There may be world wide woes in the Labour camp this week due to their Wide Open Web.
And the people will roll their eyes and turn off politicians even more at the propaganda, like Whaleoil response blatant dishonesty? – our entrenched political sickness needs a bloody big injection of something different.
You’d think they would have learnt from past outbreaks of exposure but no, the self interest of the parties is too deeply rooted. No matter who’s done the most wrong in this latest debacle they won’t change more than they have to, again. Unless we confront them and make them.
Why do you think that there is an adverse political consequence? The information may not have been secure but this does not authorize it being accessed. And it appears that someone in the National Party may have discovered the vulnerability and passed it onto Lapdog Slater.
They should check their legal position. This may boomerang on them.
I seem to recall another cocked up piece of political information theft…Watergate. Seemed trifling at teh time but it did lead to some very interesting outcomes.
19th Century land grab tactics in the 21st Century
A couple own some land take out a mortgage with a bank to buy a kitset home to be delivered to their section. The mortgage stipulates that the Kitset house company is only to be paid the full amount on the delivery and completion of the house.
1/ In breach of the mortgage agreement the bank pays out all the money to the kitset house company.
2/ The kitset house company does not deliver the house as arranged, instead declares bankruptcy taking all the money with them.
3/ The bank demands immediate full repayment of the total amount of the mortgage from the couple and threatens to take their land unless they receive it.
4/ The result: the couple lose their deposit, And lose their land.
If their is no intervention from an outraged public I imagine that this story will follow a time worn pattern as follows:
1/ Using the template perfected for over a hundred years in this country, the bank will call on the police to evict the couple from their land for non-payment of the mortgage for the house they never got.
2/ The police will use the necessary amount of force to uphold the law, arresting the couple. The courts will issue them with a trespass notice, and threaten them with fines if they return to their land without the new owners permission.
3/ The bank along with other lucky investors will build a holiday resort on the land.
5/ The resort will hire the couple and their children as cleaners and maids at slave wages and treat them like dirt, to wait on the rich bankers and bankrupt Palagi businessmen who come to enjoy the resort on their stolen land.
6/ Relaxing at the poolside of the resort, being waited on hand and foot by the former owners of all the land around them, some resort guests may ponder how did this amazing circumstance come about.
Maori up and down this land could relate this chain of events from their own experience.
I hope a good lawyer comes forward to help the complainants. NZ is not Florida, and banks here will not get away with perpetrating another Florida Foreclosure Fraud scandal.
In fact, this bank is up for a significant sum of civil damages, a couple of incompetent bank staffers are due to be fired, so let’s get on with it and see if this organisation deserves to be screwed to the wall.
‘
Maori will tell you that in similar circumstances, the cost of hiring lawyers to seek justice was so burdensome that they had to sell even more land to pay for them. Launching a downward spiral of land loss.
What is needed is immediate combined solidarity pickets by Maori and PI and concerned Palagi outside every branch of this bank all around the country.
I am sure that interrupting the flow of profits will have a far more electrifying effect and yield more immediate results than any long drawn out and expensive legal action.
(of course that could be done as well, after these banksters get a good public drubbing)
I’m very interested in their case. How much time do they still have before they are being evicted? I would like for you to get in contact with me via my blog. I’m not saying I can help but I do have a couple of tricks they might be able to use. Do they have the paper work stipulating the conditions for the payment of the kit set house on paper? I am very serious about this. So please get in touch.
‘
Hi Travelrev. I have no more knowledge of the facts of this story than what was reported from the sole TV1 news flash.
To go to the link to the TV1 news flash, click here.
If not for the power of the internet most people would have missed the above singular, lone, TV1 news flash – unfortunately for the bank, though no single other media outlet has run with this story, and TV1 has chosen not to repeat, or follow it up. Due to the power of the internet the facts are still retrievable (even by a technophobe like me).
Here they are:
The couple’s names are Nooroa Samuel and Tangi Samuel both resident of Raratonga.
The Bankrupt kitset home builder is Bettaway based in West Auckland.
The bank persecuting the couple is ANZ.
From the transcript of the TV1 newsflash:
The couple had ordered and paid for a kitset home from Bettaway Properties based in west Auckland.
Despite receiving their money, the company never sent any part of the kitset and several months later went into liquidation.
“I started ringing Bettaway and chasing after them, and all I get from the director of Bettaway is don’t contact me,” said Nooroa Samuel
…..the ANZ bank – which lent them $95,000 for their kitset home – handled their loan.
According to their letter of offer, the bank said the money would be paid to Bettaway progressively – as work was completed and the property inspected.
But all the money was directly paid to Bettaway despite the work never being completed.
The Samuels also said they only authorised the bank to make one initial payment.
“They make the policy but they break their own policy,” said Tangi Samuel
…… the bank is demanding the couple – who have been refusing to make loan repayments on the non-existent house – repay the full amount immediately with interest, adding to $180,000.
In this world you meet all kinds of men, some will rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen.
In this world no matter how far you roam, you will never see an outlaw who will drive a family from their home.
The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw.
Lyrics and music by Woody Guthrie
I am not suggesting we become vigilantes to overcome the banksters and financiers that are raping the planet.
But we could certainly do with a popular democratic movement, to take them down a peg or two. Along with all their well rewarded lickspittle politicians, bought off media hacks and their ‘learned’ apologists who claim to be “Economists” but are clueless.
‘
Why after the initial report on TV1 has there been a complete lockdown on this story in the Mainstream Media?
Despite searching multiple websites using variations of the words, “Samuels”, “ANZ”, “Bettaway”
Herald on line – no mention
Stuff – no mention
Scoop – no mention
TV3 – no mention
What if this story had been the other way around – The ANZ lost their own money on a business deal?
It would be front page news (despite the earthquake)
The government would be rushing to bail the ANZ’s losses to the tune of $ billions, if necessary. Even if the banks losses were caused by greedy and risky investment decisions.
