Disturbing ( but unsurprising) moves from the Chavista regime to ignore it’s defeat in the recent elections and attempt to hobble a branch of government for the sake of the ‘revolution’.
More often than not in the struggle for democracy its been the u.s.a helping stand in the way ………backing genocide and death squads.
“declassified documents[5] indicate that the United States “provided economic, technical and military aid to the army soon after the killings started. It continued to do so long after it was clear a ‘widespread slaughter’ was taking place in Northern Sumatra and other places, and in the expectation that US assistance would contribute to this end.
The repercussions of the u.s.a supported murderous overthrow of Indonesia’s democratic government are still going on and countries like east timor also paid a terrible price.”
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has advised clients to brace for a “cataclysmic year” and a global deflationary crisis, warning that the major stock markets could fall by a fifth and oil may reach $US16 a barrel.
The bank’s credit team said markets are flashing the same stress alerts as they did before the Lehman crisis in 2008.
“Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small,” it said in a client note.
Andrew Roberts, the bank’s credit chief, said both global trade and loans are contracting, a nasty cocktail for corporate balance sheets and equity earnings, and uncharted waters given that debt ratios have reached record highs.
“China has set off a major correction and it is going to snowball. Equities and credit have become very dangerous, and we have hardly even begun to retrace the ‘Goldilocks’ love-in of the last two years,” he said.
Mr Roberts expects Wall Street and European stocks to fall by 10pc to 20pc, with an even deeper slide for the FTSE-100 thanks to its high weighting of energy and commodities.’
Trade Minister Todd McClay will promote New Zealand’s case to host a proposed secretariat for the Trans-Pacific Partnership when trade ministers from 12 Asia Pacific nations are expected to gather in Auckland to sign the deal next month.
McClay confirmed to the Herald that there are some considerable “sensitivities” around the secretariat proposal. The proposal is expected to be one of the topics for discussion at a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial meeting before the formal signing of the ground-breaking regional agreement, which covers some of the world’s most robust economies and 40 per cent of global GDP…………..
Reliable sources have confirmed to the Herald that February 4 emerged as the preferred signing date after Prime Minister John Key offered New Zealand as the host while he was at the Apec leaders meeting in the Philippines.
McClay expects to be able to confirm a signing date “in the next week or so” after it is clear all 12 nations will be in a position to proceed.’
Would be excellent if we could get a secretariat based here. Clever strategy by McClay to seek to ensure implementation of the TPPA. It is were done then best it be done well. We are a small nation of just 4.5M people and if we can influence 40% of the world’s GDP we should grab the chance. Not even the most strident Leftie would surely disagree.
Romania was a small country when it signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin in 1940.
Signing bad deals that give up your sovereignty – even if it gives of the appearance of more importance – does not equal good governance or statesmanship.
It seems more like treason.
Minor tweaks to sovereignty takes place with every trade deal. You do not lose or give up sovereignty. New Zealand needs to trade with the world. Signing a deal with 40% of the World’s GDP is a hell of a lot better than not signing it. Having a permanent secretariat based here to implement it could be the icing on the cake. Tim Groser should get a knighthood for the work he has put in to making our future even brighter.
You cannot possibly be serious. Without trading with other countries we would be be penniless. If your comment is the level of Left wing thinking no wonder it is unelectable.
Without trading with other countries we would be be penniless.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of economics but it’s one that’s shared across the political spectrum. Many have come to believe that we need money. This belief is delusional.
We don’t need money, we need resources and we have all that we need in our borders already. Plenty of resources here to provide everything that we need – as long as we don’t squander them unsustainably. Unfortunately, our present delusional financial system has us doing exactly that. The 300m tonnes of iron sands down the West Coast of Te Ika a Māui will be gone in about 50 years because we’re so determined to have money that we’re selling off the resources we actually need to other countries.
If your comment is the level of Left wing thinking no wonder it is unelectable.
The problem is the delusional thinking that you and many others espouse.
Money is a tool that helps us distribute the resources that we have in the country but it’s not actually needed. We could use other systems for that distribution (I’m in favour of democracy).
What we can’t do without is those resources. Without those resources we have no food, no housing, no roads, etc etc.
Using a monetary system because we have all the resources in the country to provide the food and the houses and the roads then the only money we need is NZ$. We have no need of foreign exchange.
We are wasting the limited resources we have by exporting them for foreign exchange (Really, it’s even worse than that as we’re wasting those resources to make a few people rich).
Ministry says alterations to TPP could cost New Zealand up to $55 million a year
New Zealand consumers could face higher costs than first predicted as a result of copyright changes in the Trans Pacific Partnership, newly released documents show.
The biggest costs will come from concessions on copyright. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) says the cost to consumers and businesses of extending the copyright term from 50 years to 70 years will eventually rise to around $55 million a year.
InternetNZ work programme director Andrew Cushen said the change meant increased costs for New Zealanders, and greater revenue for overseas copyright holders.
“We will pay more over time to access music and movies. We will also pay more over time for books and educational resources, making it more expensive for us to learn and to do business.”
Mr Cushen said the $55 million did not take into account the increased cost and difficulty of re-using copyright works.
These paid rwnj trolls come on this site to derail conversations and to instigate puerile arguments. They are not interested in debates. They are also very predictable and very dull.
I think the best way to deal with them is to either ignore them completely or just type a word like dull.
It seems to work. They don’t like being described as uninteresting.
Maybe they’ll go away one day.
You should be careful PR. Bans have been proposed for Zzzzzzs.
“Paul 8.1.1
30 December 2015 at 9:56 am
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
[RL: The ‘zzz’s’ are not needed. You and anyone else repeating them will earn a ban.]”
On the other hand Paul may have learned his lesson. Whereas a couple of weeks ago he seemed to thing the repetition of the final letter of the alphabet was the height of wit he now realises that it is very dull and he was only demonstrating that he was a prat.
If questioning the interest level of pr’s contributions is ‘prattish’, then I am proud to be described by you as one, alwyn.
Thanks for your pleasant contribution.
I say again that the blog can be enhanced by some banning action against the silly irritating and smart-arse comments coming daily. If people wanted to hear cloth-eared ideas they would go to radio talkback or some tabloid like the Herald.
Some commenters here find it amusing but these factoids spoil the blog’s ability to converse intelligently with people who at least appear to be left thinking and interested in discussion on political matters. These insects are just spoiling the picnic every day.
And a lot of people don’t understand the idea of being amused in a superior way by the spoilers, and don’t understand why they crop up here, or the negative effect they have on polite discourse here. I despise them, they don’t give a damn about our efforts to think towards better policies for the country. They just fill in their time by being objectionable on purpose. It’s pathetic and stupid behaviour and belongs elsewhere. We would still have disagreements and arguments without them, we wouldn’t settle into an unstirred sludge you, can bet on that.
@ BM (5.1.1) – your abusive comments towards another poster, in this case Paul, who does offer constructive debate, has invalidated any argument you might have put forward. Getting nasty and personal, automatically puts you on the losing side.
The source is actually a stuff article (see the link)
I know that Fairfax aren’t much more reliable than blogs as a source of info but I would think it is correct.
So if 6000 picture/videos of child abuse aren’t enough to get sent to prison what is?
BM is right – the Judge is out of touch – you can tell this by her refusing to view the evidential images – obviously the viewing would interrupt her do-gooding tinted glasses.
The sad thing is the images are the only way for the victims to cry out for justice.
As for the threat of suicide being a sufficient reason to not send him to jail – what a joke.
I do hope the Prosecution appeal this – damaged children are worth more than a few hours of PD.
Kind of like the old boys network. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t fire judges easily because we need an independent judiciary. Or maybe her sentencing is not out of the range of normal.
Tell me, what would a judge’s sentencing look like if they understood the value of rehabilitation as well as punishment and protecting the public?
Um all permanent judges have security of tenure, even the women judges. It is to stop governments firing them because they do not like their judgments.
And why is it that you are so upset because a Judge showed some compassion. The alternative would have been to send this poor sap to jail, making him permanently unemployable and a permanent burden on the welfare state.
And surely our justice system has to be able to display mercy from time to time.
She was cautious not to push him over the edge. It’s only Cameron Slater and those of his ilk who’d welcome the guy’s suicide. There’d also be a whole lot stuff we wouldn’t know about this case that wasn’t reported but which the judge would’ve seen.
He was charged with possession of objectionable material not sexual offences against children. I agree there are victims of this sort of offending but for a first time offender at his age and with his mental condition I think the decision was not out of what the Judge could do.
What good would sending him to jail do, for him or for society?
Micky, do offenders in that situation have ongoing supervision to make sure they’re likely to reoffend, or are they basically left to it once the sentence is served?
There are standard conditions that are imposed for a period f 12 months and the Judge also has the power to impose further conditions. It is not clear from the report what happened here.
It is not an unusual sentence for this offence although this guy had quite a few images. For instance this guy received home detention for a second offense.
And what do you propose? Execution by firing squad?
I have had some professional dealings with people facing these charges. They are sad and often have awful backgrounds. They can be treated. Some compassion, such as that shown by Judge Cunningham, helps.
“And what do you propose? Execution by firing squad?”
Shit…why does it have to be one extreme or another?
I have had professional dealings with the victims of child sexual assault…some, no, all of those people have had their youth destroyed to some extent by those sad bastards you are advocating for.
Great….they have a ‘friend’….but show a modicum of respect and compassion for their victims.
“He was charged with possession of objectionable material not sexual offences against children.”
from 5.2.1.2.1.2
Spare me the ‘child pornography is a victimless crime’ line….do you know how much credibility the legal profession lost when the Law Society did not eject their child porn perving member?
Let’s spell it out….for every image of a child being sexually assaulted there is a child victim involved.
Without a customer there wouldn’t be a product.
This….thing….didn’t just have a ‘whoops I’ve accidentally stumbled upon a child porn site ‘ moment…he had over 6060 images of extreme assaults on children.
IMHO he should have done time in jail(getting ‘treated’) ….the tea and sympathy from the judge, on top of the leniency, was a gross insult to his victims.
“And what do you propose? Execution by firing squad?”
Shit…why does it have to be one extreme or another?
Fair call. I was responding to your comment that I was “enabling the enablers of perverts”. I was merely suggesting that home detention is not an unsuitable punishment for those who collect pornography.
I am not advocating for them. I am suggesting that sending them to jail may be counterproductive.
“He was charged with possession of objectionable material not sexual offences against children.”
…
Let’s spell it out….for every image of a child being sexually assaulted there is a child victim involved.
Agreed. That is why I made the comment that “I agree there are victims of this sort of offending but for a first time offender at his age and with his mental condition I think the decision was not out of what the Judge could do.”
Nothing can repair the damage caused by sexual abuse. But a preventative approach rather than a retributive approach may result in a different sentence. And there is no such thing as adequate treatment in jail.
how do you get rid of judges that are completely out of touch with reality?
