Good question posed in the Guardian. Should Californian police lives be risked capturing fugitive killer Christopher Dorner when a drone strike would be so much more efficient?
A facile argument…actually, any argument… seeking to justify extra judicial killings being carried out by the state, falls a long way short of “a good question (being) posed”.
Summary judgement and execution, enacted by remote control hellfire missle. What’s not to like about extra-judicial “efficiency”. I hear Afghan villagers have really got behind the concept as being “fair and balanced”.
Further in the US, it would save all that messy expensive bullshit to do with death row: lawyers, appeals, incarceration at tax payer expense for the next 15 years etc.
Reminds me of good old Chinese (or Russian) style justice. Very efficient. Get it done, move on, the only documentation left to do being an after-action report and some coroners paper work.
Also, bringing home military tactics, procedures and technology formerly developed and used against muslim terrorists for the purposes of actions against US citizens on US soil – what could possibly be unconstitutional about that?
It couldn’t be that the survivalist nut types in the US had a point all along about not being able to trust the motivations of the Feds, could it???
Looks like the killer has been cornered. Dorner’s apparently been found in a mountain cabin; so much for the assymetrical war etc. boasting he did on fb. Just another yank nutter with easy access to weapons.
– is it still possible to have one legal standard for summary justice operating across the world; can’t we just be a little loose for those people Richard Prosser describes?
– if you’re innocent, don’t you have nothing to worry about?
– wouldn’t this make leadership selections and country elections easier?
– which side were you on watching Terminator Salvation?
– when every country in the world with a significant defence capability operates fleets of them, can we do away with armed forces then?
Somehow I made it to the end.
@ 8mins Shearer gives Key a pat on the back for his punitive response to students who are in Australia.
WTF Shearer?.. this is a student radio station. You just failed big time.
Students have just been told quite clearly why its not worth getting out of bed on election day.
Is this it Labour? Is this your tertiary education policy? The student loan scam will continue under stumble-face?
FFS Labour…you are killing this county.
The only upside of this interview is that most students would have turned it off before Fozzie Bear mumbled on about treating our educated people as criminals.
And he was on TV3 this morning talk about stumbling over all his words, it got so bad that he gave up the line of conversation and stumbled over the next.
Really, Daveo, you’re being a bit desperate. Shearer was asked what he did on the weekend by the DJ, replies to that bit of fluff, then moves on to answer more relevant questions quite competently, before er, returning to the weather. Pretty normal stuff for this kind of interview.
Daveo. A bit odd talking to yourself???
I listened via your link. Sounded like a good interview to me. He answered the questions. Was unafraid to support the decision to get NZ students in Australia to repay their debts. I think that Mr Shearer was more informative than Mr Key in a similar scenario. And chatting about the weather was the DJ’s initiative, not Mr Shearer.
I didn’t think that Shearer did too badly. But the remarkable thing is that he conveys almost nothing in terms of substance or insight into the topics he is asked about. And certainly nothing about his own personal convictions on issues.
For instance. Why did he attend Big Gay Out? Response. Well, there are Gay Labour MPs who have worked really hard for gay rights, but in fact it was just down the road from home so I could take a stroll. WTF. An opportunity to espouse important principles and values of equality, equal rights, and unhindered participation in our society to tens of thousands of people, missed, in favour of “It was within walking distance”.
Tens of thousands? Listening to BFM? Maybe back when Graeme Hill did the morning show …
edit: just spotted the Daveo doppleganger comment. That was me. It appears that I’m using the same IP address as Daveo today. Not the first time that’s happened; my work takes me to a variety of workplaces and I log in to whatever broadband server is handiest. For what it’s worth, Daveo’s email address is a generic gmail account, so I don’t know who he or she is.
have you thought about changing back to ‘voice of reason’ – your te reo joke lacks ompf and the right wingers don’t get it anyway – might be a bit more honest voice.
Righties never saw the objectivist based humour in The Voice of Reason either, Marty. Come to think of it, not many lefties did either. I’ve been TRP since Waitangi Day last year and the change was both out of respect for that celebration and also to end the needless confusion TVoR seemed to bring. However, using the maori translation has allowed the occasional witless racist to riff on it, too. Hi, Pete!
The IP thing, and using multiple computers, is apparently why some of my comments also occasionally come up as TVoR. I’ll try to remember to check the ‘name and email’ boxes in future so it doesn’t happen again.
I just posted this on the site of the witless whiner… Pete George. Saw a linkback when I was clearing spam.
It is the classic (and slowly diminishing) cached page in a badly configured web proxy problem.
Because we allow anyone to leave messages without logging in, the details of what pseudonym and email address are stored on a cookie held on the client machine. This is sent to the server when a request for a page is made and is filled in on the page by the server in the appropriate fields. It means that people commenting without logging in don’t have to spend their time plugging in the fields all of the time.
Now this works almost everywhere because we have the settings for all of our *dynamic* pages set to not cache (and all of the static images, css, js, etc to cache). But it has problems when it runs into a web proxy that doesn’t obey the caching instructions in the http and html headers.
What happens then is that if there are two or more people are commenting at the same time, then the dumbarse web proxy is quite likely to serve up the wrong cached page. In practice this has happened only in few workplaces that I know of in the last 5 years. In both places it is a known technical issue. One hasn’t shown up for a couple of years. The other is obviously still an issue.
I have investigated alternatives to using the server side insertion of the cookie info. Javascript proved to be far to problematic for security reasons, a pretty extreme level of variation between browsers, and that a good number of readers have it turned off. The auto-fill on many browsers is just too flaky to rely on.
Of course I could just turn off the insertion of the name and e-mail fields, or force everyone to login or shift everything over to running on https (with all of the problems that has for dialup readers).
But doing this for the slowly diminishing numbers of poorly configured proxies that don’t obey caching instructions, it is simply excessive. Instead whenever it causes problem, I tell the participants that they should whine like you do to their techs.
And incidentally, your site will have exactly the same problem in those same workspaces
Cheers, LP, will do. But I will also check the boxes in the meantime as well.
Good ol’ PG, eh? I see he’s too dim to even work out which ‘daveo’ comment was the doppleganger. Wait till he gets to the line about racist commentaters; how long dya reckon it’ll take before he twigs which Pete I was referring to?
PS, PG, ya wally. I have nothing to do with the leadership of the LP, apart from badgering them at every reasonable opportunity to lift their game on social media. I don’t do their talking for them and never have. Didn’t LP explain this to you only a few weeks ago?
That was me. It appears that I’m using the same IP address as Daveo today. Not the first time that’s happened; my work takes me to a variety of workplaces and I log in to whatever broadband server is handiest….
I would have thought the chance of it happening once would be remote. You must be visiting some interesting workplaces.
I’m grateful to have a job that keeps me in touch with working Kiwis in a wide variety of industries accross rural, provincial and urban NZ, js. It certainly gives me access to a wide range of opinions and experiences which I hope adds a little authenticity to some of my comments at TS.
As for Daveo, the wee scamp, I’m pretty sure we both think we know who the other is online, but that’s Ok. Neither of us is telling. The bigger problem would be others on that server logging in to a TS comment box to try and suss both of us out.
Got a couple of STUNNING new banners which will be unfurled today – first outside the offices of Mighty River Power, then outside the offices of Mercury Energy!
Opposed to the sale of State Assets by this minority National Government (which only got 59 out of 121 MPs in the 2011 election?
Remember – the vote on the Mixed Ownership Model Act was 61 – 60.
National – who did campaign on asset sales – were dependent on the votes of dodgy John Banks – who arguably should NOT be an MP – let alone a Minister, and Peter Dunne – who DID NOT campaign on supporting State Asset sales.
Wednesday, February 13, 12-2pm, outside head office of Mighty River Power, 23-29 Albert St, Auckland CBD
PROTEST! Say No to Asset Sales 3:30 – 5:30 pm,
outside Mercury Energy Office, 602 Great South Road, Penrose.
…………………………………………………
Wednesday, February 13, 6pm, Frank Kitts Park in Wellington
Rally to oppose government asset sales.
The Rainbow Warrior will be in town and will drop a banner off her side in support. Join the crowd after work at Frank Kitts, bring the kids.
Hear interesting speakers (named below) and some of Wellington’s finest musicians and performers, Aroha Priest, Warren Pomana, Marama Te Kira, Skank Jigger, Lucky Ngatuere, Tribal Rizin and Brass Razoo.
Now’s the time to show you care, if you don’t like the idea of selling our assets. No other time will do. So, Wellington and anybody else, come on down and bring a couple of people with you.
Greenpeace is backing this event, so show your support for them when they’re here. Say No To Asset sales is a rally not a protest.
We all recognise the diversity of opinion in opposition to the government’s proposed sale of state assets.
We all know that we will have to fight hard to stop the sales, but that we can do it. Only by retaining 100% control of the power companies can we, the public, develop and enjoy a clean, affordable, NZ-owned energy system. Selling removes these opportunities and, crucially, replaces the chance to investigate historical and contemporary violations of the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi with mere promises that the issue of rights in water between Government and tangata whenua will somehow be unaffected by privatisation.