An honest family doing the right thing are hounded like criminals by a bank. The ANZ are threatening to take their land to extort $180,000 plus interest from this couple for a service they didn’t deliver.
Are high powered ANZ lawyers behind this news whiteout?
Yes, I would not be surprised if the ANZ had its lawyers threaten the papers and media or if the media have been instructed to ignore those “sad” cases in which “irresponsible” lenders are being chastised over their “irresponsible” behaviour.
Well, if the agreement was that the bank only pay out small amounts as authorized and they paid out the whole lot then the bank is at fault and they should be writing the whole lot off. Any other outcome is legalized theft.
‘
Even if ANZ did write off “their” loss. I feel justice still wouldn’t be served in this case. as the couple have also had the loss of their deposit.
In my opinion the bank should cover this loss as well, because if they had kept to their side of the contract none of the money would have gone to Bettaway.
For hounding the couple and threatening to confiscate their land. ANZ should also pay substantial damages to the Samuels.
Will there be any just outcome for the Samuels’ from this affair?
The MSM have shown no interest in taking up this story and it looks like TV1 will not be doing any follow up of this story either, so we may never know the outcome.
Such is the shallowness of the Mainstream Media.
In my opinion if there is to be any justice for Nooroa and Tangi Samuel it will be up to the new Social Media to follow up and champion their case.
The anguished cry from one of the mothers says it all..
“Why does this keep happening to all our beautiful boys. I just cannot understand it. Something terrible is happening and it just can’t go on,” Donna Treffers said.
An inquiry into the school’s culture “was inevitable”.
“The problem at [King’s College] is the kids come from such privileged homes and have so much freedom and wealth they don’t know how to cope. The pressure on them is enormous.”
It would be interesting to hear from Ann Tolley on this. After all, this government has pumped another $30m into these bastions of privilege, at a time when ‘belt-tightening’ is called for from the masses.
And anyone who thinks so much of ‘top’ Christchurch schools should get along to the annual Christ’s College/Boys’ High rugby game, which these days requires police and security guards to keep order.
Reminds me very closely of this – skyrocketing youth deaths in Kawerau. Different town, different socioeconomic classes, different pressures, same tragic outcome. There is something wrong happening with NZ youth.
Well said CV. But I see from stuff in their latest update that we have the dynamic Paula Bennett on the case…..Minister of Youth Affairs…but seems action not imminent…
In our neck of the Christchurch woods it is known that the worst drug and alcohol abuse takes place at the private schools and the richer households.
But of course, like most parts of the western world, the attention is diverted away from such annoying troublesome facts, which may affect current and future business and dinner party invitations and positions of reputation and status (ha ha, yeah right), and towards those easier targets less able to defend themselves, the brown poor.
The reasons people avoid Aranui and Linwood and Shirley highs do not stack up, yet the avoidance still goes on. And dear me such prejudive is THICK on the ground in these here parts – so thick in fact that it is impenetrable. People have earplugs in and blinkers on. As evidence, witness the necessity for police to breath test every spectator at the annual Christs College vs Christchurch Boys rugby match. Don’t happen at other schools.
Avoiding Shirley Boys? Huh, when the hell did that start? Because when I left there in 2003 there were still tons of out-area applicants if memory serves me right and mentioning that I went there hasn’t had me snobbed at…
Though the attitude to Aranui is bloody stupid given the gains they’ve made and while Linwood’s had it’s problems, often those problems are present at other schools in Christchurch. Then again, I’ve joked that Christchurch is a “middle class hell”, given teh snobbery about the poorer areas that comes from people who should know better…
The mothers and fathers never understand how their children were left injured or dead. It’s always bad luck or an unexplainable mystery or a tragedy or ‘society’ at fault. Never heard is ‘I didn’t set good limits for my children. I should have been a better role model, been firm as well as fair, and done my parental job better.” Yet the anecdotes build up about parents and many of them wealthy, facilitating their children drinking.
Meanwhile the government is helpless to take definitive controlling action on behalf of the country though polls indicate there is a majority for what seems a sensible measure. Is the government senseless then? This alcohol-induced paralysis must result from corruption of government and should be considered when people are being queried by Transparency International.
Alcohol drug dealers have been sanitised and absorbed by society and now we seem unable to limit the excessive use of the alcohol drug which creates criminal offending, though we agonise and storm against other drugs which create criminals of a more serious type. So we add to criminality by encouraging excess alcohol intake and don’t seek effective ways to limit other drugs, and then complain that crime is rising. Our drug policies are totally illogical and destructive of society.
“The problem at [King’s College] is the kids come from such privileged homes and have so much freedom and wealth they don’t know how to cope. The pressure on them is enormous.”
Sounds like the debauchery that seems to appear in all aristocrats at the end of the civilisation of which they find themselves at the top of.
Bloody hell, I go away for the weekend and find all this when I get back.
The most interesting thing so far is the clear link between the National party and Whaleoil. To put it mildly, it is now quite clear that he is their poodle and barks to order.
He’s talking about exposing National, Greens and Maori Party rorting Parliamentary Services too – if he follows through with that he is hardly being a National poodle.
The National “did it/stole it/control it” campaign sounds like an attempt at trying to redirect the attention. It sounds like bleating in panic.
Sure, Labour need to take steps to try and protect private information, if Whale releases any of that he will shit in his own campaign.
Labour should be concentrating on assuring us that everything they do with Parliamentary Services is within the rules and a fair use of government (that means our) resources, rather than blowing smoke in an attempted screen.
He’s talking about exposing National, Greens and Maori Party rorting Parliamentary Services too
isn’t he just saying that he reckons they do it too, and if anyone hands him info proving it he will publish? That’s a pretty weak play, given the thin gruel he has so far published.
Labour should be concentrating on assuring us that everything they do with Parliamentary Services is within the rules and a fair use of government (that means our) resources, rather than blowing smoke in an attempted screen
Well sure, but so far WO has published a lot of smokey innuendo and not much to back it up…
The minutes also spoke of using parliamentary resources to secure “the best outcome for LP [the Labour Party]” but included a reminder that parliamentary resources could not be used for campaigning.