But who says she is? Occasional displays of compassion by our justice system should not be frowned on. Otherwise we may as well design a computer system to handle it and leave it to the machines.
I’d have thought that crimes of a sexual nature especially against children might have judges erring on the side of caution as opposed to granting home detention or discharge without conviction
“Remorse demonstrated only after you’ve been caught red-handed ought to count for shit at sentencing.”
For people who are using child rape porn I’d prefer that for first offences the focus is on rehabilitation and supervision. The thing most likely to turn that man into an active rapist is a term in prison.
I do think his home detention and fining were light, but I don’t know if that’s because of sentencing guidelines and rules, or leniancy by the judge.
That doesn’t make sense though. To understand if any of her sentences are lenient, you’d have to compare them to similar offending sentences of other judges, not her own sentences.
That depends very much on your point of view: most right wingers are deranged and utterly incompetent when it comes to effective (ie: actually reducing crime) penal policy.
AFAIK …. organisations like samaritans and others have ‘shifts’ and it’s voluntary (you know – philanthropy – the way the Natzis think compassion and aid for fellow humankind should work). IT’s a win win situation – it allows the philanthropist to feel good about themselves if and when they have the means, there’s no guilt feelings involved, they can cling to any Christian religious beliefs they may have, they can feign concern and their friends can see them being nice blokes, and they don’t have to inconvenience themselves in any way whatsoever. Most times – even their kuds can claim their tragic aging old parents are decent ‘stock’ and are their bestest ever best freinds.
They really are ‘decent’ lore-biding folk!
For people who are using child rape porn I’d prefer that for first offences the focus is on rehabilitation and supervision.
Sure. But what does “supervision” mean? It doesn’t mean this prick never gets to use a password to ensure his privacy on a network-connected computer ever again, which is really the only supervision that would address his particular problem. Also, he gets name suppression, which is very much up to the judge. I wouldn’t want this guy anywhere computers I was responsible for, but the judge has decided I don’t need to know. Rehabilitation for him should involve learning to do something that doesn’t involve computers – there’s plenty of work out there for cleaners and other forms of unskilled labour.
In an unreal world he would be banned from owning and using electronic devices for the rest of his life, probably in a real world if he was a citizen of Saudi Arabia he would have his hands cut off to absolutely make sure he didn’t. I wonder what the Judge would have brought down if he had been just poor, uneducated and not employed – jail time and hell in the showers. I hope his wife and kids leave him for the kids sake and well being. What a tosser.
That’s the crux of it for me too Kate. Loss of status is being considered a punishment by judges now and one has to ask how that can be considered justice.
A poor person has little status so they can go to jail whereas a rich or important person has some perceived stature so they get a slap on the wrist because sending them to jail will demean them in the public’s eye. Lovely.
Absolutely DH – its a closed off world where they have a law for themselves and they make sure they look after each other. Child sex offending and child porn is repugnant and there should be serious consequences for such offenders. Its odd how it seems to me to be a “sport cum pastime” for the wealthy and well educated with their secret clubs and places where they go for their kicks – so many people in power seem to get caught at it. Its sickening and so many of them have children of their own, beggars belief really how sick some people can be. I have absolutely no sympathy for them and believe they are unable to be rehabilitated and we shouldn’t be wasting good money on them. The judge should be reprimanded and told to re look at her findings.
• 30 per cent – of all internet bandwidth is used for pornography. (Source: Huffington Post)
• 70 per cent – of men and 30 per cent of women watch porn. The average time spent on a porn site is 12 minutes. (Huffington Post)
• 450 million – Unique visitors to porn sites each month. When combined, Netflix, Amazon and Twitter get 316 million visitors. (Huffington Post)
• 90 per cent – of all content included verbal or physical abuse against women in one study of 50 popular pornographic websites and DVDs. (Violence Against Women)”
This is an ‘old’ story, but one that does deserve more air.
Fifty year old ‘professional’ is caught perving at 6000 images of child pornography so hideous that the Judge can’t bear to view them and gets sentenced to stay home.
And…gets name suppression.
In an ideal world he’d be rendered incapable of further offending….ever.
His ‘mental illness’…what a crock.
But, the Judge…bless her for her many acts of mercy…has let him of, and protected his identity, and suppressed his ‘profession’.
Is he a lawyer? Can’t trust any of them if male and fifty years old.
Is he a doctor? A judge? An IT consultant? An engineer?
So many fifty year old male professionals we can no longer trust…is it him that gets off on watching children being sexually abused?
See, guys, this is what happens when sexual predators are protected…we can’t trust any man.
Farrar is more of a creep than Slater…….being the good cop in the bad cop/good cop routine that he and Slater played for John Key makes him the more dishonest one.
I also suspect he did the polling and advised John Key he did not have to apologize to Tania Billington as the numbers were not hurting him…….
Farrar is a grubby little fuck …………………. you should spend more time at his blog BM
I don’t see your point. The Herald led with the same article as the ODT in example 1, both major ‘papers seem to be syndicating off each other a lot these days.
I’d think correcting a wrong report to be ethical media behaviour. Where the Herald in particular get a bit ratlike is they sometimes print the false claim on the front page with a big print headline & many column centimetres and hide the subsequent retraction or alternate view deep in the paper using small print and only a few words.
They suck because instead of trying to get both sides of the story they just went with the most sensationalist headline they could get without even the pretence of balance
Not sure I can follow that PR. Both incidents appear to have had timing issues where more information was revealed later and I don’t think you can blame the media for printing what was topical, and appeared truthful, at the time.
That’s the thing though isn’t the fourth estate supposed to find out whether its truthful or not? It just appears to be lazy in that someone runs to the media and the media print the story without doing their jobs and the media wonder why people are turning away
What do you expect from them? If they thoroughly investigated every act that was reported to them they’d have nothing to print.
Filling a newspaper every day can’t be an easy task. Sure they put some drivel in it and yes they can be a bit hasty at times but so long as they maintain a genuine balance with the storyline I don’t see it being a problem.
I thought they did ok on the Te Reo one. The media have adopted a practice of milking a story for as long as they can keep people interested and they killed that one with the follow up. With the first article the way they worded it they looked to be priming the rednecks for more gossip & innuendo and instead the story just died.
Yeah, I like it coz it’s neither a praise of journlaism nor a condemnation of it. It just calss it what it is, an important part of the eventual discussion that becomes ‘what we accept as historical truth’.
It’s job is to get stuff fast, and as accurate as fast allows. It’s going to get stuff wrong, and will need to revise itself and update itself and generally keep on journalisming. No one has yet come up with a better model that actually works.
I think the problem is you simply can’t but what makes it worse is the news media (imho) are trying to go head to head with blogs
The news media can’t compete with speed but they can compete with quality, instead of going down market and going after the lowest common dominator it’d be nice to see a newspaper go the other way and compete on quality of reporting instead
I wish that the newspapers would just try and get the simplest things right.
The DomPost this morning had a story that Singapore Airlines were going to start a service from Wellington to Canberra using an Airbus A330. They put a picture on the front page which they labelled as being an A330.
The only problem is that the A330 is a twin engine single deck aircraft. The photo was of a four engine double decker A380. Can’t they get even the simplest things right? Do they even care?
Heh – what’s the old quote from tradies: you can have any combination you want of fast, cheap and good that you want, but you can only have two out of three. Well, in modern media fast is cheap, but good is extremely expensive – good investigators, good editors, good sub editors, lose one and the others become precarious.
In most cases the call for both sides results in false balance; giving more equal weight to opposing views than actual evidence supports.
The reporting around climate change being primarily caused by human activity is an obvious example of the failure of “both sides” reporting.
And then there is the similar argument to moderation where the middle ground between two opposing views is viewed as the correct one, and discounts views at either extreme end simply because they are at the edges.
The reporting around the effects of climate change is a good example.
With the Te Reo story, it looks like the Herald ran with a breaking story without investigating the actual facts of the matter, and tacked on a headline that can best be described as race-baiting.
Or, to put it another way, they couldn’t be arsed actually doing their job and decided to poison the public discussion around Te Reo instead.
The interesting thing to me is that the ODT clearly attributes both the story and the photo to the Herald, but the Herald only attributes the photo, not the identical story, or any other indication it’s syndicated content.
No. In this subthread I’m talking about behaviour on ts. Shall we turn this one into a long boring trollfest too? You are better than this usually, so feel free to not take my original comment personally.
If any body can pick the top of a market or the bottom they would be infinitely rich Take these announcement with a grain of salt, similar advice to buy . if RBS believed as thier predictions are 100pc kosher and so do you Paul I suggest you short the total market with every thing you got, you can’t loose
Looks like you want to fight RWNJ and/or trolls rather than discuss politics. I think there are better ways to do that if you want it to also be a public service.
Ah well, the more considered approach is fine to a point but every now and then it’s better to be more direct. Not sure some people understand any other way.
I note you have said yourself below that the month old story about the judge and the professional was a set up. What’s wrong with calling that out early?
I don’t have a problem with calling out bullshit. It was more just that I came onto OM this morning and it was full of bickering. Naming bullshit is one thing, arguing about it endlessly is another. I know how easy it is to get sucked into that, do it myself, but it was just a bit much and I thought it might be good to name it and see if it changed 🙂
Oil price plummeting. Why has all the alarmist Peak Oil crap gone silent? What will be the next alarmist warning Ah yes TPPA, the end of civilisation. Welfare reform-?
The Saudis are playing games so that American fracking and off-shore drilling becomes to expensive to continue and that the Russian war chest gets depleted.
The Americans used to rely on the Saudis for oil and the Saudis don’t like it that they don’t need to anymore. It hard to make them fight your enemies when you can’t blackmail them over their oil needs.
Actually I’m not sure America actually purchased oil directly from SA. I think the US purchased oil from Canada and Mexico, and no now longer need to do it. So Canada and Mexico are selling their oil to countries that would have bought from SA.
They do still import oil from the Kingdom.
It peaked at about 50 million bbl/month in 2003 and is now down to about 30 million. http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSSA1&f=M
You are quite right about it being basically fungible. There is a difference in properties but that can be got around if you don’t want the cheapest price. New Zealand of course both imports AND exports crude. Our production isn’t very good for producing the mix of products we want.
Minto said the information came from an anonymous source but it seemed credible as it matched with Pinnacle’s stated intentions.
Minto said: “Whether or not [Bennett] met with them, it’s clear Dr Cheng’s Pinnacle group want to buy state houses. They’ve been quite explicit about that.”
Sounds the same as the old question of have you stopped beating your wife…
Oh, I think a couple of laws about the MSM sticking to the truth should bring about a few changes. The reporting of the Donghua Liu (sp?) affair should have brought about significant consequences to the publishing houses. Maybe if they’d been looking at a fine of a few million dollars they would have investigated it properly before jumping on National’s Dirty Politics bandwagon.
