“..People who pay a large part of their household income for rent or a mortgage, or who save assiduously for a huge down payment, don’t have much cash left to contribute to the overall economy.
Most of their income simply gets confiscated by inflated home prices, or the resulting high rents and associated expenses.
It’s channeled to landlords, PE firms, and REITs that own the homes; banks and investment funds that own the mortgages or the mortgage-backed securities; and a million other entities.
Most of it becomes part of the grease that keeps Wall Street from squealing.
But nothing happens with that money to move the real economy forward..”
😀
This housing thing has got me thinking….are the costs lower to the government to support a social housing provider, or to pay accommodation supplement?
The answer will depend on whether or not social housing providers can charge market rent or at least enough for their tenants to qualify for AS. Could be a story here…
This housing frenzy to divest by government. It seems to me like a Richard Prebble moment as with our rail system. I think he said he would be prepared to give it away, because of the usual hperbole – gummint can’t be efficient, no good as managers, can’t being the proper commercial controls on running, and finally it would be better if some private organisation could lick into shape.
Which usually means run cheaper and better and be profitable. Which is an oxymoron I think? Can’t be done in a public service, which by their nature are costly and to be affordable and reasonably priced, can at best just meet costs. To give their best value they need thorough examination for viability and usefulness when started, and regular review and monitoring for successful performance along the way. That’s how gummint should be running housing, and providing what is needed in an appropriate way.
Which is important when our banks (mostly) export their profits so it doesnt get re-introduced…. ANZ NZ made a 500m half yearly profit to go with its Aussie heads 3bn…
I tried to live in an impossible city, once. It was impossible. Nothing was possible. So I moved to a possible city, which is marginally better, because while not everything works, there is the hope that something might work if approached in the right way. I pity the fool that saves for 37 years to go live in an impossible city. My dream is to build a plausible city, and if successful, move forward onto building highly likely communities.
TPPA: This from an interview with Elizabeth Warren in which she explains how the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system (ISDS) works.
PLUM LINE: Is it theoretically possible to write ISDS in a way that precludes it from overriding regulation?
WARREN: It doesn’t directly tell countries to repeal regulations. It imposes a financial penalty, which has caused countries to change their regulations…[ISDS mechanisms] never had the authority to override regulations. What they had was the authority to impose a monetary penalty directly against the government and its taxpayers. That’s the point at which governments have backed up and said, “we can’t afford this, we’ll just change the law.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/11/elizabeth-warren-fires-back-at-obama-heres-what-theyre-really-fighting-about/
We need our journalists to drill Tim Groser and John Key about this. $6million for the Saudi businessman over the live sheep ban will be very small beer compared to the figures in the ISDS cases. It will be so costly to preserve the environment and our citizens rights.
How can our Nat politicians not see that? Come on, Labour, Greens, NZ First, start making more noise about this!
They can see that – they don’t care. In fact, I’d say that that’s the entire point. Taking governments to the cleaners will be a nice profit making scheme.
““we can’t afford this, we’ll just change the law.””
So they can claim the TPP wasn’t the problem, but the Govts BUT the threat of law suits makes the govt change the law to “save” the taxpayer money from the lawsuit…
More insidious to me is that the decision-making process of the dispute is closed and the adjudicators are former corporate lawyers…
but they see it.
it is just you pretending to believe that they don’t see it.
IF we all would admit that they see it, know it, talk about and take it into account, than we would be really really scared, as we realise that we are nothing but cattle or chattel, utterle expendable and of no value to them what so ever.
The national party that supports the TPPA and the labour party and any other polititian in nz that supports this abomination should be charged with treason.
Yes drill Tim Groser and John Key till all the small beer leaks out. Makes no sense?
Neither does anything they say when studied closely. Let’s all talk politic (otherwise known as gobblegook while they treat us as turkeys to be roasted.)
And of course to balance the ISDS provisions, when regulations are changed that result in increased profits for corporates those corporates are required to pass that profit over to the government….
My puzzlement this morning comes from the fact that nobody seems to want to tell me where the bulk of the 2010 Liberal Democratic voters went. Did they go to the Conservative Party? And did the Conservative pParty lose a quarter of its 2010 votes to UKIP? Or is it that the Liberal Democratic voters see their identity as being neither Labour nor Conservative, and so jumped to UKIP when Nick Clegg turned the Liberal Democrats into Conservatives-not-so-light?
The rest of the rather short article also asks some interesting questions about the UK election.
Over the last few days, I’ve read many sweeping assertions about the swings and counter-swings that supposedly took place between the various parties in the UK Election. Almost always based on hunches or anecdotal evidence. But presented as cold, hard fact.
The vast body of data from pre-Election Opinion Polls remains the only reliable source in my opinion (although anecdotal evidence via discussions with an array of locals – including party activists – in specific electorates is useful as supplementary evidence). Probably most useful of all, though, will be the British Election Study data (from post-Election interviews) when it comes out.
All the polling evidence I’ve seen – both since 2010 in general and, more specifically, over the last few months – suggests Lib Dem deserters were disproportionately heading Labour’s way. How that dovetails with Labour’s woeful inability to win that vast array of Tory Marginals is another matter. Did an unusually large proportion of Lib Dem deserters have a last minute change of heart ?
Or was the Lib Dem swing to Labour nullified by an even greater swing from Labour-to-UKIP or Labour-to-the-Conservatives ?
No wonder the tories fought hard against a change to the electoral system…. Why Labour fought hard too is beyond me.
Labour very much likes two party privilege. Also, Labour Parties throughout the world see all minor left wing political parties as political enemies to be suppressed and sidelined where at all possible, lest they metastasize into left wing nightmares for them like the SNP.
Also remember that in NZ, the National Party were the ones who introduced MMP.
Yep, it’s clear the Non-Vote won in the vast majority of Labour-held seats (Merseyside and parts of Greater London being the key exceptions).
And despite the impressive turnout in Scotland overall, I see the Apathy Party also came first in Greater Glasgow (home of the “Yes” vote) and in poor old Orkney and Shetland (possibly allowing the Lib Dems to hang on by their fingertips in the latter constituency).
What the United States is in fact worried about is independence, what’s called the “threat of a good example,” or a rotten apple which might spoil the barrel, or some formulation of “the domino theory”: The idea that if one country decides to develop crazy ideas about democracy and popular control, other countries might do the same, leading to a widespread revolution.
This is directly antithetical U.S. business interests, so it must be rooted out, brutally and quickly, so that others get the message.
Noam Chomsky writes in Interventions that,
The United States has long reacted harshly to the “successful defiance” of Third World countries like Cuba that sought a path to independent development, assigning priority to domestic needs rather than those of foreign investors and Washington planners.
After the “virus” is removed, “stability” must be established, often through a nasty, corrupt dictator or a national security state which will not give in to such petty concerns as human rights and living conditions.
We can see these types of interventions of the US into other nations around the world. Iran and Iraq are the two most well known interventions but other countries have also fallen under US hegemony.
Been going on for some time. I remember doing an essay at uni in ’73 based around the CIA in cahoots with ITT, getting rid of Allende in Chile cos he nationalised the phone network.
Successive US governments have all had the arrogance to achieve imperialism, but they’ve also lacked the style that a decent imperial power needs. There’s a reason almost all the baddies in the original Star Wars were RADA-trained 😉
In a wee discussion the other day on The Standard, I suggested the Greens were nowhere near as toxic to voters as some pundits (both Left and Right-leaning) seem to assume.
Here’s some data to back-up my argument:
UMR November 2013
Potential Coalition Partners “How good a job do you think the following parties would do if they were part of a coalition government with one of the major parties”
Good = Will do Good Job
Bad = Will do Bad Job
G+N = Good+Neutral combined score
G/B Diff = Good/Bad Difference
Table One: Entire Sample Party…….Good…..Neutral….Bad….Unsure…G+N……..G/B Diff
(In order of Highest to Lowest Good+Neutral) Greens………26………31………..36………….7………..57………. – 10 Maori………..12………39…………41…………8………..51………. – 29 NZF…………..12……….31…………47……….10……….43………. – 35 ACT……………4………..25…………59……….12……….29………. – 55 Cons………….4………..24…………48……….24……….28………. – 44
Clearly, NZ voters are not particularly enamoured of any of the minor parties when it comes to coalition politics. But, taking a Glass Half Full approach, you can see that 57% of voters can live with the Greens as a coalition partner (64% if you include those Unsure). That makes them more popular than the Maori and NZF parties and vastly more acceptable to the voting public than ACT and the Conservatives.
The Greens are even acceptable to a significant minority of National voters:
Table Two: Views of National Party Voters Only Maori………….8………..36………..52………….4………..44………. – 44 Greens……….9…………31………..56………….4………..40………. – 47 ACT…………….6…………31………..56………….7………..37………. – 50 Cons…………..6…………29………..45…………20……….35………. – 39 NZF…………….6…………29………..59………….6………..35………. – 53
The Māori Party was willing to compromise their principles for a place at the table – even if it was sitting on the floor begging for crumbs. Now all but one of the Māori seats have returned to Labour, and the MP face total obliteration at the next election.
PR actually said “outside of Parliament”, not “outside of government”.
Labour are in Parliament and they, and the Greens, played a part in the zero-hours contract debate. Labour got Parliamentary Services to ditch them for the catering staff.
Or they could look at what happens to left/liberal parties who prop up Tory governments (cf LibDems last week). The Greens would accomplish nothing inside a NACT government. Or at least, nothing of substance; for example, can anyone tell me wtf ‘whanau ora’ is or what it has achieved?
As for achievements – I know of quite a few really good outcomes for families and individuals both in Auckland and around the country. I think it is a wonderful approach to accessing services. Holism seems to be a good approach, and contrary to many misguided comments here – I’ve only ever dealt with true professionals within the Whanau Ora framework.
That’s a heartening bit of number crunching there Swordfish. However, I do note that the data comes from November 2013. Now that Mana no longer have a parliamentary presence, the Overton window has moved rightwards and GP can once more be attacked as the Devil-Beast of leftward extremism.
One depressing tidbit from the weekend; I was talking to a GP member who had been at the; male coleader candidate speeches in Dunedin. They seemed to be leaning towards supporting Shaw at the delegate meeting next week, mainly due to him looking good in a suit. They were particularly scathing about Hughes rocking up to speak in more casual dress, especially his wearing scuffed shoes. However, while they were clear about what Hughes and Hague stood for (though unimpressed by Hague’s body language), they were unable to say much about Shaw’s or Tava’s accomplishments or principles.
It says something when even the Green Party is embracing style over substance.
How come Gwynn Compton (the new Dirty Politics guy in John Key’s office) went to such effort yesterday to bleach his online profiles of any mention of the fact that he works in the PM’s Office?
A new word is being used around the world: “Quaxing.” It means: “to shop, in the western world, by means of walking, cycling or public transit.”
Dick Quax wrote “no one in the entire Western world uses the train for their shopping trips…the very idea that people lug home their supermarket shopping on the train is fanciful”.
And now around the world people are sending examples of Quaxing. Dopey Dick eh? http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11447071
Well, it’s normal exasperated politician hyperbole. If we give him the benefit of the doubt (and why would we, really. He’s paid to be articulate, and he worked for ACT), what he might mean is, “Not many people carry eight bags of a weekly grocery shop onto the train or bus by themselves, regularly, because it’s too heavy, the silly plastic bag handles cut into your hands or break and there’s nowhere safe to put it so the bags don’t split or get trampled, or so you can move fast enough to get off the train before the doors close for the next station.”
