“The sprawling political refugee camp that Labour is busily turning itself into will find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the “No Discussion of Beliefs Permitted” rule it is currently enforcing in order not to upset its National refugees, and a position which denies the importance of espousing coherent political beliefs altogether.”
Chris Trotter in a thought provoking mood in his Bowlalleyroad blog. Have a read. http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/
Not really political but that shouldn’t stop a good moan. Who is sick of the media running their own trial with these high profile court cases? Every day we get the media version of the Guy/MacDonald saga; a days court proceedings condensed into a few column inches of ghoulish voyeurism. The media take a sick delight in parading the private lives of the participants, gorging on gossip, innuendo and rumour. There’s no justice in it, they’re neither judge nor jury, its all about ratings and they don’t care who they hurt in the process.
If it’s not that it is disgusting grief-porn. All cheap copy that sells newspapers and apparently that’s all that matters.
Speaking of the Guy case, I’ve been interested in the number of workers on that farm who were not being paid, and were doing some kind of “work experience”. More agrarian welfare for the rich.
Raises both hands! The second the latest gruesome details of the latest murder trial comes on TV
it is the OFF button for me. If everybody did the same thing they would soon stop. It is the victim’s families who must stand to be the most affected by this media obsession with murder and mayhem. What long term damage is being done to them I hate to think.
Another hazard that is often overlooked… I know there are many parents of young families who can no longer watch the 6pm news because they will not allow their children to be exposed to the daily diet of murder trials with all it’s attendant blood and gore.
Dh I agree. A brief mention of the progress of the Guy case would be satisfactory not all this background about what the farm worker said and thought, family feelings and on. One thing emerges – the emotional pull to farmland is strong here. There was a murder of a wife in a divorce who in wanting her half share of property was forcing the sale of a hard-built farm and the husband reacted against her.
My moan is about the extensive coverage, with money wasted on USA commentators, of the USA political circus. Let them ride their roundabouts there, with again, brief updates. But the fight for presidential candidates, the ridiculous manipulated party addresses and loud cries of approval from their fans, we don’t need this. It’s a waste of money. There are 172? countries in the world. When is there time to hear about the others with the USA crowding out other news?To get any airtime they have to have riots or disasters yet they lead very interesting and internationally important lives.
When is there time to hear about the others with the USA crowding out other news?To get any airtime they have to have riots or disasters yet they lead very interesting and internationally important lives.
Exactly! What really irks me is when a grinning Hil’ry Berry or Mike McRoberts, plays some trivial local American item, the sort of thing that would be a paragraph in a local newspaper.. it’s not as if there isn’t plenty else to discuss!
We gave this trial matter some thought recently; DYNASTY or DALLAS comes to mind.Having worked for and socialised with sectors of our glorious rural community over the decades can advise that the sorts of dynamics being revealed in this publicised expose are very common between family members, families, neighbors, managers etc. It is not so bucolic amongst the california thistles, mastitis and mongrels. ENVY and GREED reeks from a lot of these people, and yes, getting paid like getting blood out of pumice.
Emmerdale on steroidal hormones.
Well, with corporate farming expansion, falling commodity prices, reduced commodity orders, devaluation of the dollar likely, interest rate rises, increased regulation and environmental requirements, Trading in Fonterra shares, fuel price and ruc increases etc….
SamHall
Interesting comment which I understood this time. You sound as if you are well-versed in the healthy country lifestyle. By the way who are ‘we’? Do you arise from a think tank or is it the royal we? Haha.
Lets not forget it is always handy to a Government that is dealing with sensitive and/or volatile policies to have a juicy murder to distract the public with. This was highlighted for me this morning when National Radio had an interview about Australia and How The Dingo Did It. The commentator mentioned how the whole Azaria case came to light and began its protracted media prescence just as the Mabo land case was gaining traction.
Who is sick of the media running their own trial with these high profile court cases?
I absolutely agree! The Guy/McDonald saga is particularly boring/annoying… Said about Kylie Guy “she still wears her rings” – well, most widows do! What was their point?
With the increase of Road User Charges I assume we will have John Banks encouraging the roading industry to block Auckland Roads with trucks again in protest as he did when the Labour Party were in Government /sarc. He was so enthuisiastic over the protest then. Hypocrites.
We should start the discussion now. National may choose to stay out of it for now, but they will have to join at some stage.
