The success or failure of a political party often hangs on the the effectiveness and public profile of its leaders.
Todd Muller, the laughably titled National Party spokesperson for climate change, has publicly attacked the government, accusing the government of being “….blinded by Green ideology”.
Alongside his assault on the government and the Green Party, Todd Muller also launched into an attack on climate change pressure group, Generation Zero as being a Green Party version of the Young Nats.
The success or failure of a political party often hangs on the the effectiveness and public profile, (or lack thereof), of its leaders.
Leadership means being out there.
Leadership means defending your corner in the public arena, (especially when you are being attacked in the public arena).
There is no room in politics for a leader who keeps silent when his party and its allies are being attacked.
Todd Muller has launched an attack on the government and Generation Zero
Will James Shaw use his right of reply and stand with Generation Zero and other climate activists?
Will James Shaw defend the government’s record on climate change?
Or will James Shaw continue to maintain his invisible man act, and condemn his party, and himself, to falling polls and political irrelevancy?
James Shaw needs to take a note from US member of Congress Ocasio Cortez
Despite not even being officially sworn in yet.
US Congresswoman Ocasio Cortez shows what leadership looks like.
Does that propaganda piece from Muller really need any response from the Greens?
Anyone who gives a shit about the environment already knows that National’s approach is to pay lip-service to climate change and the need to protect the environment, while pursuing policies that assume neither of those things matter. Muller’s blather is just one further example of that approach. Anyone fooled by it was unlikely to be a potential Green voter anyway.
Plus the duty journalists are probably getting more fed up by the day with the rostered National Party tyre kicking, so allowing their tedious yapping to be seen for what it is is not a negative at all.
James may be giving Todd Muller the rope he needs. Sometimes, leaping up to counter hot-headed claims such as those of Todd, give those claims more exposure than they would have got, had they been ignored for a while. In any case, Get Zero can look after themselves and will doubtless take the opportunity to make Todd look like the methane-emmitting dinosaur he’s showing himself to be 🙂
Perhaps if you stopped viewing everything as a war requiring a violent approach you might see that there is little to be gained from Shaw responding to Muller.
The trouble with your approach, and that of most Rightwingers, Solkta, is that you view legitimate peaceful protest or outspokeness by the Left as violence.
According to you we should quietly shut up and bow down to Right Wing attacks.
Meanwhile the Right dominate the airwaves with continual and aggressive attacks on climate change and social justice activists.
If you don’t recognise it, the quote is from Donald Trump justifying Right Wing violence at Charlottesville that culminated in the murder of Heather Heyer.
Here is another quote you may not recognise;
Michael Moore. ‘How did you pull this [Trump’s election] off?’
Steve Bannon, ‘It’s a very easy answer. Our side, we go for the head wound. Your side, you have pillow fights.’ ”
I also disagree that Todd Muller’s ‘claims’ were ‘hot-headed’.
Todd Muller’s public statement was an obviously well crafted and thought-out attack piece.
It needs to be answered in the same manner.
That it is not – is in my opinion, a clear failure of leadership.
If the Government Climate MInister cannot answer this very public attack from the Opposition, then he needs to seriously rethink his position and role.
Politics is a public exercise, if James cannot step up, he needs to step down.
It was just a positioning thing. Propaganda ought to serve a useful purpose, not just operate as hot air. At a guess, I’d say he’s positioning himself as next leader of the bluegreens. Much ado about nothing, seems to me. It’s not as if his conceptualising of issues is impressive. At least Simon Upton got the basics right. Hasn’t been any Nat since who’s managed that!
As regards your idea that James ought to be out there tilting at this particular windmill, I suspect doing the Don Quixote isn’t a realistic option for him. Zen teaches the best way to deal with an oncoming opponent is to sidestep & let him flounder on by. He could foot-trip him, but since the Nats flounder so well all by themselves it’s hardly worth the effort.
Then there’s the fact that he’s been working with the guy in a collaborative effort to produce non-partisan policy on our highest-priority issue. According to the Nat leader, the process is working. Until complete, he needs to avoid distractions, and any personal antagonism that your suggestion would produce.
…… he’s been working with the guy in a collaborative effort to produce non-partisan policy on our highest-priority issue.
It is clear from this attack piece penned by Todd Muller, that the price for getting National’s agreement on non-partisan policy, will be to allow them to repeal the current government’s ban on the issuing of new off shore oil and gas exploration permits on their return to the Treasury benches – And that no agreement will bind them into supporting action against climate change in the here and now, (especially if it is in lead of any of our trading partners).
Which is probably what ties into Todd Muller’s antipathy towards Gen Zero. Gen Zero despite being nearer the conservative end of the climate movement, than most climate activist groups, are for taking action in the here and now, where Todd Muller, and National Party are for dragging out taking any concrete action on climate change as long as they possibly can.
If you asked me. I would say that the price for National’s sign on, is currently way too high.
I’m not under the impression that any binding of National in that regard is intended, or even possible. We must wait to see the text of the eventual agreed legislation to check on that, eh?
Further exploration may not be excluded. There’s no cost to the public if the Nats want to allow private industry to find new fields to drill – as long as drilling them isn’t allowed, and the agreed limits suitably restrict aggregate emissions in accord with our national commitments to the international agreements.
What we’re waiting for is Nat political culture to shift into responsible behaviour. As long as their denial persists, they’ll remain in the corner they’ve painted themselves into. No MMP partners, relying on coalition screw-ups to piss voters off & return them to power.
Generation Zero are a voluntary group, (of mostly young), people. As such they don’t have the platform accorded to James Shaw as a Government Minister, and co-leader of the Green Party.
Any public statement of reply issued by Gen Zero is likely to completely ignored by the media.
Not so the Minister.
So let’s hear it James,
Do you agree, or disagree, with Todd Muller that the Government are, “….blinded by Green ideology”. ?
James, are Generation Zero, a genuine independent youth pressure group concerned about climate change, or a Green Party Front, as alleged by Todd Muller, “….a pseudo-Green Party campaign machine”?
James, your silence is not an option. It is a dereliction of duty. And an abandonment of leadership, in the face of a very public attack by the opposition party on the government and your role in it.
So your response to Muller describing Generation Zero as a pseudo-Green Party campaign machine would be for the Greens to quickly jump to their defense? Sounds like playing into Muller’s hand to me.
Gen Zero can speak for themselves, whether their statement of reply is reported or not is another matter.
The accusation is that Generation Zero is a Green Party Front.
Is Generation Zero a Green Party Front?
The question is just being left to hang there.
What has James Shaw got to say about this accusation?
James Shaw’s silence gives credence to Todd Muller’s accusation that Generation Zero are “….a pseudo-Green Party campaign machine”, to the detriment of Gen Zero’s reputation and credibility.
How can the Green Party leader in good conscience let Gen Zero swing in the wind like this?
“A new study shows that Americans overwhelmingly want a reduction in global warming and support renewable energy development. But according to the data, Americans don’t realize how many people share their beliefs.”
There would be more fatih if they had been going to the polls for the last couple or so elections but they don’t, getting them there is the best response to what Muller and the National Party have or don’t have on offer. Those prattling on the air-waves are preaching to the “unconverted”.
Hi Robert, from the poll results I supplied, you might get an inkling of, why I think that James Shaw needs to answer Todd Muller’s attack, how a strong lead given on climate action from the Climate Change Minister, could both strengthen, and benefit, from this relatively high public understanding of this issue.
In my opinion James Shaw’s silence in the face of this Opposition attack, and his and Marama Davidson’s invisibility in general, are not doing themselves, or their party, any favours.
There was some concerning information for the Green Party in the report.
UMR’s polling showed their support dropping to just 4 percent. This was lower than other polls — Newshub showed the Greens falling to 4.9 percent in early September, while Colmar Brunton had them at 4.3 percent in early August.
National Party tracking polls had the Greens fall to between 3 and 4 percent.
This will worry the left bloc, which needs the Green party to poll above 5 percent to stay in Parliament. Anything less would waste a huge number of votes and not just see the Greens fall out of Parliament, but likely cause Labour to lose any chance of forming a government.
There is a widespread acknowledgement within the Green Party that Jacinda Ardern’s popularity will mean they will poll lower than when they were in Opposition and the party will have to depend on its loyal base to ensure its vote does not crash below 5 percent.
The Greens crashing out of Parliament would have the effect of inflating National’s share of seats, making it less likely they would need support partners to govern.
That the Green Party leadership are missing a prime opportunity to raise their Party profile should be concerning, to Green Party members and supporters.
So come on James and Marama, break the silence, get out and vigorously defend your corner.
Take a note from Ocasio Cortez who answers every Republican attack and raises her profile in the process.
Picture it the other way. We’re all aware that the Taxpayers’ Union is an ACT/National-run astro-turfing operation (and genuinely an astroturfing initative, unlike Gen Zero being allegedly a Green Party astroturfing initiative).
Not many outside of those interested in politics are aware of that. But, suppose the leaders of ACT and National went to the effort of putting out a release to media denying that the Taxpayers’ Union is an ACT/National astroturfing operation. Their die-hard supporters might be chuffed to read their staunch denial, but most people reading it would be hearing for the accusation for the first time, and would think “Hmm, no smoke without fire – they wouldn’t be making such a fuss if they didn’t have something to hide, I guess the Taxpayers’ Union must really be a Nat/ACT astroturfing operation.”
Shaw would be a mug to get tempted into denying this.
Never believe anything until the Government denies it, Eh, Psycho
What do you think about Muller’s other accusation which directly targets the government? That the Government are, “….blinded by Green ideology”. ?
Do you also think that James Shaw as the Minister shouldn’t answer this accusation, in case people think he was being defensive and had something to hide?
If what you maintained here was true, Psycho, then the Minister and the Government should never defend themselves from opposition attacks.
Do you really think that if James Shaw got off his chuff and took the opportunity to respond with his own opinion piece, in which he laid out the best up-to-date, science backed information available to him. Which showed that the government is not blinded by Green ideology, but in fact is acting on the best scientific information available, that most people would disregard this, and instead think ‘Hmm, no smoke without fire’, the government must be blinded by Green ideology.
Never believe anything until the Government denies it, Eh, Psycho
Not what I was saying at all. Just pointing out a PR commonplace, that if you go out of your way to publicly deny some piece of foolishness about you that most people would never have heard anyway, the biggest effect of your denial is to associate you with that foolishness in the minds of the people who would otherwise never have heard of it. Sometimes it’s better to just ignore stupid stuff.
What do you think about Muller’s other accusation which directly targets the government? That the Government are, “….blinded by Green ideology”. ?
I think “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?” Even if National weren’t ideologically opposed to everything the Green Party stands for, it would still be his job as an Opposition MP to trash-talk the government. Issuing outraged denials would give the trash-talk more credibility than it deserves.
…if James Shaw got off his chuff and took the opportunity to respond with his own opinion piece, in which he laid out the best up-to-date, science backed information available to him…
How would that be different from all the other press releases he puts out on this subject, eg International global warming report lays out the critical challenge?
