Some interesting articles in the Sunday news about the NZ of “haves”, “have nots”, inequalities and high end bludgers.
Colin Espiner (who I always thought leaned to the right), spells out what Bennett and the Nats are doing with their bennie bashing – and compares it with tax evaders, etc.“Beneficiary bashing just too easy”
It’s estimated welfare fraud costs the country between $20 million and $40m a year. Tax evasion, about which the Government has much less to say, has been estimated to cost the country anywhere from $1 billion to $6b a year.
Why the double standard? Could it be that beneficiaries are an easy target? I hope it isn’t that simple, because Bennett is a better minister than that, and should have more empathy with those at the bottom of the heap, given her back story.
So why else shout “look over there!” right at the moment?
An NZ Herald article on people who have gone bankrupt and headed overseas where they can avoid paying anything back to debtors.
I suspect their a view of an “institutional left” and a “out of leftfield left”. So Josie Pagini, Stuart Nash, these people the Herald regard as being the left they talk to and that people who know. So when they allow Morgan Godfery to write an article (and he is an absolutely brilliant and articulate writer), the Herald gets to feel good about giving these people a chance since no knows of them.
Except, it’s bullshit, because we do know of them. They just don’t fit in the Herald’s box.
I suspect Espiner is simply trying to look ‘balanced’ due to his new job (cuff the right so he can skewer the left) but I’ll take the hits on National when I get them. Nice closing lines.
“But the Government doesn’t want you to think about this, let alone get angry about it. No. It would much rather you focused your attention on an ancient, lazy stereotype.
After all, beneficiaries can’t afford defamation lawyers. And they probably don’t vote National.”
Exactly my thoughts too geoff. She’s incompetent as far as Social Welfare is concerned, she may be good at the neoliberal ‘Welfare is a problem which we need to get rid’ bullshit but she doesn’t give a shit about the real problem which is poverty. She is an arrogant piece of shit to boot.
Trying to reduce benefit fraud does not mean IRD are not trying to address tax dodging and repayment avoidance. For example:
Management of Debt and Outstanding Returns (M57)
Taking follow-up action where returns are outstanding and where payments are overdue, including providing people with assistance on the actions they need to take to meet their obligations.
2007/08 Budgeted $85,097,000
2008/09 Estimated Actual $88,352,000
2009/10 Estimated Actual $90,335,000
2010/11 Estimated Actual $100,229,000
2011/12 Estimated Actual $109,476,000
2012/13 Estimated Actual $116,874,000
2013/14 Budget $124,896,000
What’s your point Pete? You really do need to get a fcking grip!
No-one is saying or has said that IRD do nothing to track tax. What is being said over and over again is that those on welfare entitlements are being vilified, that the sum totals involved are exaggerated, and that the punishments meted out are far harsher than for tax dodgers – who cost society much, much more money, while enjoying a free ride in the arena of manufactured public opinion.
I often hear people claiming National harasses beneficiaries but does nothing about tax dodging/evasion.
@DavidCunliffeMP
Welfare fraud, $23 million = National obsession. Tax dodging, $6 BILLION = National doing nothing.
And that “Tax dodging, $6 BILLION” is at best misleading and exaggerated.
“those on welfare entitlements are being vilified, that the sum totals involved are exaggerated, and that the punishments meted out are far harsher than for tax dodgers”
Can you substantiate that? If you can I’ll post on it.
like the srylands the other day, wasting time and saying I had obvious mental health problems because I believed over 200,000 kids in NZ live in poverty.
(Which I admit I was annoyed by, seeing as he knows full well I have admitted on this blog that I live with PTSD and Chronic Depression. So thought it somewhat of a cheap shot.)
So if he’d said $1bil, they wouldn’t try to quibble over the number?
Look, it’s tory playbook page 2: any number the opposition comes up with, no matter how robust, quibble over it and claim that the slightest debatability in the amount negates the entire argument.
All you can do is let themexhaust the tactic so it no longer works. Getting into a debate about the minutae derails the wider argument.
I’m not about to dig back through the archive for the discussion and the links. Suffice to say that if a person on entitlements is ‘had up’ for fraud, they are done for the entire total of their entitlement and not merely the portion that has been fraudulently claimed. And it is that sum total that is reported in the media.
punishments meted out are far harsher than for tax dodgers
There was a lot of commentary on a recent study highlighting the frequency of jail time for ‘beneficiaries’ versus tax fraudsters. Again, I’m not about to run around finding it. I’m sure you can use google search. Also note…tax dodgers who do jail time, do it in lieu of repayment while those of entitlements do jail time and can then be chased up by WINZ to repay the entire sum total of all their entitlements (not just the portion of their claim that was fraudulent)
Pete seems to be confusing those who have had an assessment or default assessment issued which gives the figures he quoted (and amounts due as debt) with aggressive evasion where amounts are omitted from returns or schemes set up to gut tax.
On a completely different angle would Lprent be able to put in one of those thread closers like email inboxes have. Then we could just close Pete’s threads up so we don’t have to read them.
“…Can you substantiate that? If you can I’ll post on it..”
This is substantiated through the research of Dr Lisa Marriott, Senior Lecturer in the School of Accounting and Commercial Law at Victoria University.
“Her analysis of court data on the most serious offending from 2008–2011 shows that 22 per cent of people found guilty of tax offences received a custodial sentence while 60 per cent of benefit fraudsters were imprisoned.
Dr Marriott’s investigation also shows tax crimes are more costly, with those given custodial sentences committing offences valued at just over $800,000. Benefit fraud averaged $67,000 per offender.
Benefit fraud cost New Zealand $22 million in 2010, or around $5 for each New Zealander. While it is difficult to get accurate figures for tax evasion, the Tax Justice Network estimates New Zealand missed out on more than $7.4 billion of tax revenue in 2011, or around $1,500 per New Zealander.
“So the figures for tax evasion are phenomenal while they are relatively small for benefit fraud,” says Dr Marriott, “but we have quite different attitudes to the two crimes.”
One issue I’ve seen mentioned is that welfare fraud is often relatively simple and most evidence can be found within Government data from social welfare and IRD, so presumably is easier to detect and easier to prosecute. Tax evasion can be far more complex and easier to hide in private company records (or absence of records).
It’s more difficult to recover huge amounts of money than small amounts in any sort of fraud case.
Tax evasion covers a wide range of situations and demographics, from corporate level fraud to individuals failing to report income avoiding income tax and GST, and paying cash for work avoiding PAYE and ACC.
None of this excuses either type of fraud.
My opinion is that large scale fraud should result in larger sentences.
