Stop importing pork or any other food we can produce ourselves – and make it compulsory for country of origin to be CLEARLY visible on all food products.
What does conventional farming actually entail? The regenerative movement sees significant differences between what they do and what those who don't label themselves "regenerative", do. It would pay to ask them for the details.
Can we consume pke without messing up tropical forests elsewhere?
Is continuing the use of sow crates fair to kiwi pigs?
The fertiliser thing is the bastard offspring of failing to set limits for nitrates in streams and ground water. You set nitrate levels at 5ppm if you want to contain cancer deaths and allow freshwater species to flourish.
Then, according to nitrate levels, you set local policies for nitrate use. South Canterbury has a long way to go before nitrate use would be sensible, for instance.
But if a farmer or horticulturist, in an area where the groundwater is in good shape, wants to use a bit of nitrate fertiliser, there is no reason why they shouldn't.
Yes, you'd need a regular testing public authority. But surely the lesson from Havelock North is that water must be regularly monitored. With clear limits in place, and a regular testing regime, councils will encounter much less opposition enforcing district regulations consequent upon water quality.
But perhaps the government is waiting for a few nitrate linked infant deaths to force their hand.
That's nonsense, imo and believing that plays into the hands of those who know how to obfuscate endlessly to slow-down or prevent change that doesn't suit.
it's not that measuring isn't needed, it's that land can in fact be managed without it. The reason why measuring is so important at this time is because so many people just don't know how to manage land regeneratively.
They're not reckons though. Experienced gardeners know things that can't be measured. Measuring is a great tool but if civilisation collapsed tomorrow we'd still be able to grow food regeneratively.
Experienced gardeners know things that can't be measured.
No they don't.
What they know has been measured but they haven't written it down making it difficult, if not impossible, to pass on.
Measuring is a great tool but if civilisation collapsed tomorrow we'd still be able to grow food regeneratively.
It's not going to collapse tomorrow and
no we couldn't as there simply isn't the knowledge base needed to roll it out across the country
Time and time again I've heard stories of people saying how they got advice from someone and, after following there advice, it didn't work. This happens so much, in fact, that researchers looked into it.
The research showed that the people passing on their advice were missing a vital piece of information, something that they were doing that was so ingrained in them that they didn't even realise that they were doing it nor, more importantly, that it was a necessary part of what they were doing.
This is why we measure, to find out what actually works and how so that the information can be reliably passed on.
And I've linked before to the fallibility of human memory.
DTB Times are going to be tough in the future without reacting angrily and jailing the recalcitrants. Perhaps put them in stocks where we can all see them and people can come along and heckle them. The Chinese called it re-education. Somehow the responsibles have to check the irresponsibles, there is just so much fluff floating around obscuring the important issues and the methods of improvement.
"Nonsense" was a bit harsh. It's a ploy used by people who immediately recognise that the requirement to measure before acting can be gamed; challenge the measuring methods, the measuring devices, the measures themselves, muddy the waters with other measurements made by industry, cite the changing standards, the results from overseas measurements, the ideologies and methodologies and you can delay action for ever and ever. Amen.
Indeed, who would argue with Science being a way to the understanding the World? If only we didn’t have to rely on those pesky humans with their fallible brains and fragile little egos.
Maybe you’re too rational to have a useful conversation with about Science? Maybe you don’t recognise sarcasm when the tag isn’t there for your convenience? Science is a human endeavour, by humans, for humans. There’s no ‘special magic’ despite the aura that some claim to see there – we have moved on from Alchemy but not that much. For many scientists, it is just another fucking job.
I do think that our punishment of white-collar crime is far below what it needs to be. A murderer only kills people, white-collar crime destroys civilisation.
While your “destroys civilisation” is a little…Errr… overstating things I do agree white collar fraud is something that should be prosecuted a little harder.
But not all of it. Some amounts to simple theft, others – like Enron, is out and out fraud
Its pretty much a slippery slope (which I hate) but the longer we leave it in place the more damage that it does and it escalates. We fail to prosecute the small corruption (such as cash jobs where taxes are avoided) and so those who commit those small corruptions commit bigger (Its just the same as the other action, right?). And eventually the people committing this fraud is too big to adequately prosecute.
Whether it is nonsense or not really depends upon what level of management you're referring to. You can and I'm sure do manage your forest garden in a way that is not damaging to the environment, without recourse to testing.
Councils and central governments however, need some kinds of objective measures of the degree to which agricultural interests are complying with their responsibilities. This is in no small part because not all operators will act in good faith to contain their nitrate and or silt or organic particulate leaching. Those who act in bad faith and fail to contain pollutants need to be charged, and objective evidence will greatly assist the councils if they contest council findings.
If the levels are centrally set as a health policy as they should have been, at the level advised by the WHO for example, then councils can be required to set policy to try to achieve target levels. In areas with significant nitrification that might include a ban on nitrate fertilisers and or requirements to bioremediate or destock.
For farmers to be contesting the levels, as seems to have been the practice during David Parker's roadshow is an impropriety. The safe and appropriate level for nitrates is a matter of fact, not a ball for opinion or financial interest to kick around.
That at least accounts for their legendary economic acumen – their virtues being so advanced in that field that neither universities nor the Nobel committee can even perceive them.
Is banning sow crates fair to kiwi farmers if imported pork comes from sow crate garnering. ?
This is a really good example of why the rules and regulations governing different economies need to be the same. If they're not the same then the one that doesn't have as strict a rules as the other is going to undercut the other. The difference in pricing results in a misallocation of resources away from the more expensive regulations.
The answer is not to dump the regulations (as National/ACT want) but to dump trading with nations that don't have equivalent regulations and enforcement.
Again, we're faced with the fact that free-trade won't bring about equitable or economic results. There only thing that will is well regulated trade.
What does regenerative farming actually entail?
Hopefully, they'll get round to making an official definition that both makes sense but isn't too restrictive on process. All other legislation has such definitions.
When Parliament returns, these careerists will return to business as usual. Politics is the only business that doesn’t suffer in a recession. It’s a system built for failure: failure to deliver results in the public interest and failure to foster policy innovation. Worse still, doesn’t demand accountability for failure to fix these problems. The current Labour Government is the starkest example of this stagnation.
I've been there, done that, and sympathise. Don't vote, it only encourages them! That's been a popular notion for yonks. The worst thing about democracy is the delusional effect on younger generations, who get suckered en masse.
Then there's the other side of the coin. Being proactive is good. Progress comes via convergence on common ground. Consensus politics can be made to work well, if you apply skill to the process. The power of positive thinking.
Having spent most of my life exploring that side, while recalling the alienation phase of my younger self, I reckon muddle through the middle is better than defeatism.
My answer to "don't vote it only encourages them" is to point out that the people who do vote get the political advantage that they know comes from voting- the power, the policies, the control.
Who benefits from saying 'don't vote, it only encourages them?" What is in it for them? Will I be one of the beneficiaries of allowing others to decide, by voting, who is in charge?
And voting is like renewing your registration on your car, sort of.
It says this is my country, and I support it when I vote, I register my ideas as a citizen to be counted along with my fellows. And I will vote along with fellow citizens who I consider are choosing good ways to direct the country. These are the ones trying to guide behaviour and reasonable controls over the country so that we advance together and solve problems and make future plans, in responsible ways for our and the country's mutual good.
That's why I vote, that's what is in my mind, and if any journalist or campaigner, or any of the entitled or sourly cynical are prepared to deny what advantages they have received from the country, and deny that it is a country and system of any worth, then they are feckless, mindless, untrustworthy, and should be watched with suspicion.