Suggested progress:
– Involve all willing parties and any groups and organisations with an interest in the future of NZ Super in discussion and proposal of policies.
– Open it to wide public discussion.
– Gather as much information and opinion as possible.
– National and United Future have a Confidence and Supply commitment to public discussion on flexi-super – this can be used to develop the Super debate further.
– In time for next election campaign have a commitment from all (willing) parties on the future direction of NZ Super and a timeframe for dealing with it.
– Include NZ Super in parliamentary business early in the next term (first half of 2015)
– get the poodle to not vote for the next budget unless it addresses the Superannuation time bomb.
– get all the pollies to read the very interesting and comprehensive posts and comments in the Standard on the subject.
Your first point is either pathetic or woefully ignorant.
Your second point is very good – why don’t you make it happen? I could give you some practical advice if you like. If you can generate some positive and balanced discussion here I’d be happy to promote and support it. Cross-blog discussion on Super is something I’ve suggested.
What are you doing on your blog about Super? I’d be happy to link that in too.
Because C&S responsibilities don’t allow for the bringing down of the government at the request of some random blog commenter. This is a standard coalition provision, and will have protected the Clark government from first year collapse due to Redbaiter asking a party to break their agreement (similar to you he’s currently asking for banishment of the entire National contingent).
Perhaps you think any coalition between between Labour and Greens would be as flimsy and temporary as you seem to think the current one should be.
Apart from that it’s ridiculous to threaten a budget that’s eleven months away on an issue that could achieve significant progress in that time, but will probably take longer than that to resolve.
There are no C&S responsibilities that overide Dunne’s responsibilities to NZ, Pete. If he genuinely wants a debate on Super, then the power is in his hands to enforce one. Which he won’t do, because he is too worried about a single aspect of the super debate; his own pension pot.
If he genuinely wants a debate on Super, then the power is in his hands to enforce one.
Dunne has already used his (coalition) power to get a commitment with National to a public discussion paper on Super, which is more than anyone else has been able to achieve.
How effective that discussion will be will depend on how much effort a range of parties, organisations and individuals make to take advantage of the opportunity.
No he hasn’t. Key refuses to join in the debate and the ‘agreement’ you refer to is nothing to do with the wider issue of super. It’s just a sop, as you well know, Pete. Stop dissembling and start putting pressure on your leader. Poodles have teeth, you know. They just have to be trained to use them.
It is a sop; it’s a commitment in the C&S agreement to a (small ‘g’) government paper on a possible flexible retirement age, (ie. straight to Bin 13). Even if it ever makes the light of day, that’s a change which the PM rejected yet again as recently as yesterday.
So stop trying to blow smoke up our collective nether regions and get to work on Dunne. Tell him you’ll walk if he doesn’t threaten to do the same. Go on, mate, show some balls. You can cripple the media arm of UF just by refusing to blog for a day.
I’d rather work positively to see what can be done. Hissy fitting as you suggest doesn’t usually achieve anything.
The Prime Minister’s open to United Future’s flexi-super idea.
“If people want to choose to take more and retire slightly later, that’s their call. Whether it’s workable or not, there are lots of challenges in that but we’re happy to have that discussion.”
Other blogs are getting in on promoting good Super discussion and progress too:
Consensus in our times?
We welcome this move by David Shearer and Russel Norman to make superannuation non-political. And we reckon that John Key would be wise to accept the olive branch being offered to him; after all, failure to do so would leave him vulnerable to the two main parties of the Left.
John Key may well have made superannuation a die-in-a-ditch issue. But David Shearer and Russel Norman have thrown him a rope. We hope that he accepts it; superannuation is far too important an issue to continue to be a political football, and cross-party consensus now could indeed produce a solution that will endure regardless of who occupies the Treasury Benches.
My understanding is that break even today is closer to $75/barrel for new operations.
And that assumes the ongoing ability to use and pollute as much fresh ground water as you like in the process for free AND not clean any of the massive chemical ponds or pollution up afterwards.
Shell gave the $50 figure at the beginning of last year so that’s a long time in the oil business. You could be right on current costs.
The oil companies pretty much have free range in Alberta and from the Harper government. They are desperate to get a pipeline either East or West but are facing huge opposition. They have to give large discounts to the US as they buy 99% of the Albertan oil at the moment.