Psycho Milt
It would be different,
It would be a living rebuttal, part of an impassioned debate in reply.
Shaw’s rebuttal if he chose to make it, would have a frisson not commonly found in a dry academic treatise, or one sided press release, or essay,
As such it would be likely to get far more media and public attention.
Who knows; Shaw’s rebuttal (if he ever makes one), may even draw a counter response from Todd Muller, which would continue and heighten the public interest in this very important debate, and bring out the issues in a way that no one-sided monologue ever could.
At the very least it could lift Shaw’s public invisibility.
Shaw’s current objective is to get the widest possible buy in for the Zero Carbon Act. This particularly includes National. For National to support it they will have to go through some face saving process, otherwise they would have to admit to being fuck useless and/or wrong. They will need to continue to signal to their core support that they can be relied upon to put the economy first. There is no benefit in Shaw engaging in a public scrap that could push National into a public position of opposition to the Bill.
There is no benefit in Shaw engaging in a public scrap that could push National into a public position of opposition to the Bill.
solkta
And I could think of three benefits, at least.
1/ It could rescue the Greens from their current public invisibility and resulting low polling results, which risks political oblivion
2/ It would represent a clear division between the government and the opposition.
If the results in the polls above are credible, a clear difference between the Government and the Opposition over climate change, could greatly influence which way undecided voters choose to place their ballot. to the benefit of the government.
What are the negative results of your strategy?
What are the negatives from allowing Opposition to attack the government without response, in the hope that they will back the Zero Carbon Bill?
From Todd Muller’s statement it seems that the opposition has three basic pre-conditions for supporting the Zero Carbon bill,
1, On a change of government immediate repeal the current government’s ban on issuing new oil and gas exploration permits.
2, pushi any concrete action towards making New Zealand Zero Carbon away from action in the here and now. and into some time in the future.
3, Thirdly, to not move faster than any of our competitors.
Plus reserving the right to attack the government unhindered and unchallenged.
I think you are far more concerned with your “war” than with actually making sustainable changes to the law to address CC.
I don’t see the article as an attack on the government but rather as Nact trying to justify itself to itself. They are between a rock and a hard place. If they support the Bill they risk their core supporters considering they have sold out, but if they don’t support the Bill then they risk alienating lots of centrist voters who are becoming continually more concerned about CC.
They are not going to get the things you list. If they don’t support the Bill as a consequence it will pass anyway, and then will be the time for you to bayonet their guts.
“Are Gen Zero a Green Party front, or not? The public need to know.”
No evidence for that at all, is there? In psychology, they call this projection. The GP does not need a front. The fact that a lobby group has goals which seem similar, if not identical, is not reason to assume any deeper relationship.
Toddy is trying to make himself hot via Muldoonist framing (`anyone who disagrees with me is a communist’). I very much doubt tapping into Muldoon nostalgia will make a hot toddy.
Generation zero seems more like a corporate driven group as seen by it’s website, which is all about getting donations, volunteers, and so forth run with a development agenda which ‘sprung’ up to support unitary plan and more urbanisation branded under buzz words like carbon neutral etc in cities. Very subjective to brand themselves for youth. How many youth are there wanting more concessions to developers to create $600+k apartments? Not many I know of!
Weird then, that Todd Muller should single them out for attack.
Maybe Muller senses that Gen Zero are encroaching on what he sees as his natural constituency, and that his pandering to the oil and gas lobby, is losing ground, even with conservatives, and business.
How NZ has changed from being Green, clean social democrat country to the current neoliberal Nat Lite one, is by keeping all discourses and solutions as far right as possible and appropriating groups and pretending to speak for them through marketing aka pretending to speak for ‘youth’ when you are really pushing a slightness left version of a right future.
Example GenZero were for the PPP for Skypath which charges walkers and cyclists while the trucks and cars go across Auckland Harbour Bridge for free? Sound like a front for PPP’s and developers pretending to represent sustainable carbon free future or having completely privatisation led solutions that apparently youth are all for, sarcasm?
I am not aware that Gen Zero have ever claimed to speak for all youth.
But if the rest of what you say is true. Strange, that Todd Muller finds them so threatening.
Maybe Muller is much, much, further to the Right than he tries to make out.
Or maybe Muller is trying to attack the wider climate movement through attacking Gen Zero
Who knows?
Whatever the murky motives for Muller’s attack on Gen Zero, all further reason for James Shaw to take a stand and debunk Muller’s attack on the government and defend the climate movement.
Weird then, that Todd Muller should single them out for attack.
I’m thinking you didn’t spend a lot of time reading the article. It starts off Despite the claims of Generation Zero, with the “claims of generation Zero” clickable which takes you to an article on Stuff from last Wednesday where Lisa McLaren, who leads the Zero Carbon Act campaign for Generation Zero, attacks Muller and Bridges and National’s record:
I believe it is high time for the National Party to retire their climate villain persona. US president Donald Trump has already taken that position on the global stage so it’s time for National to bow out gracefully.
Let me be clear – if we get an insufficient draft Zero Carbon Bill next year it will be because the National Party is using the futures of all Kiwis as a political football. An ego-driven, point scoring game.
…
So if you have a problem with ambitious climate action, Mr Bridges and Mr Muller, then step aside. It appears you wouldn’t know ambition if you tripped over it. What is being proposed next year with the Zero Carbon Bill is the bare minimum. So let’s pull on our collaboration boots and get on with the job.
Personally I think that Lisa Mclaren’s criticisms of National are well founded.
Mclaren calls on National (in quite flowery language), to pull their collaboration boot on. ie work with the government over the Zero Carbon Bill. Todd Muller and National are refusing to negotiate over the Zero Carbon bill in good faith. Instead setting out hard preconditions and demands that have effectively torpedoed the negotiations.
I suppose, if Shaw’s silence in the face of opposition attacks continues, that at least the Greens will know who to blame when they miss the 5% threshold.
I am not privy to any demands that Todd Muller himself has not made public.
But the hard demands he has made public are the right to return to deep sea oil exploration and drilling.
And that New Zealand must not lead any of our trading partners in any climate change legislation.
The National Party’s other more wishy washy demand, as voiced by Todd Muller, National’s Climate change Spokesperson, is that New Zealand not do anything about climate change in the here and now, which is what Gen Z are demanding and which has seen them particularly singled out for Todd Muller’s ire.
On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones.
The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. “The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information.
Worth noting – “Update, 9 January: The release of the World Magnetic Model has been postponed to 30 January due to the ongoing US government shutdown.”
Jesse McKinley, a New York Times journalist, wrote on Twitter: “It sounds like spy fiction but it is not: the FBI was investigating the president of the United States to see if he was working for the Russians.”
The president tried to fight back in characteristic style, by firing off half a dozen intemperate tweets.
The first said: “Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!”
A great article that will support non toxic masculinity
For the first time in its 127-year history, the American Psychological Association has issued guidelines to help psychologists specifically address the issues of men and boys — and the 36-page document features a warning.
“Traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence mental health and physical health,” the report warns.
I think hearing Joe Talbot bellowing “I kissed a boy and I liked it!” and pondering why that has so much more impact than Katy Perry kissing a girl and liking it would be a good starting point for those wondering what ‘toxic masculinity’ is.
The new “Guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Boys and Men” defines “masculinity ideology” as “a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.” The report also links this ideology to homophobia, bullying and sexual harassment.
Even if you reject the behaviour towards other demographic groups, surely “walking off” injuries rather than treating them, or keeping depression to oneself until suicide happens are both “toxic”?
You asked what “toxic masculinity” is. I repeated the definition, and added a couple of general examples which have occurred to my knowledge over the years. You then ask if that’s my definition of “masculinity”?
No, it’s not my approach to masculinity. But it is one I have encountered. And I’ve met some men who could provide for their families (“protection” being largely exagerrated as a requirement in this day and age) without carrying the toxic aspects of previous generations.
Unfortunately we live in a world of labels, and some of these labels irritate us to the point of ignoring an underlying value. The term ‘toxic masculinity’ is typical of such a label. Because it has been variously defined, it is often poorly understood or simply dismissed.
But underneath the irritating label, there is value, because in a world in which radical feminism has at times sought to emasculate men, it is important that men are able to reclaim true manhood.
“…a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly “feminine” traits – which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual – are the means by which your status as “man” can be taken away.”
Gee gee I like that one ‘a crock of complete horse shit.’
You remind me of Wayne and Shuster the Canadian comedy duo from long ago.
they used to come up with one-liners; here is a clip. They are funnier than you, but you can keep trying and may be a winner on stage and screen.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKMBTUkJF3g
If anyone is interested in what’s actually at the US-Mexico border right now, here’s an interactive map that lets you look at aerial helicopter footage anywhere you want along the entire length.
Spoiler: wherever there’s easy access, there’s pedestrian fence or wall. Fence meaning tall closely spaced steel columns. Wherever it’s remote but still drivable, there’s vehicle barrier fencing. It’s only in very rugged terrain (mostly in parks and reserves) or where there another natural barrier such as the Rio Grande that’s there’s nothing. And the whole damn thing is heavily sensored and patrolled, even the remote areas with no physical barrier.
He’s a “former San Antonio mayor and former secretary of Housing and Urban Development” (Obama cabinet). His twin brother (a congressman) will be his campaign chair.
“His biggest asset is he’s a policy wonk. I mean, this guy is really, really smart,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party chairman. “He knows a lot about a lot of issues. He is extremely articulate. He’s got really good ideas and he’s able to put those ideas in terms where ordinary Americans can understand them and I think what that does is puts him in the situation where he is best, not only talking to large crowds but talking to smaller crowds where he can answer questions and articulate and share his ideas on his vision for America.”
“The United States Census uses the ethnonym Hispanic or Latino to refer to “a person of Dominican, Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino
“Latinos made up an estimated 11% of all voters nationwide on Election Day, nearly matching their share of the U.S. eligible voter population (U.S. citizens ages 18 and older).” “In U.S. congressional races nationwide, an estimated 69% of Latinos voted for the Democratic candidate and 29% backed the Republican candidate”. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/09/how-latinos-voted-in-2018-midterms/
1.5 Plato’s Right-wing Collectivist Utopia
Plato’s search for a hierarchical, collectivist utopia found its classic expression in his most famous and influential work, The Republic. There, and later in The Laws, Plato sets forth the outline of his ideal city-state: one in which right oligarchic rule is maintained by philosopher—kings and their philosophic colleagues, thus supposedly ensuring rule by the best and wisest in the community. Underneath the philosophers in the coercive hierarchy are the”guardians” — the soldiers, whose role is to aggress against other cities and lands and to defend their polis from external aggression. Underneath them are to be the body of the people, the despised producers: laborers, peasants, and merchants who produce the material goods on which the lordly philosophers and guardians are to live. These three broad classes are supposed to reflect a shaky and pernicious leap if there ever was one — the proper rule over the soul in each human being.
