The Government said it wants officials to evaluate the impact and effect of tax on tobacco consumption.
Marewa Glover of Massey University has been researching tobacco use for over 25 years and says price increases just hurt the most vulnerable who end up going without the basics.
“Now that we have a Labour-led Government, I hope that they will halt the taxes.” Dr Glover said.
I know a couple of people who gave up because they just couldn’t afford it anymore. Prior to that they were smoking less and less due to the cost. So I think high prices, work for most people. I’d like to see minimum prices put on alcohol so they can’t sell cheap high alcohol drinks in particular to be consumed by teenagers.
If most are giving up we wouldn’t have Quitline warning the goal of a smokefree New Zealand by 2015 is now unrealistic.
Apparently, higher prices have been successful in deterring the young from starting. However, with a growing black market as a result of higher prices, the ease of which to obtain cheaper tobacco is becoming more widespread.
And there are no age limits on those buying smokes in the black market.
Taxing by way of altering behaviour doesn’t work. I think I linked to the stats on tobacco use for a post I did way back “The Chrematistic Camel”.
The rate of decline is essentially the same following the imposition of the punitive tax regime as it was before.
Yes, young people are less inclined to start smoking, although I get the impression it’s become a bit trendy among some of the pub set – almost a status thing.
If the daft fuckers (that’s government) would legalise the sale of nicotine (it’s subject to some medical restriction or something atm) and promote vapourising, then yes, there could be a marked decrease in the numbers of smokers (I don’t know of any ex-smokers who’ve taken to vaping who have then gone back to tobacco).
There’s lots of public money being hoovered up by pharmaceutical companies peddling bullshit, heavily subsidised gum, patches and lozenges, though I’m sure they have the health of people at heart and would back a move that would better serve peoples health at the expense of a few $ profit for them/ sarc
Actually, it does. But it is susceptible to declining returns and it’s probably at the point where adding more won’t help but decreasing the taxes will make things worse.
How’s about you do the simple site search for the post I mentioned and look at the charts and figures over time for NZ? The idea was to use tax as the main tool to achieve zero smoking by 2025. It’s a dismal failure of a strategy.
Increasing taxes on tobacco works – to a point. It won’t eliminate smoking completely which is why the government also has education programs and subsidises ways to quit smoking.
Thing is, we also know that a complete ban won’t work. Just need to look at the use of marijuana and other attempted prohibitions to see that.
But it is susceptible to declining returns and it’s probably at the point where adding more won’t help but decreasing the taxes will make things worse.
It was at that point years ago. Now it’s at the point where it’s created a black market and violent crime is supplying that market. Decreasing the taxes would make thing better, not worse.
Citations aren’t needed for obvious cause and effect. If I leave food to rot all over my house I don’t need an academic study to tell me why my house has a rats/mice/ants problem. It’s been obvious for years that tax increases were risking the development of a black market in cigarettes, and in the last couple of years we’ve seen the development of that black market and dairy owners being bashed by gangs of armed robbers after cigarettes. Feel free to pretend it’s not happening if you like, but it’s happening nonetheless.
“Now that we have a Labour-led Government, I hope that they will halt the taxes.” Dr Glover said.
I’d say that’s a forlorn hope. This is one area in which the left is rubbish – tobacco taxes have been raised to the point that’s made a black market worthwhile and people are robbing dairies to supply it, but few on the left will admit it. The new government needs to lower tobacco taxes, not just halt the increases, but fat chance of that happening while it’s considered to be a matter of corporate lobbyists vs public health professionals.
Some want lower tobacco taxes, some want higher taxes, some want to ban tobacco sales.
Concerns about tobacco-related crime and hardship should be discussed in the context of the ~5000 premature smoking related deaths that still occur in New Zealand every year, both as a consequence of active smoking and through exposure to second hand smoke.
The July 2012 position statements by the RNZCGP support
“increasing the excise tax on tobacco as one of the measures to reduce the prevalence of smoking in New Zealand, and believes further increases must be made. The College also believes most of the extra income from tobacco tax must be dedicated to cessation programmes especially targeting low-income earners, Māori and Pacific smokers, at-risk youth and patients with chronic illnesses.
The RNZCGP supports programmes and initiatives that involve general practices and their patients in smoking cessation. General practices are encouraged to increase their use of the ABC approach and aim to ask every smoker about quitting at every visit. Practices should also be supported to use audits to know where improvements need to be made.”
“Tobacco killed 6.4 million people in 2015. It’s the second biggest contributor to early death and disability, showed data from 195 countries.” “That tobacco kills half its users is well established.”
“Concerns about tobacco-related crime and hardship should be discussed in the context of the ~5000 premature smoking related deaths that still occur in New Zealand every year, both as a consequence of active smoking and through exposure to second hand smoke.”
I would add to that the effectiveness of the tax increases.
If tax increases are ineffective, or merely drive smokers to other sources, then deaths will continue on regardless.
As for further increases, going off the results of the increases we’ve already had, they are unlikely to be any more successful. With prices already astronomically high, we are largely dealing with the hardcore addicts now. And they are more likely to turn to the black market or to growing their own before they are forced to give up.
Harassing smokers visiting their GP just becomes an annoyance. And for some, reinforces their determination not to quit.
And wile supermarkets continue to sell foods that can cause harm and even death, the concern about smoking looks disingenuous and bias.
“If tax increases are ineffective, or merely drive smokers to other sources, then deaths will continue on regardless.”
Whereas it seems generally accepted that increases in tobacco taxes have contributed to lower rates of smoking.
The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health identified raising taxes on tobacco as the most important intervention against non-communicable diseases like cancers, heart disease and lung diseases.
Higher taxes push up the price of tobacco products, which forces users to cut down and prevents people who are experimenting with smoking from becoming regular smokers. Smoking rates can be reduced by a third by doubling the inflation-adjusted price of cigarettes, which in many low- and middle-income countries can be achieved by tripling excise tax on tobacco, conclude economists in The New England Journal of Medicine. While it took the US and UK more than 30 years to halve cigarette consumption per adult, France and South Africa used tax increases to do it in less than 15 years.