And he’d be right. What people do is make multiple trips with smaller loads over several days. If you don’t own a car, you do what you have to do. This method requires specific knowledge to identify, but not the same kind you need to run for parliament with ACT Party.
He might also mean, “In the entire Western World, it is becoming less likely that a person could afford to buy eight bags of shopping in a weekly supermarket shop, therefore relying on local suppliers, which require no special transport or equipment to carry the food, and in living in cheaper accomodation far from what is now solely commuter transport, never see or use a train during the span of their lives.” However this would require thoughts and abilities that ACT supporters don’t have.
I prefer the interpretation that, “In the entire Western World, there weren’t any supermarkets, and trains ran off into the desert, often following telegraph lines and were ultimately attacked by bandits. This discouraged the problems of suburban living. There were no taxes and everyone considered the natives a nuisance. I dream of a NZ like this. Please vote ACT.”
Using re-usable shopping bags largely resolves the ‘cutting into your hands’ problem, and each bag can individually hold more weight so you won’t need as many of them, so it’s less cumbersome. Doesn’t help with the total weight of course.
Have we contact details for Dick Quax so I can enlighten him on how I, a 64 year old non-driver transport my groceries when I don’t have an obliging niece or foster son to drive me?
I can also describe how I managed in earthquake riven Christchurch should he need more examples.
Sometime soon I hope to find a calm place within myself that helps me to feel empathy for the over-privileged pontificators who seem to be inhabiting Planet Key. Alternatively, perhaps I could find a way to live and experience life as the out of work, unwell and elderly ‘enjoy’ it as a consequence of NACTdom.
How’s this for a leadership comment on the current issue of road safety.
Prime minister John Key, “We have to balance what the police advise with wider public opinion on road speeds.”
but it is funnier when having said that he vehemently denies that he is at all swayed by wider public opinion, possibly against lower limits, and backlash as a result.
You can take the piss out of Key’s approach all you want, but it is far more effective and popular than say, Labour talking about getting trucks out of fast lanes so that holiday makers have it easier.
C.R.
Labour might have been better advised to have suggested getting most trucks off most lanes period and putting freight on trains to strategic rail-heads for distribution by smaller vehicles.
Explain the logic of this one – last week travelling north from Tauranga to Paeroa I was following a fully laden logging truck-and-trailer carrying large Radiata logs. As we passed through the narrow Karangahake gorge, we encountered a fully laden logging truck-and-trailer carrying large Radiata logs heading south.
Locals advise that this a regular occurrence. Perhaps you could remind us why the Kaimai tunnel was created?
My comment was not about roads. It was about Pry Minister Key being glib and expert on absolutely nothing until poll-guided, and then he fails. You missed it CR.
Is everyone having a reading comprehension difficulty day? I mentioned roads primarily in the context of Key’s “glib and expert on absolutely nothing until poll guided” approach, which I commented on as being quite an effective tactic despite peoples inclinations to ridicule it; and certainly more effective than some of Labour’s attempts.
I have opposed the TPPA for always, but reading this today, a couple of extra jigsaw pieces fell into place about why Goldman Sachs Merrill Lynch BOA sock puppet John Key wants this signed at any cost.
The brilliant Elizabeth Warren points out TPPA fastrack could be used in the USA to weaken, prevent or overcome any Wall St or banking reforms. WOW.
This is the nub of it that I had not understood until now. Worth a look.
“WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren hit back at President Barack Obama in their tussle over “fast track” authorization to negotiate a Pacific Rim trade treaty, a power she says could be used in the future to weaken Wall Street reforms.
Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and prominent liberal voice, stuck to her argument in an interview published on Monday with a left-leaning Washington Post blog, saying Obama should release details of the Pacific trade talks so legal experts can determine if a pact could be used to weaken U.S. bank rules.”
I’m begging to wonder if some of the more enlightened US millionaires are bank rolling these candidates to get an alternative narrative out there. Revolutions are costly
I see that Andrew Little, according to this morning’s Dom/Post is wandering of the reservation.
Labour Party claims are that a large increase in the minimum wage won’t cause any job losses don’t they? Say go to $16.00/hour and no jobs will be lost.
Now he is quoted as saying in the paper, and I can’t find it on-line, that the Government must immediately cut the ACC worker levy by 20c per $100 of earnings because not to do so is costing jobs!
How can it be that a 10% increase in the minimum wage won’t cost any jobs but a 0.2% step in the ACC rates costs jobs?
You’re right.
I needed it for my first reaction to his opinion when I had to put it in front of the comment that came to mind.
My thought was “uck! He’s a total idiot.”
No doubt there is something incredibly witty about your remarks.
For the life of me I don’t see what it is or what you are trying to say.
Still if it makes you happy ………
No, its a terrible argument. Funding ACC just funds the government, its the equivalent of taking that spending and locking it in a safe. The government can always fund ACC, even if it doesn’t receive full funding up front anyway. Meanwhile the governments marginal propensity to spend (especially ACC levies) is clearly not influenced by the higher take. Raising the minimum wage the extra business expenditure contributes back to spending, because of who receives it.
Minimum wage increases give more spending power to low-income people, which then gets spent in the local economy and ends up being neutral on job losses (or even gains some jobs.)
ACC levies by comparison are just going to the government to pad a surplus. That money isn’t being spent by workers or invested by businesses. So it costs jobs because it is a deadweight loss that is just money being taken out of the economy when it could be going to consumer spending or investment.
Exactly. It either needs to go to ACC to provide better services, or needs to be returned to the economy. Otherwise it’s just a deadweight loss that is padding National’s budget
Wages tend to be sticky in the upwards direction but really both of these $ are in the same direction.
Increasing wages puts more money in the pockets of the low paid which as it is spent increases jobs and certainly doesn’t cut them. Cutting the ACC levy by 2% also increases money in the pocket, spend among the working and increases jobs.
Quite clear
I heard on Radionz that David Milliband is badmouthing Ed. A good headline for Brit news would be Ed is sinister says David. But in fact they both are, and not, and the word dexter doesn’t apply either. I’ve been looking up etymology. I think,now that Humpty Dumpty has fallen and cracked open. they are inventing new terms of language, so that left doesn’t mean what we thought.
The interesting thing that Bob Jones didn’t mention is the fact that neo-liberalism has been shown by the present world economic situation to be as least as bad a failure as Marxist-Leninism under the USSR.
Once this fact is accepted – and it needs to be repeated over and over again until even people who only read/watch MSM get it – then Bob Jones comments become more about how you can become more selfish as you grow old, than why John Campbell is dangerous
If you are a Whangarei resident you will have heard about the Hundertwasser project. It will be a huge tourist attraction in your city that will attract money-spending people from all over NZ and indeed the world and increased employment. In two days the Referendum about the Hundertwasser-Wairau Maori Art Centre is being sent out.
If you are not local and eligible to vote, and like the idea and have progressive contacts in the city, you could phone them and point out what a good idea it is. People who are too small thinking and provincial often find it difficult to consider the benefits that will result and get stuck on whatever the cost is.
Donate: https://givealittle.co.nz/org/hacnorth
(We’ve raised $4million! We only need $1m more to build the fantastic Whangarei Hundertwasser Art Centre, the last Hundertwasser-designed bu Givealittle is …)
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Hundertwasser HQ
has posters, caps, t-shirts, bumper stickers at their pop-up shop in Whangarei’s CBD.
Everything purchased raises funds for Prosper Northland Trust to spread more information about the project.
It is worrying – how much effort is going in to cover up something, which is supposed to be nothing.
Even jumping on here to defended her position and the Tory maggots who have jumped in as well. Is at best odd. At worst…
I believe Cactus Kate is a post-fascist. Which is essentially calling someone Ideologically dishonest and a unprincipled opportunist. But hey, you play in the dirt – you get dirty.
Seymour Hersh: official account of Bin Laden’s killing a complete lie
Osama had been captured by the Pakistanis and held since 2006. Seems like the US then sent in a SEAL team to execute the sick old, crippled, man after all. There was no firefight, Osama had no guards (the Pakistani security services had been ordered to leave the compound the moment they heard the US helis closing in), he did not pick up an AK47. He was just shredded on the spot by the SEALs. Stories about Osama’s burial at sea were a fiction improvised by the White House after Barack Obama decided to use the killing to boost his own electability. Also the story that Osama had been tracked down via an elaborate spy game following Al Qaeda couriers who were carrying orders from Osama was utterly false. Bin Laden appears to have been isolated and out of control of Al Qaeda; the compound where he was found was not an operations centre; it was a home detention centre.
Just got an email from Julie Anne Genter and it had this bit of info in it:
He [KiwiRail Chief Executive Peter Reidy] also gave me some numbers. By KiwiRail’s estimate, it would cost just $2 billion to electrify the entire North Island, and get 60 new electric locomotive engines up and running. That’s the same amount as it cost to finish building the Western Ring Route, just one of the National Government’s motorway extensions.
There you go, friggen cheap really and the savings, both monetary and environmental, over time from not having to burn diesel would be immense. And it’d be an excellent incentive to get more solar power feeding into the grid out to homes as well.
I just saw this flag petition on Change.org and signed it, Here is the link if you would like to support the petition against changing the flag at this time:
Leading Kiwi thinkers guffaw at “conspiracy theorist” Seymour Hersh The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 12 May 2015
Jim Mora, David Pagani, Josie Pagani, Noelle McCarthy
This afternoon, Seymour Hersh joined a long list of journalists and intellectuals—including Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden—to be scorned by the intellectual luminaries on the Panel. I’ll try to put up a transcript of this depressing episode, but I did manage to send the constantly laughing host the following email….
Quelle surprise! Your Panelists are having a go at Seymour Hersh.
Dear Jim,
Seymour Hersh is one of the world’s most respected journalists. His reporting is renowned for being thorough, rigorous and scholarly.
I was not amused at all to hear your panelists scoffing, dismissing him as a conspiracy theorist, and guffawing that “This is all turning into a Game of Thrones.”
I am concerned at the lack of standards on your show,
The panelists are not the only one’s referring to the story as a conspiracy Morrissey. This one does put up a strong argument for that being the case….
Thanks very much for that, sheep. Maybe Max Fisher is correct, and Hersh is indeed wrong on this one.
I am just concerned when I hear know-nothings like the four people this afternoon calling Hersh a “conspiracy theorist”, as if he is some 9/11 Truther. I’m quite prepared to read the views of serious writers like Fisher; Noelle McCarthy, Josie Pagani and David Farrar on the other hand have a track record of trivialising serious issues.
I was not necessarily endorsing Sy Hersh, I was contesting the competence and the seriousness of those four chattering, vapid numbskulls.
Morrissey / Felix.
I come from a small town where a favourite saying is..
“Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see”.
And then I always apply Trotsky’s immortal dictum that ‘You can deduce the truth by a comparison of the lies’.
But by any standard, I think Hersh, like Pilger, may have lost a bit of perspective with age…
With Bin Laden though, does it really matter how he died? If I can deduce anything from the lies, it would be a sense that he was fully aware and accepted the ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ ethos.
But by any standard, I think Hersh, like Pilger, may have lost a bit of perspective with age…
Hersh’s piece, for the most part, was not editorialising. Did the US learn about Osama’s location through spying on Al Qaeda’s courier network or did that information walk in the door seeking the CIA reward? Did the US SEAL team kill a crippled, unarmed, elderly man for the sake of imperial vengeance, or was there really a firefight with Osama trying to kill the SEAL team members with an AK47.