I think she forfeits any right to be paid to comment on politics publicly if she can't bring herself to behave like a responsible adult, and worse, encourages others to behave likewise
Democracy would be fine – if we actually had a democracy rather than an elected dictatorship that can, and usually does, ignore the will of the people.
That is what I have felt time and time again in recent years. Too often the will of the people has been deliberately ignored. I would like to see the Swiss system where there are regular referendum – three or four times a year – usually putting up 3 or 4 questions for the public to vote on. The results are binding and must be implemented within 2 years. I would like to have had the opportunity to vote on such things as 1/ course fees and student loans 2/allowing large numbers of overseas students into our schools and universities ( It was supposed to have improved our education system Haha ) 3/ The escalation of immigration 4/ scrapping of the superannuation fund and more….
Perhaps somebody can explain how binding referendums are supposedly instruments or conduits of and for ‘the will of the people’. Aren’t they just a variation on the theme of ‘the majority wins’? In other words, 51% of the people get what they want and ‘the will of the losers’ is basically ignored?
The lowest bar is 51% and demands for expediency and efficiency result in this low bar becoming the aim to strive for (target or threshold). Compromise is a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘need to have’ when trying to reach the bar. These are the pragmatic considerations of the system as it is and I cannot see how binding referendums make a meaningful difference. That is not ‘the will of the people’ but of a self-selecting group of people. This only gets worse when more people disengage from the process altogether. Opinion pieces by Andrea Vance and Luke Malpass today don’t help one bit.
I’ll paraphrase your Q.: Why should the 51% be ignored in favour of the 49%.
I think I have made it clear enough to understand that this question is the wrong one and a mirror of the Q. that I posed, but neither is framing the issue in a way that leads to a meaningful solution. Referendums per se are not the solution and you have only managed to confirm my view, so far. How is compulsory voting changing the bar of 50%?
Sometimes these discussions remind me of a first-year ethics class.
Firstly, if you want referenda to reflect compromises that make 80% of voters happy, make the threshold for adoption 80%, not 50%.
Secondly, even then you have what tories love to call "the tyranny of the majority". Most of the time they're referring to hardships that most people would love to have (like a high marginal tax rate on millionaires, when the median income is ~$50k), but some issues might arise where they have a point. Compulsory euthenasia, maybe? So obviously there would have to be strict constitutional constraints upon governments and the power of a referendum.
Thirdly, there's the question of whether it's even a good way to run a government. Not because the voters are stupid, but because it's chaotic and slow. Small inputs can have significant pseudo-random effects. What about contradictory referenda? UBI referendum followed by a tax cut referendum? Removal of enforcement powers from one body, with another referendum introducing new regulations that need to be enforced?
Fourth, a lot of policy shouldn't be controlled by demagogues. Elected representatives can tweak and change things as they go, based on available information from experts. Binding referenda need to be followed, regardless of whether the available information changes or whether big bucks were spent on targeted advertising for three weeks.
Thirdly, there's the question of whether it's even a good way to run a government.
It's not about running the administration like that but in running the country. A rather important difference.
Not because the voters are stupid, but because it's chaotic and slow.
Slow I would agree with but not chaotic if the right processes are put in place.
Fourth, a lot of policy shouldn't be controlled by demagogues.
That's pretty much what we have now.
Elected representatives can tweak and change things as they go, based on available information from experts.
They can but they don't. If they did then personal cars would have been dropped years ago.
Binding referenda need to be followed, regardless of whether the available information changes or whether big bucks were spent on targeted advertising for three weeks.
Then make it so that:
If new information that comes to light changes then it can be put back to referenda to be changed
Don't allow lies or misinformation in advertising.
Don't allow big money to advertise one way or another for a referenda.
So obviously there would have to be strict constitutional constraints upon governments and the power of a referendum.
Yes but I happen to think that we need that anyway and that constitution needs to be written by the people.
It is the radically participatory nature of the Icelandic process that makes it interesting to anarchists like us. For anarchists, constitutionalising is not about finding one way to manage all social orders but of finding ways to ensure that people can propose radical change that does not lead to the domination of others. This demands active participation in making the rules by which we would like to be governed.
Constitutionalising does not stop after a certain point, but ought to continue as a fundamental part of social and political activity. The problem with the nation state, potentially with the exception of Iceland, is that it has become ossified. So what might an alternative look like?
Referenda are generally over a single issue. They are less susceptible to the kinds of capture that occurs with other parts of the political system. Looking back over the many tragic instances of misgovernance in NZ, it's surprising, for a supposedly democratic state, how few of them enjoyed popular support or even assent. Referenda exist to stiffen the spines of those pasta-like MPs and parties who typically flop whichever way entrenched financial interests prefer.
Poor people have no reason to vote for labour if the point is that national is worse on beneficiaries.
They are both bad, they are both full of contempt. And hiding the shit sandwich served to the poor, the soon to be poor and unemployed in a wrapping of kindness and gentlenessness still leaves it a shit sandwich.
mate, are you mansplaining the right of a women to vote to a women?
Just asking sweety, cause it was not your kind that just 'gave' us that right out of their good heart,.It was earned by the women who came before me, nothing to do with men and certainly nothing to do with white landowning men who think they have eaten wisdom and knowledge with a soup laddle such as yourself. . Non of that however does away with the reality of todays useless eaters that want to be elected to government cause it sure beats getting a job in private industry, and that includes the pretenders in your favorite party.
no, i can't anymore.
I can find no reason to re-elect the Greens, National, Labour or any of the other useless eaters. Not one.
As for 'the environment', that was fucked generally speaking by white stale males a long time ago.
And i have always identified as a female, Sabine being my given name since i first came here to this blog, no matter how much you want to pretend to be 'woke and / or uninformed'.
I don't like to assume. Re: "the environment" being f*cked by the patriarchal hierarchy, I'm totally with you there. Can I do better? It's my life mission to do just that. I apportion a very small part of my efforts to the political "solution", though I will vote; participation is vital, in my opinion. The rest of my energy goes toward reparation, reconciliation, recognition, re-cognition, re-imagining and doing the mahi required. I met a couple today who introduced themselves as (phonetically) toe-nee and pa-ris; can you confidently assign gender to them, Sabine?
I attended an Advance Party meeting in my village yesterday; their candidate believes they'll get 15%, comfortably; "The polls didn't pick Trump's win," he declared, "and look what happened!" They talked about Trump a lot.
The were from outside of the village They received absolute support, no matter what they said. I've been pressing some of the attendees to respond to the article that describes Billy's "epiphany" during lockdown, where he immersed himself in Qanon -studies and "became acutely aware" of the real situation, asking them if they'd feel comfortable if their child was to reverse their ordinary positions on the world, following a weeks-long-soaking in Facebook and the work of American Hard-Right activists, but so far my suggestions have bounced off the hard walls of Blind Devotion and they're beginning to express pity for me.
Around 30? Much the same turnout that any politician event gets here. A high percentage were/looked non-European. I asked if they thought Billy's rapid adoption through Facebook was of any concern to them, but they said no, as that's how they too "woke up".
Do you think the attendees will actually turn up to vote, and / or give financial support to the guy.
I know a couple of people who are well down that rabbit hole, amongst others, and the chances of them fronting up to a polling booth and giving their name and address to get a voting paper, and then filling it out in a valid manner would be pretty close to zero.
I can't decide if it's a serious political vehicle or a con job designed to fleece the vulnerable.
