Over rising concerns about the economic harm to the business community and the economy. The government ignored the health experts not to lower the Level 4 Alert in Auckland.
Now they are ignoring them again.
Government not considering alert level 4 'circuit-breaker lockdown' despite calls from health experts
1 hour ago
Jamie Ensor
All politics is pressure. Politicaal pressure from the business community on the government to surrender to the virus, must be countered by pressure from below not to.
If you think public health should be a priority before private wealth.
Most other countries never tried elimination, Alan. those that did, such as New South Wales and Victoria, botched the job by leaving it early, with damage to both lives and their economy.
Waste of time. If NZ goes back to level 4 for say the next 24 months, we will eliminate it. Great. As soon as we open up, Covid will return. You cant live under a rock forever hiding from something that you are in fear of.
Actually, it would be less than a couple of months, with full compliance.
But if it was 24 months, most of the covid strains would be much more mild, because they ones that kill their hosts die sooner. E.g. the 19818 flu waves by the mid-twenties.
Virus isn't so bad, see, we can come out from under our rock and live with it…[voice of reason – probably best we don't even try living with it] ..right up until you're treed in a rondavel squeaking help, help meee…
Not necessarily, as current vaccines dont sterlize the virus there is a possibility a more potent and resistant strain that is able to overcome vaccination emerges to prominence in which case all bets are off.
You and I can bet that will happen (and I only bet on things that I evaluate as near sure things – ie I seldom gamble for money at all). The only real issue is the timing.
Natural immunity is also pretty well impossible with this particular virus apart from the longer term prospect. Eventually it kills off or causes every one who gets it to not breed well. There are known verified cases where people have caught variants or even the same variant of covid-19 after having a previous infection with covid-19 – as well as the same kinds of breakthrough infections with fully vaccinated.
There is a reason why the bat populations where the disease originated have the probably the most ferocious immune systems we know of in mammals. Long-term selection from this disease and other socially endemic diseases being endemic in their populations.
Ultimately we need to manage to get a sterilising vaccine or treatment because otherwise this disease will probably eventually crush our health systems. The incidence and time extent of long-covid is too high.
I suspect that repeated exposures are going to wear down the peoples immune systems. If covid-19 doesn't get you then something else will.
The reason that our more complex health systems work (and our life expectancy in the west keep rising) is because we have managed to reduce the wear and tear of diseases on the immune systems with public health measures over the past 150 years. At present I'm expecting that to reverse for most of this decade with this disease.
Well, it's not so much a case of "overcoming" vaccination as random mutations eventually tweak the main protein most vaccines currently help the immune system to target. Like the flu vaccine does – why some of use get new flu shots every year: it's not just because the previous year's vax has worn off somehow, it's because while the Northern Hemisphere was having their flu season some new varients emerged.
But the thing about more harmful variants is that they get spotted sooner (because people get seriously ill rather than not noticing a sniffle), and are prioritised for research/medications/vaccines more highly. So they still have less of a reproductive advantage than essentially harmless variants.
Fair call to a degree, but they're not complete morons, either. Most of them know that being the only ones on the street increases the odds of getting stopped. Some of the more stupid ones demonstrated that.
But also, even without perfect compliance with L4 the problem isn't so much the gangs as the possibility of wholesale rejection of controls, like in Melbourne. An indeterminate purgatory of half the population in lockdown and the other half listening to infantile opinionators in the media or religious frauds.
Someone at the dirty end of criminal activity is not getting essential worker status for that. "Covid compliance" is an even broader brush for stops and arrests (and the concomitant vehicle search for officer safety) than breach of the peace or traffic infringement. It's literally an excuse to arrest anyone in public if they're not essential workers or with a reasonable excuse to be out.
So assuming that they're okay with disease ravaging their community and families, the leaders of all criminal enterprises would need to ask themselves whether a limited hiatus on earning is more cost-effective than actively losing earnings and distribution staff to law enforcement. Hell, the government could allow suspected leaders of such organisations to travel into restricted areas in order to deliver that message personally. Along with other leaders of disaffected and socially alienated communities (in the general idea that maybe community leaders have more credibility with the members of those communities than might be the domain of official government representatives).
…Waste of time. If NZ goes back to level 4 for say the next 24 months,….
24 months?
Surely you joke, Jester.
24 months is a hysterical over exageration of the time needed to achieve elimination.
The Level 4 Lockdown in Auckland almost killed off the Delta covid varient, before it was lifted early before it had finished its job.
Another one, possibly two more weeks, would have eliminated it completely.
And we would be back in Level 1 by now.
This TVNZ timeline graph shows the whole sorry tale.
The Level 4 Lockdown was put in place on 17 August. Daily infections reached a peak of 86 before plateuing around August 30 and then started dropping sharply about the 1st of September. As the Level 4 Alert started to take effect, daily cases kept dropping to a low of 22 cases on 21 September. Against expert public health advice. On 21 September the Level 4 Alert was dropped to Level 3, despite 22 daily cases, two of which could not be linked to any known cluster. Eight days later the infections started rising again. And haven't stopped rising.
Yes 24 months is an exageration, but a Level 4 lockdown for say 12 weeks then, would eliminate. But guess what? Covid would still come back and pop up again.
I hope they don't do any more level 4 lockdowns as by December everyone that wants to be vaccinated will be. But I do hope they have increased ICU capacity at hospitals.
90% vaccination of the eligible population is a good practical achievable target to aim for, 95% vaccination of the total population is what is needed.
Maybe when the vaccine is approved for use on over 5s we could get near that figure.
Even then, more ICU beds will be needed.
We are at war and our government are surrendering.
I don't think the government are surrendering. I think they realise that people will only be locked down for so long. Eventually life has to go on. I'm in Auckland and many people are already over it. People at Okahu Bay and Mission Bay have been at level 1 for the last few weeks anyway. This step one of level 3 where you can have a picnic with another bubble, as the govt know, people have been doing this for weeks already.
And as for the gangs…well it's always been level one for them as we hear on the news (and then they have the audacity to not be cooperative with the authorities).
…..as for the gangs…well it's always been level one for them as we hear on the news (and then they have the audacity to not be cooperative with the authorities).
"There is no such thing as bad soldiers, only bad generals" Napoleon
Now I am sure that Napoleon's army had the usual minority of drunkards, deserters, and trouble makers of any army. Of course there is such a thing as bad soldiers. The point that Napoleon was making is that he or his generals could not put the blame for their failures on this minority.
The minority of rule breakers including the gangs and sex workers rough sleepers, drug addicts, and the other marginalised communities make for a handy scapegoat. But they are not the major source of the current uncontrolled spread of the virus.
If enough people do it, just like vaccination, Lockdown creates herd immunity. Just like vaccination, if enough people do it, Lockdown protects the minority of people who don't.
To make my point, one of the most egregious cases of rule breaking and the one you alluded to, was the case of the two sex workers that traveled through Northland on false essential worker credentials, and then refused to tell the authorities who they had met with or where they had been. Surely this must be a worst case of rule breaking by two individuals. But this rare and unusual case, did not result in a mass spreader event and Northland has just been downgraded to Level 2.
So where should we look for the failure of this country's covid response?
When the Level 4 alert for Auckland was lowered. 200,000 workers who had been isolatiing at home were ordered back to work.
There is your daily mass spreader event right there.
The real cause of the current uncontrolled rise in covid invections is revealed in the TVNZ timeline graph, above. The timeline clearly shows the dramatic rise in cases following the Level 4 lockdown being lifted.
Just as you say, Jester. It has always been level one for the minority of rule breakers like the gangs. But despite the actions of this tiny minority, the virus was being crushed under Level 4.
From a high of 83 around about August 30 followed by a dramatic drop, to single figures around about September 22, followed by a rise, beginning eight days, after the lifting of the Level 4 lockdown, (the incubation period of the virus). An upward rise in cases that has continued.
The change in government policy not the gangs is the cause of the current rise.
So after all that waffle, what is your solution? Stay in level 4 forever? When / if we finally get to level 2 there will probably be a further rise in cases but wont matter as enough people vaccinated so mostly recover at home. I want to know what Auckland has to do to get to open up to at least level 2. Is it 90% vaccinated? 95%? And I'm sure there is a few restaurants, bars, hairdressers and shops that would love to know. But after todays announcement they are none the wiser other than they are out of business for a further two weeks at least and still don't know what Auckland needs to do until at least Friday.
So after all that waffle, what is your solution? Stay in level 4 forever?….
Again you exagerate and fear monger to oppose proven measures of stopping preventable illness and deaths. This fearmongering and exageration prevents us debating the real matters that are in the balance to be decided.