Like 9/11, the official narrative on Osama’s death, and even his burial at sea, stinks to high heaven. Hersh goes some way to explaining why.
The expression ‘conspiracy theorist’ is used by the establishment to shut down dissent.
Sad to see you’ve fallen for their lines over 9/11, Morrissey.
It was lie that allowed the US to take over Central Asia and suppress civil rights in their homeland.
The US were already planning to implement mass surveillance over their own citizens pre 9/11. Their pre-9/11 approach to Quest for unhindered access to their telecoms network shows that. 9/11 gave the developing security and surveillance state the best PR in the world for going ahead with what they were going to do any way.
What amused me was Josie Pagani talking about how she had a friend who was a fellow student of Prince Edward’s (youngest son of Queen) and how she went to have tea with the prince several times but romance apparently never blossomed because Josie decided he wasn’t her type. Incredible!
What really appalled me about her behaviour this afternoon was the way she repeatedly tried to ingratiate herself with Farrar. Their “banter” was cringe-inducing.
He pointed to the way his circle of friends had made it into their own homes.
“I look at most of my friends, lawyers, doctors or engineers. All of them went to Auckland Grammar, or St Cuthberts. All of them have done it with parental help.”
With house prices rising up to a reported $1000 a day “houses in Auckland are earning more than people”, he said.
I suppose ACT has to act surprised despite being told that this is the inevitable result of their policies over the last few decades.
The funny thing about this is that Seymour doesn’t think that lawyers, doctors, engineers and others that went to Auckland Grammar aren’t among the privileged.
If these ‘friends’ of his had all bought houses without parental help, then I’m sure this idea that only the privileged can buy houses wouldn’t have even occurred to him…
I am amazed the Labour are suggesting penalising working class people by making Working for Families subject to enrolment to vote. I would have expected such a policy from National and not the Party who claims to support workers.
Will this proposed policy also relate to those on benefits and National Super?
Is this a sign that Labour is starting to panic about their poor showing last election?
won’t do Labour much good if they do….people will just vote Green, NZF or Mana/Int…Labour Party will never get these voters back ….so they are stuck on about 30% imo
….Labour Party has taken no opposition leadership stand on opposing the the TPPA or the mass surveillance Spy Bill
….for many who have abandoned Labour …..they are just a watered down Nact Party
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A prisoner stripped of their name, imprisoned for a secret crime after a secret trial, with all details legally suppressed for secret reasons. A story by Kafka or Dumas? China? No, its just the latest stage of Australian tyranny:An Australian citizen was prosecuted, convicted, and jailed in the ACT last ...
Stuff has more details on what New Zealand First's slush-fund has been funding, with much of the spending directly benefiting the party. Which makes it look a lot like hidden donations, rather than the completely-innocent-giant-pile-of-cash Winston is trying to portray it as. The Electoral Commission is now investigating, but Simon ...
I've joked before about how hosting international summits effectively turns part of your country into a police state for the duration. Well, New Zealand is hosting APEC in 2021, with events throughout the year in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland. And the government has put up a bill to give itself ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzI saw an article claiming that “king tides” will increase in ...
It has been revealed that firing ranges used by the NZDF while deployed to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan, contained unexploded ordnance that caused numerous deaths and injuries after the NZDF withdrew the PRT in April 2013. In 2014 seven children were killed when an unidentified ...
Didn't See It Coming: NZ Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly's latest column merits serious scrutiny because such a clear example of anti-democratic thinking is encountered only rarely on the pages of the daily press. Which is not to say that the elitism which lies at the heart of such social disparagement ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Initially it was reported that in an aerial bombardment that took place on August 30th seven children were massacred; the figure then went up to eight and then on November 11th Noticias Uno reported that, according to people from the community in close proximity to the ...
A lot has happened since the UN’s report on 1.5ºC was released in October 2018. New Zealand’s Zero Carbon Bill has passed, and enshrines the 1.5ºC goal in law. The UK and France have also legally strengthened their targets to Net Zero 2050. The School Strike For Climate and Extinction ...
Next year is an election year, and Labour needs money to fund its campaign. So naturally, they're selling access:Labour is charging wealthy business figures $1500-a-head to lunch with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at its annual conference later this month. [...] On the weekend beginning November 29th, around 800 delegates will ...
Yesterday the government announced its changes to tenancy laws, including an end to no-cause evictions, limits on rent increases, and anonyminity for tenants who defend their rights against bad landlords (sadly necessary because landlords are scum who maintain blacklists of "uppity" tenants). They're all good moves, and have resulted in ...
In 2003 New Zealand sent a Provincial Reconstruction Team to Afghanistan to support America's doomed war there. While there, they conducted regular weapons practice on local firing ranges, littering the landscape with unexploded ammunition. These ranges weren't secure - they're on land used by locals for animal herding - so ...
Green MP Gareth Hughes has announced he will retire at the election. Its understandable - he's been there ten years, and wants to actually see his children grow up rather than miss it while drowning in the toxic parliamentary sewer. But his departure is also a huge loss for the ...
Words and images by Jacqui GibsonGone are Auckland Museum’s days of doing science using a museum-centric academic approach, after Māori land rights holders Ngāti Kuri gave the museum an ultimatum.Tom Trnski holding a fossilised whale tooth from the Far North.Aussie-born Head of Natural Sciences at Auckland Museum ...
MediaWorks announced in October 2019 that it intended to sell off its struggling television business and cancel or cut back on several popular local programmes, including New Zealand Today, Married at First SightNew Zealand and 7 Days. Its radio and outdoor advertising arms are currently performing well, but MediaWorks’ ...
Westminster voting intention:CON: 44% (+3)LAB: 28% (-1)LDEM: 14% (-1)BREX: 6% (-)via @OpiniumResearch, surveyed this weekChgs. w/ 08 Nov— Britain Elects (@britainelects) 16 November 2019 This, of course, doesn't look good. Labour have been chucking big, headline grabbing policies left, right and centre ... Well, maybe not right. Left, left ...
Some readers may remember that I mentioned last year that I was applying for NZ citizenship. I filled out the paperwork and had my original citizenship interview in February. Everything went well until they discovered that, because I had spent five months in the US in 2017, I had not ...
by Deirdre O’Neill It is becoming quite acceptable for certain sections of the left to declare that people like me – women who are ‘gender critical’ – should not be allowed in leftist or anarchist spaces. Leaving aside the arrogance and implicit authoritarianism of this claim, its lack of critical ...
There is an article in The Conversation, written by Jeremy P. Shapiro (Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), about what he sees as the psychologically-based underpinnings of three main matters that seem to vex people all around the planet. The article is titled “The Thinking ...
. . Blogger Martyn Bradbury has won his case against unreasonable search and surveillance against the NZ Police; and subsequent Police attempts to produce evidence in secrecy, in a closed Court. His case highlights a disturbing growing trend in Aotearoa New Zealand for State power to be used against ...
The Committee of Disobedient Women has intercepted an email from Dr Emma Eejut, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Massey University to the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas. Dear Jan, Thank you for your courageous move. I think 10 pages of blether** should tie any of the students game enough to try holding ...
That's the only response to the findings of the Ombudsman's investigation into LGOIMA practices at the Christchurch City Council:My investigation identified serious concerns about the Council’s leadership and culture, and its commitment to openness and transparency. In particular, Council staff raised concerns with me about various methods employed by some ...
NZ First seems to be nakedly trying to enrich itself from public office:A powerful New Zealand First figure helped establish a forestry company that then pushed for money from two key funding streams controlled by a New Zealand First Minister. An RNZ investigation has found Brian Henry, lawyer for Winston ...
Behrouz Boochani is an award winning author and journalist. He is also a refugee, who for the past six years has been detained in Australia's offshore gulag on Manus Island, and in Papua New Guinea. But last night, with the cooperation of the WORD Christchurch festival and Amnesty International, he ...
Different Strokes: If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S ...
Protective Zone: Reading the rules and guidelines released by Massey University, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that its governing body considers the whole concept of free speech a disruptive threat to the orderly imparting of orthodox academic knowledge.IN TRUE ORWELLIAN fashion, Massey University has announced its commitment to ...
Brian Oliver, University of Technology SydneyNew South Wales and Queensland are in the grip of a devastating bushfire emergency, which has tragically resulted in the loss of homes and lives. But the smoke produced can affect many more people not immediately impacted by the fires – even people many ...
Farmers held a hate-march on Parliament today, complete with MAGA hats, gun-nut signs, and gendered insults. While supposedly about a grab-bag of issues - including, weirdly, mental health - it was clear that the protest was about one thing, and one thing only: climate change. And specifically, forestry "destroying" rural ...
The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security released their annual report today, and I've been busy reading through it. In amongst the usual review of what they've been doing all year, there's a few interesting bits. For example, a discussion on "agency retention and disposal of information", which points out that ...
Recently more than 150 post-graduate students and young scientists presented an open letter to the Green Party via The Spinoff, encouraging them to reconsider their position on genetic modification. Their target is tackling climate change issues.[1] Can any party continue to be dismissive about genetic modification (GM) contributing to ...
by Deirdre O’Neill Under Thatcher and then Blair and continuing up until our contemporary moment, the working class has seen its culture slowly and progressively destroyed. The change from an industrial society to a service society produced a marked shift in focus from the working class as the backbone of ...
Since 2013, the Australian government has detained refugees without trial in Pacific gulags, where they are abused, tortured, and driven to suicide. The policy is not just an abuse of human rights and possible crime against humanity; it has also had a corrosive effect on the states Australia uses as ...
It seems fair to say that we currently live in a problematic political moment in world history. Democracies are in decline and dictatorships are on the rise. Primordial, sectarian and post-modern divisions have re-emerged, are on the rise or have been accentuated by political evolutions of the moment such as ...
Last month, Greenpeace head Russel Norman surrendered his speaking slot at an EPA conference to student climate activist Sorcha Carr, who told the EPA exactly what she thought of them. It was a bold move, which confronted both regulators and polluters (or, as the EPA calls them, "stakeholders") with the ...
The core principle supposedly underlying New Zealand's electoral finance regime is transparency: parties can accept large donations from rich people wanting to buy policy, but only if they tell the public they've been bought. Most parties abide by this, so we know that TOP was wholly-owned by Gareth Morgan, and ...
Today is a Member's Day, probably the second-to-last one of the year, and its a big one, with the Third Reading of David Seymour's End of Life Choice Bill. last Member's Day it was reported back from committee, after MPs voted narrowly to make it subject to a (rules TBA) ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThe growth of the human population over the last 70 ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women In her excellent oral submission to the Abortion reform select committee on 31st October on behalf of Otago University’s Department of Public Health, historian and public health researcher Hera Cook stated: “We would ask that the committee not use the term ‘pregnant persons’ and ...
by Don Franks In 1957, E M Forster wrote, of his greatest work: “The India described in ‘A Passage to India’ no longer exists either politically or socially. Change had begun even at the time the book was published ( 1924) and during the following quarter of a century it ...
The Referendums Framework Bill was due back from select committee today. But there's no report on it. Instead, the bill has been bounced back to the House under Standing order 29593) because the Committee didn't bother to produce one. They probably tried. But given the membership of the committee (which ...