Thousands of years, no change.
The system we have has been destroying societies for a long time as resources are used to provide only for the few at the top. It is time to change from this failed hierarchical system and go to a full democracy and to base our economy upon what is needed to ensure that all have a good living standard while also keeping resource use at a sustainable level.
Then why did you need to cut&paste from mises.org, a site ISTR is not exactly left wing?
“despised workers” involves a large amount of unique interpretation of the work, in my opinion. If the attitude is more neutral, then The Republic could also apply to a centrally-planned left wing society, almost communist in nature. Not democratic, but without alienation between members of that society.
Could you, based on your close reading of Republic, please point us to the section where Plato expresses or implies that he (via his Socratic Mary Sue) despises workers.
He did that because Athens had trialled democracy for a couple of centuries before abandoning it. The interesting part is why everyone formed a consensual view that the experiment was a failure.
” In 621 BC, Draco codified a set of notoriously harsh laws designed to reinforce aristocratic power over the populace.” That’s obviously why they decided he was a bastard.
“In the year 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people.” This system was comprised of three separate institutions: the ekklesia, a sovereign governing body that wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the boule, a council of representatives from the ten Athenian tribes; and the dikasteria, the popular courts in which citizens argued cases before a group of lottery-selected jurors. Although this Athenian democracy would survive for only two centuries…” https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/ancient-greece-democracy
“Participation was not open to all residents, but was instead limited to an adult, male citizens (i.e., not a foreign resident, a slave, or a woman), who “were probably no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
If they had ditched the patriarchy & included women, one suspects an increase in resilience in the design & likelihood of lasting longer. “Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable.” “Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime.”
The wikipedia editors lost the plot here: “democratic forms persisted until the Macedonian army of Phillip II conquered Athens in 338 BC.” A sixteen year discrepancy with the date given in the previous paragraph.
Then “democracy was restored in 307 BC. However, by now Athens had become “politically impotent”. An example of this was that, in 307, in order to curry favour with Macedonia and Egypt, three new tribes were created, two in honour of the Macedonian king and his son, and the other in honour of the Egyptian king.”
Sadly, the creation of new tribes as a political strategy has fallen out of favour. Just think what a boon it would be to the American people at present. Creating a new tribe of trumpians would be a clever move. Park them on a reservation somewhere, build a nice wall around them to make them feel protected. Trump would jump at the chance of becoming their king, and would promptly resign as president in considerable relief.
Wikipedia reports on the failure of Greek democracy:
“Athenian democracy has had many critics, both ancient and modern. Ancient Greek critics of Athenian democracy include Thucydides the general and historian, Aristophanes the playwright, Plato the pupil of Socrates, Aristotle the pupil of Plato, and a writer known as the Old Oligarch. While modern critics are more likely to find fault with the restrictive qualifications for political involvement, these ancients viewed democracy as being too inclusive. For them, the common people were not necessarily the right people to rule and were likely to make huge mistakes. According to Samons:
The modern desire to look to Athens for lessons or encouragement for modern thought, government, or society must confront this strange paradox: the people that gave rise to and practiced ancient democracy left us almost nothing but criticism of this form of regime (on a philosophical or theoretical level). And what is more, the actual history of Athens in the period of its democratic government is marked by numerous failures, mistakes, and misdeeds—most infamously, the execution of Socrates—that would seem to discredit the ubiquitous modern idea that democracy leads to good government.”
“Thucydides, from his aristocratic and historical viewpoint, reasoned that a serious flaw in democratic government was that the common people were often much too credulous about even contemporary facts to rule justly.” You mean, like believing in the Republicans & Democrats, or National & Labour?
“Similarly, Plato and Aristotle criticized democratic rule as the numerically preponderant poor tyrannizing the rich. Instead of seeing it as a fair system under which everyone has equal rights, they regarded it as manifestly unjust. In Aristotle’s works, this is categorized as the difference between ‘arithmetic’ and ‘geometric’ (i.e. proportional) equality.”
Democracy was in the making. Getting the recipe right relies on good thinking and commitment. And there is always the transfer of power. Ever been on a committee and sat through numerous sessions working out a viable plan. Then the next group of numbskulls changes it all without even reading the work that has gone before. This is the difficulty with humans. The new is always better and somebody has a ‘cunning idea’ and wants to be thought the big man.
Christchurch designer Steven Junil was an art school student when he committed to creating only objects with both functionality and integrity.
The 26-year-old hand-makes clothes, shoes and accessories with natural, found and recycled materials for his label 6×4.
“The garment industry is so problematic, it is the second most polluting industry in the world next to petroleum and there are massive ethical issues as well. I think it’s good to be passionate about clothing – and I’m very passionate about clothing – but you can’t really separate the fact that the fashion industry has so many ethical issues, particularly environmentally. If you’re looking at the wider world of what’s happening in the world of fashion or clothing you can’t ignore the context.
“I’m trying to make stuff that has integrity in terms of where the materials come from and how they’re used and trying to do things on a smaller scale because if I produce everything myself I can have a lot of control over how things are made.”
Should we organise a Saturday when women are encouraged not to buy any new female clothes! Good for their pocket, good for the NZ balance of paymenhts? and good for the waste fills. And go op shoppping instead if you have to buy.
This is a excellent way to build a cost effective enviromentally friendly whare / house harvest rain water compost toilet wood stove for cooking and solar panels for the devives and lights . His cost to keep the whare running would be low and so would the whare carbon foot print . The cost of a sepitc tank for the olden style toilets are massive some places you can build your own sepitc systems like my dad did .
But for most one is looking at $20.000 at the least for the sepitc system and connecting to the power grid can cost the same as one can build a off grid solar power system with minimal cost to maintain the system new battries every few years
Bart Cox lives in a former smoko room. His house cost less than his stove.Bart Cox works for Greater Wellington Regional Council as an environmental adviser. He’s pictured in his Carterton home, with his girlfriend Isobel MacKinnon, an actor, director, and theatre maker, and his mum, Liz.
BART: I grew up in Wellington but I have a connection to Wairarapa – my family on mum’s side have been there for some time. Mum moved back to Masterton when I was 15, when my dad died. I was painting mum’s shed for her one day and I had this overwhelming feeling that I should move there. I asked Mum if I could put a little house on her block of land, out of Carterton. She said she’d love that.
I was working in this delicatessen in Masterton making coffee, living in a caravan. This guy Jim was a building recycler, but he hates knocking down buildings, especially if they’re nice old wooden ones. He always tries to resell the materials or, even better, resell the house to someone else who wants to remove it from the land. He was a regular in the deli, and one day he was trying to sell the customers a little smoko room from this industrial part of Masterton. He had pictures of it on his phone. I knew if I looked at it I’d probably want it. Eventually I was like, “OK, give me a look at the photos.” And I was like, “Argh! I Love it!” He goes, “Come on. Just buy it off me. Otherwise I’m going to have to knock it down.” I was like, “I can’t, it’s too A local removal company plonked it down on the land and I got into doing it up. It’s only 50 square metres. It was lined with all kinds of materials like MDS but underneath the bones were mostly old native timbers from the 60s. to much of a project.” He sold it to me for $2500.
I gibbed it inside and connected it to solar panels with my friend Ed. His way is sort of DIY – you can tailor-make it to your lifestyle. The house ended up being like something from pre-internet era – all wood and simple technologies – and then it suddenly jumps right into the future: high-tech in a small way. Ka kite ano links below
P.S I see the alt right trolls jumping on this good story to one can build a house down south that needs no extra heat Tama-nui-te-RA provides all we need.
Air pollution is as bad for pregnant women as smoking in raising the risk of miscarriage, according to a scientific study. They said the finding was upsetting and that toxic air must be cut to protect the health of the next generation.
Air pollution is already known to harm foetuses by increasing the risk of premature birth and low birth weight. Recent research has also found pollution particles in placentas.
The effect of long-term exposure to dirty air on the risk of miscarriage has been analysed previously. Studies from Brazil to Italy to Mongolia found a link, but others failed to do so.
However, the latest study is the first to assess the impact of short-term exposure to air pollution. It found that raised levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution that are commonplace around the world increased the risk of losing a pregnancy by 16%.
It’s pretty profound,” said Dr Matthew Fuller, at the University of Utah’s department of emergency medicine and one of the research team. “If you compare that increase in risk to other studies on environmental effects on the foetus, it’s akin to tobacco smoke in first trimester pregnancy loss.” NO2 is produced by fuel burning, particularly in diesel vehicles.
Air pollution harm to unborn babies may be global health catastrophe, warn doctors
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The research, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, was conducted in Salt Lake City in the US, and surrounding urban areas. But Fuller said the results were applicable elsewhere: “There are many places in the world that suffer from pollution that is far greater, so this is not a problem unique to Utah. This is a problem we are all facing.” NO2 levels in Salt Lake City are similar to those in cities such as London and Paris.
Fuller was initially alerted to the issue when a family member lost a miscarried during a particularly poor period of air quality in 2016. He said: “That triggered the question in my mind and then I started noticing anecdotally that I was seeing spikes in miscarriage Ka kite ano links below.
Eco Maori backs our Papatuanuku World society to change the way we live drop the negitive effects in the way we live at the minute to a life style that does not ruin OUR enviroments that we leave behind for te mokopunas grandchildren.
We have to move away from the modle of growth is best .Goverments like this modle why because they are sold the theory that they can use inflation to borrow money now and in the future the money leant is less of a % of GDP but in reality they are still loading te mokopunas with DEPT because inflation takes a % of ones purchasing power per unit I.E the dollars. So inflation is loading the future a burden that we leave the grandchildred the dollar has less value than when the grandparents had that dollar hence property is the best currency to give the moko’s.
Albert Einstein theory is a fact one can not get nothing for nothing money power goods .
We need to make goods to last a life time Thanks to Japan for making cars that are reliable and can last for 30 years or longer with good care. With the grandchildren in mind we must move away from those modles to one were we value life before money profts The capitialist system has to evovle or collapse Isaac Newton humans have to evovle or collapse . Eco Maori can see the new currency evolving NOW what is that well it will be the amount of hits one gets on there pages on the many platforms on the internet at the minute in the future everyone will have there own online profile given by goverments that is unhackable and it will have value a big value component to it the more LIKES or HITS one gets the more value that person has the more dislikes the less value one has and so on. I say that will be the start of Equality for all. People/Countrys that go around spraying wai on the world other beings will soon be worthless hence a world society with a humane conscience that is rewarded for good behaviour and punished for bad behaviour . This is the world the 00.1% are trying to fool us that EXIST now the intelligent people know that is a FAllACY we know that the wealthy can do what they want if they get caught cheating killing plundering there money buys them a get out of jail free card while the 99% get the harshest end of there laws heaped on us. Ka kite ano links below.
