened for any length of time to anyone aged under 30 about any serious subject?
Sheeeesh ……..
Honestly, dumb-arse young people, they just don’t have the experience in life or the developed mind and soul, to be worth listening to. That is a fact.
Weren’t you telling Eleanor Catton off for being a bigot a few weeks ago? And now you’re just gone and said all young people aren’t worth listening to. What a terribly close-minded view. I listen to some young people and they’re far more insightful and intelligent than a lot of people my age.
Yes I was doing that and we had a bit of an exchange over it disraeli. My post immediately above was, I thought, clearly tongue-in-cheek and written in order to expose the bigotry shown by JanM. That was the purpose. To hold a mirror to her.
Curiously, JanM’s bigotry is eerily similar to Eleanor Cattons. It is common in NZ – bigotry against the aged. Others with a similar penchant include Michelle A’Court and Beck Eleven, two women with something against old white males.
Not only is it bigotry, it is also foolish. In my experience those with the most years typically exhibit a wisdom far more advanced than people with less wrinkles. (and of course the young are worth listening to – to understand their concerns and thoughts. Less so for solutions though, imo)
But look, if the older are not worth listening to and the younger are also not worth listening to then clearly age is not an issue ………. which was the point of my point! Age should be left out of these things. But it is difficult to wean people from their bigotries.
It is like the erosion of a riverbank, is bigotry, bit by bit, crumble by crumble, swing by swing of the river, until one day the landscape formed by the river is very different from what it was in the past.
Ok, vto – perfectly happy just to call him a ‘boring fart’ and a ‘twit’ and leave the ‘old’ out of it. Jamie Lee Ross on Native Affairs this week managed to provide clear evidence that indeed the young can be boring farts and twits too.
I think in part we emphasise the age thing because there is an idea that with age comes wisdom. However, in my experience (and I am nearly the same age as Don Brash, by the way) most of the time a silly young thing grows into a silly old thing.
There are clever old people and stupid young people. There are clever young people and stupid old people. I agree. Age shouldn’t come into it. However, I actually don’t think that last paragraph of yours is true at all. For instance, a recent US survey showed that young Americans were twice as likely than older Americans to know where the Ukraine is.
Famously, IQ has risen for the last thirty years. Now, IQ is no real marker of intelligence or wisdom, true, but it does show that each generation seems to be more switched on than the last.
By suggesting that older people are “far more” advance than young people with wisdom against evidence to the contrary does exhibit an actual discrimination on age. The exact thing you were trying to reflect on someone else.
hang on there, you are tripping yourself up. You confuse facts (where is Ukraine) with wisdom. That patently does not follow. I know a 10 year old who knows more about cellphones than I. On your reasoning that makes him wiser in all things …………..
And then you acknowledge that IQ does not equate with wisdom either, but then immediately claim that higher IQs (and particular knowledge) are evidence of greater wisdom.
What we call ‘wisdom’ is emotional intelligence (EQ) and is easily as important as intellect, although rather undervalued and infrequently assessed.
I agree that the knowledge of facts is fairly meaningless in itself, although a more in-depth evaluation of those youngsters may indicate that a knowledge of where the Ukraine is may also involve greater awareness of the world order, which would not be a bad thing considering the undue influence that America wields
We can’t really measure “wisdom” it’s an intangible buzzword. We can’t really measure intelligence either (those IQ does at provide a slight attempt). What we do see is that young people seem more aware of the wider world and are seem to have higher average IQs.
Also, agnosticism and atheism rise the further you get away from the older sections of society.
All signs of a generation that are just as attentive and intelligent as older people. Now, does that make them as wise? I’d say yeah, sure. You might say no. I’m basing my opinion on the above, that they seem aware of the wider world, they seem intelligent, they seem to challenge opinion and make their own decisions based on research.
What are you basing your opinion on that older people are “far more advanced” than younger people in terms of wisdom?
Too many years on the planet, that’s what. And that for ‘wisdom’, experience and time is one of the main drivers imo and that simply doesn’t exist when there is a lack of that experience and time.
But yes, I agree that the oncoming generations will be very interesting to watch as to how they deal with life’s turmoils and testings. They already have a different approach to many things, compared to generations recent. They revert less to the older generations than past ones, and seem more than happy to carve their own path and find their own feet.
One problem is, I guess, that time and history is well worn and proven. Will the next couple generations really be superior in these areas to those past? History suggests not, but it has been on my mind that it will be interesting to see…..
Indeed, some young people are surprisingly switched on, though I wouldn’t give 16 year olds the vote like the snp have in jockland in order to win the yes independence vote.
Making oil from plastic bags. Innovative entrepreneurship. NZ would be doing this if we had a Party that pushed new modern business and wanted to develop those making resources like oil.
Instead we are going from farming as a family business, very traditional, to factory farming and landlord farming and overseas landlord robotised industrial farming. Not a healthy direction for our major industry, not even providing much employment, and with a tendency to turn workers
into serfs. Soon we will be treating people as they did when the Tolpuddle Martyrs in South England formed a small union to change the unfair conditions experienced in the 1800s.
In fact, a Salt Lake City-based entrepreneur and her partner have developed a proprietary process that turns recycled waste plastic into crude oil that is so advanced that it can be made into gasoline, kerosene and diesel easier than the oil that comes straight out of the ground.
When Priyanka Bakaya, CEO of PK Clean, was a young girl growing up in Australia, she became fascinated with science, chemistry and the environment through her interactions with a family friend and “grandfather figure” named Percy Keen.
“He spent his whole life working on clean energy solutions,” Bakaya explained. “He converted his whole house into this giant laboratory.”
Over many years, Keen developed complex formulas for converting waste into viable fuels, but he never made them public. Upon his death in 2007, Bakaya, 31, felt compelled to do something with those formulas and bring her friend’s innovative ideas to fruition.
Radionz Kim featured a man who was a political correspondent and is now taking people on political tours instead of scenic tours.
Sat 12/Apr/2014
8:45 Nicholas Wood
Nicholas Wood is a former Balkans correspondent for The New York Times. He created Political Tours in 2009, with the aim of giving people first-hand insight into some of the most critical regions in the world, and is currently leading a tour in Ukraine.
Most of the plastic in there are tiny particles suspended in the upper few feet of water, rather than being actual plastic objects floating around. It degrades due to sunlight as well as microbes that eat it.
It’s unlikely trying to convert that plastic into oil would be cost effective, once you factor in transportation and running costs of an operation in the middle of the pacific ocean. I guess if you had some unmanned robotic ships, there’s a chance it could make sense, though.
If you were going to make a machine to do that, would you not be better off making the same sort of machine to pull out the one part in a million in the sea that is gold?
“Gold in the ocean is so dilute that its concentration is on the order of parts per trillion. Each liter of seawater contains, on average, about 13 billionths of a gram of gold.”
To filter elements out of seawater fundamentally requires a huge amount of power (typically electricity).
I think recovering oil from plastic is probably less energy intensive than filtering raw seawater.
Also the US navy has a prototype system of converting seawater into jet fuel (but again, requires a lot of electricity – provided by the nuclear reactors on their carriers).
The story about the plastic bags commercialising feels like something has been left out? Feels a little odd.
The CEO was only 24 when Keen died and who knows there may have been at least a shortish period of slow down before death. The CEO would barely have had time to complete an advanced science degree if that was necessay to understand what he had developed. This is now being developed in the USA but why not Australia? So who actually owned these formulas when he died, presumably the estate so the estate is receiving royalties? Was this a part time interest or a full time job funded by ? when he was alive?
We cannot uninvent stuff but maybe a society that was operating effectively was to be admired.
“So, according to Don Brash, Māori “didn’t have a written language”, they “worshipped rocks and stones”, they “didn’t invent the wheel” and were “a primitive stone-age people”.
I somehow think that Australian aboriginal society was very sophisticated to manage in that environment.
Maybe a society that lives in harmony with the environment is the sophisticated one rather than the current society which is tearing down the environment?
Exactly, kind of. Measuring the value or sophistication of a society on the basis of their consumer goods is pretty weak. Like zero.
Like the constant invention of comms today – doesn’t do anything at all to advance the good and essential qualities of humankind. Those measures are an entirely different type.
”Doctors and nurses accepted drug company funded trip,meals and gifts worth almost $170,000 last year amid growing concern about the freebies potential to influence medical decisions”
”The declared gifts are likely to be only a fraction of the total spent by pharmaceutical companies,as gift registers(cover DHB’s but),do not cover private Doctors”,unquote,
the question needs be asked, ”Should not this behavior be outlawed”, it seems from where i sit to be a simple recipe to corrupt the ”medical profession”, and i am left wondering if the escalation of type 2 diabetes to epidemic level in this country is in fact partly fueled by big Pharma’s gifts,
There could of course be many other areas of medicine where for the reward and considering the ‘harmlessness’ of the particular drugs doctors may be tempted to prescribe,
Diabetes i have mentioned in this instance because there doesn’t seem to be a wide range of ”side effects” to the prescribed drugs,(the blocking of the livers ability to disperse vitamin B12 into the blood stream being the only negative i have so far found)…
freebies from drug companies to doctors has been a long standing practice….this is why the whole business is so corrupt ……and some of the presents are not small eg holidays …i doubt very much the figure of $170,000….multiple that by many many times
Yes Chooky, the figure of $170,000 of gifts from big Pharma to the medical profession is probably a hopeless understatement as it does not include ‘private practice doctors’ and while all the DHB’s have some form of required reporting of such gifts they all have different requirements of what has to be reported and what doesn’t…
“Diabetes i have mentioned in this instance because there doesn’t seem to be a wide range of ”side effects” to the prescribed drugs,(the blocking of the livers ability to disperse vitamin B12 into the blood stream being the only negative i have so far found)…”
Well that and death from hypoglycaemia as well as GI complaints and occasional allergic reactions.
As for your idiotic assertion that the medical profession is corrupted on the back of a few funded trips to international conferences which saves the DHB funds that would otherwise be paid out of the medical specialists award I suggest if you feel strongly about it you should say no next time you’re offered Antibiotics, Anaesthesia, Cancer Drugs etc etc.
As for your idiotic assertion that the medical profession is corrupted on the back of a few funded trips to international conferences which saves the DHB funds that would otherwise be paid out of the medical specialists award
I’d rather that we paid for such trips through our taxes rather than having the doctors obligated to the pharmaceutical companies.
“I’d rather that we paid for such trips through our taxes rather than having the doctors obligated to the pharmaceutical companies.”
How are NZ Drs obligated to pharmaceutical companies ? Most Drs I know prescribe (or don’t) what they think is the most appropriate thing for the patient in front of them.
Yeah, after all it’s only the perception of a conflict of interest and the Minister of Justice gets away with worse, so it couldn’t possibly cause problems for the profession. No sirree.
Perception is a big part of it. I’ve heard people talk about how uncomfortable they feel when their GP opens a drawer and offers them drugs that are obviously pharma giveaways. The trust between the patient and GP is critical to health.
But I think it goes further than that. To suggest that virtually no doctors in NZ are influenced by drug companies (promotion, funding, relationships etc) is to suggest that doctors are either not human, or are above usual human concerns. We’re well past the days when doctors were taught they were special humans, so let’s just be honest here. The only way that we can ensure that medicine as a profession remains professional, is to build protection in. If you leave it up to individuals (or even groups), there is too much failure.
Drs GPs in particular have what is called a PSO (practitioners supply order) whereby they can keep a supply of some of the most commonly used medicines within their surgery for supply to patients.
Yes pharmaceutical companies sometimes supply samples to GPs such as e.g. simple dermatological creams which are then given to patients to save them the price of a prescription if the patient is unhappy with this they can always say ‘no write me a prescription’
All pharmaceutical samples supplied by pharmaceutical companies are regulated and recorded by Medsafe.
DTB +100 ….agreed “The acceptance of gifts infers an obligation. This has been true forever and there’s no way that you would have been unaware of that.”
Are you suggesting that there aren’t serious problems within medicine with regards to big pharma’s reach? (am thinking its influence on research, but the backhanders of trips etc seems to be well out of hand as well). Or that over-prescribing isn’t an issue?
“Are you suggesting that there aren’t serious problems within medicine with regards to big pharma’s reach?”
Not in NZ, what exactly are you thinking of ?
The vast amount of research in NZ is independent very little big pharma stuff here at all, in relation to the trips you will find most if not all of these are part funding of medical specialists to the major overseas clinical meetings, there is far far far and maybe even far less funding from the pharma industry than there was when I was just starting out so not sure where you get that it is well out of hand ?
Or that over-prescribing isn’t an issue?
Certainly there are issues in some areas but i’d hardly point the bone at big pharma as most of the over prescribing that i’d point to would be of the medications and areas where they’re not even active in promotion in NZ.
The drugs that NZ doctors prescribe are based on research culture that is globally flawed. Unless NZ doctors are somehow overcoming that by doing their own research, or even by weeding out the flawed and corrupted research (which I think would be nigh on impossible), then NZ doctors are affected.
Over-prescribing… just off the top of my head… psychiatry, HRT, antibiotics, statins…
Are you saying that big pharma has no influence on that? Seriously?
Overprescribing in terms of those products you mention doesn’t really apply in NZ they are apart from a very few exceptions generic in NZ and many of the western jurisdictions so are not promoted by big or indeed any pharma companies.
I’d agree that some of the psychiatry medications (anti depressants and anxiolitics in particular) are over prescribed in comparison to CBT and other non pharmaceutical interventions but this has more to do with the lack of CBT practitioners and funding thereof than big pharma.
There’s be as big a part of the scientific community suggesting statins are under prescribed as overprescribed and the algorithms followed when prescribing are supported by very strong scientific data. Over prescription of HRT and antibiotics isn’t much of an issue in NZ with both declining in light of clinical best practice.
So speaks the quack, Statins, its what they dont tell ya about these things that’s a real killing joke,
The quacks happily prescribe statins to people while in the same breath dishing out diabetes meds they assure you you need to get the blood sugar under control,
Laughable, as soon as you start swallowing the statins, among other things that get ‘blocked’ is the ability for the liver to deliver magnesium to the body,
Anyone with half a brain, quacks excluded, will tell you that to balance the blood sugar there has to be a balance of calcium and magnesium in the blood stream which of course just can’t happen while your swallowing statins, what does quackery then say about the blood/sugar question after ya next blood test indicates no change, double the diabetes meds that”ll fix it, pfft a recipe for an early trip to the embalmer is what the quacks are selling,
That’s not all of statins crimes, and for the quack that says they are under prescribed, how long have they been dishing out this shit in the US and why have they made not one iota of difference to the rate of death from heart disease,
“Anyone with half a brain, quacks excluded, will tell you that to balance the blood sugar there has to be a balance of calcium and magnesium in the blood stream which of course just can’t happen while your swallowing statins, what does quackery then say about the blood/sugar question after ya next blood test indicates no change, double the diabetes meds that”ll fix it, pfft a recipe for an early trip to the embalmer is what the quacks are selling,”
…….. strange then that so many type 2 diabetics in NZ are on statins and yet manage to control the glucose levels…… honesty I think they were talking about persons like you and chooky when they say ‘ a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.’
Oftentimes, medical journals or pharmaceutical companies that sponsor research will report only “positive” results, leaving out the non-findings or negative findings where a new drug or procedure may have proved more harmful than helpful.
A new review of research about this problem points to hidden or misleading studies for all sorts of conditions, including depression, Alzheimer’s disease, type 2 diabetes, menopausal symptoms and cancer, said researchers at the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) in Germany.
“You can’t say this is an isolated problem,” said Beate Wieseler, deputy head of IQWiG’s Drug Assessment Department. “It’s widespread, and it affects drug companies, universities and regulatory authorities.”
Much of that problem arises from financial conflicts of interest when pharmaceutical or medical device companies fund the studies, according to Wieseler and her colleagues. They pointed to past research showing an association between industry sponsorship and positive outcomes or conclusions in studies.
That’s just silly to suggest that the early paroxetine studies by the pharma company which didn’t disclose their lack of efficacy (and danger) in teens extrapolates to a flaw in global medical research.
Even someone such as yourself must acknowledge that the global medical research over the last fifty years has lead to massive gains in healthcare in areas as widely removed as vaccination to oncology.
I’m saying that there is a proven, widespread and internationally recognised problem in publication/non-publication bias, some of which appears related to drug company funding or sponsorship, which affects even the best peer reviewed journals and academic centres in medicine.
It’s a bit surprising that you aren’t aware of these issues.
….imo the only good doctor is a humble doctor who listens to their patients….and lets them take control of their health decisions without putting them down
…doctors can only make collegial suggestions to their ‘patients’…..laced with a heavy dose of skepticism about their own training and received information and in particular the pharmaceutical industry
“the only good doctor is a humble doctor who listens to their patients….and lets them take control of their health decisions without putting them down”
I’m not sure you realise quite how many patients want their GP to ‘take charge’ – often times because they see the GP as the expert and not themselves (sometimes that can be pretty scary for the GP!). There are plenty of cases where the ‘good doctor’ is the one who listens to a patient needs and then takes control.