It looks like the same sort of thing as tax avoidence vs evasion. Maybe it’s in the same league as helicopter rides to V8 phot ops, but who knows?
While it does pay dividends to string a smear story out, WO hasn’t published anything that even looks a like a gun yet, leta alone a smoking one; and now he has moved on to talking about private citizens… donations.
And he is getting it in the neck because he is a Sickness Beneficiary as well, and not a squeak from pudding bennet on the whale puppy. But straight onto a boxer who wanted to hit her SBW, she’s as pathetic as the rest of them.
I like the piccy in Curioser and Curioser with Joky Hen holding a beer bottle in his hand. Does he get product endorsement fees? Just the thing to promote alcohol when there is another Kings College student death. Last year one student drank himself to death, this year a year 13 with brains addled, managed to kill himself (planking?), and a female student required treatment for serious alcohol intake.
I remember a boy from a beneficiary family lower South Island who was given a bottle of vodka by his mother, no doubt so he could keep up with his friends. She was villified and when his car, driven by somebody else crashed with deaths, the young fellow was charged and jailed for a time. He was very young but considered responsible for the crash because he owned the car and should have stopped the inebriated driver from taking the wheel. I think that we live in a two-faced society that is willing to dump on the lower-classes while the wealthy have slack standards themselves which they aren’t prepared to raise beyond the hedonistic or be judged on.
When the drinking age is discussed with a view to raising it, there is always some well-spoken young person who speaks against such a restriction. The idea given is that it is those ‘others’, the outliers, who cause alcohol-related trouble and civilised, mature, sophisticated young people shouldn’t have this imposition spoiling their social activities. (The idea of enjoying a party without alcohol is regarded as strange and austere.) Yet alcohol ruins so many lives as it wears through bank balances and brain synapses and apparently solid citizens deteriorate into hollow shells of themselves.
I like alcohol myself, but warily, alcoholism lurks in my family. Control should be kept to a reasonable level, not unreasonable as at present. Drinking at restaurants and bars with food beyond peanuts, yes. Late boozing hours listening to late night bands no. The bands might like to start earlier and get to bed earlier so they don’t need alcohol and/or stimulants to keep themselves firing late into the early morning.
The incidents at King’s college prove first and foremost that inability or unwillingness to handle alcohol sensibly has little to do with economic status. Thus the theory that upping excise tax to prohibitive levels will reduce harm (or the revese conclusion that if you have plenty of money you will act sensibly) is surely shown for the crock it is?
Searching the non-sensible contorted sentencing trust website for any mention of Rosemary Ives the victim of hunters. The issue of hunters whose hunting party would stand idle while one of their member shoots recklessly without consideration to the back lot behind the target, where there was a duty of care by others in a hunting party to members of the public. But found nothing. However there was mention of self-defense, that someone fearing for their life who kept a gun under the bed could not use it if an assailant gained unlawful entry to their home at night. Of course expecting the SS to be trustworthy that this is indeed the case, I could not help but think that the SS was biased toward the selection of its ranting tirades. Hunting out, but home invasion in. Maybe some victims of crime are more, well, victims than others if the criminals aren’t doing something wealthy people do.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Oh oops,
Three of Fukushima’s reactors have suffered a melt through. That is sort of when the entire fuel supply in the core is now lying on the floor of the reactor out in the open fissioning away at warp speed.
There is now speculation that the spike of 35% increase in child mortality at the US west coast which occurred after the earthquake in Japan may have something to do with the destroyed reactors.
No kidding!!!
Its sad but probably true. An apple grown in Japan is unlikely to be saleable in Toyko because of the radioactive background spike, yet those same apples may be saleable in the US, OZ preciously because background was not raised. Comes from a story I heard once that low level radiation could be spread on farmland. This is why its should be illegal to deny free treatment to anyone for anything, capitalism, industrialization, petrolunancy all have negative externalities, health consequences, poverty, crime, lunatics running the government.
Did you not see the Nation this weekend JN.? It was a National Party election advert. Its ba wonder Plunket did not get down and lick his boots. The whole episode was nauseating to say the least. I
Did you not see the Nation this weekend JN.? It was a National Party election advert. Its ba wonder Plunket did not get down and lick his boots. The whole episode was nauseating to say the least. I wanted to vomit.
It will be interesting to see whether Phill G
4.3 magnitude, 11km depth, 10km north of Darfield – this one reported on Geonet?
My Singapore-based feng shui friend says current PM is jinx, get rid of him, he not good growing people’s money (except if his own) and he bad for tourism.
No, not that one. It’ll be 5.5 or bigger, ~1:00pm.
It’s funny that you found that 4.3, because I was sitting eating my lunch feeling a bit ‘wobbly’ and wondered if that was a quake or not. So I consulted my earthquake detector (essentially some suspended bulldog clips) and sure enough they were shaking a bit.
Our wee sensitive house went bang and sideways about a foot a few times and rattled to billy-oh. Fucking nerves all shot again and looking nervously at them rocks on the hills and the sea out in the bay and the silt below our feet and on it goes.
Yeah, those in the east would have been much more rattled by this one.
The last 5.5 was out at Rolleston, and this one felt bigger. A bit difficult to compare though, since for the one on Monday I was at home, whereas this one being in the 2nd story of a 3-story building is a little different.
Each one of these makes it easy for those still deciding whether to pack bags or not. A few more will have just had that decision made for them. Bloody more shakes going on while I write. The city continues to empty…
I’m so sorry to hear this. I know there is nothing I can do to help but I wish I could. My sister in law lives in Christchurch and she’s still determined to keep on living there but I worry for her and her family.
Well, not “massive”, but big. Probably at least 5.5. Wouldn’t expect too many buildings down. This happened about 1:01pm – Lynn the time-stamping on this site seems quite a few minutes ahead of what my computer shows.