Kia ora Mike from Newshub That was not very good behaviour from our over seas guests. The gnome has vanished it will be melted down by now it looks like they we all skinny buggers feeding there PE habitats. The warming of Tangaroa and global warming has been covered up for so long it’s now showing us reality the harshest weather man kind has seen is rising out of Tangaroa. I have seen a good movie on allergic reaction to food its best to expose children earlier in life to all things that can cause them problems later in life instead of keeping them in a glass bubble. Some of my Mokopunas were allergic to a animal they kept the animals and now they are fine. One of my workers had his eye swell in the Bush I told him to harden up next minute I seen him I got one van to take him to get some antihistamine tablets he had hay fever. Some of the world leaders think they can hide their body language from most people but some can read them like a book. I say the unprocessed grass feed meat is good for people My meat consumption has dropped but just because its to expensive to buy now. Some mothers do have them that young Australian boy crashed his girlfriends car him and his m8 pushed it home
The Antonio Gaudies design church in Barcelona is a magnificent building it will be really cool to see it when it’s finished. I don’t fancy eating chicken feathers it’s all protein tho A. Ka kite ano
We have to make laws to force battery makers into making them reusable / recyclable now don’t wait till we have a sea full of waste and try and fix the problem thats not very intelligent and cost will be 1000 % more to the pocket and enviroment having the forsight to see the problem now and not weight till its a disaster is the correct way to handle this problem .
Ion age: why the future will be battery powered
The variable nature of wind and solar power means storing energy is a huge part of the fight to mitigate climate change
Why have batteries become important?
In a world increasingly anxious about climate change, the surge in the generation of renewable energy over the past 20 years offers a sliver of hope. But the variable nature of wind and solar power means that storing energy until consumers need it has become the next big challenge. And so, large-scale battery installations are springing up across electricity grids around the world, to make them more flexible. In 2017, more than 1GW of energy storage capacity was added around the world – a record, yes, but still a drop in the ocean of global energy demand.
So how many of these big batteries are there?
There is around 500MW of large-scale battery capacity installed around the UK, a figure that is expected to double within three years, according to the analysts Aurora Energy Research. Almost all capacity uses lithium-ion.
Globally installed capacity is expected to top 50GW by 2020 – and surge to almost 1,000GW by 2040, according to Bloomberg NEF. That would equate to about 7% of the world’s energy capacity.
What about other modes of transport?
Electric double-decker buses, built by the Chinese manufacturer BYD, already ply the streets of London. Elon Musk has announced plans for an electric truck.
But the energy density required for heavy transport makes it a lot harder for batteries to beat fossil fuels. “It’s definitely more challenging,” says Prof Paul Shearing, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s chair in emerging battery technologies. “[But] I think the future is going to be electric, no matter which way you cut it.”
Will we all be flying around in electric jumbo jets soon? “Not yet,” says Shearing, who adds that energy density and weight of batteries meant there would probably only be used in unmanned aerial vehicles in the short term. “I think it’ll be a long time until we see an electric passenger plane,” he says.
What next?
Companies are working hard to increase the amount of energy that can be packed into a battery, and to bring down the cost of making them.
Future prices are unlikely to fall as fast as they have in the past, says Ostermann, because reductions have already been so rapid. Sonnen has seen prices fall from more than €1,000 (£905) per kilowatt hour of capacity when it started in 2010, to about €150-200 per kWh today. But the company expects to cut costs in electronics such as inverters.
New wonder materials will take a while to break through, Shearer says. “The next 10 years are going to continue to be lithium-ion dominated. It’s taken a long time to get to this productivity and technological maturity level. For anything to catch up will take a while.”
Most innovation will be around lithium-ion, he believes, such as improving the energy density and lowering costs by reducing the amount of cobalt in a battery. The rate at which batteries can take on a charge will also improve, Shearer adds.
Radcliffe agrees that lithium-ion will continue to dominate. Cost and performance will improve, driven by the scale-up of manufacturing and continued research, he says.
Batteries will also be put to new uses. Fisker says that as technology improves, he expects to see them eventually appear on construction sites, in mines and in industrial equipment, replacing diesel generators. They will be deployed in increasingly small devices, such as medical implants, Shearer says.
Ka kite ano links below
This is how corrupt the NZ justice system is first the sandflys play silly buggers on the road and get there m8’s to give Eco Maori false fines . I go to the police station because I have some how over paid fines there no help what so ever then I tryed ringing on the 7/1/19 I get told they would send me out a form to file for hardship . That was a totally falous call because I go to the court house and they say no record of the call and there is a warrent for my arrest WTF for fines they are to scared to arrest Eco Maori tangata.
No wonder they have stepped up there indimadation games in the last 2 weeks the system is corupt whano keep your nose clean and stay out of its CLAWS because the unjustice system will never let you go Ka kite ano
I tryed to post a story with Peter Tosh song but the sandflys are stuffing with my computer it’s about how the younger people behaviour is better than the last generation Ka kite ano
Here is a link with my HUAWEI phone the sandflys are blocking my over divices muppets I social media is giving people a education about the system and a conscious that the 00.1 % don’t want us to have Ka kite ano links below P.S it took 2 hours to get the last post out to Te tangata
Here you go tangata global warming is here and now don’t let the pollies lie and tell you its a myth.
Australia extreme heatwave: records broken for highest minimum temperatures
Severe weather conditions forecast to bring maximum temperatures 8C to 16C above average, as three towns record overnight minimums of 33C
All-time highest minimum temperatures have been broken in three places as a heatwave sets in across much of Australia, threatening more record hot days.
Meekatharra in Western Australia and Fowlers Gap and White Cliffs in New South Wales all registered an overnight minimum of 33C on Monday.
Severe to extreme heatwave conditions extending from the interior of WA across South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, the ACT and NSW will bring maximum temperatures of 8C to 12C above average, and in some places up to 16C above average before the end of the week.
Record-breaking heatwave to hit Australia’s south-east, restricting sporting events
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From Tuesday through to Friday, parts of South Australia, Victoria and NSW may break January heat records, with daytime maximums extending up to the mid-40s.
“It’s quite a significant heatwave because we are expecting a number of records to fall across those areas for both minimum and maximum temperatures,” said Dean Sgarbossa, a senior meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology.
Ka kite ano links below
Kia ora Newshub no comment.
It would be cool if the district health boards looked after our young doctors .
I feel for the fast food staff as many of them are not given guarnteed 40 hour week and that is not on .
Lloyd brexit is the alt right move Britain should stay in the Europeen Union.
Simon I say NCA fees should be scrapped .
The Knome has a turned up looks like the story is giving a few people a smile.
NZ busniess should
I tryed to find a song from the Cranberries in the 1990 I will keep looking its was a sad day for the world when Dolores died condolences to her love ones.
There you go Milisa the internet and social media is change the ways of the world its giving the world a conscience and thats a GOOD phenomenon.
That was a good picture of a pohutukawa tree bloom Alex
Ka kite ano
Kia ora James & Mulls from The Crowd Goes Wild its quite hot at the tennis in Melbourne
All the best to Makere Gibbons on her new journey. Yes high prefomance sports takes a toll on ones bodys I give thanks to all of the sports stars for the entertainment they give us.
Simon Doull is a climate change denier
Its the week for the egg I see one has crashed the internet and now the Allblacks are painting them they are good food to don;t believe the negative story about eggs.
The Halberg awards has a lot of people to chose from this time Storm ka kite ano
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beaglehole, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago niphon/Getty Images The number of people accessing medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand increased significantly between 2006 and 2022. But the disorder is still under-diagnosed and ...
To celebrate the start of New Zealand music month, we look back at the best local tuneage that managed to weasel its way into Hollywood productions. There’s nothing quite like the thrilling zap of recognition when New Zealand weasels its way into a glamorous Hollywood production. Crack open a Tui ...
People trust other people more than institutions. So how can the media gain that trust through journalists without losing what’s important about the institution? Anna Rawhiti-Connell reflects on two years of curating the news for The Bulletin.Amonth ago, armed cops descended on my neighbourhood as calls to “lock your ...
Opinion: PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are a class of thousands of man-made chemicals used widely in everyday consumer items such as textiles, packaging, and cookware, popular for their water, grease and stain-repellent properties. However, the very properties that make PFAS so attractive to manufacturers are also what ...
NONFICTION 1 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)’ This is the hottest book in New Zealand, number one with a bullet in its first week, selling more than any overseas title, and demand is so huge that it’s already been reprinted. A ...
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A warning – suicide is discussed in this podcast New Zealand’s own long-running soap Shortland Street doesn’t hesitate to kill off its much-loved characters. But would TVNZ dare to kill off our favourite soap? That’s the fear as times get tough in television – even though it’s been pointed out ...
Essay: If the Crown harms children, how do you hold it accountable? Analysis by Aaron Smale in light of the Waitangi Tribunal court decision. The post The Crown versus Māori Children appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan resistance leader has condemned the United Nations role in allowing Indonesia to “integrate” the Melanesian Pacific region in what is claimed to be an “egregious act of inhumanity” on 1 May 1963. In an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A key part of the Albanese government’s political strategy is to fill the news cycle with its presence and messaging. Ministers are deployed to the maximum, even when they’ve little to say. This week ...
Recent extreme weather events showed the importance of a well-functioning insurance system, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs minister Andrew Bayly. ...
By Jo Moir, RNZ News political editor, and Craig McCulloch, deputy political editor New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. In an interview on RNZ’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Brakenridge, Postdoctoral research fellow at Swinburne University, Centre for Urban Transitions, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute The Conversation, Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock People have a pretty intuitive sense of what is healthy – standing is better than sitting, exercise is great for overall ...
The Wellington-based Reserve Force soldier is now almost three years into his New Zealand Army career with 5th/7th Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. ...
"The Government needs to release the review immediately as this reckless approach to change risks disjointed decision making and creates more distress and uncertainty for staff," Fitzsimons said. ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Jeremiah Manele has been elected Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, polling 31 votes to 18 over rival candidate and former opposition leader Mathew Wale with one abstention. The final result of the election by secret ballot was announced by the Governor-General, Sir David Vunagi, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Priestley Habru, PhD candidate, public diplomacy, University of Adelaide Former foreign minister Jeremiah Manele has been elected the next prime minister of Solomon Islands, defeating the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, in a vote in parliament. The result is a mixed bag for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shaun Eaves, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Jamey Stutz, CC BY-SA How often do mountains collapse, volcanoes erupt or ice sheets melt? For Earth scientists, these are important questions as we try ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Flood, Professor of Sociology, Queensland University of Technology Shutterstock Most young adult men in Australia reject traditional ideas of masculinity that endorse aggression, stoicism and homophobia. Nonetheless, the ongoing influence of those ideas continues to harm men and the people ...
The NZQA proposal released to staff today would involve a net loss of 35 roles. There are 66 roles being disestablished with 13 of those currently vacant, and 31 new roles proposed, said Fleur Fitzsimons Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga ...