The following speakers at this Rally represent the diverse range of groups, organisations and factions and the vast majority of people in Aotearoa/NZ opposed to the sale of our state assets. Celia Wade-Brown, Major of Wellington City Council; Justin Duckworth, Anglican Bishop of Wellington; Nathan Argent, National Policy Adviser, Greenpeace; Dr Geoff Bertram. Senior Economics Lecturer, Victoria University; Dr Jane Kelsey, Professor Law, Auckland University; Maanu Paul, Chair, NZ Maori Council; Peter Love, Te Atiawa & Board Member Wellington Tenths Trust with mokopuna, Kaira Love, Te Atiawa; Frances Kuo, Spokesperson, Aotearoa is Not for Sale; Dr Ganesh Nana, Chief Economist, BERL; Roy Reid, National President, Grey Power; John Maynard & Steve Booth, Spokespeople, Peoples Power Ohariu.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Forwarded by Penny Bright
A Spokesperson for the Switch Off Mercury Energy community group.
Auckland rates due 20th of Feb, have you paid you rates arrears yet Penny? Are you allowed to vote if you are in rate arrears? Are you allowed to stand for mayor?
[RL: Penny has chosen to withhold paying her rates as a means of political protest; as distinct from avoiding an obligation to the Council. Your failure to mention this is of course a deliberate distortion. Virtually all protest involves some action which can be described as illegal at one level, while ethically justifiable at another. Your approach is here is not a discussion, it’s abuse. Don’t keep repeating it.]
RL: Penny also has a proud history of challenging established authority in other ways too. She was the first woman to become a licenced welding inspector back when it was an all male club. All power to her (no pun intended!).
After getting a bit carried away with comments over a week ago, which was due to honest frustrations and a level of built up anger, I wish to apologise to Irishbill for losing focus on the topic, in a thread he had launched with good intentions (http://thestandard.org.nz/on-engagement-with-the-labour-caucus/).
Retrospectively I thank IrishBill for giving me a week of a “break” or holiday, as it enabled me to have a closer look at some policy and plans that this present National led government is pushing through in the health areas.
Particularly mental health and addiction treatment and care should be of interest to all those that also are highly concerned about the welfare reforms presently before the Social Services Committee in the form of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. A high number of sick and invalids on benefits do have mental health issues, and some have addiction illnesses.
There has (from Bennett, English and Key) been talk about putting more resources into “helping” those that are on sickness and invalid’s benefits, to somehow get well and fit enough to return to work or training.
Well, by looking at the Ministry of Health’s “Rising to the Challenge: The Mental Health and Addiction Service Development Plan 2012–2017”, which Associate Minister for Health Peter Dunne (UF) presented without much notice by media and the public just about a week before Christmas last year, I have discovered, how hollow, false and misleading the statements by the government are once again.
It is full of high aspirations, “new” goals, ambiguous slogans, much talk about more responsibilities, efficiencies, effectiveness, mentions repeatedly KPIs (“key performance indicators”), but delivers very little of substance in regards to what will actually be done, what staff will be employed and trained, what resources will be made available, and how better outcomes are supposed to be achieved.
In short: It basically reveals that the mentally ill and addicted will first and foremost have to help themselves, and additional resources will NOT be made available, new resources for new focus and target areas will instead need to come from “less effective” areas in health care, which means taking money off some to help others (“re-allocation”). “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” comes to mind.
Also does it seem to be leading to a “mass medication” program that will be expected from GPs and other primary care deliverers, as what I have heard and experienced at the coal face is, that these low cost “solutions” are now the primary way of dealing with mental health and addiction.
Key stakeholders and professional health organisation appear to not have been consulted properly and sufficiently, so many have delivered damning criticism at this plan.
Now while all this is going on “discretely” in the background, I encourage all those interested to do a thorough read and study of all this. It appears – once again, that neither the media, nor politicians, are discussing and debating this highly important information in the open. I ask also, where is the opposition spokeswoman on health, whom I heard deliver yet another very mediocre speech in Parliament yesterday afternoon.
Maybe a Labour front bench re-shuffle will see to it that someone more dedicated will be looking at all relevant stuff that a spokesperson in such key area should be looking at???
As nobody in government seems to be able to rise to it, maybe someone there will soon “Rise to the Challenge”?
CV – more at peace with myself, kind of, but still committed to address issues that need attention, no matter what party affiliation or other orientations.
Yay xtasy (keep up the good work) I recommend a little extra-curricular reading and gardening myself. Oh, and listening to a little Bach, Elgar, Michael Nyman, Handel,
Vivaldi, Metallica!
RT – Yes, thanks, I have a fair bit of that in my collection, but I need to take more time out and play some of it. I have had a couple of years of pretty hard work, not for pay by the way, but just to take a stand, to defend justice, and to take on some real big players in the NZ admin system environment.
Heaps of stuff I and others learned, and more is to come, as a “mission” has been discovered and is being realised, to take things further.
Hey there – always good to welcome people back from their bans. I’ve been guilty of deserving a ban or two myself when the blood starts to boil and hit the Enter key before taking a deep breath. These days, I keep this pinned to the wall next to my monitor . . . it helps keep things in perspective.
No need for Joyce to front up … yet, … thanks to Prosser.
And whatever might, or might not, be Winston’s tactics, the stupid Prosser thing is taking attention away from Winston’s own questions being raised in the House about National’s appointment of Jenny Shipley to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Review Panel, her directorship on Mainzeal, and questions about conflicted interests.
What appears to be a solid piece of helpful information with a warning to pay attention to.
Under radionz news – rural for today
Blind push for production brings risk – consultant
A Waikato agricultural consultant says the dairy industry’s focus on more cows, more milk and ever-more production does not equal more profit for all farmers, and in fact, it puts some at a lot more risk.
Like treasury reports provide the basis for great decisions. Another area the nats want to privatise.
We aren’t large enough to support a workable private health insurance system, Oz is, only just and it’s struggling as it’s a luxury most folk go without for the public system.
Ryall’s zero sum health budgets set a scene for this. Pay more tax have better health care, healthy population is the basis of growth and propserity.
Private insurance benefits mostly the private sector not the poeple.
English contends that the productive sector wants to pay their workers less by arguing for intervention to bring the dollar down. But as we know National hate looking at other aspects of the accountancy equation. Producers who pay more to their workers and less to pay down foreigner held debt (by not growing the debt in the first place) would give their employees more buying power and so increase the demand for foreign exchange which in turn would drive down the high doller.
So let’s make this clear, people are demanding NZ dollars because our assets are under valued, our workers are underpaid, and our government rig the tax system to reward capital gain at the expense of organic NZ economic growth, but worse, the global system is rigged to reward those who get to pay their taxes in a low tax haven, and grow capital gain in higher tax NZ.
But English doesn’t like to put meat on the argument, or emphasis that when NZ employers pay NZ employees more the economy will boom, when NZ companies go bust that have too much debt, and NZ owned companies take over and pay their workers more, the dollar will drop, when NZ companies vote for a capital gains tax on a second home (investment property) then the housing bubble won’t burst just the pressure will come off and builders can start building to the demands of the NZ market not the demands of the world foreign speculators who use NZ.
Its precisely because the NZ manager classes read the Herald that they keep having problems understanding why the dollar is so high and who (them) needs to change their nasty habits of debt, low wages and chronically deficient neo-liberal economic thinking. You don’t get healthy as
a person by eating junk food, we won’t as a nation get health economically by listening to the turd
way National and the Herald newspaper.
Mr English has some farm like clothes and ready-to-wear muddied boots that provide the right outfit and look for when he goes walky walky down South. But that is about it, ha ha ha!
Mr English’s hands have not seen much farming and outdoors work. Anyone who has a sharp eye or has shaken real farmers’ hands and his hand can tell the difference.
Interesting. On Rural Roundup 😉 the other day- China, by volume, largest importer of our lamb, yet returning only $4 / kilo, half that to UK which is still largest importer by value. dear oh dearie me.
Yahoo hacking cough; take some more medication.
Sooo , now we are struglling to maintain species from extinction, Y-E.P , species that our own lifestyles are exterminating. Exterminate! Exterminate!
The City! “…man’s greatest achievement ” -Ellul (not withstanding, the toilet-roll cathedral)
Northland farmers panhandle “…they’re cutting people like us out!”
when Sport becomes the fraud and drug-crime news. (shame on those hippies though, smokin’ dope and watchin’ sport on Sky)
watched Seven Sharp, before the accident and surveillance porn that followed, and is it just me or do the presenters seem ultra-scripted and adhered to the prompters before them; not very natural. And Winston Peters? Is he on drugs or just drunk most evenings?
Education?- “the gap between the poorest 3 deciles and the wealthiest 3 grew 31.6 % between 2010 – 2011, despite a fall in achievement at the top schools”- Metiria Turei
even at study group this morning, the consensus was that these cultural memes of self-reliance, self-made, independent blah blah, will be our undoing. (see this attitude of “tolerance” of kiwis in Oz by their citizens repeated in the MSM, dear oh dear, paybacks (for our disproportionate earlier successes and hubris) may be painful)
Sadly the private prosecution of ACT leader,(ACT leader that’s a hilarity),John Banks has had to be withdrawn as the original paperwork was incorrectly filled out,(wonder if they let all the minor crims off for the same excuse),
Leave has been sought from the Judge in the Wellington district Court to re-lay the charges…
”We would be out in a war zone armed only with a pea-shooter” so says the Member for Dipton Bill English who as Minister of Finance seems to be ‘out in a war zone armed only with a pea-brain’ when it comes to intervening in the NZ$ so as to save as many jobs in this country as possible,
Bill was talking about lowering the Kiwi$ as lowering the living standards of all New Zealander’s versus having another 10,000 or so Kiwi’s lose their jobs altogether and become a political football for Him and the Minister of overseas travel for employment Paula to kick around,
Bill’s actually saying that it’s great to have 10’s of 1000’s of New Zealand workers to throw on the scrap heap of unemployment so as to keep the prices of i pads’ flat-screen TV’s and other imported shit cheap to buy for those who vote for this abysmal Slippery lead National Government,
Maybe Bill hasn’t thought of it, but even if He has He wont tell us, that a lower NZ dollar will encourage people to make the stuff we need here in New Zealand instead of importing it all from the cheap labour countries thus creating jobs,
Bill’s just another liar who refuses to face the reality that in the future we all are going to have to get by on less,there is no grand recovery from the ‘smart economy, export lead or otherwise, and the sooner the politicians in the Parliament begin to address this particular FACT and how we are to better share around our monetary resources the sooner we can all get down to actually doing so…
Well, Bill’s just operating in the conventional, orthodox, neoliberal framework. If we were to print every tenth dollar the NZ government required instead of borrowing it from overseas, we’d find that the NZD would drop in value fairly significantly.