The Labour Party did have the opportunity to sue the Herald and it’s reporters for defamation. And Donghua Liu for libel*.
But they didn’t.
So if the Labour Party shows no interest in defending itself, why would anyone assume they would stand up for New Zealanders?
* I’m assuming Liu’s statement false statement was quoted instead of paraphrased – I can’t remember, and don’t want to wade through all that muck again.
Interesting, you’re actually complaining about the dictatorial political system we have.
And that’s why we need a democracy rather than an elected dictatorship where policy is decided by the people and not a small clique of dictators as we have now.
The Greens have been steadily creeping their vote up. Recently NZF has as well.
I’d expect that after National get handed their arse because they haven’t managed to build any coalition partners, and they booted off the treasury benches in 2017, that they will have other parties form – probably along the obvious internal fracture lines.
Some of those parties may grow. But in the end, a party needs to get above 5% vote to get into parliament (electorate seats are hard to keep for a small party – they kill party vote), and above about 15% of MPs to be viewed as a major party.
To do that, they have to get a dedicated party membership and activists, both as a source of candidates and to provide the room to groom viable candidates who don’t bug out. Think of Pam Corkery and a number of other celeb candidates over the years.
Yes, but CC is just a weirdo. Everything was going very well for them until his weirdness overshadowed everything.
Their policy positions were popular. Probably the only thing that stopped them getting more votes was scepticism that they would get enough votes to be elected – catch 22.
If the threshold had been 4% they would have easily gotten in, and probably polled 5%+ anyway.
Of course with Colin’s meltdown, we could have been looking at an early election.
After observing politics for a few decades, I’ve come to the general conclusion that most of the people interested in politics are interested in being critics rather than doing the political leg work. That definitely includes me. I prefer to find a decent seasoned candidate and to support them.
Granny front page today about a tree that cant be cutdown. Another barely hidden whine about supercity rules that developers probably want ‘fixed’…..and they wonder why circulation is declining.
In this case though, it’s a tree that needs to be removed.
So, it’s the opposite of the Kauri up in Titirangi.
Pretty sure the two stories will be conflated in the next couple of days by someone who has both a large public platform and a penchant for magical thinking.
I expect I’ll have to wait (and hope) that Prof. Geddis or G. Edgeler is curious enough to identify and blog on the legislative conflict that the environment court was unable to resolve.
117 comments already and half it seems from RWs. How can anyone concentrate on thinking about anything important when these time and space-wasters block the thread, intelligent discussion gets deflected just when it is required more than ever before.
The RWNJs are mounting a very good attack on TS every day, it’s almost like a denial of service because it is hard to get through to the valuable thoughts and musing coming from real people with integrity. Patience is a virtue goes the saying, but too much turns you into a doormat for others to wipe their feet on.
edited
Agreed as they rely on the egalitarian nature of TS.
Try similar on blubberboy or princessparty blogs and the barrier comes down so the rwnj comments can flow freely for all the others to feed off and feel justified.
It looks like PR, fisiani and BM. All of those people are quite capable of debating properly, although PR often needs knocking into shape and is the most trollish of the three IME. BM likes to drop in somewhat inflammatory comments, but he will engage intelligently if you respond to him intelligently. Bickering with them will almost certainly get met in kind.
I don’t mind their presence so much as the fact that so much of the discussion is personal and squabbling. But that could just as easily be lefties (and in this case it was too) 😉
But yeah, if this were happening under a post rather than OM it would be seriously disruptive. Probably first week back at work dynamics too.
Go hard on this issue, forget about people with Chinese sounding names or crims on Easter Island, this is what will get Labour a much needed bump in the polls, this is what middle NZ cares about
Get your MPs as much coverage as they can, say what you’d do in power (and for goodness sake make sure the costings add up) and make sure you front foot this and frame the argument yourselves
I agree with greywarshark. I don’t think any of them except PR are genuine. They often display a herd mentality when a strong theme starts propagating here. Their purpose seems to be one of disruption and diversion.
Take a good slow look at the fisiani posts. Is he using his own words, speaking his own mind, or is he just parroting scripts. No-one in real life converses like that IMO.
“The RWNJs are mounting a very good attack …….” I think its the shape of things to come in 2016.
I’m not too sure its a GOOD attack – it’ll certainly be a very vocal one – they’ve started early – the Speaker’s bum boys haven’t even had a chance to warm his sheepskin; Paula’s still getting over HER devastating loss (‘cos it was all about HER); Soimun’s mulling over his next move and wondering where the vulnerabilities are; Todd’s ego has been captured by TTPA grandiose; Anne’s clutching pearls and wondering where she stands ……
The ideologically driven agenda is starting to show signs of wear and failing to the extent that the average Joe is starting to notice, and the CT talking points and language are looking a bit tired (going forward). And all that “on the back of” a ‘Chinese Konomy’ that’s not looking too crash hot, peak real estate, and not even a TVNZ7/Proim Beck Benchas where the trolls can show up – much as they do here on TS to protest how right and correct they are. I agree with the ‘right’ bit.
Jesus H Christ!
Labour have SO MANY opportunities to bust this government eh?
What the fuck is the matter with them!???
Well, I guess I know that already.
I think I might pay another visit to Mal and Scotty’s to at least try and guage a ‘10%’ minority’s perspective of reality. Bloody expensive thing to do though eh!
It’s the other 90% of voters we rely on though that worries me, let alone half the electorate that didn’t.
Who the fuck is running that Labour show btw? I think most people would be buggered (if they knew)
EDIT: ….. Last time I went there btw, there was some poor sap that had romantic notions of Fran fucking Wilde’s contribution to ‘equality’. If he only knew (which he wudn’t – unless he wanted to be a Fran Toi Boi, once was genuine – now Franny’s leaned how to clup the tuckit and American Express Platinum is moidy trektiv,
Once Was Tim
Sure a lot of things happening. They get to be like a bunch of flies buzzing round your head. It will be that we need to mentally record them but spend most of our time planning positive moves rather than registering the dross from the Dark Side.
🙂
What I fear most is that what I once knew as pretty bloody basic creds have been totally LOST by those who now pretend to ‘represent’ a public.
I’m not sure they even understand the idea of a ‘public’.
But there ya go. I guess they’ll have to learn the hard way.
– and there’s another thing – maybe it’s just me running out of life and becoming impatient.
At least there are inklings …. even amongst a neighbouring Hataitai-resident fag-hag grandma. (I’m at odds to wonder why as a politician, she’s prepare to …….
nah fuckit – now I think about it – she likes Judith Crusher Collins and Paul Henry, AS WELL as abusers of scared blokes worried about their sex you allty (going forward).
It ain’t political pragmatism either. I’m not sure but I suspect she might be training to be the next Fran Wilde
You’ve obviously got a shit load more energy than I have these days. I’m caught between bothering to put up a fight .versus. letting the inevitable play out and letting something organic happen.
Atm – I think maybe the latter – even tho’ it won’t be pretty for the ‘greedy’, or various minorities; or …. well hopefully you get the pitcha (and if you don’t – no matter). Apparently I’m on the verge of being *****BANNED****** (no doubt with some highly intellectual, ego-driven, how fucking dare he justification.
Kia Kaha ….. alongside anything else that gives you strength ( I know it’s not solely your ego)
Once was Tim
You might find Tim again if you go into something organic! It certainly helps with the frustration of present politics to be supporting something doable and health-oriented putting energies into an achievable project.
May be planting flasbushes for the tui, after Maori have been consulted as to whether they might be a good resource and they might like a particular species? that is good for making a particular article. That would be good, and then making sure that they survived, got watered, weren’t eaten by bugs, pulled out by thoughtless Council contractors etc. Hovering, working angel stuff.
Going to classes on growing organic vegs and learning about how to cope with the potato nematode or whatever. Supporting a group that plan the yearly Christmas parade, giving pleasure and joy to all, could be good. Being a hospital volunteer doing whatever they do. Fixing bicycles so kids can have one where it’s safe to go.
I would like to renew my ties with Amnesty International but have to organise my day better to ensure I send those messages in a timely way to distant countries. And I want to keep writing and reading on this blog. People here are generally good-hearted, so that is a positive thing to do, to keep in touch with people who sincerely care about people and the country, and just disagree about methods and effectiveness.
Despite her protestations, Dr Fox has been bought, plain and simple.
Any reasonable person can see that.
More so, Lion will have approached her specifically to do this report because of her earlier work done on disassociating alcohol from violence.
This kind of research is what happens when academic funding is pushed from the public sector to the private sector, something which the current government is determined to do.
…Lion will have approached her specifically to do this report because of her earlier work…
So, which is it? Lion paid her off, or Lion funded her research because her prior research suited it?
Any conflict of interest she has in being funded by Lion is no greater than Kypris’ in being part of a religious anti-alcohol group, In fact, Kypris’ conflict seems worse – researchers are sometimes willing to tell funding bodies what they don’t want to hear, but religious conviction is impervious to rationalism.
“…but religious conviction is impervious to rationalism.”
You may want to check out the Rechabites PM…they appear to have moved with the times, evolved…and indeed, seem to promote similar ideals to those of many here on TS.
The Rechabites commitment to alcohol harm minimisation is a worthy mission….one that most of the poor sods working in A&E departments around the country would support.
The Rechabites commitment to alcohol harm minimisation is a worthy mission
– Rosemary McDonald
Yes, and Lion’s commitment to minimising the appearance of alcohol harm is an unworthy one.
It seems that Lion is quite happy with Fox’s report (which is what they would have expected when they commissioned her), so there doesn’t seem to be any indication that they were told something they didn’t want to hear as Psycho Milt suggests.
Dr Fox probably even believes her own shite. Even amongst academics that claim to be non-partisan. It’s not unlike the detective that’s convinced their theory valid (often based on a hunch), and who then gathers evidence on that basis, and with that perspective.
With apologies to Steven Sackur and the Key interview when – well you hopefully know the rest …. claiming academic credentials and being ‘an academic’ can be two very different things. Personally I think Foctor Dox fits.
The good Foctor probably has as many disciples (and if not, they’ll be searching them out hard and fast), as there are opposing.
To be clear (in my opinion), the Foctor is a bullshit artist
Because there’s no need to bribe someone who’s already doing what you want. I guess it’s possible Lion are just particularly generous and trouble themselves to bribe researchers whose findings to date were convenient for Lion anyway, but they didn’t get where they are today by being generous with their cash.
To be clear (in my opinion), the Foctor is a bullshit artist
You’ve reviewed her research and found it wanting, have you? To be fair, I have to disclose that I regard anti-alcohol activists like Sellman and his mates at the Uni of Otago school of public health to be bullshit artists, but then I have a low opinion of the social sciences in general. Do you have some evidence for why Fox is a bullshit artist, but not Jackson, Kypris, Sellman et al?