Raising taxes may lead to smuggling, which has to be stopped with improved policing and international cooperation.
I agree with your “hardcore addicts” comment; it is a lethal product with highly addictive properties and considerable public health costs. If high tobacco taxes are contributing to fewer youngsters getting hooked, then IMO that outweighs any additional tobacco-related crime due to taxes.
BTW, I’d be interested to see any peer-reviewed research in NZ or Australia that quantifies the association between (increasing) tobacco taxes and criminal activity. Any link could them be ‘weighed’ against the lives saved by decreased rates of smoking.
We’ve seen similar reductions happen here, but we’ve also seen a growth in the black market, people vaping and growing their own.
Therefore, tax increases are ineffective at putting a total end to it.
As I said above, we are largely dealing with the hardcore addicts now. For which harm and even death is no deterrence.
When it comes to new smokers, they’ve yet to have been addicted, so pricing does have far more of an impact.
However, apparently, higher prices have been successful in deterring the young from starting. So much so it is trending downwards. Therefore, we’ve gone beyond the tipping point in that regards.
i guess i must be one of the “hardcore ones ” then having smoked for about 40 years ! but i doubt higher an higher tax will make me stop i might cut down a bit more and that will probably make me enjoy it even more. Everybody uses some form of drug and they all have downsides in fact a very reputable doctor friend of mine said recently that living longer just exposes a person to more lifethreatning diseases ! . making tobacco more and more expensive seems to me to be very poorly thought out for all the reasons already mentioned by others here and a particularly unsavory fact which might have been missed by the anti smoking brigade is that a point of meth is now half the price of a 50 gram packet of tobacco . Far as i know giving up meth is infinately harder to give up than tobacco and is smoked in complete secrecy so you are never gonna know whos indulging unless you are one of them
Concerns about tobacco-related crime and hardship should be discussed in the context of the ~5000 premature smoking related deaths that still occur in New Zealand every year, both as a consequence of active smoking and through exposure to second hand smoke.
That’s the argument used against all recreational drugs by conservatives. It’s as crap when used in relation to tobacco as it is in relation to other recreational drugs.
Maybe employers, out of the goodness of their hearts, lungs and other organs, could subsidise smokes for their blue-collar workers. Yeah, nah…
“Evidence suggests that smokers take three times as much sick leave as non-smokers and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke or second-hand smoke can also cause harm.”
Yeah, I get it: smoking is bad, simply. Instead of killing yourself go and practice mindfulness & yoga and have the occasional coffee enema; if it is good for Gwyneth then it is good for you 😉
All for tolerance, respect, choice and common sense. Nevertheless, your “Instead of killing yourself…” advice has much to recommend it – just not for everyone, I guess.
Ah yes, the good old ‘common sense’ heuristic that cuts through Gordian Knots like a scalpel through a turd and never fails to look at context, nuance, and (unintended) consequences.
The argument has been made that the tobacco industry engaged in social engineering to peddle their deadly products. Similarly, anti-smoking campaigns and aggressive Government taxes can be seen as reversed-social engineering. Smokers are becoming pariahs of our society, by design, and we don’t only condone this, we’re actively cheering on the process. Because, you know, smoking kills.
BTW, this comment is not really directed at you but more a general venting 😉
Employers only have the best interest of their workforce at heart because a happy worker is a productive worker. When was the last time I heard a happy cleaner scrubbing the toilets late at night doing her second shift of the day? Hmmm, when was the last time I was that late at work?
I think Kingsley Amis had the right idea.
“No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of 2 more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.”
Why should you only give up smoking because it may cause cancer?
Let’s ban motor cycles. And bicycles for that matter.
Reduce the legal speed limit of cars to 10 kph.
Put head high barriers along all road verges so people can’t wander into the road or a vehicle onto the footpath.
Get rid of booze.
Fence off all rivers and the beaches.
Hey, that’ll prevent a few premature deaths, whatever that means.
So long as your second-hand smoke, second-hand motorbike driving, second-hand speeding, second-hand drowning, and any other second hand stupid actions of any kind don’t affect me, you just go for your life …
… with your cigarette in one hand, your drink in the other, driving your motorbike through your unfenced river, at 130 k’s, and I’ll just follow up behind you with a mop and a shovel for your mortal remains.
My life?
What are you talking about? You are the one who wants to ban everything that just might risk the participant getting injured.
And no, you don’t have to follow me around. You only make me nervous.
Other people’s bacteria and viruses can also harm you – maybe you should agitate for a law to force people around you to wear surgical scrubs at all times?
It used to be accepted that sick people stayed home so as to minimise the risk of spreading disease. This no longer seems to be the case as employers demand ever more from their employees up to and including demanding that they come to work when sick. And children go to school sick because the parents can’t afford to take time off work to care for them.
But then, getting sick isn’t actually a choice like smoking or speeding or driving drunk is it?
When were these halcyon days when sick people were expected to stay home? And, spreading bacteria certainly can be a choice – the number of people you see leaving a public toilet without washing their hands or putting a perfunctory splash of water on them is testament to that.
Interesting picture accompanying a Herald story about a broken basketball hoop causing quite severe injuries to someone attempting a slam dunk.
When you look at the base of the hoop, there seems to be no broken concrete and the base plate seems to be only screwed to the pole not embedded in the concrete. In fact the only connection seems to be a two or three inch sleeve of pipe that may have been inserted inside the pole.
Not sure I agree with your description, Molly. Looks to me like there is a pipe embedded in the concrete with a welded flange. The flange on the end of the pole is bolted to the flange on the embedded pipe.