I don't think anyone there was able to donate much at all. Your point about the fearfulness for being in a place and being noted for being there (polling booth, intending to vote "Billy") is interesting and the "x" factor that will, come the election, expose them all as chumps.; I wonder, though, if it's something else. I wonder if it's simply a pathological "happening" that's attracting a few moths.
Serious, Graeme, as in seriously naive & delusional. I know three, all old friends, two are university grads, all successful professionals now retired.
I seriously pissed off the two males back at the start last summer (before Billy & JLR jumped on) when I pointed out via emails exactly where they were going wrong in their thinking. 😎
I also pulled rank by reminding them I'd been checking out conspiracy theories way longer than either of them. I could've used academic elitism (hard science qualifications always outranked soft science etc) but better to have mercy. Still, testing friendships that have endured 47 & 37 years is unusual.
The cost of bringing busloads/carloads of people from elsewhere will be listed under "unofficial expenses" that will never be seen.
In the second to last photo in the link provided by Dennis Frank @ 2, there is a woman with a placard hanging down the front with the words in upper-casing:
UN MASKED. UN MUZZLED, UN VACCINATED, UN AFRAID.
Someone should have marched behind her holding up a big sign : UN HINGED.
It's a UN conspiracy. One hoarding in my town, New Conservative I think, says "NZ not UN".
Here's an interesting article giving 5 reasons why people buy into conspiracy theories. I have to admit that I had to look up Qanon. The article might help explain what is happening.
Probably the best way to 'cure' these dumb asses is to undermine them with humour.
If all the wits – famous or otherwise – and cartoonists in the world were to make a mass effort to laugh them out of the limelight, then they lose their power and influence and hopefully fade into obscurity.
Especially those of us who wore brown shoes and safari suits.
I wonder what Bob says now about metros with their immaculate short hair and huge beards, men who wear sports coats with ripped jeans, and the cult of shaven heads?
Oh he won't like metros. I remember a few years ago hearing Bob Jones say he absolutely hated people who wore their sunglasses on top of their heads, and he would never employ anyone who did so. Seemed a rather extreme reaction but there you go. At the same time he said he hated having to comply with building regulations for accessibility ramps etc because most people in wheelchairs were 'faking it'.
It seems the cops have become very lenient since we, who were arrested during peace protests against the American war against Vietnam. Why were the leaders of that anti Covid protest not arrested for breaking the law and inciting people to also break that law.
For one thing, there is an election on in NZ and the leaders would likely claim the police were interfering with their political/electioneering rights.This would likely motivate many others to join their cause and to also protest in large groups in the streets.
For another thing, the police did not arrest members of the Mt Roskill church group for alledgedly gathering together in groups larger than the official allowable number. If so, that would likely mean that any law enforcement action against the anti Covid crowd would be dismissed by the courts on the grounds of inconsistent application of the law.
But, on yet another hand, if the government is going to have 'rules' on these matters, it looks impotent and weak if they are not enforced.
Anyone see the Fran on Q+A? She issued a fervent leftist critique at the end that was as acute as it was forthright. Never seen her do that before. Maybe she's between contracts?? 🤔
Could you give me the link to that Q+A. I limit what I take in so that I don't fall out of my tree from being 'stoned' on the drug of political farce but I try to keep up. So if you can please?
I watched it on my flat-screen tv, which gets it via roof aerial carefully pointed at the transmission tower they built on the side of Mt Taranaki to provide line-of-sight to New Plymouth.
I presume TVNZ can give it to you via their on-demand system, which I have never used and expect never will (due to going cold turkey on my prior habit of watching tv for entertainment in 1973). Most of the show was about the euthanasia referendum, which I avoided, but the final segment they discussed Labour's tax policy. The Fran, the Jack, & the Indian economist…
So I would have to stream it or something. I gave tv up when they switched to digital, couldn't be bothered having verbal lashings of Harvey Norman and my repeat programs dumped in favour of sport. Is Q&A on TV1?
Not having it leaves room in my day for reading, listening, and not knowing anything at all about a wide mass of people who appear very vacuous anyway. It does provide a venue for NZ creatives though, and so it helps industry.
Yeah, TV1 @ 9am. I don't normally bother, but the election campaign is likely to induce them to provide something substantial so I check out the intro to see what topics they will cover. Agree that one must be highly selective…
Thanks. I realise why I don't watch. I'm asked to sign up and get an account and then login. I thought it was going to be like public tv and you just watched it when you wanted not having this carry-on. It's not TV on Demand – you have to ask permission.
The idea that she might be enlightened is too strange for me to consider, so no. I agreed with her. I've noticed that happens when she is sensible. However, on this occasion, it was an opinion produced by a value judgment.
I thought that a Forbes report would be factual and well backed and find it was from a 'factoid' bunch. NZ listed as the 2nd best country for coping with Covid-19 isn't a solid fact.
The complicated calculations that spawned the Covid rankings had actually been compiled by an outfit called The Deep Knowledge Group – not exactly a household name. The Group’s website declares that “Deep Knowledge is Transcendent Power.” It says the survey has “140 parameters” and “35,000 data points.” The 36-page methodology document is bewildering.
But none of the news stories published here addressed evident inconsistencies in the findings. The report claimed to have assessed 250 countries. By most measures there are not that many nations in the world.
I see some similarity with Surgisphere, the shady company that provided dubious data to reputable scientific journals on clinical trials with the miracle cure hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.
One thing I have noticed in NZ (and I won't mention any names) is an unholy alliance between marketers and data analysis. They purchase access to diverse (anonymised) datasets, cherry-pick results they don't actually understand (let alone understand the ethical implications of mashing together correlations between different data sources), and shill them around various sectors that might have an interest.
They're not specialists answering a specific research question with full knowledge of the context, they're data sinks that try to find observations to sell to clients. I am unimpressed.
I agree. Don’t forget the role that some academics play in this. On the one hand, it is great to see input form scientists who do studies and surveys, for example, but the findings are open to debate, or should be. The drip-feeding is not always a good thing and those who control the narrative know how to package something as scientific (read: unbiased and non-partisan) when they ‘sell it’ to the public, literally, in some cases. Making data sets full public is not really a solution because the public lacks the skills and tools to digest the data and extract meaningful information from it. The pseudo-science of the Plan B group is a textbook example of how data and interpretations can mislead if not worse.
I think this person has a case. If the people can work where needed and have a good record, and get housing etc. they are here, free of infection, no expensive border and isolation to do. Let them stay if poss. – be practical and kind. Immigration needs to stop playing with people's lives like some malign god.
IIRC there are about 16000 of them. -and they don't have to do horticultural work they can be doing other stuff.
These work schemes and the student work visa's put our own young people coming onto the job market under huge pressure. Birth cohorts coming on to the labour market are about 50,000 to 60,000.
Student visas were about 70000 plus around 28000 on these tried to stay on the next year. Then there are these work travel visas as well.
So the young person trying to find work here or to finance study is competing with around 2-3 imported work visas for that job.
And for every month those 16000 work – if some one else stays on a benefit – its costing us $16 mil.
Plus these are industries that need a reset for labour and working conditions. Frankly we are better using the actual RSE scheme if needed.
Yup, there's a shed load of money to be made defrauding malcontented fools prepared to swallow all manner of preposterous claptrap.
(Bloomberg) — A popular website for posts about the conspiracy group QAnon abruptly shut down after a fact-checking group identified the developer as a New Jersey man.