The health experts and epidemic modelers have called on the government to apply a "circuit breaker" Level 4 lockdown to stop the rate of infection reaching into to triple figures.
So far the government have refused to heed this health advice.
"I want to know what Auckland has to do to get to open up to at least level 2. Is it 90% vaccinated? 95%?"Jester
Part of the answer to this question, Jester, has been supplied by the Auckland District Health board, who have stated that at 90% vaccination rate they are preparing the hospitals for 6 deaths and 33 hospitalisations a week.
The real question Jester, that is in the balance to be decided, is how much preventable death and illness will we accept in return, for business as usual?
The government has not made it explicit, but it seems that 6 preventable deaths and 33 preventable hospital admissions is acceptable to them as the price for fully opening up the economy and to hell with kindness.
"And I'm sure there is a few restaurants, bars, hairdressers and shops that would love to know. But after todays announcement they are none the wiser other than they are out of business for a further two weeks at least and still don't know what Auckland needs to do until at least Friday." Jester
From the graph above, you can see that we were very close to nation wide elimination under the Level 4 Auckland Alert. If the government had not lost its nerve. we could be at Level 1 now. Not a certainty, but the sharp downward heading trend did seem to show that. Of course we will never no for sure now.
Certainty was lost when government abandoned the Alert Level System and replaced it with the Three Step Roadmap to reopen the borders.
As you can clearly see on the graph, Stage One and no doubt the other steps to come on this Roadmap, are to be applied even as infections continue to climb. But reality has turned the Roadmap into a vague and confusing mess, with little certainty of anything. Only the first step or stage has been completed, with no idea of when the others steps will occur, or even if the Roadmap still exists.
But at least we are getting down to the real reasons for the refusal to continue the Elimination Strategy, which is the economic hardship on business and small proprietors. Nothing to do with gangs or sex workers or the minority of rule breakers. Which are just handy scapegoats for our failure to prioritise lives and public health over business interests.
Don't get me wrong Jester, the destruction and turmoil and economic hardship and pain being visited on small business and households from lockdown is very real and a concern to me. But this paiin is not being shared equally. The big banks and financiers have had no lockdown.
If we really wanted to eliminate the virus and return us to Level 1, we would impose a Level 4 Lockdown with a full rent and mortgage moratorium to help households and business ride out the hardship.
This meaure is not unheard of. A moratorium on mortgages was implemented in 1914 due to the crisis brought about by the World War. And in 1931 a mortgage and rent moratorium was brought in due to the crisis of the World Economic Depression.
…..by 1931, it was clear that further intervention was necessary to prevent widespread foreclosures and mortgagee sales…..
….Although mortgage relief was frequently discussed at some length by
contemporary commentators, and by some historians in the 1950s and
1960s, it has been relegated to a few lines at most in more recent works.’
…..This Act also extended to lessees [renters] the same protection
that had been granted to mortgagors,
The modification of mortgage conditions was not new in New Zealand. A ‘mortgage moratorium’ had been imposed as a war measure in 1914,
Obviously the government does not think that the current Covid crisis is as severe as these past crises, or they would have implemented the same emergency measures.
You asked me Jester;
"So after all that waffle, what is your solution?"
That's my solution. Nationwide Level 4 Lockdown with full rent and mortgage moratorium until the virus is eliminated.
Afterall is said and done, it is not like the big Aussie owned banks, which take $3.5b out of our economy and off shore, every year, can't afford it.
P.S. You may think this crisis is not severe enough to warrant such extreme measures, but the people who sicken and end up in hospital and families of those directly affected may disagree.
So we have a harder than level 4 lockdown for (who knows how long) a time period including rent moratoriums etc. and we end up with say 14 days of no cases! Awesome. Then we open up and a few weeks later the virus comes back again and we start getting cases again. Then what? Another lockdown?
So we have a harder than level 4 lockdown for (who knows how long)….
….Then what? Another lockdown?
Possibly, but more likely everyone is vaccinated by then. (At least everyone who can be vaccinated.) And resulting deaths and illness are minimal and as small as possibly could be achieved.
It's this interim period we are talking about, where it has been decided to let the virus rip even while the population has not yet reached the target 90% vaccination level.
(The end of lockdown could be the carrot/whip to encourage vaccination, unfortunately this carrot and whip has been ruled out, ensureing that vaccination will not be as high as it possibly could have been, if the government had stayed the course.)
I admire your honesty in that you admit to this trade off in preventable deaths and illness has been made for the good of the economy.
We are not seeing this honesty being admitted in many places.
Early on worksites were identified by the Prime Minister as the source of spread of the Virus even under Level 4, despite this, infections kept dropping. That is until the Level 4 Alert was lifted on the 21st of September and 200,000 Auckland workers returned to their workplaces to mingle and spread the virus. One week later the infections which had been on a steep decline, began the upward trend, which hasn't stopped. On October 4, despite the continueing rise in infections, restrictions were loosened again.
Level 4 can can compensate for the minority of rule breakers. The looser Level 3 cannot.
Honesty means admitting that it was government policy that decided to let the virus rip for the good of the economy at the cost of public health.
Unfortunately your honesty in admitting this fact, is not being followed by our policy makers who are embarked on major frenzy of finger pointing and blamestorming the tiny minority of rule breakers for the current outbreak due to their change in policy direction.
This dishonesty does not inspire confidence in our leadership. Or even the certainty that business crave.
Two millionaires horse breeders who broke lockdown to fly to Queensland, did not lead to an outbreak. Two sex workers who toured the North, did not lead to an outbreak. A wild party on the North Shore attended by 50 people, looks unlikely to lead to an outbreak.
The government has embarked on a policy of letting the virus rip.
But rather than accept responsibility, the screaming headlines for the next couple of weeks, as hospital admissions rise and deaths start occuring, will be concentrated on the rule breakers as the cause.
The honest thing to do would be admit to the policy change behind the rising infections and put it to the public for their support.
Dishonesty does not engender confidence.
"There is no such thing a bad soldiers only bad generals" Napoleon
As the health experts have said, kissing goodbye to level 4 means kissing goodbye to level 1.
So say goodbye to a Covid Free Christtmas and summer.
So reading this, all you are suggesting is giving people more time to get vaccinated ie. up over the 90% or whatever.
"Possibly, but more likely everyone is vaccinated by then. (At least everyone who can be vaccinated.) And resulting deaths and illness are minimal and as small as possibly could be achieved."
I say no to that, people need to be get off their backsides and get vaccinated NOW if they want to. Else take their chances unvaccinated if that is what they want. They can be fully vaccinated by December the 1st if they get vaccinated now. But the rest of us (the vaxinated majority) cant be held back forever waiting.
Personally, if it was up to me, I would say, you've already had your chance to get vaccinated (taxis, buses, KFC vouchers, other vouchers and a vaxathon and various other financial incentives have been oferred) and we are opening up on 1st of November.
So reading this, all you are suggesting is giving people more time to get vaccinated ie. up over the 90% or whatever…..
I say no to that, people need to be get off their backsides and get vaccinated NOW if they want to. Else take their chances unvaccinated if that is what they want…..
….I would say, you've already had your chance to get vaccinated (taxis, buses, KFC vouchers, other vouchers and a vaxathon and various other financial incentives have been oferred) and we are opening up on 1st of November.
'Devil take the hindmost', (as the saying goes). Eh Jester?
Weka puts it best:
Covid and kindness
Written By: WEKA – Date published:10:16 am, October 20th, 2021
I’m still seeing a fair number of people advocating for ‘opening up’ on the basis of either individual responsibility (‘I’m vaccinated’), and/or fuck the lazy/selfish bastards (‘never mind 90% vax rate, we can’t wait’)….
As well as trashing our international reputation for protecting the welfare and health of our most vulnerable. There is another serious flaw in your plan to sacrifice others' lives and health, just so you can open up the country by November.
The fact is, that at the very best, vaccines are only 90% effective. Vaccination approachs 100% effectiveness in stopping the spread of a viral infection, the more people get vaccinated. The so called 'herd immunity' does not just protect the unvaccinated, it also protects the fully vaccinated by filling in for that 10% failure rate.
That is how vaccination works. It is how we eliminated polio.
What this means, is that below 90% vaccination coverage, even some of the fully vaccinated can still catch the virus, and sicken and possibly even die.
Who knows, it could even by you, or one of your loved ones.
So purely on a selfish basis it is in your interest to get as many others vaccinated as possible before opening up.
Colin Powell was fully vaccinated, but he still died from COVID complications. How rare is that?