Alex Casey talks to Loren Taylor, the writer, director and star of new film The Moon is Upside Down, about assembling her dream ensemble cast, toilet paper pads and turning literal dreams into reality. There’s a moment in The Moon is Upside Down where frazzled anaesthetist Briar (Loren Taylor) gets ...
Renters and realtors are upset with a government decision to scrap a bill meant to regulate property managers over concerns about unethical and unlawful behaviours. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassy Dittman, Senior Lecturer/Head of Course (Undergraduate Psychology), Research Fellow, Manna Institute, CQUniversity Australia With winter sports swinging into action, adults around the country have volunteered or been volunteered by others (humorously known as being “volun-told”) to coach junior sports teams. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University richardernestyap/Shutterstock Parents are often advised to burp their babies after feeding them. Some people think burping after feeding is important to reduce or prevent discomfort crying, or to ...
Workers at a major ASB contact centre in Auckland have voted to take strike action and withdraw their labour following disappointing pay negotiations with the employer and an "offer" to workers that would leave them worse off than the previous year. ...
As the government tries to get the country back on track with a school phone ban, Tara Ward has an idea for where they should turn their attention to next.New Zealand students returned to school on Monday morning, but their cellphones did not. The government’s new phone ban began ...
The Labour Party is demanding Peters be stood down, saying "he's embarrassed the country" with a "totally unacceptable" attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. ...
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance, whose members were victims of a China-backed cyber attack, is discussing forming a standing committee to deal with foreign influence. ...
The PSA is concerned that the voluntary redundancies being offered to staff by Stats NZ will impact on the agency’s ability to deliver on its core functions. ...
Results ranged from surprisingly yum to soul-destroying. I love cooking. The kitchen is a hearth of culinary creation, of sensory delights, of gastronomic poetry. I also can’t afford anything nice. Why does a pack of instant noodles and some milk cost ten bucks? I love you, Aotearoa, but I miss ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Police in Solomon Islands are on high alert ahead of the election of the prime minister today. The two candidates for the top job are former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele at the head of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation, which is ...
He’s fine but it feels like I’m losing a friend and it’s making me bitter. How do I say ‘enough is enough’? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzHey Hera,I’ve recently moved in with a girlfriend, her partner Steve, and his friend. We all live in a lovely little house. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
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Where are the Greens?
Why haven’t they replied to Todd Muller’s very public attack, yet?
The success or failure of a political party often hangs on the the effectiveness and public profile of its leaders.
Todd Muller, the laughably titled National Party spokesperson for climate change, has publicly attacked the government, accusing the government of being “….blinded by Green ideology”.
Alongside his assault on the government and the Green Party, Todd Muller also launched into an attack on climate change pressure group, Generation Zero as being a Green Party version of the Young Nats.
The success or failure of a political party often hangs on the the effectiveness and public profile, (or lack thereof), of its leaders.
Leadership means being out there.
Leadership means defending your corner in the public arena, (especially when you are being attacked in the public arena).
There is no room in politics for a leader who keeps silent when his party and its allies are being attacked.
Todd Muller has launched an attack on the government and Generation Zero
Will James Shaw use his right of reply and stand with Generation Zero and other climate activists?
Will James Shaw defend the government’s record on climate change?
Or will James Shaw continue to maintain his invisible man act, and condemn his party, and himself, to falling polls and political irrelevancy?
James Shaw needs to take a note from US member of Congress Ocasio Cortez
Despite not even being officially sworn in yet.
US Congresswoman Ocasio Cortez shows what leadership looks like.
On holiday at their eco bachs most likely
Does that propaganda piece from Muller really need any response from the Greens?
Anyone who gives a shit about the environment already knows that National’s approach is to pay lip-service to climate change and the need to protect the environment, while pursuing policies that assume neither of those things matter. Muller’s blather is just one further example of that approach. Anyone fooled by it was unlikely to be a potential Green voter anyway.
Plus the duty journalists are probably getting more fed up by the day with the rostered National Party tyre kicking, so allowing their tedious yapping to be seen for what it is is not a negative at all.
James may be giving Todd Muller the rope he needs. Sometimes, leaping up to counter hot-headed claims such as those of Todd, give those claims more exposure than they would have got, had they been ignored for a while. In any case, Get Zero can look after themselves and will doubtless take the opportunity to make Todd look like the methane-emmitting dinosaur he’s showing himself to be 🙂
James Shaw is the Government’s Climate Change Minister, by not defending the Government’s record, by being silent in the face of Muller’s attack
‘James may be giving Todd Muller the rope he needs’, to hang the Greens.
As for Generation Zero needing to look after themselves….
Brings to my mind the old saw…
If we don’t hang together we will be hung separately.
Perhaps if you stopped viewing everything as a war requiring a violent approach you might see that there is little to be gained from Shaw responding to Muller.
“There was violence on both sides folks”,
The trouble with your approach, and that of most Rightwingers, Solkta, is that you view legitimate peaceful protest or outspokeness by the Left as violence.
According to you we should quietly shut up and bow down to Right Wing attacks.
Meanwhile the Right dominate the airwaves with continual and aggressive attacks on climate change and social justice activists.
I’m not sure why you have quote marks around your first sentence. I don’t know why you think i am right wing just because i think you are foolish.
If you don’t recognise it, the quote is from Donald Trump justifying Right Wing violence at Charlottesville that culminated in the murder of Heather Heyer.
Here is another quote you may not recognise;
I also disagree that Todd Muller’s ‘claims’ were ‘hot-headed’.
Todd Muller’s public statement was an obviously well crafted and thought-out attack piece.
It needs to be answered in the same manner.
That it is not – is in my opinion, a clear failure of leadership.
If the Government Climate MInister cannot answer this very public attack from the Opposition, then he needs to seriously rethink his position and role.
Politics is a public exercise, if James cannot step up, he needs to step down.
It was just a positioning thing. Propaganda ought to serve a useful purpose, not just operate as hot air. At a guess, I’d say he’s positioning himself as next leader of the bluegreens. Much ado about nothing, seems to me. It’s not as if his conceptualising of issues is impressive. At least Simon Upton got the basics right. Hasn’t been any Nat since who’s managed that!
As regards your idea that James ought to be out there tilting at this particular windmill, I suspect doing the Don Quixote isn’t a realistic option for him. Zen teaches the best way to deal with an oncoming opponent is to sidestep & let him flounder on by. He could foot-trip him, but since the Nats flounder so well all by themselves it’s hardly worth the effort.
Then there’s the fact that he’s been working with the guy in a collaborative effort to produce non-partisan policy on our highest-priority issue. According to the Nat leader, the process is working. Until complete, he needs to avoid distractions, and any personal antagonism that your suggestion would produce.
It is clear from this attack piece penned by Todd Muller, that the price for getting National’s agreement on non-partisan policy, will be to allow them to repeal the current government’s ban on the issuing of new off shore oil and gas exploration permits on their return to the Treasury benches – And that no agreement will bind them into supporting action against climate change in the here and now, (especially if it is in lead of any of our trading partners).
Which is probably what ties into Todd Muller’s antipathy towards Gen Zero. Gen Zero despite being nearer the conservative end of the climate movement, than most climate activist groups, are for taking action in the here and now, where Todd Muller, and National Party are for dragging out taking any concrete action on climate change as long as they possibly can.
If you asked me. I would say that the price for National’s sign on, is currently way too high.
I’m not under the impression that any binding of National in that regard is intended, or even possible. We must wait to see the text of the eventual agreed legislation to check on that, eh?
Further exploration may not be excluded. There’s no cost to the public if the Nats want to allow private industry to find new fields to drill – as long as drilling them isn’t allowed, and the agreed limits suitably restrict aggregate emissions in accord with our national commitments to the international agreements.
What we’re waiting for is Nat political culture to shift into responsible behaviour. As long as their denial persists, they’ll remain in the corner they’ve painted themselves into. No MMP partners, relying on coalition screw-ups to piss voters off & return them to power.
How will generation zero look after themselves?
Indeed
Generation Zero are a voluntary group, (of mostly young), people. As such they don’t have the platform accorded to James Shaw as a Government Minister, and co-leader of the Green Party.
Any public statement of reply issued by Gen Zero is likely to completely ignored by the media.
Not so the Minister.
So let’s hear it James,
Do you agree, or disagree, with Todd Muller that the Government are, “….blinded by Green ideology”. ?
James, are Generation Zero, a genuine independent youth pressure group concerned about climate change, or a Green Party Front, as alleged by Todd Muller, “….a pseudo-Green Party campaign machine”?
James, your silence is not an option. It is a dereliction of duty. And an abandonment of leadership, in the face of a very public attack by the opposition party on the government and your role in it.
So your response to Muller describing Generation Zero as a pseudo-Green Party campaign machine would be for the Greens to quickly jump to their defense? Sounds like playing into Muller’s hand to me.
Yep, it’s a “pig-fucker” move by Muller: “of course it’s not true, I just want to make him publicly deny it.”
Gen Zero can speak for themselves, whether their statement of reply is reported or not is another matter.
The accusation is that Generation Zero is a Green Party Front.
Is Generation Zero a Green Party Front?
The question is just being left to hang there.
What has James Shaw got to say about this accusation?
James Shaw’s silence gives credence to Todd Muller’s accusation that Generation Zero are “….a pseudo-Green Party campaign machine”, to the detriment of Gen Zero’s reputation and credibility.
How can the Green Party leader in good conscience let Gen Zero swing in the wind like this?
Are Gen Zero a Green Party front, or not?
The public need to know.
The public couldn’t care less.
Hi Robert,
Your cynical lack of faith in the public, is not backed up by polling.
From the US;
Public support for climate policy remains strong, according to new poll
Melissa De Witte – Stanford News Service, July 16, 2018
From NZ;
Large numbers concerned by and will act on climate change
Horizon Poll, 15 May, 2015
Hi Jenny – I meant the public couldn’t care less whether Gen Zero is a front for The Green Party, or not. They won’t care, I reckon, a jot.
There would be more fatih if they had been going to the polls for the last couple or so elections but they don’t, getting them there is the best response to what Muller and the National Party have or don’t have on offer. Those prattling on the air-waves are preaching to the “unconverted”.
Hi Robert, from the poll results I supplied, you might get an inkling of, why I think that James Shaw needs to answer Todd Muller’s attack, how a strong lead given on climate action from the Climate Change Minister, could both strengthen, and benefit, from this relatively high public understanding of this issue.
In my opinion James Shaw’s silence in the face of this Opposition attack, and his and Marama Davidson’s invisibility in general, are not doing themselves, or their party, any favours.
Election polling data should worry left bloc
Thomas Coughlan – Newsroom, September 13, 2018
That the Green Party leadership are missing a prime opportunity to raise their Party profile should be concerning, to Green Party members and supporters.
So come on James and Marama, break the silence, get out and vigorously defend your corner.
Take a note from Ocasio Cortez who answers every Republican attack and raises her profile in the process.