Yep and then use the monies to embark on a proper affordable housing program where the government builds the houses and either sells them or rents them to tenants at 25% of income thus becoming the mortgage holder,
The monies taken in by Government from those it was the mortgage holder too could then be ticked off the original ‘debt’ of having created the money in the first place and the actual cash brought into the coffers could be redistributed as social programs and welfare payments to those most in need,
Thus any price rises from having lowered the value of the NZ$ by printing the money in the first place would be negated by those paying lower rent costs and lower rates of mortgage to the Government as the lender,
It’s obvious from here that ‘this’ or a variation of this will have to occur within the next ten years or the whole s**t-pile will come to a grinding halt, which would be fun but not of any real benefit in societal terms…
Richard Prosser is appearing on TV1’s 7sharp tonight, hope they ask Him why He found it necessary to be attempting to board domestic flights in New Zealand armed with a pocket-knife,
that’s the sort of s**t that Terrorists get up to…
Think Labour+Green+Mana would give a simple majority on those numbers, polls should get better for labour next month again as the left wing of NZfirst abandon ship big-time,
If Roy was doing as i suspect, reading the National vote from the high side of the margin of error and Labour from the low side he appears to have rectified that,
Not party in the street material but looking good 20 month’s out from an election, wonder if this will provoke another fainting spell from Slippery…
Actually, I’m waiting for tomorrow’s post; something like …
Another Flatlining Roy Morgan Poll:
The latest Roy Morgan poll has National on 44%, Labour 34.5%, the Greens on 13.5%, and NZ First on 4%.
It just amazes me the government can still poll close to 45% after stuff up, after stuff up.
I’m sick of hearing from the Greens “just wait, it’ll get better”. Well it’s not. You’ve been stuck on 13.5 for 4 weeks. So stop making excuses.
Labour have done their bit.
Maybe it’s time the Greens started focusing on the important stuff rather than pulling silly stunts. Instead, take some risks and put yourselves on the line for the people who put you there.
Trying to enable a National victory in 2014 by attacking the Green Party in a fit of overblown egoism over a margin of error poll rise for the Labour Party isn’t very clever…
Over two hundred comments on that post attacking Labour only two weeks ago. Sauce for the goose etc. But point taken bad; we’re all in this together.
It’s been a good few days on the unity front actually. Signs of a rapproachment between the LP and TS and now the Roy Morgan result hint at good times to come.
Right, so why not get all the parties on the “left” together, to throw off their vanities and individual member’s personal ambitions, and hammer out ONE unified left party, so that all are in it for the same one cause, which will have synergy effects, as the entrepreneurial operators so often describe the growth effect of positive combinations.
I still cannot believe, how so many choose to be divided, and it is so, when really, much more should combine and join forces.
Is it not the “branding” crap, that led us to this, now we have “Labour”, “National”, “Greens” and the likes, the word “party” is not mentioned, as it is perceived as a negative word from the past.
We have individuals try to portray themselves as “leaders”, as “spokespersons”, as “members” and whatever, but they brand themselves too, so the unifying factor becomes less relevant.
It is a result of the “corporatisation” of politics, is it not? YOU do as MP or whatever politician No longer represent, you are a “brand” to “stand” for a kind of label “option”, and anything else, even personal involvement is not even considered anymore.
This stinks, as this thinking has totally corrupted politics and society as a whole. I want to deal with people, persons and meet and see people face to face. I want to know who represents me in person, not some glossed up web page, a Facebook facade, a poster or whatever crap they present now, but I do not get what I expect.
So politics is becoming too faked, like so bloody much, I am afraid. Who can I trust, relate to and even vote?
34.5%, that’s a Labour high not achieved since late 2010/mid 2011 under Goff. Not bad at all. 34.5% in the polls on E-day will likely win the Treasury benches for Labour, at the cost of having to give up a lot of relatively minor portfolios to support parties.
Lordy, just imagine the black ops posts on KB and WO in the weeks before Xmas about cabinet scenarios. All the ‘Greens To Get Treasury, Police and the Army’ Shock Horrors.
Indeed. Certainly not out of the woods. The high water mark pre-Nov 2011 was 36% or 37%. It didn’t hold to election day. A lot of work needs to be done.
However the wrong move would be for caucus to see this as vindication of the “tide coming in” strategy.
Parliament, assuming all electorate seats stay the same:
ACT New Zealand 1 1 1
Green Party 17 0 17
Labour Party 44 22 22
Mana 1 1 1
Māori Party 1 3 3
National Party 56 42 14
United Future 0 1 0
120 70 53 (123)
And if Labour pick up a couple from National and 1 from the MP:
ACT New Zealand 1 1 1
Green Party 17 0 17
Labour Party 44 25 19
Mana 1 1 0 1
Māori Party 1 2 2
National Party 56 40 16
United Future 0 1 1
Whoops, got caught out editing that data. If no electorate seats change (ie MP, UF and ACT are a combined 5 seats, Mana 1), the current Gov’t have 61 seats in a 123 seat Parliament. Lab/Green the same, so it’d be up to Hone! (well, more likely, Peter Dunne would rediscover his socialist roots).
However, with just a minimum of likely electorate seat changes (two off National, 1 from the MP) its Nats et al 50, Lab/Green 51 (plus Hone’s one on the side) in a 122 seat house.
Of course the latter is a conservative reading of what might happen to the electorate seats. If the MP lose 2 seats, not 1, or Dunne or Banks miss out, its curtains for the Nats.
LOL, that’s still not as bad as posting an angry comment on a 3 year old post over at Red Alert, as I did earlier today! That’s a classic.
But the good news is that the only man smiling tonight over in National towers is Steven Joyce. btw, if Joyce is Mr Fixit, does that make Key Mr Fuxit?
A quick calculation (oh how I love the Elections NZ Virtual Seat calculater!) and assuming Electorate seats stay the same (a stretch I know) the results would translate into a 122 seat House:
However if Nats were to stitch a deal with the Conservatives over an Electorate seat a National/MP/Conservative/ACT/UF coalition could grab 62 seats. Actually they could take back Epsom from ACT and still do it as long as they reach an accomodation with the Conservatives.
Fascinating!
Still work to be done on the left to secure the field though – there could still be much fancy footwork around NZ First and the Conservatives which could distort it unless some big chunks are taken out of the National vote that go to the Left.
My view is that the Maori Party are going to be left with 1 seat in 2014, i am now going to have to start practicing saying bye bye Slippery without going into mad bursts of laughter…
Actually to be honest I wonder whether they will end up with any representation – their political capital seems pretty much spent – unless there is a rapprochement with Mana of course (which might actually be the logical thing for the MP to do).
Ah man sailing on His ego trip, which is what politics consists of for many, i cannot see the Maori Party and Mana joining forces, can’t see it but they definitely should,(after Turia and Sharples have gone that is),
After what was said on the Marae at firstly Ratana Pa and secondly at Waitangi you are not far off on where the Maori Party now sit in relation to what was it’s support base,
The bulk of the ‘Whanau ora’ fund that just so happened to have been spent in the electorate of Tariana Turia might ensure a reasonable turnout of the vote for the Maori Party in that electorate if they stand someone like Rahui Katene as the candidate, Ken Mair’s chances should He stand i think are about zero,
I am picking that the Labour candidate while not winning Te Ureroa Flavell’s Waiariki seat will split the vote sufficiently so as to allow Mana’s Annette Sykes to win,
The reverse i believe will occur in Sharple’s seat where the Mana candidate will pick up enough votes for Labour’s Shane Jones to prevail…
Yes – the politics of the personal should not be underestimated – I always felt that it meant the MP and Labour missed an opportunity because of personal antipathies – the events and principles that lead to the formation of the MP were legitimate and after an understandable cooling down period (the emotions were running high) the 2 parties really should have looked at how to work together – in the end the MP got some IMO minimal gains from National at the expsense of selling their soul.
Okay this is dumb question of the week.
How does Roy Morgan poll treat the non voter. The “won’t say” is 3.5% but the poll assumes they will vote? That is tiny compared to the total electorate non vote. Does Roy Morgan simply assume that all the hang up’s, non answers and “go away it’s teatime” are the non voters?
Not a dumb question at all. There may be some breakdown of the process on the Roy Morgan site and I do know that most polling companies press for an answer even if the respondent says they haven’t made up their mind. Email Roy, I’m sure he’ll tell you how it works if you ask nice.
As I understand it, most polls completely ignore the hang-ups, non-answers, and go-away-it’s-teatimes in the results.
The reported percentages are of those who answer the poll, not those who were called. So if 1000 calls are made and 100 responses received and 44 of those support National, National is reported as 44%, not 4.4% (which, while technically correct, would also be slightly absurd.)
Does this mean that an ever increasing “I’m not going to vote”, [some days I feel like joining them] simply goes unrecorded? It means that increasing disillusionment isn’t recorded?