Adrianna Rodriguez – USA TODAY, Oct. 18, 2021
….the former secretary of state and retired four-star general was fully vaccinated against the disease….
….The CDC also reports that as of Oct. 12, 7,178 deaths among vaccinated people; 85% of the deaths are in people 65 and older….
….Research suggests that may be happening among other populations, too. A study in August from the CDC showed vaccine effectiveness decreased among health care workers who were fully vaccinated since the time the delta coronavirus variant became widespread.
I don’t think much of your plan to sacrifice the old and also put at risk our health care workers who have sacrificed so much for us during this pandemic.
And what for? So the Aussie owned banks can keep screwing this country into the ground even during a pandemic?
P.S. So far, no country has yet been able to achieve herd immunity levels of vaccination against Covid-19. New Zealand could be the first. I think it is a worthy goal to attempt. We were the first country to show that elimination was possible to world acclaim. Another world first in the global fight against Covid-19, would do wonders for this country's international reputation. And on a purely personal note, my father is 86, and fully vaccinated. My father still enjoys life. I wouldn't want him to die of a fully preventable disease because of your selfishness.
It sounds like we will simply have to agree to disagree then. Locking down a town / city /country indefinitely simply wont work.
It would be interesting to know how many people have died due to the lockdowns. This Covid outbreak this year has killed 2 people, one in their nineties, and one in their fifties with health issues. I'm sure the mental health and procedures and treatments postponed have probably killed more.
To which I pointed out that without achieving herd immunity some of the fully vaccinated will also sicken and possibly even die.
Now, to fit your narrative that we must reopen by November, you claimed that Colin Powel didn't die of Covid -19, but died of cancer.
Yes, Colin Powel did have cancer, but it wasn't a fatal kind.
Myeloma is more commonly seen in people over 60, said Dr. Don Benson, hematologist-oncologist at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Roughly 35,000 cases of myeloma are reported in the U.S. each year. Although it’s considered an incurable cancer, most patients don’t die from the disease itself.
……This Covid outbreak this year has killed 2 people, one in their nineties, and one in their fifties with health issues. I'm sure the mental health and procedures and treatments postponed have probably killed more.
All statistics of a drop in background deaths from all causes during lockdown, disprove this Lie. Even deaths from suicide declined under Level 4 Lockdown.
The fact is that lockdown stops our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, preventing people who could otherwise be treated of curable illness and accidents getting a bed, because all the beds, especially, critical care beds are filled up with covid patients.
To argue the opposite against the facts is to go against all reason.
Frankly Jester. I am disappointed. From arguing that we need to balance the loss of lives against the economic harm of Lockdown, which is a fair point, and an honest position to debate, you have reverted to lieing.
But I can understand why you might feel motivated to dissemble. Because when faced with a pandemic, the main reason for opposing lockdown, is the prioritising of making money over people's lives and health, is a motive repulsive to most people, possibly if you dared admit to it, repulsive to your self.
Re the govt's pivot toward North Korea in response to Key's prompt, will we see him leaping excitedly about in front of the news camera yelling "Told ya so!! Got it right! State compulsion!"?
Folks here yesterday pointing out that it's actually state coercion are technically correct – but will those on the receiving end feel the difference? I'm inclined to doubt it.
So will the govt now open an embassy in NK? Send an ambassador to tell the wee fat guy "Hey, we do rockets, just like you! We do state control of citizens too! Any other bright ideas?" His response: "Cool, yes! Take out bad cabinet minsters with anti-aircraft gun! Sends message to other ministers: do as told!"
Bit late to apply retrospectively to Twyford & Clark I guess, but you can see how the PM would open the following cabinet meeting: "Right, the North Korean option. Here's where we're going with this…"
I never even finished reading that. He shows up the opinionist critics as complete tossers so well by about halfway thru I didn’t have any desire to be further depressed by reading on about how ill-informed & ridiculous the perennial critics like Soper & HDPA, & Mike Hosking & Kate Hawkesby are.
I hope everybody can find the time to read that piece. It is the most comprehensive round-up of the idiotic reckons which infect the "debate". Grim but essential reading. Worth bookmarking.
We already had made those observations on this site. Especially damning reviews of Soper and Duplicity A. Hoskins and his wife are entitled wind bags, whose write ups are back and forth to reflect the vacillations of a stirrer
Covid's greatest secret weapon is it creates no visible marks.
Maybe we'll have to wait until a covid mutation of concern (bound to happen) that gives people covid fingers, or covid nose rather than covid toe – something people can see, like a body covered in pustules, before the opinionists take a public health response of elimination seriously.
Then they can helpfully rage if the elimination is too slow.
No, he's saying that the people with those opinions don't agree with their own opinions, depending on the toss of a coin that day. The opinions aren't based on a good-faith analysis of the evidence, but only on the requirement to have opinions.
It's only "long-winded" because there are so many examples to cite.
Great critique of NZ's 5th column ‘opinionists’ – the inconvenience this pandemic has caused Hosking/Hawkesby/Soper/HDP/Roughan/Yardley/Bridge et al. is heartbreaking.
Yeah that graph says it all, eh? Presuming it's accurate (recalling the old adage re lies, damn lies, & statistics). Doesn't give the right any leverage at all. And all that hoo-hah for months about opening the border to get back to business as usual got their credibility destroyed by Delta. It's like they want to pretend the contagion ain't real. But I suppose you could argue it's just the old ruling class social darwinist stance getting a re-run. Collateral damage is tolerable, I bet they think, assuming it won't happen to them…
… a protest group is promising to hold a "strike" in Auckland against what they see as an imposition on teachers' freedoms. It's not known how many of the group are teachers. (my bold)
If they sourced a vaccine for those whose bodies cannot handle the glycol lipids in the vaccine then 10 % more people could be vaccinated. Might mean we save a few teachers !
I had thought they had done this. A couple of immuno compromised people I know have had and will have access to different vaccines on an invitation basis on specific days for vaccination. One I had heard had said her day was later this month.
Of course this depends on being noted by your GP and the person working with their GP/MOH and not just a fanciful "I am intolerant to…….. ie I have done my own self diagnosis, " or I don't want to have that…..'
Vaccine mandates are the fastest way we now have to stabilise the superiority of scientific truth against social media truth, and simultaneously keep us all safe.
In a fast-arriving future in which Auckland goes into hundreds of cases per day, one can see an international passport's biometric scan information also gets used (it always starts with mere convenience) by AirNZ, Kiwirail Interislander, and Police as a means to enforce travel between New Zealand regions. Or even moreso, a medical i.d. stronger than an app, with remarkably low privacy settings for state database interoperability.
That kind of all-travel biometric could take in all kinds of herbal proclivities.
Having just returned from a bar after 2 different but beautiful Belgian triples, I understand your point. Some would still die with a bottle of Speights in their cold dead hand. What is familiar, What is trusted. What is liked. Not necessarily what is good.
nah, it'll be the millenium bug all over again – we opened up and didn't have the crematoria running overtime, so obviously there was nothing to worry about.
just to clarify, there is a difference between medically exempt, and those having reactions to the vaccine that mainstream medicine doesn't consider relevant to public health but may still be relevant to the individual. Distinct again from people fearful because of anti-vax beliefs. Not a lot of research for the middle group to help make decisions unfortunately.
his position seems reasonable to me. Essentially he wants a much tighter border between Auckland and Northland so Northland people can focus on the vaccination programme in a calmer manner rather than the panic that's happening now. All of that to protect people most vulnerable to a covid infection.
I don't think Harawira's lost the plot. I think he's being quite mild.
A woman and her mate travelled to Northland when they should not have. From what has been published one of them at least conned the system. At least one of them had covid.
Neither of them were forthcoming with the details of their trip. One of them it seems went out of her way to avoid being questioned and still is not fully co-operative.
Ignore the fact that they may have come to Northland deposited Covid, departed and apparently had no compunction about what they could have left behind. Ignore all the direct health angles.
At the moment 194,000 Northlanders are living their lives according to the dictates of the actions of the two women.
Hone Harawira and the region's leaders are being very measured.
Oh? Swearing? Using the fucking word for reporters is being measured, is it?
From someone who’s a former MP & a well-known (& generally well-liked by some, including me) public figure?
Do you want Jacinda Ardern to use the fucking word in interviews about the Auckland women cheating their way into Northland too? Or Chris Hipkins? Or Ashleigh Bloomfield? Or Kelvin Davis?
Would that be “measured” of them. Take your time to think before replying about the others. Because if you don’t approve of them using profanities, I’m interested in why it doesn’t bother you when Hone Harawira does, but it would bother you if THEY did.