Two years into New Zealand’s Labour-led government, the long-delayed Zero Carbon Bill became law on 7 November. Passed essentially unanimously, the lengthy public debates and political manoeuvring faded away until the final passage was even anticlimactic: Flipping through the @nzstuff@DomPost I was starting to wonder if I’d dreamt ...
Now the Zero Carbon Bill is law, what's next? Obviously, the ETS changes currently before select committee are going to be the next battleground. But we're also going to get a good idea of where we're going, and if the progress the Zero Carbon Act promises is good enough, during ...
Grant PearceThe effects of the current Australian bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland (and also again in California) are devastating and far-reaching. To date, the fires have resulted in several lives being lost and many homes and properties destroyed. Here in New Zealand, the impacts have been only ...
A passing comment in a post the other day about the labour force participation rates of older people prompted me to pull down the fuller data and see what we could see about various participation rates over the decades since the HLFS began in 1986. As it happens, the ...
Distract And Divert: The rise of what we have come to call “Identity Politics” represents the ideological manifestation of the ruling class’s objective need to destroy class politics, and of the middle-class’s subjective need to justify their participation in the process.THE RELIEF of the ruling class can only be imagined. ...
"I saw a newspaper picture,From the political campaignA woman was kissing a child,Who was obviously in pain.She spills with compassion,As that young child'sFace in her hands she gripsCan you imagine all that greed and avariceComing down on that child's lips?" ...
Dr Matt Boyd, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick WilsonThe Global Health Security Index which considers pandemic threats has just been published. Unfortunately, NZ scores approximately half marks (54/100), coming in 35th in the world rankings – far behind Australia. This poor result suggests that the NZ Government needs to ...
The Zero Carbon Act is inadequate, with a weak methane target designed to give farmers a free ride. But it turns out it could have been worse: Climate Change Minister James Shaw was so desperate to get National on board, he wanted to gut that target, and leave it in ...
The Herald reprints an Australian story on a couple of tragic deaths in Bali from drinking cocktails that had methanol in them. The story argues that methanol is likely the result of home distillation. But what the young tourists were experiencing was far from a hangover. They’d consumed a toxic cocktail ...
Last month, the police announced a trial of specialist roaming armed units, which would drive round (poor, brown) areas in armoured SUVs, armed to the teeth. When they announced the trial, they told us it was about having armed police "ready to attend major incidents at any time if needed". ...
Spain went to the polls today in the second elections this year, after the Socialists (who had come to power in a confidence vote, then gone to the polls in April) rejected the offer of a coalition with the left-wing PoDemos, and instead decided to gamble n a better outcome ...
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating ...
There will be a transit of Mercury – the planet Mercury will pass across the face of the Sun – taking place at sunrise in New Zealand on Tuesday, 12th November. It was by observing such an event 250 years ago that James Cook and his scientist colleagues were able ...
Since becoming the world’s first openly transexual mayor and member of parliament, Georgina Beyer has been recognised as a trailblazer for trans rights. Daphna Whitmore talks with her about where she sees the current trans movement We start out talking about legislation the government put on hold that would have ...
If FFNZ really put their faith in “Top Medical Journals” they would now be amending their billboards to recognise new research results. Image from FFNZ but updated to agree with the latest research. ...
National Messiah? Chris Luxon identifies himself as an evangelical Christian. If he is genuine in this self-characterisation, then he will take every opportunity his public office provides to proselytise on behalf of his faith. He will also feel obliged to bear witness against beliefs and practices he believes to be ...
I'm going to make a Reckless Prediction™ that the Tories have 'topped out' in the 'poll of polls' / Britain Elects multipoll tracker at about 38%, and in the next week we will start to see Labour creep up on them.In fact, we might just be seeing the start of ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Lizzie Marvelly: “I may have missed this… has @afterellen gone all terf-y? Or am I reading something incorrectly? “ https://twitter.com/LizzieMarvelly/status/1191840059105742849 After Ellen is a lesbian website that is unashamedly pro-lesbian, as you’d expect. So why is Ms Marvelly so bothered about lesbians having their ...
Did you know there once was a time when it was illegal to be a gypsy (aka Romani) in Britain?That was between 1530, when the Egyptians Act was passed, and 1856, when it was repealed.Amongst other things, the act forbade the entry of 'Egyptians' into England, ordered those already there ...
Some days I sit and think, “what will I write…?” What do you say when you get to 1000 posts? Maybe you just start where you are, diverge to where this all began, then offer a collection of reader’s favourite posts, and a few of your own? (And throw in ...
Counter-Puncher: The “activists” and “radicals” (his own words) from the Indian community who took such strong exception to Shane Jones’ remarks about Immigration NZ’s treatment of arranged marriages, may end up bitterly regretting their intervention. Jones is not the sort of person who turns the other cheek to his critics.SHANE ...
New Zealand First are celebrating the announcement of an investment of $3.5 million into five new trapping devices. These are a range of bait and trap devices, all designed to be left unattended for long periods of time. NZ First conservation spokesperson Jenny Marcroft says that this latest development will ...
Clayton Mitchell, Spokesperson for Consumer Affairs The ‘wheel clamping’ Bill that will cap clamper fees to $100 passed its third readinginParliament today. New Zealand First welcomes The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill to combat predatory wheel clamping behaviour in what is currently a largely unregulated business. Cowboy clampers are: gouging ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its first reading in Parliament. “Today’s progress takes serious action on the mental health and addiction crisis the country is facing,” says New Zealand First Health Spokesperson Jenny Marcroft. “The re-establishment ...
Mark Patterson, Spokesperson for Primary Industries Today the Government announced the delivery of the promise to protect New Zealand interests by applying a new National Interest Test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. This further strengthening of the Overseas Investment Act will ...
The Coalition Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high-risk assets to overseas buyers. Under current Overseas Investment Act (OIA) rules, assets such as ports and airports, telecommunications infrastructure, electricity and ...
Rt Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First Allegations raised this morning by Stuff Limited / Fairfax concern a party matter but I am confident that New Zealand First has operated within electoral laws, now and for the last 27 years. Declarable donations were declared to the Electoral Commission. Our ...
The chairman of the Upper North Island Supply Chain Strategy (UNISCS) working group, Wayne Brown, has hit back at critics of his group’s recommendations to relocate the Ports of Auckland cargo operations to Whangarei’s deepwater port of Northport. The working group's recommendation to close Auckland waterfront to all but cruise ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First backs the public to decide on the End of Life Choice Bill via a referendum at the 2020 General Election. The Bill, with New Zealand First’s referendum provision incorporated, passed its final reading in Parliament this evening. New Zealand First Spokesperson for ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Justice New Zealand First is proud that a key Coalition Agreement commitment which will provide for a more transparent and effective criminal justice system has been realised. Legislation to establish the Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent body focused on identifying and responding to possible miscarriages of ...
"Today we have made a choice that will leave a legacy... I hope that means that future generations will see that we, in New Zealand, were on the right side of history." - Jacinda Ardern, Third Reading of the Zero Carbon Bill ...
Darroch Ball, New Zealand First List MP A Member’s bill has been proposed that would provide income tax exemptions for all New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel while on operational deployment overseas. The Income Tax (Exemption for Salary or Wages of NZDF Members on Active Deployment) Amendment Bill proposed by New Zealand First ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have brought common sense to the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which passed its final reading in Parliament today. Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters says months of hard work went into negotiating a balanced ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First has listened to calls to recognise paramedics as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners’ Competence Assurance Act (the Act).Today, the Coalition Government announced plans for paramedics to be registered as health practitioners under the Act, and the establishment of a ...
The Coalition commitment to add 1800 new Police officers to frontline policing has been achieved with the graduation of 59 constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters say today’s graduation means 1825 new Police have been deployed all ...
Ensuring APEC work gets input from diverse New Zealand business and trade interests is behind three new appointments to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. Rachel Taulelei, Malcolm Johns and Toni Moyes have been appointed to represent New Zealand on the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) ...
Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa. Thank you for having me to speak today. To start, I’d like to acknowledge Sharron Lloyd, the General Manager of the Trans–Tasman Business Circle, the partners for this event Westpac’s David McLean, and Derek McCormack from AUT, and, of course ...
A four-month investigation by former Environment Court judge Professor Peter Skelton found that Otago’s freshwater planning system is not fit for purpose to manage the region’s rivers, lakes and aquifers and that the Council has inadequate rules for the taking of water and the discharge of nutrients. “Existing planning provisions ...
Introduction Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to speak to an LGNZ meeting since the local elections, and I’m delighted to see the fresh faces of newly elected mayors. To returning mayors here today, as well as chief ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters departs New Zealand today to attend the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Nagoya at the invitation of this year’s G20 President, Japan. “This is the first time New Zealand will attend a G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and we are deeply honoured that it is at ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today announced the appointment of diplomat Carl Reaich as New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the European Union. “The Ambassador to the EU is one of the most important and senior roles in New Zealand’s foreign service, advocating for New Zealand’s interests with the EU institutions,” Mr ...
Innovation and technology are behind five new tools to give nature a helping hand by helping eliminate predators, funded through the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “The new tools will be trialled in ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has welcomed the first reading of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 2021 (APEC 2021) Bill in Parliament today. The temporary bill supports New Zealand’s security preparations for hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in 2021. “APEC is the leading economic and trade forum ...
The Government is making progress on improving the wellbeing of the one million New Zealanders under the age of 18,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on World Children’s Day. The Government has today recommitted to the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history – the United Nation’s Convention on ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter has released a new report celebrating the contribution of Māori women in business across Aotearoa New Zealand. “Māori women are leaders in our communities, they employ many people and support our economy and our communities,” Julie Anne Genter said. The report, Ngā wāhine kaipakihi: ...
Four parcels of land have been bought in Omokoroa, in the Western Bay of Plenty District, for an education facility that will accommodate both a primary and secondary school on a campus-like facility, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. Two parcels were acquired from private land owners and two were ...
1 million New Zealanders warmed by the Winter Energy Payment 36,000 families bank the Best Start Payment in first year 6,000 more families received the Family Tax Credit, 220,600 in total They receive an increase too – from an average of $117 to $157 a week for Inland Revenue clients, ...
New rules to clamp down on overzealous wheel clamping and extortionate fees charged in order to release a vehicle have passed their final stage in Parliament today. The Land Transport (Wheel Clamping) Amendment Bill has now passed its third reading. “These changes mean $100 will be the maximum wheel clamping ...
An independent Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission is a step closer after it unanimously passed its first vote in Parliament today. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill lays the groundwork for establishing the Commission as a fully independent crown entity – delivering on a key recommendation of He Ara ...
We’ve improved border security with the NZeTA, New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority, which helps us to screen travellers for border and immigration risks off-shore before they travel to New Zealand. It was launched in August and became mandatory on 1 October 2019. More than 500,000 NZeTAs have been issued since ...
A proposed national plan of action to reduce the number of seabirds caught in fisheries is being circulated for public feedback. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage say New Zealand is a global centre of seabird diversity with about 145 species in our waters. It has more ...
The Government is delivering on its promise to protect New Zealanders’ interests by applying a new national interest test to the sales of our most sensitive and high risk assets to overseas buyers. Associate Finance Minister David Parker said under current Overseas Investment Act rules, assets such as ports and ...
The Government is building special housing to accommodate one of Aotearoa’s greatest taonga- our kaumātua, says the Minister for Māori Development, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. Speaking at a National Kaumātua Service Providers Conference in Rotorua today, the Minister reinforced the importance kaumātua play in maintaining and passing on mātauranga Māori, knowledge, ...