Picture it the other way. We’re all aware that the Taxpayers’ Union is an ACT/National-run astro-turfing operation (and genuinely an astroturfing initative, unlike Gen Zero being allegedly a Green Party astroturfing initiative).
Not many outside of those interested in politics are aware of that. But, suppose the leaders of ACT and National went to the effort of putting out a release to media denying that the Taxpayers’ Union is an ACT/National astroturfing operation. Their die-hard supporters might be chuffed to read their staunch denial, but most people reading it would be hearing for the accusation for the first time, and would think “Hmm, no smoke without fire – they wouldn’t be making such a fuss if they didn’t have something to hide, I guess the Taxpayers’ Union must really be a Nat/ACT astroturfing operation.”
Shaw would be a mug to get tempted into denying this.
He’s no mug, 4 shaw.
The conspiracy theorists mantra;
Never believe anything until the Government denies it, Eh, Psycho
What do you think about Muller’s other accusation which directly targets the government? That the Government are, “….blinded by Green ideology”. ?
Do you also think that James Shaw as the Minister shouldn’t answer this accusation, in case people think he was being defensive and had something to hide?
If what you maintained here was true, Psycho, then the Minister and the Government should never defend themselves from opposition attacks.
Do you really think that if James Shaw got off his chuff and took the opportunity to respond with his own opinion piece, in which he laid out the best up-to-date, science backed information available to him. Which showed that the government is not blinded by Green ideology, but in fact is acting on the best scientific information available, that most people would disregard this, and instead think ‘Hmm, no smoke without fire’, the government must be blinded by Green ideology.
Never believe anything until the Government denies it, Eh, Psycho
Not what I was saying at all. Just pointing out a PR commonplace, that if you go out of your way to publicly deny some piece of foolishness about you that most people would never have heard anyway, the biggest effect of your denial is to associate you with that foolishness in the minds of the people who would otherwise never have heard of it. Sometimes it’s better to just ignore stupid stuff.
What do you think about Muller’s other accusation which directly targets the government? That the Government are, “….blinded by Green ideology”. ?
I think “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?” Even if National weren’t ideologically opposed to everything the Green Party stands for, it would still be his job as an Opposition MP to trash-talk the government. Issuing outraged denials would give the trash-talk more credibility than it deserves.
…if James Shaw got off his chuff and took the opportunity to respond with his own opinion piece, in which he laid out the best up-to-date, science backed information available to him…
How would that be different from all the other press releases he puts out on this subject, eg International global warming report lays out the critical challenge?
It would be different,
It would be a living rebuttal, part of an impassioned debate in reply.
Shaw’s rebuttal if he chose to make it, would have a frisson not commonly found in a dry academic treatise, or one sided press release, or essay,
As such it would be likely to get far more media and public attention.
Who knows; Shaw’s rebuttal (if he ever makes one), may even draw a counter response from Todd Muller, which would continue and heighten the public interest in this very important debate, and bring out the issues in a way that no one-sided monologue ever could.
At the very least it could lift Shaw’s public invisibility.
Shaw’s current objective is to get the widest possible buy in for the Zero Carbon Act. This particularly includes National. For National to support it they will have to go through some face saving process, otherwise they would have to admit to being fuck useless and/or wrong. They will need to continue to signal to their core support that they can be relied upon to put the economy first. There is no benefit in Shaw engaging in a public scrap that could push National into a public position of opposition to the Bill.
And I could think of three benefits, at least.
1/ It could rescue the Greens from their current public invisibility and resulting low polling results, which risks political oblivion
2/ It would represent a clear division between the government and the opposition.
If the results in the polls above are credible, a clear difference between the Government and the Opposition over climate change, could greatly influence which way undecided voters choose to place their ballot. to the benefit of the government.
What are the negative results of your strategy?
What are the negatives from allowing Opposition to attack the government without response, in the hope that they will back the Zero Carbon Bill?
From Todd Muller’s statement it seems that the opposition has three basic pre-conditions for supporting the Zero Carbon bill,
1, On a change of government immediate repeal the current government’s ban on issuing new oil and gas exploration permits.
2, pushi any concrete action towards making New Zealand Zero Carbon away from action in the here and now. and into some time in the future.
3, Thirdly, to not move faster than any of our competitors.
Plus reserving the right to attack the government unhindered and unchallenged.
I think you are far more concerned with your “war” than with actually making sustainable changes to the law to address CC.
I don’t see the article as an attack on the government but rather as Nact trying to justify itself to itself. They are between a rock and a hard place. If they support the Bill they risk their core supporters considering they have sold out, but if they don’t support the Bill then they risk alienating lots of centrist voters who are becoming continually more concerned about CC.
They are not going to get the things you list. If they don’t support the Bill as a consequence it will pass anyway, and then will be the time for you to bayonet their guts.
“Are Gen Zero a Green Party front, or not? The public need to know.”
No evidence for that at all, is there? In psychology, they call this projection. The GP does not need a front. The fact that a lobby group has goals which seem similar, if not identical, is not reason to assume any deeper relationship.
Toddy is trying to make himself hot via Muldoonist framing (`anyone who disagrees with me is a communist’). I very much doubt tapping into Muldoon nostalgia will make a hot toddy.
Generation zero seems more like a corporate driven group as seen by it’s website, which is all about getting donations, volunteers, and so forth run with a development agenda which ‘sprung’ up to support unitary plan and more urbanisation branded under buzz words like carbon neutral etc in cities. Very subjective to brand themselves for youth. How many youth are there wanting more concessions to developers to create $600+k apartments? Not many I know of!
Weird then, that Todd Muller should single them out for attack.
Maybe Muller senses that Gen Zero are encroaching on what he sees as his natural constituency, and that his pandering to the oil and gas lobby, is losing ground, even with conservatives, and business.
How NZ has changed from being Green, clean social democrat country to the current neoliberal Nat Lite one, is by keeping all discourses and solutions as far right as possible and appropriating groups and pretending to speak for them through marketing aka pretending to speak for ‘youth’ when you are really pushing a slightness left version of a right future.
Example GenZero were for the PPP for Skypath which charges walkers and cyclists while the trucks and cars go across Auckland Harbour Bridge for free? Sound like a front for PPP’s and developers pretending to represent sustainable carbon free future or having completely privatisation led solutions that apparently youth are all for, sarcasm?
I am not aware that Gen Zero have ever claimed to speak for all youth.
But if the rest of what you say is true. Strange, that Todd Muller finds them so threatening.
Maybe Muller is much, much, further to the Right than he tries to make out.
Or maybe Muller is trying to attack the wider climate movement through attacking Gen Zero
Who knows?
Whatever the murky motives for Muller’s attack on Gen Zero, all further reason for James Shaw to take a stand and debunk Muller’s attack on the government and defend the climate movement.
SNZ, I suspect you are on the correct track…
Some more time will tell the full story…
The Greens are gatekeepers…GZ appears to have taken up a similar position at the gate…
Weird then, that Todd Muller should single them out for attack.
I’m thinking you didn’t spend a lot of time reading the article. It starts off Despite the claims of Generation Zero, with the “claims of generation Zero” clickable which takes you to an article on Stuff from last Wednesday where Lisa McLaren, who leads the Zero Carbon Act campaign for Generation Zero, attacks Muller and Bridges and National’s record:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/109799207/national-party-must-stop-holding-kiwis-ransom-with-climate-change-outlook
Muller is not going on the attack but is rather fighting a rear guard defensive action (another war analogy since i know you like that stuff).
Hi Solka. Yes I had missed that.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Personally I think that Lisa Mclaren’s criticisms of National are well founded.
Mclaren calls on National (in quite flowery language), to pull their collaboration boot on. ie work with the government over the Zero Carbon Bill. Todd Muller and National are refusing to negotiate over the Zero Carbon bill in good faith. Instead setting out hard preconditions and demands that have effectively torpedoed the negotiations.
Shaw is smart not to respond at all.
I suppose, if Shaw’s silence in the face of opposition attacks continues, that at least the Greens will know who to blame when they miss the 5% threshold.
gives a damn about polls.
Shaw has his sight on cross-parliamentary carbon act.
Eyes on the prize Jenny.
Shaw is foolish to continue with the negotiations while National are insisting on non-negotiable demands.
What details of the negotiations over the bill are you privy to?
I am not privy to any demands that Todd Muller himself has not made public.
But the hard demands he has made public are the right to return to deep sea oil exploration and drilling.
And that New Zealand must not lead any of our trading partners in any climate change legislation.
The National Party’s other more wishy washy demand, as voiced by Todd Muller, National’s Climate change Spokesperson, is that New Zealand not do anything about climate change in the here and now, which is what Gen Z are demanding and which has seen them particularly singled out for Todd Muller’s ire.
But the hard demands he has made public
He hasn’t made any demands at all. All he has done is spout some rhetoric.
Interesting…
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1
Worth noting – “Update, 9 January: The release of the World Magnetic Model has been postponed to 30 January due to the ongoing US government shutdown.”
Curious Droid has an interesting video about the Earths magnetic field, its movement over time and its implications.
Wow I loved that. Compulsory viewing although that shirt was tough lol – I’m going to watch more of this guy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/12/trump-tweets-fbi-russia-new-york-times-james-comey
The endgame beginning for the putrid pinnacle.
A great article that will support non toxic masculinity
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/american-psychological-association-links-masculinity-ideology-homophobia-misogyny-n956416
The Cure
https://youtu.be/VUztkXbv0vw
Maybe the APA are closet IDLES fans:
That was great. Bookmarked.
I think hearing Joe Talbot bellowing “I kissed a boy and I liked it!” and pondering why that has so much more impact than Katy Perry kissing a girl and liking it would be a good starting point for those wondering what ‘toxic masculinity’ is.
What a crock of complete horse shit.
What is “toxic masculinity”?
Even if you reject the behaviour towards other demographic groups, surely “walking off” injuries rather than treating them, or keeping depression to oneself until suicide happens are both “toxic”?
If that is your definition of being masculine then you need to think a bit more.
How about protecting your family and making sure they are happy?
How about making sure your partner has the support they need
And your kids
How about etc etc etc
You asked what “toxic masculinity” is. I repeated the definition, and added a couple of general examples which have occurred to my knowledge over the years. You then ask if that’s my definition of “masculinity”?
No, it’s not my approach to masculinity. But it is one I have encountered. And I’ve met some men who could provide for their families (“protection” being largely exagerrated as a requirement in this day and age) without carrying the toxic aspects of previous generations.
How about protecting your family…
Jeez where you live bro?
Hi Chris,
Unfortunately we live in a world of labels, and some of these labels irritate us to the point of ignoring an underlying value. The term ‘toxic masculinity’ is typical of such a label. Because it has been variously defined, it is often poorly understood or simply dismissed.
But underneath the irritating label, there is value, because in a world in which radical feminism has at times sought to emasculate men, it is important that men are able to reclaim true manhood.