By your reckoning Harawira's lost the plot because he used the particular word.
The Herald quoted him as saying, "We need to slam the f****** door on Auckland. Let's focus on us and healing ourselves."
In August the Herald carried a story of the Ombudsman saying a college should apologise to a schoolboy who'd been expelled for swearing at a teacher.
According to the report the boy told the teacher to "f*** off."
Of course the boy didn't say "f*** off." He said "Fuck off." Everyone knows that. Why didn't the Herald print it like that? We can handle seeing it written without it being written fully? Bizarre. If the word is so offensive they should not have used it at all. The Herald obviously considered quoting Harawira verbatim was acceptable. If they didn't they wouldn't have used it.
The Ombudsman didn't think it was the end of the world when it was used directly at someone I an aggressive tone.
fucking | ˈfʌkɪŋ | adjective [attributive] & adverb [as submodifier] vulgar slang used for emphasis or to express anger, annoyance, contempt, or surprise.
Harawira used the word in that sense. His anger was directed at the situation not the individuals who deserve much forceful language directed at them. How angry is he? Enough to voice it in a way which gets attention. A pity the attention is on a word not the reason for the anger, whether it is justified and whether the situation he addresses could have been avoided.
Because Jacinda Ardern doesn't express herself like that means she doesn’t care? That's silly. Everyone has their own way of expressing things. Public figures address reporters as they wish.
Over aeons politicians have fraternised with journalists. Relationships mean a politician describing another as an 'arsehole' isn't going to be published like that. Not seeing or hearing it it doesn't mean that florid language hasn't been used.
The Herald thinks the word is offensive enough to not use it fully, to sort of pretend to use it but not so offensive as to not use it at all.
God was taking a morning saunter through Heaven looking windswept and interesting as is his want when he comes across this sorry looking new arrival and says to him “ What the fuck are you doing here? “ the recently worldly resident replies “ I died of Covid “ , “ Why weren’t you vaccinated “ says God , “ Because I prayed to you to send me help and it didn’t come “ ,” You dumb shit, I sent you Ashley, and Michael and Shaun, the one with the funny hair and Jacinda, now fuck off back to Purgatory to have a think about it and get vacced while you’re about it, and don’t think you’re getting back in here until then” .
Shaw warned us that he would not have anything organised for Glasgow, because of consultation blablabla.
But by the time he comes back mid-November he then runs a higher risk of not getting the figures and costs into the Treasury Budget cycle for 2022 to implement the Big Whole Of Government plan.
That would be a thing, both operationally and politically.
I was a bit scared to watch it at first because of the rat.
I have a blackbird friend who for the third year running has made the nest in a shrub outside my kitchen window and I found a little tiny bird outside on the lawn and no doubt a rat has been. I will put a good nature trap there. My neighbour has an anything goes compost bin and I often get her rats exploring. Not that I don't have them but I poison and my compost bins have got wirenetting barriers.
Yes, it's a contentious decision. They are cute as all get out, teeny little NZ long-tailed bats – but they're definitely NOT birds. Bad call to include them, imo.
I thought that this met the bill for that competition. Actually I was quite surprised when I Googled this to find that the competition still exists. I was expecting to have to say something like. "But they used to. Back in the 1960's etc etc"
“But many people don’t even know they exist. Maybe that’s how they snuck into the competition under cover of darkness.”
…
Department of Conservation senior ranger Rob Carson-Iles said the long-tailed bat was critically endangered, “the next stop on that continuum is extinction”.
Carson-Iles welcomed the addition of the bat to the previously bird-based competition.
“You can’t protect something you don't know about,’' he said.
“They’re something that’s really special to this area. They’re doing it tough, and they need our assistance to carry on.'’
It's just a PR stunt to draw attention to the 'competition.'
What do you think, next year as a PR thing Hector's dolphins will be on the list?
Petitions seem to be all the go lately, maybe all birds can get one together.
On the positive side I suppose it shows lateral thinking. Favourite for Sportsperson of the Year? Lorde. Favourite for Entertainer of the Year? Margaret Mahy. Butcher of the Year? Israel Adesanya?
I don't see a lot of evidence of your prior support of bats. Do you have any particular reason for denying bats the affirmation they must feel from being included in the competition? In fact – have you even asked them?
Is it worth James Shaw's and by proxy the Greens reputation to be actually presenting this stuff to the public and holding the line that its the right path as far as climate change is concerned?
Would it be better to pull the pin very publicly and say Labour wasnt prepared to do enough and if you want meaningful action on climate you need to vote Green?
The modus operandi of this government is very difficult to pick on that score.
On the one hand it can go big such as with nationalising hospitals. On the other hand when it gets lots of public pressure on a specific item like a cycleway it kills the project.
Most of the time, unless there's an immediate crisis, Ardern only acts when the rest of the country begs her to. It's very awwwwwwwshucks you made me. In those respects Ardern is very similar to her predecessor John Key. Both were outstanding at reforms directly after crises, but day to day just went with the flow.
The huge rural protest was no issue to them electorally, but the fact that it was big and there was no organised countervailing pro-climate protest will quite reasonably be read that the left and the greens are complacent and Ardern can continue to tack deep into the centre. That's certainly how we will be read by other nations in Glasgow.
Yes very much a populist, I think thats why Auckland alert level dropped a touch early. Sadly Labour are a short on people who know how to get shit done. I think this manifests itself when big announcements are made like Kiwibuild, light rail, emergency housing etc and the actual delivery falls over or gets tied in knots.
I honestly believe this is in part due to the emergence of an insular political class who lack in real world experience.
At this rate, it's going to take a few deaths before the Government sees reason on Level 4 (as for compliance – I'd venture that a few deaths would also make certain people remember what we are fighting against).
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 ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
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The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Sign the petition get the government to recommit to Elimination.
NZ Government: Recommit to elimination of COVID-19
https://www.change.org/p/nz-government-recommit-to-elimination-of-covid-19?
Have you not witnessed what has happened in pretty much ever other country around the world Jenny? The horse has bolted, this petition is futile.
We need to eliminate to save people's lives and people's health.
We need to eliminate to save our health system and look after the people who work in it.
We need to eliminate to save our economy.
we need pixies and fairies too, but like elimination, that is not going to happen in the real world
Over rising concerns about the economic harm to the business community and the economy. The government ignored the health experts not to lower the Level 4 Alert in Auckland.
Now they are ignoring them again.
All politics is pressure. Politicaal pressure from the business community on the government to surrender to the virus, must be countered by pressure from below not to.
If you think public health should be a priority before private wealth.
Sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/p/nz-government-recommit-to-elimination-of-covid-19
Most other countries never tried elimination, Alan. those that did, such as New South Wales and Victoria, botched the job by leaving it early, with damage to both lives and their economy.
Waste of time. If NZ goes back to level 4 for say the next 24 months, we will eliminate it. Great. As soon as we open up, Covid will return. You cant live under a rock forever hiding from something that you are in fear of.
However, treatments that are more effective may well be developed, saving lives, communities and businesses.
Said the hiker about the bear.
Actually, it would be less than a couple of months, with full compliance.
But if it was 24 months, most of the covid strains would be much more mild, because they ones that kill their hosts die sooner. E.g. the 19818 flu waves by the mid-twenties.
https://twitter.com/sunshinechi1/status/1447595536635289606
Is this a veiled threat?
jester/hiker/bear = covid/cameraman/warthog
Good video. Brave man to let a warthog get that close as they are vicious.
But I don't really see what the video has to do with anything?
Brave?
Or did he have an overinflated opinion of his ability to control something that he should have feared?
Virus isn't so bad, see, we can come out from under our rock and live with it…[voice of reason – probably best we don't even try living with it] ..right up until you're treed in a rondavel squeaking help, help meee…
Not necessarily, as current vaccines dont sterlize the virus there is a possibility a more potent and resistant strain that is able to overcome vaccination emerges to prominence in which case all bets are off.
You and I can bet that will happen (and I only bet on things that I evaluate as near sure things – ie I seldom gamble for money at all). The only real issue is the timing.
Natural immunity is also pretty well impossible with this particular virus apart from the longer term prospect. Eventually it kills off or causes every one who gets it to not breed well. There are known verified cases where people have caught variants or even the same variant of covid-19 after having a previous infection with covid-19 – as well as the same kinds of breakthrough infections with fully vaccinated.
There is a reason why the bat populations where the disease originated have the probably the most ferocious immune systems we know of in mammals. Long-term selection from this disease and other socially endemic diseases being endemic in their populations.