Qmap.pub is among the largest websites promoting the QAnon conspiracy, with over 10 million visitors in July, according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb Ltd., and served as the primary archive of QAnon’s posts. The website aggregates posts by Q, the anonymous figure behind the QAnon theory, and the creator of the Qmap.pub website is known online only as “QAppAnon.”
The fact-checking site Logically.ai identified Jason Gelinas of New Jersey on Sept. 10 as the “developer and mouthpiece” for the site. New Jersey state records connect QAppAnon to Gelinas’s home address, Bloomberg found.
Reached outside his home, Gelinas declined to comment on the Logically report, saying only that someone had sent it to him on Twitter after it was published.
[…]
A LinkedIn profile for Gelinas says he works as an information security analyst at Citigroup. Citigroup declined to comment.
[…]
QAppAnon, the online name of qmap’s creator, also runs a Patreon account, which receives more than $3,000 a month in donations, according to the Patreon site. In March, QAppAnon announced on Patreon an upcoming Android app named “Armor of God,” a social network for followers of QAnon.
In his new book, The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life, University of Otago professor Richie Poulton and his co-authors set out to determine to what extent our origins shape our later lives. Poulton, who is the leader of the internationally recognised Dunedin Study, joins the show to discuss how childhood experiences impact on our lives…
Second – perhaps we need to smile at ourselves to limit our depressing thoughts.
Moving your facial muscles in a way that mimics a smile can trick your brain into a more positive state, according to a new study by researchers from the University of South Australia. Lead researcher Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says that even though the smiles are forced, the brain can't tell the difference. He joins the show from Adelaide.
Just evidence of the intellect of Americans you reckon? There is criticism of the yokels and absolutely thick there who do dumbs things and can't see through Trump.
These are their bright young things. America deserves to be doomed.
Now Roger Stone is going on Infowars and openly calling for Emperor PalPutin to declare martial law and calling for open sedition and rebellion from supporters if their attempts to steal the election don't work.
Both men talked of an ongoing “coup” against Trump, and Stone inexplicably claimed that he predicted “almost three decades ago that this moment would come.”
Its easy to predict if it was your game plan all along.
Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean blasted Stone for calling on Trump to “declare himself America’s dictator” — voicing what “many Republicans crave.”
And many Republicans wanting a right-wing dictatorship wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
In the meantime John Campbell reports on two much larger Vitamin D correlation studies. They both conclude that it is an independent variable that has a substantial impact on the clinical progression of COVID.
To paraphrase Campbell, the failure by the medical authorities to properly follow this up is now fast reaching the point of negligence. At the very least Vitamin D supplementation should be standard for all elderly in care and rest homes.
"These trees on Canal Rd, on this small section, are some of the most diverse range of native trees that you will find in Auckland city. I would have to actually say that it is the most diverse range of native trees in the city," Wedding said.
"And since tree protection went away in 2012, basically one in every three trees has been removed and at this site, there are some really precious, rare trees, which for arborists, we've just got to a point where enough is enough and we have to make a stand and we have to put a stop to this."
General tree protection was scrapped in changes to the Resource Management Act in 2012, something which Wedding said had resulted in the loss of one of three trees in Auckland.
This specific property has a range of trees, including black maire, manoao, pōhutukawa, tōtara and pūriri and a kawaka which another arborist has been occupying for the past 20 days.
Laggard NZ, paralysed Auckland, I think it is time to buy up this property. People's property can be taken for nationally important things, these trees are that.
One of the magic moments of my trip through Africa was one morning in a campground getting breakfast sorted, and a serval walks out of the hedge and up to me looking for cuddles just like a super-friendly domestic cat. Except his shoulders and hips were knee-high on me. Then his sister wandered out, just the same. They stuck around for nearly ten minutes being super-friendly and playful, they weren't even mooching for food.
Turns out the rangers had rescued them from a bush fire as tiny kittens and their mum never came back for them, so the rangers raised them They were trying to get them to back to the wild, but they liked the campground life. The regulars there were over them, tho. There was a good fishing lake there, but often someone would be pulling in a fish and one of the servals would jump in the water to grab it. Then they'd have to take it to the vet to get yet another hook out of its mouth.
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 ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
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 ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
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 Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
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 ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
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https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300105567/greens-want-to-clean-up-agriculture-with-300m-fund-for-farms–but-theres-a-catch
What does regenerative farming actually entail?
Can we ban pke without messing up trade deals .?
Is banning sow crates fair to kiwi farmers if imported pork comes from sow crate garnering. ?
Stop importing pork or any other food we can produce ourselves – and make it compulsory for country of origin to be CLEARLY visible on all food products.
What does conventional farming actually entail? The regenerative movement sees significant differences between what they do and what those who don't label themselves "regenerative", do. It would pay to ask them for the details.
Can we consume pke without messing up tropical forests elsewhere?
Is continuing the use of sow crates fair to kiwi pigs?
So it's just an eerie airy fluffy wuffy green policy with no actual science or targets to aim for the regenerative claptrap?
Is that how the regenerative farmers describe it?
did you read the policy b?
I made a post, with links and everything
https://thestandard.org.nz/what-is-this-regenerative-agriculture-thing-anyway/
A good place to start looking for an official definition but I still like my short one from a while back:
Farming practices that leave the soil in as good or better condition than before the farming began.
And I'm still of the opinion that the amount of farmland a nation has should only be enough to feed its people and leaving the rest to the wild.
The fertiliser thing is the bastard offspring of failing to set limits for nitrates in streams and ground water. You set nitrate levels at 5ppm if you want to contain cancer deaths and allow freshwater species to flourish.
Then, according to nitrate levels, you set local policies for nitrate use. South Canterbury has a long way to go before nitrate use would be sensible, for instance.
But if a farmer or horticulturist, in an area where the groundwater is in good shape, wants to use a bit of nitrate fertiliser, there is no reason why they shouldn't.
But…but…but…Overseer!
Yes, you'd need a regular testing public authority. But surely the lesson from Havelock North is that water must be regularly monitored. With clear limits in place, and a regular testing regime, councils will encounter much less opposition enforcing district regulations consequent upon water quality.
But perhaps the government is waiting for a few nitrate linked infant deaths to force their hand.
"You can't manage if you don't measure"
That's nonsense, imo and believing that plays into the hands of those who know how to obfuscate endlessly to slow-down or prevent change that doesn't suit.
No, it's not nonsense. Believing that we don't need it is.
Those who are obfuscating when the science is clear need to be jailed and lose everything.
it's not that measuring isn't needed, it's that land can in fact be managed without it. The reason why measuring is so important at this time is because so many people just don't know how to manage land regeneratively.
No it can't because basing actions upon reckons only wrecks things.
They're not reckons though. Experienced gardeners know things that can't be measured. Measuring is a great tool but if civilisation collapsed tomorrow we'd still be able to grow food regeneratively.
No they don't.
What they know has been measured but they haven't written it down making it difficult, if not impossible, to pass on.
Time and time again I've heard stories of people saying how they got advice from someone and, after following there advice, it didn't work. This happens so much, in fact, that researchers looked into it.
The research showed that the people passing on their advice were missing a vital piece of information, something that they were doing that was so ingrained in them that they didn't even realise that they were doing it nor, more importantly, that it was a necessary part of what they were doing.
This is why we measure, to find out what actually works and how so that the information can be reliably passed on.
And I've linked before to the fallibility of human memory.
DTB Times are going to be tough in the future without reacting angrily and jailing the recalcitrants. Perhaps put them in stocks where we can all see them and people can come along and heckle them. The Chinese called it re-education. Somehow the responsibles have to check the irresponsibles, there is just so much fluff floating around obscuring the important issues and the methods of improvement.