In that case, everyone who accepts payment for their work is “bought.” That clearly isn’t what you meant. Unless you’ve some evidence that her research was falsified or skewed in some way to Lion’s benefit, your comment is just libel.
As it happens, her conclusions about alcohol causing violence (that its variability across cultures suggests a social rather than physiological basis for violence, that there is in any case no evidence for alcohol having a physiological means of controlling behavior, and that there are social conditions that are more likely candidates) is compelling on a logical basis alone, regardless of the research behind it. The onus is actually on her opponents to demonstrate that alcohol does control behaviour.
Here are some of her findings – they look pretty credible to me. I wouldn’t disagree with any of it:
1. It’s the wider culture that determines the behaviour whilst drinking, not just the drinking
Different societies with comparable levels and patterns of alcohol consumption experience very different levels of anti-social and violent behaviour in their night-time economies. Most of the differences can be explained by social and cultural factors and, with concerted effort, they can be influenced.
2. The physical effects of alcohol do not determine a behavioural response.
In layman’s terms, Dr. Fox’s research suggests that while alcohol has a very definite physical effect, it doesn’t hijack your moral compass.
Dr Fox says: “Certainly alcohol carries very definite physiological effects. At high doses, the point at which alcohol enters the brain stem, it is easy to see that the physical effects of alcohol can incapacitate all drinkers equally, regardless of cultural differences.
“But just because alcohol relaxes and reduces anxiety does not mean it causes inexplicable changes in behaviour or character or blocks impulse control. There are a couple of very simple observations we can all make that support this conclusion. First, the very same person on the same dose of alcohol can react in myriad different ways on different occasions and in different settings. This simply would not happen if we were talking about a purely physiological response.
“Second, morphologically similar humans in different cultures react completely differently to being ‘under the influence’. Some cultures see very little violence and anti-social behaviour, despite similar levels and patterns of consumption to other nations with high levels of such harm.
“The conclusion of my research, and many previous studies, is that alcohol can, in certain cultures and situations, be a facilitator of aggression if aggression is there to begin with, both in the individual and in the cultural environment. It does not produce it where it doesn’t already exist.”
3. Violent individuals, a violence-reinforcing culture and violent situations are the three interlinked drivers of anti-social behaviour and violence in the night-time economy
Dr Fox makes a number of recommendations to address each of these drivers, with some examples provided below:
* Violent individuals: Australia and New Zealand needs to ensure effective identification and direct intervention to tackle the behaviour of the minority exhibiting a pre-disposition to violence.
* Violent situations: We need to work to reduce situational cues – like poor facilities and transport options – that trigger poor behaviour. We also need to change perceptions of what behaviour is socially acceptable while intoxicated and create a genuine fear of stigma for breaking the rules – as has been achieved with drink driving. Realistic consequences such as fines and other sanctions for bad behaviour are needed.
* Violence-reinforcing-cultures: Australia and New Zealand must address the cultural reinforcers of violence, misogyny, and aggressive masculinity in all its cultural expressions from schoolyards to sports fields, politics and pubs, movies and media. Young men need to be taught that responding with violence is a failure in self-control, not a symbol of masculinity.
I’m truly devastated!
I just can’t seem to get people to engage with me and any of my comments (except an occasionale +1 from a Draco)
Why, I can’t even get hard right trolls to engage in debate.
I can’t even get BANNED ffs!
Oh misery!!!! where did I go wrong?
I’m fucking devastated. I’m soos oidle.
No matter how hard oi troi, none of these soshul media specimuns will engage.
Well … oi … oi jiss have to give up!
But hey … didcha hear? Jerry’s married that fukn old relic Rupe and she’s now dripping money and little blue diamond shaped pills
[lprent: Would you feel better if I banned you? 😈 ]
Yes ekshully, I would.
I know there’s been a delay in my replying, but a ban in this case would serve me well and signal to me what is wrong with our reliance on blogs as a challenge to the status quo.
I’d be in good company I think (not that I don’t appreciate your efforts in trying to battle our current situation)
So PLEASE ,,,, if you see fit and are feeling challenged – go ahead and BAN!
Actually, it’d be akin to all that’s wrong in the Labour Party these days (AND I REALISE YOU’RE IN NO WAY A PLATFORM FOR THE LABOUR PARTY).
You could put a ban down to being ‘very adult’ of you
Interesting news story today on the ABC, Malcolm Turnbull has turned down a request from the US to commit more resources to the war effort, this is the first PM in history (Australian) to “say no” to the yanks, I’m a little cynical as there’s an election in 6 months or so, and the most recent state elections (Vic, Queensland) saw there Liberal govts booted out after only one term, the Queensland premiere removed, Campbell Newman was a proponent of the JK way, only problem was the constituency wasn’t, and dealt with his BS policies that saw the destruction of their social fabric, I think they’re a little smarter than most give credit for.
A friend works in aged care in London. One the people she looks after is David Bowie’s aunt. On each of his aunt’s birthdays and at Xmas, a big box of goodies arrives…
My last surviving great aunt is about to hit the ton while I am away on the upcoming business trip. Does anyone have any idea of where to find an age 100 birthday card in Auckland?
The best I idea I have at present is to head to St Lukes.
I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have ...
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
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New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
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This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
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News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
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Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
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This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
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The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
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Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
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New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
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. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
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 ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
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. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
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 A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/08/venezuelas-chavistas-and-newly-elected-opposition-head-for-deadlock
Disturbing ( but unsurprising) moves from the Chavista regime to ignore it’s defeat in the recent elections and attempt to hobble a branch of government for the sake of the ‘revolution’.
More often than not in the struggle for democracy its been the u.s.a helping stand in the way ………backing genocide and death squads.
“declassified documents[5] indicate that the United States “provided economic, technical and military aid to the army soon after the killings started. It continued to do so long after it was clear a ‘widespread slaughter’ was taking place in Northern Sumatra and other places, and in the expectation that US assistance would contribute to this end.
The repercussions of the u.s.a supported murderous overthrow of Indonesia’s democratic government are still going on and countries like east timor also paid a terrible price.”
http://theactofkilling.com/trailer/
Disturbing news that capitalism is failing the people of the world with another crash imminent.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/rbs-tells-investors-sell-everything-20160111-gm3ssa.html
From the article.
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has advised clients to brace for a “cataclysmic year” and a global deflationary crisis, warning that the major stock markets could fall by a fifth and oil may reach $US16 a barrel.
The bank’s credit team said markets are flashing the same stress alerts as they did before the Lehman crisis in 2008.
“Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small,” it said in a client note.
Andrew Roberts, the bank’s credit chief, said both global trade and loans are contracting, a nasty cocktail for corporate balance sheets and equity earnings, and uncharted waters given that debt ratios have reached record highs.
“China has set off a major correction and it is going to snowball. Equities and credit have become very dangerous, and we have hardly even begun to retrace the ‘Goldilocks’ love-in of the last two years,” he said.
Mr Roberts expects Wall Street and European stocks to fall by 10pc to 20pc, with an even deeper slide for the FTSE-100 thanks to its high weighting of energy and commodities.’
‘Govt wants NZ base for TPP deal
Trade Minister Todd McClay will promote New Zealand’s case to host a proposed secretariat for the Trans-Pacific Partnership when trade ministers from 12 Asia Pacific nations are expected to gather in Auckland to sign the deal next month.
McClay confirmed to the Herald that there are some considerable “sensitivities” around the secretariat proposal. The proposal is expected to be one of the topics for discussion at a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ministerial meeting before the formal signing of the ground-breaking regional agreement, which covers some of the world’s most robust economies and 40 per cent of global GDP…………..
Reliable sources have confirmed to the Herald that February 4 emerged as the preferred signing date after Prime Minister John Key offered New Zealand as the host while he was at the Apec leaders meeting in the Philippines.
McClay expects to be able to confirm a signing date “in the next week or so” after it is clear all 12 nations will be in a position to proceed.’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11572801
Thoughts?
Would be excellent if we could get a secretariat based here. Clever strategy by McClay to seek to ensure implementation of the TPPA. It is were done then best it be done well. We are a small nation of just 4.5M people and if we can influence 40% of the world’s GDP we should grab the chance. Not even the most strident Leftie would surely disagree.
Romania was a small country when it signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin in 1940.
Signing bad deals that give up your sovereignty – even if it gives of the appearance of more importance – does not equal good governance or statesmanship.
It seems more like treason.
Minor tweaks to sovereignty takes place with every trade deal. You do not lose or give up sovereignty. New Zealand needs to trade with the world. Signing a deal with 40% of the World’s GDP is a hell of a lot better than not signing it. Having a permanent secretariat based here to implement it could be the icing on the cake. Tim Groser should get a knighthood for the work he has put in to making our future even brighter.
Actually, we don’t. In fact, no country needs to trade with any other country.
Not when that deal is so detrimental to the people of NZ.
You cannot possibly be serious. Without trading with other countries we would be be penniless. If your comment is the level of Left wing thinking no wonder it is unelectable.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of economics but it’s one that’s shared across the political spectrum. Many have come to believe that we need money. This belief is delusional.
We don’t need money, we need resources and we have all that we need in our borders already. Plenty of resources here to provide everything that we need – as long as we don’t squander them unsustainably. Unfortunately, our present delusional financial system has us doing exactly that. The 300m tonnes of iron sands down the West Coast of Te Ika a Māui will be gone in about 50 years because we’re so determined to have money that we’re selling off the resources we actually need to other countries.
The problem is the delusional thinking that you and many others espouse.
“Many have come to believe that we need money. This belief is delusional.”
Try living without any.
And you failed to understand what I said.
Money is a tool that helps us distribute the resources that we have in the country but it’s not actually needed. We could use other systems for that distribution (I’m in favour of democracy).
What we can’t do without is those resources. Without those resources we have no food, no housing, no roads, etc etc.
Using a monetary system because we have all the resources in the country to provide the food and the houses and the roads then the only money we need is NZ$. We have no need of foreign exchange.
We are wasting the limited resources we have by exporting them for foreign exchange (Really, it’s even worse than that as we’re wasting those resources to make a few people rich).
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/75807613/world-bank-estimates-10-per-cent-boost-to-nz-exports-by-2030-from-tppa
If that is what you call detrimental then were else would we get money for schools and hospitals. No wonder the Far Left are ignored.
Copyright changes sting NZ
Ministry says alterations to TPP could cost New Zealand up to $55 million a year
New Zealand consumers could face higher costs than first predicted as a result of copyright changes in the Trans Pacific Partnership, newly released documents show.
The biggest costs will come from concessions on copyright. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) says the cost to consumers and businesses of extending the copyright term from 50 years to 70 years will eventually rise to around $55 million a year.