Ultimately we need to manage to get a sterilising vaccine or treatment because otherwise this disease will probably eventually crush our health systems. The incidence and time extent of long-covid is too high.
I suspect that repeated exposures are going to wear down the peoples immune systems. If covid-19 doesn't get you then something else will.
The reason that our more complex health systems work (and our life expectancy in the west keep rising) is because we have managed to reduce the wear and tear of diseases on the immune systems with public health measures over the past 150 years. At present I'm expecting that to reverse for most of this decade with this disease.
That's sobering. I wish NZ was talking about this more, far too many people think we're going back to normal next year.
What are your thoughts on the Auckland outbreak and what should be done at the moment, in the context of the bigger and longer picture above?
Well, it's not so much a case of "overcoming" vaccination as random mutations eventually tweak the main protein most vaccines currently help the immune system to target. Like the flu vaccine does – why some of use get new flu shots every year: it's not just because the previous year's vax has worn off somehow, it's because while the Northern Hemisphere was having their flu season some new varients emerged.
But the thing about more harmful variants is that they get spotted sooner (because people get seriously ill rather than not noticing a sniffle), and are prioritised for research/medications/vaccines more highly. So they still have less of a reproductive advantage than essentially harmless variants.
Probably one more week in level 4 would have been enough; now it may take another 3 weeks to achieve it. Worth it for level 1 or 2 by Christmas.
Yes but how would you get full compliance from the gangs? It makes no difference to them whether its level 1,2,3 or 4.
Fair call to a degree, but they're not complete morons, either. Most of them know that being the only ones on the street increases the odds of getting stopped. Some of the more stupid ones demonstrated that.
But also, even without perfect compliance with L4 the problem isn't so much the gangs as the possibility of wholesale rejection of controls, like in Melbourne. An indeterminate purgatory of half the population in lockdown and the other half listening to infantile opinionators in the media or religious frauds.
Someone at the dirty end of criminal activity is not getting essential worker status for that. "Covid compliance" is an even broader brush for stops and arrests (and the concomitant vehicle search for officer safety) than breach of the peace or traffic infringement. It's literally an excuse to arrest anyone in public if they're not essential workers or with a reasonable excuse to be out.
So assuming that they're okay with disease ravaging their community and families, the leaders of all criminal enterprises would need to ask themselves whether a limited hiatus on earning is more cost-effective than actively losing earnings and distribution staff to law enforcement. Hell, the government could allow suspected leaders of such organisations to travel into restricted areas in order to deliver that message personally. Along with other leaders of disaffected and socially alienated communities (in the general idea that maybe community leaders have more credibility with the members of those communities than might be the domain of official government representatives).
24 months?
Surely you joke, Jester.
24 months is a hysterical over exageration of the time needed to achieve elimination.
The Level 4 Lockdown in Auckland almost killed off the Delta covid varient, before it was lifted early before it had finished its job.
Another one, possibly two more weeks, would have eliminated it completely.
And we would be back in Level 1 by now.
This TVNZ timeline graph shows the whole sorry tale.
The Level 4 Lockdown was put in place on 17 August. Daily infections reached a peak of 86 before plateuing around August 30 and then started dropping sharply about the 1st of September. As the Level 4 Alert started to take effect, daily cases kept dropping to a low of 22 cases on 21 September. Against expert public health advice. On 21 September the Level 4 Alert was dropped to Level 3, despite 22 daily cases, two of which could not be linked to any known cluster. Eight days later the infections started rising again. And haven't stopped rising.
The above photo of the TVNZ timeline graph doesn't quite capture the full awfulness of the government's retreat from elimination.
After lowering the Level 4 Alert to Level 3 and numbers started rising, the government loosened restrictions in Auckland even futher.
See photo in link below.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TVNZ-graph-101021-680wide.png
Yes 24 months is an exageration, but a Level 4 lockdown for say 12 weeks then, would eliminate. But guess what? Covid would still come back and pop up again.
I hope they don't do any more level 4 lockdowns as by December everyone that wants to be vaccinated will be. But I do hope they have increased ICU capacity at hospitals.
90% vaccination of the eligible population is a good practical achievable target to aim for, 95% vaccination of the total population is what is needed.
Maybe when the vaccine is approved for use on over 5s we could get near that figure.
Even then, more ICU beds will be needed.
We are at war and our government are surrendering.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126671440/covid19-virus-will-sweep-through-auckland-after-level-3-loosening-modeller-warns
I don't think the government are surrendering. I think they realise that people will only be locked down for so long. Eventually life has to go on. I'm in Auckland and many people are already over it. People at Okahu Bay and Mission Bay have been at level 1 for the last few weeks anyway. This step one of level 3 where you can have a picnic with another bubble, as the govt know, people have been doing this for weeks already.
And as for the gangs…well it's always been level one for them as we hear on the news (and then they have the audacity to not be cooperative with the authorities).
"There is no such thing as bad soldiers, only bad generals" Napoleon
Now I am sure that Napoleon's army had the usual minority of drunkards, deserters, and trouble makers of any army. Of course there is such a thing as bad soldiers. The point that Napoleon was making is that he or his generals could not put the blame for their failures on this minority.
The minority of rule breakers including the gangs and sex workers rough sleepers, drug addicts, and the other marginalised communities make for a handy scapegoat. But they are not the major source of the current uncontrolled spread of the virus.
If enough people do it, just like vaccination, Lockdown creates herd immunity. Just like vaccination, if enough people do it, Lockdown protects the minority of people who don't.
To make my point, one of the most egregious cases of rule breaking and the one you alluded to, was the case of the two sex workers that traveled through Northland on false essential worker credentials, and then refused to tell the authorities who they had met with or where they had been. Surely this must be a worst case of rule breaking by two individuals. But this rare and unusual case, did not result in a mass spreader event and Northland has just been downgraded to Level 2.
So where should we look for the failure of this country's covid response?
When the Level 4 alert for Auckland was lowered. 200,000 workers who had been isolatiing at home were ordered back to work.
There is your daily mass spreader event right there.
https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TVNZ-graph-101021-680wide.png
The real cause of the current uncontrolled rise in covid invections is revealed in the TVNZ timeline graph, above. The timeline clearly shows the dramatic rise in cases following the Level 4 lockdown being lifted.
Just as you say, Jester. It has always been level one for the minority of rule breakers like the gangs. But despite the actions of this tiny minority, the virus was being crushed under Level 4.
From a high of 83 around about August 30 followed by a dramatic drop, to single figures around about September 22, followed by a rise, beginning eight days, after the lifting of the Level 4 lockdown, (the incubation period of the virus). An upward rise in cases that has continued.
The change in government policy not the gangs is the cause of the current rise.
So after all that waffle, what is your solution? Stay in level 4 forever? When / if we finally get to level 2 there will probably be a further rise in cases but wont matter as enough people vaccinated so mostly recover at home. I want to know what Auckland has to do to get to open up to at least level 2. Is it 90% vaccinated? 95%? And I'm sure there is a few restaurants, bars, hairdressers and shops that would love to know. But after todays announcement they are none the wiser other than they are out of business for a further two weeks at least and still don't know what Auckland needs to do until at least Friday.
Again you exagerate and fear monger to oppose proven measures of stopping preventable illness and deaths. This fearmongering and exageration prevents us debating the real matters that are in the balance to be decided.
The health experts and epidemic modelers have called on the government to apply a "circuit breaker" Level 4 lockdown to stop the rate of infection reaching into to triple figures.
So far the government have refused to heed this health advice.
"I want to know what Auckland has to do to get to open up to at least level 2. Is it 90% vaccinated? 95%?" Jester
Part of the answer to this question, Jester, has been supplied by the Auckland District Health board, who have stated that at 90% vaccination rate they are preparing the hospitals for 6 deaths and 33 hospitalisations a week.
The real question Jester, that is in the balance to be decided, is how much preventable death and illness will we accept in return, for business as usual?
The government has not made it explicit, but it seems that 6 preventable deaths and 33 preventable hospital admissions is acceptable to them as the price for fully opening up the economy and to hell with kindness.
"And I'm sure there is a few restaurants, bars, hairdressers and shops that would love to know. But after todays announcement they are none the wiser other than they are out of business for a further two weeks at least and still don't know what Auckland needs to do until at least Friday." Jester
https://asiapacificreport.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TVNZ-graph-101021-680wide.png
From the graph above, you can see that we were very close to nation wide elimination under the Level 4 Auckland Alert. If the government had not lost its nerve. we could be at Level 1 now. Not a certainty, but the sharp downward heading trend did seem to show that. Of course we will never no for sure now.