"Nonsense" was a bit harsh. It's a ploy used by people who immediately recognise that the requirement to measure before acting can be gamed; challenge the measuring methods, the measuring devices, the measures themselves, muddy the waters with other measurements made by industry, cite the changing standards, the results from overseas measurements, the ideologies and methodologies and you can delay action for ever and ever. Amen.
For some which is why I mentioned science.
Except for the fact that they don't if there's been adequate measuring standards put in place first – hence science.
All the arguments against false measures by the climate change deniers were proven to be false and that was done fairly quickly as well.
Indeed, who would argue with Science being a way to the understanding the World? If only we didn’t have to rely on those pesky humans with their fallible brains and fragile little egos.
Got anything better?
Perhaps we should just go on Hoskins reckons?
Maybe you’re too rational to have a useful conversation with about Science? Maybe you don’t recognise sarcasm when the tag isn’t there for your convenience? Science is a human endeavour, by humans, for humans. There’s no ‘special magic’ despite the aura that some claim to see there – we have moved on from Alchemy but not that much. For many scientists, it is just another fucking job.
Science is still the best that we have at finding answers despite the shortcomings of humans.
And the peer-review system is fairly good at catching those as well.
You're really gun-ho for jailing people
Could always shoot them I suppose.
I do think that our punishment of white-collar crime is far below what it needs to be. A murderer only kills people, white-collar crime destroys civilisation.
While your “destroys civilisation” is a little…Errr… overstating things I do agree white collar fraud is something that should be prosecuted a little harder.
But not all of it. Some amounts to simple theft, others – like Enron, is out and out fraud
Nope
Its pretty much a slippery slope (which I hate) but the longer we leave it in place the more damage that it does and it escalates. We fail to prosecute the small corruption (such as cash jobs where taxes are avoided) and so those who commit those small corruptions commit bigger (Its just the same as the other action, right?). And eventually the people committing this fraud is too big to adequately prosecute.
Say, like the banks.
Or farmers.
Whether it is nonsense or not really depends upon what level of management you're referring to. You can and I'm sure do manage your forest garden in a way that is not damaging to the environment, without recourse to testing.
Councils and central governments however, need some kinds of objective measures of the degree to which agricultural interests are complying with their responsibilities. This is in no small part because not all operators will act in good faith to contain their nitrate and or silt or organic particulate leaching. Those who act in bad faith and fail to contain pollutants need to be charged, and objective evidence will greatly assist the councils if they contest council findings.
If the levels are centrally set as a health policy as they should have been, at the level advised by the WHO for example, then councils can be required to set policy to try to achieve target levels. In areas with significant nitrification that might include a ban on nitrate fertilisers and or requirements to bioremediate or destock.
For farmers to be contesting the levels, as seems to have been the practice during David Parker's roadshow is an impropriety. The safe and appropriate level for nitrates is a matter of fact, not a ball for opinion or financial interest to kick around.
"The safe and appropriate level for nitrates is a matter of fact"
Ah, yes indeed, but the John Key's of this world can wheel out several at-variance facts to support the case for BAU.
And if those alternative facts survived peer review we should be delighted to entertain them. Tragically, they have not.
The do their own peer reviews and it's all good!
That at least accounts for their legendary economic acumen – their virtues being so advanced in that field that neither universities nor the Nobel committee can even perceive them.
This is a really good example of why the rules and regulations governing different economies need to be the same. If they're not the same then the one that doesn't have as strict a rules as the other is going to undercut the other. The difference in pricing results in a misallocation of resources away from the more expensive regulations.
The answer is not to dump the regulations (as National/ACT want) but to dump trading with nations that don't have equivalent regulations and enforcement.
Again, we're faced with the fact that free-trade won't bring about equitable or economic results. There only thing that will is well regulated trade.
Hopefully, they'll get round to making an official definition that both makes sense but isn't too restrictive on process. All other legislation has such definitions.
Covid-deniers on their freedom march up Queen St, rage against Big Sister! Drew "a few thousand people": https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12364413
Check out the photo of the MAGA poster. MAKE AOTEAROA GREAT AGAIN! Nicely dressed with two iconic images – cool design which ought to get traction.
Who knew?? Govt groggy, struggling to get back off the ropes. "Bugger! That logic sure did come with a wallop." (groan, whimper)
Still, he's teaching Judith how to be an effective opposition leader, eh? Since when has she ever got a few thousand out on a protest march?? Lame as…
Be careful about what you wish for DF or what you goad someone into.
Andrea Vance is with the quarter of the electorate that sees no reason to vote. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/122736201/election-2020-when-these-are-the-options-this-is-why-i-dont-vote
I've been there, done that, and sympathise. Don't vote, it only encourages them! That's been a popular notion for yonks. The worst thing about democracy is the delusional effect on younger generations, who get suckered en masse.
Then there's the other side of the coin. Being proactive is good. Progress comes via convergence on common ground. Consensus politics can be made to work well, if you apply skill to the process. The power of positive thinking.
Having spent most of my life exploring that side, while recalling the alienation phase of my younger self, I reckon muddle through the middle is better than defeatism.
My answer to "don't vote it only encourages them" is to point out that the people who do vote get the political advantage that they know comes from voting- the power, the policies, the control.
Who benefits from saying 'don't vote, it only encourages them?" What is in it for them? Will I be one of the beneficiaries of allowing others to decide, by voting, who is in charge?
And voting is like renewing your registration on your car, sort of.
It says this is my country, and I support it when I vote, I register my ideas as a citizen to be counted along with my fellows. And I will vote along with fellow citizens who I consider are choosing good ways to direct the country. These are the ones trying to guide behaviour and reasonable controls over the country so that we advance together and solve problems and make future plans, in responsible ways for our and the country's mutual good.
That's why I vote, that's what is in my mind, and if any journalist or campaigner, or any of the entitled or sourly cynical are prepared to deny what advantages they have received from the country, and deny that it is a country and system of any worth, then they are feckless, mindless, untrustworthy, and should be watched with suspicion.
I think she forfeits any right to be paid to comment on politics publicly if she can't bring herself to behave like a responsible adult, and worse, encourages others to behave likewise
Democracy would be fine – if we actually had a democracy rather than an elected dictatorship that can, and usually does, ignore the will of the people.
That is what I have felt time and time again in recent years. Too often the will of the people has been deliberately ignored. I would like to see the Swiss system where there are regular referendum – three or four times a year – usually putting up 3 or 4 questions for the public to vote on. The results are binding and must be implemented within 2 years. I would like to have had the opportunity to vote on such things as 1/ course fees and student loans 2/allowing large numbers of overseas students into our schools and universities ( It was supposed to have improved our education system Haha ) 3/ The escalation of immigration 4/ scrapping of the superannuation fund and more….
Perhaps somebody can explain how binding referendums are supposedly instruments or conduits of and for ‘the will of the people’. Aren’t they just a variation on the theme of ‘the majority wins’? In other words, 51% of the people get what they want and ‘the will of the losers’ is basically ignored?
That would be the will of the people wouldn't it?
Or it could be that it's actually a compromise and 80% like it.
Question: Why should the majority be ignored in favour of the minority?
There will never be a time when there is full agreement and waiting for it prevents action.
The lowest bar is 51% and demands for expediency and efficiency result in this low bar becoming the aim to strive for (target or threshold). Compromise is a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘need to have’ when trying to reach the bar. These are the pragmatic considerations of the system as it is and I cannot see how binding referendums make a meaningful difference. That is not ‘the will of the people’ but of a self-selecting group of people. This only gets worse when more people disengage from the process altogether. Opinion pieces by Andrea Vance and Luke Malpass today don’t help one bit.