My opinion is that large scale fraud should result in larger sentences
The use of multinationals by the US and other regimes to make their companies more competitive (read subsdise) is the fundamental cause of financial instability (read minsky instability) and that this is done in plain sight ie not hidden should be ringing alarm bells in every jurisdiction where tax takes are not meeting expectations (read forecasts)
Yes we can. Sure, we may see a slight decline in imports but that’s nothing compared to being constantly stolen from. We’d probably see an increase in products made here as well.
SSpylands, I’m sure even you could figure out how to address tax evasion across the board in NZ without contravening the WTO. It doesn’t need to involve access restrictions or subsidies.
What are you going to do that does not breach WTO rules genius?
Drop out of the WTO. Belonging to it obviously isn’t doing us any good.
Drop out of the World Bank as well and set up our own banking system thus removing any need for foreign money.
Put in place reciprocal tariffs that means that trade is fair.
There, done.
Unilateral action will lead to us becoming disconnected from globalisation.
That you could do it relatively fast,and introduce sunset clauses (event horizon for the black holes) for trusts would show that NZ could by a leader ,Europe would follow very quickly.
You sod off. I am not a Nazi. Stop being rude. As Pete says it is a worldwide problem that requires internaional action. Unilateral action will lead to us becoming disconnected from globalisation.
Oh yes I forgot – you are xenophobic and hate the poor so you don’t care about that.
The rate of convictions is one thing, but the regularity of the incarceration of convicted benefit fraudsters compared to convicted Income/business tax fraudsters is eye-watering in its contrasted realities Pete.
and btw, home detention in the nice house with sky and internet and delivery to your door of whatever you want to buy is hardly what those in stuck in 23 hours a day lockdown would call incarceration.
Why not get Politicheck to do a little work on that particular subject?
No Pete. Going by the nature of your comments, you’re engaging in order to evaluate opinions or formulate opinions of your own. And that has got absolutely nothing to do with facts.
Facts do not need to be dressed up. They need to be stated within their correct context – end.
Social media can be an effective way of identifying different angles to issues. Yes facts are facts but finding all pertinent facts can be quite difficult. Crowd sourcing angles can help, sometimes substantially.
Pete. I’m not making any fucking assumptions whatsoever. I’m simply reading the content of your fucking comments.
Think about this Pete. Facts are (as you acknowledge) facts. Yet you say you are seeking different angles to issues and that crowd sourcing angles can (sometimes) substantially help in finding facts. I mean, seriously!?
If the fact is false, it’s false. If it’s being used in a misleading way, it’s misleading. If it’s being used out of context or being divorced from other pertinent facts, then it’s misleading, yes?
What I, or anyone else thinks about fields of thoughts surrounding facts is completely and utterly irrelevant. As I pointed out when you first popped up as being prominent within this fact checking malarky – you lack the critical faculties or approach necessary for such a role. Your latest comment just underlines that contention in big shouty red marker pen.
Bill, I don’t know what you look for on blogs and in social media but I see a lot of very good information and facts, often from experts in their fields. People are often happy to provide information and links to facts if you ask, even here sometimes. Of course it’s not the only place to look but it can be useful – as has been demonstrated above. The more people providing input – and constructive criticism – the better.
In politics sometimes the only way of getting pertinent information is if someone tells you. The more people you ask and the more places you look the better the chance of finding out. Especially in a modern interactive world.
Espiners most interesting comment concerned South Canterbury Finance.
$1,700,000,000 paid to crappy investors in SCF.
That is 57 years worth of benefit fraud…. 57 years worth …..
Key and English knew on the day they were elected that SCF was going to fail. Why then, was the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme amended by Key and English to allow SCF to continue to participate? THIS IS THE QUESTION FOLKS
This is the single biggest fraud conducted in NZ – the fraud of Key and English in letting SCF participate.
Yup, SCF has a stench about it that should be dug up when the opportunity arises.
Be a good reminder to all NZ what this regime has been really all about and just maybe slap a bit of that gullability out of the sheeple.
Shonkey and cohorts will have covered their tracks and the trail is cooling but I dont care if noone gets fingered, NZ needs to see how the nact blagged nearly 2bill easy as pie.
“Colin Espiner (who I always thought leaned to the right)…..”
I’ve noticed amongst some of my Natzi/right wing acquaintances that they’re becoming a little embarrassed by their own excessive greed and troughing as that gap widens. The other day as I walked through Wellington with one such and we passed a number of closed down premises, I stopped to talk to one of the growing number of ‘beggars’ to learn their story. They had to admit that they’re not the exceptions spin doctors would like us to believe.
(Btw – not only are they beginning to question their excess, but they profess to hold ‘Christian values’)
Though no longer adhering to the dogma, I was raised in a Christian household in which care and concern for others was paramount. This was before that ghastly American religious concept of personal wealth and entitlement crept in to our society – it’s like a cancer, and anything less aligned to the original concepts of Christianity is hard to imagine.
What is painfully clear is that Paula Bennett is by ommission at least, a dirty liar.
Add to that ‘a bully’. Add to that ‘a sociopath’ who advisedly foments hatred against the weakest and poorest in society. And for what ? For her personal advancement and her personal power.
I hope there are sermons being delivered around the country this morning which brand her for what she is – a dirty liar, a bully, a sociopath. I borrow JanM’s final sentence in her comment @ 2.1 above.
Q + A right now – the staggering hypocrisy of Richard Prebble contrasting Hone’s colours when he entered Parliament with MANA talking to KDC now ??????
Prebble made a career out of scabbery then extended it with scabbery. FFS !!!!!!
Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble, Michael Bassett (and one or two other former Labour luminaries) have never forgiven the left of centre faction inside Labour for winning “the faction war” of the 1980s and early 1990s. I witnessed the bitterness and vengeful attitude they displayed towards Helen Clark in particular during the 90s. It was as if they believed they were the ones who had been betrayed when in reality they did the betraying… of the principles which have always guided the NZ Labour Party. Their sexism, and the degrading way they talked about Labour women MPs behind their backs was awful.
I am of the view Prebble’s extreme hostility towards Labour – and the Greens by association – has it’s origins more in personal bitterness/hatred towards them than it does in political considerations. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to see them destroyed and he will continue to do his bit to achieve that goal. Very sad because he was once quite a likeable character – its true. 🙂
Very sad because he was once quite a likeable character – its true.
When? I’m seriously curious.
What I find intriguing about Douglas, Prebble, Caygill and co is that they likely came from socialist backgrounds. What did/do their families think about their actions?
Back in the 70s Hamish. He was a young man in his 20s, but even then he was a bit of a pain in the sense he liked to be the one who had the last say. I remember Labour Regional meetings in Auckland where he would be leaping up and down in his seat being a pain in the neck. But at least he was a Labour loyalist in those days. I don’t think he has any political principles any more. He just goes where he thinks its going to be best for him.