Eleven men from a pilot forestry training programme for prisoners in Northland now have full time jobs or job offers upon release, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis and Forestry Minister Shane Jones announced today. The ‘release to work’ programme was a collaboration between Te Uru Rākau and the Department of Corrections, ...
Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins today introduced into Parliament a Bill that will make it easier for the public service to tackle the biggest challenges facing Governments. The Bill represents the most significant change in the public service in 30 years. The State Sector Act 1988 will be repealed ...
The families of more than 416,000 students will be better off next year as their schools have signed up to the Government’s donations scheme, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. The scheme will see almost $62.5 million in additional Government funding go to schools nationwide next year. “I’m really pleased ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced further support as the Government of Samoa responds to a serious measles outbreak. “New Zealand will deploy a further 18 vaccination nurses, bringing the total to 30 working in Samoa over the next four weeks,” Mr Peters said. “A New Zealand Medical Assistance ...
Fa’atalofa atu, malo e lelei, Kia ora koutou katoa Thank you to the Child Poverty Action Group for asking me to be here today to provide an update on some of the things that have been happening across my the social development portfolio. Can I firstly acknowledge the vast ...
***Please check against delivery*** Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to be with you this morning to open this year’s New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing Conference and AGM. Firstly, thank you Dr Alan Jackson, NZTR Chair for your introduction. And let us acknowledge also: The NZTR Board; Dean McKenzie, Chair ...
The Government has delivered on its promise to the over one million New Zealanders who now rent to make it fairer and more secure, Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing) Kris Faafoi has announced today. Both renters and landlords will benefit from the suite of practical changes to the Residential ...
A marine conservation milestone - the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Te Tapuwae o Rongokako Marine Reserve - is being celebrated today at a community event in Tairāwhiti/East Coast attended by the Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “The creation of this marine reserve in November 1999 was a game ...
The Government is asking the food industry to step up work to tackle obesity including reducing sugar, fat and salt in their products, better information for consumers, and tighter restrictions on advertising to children. Health Minister David Clark and Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor have responded to a ...
ew, modern emergency department and outpatient facilities at Queenstown’s Lakes District Hospital mean better emergency care for the growing tourist mecca’s visitors and locals, says Health Minister David Clark. Today Dr Clark officially opened the hospital’s redeveloped Emergency Department and Outpatient facilities. The new facilities include: • An extended Emergency Department ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter says today’s release of sexual and reproductive health data reinforces the significance of the Government’s commitment to providing free or very low-cost contraception. The Ministry of Health today published statistics from the Ministry of Health’s 2014/15 Health Survey. “It is important people can make ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that at the request of the Samoan Government, New Zealand will be providing further support to Samoa as it faces a worsening measles outbreak. “In response to a request from the people of Samoa, New Zealand is providing 3000 measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) ...
“The new Disability Action Plan 2019–2023 moves us towards the inclusive and accessible New Zealand that this government has committed to,” Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni announced today. “The Action Plan was designed by disabled people, their family and supporters, the disability sector and government agencies. It will ensure ...
Third Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting 14 November 2019 Joint Statement 1. Defence Ministers Ron Mark and Dr Ng Eng Hen today conducted their third annual Singapore-New Zealand Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Singapore. 2. Building on the Enhanced Partnership signed between both countries in May this year, this annual meeting ...
A Bill to improve the court system’s response to sexual violence has passed its first reading in Parliament today. Justice Minister Andrew Little says the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill will reduce the trauma sexual violence complainants experience in court, while maintaining defendants’ fundamental rights and making sure the trial process ...
Streamlined payment practices are a step closer for Kiwi businesses with the formal launch of New Zealand’s e-Invoicing framework. Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the government has now established the structure to enable automated and direct data exchange between the accounting systems of buyers and sellers. “The move to ...
Another 51 quarantine officers and four new biosecurity detector dog teams will help protect New Zealand from invasive pests and diseases this summer, says Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor. “The Government is delivering on its commitment to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity system and support our valuable primary sector “New Zealand’s flora, fauna ...
A new report has found New Zealand’s space sector contributed $1.69 billion to the economy in the last financial year and employs 12,000 people, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. The report by Deloitte was commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and shows New Zealand ...
Judge Coral Shaw has been appointed as the new Chair of the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin announced today. "Judge Shaw, who is currently one of the inquiry commissioners, is extremely well qualified for the ...
The Government has confirmed its third major mental health facility upgrade since the Budget, this time at Palmerston North Hospital. The Prime Minister and Health Minister today visited MidCentral DHB to announce that $30 million has been allocated to upgrade its acute mental health facility. It follows earlier announcements in ...
The roll out of the National Bowel Screening Programme has reached the halfway mark, with 10 out of 20 District Health Boards now part of the programme. MidCentral DHB, which covers Palmerston North, Manawatu and surrounding districts, this week became the latest to DHB to offer free bowel screening to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison’s government is heading to the end of 2019 amid a debate about its economic judgement and with a number of substantial policy moves started but not completed. Morrison this week delivered to an ...
Newsroom's major investigations into Oranga Tamariki and a Fijian resort development have won us the award for best current affairs programme at the NZ TV awards. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Christoff, Associate Professor, School of Geography, University of Melbourne A new United Nations report shows the world’s major fossil fuel producing countries, including Australia, plan to dig up far more coal, oil and gas than can be burned if the world ...
New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters with Governor General Dame Patsy Reddy and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.New Zealand is officially one of the least corrupt countries in the world. But it could be argued that our political system is still biased in favour of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member, Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne The possibilities presented by hydrogen are the subject of excited discussion across the world – and across Australia’s political divide, notoriously at war over energy policy. Read more: Hydrogen ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.We’re still buzzing after the rip-roaring success of the Corny Christmas party this week and we won’t even let a rogue earwig in the studio dampen our spirits. There’s a lot of exciting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.Review: Linear, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney The value of Australian First Peoples’ scientific ...
Sam Brooks reviews the latest generation of the Pokémon games which finally hits the big-ish screen.“I love Pokémon but I wish I could play it on my TV.”I’ve been playing Pokémon for 20 years and that’s been the main thing I’ve heard from my fellow Pokémon friends/fans. The games have been engrossing, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Minister Stuart Robert this month announced a number of “practical changes” to the scheme. Acknowledging the NDIS is not consistently living up to expectations, he said these improvements will put ...
The trustee of the New Zealand First Foundation and Winston Peters' personal lawyer has threatened a $30 million lawsuit against a National MP, in the latest twist of the donations scandal. ...
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a regional economic forum based in the Asia-Pacific Region. New Zealand will host APEC 2021 in November 2021, with related events running for a year from December 2020 until November 2021. ...
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Emerging political leaders from 15 Pacific countries and territories will be in New Zealand next week to meet with one and other, and their New Zealand counterparts, to discuss major challenges and opportunities in the Pacific. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Billingsley, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW The small number of Australians being held in prison camps in northern Syria has been an ongoing, albeit low-level, challenge for the Australian government. There are believed to be eight Australian fighters for ...
Louise Mensch is set to hit New Zealand airwaves this evening. Who is this conspiracy theorist and what could she possibly be saying to Lisa Owen?Who is Louise Mensch?She’s a former Tory MP, founder of the Rupert Murdoch-funded “no safe spaces” website Heat Street, a romance novelist, and a conspiracy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis McNevin, Professor of Forensic Genetics, University of Technology Sydney Designer baby, anyone? A New Jersey startup company, Genomic Prediction, might be able to help you. Genomic Prediction claims to be able to use DNA testing to predict disease risk in an ...
Marion McLeod revels in the return of Olive Kitteridge, the compassionate curmudgeon who won Elizabeth Strout a Pulitzer Prize. It’s the year of the sequel: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, Toy Story 4, Rambo 5 … Do movies ever make it to double figures? Books and miniseries certainly do. Genre ...
National is questioning those in charge of the Provincial Growth Fund after it was revealed a NZ First-linked forestry company made an application to the fund, headed by NZ First MP Shane Jones. ...
James Borrowdale spent the last cricket season examining Neil Wagner and his unique approach to bowling. Today, in the first test of the Black Caps’ summer, Wagner returns.Neil Wagner has a wicket. He freezes mid-pitch, fists clenched at his side, knees slightly bent, a roar on his lips. His brows ...
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The Department of Conservation (DOC) is hoping floating platforms will help to keep the chicks of a central Christchurch colony of critically endangered tarāpuka/black-billed gulls from drowning this breeding season. ...
The Foundation Against Islamophobia and Racism (FAIR) is a newly formed NZ-based independent Muslim human rights advocacy organisation. One of the key projects of FAIR is to provide a Report Islamophobia ( http://report.islamophobia. ) portal where ...
The Royal Commission held its fourth hui with the Muslim Community Reference Group in Christchurch this month as part of an ongoing discussion with Muslim communities. ...
The Spinoff presents the premiere of buzzed-about Auckland post-punk band Daffodils’ new music video ‘Boys’.Theo Spike Salmon says:I wrote ‘Boys’ two years ago, around the end of high school. We’ve revised stuff, and played around with slightly different structuring, but it’s honestly not changed much at all. When I wrote ...
A Waikato stud owner Garry Chittick reveals as a New Zealand First donor says he doesn't care how the money got to the party, as long as it was used to benefit it. ...
In the wake of Wellington City Councillors voting for a 28 per cent increase in their base salaries , the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning Iona Pannett’s decision to take a second salary. Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams ...
For nearly six years, Laura Giddey has been a permanent house sitter in Auckland. Here, she explains why she does it and how it’s changed her life for the better. It all began in December 2013. I had a friend whose husband was in the navy and was going away for ...
A Waikato stud owner revealed as a New Zealand First donor says he doesn't care how the money got there, as long as it was used to benefit the party. ...
The Point of Order Trough Monitor, programmed to alert us to ministerial handouts, nevertheless sounded the alarm when the latest Provincial Growth Fund spending was announced by a politician further down in the pecking order. Accordingly we have learned that the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) has allocated $3.5 million to develop ...
Fonterra’s farmer shareholders might have been stung by pangs of envy as they looked into the next paddock, and discovered how another company in the same industry is racking up huge revenue gains from the same markets in which their co-op is competing. But A2 Milk, a company founded in ...
In the 1970s, agriculture made the largest single contribution to New Zealand’s economy, but other industries, especially services, have become more dominant in recent years, Stats NZ said today. ...
Government finance statistics (general government) gives an economic representation of New Zealand's central and local government financial activity. ...
The government should look at an unemployment insurance scheme and add new benefits to help support people who lose their jobs, the Productivity Commission suggests. ...
Today Hāpai Te Hauora’s Māori Public Health Team launches "Tobacco is Not Our whakapapa" a series of video clips which seeks to re-center whakapapa in the narrative of tobacco harm minimisation. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.NZ First Matt Shand (Stuff): Who are the donors behind the NZ First Foundation? Matt ...
A leaked email from prominent share broking firm Forsyth Barr perpetuates a tediously old-fashioned idea of the way people think – and it isn’t even salvaged by wit or originality, writes business editor Maria Slade.Investment manager Forsyth Barr’s daily market commentary came with a seasonal extra on November 1. Atop ...
Newly released documents reveal Cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...
More than 640 letters in parcels filled with nonrecyclable single-use plastics have been mailed to MPs in Parliament via freepost since the plastic2parliament initiative started in mid-October. Another 125 plastic-stuffed letters were directed to National ...