And thus why we need voting to be compulsory.
And you didn't answer my question.
Question: Why should the majority be ignored in favour of the minority?
I’ll paraphrase your Q.: Why should the 51% be ignored in favour of the 49%.
I think I have made it clear enough to understand that this question is the wrong one and a mirror of the Q. that I posed, but neither is framing the issue in a way that leads to a meaningful solution. Referendums per se are not the solution and you have only managed to confirm my view, so far. How is compulsory voting changing the bar of 50%?
You've made it clear that you think that the minority should rule the majority.
Why not?
It ensures that everybody votes and removes the self-selecting nature of voluntary voting that you mentioned that you didn't like.
It also, IMO, has a chance to increase peoples engagement in politics.
Sometimes these discussions remind me of a first-year ethics class.
Firstly, if you want referenda to reflect compromises that make 80% of voters happy, make the threshold for adoption 80%, not 50%.
Secondly, even then you have what tories love to call "the tyranny of the majority". Most of the time they're referring to hardships that most people would love to have (like a high marginal tax rate on millionaires, when the median income is ~$50k), but some issues might arise where they have a point. Compulsory euthenasia, maybe? So obviously there would have to be strict constitutional constraints upon governments and the power of a referendum.
Thirdly, there's the question of whether it's even a good way to run a government. Not because the voters are stupid, but because it's chaotic and slow. Small inputs can have significant pseudo-random effects. What about contradictory referenda? UBI referendum followed by a tax cut referendum? Removal of enforcement powers from one body, with another referendum introducing new regulations that need to be enforced?
Fourth, a lot of policy shouldn't be controlled by demagogues. Elected representatives can tweak and change things as they go, based on available information from experts. Binding referenda need to be followed, regardless of whether the available information changes or whether big bucks were spent on targeted advertising for three weeks.
It's not about running the administration like that but in running the country. A rather important difference.
Slow I would agree with but not chaotic if the right processes are put in place.
That's pretty much what we have now.
They can but they don't. If they did then personal cars would have been dropped years ago.
Then make it so that:
Yes but I happen to think that we need that anyway and that constitution needs to be written by the people.
Iceland’s crowd-sourced constitution: hope for disillusioned voters everywhere
When a super intelligent commenter thinks that’s what I think then obviously I fucked up badly in making clear what I think 🙁
I won’t dwell on mandatory voting because obviously my alleged dislike of voluntary voting has pre-empted any useful conversation.
For the record, mandatory voting is not engagement – do you have any good examples? Some seriously misguided thinking there, if you ask me.
Australia.
The proportion of voters they have is greater than ours and the political engagement is also greater.
Ta
Looks like engagement as such was not measured directly but implied, requiring further research.
Referenda are generally over a single issue. They are less susceptible to the kinds of capture that occurs with other parts of the political system. Looking back over the many tragic instances of misgovernance in NZ, it's surprising, for a supposedly democratic state, how few of them enjoyed popular support or even assent. Referenda exist to stiffen the spines of those pasta-like MPs and parties who typically flop whichever way entrenched financial interests prefer.
Or the will of draco is probably more appropriate
You can make your point without making it personal, yes?
No, he can't, because he doesn't have a point.
Ah, I see you like the dictatorship.
Vancy doesn't see any reason for Labour voters to vote.
Poor people have no reason to vote for labour if the point is that national is worse on beneficiaries.
They are both bad, they are both full of contempt. And hiding the shit sandwich served to the poor, the soon to be poor and unemployed in a wrapping of kindness and gentlenessness still leaves it a shit sandwich.
Heck, i vote and i don't see any reason why.
Coz passionate people fought for your right to do so?
mate, are you mansplaining the right of a women to vote to a women?
Just asking sweety, cause it was not your kind that just 'gave' us that right out of their good heart,.It was earned by the women who came before me, nothing to do with men and certainly nothing to do with white landowning men who think they have eaten wisdom and knowledge with a soup laddle such as yourself. . Non of that however does away with the reality of todays useless eaters that want to be elected to government cause it sure beats getting a job in private industry, and that includes the pretenders in your favorite party.
You sure strangled a lot out of, "Coz passionate people fought for your right to do so?"
In any case, mine was not a 'splaining, it was a question.
Can you, male, female, what-ever-you-are, offer a "reason why" vou should vote?
no, i can't anymore.
I can find no reason to re-elect the Greens, National, Labour or any of the other useless eaters. Not one.
As for 'the environment', that was fucked generally speaking by white stale males a long time ago.
And i have always identified as a female, Sabine being my given name since i first came here to this blog, no matter how much you want to pretend to be 'woke and / or uninformed'.
Seriously, can't you do better?
.
I don't like to assume. Re: "the environment" being f*cked by the patriarchal hierarchy, I'm totally with you there. Can I do better? It's my life mission to do just that. I apportion a very small part of my efforts to the political "solution", though I will vote; participation is vital, in my opinion. The rest of my energy goes toward reparation, reconciliation, recognition, re-cognition, re-imagining and doing the mahi required. I met a couple today who introduced themselves as (phonetically) toe-nee and pa-ris; can you confidently assign gender to them, Sabine?
I wonder if the funding for that march comes under campaign expenditure.
I attended an Advance Party meeting in my village yesterday; their candidate believes they'll get 15%, comfortably; "The polls didn't pick Trump's win," he declared, "and look what happened!" They talked about Trump a lot.
Dis his carers in the white coats take him back to his haven when events concluded?
The Pandora Party.
Were they a local? What was the response from attendees?
The were from outside of the village They received absolute support, no matter what they said. I've been pressing some of the attendees to respond to the article that describes Billy's "epiphany" during lockdown, where he immersed himself in Qanon -studies and "became acutely aware" of the real situation, asking them if they'd feel comfortable if their child was to reverse their ordinary positions on the world, following a weeks-long-soaking in Facebook and the work of American Hard-Right activists, but so far my suggestions have bounced off the hard walls of Blind Devotion and they're beginning to express pity for me.
Yikes. How many people attended?
Around 30? Much the same turnout that any politician event gets here. A high percentage were/looked non-European. I asked if they thought Billy's rapid adoption through Facebook was of any concern to them, but they said no, as that's how they too "woke up".
well I've certainly woken up a bit more being in this conversation. An alarm went off.
It's a definite worry. I'm hoping that the number of fringe parties will split the anti-any-government vote, but it's all in the air.
I'm also hoping that if dolt45 loses then the Q-crap will start to fizzle for lack of establishment support.
Do you think the attendees will actually turn up to vote, and / or give financial support to the guy.
I know a couple of people who are well down that rabbit hole, amongst others, and the chances of them fronting up to a polling booth and giving their name and address to get a voting paper, and then filling it out in a valid manner would be pretty close to zero.
I can't decide if it's a serious political vehicle or a con job designed to fleece the vulnerable.
I don't think anyone there was able to donate much at all. Your point about the fearfulness for being in a place and being noted for being there (polling booth, intending to vote "Billy") is interesting and the "x" factor that will, come the election, expose them all as chumps.; I wonder, though, if it's something else. I wonder if it's simply a pathological "happening" that's attracting a few moths.
Well someone, or something is paying for btk jnr's suits.
But it's also about the only performance art going on at any scale right now, especially in the stoner market.
Serious, Graeme, as in seriously naive & delusional. I know three, all old friends, two are university grads, all successful professionals now retired.