Certainty was lost when government abandoned the Alert Level System and replaced it with the Three Step Roadmap to reopen the borders.
As you can clearly see on the graph, Stage One and no doubt the other steps to come on this Roadmap, are to be applied even as infections continue to climb. But reality has turned the Roadmap into a vague and confusing mess, with little certainty of anything. Only the first step or stage has been completed, with no idea of when the others steps will occur, or even if the Roadmap still exists.
But at least we are getting down to the real reasons for the refusal to continue the Elimination Strategy, which is the economic hardship on business and small proprietors. Nothing to do with gangs or sex workers or the minority of rule breakers. Which are just handy scapegoats for our failure to prioritise lives and public health over business interests.
Don't get me wrong Jester, the destruction and turmoil and economic hardship and pain being visited on small business and households from lockdown is very real and a concern to me. But this paiin is not being shared equally. The big banks and financiers have had no lockdown.
If we really wanted to eliminate the virus and return us to Level 1, we would impose a Level 4 Lockdown with a full rent and mortgage moratorium to help households and business ride out the hardship.
This meaure is not unheard of. A moratorium on mortgages was implemented in 1914 due to the crisis brought about by the World War. And in 1931 a mortgage and rent moratorium was brought in due to the crisis of the World Economic Depression.
Obviously the government does not think that the current Covid crisis is as severe as these past crises, or they would have implemented the same emergency measures.
You asked me Jester;
"So after all that waffle, what is your solution?"
That's my solution. Nationwide Level 4 Lockdown with full rent and mortgage moratorium until the virus is eliminated.
Afterall is said and done, it is not like the big Aussie owned banks, which take $3.5b out of our economy and off shore, every year, can't afford it.
P.S. You may think this crisis is not severe enough to warrant such extreme measures, but the people who sicken and end up in hospital and families of those directly affected may disagree.
So we have a harder than level 4 lockdown for (who knows how long) a time period including rent moratoriums etc. and we end up with say 14 days of no cases! Awesome. Then we open up and a few weeks later the virus comes back again and we start getting cases again. Then what? Another lockdown?
Possibly, but more likely everyone is vaccinated by then. (At least everyone who can be vaccinated.) And resulting deaths and illness are minimal and as small as possibly could be achieved.
It's this interim period we are talking about, where it has been decided to let the virus rip even while the population has not yet reached the target 90% vaccination level.
(The end of lockdown could be the carrot/whip to encourage vaccination, unfortunately this carrot and whip has been ruled out, ensureing that vaccination will not be as high as it possibly could have been, if the government had stayed the course.)
I admire your honesty in that you admit to this trade off in preventable deaths and illness has been made for the good of the economy.
We are not seeing this honesty being admitted in many places.
Early on worksites were identified by the Prime Minister as the source of spread of the Virus even under Level 4, despite this, infections kept dropping. That is until the Level 4 Alert was lifted on the 21st of September and 200,000 Auckland workers returned to their workplaces to mingle and spread the virus. One week later the infections which had been on a steep decline, began the upward trend, which hasn't stopped. On October 4, despite the continueing rise in infections, restrictions were loosened again.
Level 4 can can compensate for the minority of rule breakers. The looser Level 3 cannot.
Honesty means admitting that it was government policy that decided to let the virus rip for the good of the economy at the cost of public health.
Unfortunately your honesty in admitting this fact, is not being followed by our policy makers who are embarked on major frenzy of finger pointing and blamestorming the tiny minority of rule breakers for the current outbreak due to their change in policy direction.
This dishonesty does not inspire confidence in our leadership. Or even the certainty that business crave.
Two millionaires horse breeders who broke lockdown to fly to Queensland, did not lead to an outbreak. Two sex workers who toured the North, did not lead to an outbreak. A wild party on the North Shore attended by 50 people, looks unlikely to lead to an outbreak.
The government has embarked on a policy of letting the virus rip.
But rather than accept responsibility, the screaming headlines for the next couple of weeks, as hospital admissions rise and deaths start occuring, will be concentrated on the rule breakers as the cause.
The honest thing to do would be admit to the policy change behind the rising infections and put it to the public for their support.
Dishonesty does not engender confidence.
"There is no such thing a bad soldiers only bad generals" Napoleon
As the health experts have said, kissing goodbye to level 4 means kissing goodbye to level 1.
So say goodbye to a Covid Free Christtmas and summer.
So reading this, all you are suggesting is giving people more time to get vaccinated ie. up over the 90% or whatever.
"Possibly, but more likely everyone is vaccinated by then. (At least everyone who can be vaccinated.) And resulting deaths and illness are minimal and as small as possibly could be achieved."
I say no to that, people need to be get off their backsides and get vaccinated NOW if they want to. Else take their chances unvaccinated if that is what they want. They can be fully vaccinated by December the 1st if they get vaccinated now. But the rest of us (the vaxinated majority) cant be held back forever waiting.
Personally, if it was up to me, I would say, you've already had your chance to get vaccinated (taxis, buses, KFC vouchers, other vouchers and a vaxathon and various other financial incentives have been oferred) and we are opening up on 1st of November.
'Devil take the hindmost', (as the saying goes). Eh Jester?
Weka puts it best:
As well as trashing our international reputation for protecting the welfare and health of our most vulnerable. There is another serious flaw in your plan to sacrifice others' lives and health, just so you can open up the country by November.
The fact is, that at the very best, vaccines are only 90% effective. Vaccination approachs 100% effectiveness in stopping the spread of a viral infection, the more people get vaccinated. The so called 'herd immunity' does not just protect the unvaccinated, it also protects the fully vaccinated by filling in for that 10% failure rate.
That is how vaccination works. It is how we eliminated polio.
What this means, is that below 90% vaccination coverage, even some of the fully vaccinated can still catch the virus, and sicken and possibly even die.
Who knows, it could even by you, or one of your loved ones.
So purely on a selfish basis it is in your interest to get as many others vaccinated as possible before opening up.
I don’t think much of your plan to sacrifice the old and also put at risk our health care workers who have sacrificed so much for us during this pandemic.
And what for? So the Aussie owned banks can keep screwing this country into the ground even during a pandemic?
P.S. So far, no country has yet been able to achieve herd immunity levels of vaccination against Covid-19. New Zealand could be the first. I think it is a worthy goal to attempt. We were the first country to show that elimination was possible to world acclaim. Another world first in the global fight against Covid-19, would do wonders for this country's international reputation. And on a purely personal note, my father is 86, and fully vaccinated. My father still enjoys life. I wouldn't want him to die of a fully preventable disease because of your selfishness.
Colin Powell died of cancer.
It sounds like we will simply have to agree to disagree then. Locking down a town / city /country indefinitely simply wont work.
It would be interesting to know how many people have died due to the lockdowns. This Covid outbreak this year has killed 2 people, one in their nineties, and one in their fifties with health issues. I'm sure the mental health and procedures and treatments postponed have probably killed more.
Really?
You started this thread by falsely claiming that the latest outbreak is the result of the minority of rule breakers.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13-10-2021/#comment-1823767
Then you moved on, to say that those that didn't get immunised deserved to sicken and die.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13-10-2021/#comment-1826195
To which I pointed out that without achieving herd immunity some of the fully vaccinated will also sicken and possibly even die.
Now, to fit your narrative that we must reopen by November, you claimed that Colin Powel didn't die of Covid -19, but died of cancer.
Yes, Colin Powel did have cancer, but it wasn't a fatal kind.
Another lie is that lockdown has caused more deaths than not locking down.
All statistics of a drop in background deaths from all causes during lockdown, disprove this Lie. Even deaths from suicide declined under Level 4 Lockdown.
https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/article/undoctored/weekly-deaths-declined-nzs-lockdown-we-still-dont-know-exactly-why
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-fewer-suicides-during-lockdown-level-4-chief-coroner/Z6R2IN5LN67LNLYDADTSTNWSIE/
The fact is that lockdown stops our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, preventing people who could otherwise be treated of curable illness and accidents getting a bed, because all the beds, especially, critical care beds are filled up with covid patients.
To argue the opposite against the facts is to go against all reason.
Frankly Jester. I am disappointed. From arguing that we need to balance the loss of lives against the economic harm of Lockdown, which is a fair point, and an honest position to debate, you have reverted to lieing.
But I can understand why you might feel motivated to dissemble. Because when faced with a pandemic, the main reason for opposing lockdown, is the prioritising of making money over people's lives and health, is a motive repulsive to most people, possibly if you dared admit to it, repulsive to your self.
Re the govt's pivot toward North Korea in response to Key's prompt, will we see him leaping excitedly about in front of the news camera yelling "Told ya so!! Got it right! State compulsion!"?