These patients’ health needs can be seriously compromised by the notion of patient-led medical care when their fears or life stresses mean they will take a ‘do nothing’ approach. As well, they simply don’t have the funds for non-GP care. I wish some of the articulate activists for patient-led healthcare would realise that being able to vocalise health beliefs, health needs and health priorities is not easy for a lot of people, and they’d prefer to hand over.
Shared decision-making is a wonderful ideal, imo – and something that I try to aspire to when I’m managing my own health needs. It’s an advantage that CAM practitioners have over traditional GPs, because it requires time that GPs often don’t have in the current health set-up. I sometimes feel sorry for GPs – having to work out in an instant which sort of patient is sitting there and to then responding appropriately.
….well imo GP’s should resist ‘taking charge’ and being ‘the expert’ and encourage their ‘patients’ to listen their own intuitions and come to their own decisions based on the ‘knowledge’…experience /advice the doctor puts before them …they should also be encouraged to do their own research
…doctors should admit that there is a lot they do not know ….and a lot they can not do….and that much so called medical research is flawed and not scientifically valid
…if the patient still wishes to hand over their life ….then they should be warned about this!…..lol
However, for a person doing manual work in a couple of minimum wage jobs, who has a couple of kids to care for, no internet access or time to join discussions on health care beyond an immediate need the opinion can be a little more likely to be one of constrained pragmatism and reliance on mainstream health advice.
@mirovax…agreed it would be difficult in that situation…however i think it is more a question of attitudes….even if the ‘patient’ is stressed and wants a ‘quick fix’ it is important that the doctor does not allow themselves to be the ‘quick fixer’ God …but encourage the ‘patient’ to think around the issue for themselves….and become responsible and independent as regards their health … imo really it is the quality of discussion, respect, egalitarianism and warmth of communication that is most important and should come first …except in an emergency…(but emergency medicine is not usually GP medicine)
What is your evidence for statins being over prescribed? Their use in NZ is on the low side with middle aged men in particular. Because they don’t go to doctors when they should.
Antibiotics have been over prescribed but that is driven by patients. They are all generics anyway.
Seriously this big pharma thing is childish. As is the use of the term “corporate” implying evil.
I encourage you to stop using such terms in a negative context.
you might need more of “something”….there is nothing wrong with bad12s head…it is very sharp ….i know of at least two people who have had bad side effects with statins and discontinued use …no thanks to their doctors though …just warnings from other people and a bit of research on the internet….
Seriously this big pharma thing is childish. As is the use of the term “corporate” implying evil.
Corporate systems aren’t just “evil”, they are inhumane and destructive. Chris Hedges states that from a theological perspective, they are systems of death.
Corporate priorities and profit margins have far too much (negative) influence in the shape and quality of our economy, society and interpersonal relations today.
Antibiotics have been over prescribed but that is driven by patients. They are all generics anyway.
Huh? I thought it was qualified doctors who prescribed the drugs, and qualified pharmacists who dispensed them. What do “patients” have to do with the inappropriate and dangerous over prescription of drugs?
The point of the ACC fund is to make ACC fully-funded and not a pay-as-you-go system. Accounting-wise there’s no compelling reason that it needs to be fully-funded (that I’m aware of), but it seems to be something that both Labour and National have agreed on, so I don’t rate Mana’s chances of reversing that decision.
Accounting-wise there’s no compelling reason that it needs to be fully-funded (that I’m aware of), but it seems to be something that both Labour and National have agreed on, so I don’t rate Mana’s chances of reversing that decision.
One of the reasons I can think of for making it fully funded is where a company sets up in NZ makes something and lots of profit for overseas shareholders and then moves on leaving behind a large ongoing liabilty for the damage it did to people on the production line. Similar to miners not cleaning up their mess.
His chances might be better than you think (and I thought).
David Parker: ACC levy equals 350 years of Govt funding for food in schools
“The Government is taking $700 million more than is needed from New Zealanders through ACC levies over two years. That’s a stealth tax, pure and simple. They’ve been advised to reduce it but are still overcharging New Zealanders.
“That money is enough to cover the Government’s new role in feeding the kids for 350 years. That’s how badly Kiwis are being ripped off.
“The Government is using ACC as a political jelly bean jar, overcharging New Zealanders to fill to the jar to overflowing in order to dole out lollies in election year for political advantage.
“This isn’t prudent financial management, it’s taking directly from New Zealanders’ back pockets to try to win an election,” says David Parker.
Mana are trying to win an election by promising to spend from the ACC fund.
Sue Moroney: ACC levies higher than they need to be
“Money collected in ACC levies can’t be used to fund anything else, as it is ring-fenced for injuries resulting from accidents, so its use to prop up a sham surplus is misleading.
“That money would be better off circulating in the economy, than being tied up in an ACC’s coffers where it is not needed,” Sue Moroney said.
This is just opposition and election rhetoric, there’s no guarantee Mana would get a say on use of the ACC fund and there’s no guarantee Labour would substantially change how ACC operates and is funded.
you hating on Mana pete is typical – pity you didn’t put that notverysharp mind of yours towards your right wing mates and their lies masquerading as their facts. Don’t want to upset the donKey cart i suppose.
Ok, lets look at affordable. Mana policy is to increase ACC costs.
Key policies include:
– Government to return to ‘pay as you go’ for ACC, rather than expecting ACC to collect enough money to cover all future costs in each year.
– Make health and wellbeing the priority, rather than forcing people off ACC as quickly as possible.
– Get rid of the vocational independence (work capacity) test which is unnecessary and is often used simply as a way of forcing people off ACC at the soonest possible opportunity.
– Ensure that people who suffer from work-related gradual process injury, disease or infection, including from chemical poisoning, and from hearing loss induced by industrial noise, receive full cover from ACC.
– Require ACC to continue cover as long as an injury remains a cause of a person’s current condition, rather than using pre-existing conditions or age related degeneration as an excuse to withdraw support.
– Remove the inequity in access to services and healthcare between ACC and Ministry of Health clients, bringing all recipients to the higher level of access to resources.
Which one of those policies don’t you like pete? Which group of people will you throw into the heap to sort it out themselves – why the hell don’t you care about people?
It is not the right question pete. Affordability is subjective based upon the prioritisation of some things over other things. That concept is not that complicated pete.
Shouldn’t affordability be a priority? otherwise it can’t be sustained.
Huh?
We can “afford” to let big corporations take $10B p.a. in profits offshore, but spending a few extra millions to help our own people isn’t doable? Huh?
Unfortuantely like most things about the health system, it’s simply not as simple as they’re making out.
My brother in law, a clinical psychologist, has worked with a lot of people in the ACC system, particularly around chronic pain. He says that a lot of the time, people prefer to stay on ACC because it’s an easy life, and end up malingering in the system as a form of learned helplessness. Sometimes the only way for people to actually get better is to force them off it so they must fend for themselves, discovering that actually their injury isn’t as bad as they thought it was, and in many cases getting out and working improves their health anyway. And just incase anyone tries to accuse him of being a tory (as always seems to be the case when someone says these sorts of things) he’s far more liberal than I am and votes Green.
Similar for general unemployment. There’s a shortage of jobs and it can be very difficult finding suitable employment, but some people get stuck in an unemployment rut which is easy to remain in but not good for self esteem. My wife worked for ten years in second chance learning which morphed into job broking for people stuck in unemployment.
People who were encouraged and pushed and found jobs were very grateful for being nudged into the world of employment.
What a load George,”there’s a shortage of jobs” simply means that forcing people into jobs, a lot of which are as you say inappropriate, adds more spin to the rotational employment economy that is being established…
Considering that it is not your brother-in-law who is the actual sufferer of ‘the pain’ can you enlighten us all as to how He arrives at a measure of how much pain an individual,(remembering we all feel pain differently), is actually feeling befor He forces them out into the workforce(for their own good of course),
i wouldn’t attribute the word Tory to someone employed to use their ”opinion” as the judgement of pain an individual is feeling, Fascist seems far more appropriate…
can you enlighten us all as to how He arrives at a measure
Through his years of training in clinical psychology as well as being an expert in the field of chronic pain.
Also he’s not the person that forces someone back into the workforce, but one of the specialists that people are sent to for their cases to be reviewed. He also makes recommendations about how to help people cope with their pain etc. I should actually clarify to say that he no longer is doing this particular job, he’s moved elsewhere now.
He’s told us quite a few stories of people who have been clearly faking their issues, eg a guy saying he can only walk with crutches, who is clearly seen to tuck his crutches under his arm and stroll to his car once he thinks no one is watching, etc.
Well, some clinicians are guns for hire, enabling ACC to rort the system by denying claimants their rights. Paid handsomely for their lack of empathy, in some cases they’re flown all around the country to do the work. They can be ideologically driven (I’m not talking about party politics), and some are just psychopaths.
Pete, ACC’s 2013 report showed a net surplus of $4.9 billion, which was $3.6 billion ahead of budget.
Call me weird, but I reckon there is some definite wiggle room there to help the thousands of taxpaying kiwis who were, are, and will be denied the proper services they are fully entitled to from ACC.
[Expletive]s like you think it is much more important to just give away the ACC excess, to stuff like roads and smelters and yacht races. Who cares about sick injured people or victims of rape or those recovering from violent assaults or survivors of childhood abuse. They are just good for nothings, supping on some imagined largesse.
I believe “malingering” was the word your mate Lanthanide used.
All I know is it cannot be healthy, having that deep rooted sense of entitlement mixing with your hypocritical calls for a just and reasonable society.
Lisa Owen: So, to be clear, you think you can cover several billion dollars worth of spending through taxation?
Hone Harawira: That’s one of them, there’s another one as well. Did you know there’s 22 billion dollars sitting in the hands of ACC, simply amassing wealth, amassing wealth through the corporatisation of injury? There’s something wrong with that notion. That money should be spent on the needs of New Zealanders, not on investments which are aimed at maximising the wealth of the corporates that are running it.
“That money should be spent on the needs of New Zealanders, not on investments which are aimed at maximising the wealth of the corporates that are running it.”
“Then there’s no funds to pay for ACC payments to people”? What do you think the ACC levies on just about everything are meant to pay for then Pete George?
Your lack of knowledge concerning recent ACC history is telling. ACC recipients don’t receive additional assistance just because there’s a good return on investments. Those funds are simply transferred to the government to waste on things like highways of little significance and tax cuts for the rich.
However, when ACC loses billions of taxpayers dollars on dodgy investments it’s the long term claimants who end up paying the price. That’s what the stricter regime that ensured many thousands of valid claims were denied was all about. That’s why the amount of court cases concerning ACC unjustifiably dismissing claims increased dramatically.
ACC hasn’t changed their policy now that their investments are making money again. Therefore the investments are clearly not designed to benefit ACC recipients.
But don’t let reality get in the way of your deluded existence there Pete George…god knows you never have done so in the past.
Pete George, a guy who’s the editor of a website that purportedly is concerned about political fact checking, can’t even get the basic facts right. Instead, he drivels some inane rubbish and then scuttles away when people refute his claims.
It’s a pity there is no real credible voice for the right wing anymore…just a bunch of discredited hacks who’s only trick is to make shit up. The Nation today was a prime example of just how pathetic the right wing and their media lackeys have become and if that’s their game plan, National will assuredly lose the next election.
Where is philip ure?…his time out must be up by now…..i miss his long, good humoured witty, sometimes pertinent and spot on, rambling comments….come back philip ure…we need your unique perspective….i know you are around because i have seen you on the daily blog!!!
Why do you feel an outcast Belladonna, it’s hardly a daily discussion of roast meats on a daily basis here at the Standard, and, promoting your vegan diet would interest many of us,me in particular,
Where i do disagree with the strict vegan diet is that the body must have ‘fat’ to carrry many of the essential vitamins and minerals around the body to where they are destined for use, without such ‘fats’ as the mode of transport ingesting these necessary vitamins and minerals becomes a waste as they are simply ingested and end up without the transport mechanism as waste products sent down the toilet,
To access enough ‘fat’ to transport these necessary vitamins and minerals around the body would require the vegan diet to be at least 20% nuts and avocado’s by volume of the daily diet…
First link: doesn’t work.
Second link: doesn’t work.
Third link: doesn’t mention vegans.
Please learn to give citations. Google didn’t come up with a single link to support your assertion, although I note several studies claim to show vegans have a longer life expectancy. Perhaps it’s all the avocados?
Bad, I am vegan primarily for animal welfare reasons but the health side is an added bonus.
I dont really follow a strict low fat plant based diet i.e. I eat nuts, avocado etc but compared to the average meat eater it is probably a low fat diet. I have rheumatoid arthritis, diagnosed as severe and was told I would probably be in a wheelchair within 5 years of being diagnosed, that was 15 years ago and while I am not completely cured am nowhere being in a wheelchair.
I have had friends with RA, the same age as myself who didnt believe in a plant based diet and tried all the orthodox treatments available, too many of them have died before their time so I do believe my diet has helped heaps with my disease.
Dr John McDougall has a very informative website. He promotes a low fat vegan diet, as does Dr Joel Fuhrman. Also Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, a well respected heart surgeon puts his very ill patients on a low fat vegan diet and has remarkable results. If you are interested I would check out their websites and also watch the film Forks Over Knives which will probably be available through your library as well as being available online as far as I know.
They all seem to have a lot of success with converting people to a vegan diet with both weight loss and chronic disease issues. Dr McDougall has an extensive list of video clips from these people on his site and I do think the results are impressive. There are many recipes on his site also.
There is also the PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine site) which you may find interesting.
Tah for that Belladonna, definitely will have a look at the PCRM site later, have been on the veg diet since Christmas purely on a health basis but have included fish for variety and for the omega oils only to be found in my fishy friends(rewarding such friendship by eating them, just not nice),
Lolz, against doctors orders i recently ditched ‘statins’ as from what i have read, their use along with diabetes medicine simply aggravates the problem in a merry-go-round of further complications, after my next blood test the diabetes meds are likely to end up in the bin as well,
The WHO recommends 10 teaspoons of sugar max per day, so, it seems easy enough for those who care about their health to re-arrange their diet to be able to come in under that recommendation simply by cutting down on more sugar judged against the amount of fruit eaten daily,
Lolz my way might kill me but i am sure it will be a lot slower than what is likely to occur should i keep taking meds that target one problem while exacerbating another…
Bad, am fairly sure if you look through Dr McDougall’s site, possibly in his newsletters that are available from that site you will find a rant from him on stents. He is a qualified medical doctor and has been in practice for 40 years. He apparently answers emails so you could email and ask his opinion on vitamins needing fats in the diet.
You would be aware of course that Bill Clinton has become vegan, he went to Dr Esselstyn after his problems with stents I believe. He is doing very well on the diet.
Belladonna, thanks, but, the word doctor has little meaning to me when i am reading up on diet,
My point on fats is that there is enough written stuff online,(including from doctors) that pretty much points out that fats are necessary to transport and/or dissolve quite a lot of the major vitamins,
Not that this has me running out to secure a couple of lamb legs for roasting, there are good fats and bad fats, good apparently being olive/soy oil in moderation of course,
i am happy with the diet i have come up with which does include fish and oils for cooking along with avocado which has replaced butter on my toast, 3 different pieces of fruit a day and more veg in a week than i have eaten in a lifetime..
Lolz Chooky, i am not sure if i could join the ‘bring back phill campaign’ with any level of honesty,
i think He may have taken to ‘the Daily Blog’ as the medium of His daily ‘ummm’ comments in the vein of ”i will show them”, any bets on the longevity of His ability to remain commenting over there…
Opinion Murray Grimwood renewable energy energy GDP growth Sustainability
Fact 1: you can either be sustainable, or you can be unsustainable. There is no third option.
Fact 2: Growth, if it is based on use of a finite planet (housing, dairying, resource extraction, pollution, degradation) is unsustainable.
If something – growth in this case – is unsustainable, there are only two valid questions: When will it cease? And: What then”
A lot of the ‘growth’ we measure tho is simply ‘inflation’ and to a certain extent if we keep measuring inflation as growth then growth as we measure it is infinite…
“You can say it’s all harmless fun, no one got hurt and so what if the media chooses to go into women’s magazine circa 1955 mode. Or you can ask what it says about us that we cling like timid children to this aristocratic family on the other side of the world and descend into infantilism every time they grace us with their presence.” Paul Little in the NZ Herald.
What is missing in the soul of Kiwis that otherwise intelligent self-confident people would belittle themselves so publicly. I don’t get it!