So eventually we may get down to say 10 voters and 4.4 of them say NACT – well 4 say NACT and .4 of Peter Dunne as he spreads his personal vote around?
We have done much the same as the USA when we adopted National Standards. We have put aside intellectual rigour applied in understanding our education problem and chosen a response pathetically lacking in self-determination and heavily skewed towards genuflecting to the big guy, the USA, and so finding an excuse for visiting there and having Important Discussions about Weighty Matters with people who are richer than we are (and therefore on the scale of simple commercial value we judge by, must be better than us.)
I didn’t make a submission on the Family Court even though I think it is important. I was too busy doing other things like having a go at Prosser the Tosser. I had the idea that it closed Friday but didn’t check.
When I went to the site I saw the date but no closing time. This is important as the Electoral Commission submissions closed at 5pm. It is strange to adopt post office hours when on-line submissions are given. I would have thought that 12 am would be the deadline.
Then if you follow the information to help with submissions you have to download a booklet from a PDF. How clunky and convoluted – a barrier in fact.
I guess its too late to make a submission though it doesn’t state closing time. And I don’t feel like reading a textbook on submission making. Isn’t there a Plain English movement that would also apply to making this sort of instruction clear and short?
Go ahead and make ‘a’ submission anyway if you wish. And copy the submission to relevant parliamentary spokespeople as well as the individual members of the appropriate select committee.
Is that a submission to a parliamentary select committee?
If so, for the information of readers here, generally –
Next time, just before the deadline, or as soon as the announcement comes out, put in a quick one- or two-line submission stating that you are putting in a submission, that you wish to be heard (you can decide later and write in that you don’t wish to be heard) and that the rest of your comments will be submitted asap.
That way, even if you miss the deadline by a few minutes or a day, you are still ‘in’.
And given that you have stated you wish to be heard, you will be contacted at some stage later. (You can indicate otherwise later if you change your mind.)
Recommended reading for Paula Bennett, the Principal Health Advisor David Bratt, senior employee at MSD and for Work and Income, and even for opposition welfare and health spokespersons:
So when getting GPs to make “assessments”, to diagnose and to refer clients to specialists, always bear in mind, there may well be a “mine field” in regards to actions not being the right ones to take, in many cases, or in at least some cases.
While having relied so heavily on even MSD “trained” general practitioners, to make decisions on health, disability and work incapacity, MSD and WINZ seem to have taken risks and possibly relied on “flawed” recommendations in quite high numbers.
Even on the so-called Medical Appeal Boards (appointed by the “Chief Executive” of MSD) do usually have about 2 GPs (being “designated doctors” trained or at least “selected” by MSD) sit on them, so they tend to have a two thirds majority.
A recent workshop held by MSD on 31 Jan. 2013 does though appear to be used now, by MSD, to select comments from disability participants, saying they do NOT want to be assessed about work capacity by their GPs. Now while that may seem reasonable and sensible for some, though, that is exactly what MSD want, as they are going to take over that job under the new welfare reforms themselves! I fear that some of these advocates and disabled spokespersons are not quite aware what they are asking for. Doctors – mostly GPs – may not be right all the time, but are WINZ health and disability advisors the ones you want to rely on?
There is a lot of shit happening, like the recent “survey” MSD conducted on suggestions by various affected groups, what may assist people with ill health or disabilities back into work. I fear this is all being abused and used as an “instrument” to pick the suggestions that suit them, to justify the introduction of UK style assessments, and to force sick and disabled into work, before they may even be asked themselves.
Now much more scrutiny must be put on all this. I appeal to all opposition spokespersons on welfare and health to pay serious attention to these matters and issues.
I am sure nobody wants to have the UK scenario, with many dying trying to do work they are not able to do, or committing suicide, seeing no hope, and being unable to be taken serious as sick and disabled.
Surely, a trusted doctor and GP will need to be listened to, same as proper specialists for the conditions people suffer, but a balanced and objective and fair, fact based approach is needed, before determining sick and disabled can do some work.
One intersting relevant article is this by the way:
…this despite an expected increase by 8% in half-year operating profits.
Apparently savings have to be made and late last year, CEO Barnes signalled returns to shareholders were likely to be “ramped up” once the company’s big investment programme ended in the current financial year…so the translation would be “shareholders need more profits so let’s cut some more jobs”. Obviously rorting the consumers just isn’t cutting it.
Message to PG: re: your question on YawnNZ about missing the login. You can see the comment box yourself. Like most posters (I guess) my eyes glaze over the ‘Name (required)’ and ‘Mail’ bits above it because they come up automatically. I go straight to the comment box and start typing the sparkling bon mots you’ve grown to love so well.
Anyway, nice to see this crushingly dull event has quadrupled your usual average daily comments. Up to four now, I see! Is this a record?
The responses to Farrar’s post on KB got me totally shocked and frozen to be honest. Even Farrar seems to be shocked by at least some comments on his post. Wow, this is showing how many sickoes there are in NZ society.
I have been against too liberal migration for various reasons, also am aware (as I know about it) of some abuse of migration, but hey, this is FUCKING SICK!
Heh!! I recognise a couple of lols tr0lls in there winding it all up and giving room for the bigots to show their colours. But, seriously, you’re surprised by that? C’mon, Farrar’s Sewer reflects the general conversation you will find at pretty much any gathering of employed, sporting, wanna-be middle-class Kiwi baldheads.
If its not the Muslims its the Greenies or women or bloody maaaari – they gotta have something to hate – its as much a social lubricant as their green bottle beer. A lot of the banter is just piss and wind designed to irritate the overly sensitive but, as you can see, what passes for discourse is driven by deliberate and beligerent ignorance.
God forbid that they should actually read a scholarly book or watch a 90-minute documentary about what they think they know all about. Even worse would be admitting to having done such a thing. Nah, much easier to get their religious instruction from Fox News and then reinforce the messages amongst themselves. Its a good way for them to judge if you’re wiv ’em or agin ’em.
Unfortunately, as more and more of our best and most able head overseas, this cohort of “sickoes” is growing by the day and forms a significant political bloc. They are the sort of people who turn their stove and oven on during Earth Hour and vote National Ltd™ only to keep Labour out. Study them well.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
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Top work by the Salvation Army this morning, launching its State of the Nation report.
Good question posed in the Guardian. Should Californian police lives be risked capturing fugitive killer Christopher Dorner when a drone strike would be so much more efficient?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/11/chris-dorner-drones-lapd
A facile argument…actually, any argument… seeking to justify extra judicial killings being carried out by the state, falls a long way short of “a good question (being) posed”.
Summary judgement and execution, enacted by remote control hellfire missle. What’s not to like about extra-judicial “efficiency”. I hear Afghan villagers have really got behind the concept as being “fair and balanced”.
Further in the US, it would save all that messy expensive bullshit to do with death row: lawyers, appeals, incarceration at tax payer expense for the next 15 years etc.
Reminds me of good old Chinese (or Russian) style justice. Very efficient. Get it done, move on, the only documentation left to do being an after-action report and some coroners paper work.
Also, bringing home military tactics, procedures and technology formerly developed and used against muslim terrorists for the purposes of actions against US citizens on US soil – what could possibly be unconstitutional about that?
It couldn’t be that the survivalist nut types in the US had a point all along about not being able to trust the motivations of the Feds, could it???
Looks like the killer has been cornered. Dorner’s apparently been found in a mountain cabin; so much for the assymetrical war etc. boasting he did on fb. Just another yank nutter with easy access to weapons.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21436588
– is it still possible to have one legal standard for summary justice operating across the world; can’t we just be a little loose for those people Richard Prosser describes?
– if you’re innocent, don’t you have nothing to worry about?
– wouldn’t this make leadership selections and country elections easier?
– which side were you on watching Terminator Salvation?
– when every country in the world with a significant defence capability operates fleets of them, can we do away with armed forces then?
– are we not entertained?
Shearer on bfm. Jesus Christ. http://www.95bfm.com/assets/sm/209858/3/shearerfeb11.mp3
He starts by talking about the weather and then can’t even keep that up.
Somehow I made it to the end.
@ 8mins Shearer gives Key a pat on the back for his punitive response to students who are in Australia.
WTF Shearer?.. this is a student radio station. You just failed big time.
Students have just been told quite clearly why its not worth getting out of bed on election day.
Is this it Labour? Is this your tertiary education policy? The student loan scam will continue under stumble-face?
FFS Labour…you are killing this county.
The only upside of this interview is that most students would have turned it off before Fozzie Bear mumbled on about treating our educated people as criminals.
And he was on TV3 this morning talk about stumbling over all his words, it got so bad that he gave up the line of conversation and stumbled over the next.
Link?
Really, Daveo, you’re being a bit desperate. Shearer was asked what he did on the weekend by the DJ, replies to that bit of fluff, then moves on to answer more relevant questions quite competently, before er, returning to the weather. Pretty normal stuff for this kind of interview.
BTW, where is it from? BFM?
Note comment 4 and comment 4.2 in this thread
It appears in 4.2 someone is using Daveo’s same email address and handle to question and criticise Daveo himself in comment 4.0
This is very weird.
[lprent: It is the badly configured client side web page caching issue that pops up in a few places. ]
Daveo. A bit odd talking to yourself???
I listened via your link. Sounded like a good interview to me. He answered the questions. Was unafraid to support the decision to get NZ students in Australia to repay their debts. I think that Mr Shearer was more informative than Mr Key in a similar scenario. And chatting about the weather was the DJ’s initiative, not Mr Shearer.