Seemed to come in a couple of pulses, initially everything started wobbling and I was considering whether to get under the desk. It eased off a little, and then got worse, so I got under. Went on for maybe 20-25 seconds total (length seems to be most correlated with size/strength). We evacuated the building, but are now back inside.
Motorway outside my window is flowing normally, maybe a little extra traffic.
I’ve been working on another website lately, which might interest you. I’m calling it Earth Monitor and it’s designed to collate lots of information on climate change, earthquakes, floods, radiation, food production, debt and recent articles concerning these things. It’s still under construction so I’ll be adding more helpful things over the next few weeks. Check it out…
Hmm Maybe there is something to the Mayan calenders ending in 2012. Radiation , Big Storms, Earth Quakes, Global Warming, Ice caps melting, National Party.
Thast was awful, there is liquidfaction all over the place, the shake itself was horrific, i really dont see how much more people in this city can take of this, its a nightmare.
Did you not see the Nation this week J.N. Plunket interviewing (?) Key.?
I was expecting Plunket to get down and kiss Key’s boots at any time.
It was nauseous I wanted go be sick . It was a National Party election advert. It will be interesting to see if Phil Goff has the same chance before long. I certainly hope that someone in the hierarchy of the Labour Party demands an equal chance for Goff,
Pink Postman – Did you realise that your same comment in embryo has cropped up here as at 3.40, 3.41, 3.48, 3.49 and emerged fully hatched at 4.06 pm, but I’m not sure as it ends with a comma,
More bene-bashing by basher bennet. Another release of random data without context.
My worst flat meltdown was in a 5 bedroom flat. In the space of six months 13 seperate people were on the lease at different times, and given that many of them weren’t rocket scientists they might have taken a while to tell work & income of their change of address (but I assure the tory astro-turfers, they were definitely unemployable).
Just for the record, we’re talking about 7-18 people still being on social warfare’s database as living at a single address, and a total of 24 housholds in this situation. Maximum of 421 people out of how many hundred thousand?
And yet the opening paragraph is about benefit fraud. Typical.
Agreed, Someone should make a complaint to the press council and the HRC, discrimination on the basis of receipt of a benefit, impugning the character of them and possible making getting a fair trial impossible when so many now think being on benefit means guilty until proven otherwise. If they exchanged the term Bbenefitaries for Gays, or Gypsies, they’d be had up for discrimination of a group.
Well with 11 adults and 3 kids at the same address getting about $4300 a week that is $300 dollars a week each. Hardly benefit fraud.
Obviously Bennet could not pass NACT standards.
NewstalkZB’s John Peachey slams colleague for murder of own child
Monday 13 June 2011
“Giving a teenager access to alcohol is tantamount to murder. This is a very sad tragedy. Somebody slipped up here, and slipped up badly. I don’t know the details but it’s CERTAIN that it was a FAILURE by the boy’s parents.”
At about 12.15 this morning, that foam-flecked assessment spat forth from the lips of NewstalkZB’s graveyard shift host JOHN PEACHEY. Since he did not know the details, and therefore had no idea who those parents were, Peachey obviously felt free to dish out the standard NewstalkZB treatment to them. This followed the tragic death of 17-year-old Auckland boy David Gaynor on Saturday night.
Clearly nobody on the NewstalkZB station management had bothered to give Peachey a key piece of information: one of the “failed parents” who had “murdered” his son was Brian Gaynor, a highly respected financial commentator, who regularly appears on NewstalkZB. He is, therefore, a colleague of Peachey.
NewstalkZB is part of The Radio Network (TRN). The hosts on TRN stations are instructed by management to give total support to any colleague in trouble, no matter how heinous the act that got him into that trouble in the first place. Thus, over the last few years, NewstalkZB staff have been required to publicly express support for curmudgeonly sports jock MURRAY DEAKER, following repeated public outrage over his crude, inflammatory and racist comments on air. They have on several occasions been forced to publicly support PAUL HOLMES, most notoriously following the obscenity-laced “cheeky darkie” rant in September 2003. They were even required to say how much they “respect” the much-reviled TONY VEITCH after it was revealed he had repeatedly assaulted his fiancée, with the assaults culminating in a frenzied kicking attack which paralyzed her.
So of course the TRN management would have expected all of its hosts to fall in line and express sympathy for the tragedy that befell one of their own colleagues. Instead, an unwitting John Peachey publicly condemned him for the “murder” of his own son.
That’s poor management. One wonders if such a lapse of discipline would have occurred under the reign of former CEO Bill Francis?
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TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
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There may be world wide woes in the Labour camp this week due to their Wide Open Web.
And the people will roll their eyes and turn off politicians even more at the propaganda, like Whaleoil response blatant dishonesty? – our entrenched political sickness needs a bloody big injection of something different.
You’d think they would have learnt from past outbreaks of exposure but no, the self interest of the parties is too deeply rooted. No matter who’s done the most wrong in this latest debacle they won’t change more than they have to, again. Unless we confront them and make them.
PeteG
Why do you think that there is an adverse political consequence? The information may not have been secure but this does not authorize it being accessed. And it appears that someone in the National Party may have discovered the vulnerability and passed it onto Lapdog Slater.
They should check their legal position. This may boomerang on them.
I seem to recall another cocked up piece of political information theft…Watergate. Seemed trifling at teh time but it did lead to some very interesting outcomes.
Sky City gets the nod to build an international scale convention centre in Auckland….but there is a catch….
So now the laws and regulations of New Zealand are up for sale?
Hmmmm I reckon the Warner Bros incident already proved that; now we have more of the same. A Government of sell outs creating a sold out country.
If our principles and morals are of any value, please don’t tell John Key or he will sell those too.
I wonder how many NAT MP’s trusts hold shares in Sky City?
Yippee, I hope my blind trust had bought some:
“Skycity shares gain on convention centre news”
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/skycity-shares-gain-convention-centre-news-ck-95211
Hooten said this morning that he thought that SkyCity shares would drop. Looks like their investors liked the deal however. Surprise surprise.