That $50 is just their assessment of when they make meaningful money. Oilcos have been working the sands for decades at lower prices. Production costs including a reasonable rate of return are much lower.
outsider mad hatters institute a right wing propaganda organisation with very deep pockets.
I smell Murdoch and other robber barons all over this!
No credibility looking after vested interests.
Another brilliant blog analysis by Giovanni Tiso, this time on the temporarily derailed education reforms. And apart from the content, Tiso writes so damn well.
…We aren’t always going to be so lucky. Attacks against public education, here and elsewhere, are going to continue, and they will be launched – against the backdrop of a permanent state of economic crisis – by driving a wedge between the aspirations of the middle class and the realities faced by the working class. Of course league tables and performance pay are damaging to public education understood as a universal good – and I’m going to explain why to John Roughan in a minute – but so long as you feel confident that you will be able to move to the area with the best school, and you have been correctly conditioned to view the education of your children as a form of competition, you might not mind this, or even learn to actively support the idea. And just in case you might harbour some nostalgia for old-fashioned egalitarian myths, we shall disguise the reforms as pious concern for the one in five whom the education system currently fails (never mind it’s more like one in twenty), and who hail in the main from the lower socio-economic classes. This will sway some of the liberals who most need to be made to feel altruistic in exchange for their class interests being served. …
Thanks just saying. You are right about Giovanni’s writing style. And he has captured the essence of dark days of Education that are to come. Larger classes are just the opening shots. Ughh!
I agree, Giovanni Tiso’s writing is lovely to read, and this is an excellent piece. But whichever way you look, the downward squeeze /upward flow gets more and more apparent. Everything works in the manner of a nasty franchise: the owner of the brand squeezes the margins so that the franchisee cannot get his head above water, and in turn squeezes the staff. Dollar-guys attack the Euro Zone through its weakest links, and the strong members squeeze the weaker ones in an attempt to regain their ground. Education is no different; the recent changes to tertiary education, in which interest-free student loans are kept but limits placed upon getting them, essentially means a near-free education for the wealthy (who can invest the loan amount, take the loan, and reduce the cost via the interest received), while the poor are gradually squeezed out. The mooted changes to primary/secondary education follow much the same pattern. Wake up, middle class! You are only a squeeze or two further away from ruin than the people you want to see sterilised.
There have been a few server structural shifts going on overnight. See this comment from yesterday.
Let me know if anyone spots anything outside of the current site flaws. I haven’t been seeing any of significiance apart from a markedly reduced overseas bandwidth.
On my screen, the layout is different, lists of blogs, media etc., is now running single-file down the length of the right side of the screen, and periodically it becomes blurred with the words on top of each other.
No it was there.. One part of it was to do some interesting things to javascripts. A bit too much as it turned out. Took a while for that to come through the system.
The UK, for the opening of the Olympics is setting up a picture of a country idyll with happy cows and people – must be like a glossy Midsomer Murders background. Very Marie Antoinette who used to have tableaus with her entourage dressed as rustics I understand.
And funny in a nightmarish way when one thinks of residential buildings in London having their roofs turned into sites for anti-missile etc surveillance. This will have to be set up earlier than the opening and people screened in and out. The people there will have this burden of suspicion and checking systems for months perhaps, and feel like targets for damage. Not an idyll.
lprent
I have struck a wee problem. I put an item on 12/6 open mike and then realised I wanted it in 13/6 so tried to delete it and that gave me a blank page with -1 at the top of it. I thought okay it’s been deleted, and put the item in 13/6 and then checked back on 12/6 but it was still there. Pressed delete again got the pink line that I wasn’t allowed to do this and blue Close. I pressed this and nothing happened. I couldn’t get reaction either from the return/refresh arrow at top so was locked there in Ajax and had to close out to get out.
Alert from Avaaz.org. An online petition re Asset Sales:
Tomorrow, John Key is planning to ram controversial asset sales legislation through parliament — despite thousands of citizens taking to the streets in protest. Let’s create a massive outcry and stop the sale of New Zealand’s key assets:
That’s the question most people who watched TV3 News last night were pondering, confused by Boag’s lurking appearance in political reporter Patrick Gower’s piece to camera.
[…]
She was there, then she wasn’t, then she peeked out in front of the pole once again.
Gower, on Twitter, called it “one of the truly great lurking incidents on the Parliamentary precinct”.
Turns out neither Boag nor Gower knew she was on camera – Boag only found out later in the evening when her husband asked her what she was doing.