It appears to me the embedded pipe wall failed at the edge of the weld, and the failure propagated around the pipe by tearing around the pipe until the remaining eighth or so of the pipe wall just bent rather than tearing. You can see that there is still some of the pipe that is still untorn, which kept the base of the pole connected to the embedded pipe flange.
So my first thoughts on looking at that photo are whether the embedded pipe was simply too thin walled for the purpose, and/or whether there was some fault in the flange welding.
That was my first thought, too. But I went away from it because I couldn’t come up with a plausible mechanism for how a failure initiating at that kind of weld would transition into tearing the pipe wall. Plus, I would also expect some kind of witness markings on the visible end of the pipe inside the flange where the galv wouldn’t have covered it.
In any case, an actual in-person inspection would resolve that question pretty quickly.
Frangible joint is the technical term 🙂
I agree though that there would be huge loads on this even before the “slam dunk”
A practical lesson in structural engineering I guess, much as the one you would get when opening a (any) door with a high degree of force/velocity at the furthest distance from the hinge point.
The fcking ‘male’ pipe that the main structure slips over should have been much longer. That couple of inches of pipe coming up off the base might as well not have been there at all – it adds nothing to the structural integrity of the affair.
Agree with you there too. Relying on the weld, if that was what it was, seems to be unreasonable, given the size, weight of the hoop and the purpose and use of it.
Welded assemblies are fine, when they’re done right. If I was asked to design that structure, I wouldn’t hesitate to use welds.
However, I would look fairly carefully for some data on what kind of loads might get put into it. If I had to guess, I’d start with Shaq’s weight of 150 kg, times 3 for the fact he’s coming down from a jump when he grabs the hoop and gives himself a boost back up, plus 100ish for the backboard, hoop, mounts etc. Then safety factors on top of that.
If that base was simply repurposed from a light, like joe90 suggests, without analysis of how the load might be a lot higher than the loads on a streetlight, then it’s not surprising it failed.
No problem with Fraudband (very good ;-)), but my early morning blogscope has been spoiled somewhat by TDB giving me 404 notices…has Bomber been blown away???
“Banks are not universally loved. But when they try to remove a key protection for those using internet banking, and do it under the cover of a strangely closed “consultation”, they deserve to become even more unpopular.”
In case anyone still thinks carbon capture technology will save us think again. The greatest carbon capture technique known i.e methane hydrate frozen into the Arctic is breaking down at a rate that is impossible to ever catch up to except possibly by ceasing burning fossil fuels right now.
All part of Plan “B”. (And all plans – A and B, up through X, Y and Z – revolve around power)
I mean, those responsible for AGW, who no-one has been holding to account anyway because…oh that’s right!…the mechanisms and institutions that would be used to ensure accountability are managed and perpetuated by the self same people and institutions who ought to be being held to account….Hmm.
Anyway.
They can’t possibly be held to account when the situation slips over to non-AGW, ’cause GWs just natural innit?
And no-one knew when AGW would slip beyond our control – and we was blindsided (Honest!) – and now we need this stamp down on you and yours, to ensure that us and ours enjoy our primacy to our pathetic. fucking. fading. end.
Temperatures in the Tasman hit record highs, with snapper being caught in Fiordland and krill being driven to cooler depths and beyond the reach of seabirds…
Yes our Jim Salinger chased away to work in Queensland and met officers with foreign accents doing the weather announcing. We need a bit more nationalism and a bit less internationalism.
Well, Karl Du Fresne just can’t get over the fact that his beloved blue team didn’t win the election. He’s calling the MMP process wonky and basically saying that the biggest party should be given preference when forming a government and that negotiations should be overseen by the governor general. (Just what would that add, I wonder?)
When’s he going to drop the whining? He’s even questioning “how long a government formed in such shonky circumstances (can) last”?
“how long a government formed in such shonky circumstances (can) last”?”
Until Winston comes out of his coma and starts demanding more baubles.
Remember Oliver in the film?
“Please Sir, I want some more”
I Winston’s case it will be. “Listen sunshine, move out of my way”.
Men like Chris Matthews shaped the narrative of the first female presidential nominee of a major party, during & after her campaign. The extent of their influence fucking enrages me. Burn it all down. https://t.co/ffeXk9cLXF— Sarah Lerner (@SarahLerner) January 12, 2018
Network footage obtained by the Cut shows Matthews, during the interview setup, making a couple of “jokes” about Clinton. He asks, “Can I have some of the queen’s waters? Precious waters?” And then, as he waits for the water, he adds, “Where’s that Bill Cosby pill I brought with me?” Matthews then laughs, delighted with the line, for an extended moment, as the staffers around him react with disbelief, clearly uncomfortable. (Cosby has been accused of sexual impropriety by dozens of women, some of whom allege that they were drugged and raped by the comedian.)
Well it’s so harlious the sandflys tried to use a move against me and now the person that they admire Alot is being pulled up about his faculties. And he is still showing the whole world there is a good reason for being conserned.
The sandflys are scared there are keeping there distance. They are sending the public to try and intimidat me that does not work on me. They think I’m blinded by some of their moves but know I see them all everyday I choose to ignore them all this is like water of a ducks back. One person has seen the truth and will feel the thunder if they don’t rectifie this situation sooner or later I will not be happy if a situation could have been avoided. How do I know the sandflys like Trump well I have seen there neoliberal my support Trump here on the standard. Ka kite ano
China is disappointed that the Ant Financial-MoneyGram deal was rejected on national security grounds, ministry spokesman Gao Feng said in a regular briefing.
Ant Financial’s plan to acquire MoneyGram collapsed last week after a U.S. government panel rejected the deal over national security concerns, the most high-profile Chinese deal to be torpedoed during U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
From the ‘openness’ link in DTBs comment. Manawatu dairy farmer Andrew Hoggard fears the impact of a vengeful China – but says New Zealand must stand up for its free trade principles. “The rules are the rules.”