Folks here yesterday pointing out that it's actually state coercion are technically correct – but will those on the receiving end feel the difference? I'm inclined to doubt it.
So will the govt now open an embassy in NK? Send an ambassador to tell the wee fat guy "Hey, we do rockets, just like you! We do state control of citizens too! Any other bright ideas?" His response: "Cool, yes! Take out bad cabinet minsters with anti-aircraft gun! Sends message to other ministers: do as told!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyon_Yong-chol
Bit late to apply retrospectively to Twyford & Clark I guess, but you can see how the PM would open the following cabinet meeting: "Right, the North Korean option. Here's where we're going with this…"
Think it was Key's idea for the telethon type thing as well this weekend.
Thought that was quite funny.
Bit of a side story. But something I found interesting.
Seymour's End of life choice Act comes in, in less than a month.
They have published how much Doctors and other medical staff will get who chose to carry out the procedure.
$1087.20 a time.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300428689/assisted-dying-doctors-to-be-paid-1087-to-perform-procedure-starting-next-month
That is interesting.
Disturbing that it is essentially the same as a midwife is paid to deliver a life into this world.
Really?
Wouldn't actually surprise me if that was what they based it on.
On the media's undermining of the public health response to covid.
https://badnewsletter.substack.com/p/the-fifth-columnists
I never even finished reading that. He shows up the opinionist critics as complete tossers so well by about halfway thru I didn’t have any desire to be further depressed by reading on about how ill-informed & ridiculous the perennial critics like Soper & HDPA, & Mike Hosking & Kate Hawkesby are.
Shock jockism at its worst.
I hope everybody can find the time to read that piece. It is the most comprehensive round-up of the idiotic reckons which infect the "debate". Grim but essential reading. Worth bookmarking.
We already had made those observations on this site. Especially damning reviews of Soper and Duplicity A. Hoskins and his wife are entitled wind bags, whose write ups are back and forth to reflect the vacillations of a stirrer
*Hosking. Mike Hosking. Not Hoskins.
When you're slagging somebody off it's the done thing to get their name right.
Isn't that Horeskin?
No, apparently it’s The Hosk, to those in the loop.
Covid's greatest secret weapon is it creates no visible marks.
Maybe we'll have to wait until a covid mutation of concern (bound to happen) that gives people covid fingers, or covid nose rather than covid toe – something people can see, like a body covered in pustules, before the opinionists take a public health response of elimination seriously.
Then they can helpfully rage if the elimination is too slow.
That is one seriously long winded way of someone saying they don't agree with other peoples opinions and only their's is right
No, he's saying that the people with those opinions don't agree with their own opinions, depending on the toss of a coin that day. The opinions aren't based on a good-faith analysis of the evidence, but only on the requirement to have opinions.
It's only "long-winded" because there are so many examples to cite.
First tactic: there's no evidence;
if that is patently false, choose between "yawn" and "explaining is losing".
Great critique of NZ's 5th column ‘opinionists’ – the inconvenience this pandemic has caused Hosking/Hawkesby/Soper/HDP/Roughan/Yardley/Bridge et al. is heartbreaking.
Yeah that graph says it all, eh? Presuming it's accurate (recalling the old adage re lies, damn lies, & statistics). Doesn't give the right any leverage at all. And all that hoo-hah for months about opening the border to get back to business as usual got their credibility destroyed by Delta. It's like they want to pretend the contagion ain't real. But I suppose you could argue it's just the old ruling class social darwinist stance getting a re-run. Collateral damage is tolerable, I bet they think, assuming it won't happen to them…
It's almost as if having a sick population is bad for your wealth…
I see a few teacher have resigned over mandatory vac.
Good that they are out of the classroom.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-schools-out-small-numbers-of-teachers-quit-over-mandated-vaccinations/B4YNDASC2UCJJROPY3WQ42N7VY/
3
They wouldn't be destiny church connected at all would they?
I enjoyed reading this bit:
Every post a winning post for the anti-vaxxers?
Yes thanks I saw that too.
If they sourced a vaccine for those whose bodies cannot handle the glycol lipids in the vaccine then 10 % more people could be vaccinated. Might mean we save a few teachers !
I had thought they had done this. A couple of immuno compromised people I know have had and will have access to different vaccines on an invitation basis on specific days for vaccination. One I had heard had said her day was later this month.
Of course this depends on being noted by your GP and the person working with their GP/MOH and not just a fanciful "I am intolerant to…….. ie I have done my own self diagnosis, " or I don't want to have that…..'
There is much hot air about this.
United Airlines gave its staff of 67,000 an ultimatum re vaccination and by the time the deadline had passed only 320 were unvaccinated.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/30/uniteds-unvaccinated-staff-drops-from-593-to-320-after-company-said-they-would-be-fired.html
Vaccine mandates are the fastest way we now have to stabilise the superiority of scientific truth against social media truth, and simultaneously keep us all safe.
100%
That's elegantly, and ruthlessly, put, Ad. May I borrow it 🙂
Vaccine mandates are also constrained by scientific truth,where as say vaccine breakthrough is higher those with substance use disorders (SUD )
Here it seems those with Cannabis use disorder seem to be at greater risk of breakthrough infection .
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wps.20921
A scientific truth would also allow for an endorsement on the vaccine passport stating that the holder is still a risk,due to cannabis use disorder.
In a fast-arriving future in which Auckland goes into hundreds of cases per day, one can see an international passport's biometric scan information also gets used (it always starts with mere convenience) by AirNZ, Kiwirail Interislander, and Police as a means to enforce travel between New Zealand regions. Or even moreso, a medical i.d. stronger than an app, with remarkably low privacy settings for state database interoperability.
That kind of all-travel biometric could take in all kinds of herbal proclivities.
Utopia!
Yes, for the safety of everyone lets have more mandates from our sole source of truth.
Maybe a newspaper would be useful…
A recent Nobel Peace Prize winner said, "A world without facts means a world without truth and trust." – Maria Ressa 2021
A relative recently said to me:
You can take this KFC drumstick …
Out of my cold dead hand.
Having just returned from a bar after 2 different but beautiful Belgian triples, I understand your point. Some would still die with a bottle of Speights in their cold dead hand. What is familiar, What is trusted. What is liked. Not necessarily what is good.
The proposal seems to be acceptable.
You should have aspiration in your life, but you are not allowed aspiration during vaccination.
nah, it'll be the millenium bug all over again – we opened up and didn't have the crematoria running overtime, so obviously there was nothing to worry about.
Can you link where you got the 10% number from?
There was this article earlier in the week: Covid 19: 'Almost no one' in Australia medically exempt from coronavirus vaccinations – health expert
It mentions that 1 in 100,000 could be allergic (not anywhere close to 1 in 10).
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-almost-no-one-in-australia-medically-exempt-from-coronavirus-vaccinations-health-expert/TLNOOEJD2VCUVCAZACHN5HSAZY/
[correct link added – weka]
Self styled I am sure and possibly only a few would actually be immuno compromised or have allergic issues.
Interesting that link has been removed!!!!
My mistake… Look here
Thanks
just to clarify, there is a difference between medically exempt, and those having reactions to the vaccine that mainstream medicine doesn't consider relevant to public health but may still be relevant to the individual. Distinct again from people fearful because of anti-vax beliefs. Not a lot of research for the middle group to help make decisions unfortunately.
Hone Harawira's lost the plot. Doing his rag with the F word again. 🙄
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-northlanders-could-wait-weeks-to-see-alleged-border-breachers-charged/24HP3HT7YRVPA3KFYM64I5MS7A/
his position seems reasonable to me. Essentially he wants a much tighter border between Auckland and Northland so Northland people can focus on the vaccination programme in a calmer manner rather than the panic that's happening now. All of that to protect people most vulnerable to a covid infection.
Hone cares and has vulnerable people to protect. He is fed up with incursions, I agree with you Weka.
So do I, but that shocker of a hot-headed, foul-mouthed temper he sometimes displays leads him into fucking avoidable trouble sometimes.
I don't think Harawira's lost the plot. I think he's being quite mild.
A woman and her mate travelled to Northland when they should not have. From what has been published one of them at least conned the system. At least one of them had covid.
Neither of them were forthcoming with the details of their trip. One of them it seems went out of her way to avoid being questioned and still is not fully co-operative.
Ignore the fact that they may have come to Northland deposited Covid, departed and apparently had no compunction about what they could have left behind. Ignore all the direct health angles.
At the moment 194,000 Northlanders are living their lives according to the dictates of the actions of the two women.