What on earth makes you think that a population that is full of ‘intelligent self-confident people’ would even contemplate being led by a pillock like John Key (who , by the way appears to be one of the worst sufferers of this ‘infantilism’)
A relative of mine and her partner have 4 kids, the oldest being profoundly disabled and reliant on an electric wheelchair. They live in a Housing Corp house which is modified for wheelchair access. Recently HC decided to charge them market rent of $350 per week and they were presented with a bill for $2000 arrears. They took the case to the Tenancy Tribunal but lost and were given a week to pay, or face eviction. In the meantime both parents had lost their jobs. They borrowed the $2000 and took it to HC only to be informed that the arrears were now $2500. What a cruel place NZ is becoming!
Yep, such cruelty is becoming more apparent in public as well as evidenced by the story in the Herald’s online version this morning where the majority of those who came across a body floating in the Auckland Harbor found it an object to be photographed as opposed to feeling any necessity to inform the relevant authority,
i feel definite sympathy for you rellies, they will have, along with being lumped with the ‘market rent’,been included on Nick Smith’s list of those who will be in the first tranche of 800 HousingNZ tenants to be evicted by Smith,
We have to remember here that the staff of HousingNZ are simply doing as they are told by Smith as employees,(yes it would be nice if they all en masse refused to carry out such orders,but, Smith would then simply sack them and find worse to do His bidding),
Along with the announcement of the proposed first tranche of 800 evictions came what resonated in almost a boast in the vein of ”look at this you lefties, no-one gives a shit”, was the announcement that 1 in 4 of those to be evicted will be over the age of 60,
Hell why wait for the oldies to perish in their own time, better to rip them out of their homes and kill em quick with the stress of trying to find somewhere affordable in the private sector….
A PS here, as far as Smith as Minister of un-HousingNZ goes finding ”worse to do His bidding” goes, he has, it is now WINZ who get to decide who will and will not be a tenant of the State’s Housing stock,
beatie’s comment above exposes the other unaddressed issue within Smith’s ‘plan’, that is the rotational nature of employment faced by certain sectors of our society,
IF beatie’s rellies remain unemployed they are likely to be able to, based upon their income and their child’s profound disability, keep their State House tenancy,
IF they however find new employment they will again face eviction from their home into the private sector rental market where no account of their child’s disability will be considered,
What then becomes of them when through no fault of their own ”rotational employment” again leaves them unemployed,
What beatie describes is a truly sick society brought to us all by Nick Smith and this National Government…
Here’s another example. At my school there is a 5 year old who is a P baby. Grandmother (53 yr old living by herself) has custody and looks after him and his 3 yr old brother and is doing a good job considering the circumstances. WINZ have just told her she has to find work or she loses benefit. She is distraught as she finds it hard enough just caring for these kids. Surely it is better she is full time caring for these kids to give them a better chance.
Here’s another example. At my school there is a 5 year old who is a P baby. Grandmother (53 yr old living by herself) has custody and looks after him and his 3 yr old brother and is doing a good job considering the circumstances. WINZ have just told her she has to find work or she loses benefit. She is distraught as she finds it hard enough just caring for these kids. Surely it is better she is full time caring for these kids to give them a better chance.
@ ffloyd; that’s what I thought, but the parents are scared that publicity would make the situation worse and at present they are busy dealing with Winz. Apparently the benefit application process is horrific, eg they insist on being provided with the kids birth certificates despite the fact that they are already on file.
Housing NZ say they will let these guys stay in the garage as long as they give up their place on a waiting list and Brownlee says everything is just fine in CHCH/ Someone want to remind him that it is three years since the earthquakes and we still have elderly people in garages facing another winter.
5spylands He is a confused dinosaur.
Dirty old dinosaur Don.
Double dealing exclusive Bretheren deal.
Philanderer.
Washed up sulker.
Spylad don’t forget the productivity commission came out with evidence that more cheap housing needed to be provided so our work force can have a decent standard of living.
Act which is promoting your policy – legalizing pot.has consistantly polling at less than 0.5%.
So spyman your an extremist very likely to be suffering an undiagnosed mental illness.
Get help soon denial won’t fix your problems.
Once i see the proposed split in representation between the two Mana/Internet based around the various percentages of likely gain at the upcoming election i will be more than likely to vote for it than not….
That’s going to be interesting. Mana are in a strong position because the IP needs their electorate seat to coat-tail on. They will want to make sure they benefit from any arrangement so they will want to make sure they get at least one in on the list, otherwise there’s no point.
I don’t think 2-4% would be hard to achieve if the alliance is solid. Possibly more but that won’t be easy. Butthere’s quite a risk for Harawira if it backfires in his electorate.
Actually i see all the publicity surrounding the proposed alliance as only being good for Hone’s position in Te Tai Tokerau,(on last election’s figures he needs a boost),
i also see Annette Sykes winning the contest in Waiariki this time round and it was smart of Mana to hold the AGM this year in Rotorua,
i expect Mana to benefit further from the dissolution of the Maori Party, while most of these voters are probably off back to Labour a fair few of them will back Mana…
She talks about ringing her father in NZ every day. About the last years as PM – politics is like a commodity that people think the governing party needs to be changed every so often, the sexism, her application for her UN job……
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Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the new figures for COVID-19 (as we must now call the novel coronavirus – though I’m not sure the capitalisation is correct) from Hubei province:Image from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51495484The spike yesterday is a consequence of a using a different way of ...
Bob Jones has dropped his defamation case against Renae Maihi. Good. But at the same time, it perfectly exposes what the case was all about: not protecting Jones' reputation, but punishing someone who had dared to criticise him, and deterring others from doing the same. This rich pompous asshat dragged ...
As I've done for the past few years, I'm curating and presenting The Listening Lounge, the talk programme at Splore. On the morning of Saturday the 22nd at the Living Lounge stage, the korero goes like this.Yes, we're talking about drugs again, not just because I'm professionally interested in drug ...
What Were They Thinking? RNZ's CEO Paul Thompson (left) and Jim Mather, Chairman of the RNZ Board of Governors, attempt to justify the debacle arising out of their attempt to downgrade RNZ Concert to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee at Parliament on Thursday, 13 February 2020.WHAT IS ...
Dame Tariana Turia with former PM John KeyWhat is it about Tariana Turia’s grudge against the Labour Party? Not content with attacking the Government over Whānau Ora funding, which was increased by $80 million in 2019, she has now made it personal by saying that Jacinda Ardern is out of her ...
Back in 2017, right after being elected, Jacinda Ardern promised that there would be no new mines on conservation land. Since then, her government has done nothing to make that happen, and now the policy has been officially "parked" for the election:West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says the "no new ...
So the guy who advocated for public burning and beheading feels offended because someone called him a racist!Perhaps Bob Jones hasn't heard of the very old saying; Live by the sword, die by the sword?I mean for someone who often writes opinionated nonsense about Maori; this is a ridiculous case ...
The government today announced a major support package aimed at reducing homelessness. A thousand new transitional housing places, more support for people to find homes (or not lose them in the first place), all good stuff. The one problem with it is that they're going to start charging people in ...
Courtroom Drama: There is no off-switch in a courtroom. Neither is it possible to turn the page in disgust. Ill-formed and ill-defended opinions will be exposed ruthlessly and unapologetically. As Shakespeare put it: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” Sometimes the ...
As of today, the novel coronavirus spreading in China is called COVID-19. Why does it matter? Around the office, we’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks about how 2019-nCoV needed its own name. First, it was getting annoying calling it by the above designation, and ‘novel coronavirus’ doesn’t ...
by Philip Ferguson Last month B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, reported: “In 2019, Israeli security forces killed 133 Palestinians, including 28 minors. Of the casualties, 104 were killed in the Gaza Strip, 26 in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and three within ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Arms (Firearms Prohibition Orders) Amendment Bill (No 2) (Brett Hudson)Its basicly more "tough on crime" nonsense (its already illegal for unlicensed people to own guns) designed to wedge NZ First against its arsehole base. ...
In 2015 the world agreed to the Paris Agreement to fight climate change. Each country would offer a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) "that it intends to achieve", and "pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving [it]". And every five years, they'd improve on it, ratcheting up ambition until ...
In theory, the emissions trading scheme should reduce emissions. Making polluters pay for permits to pollute lets them save money by reducing pollution, giving them a financial incentive to do the right thing. But right from the start the ETS was broken with a system of free allocation, so polluters ...
Irish voters went to the polls on Saturday in parliamentary elections, and perhaps delivered a political revolution. Since independence, Irish politics has been dominated by two parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Basicly patronage networks with indistinguishable policies, their cleavage isn't ideology, but who killed whose father or grandfather in ...
Once again the Aotearoa Bike Challenge is on us, and once again I’m participating. In principle this is not hard because it does not represent a significant switch in behavior for me. I already bike nearly every day. The Bicycle The fascinating thing about cycling is the realisation that this ...
Lately there has been a great deal of misinformation regarding the origins and purpose of Skeptical Science. As John Cook wrote nearly a decade ago, Skeptical Science is primarily a website that debunks climate misinformation with peer-reviewed science. Despite the ever-worsening impacts from climate change, with record after record being broken in ...
Under Attack: By sacking not only RNZ Concert’s presenters, but also its producers and librarians, and reducing the station to an automated purveyor of classical music in-between parliamentary broadcasts, RNZ’s CEO, Paul Thompson, wasn’t simply announcing an operational shake-up, he was declaring war on one of the most important guardians of ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Australian smoke plume sets recordsThe recent wildfires in Australia sent one of ...
The Global Protest to #FightInequality was powerful – thankyou and what next? Dear allies, We started the decade with a huge protest to #FightInequality that was heard around the world, including the 1% at Davos. Watch and share the highlights on facebook and twitter. A huge thank you. Together we ...
The Ministry of Health have announced a package that might ensure NZ will never experience another measles epidemic. While at the time of writing the details are still limited it appears that the important limitations in our current programme have been acknowledged and the intent is to address them. Great ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael BakerIn this blog we briefly summarise our assessment of the highly uncertain new coronavirus threat. Given its potential to become a severe and prolonged global pandemic, a precautionary response now means activating all components of our pandemic plan, with a particular focus on ‘keep ...
When Labour was running for election, Jacinda Ardern famously said that climate change was "my generation's nuclear free moment". The implication was that her government would take the problem seriously, and act swiftly to reduce emissions. The reality:New Zealand will emit a million more tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2020 ...
James Renwick is Professor of Physical Geography at Victoria University of Wellington. He studied at Canterbury and the University of Washington and has worked on diverse aspects of climate science, including global atmospheric circulation and Antarctic sea ice. In December 2019 he was appointed to the New Zealand Climate Change ...
by Philip Ferguson Exit polls are showing a three-way virtual tie between the main parties in the south of Ireland. Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are all on just over 22%. FG on 22.4, SF on 22.3, FF on 22.2. Exit polls indicate that over 30% of 18-24 ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 2, 2020 through Sat, Feb 8, 2020 Editor's Pick New Report Details How Fossil Fuel Industry's Climate Destruction Also Exacerbates Human Rights Abuses"Even in the face of the ...
In a previous post I described briefly when and how the Starlink satellite chains – recent launches by Space-X in a scheme to bring 5G internet connectivity to the whole globe – could be seen from New Zealand with the naked eye. Here I provide an update and predictions for ...
Keeping The Faith: This Government’s broad, new, heavily moderated, progressive faith does not require a prime minister with the powers of a medieval pope. Jacinda’s regime has no need of subterranean torture chambers to ensure compliance. A gift for diplomacy and the ability to inspire her fellow human-beings is all ...
Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian has penned a column which chastises the left wing of the Labour party for daring to retain principles and ideals, qualities - it seems - that should be jettisoned in pursuit of power.Never mind that Freedland was an ardent Remainer, that is to say, one ...
Tonight’s news suggests the coronavirus outbreak may have originated from pangolins. Details are very sketchy, almost nothing at all beyond a claim of high similarity. My impression is this claim comes from a press release by South China Agricultural University. Initial discussion online suggests this is a more likely candidate ...
by Susanne Kemp The Fire and Emergency service (FENZ) has recently asked firefighters in Auckland Areas 3, 4 and 5 to take on an additional duty that has rather ominous implications. Namely, to collect names and addresses of everyone on the premises of fires they attend. The firefighters’ union, the ...
Part of the story of the Nazis' rise to power in Germany was the willingness of mainstream right-wing parties to work with them to keep out the left. Because of this, one of the fundamental rules of postwar German politics has been "do not work with Nazis". As a result, ...
There has long been a truism in public broadcasting: don't mess with Concert FM. The theory was that although the station has been in a long-term audience decline, and that audience is steadily ageing out, it has powerful establishment support – and any threat to it would provoke a fury.As ...
This is a re-post from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The heat absorbed in Earth’s oceans reached a new record in 2019, found a recent study published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. Despite the fact that this has been the case for almost every year over the past decade, this information ...
We are confronted with the spectre of Simon Bridges making clear he cannot, will not, trust Winston Peters – the oft-cited “King Maker” in New Zealand politics.Supporters are lauding it as a master stroke, naturally, because in their eyes, it prevents him being the tail that wags the dog. ...
by Don Franks Under a government claiming empathy with the fine arts, Radio New Zealand ( RNZ) is poised to cut back its classical music station, RNZ Concert. The plan is replacing it on FM radio with music “for a younger audience” as part of a new multimedia music brand. ...
More Thwaites This past week we heard disturbing news about Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier. Helping to fill in the longer term history of Thwaites' behavior and especially helpful in interpreting results of the recent drilling project and what it may say about the future of this unstable mass of ice is Revealing the ...
Inaccuracies are very common in scientific paper abstracts. Image credit:Science in the Abstract: Don’t Judge a Study by its Cover I have come to accept anti-fluoride campaigners will never stop cherry-picking research and findings ...
“The scene is set, the players met…”. And what players they are in this farce of an Election coming up in the United States this year. There is a multi-faceted anger in the broader situation the world finds itself in, in which the false promises of so-called “moderates” find themselves ...
A few years ago, a company lowballed a contract to dispose of toxic waste from the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. So, they dumped it in a disused paper mill in Mataura, then went into liquidation - effectively dumping the problem on local councils. The waste is dangerous - it releases ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Broadcasting New Zealand First supports the commissioning of a business case to assess the viability of a new public media entity. “A strong media environment is critical for a healthy democracy. New Zealand First is a strong supporter of a diverse, independent media,” New Zealand First broadcasting spokesperson ...
Pounamou and technology industries in the West Coast region are set to receive more than $2 million in Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) funding. This was announced by the Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau during Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika. He said $800,000 would be given to Development West ...
Clayton Mitchell MP, New Zealand First spokesperson for Labour and Industrial Relations Unemployment and wage growth numbers released by Stats NZ today demonstrate a labour market in good shape with unemployment falling to 4.0%, the underutilisation rate falling to an 11 year low, and wage growth at a 10-year high ...
Hon. Ron Mark, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence New Zealand First Spokesperson for Defence Ron Mark, welcomes the official opening of Te Rau Aroha, a new museum at Waitangi Treaty Grounds as part of our Coalition Agreement. “It is a great honour to be part of an effective Government ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterGood morning,Let us start with important acknowledgements.First, this special day, in remembrance of the 28th Maori Battalion, is also to honour all those men and women who have risked their lives in the service of our country.Second, special guest Robert ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand will look to build on its relationship with the United Kingdom and recommit to the European Union, after the country officially left the continental union recently. The Minister said New Zealand already cooperates closely with Britain on defence and security issues and has ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs The Government has agreed with Air New Zealand to charter an aircraft to assist New Zealanders leaving Wuhan, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. The aircraft will have capacity for around 300 passengers and will fly from Wuhan to ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterHon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentThe Provincial Growth Fund will invest $4 million for Kaipara District Council to upgrade the Dargaville pontoon, the first in its plan to improve wharves on Kaipara Harbour, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterHon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentThe Government will provide up to $12.7 million to make Northland more resilient in the face of extreme weather, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today.“Water is ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Tougher penalties for gun crime are a step closer with the passage of firearms reform legislation through another stage in Parliament. The Arms Legislation Bill has tonight passed its Second Reading. “The changes have one objective - to prevent firearms falling into the wrong hands,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Introduction Mr Speaker We all know why we are here today. It has been a long journey. The journey did not actually begin on 15 March 2019. It began on 30 June 1997. Almost 23 years ago, Justice Sir Thomas Thorp told us what was wrong with our firearms legislation. ...
The Government’s work to put trades and vocational education back on the agenda took another major step forward today with the passing of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said. “This is a watershed day for trades and vocational education. These law changes formalise ...
Speeding up the return of Christchurch regeneration activities to local leadership is behind the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill introduced to Parliament today by Minister Megan Woods. “As we approach nine years since the February 2011 earthquake in Canterbury, and with the transition to local leadership well underway, the time ...
Hundreds of New Zealanders and international visitors will be able to get back out into nature with the Milford Track partially reopening next week, after extensive assessments and repairs, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. The popular Great Walk has been closed since 3 February after an extreme ...