I didn’t think that Shearer did too badly. But the remarkable thing is that he conveys almost nothing in terms of substance or insight into the topics he is asked about. And certainly nothing about his own personal convictions on issues.
For instance. Why did he attend Big Gay Out? Response. Well, there are Gay Labour MPs who have worked really hard for gay rights, but in fact it was just down the road from home so I could take a stroll. WTF. An opportunity to espouse important principles and values of equality, equal rights, and unhindered participation in our society to tens of thousands of people, missed, in favour of “It was within walking distance”.
Tens of thousands? Listening to BFM? Maybe back when Graeme Hill did the morning show …
edit: just spotted the Daveo doppleganger comment. That was me. It appears that I’m using the same IP address as Daveo today. Not the first time that’s happened; my work takes me to a variety of workplaces and I log in to whatever broadband server is handiest. For what it’s worth, Daveo’s email address is a generic gmail account, so I don’t know who he or she is.
that sounds very weird
have you thought about changing back to ‘voice of reason’ – your te reo joke lacks ompf and the right wingers don’t get it anyway – might be a bit more honest voice.
Ahhh fascinating…
Righties never saw the objectivist based humour in The Voice of Reason either, Marty. Come to think of it, not many lefties did either. I’ve been TRP since Waitangi Day last year and the change was both out of respect for that celebration and also to end the needless confusion TVoR seemed to bring. However, using the maori translation has allowed the occasional witless racist to riff on it, too. Hi, Pete!
The IP thing, and using multiple computers, is apparently why some of my comments also occasionally come up as TVoR. I’ll try to remember to check the ‘name and email’ boxes in future so it doesn’t happen again.
I liked the voice of reason personally and it had a reasonable back story/comment history. But yes the new name has caused a few laughs for sure.
I just posted this on the site of the witless whiner… Pete George. Saw a linkback when I was clearing spam.
So TRP, and Daveo – irritate your techs (again)..
Cheers, LP, will do. But I will also check the boxes in the meantime as well.
Good ol’ PG, eh? I see he’s too dim to even work out which ‘daveo’ comment was the doppleganger. Wait till he gets to the line about racist commentaters; how long dya reckon it’ll take before he twigs which Pete I was referring to?
PS, PG, ya wally. I have nothing to do with the leadership of the LP, apart from badgering them at every reasonable opportunity to lift their game on social media. I don’t do their talking for them and never have. Didn’t LP explain this to you only a few weeks ago?
That was me. It appears that I’m using the same IP address as Daveo today. Not the first time that’s happened; my work takes me to a variety of workplaces and I log in to whatever broadband server is handiest….
I would have thought the chance of it happening once would be remote. You must be visiting some interesting workplaces.
ps, I bet Daveo knows who you are now
I’m grateful to have a job that keeps me in touch with working Kiwis in a wide variety of industries accross rural, provincial and urban NZ, js. It certainly gives me access to a wide range of opinions and experiences which I hope adds a little authenticity to some of my comments at TS.
As for Daveo, the wee scamp, I’m pretty sure we both think we know who the other is online, but that’s Ok. Neither of us is telling. The bigger problem would be others on that server logging in to a TS comment box to try and suss both of us out.
A FRIENDLY REMINDER FOLKS!
Got a couple of STUNNING new banners which will be unfurled today – first outside the offices of Mighty River Power, then outside the offices of Mercury Energy!
Opposed to the sale of State Assets by this minority National Government (which only got 59 out of 121 MPs in the 2011 election?
Remember – the vote on the Mixed Ownership Model Act was 61 – 60.
National – who did campaign on asset sales – were dependent on the votes of dodgy John Banks – who arguably should NOT be an MP – let alone a Minister, and Peter Dunne – who DID NOT campaign on supporting State Asset sales.
SO – WHERE’S THE ‘MANDATE’?
Do the maths!
NO MAJORITY – NO MANDATE!
(In my considered opinion 🙂
http://gpjanz.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/gpja-454-rally-against-assett-sales-6pm-tomorrow-in-wellington/
WHAT’S ON IN AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND
Wednesday, February 13, 12-2pm, outside head office of Mighty River Power, 23-29 Albert St, Auckland CBD
PROTEST! Say No to Asset Sales 3:30 – 5:30 pm,
outside Mercury Energy Office, 602 Great South Road, Penrose.
…………………………………………………
Wednesday, February 13, 6pm, Frank Kitts Park in Wellington
Rally to oppose government asset sales.
The Rainbow Warrior will be in town and will drop a banner off her side in support. Join the crowd after work at Frank Kitts, bring the kids.
Hear interesting speakers (named below) and some of Wellington’s finest musicians and performers, Aroha Priest, Warren Pomana, Marama Te Kira, Skank Jigger, Lucky Ngatuere, Tribal Rizin and Brass Razoo.
Now’s the time to show you care, if you don’t like the idea of selling our assets. No other time will do. So, Wellington and anybody else, come on down and bring a couple of people with you.
Greenpeace is backing this event, so show your support for them when they’re here. Say No To Asset sales is a rally not a protest.
We all recognise the diversity of opinion in opposition to the government’s proposed sale of state assets.
We all know that we will have to fight hard to stop the sales, but that we can do it. Only by retaining 100% control of the power companies can we, the public, develop and enjoy a clean, affordable, NZ-owned energy system. Selling removes these opportunities and, crucially, replaces the chance to investigate historical and contemporary violations of the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi with mere promises that the issue of rights in water between Government and tangata whenua will somehow be unaffected by privatisation.
The following speakers at this Rally represent the diverse range of groups, organisations and factions and the vast majority of people in Aotearoa/NZ opposed to the sale of our state assets. Celia Wade-Brown, Major of Wellington City Council; Justin Duckworth, Anglican Bishop of Wellington; Nathan Argent, National Policy Adviser, Greenpeace; Dr Geoff Bertram. Senior Economics Lecturer, Victoria University; Dr Jane Kelsey, Professor Law, Auckland University; Maanu Paul, Chair, NZ Maori Council; Peter Love, Te Atiawa & Board Member Wellington Tenths Trust with mokopuna, Kaira Love, Te Atiawa; Frances Kuo, Spokesperson, Aotearoa is Not for Sale; Dr Ganesh Nana, Chief Economist, BERL; Roy Reid, National President, Grey Power; John Maynard & Steve Booth, Spokespeople, Peoples Power Ohariu.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Forwarded by Penny Bright
A Spokesperson for the Switch Off Mercury Energy community group.
Auckland rates due 20th of Feb, have you paid you rates arrears yet Penny? Are you allowed to vote if you are in rate arrears? Are you allowed to stand for mayor?
[RL: Penny has chosen to withhold paying her rates as a means of political protest; as distinct from avoiding an obligation to the Council. Your failure to mention this is of course a deliberate distortion. Virtually all protest involves some action which can be described as illegal at one level, while ethically justifiable at another. Your approach is here is not a discussion, it’s abuse. Don’t keep repeating it.]
You keep asking that same stupid personal question, do you live under a bridge,stink worse than a goat but are not one….
RL: Penny also has a proud history of challenging established authority in other ways too. She was the first woman to become a licenced welding inspector back when it was an all male club. All power to her (no pun intended!).
so its ok not to pay taxes now?
Hi ALL –
After getting a bit carried away with comments over a week ago, which was due to honest frustrations and a level of built up anger, I wish to apologise to Irishbill for losing focus on the topic, in a thread he had launched with good intentions (http://thestandard.org.nz/on-engagement-with-the-labour-caucus/).
Retrospectively I thank IrishBill for giving me a week of a “break” or holiday, as it enabled me to have a closer look at some policy and plans that this present National led government is pushing through in the health areas.
Particularly mental health and addiction treatment and care should be of interest to all those that also are highly concerned about the welfare reforms presently before the Social Services Committee in the form of the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. A high number of sick and invalids on benefits do have mental health issues, and some have addiction illnesses.
There has (from Bennett, English and Key) been talk about putting more resources into “helping” those that are on sickness and invalid’s benefits, to somehow get well and fit enough to return to work or training.
Well, by looking at the Ministry of Health’s “Rising to the Challenge: The Mental Health and Addiction Service Development Plan 2012–2017”, which Associate Minister for Health Peter Dunne (UF) presented without much notice by media and the public just about a week before Christmas last year, I have discovered, how hollow, false and misleading the statements by the government are once again.
The plan can be downloaded from this website:
http://www.health.govt.nz/publication/rising-challenge-mental-health-and-addiction-service-development-plan-2012-2017
It is full of high aspirations, “new” goals, ambiguous slogans, much talk about more responsibilities, efficiencies, effectiveness, mentions repeatedly KPIs (“key performance indicators”), but delivers very little of substance in regards to what will actually be done, what staff will be employed and trained, what resources will be made available, and how better outcomes are supposed to be achieved.
In short: It basically reveals that the mentally ill and addicted will first and foremost have to help themselves, and additional resources will NOT be made available, new resources for new focus and target areas will instead need to come from “less effective” areas in health care, which means taking money off some to help others (“re-allocation”). “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” comes to mind.
Also does it seem to be leading to a “mass medication” program that will be expected from GPs and other primary care deliverers, as what I have heard and experienced at the coal face is, that these low cost “solutions” are now the primary way of dealing with mental health and addiction.
Key stakeholders and professional health organisation appear to not have been consulted properly and sufficiently, so many have delivered damning criticism at this plan.