InternetNZ work programme director Andrew Cushen said the change meant increased costs for New Zealanders, and greater revenue for overseas copyright holders.
“We will pay more over time to access music and movies. We will also pay more over time for books and educational resources, making it more expensive for us to learn and to do business.”
Mr Cushen said the $55 million did not take into account the increased cost and difficulty of re-using copyright works.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11572838
All of a sudden, we get newly released documents.
Democracy, what a joke!
Bless the OIA.
How did an estimate of $55m which may be understated, become “up to” $55 million?
Optimistic editing/writing?
Just saw this on Kiwiblog.
This judge has an appalling track record, but this would have to be her worst judgement ever
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/75405361/auckland-professional-caught-with-6000-objectionable-images
How do you get rid of such a bad judge?
Kiwiblog.
Reliable source.
Fuck off, you boring wanker
Pleasant
Zzzzz
And bannable, I would have thought. Pretty average of BM to lose it like that on the internet.
In BMs defence you reap what you sow
He lost his cool. Blinked first, as it were.
At least it’s known what buttons to push now.
I don’t think its worth sinking down to Pauls level just to get a reaction from BM but that’s just my opinion
Farrar makes a lot of reactionary mistakes and ill-informed comment on his hate site, and he’s generally several days behind the news.
It was a very astute observation by Paul which made BM become abusive for some reason.
You mean the same guy that was praised by the PM on election night for his accurate polling?
Polling is one thing. You ring some people, ask some questions, and write the answers down.
Critical thought and analysis is quite another.
Yet the PM that won thought it was a big enough deal to mention him by name
So I’m going to guess theres a bit more to it then what you’re suggesting
Lol. Way to shift the goal posts, mate.
You’ve just demonstrated one of the (many) failings of the left in NZ and that’s to underestimate pretty much anyone on the right
John Key – hes just a money man
David Farrar – makes a lot of mistakes and its just a hate site
and so on and so on
“Farrar makes a lot ………”
You obviously must read it though.
If you didn’t how could you possibly make these comments?
These paid rwnj trolls come on this site to derail conversations and to instigate puerile arguments. They are not interested in debates. They are also very predictable and very dull.
I think the best way to deal with them is to either ignore them completely or just type a word like dull.
It seems to work. They don’t like being described as uninteresting.
Maybe they’ll go away one day.
They’re easily ignored most of the time but when they become abusive online I have to say something.
Zzzzz
You should be careful PR. Bans have been proposed for Zzzzzzs.
“Paul 8.1.1
30 December 2015 at 9:56 am
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
[RL: The ‘zzz’s’ are not needed. You and anyone else repeating them will earn a ban.]”
On the other hand Paul may have learned his lesson. Whereas a couple of weeks ago he seemed to thing the repetition of the final letter of the alphabet was the height of wit he now realises that it is very dull and he was only demonstrating that he was a prat.
If questioning the interest level of pr’s contributions is ‘prattish’, then I am proud to be described by you as one, alwyn.
Thanks for your pleasant contribution.
Thanks Alwyn, I didn’t see that
Good on you Paul for pointing out Kiwiblog. The response speaks massively in only a few short sharp words.
I say again that the blog can be enhanced by some banning action against the silly irritating and smart-arse comments coming daily. If people wanted to hear cloth-eared ideas they would go to radio talkback or some tabloid like the Herald.
Some commenters here find it amusing but these factoids spoil the blog’s ability to converse intelligently with people who at least appear to be left thinking and interested in discussion on political matters. These insects are just spoiling the picnic every day.
And a lot of people don’t understand the idea of being amused in a superior way by the spoilers, and don’t understand why they crop up here, or the negative effect they have on polite discourse here. I despise them, they don’t give a damn about our efforts to think towards better policies for the country. They just fill in their time by being objectionable on purpose. It’s pathetic and stupid behaviour and belongs elsewhere. We would still have disagreements and arguments without them, we wouldn’t settle into an unstirred sludge you, can bet on that.
Kiwiblog.
Reliable source.
@ BM (5.1.1) – your abusive comments towards another poster, in this case Paul, who does offer constructive debate, has invalidated any argument you might have put forward. Getting nasty and personal, automatically puts you on the losing side.
Have a nice day, if you possibly can.
The source is actually a stuff article (see the link)
I know that Fairfax aren’t much more reliable than blogs as a source of info but I would think it is correct.
So if 6000 picture/videos of child abuse aren’t enough to get sent to prison what is?
BM is right – the Judge is out of touch – you can tell this by her refusing to view the evidential images – obviously the viewing would interrupt her do-gooding tinted glasses.
The sad thing is the images are the only way for the victims to cry out for justice.
As for the threat of suicide being a sufficient reason to not send him to jail – what a joke.
I do hope the Prosecution appeal this – damaged children are worth more than a few hours of PD.
You’ve got to wonder
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11291156
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5555711/Comedian-discharged-over-sex-act-on-daughter
The first article is a shocker, strike 5 now.
Judge Cunningham is said to be firmly entrenched in what is referred to as the legal sisterhood.
Guess that makes her untouchable.
Kind of like the old boys network. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t fire judges easily because we need an independent judiciary. Or maybe her sentencing is not out of the range of normal.
Tell me, what would a judge’s sentencing look like if they understood the value of rehabilitation as well as punishment and protecting the public?
She’s away in her own little world and should be given the boot.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/270325/tougher-child-exploitation-law-wins-approval
Do judges get to pass laws? I thought that was parliament’s job.
Um all permanent judges have security of tenure, even the women judges. It is to stop governments firing them because they do not like their judgments.
And why is it that you are so upset because a Judge showed some compassion. The alternative would have been to send this poor sap to jail, making him permanently unemployable and a permanent burden on the welfare state.
And surely our justice system has to be able to display mercy from time to time.
Absolutely display mercy sure but don’t you think that crimes of a sexual nature against children mean that judges should err on the side of caution?
She did err on the side of caution.
Home detention and discharge without conviction isn’t what I’d call erring on the side of caution and it appears Jan Logie would agree with me as well
https://blog.greens.org.nz/2011/09/05/open-letter-to-judge-philippa-cunningham/
That was another case that went on appeal and had a different sentence imposed.
She was cautious not to push him over the edge. It’s only Cameron Slater and those of his ilk who’d welcome the guy’s suicide. There’d also be a whole lot stuff we wouldn’t know about this case that wasn’t reported but which the judge would’ve seen.
He was charged with possession of objectionable material not sexual offences against children. I agree there are victims of this sort of offending but for a first time offender at his age and with his mental condition I think the decision was not out of what the Judge could do.
What good would sending him to jail do, for him or for society?
Micky, do offenders in that situation have ongoing supervision to make sure they’re likely to reoffend, or are they basically left to it once the sentence is served?
There are standard conditions that are imposed for a period f 12 months and the Judge also has the power to impose further conditions. It is not clear from the report what happened here.
http://legislation.co.nz/act/public/2002/0009/latest/DLM136414.html
Can you please put this particular sentence in the context of other similar offending and the sentences they’ve received?
It is not an unusual sentence for this offence although this guy had quite a few images. For instance this guy received home detention for a second offense.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/6440189/Home-detention-for-child-porn-offences
But that’s just madness! What if they start breastfeeding in court, or crying???!!!???
@mickeysavage
“The alternative would have been to send this poor sap to jail, making him permanently unemployable and a permanent burden on the welfare state.”
“poor sap”…you have to be joking…right…?
Find him a job that allows him NO access to a computer or the internet, and no access to children.
After work, make sure of the same conditions. Forever.
He is peadophile.
How much mercy did he show his victims?
And…we don’t know who he is or what his profession is…how can we keep our children safe?
Stop enabling the enablers of perverts mickeysavage.
And what do you propose? Execution by firing squad?
I have had some professional dealings with people facing these charges. They are sad and often have awful backgrounds. They can be treated. Some compassion, such as that shown by Judge Cunningham, helps.
“And what do you propose? Execution by firing squad?”
Shit…why does it have to be one extreme or another?
I have had professional dealings with the victims of child sexual assault…some, no, all of those people have had their youth destroyed to some extent by those sad bastards you are advocating for.
Great….they have a ‘friend’….but show a modicum of respect and compassion for their victims.
“He was charged with possession of objectionable material not sexual offences against children.”
from 5.2.1.2.1.2
Spare me the ‘child pornography is a victimless crime’ line….do you know how much credibility the legal profession lost when the Law Society did not eject their child porn perving member?
Let’s spell it out….for every image of a child being sexually assaulted there is a child victim involved.
Without a customer there wouldn’t be a product.
http://www.stopdemand.org/wawcs0154994/idDetails=191/Child%20sex%20abuse%20images%20(child%20pornography)
This….thing….didn’t just have a ‘whoops I’ve accidentally stumbled upon a child porn site ‘ moment…he had over 6060 images of extreme assaults on children.
IMHO he should have done time in jail(getting ‘treated’) ….the tea and sympathy from the judge, on top of the leniency, was a gross insult to his victims.
“And what do you propose? Execution by firing squad?”
Shit…why does it have to be one extreme or another?
Fair call. I was responding to your comment that I was “enabling the enablers of perverts”. I was merely suggesting that home detention is not an unsuitable punishment for those who collect pornography.
I am not advocating for them. I am suggesting that sending them to jail may be counterproductive.
“He was charged with possession of objectionable material not sexual offences against children.”
…
Let’s spell it out….for every image of a child being sexually assaulted there is a child victim involved.
Agreed. That is why I made the comment that “I agree there are victims of this sort of offending but for a first time offender at his age and with his mental condition I think the decision was not out of what the Judge could do.”
Nothing can repair the damage caused by sexual abuse. But a preventative approach rather than a retributive approach may result in a different sentence. And there is no such thing as adequate treatment in jail.
Immediately after they were found he sought help…
Remorse demonstrated only after you’ve been caught red-handed ought to count for shit at sentencing.
This sentence is what got me.
Christ, it’s like she thinks he’s the victim.
Mate, this news is about 3 weeks old. Why scour Farrar’s hate site looking for old, trollable articles?
You seem to have an agenda…
BM raises a good point, how do you get rid of judges that are completely out of touch with reality?
I assume they undergo some sort of peer review.
The current government will have it all sorted out, I’m sure.
Nationals in cruise control so they’ll probably ignore like every other government has
how do you get rid of judges that are completely out of touch with reality?
But who says she is? Occasional displays of compassion by our justice system should not be frowned on. Otherwise we may as well design a computer system to handle it and leave it to the machines.
I’d have thought that crimes of a sexual nature especially against children might have judges erring on the side of caution as opposed to granting home detention or discharge without conviction
I only read stuff or herald, if I see a link to an article that is of interest.