You’re right. Douglas, Prebble and Bassett (I think) came from strong Labour backgrounds. Don’t know about Caygill but expect he did too.
I think it started with Douglas. He was the guru of Labour’s neo-liberal faction back in the 80s. Even had Lange fooled for a while, but he eventually saw the light. And to be fair I think quite a few people in Labour who originally supported Douglas eventually saw the light too.
Who brain-washed Douglas is harder to ascertain but business tycoon Alan Gibbs was in there somewhere…
Yes and Douglas must have been indoctrinated before the Lange government because he hit the ground running, right?
I thought that the treasury in the 1970s had something to do with pushing supply side/neolib on governments?
Clearly in light of the half billion spent in Britain on useless Tamiflu and useless stockpiling here there needs to be revisions in the health business
Kim Hill talking to Catherine De Angelis ( Editor Journal American Medical Assn) on transparency in medical research, taking on the pharmaceutical companies and research as distinct from marketing
In New Zealand it is all swept under the carpet as per usual by the bureaucracy ….someone needs to be held to account….at very least a review and changes must be made as to how we evaluate big drug company big profit items eg vaccines bought by the government and foisted on the public
This is taxpayer health money that is being wasted
Nothing makes the private sector big money like that delicious combination of imagined crisis, fear, hype, and lots of experts saying all this tax payers money must be spent on corporate products, ASAP!
Yep CV, i have posted a comment or two a month or so back relating to Tamiflu,H1N1 and how there is some belief that this whole ‘program’ of pandemic fear was in fact rumored to be a payback to big Pharma for the US CDC,(who decide what the annual flu predominant in the western world will be every year),having got it horribly wrong in a previous year causing big Pharma a substantial loss by having them produce the wrong flu jab in the millions for that year,
There is of course no ‘proof’ of the truth or otherwise of such a rumor,(can anyone imagine the participants ‘fessing up’)…
There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye, i have been digging around looking for something that would indicate a tie in with ‘bird-flu’ that has no means of infecting humans and the ‘habit’ of H1N1 to suddenly reappear as a full on flu in people that years ago during the supposed ‘pandemic year’ had a dose of it,
Surrounding these re-infections might be a co-dose of the chicken pox and/or a painful bout of shingles,
Can a flu virus be made that uses another virus to piggy back on where the flu virus may not have the means of infecting the human body from the outside but if it were piggy backed onto an entirely different virus as the means of entry might in turn replicate,
The bigger picture is that this tamiflu debacle hat finally opens the door wide on all pharmaceutical research/testing.
For some time, there has been a wealth of information around regarding the research/testing of psychotropic medication. Unfortunately, a lot of that info is propagated by the scientologists, and so has been summarily dismissed despite of the quality of the information.
Maybe that will change now insofar as the regime underpinning tamiflu is a mirror image of what some (not just the Church of Scientology) have tried to highlight with regards psychotropic medication. I really do hope so.
p.s. wasn’t there a scathing article on tamiflu when it was being rolled out? From memory the shelf life and efficacy were being questioned even as governments were stocking up. Also there was concern over the influence Dick Cheney was able to exert given that he was a major shareholder. Was all something like that. My memory gets a bit fuzzy these days, so don’t just take my word for all of that.
Tamiflu is most likey overpriced but is effective in lifethreatening circumstances but only mildy effective in everyday flu’s.
Given swine flu could have turned out much worse it was a good decision tamiflu is not a vaccine.
Now the flu vaccine has a swine flu vaccine included.
Big pharma profited out of ignorance and panic they should be made to pay the price gouging back.
To say we are getting overcharged in general for vaccines is bullshit.
Vaccines save us .
+save $100’s of millions a year in health costs.
Pharmac have worlds best practice in purchase agreements.
My children have all been vaccinated and are much healthier than those who weren’t.
I read widely on health care issues.
People who believe vaccines are dangerous have no scientific evidence to back their claims other than a retired Pro Wrestler with conspiracy concerns.
‘Tamiflu is most likey overpriced but is effective in lifethreatening circumstances but only mildy effective in everyday flu’s.’
The initial ‘evidence’ furnished to support claims of a reduction in flu complications included trial patients self-reporting pneumonia, with no clinical testing of the diagnosis.
Yep I agree. This judge seems to have the concept of restorative justice totally screwed. She is not the offender’s therapy, she should not be asked if she wants to be and refusal to do so should not be counted against her or even commented on. I saw one survey where around half the people who attended the so called “restorative justice” conferences left feeling worse than when they arrived.
The sentence seems very light But hey a lot of this isn’t really that unusual I suspect. Time for the Chief justice to have the retirement talk with this Judge and the time is well overdue for all Judges to be sent off for some solid learning about behavioural attitudes and how they represent the whole community not just those with the same prejudices as them and how the judges own prejudices affect them. Justice isn’t just a male view of reasonable. .
The stuff article, headline and opening sentence is dramatically overstated..Judge Saunders was not “slammed”.
The judges reluctance was successfully challenged by the crown prosecutor, the judge agreed but was criticized by McVicar. No problem there..but”slammed” is sub-editor’s sensationalizing to provoke public interest.All too common in our tabloid media.
The spin in that opening line is a fucking disgrace! As if the headline wasn’t bad enough.
Two political parties had a meeting and now the group leaders want to discuss it all with the grass root members… my god what a travesty.
Did you know that sort of behaviour was allowed in a modern democracy?
Imagine wanting to garner informed consent for democratic action, terrible, just terrible.
”Gush oh gush gush”, i run into the Woyals this morning on my way home from the vege market, not literally of course, and no the thought didn’t even cross my mind,
The Spongers in chief had the luxury of crashing the Red at the Kilbirnie lights this morning on their way to the airport,(it takes a ten vehicle convoy to get these sponges from government House to the airport with i presume 5 sets of traffic lights along the way all stopped by the plods disrupting our day while these wastes of space get whisked off for a trip down South),
We made eye contact, gush, i swear we made i contact, gush, well me and the plod stopping the traffic at the bottom set of the Kilbirnie lights sure did when i started yelling ”why should we be stopped for these spongers”(if looks could kill and all that, haven’t seen one of them since way back when i got the stare of death from John Bank’s pet plod Inspector Sharky as i gave it to Banks about His appearance that day in the District Court),
i consoled myself with the fact that their Woyal lownesses were being dragged through the back entrance to Wellington airport, and, the prices at the vege market were again good on my pocket and well worth the effort of dragging myself out into a Wellington Southerly,
18 pieces of fruit, half a pumpkin,half a red cabbage, a bunch of spring onions, 2 avocados, bag of carrots, 2 tomato,2 lemons for 17 bucks,
Have found that you have to do a circuit of all the stalls befor you buy to check who has the best prices of the week, pity the people selling there weren’t provided with a prominent and permanent space in a central location so they could sell their stuff, would sure as hell fix what ails the supermarkets 40% markups in a short space of time,
Tonight’s dinner, baked Terakihi fillet(with onion and tomato), surrounded by a vege bake featuring Kumara, Potato, Pumkin,Broccoli, and Carrot,topped off with a thick sauce flavored with peanut,garlic, and ginger along with a side dish of roasted red cabbage basted with clover honey…
A ten vehicle convoy? That is absurd. Okay lets do a list.