Agrochemical company Ravensdown is risking potentially disruptive direct action by refusing to allow port workers to register their protest at the importing of Blood Phosphate from the Western Sahara, says the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU). ...
A few days ago, Fanimals announced it would not be returning for another season. Emily Writes, and her kids, are heartbroken.On my list of things I might write about one day it simply said ‘Fanimals’ sandwiched between ‘How old is BeckBroJack?’ and ‘Is Peter Krause the most dad-like dad on television?’I ...
Family First says that the trend to extend daycare times, and its role to be virtually de facto parents, is concerning, ignores the real needs of children, and reinforces the need for more support to be given to parents with young children. “Babies are ...
Donors to NZ First’s slush fund believed they were making political donations to the party itself in accordance with the law – especially as an NZ First MP organised some of the donations. ...
When the current coalition government was formed, there was some comment that this was perhaps New Zealand First's last chance at political redemption. The party's two previous stints in government had failed to last three years. The 1996-98 coalition ...
Newly released documents reveal the cabinet considered whether immigrants should be forced to take their elderly parents with them if they leave the country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gavin Rowell, Associate Professor in High Energy Astrophyics, University of Adelaide The brightest fireworks in the universe are called gamma-ray bursts and are created by the death throes of certain kinds of stars. These intense blasts release as much energy in one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McPhee, Emeritus professor, University of Melbourne We live in a world of violent challenges to the status quo, from Chile and Iraq to Hong Kong, Catalonia and the Extinction Rebellion. These protests are usually presented in the media simply as expressions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Sadler, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne A career in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), or the armed forces in any country, can be rewarding, but also demanding. Challenges include the rigorous training, frequent moves, and maintaining social connections. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aniko Blanka Toth, Postdoctoral Fellow, Macquarie University As the world grapples with an extinction crisis, our large mammals are among the most endangered. These threatened species – rhinos, pandas, tigers, polar bears and the like – greatly influence their ecosystems. So what ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Nickl, Lecturer in International Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, University of Sydney In September, the Fair Work commission rejected an unfair dismissal claim by a BP worker who made a Downfall video meme about his boss. Fair Work called it “inappropriate ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Dozens of electorates will have boundary changes, Zespri launches legal action over special kiwifruit, and more tumbles out of NZ First Foundation.Dozens of electorates will see their boundaries change, and a whole new electorate will be created in Auckland, if ...
On a farm near Rotorua, breeding rams are having their methane-laced burps measured - so the next generation of lambs can be bred from climate-friendlier fathers. ...
Back from a freak injury, White Ferns quick bowler Lea Tahuhu continues to make the most of her "gift" as the world's fastest woman with a cricket ball ...
NZ phone companies and the government are setting up a system that will identify scam callers within hours and, they hope, stop them in their tracks, the Spinoff can reveal.We’ve all received them. The calls from strange corners of the world at odd times of the day. After I made ...
The process to appoint Steve Hansen looks increasingly like a farce as quality candidate after quality candidate rule themselves out. Was it all preordained, asks Jamie Wall.For an awful lot of 2019, I was one of the select few that sat in a room with Steve Hansen several times a ...
News that one big publisher wants to buy the other, giving the state a Kiwishare to avoid regulatory objections, complicates a media crisis the government hasn't yet addressed. ...
Open mike 12/05/2015 
Open mike is your post.
Apparently, some people enjoy washing their cars. Each to his or her own, I suppose. I mean, some people like duck shooting, some people follow Coronation Street, and some people’s idea of a good day out is to sit on a grass bank at Seddon Park and watch cricket all ...7 hours ago
Last week we learned that New Zealand First had apparently tried to enrich itself from public office, with a dodgy forestry company linked to a number of NZ First figures sticking its hand out repeatedly for government money. Today in Question Time Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had his ...8 hours ago
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On both sides of the Atlantic, some purportedly “contentious” and “difficult to deal with” leadership contenders to lead the US and UK, as President and Prime Minister respectively, seem to have thrown a few spanners into the works of the normal messaging most are used to hearing constantly. Except they’re ...1 day ago
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http://wolfstreet.com/2015/05/11/how-long-to-save-for-down-payment-on-home-mortgage-in-these-top-10-most-impossible-cities-for-first-time-buyers/
(takeaway from that one:..)
“..People who pay a large part of their household income for rent or a mortgage, or who save assiduously for a huge down payment, don’t have much cash left to contribute to the overall economy.
Most of their income simply gets confiscated by inflated home prices, or the resulting high rents and associated expenses.
It’s channeled to landlords, PE firms, and REITs that own the homes; banks and investment funds that own the mortgages or the mortgage-backed securities; and a million other entities.
Most of it becomes part of the grease that keeps Wall Street from squealing.
But nothing happens with that money to move the real economy forward..”
(embrace the teaser-paragraph there – a.w.w…)
😀
This housing thing has got me thinking….are the costs lower to the government to support a social housing provider, or to pay accommodation supplement?
The answer will depend on whether or not social housing providers can charge market rent or at least enough for their tenants to qualify for AS. Could be a story here…
This housing frenzy to divest by government. It seems to me like a Richard Prebble moment as with our rail system. I think he said he would be prepared to give it away, because of the usual hperbole – gummint can’t be efficient, no good as managers, can’t being the proper commercial controls on running, and finally it would be better if some private organisation could lick into shape.
Which usually means run cheaper and better and be profitable. Which is an oxymoron I think? Can’t be done in a public service, which by their nature are costly and to be affordable and reasonably priced, can at best just meet costs. To give their best value they need thorough examination for viability and usefulness when started, and regular review and monitoring for successful performance along the way. That’s how gummint should be running housing, and providing what is needed in an appropriate way.
A flaw in the money system
Of course the rich, who benefit from it, don’t see it as a flaw.
Which is important when our banks (mostly) export their profits so it doesnt get re-introduced…. ANZ NZ made a 500m half yearly profit to go with its Aussie heads 3bn…
taken from oyur economy and put into Aussie’s.
And Labour is worried about a measly ACC levy cut being important for jobs. Talk about focussing on the molehills.
I tried to live in an impossible city, once. It was impossible. Nothing was possible. So I moved to a possible city, which is marginally better, because while not everything works, there is the hope that something might work if approached in the right way. I pity the fool that saves for 37 years to go live in an impossible city. My dream is to build a plausible city, and if successful, move forward onto building highly likely communities.
It’s posts like this that make me smile…
Notice that the Banks are now making public statements ‘there is no Auckland property bubble’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11446922
AKA ‘we are in deep shit if it bursts’ -> PR campaign.
TPPA: This from an interview with Elizabeth Warren in which she explains how the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system (ISDS) works.
PLUM LINE: Is it theoretically possible to write ISDS in a way that precludes it from overriding regulation?
WARREN: It doesn’t directly tell countries to repeal regulations. It imposes a financial penalty, which has caused countries to change their regulations…[ISDS mechanisms] never had the authority to override regulations. What they had was the authority to impose a monetary penalty directly against the government and its taxpayers. That’s the point at which governments have backed up and said, “we can’t afford this, we’ll just change the law.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/11/elizabeth-warren-fires-back-at-obama-heres-what-theyre-really-fighting-about/
We need our journalists to drill Tim Groser and John Key about this. $6million for the Saudi businessman over the live sheep ban will be very small beer compared to the figures in the ISDS cases. It will be so costly to preserve the environment and our citizens rights.
How can our Nat politicians not see that? Come on, Labour, Greens, NZ First, start making more noise about this!
They can see that – they don’t care. In fact, I’d say that that’s the entire point. Taking governments to the cleaners will be a nice profit making scheme.
YUP
““we can’t afford this, we’ll just change the law.””
So they can claim the TPP wasn’t the problem, but the Govts BUT the threat of law suits makes the govt change the law to “save” the taxpayer money from the lawsuit…
More insidious to me is that the decision-making process of the dispute is closed and the adjudicators are former corporate lawyers…
but they see it.
it is just you pretending to believe that they don’t see it.
IF we all would admit that they see it, know it, talk about and take it into account, than we would be really really scared, as we realise that we are nothing but cattle or chattel, utterle expendable and of no value to them what so ever.
The national party that supports the TPPA and the labour party and any other polititian in nz that supports this abomination should be charged with treason.
red pill or blue pill?
+111
Come on, Labour, Greens, NZ First, start making more noise about this!
Ya Hear???
START MAKING MORE NOISE ABOUT THIS.
Or some of us will start to believe you either …
a) don’t care
b) have, as elected MPs, some ‘inside knowledge’ that precludes/prevents any serious questioning of the Government on this issue.
Signing of this nefarious ‘agreement’ is months away.
Where the bloody hell are you?
Yes drill Tim Groser and John Key till all the small beer leaks out. Makes no sense?
Neither does anything they say when studied closely. Let’s all talk politic (otherwise known as gobblegook while they treat us as turkeys to be roasted.)
And of course to balance the ISDS provisions, when regulations are changed that result in increased profits for corporates those corporates are required to pass that profit over to the government….
The rest of the rather short article also asks some interesting questions about the UK election.
Over the last few days, I’ve read many sweeping assertions about the swings and counter-swings that supposedly took place between the various parties in the UK Election. Almost always based on hunches or anecdotal evidence. But presented as cold, hard fact.
The vast body of data from pre-Election Opinion Polls remains the only reliable source in my opinion (although anecdotal evidence via discussions with an array of locals – including party activists – in specific electorates is useful as supplementary evidence). Probably most useful of all, though, will be the British Election Study data (from post-Election interviews) when it comes out.
All the polling evidence I’ve seen – both since 2010 in general and, more specifically, over the last few months – suggests Lib Dem deserters were disproportionately heading Labour’s way. How that dovetails with Labour’s woeful inability to win that vast array of Tory Marginals is another matter. Did an unusually large proportion of Lib Dem deserters have a last minute change of heart ?
Or was the Lib Dem swing to Labour nullified by an even greater swing from Labour-to-UKIP or Labour-to-the-Conservatives ?
And what role did non-voting play ?
Where did LibDem voters come from originally?
That might help analysis.
My National voting brother told me a week out he was voting Green Party. ON the day he “couldn’t bring myself to do it” and voted National.
No wonder the tories fought hard against a change to the electoral system…. Why Labour fought hard too is beyond me.
Labour very much likes two party privilege. Also, Labour Parties throughout the world see all minor left wing political parties as political enemies to be suppressed and sidelined where at all possible, lest they metastasize into left wing nightmares for them like the SNP.
Also remember that in NZ, the National Party were the ones who introduced MMP.
Did you see this about the “Apathy Party.” Looks to me that even in Labour strongholds, most people could not be bothered to vote for them.
In Scotland, it seems clear that most Lib Dems voters went straight to the SNP.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/the-one-map-that-shows-how-nonvoting-would-have-won-the-general-election-if-it-were-a-party-10238290.html
Cheers for that, CV.
Yep, it’s clear the Non-Vote won in the vast majority of Labour-held seats (Merseyside and parts of Greater London being the key exceptions).
And despite the impressive turnout in Scotland overall, I see the Apathy Party also came first in Greater Glasgow (home of the “Yes” vote) and in poor old Orkney and Shetland (possibly allowing the Lib Dems to hang on by their fingertips in the latter constituency).
John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, and Others on the Shameful History of U.S. Interference in Latin America
We can see these types of interventions of the US into other nations around the world. Iran and Iraq are the two most well known interventions but other countries have also fallen under US hegemony.