Was Hooton for real? Why would SkyCity shares drop with such news?
Why indeed with all those nice shiny noisy machines promising big bucks for the unwary. Not John Key promising 177000 jobs.
There ya go – John Key is ambitious for SkyCity investors:
“… you can’t expect [SkyCity’s] shareholders to invest for six years without certainty of their investment,” Mr Key said this morning.
Source: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/key-defends-sky-city-deal-ck-95205
SkyCity shares drop, haha, was Hooton for real?
And yet all the capitalist apologists keep telling us it’s all about taking risks and that there’s no certainty that they will get a return…
This would be the government then picking winners by ensuring that those risk taking investors get a guaranteed return.
“Just another slice of paradise”
How Maori lost their land
TVNZ: Couple’s dream home hopes shattered
19th Century land grab tactics in the 21st Century
A couple own some land take out a mortgage with a bank to buy a kitset home to be delivered to their section. The mortgage stipulates that the Kitset house company is only to be paid the full amount on the delivery and completion of the house.
1/ In breach of the mortgage agreement the bank pays out all the money to the kitset house company.
2/ The kitset house company does not deliver the house as arranged, instead declares bankruptcy taking all the money with them.
3/ The bank demands immediate full repayment of the total amount of the mortgage from the couple and threatens to take their land unless they receive it.
4/ The result: the couple lose their deposit, And lose their land.
If their is no intervention from an outraged public I imagine that this story will follow a time worn pattern as follows:
1/ Using the template perfected for over a hundred years in this country, the bank will call on the police to evict the couple from their land for non-payment of the mortgage for the house they never got.
2/ The police will use the necessary amount of force to uphold the law, arresting the couple. The courts will issue them with a trespass notice, and threaten them with fines if they return to their land without the new owners permission.
3/ The bank along with other lucky investors will build a holiday resort on the land.
5/ The resort will hire the couple and their children as cleaners and maids at slave wages and treat them like dirt, to wait on the rich bankers and bankrupt Palagi businessmen who come to enjoy the resort on their stolen land.
6/ Relaxing at the poolside of the resort, being waited on hand and foot by the former owners of all the land around them, some resort guests may ponder how did this amazing circumstance come about.
Maori up and down this land could relate this chain of events from their own experience.
I hope a good lawyer comes forward to help the complainants. NZ is not Florida, and banks here will not get away with perpetrating another Florida Foreclosure Fraud scandal.
In fact, this bank is up for a significant sum of civil damages, a couple of incompetent bank staffers are due to be fired, so let’s get on with it and see if this organisation deserves to be screwed to the wall.
‘
Maori will tell you that in similar circumstances, the cost of hiring lawyers to seek justice was so burdensome that they had to sell even more land to pay for them. Launching a downward spiral of land loss.
What is needed is immediate combined solidarity pickets by Maori and PI and concerned Palagi outside every branch of this bank all around the country.
I am sure that interrupting the flow of profits will have a far more electrifying effect and yield more immediate results than any long drawn out and expensive legal action.
(of course that could be done as well, after these banksters get a good public drubbing)
Hi Jenny,
I’m very interested in their case. How much time do they still have before they are being evicted? I would like for you to get in contact with me via my blog. I’m not saying I can help but I do have a couple of tricks they might be able to use. Do they have the paper work stipulating the conditions for the payment of the kit set house on paper? I am very serious about this. So please get in touch.
Kind regards
Ev
‘
Hi Travelrev. I have no more knowledge of the facts of this story than what was reported from the sole TV1 news flash.
To go to the link to the TV1 news flash, click here.
If not for the power of the internet most people would have missed the above singular, lone, TV1 news flash – unfortunately for the bank, though no single other media outlet has run with this story, and TV1 has chosen not to repeat, or follow it up. Due to the power of the internet the facts are still retrievable (even by a technophobe like me).
Here they are:
The couple’s names are Nooroa Samuel and Tangi Samuel both resident of Raratonga.
The Bankrupt kitset home builder is Bettaway based in West Auckland.
The bank persecuting the couple is ANZ.
From the transcript of the TV1 newsflash:
Why was the money going direct from the ANZ to Bettaway? Is that normal? Shouldn’t it have gone through the couple or their lawyer?
‘
The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw.
Lyrics and music by Woody Guthrie
I am not suggesting we become vigilantes to overcome the banksters and financiers that are raping the planet.
But we could certainly do with a popular democratic movement, to take them down a peg or two. Along with all their well rewarded lickspittle politicians, bought off media hacks and their ‘learned’ apologists who claim to be “Economists” but are clueless.
‘
Why after the initial report on TV1 has there been a complete lockdown on this story in the Mainstream Media?
Despite searching multiple websites using variations of the words, “Samuels”, “ANZ”, “Bettaway”
Herald on line – no mention
Stuff – no mention
Scoop – no mention
TV3 – no mention
What if this story had been the other way around – The ANZ lost their own money on a business deal?
It would be front page news (despite the earthquake)
The government would be rushing to bail the ANZ’s losses to the tune of $ billions, if necessary. Even if the banks losses were caused by greedy and risky investment decisions.
An honest family doing the right thing are hounded like criminals by a bank. The ANZ are threatening to take their land to extort $180,000 plus interest from this couple for a service they didn’t deliver.
Are high powered ANZ lawyers behind this news whiteout?
Yes, I would not be surprised if the ANZ had its lawyers threaten the papers and media or if the media have been instructed to ignore those “sad” cases in which “irresponsible” lenders are being chastised over their “irresponsible” behaviour.
Well, if the agreement was that the bank only pay out small amounts as authorized and they paid out the whole lot then the bank is at fault and they should be writing the whole lot off. Any other outcome is legalized theft.
‘
Even if ANZ did write off “their” loss. I feel justice still wouldn’t be served in this case. as the couple have also had the loss of their deposit.