Police car in front lights flashing.
Plain car with DPS bodyguards.
Official car carrying personal staff – lady in waiting, male equivalent whatever that is, couple of secretaries.
Will and Kate.
Another police car lights flashing.
So who is in the other five? Boot lickers and spies?
I don’t know what time Bad12 buys his grocery! According to the now almost sickening media coverage, the royals were in Dunedin at 9:30am. They must have been in the plane by 9am at the latest.
Buying grocery at 8am, that’s commitment there, I have to say.
I’m a morning person. But I’m a “in my dressing gown, breakfast and tea, at my desk writing” morning person. Out of the house on a weekend by 8am? That doesn’t happen too often!
Advocates see the “neoliberal agenda” (i.e. freeing the market from constraints such as regulations and tariffs) as going hand-in-hand with freedom, even when the results across the world tell a very different tale.
We barely have to look before finding new new waves of protest (e.g. Turkey, Brazil, and Slovenia) against the intimate connection between neoliberalism, corruption, authoritarianism, and austerity measures.
I was just wondering if the fact that p William being a best friend of d.Beckham makes him thick as batshit. Maybe he should ask p.m.clodhopper! His new bff.
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Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
Dairy prices increased by 3.9% across the board at the latest Fonterra global auction. The lift followed rises of 1.3% and 4.3% in the December auctions which took dairy prices to their highest level in 11 months, defying those analysts who believed Covid-19 had disrupted dairy markets. In the latest ...
America's Cup team American Magic has spoken publicly after their boat Patriot capsized when on its way to their first win of the Challenger Selection Series yesterday. Patriot dramatically capsized yesterday, becoming temporarily airborne before crashing back into the water and tipping. The boat, helmed by New Zealander Dean Barker, could not be ...
It’s a seemingly age old question: why do Auckland’s beaches become unswimmable after every single downpour? Stewart Sowman-Lund investigates.Ah, the beach. A staple of the New Zealand summer. Unless, of course, you’re based in Auckland and it’s raining. The start of 2021 has been a lot like every other New ...
We have opened a book, among members of the Point of Order team, on how long it will be before the PM offers to sort out the land dispute at Wellington’s Shelly Bay and (to win the double) how much the settlement will cost taxpayers. Just a few weeks ago ...
Breakfast TV news is back for 2021, and Tara Ward got up early to watch. “Thank god it’s almost Christmas,” John Campbell said during the opening minutes of Breakfast’s premiere episode of the year. “2021’s been rough so far. I’m buggered”. We’re all buggered, to be fair, but I’m worried that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Griffith University The blame for the recent assault on the US Capitol and President Donald Trump’s broader dismantling of democratic institutions and norms can be ...
Despite a popular and unifying leader of the governing party, divisions both in policy and culture will test the progressive movement, writes Peter McKenzie.‘I think we’re confused.” Marlon Drake is an organiser for the Living Wage Movement. His job takes him all over Wellington, trying to convince businesses to increase ...
Covid-19 Recovery Minister Chris Hipkins says vaccinations should be available to the public by the middle of the year, but other countries are prioritised. ...
It’s as true now as it ever has been: nowhere else offers an education experience like that of Dunedin. But rather than resting on their laurels, the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic have plans to make the city an even more inspiring place for students.From high in the summit ...
Haggis, neeps and tatties and whisky may not be a traditional spread for a summer gathering in NZ, but trust Auckland city councillor and Kiwi-Scot Cathy Casey on this one. Gie it laldy! Rule one: Hold it on (or near) January 25Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759. Since the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University It could be argued artificial intelligence (AI) is already the indispensable tool of the 21st century. From helping doctors diagnose and treat patients to rapidly advancing new drug discoveries, it’s our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University Through recent natural disasters, global upheavals and a pandemic, Australia’s political centre has largely held. Australians may have disagreed at times, but they have also kept faith with governmental norms, eschewing the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Seale, Associate professor, UNSW Health workers are at higher risk of COVID infection and illness. They can also act as extremely efficient transmitters of viruses to others in medical and aged care facilities. That’s why health workers have been prioritised to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Orchard, Adjunct Lecturer, Monash University Last week, somewhat overshadowed by the events in Washington, the Democrats took control of the US Senate. The Democrats now hold a small majority in both the House and the Senate until 2022, giving President-elect Joe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mittul Vahanvati, Lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University Heatwaves, floods, bushfires: disaster season is upon us again. We can’t prevent hazards or climate change-related extreme weather events but we can prepare for them — not just as individuals ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandie Shean, Lecturer, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Starting school is an important event for children and a positive experience can set the tone for the rest of their school experience. Some children are excited to attend school for the first ...
Some families in emergency housing are reporting their children are becoming emotionally distressed because of their living conditions. Demand for emergency accommodation has escalated this past year with the number of emergency housing grants increasing by half. Data showed nearly 10,000 people were given an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant between ...
Summer reissue: Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden are back for a second season of On the Rag, and where better to start than with the mysterious, exhausting world of wellness?First published June 23, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
With few Covid-19 infections and negiligible natural immunity, New Zealand faces being a victim of its own success when it is left till last to get the vaccines, argues Dr Parmjeet Parmar. ...
Steve Braunias reports on a literary cancelling. The Corrections department has refused to allow Jared Savage's best-selling book Gangland inside prison on the grounds that it "promotes violence and drug use". An inmate at Otago Corrections Facility in Dunedin was sent a copy of the book – but it was ...
New data from the CTU’s annual work life survey shows a snapshot of working people’s experiences and outlook heading out of 2020 and into the new year. Concerningly 42% of respondents cite workplace bullying as an issue in their workplace - a number ...
The dramatic capsize of American Magic brought out the best in the America's Cup sailing fraternity. But, Suzanne McFadden asks, what does it mean to the crippled New York Yacht Club campaign and to the Prada Cup? It was a scene as unreal as it was calamitous. Right at the moment the ...
An international player, selector and self-confessed cricket stats nerd, Penny Kinsella has now played a hand in recording the rich history of the women's game in New Zealand. Penny Kinsella’s cricketing career was perched on the cusp of change for the White Ferns. “My first tour to Australia, we ...