Every man and his dog thinks they understand the economy and can speak with the confidence of a well-versed, well-informed scholar of business. Even if Manawatu dairy farmer Hoggard has 14 dairy farms (I think what Crafur farms had) it doesn’t mean that he understands what is happening in and to NZ and internationally. And he is quoting the old mores about an economy and government to a different one where the rules are made up as we go along, and then ushered through parliament under some spurious reason to legalise what has been the custom.
Can’t give a definite example but I can remember thinking this was the case, and I know that people don’t understand the TPPA and I don’t know just what we signed up to with China and I bet he doesn’t either even if he is some official with FedFarmers.
Hoggard makes a good point that most people don’t understand or even know about. He said a large part of the job was unseen such as meeting with lawmakers to talk through the impact of rules and regulations on farmers.
It’s called lobbying. And also ‘working closely with the government of the day’ to ensure farmers’ views are taken into account.
This is different to how other groups and citizens are treated by government. Most end up begging the government to take some notice of strongly held beliefs that changes will be beneficial to the vast majority, or if it is Maori that they shouldn’t have their views overlooked or ignored again.
It is not very often that a documentary film can set a new paradigm about a recent event, let alone, one that is still in progress. But the new film Ukraine on Fire has the potential to do so – assuming that many people get to see it.
Usually, documentaries — even good ones — repackage familiar information in a different aesthetic form. If that form is skillfully done, then the information can move us in a different way than just reading about it.
Ukraine on Fire has the same potential and could make a contribution that even goes beyond what the Davis film did because there was very little new information in Hearts and Minds. Especially for American and Western European audiences, Ukraine on Fire could be revelatory in that it offers a historical explanation for the deep divisions within Ukraine and presents information about the current crisis that challenges the mainstream media’s paradigm, which blames the conflict almost exclusively on Russia.
Key people in the film’s production are director Igor Lopatonok, editor Alex Chavez, and writer Vanessa Dean, whose screenplay contains a large amount of historical as well as current material exploring how Ukraine became such a cauldron of violence and hate. Oliver Stone served as executive producer and conducted some high-profile interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin and ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
The film begins with gripping images of the violence that ripped through the capital city of Kiev during both the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 removal of Yanukovich. It then travels back in time to provide a perspective that has been missing from mainstream versions of these events and even in many alternative media renditions.
Gosh, here’s my opportunity to hear a fair and balanced description of what’s happening in Ukraine by, er, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovich? What the serious fuck? I think I’ll pass.
If Oliver Stone was involved, I would watch the film, yes.
It is good to see a different perspective.
Having watched it, I would come to some judgement on its veracity.
As far as I know, immediately after this terrible catastrophe, one of the Ukrainian air traffic controllers — I believe he’s a specialist of Spanish origin — announced that he’d seen a fighting machine in the vicinity of this civilian airliner. The only fighting machine that could have been in that area would have been Ukrainian”…
It is unclear why this exchange never aired in Oliver Stone’s interview series…
Don’t Be Fooled by These 5 Misleading Dairy Ads Peddling the Preposterous Myth of the ‘Happy Cow’
Happy cows are just an advertising ploy.
For most of my life, I genuinely believed the false advertising used to sell dairy. When I learned the truth—that nearly all cows used for dairy are kept inside, locked up, forcibly inseminated, and hooked up to painful milking machines—I was heartbroken. How had I never put two and two together: that for humans to consume cow’s milk, mother cows must have their calves taken?
Here are common myths in dairy advertising, and the truth behind them.
I had been thinking something salady middle-easternish for dinner, tabbouleh, olives that kind of thing, but happy cows gave me a hankering for a burger. There’s a new pop-up pretty close that’s always got a long queue so I’ll go give them a try.
When we are dealing with a state which considers it normal and their right to shot and kill young adults and children we have to ask ourselves – what is wrong with that place?
Again a big thanks to Abby Martin for her great journalism.
Twenty minutes if you have it, well worth watching.
“Animal welfare groups call for higher standards for farmed chickens
Retailers and restaurants urged to sign up to new cross-European guidelines amid growing concerns over cruelty in intensive meat production.
To help curb some of the cruellest aspects of the business – which sees fast-grown, over-bred birds collapsing under their own weight – the new standard stipulates the use of higher welfare breeds. It also bans inhumane live bird shackling during slaughter, and specifies more natural light and space, room to perch and “enrichment” items such as straw and vegetables for pecking.
Recent polling by the RSPCA shows that eight out of 10 people (86%) who buy chicken expect the supermarkets to ensure that all chicken meat they sell is farmed to high welfare standards.”
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
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About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
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Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
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The Government said it wants officials to evaluate the impact and effect of tax on tobacco consumption.
Marewa Glover of Massey University has been researching tobacco use for over 25 years and says price increases just hurt the most vulnerable who end up going without the basics.
“Now that we have a Labour-led Government, I hope that they will halt the taxes.” Dr Glover said.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/governments-goal-smokefree-nz-2025-now-being-described-unrealistic-v1?auto=5708399175001
I know a couple of people who gave up because they just couldn’t afford it anymore. Prior to that they were smoking less and less due to the cost. So I think high prices, work for most people. I’d like to see minimum prices put on alcohol so they can’t sell cheap high alcohol drinks in particular to be consumed by teenagers.
If high prices worked for most, most would have given up by now.
@The chairman – most people are giving up. Also young people are not starting.
If most are giving up we wouldn’t have Quitline warning the goal of a smokefree New Zealand by 2015 is now unrealistic.
Apparently, higher prices have been successful in deterring the young from starting. However, with a growing black market as a result of higher prices, the ease of which to obtain cheaper tobacco is becoming more widespread.
And there are no age limits on those buying smokes in the black market.
Taxing by way of altering behaviour doesn’t work. I think I linked to the stats on tobacco use for a post I did way back “The Chrematistic Camel”.
The rate of decline is essentially the same following the imposition of the punitive tax regime as it was before.
Yes, young people are less inclined to start smoking, although I get the impression it’s become a bit trendy among some of the pub set – almost a status thing.