Up to 110 new EV chargers nationwide in cities and regions 50 electric vehicles for ride-sharing The Government is helping deliver more infrastructure and options for low emissions transport through new projects, Energy and Resources Minister Dr Megan Woods says. Tauranga, Nelson, Levin, New Plymouth and Oamaru are just some ...
New Zealanders are increasingly better off under this Government as wages rise and families have more disposable income, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ reported today that average household disposable incomes after housing costs rose 4.9% in 2019. This was the highest rise in four years and came as ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
Today the Government is making progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the introduction of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in Parliament. “This Bill includes a series of reforms to improve the wellbeing of the 609,700 households that live in rented homes, and ...
A Government programme to wipe out pea weevil has achieved a world first, with Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor today announcing the successful eradication of the noxious pest from Wairarapa. This means the nearly four-year ban on pea plants and pea straw was lifted today. Commercial and home gardeners can again grow ...
Southland residents hit by flooding caused by heavy rainfall can now access help finding temporary accommodation with the Government activating the Temporary Accommodation Service, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare announced today. “The Temporary Accommodation Service (TAS) has been activated by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to help ...
“Is that it?” That’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s response to Simon Bridges’ much-hyped economic speech today. “Simon Bridges just gave the most over-hyped and under-delivered speech that I can remember during my time in politics,” Grant Robertson said. “It’s not surprising. Simon Bridges literally said on the radio this morning ...
A trial deployment of the Police Eagle helicopter in Christchurch will test whether the aircraft would make a significant difference to crime prevention and community safety. “The Bell 429 helicopter will be based in Christchurch for five weeks, from 17 February to 20 March,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. “The ...
The Government has kept up the pace of its work to promote New Zealand’s trade interests and diversify our export markets, with visits to Fiji and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. Building momentum to bring the PACER Plus trade and development agreement ...
The Coalition Government’s investment in a strong border and disrupting transnational organised crime produced record results for stopping drugs in 2019, says Minister of Customs Jenny Salesa. The illegal drugs were seized at the New Zealand border by Customs, and overseas by Customs’ international border partners before the drugs could ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today kicked off construction of a separated cycleway alongside Tamaki Drive. A two-way separated cycleway will be built along the northern side of Tamaki Drive, between the Quay Street Cycleway extension and Ngapipi Road. There will be a separate walking path alongside. Phil Twyford said giving ...
Owner-occupiers of unit and apartments living in earthquake-prone buildings will have certainty about the financial support they’ll be eligible for with the release of criteria for an upcoming assistance scheme, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. The Residential Earthquake-Prone Building Financial Assistance Scheme will help unit owners facing ...
Temporary restrictions on travel from China will remain in place as a precautionary measure to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The restrictions which prevent foreign nationals travelling from, or transiting through, mainland China from entering New Zealand have been extended for a further 8 days. This position ...
Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today that Tairāwhiti rangatahi will benefit from an investment made by the Government’s He Poutama Rangatahi (HPR) scheme. The funding will go to the Tautua Village, Kauneke programme and the Matapuna Supported Employment Programme which will fund 120 rangatahi over two years. “Both programmes work ...
All parents and caregivers need to ensure that their children go to school unless they are sick, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin said today. “The school attendance results for 2019 show, across the board, a drop in the number of students going to school regularly,” the Minister says. “Apart from ...
A Deed of Settlement agreeing redress for historical Treaty claims has been signed by the Crown and Moriori at Kōpinga Marae on Rēkohu (Chatham Islands) today, Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little has announced. Moriori have a tradition of peace that extends back over 600 years. This settlement ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today with Māori King Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII officially opened the country’s newest road, the $384 million Huntly section of the Waikato Expressway. The 15km four-lane highway with side and central safety barriers takes State Highway 1 east of Huntly town, across lowlands and streams ...
The rapid uptake of life-saving new hepatitis C medicine Maviret since it was funded by PHARMAC a year ago means the elimination of the deadly disease from this country is a realistic goal, Health Minister David Clark says. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne virus which attacks the liver, proving fatal ...
Kaupapa Māori will underpin the Government’s new plan to deal with homelessness announced by the Prime Minister in Auckland this morning. “Māori are massively overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness, so, to achieve different outcomes for Māori, we have to do things very differently,” says the Minister of Māori Development ...
1000 new transitional housing places delivered by end of year to reduce demand for emergency motel accommodation. Introduce 25% of income payment, after 7 days, for those in emergency motel accommodation to bring in line with other forms of accommodation support. Over $70m extra to programmes that prevents those at ...
Clear requirements for ensuring customers are treated fairly by banks, insurers and other financial service providers are included in new financial conduct legislation that passed its first reading today. “The recent reviews, by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and Reserve Bank of New Zealand, into the conduct of banks and ...
Applications are now open for the fifth round of the Regional Culture and Heritage Fund Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Grant Robertson announced today. “I am delighted to open this year’s fund which has some $7 million available to support performing arts venues, galleries, museums and whare ...
The Minister of Māori Development, Hon Nanaia Mahuta today congratulated Associate Professor Amokura Kawharu on her appointment as the next President of the Law Commission. “Amokura Kawharu will be a standout in her new role, leading in an innovative and forward looking approach to the law reform process. She will ...
Auckland University legal academic Amokura Kawharu has been appointed as the next President of the Law Commission, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. Associate Professor Kawharu will take up her new appointment on 11 May 2020. “I would like to congratulate Associate Professor Kawharu on her appointment,” Andrew ...
A programme for employers to help them engage effectively with younger employees was launched today by Minister of Employment, Willie Jackson. The Youth Ready Employer Programme contains a range of on-line templates that employers can easily access to help with employing and retaining young people in their businesses. The programme ...
Budget 2020 will be delivered on Thursday 14 May, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “This year’s Budget will continue the Coalition Government’s focus on tackling the long-term challenges facing New Zealand while also preparing the economy for the future. “Those challenges and opportunities cannot be resolved in one budget, ...
I move, That this House place on record its appreciation and thanks for the devoted and distinguished service to New Zealand by the late Rt Hon Michael Kenneth Moore, member of the Order of New Zealand, a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, an Honorary Member of the ...
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has today classified the drought conditions in Northland as an adverse event for the primary sector, unlocking $80,000 in Government support. “This is recognition that the extreme and prolonged nature of this dry spell is taking its toll on our farmers and growers and additional support ...
The Minister of Police says an operation to smash a trans national drug smuggling ring today will make a significant impact on the methamphetamine trade fuelling harm in our communities. Police have announced 10 arrests and the seizure of up to five million dollars’ worth of illicit drugs after an ...
The Government’s books are in a strong position to withstand global headwinds, with the accounts in surplus and expenses close to forecast, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown accounts for the six months to December. The operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) was above ...
Race courses can improve safety with this year’s second round of funding from the Racing Safety Development Fund. Minister for Racing Winston Peters has announced the second funding round of 2019/20 is open with $347,875 available for distribution. “The racing industry is integral to the economic and social fabric of ...
Hundreds of thousands of young adults will be offered measles vaccinations in a new campaign to strengthen New Zealand’s immunisation system, Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter said at its launch in Auckland today. “About 300,000 young adults aged between 15 and 29 are not fully protected against measles, and ...
Fresh on the heels of this morning’s news about the prime minister handing someone a bottle opener, The Spinoff can reveal that Jacinda Ardern once offered a man a banana. Jacinda Ardern once offered an Auckland man a banana, according to a tweet viewed by The Spinoff.The MP who would go ...
Auckland Airport has reported a flat first-half result, and plans to bring forward the billion-dollar redevelopment of its domestic terminal, and upgrade the international arrivals hall. The company's net profit for the six months to December was unchanged from the year earlier's $147.2 million, reflecting a drop in passenger growth ...
How voters react to the headlines generated by NZ First’s latest financial shenanigans may (or may not) determine the outcome on September 19. The most recent Colmar Brunton poll had NZ First down at 3%, so some commentators are already writing off the party’s chances of survival. But the real ...
Since 2017 New Conservative has been calling for net zero immigration until our housing stocks meet demand. Immigrants must prove they are financially independent so they have the means to pay higher rents which forces those at the ...
Despite more than 40 years of law reform aimed at improving the experience of giving evidence for adult rape complainants, Ministry of Justice research in 2018 re-confirmed that the process remains distressing and re-traumatising. According to experts, more ...
Just like donations to political parties, the justice system should be open and transparent. That is what I believe and have sought. Until now, however, I have been unable to make a public statement regarding these allegations, despite wanting to ...
Himali McInnes looks past the fact that the first black woman to win the Booker had to bloody share it and focuses on the book – in itself a treasure. Girl, Woman, Other is the smart, urbane eighth novel by Bernadine Evaristo. Born in London of Nigerian, German and Irish descent, ...
The Prime Minister clearly hasn’t read the draft bill to legalise recreational cannabis, Road Transport Forum (RTF) chief executive Nick Leggett says. "That was clear after watching her answer a question at Parliament yesterday, on the bill ...
Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire inhale the stench of donation scandal enveloping NZ First and National. Can the prime minister avoid the pong?Winston Peters, his New Zealand First Party, and whatever the New Zealand First Foundation is are just part of a wider donations controversy that seems set ...
20 February 2020: Steve Abel was selected last night as the Green Party candidate for the New Lynn electorate in West Auckland. The Long time environmental activist and Greenpeace’s former Senior Campaign and Political Adviser stepped down from ...
Jami-Lee Ross is once again proclaiming his innocence, as he heads off to court next week - along with three others - to face Serious Fraud Office charges. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowan Callick, Industry Fellow, Griffith University Brand “People’s Republic of China” is wobbling, as if the massive picture of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square was swaying with an earthquake tremor. But it can only actually fall if pushed from inside. The handling ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Waling, Research fellow, La Trobe University Older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI+) people fear discrimination, exclusion and isolation in Australia’s aged care services, we found in our research. With an ageing cohort of LGBTI+ people needing to access, and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Tolhurst, Hon. Assoc. Prof., Fire Ecology and Management, University of Melbourne When it comes to reducing the extent of bushfires, scientists disagree on the best way to do it. Hazard-reduction burning (also known as “prescribed burning” or “controlled burning”) is controversial ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Stanley, Adjunct Professor, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney We were heavily involved in the consultation program for Melbourne’s long-term land-use plan, Plan Melbourne. The idea that resonated most with many participants was ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Michael X. Savvas, Senior Lecturer in the Transition Office (PhD in Creative Writing), Flinders University A recent project to encourage South Australian prisoners to write provides insights into how prisoners may benefit from written expression. The project, Life Sentences, gave more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wallace Boone Law, PhD Candidate, University of Adelaide On the night of January 9 2020, my wife and I secured our Kangaroo Island home and anxiously monitored the South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS) website for bushfire advice. After many horrific weeks ...
In today’s edition: Jami-Lee Ross is confirmed as one of four charged by SFO, a damning international report on the NZ housing crisis, and SkyCity cancels a booking for Peter Singer event.SFO–JLR is not just an unlikely long-haul flight from California to India, but the latest instalment in the ...
The author of a novel set in racy, racist Hawke’s Bay writes about the experiences and stories that make up his book. Ten years old and I’m walking with my grandfather to the Farmers Tearooms in Hastings. At the entrance we meet a man whose house has recently burnt down. ...
A major report by the Auditor-General on how councils manage drinking, storm and waste waters found an incoherent, disorganised and stagnant system unprepared for climate change Auditor-General John Ryan found so much lacking in our water management systems he chose to start his final report on it by listing the ...
Child victims of a notorious North Island psychiatric hospital are still doubtful charges will be laid. David Williams reports Police are reviewing their file on Lake Alice psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks in the wake of a landmark decision by a United Nations committee. In December, the Committee against Torture issued a ...
When New Zealand hosts the Rugby World Cup - for the first time in this hemisphere – in 2021, it will mean so much to the Black Ferns, both present and past. To outsiders, it may have been surprising to watch Kendra Cocksedge taking a moment to hold back her ...
Climate change and carbon footprints, political unrest, global epidemics – what does it all mean for the future of tourism? While the crystal ball is murky, futurologist Associate Professor Ian Yeoman from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Management has some ideas about how the sector may change ...
The amount of methane emissions for which humans are responsible could be as much as 40% higher than thought. What does that mean for the fight against climate change? New international research suggests that the volume of methane emissions humans are producing is dramatically higher than previously thought. The findings, which ...
SkyCity yesterday pulled the plug on hosting philosopher and academic Peter Singer’s event after disability rights advocates expressed strong objections to his views. They’re right to be angry with him, but he nevertheless deserves to be heard, argues Danyl Mclauchlan.Athoughtful piece on The Spinoff yesterday explored the disabled community’s ...
There's nearly 10,000 tonnes of potentially toxic waste causing anger and anxiety in a tiny Southland town. We look at the secret deal that put it there, and the battle against a faceless entity to get rid of it. Mataura used to be a paper mill town. Nowadays the old ...
The Prime Minister has tried to relieve mounting pressure on China and New Zealand's bilateral relationship at a Chinese New Year Celebration at Parliament. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa Christensen, Lecturer in Criminology & Justice | Co-leader of the Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit (SVRPU), University of the Sunshine Coast This week’s ABC’s Four Corners exposed an elite Melbourne school for failing to adequately respond to the grooming of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trish Luker, Senior lecturer, University of Technology Sydney Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the names and voices of deceased people. When was the last time you signed your name? Perhaps you are more familiar with the ...
“Oranga Tamariki have remained silent on their role in this horrific situation,” a Māori leader tells Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner. A respected Hawke’s Bay kaumatua, who has been supporting the whānau whānui of a four-year-old boy being treated in hospital for brain injuries, says Oranga Tamariki needs to take responsibility ...
*Watch Melanie Reid's full interview in the video player above* Oranga Tamariki stands accused of returning a four-year-old who had been previously badly injured within a Flaxmere household to the same home, where he has since been severely injured again. It allegedly did so without full consultation with the wider whānau, some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roy Green, Emeritus Professor & UTS innovation adviser, University of Technology Sydney The only surprise about the termination of the Holden brand in Australia was that it caused such surprise. This was the final nail in an already empty coffin, given local ...
The owners of the disputed land at Ihumātao say for seven months they've halted development at the request of the Prime Minister, but that can't continue indefinitely. ...
Big Tech companies like Microsoft have raised the spectre of geo-blocking NZ if the Government proceeds with a bill for classifying streamed content. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Williamson, Research Fellow in Environmental Science, University of Tasmania As bushfires in New South Wales are finally contained, attention is turning to nature’s recovery. Green shoots are sprouting and animals are returning. But we must accept that in some cases, the ...
Are you a time-poor urban apartment-dweller who’s put composting in the too-hard basket? Read on…About half of what Aucklanders chuck in their rubbish bins is actually compostable material. That means a whopping 90,000 tonnes of Auckland households’ food waste ends up in landfill each year. Why is that a problem? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Associate Professor, Psychology, Deakin University Snapchat has announced a new feature called “Here For You” that promises to “provide proactive in-app support to Snapchatters who may be experiencing a mental health or emotional crisis”. The popular youth-oriented app is the ...
Dr Bryce Edwards.A very concerning element of the current NZ First donations scandal is the role of lobbying and lobbyists close to the Government. The most recent story from RNZ’s Guyon Espiner and Kate Newton, revealed that lobbyist Doug Woolerton, who is also a trustee of the NZ First ...
“The visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing has reinforced the need to view good, affordable homes as a fundamental human right – and highlighted what needs to happen to ensure all New Zealanders are well-housed,” says Scott ...
The government has announced a ban on electricity retailers using promotions to lure back customers who’ve changed companies. Flick Electric’s Nikki Cockburn explains why this is a victory for consumers and competition. Progress on the Electricity Price Review (EPR) might be slow – especially when it comes to putting recommendations into ...
Acculturation – the cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture or a merging of cultures – is increasingly evident in this country’s public agencies. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has not escaped the process. In July 2018, soon after ...
Pacific Media Watch The Philippines top state lawyer has filed a lawsuit against the country’s key television broadcaster with “guns blazing” but he ought to be devoting more effort on governance, says Rappler co-founder and managing editor Glenda M. Gloria. Gloria, who has been announced as a keynote speaker ...
The Electricity Authority says the ban on power companies offering better deals to customers who want to switch should bring down power prices. From 21 March the authority will ban the so-called win-backs offered to customers within 180 days of leaving their original supplier. Figures show 435,000 consumers switched suppliers ...
This is a press statement from UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing at the end of her 10-day visit to New Zealand. The Government of New Zealand has recognized that the country is facing a housing crisis, said Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur ...
Fletcher Building is hopeful the Ihumātao land dispute can be resolved soon but says it cannot hold off indefinitely. Presenting the construction company's half-year results to the end of December 2019 chief executive Ross Taylor said it has been a complex situation. But the company said in a presentation that ...
The telecommunications company Spark has made a larger profit off a big boost in mobile sales, with the company's bottom line rising 9.2 percent to $167 million in the six months ended December. Revenue rose 4 percent to $1.82 billion with increased margins in the mobile, broadband and cloud divisions. ...
Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, welcomes the release of the preliminary findings of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Leilani Farha, today, and looks forward to giving her recommendations careful consideration. “Ms ...
Former National MP Jami-Lee Ross, has been named today as one of the four people facing Serious Fraud Office charges in relation to two $100,000 donations made to the National Party. ...
Former National MP Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four men charged by the Serious Fraud Office in the National Party donations case - alongside a Chinese community leader who reportedly gave $100,000 to the party, and two others. Name suppression for Ross and his co-accused Zhang Yikun, Zheng Shijia, ...
Almost a third of middle-aged New Zealanders have tried methamphetamine at least once, according to a new University of Otago, Christchurch study looking at the link between using the drug and violence in the general population. The study found those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Lecturer Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong Why don’t burns bleed? – from the year three and four students at Islington Public School in NSW Hello year three and four students – thanks for your excellent question! To ...
The report details an unannounced follow-up inspection, the first in a new phase of inspections of all 18 New Zealand prisons by the Office of the Inspectorate. This follows the first phase of inspections, where all prisons were inspected in a process ...
Netflix’s new release Horse Girl promised a quirky indie dramedy from its trailer. In reality, it’s a nightmarish time-warped look into the mind of a mental illness sufferer, writes Alice Webb-Liddall.There was a horse girl in every primary school classroom. The one with ballet flats and low ponytails and books ...
You may not be punching strangers’ seats, but there’s plenty of other behaviour that is guaranteed to make your fellow passengers seethe with rage. Here’s how to travel by plane without making people hate you.You’ve probably seen the video: a woman leans back in her reclined seat as a man ...
Earmarked for big things since she left high school, the ‘Nothing to Regret’ singer has been dealing with the weight of expectations for a while now. With her debut EP just released, she’s OK with where she’s at.Given the circumstances, Robinson is surprisingly relaxed. It’s early afternoon on a swelteringly ...
By Meriba Tulo in Port Moresby Over the past month, the Autonomous Bougainville Government has made known its intention to put forward several proposed amendments to the Bougainville House of Representatives. These amendments include a provision to allow for a president to serve for more than two terms – ...
New Zealand’s Catholic bishops are concerned that unborn babies will lose their existing tenuous legal rights if Parliament passes the Abortion Legislation Bill in the form proposed by a select committee. And unborn babies with a fetal disability ...
Younger voters are being encouraged to take time now to make sure they are enrolled and ready to vote in this year’s election and referendums. The Electoral Commission’s enrolment teams will be at orientation events at universities, polytechnics and wānanga ...
FIRST Union’s Real Work Real Jobs campaign is expanding its focus to include ‘gig economy’ workers like Uber drivers and dependent contractors, with the public release of the union’s submission on the Government’s Better Protections for Contractors ...
Linda Burgess climbs the eternal staircase at the Opera House in Wellington to watch the virtuoso actor. At the interval her legs are aching. But in the second half, magic happens.There’s one person wearing a face mask, just the one, and it turns his face into a disposable nappy with ...
National Party leader Simon Bridges says the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the New Zealand First Foundation adds weight to calls for Winston Peters to be stood down. ...
Tutors at Northtec have begun strike action this week, action that will be disruptive for the institution and students. “Tutors never want to affect their students in negative ways, but they want their employer to show respect and put a decent pay ...
Dairy prices have fallen again in the latest global dairy auction, as the coronavirus outbreak takes its toll on trade. The average price at the overnight auction fell by almost 3 percent to $US3176 a tonne. Following a 4.7 percent fall at the previous auction two weeks ago, it was ...
Motorists are now able to offset their carbon emissions when they fuel up at Z Energy stations. A new feature in the Z app called Carbon Count will show drivers the carbon impact of each fill, then give them the option to offset that. There will be a per-fill option ...
Growth in bank sector profits stalled last year after years of seemingly unstoppable development. Business advisory firm KPMG's annual sector report showed the industry's collective profits fell just under 1 percent to $5.7 billion, with a growth in lending, while margins were squeezed slightly, costs rose markedly, and bad debts ...
Open mike 12/04/2014 
Open mike is your post.
4 hours ago
"You're going to need a longer runway" Gratton et al explore the ongoing effects of upward-creeping temperatures on aviation in Greece in the period since 1955 at a range of airports in that country. For longer runways impacts are measurable but with little impact on operations. For airports with shorter runways, ...17 hours ago
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...19 hours ago
Former National Party chief whip Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four people charged over National's multiple fraudulent donations. How unsurprising. Meanwhile, just days ago National leader Simon Bridges was trying to pretend the charges were nothing to do with his party. Yeah, right. When your chief whip effectively publicly ...21 hours ago
If you follow politics in New Zealand you've likely noticed that the right wing have been going on and on about the Coalition Government failing to reduce poverty. In fact they’ve been incessantly claiming, in the absence of any conclusive data, that poverty has been getting worse.Yesterday, NewstalkZB reported:Mike Hosking: ...1 day ago
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...2 days ago
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...3 days ago
...1 week ago
Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian has penned a column which chastises the left wing of the Labour party for daring to retain principles and ideals, qualities - it seems - that should be jettisoned in pursuit of power.Never mind that Freedland was an ardent Remainer, that is to say, one ...2 weeks ago
We are confronted with the spectre of Simon Bridges making clear he cannot, will not, trust Winston Peters – the oft-cited “King Maker” in New Zealand politics. Supporters are lauding it as a master stroke, naturally, because in their eyes, it prevents him being the tail that wags the dog. ...2 weeks ago
Inaccuracies are very common in scientific paper abstracts. Image credit: Science in the Abstract: Don’t Judge a Study by its Cover I have come to accept anti-fluoride campaigners will never stop cherry-picking research and findings ... 2 weeks ago
“The scene is set, the players met…”. And what players they are in this farce of an Election coming up in the United States this year. There is a multi-faceted anger in the broader situation the world finds itself in, in which the false promises of so-called “moderates” find themselves ...2 weeks ago
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It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...6 days ago
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...2 hours ago
Fresh on the heels of this morning’s news about the prime minister handing someone a bottle opener, The Spinoff can reveal that Jacinda Ardern once offered a man a banana. Jacinda Ardern once offered an Auckland man a banana, according to a tweet viewed by The Spinoff.The MP who would go ...15 mins ago
Auckland Airport has reported a flat first-half result, and plans to bring forward the billion-dollar redevelopment of its domestic terminal, and upgrade the international arrivals hall. The company's net profit for the six months to December was unchanged from the year earlier's $147.2 million, reflecting a drop in passenger growth ...18 mins ago
How voters react to the headlines generated by NZ First’s latest financial shenanigans may (or may not) determine the outcome on September 19. The most recent Colmar Brunton poll had NZ First down at 3%, so some commentators are already writing off the party’s chances of survival. But the real ...1 hour ago
Since 2017 New Conservative has been calling for net zero immigration until our housing stocks meet demand. Immigrants must prove they are financially independent so they have the means to pay higher rents which forces those at the ...2 hours ago
Jami-Lee Ross is once again proclaiming his innocence, as he heads off to court next week - along with three others - to face Serious Fraud Office charges. ...3 hours ago
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Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters will remain Foreign Minister amid SFO investigation; ...3 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowan Callick, Industry Fellow, Griffith University Brand “People’s Republic of China” is wobbling, as if the massive picture of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square was swaying with an earthquake tremor. But it can only actually fall if pushed from inside. The handling ...4 hours ago
In just the latest twist in a political drama that began in late 2018, Jami-Lee Ross is once again proclaiming his innocence. ...4 hours ago
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Climate change and carbon footprints, political unrest, global epidemics – what does it all mean for the future of tourism? While the crystal ball is murky, futurologist Associate Professor Ian Yeoman from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Management has some ideas about how the sector may change ...6 hours ago
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The Electricity Authority says the ban on power companies offering better deals to customers who want to switch should bring down power prices. From 21 March the authority will ban the so-called win-backs offered to customers within 180 days of leaving their original supplier. Figures show 435,000 consumers switched suppliers ...21 hours ago
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Former National MP Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four men charged by the Serious Fraud Office in the National Party donations case - alongside a Chinese community leader who reportedly gave $100,000 to the party, and two others. Name suppression for Ross and his co-accused Zhang Yikun, Zheng Shijia, ...21 hours ago
Fletcher Building says it hopeful the Ihumatao land dispute can be resolved soon. ...23 hours ago
In the interests of her party, let alone her Government, it is surely time for the PM to cut the Gordian knot, and cast aside New Zealand First. ...1 day ago
Dairy prices have fallen again in the latest global dairy auction, as the coronavirus outbreak takes its toll on trade. The average price at the overnight auction fell by almost 3 percent to $US3176 a tonne. Following a 4.7 percent fall at the previous auction two weeks ago, it was ...1 day ago
Motorists are now able to offset their carbon emissions when they fuel up at Z Energy stations. A new feature in the Z app called Carbon Count will show drivers the carbon impact of each fill, then give them the option to offset that. There will be a per-fill option ...1 day ago
Growth in bank sector profits stalled last year after years of seemingly unstoppable development. Business advisory firm KPMG's annual sector report showed the industry's collective profits fell just under 1 percent to $5.7 billion, with a growth in lending, while margins were squeezed slightly, costs rose markedly, and bad debts ...1 day ago
Fran O’Sullivan describes ex-National/ACT leader Doctor Dullard Don Brash as ‘Principled’, really???,what ‘principles’ has a man that cheats on His wife with the secretary???,
None i would suggest…
Oh stick to politics bad 12. Don’t do a Brown on Brash. This is the sort of things that the RWT do and brings the private into public when it isn’t the public’s business.
Brash made it ‘the public’s business’ by declaring such principled infidelity in His book greywarbler, the fact that you are way too blind or dense to see the hypocrisy inherent in the scribblings,dribblings of O’Sullivan vis a vis Her treatment of Brash’s infidelity and Brown’s doesn’t surprise me at all…
You don’t need to be jerked about by just anything that a big man says.
Brash was a big man in NZ with everyone looking at him, so just think – if the people are going to pay more attention to infidelity than the nationwide policies and practices the pollie employs, infidelity might be a valuable tool to use to divert people’s attention from the rorts and mismanagement that should be noted.
Don’t throw round your specious ramblings bad12, you have no idea of what I think or would do so don’t attribute anything to me that I haven’t written. And even that might be satirical, not fact. So control your finely honed critiques mate.
From where i sit greywarbler it is you who is being ”jerked” around here, firstly by me who with deliberation left out the salient point of O’Sullivans hypocrisy vis a vis the Brash/Brown infidelities from my original comment, simply setting my hook knowing that someone easily ‘jerked around’ couldn’t help but bite which you did,
The rorts and irrational along with the racism of Brash have been more than noted here and elsewhere for years and there is no need for me to create any list of length to detail these,
The only things i have attributed to you greywarbler is an ability to be both dense and blind in the one comment, i see nothing about the scribble you use as the currency of your raving as having been wrongly ascribed by myself to you,
Making shit up, as if i have attributed something to you that i havn’t simply has me adding to your list of propensities bullshit along with blind and denseness…
The reality is that Brash promoted principled effective economic policies to help the disadvantaged by raising growth. Those policies are impossible right now in New Zealand because the population only elects left wing governments – and make no mistake the current government is a centre left very cautious government.
If we want higher growth there is no alternative but to adopt many of the policies Brash proposed in his taskforce report on closing the gap with Australia.
He is a principled guy. Just a terrible politician.
About as principled as you are SSLands, your main stay of ”principles” being those of the Liar and Coward,
Thank you for coming, now F off back to the kiddies play pen and let the adults continue their conversation without being subjected to your drivel…
LOL
Not only is “economic growth” history, but the kind of “growth” that Brash promotes is actually “uneconomic growth” where the vast share of proceeds goes to the top 10%, and the bottom 10% who really need it, just get more kickings.
If we could vote on the subject, i would vote that every comment SSLands makes be run by Pete George for ‘fact checking’ befor it was published…
yup, brash had the disadvantaged in mind when he was rbg, and most recently when he wrote his book and when on a media frenzy
Growth is not needed for prosperity for all in NZ, you fool. NZ is one of the world’s wealthy lands and there is currently more than enough to go around.
The problem is the current wealth distribution policies which concentrate that wealth at the top, as the evidence shows.
It is not growth that is needed it is new wealth distribution policies.
Growth is needing for one sole purpose – to pay the interest on the printed paper money that is called debt, and which now makes up a very substantial proportion of our economy – to no benefit.
Of course you wont see this srylands. You think that people are a tradeable commodity and should be placed in the same sorts of policy straitjackets that tend to the manufacture of plastic buckets. You need to get to first base first, before your mutterings can be considered in anything other than a rabid extremist light.
+11111
Hasn’t worked before so I doubt if it’s going to work now.
Two things:
1.) If we only voted for left wing governments then we’d have a better living standard now
2.) This present government is radical right-wing while pretending to be centre-right
We don’t want more growth as it’s unsustainable. What we need is better use and distribution of our resources. Time to stop giving them all the a select few.
It’s not really radical right-wing. We haven’t got a flat income tax, the dissolution of welfare, vast privation of schools.
It’s right-wing. But we should probably save “radical right-wing” for when we need it. Possibly next term.
What it’s done or hasn’t done doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a radical right-wing party and what it would like to do. We know Bill English wants to sell Kiwibank. I’m reasonably sure that, if they though that they could have gotten away from it, they would have sold all of our power companies.
bad12
Thanks for the sparring session. I will now leave you to apply your mind to the real problems we are facing in NZ which you do well. So have a good day. We have some sunshine, after rain, so all is well around here. There may even be a transient rainbow. I will attend to some useful tasks. Enjoyed talking to you.
Always a pleasure greywarbler, the cut and thrust of this morning’s first conversation aids in cutting away the fat of the nights sleep allowing the addressing of further topics to be seen and commented upon with renewed clarity,(i hope)…
The type of policies that Brash promoted have never ever helped the disadvantaged by raising growth. Never. And certainly Never Ever in New Zealand. The inequality between the richest and poorest has grown and grown and grown since Rogernomics, except during the Clarke years when it was pared back. Brash and his ilk are a disaster for a country that should have its government centred in social justice.
I’m far more interested in the unprincipled stand he took for or against the invasion of Iraq, or the filthy way in which he played to racists’ fears of not going to the beach than anything that he may have done with any number of secretaries. A lot like Brown and his stance on the port, really. Or the ethnic cleansing in GI. The more time they spend exercising their one eyed trouser snakes, the less they have left to screw the rest of us.
Or deliberately whips up racial intolerance with populist speeches?
The fact that Fran O’Sullivan bats for the neoliberals tends to suggests she has a shaky moral compass herself.
Or takes over a party and ousts an elected MP as leader?
You mean like Key did to him? Or like he did to English and Hide?
ACT is not so much a party as a conspiracy of dunces.
😈 😆
There was a lot of absolute bullshit written on this site the other day about Don Brash.
It tends to happen once politicians are out of the public eye for a while. People imagine that they were actually good people who deserved respect despite their political differences.
No. Don Brash was and is a lying, deceitful, dishonest, duplicitous prick. And that’s AS WELL as his disgusting disgraceful political beliefs.
Anyone suffering under any illusions about him should listen to him talking to Kim Hill just now, he hasn’t changed a bit.
My abiding memory of Don Brash is, and probably always will be, in the 2011 election leaders debate where he was talking about climate change and CO2. He made the comment that putting agriculture under the emissions trading scheme didn’t make sense, because when a cow eats grass and then farts, the “CO2” being emitted is only the CO2 that had been taken up and stored by the grass anyway, so clearly there’s no net damage going on. Russell Norman was quite surprised that Don was so ignorant about methane, and earnestly went over to him during the ad break to tell him what the actual science is.
So many moments of Brash fuckwittery.
The time he was on Native Affairs, I think, talking about his one law for all stuff, and displaying his lack of clues in regard to what the Treaty says. At a suggestion that he might be pandering to racists, or that racism played a part, he talked about how there was no way he was a racist, not even ow, pulls out a Hundred Dollar note and says ‘See I put a Maori on the biggest dollar bill when I was Guvna of the RB’
Some of my best monies are maaaaries mate.
maaaaaries… yeah, well, they’re not “mainstream” either…
Just a reminder of from No Right Turn of what Brash was willing to campaign on in 2005. Mr Bl**dy principled … a social liberal, he called himself.
Morning Report:
PRESENTER: Okay. Let’s have a look at some of the other things you said over the weekend. You talked about mainstream New Zealand. What does that mean precisely?
BRASH: It means the large number of New Zealanders whom this Government has neglected for the last six years. This Government has been trying to work hard for minority groups, small parts of the community…
PRESENTER: Which minority groups, which minority groups are we talking about?