The current number of members of parliament is starting to get too low for the job we expect them to do, argues Alex Braae. As a general rule, with the possible exception of their families, nobody likes backbench MPs. But it’s nevertheless time we accepted that parliament should have more of ...
The experience in the Brazilian city of Manaus reveals how mistaken, and dangerous, the herd-immunity-by-infection theory really is. As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop ...
As New Zealand gears up to fight climate change, experts warn that we need to actually reduce emissions, not just plant trees to offset our greenhouse gases. ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
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.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Some interesting articles in the Sunday news about the NZ of “haves”, “have nots”, inequalities and high end bludgers.
Colin Espiner (who I always thought leaned to the right), spells out what Bennett and the Nats are doing with their bennie bashing – and compares it with tax evaders, etc.“Beneficiary bashing just too easy”
An NZ Herald article on people who have gone bankrupt and headed overseas where they can avoid paying anything back to debtors.
An article by Morgan Godfery in the Herald on Sunday, on the celebrity royal tour that is a “colonial hangover”. He’s for a republic.
Also interesting is that at the bottom of the Godfery artilce, is an editorial note:
which suggests they don’t usually have many op eds from the left….?
I suspect their a view of an “institutional left” and a “out of leftfield left”. So Josie Pagini, Stuart Nash, these people the Herald regard as being the left they talk to and that people who know. So when they allow Morgan Godfery to write an article (and he is an absolutely brilliant and articulate writer), the Herald gets to feel good about giving these people a chance since no knows of them.
Except, it’s bullshit, because we do know of them. They just don’t fit in the Herald’s box.
I suspect Espiner is simply trying to look ‘balanced’ due to his new job (cuff the right so he can skewer the left) but I’ll take the hits on National when I get them. Nice closing lines.
“But the Government doesn’t want you to think about this, let alone get angry about it. No. It would much rather you focused your attention on an ancient, lazy stereotype.
After all, beneficiaries can’t afford defamation lawyers. And they probably don’t vote National.”
Colin Espiner said “I hope it isn’t that simple, because Bennett is a better minister than that,”
What planet is he on?
Exactly my thoughts too geoff. She’s incompetent as far as Social Welfare is concerned, she may be good at the neoliberal ‘Welfare is a problem which we need to get rid’ bullshit but she doesn’t give a shit about the real problem which is poverty. She is an arrogant piece of shit to boot.
It’s not that she’s incompetent – it’s that she’s a psychopath.
Planet Key.
Trying to reduce benefit fraud does not mean IRD are not trying to address tax dodging and repayment avoidance. For example:
The IRD annual report details how they address compliance and avoidance.
What’s your point Pete? You really do need to get a fcking grip!
No-one is saying or has said that IRD do nothing to track tax. What is being said over and over again is that those on welfare entitlements are being vilified, that the sum totals involved are exaggerated, and that the punishments meted out are far harsher than for tax dodgers – who cost society much, much more money, while enjoying a free ride in the arena of manufactured public opinion.
Settle down Bill.
I often hear people claiming National harasses beneficiaries but does nothing about tax dodging/evasion.
And that “Tax dodging, $6 BILLION” is at best misleading and exaggerated.
“those on welfare entitlements are being vilified, that the sum totals involved are exaggerated, and that the punishments meted out are far harsher than for tax dodgers”
Can you substantiate that? If you can I’ll post on it.
And Pete George rushes to National’s rescue – again.
And once again wastes the Left’s time demanding to be shown proof of long-established facts.
The sky is blue? Can you substantiate that, it looks grey to me.
like the srylands the other day, wasting time and saying I had obvious mental health problems because I believed over 200,000 kids in NZ live in poverty.
(Which I admit I was annoyed by, seeing as he knows full well I have admitted on this blog that I live with PTSD and Chronic Depression. So thought it somewhat of a cheap shot.)
There is still a valid point.
The actual figures for revenue lost through tax evasion are between $1 billion and $6 billion per year.
(As quoted in the NZ Herald last year: “$1 billion to $6 billion a year – is the amount calculated to be lost to government coffers through tax evasion each year.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10871292)
By using the $6 billion, Cunliffe immediately gives the other side a ‘Get out of jail free’ card because they can attack the figure, not the point.
As happened here.
Just another example of a good idea poorly executed.
So if he’d said $1bil, they wouldn’t try to quibble over the number?
Look, it’s tory playbook page 2: any number the opposition comes up with, no matter how robust, quibble over it and claim that the slightest debatability in the amount negates the entire argument.
All you can do is let themexhaust the tactic so it no longer works. Getting into a debate about the minutae derails the wider argument.
Just from the past day or so Pete….
http://www.writehanded.org/blog/2014/04/10/jet-setting-beneficiaries-how-lucky-are-we/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/columnists/9918632/Life-on-the-wings-of-Paulas-dole-is-a-breeze
http://www.thelittlepakeha.net/2014/04/04/wrestling-with-the-narrative/
I’m not about to dig back through the archive for the discussion and the links. Suffice to say that if a person on entitlements is ‘had up’ for fraud, they are done for the entire total of their entitlement and not merely the portion that has been fraudulently claimed. And it is that sum total that is reported in the media.
There was a lot of commentary on a recent study highlighting the frequency of jail time for ‘beneficiaries’ versus tax fraudsters. Again, I’m not about to run around finding it. I’m sure you can use google search. Also note…tax dodgers who do jail time, do it in lieu of repayment while those of entitlements do jail time and can then be chased up by WINZ to repay the entire sum total of all their entitlements (not just the portion of their claim that was fraudulent)
Pete seems to be confusing those who have had an assessment or default assessment issued which gives the figures he quoted (and amounts due as debt) with aggressive evasion where amounts are omitted from returns or schemes set up to gut tax.
On a completely different angle would Lprent be able to put in one of those thread closers like email inboxes have. Then we could just close Pete’s threads up so we don’t have to read them.
“…Can you substantiate that? If you can I’ll post on it..”
This is substantiated through the research of Dr Lisa Marriott, Senior Lecturer in the School of Accounting and Commercial Law at Victoria University.
“Her analysis of court data on the most serious offending from 2008–2011 shows that 22 per cent of people found guilty of tax offences received a custodial sentence while 60 per cent of benefit fraudsters were imprisoned.
Dr Marriott’s investigation also shows tax crimes are more costly, with those given custodial sentences committing offences valued at just over $800,000. Benefit fraud averaged $67,000 per offender.
Benefit fraud cost New Zealand $22 million in 2010, or around $5 for each New Zealander. While it is difficult to get accurate figures for tax evasion, the Tax Justice Network estimates New Zealand missed out on more than $7.4 billion of tax revenue in 2011, or around $1,500 per New Zealander.