If the daft fuckers (that’s government) would legalise the sale of nicotine (it’s subject to some medical restriction or something atm) and promote vapourising, then yes, there could be a marked decrease in the numbers of smokers (I don’t know of any ex-smokers who’ve taken to vaping who have then gone back to tobacco).
There’s lots of public money being hoovered up by pharmaceutical companies peddling bullshit, heavily subsidised gum, patches and lozenges, though I’m sure they have the health of people at heart and would back a move that would better serve peoples health at the expense of a few $ profit for them/ sarc
Actually, it does. But it is susceptible to declining returns and it’s probably at the point where adding more won’t help but decreasing the taxes will make things worse.
How’s about you do the simple site search for the post I mentioned and look at the charts and figures over time for NZ? The idea was to use tax as the main tool to achieve zero smoking by 2025. It’s a dismal failure of a strategy.
And you were wrong then too as the quotes you provided proved.
Increasing taxes on tobacco works – to a point. It won’t eliminate smoking completely which is why the government also has education programs and subsidises ways to quit smoking.
Thing is, we also know that a complete ban won’t work. Just need to look at the use of marijuana and other attempted prohibitions to see that.
But it is susceptible to declining returns and it’s probably at the point where adding more won’t help but decreasing the taxes will make things worse.
It was at that point years ago. Now it’s at the point where it’s created a black market and violent crime is supplying that market. Decreasing the taxes would make thing better, not worse.
[Citation Needed]
If there really is a rise in violent and black market crime because of the cost of cigarettes* then you could be right.
* Remember that such things could also be happening for other reasons.
Citations aren’t needed for obvious cause and effect. If I leave food to rot all over my house I don’t need an academic study to tell me why my house has a rats/mice/ants problem. It’s been obvious for years that tax increases were risking the development of a black market in cigarettes, and in the last couple of years we’ve seen the development of that black market and dairy owners being bashed by gangs of armed robbers after cigarettes. Feel free to pretend it’s not happening if you like, but it’s happening nonetheless.
It’s not obvious – just your assertion which is most likely wrong.
“The rate of decline is essentially the same following the imposition of the punitive tax regime as it was before.”
Interesting. Thanks for that info.
“I get the impression it’s become a bit trendy among some of the pub set – almost a status thing.”
Yes, I’ve also heard anecdotal evidence to that too.
There’s nothing like having do-gooders finger-wagging at you that something’s bad for you to make you contemplate trying it.
Most have given up by now. What’s left is the hangers-on.
High cigarette prices can really make you quit smoking
15.7% of the population currently smoking, down from 20.1% in 2006/07, is far from most.
And it was over 35% in the 1970s. So, yeah, most.
We are discussing the impact of the tax increases of late, not the 70s.
Tax increases have been used to decrease smoking since the 1970s.
“Now that we have a Labour-led Government, I hope that they will halt the taxes.” Dr Glover said.
I’d say that’s a forlorn hope. This is one area in which the left is rubbish – tobacco taxes have been raised to the point that’s made a black market worthwhile and people are robbing dairies to supply it, but few on the left will admit it. The new government needs to lower tobacco taxes, not just halt the increases, but fat chance of that happening while it’s considered to be a matter of corporate lobbyists vs public health professionals.
“The new government needs to lower tobacco taxes, not just halt the increases…”
Indeed.
It seems they (Labour) would rather hire more police to deal with the associated crime. Which will result in more incarcerations.
Nevertheless, halting the tax increases would be better than continuing on with them.
Some want lower tobacco taxes, some want higher taxes, some want to ban tobacco sales.
Concerns about tobacco-related crime and hardship should be discussed in the context of the ~5000 premature smoking related deaths that still occur in New Zealand every year, both as a consequence of active smoking and through exposure to second hand smoke.
The July 2012 position statements by the RNZCGP support
https://oldgp16.rnzcgp.org.nz/assets/New-website/Advocacy/Position-Statements/2012-RNZCGP-Tobacco-position-statement.pdf
“Tobacco killed 6.4 million people in 2015. It’s the second biggest contributor to early death and disability, showed data from 195 countries.” “That tobacco kills half its users is well established.”
http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/how-tobacco-death-and-taxes-are-intrinsically-linked/story-37B8hLoosYNVlLNa3c267H.html
“Concerns about tobacco-related crime and hardship should be discussed in the context of the ~5000 premature smoking related deaths that still occur in New Zealand every year, both as a consequence of active smoking and through exposure to second hand smoke.”
I would add to that the effectiveness of the tax increases.
If tax increases are ineffective, or merely drive smokers to other sources, then deaths will continue on regardless.
As for further increases, going off the results of the increases we’ve already had, they are unlikely to be any more successful. With prices already astronomically high, we are largely dealing with the hardcore addicts now. And they are more likely to turn to the black market or to growing their own before they are forced to give up.
Harassing smokers visiting their GP just becomes an annoyance. And for some, reinforces their determination not to quit.
And wile supermarkets continue to sell foods that can cause harm and even death, the concern about smoking looks disingenuous and bias.
“If tax increases are ineffective, or merely drive smokers to other sources, then deaths will continue on regardless.”
Whereas it seems generally accepted that increases in tobacco taxes have contributed to lower rates of smoking.
I agree with your “hardcore addicts” comment; it is a lethal product with highly addictive properties and considerable public health costs. If high tobacco taxes are contributing to fewer youngsters getting hooked, then IMO that outweighs any additional tobacco-related crime due to taxes.
BTW, I’d be interested to see any peer-reviewed research in NZ or Australia that quantifies the association between (increasing) tobacco taxes and criminal activity. Any link could them be ‘weighed’ against the lives saved by decreased rates of smoking.
We’ve seen similar reductions happen here, but we’ve also seen a growth in the black market, people vaping and growing their own.
Therefore, tax increases are ineffective at putting a total end to it.