See some here:
http://www.nzno.org.nz/home/consultation/articletype/articleview/articleid/1350/rising-to-the-challenge–the-mental-health-and-addiction-service-development-plan-2012-2017
(see final draft consultation at bottom, PDF download)
http://www.nzma.org.nz/sites/all/files/NZMA%20Submission%20on%20the%20Mental%20Health%20%26%20Addiction%20Service%20Development%20Plan%202012-2017.pdf
http://www.psychology.org.nz/cms_show_download.php?id=1753
http://www.rnzcgp.org.nz/assets/documents/Standards–Policy/Submissions/2012.11.02-MoH-Rising-to-the-Challenge.pdf
http://anzasw.org.nz/social_work_practice/topics/show/426-release-of-rising-to-the-challenge-the-mental-health-and-addiction-service-development-plan-2012-2017
(download their submission in PDF by clicking the templet at the top right)
http://www.nzcmhn.org.nz/files/file/338/Rising%20to%20the%20Challenge%20Feedback%20form%204102012.pdf
Now while all this is going on “discretely” in the background, I encourage all those interested to do a thorough read and study of all this. It appears – once again, that neither the media, nor politicians, are discussing and debating this highly important information in the open. I ask also, where is the opposition spokeswoman on health, whom I heard deliver yet another very mediocre speech in Parliament yesterday afternoon.
Maybe a Labour front bench re-shuffle will see to it that someone more dedicated will be looking at all relevant stuff that a spokesperson in such key area should be looking at???
As nobody in government seems to be able to rise to it, maybe someone there will soon “Rise to the Challenge”?
a warm welcome back xtasy…glad to hear you are more at peace this week.
CV – more at peace with myself, kind of, but still committed to address issues that need attention, no matter what party affiliation or other orientations.
Thanks!
Yay xtasy (keep up the good work) I recommend a little extra-curricular reading and gardening myself. Oh, and listening to a little Bach, Elgar, Michael Nyman, Handel,
Vivaldi, Metallica!
RT – Yes, thanks, I have a fair bit of that in my collection, but I need to take more time out and play some of it. I have had a couple of years of pretty hard work, not for pay by the way, but just to take a stand, to defend justice, and to take on some real big players in the NZ admin system environment.
Heaps of stuff I and others learned, and more is to come, as a “mission” has been discovered and is being realised, to take things further.
.
Hey there – always good to welcome people back from their bans. I’ve been guilty of deserving a ban or two myself when the blood starts to boil and hit the Enter key before taking a deep breath. These days, I keep this pinned to the wall next to my monitor . . . it helps keep things in perspective.
Hahaha, yes it may help when you have someone wait for you in bed and reminds you!
Yay Cait Reilly.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/12/in-praise-of-cait-reilly
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/12/poundland-legal-challenge-cait-reilly-interview
Joyce will be live on TV3’s website at 12.45pm over the novapay debacle, I wonder what dog whistle he will try to spin this time.
Yeah right no sign of it he must have changed his mind
No need for Joyce to front up … yet, … thanks to Prosser.
And whatever might, or might not, be Winston’s tactics, the stupid Prosser thing is taking attention away from Winston’s own questions being raised in the House about National’s appointment of Jenny Shipley to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Review Panel, her directorship on Mainzeal, and questions about conflicted interests.
And on the TV3 website here’s Key showing what an unprincipled prick he really is.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Opinion-Key-open-to-a-deal-with-Wogistan-Party/tabid/1382/articleID/286612/Default.aspx
Or it could just be Gower having a bad news day making shit up again.
What appears to be a solid piece of helpful information with a warning to pay attention to.
Under radionz news – rural for today
That’s just common sense but you won’t find either the economists or politicians accepting that.
Unhealthy budget
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10865118
No, just raise taxes – it’s far more efficient and cost effective than private insurance.
over to them, Over We Go
http://southasia.oneworld.net/news-you-can-use/media-partnerships/dsds-2013/articles/beyond-the-tipping-point-climate-change-consequences-will-be-difficult-uk-professor
http://www.rtcc.org/climate-change-science-irrefutable-ed-davey/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/12/permafrost_releasing_co2_faster_than_previously_thought/
ciao
Like treasury reports provide the basis for great decisions. Another area the nats want to privatise.
We aren’t large enough to support a workable private health insurance system, Oz is, only just and it’s struggling as it’s a luxury most folk go without for the public system.
Ryall’s zero sum health budgets set a scene for this. Pay more tax have better health care, healthy population is the basis of growth and propserity.
Private insurance benefits mostly the private sector not the poeple.
English contends that the productive sector wants to pay their workers less by arguing for intervention to bring the dollar down. But as we know National hate looking at other aspects of the accountancy equation. Producers who pay more to their workers and less to pay down foreigner held debt (by not growing the debt in the first place) would give their employees more buying power and so increase the demand for foreign exchange which in turn would drive down the high doller.
So let’s make this clear, people are demanding NZ dollars because our assets are under valued, our workers are underpaid, and our government rig the tax system to reward capital gain at the expense of organic NZ economic growth, but worse, the global system is rigged to reward those who get to pay their taxes in a low tax haven, and grow capital gain in higher tax NZ.
But English doesn’t like to put meat on the argument, or emphasis that when NZ employers pay NZ employees more the economy will boom, when NZ companies go bust that have too much debt, and NZ owned companies take over and pay their workers more, the dollar will drop, when NZ companies vote for a capital gains tax on a second home (investment property) then the housing bubble won’t burst just the pressure will come off and builders can start building to the demands of the NZ market not the demands of the world foreign speculators who use NZ.
Its precisely because the NZ manager classes read the Herald that they keep having problems understanding why the dollar is so high and who (them) needs to change their nasty habits of debt, low wages and chronically deficient neo-liberal economic thinking. You don’t get healthy as
a person by eating junk food, we won’t as a nation get health economically by listening to the turd
way National and the Herald newspaper.
Mr English is a farmer, that should give the answer. He is only interested to have a return for his mates.
Mr English is most certainly NOT a farmer.
That is true.
Mr English has some farm like clothes and ready-to-wear muddied boots that provide the right outfit and look for when he goes walky walky down South. But that is about it, ha ha ha!
Mr English’s hands have not seen much farming and outdoors work. Anyone who has a sharp eye or has shaken real farmers’ hands and his hand can tell the difference.
What do you mean “much”?
The dude went straight from uni to treasury and then to parliament. He’s the archetypal career bureaucrat.
Okies!!!
Not much or any,
and definitely no mulch (except for his much decayed/decaying Cabinet colleagues).
Oh definitely no mulch. He has 4 state-funded servants who lie in his garden to keep the soil moist.
hmm, I wonder if that’s where all the shit from Planet Key goes too.
His Brother is the farming lobby uber leader.
Interesting. On Rural Roundup 😉 the other day- China, by volume, largest importer of our lamb, yet returning only $4 / kilo, half that to UK which is still largest importer by value. dear oh dearie me.
Yahoo hacking cough; take some more medication.
Sooo , now we are struglling to maintain species from extinction, Y-E.P , species that our own lifestyles are exterminating. Exterminate! Exterminate!
The City! “…man’s greatest achievement ” -Ellul (not withstanding, the toilet-roll cathedral)
Northland farmers panhandle “…they’re cutting people like us out!”
when Sport becomes the fraud and drug-crime news. (shame on those hippies though, smokin’ dope and watchin’ sport on Sky)
watched Seven Sharp, before the accident and surveillance porn that followed, and is it just me or do the presenters seem ultra-scripted and adhered to the prompters before them; not very natural. And Winston Peters? Is he on drugs or just drunk most evenings?
Education?- “the gap between the poorest 3 deciles and the wealthiest 3 grew 31.6 % between 2010 – 2011, despite a fall in achievement at the top schools”- Metiria Turei
even at study group this morning, the consensus was that these cultural memes of self-reliance, self-made, independent blah blah, will be our undoing. (see this attitude of “tolerance” of kiwis in Oz by their citizens repeated in the MSM, dear oh dear, paybacks (for our disproportionate earlier successes and hubris) may be painful)
on the Bohm, yet comes in for a lot of criticism. (“wat you lookin’ at Willis?”)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphic_resonance#Morphic_resonance
Sadly the private prosecution of ACT leader,(ACT leader that’s a hilarity),John Banks has had to be withdrawn as the original paperwork was incorrectly filled out,(wonder if they let all the minor crims off for the same excuse),
Leave has been sought from the Judge in the Wellington district Court to re-lay the charges…
Chalk another one up to the brothers…
This slips off radar, as it was always going to do!
[lprent: Tomorrow is the end of the ban. But removing the block. Feel free to comment. ]
”We would be out in a war zone armed only with a pea-shooter” so says the Member for Dipton Bill English who as Minister of Finance seems to be ‘out in a war zone armed only with a pea-brain’ when it comes to intervening in the NZ$ so as to save as many jobs in this country as possible,
Bill was talking about lowering the Kiwi$ as lowering the living standards of all New Zealander’s versus having another 10,000 or so Kiwi’s lose their jobs altogether and become a political football for Him and the Minister of overseas travel for employment Paula to kick around,
Bill’s actually saying that it’s great to have 10’s of 1000’s of New Zealand workers to throw on the scrap heap of unemployment so as to keep the prices of i pads’ flat-screen TV’s and other imported shit cheap to buy for those who vote for this abysmal Slippery lead National Government,
Maybe Bill hasn’t thought of it, but even if He has He wont tell us, that a lower NZ dollar will encourage people to make the stuff we need here in New Zealand instead of importing it all from the cheap labour countries thus creating jobs,
Bill’s just another liar who refuses to face the reality that in the future we all are going to have to get by on less,there is no grand recovery from the ‘smart economy, export lead or otherwise, and the sooner the politicians in the Parliament begin to address this particular FACT and how we are to better share around our monetary resources the sooner we can all get down to actually doing so…
Well, Bill’s just operating in the conventional, orthodox, neoliberal framework. If we were to print every tenth dollar the NZ government required instead of borrowing it from overseas, we’d find that the NZD would drop in value fairly significantly.