I seriously pissed off the two males back at the start last summer (before Billy & JLR jumped on) when I pointed out via emails exactly where they were going wrong in their thinking. 😎
I also pulled rank by reminding them I'd been checking out conspiracy theories way longer than either of them. I could've used academic elitism (hard science qualifications always outranked soft science etc) but better to have mercy. Still, testing friendships that have endured 47 & 37 years is unusual.
Did you ask the candidate where in the head the horse kicked him?
No need. It was apparent. Same place as it got those listening to him. (Unkind, I know. Jut joshing’) there were no hoof-prints to be seen.
The cost of bringing busloads/carloads of people from elsewhere will be listed under "unofficial expenses" that will never be seen.
In the second to last photo in the link provided by Dennis Frank @ 2, there is a woman with a placard hanging down the front with the words in upper-casing:
UN MASKED. UN MUZZLED, UN VACCINATED, UN AFRAID.
Someone should have marched behind her holding up a big sign : UN HINGED.
It's a UN conspiracy. One hoarding in my town, New Conservative I think, says "NZ not UN".
Here's an interesting article giving 5 reasons why people buy into conspiracy theories. I have to admit that I had to look up Qanon. The article might help explain what is happening.
https://www.cracked.com/article_28514_5-ways-dumb-conspiracies-suck-in-normal-people
Probably the best way to 'cure' these dumb asses is to undermine them with humour.
If all the wits – famous or otherwise – and cartoonists in the world were to make a mass effort to laugh them out of the limelight, then they lose their power and influence and hopefully fade into obscurity.
That would just confirm them in their beliefs, as being mocked for their truth; refer point number three in the article.
Anne, you realise of course that us lefties don't have a sense of humour. That's what Bob Jones reckoned, anyway.
haven't we humoured Bob for years ?
Especially those of us who wore brown shoes and safari suits.
I wonder what Bob says now about metros with their immaculate short hair and huge beards, men who wear sports coats with ripped jeans, and the cult of shaven heads?
Don't tell me you wore brown shoes and a safari suit. 😮
Wonder what he thought of the hot pants era. I had two – lime green and red with matching thigh length knickerbockers edged with black lace. 😎
Oh he won't like metros. I remember a few years ago hearing Bob Jones say he absolutely hated people who wore their sunglasses on top of their heads, and he would never employ anyone who did so. Seemed a rather extreme reaction but there you go. At the same time he said he hated having to comply with building regulations for accessibility ramps etc because most people in wheelchairs were 'faking it'.
Brown shoes, yes. Never a safari suit. Walk shorts and long socks, yes. And corduroy trousers and shirts, jacket and shoes, with suede tie…….
Those skinny ties. I used to knit ties for my first boyfriend. Not sure he ever wore them.
I've remembered now, the 'knickerbockers' went under our incredibly skimpy skirts and they were actually called witches-britches.
Those were the days. 😉
Yeah, but we'd have a lot of fun in the process.
Anne et al
why would it?
It seems the cops have become very lenient since we, who were arrested during peace protests against the American war against Vietnam. Why were the leaders of that anti Covid protest not arrested for breaking the law and inciting people to also break that law.
BydOnz
It would open up a can of worms.
For one thing, there is an election on in NZ and the leaders would likely claim the police were interfering with their political/electioneering rights.This would likely motivate many others to join their cause and to also protest in large groups in the streets.
For another thing, the police did not arrest members of the Mt Roskill church group for alledgedly gathering together in groups larger than the official allowable number. If so, that would likely mean that any law enforcement action against the anti Covid crowd would be dismissed by the courts on the grounds of inconsistent application of the law.
But, on yet another hand, if the government is going to have 'rules' on these matters, it looks impotent and weak if they are not enforced.
Pointless debate on Q n A about euthanasia. It's not like it will be compulsary.
Anyone see the Fran on Q+A? She issued a fervent leftist critique at the end that was as acute as it was forthright. Never seen her do that before. Maybe she's between contracts?? 🤔
Could you give me the link to that Q+A. I limit what I take in so that I don't fall out of my tree from being 'stoned' on the drug of political farce but I try to keep up. So if you can please?
I watched it on my flat-screen tv, which gets it via roof aerial carefully pointed at the transmission tower they built on the side of Mt Taranaki to provide line-of-sight to New Plymouth.
I presume TVNZ can give it to you via their on-demand system, which I have never used and expect never will (due to going cold turkey on my prior habit of watching tv for entertainment in 1973). Most of the show was about the euthanasia referendum, which I avoided, but the final segment they discussed Labour's tax policy. The Fran, the Jack, & the Indian economist…
So I would have to stream it or something. I gave tv up when they switched to digital, couldn't be bothered having verbal lashings of Harvey Norman and my repeat programs dumped in favour of sport. Is Q&A on TV1?
Not having it leaves room in my day for reading, listening, and not knowing anything at all about a wide mass of people who appear very vacuous anyway. It does provide a venue for NZ creatives though, and so it helps industry.
Yeah, TV1 @ 9am. I don't normally bother, but the election campaign is likely to induce them to provide something substantial so I check out the intro to see what topics they will cover. Agree that one must be highly selective…
In case you have not found it yet 🙂
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/episodes/s2020-e30
Thanks. I realise why I don't watch. I'm asked to sign up and get an account and then login. I thought it was going to be like public tv and you just watched it when you wanted not having this carry-on. It's not TV on Demand – you have to ask permission.
Click on this link and no questions asked 🙂
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/clips/q-a-panel-lack-of-courage-from-main-political-parties
Are you using 'leftist' there to mean 'something Enlightened I disagree with'?
The idea that she might be enlightened is too strange for me to consider, so no. I agreed with her. I've noticed that happens when she is sensible. However, on this occasion, it was an opinion produced by a value judgment.
I thought that a Forbes report would be factual and well backed and find it was from a 'factoid' bunch. NZ listed as the 2nd best country for coping with Covid-19 isn't a solid fact.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018763421/a-closer-look-at-a-good-news-survey
…But – as the Herald and Newshub had pointed out – it was not Forbes that did the survey. ..
The complicated calculations that spawned the Covid rankings had actually been compiled by an outfit called The Deep Knowledge Group – not exactly a household name.
The Group’s website declares that “Deep Knowledge is Transcendent Power.” It says the survey has “140 parameters” and “35,000 data points.” The 36-page methodology document is bewildering.
But none of the news stories published here addressed evident inconsistencies in the findings.
The report claimed to have assessed 250 countries. By most measures there are not that many nations in the world.
Just to refresh our info: https://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world/ Not included in this total count of 195 countries are: Taiwan – the United Nations considers it represented by the People's Republic of China; The Cook Islands and …
I see some similarity with Surgisphere, the shady company that provided dubious data to reputable scientific journals on clinical trials with the miracle cure hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.
Yeah I note if there is money in it, someone will find a way. Can you monetise being a mod? You mods ought to be rich by now.
Being a Moderator has been enriching in so many ways and the pay is just a bonus 😉
One thing I have noticed in NZ (and I won't mention any names) is an unholy alliance between marketers and data analysis. They purchase access to diverse (anonymised) datasets, cherry-pick results they don't actually understand (let alone understand the ethical implications of mashing together correlations between different data sources), and shill them around various sectors that might have an interest.
They're not specialists answering a specific research question with full knowledge of the context, they're data sinks that try to find observations to sell to clients. I am unimpressed.