As I said above, we are largely dealing with the hardcore addicts now. For which harm and even death is no deterrence.
When it comes to new smokers, they’ve yet to have been addicted, so pricing does have far more of an impact.
However, apparently, higher prices have been successful in deterring the young from starting. So much so it is trending downwards. Therefore, we’ve gone beyond the tipping point in that regards.
If cigarettes were banned tomorrow what would you do?
i guess i must be one of the “hardcore ones ” then having smoked for about 40 years ! but i doubt higher an higher tax will make me stop i might cut down a bit more and that will probably make me enjoy it even more. Everybody uses some form of drug and they all have downsides in fact a very reputable doctor friend of mine said recently that living longer just exposes a person to more lifethreatning diseases ! . making tobacco more and more expensive seems to me to be very poorly thought out for all the reasons already mentioned by others here and a particularly unsavory fact which might have been missed by the anti smoking brigade is that a point of meth is now half the price of a 50 gram packet of tobacco . Far as i know giving up meth is infinately harder to give up than tobacco and is smoked in complete secrecy so you are never gonna know whos indulging unless you are one of them
Concerns about tobacco-related crime and hardship should be discussed in the context of the ~5000 premature smoking related deaths that still occur in New Zealand every year, both as a consequence of active smoking and through exposure to second hand smoke.
That’s the argument used against all recreational drugs by conservatives. It’s as crap when used in relation to tobacco as it is in relation to other recreational drugs.
And not just conservatives. “Smoke yourself to death” may get a new lease of life if the ‘End of Life Choice’ bill receives the thumbs up.
No more smoko’s for the blue-collar workers and no more stress relief for the Precariat; another victory!
Maybe employers, out of the goodness of their hearts, lungs and other organs, could subsidise smokes for their blue-collar workers. Yeah, nah…
“Evidence suggests that smokers take three times as much sick leave as non-smokers and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke or second-hand smoke can also cause harm.”
Some interesting real NZ cases here:
http://www.findlaw.co.nz/articles/4328/smoking-at-work.aspx
Yeah, I get it: smoking is bad, simply. Instead of killing yourself go and practice mindfulness & yoga and have the occasional coffee enema; if it is good for Gwyneth then it is good for you 😉
All for tolerance, respect, choice and common sense. Nevertheless, your “Instead of killing yourself…” advice has much to recommend it – just not for everyone, I guess.
Ah yes, the good old ‘common sense’ heuristic that cuts through Gordian Knots like a scalpel through a turd and never fails to look at context, nuance, and (unintended) consequences.
The argument has been made that the tobacco industry engaged in social engineering to peddle their deadly products. Similarly, anti-smoking campaigns and aggressive Government taxes can be seen as reversed-social engineering. Smokers are becoming pariahs of our society, by design, and we don’t only condone this, we’re actively cheering on the process. Because, you know, smoking kills.
BTW, this comment is not really directed at you but more a general venting 😉
No more smoko’s for the blue-collar workers and no more stress relief for the Precariat; another victory!
Yeah, but in exchange they’re offered any number of ur-doin-it-wrong programmes from middle-class do-gooders, so they ought to be chuffed, right?
Employers only have the best interest of their workforce at heart because a happy worker is a productive worker. When was the last time I heard a happy cleaner scrubbing the toilets late at night doing her second shift of the day? Hmmm, when was the last time I was that late at work?
Try growing your own tobacco plants now people.
You can buy the seeds freely everywhere.
They grow fast and you can use them without chemicals too.
Big talk on radio yesterday about this.
Or, give up smoking because it kills you.
Burn those seeds.
I think Kingsley Amis had the right idea.
“No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of 2 more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.”
Why should you only give up smoking because it may cause cancer?
Let’s ban motor cycles. And bicycles for that matter.
Reduce the legal speed limit of cars to 10 kph.
Put head high barriers along all road verges so people can’t wander into the road or a vehicle onto the footpath.
Get rid of booze.
Fence off all rivers and the beaches.
Hey, that’ll prevent a few premature deaths, whatever that means.
Alwyn if that describes your life, great.
So long as your second-hand smoke, second-hand motorbike driving, second-hand speeding, second-hand drowning, and any other second hand stupid actions of any kind don’t affect me, you just go for your life …
… with your cigarette in one hand, your drink in the other, driving your motorbike through your unfenced river, at 130 k’s, and I’ll just follow up behind you with a mop and a shovel for your mortal remains.
If he can eat a cheese and steak pie, and txt at the same time I’d be impressed. 🙂
My life?
What are you talking about? You are the one who wants to ban everything that just might risk the participant getting injured.
And no, you don’t have to follow me around. You only make me nervous.
Actually, Ad made the succinct point that it was other people that get injured by some people’s stupid actions.
You want to smoke and die young? Your choice but you don’t get to make that choice for other people and second hand smoke kills.
That’s what rules are for – protecting people from other people’s stupid choices.
Other people’s bacteria and viruses can also harm you – maybe you should agitate for a law to force people around you to wear surgical scrubs at all times?
It used to be accepted that sick people stayed home so as to minimise the risk of spreading disease. This no longer seems to be the case as employers demand ever more from their employees up to and including demanding that they come to work when sick. And children go to school sick because the parents can’t afford to take time off work to care for them.
But then, getting sick isn’t actually a choice like smoking or speeding or driving drunk is it?
When were these halcyon days when sick people were expected to stay home? And, spreading bacteria certainly can be a choice – the number of people you see leaving a public toilet without washing their hands or putting a perfunctory splash of water on them is testament to that.
@ Psycho Milt 13 January 2018 at 4:41 pm:
Condoms would be a good start 😉
Alwyn should be allowed to do what he wants.
Who cares if his smoking kills someone else, his speeding causes innocent people to die in a car crash…..
Neo-liberals have no concept of society.
Who cares if his smoking kills someone else
His smoking kills someone else? What, if he accidentally sets fire to them or something?