Yep and then use the monies to embark on a proper affordable housing program where the government builds the houses and either sells them or rents them to tenants at 25% of income thus becoming the mortgage holder,
The monies taken in by Government from those it was the mortgage holder too could then be ticked off the original ‘debt’ of having created the money in the first place and the actual cash brought into the coffers could be redistributed as social programs and welfare payments to those most in need,
Thus any price rises from having lowered the value of the NZ$ by printing the money in the first place would be negated by those paying lower rent costs and lower rates of mortgage to the Government as the lender,
It’s obvious from here that ‘this’ or a variation of this will have to occur within the next ten years or the whole s**t-pile will come to a grinding halt, which would be fun but not of any real benefit in societal terms…
Richard Prosser is appearing on TV1’s 7sharp tonight, hope they ask Him why He found it necessary to be attempting to board domestic flights in New Zealand armed with a pocket-knife,
that’s the sort of s**t that Terrorists get up to…
Latest Roy Morgan out. Labour up 3 and National down 2 …
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2013/4865/
[lprent: better. But the GCR is a pain. ]
![](http://www.roymorgan.com/roymorgan/library/c61744_8.jpg)
![](http://www.roymorgan.com/roymorgan/library/v61908_8.jpg)
Shearer Out Now!
Love the headline:
NATIONAL (44%) LEAD DOWN OVER LABOUR (34.5%)
LABOUR, GREENS WITH MINOR PARTIES WOULD WIN ELECTION
Think Labour+Green+Mana would give a simple majority on those numbers, polls should get better for labour next month again as the left wing of NZfirst abandon ship big-time,
If Roy was doing as i suspect, reading the National vote from the high side of the margin of error and Labour from the low side he appears to have rectified that,
Not party in the street material but looking good 20 month’s out from an election, wonder if this will provoke another fainting spell from Slippery…
“Shearer Out Now!”
Now you’re getting it. 😆
At 34% he’s still Colonel Mumblefuck leading the charge of the slight brigade.
Actually, I’m waiting for tomorrow’s post; something like …
Another Flatlining Roy Morgan Poll:
The latest Roy Morgan poll has National on 44%, Labour 34.5%, the Greens on 13.5%, and NZ First on 4%.
It just amazes me the government can still poll close to 45% after stuff up, after stuff up.
I’m sick of hearing from the Greens “just wait, it’ll get better”. Well it’s not. You’ve been stuck on 13.5 for 4 weeks. So stop making excuses.
Labour have done their bit.
Maybe it’s time the Greens started focusing on the important stuff rather than pulling silly stunts. Instead, take some risks and put yourselves on the line for the people who put you there.
Because right now, it’s just sad.
Trying to enable a National victory in 2014 by attacking the Green Party in a fit of overblown egoism over a margin of error poll rise for the Labour Party isn’t very clever…
Over two hundred comments on that post attacking Labour only two weeks ago. Sauce for the goose etc. But point taken bad; we’re all in this together.
It’s been a good few days on the unity front actually. Signs of a rapproachment between the LP and TS and now the Roy Morgan result hint at good times to come.
TRP: “We’re all in it together”
Right, so why not get all the parties on the “left” together, to throw off their vanities and individual member’s personal ambitions, and hammer out ONE unified left party, so that all are in it for the same one cause, which will have synergy effects, as the entrepreneurial operators so often describe the growth effect of positive combinations.
I still cannot believe, how so many choose to be divided, and it is so, when really, much more should combine and join forces.
Is it not the “branding” crap, that led us to this, now we have “Labour”, “National”, “Greens” and the likes, the word “party” is not mentioned, as it is perceived as a negative word from the past.
We have individuals try to portray themselves as “leaders”, as “spokespersons”, as “members” and whatever, but they brand themselves too, so the unifying factor becomes less relevant.
It is a result of the “corporatisation” of politics, is it not? YOU do as MP or whatever politician No longer represent, you are a “brand” to “stand” for a kind of label “option”, and anything else, even personal involvement is not even considered anymore.
This stinks, as this thinking has totally corrupted politics and society as a whole. I want to deal with people, persons and meet and see people face to face. I want to know who represents me in person, not some glossed up web page, a Facebook facade, a poster or whatever crap they present now, but I do not get what I expect.
So politics is becoming too faked, like so bloody much, I am afraid. Who can I trust, relate to and even vote?
34.5%, that’s a Labour high not achieved since late 2010/mid 2011 under Goff. Not bad at all. 34.5% in the polls on E-day will likely win the Treasury benches for Labour, at the cost of having to give up a lot of relatively minor portfolios to support parties.
Lordy, just imagine the black ops posts on KB and WO in the weeks before Xmas about cabinet scenarios. All the ‘Greens To Get Treasury, Police and the Army’ Shock Horrors.
It’s close, but the next one will probably go down a touch. Progressing well, but still not out of the woods IMO.
[edit] lolfuck CV – we might be slowly swapping sides at this rate 🙂
The important poll will be in 6 months time. Goff got a bounce when he ditched Carter but it did not last for very long.
And Shearer will be far more articulate and much sharper than Goff when it comes to live debate – I am so looking forward to that!
Uh? Let’s not get too carried away, eh.
Hey CV, welcome to the big brave world of my real Labour Party!
Indeed. Certainly not out of the woods. The high water mark pre-Nov 2011 was 36% or 37%. It didn’t hold to election day. A lot of work needs to be done.
However the wrong move would be for caucus to see this as vindication of the “tide coming in” strategy.
aye – in 2014 I’d be looking to have at least a couple of 40%+ under the labour belt, just as breathing room for the campaign.
Parliament, assuming all electorate seats stay the same:
ACT New Zealand 1 1 1
Green Party 17 0 17
Labour Party 44 22 22
Mana 1 1 1
Māori Party 1 3 3
National Party 56 42 14
United Future 0 1 0
120 70 53 (123)
And if Labour pick up a couple from National and 1 from the MP:
ACT New Zealand 1 1 1
Green Party 17 0 17
Labour Party 44 25 19
Mana 1 1 0 1
Māori Party 1 2 2
National Party 56 40 16
United Future 0 1 1
Whoops, got caught out editing that data. If no electorate seats change (ie MP, UF and ACT are a combined 5 seats, Mana 1), the current Gov’t have 61 seats in a 123 seat Parliament. Lab/Green the same, so it’d be up to Hone! (well, more likely, Peter Dunne would rediscover his socialist roots).
However, with just a minimum of likely electorate seat changes (two off National, 1 from the MP) its Nats et al 50, Lab/Green 51 (plus Hone’s one on the side) in a 122 seat house.
Of course the latter is a conservative reading of what might happen to the electorate seats. If the MP lose 2 seats, not 1, or Dunne or Banks miss out, its curtains for the Nats.
Lolz, rifmatic not your strong suit then Te Reo, you mean Labour/Green 61 v National and assorted scum 60 right…
LOL, that’s still not as bad as posting an angry comment on a 3 year old post over at Red Alert, as I did earlier today! That’s a classic.
But the good news is that the only man smiling tonight over in National towers is Steven Joyce. btw, if Joyce is Mr Fixit, does that make Key Mr Fuxit?
i think Slippery might be considering more of an Asian persona next, Mr Legginit Soon, i believe is His preferred name…
A quick calculation (oh how I love the Elections NZ Virtual Seat calculater!) and assuming Electorate seats stay the same (a stretch I know) the results would translate into a 122 seat House:
Nats – 55
Labour – 44
Greens – 17
MP – 3
Mana – 1
ACT – 1
UF – 1
However if Nats were to stitch a deal with the Conservatives over an Electorate seat a National/MP/Conservative/ACT/UF coalition could grab 62 seats. Actually they could take back Epsom from ACT and still do it as long as they reach an accomodation with the Conservatives.
Fascinating!
Still work to be done on the left to secure the field though – there could still be much fancy footwork around NZ First and the Conservatives which could distort it unless some big chunks are taken out of the National vote that go to the Left.
My view is that the Maori Party are going to be left with 1 seat in 2014, i am now going to have to start practicing saying bye bye Slippery without going into mad bursts of laughter…
Actually to be honest I wonder whether they will end up with any representation – their political capital seems pretty much spent – unless there is a rapprochement with Mana of course (which might actually be the logical thing for the MP to do).
Ah man sailing on His ego trip, which is what politics consists of for many, i cannot see the Maori Party and Mana joining forces, can’t see it but they definitely should,(after Turia and Sharples have gone that is),
After what was said on the Marae at firstly Ratana Pa and secondly at Waitangi you are not far off on where the Maori Party now sit in relation to what was it’s support base,
The bulk of the ‘Whanau ora’ fund that just so happened to have been spent in the electorate of Tariana Turia might ensure a reasonable turnout of the vote for the Maori Party in that electorate if they stand someone like Rahui Katene as the candidate, Ken Mair’s chances should He stand i think are about zero,
I am picking that the Labour candidate while not winning Te Ureroa Flavell’s Waiariki seat will split the vote sufficiently so as to allow Mana’s Annette Sykes to win,
The reverse i believe will occur in Sharple’s seat where the Mana candidate will pick up enough votes for Labour’s Shane Jones to prevail…
Yes – the politics of the personal should not be underestimated – I always felt that it meant the MP and Labour missed an opportunity because of personal antipathies – the events and principles that lead to the formation of the MP were legitimate and after an understandable cooling down period (the emotions were running high) the 2 parties really should have looked at how to work together – in the end the MP got some IMO minimal gains from National at the expsense of selling their soul.