If you are interested there is a very good article at https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-difference-between-toxic-masculinity-and-being-a-man-dg/, which defines Toxic masculinity in the following words :
“…a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly “feminine” traits – which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual – are the means by which your status as “man” can be taken away.”
tl,dr: “Remuera”
Cheers
That is actually quite a good read
Have a read of it. You’re going off half cocked.
Gee gee I like that one ‘a crock of complete horse shit.’
You remind me of Wayne and Shuster the Canadian comedy duo from long ago.
they used to come up with one-liners; here is a clip. They are funnier than you, but you can keep trying and may be a winner on stage and screen.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKMBTUkJF3g
If anyone is interested in what’s actually at the US-Mexico border right now, here’s an interactive map that lets you look at aerial helicopter footage anywhere you want along the entire length.
https://www.usatoday.com/border-wall/us-mexico-interactive-border-map/
Spoiler: wherever there’s easy access, there’s pedestrian fence or wall. Fence meaning tall closely spaced steel columns. Wherever it’s remote but still drivable, there’s vehicle barrier fencing. It’s only in very rugged terrain (mostly in parks and reserves) or where there another natural barrier such as the Rio Grande that’s there’s nothing. And the whole damn thing is heavily sensored and patrolled, even the remote areas with no physical barrier.
So high, so wide, so low…..
“When 44-year-old Julián Castro officially launched his presidential campaign Saturday, he became one of the youngest candidates in the prospective 2020 Democratic field — and the first major Latino candidate.” https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/12/julian-castro-2020-election-democrats-1098636
He’s a “former San Antonio mayor and former secretary of Housing and Urban Development” (Obama cabinet). His twin brother (a congressman) will be his campaign chair.
“His biggest asset is he’s a policy wonk. I mean, this guy is really, really smart,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the Texas Democratic Party chairman. “He knows a lot about a lot of issues. He is extremely articulate. He’s got really good ideas and he’s able to put those ideas in terms where ordinary Americans can understand them and I think what that does is puts him in the situation where he is best, not only talking to large crowds but talking to smaller crowds where he can answer questions and articulate and share his ideas on his vision for America.”
“The United States Census uses the ethnonym Hispanic or Latino to refer to “a person of Dominican, Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino
“Latinos made up an estimated 11% of all voters nationwide on Election Day, nearly matching their share of the U.S. eligible voter population (U.S. citizens ages 18 and older).” “In U.S. congressional races nationwide, an estimated 69% of Latinos voted for the Democratic candidate and 29% backed the Republican candidate”. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/09/how-latinos-voted-in-2018-midterms/
It all began, as usual, with the Greeks
Thousands of years, no change.
The system we have has been destroying societies for a long time as resources are used to provide only for the few at the top. It is time to change from this failed hierarchical system and go to a full democracy and to base our economy upon what is needed to ensure that all have a good living standard while also keeping resource use at a sustainable level.
Question: Have you actually read, closely and in full The Republic?
Yes.
Then why did you need to cut&paste from mises.org, a site ISTR is not exactly left wing?
“despised workers” involves a large amount of unique interpretation of the work, in my opinion. If the attitude is more neutral, then The Republic could also apply to a centrally-planned left wing society, almost communist in nature. Not democratic, but without alienation between members of that society.
Could you, based on your close reading of Republic, please point us to the section where Plato expresses or implies that he (via his Socratic Mary Sue) despises workers.
He did that because Athens had trialled democracy for a couple of centuries before abandoning it. The interesting part is why everyone formed a consensual view that the experiment was a failure.
” In 621 BC, Draco codified a set of notoriously harsh laws designed to reinforce aristocratic power over the populace.” That’s obviously why they decided he was a bastard.
“In the year 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or “rule by the people.” This system was comprised of three separate institutions: the ekklesia, a sovereign governing body that wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the boule, a council of representatives from the ten Athenian tribes; and the dikasteria, the popular courts in which citizens argued cases before a group of lottery-selected jurors. Although this Athenian democracy would survive for only two centuries…” https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/ancient-greece-democracy
“Participation was not open to all residents, but was instead limited to an adult, male citizens (i.e., not a foreign resident, a slave, or a woman), who “were probably no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
If they had ditched the patriarchy & included women, one suspects an increase in resilience in the design & likelihood of lasting longer. “Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable.” “Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime.”
The wikipedia editors lost the plot here: “democratic forms persisted until the Macedonian army of Phillip II conquered Athens in 338 BC.” A sixteen year discrepancy with the date given in the previous paragraph.
Then “democracy was restored in 307 BC. However, by now Athens had become “politically impotent”. An example of this was that, in 307, in order to curry favour with Macedonia and Egypt, three new tribes were created, two in honour of the Macedonian king and his son, and the other in honour of the Egyptian king.”
Sadly, the creation of new tribes as a political strategy has fallen out of favour. Just think what a boon it would be to the American people at present. Creating a new tribe of trumpians would be a clever move. Park them on a reservation somewhere, build a nice wall around them to make them feel protected. Trump would jump at the chance of becoming their king, and would promptly resign as president in considerable relief.
Wikipedia reports on the failure of Greek democracy:
“Athenian democracy has had many critics, both ancient and modern. Ancient Greek critics of Athenian democracy include Thucydides the general and historian, Aristophanes the playwright, Plato the pupil of Socrates, Aristotle the pupil of Plato, and a writer known as the Old Oligarch. While modern critics are more likely to find fault with the restrictive qualifications for political involvement, these ancients viewed democracy as being too inclusive. For them, the common people were not necessarily the right people to rule and were likely to make huge mistakes. According to Samons:
The modern desire to look to Athens for lessons or encouragement for modern thought, government, or society must confront this strange paradox: the people that gave rise to and practiced ancient democracy left us almost nothing but criticism of this form of regime (on a philosophical or theoretical level). And what is more, the actual history of Athens in the period of its democratic government is marked by numerous failures, mistakes, and misdeeds—most infamously, the execution of Socrates—that would seem to discredit the ubiquitous modern idea that democracy leads to good government.”
“Thucydides, from his aristocratic and historical viewpoint, reasoned that a serious flaw in democratic government was that the common people were often much too credulous about even contemporary facts to rule justly.” You mean, like believing in the Republicans & Democrats, or National & Labour?
“Similarly, Plato and Aristotle criticized democratic rule as the numerically preponderant poor tyrannizing the rich. Instead of seeing it as a fair system under which everyone has equal rights, they regarded it as manifestly unjust. In Aristotle’s works, this is categorized as the difference between ‘arithmetic’ and ‘geometric’ (i.e. proportional) equality.”
“To its ancient detractors, rule by the demos was also reckless and arbitrary. Two examples demonstrate this: …” There’s the wisdom of crowds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds
There’s also the madness of crowds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
Democracy was in the making. Getting the recipe right relies on good thinking and commitment. And there is always the transfer of power. Ever been on a committee and sat through numerous sessions working out a viable plan. Then the next group of numbskulls changes it all without even reading the work that has gone before. This is the difficulty with humans. The new is always better and somebody has a ‘cunning idea’ and wants to be thought the big man.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/summer-days/audio/2018678132/steven-junil-if-nz-stopped-importing-fabric-and-clothing-we-d-be-fine-for-another-50-to-100-years
Christchurch designer Steven Junil was an art school student when he committed to creating only objects with both functionality and integrity.
The 26-year-old hand-makes clothes, shoes and accessories with natural, found and recycled materials for his label 6×4.
“The garment industry is so problematic, it is the second most polluting industry in the world next to petroleum and there are massive ethical issues as well. I think it’s good to be passionate about clothing – and I’m very passionate about clothing – but you can’t really separate the fact that the fashion industry has so many ethical issues, particularly environmentally. If you’re looking at the wider world of what’s happening in the world of fashion or clothing you can’t ignore the context.
“I’m trying to make stuff that has integrity in terms of where the materials come from and how they’re used and trying to do things on a smaller scale because if I produce everything myself I can have a lot of control over how things are made.”
Should we organise a Saturday when women are encouraged not to buy any new female clothes! Good for their pocket, good for the NZ balance of paymenhts? and good for the waste fills. And go op shoppping instead if you have to buy.
Tulsi Gabbard to stand for POTUS, Democrats and Republicans not happy, they reckon she is another one of “Putins Puppets ?”
This is a excellent way to build a cost effective enviromentally friendly whare / house harvest rain water compost toilet wood stove for cooking and solar panels for the devives and lights . His cost to keep the whare running would be low and so would the whare carbon foot print . The cost of a sepitc tank for the olden style toilets are massive some places you can build your own sepitc systems like my dad did .
But for most one is looking at $20.000 at the least for the sepitc system and connecting to the power grid can cost the same as one can build a off grid solar power system with minimal cost to maintain the system new battries every few years
Bart Cox lives in a former smoko room. His house cost less than his stove.Bart Cox works for Greater Wellington Regional Council as an environmental adviser. He’s pictured in his Carterton home, with his girlfriend Isobel MacKinnon, an actor, director, and theatre maker, and his mum, Liz.
BART: I grew up in Wellington but I have a connection to Wairarapa – my family on mum’s side have been there for some time. Mum moved back to Masterton when I was 15, when my dad died. I was painting mum’s shed for her one day and I had this overwhelming feeling that I should move there. I asked Mum if I could put a little house on her block of land, out of Carterton. She said she’d love that.
I was working in this delicatessen in Masterton making coffee, living in a caravan. This guy Jim was a building recycler, but he hates knocking down buildings, especially if they’re nice old wooden ones. He always tries to resell the materials or, even better, resell the house to someone else who wants to remove it from the land. He was a regular in the deli, and one day he was trying to sell the customers a little smoko room from this industrial part of Masterton. He had pictures of it on his phone. I knew if I looked at it I’d probably want it. Eventually I was like, “OK, give me a look at the photos.” And I was like, “Argh! I Love it!” He goes, “Come on. Just buy it off me. Otherwise I’m going to have to knock it down.” I was like, “I can’t, it’s too A local removal company plonked it down on the land and I got into doing it up. It’s only 50 square metres. It was lined with all kinds of materials like MDS but underneath the bones were mostly old native timbers from the 60s. to much of a project.” He sold it to me for $2500.
I gibbed it inside and connected it to solar panels with my friend Ed. His way is sort of DIY – you can tailor-make it to your lifestyle. The house ended up being like something from pre-internet era – all wood and simple technologies – and then it suddenly jumps right into the future: high-tech in a small way. Ka kite ano links below
P.S I see the alt right trolls jumping on this good story to one can build a house down south that needs no extra heat Tama-nui-te-RA provides all we need.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/houses/109698930/bart-cox-lives-in-a-former-smoko-room-his-house-cost-less-than-his-stove
Air pollution is as bad for pregnant women as smoking in raising the risk of miscarriage, according to a scientific study. They said the finding was upsetting and that toxic air must be cut to protect the health of the next generation.
Air pollution is already known to harm foetuses by increasing the risk of premature birth and low birth weight. Recent research has also found pollution particles in placentas.