“So the figures for tax evasion are phenomenal while they are relatively small for benefit fraud,” says Dr Marriott, “but we have quite different attitudes to the two crimes.”
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/sacl/research/projects#MarsdenFastStart
+111
Thanks, that’s helpful.
One issue I’ve seen mentioned is that welfare fraud is often relatively simple and most evidence can be found within Government data from social welfare and IRD, so presumably is easier to detect and easier to prosecute. Tax evasion can be far more complex and easier to hide in private company records (or absence of records).
It’s more difficult to recover huge amounts of money than small amounts in any sort of fraud case.
Tax evasion covers a wide range of situations and demographics, from corporate level fraud to individuals failing to report income avoiding income tax and GST, and paying cash for work avoiding PAYE and ACC.
None of this excuses either type of fraud.
My opinion is that large scale fraud should result in larger sentences.
It’s ok, National: Petty Officer George has found an excuse: those fruit are just too hard to reach.
My opinion is that large scale fraud should result in larger sentences
The use of multinationals by the US and other regimes to make their companies more competitive (read subsdise) is the fundamental cause of financial instability (read minsky instability) and that this is done in plain sight ie not hidden should be ringing alarm bells in every jurisdiction where tax takes are not meeting expectations (read forecasts)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-06/tax-expert-explains-how-apple-pays-193m-tax-on-27b-revenue/5303426
This is a world wide problem that needs world wide solutions. We can’t address this on our own.
No excuses here, no sirree. Just some hand-wringing.
Yes we can. Sure, we may see a slight decline in imports but that’s nothing compared to being constantly stolen from. We’d probably see an increase in products made here as well.
No we can’t.
Yes, SSpylands, we can.
You can’t, because you’re an idiot.
I don’t know if srylands is an idiot mcflock, I think he simply has no ability to think critically, which is a genuine shame.
No we can’t. Forget it. It is not happening under any government. You are an idiot McFluck. And an extremely rude one.
What are you going to do that does not breach WTO rules genius? Or our bilateral tax treaties?
Grow up.
Sod off SSLands you raving little Nazi…
SSpylands, I’m sure even you could figure out how to address tax evasion across the board in NZ without contravening the WTO. It doesn’t need to involve access restrictions or subsidies.
You pointless waste of space.
Drop out of the WTO. Belonging to it obviously isn’t doing us any good.
Drop out of the World Bank as well and set up our own banking system thus removing any need for foreign money.
Put in place reciprocal tariffs that means that trade is fair.
There, done.
And this is bad how?
Oh, that’s right, it’s not.
We can get our own house in order by eliminating them in NZ (there is no financial advantage for NZ except for the laundromats run by law firms)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10844389
That you could do it relatively fast,and introduce sunset clauses (event horizon for the black holes) for trusts would show that NZ could by a leader ,Europe would follow very quickly.
You sod off. I am not a Nazi. Stop being rude. As Pete says it is a worldwide problem that requires internaional action. Unilateral action will lead to us becoming disconnected from globalisation.
Oh yes I forgot – you are xenophobic and hate the poor so you don’t care about that.
unilateral actions is required as NZ has been struck off the white list of EU countries,
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/6938888/New-Zealand-removed-from-EU-white-list
and procrastination prevails in the face of reform.
http://taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2013-other-taxation-multinationals.pdf
The rate of convictions is one thing, but the regularity of the incarceration of convicted benefit fraudsters compared to convicted Income/business tax fraudsters is eye-watering in its contrasted realities Pete.
and btw, home detention in the nice house with sky and internet and delivery to your door of whatever you want to buy is hardly what those in stuck in 23 hours a day lockdown would call incarceration.
Why not get Politicheck to do a little work on that particular subject?
That’s why I’m engaging on it here.
Why should we do your work for you? You’ll only fuck it up later.
No Pete. Going by the nature of your comments, you’re engaging in order to evaluate opinions or formulate opinions of your own. And that has got absolutely nothing to do with facts.
Facts do not need to be dressed up. They need to be stated within their correct context – end.
+1
Bull Bill, you’re making up assumptions.
Social media can be an effective way of identifying different angles to issues. Yes facts are facts but finding all pertinent facts can be quite difficult. Crowd sourcing angles can help, sometimes substantially.
Pete. I’m not making any fucking assumptions whatsoever. I’m simply reading the content of your fucking comments.
Think about this Pete. Facts are (as you acknowledge) facts. Yet you say you are seeking different angles to issues and that crowd sourcing angles can (sometimes) substantially help in finding facts. I mean, seriously!?
If the fact is false, it’s false. If it’s being used in a misleading way, it’s misleading. If it’s being used out of context or being divorced from other pertinent facts, then it’s misleading, yes?
What I, or anyone else thinks about fields of thoughts surrounding facts is completely and utterly irrelevant. As I pointed out when you first popped up as being prominent within this fact checking malarky – you lack the critical faculties or approach necessary for such a role. Your latest comment just underlines that contention in big shouty red marker pen.
Bill, I don’t know what you look for on blogs and in social media but I see a lot of very good information and facts, often from experts in their fields. People are often happy to provide information and links to facts if you ask, even here sometimes. Of course it’s not the only place to look but it can be useful – as has been demonstrated above. The more people providing input – and constructive criticism – the better.
In politics sometimes the only way of getting pertinent information is if someone tells you. The more people you ask and the more places you look the better the chance of finding out. Especially in a modern interactive world.
You’re engaging on here because you’re a shameless, attention seeking nitwit.
Lolz, Petes heavily into being transparent you know, that’s why you have just seen right through Him…
Espiners most interesting comment concerned South Canterbury Finance.
$1,700,000,000 paid to crappy investors in SCF.
That is 57 years worth of benefit fraud…. 57 years worth …..
Key and English knew on the day they were elected that SCF was going to fail. Why then, was the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme amended by Key and English to allow SCF to continue to participate? THIS IS THE QUESTION FOLKS
This is the single biggest fraud conducted in NZ – the fraud of Key and English in letting SCF participate.
THIS IS THE FRAUD
57 YEARS WORTH
(apologies for the shouting, but it is needed)
AND against treasury advice.
Yup, SCF has a stench about it that should be dug up when the opportunity arises.
Be a good reminder to all NZ what this regime has been really all about and just maybe slap a bit of that gullability out of the sheeple.
Shonkey and cohorts will have covered their tracks and the trail is cooling but I dont care if noone gets fingered, NZ needs to see how the nact blagged nearly 2bill easy as pie.
“Colin Espiner (who I always thought leaned to the right)…..”
I’ve noticed amongst some of my Natzi/right wing acquaintances that they’re becoming a little embarrassed by their own excessive greed and troughing as that gap widens. The other day as I walked through Wellington with one such and we passed a number of closed down premises, I stopped to talk to one of the growing number of ‘beggars’ to learn their story. They had to admit that they’re not the exceptions spin doctors would like us to believe.