BRASH: Well we know, for example, that the Government has been funding Maori programmes more generously than non-Maori programmes…
So if you’re Maori, you’re not a “mainstream” (meaning “real”) New Zealander in Dr Brash’s eyes. But it doesn’t stop there:
PRESENTER: Okay. So Maori is one of the minority groups. What other minority groups?
BRASH: Well we know also that Government has been focusing on prostitution legislation, civil union legislation, all that kind of stuff, which caters for a small minority of people, while neglecting…
In other words, this is about social liberalism, “political correctness”, Labour’s efforts to expand opportunity and erode privilege, and ensure that every New Zealander is treated fairly and equally, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. But its clear that Brash doesn’t agree with that struggle, because he doesn’t see gays as real New Zealanders:
PRESENTER: No, I just want to pick up on something else here. You talked about civil unions. Does that mean you do not regard gay people as mainstream New Zealanders?
BRASH: Well they’re clearly not, they’re a small minority of people, but let me be clear. I made it very clear in the debate on that issue that I thought this should be dealt with by referendum because it’s a big change in the civil institutions of society. I also said that in the referendum I would vote for it because I have no problem with same sex couples committing to live together faithfully as heterosexual couples do.
PRESENTER: You simply don’t regard gays as part of mainstream New Zealand?
BRASH: Well they are clearly, by definition, a small minority of New Zealanders…
Yep good stuff – the hollow brash is ‘mainstream’ and therein lies the problem.
Haha.
My abiding memory of Don Brash is watching him lose the 2005 election debate (and election) when bumbling through describing who was and wasn’t a mainstream New Zealander, looking at Helen Clark and telling her she wasn’t one.
About the only good thing Muldoon did for NZ was to stop Brash from standing in and gaining a seat for the national party – somewhere on the North Shore I think, in the mid 70’s.
what fran meant by principled is that she agrees with his views.
John Roughans piece of obsequious forelock tugging actually made both utterly contemptuous of his mind numbing weak willed desire to adore figures of authority, angry that his idiocy and authoritarian idolatry gets a regular platform and quite sick to my stomach that I had to see such nonsense.
It certainly helps explain his sado-mascochistic love of authoritarian capitalism. He gets off on being bossed around by those he thinks are his betters.
Don Brash’s incredible ignorance
Radio NZ National, Saturday 12 April 2014
That silly old goat Don Brash has a book to sell: it’s called Incredible Luck. Earlier this week, on Jim Mora’s Panel show, Michelle Boag claimed, preposterously, that Brash was “incredibly honest”, and “the most honest politician New Zealand had ever seen.” She repeated that silly lie—“Brash is honest”—at least ten times. Her fellow Panelists, Brian (“Boag’s Bitch”) Edwards and host Jim Mora did not even so much as demur as Boag raved on about the superlative qualities of her good friend. In fact, Mora asked, in apparent high seriousness: “WHY is he so honest?”
This morning I listened, in ever mounting horror, to Brash being interviewed by Kim Hill, who struggled throughout to conceal her disdain for the old bigot. Amongst all the other nonsense, there was one thing above all else that the old racist said that highlighted the poverty of his “thinking”. I sent off an urgent email to Kim Hill….
Incredible Stupidity
Dear Kim,
So, according to Don Brash, Māori “didn’t have a written language”, they “worshipped rocks and stones”, they “didn’t invent the wheel” and were “a primitive stone-age people”. Those are inflammatory, ignorant statements of the type that one might hear on a particularly dire talkback radio show in the small hours of the morning.
He clearly knows next to nothing about Māori culture, and he hasn’t the slightest interest in learning about it.
Brash is more than an embarrassment; he’s a national disgrace.
Yours in disgust,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
Cheers, Moz. Just for the record, Edwards did point out that a serial marital cheater can’t be considered honest.
Re: your email, aren’t the first 3 of Brash’s claim actually facts, even if delivered in a facetious manner by Orewa Man? Happy to be corrected, it’s not an area in which I can claim any expertise.
All 4 of them are actually facts. It’s not Brash’s fault that the vast audience hearing these statements thinks they’re racist.
These sorts of statements are usually made by people trying to be racist and divisive, so people hearing them assume that anyone speaking them must be racist. That’s really not the case for Brash, I don’t think.
Yes, they are facts. It’s also a fact that ancient Britons were animists and didn’t have a written language. And it wasn’t an ancient Briton that invented the wheel. Does that mean that British culture is less valuable than other cultures?
According to the cutting intellect that is Don Brash, that is exactly what it means.
Morrisey you will need to show where Brash placed a lower value on maori culture. For credibility purposes of course.
He actually SAID it, when Kim Hill pursued him on that very point. Listen to the tape.
You are of course correct, vto. Having not heard the interview myself, all I can rely on is Morrissey’s email. But as we all know, Morrissey routinely takes things out of context and has trouble separating his imaginings of what was said vs what was actually said, so it’s impossible to know why Brash was bringing these points up and what point he was trying to make in doing so.
As it stands, they are facts.
Actually Lanthanide, you should listen to the interview.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/20140412 specific time Brash says these things starts at 16:12
Good points TRP but you are attempting to interfere with the fluid flow of a good tirade. It’s the way it sounds that’s important, not every little detail, so we shouldn’t be picky about facts, they spoil the effect.
greywarbler, you’re trying to be clever. That’s not a good move for you, I’m afraid.
And vice versa my friend.
You’re correct, Te Reo. It’s not the facts, but Brash’s spin on those facts that is offensive.
Fair call, Moz.
I think the fourth point (stone age) isn’t factually correct anyway. Maori society was well along the usual continuum in terms of cooperation, agriculture etc. The use of stone tools has more to do with what resources were available in aotearoa, rather than as a marker of development.
Good point on the stone age thing, although I think you need to be a bit broader: it’s a reflection of the resources available within the pacific as well as Aotearoa.
It took Europeans (and other cultures) thousands of years to move beyond stone, and Maori certainly weren’t in Aoteroa for that long, and their antecedents in the pacific simply didn’t have the resources available.
Yeah, and don’t forget that Brash is also just an old white male too.
Let all the bigots out ….
Are you trying to say something here?
well yes I was, which was what I wrote, and which you neatly fell right into below ……..
Good one moz
‘didn’t have a written language’ yet somehow could remember the multiple strands of whakapapa for numerous generations, the uses of materials and plants and so on. And could convey that information between generations.
‘worsphipped rocks and stones’ yes so unlike worshipping a dude on a cross that lived in the middle east.
‘didn’t invent the wheel’ yet used wheels such as logs for rolling waka into the water and so on but no axle or cart – wouldn’t be too easy to move them around this land now would it.
‘primitive stone-age people’ who lived within the boundaries of sustainability, caring for nature and a sophisticated social interaction system used as a model by some today.
So yes all facts from brash but in the way they are used they are supposed to show the inferiority of tangata whenua and the superiority of those that arrived here later.
Stone age warriors to once were warriors with the internet.
Progress, you just got to love it 😉
What’s your point allen?
Just a bit of a lol at your expense getting all precious, but more as in to say no need to make spurious argument to counter what a silly old tory man says, and start worrying about Hone selling his/your mana for .com’s beads and blankets this weekend.
Oh english humor – how droll and excruciatingly boring.
Don’t worry about Hone and Mana – everything is sweet there mate very sweet indeed. Best you watch out for pox ridden blankets that might come your (political) way eh.
Bless you for getting butt hurt, but worry not, every one has standards, maybe that’s why you have two. 😉
Now write something about anglo saxons, or normans, or romans or celts and make me cry like a baby 😆
.
‘butt hurt’? Oh dear that was a flop.
I don’t have two standards allen just one very clear one but please don’t let that stop your roll of lols.
I don’t want you to cry allen – man you are projecting this morning – too many weetbix perhaps?
‘butt hurt’? Oh dear that was a flop.
So that’s a relapse into prolapse. What ever sinks your boat (waka) is fine by me 🙂
Dick Emery you ain’t, that’s for sure, but that’s unfair because you seem to be half there – guess which half.
There are no worries about Hone ‘selling’ anything, the alliance being proposed does not require the Mana Party to alter any of its policies and i would suggest the same will be the case for the Internet Party…
Allen just thinks everyone is like him.
I don’t, but it’s a shame more people don’t think just like me – Pharmac would save a fortune on bum sore ointments. 🙂
Gods forbid please…
I don’t think he said maori “worshiped rocks and stones”. He did say maori were animist in religion and ascribed spiritual value to rivers.
The “worshiped rocks and stones” bit is Morrissey’s invention, but I gotta say three out of four ain’t too bad for Mozza.
Well done Morrissey, that response from Brash was sickening and highlighted the enormous ignorance and social ineptness of the man. Very strange man, they seem to gravitate towards Act…and National.
He’s just another boring old fart, really – full of crap and with a hugely over-inflated sense of his own importance, What gets me exercised is how these silly old twits gain such traction politically. It’s fairly depressing when you think about it
Yeah but I gotta tell you something JanM – have you ever listened for any length of time to anyone aged under 30 about any serious subject?
Sheeeesh ……..
Honestly, dumb-arse young people, they just don’t have the experience in life or the developed mind and soul, to be worth listening to. That is a fact.
Weren’t you telling Eleanor Catton off for being a bigot a few weeks ago? And now you’re just gone and said all young people aren’t worth listening to. What a terribly close-minded view. I listen to some young people and they’re far more insightful and intelligent than a lot of people my age.
Yes I was doing that and we had a bit of an exchange over it disraeli. My post immediately above was, I thought, clearly tongue-in-cheek and written in order to expose the bigotry shown by JanM. That was the purpose. To hold a mirror to her.
Curiously, JanM’s bigotry is eerily similar to Eleanor Cattons. It is common in NZ – bigotry against the aged. Others with a similar penchant include Michelle A’Court and Beck Eleven, two women with something against old white males.
Not only is it bigotry, it is also foolish. In my experience those with the most years typically exhibit a wisdom far more advanced than people with less wrinkles. (and of course the young are worth listening to – to understand their concerns and thoughts. Less so for solutions though, imo)
Yeah, Like all the oldies who vote for Winston Peters. 🙄
I did say “typically”, not “always”.
But look, if the older are not worth listening to and the younger are also not worth listening to then clearly age is not an issue ………. which was the point of my point! Age should be left out of these things. But it is difficult to wean people from their bigotries.
It is like the erosion of a riverbank, is bigotry, bit by bit, crumble by crumble, swing by swing of the river, until one day the landscape formed by the river is very different from what it was in the past.
Ok, vto – perfectly happy just to call him a ‘boring fart’ and a ‘twit’ and leave the ‘old’ out of it. Jamie Lee Ross on Native Affairs this week managed to provide clear evidence that indeed the young can be boring farts and twits too.
I think in part we emphasise the age thing because there is an idea that with age comes wisdom. However, in my experience (and I am nearly the same age as Don Brash, by the way) most of the time a silly young thing grows into a silly old thing.
There are clever old people and stupid young people. There are clever young people and stupid old people. I agree. Age shouldn’t come into it. However, I actually don’t think that last paragraph of yours is true at all. For instance, a recent US survey showed that young Americans were twice as likely than older Americans to know where the Ukraine is.
Famously, IQ has risen for the last thirty years. Now, IQ is no real marker of intelligence or wisdom, true, but it does show that each generation seems to be more switched on than the last.
By suggesting that older people are “far more” advance than young people with wisdom against evidence to the contrary does exhibit an actual discrimination on age. The exact thing you were trying to reflect on someone else.
hang on there, you are tripping yourself up. You confuse facts (where is Ukraine) with wisdom. That patently does not follow. I know a 10 year old who knows more about cellphones than I. On your reasoning that makes him wiser in all things …………..
And then you acknowledge that IQ does not equate with wisdom either, but then immediately claim that higher IQs (and particular knowledge) are evidence of greater wisdom.
You are all at sea Mr Gladstone.
What we call ‘wisdom’ is emotional intelligence (EQ) and is easily as important as intellect, although rather undervalued and infrequently assessed.
I agree that the knowledge of facts is fairly meaningless in itself, although a more in-depth evaluation of those youngsters may indicate that a knowledge of where the Ukraine is may also involve greater awareness of the world order, which would not be a bad thing considering the undue influence that America wields
We can’t really measure “wisdom” it’s an intangible buzzword. We can’t really measure intelligence either (those IQ does at provide a slight attempt). What we do see is that young people seem more aware of the wider world and are seem to have higher average IQs.
Also, agnosticism and atheism rise the further you get away from the older sections of society.
All signs of a generation that are just as attentive and intelligent as older people. Now, does that make them as wise? I’d say yeah, sure. You might say no. I’m basing my opinion on the above, that they seem aware of the wider world, they seem intelligent, they seem to challenge opinion and make their own decisions based on research.
What are you basing your opinion on that older people are “far more advanced” than younger people in terms of wisdom?
Too many years on the planet, that’s what. And that for ‘wisdom’, experience and time is one of the main drivers imo and that simply doesn’t exist when there is a lack of that experience and time.
But yes, I agree that the oncoming generations will be very interesting to watch as to how they deal with life’s turmoils and testings. They already have a different approach to many things, compared to generations recent. They revert less to the older generations than past ones, and seem more than happy to carve their own path and find their own feet.
One problem is, I guess, that time and history is well worn and proven. Will the next couple generations really be superior in these areas to those past? History suggests not, but it has been on my mind that it will be interesting to see…..
“We can’t really measure “wisdom” it’s an intangible buzzword.”
Just because you can’t measure it doesn’t mean I don’t know it when I see it.
America ain’t too bright.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/07/the-less-americans-know-about-ukraines-location-the-more-they-want-u-s-to-intervene/
Indeed, some young people are surprisingly switched on, though I wouldn’t give 16 year olds the vote like the snp have in jockland in order to win the yes independence vote.
Goodness, vto – you obviously mix with the wrong people!
Making oil from plastic bags. Innovative entrepreneurship. NZ would be doing this if we had a Party that pushed new modern business and wanted to develop those making resources like oil.
Instead we are going from farming as a family business, very traditional, to factory farming and landlord farming and overseas landlord robotised industrial farming. Not a healthy direction for our major industry, not even providing much employment, and with a tendency to turn workers
into serfs. Soon we will be treating people as they did when the Tolpuddle Martyrs in South England formed a small union to change the unfair conditions experienced in the 1800s.
The business making oil from plastic –
http://www.pkclean.com/press.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865598981/Utah-firm-making-crude-oil-from-discarded-plastic.html?pg=all
In fact, a Salt Lake City-based entrepreneur and her partner have developed a proprietary process that turns recycled waste plastic into crude oil that is so advanced that it can be made into gasoline, kerosene and diesel easier than the oil that comes straight out of the ground.
When Priyanka Bakaya, CEO of PK Clean, was a young girl growing up in Australia, she became fascinated with science, chemistry and the environment through her interactions with a family friend and “grandfather figure” named Percy Keen.
“He spent his whole life working on clean energy solutions,” Bakaya explained. “He converted his whole house into this giant laboratory.”
Over many years, Keen developed complex formulas for converting waste into viable fuels, but he never made them public. Upon his death in 2007, Bakaya, 31, felt compelled to do something with those formulas and bring her friend’s innovative ideas to fruition.
Radionz Kim featured a man who was a political correspondent and is now taking people on political tours instead of scenic tours.
Sat 12/Apr/2014
8:45 Nicholas Wood
Nicholas Wood is a former Balkans correspondent for The New York Times. He created Political Tours in 2009, with the aim of giving people first-hand insight into some of the most critical regions in the world, and is currently leading a tour in Ukraine.
Should be ‘recovering oil from plastic bags’.
Thank you Lanthanide, I am pleased to be corrected by someone more knowledgable.
Just pointing out that plastic comes from oil. A lot of people don’t realise it.
And we’ve got lots to recover it from.
Most of the plastic in there are tiny particles suspended in the upper few feet of water, rather than being actual plastic objects floating around. It degrades due to sunlight as well as microbes that eat it.
It’s unlikely trying to convert that plastic into oil would be cost effective, once you factor in transportation and running costs of an operation in the middle of the pacific ocean. I guess if you had some unmanned robotic ships, there’s a chance it could make sense, though.
If you were going to make a machine to do that, would you not be better off making the same sort of machine to pull out the one part in a million in the sea that is gold?
“Gold in the ocean is so dilute that its concentration is on the order of parts per trillion. Each liter of seawater contains, on average, about 13 billionths of a gram of gold.”
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gold.html
To filter elements out of seawater fundamentally requires a huge amount of power (typically electricity).
I think recovering oil from plastic is probably less energy intensive than filtering raw seawater.
Also the US navy has a prototype system of converting seawater into jet fuel (but again, requires a lot of electricity – provided by the nuclear reactors on their carriers).
Automated with it being wind and solar powered.
To be honest, I’d view it more as cleaning up our bloody mess.
So that the oil could be burned and CO2 end up in the atmosphere instead. Not really the best of motivations for cleaning up the garbage, really?
Can be used for other than just burning.
Like making more plastic.