In my opinion the bank should cover this loss as well, because if they had kept to their side of the contract none of the money would have gone to Bettaway.
For hounding the couple and threatening to confiscate their land. ANZ should also pay substantial damages to the Samuels.
Will there be any just outcome for the Samuels’ from this affair?
The MSM have shown no interest in taking up this story and it looks like TV1 will not be doing any follow up of this story either, so we may never know the outcome.
Such is the shallowness of the Mainstream Media.
In my opinion if there is to be any justice for Nooroa and Tangi Samuel it will be up to the new Social Media to follow up and champion their case.
Surely, after 4 deaths in 17 months, the Kings College culture demands a full-scale enquiry.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/5134137/Concern-over-Kings-College-culture-after-death
The anguished cry from one of the mothers says it all..
“Why does this keep happening to all our beautiful boys. I just cannot understand it. Something terrible is happening and it just can’t go on,” Donna Treffers said.
An inquiry into the school’s culture “was inevitable”.
“The problem at [King’s College] is the kids come from such privileged homes and have so much freedom and wealth they don’t know how to cope. The pressure on them is enormous.”
It would be interesting to hear from Ann Tolley on this. After all, this government has pumped another $30m into these bastions of privilege, at a time when ‘belt-tightening’ is called for from the masses.
And anyone who thinks so much of ‘top’ Christchurch schools should get along to the annual Christ’s College/Boys’ High rugby game, which these days requires police and security guards to keep order.
Reminds me very closely of this – skyrocketing youth deaths in Kawerau. Different town, different socioeconomic classes, different pressures, same tragic outcome. There is something wrong happening with NZ youth.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10731766
Well said CV. But I see from stuff in their latest update that we have the dynamic Paula Bennett on the case…..Minister of Youth Affairs…but seems action not imminent…
In our neck of the Christchurch woods it is known that the worst drug and alcohol abuse takes place at the private schools and the richer households.
But of course, like most parts of the western world, the attention is diverted away from such annoying troublesome facts, which may affect current and future business and dinner party invitations and positions of reputation and status (ha ha, yeah right), and towards those easier targets less able to defend themselves, the brown poor.
The reasons people avoid Aranui and Linwood and Shirley highs do not stack up, yet the avoidance still goes on. And dear me such prejudive is THICK on the ground in these here parts – so thick in fact that it is impenetrable. People have earplugs in and blinkers on. As evidence, witness the necessity for police to breath test every spectator at the annual Christs College vs Christchurch Boys rugby match. Don’t happen at other schools.
Avoiding Shirley Boys? Huh, when the hell did that start? Because when I left there in 2003 there were still tons of out-area applicants if memory serves me right and mentioning that I went there hasn’t had me snobbed at…
Though the attitude to Aranui is bloody stupid given the gains they’ve made and while Linwood’s had it’s problems, often those problems are present at other schools in Christchurch. Then again, I’ve joked that Christchurch is a “middle class hell”, given teh snobbery about the poorer areas that comes from people who should know better…
The mothers and fathers never understand how their children were left injured or dead. It’s always bad luck or an unexplainable mystery or a tragedy or ‘society’ at fault. Never heard is ‘I didn’t set good limits for my children. I should have been a better role model, been firm as well as fair, and done my parental job better.” Yet the anecdotes build up about parents and many of them wealthy, facilitating their children drinking.
Meanwhile the government is helpless to take definitive controlling action on behalf of the country though polls indicate there is a majority for what seems a sensible measure. Is the government senseless then? This alcohol-induced paralysis must result from corruption of government and should be considered when people are being queried by Transparency International.
Alcohol drug dealers have been sanitised and absorbed by society and now we seem unable to limit the excessive use of the alcohol drug which creates criminal offending, though we agonise and storm against other drugs which create criminals of a more serious type. So we add to criminality by encouraging excess alcohol intake and don’t seek effective ways to limit other drugs, and then complain that crime is rising. Our drug policies are totally illogical and destructive of society.
Sounds like the debauchery that seems to appear in all aristocrats at the end of the civilisation of which they find themselves at the top of.
Bloody hell, I go away for the weekend and find all this when I get back.
The most interesting thing so far is the clear link between the National party and Whaleoil. To put it mildly, it is now quite clear that he is their poodle and barks to order.
Exactly, lp. He’s their bitch but acts like he’s some sort of freedom fighter. It really is quite pathetic.
He’s talking about exposing National, Greens and Maori Party rorting Parliamentary Services too – if he follows through with that he is hardly being a National poodle.
The National “did it/stole it/control it” campaign sounds like an attempt at trying to redirect the attention. It sounds like bleating in panic.
Sure, Labour need to take steps to try and protect private information, if Whale releases any of that he will shit in his own campaign.
Labour should be concentrating on assuring us that everything they do with Parliamentary Services is within the rules and a fair use of government (that means our) resources, rather than blowing smoke in an attempted screen.
He’s talking about exposing National, Greens and Maori Party rorting Parliamentary Services too
isn’t he just saying that he reckons they do it too, and if anyone hands him info proving it he will publish? That’s a pretty weak play, given the thin gruel he has so far published.
Labour should be concentrating on assuring us that everything they do with Parliamentary Services is within the rules and a fair use of government (that means our) resources, rather than blowing smoke in an attempted screen
Well sure, but so far WO has published a lot of smokey innuendo and not much to back it up…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10731868
It looks like the same sort of thing as tax avoidence vs evasion. Maybe it’s in the same league as helicopter rides to V8 phot ops, but who knows?
While it does pay dividends to string a smear story out, WO hasn’t published anything that even looks a like a gun yet, leta alone a smoking one; and now he has moved on to talking about private citizens… donations.
And he is getting it in the neck because he is a Sickness Beneficiary as well, and not a squeak from pudding bennet on the whale puppy. But straight onto a boxer who wanted to hit her SBW, she’s as pathetic as the rest of them.