(Btw – not only are they beginning to question their excess, but they profess to hold ‘Christian values’)
Though no longer adhering to the dogma, I was raised in a Christian household in which care and concern for others was paramount. This was before that ghastly American religious concept of personal wealth and entitlement crept in to our society – it’s like a cancer, and anything less aligned to the original concepts of Christianity is hard to imagine.
A couple of more posts over at writehanded. org. Somebody introduce this lady to feedburner.
http://www.writehanded.org/blog/2014/04/11/is-your-cane-necessary-or-aesthetic/
http://www.writehanded.org/blog/2014/04/10/jet-setting-beneficiaries-how-lucky-are-we/
What is painfully clear is that Paula Bennett is by ommission at least, a dirty liar.
Add to that ‘a bully’. Add to that ‘a sociopath’ who advisedly foments hatred against the weakest and poorest in society. And for what ? For her personal advancement and her personal power.
I hope there are sermons being delivered around the country this morning which brand her for what she is – a dirty liar, a bully, a sociopath. I borrow JanM’s final sentence in her comment @ 2.1 above.
I wonder if there are enough ministers with the fire in their bellies to stand up and be counted about how we are treating those of us in need
Or you could use the handy RSS feed button on the bottom of the page?
Q + A right now – the staggering hypocrisy of Richard Prebble contrasting Hone’s colours when he entered Parliament with MANA talking to KDC now ??????
Prebble made a career out of scabbery then extended it with scabbery. FFS !!!!!!
I have found it true enough in my own life to say that the failings that people despise in others are often what they despise in themselves.
(Edit: this comment directed at Prebble!)
Yeah But Cunliffe made good sense. Prebble is just a fool.
Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble, Michael Bassett (and one or two other former Labour luminaries) have never forgiven the left of centre faction inside Labour for winning “the faction war” of the 1980s and early 1990s. I witnessed the bitterness and vengeful attitude they displayed towards Helen Clark in particular during the 90s. It was as if they believed they were the ones who had been betrayed when in reality they did the betraying… of the principles which have always guided the NZ Labour Party. Their sexism, and the degrading way they talked about Labour women MPs behind their backs was awful.
I am of the view Prebble’s extreme hostility towards Labour – and the Greens by association – has it’s origins more in personal bitterness/hatred towards them than it does in political considerations. Nothing would give him more pleasure than to see them destroyed and he will continue to do his bit to achieve that goal. Very sad because he was once quite a likeable character – its true. 🙂
He probably was – his dad was a lovely man 🙂
Think he was more like his Mum. His father seemed a quiet and thoughtful gentleman.
Very sad because he was once quite a likeable character – its true.
When? I’m seriously curious.
What I find intriguing about Douglas, Prebble, Caygill and co is that they likely came from socialist backgrounds. What did/do their families think about their actions?
Back in the 70s Hamish. He was a young man in his 20s, but even then he was a bit of a pain in the sense he liked to be the one who had the last say. I remember Labour Regional meetings in Auckland where he would be leaping up and down in his seat being a pain in the neck. But at least he was a Labour loyalist in those days. I don’t think he has any political principles any more. He just goes where he thinks its going to be best for him.
You’re right. Douglas, Prebble and Bassett (I think) came from strong Labour backgrounds. Don’t know about Caygill but expect he did too.
Thanks for the insight Anne.
Do you know how Prebble was ‘got’ by, I assume, the treasury? Or did Roger get converted first and then he brainwashed Prebble?
I think it started with Douglas. He was the guru of Labour’s neo-liberal faction back in the 80s. Even had Lange fooled for a while, but he eventually saw the light. And to be fair I think quite a few people in Labour who originally supported Douglas eventually saw the light too.
Who brain-washed Douglas is harder to ascertain but business tycoon Alan Gibbs was in there somewhere…
Yes and Douglas must have been indoctrinated before the Lange government because he hit the ground running, right?
I thought that the treasury in the 1970s had something to do with pushing supply side/neolib on governments?
Prebble is an a grade trougher now, he is protecting all those baubles just like DPF, hooten etc.
They are all playing out their little cameos in the msm on cue.
Clearly in light of the half billion spent in Britain on useless Tamiflu and useless stockpiling here there needs to be revisions in the health business
Kim Hill talking to Catherine De Angelis ( Editor Journal American Medical Assn) on transparency in medical research, taking on the pharmaceutical companies and research as distinct from marketing
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2592409/catherine-deangelis
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/about/leadership/biography/CA4A4DEFEE490E350AF86239DE21DA3F/catherine_deangelis
more on Tamiflu
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/10/tamiflu-saga-drug-trials-big-pharma
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/10/uk-wasted-560m-stockpiling-flu-drugs
In New Zealand it is all swept under the carpet as per usual by the bureaucracy ….someone needs to be held to account….at very least a review and changes must be made as to how we evaluate big drug company big profit items eg vaccines bought by the government and foisted on the public
This is taxpayer health money that is being wasted
Nothing makes the private sector big money like that delicious combination of imagined crisis, fear, hype, and lots of experts saying all this tax payers money must be spent on corporate products, ASAP!
Yep CV, i have posted a comment or two a month or so back relating to Tamiflu,H1N1 and how there is some belief that this whole ‘program’ of pandemic fear was in fact rumored to be a payback to big Pharma for the US CDC,(who decide what the annual flu predominant in the western world will be every year),having got it horribly wrong in a previous year causing big Pharma a substantial loss by having them produce the wrong flu jab in the millions for that year,
There is of course no ‘proof’ of the truth or otherwise of such a rumor,(can anyone imagine the participants ‘fessing up’)…
There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye, i have been digging around looking for something that would indicate a tie in with ‘bird-flu’ that has no means of infecting humans and the ‘habit’ of H1N1 to suddenly reappear as a full on flu in people that years ago during the supposed ‘pandemic year’ had a dose of it,
Surrounding these re-infections might be a co-dose of the chicken pox and/or a painful bout of shingles,
Can a flu virus be made that uses another virus to piggy back on where the flu virus may not have the means of infecting the human body from the outside but if it were piggy backed onto an entirely different virus as the means of entry might in turn replicate,
That’s a good question…
The bigger picture is that this tamiflu debacle hat finally opens the door wide on all pharmaceutical research/testing.
For some time, there has been a wealth of information around regarding the research/testing of psychotropic medication. Unfortunately, a lot of that info is propagated by the scientologists, and so has been summarily dismissed despite of the quality of the information.