Been going on for some time. I remember doing an essay at uni in ’73 based around the CIA in cahoots with ITT, getting rid of Allende in Chile cos he nationalised the phone network.
Goes all the way back to 1823 and the Monroe Doctrine.
Successive US governments have all had the arrogance to achieve imperialism, but they’ve also lacked the style that a decent imperial power needs. There’s a reason almost all the baddies in the original Star Wars were RADA-trained 😉
Not many countries where they haven’t interfered.
http://www.yachana.org/teaching//resources/interventions.html
(given our high rates of obesity – this one is more than useful..)
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/10/what-can-parents-do-to-stop-kids-becoming-obese-children-obesity
In a wee discussion the other day on The Standard, I suggested the Greens were nowhere near as toxic to voters as some pundits (both Left and Right-leaning) seem to assume.
Here’s some data to back-up my argument:
UMR November 2013
Potential Coalition Partners
“How good a job do you think the following parties would do if they were part of a coalition government with one of the major parties”
Good = Will do Good Job
Bad = Will do Bad Job
G+N = Good+Neutral combined score
G/B Diff = Good/Bad Difference
Table One: Entire Sample
Party…….Good…..Neutral….Bad….Unsure…G+N……..G/B Diff
(In order of Highest to Lowest Good+Neutral)
Greens………26………31………..36………….7………..57………. – 10
Maori………..12………39…………41…………8………..51………. – 29
NZF…………..12……….31…………47……….10……….43………. – 35
ACT……………4………..25…………59……….12……….29………. – 55
Cons………….4………..24…………48……….24……….28………. – 44
Clearly, NZ voters are not particularly enamoured of any of the minor parties when it comes to coalition politics. But, taking a Glass Half Full approach, you can see that 57% of voters can live with the Greens as a coalition partner (64% if you include those Unsure). That makes them more popular than the Maori and NZF parties and vastly more acceptable to the voting public than ACT and the Conservatives.
The Greens are even acceptable to a significant minority of National voters:
Table Two: Views of National Party Voters Only
Maori………….8………..36………..52………….4………..44………. – 44
Greens……….9…………31………..56………….4………..40………. – 47
ACT…………….6…………31………..56………….7………..37………. – 50
Cons…………..6…………29………..45…………20……….35………. – 39
NZF…………….6…………29………..59………….6………..35………. – 53
The Greens could pick up more then a few National votes but only if they’re prepared to compromise
The Māori Party was willing to compromise their principles for a place at the table – even if it was sitting on the floor begging for crumbs. Now all but one of the Māori seats have returned to Labour, and the MP face total obliteration at the next election.
If they hadn’t compromised they wouldn’t have got Whanau Ora up and running
If they hadn’t compromised they might not have vanished up their own gunga’s.
400 ppm and rising
spot on there.
You can’t compromise with nature.
400 ppm… there’s nothing negotiable there, pr
You’ll also find it hard to achieve much outside of parliament as well so whats more important your principles or a difference?
Parliament will seem a very abstract idea on an unliveable planet with no food.
Parliament will ensure that they have plenty of food while the rest of us get half sized frozen rations from Compass.
No true, a whole lot of fastfood chains just dumped zero hour contracts, and the dumping had NOTHING to do with the current government
noT true
PR actually said “outside of Parliament”, not “outside of government”.
Labour are in Parliament and they, and the Greens, played a part in the zero-hours contract debate. Labour got Parliamentary Services to ditch them for the catering staff.
I think its fair to say that the Greens could accomplish more in power rather then being outside
They need to ask themselves whats more important, their pride or making changes
Or they could look at what happens to left/liberal parties who prop up Tory governments (cf LibDems last week). The Greens would accomplish nothing inside a NACT government. Or at least, nothing of substance; for example, can anyone tell me wtf ‘whanau ora’ is or what it has achieved?
Sure can tell you what Whanau Ora is – go here – last two paragraphs are the charm
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2015/05/power-to-right-people-how-neoliberalism.html
As for achievements – I know of quite a few really good outcomes for families and individuals both in Auckland and around the country. I think it is a wonderful approach to accessing services. Holism seems to be a good approach, and contrary to many misguided comments here – I’ve only ever dealt with true professionals within the Whanau Ora framework.
examples?
That’s a heartening bit of number crunching there Swordfish. However, I do note that the data comes from November 2013. Now that Mana no longer have a parliamentary presence, the Overton window has moved rightwards and GP can once more be attacked as the Devil-Beast of leftward extremism.
One depressing tidbit from the weekend; I was talking to a GP member who had been at the; male coleader candidate speeches in Dunedin. They seemed to be leaning towards supporting Shaw at the delegate meeting next week, mainly due to him looking good in a suit. They were particularly scathing about Hughes rocking up to speak in more casual dress, especially his wearing scuffed shoes. However, while they were clear about what Hughes and Hague stood for (though unimpressed by Hague’s body language), they were unable to say much about Shaw’s or Tava’s accomplishments or principles.
It says something when even the Green Party is embracing style over substance.
Shaw represents the professional middle class aspiration that the Green Party is turning towards.
How come Gwynn Compton (the new Dirty Politics guy in John Key’s office) went to such effort yesterday to bleach his online profiles of any mention of the fact that he works in the PM’s Office?
Isn’t that shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?
I think it’s a case of the bolting pony’s tail being caught in the door ??
If he was wrong, and he doesn’t work for the PM’s office, I think we would have heard something from Johnny Four Hats
It is reasonable to assume therefore, that he does work for the PM’s office, and the public needed that fact “sanitised”.
Do we REALLY have to do an OIA to find our if this clown does work for Johnny Four Hats??
It’s been confirmed in one of the articles that he does work in the PMs office but as National Party staff.
A new word is being used around the world: “Quaxing.” It means: “to shop, in the western world, by means of walking, cycling or public transit.”
Dick Quax wrote “no one in the entire Western world uses the train for their shopping trips…the very idea that people lug home their supermarket shopping on the train is fanciful”.
And now around the world people are sending examples of Quaxing. Dopey Dick eh?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11447071
Well, it’s normal exasperated politician hyperbole. If we give him the benefit of the doubt (and why would we, really. He’s paid to be articulate, and he worked for ACT), what he might mean is, “Not many people carry eight bags of a weekly grocery shop onto the train or bus by themselves, regularly, because it’s too heavy, the silly plastic bag handles cut into your hands or break and there’s nowhere safe to put it so the bags don’t split or get trampled, or so you can move fast enough to get off the train before the doors close for the next station.”
And he’d be right. What people do is make multiple trips with smaller loads over several days. If you don’t own a car, you do what you have to do. This method requires specific knowledge to identify, but not the same kind you need to run for parliament with ACT Party.
He might also mean, “In the entire Western World, it is becoming less likely that a person could afford to buy eight bags of shopping in a weekly supermarket shop, therefore relying on local suppliers, which require no special transport or equipment to carry the food, and in living in cheaper accomodation far from what is now solely commuter transport, never see or use a train during the span of their lives.” However this would require thoughts and abilities that ACT supporters don’t have.
I prefer the interpretation that, “In the entire Western World, there weren’t any supermarkets, and trains ran off into the desert, often following telegraph lines and were ultimately attacked by bandits. This discouraged the problems of suburban living. There were no taxes and everyone considered the natives a nuisance. I dream of a NZ like this. Please vote ACT.”
Yes, people shop several times a week instead of once on Saturday as Dickey does… or his wife.
and the grocery shops are closer to home i.e. walking distance.
Using re-usable shopping bags largely resolves the ‘cutting into your hands’ problem, and each bag can individually hold more weight so you won’t need as many of them, so it’s less cumbersome. Doesn’t help with the total weight of course.
a back-pack is even more useful…
And bike panniers can carry tens (if not hundreds) of kilos
You might be looked on suspiciously if you go into a supermarket wearing a backpack.
@ ianmac
LOL
Have we contact details for Dick Quax so I can enlighten him on how I, a 64 year old non-driver transport my groceries when I don’t have an obliging niece or foster son to drive me?
I can also describe how I managed in earthquake riven Christchurch should he need more examples.
Sometime soon I hope to find a calm place within myself that helps me to feel empathy for the over-privileged pontificators who seem to be inhabiting Planet Key. Alternatively, perhaps I could find a way to live and experience life as the out of work, unwell and elderly ‘enjoy’ it as a consequence of NACTdom.
Jack of all trades and master of none.
How’s this for a leadership comment on the current issue of road safety.
Prime minister John Key, “We have to balance what the police advise with wider public opinion on road speeds.”
Which expert is advising him?
David Farrar.
but it is funnier when having said that he vehemently denies that he is at all swayed by wider public opinion, possibly against lower limits, and backlash as a result.
must be awful not to know what you think until a prettypollyparrot like Farrar lets you in on the secret echoes.
You can take the piss out of Key’s approach all you want, but it is far more effective and popular than say, Labour talking about getting trucks out of fast lanes so that holiday makers have it easier.
C.R.
Labour might have been better advised to have suggested getting most trucks off most lanes period and putting freight on trains to strategic rail-heads for distribution by smaller vehicles.
Explain the logic of this one – last week travelling north from Tauranga to Paeroa I was following a fully laden logging truck-and-trailer carrying large Radiata logs. As we passed through the narrow Karangahake gorge, we encountered a fully laden logging truck-and-trailer carrying large Radiata logs heading south.
Locals advise that this a regular occurrence. Perhaps you could remind us why the Kaimai tunnel was created?
My comment was not about roads. It was about Pry Minister Key being glib and expert on absolutely nothing until poll-guided, and then he fails. You missed it CR.
And mine was?
Is everyone having a reading comprehension difficulty day? I mentioned roads primarily in the context of Key’s “glib and expert on absolutely nothing until poll guided” approach, which I commented on as being quite an effective tactic despite peoples inclinations to ridicule it; and certainly more effective than some of Labour’s attempts.
I have opposed the TPPA for always, but reading this today, a couple of extra jigsaw pieces fell into place about why Goldman Sachs Merrill Lynch BOA sock puppet John Key wants this signed at any cost.
The brilliant Elizabeth Warren points out TPPA fastrack could be used in the USA to weaken, prevent or overcome any Wall St or banking reforms. WOW.
This is the nub of it that I had not understood until now. Worth a look.
“WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren hit back at President Barack Obama in their tussle over “fast track” authorization to negotiate a Pacific Rim trade treaty, a power she says could be used in the future to weaken Wall Street reforms.
Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and prominent liberal voice, stuck to her argument in an interview published on Monday with a left-leaning Washington Post blog, saying Obama should release details of the Pacific trade talks so legal experts can determine if a pact could be used to weaken U.S. bank rules.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/11/elizabeth-warren-obama-trade_n_7257802.html
I’m begging to wonder if some of the more enlightened US millionaires are bank rolling these candidates to get an alternative narrative out there. Revolutions are costly
I see that Andrew Little, according to this morning’s Dom/Post is wandering of the reservation.
Labour Party claims are that a large increase in the minimum wage won’t cause any job losses don’t they? Say go to $16.00/hour and no jobs will be lost.
Now he is quoted as saying in the paper, and I can’t find it on-line, that the Government must immediately cut the ACC worker levy by 20c per $100 of earnings because not to do so is costing jobs!
How can it be that a 10% increase in the minimum wage won’t cost any jobs but a 0.2% step in the ACC rates costs jobs?
you seem to have lost an ‘f’. wonder what you have done with it ?