I like the piccy in Curioser and Curioser with Joky Hen holding a beer bottle in his hand. Does he get product endorsement fees? Just the thing to promote alcohol when there is another Kings College student death. Last year one student drank himself to death, this year a year 13 with brains addled, managed to kill himself (planking?), and a female student required treatment for serious alcohol intake.
I remember a boy from a beneficiary family lower South Island who was given a bottle of vodka by his mother, no doubt so he could keep up with his friends. She was villified and when his car, driven by somebody else crashed with deaths, the young fellow was charged and jailed for a time. He was very young but considered responsible for the crash because he owned the car and should have stopped the inebriated driver from taking the wheel. I think that we live in a two-faced society that is willing to dump on the lower-classes while the wealthy have slack standards themselves which they aren’t prepared to raise beyond the hedonistic or be judged on.
When the drinking age is discussed with a view to raising it, there is always some well-spoken young person who speaks against such a restriction. The idea given is that it is those ‘others’, the outliers, who cause alcohol-related trouble and civilised, mature, sophisticated young people shouldn’t have this imposition spoiling their social activities. (The idea of enjoying a party without alcohol is regarded as strange and austere.) Yet alcohol ruins so many lives as it wears through bank balances and brain synapses and apparently solid citizens deteriorate into hollow shells of themselves.
I like alcohol myself, but warily, alcoholism lurks in my family. Control should be kept to a reasonable level, not unreasonable as at present. Drinking at restaurants and bars with food beyond peanuts, yes. Late boozing hours listening to late night bands no. The bands might like to start earlier and get to bed earlier so they don’t need alcohol and/or stimulants to keep themselves firing late into the early morning.
The incidents at King’s college prove first and foremost that inability or unwillingness to handle alcohol sensibly has little to do with economic status. Thus the theory that upping excise tax to prohibitive levels will reduce harm (or the revese conclusion that if you have plenty of money you will act sensibly) is surely shown for the crock it is?
Hmmm Augustus, increasing the price of alcohol does reduce harm. People can’t afford to drink as much, so they drink less.
Obviously however price is less of a deterrent if you are in the top 5% of wealth.
Up to a point. Eventually by increasing the price of alcohol you encourage home brewing and distilling.
It also breeds yet more elitism, which we need like a hole in the head IMO.
Monitoring results of raising prices for alcohol and reducing outlets has shown that the two are very worthwhile.
Searching the non-sensible contorted sentencing trust website for any mention of Rosemary Ives the victim of hunters. The issue of hunters whose hunting party would stand idle while one of their member shoots recklessly without consideration to the back lot behind the target, where there was a duty of care by others in a hunting party to members of the public. But found nothing. However there was mention of self-defense, that someone fearing for their life who kept a gun under the bed could not use it if an assailant gained unlawful entry to their home at night. Of course expecting the SS to be trustworthy that this is indeed the case, I could not help but think that the SS was biased toward the selection of its ranting tirades. Hunting out, but home invasion in. Maybe some victims of crime are more, well, victims than others if the criminals aren’t doing something wealthy people do.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Oh oops,
Three of Fukushima’s reactors have suffered a melt through. That is sort of when the entire fuel supply in the core is now lying on the floor of the reactor out in the open fissioning away at warp speed.
There is now speculation that the spike of 35% increase in child mortality at the US west coast which occurred after the earthquake in Japan may have something to do with the destroyed reactors.
No kidding!!!
Its sad but probably true. An apple grown in Japan is unlikely to be saleable in Toyko because of the radioactive background spike, yet those same apples may be saleable in the US, OZ preciously because background was not raised. Comes from a story I heard once that low level radiation could be spread on farmland. This is why its should be illegal to deny free treatment to anyone for anything, capitalism, industrialization, petrolunancy all have negative externalities, health consequences, poverty, crime, lunatics running the government.
Gosh, it feels like such a long wait between John Key’s photo-op.
When is the next one coming and what might it be?
Can’t wait for the charmer to amuse us!
Did you not see the Nation tv3 this weekend J.N . I
Did you not see the Nation tv3 this weekend J.N . It was nothing more than a N
Did you not see the Nation this weekend JN.? It was a National Party election advert. Its ba wonder Plunket did not get down and lick his boots. The whole episode was nauseating to say the least. I
Did you not see the Nation this weekend JN.? It was a National Party election advert. Its ba wonder Plunket did not get down and lick his boots. The whole episode was nauseating to say the least. I wanted to vomit.
It will be interesting to see whether Phill G
We’ve had another massive quake again.
4.3 magnitude, 11km depth, 10km north of Darfield – this one reported on Geonet?
My Singapore-based feng shui friend says current PM is jinx, get rid of him, he not good growing people’s money (except if his own) and he bad for tourism.
No this one was bigger.
No, not that one. It’ll be 5.5 or bigger, ~1:00pm.
It’s funny that you found that 4.3, because I was sitting eating my lunch feeling a bit ‘wobbly’ and wondered if that was a quake or not. So I consulted my earthquake detector (essentially some suspended bulldog clips) and sure enough they were shaking a bit.
Geonet updates 5.5M, 10km east: http://geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3528810g.html
Our wee sensitive house went bang and sideways about a foot a few times and rattled to billy-oh. Fucking nerves all shot again and looking nervously at them rocks on the hills and the sea out in the bay and the silt below our feet and on it goes.
Fuck this. fuck it fuck it fuck it.
Yeah, those in the east would have been much more rattled by this one.
The last 5.5 was out at Rolleston, and this one felt bigger. A bit difficult to compare though, since for the one on Monday I was at home, whereas this one being in the 2nd story of a 3-story building is a little different.
Each one of these makes it easy for those still deciding whether to pack bags or not. A few more will have just had that decision made for them. Bloody more shakes going on while I write. The city continues to empty…
Christchurch increasingly going hollow
more rocks down, another building down, more damage, kids running around like its business as usual. what a nutty place.