Alwyn, you do realise that by using hyperbole, you’re not exactly proving your case?
Interesting picture accompanying a Herald story about a broken basketball hoop causing quite severe injuries to someone attempting a slam dunk.
When you look at the base of the hoop, there seems to be no broken concrete and the base plate seems to be only screwed to the pole not embedded in the concrete. In fact the only connection seems to be a two or three inch sleeve of pipe that may have been inserted inside the pole.
Hoop nightmares: North Shore teen…”
Not sure I agree with your description, Molly. Looks to me like there is a pipe embedded in the concrete with a welded flange. The flange on the end of the pole is bolted to the flange on the embedded pipe.
It appears to me the embedded pipe wall failed at the edge of the weld, and the failure propagated around the pipe by tearing around the pipe until the remaining eighth or so of the pipe wall just bent rather than tearing. You can see that there is still some of the pipe that is still untorn, which kept the base of the pole connected to the embedded pipe flange.
So my first thoughts on looking at that photo are whether the embedded pipe was simply too thin walled for the purpose, and/or whether there was some fault in the flange welding.
Looks to me like someone’s completed the top but missed the bottom weld on the lower flange.
https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/9f6b78d7-05b4-4b27-af04-3c0bab1f6061.png
That was my first thought, too. But I went away from it because I couldn’t come up with a plausible mechanism for how a failure initiating at that kind of weld would transition into tearing the pipe wall. Plus, I would also expect some kind of witness markings on the visible end of the pipe inside the flange where the galv wouldn’t have covered it.
In any case, an actual in-person inspection would resolve that question pretty quickly.
Or a re-purposed break-away light standard.
Frangible joint is the technical term 🙂
I agree though that there would be huge loads on this even before the “slam dunk”
A practical lesson in structural engineering I guess, much as the one you would get when opening a (any) door with a high degree of force/velocity at the furthest distance from the hinge point.
That makes more sense. I knew the Standardistas would have a better explanation for what was going on…
The fcking ‘male’ pipe that the main structure slips over should have been much longer. That couple of inches of pipe coming up off the base might as well not have been there at all – it adds nothing to the structural integrity of the affair.
Agree with you there too. Relying on the weld, if that was what it was, seems to be unreasonable, given the size, weight of the hoop and the purpose and use of it.
Welded assemblies are fine, when they’re done right. If I was asked to design that structure, I wouldn’t hesitate to use welds.
However, I would look fairly carefully for some data on what kind of loads might get put into it. If I had to guess, I’d start with Shaq’s weight of 150 kg, times 3 for the fact he’s coming down from a jump when he grabs the hoop and gives himself a boost back up, plus 100ish for the backboard, hoop, mounts etc. Then safety factors on top of that.
If that base was simply repurposed from a light, like joe90 suggests, without analysis of how the load might be a lot higher than the loads on a streetlight, then it’s not surprising it failed.
Anyone else got Fraudband problems this morning?
Nope. Big Brother is just paying special attention to you.
No problem with Fraudband (very good ;-)), but my early morning blogscope has been spoiled somewhat by TDB giving me 404 notices…has Bomber been blown away???
Ditto with me as well: 404 – “Not Found The requested document was not found on this server”. He’s been alerted to the problem.
“Banks are not universally loved. But when they try to remove a key protection for those using internet banking, and do it under the cover of a strangely closed “consultation”, they deserve to become even more unpopular.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/100534538/banks-botched-attempt-to-weaken-promises-to-their-customers
In case anyone still thinks carbon capture technology will save us think again. The greatest carbon capture technique known i.e methane hydrate frozen into the Arctic is breaking down at a rate that is impossible to ever catch up to except possibly by ceasing burning fossil fuels right now.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/2018/01/unfolding-arctic-catastrophe.html?m=1
All part of Plan “B”. (And all plans – A and B, up through X, Y and Z – revolve around power)
I mean, those responsible for AGW, who no-one has been holding to account anyway because…oh that’s right!…the mechanisms and institutions that would be used to ensure accountability are managed and perpetuated by the self same people and institutions who ought to be being held to account….Hmm.
Anyway.
They can’t possibly be held to account when the situation slips over to non-AGW, ’cause GWs just natural innit?
And no-one knew when AGW would slip beyond our control – and we was blindsided (Honest!) – and now we need this stamp down on you and yours, to ensure that us and ours enjoy our primacy to our pathetic. fucking. fading. end.
He’s falling to pieces.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-of-donald-trump-interview-with-the-wall-street-journal-1515715481
Where’s James today? Dreadful bbq accident, perhaps? Burnt sausage, sizzled saveloy?
Dollops of unguent, James, liberally applied and keep your chin up!
Oh sweet, Robert misses his dear chum James.
Lovely to hear Jim Salinger this morning on Natrad, not so lovely the topic being discussed.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/up-this-way/audio/2018628386/marine-heatwave-it-s-never-been-that-hot-before
Temperatures in the Tasman hit record highs, with snapper being caught in Fiordland and krill being driven to cooler depths and beyond the reach of seabirds…
Yes our Jim Salinger chased away to work in Queensland and met officers with foreign accents doing the weather announcing. We need a bit more nationalism and a bit less internationalism.
Well, Karl Du Fresne just can’t get over the fact that his beloved blue team didn’t win the election. He’s calling the MMP process wonky and basically saying that the biggest party should be given preference when forming a government and that negotiations should be overseen by the governor general. (Just what would that add, I wonder?)
When’s he going to drop the whining? He’s even questioning “how long a government formed in such shonky circumstances (can) last”?
“how long a government formed in such shonky circumstances (can) last”?”
Until Winston comes out of his coma and starts demanding more baubles.
Remember Oliver in the film?
“Please Sir, I want some more”
I Winston’s case it will be. “Listen sunshine, move out of my way”.
Don’t hold your breath, mate. We wouldn’t want you any bluer than you already are!