I’ve got better things to do than wade through all that click bait dross.
Here are some other options for you
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/category/most-recent-blogs/
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.nz/
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/the-automatic-earth/
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/
@ Paul – (5.3.1.1.2.1) 🙂
“Remorse demonstrated only after you’ve been caught red-handed ought to count for shit at sentencing.”
For people who are using child rape porn I’d prefer that for first offences the focus is on rehabilitation and supervision. The thing most likely to turn that man into an active rapist is a term in prison.
I do think his home detention and fining were light, but I don’t know if that’s because of sentencing guidelines and rules, or leniancy by the judge.
I actually agree with you on some of your points but I’m thinking that in light of some of her other judgements its leniency on her side
That doesn’t make sense though. To understand if any of her sentences are lenient, you’d have to compare them to similar offending sentences of other judges, not her own sentences.
Well true, I guess I’m more suggesting she has a bias towards leniency
That depends very much on your point of view: most right wingers are deranged and utterly incompetent when it comes to effective (ie: actually reducing crime) penal policy.
I’m guessing that you really don’t have a clue having taken your lead from DPF and not even bothered looking at other sources.
That’s nice dear
Clocked on at 8.30 a.m.
When does your shift end?
Can you prove I get paid to do this? If not I expect a retraction and an apology
AFAIK …. organisations like samaritans and others have ‘shifts’ and it’s voluntary (you know – philanthropy – the way the Natzis think compassion and aid for fellow humankind should work). IT’s a win win situation – it allows the philanthropist to feel good about themselves if and when they have the means, there’s no guilt feelings involved, they can cling to any Christian religious beliefs they may have, they can feign concern and their friends can see them being nice blokes, and they don’t have to inconvenience themselves in any way whatsoever. Most times – even their kuds can claim their tragic aging old parents are decent ‘stock’ and are their bestest ever best freinds.
They really are ‘decent’ lore-biding folk!
For people who are using child rape porn I’d prefer that for first offences the focus is on rehabilitation and supervision.
Sure. But what does “supervision” mean? It doesn’t mean this prick never gets to use a password to ensure his privacy on a network-connected computer ever again, which is really the only supervision that would address his particular problem. Also, he gets name suppression, which is very much up to the judge. I wouldn’t want this guy anywhere computers I was responsible for, but the judge has decided I don’t need to know. Rehabilitation for him should involve learning to do something that doesn’t involve computers – there’s plenty of work out there for cleaners and other forms of unskilled labour.
Name suppression is an interesting and difficult subject.
In an unreal world he would be banned from owning and using electronic devices for the rest of his life, probably in a real world if he was a citizen of Saudi Arabia he would have his hands cut off to absolutely make sure he didn’t. I wonder what the Judge would have brought down if he had been just poor, uneducated and not employed – jail time and hell in the showers. I hope his wife and kids leave him for the kids sake and well being. What a tosser.
That’s the crux of it for me too Kate. Loss of status is being considered a punishment by judges now and one has to ask how that can be considered justice.
A poor person has little status so they can go to jail whereas a rich or important person has some perceived stature so they get a slap on the wrist because sending them to jail will demean them in the public’s eye. Lovely.
Absolutely DH – its a closed off world where they have a law for themselves and they make sure they look after each other. Child sex offending and child porn is repugnant and there should be serious consequences for such offenders. Its odd how it seems to me to be a “sport cum pastime” for the wealthy and well educated with their secret clubs and places where they go for their kicks – so many people in power seem to get caught at it. Its sickening and so many of them have children of their own, beggars belief really how sick some people can be. I have absolutely no sympathy for them and believe they are unable to be rehabilitated and we shouldn’t be wasting good money on them. The judge should be reprimanded and told to re look at her findings.
Absolutely agree.
As do these guys…http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11525657
and these interesting stats…
“The graphic details
• 30 per cent – of all internet bandwidth is used for pornography. (Source: Huffington Post)
• 70 per cent – of men and 30 per cent of women watch porn. The average time spent on a porn site is 12 minutes. (Huffington Post)
• 450 million – Unique visitors to porn sites each month. When combined, Netflix, Amazon and Twitter get 316 million visitors. (Huffington Post)
• 90 per cent – of all content included verbal or physical abuse against women in one study of 50 popular pornographic websites and DVDs. (Violence Against Women)”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10892165
@Whispering Kate
Nail hit firmly on head.
This is an ‘old’ story, but one that does deserve more air.
Fifty year old ‘professional’ is caught perving at 6000 images of child pornography so hideous that the Judge can’t bear to view them and gets sentenced to stay home.
And…gets name suppression.
In an ideal world he’d be rendered incapable of further offending….ever.
His ‘mental illness’…what a crock.
But, the Judge…bless her for her many acts of mercy…has let him of, and protected his identity, and suppressed his ‘profession’.
Is he a lawyer? Can’t trust any of them if male and fifty years old.
Is he a doctor? A judge? An IT consultant? An engineer?
So many fifty year old male professionals we can no longer trust…is it him that gets off on watching children being sexually abused?
See, guys, this is what happens when sexual predators are protected…we can’t trust any man.
Farrar is more of a creep than Slater…….being the good cop in the bad cop/good cop routine that he and Slater played for John Key makes him the more dishonest one.
I also suspect he did the polling and advised John Key he did not have to apologize to Tania Billington as the numbers were not hurting him…….
Farrar is a grubby little fuck …………………. you should spend more time at his blog BM
Why the NZ media sucks:
example 1
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/368859/woman-punched-head-speaking-te-reo
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11570046
example 2
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11572163
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/369447/beached-car-recovery-rocky-road-rescuers-say
I don’t see your point. The Herald led with the same article as the ODT in example 1, both major ‘papers seem to be syndicating off each other a lot these days.
I’d think correcting a wrong report to be ethical media behaviour. Where the Herald in particular get a bit ratlike is they sometimes print the false claim on the front page with a big print headline & many column centimetres and hide the subsequent retraction or alternate view deep in the paper using small print and only a few words.
They suck because instead of trying to get both sides of the story they just went with the most sensationalist headline they could get without even the pretence of balance
Hey, that’s BM’s favourite news source you are bad-mouthing there.
Is pr at last seeing the light?
The Herald has been a rag for ages. Has he finally noticed?
Zzzzz
You are going to get suspended if you keep that up.
Thank me later.
Whenever I see a post from Paul I’m reminded of The Young Ones
Rick: Oh, God, I’m bored. Might as well be listening to Genesis.
So you found the article from the Guardian about the oncoming market collapse dull?
Or the one on the consequence of the TPP on copyright dull?
OK……
For your enjoyment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FBcz3tBH74
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
Dull
Not sure I can follow that PR. Both incidents appear to have had timing issues where more information was revealed later and I don’t think you can blame the media for printing what was topical, and appeared truthful, at the time.
“Appeared truthful”
That’s the thing though isn’t the fourth estate supposed to find out whether its truthful or not? It just appears to be lazy in that someone runs to the media and the media print the story without doing their jobs and the media wonder why people are turning away
What do you expect from them? If they thoroughly investigated every act that was reported to them they’d have nothing to print.
Filling a newspaper every day can’t be an easy task. Sure they put some drivel in it and yes they can be a bit hasty at times but so long as they maintain a genuine balance with the storyline I don’t see it being a problem.
I thought they did ok on the Te Reo one. The media have adopted a practice of milking a story for as long as they can keep people interested and they killed that one with the follow up. With the first article the way they worded it they looked to be priming the rednecks for more gossip & innuendo and instead the story just died.
They tried to make the Te Reo one into a race issue, that’s pretty poor reporting
genuine uestion for you PR;
Why do you think journalism was traditionally called ‘the first draft of history’?
Well I haven’t heard that one before but it does sound rather pertinent
Yeah, I like it coz it’s neither a praise of journlaism nor a condemnation of it. It just calss it what it is, an important part of the eventual discussion that becomes ‘what we accept as historical truth’.
It’s job is to get stuff fast, and as accurate as fast allows. It’s going to get stuff wrong, and will need to revise itself and update itself and generally keep on journalisming. No one has yet come up with a better model that actually works.
I think the problem is you simply can’t but what makes it worse is the news media (imho) are trying to go head to head with blogs
The news media can’t compete with speed but they can compete with quality, instead of going down market and going after the lowest common dominator it’d be nice to see a newspaper go the other way and compete on quality of reporting instead
I wish that the newspapers would just try and get the simplest things right.
The DomPost this morning had a story that Singapore Airlines were going to start a service from Wellington to Canberra using an Airbus A330. They put a picture on the front page which they labelled as being an A330.
The only problem is that the A330 is a twin engine single deck aircraft. The photo was of a four engine double decker A380. Can’t they get even the simplest things right? Do they even care?
Trouble is that quality costs.
Heh – what’s the old quote from tradies: you can have any combination you want of fast, cheap and good that you want, but you can only have two out of three. Well, in modern media fast is cheap, but good is extremely expensive – good investigators, good editors, good sub editors, lose one and the others become precarious.
The “both sides of the story” is a crock.
In most cases the call for both sides results in false balance; giving more equal weight to opposing views than actual evidence supports.
The reporting around climate change being primarily caused by human activity is an obvious example of the failure of “both sides” reporting.
And then there is the similar argument to moderation where the middle ground between two opposing views is viewed as the correct one, and discounts views at either extreme end simply because they are at the edges.
The reporting around the effects of climate change is a good example.
With the Te Reo story, it looks like the Herald ran with a breaking story without investigating the actual facts of the matter, and tacked on a headline that can best be described as race-baiting.
Or, to put it another way, they couldn’t be arsed actually doing their job and decided to poison the public discussion around Te Reo instead.
That’s a good point about the both sides being a crock, I hadn’t considered that.
Probably best to add that hearing from both sides is sometimes essential to actually understanding what is being reported.
Reporting of court cases is an example.
The interesting thing to me is that the ODT clearly attributes both the story and the photo to the Herald, but the Herald only attributes the photo, not the identical story, or any other indication it’s syndicated content.
FFS you lot, is it going to be like this all day? Really?
Maybe we should ask lprent for a “Daily Troll-Pit” as well as “Open Mike”
I endeavoured to open debate on the warnings by the RBS at 2, and to generate conversation about some of the future effects of the TPP at 3 and 4.
yes, and that’s all good but it’s not all you did is it.
Care to comment on either of the issues?
No. In this subthread I’m talking about behaviour on ts. Shall we turn this one into a long boring trollfest too? You are better than this usually, so feel free to not take my original comment personally.
If any body can pick the top of a market or the bottom they would be infinitely rich Take these announcement with a grain of salt, similar advice to buy . if RBS believed as thier predictions are 100pc kosher and so do you Paul I suggest you short the total market with every thing you got, you can’t loose
I called out abusive language directed at another member.
Public service innit?