You’re right.
I needed it for my first reaction to his opinion when I had to put it in front of the comment that came to mind.
My thought was “uck! He’s a total idiot.”
no need to lose an ‘f’. that’s just your normal default position 😀
No doubt there is something incredibly witty about your remarks.
For the life of me I don’t see what it is or what you are trying to say.
Still if it makes you happy ………
happy ? oh, no !
Good point Alwyn.
No, its a terrible argument. Funding ACC just funds the government, its the equivalent of taking that spending and locking it in a safe. The government can always fund ACC, even if it doesn’t receive full funding up front anyway. Meanwhile the governments marginal propensity to spend (especially ACC levies) is clearly not influenced by the higher take. Raising the minimum wage the extra business expenditure contributes back to spending, because of who receives it.
I see Michael made this same argument just below.
Minimum wage increases give more spending power to low-income people, which then gets spent in the local economy and ends up being neutral on job losses (or even gains some jobs.)
ACC levies by comparison are just going to the government to pad a surplus. That money isn’t being spent by workers or invested by businesses. So it costs jobs because it is a deadweight loss that is just money being taken out of the economy when it could be going to consumer spending or investment.
… or ACC could actually use it to provide the service it was set up to do.
Exactly. It either needs to go to ACC to provide better services, or needs to be returned to the economy. Otherwise it’s just a deadweight loss that is padding National’s budget
Wages tend to be sticky in the upwards direction but really both of these $ are in the same direction.
Increasing wages puts more money in the pockets of the low paid which as it is spent increases jobs and certainly doesn’t cut them. Cutting the ACC levy by 2% also increases money in the pocket, spend among the working and increases jobs.
Quite clear
I heard on Radionz that David Milliband is badmouthing Ed. A good headline for Brit news would be Ed is sinister says David. But in fact they both are, and not, and the word dexter doesn’t apply either. I’ve been looking up etymology. I think,now that Humpty Dumpty has fallen and cracked open. they are inventing new terms of language, so that left doesn’t mean what we thought.
Dear old Bob Jones is making his usual fool of himself again. If you can say anything about him there’s no shades of grey with him.http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11446869
The interesting thing that Bob Jones didn’t mention is the fact that neo-liberalism has been shown by the present world economic situation to be as least as bad a failure as Marxist-Leninism under the USSR.
Once this fact is accepted – and it needs to be repeated over and over again until even people who only read/watch MSM get it – then Bob Jones comments become more about how you can become more selfish as you grow old, than why John Campbell is dangerous
If you are a Whangarei resident you will have heard about the Hundertwasser project. It will be a huge tourist attraction in your city that will attract money-spending people from all over NZ and indeed the world and increased employment. In two days the Referendum about the Hundertwasser-Wairau Maori Art Centre is being sent out.
Information below. See here http://yeswhangarei.co.nz/
If you are not local and eligible to vote, and like the idea and have progressive contacts in the city, you could phone them and point out what a good idea it is. People who are too small thinking and provincial often find it difficult to consider the benefits that will result and get stuck on whatever the cost is.
Donate: https://givealittle.co.nz/org/hacnorth
(We’ve raised $4million! We only need $1m more to build the fantastic Whangarei Hundertwasser Art Centre, the last Hundertwasser-designed bu Givealittle is …)
Info on Referendum
Not sure how to vote?
0800 922 822
Election Services
Voting Period
Thursday 14 May until 12 noon Friday 5 June
Result
9th June 2015
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Hundertwasser HQ
has posters, caps, t-shirts, bumper stickers at their pop-up shop in Whangarei’s CBD.
Everything purchased raises funds for Prosper Northland Trust to spread more information about the project.
Bazinga !
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11446869
u shd warn people u r linking to that toxic old toad…and his libertarian/neoliberal rants..
Bob Jones in his last line … “But as ever, these deadbeats make lots of noise in lieu of substance,”
ha ha ha – talk about self-description
Interesting seeing the lurkers from Whaleoil piling in on this question of Cactus Kate’s Cheshire cat act.
It is worrying – how much effort is going in to cover up something, which is supposed to be nothing.
Even jumping on here to defended her position and the Tory maggots who have jumped in as well. Is at best odd. At worst…
I believe Cactus Kate is a post-fascist. Which is essentially calling someone Ideologically dishonest and a unprincipled opportunist. But hey, you play in the dirt – you get dirty.
Now this is fascinating – A New super PAC – which is taking a different approach.
Well worth the read.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/05/05/17304/new-super-pac-takes-moon-shot
Seymour Hersh: official account of Bin Laden’s killing a complete lie
Osama had been captured by the Pakistanis and held since 2006. Seems like the US then sent in a SEAL team to execute the sick old, crippled, man after all. There was no firefight, Osama had no guards (the Pakistani security services had been ordered to leave the compound the moment they heard the US helis closing in), he did not pick up an AK47. He was just shredded on the spot by the SEALs. Stories about Osama’s burial at sea were a fiction improvised by the White House after Barack Obama decided to use the killing to boost his own electability. Also the story that Osama had been tracked down via an elaborate spy game following Al Qaeda couriers who were carrying orders from Osama was utterly false. Bin Laden appears to have been isolated and out of control of Al Qaeda; the compound where he was found was not an operations centre; it was a home detention centre.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-10/seymour-hersh-obamas-entire-account-bin-ladens-death-one-big-lie-what-really-happene
Just got an email from Julie Anne Genter and it had this bit of info in it:
There you go, friggen cheap really and the savings, both monetary and environmental, over time from not having to burn diesel would be immense. And it’d be an excellent incentive to get more solar power feeding into the grid out to homes as well.
add 10% to that bill and you could do most of the engineering work in NZ
Now there’s a plank for any progressive left-wing electoral campaign.
Think how many contractors would be kept in business and how many New Zealanders would be employed creating the lines and locomotives…
It is also a plank for a green electoral campaign. Think how much road and rail diesel fuel would be saved…
Looks like Cactus Kate isn’t the only one – Ben Rachinger’s blog and twitter account just got deleted.
Twitter account is still there, meduim.com account has been deleted.
Tweets by B3nRaching3r
Nuked.
That’s not his @ or his current name on twitter, try using his real life name.
I just saw this flag petition on Change.org and signed it, Here is the link if you would like to support the petition against changing the flag at this time:
https://www.change.org/p/john-key-don-t-change-the-new-zealand-flag?tk=8mqxhZQ_DDQMRO7X9Xa3ndRxeRegQlIwFrfuyY8Z2-Y&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email
Leading Kiwi thinkers guffaw at “conspiracy theorist” Seymour Hersh
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 12 May 2015
Jim Mora, David Pagani, Josie Pagani, Noelle McCarthy
This afternoon, Seymour Hersh joined a long list of journalists and intellectuals—including Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden—to be scorned by the intellectual luminaries on the Panel. I’ll try to put up a transcript of this depressing episode, but I did manage to send the constantly laughing host the following email….
Quelle surprise! Your Panelists are having a go at Seymour Hersh.
Dear Jim,
Seymour Hersh is one of the world’s most respected journalists. His reporting is renowned for being thorough, rigorous and scholarly.
I was not amused at all to hear your panelists scoffing, dismissing him as a conspiracy theorist, and guffawing that “This is all turning into a Game of Thrones.”
I am concerned at the lack of standards on your show,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
The panelists are not the only one’s referring to the story as a conspiracy Morrissey. This one does put up a strong argument for that being the case….
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bin-laden
They’re all conspiracy theories, sheepie. Unless you’ve got some kooky lone-assassin theory of your own…
Thanks very much for that, sheep. Maybe Max Fisher is correct, and Hersh is indeed wrong on this one.
I am just concerned when I hear know-nothings like the four people this afternoon calling Hersh a “conspiracy theorist”, as if he is some 9/11 Truther. I’m quite prepared to read the views of serious writers like Fisher; Noelle McCarthy, Josie Pagani and David Farrar on the other hand have a track record of trivialising serious issues.
I was not necessarily endorsing Sy Hersh, I was contesting the competence and the seriousness of those four chattering, vapid numbskulls.
Morrissey / Felix.
I come from a small town where a favourite saying is..
“Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see”.
And then I always apply Trotsky’s immortal dictum that ‘You can deduce the truth by a comparison of the lies’.
But by any standard, I think Hersh, like Pilger, may have lost a bit of perspective with age…
With Bin Laden though, does it really matter how he died? If I can deduce anything from the lies, it would be a sense that he was fully aware and accepted the ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ ethos.
But that might just be a fiction…
Hersh’s piece, for the most part, was not editorialising. Did the US learn about Osama’s location through spying on Al Qaeda’s courier network or did that information walk in the door seeking the CIA reward? Did the US SEAL team kill a crippled, unarmed, elderly man for the sake of imperial vengeance, or was there really a firefight with Osama trying to kill the SEAL team members with an AK47.
Like 9/11, the official narrative on Osama’s death, and even his burial at sea, stinks to high heaven. Hersh goes some way to explaining why.
The expression ‘conspiracy theorist’ is used by the establishment to shut down dissent.
Sad to see you’ve fallen for their lines over 9/11, Morrissey.
It was lie that allowed the US to take over Central Asia and suppress civil rights in their homeland.
The US were already planning to implement mass surveillance over their own citizens pre 9/11. Their pre-9/11 approach to Quest for unhindered access to their telecoms network shows that. 9/11 gave the developing security and surveillance state the best PR in the world for going ahead with what they were going to do any way.
Saying “this must be true because it’s Seymour Hersh” is just an appeal to authority.
Fair comment—but I wasn’t saying that. I was criticizing Noelle McCarthy, Jim Mora and those two cackling, sneering guests.
What amused me was Josie Pagani talking about how she had a friend who was a fellow student of Prince Edward’s (youngest son of Queen) and how she went to have tea with the prince several times but romance apparently never blossomed because Josie decided he wasn’t her type. Incredible!
What really appalled me about her behaviour this afternoon was the way she repeatedly tried to ingratiate herself with Farrar. Their “banter” was cringe-inducing.
Didn’t Farrar refer to Josie at one stage as the charming Josie which prompted her to effusively giggle or was it Mora?
Is Farrar still invited after his involvement in Dirty Politics?
Unbelievable.
Seems like he’s been on more frequently since DP.
Home ownership now for privileged few – ACT
I suppose ACT has to act surprised despite being told that this is the inevitable result of their policies over the last few decades.
The funny thing about this is that Seymour doesn’t think that lawyers, doctors, engineers and others that went to Auckland Grammar aren’t among the privileged.
If these ‘friends’ of his had all bought houses without parental help, then I’m sure this idea that only the privileged can buy houses wouldn’t have even occurred to him…
Breaking News: 7.1 earthquake in Nepal at a depth of 10km.
Oh no, those poor people 🙁
I am amazed the Labour are suggesting penalising working class people by making Working for Families subject to enrolment to vote. I would have expected such a policy from National and not the Party who claims to support workers.
Will this proposed policy also relate to those on benefits and National Super?
Is this a sign that Labour is starting to panic about their poor showing last election?
Labour lost its compass a long time ago.
won’t do Labour much good if they do….people will just vote Green, NZF or Mana/Int…Labour Party will never get these voters back ….so they are stuck on about 30% imo
….Labour Party has taken no opposition leadership stand on opposing the the TPPA or the mass surveillance Spy Bill
….for many who have abandoned Labour …..they are just a watered down Nact Party