Naked projection the name of the game now ? Boris Johnson brands Khan mayor of London a pompous, puffed-up popinjay. Right back at ya Boris !
These fuckers.
//
Network footage obtained by the Cut shows Matthews, during the interview setup, making a couple of “jokes” about Clinton. He asks, “Can I have some of the queen’s waters? Precious waters?” And then, as he waits for the water, he adds, “Where’s that Bill Cosby pill I brought with me?” Matthews then laughs, delighted with the line, for an extended moment, as the staffers around him react with disbelief, clearly uncomfortable. (Cosby has been accused of sexual impropriety by dozens of women, some of whom allege that they were drugged and raped by the comedian.)
https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/chris-matthews-bill-cosby-pill-hillary-clinton-interview.html?
Not just “these fuckers”
All of them..
All of ‘these fuckers’…includes Bill and Hill…!
Mind you from the station that spent two hours covering an empty podium rather than interview Bernie Sanders, are you really surprised?
An analysis of possible Trump action against North Korea: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/12/north-korea-strike-nuclear-strategist-216306
Well it’s so harlious the sandflys tried to use a move against me and now the person that they admire Alot is being pulled up about his faculties. And he is still showing the whole world there is a good reason for being conserned.
The sandflys are scared there are keeping there distance. They are sending the public to try and intimidat me that does not work on me. They think I’m blinded by some of their moves but know I see them all everyday I choose to ignore them all this is like water of a ducks back. One person has seen the truth and will feel the thunder if they don’t rectifie this situation sooner or later I will not be happy if a situation could have been avoided. How do I know the sandflys like Trump well I have seen there neoliberal my support Trump here on the standard. Ka kite ano
Who/what are the sandflys eco?
China ministry says protectionist sentiment rising in U.S.
Not that China can complain about openness.
From the ‘openness’ link in DTBs comment.
Manawatu dairy farmer Andrew Hoggard fears the impact of a vengeful China – but says New Zealand must stand up for its free trade principles. “The rules are the rules.”
Every man and his dog thinks they understand the economy and can speak with the confidence of a well-versed, well-informed scholar of business. Even if Manawatu dairy farmer Hoggard has 14 dairy farms (I think what Crafur farms had) it doesn’t mean that he understands what is happening in and to NZ and internationally. And he is quoting the old mores about an economy and government to a different one where the rules are made up as we go along, and then ushered through parliament under some spurious reason to legalise what has been the custom.
Can’t give a definite example but I can remember thinking this was the case, and I know that people don’t understand the TPPA and I don’t know just what we signed up to with China and I bet he doesn’t either even if he is some official with FedFarmers.
Manawatu dairy farmer Andrew Hoggard should have been more accurately described as ‘former Federated Farmers Dairy chairman.’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/93157582/hoggard-to-give-up-top-dairy-job-for-tilt-at-feds-secondincommand-role
Hoggard makes a good point that most people don’t understand or even know about. He said a large part of the job was unseen such as meeting with lawmakers to talk through the impact of rules and regulations on farmers.
It’s called lobbying. And also ‘working closely with the government of the day’ to ensure farmers’ views are taken into account.
This is different to how other groups and citizens are treated by government. Most end up begging the government to take some notice of strongly held beliefs that changes will be beneficial to the vast majority, or if it is Maori that they shouldn’t have their views overlooked or ignored again.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-documentary-youll-likely-never-see-ukraine-on-fire-by-oliver-stone/5574843
Gosh, here’s my opportunity to hear a fair and balanced description of what’s happening in Ukraine by, er, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovich? What the serious fuck? I think I’ll pass.
Oliver Stone served as executive producer
So what? Did he shove a lie detector in Putin’s face? Would you trust a movie about the US invasion of Panama including interviews with George Bush?
If Oliver Stone was involved, I would watch the film, yes.
It is good to see a different perspective.
Having watched it, I would come to some judgement on its veracity.
He’s just as capable of selective editing as the next person.
I am sure he is not perfect.
I have found a lot of his work interesting.
I think therefore it’s worth giving the Ukraine film a watch.
I doubt whether it will provide any extra information than can be read in minutes (depending on your reading age) on Wikipedia.
The same is true of Winter on Fire.
Oliver Stone served as executive producer
Really? Who did the catering?
https://www.alternet.org/animal-rights/dont-be-fooled-these-5-misleading-dairy-ads-peddling-preposterous-myth-happy-cow
Moo !
I had been thinking something salady middle-easternish for dinner, tabbouleh, olives that kind of thing, but happy cows gave me a hankering for a burger. There’s a new pop-up pretty close that’s always got a long queue so I’ll go give them a try.
You do it knowingly.
Yes Ed, Andre is deliberately winding you up like a clockwork toy. I wonder why that is.
Sadly it isn’t working.
😆
I’m picturing one of those little tin Godzillas with a cigarette lighter flint in its mouth, stomping around spitting sparks.
FREE AHED!!!
When we are dealing with a state which considers it normal and their right to shot and kill young adults and children we have to ask ourselves – what is wrong with that place?
Again a big thanks to Abby Martin for her great journalism.
Twenty minutes if you have it, well worth watching.
Abby Martin is an amazing journalist.
Will definitely watch this.
“Animal welfare groups call for higher standards for farmed chickens
Retailers and restaurants urged to sign up to new cross-European guidelines amid growing concerns over cruelty in intensive meat production.
To help curb some of the cruellest aspects of the business – which sees fast-grown, over-bred birds collapsing under their own weight – the new standard stipulates the use of higher welfare breeds. It also bans inhumane live bird shackling during slaughter, and specifies more natural light and space, room to perch and “enrichment” items such as straw and vegetables for pecking.
Recent polling by the RSPCA shows that eight out of 10 people (86%) who buy chicken expect the supermarkets to ensure that all chicken meat they sell is farmed to high welfare standards.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/13/animal-welfare-groups-call-for-higher-standards-for-farmed-chickens