I agree. Don’t forget the role that some academics play in this. On the one hand, it is great to see input form scientists who do studies and surveys, for example, but the findings are open to debate, or should be. The drip-feeding is not always a good thing and those who control the narrative know how to package something as scientific (read: unbiased and non-partisan) when they ‘sell it’ to the public, literally, in some cases. Making data sets full public is not really a solution because the public lacks the skills and tools to digest the data and extract meaningful information from it. The pseudo-science of the Plan B group is a textbook example of how data and interpretations can mislead if not worse.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/425918/german-backpacker-upset-petition-has-fallen-on-deaf-ears
I think this person has a case. If the people can work where needed and have a good record, and get housing etc. they are here, free of infection, no expensive border and isolation to do. Let them stay if poss. – be practical and kind. Immigration needs to stop playing with people's lives like some malign god.
IIRC there are about 16000 of them. -and they don't have to do horticultural work they can be doing other stuff.
These work schemes and the student work visa's put our own young people coming onto the job market under huge pressure. Birth cohorts coming on to the labour market are about 50,000 to 60,000.
Student visas were about 70000 plus around 28000 on these tried to stay on the next year. Then there are these work travel visas as well.
So the young person trying to find work here or to finance study is competing with around 2-3 imported work visas for that job.
And for every month those 16000 work – if some one else stays on a benefit – its costing us $16 mil.
Plus these are industries that need a reset for labour and working conditions. Frankly we are better using the actual RSE scheme if needed.
Yup, there's a shed load of money to be made defrauding malcontented fools prepared to swallow all manner of preposterous claptrap.
(Bloomberg) — A popular website for posts about the conspiracy group QAnon abruptly shut down after a fact-checking group identified the developer as a New Jersey man.
Qmap.pub is among the largest websites promoting the QAnon conspiracy, with over 10 million visitors in July, according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb Ltd., and served as the primary archive of QAnon’s posts. The website aggregates posts by Q, the anonymous figure behind the QAnon theory, and the creator of the Qmap.pub website is known online only as “QAppAnon.”
The fact-checking site Logically.ai identified Jason Gelinas of New Jersey on Sept. 10 as the “developer and mouthpiece” for the site. New Jersey state records connect QAppAnon to Gelinas’s home address, Bloomberg found.
Reached outside his home, Gelinas declined to comment on the Logically report, saying only that someone had sent it to him on Twitter after it was published.
[…]
A LinkedIn profile for Gelinas says he works as an information security analyst at Citigroup. Citigroup declined to comment.
[…]
QAppAnon, the online name of qmap’s creator, also runs a Patreon account, which receives more than $3,000 a month in donations, according to the Patreon site. In March, QAppAnon announced on Patreon an upcoming Android app named “Armor of God,” a social network for followers of QAnon.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/qanon-website-shuts-down-n-185548744.html
Interesting stuff about us humans this morning on Radionz.
First about childhood to adulthood and our great long study of human growth.
11:05 New book examines how childhood shapes later life
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018763801/new-book-examines-how-childhood-shapes-later-life
In his new book, The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life, University of Otago professor Richie Poulton and his co-authors set out to determine to what extent our origins shape our later lives. Poulton, who is the leader of the internationally recognised Dunedin Study, joins the show to discuss how childhood experiences impact on our lives…
Second – perhaps we need to smile at ourselves to limit our depressing thoughts.
11:40 How forcing a smile can help improve your mood
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018763802/how-forcing-a-smile-can-help-improve-your-mood
Moving your facial muscles in a way that mimics a smile can trick your brain into a more positive state, according to a new study by researchers from the University of South Australia. Lead researcher Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says that even though the smiles are forced, the brain can't tell the difference. He joins the show from Adelaide.
RIP Toots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmNJvSyWyQM
I loved what they did with this usually downbeat Radiohead song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfYg1ZJfEWY
It’s on!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300106152/election-2020-governorgeneral-signs-writ-triggering-next-step-on-road-to-election
They're past just being in trouble.
https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1304760445975302144
https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/1304940692683329537
Old guy in the first video paraphrased:
Doesn't seem to be concerned with the tens/hundreds/thousands of others that he could take with him because of his stupidity.
Covidity is endemic.
https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1304913243324977152
https://twitter.com/reeseg_3/status/1304884155889717249
ffs
https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1304907317968855047
https://twitter.com/FirenzeMike/status/1304918815311106048
Just evidence of the intellect of Americans you reckon? There is criticism of the yokels and absolutely thick there who do dumbs things and can't see through Trump.
These are their bright young things. America deserves to be doomed.
Just selfish to the core, born selfish, raised selfish, worship at the altar of self. Can't comprehend any criticism of it.
Now Roger Stone is going on Infowars and openly calling for Emperor PalPutin to declare martial law and calling for open sedition and rebellion from supporters if their attempts to steal the election don't work.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roger-stone-martial-law-donald-trump-election_n_5f5d3e28c5b62874bc1dd6d2
Its easy to predict if it was your game plan all along.
And many Republicans wanting a right-wing dictatorship wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
In the meantime John Campbell reports on two much larger Vitamin D correlation studies. They both conclude that it is an independent variable that has a substantial impact on the clinical progression of COVID.
To paraphrase Campbell, the failure by the medical authorities to properly follow this up is now fast reaching the point of negligence. At the very least Vitamin D supplementation should be standard for all elderly in care and rest homes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNji13yoW9g
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018762927/saving-100-year-old-native-trees-in-canal-road-avondale
"These trees on Canal Rd, on this small section, are some of the most diverse range of native trees that you will find in Auckland city. I would have to actually say that it is the most diverse range of native trees in the city," Wedding said.
"And since tree protection went away in 2012, basically one in every three trees has been removed and at this site, there are some really precious, rare trees, which for arborists, we've just got to a point where enough is enough and we have to make a stand and we have to put a stop to this."
General tree protection was scrapped in changes to the Resource Management Act in 2012, something which Wedding said had resulted in the loss of one of three trees in Auckland.
This specific property has a range of trees, including black maire, manoao, pōhutukawa, tōtara and pūriri and a kawaka which another arborist has been occupying for the past 20 days.
Laggard NZ, paralysed Auckland, I think it is time to buy up this property. People's property can be taken for nationally important things, these trees are that.
Getting crazier by the minute!
"The long-running debate over the presence of big cats in the South Island has been reignited after two new sightings."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122751025/new-south-island-big-cat-sightings-the-latest-in-a-50year-mystery
Send in Mr Green.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-13/kangaroo-island-species-under-threat-by-cats-after-bushfires/12651772
Well, maybe the wild domestic cats are already evolving to hunt goat.
Spartacus is home.
edit: a cat weighing the same as the long lean heading/ huntaway girl I got from the pound? nope!
https://twitter.com/BostonDotCom/status/1304823866066456577
One of the magic moments of my trip through Africa was one morning in a campground getting breakfast sorted, and a serval walks out of the hedge and up to me looking for cuddles just like a super-friendly domestic cat. Except his shoulders and hips were knee-high on me. Then his sister wandered out, just the same. They stuck around for nearly ten minutes being super-friendly and playful, they weren't even mooching for food.
Turns out the rangers had rescued them from a bush fire as tiny kittens and their mum never came back for them, so the rangers raised them They were trying to get them to back to the wild, but they liked the campground life. The regulars there were over them, tho. There was a good fishing lake there, but often someone would be pulling in a fish and one of the servals would jump in the water to grab it. Then they'd have to take it to the vet to get yet another hook out of its mouth.
this is just a very pretty and cute specimen of murder paws
UFO's – Unidentified Feline Ocelot
https://youtu.be/WpYeekQkAdc