Looks like you want to fight RWNJ and/or trolls rather than discuss politics. I think there are better ways to do that if you want it to also be a public service.
Ah well, the more considered approach is fine to a point but every now and then it’s better to be more direct. Not sure some people understand any other way.
I note you have said yourself below that the month old story about the judge and the professional was a set up. What’s wrong with calling that out early?
I don’t have a problem with calling out bullshit. It was more just that I came onto OM this morning and it was full of bickering. Naming bullshit is one thing, arguing about it endlessly is another. I know how easy it is to get sucked into that, do it myself, but it was just a bit much and I thought it might be good to name it and see if it changed 🙂
I seem to remember it getting like this last year at about the same time, its caused by the lack of fresh meat to feed them.
It did seem like a bit of a feeding frenzy this morning.
Plus I suspect the sexual offending one is a set up. Cue post from Pete George saying that the standard supports child pornography watchers.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/it-is-time-for-australia-to-set-the-refugees-free-20151227-glvflx.html
http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/75808937/New-Zealand-refugee-settlement-given-to-Syria-because-Australia-hasn-t-taken-up-offer
Its time key “got some guts” and put pressure on these Aussie wankers.
Oil price plummeting. Why has all the alarmist Peak Oil crap gone silent? What will be the next alarmist warning Ah yes TPPA, the end of civilisation. Welfare reform-?
Clearly the world’s oil market was not functioning as a effective market and we were paying too much for oil.
The Saudis are playing games so that American fracking and off-shore drilling becomes to expensive to continue and that the Russian war chest gets depleted.
The Americans used to rely on the Saudis for oil and the Saudis don’t like it that they don’t need to anymore. It hard to make them fight your enemies when you can’t blackmail them over their oil needs.
Actually I’m not sure America actually purchased oil directly from SA. I think the US purchased oil from Canada and Mexico, and no now longer need to do it. So Canada and Mexico are selling their oil to countries that would have bought from SA.
Oil is fungible.
They do still import oil from the Kingdom.
It peaked at about 50 million bbl/month in 2003 and is now down to about 30 million.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSSA1&f=M
You are quite right about it being basically fungible. There is a difference in properties but that can be got around if you don’t want the cheapest price. New Zealand of course both imports AND exports crude. Our production isn’t very good for producing the mix of products we want.
Thanks.
“Why has all the alarmist Peak Oil crap gone silent?”
It hasn’t.
Read up, fisi: http://ourfiniteworld.com/
The media suck
example 3
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/75747157/minister-denies-meeting-chinese-billionaires-rep
Minto said the information came from an anonymous source but it seemed credible as it matched with Pinnacle’s stated intentions.
Minto said: “Whether or not [Bennett] met with them, it’s clear Dr Cheng’s Pinnacle group want to buy state houses. They’ve been quite explicit about that.”
Sounds the same as the old question of have you stopped beating your wife…
yes, the MSM suck. Now, which political parties have policies on improving the quality and standard of the MSM in NZ?
I’m not comfortable with political parties having anything to do with journalistic standards except in the most broadest possible terms
Oh, I think a couple of laws about the MSM sticking to the truth should bring about a few changes. The reporting of the Donghua Liu (sp?) affair should have brought about significant consequences to the publishing houses. Maybe if they’d been looking at a fine of a few million dollars they would have investigated it properly before jumping on National’s Dirty Politics bandwagon.
The Labour Party did have the opportunity to sue the Herald and it’s reporters for defamation. And Donghua Liu for libel*.
But they didn’t.
So if the Labour Party shows no interest in defending itself, why would anyone assume they would stand up for New Zealanders?
* I’m assuming Liu’s statement false statement was quoted instead of paraphrased – I can’t remember, and don’t want to wade through all that muck again.
The problem is though that you may get a government that comes and decides to make their own changes, changes you may not like or agree with
Interesting, you’re actually complaining about the dictatorial political system we have.
And that’s why we need a democracy rather than an elected dictatorship where policy is decided by the people and not a small clique of dictators as we have now.
Well we have a two party state as it, I mean in 2020 Labour will get in for two or three cycles then it’ll be National and so on and so on
How can we change that?
Have you heard of MMP?
The Greens have been steadily creeping their vote up. Recently NZF has as well.
I’d expect that after National get handed their arse because they haven’t managed to build any coalition partners, and they booted off the treasury benches in 2017, that they will have other parties form – probably along the obvious internal fracture lines.
Some of those parties may grow. But in the end, a party needs to get above 5% vote to get into parliament (electorate seats are hard to keep for a small party – they kill party vote), and above about 15% of MPs to be viewed as a major party.
To do that, they have to get a dedicated party membership and activists, both as a source of candidates and to provide the room to groom viable candidates who don’t bug out. Think of Pam Corkery and a number of other celeb candidates over the years.
No secret…
I just don’t see the Greens overtaking Labour so they’ll always be a support partner for Labour and same with NZFirst
I just think with NZ, due to our size, it’ll be a choice of blue or red so basically a two party state
Easier said then done as Colin Craig found out
Yes, but CC is just a weirdo. Everything was going very well for them until his weirdness overshadowed everything.
Their policy positions were popular. Probably the only thing that stopped them getting more votes was scepticism that they would get enough votes to be elected – catch 22.
If the threshold had been 4% they would have easily gotten in, and probably polled 5%+ anyway.
Of course with Colin’s meltdown, we could have been looking at an early election.
I enclose a polling graph. I assume it is accurate. Can you confirm that the Greens have been steadily creeping their vote up. My eyes must be playing tricks on me.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/01/december_public_polls-2.html
Try this one,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_Aotearoa_New_Zealand#Parliament
From zero to 14 MPs in 24 years and only one election did they lose MPs.
After observing politics for a few decades, I’ve come to the general conclusion that most of the people interested in politics are interested in being critics rather than doing the political leg work. That definitely includes me. I prefer to find a decent seasoned candidate and to support them.
That job is too hard. I just don’t have the stamina.
Granny front page today about a tree that cant be cutdown. Another barely hidden whine about supercity rules that developers probably want ‘fixed’…..and they wonder why circulation is declining.
In this case though, it’s a tree that needs to be removed.
So, it’s the opposite of the Kauri up in Titirangi.
Pretty sure the two stories will be conflated in the next couple of days by someone who has both a large public platform and a penchant for magical thinking.
people need reminding who created the clusterf@&k that is supercity.
Anyone know the details of this case*?
It looks like the result of piss poor legislation.
* Owner denied consent to remove a dangerous and failing Norfolk Pine.
That would be actual journalism you expect from nationals herald, move on.
Story has been updated with some more detail.
I expect I’ll have to wait (and hope) that Prof. Geddis or G. Edgeler is curious enough to identify and blog on the legislative conflict that the environment court was unable to resolve.
Yes however the printed version stays out there like a dog whistle not leaving the herders mouth.
The story should be completed first then published but hey thats journalism whereas this is nationals herald
“the printed version stays out there like a dog whistle not leaving the herders mouth”
I saw the headline and my first thought was; “bastards have cut the Kauri down”.
It wasn’t til I clicked and read the story did I realise that it was a different tree at a different locale under different circumstances.
117 comments already and half it seems from RWs. How can anyone concentrate on thinking about anything important when these time and space-wasters block the thread, intelligent discussion gets deflected just when it is required more than ever before.
The RWNJs are mounting a very good attack on TS every day, it’s almost like a denial of service because it is hard to get through to the valuable thoughts and musing coming from real people with integrity. Patience is a virtue goes the saying, but too much turns you into a doormat for others to wipe their feet on.
edited
Agreed as they rely on the egalitarian nature of TS.
Try similar on blubberboy or princessparty blogs and the barrier comes down so the rwnj comments can flow freely for all the others to feed off and feel justified.
It looks like PR, fisiani and BM. All of those people are quite capable of debating properly, although PR often needs knocking into shape and is the most trollish of the three IME. BM likes to drop in somewhat inflammatory comments, but he will engage intelligently if you respond to him intelligently. Bickering with them will almost certainly get met in kind.
I don’t mind their presence so much as the fact that so much of the discussion is personal and squabbling. But that could just as easily be lefties (and in this case it was too) 😉
But yeah, if this were happening under a post rather than OM it would be seriously disruptive. Probably first week back at work dynamics too.
Ok so to provide balance heres my advice to Labour
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11572293
Go hard on this issue, forget about people with Chinese sounding names or crims on Easter Island, this is what will get Labour a much needed bump in the polls, this is what middle NZ cares about
Get your MPs as much coverage as they can, say what you’d do in power (and for goodness sake make sure the costings add up) and make sure you front foot this and frame the argument yourselves
Yes they make reading this thread dull
I agree with greywarshark. I don’t think any of them except PR are genuine. They often display a herd mentality when a strong theme starts propagating here. Their purpose seems to be one of disruption and diversion.
Take a good slow look at the fisiani posts. Is he using his own words, speaking his own mind, or is he just parroting scripts. No-one in real life converses like that IMO.
“The RWNJs are mounting a very good attack …….” I think its the shape of things to come in 2016.
I’m not too sure its a GOOD attack – it’ll certainly be a very vocal one – they’ve started early – the Speaker’s bum boys haven’t even had a chance to warm his sheepskin; Paula’s still getting over HER devastating loss (‘cos it was all about HER); Soimun’s mulling over his next move and wondering where the vulnerabilities are; Todd’s ego has been captured by TTPA grandiose; Anne’s clutching pearls and wondering where she stands ……
The ideologically driven agenda is starting to show signs of wear and failing to the extent that the average Joe is starting to notice, and the CT talking points and language are looking a bit tired (going forward). And all that “on the back of” a ‘Chinese Konomy’ that’s not looking too crash hot, peak real estate, and not even a TVNZ7/Proim Beck Benchas where the trolls can show up – much as they do here on TS to protest how right and correct they are. I agree with the ‘right’ bit.
Jesus H Christ!
Labour have SO MANY opportunities to bust this government eh?
What the fuck is the matter with them!???
Well, I guess I know that already.
I think I might pay another visit to Mal and Scotty’s to at least try and guage a ‘10%’ minority’s perspective of reality. Bloody expensive thing to do though eh!
It’s the other 90% of voters we rely on though that worries me, let alone half the electorate that didn’t.
Who the fuck is running that Labour show btw? I think most people would be buggered (if they knew)
EDIT: ….. Last time I went there btw, there was some poor sap that had romantic notions of Fran fucking Wilde’s contribution to ‘equality’. If he only knew (which he wudn’t – unless he wanted to be a Fran Toi Boi, once was genuine – now Franny’s leaned how to clup the tuckit and American Express Platinum is moidy trektiv,
Once Was Tim
Sure a lot of things happening. They get to be like a bunch of flies buzzing round your head. It will be that we need to mentally record them but spend most of our time planning positive moves rather than registering the dross from the Dark Side.