Bloody good news!
NZF are looking good.
Okay this is dumb question of the week.
How does Roy Morgan poll treat the non voter. The “won’t say” is 3.5% but the poll assumes they will vote? That is tiny compared to the total electorate non vote. Does Roy Morgan simply assume that all the hang up’s, non answers and “go away it’s teatime” are the non voters?
Not a dumb question at all. There may be some breakdown of the process on the Roy Morgan site and I do know that most polling companies press for an answer even if the respondent says they haven’t made up their mind. Email Roy, I’m sure he’ll tell you how it works if you ask nice.
As I understand it, most polls completely ignore the hang-ups, non-answers, and go-away-it’s-teatimes in the results.
The reported percentages are of those who answer the poll, not those who were called. So if 1000 calls are made and 100 responses received and 44 of those support National, National is reported as 44%, not 4.4% (which, while technically correct, would also be slightly absurd.)
Does this mean that an ever increasing “I’m not going to vote”, [some days I feel like joining them] simply goes unrecorded? It means that increasing disillusionment isn’t recorded?
So eventually we may get down to say 10 voters and 4.4 of them say NACT – well 4 say NACT and .4 of Peter Dunne as he spreads his personal vote around?
Would Roy Morgan answer?
Our edumacation. A serious comment from a US teacher about the ‘No Child Left Behind” rote learning system that the US adopted around 2002 and its results there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/09/a-warning-to-college-profs-from-a-high-school-teacher/
(The Washington Post has a number of entries under the subject line I used – the washington post no child left behind. )
and
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/study-graduation-rate-accountability-weakened-under-no-child-left-behind-waive
and – Business leaders urge Congress to rewrite No Child Left Behind (Why?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/31/business-leaders-urge-congress-to-rewrite-no-child-left-behind/
We have done much the same as the USA when we adopted National Standards. We have put aside intellectual rigour applied in understanding our education problem and chosen a response pathetically lacking in self-determination and heavily skewed towards genuflecting to the big guy, the USA, and so finding an excuse for visiting there and having Important Discussions about Weighty Matters with people who are richer than we are (and therefore on the scale of simple commercial value we judge by, must be better than us.)
🙂
Something to go to in wellington:
http://t.co/yEsfFxL4
suspect all the cool kids are going to be there
heh
.lol…
@InvisibleObama
The most impressive feat was Marco Rubio turning water into whine.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/12/marco-rubios-long-drink-of-water-dominates-rebuttal-speech-coverage/
I didn’t make a submission on the Family Court even though I think it is important. I was too busy doing other things like having a go at Prosser the Tosser. I had the idea that it closed Friday but didn’t check.
When I went to the site I saw the date but no closing time. This is important as the Electoral Commission submissions closed at 5pm. It is strange to adopt post office hours when on-line submissions are given. I would have thought that 12 am would be the deadline.
Then if you follow the information to help with submissions you have to download a booklet from a PDF. How clunky and convoluted – a barrier in fact.
I guess its too late to make a submission though it doesn’t state closing time. And I don’t feel like reading a textbook on submission making. Isn’t there a Plain English movement that would also apply to making this sort of instruction clear and short?
Go ahead and make ‘a’ submission anyway if you wish. And copy the submission to relevant parliamentary spokespeople as well as the individual members of the appropriate select committee.
Is that a submission to a parliamentary select committee?
If so, for the information of readers here, generally –
Next time, just before the deadline, or as soon as the announcement comes out, put in a quick one- or two-line submission stating that you are putting in a submission, that you wish to be heard (you can decide later and write in that you don’t wish to be heard) and that the rest of your comments will be submitted asap.
That way, even if you miss the deadline by a few minutes or a day, you are still ‘in’.
And given that you have stated you wish to be heard, you will be contacted at some stage later. (You can indicate otherwise later if you change your mind.)
Have fun.
Johninsg
Thanx for advice.
Recommended reading for Paula Bennett, the Principal Health Advisor David Bratt, senior employee at MSD and for Work and Income, and even for opposition welfare and health spokespersons:
http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_document/quality-gp-diagnosis-referral-gq-inquiry-research-paper-mar11.pdf
I am sure this may well apply to NZ as well.
So when getting GPs to make “assessments”, to diagnose and to refer clients to specialists, always bear in mind, there may well be a “mine field” in regards to actions not being the right ones to take, in many cases, or in at least some cases.
While having relied so heavily on even MSD “trained” general practitioners, to make decisions on health, disability and work incapacity, MSD and WINZ seem to have taken risks and possibly relied on “flawed” recommendations in quite high numbers.
Even on the so-called Medical Appeal Boards (appointed by the “Chief Executive” of MSD) do usually have about 2 GPs (being “designated doctors” trained or at least “selected” by MSD) sit on them, so they tend to have a two thirds majority.
A recent workshop held by MSD on 31 Jan. 2013 does though appear to be used now, by MSD, to select comments from disability participants, saying they do NOT want to be assessed about work capacity by their GPs. Now while that may seem reasonable and sensible for some, though, that is exactly what MSD want, as they are going to take over that job under the new welfare reforms themselves! I fear that some of these advocates and disabled spokespersons are not quite aware what they are asking for. Doctors – mostly GPs – may not be right all the time, but are WINZ health and disability advisors the ones you want to rely on?
There is a lot of shit happening, like the recent “survey” MSD conducted on suggestions by various affected groups, what may assist people with ill health or disabilities back into work. I fear this is all being abused and used as an “instrument” to pick the suggestions that suit them, to justify the introduction of UK style assessments, and to force sick and disabled into work, before they may even be asked themselves.
Now much more scrutiny must be put on all this. I appeal to all opposition spokespersons on welfare and health to pay serious attention to these matters and issues.
I am sure nobody wants to have the UK scenario, with many dying trying to do work they are not able to do, or committing suicide, seeing no hope, and being unable to be taken serious as sick and disabled.
Surely, a trusted doctor and GP will need to be listened to, same as proper specialists for the conditions people suffer, but a balanced and objective and fair, fact based approach is needed, before determining sick and disabled can do some work.
One intersting relevant article is this by the way:
http://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/news/2013/january-2013/31/doubts-about-gps-assessing-work-fitness.aspx
If the link does not work, google “Doubts about GPs assessing work fitness” along NZ Doctor and 31 Jan. 2013.
And the good news continues to roll in for National…Contact to cut 100 jobs
…this despite an expected increase by 8% in half-year operating profits.
Apparently savings have to be made and late last year, CEO Barnes signalled returns to shareholders were likely to be “ramped up” once the company’s big investment programme ended in the current financial year…so the translation would be “shareholders need more profits so let’s cut some more jobs”. Obviously rorting the consumers just isn’t cutting it.
Capitalism and it’s mission to seek increased return on capital at any social cost, at it’s finest.
To be fair, contact are shit. Highest prices by far. Useless helpdesk. I did a merry go round, Genesis->Contact->Meridian->Power Shop
Contact by far the worst, the Meridian. Should have never changed from Genesis actually. Powershop is great.
Also, didn’t contact shed like 30k customers?
Time to re-nationalise. The private sector can’t deliver. Well, except to foreign shareholders.
Message to PG: re: your question on YawnNZ about missing the login. You can see the comment box yourself. Like most posters (I guess) my eyes glaze over the ‘Name (required)’ and ‘Mail’ bits above it because they come up automatically. I go straight to the comment box and start typing the sparkling bon mots you’ve grown to love so well.
Anyway, nice to see this crushingly dull event has quadrupled your usual average daily comments. Up to four now, I see! Is this a record?
Pip pip!
Don’t get carried away, TRP, two of the comments *are* just Pete himself demonstrating no practical knowledge of how web forms work.
Another success.
/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/12/republican-backed-for-profit-school-caught-deleting-bad-student-grades/
The responses to Farrar’s post on KB got me totally shocked and frozen to be honest. Even Farrar seems to be shocked by at least some comments on his post. Wow, this is showing how many sickoes there are in NZ society.
I have been against too liberal migration for various reasons, also am aware (as I know about it) of some abuse of migration, but hey, this is FUCKING SICK!
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/02/nz_first_mps.html#comments
.
Heh!! I recognise a couple of lols tr0lls in there winding it all up and giving room for the bigots to show their colours. But, seriously, you’re surprised by that? C’mon, Farrar’s Sewer reflects the general conversation you will find at pretty much any gathering of employed, sporting, wanna-be middle-class Kiwi baldheads.
If its not the Muslims its the Greenies or women or bloody maaaari – they gotta have something to hate – its as much a social lubricant as their green bottle beer. A lot of the banter is just piss and wind designed to irritate the overly sensitive but, as you can see, what passes for discourse is driven by deliberate and beligerent ignorance.
God forbid that they should actually read a scholarly book or watch a 90-minute documentary about what they think they know all about. Even worse would be admitting to having done such a thing. Nah, much easier to get their religious instruction from Fox News and then reinforce the messages amongst themselves. Its a good way for them to judge if you’re wiv ’em or agin ’em.
Unfortunately, as more and more of our best and most able head overseas, this cohort of “sickoes” is growing by the day and forms a significant political bloc. They are the sort of people who turn their stove and oven on during Earth Hour and vote National Ltd™ only to keep Labour out. Study them well.
WTF!!! Moderation!!! Moi???
[RL: Happens to the best of us.]