Maybe that will change now insofar as the regime underpinning tamiflu is a mirror image of what some (not just the Church of Scientology) have tried to highlight with regards psychotropic medication. I really do hope so.
p.s. wasn’t there a scathing article on tamiflu when it was being rolled out? From memory the shelf life and efficacy were being questioned even as governments were stocking up. Also there was concern over the influence Dick Cheney was able to exert given that he was a major shareholder. Was all something like that. My memory gets a bit fuzzy these days, so don’t just take my word for all of that.
Tamiflu is most likey overpriced but is effective in lifethreatening circumstances but only mildy effective in everyday flu’s.
Given swine flu could have turned out much worse it was a good decision tamiflu is not a vaccine.
Now the flu vaccine has a swine flu vaccine included.
Big pharma profited out of ignorance and panic they should be made to pay the price gouging back.
To say we are getting overcharged in general for vaccines is bullshit.
Vaccines save us .
+save $100’s of millions a year in health costs.
Pharmac have worlds best practice in purchase agreements.
My children have all been vaccinated and are much healthier than those who weren’t.
I read widely on health care issues.
People who believe vaccines are dangerous have no scientific evidence to back their claims other than a retired Pro Wrestler with conspiracy concerns.
Tamiflu “effective”?…it has been proven to be not effective…..and may even be harmful
http://www.globalresearch.ca/2005-report-japan-links-tamiflu-to-sudden-deaths-in-children/14755
The real shocker from that story is that the only way Japan could get health advisories to prescribing doctors was via the mass media.
‘Tamiflu is most likey overpriced but is effective in lifethreatening circumstances but only mildy effective in everyday flu’s.’
The initial ‘evidence’ furnished to support claims of a reduction in flu complications included trial patients self-reporting pneumonia, with no clinical testing of the diagnosis.
Even a stopped watch is right twice a day:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/9936129/Judges-handling-of-abuse-victim-slammed
I actually find myself on the same page as the SST. What a world we live in! >_<
Yep I agree. This judge seems to have the concept of restorative justice totally screwed. She is not the offender’s therapy, she should not be asked if she wants to be and refusal to do so should not be counted against her or even commented on. I saw one survey where around half the people who attended the so called “restorative justice” conferences left feeling worse than when they arrived.
The sentence seems very light But hey a lot of this isn’t really that unusual I suspect. Time for the Chief justice to have the retirement talk with this Judge and the time is well overdue for all Judges to be sent off for some solid learning about behavioural attitudes and how they represent the whole community not just those with the same prejudices as them and how the judges own prejudices affect them. Justice isn’t just a male view of reasonable. .
The stuff article, headline and opening sentence is dramatically overstated..Judge Saunders was not “slammed”.
The judges reluctance was successfully challenged by the crown prosecutor, the judge agreed but was criticized by McVicar. No problem there..but”slammed” is sub-editor’s sensationalizing to provoke public interest.All too common in our tabloid media.
+1
Actually I didn’t notice the headline particularly I based my comments on the body of the article.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9936792/Dissent-as-Mana-and-Dotcom-draw-nearer
The spin in that opening line is a fucking disgrace! As if the headline wasn’t bad enough.
Two political parties had a meeting and now the group leaders want to discuss it all with the grass root members… my god what a travesty.
Did you know that sort of behaviour was allowed in a modern democracy?
Imagine wanting to garner informed consent for democratic action, terrible, just terrible.
sorry, wrong thread, have reposted in the slum-house thread
Trent Reznor is giving away an album.
http://theslip.nin.com/
ty joe for the goodness
-when word gets out,
that only being able to share with three friends is going to need some subtle footwork 🙂
didja see paula ‘lewinsky’ beenit on the catwalk. looked more like the baby elephant walk to me.
”Gush oh gush gush”, i run into the Woyals this morning on my way home from the vege market, not literally of course, and no the thought didn’t even cross my mind,
The Spongers in chief had the luxury of crashing the Red at the Kilbirnie lights this morning on their way to the airport,(it takes a ten vehicle convoy to get these sponges from government House to the airport with i presume 5 sets of traffic lights along the way all stopped by the plods disrupting our day while these wastes of space get whisked off for a trip down South),
We made eye contact, gush, i swear we made i contact, gush, well me and the plod stopping the traffic at the bottom set of the Kilbirnie lights sure did when i started yelling ”why should we be stopped for these spongers”(if looks could kill and all that, haven’t seen one of them since way back when i got the stare of death from John Bank’s pet plod Inspector Sharky as i gave it to Banks about His appearance that day in the District Court),
i consoled myself with the fact that their Woyal lownesses were being dragged through the back entrance to Wellington airport, and, the prices at the vege market were again good on my pocket and well worth the effort of dragging myself out into a Wellington Southerly,
18 pieces of fruit, half a pumpkin,half a red cabbage, a bunch of spring onions, 2 avocados, bag of carrots, 2 tomato,2 lemons for 17 bucks,
Have found that you have to do a circuit of all the stalls befor you buy to check who has the best prices of the week, pity the people selling there weren’t provided with a prominent and permanent space in a central location so they could sell their stuff, would sure as hell fix what ails the supermarkets 40% markups in a short space of time,
Tonight’s dinner, baked Terakihi fillet(with onion and tomato), surrounded by a vege bake featuring Kumara, Potato, Pumkin,Broccoli, and Carrot,topped off with a thick sauce flavored with peanut,garlic, and ginger along with a side dish of roasted red cabbage basted with clover honey…
A ten vehicle convoy? That is absurd. Okay lets do a list.
Police car in front lights flashing.
Plain car with DPS bodyguards.
Official car carrying personal staff – lady in waiting, male equivalent whatever that is, couple of secretaries.
Will and Kate.
Another police car lights flashing.
So who is in the other five? Boot lickers and spies?
Talk about going the American over-kill way!
And your dinner sounds delicious Bad12.
I don’t know what time Bad12 buys his grocery! According to the now almost sickening media coverage, the royals were in Dunedin at 9:30am. They must have been in the plane by 9am at the latest.
Buying grocery at 8am, that’s commitment there, I have to say.
one reason I never got into farmers markets or fish markets. They’re all closing just as I’m getting out of bed 🙂
I’m a morning person. But I’m a “in my dressing gown, breakfast and tea, at my desk writing” morning person. Out of the house on a weekend by 8am? That doesn’t happen too often!
The Comprehensive Activist Guide to Dismantling Neoliberalism
I was just wondering if the fact that p William being a best friend of d.Beckham makes him thick as batshit. Maybe he should ask p.m.clodhopper! His new bff.
From the propaganda rag the Herald.
All Blacks’ great Richie McCaw met the royals, saying they were “just like normal people”.
Of course they are.
They lead normal lives.
They have normal jobs.
They have normal incomes.
Who believes this nonsense?