🙂
What I fear most is that what I once knew as pretty bloody basic creds have been totally LOST by those who now pretend to ‘represent’ a public.
I’m not sure they even understand the idea of a ‘public’.
But there ya go. I guess they’ll have to learn the hard way.
– and there’s another thing – maybe it’s just me running out of life and becoming impatient.
At least there are inklings …. even amongst a neighbouring Hataitai-resident fag-hag grandma. (I’m at odds to wonder why as a politician, she’s prepare to …….
nah fuckit – now I think about it – she likes Judith Crusher Collins and Paul Henry, AS WELL as abusers of scared blokes worried about their sex you allty (going forward).
It ain’t political pragmatism either. I’m not sure but I suspect she might be training to be the next Fran Wilde
You’ve obviously got a shit load more energy than I have these days. I’m caught between bothering to put up a fight .versus. letting the inevitable play out and letting something organic happen.
Atm – I think maybe the latter – even tho’ it won’t be pretty for the ‘greedy’, or various minorities; or …. well hopefully you get the pitcha (and if you don’t – no matter). Apparently I’m on the verge of being *****BANNED****** (no doubt with some highly intellectual, ego-driven, how fucking dare he justification.
Kia Kaha ….. alongside anything else that gives you strength ( I know it’s not solely your ego)
Once was Tim
You might find Tim again if you go into something organic! It certainly helps with the frustration of present politics to be supporting something doable and health-oriented putting energies into an achievable project.
May be planting flasbushes for the tui, after Maori have been consulted as to whether they might be a good resource and they might like a particular species? that is good for making a particular article. That would be good, and then making sure that they survived, got watered, weren’t eaten by bugs, pulled out by thoughtless Council contractors etc. Hovering, working angel stuff.
Going to classes on growing organic vegs and learning about how to cope with the potato nematode or whatever. Supporting a group that plan the yearly Christmas parade, giving pleasure and joy to all, could be good. Being a hospital volunteer doing whatever they do. Fixing bicycles so kids can have one where it’s safe to go.
I would like to renew my ties with Amnesty International but have to organise my day better to ensure I send those messages in a timely way to distant countries. And I want to keep writing and reading on this blog. People here are generally good-hearted, so that is a positive thing to do, to keep in touch with people who sincerely care about people and the country, and just disagree about methods and effectiveness.
Academics go head to head over liquor industry funded ‘research’ on alcohol/violence link.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11573183
Despite her protestations, Dr Fox has been bought, plain and simple.
Any reasonable person can see that.
More so, Lion will have approached her specifically to do this report because of her earlier work done on disassociating alcohol from violence.
This kind of research is what happens when academic funding is pushed from the public sector to the private sector, something which the current government is determined to do.
+1
Dr Fox has been bought, plain and simple.
Followed by:
…Lion will have approached her specifically to do this report because of her earlier work…
So, which is it? Lion paid her off, or Lion funded her research because her prior research suited it?
Any conflict of interest she has in being funded by Lion is no greater than Kypris’ in being part of a religious anti-alcohol group, In fact, Kypris’ conflict seems worse – researchers are sometimes willing to tell funding bodies what they don’t want to hear, but religious conviction is impervious to rationalism.
“…but religious conviction is impervious to rationalism.”
You may want to check out the Rechabites PM…they appear to have moved with the times, evolved…and indeed, seem to promote similar ideals to those of many here on TS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Order_of_Rechabites
The Rechabites commitment to alcohol harm minimisation is a worthy mission….one that most of the poor sods working in A&E departments around the country would support.
– Rosemary McDonald
Yes, and Lion’s commitment to minimising the appearance of alcohol harm is an unworthy one.
It seems that Lion is quite happy with Fox’s report (which is what they would have expected when they commissioned her), so there doesn’t seem to be any indication that they were told something they didn’t want to hear as Psycho Milt suggests.
@PM – why are those things mutually exclusive?.
Dr Fox probably even believes her own shite. Even amongst academics that claim to be non-partisan. It’s not unlike the detective that’s convinced their theory valid (often based on a hunch), and who then gathers evidence on that basis, and with that perspective.
With apologies to Steven Sackur and the Key interview when – well you hopefully know the rest …. claiming academic credentials and being ‘an academic’ can be two very different things. Personally I think Foctor Dox fits.
The good Foctor probably has as many disciples (and if not, they’ll be searching them out hard and fast), as there are opposing.
To be clear (in my opinion), the Foctor is a bullshit artist
…why are those things mutually exclusive?
Because there’s no need to bribe someone who’s already doing what you want. I guess it’s possible Lion are just particularly generous and trouble themselves to bribe researchers whose findings to date were convenient for Lion anyway, but they didn’t get where they are today by being generous with their cash.
To be clear (in my opinion), the Foctor is a bullshit artist
You’ve reviewed her research and found it wanting, have you? To be fair, I have to disclose that I regard anti-alcohol activists like Sellman and his mates at the Uni of Otago school of public health to be bullshit artists, but then I have a low opinion of the social sciences in general. Do you have some evidence for why Fox is a bullshit artist, but not Jackson, Kypris, Sellman et al?
According to the Herald article, Lion commissioned the report to use as a tool with which to lobby governments.
I guess they’d need to pay her for that.
In that case, everyone who accepts payment for their work is “bought.” That clearly isn’t what you meant. Unless you’ve some evidence that her research was falsified or skewed in some way to Lion’s benefit, your comment is just libel.
As it happens, her conclusions about alcohol causing violence (that its variability across cultures suggests a social rather than physiological basis for violence, that there is in any case no evidence for alcohol having a physiological means of controlling behavior, and that there are social conditions that are more likely candidates) is compelling on a logical basis alone, regardless of the research behind it. The onus is actually on her opponents to demonstrate that alcohol does control behaviour.
Here are some of her findings – they look pretty credible to me. I wouldn’t disagree with any of it:
1. It’s the wider culture that determines the behaviour whilst drinking, not just the drinking
Different societies with comparable levels and patterns of alcohol consumption experience very different levels of anti-social and violent behaviour in their night-time economies. Most of the differences can be explained by social and cultural factors and, with concerted effort, they can be influenced.
2. The physical effects of alcohol do not determine a behavioural response.
In layman’s terms, Dr. Fox’s research suggests that while alcohol has a very definite physical effect, it doesn’t hijack your moral compass.
Dr Fox says: “Certainly alcohol carries very definite physiological effects. At high doses, the point at which alcohol enters the brain stem, it is easy to see that the physical effects of alcohol can incapacitate all drinkers equally, regardless of cultural differences.
“But just because alcohol relaxes and reduces anxiety does not mean it causes inexplicable changes in behaviour or character or blocks impulse control. There are a couple of very simple observations we can all make that support this conclusion. First, the very same person on the same dose of alcohol can react in myriad different ways on different occasions and in different settings. This simply would not happen if we were talking about a purely physiological response.
“Second, morphologically similar humans in different cultures react completely differently to being ‘under the influence’. Some cultures see very little violence and anti-social behaviour, despite similar levels and patterns of consumption to other nations with high levels of such harm.
“The conclusion of my research, and many previous studies, is that alcohol can, in certain cultures and situations, be a facilitator of aggression if aggression is there to begin with, both in the individual and in the cultural environment. It does not produce it where it doesn’t already exist.”
3. Violent individuals, a violence-reinforcing culture and violent situations are the three interlinked drivers of anti-social behaviour and violence in the night-time economy
Dr Fox makes a number of recommendations to address each of these drivers, with some examples provided below:
* Violent individuals: Australia and New Zealand needs to ensure effective identification and direct intervention to tackle the behaviour of the minority exhibiting a pre-disposition to violence.
* Violent situations: We need to work to reduce situational cues – like poor facilities and transport options – that trigger poor behaviour. We also need to change perceptions of what behaviour is socially acceptable while intoxicated and create a genuine fear of stigma for breaking the rules – as has been achieved with drink driving. Realistic consequences such as fines and other sanctions for bad behaviour are needed.
* Violence-reinforcing-cultures: Australia and New Zealand must address the cultural reinforcers of violence, misogyny, and aggressive masculinity in all its cultural expressions from schoolyards to sports fields, politics and pubs, movies and media. Young men need to be taught that responding with violence is a failure in self-control, not a symbol of masculinity.
seriously?
It’s almost as if being drunk, or being around drunk people, is an unfamiliar experience for her.
oh well, file this under ….they can always move 🙂
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/super-city/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501110&objectid=11572269
Awww, The poor special snowflakes.
http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/75775117/Official-Information-Act-request-charges-for-media-in-spotlight
National making it harder for people to expose their dishonest practices!!
I’m truly devastated!
I just can’t seem to get people to engage with me and any of my comments (except an occasionale +1 from a Draco)
Why, I can’t even get hard right trolls to engage in debate.
I can’t even get BANNED ffs!
Oh misery!!!! where did I go wrong?
I’m fucking devastated. I’m soos oidle.
No matter how hard oi troi, none of these soshul media specimuns will engage.
Well … oi … oi jiss have to give up!
But hey … didcha hear? Jerry’s married that fukn old relic Rupe and she’s now dripping money and little blue diamond shaped pills
[lprent: Would you feel better if I banned you? 😈 ]
Your comments are to deep for my battered mush of a brain to digest and come up with a reply there, the one who was once Tim.
Yes ekshully, I would.
I know there’s been a delay in my replying, but a ban in this case would serve me well and signal to me what is wrong with our reliance on blogs as a challenge to the status quo.
I’d be in good company I think (not that I don’t appreciate your efforts in trying to battle our current situation)
So PLEASE ,,,, if you see fit and are feeling challenged – go ahead and BAN!
Actually, it’d be akin to all that’s wrong in the Labour Party these days (AND I REALISE YOU’RE IN NO WAY A PLATFORM FOR THE LABOUR PARTY).
You could put a ban down to being ‘very adult’ of you
The TPP is some bs.
Maybe some people will start to get from under the rock now.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11573299
Interesting news story today on the ABC, Malcolm Turnbull has turned down a request from the US to commit more resources to the war effort, this is the first PM in history (Australian) to “say no” to the yanks, I’m a little cynical as there’s an election in 6 months or so, and the most recent state elections (Vic, Queensland) saw there Liberal govts booted out after only one term, the Queensland premiere removed, Campbell Newman was a proponent of the JK way, only problem was the constituency wasn’t, and dealt with his BS policies that saw the destruction of their social fabric, I think they’re a little smarter than most give credit for.
TRP reminded me
My last surviving great aunt is about to hit the ton while I am away on the upcoming business trip. Does anyone have any idea of where to find an age 100 birthday card in Auckland?
The best I idea I have at present is to head to St Lukes.
Amaze
Ponsonby Road