Plastic isn’t the problem – it’s the dumping it in the sea and elsewhere.
The story about the plastic bags commercialising feels like something has been left out? Feels a little odd.
The CEO was only 24 when Keen died and who knows there may have been at least a shortish period of slow down before death. The CEO would barely have had time to complete an advanced science degree if that was necessay to understand what he had developed. This is now being developed in the USA but why not Australia? So who actually owned these formulas when he died, presumably the estate so the estate is receiving royalties? Was this a part time interest or a full time job funded by ? when he was alive?
We cannot uninvent stuff but maybe a society that was operating effectively was to be admired.
“So, according to Don Brash, Māori “didn’t have a written language”, they “worshipped rocks and stones”, they “didn’t invent the wheel” and were “a primitive stone-age people”.
I somehow think that Australian aboriginal society was very sophisticated to manage in that environment.
Maybe a society that lives in harmony with the environment is the sophisticated one rather than the current society which is tearing down the environment?
Exactly, kind of. Measuring the value or sophistication of a society on the basis of their consumer goods is pretty weak. Like zero.
Like the constant invention of comms today – doesn’t do anything at all to advance the good and essential qualities of humankind. Those measures are an entirely different type.
From the DomPost via Stuff:
”Doctors and nurses accepted drug company funded trip,meals and gifts worth almost $170,000 last year amid growing concern about the freebies potential to influence medical decisions”
”The declared gifts are likely to be only a fraction of the total spent by pharmaceutical companies,as gift registers(cover DHB’s but),do not cover private Doctors”,unquote,
the question needs be asked, ”Should not this behavior be outlawed”, it seems from where i sit to be a simple recipe to corrupt the ”medical profession”, and i am left wondering if the escalation of type 2 diabetes to epidemic level in this country is in fact partly fueled by big Pharma’s gifts,
There could of course be many other areas of medicine where for the reward and considering the ‘harmlessness’ of the particular drugs doctors may be tempted to prescribe,
Diabetes i have mentioned in this instance because there doesn’t seem to be a wide range of ”side effects” to the prescribed drugs,(the blocking of the livers ability to disperse vitamin B12 into the blood stream being the only negative i have so far found)…
freebies from drug companies to doctors has been a long standing practice….this is why the whole business is so corrupt ……and some of the presents are not small eg holidays …i doubt very much the figure of $170,000….multiple that by many many times
Yes Chooky, the figure of $170,000 of gifts from big Pharma to the medical profession is probably a hopeless understatement as it does not include ‘private practice doctors’ and while all the DHB’s have some form of required reporting of such gifts they all have different requirements of what has to be reported and what doesn’t…
“Diabetes i have mentioned in this instance because there doesn’t seem to be a wide range of ”side effects” to the prescribed drugs,(the blocking of the livers ability to disperse vitamin B12 into the blood stream being the only negative i have so far found)…”
Well that and death from hypoglycaemia as well as GI complaints and occasional allergic reactions.
As for your idiotic assertion that the medical profession is corrupted on the back of a few funded trips to international conferences which saves the DHB funds that would otherwise be paid out of the medical specialists award I suggest if you feel strongly about it you should say no next time you’re offered Antibiotics, Anaesthesia, Cancer Drugs etc etc.
I’d rather that we paid for such trips through our taxes rather than having the doctors obligated to the pharmaceutical companies.
“I’d rather that we paid for such trips through our taxes rather than having the doctors obligated to the pharmaceutical companies.”
How are NZ Drs obligated to pharmaceutical companies ? Most Drs I know prescribe (or don’t) what they think is the most appropriate thing for the patient in front of them.
The acceptance of gifts infers an obligation. This has been true forever and there’s no way that you would have been unaware of that.
You really do talk a load of pompous claptrap DTB.
Yeah, after all it’s only the perception of a conflict of interest and the Minister of Justice gets away with worse, so it couldn’t possibly cause problems for the profession. No sirree.
Perception is a big part of it. I’ve heard people talk about how uncomfortable they feel when their GP opens a drawer and offers them drugs that are obviously pharma giveaways. The trust between the patient and GP is critical to health.
But I think it goes further than that. To suggest that virtually no doctors in NZ are influenced by drug companies (promotion, funding, relationships etc) is to suggest that doctors are either not human, or are above usual human concerns. We’re well past the days when doctors were taught they were special humans, so let’s just be honest here. The only way that we can ensure that medicine as a profession remains professional, is to build protection in. If you leave it up to individuals (or even groups), there is too much failure.
sigh……..
Drs GPs in particular have what is called a PSO (practitioners supply order) whereby they can keep a supply of some of the most commonly used medicines within their surgery for supply to patients.
Yes pharmaceutical companies sometimes supply samples to GPs such as e.g. simple dermatological creams which are then given to patients to save them the price of a prescription if the patient is unhappy with this they can always say ‘no write me a prescription’
All pharmaceutical samples supplied by pharmaceutical companies are regulated and recorded by Medsafe.
Seriously, what’s the conflict of interest ?
Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean to say that it’s not there nor that people aren’t going to perceive it as being there.
Just fyi, to “imply” is to hint or suggest, to “infer” is to conclude or deduce.
DTB +100 ….agreed “The acceptance of gifts infers an obligation. This has been true forever and there’s no way that you would have been unaware of that.”
Are you suggesting that there aren’t serious problems within medicine with regards to big pharma’s reach? (am thinking its influence on research, but the backhanders of trips etc seems to be well out of hand as well). Or that over-prescribing isn’t an issue?
“Are you suggesting that there aren’t serious problems within medicine with regards to big pharma’s reach?”
Not in NZ, what exactly are you thinking of ?
The vast amount of research in NZ is independent very little big pharma stuff here at all, in relation to the trips you will find most if not all of these are part funding of medical specialists to the major overseas clinical meetings, there is far far far and maybe even far less funding from the pharma industry than there was when I was just starting out so not sure where you get that it is well out of hand ?
Or that over-prescribing isn’t an issue?
Certainly there are issues in some areas but i’d hardly point the bone at big pharma as most of the over prescribing that i’d point to would be of the medications and areas where they’re not even active in promotion in NZ.
“Not in NZ”
The drugs that NZ doctors prescribe are based on research culture that is globally flawed. Unless NZ doctors are somehow overcoming that by doing their own research, or even by weeding out the flawed and corrupted research (which I think would be nigh on impossible), then NZ doctors are affected.
Over-prescribing… just off the top of my head… psychiatry, HRT, antibiotics, statins…
Are you saying that big pharma has no influence on that? Seriously?
Research culture is globally flawed ?
Please expand
Overprescribing in terms of those products you mention doesn’t really apply in NZ they are apart from a very few exceptions generic in NZ and many of the western jurisdictions so are not promoted by big or indeed any pharma companies.
I’d agree that some of the psychiatry medications (anti depressants and anxiolitics in particular) are over prescribed in comparison to CBT and other non pharmaceutical interventions but this has more to do with the lack of CBT practitioners and funding thereof than big pharma.
There’s be as big a part of the scientific community suggesting statins are under prescribed as overprescribed and the algorithms followed when prescribing are supported by very strong scientific data. Over prescription of HRT and antibiotics isn’t much of an issue in NZ with both declining in light of clinical best practice.
So speaks the quack, Statins, its what they dont tell ya about these things that’s a real killing joke,
The quacks happily prescribe statins to people while in the same breath dishing out diabetes meds they assure you you need to get the blood sugar under control,
Laughable, as soon as you start swallowing the statins, among other things that get ‘blocked’ is the ability for the liver to deliver magnesium to the body,
Anyone with half a brain, quacks excluded, will tell you that to balance the blood sugar there has to be a balance of calcium and magnesium in the blood stream which of course just can’t happen while your swallowing statins, what does quackery then say about the blood/sugar question after ya next blood test indicates no change, double the diabetes meds that”ll fix it, pfft a recipe for an early trip to the embalmer is what the quacks are selling,
That’s not all of statins crimes, and for the quack that says they are under prescribed, how long have they been dishing out this shit in the US and why have they made not one iota of difference to the rate of death from heart disease,
“Anyone with half a brain, quacks excluded, will tell you that to balance the blood sugar there has to be a balance of calcium and magnesium in the blood stream which of course just can’t happen while your swallowing statins, what does quackery then say about the blood/sugar question after ya next blood test indicates no change, double the diabetes meds that”ll fix it, pfft a recipe for an early trip to the embalmer is what the quacks are selling,”
…….. strange then that so many type 2 diabetics in NZ are on statins and yet manage to control the glucose levels…… honesty I think they were talking about persons like you and chooky when they say ‘ a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.’
Sure, no problem. FYI:
http://www.livescience.com/8365-dark-side-medical-research-widespread-bias-omissions.html
That’s just silly to suggest that the early paroxetine studies by the pharma company which didn’t disclose their lack of efficacy (and danger) in teens extrapolates to a flaw in global medical research.
Even someone such as yourself must acknowledge that the global medical research over the last fifty years has lead to massive gains in healthcare in areas as widely removed as vaccination to oncology.
I’m saying that there is a proven, widespread and internationally recognised problem in publication/non-publication bias, some of which appears related to drug company funding or sponsorship, which affects even the best peer reviewed journals and academic centres in medicine.
It’s a bit surprising that you aren’t aware of these issues.
+100 CV
….imo the only good doctor is a humble doctor who listens to their patients….and lets them take control of their health decisions without putting them down
…doctors can only make collegial suggestions to their ‘patients’…..laced with a heavy dose of skepticism about their own training and received information and in particular the pharmaceutical industry
“the only good doctor is a humble doctor who listens to their patients….and lets them take control of their health decisions without putting them down”
I’m not sure you realise quite how many patients want their GP to ‘take charge’ – often times because they see the GP as the expert and not themselves (sometimes that can be pretty scary for the GP!). There are plenty of cases where the ‘good doctor’ is the one who listens to a patient needs and then takes control.
These patients’ health needs can be seriously compromised by the notion of patient-led medical care when their fears or life stresses mean they will take a ‘do nothing’ approach. As well, they simply don’t have the funds for non-GP care. I wish some of the articulate activists for patient-led healthcare would realise that being able to vocalise health beliefs, health needs and health priorities is not easy for a lot of people, and they’d prefer to hand over.
Shared decision-making is a wonderful ideal, imo – and something that I try to aspire to when I’m managing my own health needs. It’s an advantage that CAM practitioners have over traditional GPs, because it requires time that GPs often don’t have in the current health set-up. I sometimes feel sorry for GPs – having to work out in an instant which sort of patient is sitting there and to then responding appropriately.
@ miravox…what is a CAM?
….well imo GP’s should resist ‘taking charge’ and being ‘the expert’ and encourage their ‘patients’ to listen their own intuitions and come to their own decisions based on the ‘knowledge’…experience /advice the doctor puts before them …they should also be encouraged to do their own research
…doctors should admit that there is a lot they do not know ….and a lot they can not do….and that much so called medical research is flawed and not scientifically valid
…if the patient still wishes to hand over their life ….then they should be warned about this!…..lol
CAM = complementary and alternative medicine.
Yes, I know that’s your opinion.
However, for a person doing manual work in a couple of minimum wage jobs, who has a couple of kids to care for, no internet access or time to join discussions on health care beyond an immediate need the opinion can be a little more likely to be one of constrained pragmatism and reliance on mainstream health advice.
@mirovax…agreed it would be difficult in that situation…however i think it is more a question of attitudes….even if the ‘patient’ is stressed and wants a ‘quick fix’ it is important that the doctor does not allow themselves to be the ‘quick fixer’ God …but encourage the ‘patient’ to think around the issue for themselves….and become responsible and independent as regards their health … imo really it is the quality of discussion, respect, egalitarianism and warmth of communication that is most important and should come first …except in an emergency…(but emergency medicine is not usually GP medicine)
.
What is your evidence for statins being over prescribed? Their use in NZ is on the low side with middle aged men in particular. Because they don’t go to doctors when they should.
Antibiotics have been over prescribed but that is driven by patients. They are all generics anyway.
Seriously this big pharma thing is childish. As is the use of the term “corporate” implying evil.
I encourage you to stop using such terms in a negative context.
Hope your swallowing plenty of them SSLands…
Hesitate to diagnose over the interwebs, but he needs something 🙂
you might need more of “something”….there is nothing wrong with bad12s head…it is very sharp ….i know of at least two people who have had bad side effects with statins and discontinued use …no thanks to their doctors though …just warnings from other people and a bit of research on the internet….
replying to bad talking about sspylands.
If you weren’t such a deranged obseesive you would have ascertained that before jumping the gun.
@ McFlock …..you should make yourself clearer…if anyone is trigger happy around here it is you McFlock ….calm down
Riiight.
Because if I’m replying to someone, I must be talking about them. Even if using the third person.
lol
Corporate systems aren’t just “evil”, they are inhumane and destructive. Chris Hedges states that from a theological perspective, they are systems of death.
Corporate priorities and profit margins have far too much (negative) influence in the shape and quality of our economy, society and interpersonal relations today.
Huh? I thought it was qualified doctors who prescribed the drugs, and qualified pharmacists who dispensed them. What do “patients” have to do with the inappropriate and dangerous over prescription of drugs?
CV +100
@TheNationTV3
Affordable? isn’t the right question. Would Labour ever agree to pay for Mana policies by spending the ACC ‘Cullen’ fund?
Why are you calling the ACC investment fund the ‘Cullen’ fund when it has nothing to do with it?
Ah, yeh, wrong fund. Same question applies. Using the ACC fund will be difficult to get wide agreement on.
The point of the ACC fund is to make ACC fully-funded and not a pay-as-you-go system. Accounting-wise there’s no compelling reason that it needs to be fully-funded (that I’m aware of), but it seems to be something that both Labour and National have agreed on, so I don’t rate Mana’s chances of reversing that decision.
There’s actually no logical reason for ACC to be fully funded.
One of the reasons I can think of for making it fully funded is where a company sets up in NZ makes something and lots of profit for overseas shareholders and then moves on leaving behind a large ongoing liabilty for the damage it did to people on the production line. Similar to miners not cleaning up their mess.
That’s a reason to ban foreign ownership, not for full funding of ACC.
You can’t “ban” foreign ownership. It would be insane.
Of course we can and it’s actually insane that we allow it now.
His chances might be better than you think (and I thought).
David Parker: ACC levy equals 350 years of Govt funding for food in schools
Mana are trying to win an election by promising to spend from the ACC fund.
Sue Moroney: ACC levies higher than they need to be
This is just opposition and election rhetoric, there’s no guarantee Mana would get a say on use of the ACC fund and there’s no guarantee Labour would substantially change how ACC operates and is funded.
you hating on Mana pete is typical – pity you didn’t put that notverysharp mind of yours towards your right wing mates and their lies masquerading as their facts. Don’t want to upset the donKey cart i suppose.
I don’t hate Mana. I hope Hone keeps his seat. I think it’s good that his constituency us represented.
I’ve been jumped on at Whale Oil this week for criticising National – no party should be exempt from reasonable criticism. Not even Mana.
Affordable is exactly the right question – your priorities are skewed.
Ok, lets look at affordable. Mana policy is to increase ACC costs.
Mana want to spend from the ACC fund. Labour want to reduce levies. Mana want to increase payouts.
Is that affordable? If so who should pay?
Which one of those policies don’t you like pete? Which group of people will you throw into the heap to sort it out themselves – why the hell don’t you care about people?
You said “Affordable is exactly the right question” but now you ignore it?
Caring about people includes considering sustainable funding and costs.
Priorities pete it is all about priorities – think about that for a bit.
You’re still avoiding the “is it affordable” question. Shouldn’t affordability be a priority? otherwise it can’t be sustained.
It is not the right question pete. Affordability is subjective based upon the prioritisation of some things over other things. That concept is not that complicated pete.
Define “affordable”.
Huh?
We can “afford” to let big corporations take $10B p.a. in profits offshore, but spending a few extra millions to help our own people isn’t doable? Huh?
Unfortuantely like most things about the health system, it’s simply not as simple as they’re making out.
My brother in law, a clinical psychologist, has worked with a lot of people in the ACC system, particularly around chronic pain. He says that a lot of the time, people prefer to stay on ACC because it’s an easy life, and end up malingering in the system as a form of learned helplessness. Sometimes the only way for people to actually get better is to force them off it so they must fend for themselves, discovering that actually their injury isn’t as bad as they thought it was, and in many cases getting out and working improves their health anyway. And just incase anyone tries to accuse him of being a tory (as always seems to be the case when someone says these sorts of things) he’s far more liberal than I am and votes Green.
Similar for general unemployment. There’s a shortage of jobs and it can be very difficult finding suitable employment, but some people get stuck in an unemployment rut which is easy to remain in but not good for self esteem. My wife worked for ten years in second chance learning which morphed into job broking for people stuck in unemployment.
People who were encouraged and pushed and found jobs were very grateful for being nudged into the world of employment.