Yeah I wasn’t too far away from Rolleston when that 5,5 happened and that was way bad enough. Can’t imagine what the day has been like today. Regards.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I know there is nothing I can do to help but I wish I could. My sister in law lives in Christchurch and she’s still determined to keep on living there but I worry for her and her family.
Well, not “massive”, but big. Probably at least 5.5. Wouldn’t expect too many buildings down. This happened about 1:01pm – Lynn the time-stamping on this site seems quite a few minutes ahead of what my computer shows.
Seemed to come in a couple of pulses, initially everything started wobbling and I was considering whether to get under the desk. It eased off a little, and then got worse, so I got under. Went on for maybe 20-25 seconds total (length seems to be most correlated with size/strength). We evacuated the building, but are now back inside.
Motorway outside my window is flowing normally, maybe a little extra traffic.
That’s two 5.5’s in the space of a week. Ouch. Just when locals thought things were settling down nicely.
Well there is another full moon arising.
Ummm. New server. I can’t remember if I put the process on for updating the clocks. I’ll check later.
From geonet:
Reference Number: 3528810
NZST: Mon, Jun 13 2011 1:00 pm
Magnitude: 5.5
Depth: 11 km
Details: 10 km east of Christchurch
I’ve been working on another website lately, which might interest you. I’m calling it Earth Monitor and it’s designed to collate lots of information on climate change, earthquakes, floods, radiation, food production, debt and recent articles concerning these things. It’s still under construction so I’ll be adding more helpful things over the next few weeks. Check it out…
Hmm Maybe there is something to the Mayan calenders ending in 2012. Radiation , Big Storms, Earth Quakes, Global Warming, Ice caps melting, National Party.
Thast was awful, there is liquidfaction all over the place, the shake itself was horrific, i really dont see how much more people in this city can take of this, its a nightmare.
An hour ago Geonet just announced there was another 6.0 quake.
Did you not see the Nation this week J.N. Plunket interviewing (?) Key.?
I was expecting Plunket to get down and kiss Key’s boots at any time.
It was nauseous I wanted go be sick . It was a National Party election advert. It will be interesting to see if Phil Goff has the same chance before long. I certainly hope that someone in the hierarchy of the Labour Party demands an equal chance for Goff,
Pink Postman – Did you realise that your same comment in embryo has cropped up here as at 3.40, 3.41, 3.48, 3.49 and emerged fully hatched at 4.06 pm, but I’m not sure as it ends with a comma,
My apologies regarding the bloop above. Im not sure what has happened.
I think some Tory is spooking me .PP
More bene-bashing by basher bennet. Another release of random data without context.
My worst flat meltdown was in a 5 bedroom flat. In the space of six months 13 seperate people were on the lease at different times, and given that many of them weren’t rocket scientists they might have taken a while to tell work & income of their change of address (but I assure the tory astro-turfers, they were definitely unemployable).
Just for the record, we’re talking about 7-18 people still being on social warfare’s database as living at a single address, and a total of 24 housholds in this situation. Maximum of 421 people out of how many hundred thousand?
And yet the opening paragraph is about benefit fraud. Typical.
Agreed, Someone should make a complaint to the press council and the HRC, discrimination on the basis of receipt of a benefit, impugning the character of them and possible making getting a fair trial impossible when so many now think being on benefit means guilty until proven otherwise. If they exchanged the term Bbenefitaries for Gays, or Gypsies, they’d be had up for discrimination of a group.
Well with 11 adults and 3 kids at the same address getting about $4300 a week that is $300 dollars a week each. Hardly benefit fraud.
Obviously Bennet could not pass NACT standards.
It’s great when John Key loses it, need more of this please.
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/PM-John-Key-on-Sky-City-Fiji-and-youth-drinking/tabid/506/articleID/20983/Default.aspx
NewstalkZB’s John Peachey slams colleague for murder of own child
Monday 13 June 2011
“Giving a teenager access to alcohol is tantamount to murder. This is a very sad tragedy. Somebody slipped up here, and slipped up badly. I don’t know the details but it’s CERTAIN that it was a FAILURE by the boy’s parents.”
At about 12.15 this morning, that foam-flecked assessment spat forth from the lips of NewstalkZB’s graveyard shift host JOHN PEACHEY. Since he did not know the details, and therefore had no idea who those parents were, Peachey obviously felt free to dish out the standard NewstalkZB treatment to them. This followed the tragic death of 17-year-old Auckland boy David Gaynor on Saturday night.
Clearly nobody on the NewstalkZB station management had bothered to give Peachey a key piece of information: one of the “failed parents” who had “murdered” his son was Brian Gaynor, a highly respected financial commentator, who regularly appears on NewstalkZB. He is, therefore, a colleague of Peachey.
NewstalkZB is part of The Radio Network (TRN). The hosts on TRN stations are instructed by management to give total support to any colleague in trouble, no matter how heinous the act that got him into that trouble in the first place. Thus, over the last few years, NewstalkZB staff have been required to publicly express support for curmudgeonly sports jock MURRAY DEAKER, following repeated public outrage over his crude, inflammatory and racist comments on air. They have on several occasions been forced to publicly support PAUL HOLMES, most notoriously following the obscenity-laced “cheeky darkie” rant in September 2003. They were even required to say how much they “respect” the much-reviled TONY VEITCH after it was revealed he had repeatedly assaulted his fiancée, with the assaults culminating in a frenzied kicking attack which paralyzed her.
So of course the TRN management would have expected all of its hosts to fall in line and express sympathy for the tragedy that befell one of their own colleagues. Instead, an unwitting John Peachey publicly condemned him for the “murder” of his own son.
That’s poor management. One wonders if such a lapse of discipline would have occurred under the reign of former CEO Bill Francis?
Am I the only one that found this very funny?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0CnivlXR0yU/TfWmkE2fNzI/AAAAAAAAH6k/C4p-SSEzsbY/s1600/HighRise%2Bcopy.jpg
(ex Tumeke)
My apologies to Chch folk.
What I will say is that the person who came up with that knows far too much.