Hone Harawira and the region's leaders are being very measured.
Oh? Swearing? Using the fucking word for reporters is being measured, is it?
From someone who’s a former MP & a well-known (& generally well-liked by some, including me) public figure?
Do you want Jacinda Ardern to use the fucking word in interviews about the Auckland women cheating their way into Northland too? Or Chris Hipkins? Or Ashleigh Bloomfield? Or Kelvin Davis?
Would that be “measured” of them. Take your time to think before replying about the others. Because if you don’t approve of them using profanities, I’m interested in why it doesn’t bother you when Hone Harawira does, but it would bother you if THEY did.
perhaps most of us dont phucking care. dont waste our phucking time by ignoring hone's message.
By your reckoning Harawira's lost the plot because he used the particular word.
The Herald quoted him as saying, "We need to slam the f****** door on Auckland. Let's focus on us and healing ourselves."
In August the Herald carried a story of the Ombudsman saying a college should apologise to a schoolboy who'd been expelled for swearing at a teacher.
According to the report the boy told the teacher to "f*** off."
Of course the boy didn't say "f*** off." He said "Fuck off." Everyone knows that. Why didn't the Herald print it like that? We can handle seeing it written without it being written fully? Bizarre. If the word is so offensive they should not have used it at all. The Herald obviously considered quoting Harawira verbatim was acceptable. If they didn't they wouldn't have used it.
The Ombudsman didn't think it was the end of the world when it was used directly at someone I an aggressive tone.
fucking | ˈfʌkɪŋ | adjective [attributive] & adverb [as submodifier] vulgar slang used for emphasis or to express anger, annoyance, contempt, or surprise.
Harawira used the word in that sense. His anger was directed at the situation not the individuals who deserve much forceful language directed at them. How angry is he? Enough to voice it in a way which gets attention. A pity the attention is on a word not the reason for the anger, whether it is justified and whether the situation he addresses could have been avoided.
So Jacinda Ardern doesn’t care enuf to swear about it? Is that what you’re saying?
Or are you saying some public figures can swear addressing reporters & it’s not a problem?
Which ones? And which ones shouldn’t?
Because Jacinda Ardern doesn't express herself like that means she doesn’t care? That's silly. Everyone has their own way of expressing things. Public figures address reporters as they wish.
Over aeons politicians have fraternised with journalists. Relationships mean a politician describing another as an 'arsehole' isn't going to be published like that. Not seeing or hearing it it doesn't mean that florid language hasn't been used.
The Herald thinks the word is offensive enough to not use it fully, to sort of pretend to use it but not so offensive as to not use it at all.
Hone diminishes his mana using profanities in public. Everybody does.
That’s why Ardern & the others don’t do it in public.
Thank you.
You may sit back down again. 👍🏼
God was taking a morning saunter through Heaven looking windswept and interesting as is his want when he comes across this sorry looking new arrival and says to him “ What the fuck are you doing here? “ the recently worldly resident replies “ I died of Covid “ , “ Why weren’t you vaccinated “ says God , “ Because I prayed to you to send me help and it didn’t come “ ,” You dumb shit, I sent you Ashley, and Michael and Shaun, the one with the funny hair and Jacinda, now fuck off back to Purgatory to have a think about it and get vacced while you’re about it, and don’t think you’re getting back in here until then” .
Good one 😄
Governments climate policy descending into farce
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/126663599/govt-puts-ideas-to-slash-emissions-out-for-feedback–asks-people-business-to-fill-gaps
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/pat-baskett-bring-forward-our-net-zero-goal
Shaw warned us that he would not have anything organised for Glasgow, because of consultation blablabla.
But by the time he comes back mid-November he then runs a higher risk of not getting the figures and costs into the Treasury Budget cycle for 2022 to implement the Big Whole Of Government plan.
That would be a thing, both operationally and politically.
.
Ella & Elvis: The Movie. Ella learns to lock up when she goes out – watch out for the rat at 3.07…
https://vimeo.com/267138939
Cute Geeza
'Hey wait up gorgeous' says Elvis to Ella was it?
'I wonder if my washing is wet'
Fabulous Gezza.
I was a bit scared to watch it at first because of the rat.
I have a blackbird friend who for the third year running has made the nest in a shrub outside my kitchen window and I found a little tiny bird outside on the lawn and no doubt a rat has been. I will put a good nature trap there. My neighbour has an anything goes compost bin and I often get her rats exploring. Not that I don't have them but I poison and my compost bins have got wirenetting barriers.
I want to know why bats have been included in the Bird of the Year competition.
Bats are not birds. Bats should not be included. Though of course I support them.
Yes, it's a contentious decision. They are cute as all get out, teeny little NZ long-tailed bats – but they're definitely NOT birds. Bad call to include them, imo.
Yeah, bad call.
Poor bats though, it's not like NZ would ever have a Mammal of the Year competition.
Mammal of the year?
I thought that this met the bill for that competition. Actually I was quite surprised when I Googled this to find that the competition still exists. I was expecting to have to say something like. "But they used to. Back in the 1960's etc etc"
https://www.teaomaori.news/northland-beauty-wins-miss-new-zealand-2020
Aye, the decision to include bats "is expected to ruffle a few feathers"
It's just a PR stunt to draw attention to the 'competition.'
What do you think, next year as a PR thing Hector's dolphins will be on the list?
Petitions seem to be all the go lately, maybe all birds can get one together.
On the positive side I suppose it shows lateral thinking. Favourite for Sportsperson of the Year? Lorde. Favourite for Entertainer of the Year? Margaret Mahy. Butcher of the Year? Israel Adesanya?
Nope I had nothing to with this
Oh I don't know.. It's got P R all over it. And you only have to look at them to see that they are puckish little rogues.
They are very cute
How did you get that large image (at the URL) to fit inside the Comment box, Macro?
Every time I’ve tried to use the image tool to post an image here it’s posted outsized, hasn’t all fitted in the Comment space.
The trick is to post and then to edit after the original url for the image add
width="450"
👌🏼 Thanks Macro. 👍🏼
I have a candidate for New Zealander of the Year.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/126657633/a-very-brave-and-special-person-tributes-pour-in-for-wellington-teen-who-raised-more-than-550000-for-cancer-research
Maybe because they're our only mammal and have no-one else to play with? Perhaps we should be inclusive and change the name of the competition.
I don't see a lot of evidence of your prior support of bats. Do you have any particular reason for denying bats the affirmation they must feel from being included in the competition? In fact – have you even asked them?
Oh here we go with the usual BERP propaganda.
Buzz Extension and Resistance Piece? What's trumpet playing got to do with it?
https://i.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/126663599/govt-puts-ideas-to-slash-emissions-out-for-feedback
This is seriously underwhelming and lacking in ambition… nuclear free moment my arse.
I doubt anything James Shaw has to say will be taken seriously in Glasgow…
very depressing. I still reckon it's going to take a major grass roots effort to get teh govt to act.
Is it worth James Shaw's and by proxy the Greens reputation to be actually presenting this stuff to the public and holding the line that its the right path as far as climate change is concerned?
Would it be better to pull the pin very publicly and say Labour wasnt prepared to do enough and if you want meaningful action on climate you need to vote Green?
James has too much riding on this to quit before Glasgow, and he's signed the Greens up to this response as Minister.
But if ever there were an issue that could splinter the Greens, it would be Shaw's agreed response to climate change.
The modus operandi of this government is very difficult to pick on that score.
On the one hand it can go big such as with nationalising hospitals. On the other hand when it gets lots of public pressure on a specific item like a cycleway it kills the project.
Most of the time, unless there's an immediate crisis, Ardern only acts when the rest of the country begs her to. It's very awwwwwwwshucks you made me. In those respects Ardern is very similar to her predecessor John Key. Both were outstanding at reforms directly after crises, but day to day just went with the flow.
The huge rural protest was no issue to them electorally, but the fact that it was big and there was no organised countervailing pro-climate protest will quite reasonably be read that the left and the greens are complacent and Ardern can continue to tack deep into the centre. That's certainly how we will be read by other nations in Glasgow.
Yes very much a populist, I think thats why Auckland alert level dropped a touch early. Sadly Labour are a short on people who know how to get shit done. I think this manifests itself when big announcements are made like Kiwibuild, light rail, emergency housing etc and the actual delivery falls over or gets tied in knots.
I honestly believe this is in part due to the emergence of an insular political class who lack in real world experience.
At this rate, it's going to take a few deaths before the Government sees reason on Level 4 (as for compliance – I'd venture that a few deaths would also make certain people remember what we are fighting against).