What a load George,”there’s a shortage of jobs” simply means that forcing people into jobs, a lot of which are as you say inappropriate, adds more spin to the rotational employment economy that is being established…
Considering that it is not your brother-in-law who is the actual sufferer of ‘the pain’ can you enlighten us all as to how He arrives at a measure of how much pain an individual,(remembering we all feel pain differently), is actually feeling befor He forces them out into the workforce(for their own good of course),
i wouldn’t attribute the word Tory to someone employed to use their ”opinion” as the judgement of pain an individual is feeling, Fascist seems far more appropriate…
Through his years of training in clinical psychology as well as being an expert in the field of chronic pain.
Also he’s not the person that forces someone back into the workforce, but one of the specialists that people are sent to for their cases to be reviewed. He also makes recommendations about how to help people cope with their pain etc. I should actually clarify to say that he no longer is doing this particular job, he’s moved elsewhere now.
He’s told us quite a few stories of people who have been clearly faking their issues, eg a guy saying he can only walk with crutches, who is clearly seen to tuck his crutches under his arm and stroll to his car once he thinks no one is watching, etc.
Well, some clinicians are guns for hire, enabling ACC to rort the system by denying claimants their rights. Paid handsomely for their lack of empathy, in some cases they’re flown all around the country to do the work. They can be ideologically driven (I’m not talking about party politics), and some are just psychopaths.
https://www.greens.org.nz/oralquestions/kevin-hague-questions-minister-acc-about-independent-medical-assesor-fees
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7637014/ACC-pays-millions-to-send-its-hatchets
Pete, ACC’s 2013 report showed a net surplus of $4.9 billion, which was $3.6 billion ahead of budget.
Call me weird, but I reckon there is some definite wiggle room there to help the thousands of taxpaying kiwis who were, are, and will be denied the proper services they are fully entitled to from ACC.
[Expletive]s like you think it is much more important to just give away the ACC excess, to stuff like roads and smelters and yacht races. Who cares about sick injured people or victims of rape or those recovering from violent assaults or survivors of childhood abuse. They are just good for nothings, supping on some imagined largesse.
I believe “malingering” was the word your mate Lanthanide used.
All I know is it cannot be healthy, having that deep rooted sense of entitlement mixing with your hypocritical calls for a just and reasonable society.
Transcript now available:
It’s supposed to be there to pay for the needs of people requiring ACC payments.
“That money should be spent on the needs of New Zealanders, not on investments which are aimed at maximising the wealth of the corporates that are running it.”
What don’t you like about this statement pete?
Then there’s no funds to pay for ACC payments to people.
The investments are designed to benefit ACC recipients. What don’t you understand about that?
“Then there’s no funds to pay for ACC payments to people”? What do you think the ACC levies on just about everything are meant to pay for then Pete George?
Your lack of knowledge concerning recent ACC history is telling. ACC recipients don’t receive additional assistance just because there’s a good return on investments. Those funds are simply transferred to the government to waste on things like highways of little significance and tax cuts for the rich.
However, when ACC loses billions of taxpayers dollars on dodgy investments it’s the long term claimants who end up paying the price. That’s what the stricter regime that ensured many thousands of valid claims were denied was all about. That’s why the amount of court cases concerning ACC unjustifiably dismissing claims increased dramatically.
ACC hasn’t changed their policy now that their investments are making money again. Therefore the investments are clearly not designed to benefit ACC recipients.
But don’t let reality get in the way of your deluded existence there Pete George…god knows you never have done so in the past.
Pete, what part of $3.6 billion ahead of budget confuses you?
Pete George, a guy who’s the editor of a website that purportedly is concerned about political fact checking, can’t even get the basic facts right. Instead, he drivels some inane rubbish and then scuttles away when people refute his claims.
It’s a pity there is no real credible voice for the right wing anymore…just a bunch of discredited hacks who’s only trick is to make shit up. The Nation today was a prime example of just how pathetic the right wing and their media lackeys have become and if that’s their game plan, National will assuredly lose the next election.
Where is philip ure?…his time out must be up by now…..i miss his long, good humoured witty, sometimes pertinent and spot on, rambling comments….come back philip ure…we need your unique perspective….i know you are around because i have seen you on the daily blog!!!
…chooky misses you and your Vegan sausages lol
…and also where is xtasy?
i could comment on Phillips absence, but i dare not, one persons witty comments being another’s raving junkies drivel means i am enjoying the break…
bad12…you just keep away from my philip…i want him back
I am missing Phillip too, enjoy his posts and his vegan promoting makes me feel less of an outcast on this site!
Why do you feel an outcast Belladonna, it’s hardly a daily discussion of roast meats on a daily basis here at the Standard, and, promoting your vegan diet would interest many of us,me in particular,
Where i do disagree with the strict vegan diet is that the body must have ‘fat’ to carrry many of the essential vitamins and minerals around the body to where they are destined for use, without such ‘fats’ as the mode of transport ingesting these necessary vitamins and minerals becomes a waste as they are simply ingested and end up without the transport mechanism as waste products sent down the toilet,
To access enough ‘fat’ to transport these necessary vitamins and minerals around the body would require the vegan diet to be at least 20% nuts and avocado’s by volume of the daily diet…
[citation needed]
OAB, lest you sink into hypocrisy, Google is your friend!!!,(as you pointed out to a commenter below),
Heres a link or three to get you started,
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk>dietandnutrition>dietandnutritionfacts
http://www.health.howstuffworks.com/…/vitamin-supplements/fat-absorb-vi...
http://www.helpguide.org/harvard/vitamins_and_minerals.htm
The GOOGLE Lolz= fats needed to transport vitamins and minerals around the body…
First link: doesn’t work.
Second link: doesn’t work.
Third link: doesn’t mention vegans.
Please learn to give citations. Google didn’t come up with a single link to support your assertion, although I note several studies claim to show vegans have a longer life expectancy. Perhaps it’s all the avocados?
This looks like the diet and nutrition facts link.
How stuff works vitamin supplements
Yeah, my impression is that Bad12 is taking the piss.
Bad, I am vegan primarily for animal welfare reasons but the health side is an added bonus.
I dont really follow a strict low fat plant based diet i.e. I eat nuts, avocado etc but compared to the average meat eater it is probably a low fat diet. I have rheumatoid arthritis, diagnosed as severe and was told I would probably be in a wheelchair within 5 years of being diagnosed, that was 15 years ago and while I am not completely cured am nowhere being in a wheelchair.
I have had friends with RA, the same age as myself who didnt believe in a plant based diet and tried all the orthodox treatments available, too many of them have died before their time so I do believe my diet has helped heaps with my disease.
Dr John McDougall has a very informative website. He promotes a low fat vegan diet, as does Dr Joel Fuhrman. Also Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, a well respected heart surgeon puts his very ill patients on a low fat vegan diet and has remarkable results. If you are interested I would check out their websites and also watch the film Forks Over Knives which will probably be available through your library as well as being available online as far as I know.
They all seem to have a lot of success with converting people to a vegan diet with both weight loss and chronic disease issues. Dr McDougall has an extensive list of video clips from these people on his site and I do think the results are impressive. There are many recipes on his site also.
There is also the PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine site) which you may find interesting.
Tah for that Belladonna, definitely will have a look at the PCRM site later, have been on the veg diet since Christmas purely on a health basis but have included fish for variety and for the omega oils only to be found in my fishy friends(rewarding such friendship by eating them, just not nice),
Lolz, against doctors orders i recently ditched ‘statins’ as from what i have read, their use along with diabetes medicine simply aggravates the problem in a merry-go-round of further complications, after my next blood test the diabetes meds are likely to end up in the bin as well,
The WHO recommends 10 teaspoons of sugar max per day, so, it seems easy enough for those who care about their health to re-arrange their diet to be able to come in under that recommendation simply by cutting down on more sugar judged against the amount of fruit eaten daily,
Lolz my way might kill me but i am sure it will be a lot slower than what is likely to occur should i keep taking meds that target one problem while exacerbating another…
Bad, am fairly sure if you look through Dr McDougall’s site, possibly in his newsletters that are available from that site you will find a rant from him on stents. He is a qualified medical doctor and has been in practice for 40 years. He apparently answers emails so you could email and ask his opinion on vitamins needing fats in the diet.
You would be aware of course that Bill Clinton has become vegan, he went to Dr Esselstyn after his problems with stents I believe. He is doing very well on the diet.
Belladonna, thanks, but, the word doctor has little meaning to me when i am reading up on diet,
My point on fats is that there is enough written stuff online,(including from doctors) that pretty much points out that fats are necessary to transport and/or dissolve quite a lot of the major vitamins,
Not that this has me running out to secure a couple of lamb legs for roasting, there are good fats and bad fats, good apparently being olive/soy oil in moderation of course,
i am happy with the diet i have come up with which does include fish and oils for cooking along with avocado which has replaced butter on my toast, 3 different pieces of fruit a day and more veg in a week than i have eaten in a lifetime..
I miss phil too
Lolz Chooky, i am not sure if i could join the ‘bring back phill campaign’ with any level of honesty,
i think He may have taken to ‘the Daily Blog’ as the medium of His daily ‘ummm’ comments in the vein of ”i will show them”, any bets on the longevity of His ability to remain commenting over there…
Interesting piece in Interest.co
http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/69431/murray-grimwood-thinks-current-political-leaders-will-be-turned-when-voters-realise-wh
“Let’s put two plain facts on the table.
Opinion Murray Grimwood renewable energy energy GDP growth Sustainability
Fact 1: you can either be sustainable, or you can be unsustainable. There is no third option.
Fact 2: Growth, if it is based on use of a finite planet (housing, dairying, resource extraction, pollution, degradation) is unsustainable.
If something – growth in this case – is unsustainable, there are only two valid questions: When will it cease? And: What then”
The whole article is worth a read.
A lot of the ‘growth’ we measure tho is simply ‘inflation’ and to a certain extent if we keep measuring inflation as growth then growth as we measure it is infinite…
“You can say it’s all harmless fun, no one got hurt and so what if the media chooses to go into women’s magazine circa 1955 mode. Or you can ask what it says about us that we cling like timid children to this aristocratic family on the other side of the world and descend into infantilism every time they grace us with their presence.” Paul Little in the NZ Herald.
What is missing in the soul of Kiwis that otherwise intelligent self-confident people would belittle themselves so publicly. I don’t get it!
Perhaps we should examine your portrayal of ”Kiwis as intelligent self confident people” to find the answer to the question you propose,
There is a whole sub-culture of New Zealand society that thrives on the ‘ogling of’ and the uplifting of ‘star culture’…
What on earth makes you think that a population that is full of ‘intelligent self-confident people’ would even contemplate being led by a pillock like John Key (who , by the way appears to be one of the worst sufferers of this ‘infantilism’)
A relative of mine and her partner have 4 kids, the oldest being profoundly disabled and reliant on an electric wheelchair. They live in a Housing Corp house which is modified for wheelchair access. Recently HC decided to charge them market rent of $350 per week and they were presented with a bill for $2000 arrears. They took the case to the Tenancy Tribunal but lost and were given a week to pay, or face eviction. In the meantime both parents had lost their jobs. They borrowed the $2000 and took it to HC only to be informed that the arrears were now $2500. What a cruel place NZ is becoming!
Indeed it is.
Wait for the debtors jails to pop up again.
If all members of our community are not going to be provided with the base provisions of life then those members should start taking it.
Already happening in the UK and US. Sub 10 years before it happens here too.
Hey C.V.,
I don’t mean this as a challenge but I am interested in the criminalisation of poverty theme. Can you point me towards something to back that claim.
Thanks
Google is your friend.
People in poverty struggling to pay overdue fines now being imprisoned in the USA.
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/12/26/how-debtors-prisons-are-making-a-comeback-in-america/
Yep, such cruelty is becoming more apparent in public as well as evidenced by the story in the Herald’s online version this morning where the majority of those who came across a body floating in the Auckland Harbor found it an object to be photographed as opposed to feeling any necessity to inform the relevant authority,
i feel definite sympathy for you rellies, they will have, along with being lumped with the ‘market rent’,been included on Nick Smith’s list of those who will be in the first tranche of 800 HousingNZ tenants to be evicted by Smith,
We have to remember here that the staff of HousingNZ are simply doing as they are told by Smith as employees,(yes it would be nice if they all en masse refused to carry out such orders,but, Smith would then simply sack them and find worse to do His bidding),
Along with the announcement of the proposed first tranche of 800 evictions came what resonated in almost a boast in the vein of ”look at this you lefties, no-one gives a shit”, was the announcement that 1 in 4 of those to be evicted will be over the age of 60,
Hell why wait for the oldies to perish in their own time, better to rip them out of their homes and kill em quick with the stress of trying to find somewhere affordable in the private sector….
A PS here, as far as Smith as Minister of un-HousingNZ goes finding ”worse to do His bidding” goes, he has, it is now WINZ who get to decide who will and will not be a tenant of the State’s Housing stock,
beatie’s comment above exposes the other unaddressed issue within Smith’s ‘plan’, that is the rotational nature of employment faced by certain sectors of our society,
IF beatie’s rellies remain unemployed they are likely to be able to, based upon their income and their child’s profound disability, keep their State House tenancy,
IF they however find new employment they will again face eviction from their home into the private sector rental market where no account of their child’s disability will be considered,
What then becomes of them when through no fault of their own ”rotational employment” again leaves them unemployed,
What beatie describes is a truly sick society brought to us all by Nick Smith and this National Government…
Here’s another example. At my school there is a 5 year old who is a P baby. Grandmother (53 yr old living by herself) has custody and looks after him and his 3 yr old brother and is doing a good job considering the circumstances. WINZ have just told her she has to find work or she loses benefit. She is distraught as she finds it hard enough just caring for these kids. Surely it is better she is full time caring for these kids to give them a better chance.
Disgraceful.
I think this should go to Campbell live as well
Here’s another example. At my school there is a 5 year old who is a P baby. Grandmother (53 yr old living by herself) has custody and looks after him and his 3 yr old brother and is doing a good job considering the circumstances. WINZ have just told her she has to find work or she loses benefit. She is distraught as she finds it hard enough just caring for these kids. Surely it is better she is full time caring for these kids to give them a better chance.
Beattie. Sounds like a job for John Campbell.
@ ffloyd; that’s what I thought, but the parents are scared that publicity would make the situation worse and at present they are busy dealing with Winz. Apparently the benefit application process is horrific, eg they insist on being provided with the kids birth certificates despite the fact that they are already on file.
yup,
Housing NZ, hang your heads in shame.
Housing NZ say they will let these guys stay in the garage as long as they give up their place on a waiting list and Brownlee says everything is just fine in CHCH/ Someone want to remind him that it is three years since the earthquakes and we still have elderly people in garages facing another winter.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9933882/Car-replaces-garage-home
5spylands He is a confused dinosaur.
Dirty old dinosaur Don.
Double dealing exclusive Bretheren deal.
Philanderer.
Washed up sulker.
Spylad don’t forget the productivity commission came out with evidence that more cheap housing needed to be provided so our work force can have a decent standard of living.
Act which is promoting your policy – legalizing pot.has consistantly polling at less than 0.5%.
So spyman your an extremist very likely to be suffering an undiagnosed mental illness.
Get help soon denial won’t fix your problems.
poor don. he didn’t really have a clue abut anything except how to slice luncheon sausage.
the rest was just baloney.
Martyn Bradbury is reporting from the Mana Party conference and on Hone Harawira’s speech.
There’s obvious interest in an alliance (Dotcom wouldn’t be at the conference if there wasn’t.
I don’t know if a Mana/Internet Party alliance would be good for either but it’s up to them to decide. The proof will be in the election.
Once i see the proposed split in representation between the two Mana/Internet based around the various percentages of likely gain at the upcoming election i will be more than likely to vote for it than not….
That’s going to be interesting. Mana are in a strong position because the IP needs their electorate seat to coat-tail on. They will want to make sure they benefit from any arrangement so they will want to make sure they get at least one in on the list, otherwise there’s no point.
I don’t think 2-4% would be hard to achieve if the alliance is solid. Possibly more but that won’t be easy. Butthere’s quite a risk for Harawira if it backfires in his electorate.
Actually i see all the publicity surrounding the proposed alliance as only being good for Hone’s position in Te Tai Tokerau,(on last election’s figures he needs a boost),
i also see Annette Sykes winning the contest in Waiariki this time round and it was smart of Mana to hold the AGM this year in Rotorua,
i expect Mana to benefit further from the dissolution of the Maori Party, while most of these voters are probably off back to Labour a fair few of them will back Mana…
Helen Clark interview in Aussie – 20 minute video
Plus Stuff report on it here.
She talks about ringing her father in NZ every day. About the last years as PM – politics is like a commodity that people think the governing party needs to be changed every so often, the sexism, her application for her UN job……
WATCH PAULA BENNETT practice for her future post Sept 20 new career here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9935788/Paula-Bennett-struts-her-stuff