The effect of long-term exposure to dirty air on the risk of miscarriage has been analysed previously. Studies from Brazil to Italy to Mongolia found a link, but others failed to do so.
However, the latest study is the first to assess the impact of short-term exposure to air pollution. It found that raised levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution that are commonplace around the world increased the risk of losing a pregnancy by 16%.
It’s pretty profound,” said Dr Matthew Fuller, at the University of Utah’s department of emergency medicine and one of the research team. “If you compare that increase in risk to other studies on environmental effects on the foetus, it’s akin to tobacco smoke in first trimester pregnancy loss.” NO2 is produced by fuel burning, particularly in diesel vehicles.
Air pollution harm to unborn babies may be global health catastrophe, warn doctors
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The research, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, was conducted in Salt Lake City in the US, and surrounding urban areas. But Fuller said the results were applicable elsewhere: “There are many places in the world that suffer from pollution that is far greater, so this is not a problem unique to Utah. This is a problem we are all facing.” NO2 levels in Salt Lake City are similar to those in cities such as London and Paris.
Fuller was initially alerted to the issue when a family member lost a miscarried during a particularly poor period of air quality in 2016. He said: “That triggered the question in my mind and then I started noticing anecdotally that I was seeing spikes in miscarriage Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/11/air-pollution-as-bad-as-smoking-in-increasing-risk-of-miscarriage
Eco Maori backs our Papatuanuku World society to change the way we live drop the negitive effects in the way we live at the minute to a life style that does not ruin OUR enviroments that we leave behind for te mokopunas grandchildren.
We have to move away from the modle of growth is best .Goverments like this modle why because they are sold the theory that they can use inflation to borrow money now and in the future the money leant is less of a % of GDP but in reality they are still loading te mokopunas with DEPT because inflation takes a % of ones purchasing power per unit I.E the dollars. So inflation is loading the future a burden that we leave the grandchildred the dollar has less value than when the grandparents had that dollar hence property is the best currency to give the moko’s.
Albert Einstein theory is a fact one can not get nothing for nothing money power goods .
We need to make goods to last a life time Thanks to Japan for making cars that are reliable and can last for 30 years or longer with good care. With the grandchildren in mind we must move away from those modles to one were we value life before money profts The capitialist system has to evovle or collapse Isaac Newton humans have to evovle or collapse . Eco Maori can see the new currency evolving NOW what is that well it will be the amount of hits one gets on there pages on the many platforms on the internet at the minute in the future everyone will have there own online profile given by goverments that is unhackable and it will have value a big value component to it the more LIKES or HITS one gets the more value that person has the more dislikes the less value one has and so on. I say that will be the start of Equality for all. People/Countrys that go around spraying wai on the world other beings will soon be worthless hence a world society with a humane conscience that is rewarded for good behaviour and punished for bad behaviour . This is the world the 00.1% are trying to fool us that EXIST now the intelligent people know that is a FAllACY we know that the wealthy can do what they want if they get caught cheating killing plundering there money buys them a get out of jail free card while the 99% get the harshest end of there laws heaped on us. Ka kite ano links below.
Kia ora Mike from Newshub That was not very good behaviour from our over seas guests. The gnome has vanished it will be melted down by now it looks like they we all skinny buggers feeding there PE habitats. The warming of Tangaroa and global warming has been covered up for so long it’s now showing us reality the harshest weather man kind has seen is rising out of Tangaroa. I have seen a good movie on allergic reaction to food its best to expose children earlier in life to all things that can cause them problems later in life instead of keeping them in a glass bubble. Some of my Mokopunas were allergic to a animal they kept the animals and now they are fine. One of my workers had his eye swell in the Bush I told him to harden up next minute I seen him I got one van to take him to get some antihistamine tablets he had hay fever. Some of the world leaders think they can hide their body language from most people but some can read them like a book. I say the unprocessed grass feed meat is good for people My meat consumption has dropped but just because its to expensive to buy now. Some mothers do have them that young Australian boy crashed his girlfriends car him and his m8 pushed it home
The Antonio Gaudies design church in Barcelona is a magnificent building it will be really cool to see it when it’s finished. I don’t fancy eating chicken feathers it’s all protein tho A. Ka kite ano
Yes I know a few of you would have had a sore face but you got my point.
We have to make laws to force battery makers into making them reusable / recyclable now don’t wait till we have a sea full of waste and try and fix the problem thats not very intelligent and cost will be 1000 % more to the pocket and enviroment having the forsight to see the problem now and not weight till its a disaster is the correct way to handle this problem .
Ion age: why the future will be battery powered
The variable nature of wind and solar power means storing energy is a huge part of the fight to mitigate climate change
Why have batteries become important?
In a world increasingly anxious about climate change, the surge in the generation of renewable energy over the past 20 years offers a sliver of hope. But the variable nature of wind and solar power means that storing energy until consumers need it has become the next big challenge. And so, large-scale battery installations are springing up across electricity grids around the world, to make them more flexible. In 2017, more than 1GW of energy storage capacity was added around the world – a record, yes, but still a drop in the ocean of global energy demand.
So how many of these big batteries are there?
There is around 500MW of large-scale battery capacity installed around the UK, a figure that is expected to double within three years, according to the analysts Aurora Energy Research. Almost all capacity uses lithium-ion.
Globally installed capacity is expected to top 50GW by 2020 – and surge to almost 1,000GW by 2040, according to Bloomberg NEF. That would equate to about 7% of the world’s energy capacity.
What about other modes of transport?
Electric double-decker buses, built by the Chinese manufacturer BYD, already ply the streets of London. Elon Musk has announced plans for an electric truck.
But the energy density required for heavy transport makes it a lot harder for batteries to beat fossil fuels. “It’s definitely more challenging,” says Prof Paul Shearing, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s chair in emerging battery technologies. “[But] I think the future is going to be electric, no matter which way you cut it.”
Will we all be flying around in electric jumbo jets soon? “Not yet,” says Shearing, who adds that energy density and weight of batteries meant there would probably only be used in unmanned aerial vehicles in the short term. “I think it’ll be a long time until we see an electric passenger plane,” he says.
What next?
Companies are working hard to increase the amount of energy that can be packed into a battery, and to bring down the cost of making them.
Future prices are unlikely to fall as fast as they have in the past, says Ostermann, because reductions have already been so rapid. Sonnen has seen prices fall from more than €1,000 (£905) per kilowatt hour of capacity when it started in 2010, to about €150-200 per kWh today. But the company expects to cut costs in electronics such as inverters.
New wonder materials will take a while to break through, Shearer says. “The next 10 years are going to continue to be lithium-ion dominated. It’s taken a long time to get to this productivity and technological maturity level. For anything to catch up will take a while.”
Most innovation will be around lithium-ion, he believes, such as improving the energy density and lowering costs by reducing the amount of cobalt in a battery. The rate at which batteries can take on a charge will also improve, Shearer adds.
Radcliffe agrees that lithium-ion will continue to dominate. Cost and performance will improve, driven by the scale-up of manufacturing and continued research, he says.
Batteries will also be put to new uses. Fisker says that as technology improves, he expects to see them eventually appear on construction sites, in mines and in industrial equipment, replacing diesel generators. They will be deployed in increasingly small devices, such as medical implants, Shearer says.
Ka kite ano links below
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/14/on-the-charge-why-batteries-are-the-future-of-clean-energy
Bio fuels will power our Planes and Ships
This is the future bio fuel
Solar powering OUR grandchildrens sustainable healthy happy future.
This is another way to solve our plastic waster problem’s
This is how corrupt the NZ justice system is first the sandflys play silly buggers on the road and get there m8’s to give Eco Maori false fines . I go to the police station because I have some how over paid fines there no help what so ever then I tryed ringing on the 7/1/19 I get told they would send me out a form to file for hardship . That was a totally falous call because I go to the court house and they say no record of the call and there is a warrent for my arrest WTF for fines they are to scared to arrest Eco Maori tangata.
No wonder they have stepped up there indimadation games in the last 2 weeks the system is corupt whano keep your nose clean and stay out of its CLAWS because the unjustice system will never let you go Ka kite ano
I tryed to post a story with Peter Tosh song but the sandflys are stuffing with my computer it’s about how the younger people behaviour is better than the last generation Ka kite ano
Here is a link with my HUAWEI phone the sandflys are blocking my over divices muppets I social media is giving people a education about the system and a conscious that the 00.1 % don’t want us to have Ka kite ano links below P.S it took 2 hours to get the last post out to Te tangata
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/109935581/why-young-kiwis-are-getting-better-behaved
Here you go tangata global warming is here and now don’t let the pollies lie and tell you its a myth.
Australia extreme heatwave: records broken for highest minimum temperatures
Severe weather conditions forecast to bring maximum temperatures 8C to 16C above average, as three towns record overnight minimums of 33C
All-time highest minimum temperatures have been broken in three places as a heatwave sets in across much of Australia, threatening more record hot days.
Meekatharra in Western Australia and Fowlers Gap and White Cliffs in New South Wales all registered an overnight minimum of 33C on Monday.
Severe to extreme heatwave conditions extending from the interior of WA across South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, the ACT and NSW will bring maximum temperatures of 8C to 12C above average, and in some places up to 16C above average before the end of the week.
Record-breaking heatwave to hit Australia’s south-east, restricting sporting events
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From Tuesday through to Friday, parts of South Australia, Victoria and NSW may break January heat records, with daytime maximums extending up to the mid-40s.
“It’s quite a significant heatwave because we are expecting a number of records to fall across those areas for both minimum and maximum temperatures,” said Dean Sgarbossa, a senior meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology.
Ka kite ano links below
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/15/australia-extreme-heatwave-records-broken-amid-all-time-highest-minimum-temperatures
Kia ora Newshub no comment.
It would be cool if the district health boards looked after our young doctors .
I feel for the fast food staff as many of them are not given guarnteed 40 hour week and that is not on .
Lloyd brexit is the alt right move Britain should stay in the Europeen Union.
Simon I say NCA fees should be scrapped .
The Knome has a turned up looks like the story is giving a few people a smile.
NZ busniess should
I tryed to find a song from the Cranberries in the 1990 I will keep looking its was a sad day for the world when Dolores died condolences to her love ones.
There you go Milisa the internet and social media is change the ways of the world its giving the world a conscience and thats a GOOD phenomenon.
That was a good picture of a pohutukawa tree bloom Alex
Ka kite ano
Kia ora James & Mulls from The Crowd Goes Wild its quite hot at the tennis in Melbourne
All the best to Makere Gibbons on her new journey. Yes high prefomance sports takes a toll on ones bodys I give thanks to all of the sports stars for the entertainment they give us.
Simon Doull is a climate change denier
Its the week for the egg I see one has crashed the internet and now the Allblacks are painting them they are good food to don;t believe the negative story about eggs.
The Halberg awards has a lot of people to chose from this time Storm ka kite ano