“I happened to be walking down the stairs and I saw Paddy was about to go on and I wasn’t going to have the chance to watch what he said so I just hung around to listen,” she said.
[..]
A UK-based journalist with the same name – Patrick Gower – said he’d received “a slightly unnerving set of tweets about a woman behind me”.
secret taping lurking round parliament spying on reporters i smell a rat a natrat from the brat pack.
Boag will not be the flavour of the month in most Nact circles right now.
Helping undermine her leaders aspirations.
The Boag Con stictor. Sqeezing the life out of her prey.
Another Nactional meddling muddler
Well spotted Carol! Just what the hell was she doing there? Is this awful woman still an office-holder within National? I guess that she is another “asset” on the side, but one (unfortunately) they will never sell!
Bob Jones treads a shaky line in his column in the Herald:
Still, when one recalls his mincing catwalk performance a year back and given his hedging response to the homosexual marriage proposition, well who knows? Might we yet see an out-of-the-closet Prime Ministerial announcement, with a tearful Bronagh in the background?
Time for some predictions.
In the movie The Truman Show, Truman is talking to the woman who will later be his girlfriend. She is wearing a button saying “How’s it going to end?”
How’s our Truman Show going to end?
Around the world, elected and un-elected officials developing unworkable economic solutions to problems created by corporates and banks seeking profits that are now being paid for from austerity measures placed on the innocent.
The use of taxes earned off the backs of the workers to purchase worthless “assets” from private interests who manipulated, deluded and defrauded so they could use other people’s money to make personal profit.
Banks, corporations, executives, bankers escaping prosecution for the misery they created around to world in the form of job loses, mortgagee sales, business failures and all the attendant mental, emotional damage.
The development of a corporate aristocracy for whom the rules applied to lesser beings do not apply. Golden parachutes given to people who cause loss or harm to their company. Corporate boxes for politicians when public servants could be sacked for receiving such a gift. Horrendously large salaries and bonuses for jobs that, some times, could be done by a well trained chimp.
A worker goes to work knowing that a percentage of their labour and time will be exchanged for money that will fund a life of entitlement for politicians who do not undergo a performance review. An election every three years by an uninformed or indifferent populace is NOT a performance review.
Taxes used to fund corporate welfare projects based on flawed calculations of how many jobs it will create. Instead, private investors who have some degree of wealth profit from the sweat of those who don’t.
A world economic system that is soooo flawed that it needs radical reform but the lunatics are the ones running the asylum.
The list goes on…..
How’s it going to end? Are we all just a Truman Burbank? Content to live in a world where everything is a corporate product and nothing is real? Christof: If his was more than just a vague ambition, if he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s no way we could prevent him.
Christof: “I’ve given Truman the chance to lead a normal life. The world, the place you live in is the sick place. Seahaven is the way the world should be.”
Financial systems are a constant mystery also those involved in them. On Radionz I think on Sunday afternoon there was a piece on auditors. There used to be 9 big ones, now there are only four. Consideration is being given to legislating for a change of auditor every 6 years to prevent client capture or moral hazard or whatever name for cosiness. The auditors spoken to were very confident that everything was fine as it is. Auditing relationships have been known to last 48 years. Of course that rarely applies now as businesses average about 10 years before fading.
Finance Minister Bill English admits rebalancing of NZ economy towards exporting yet to happen due to high NZ$ and quake; also sees tax switch benefits taking 5-7 years
However, “one way or another they will muddle through.
Only LPrent knows for sure, but it seems to me that there has been a steady increase in the number of women commenting on the Standard in the couple of years I’ve been coming here. I’m extrpolating to a certain extent from the pseudonyms people are using, and assuming can make an ass….
I don’t know for sure, I generally have to guess. And I frequently find I am wrong both ways. I’ve had people tell me that they deliberately pick opposite gender names…. The whole point about the site is that unless people choose to rely on parts of the life outside of pure argument and use those in the conversation, you can’t tell.
But I think that there has been a steadily increasing numbers of women commenting over the years and that they are commenting more than they used to.
Some do. Some make my cynical rants designed to perform experimental literay inguinal orchiectomy on trolls look relatively tame. You should see some of the compliments I get after each excision from our modestly polite but robust debate.
Personally I rather like that our other gender has a healthy dislike of idiots. Makes me more hopeful about the kids with that level of discrimination against the socially inept with a self assessed Priapus problem.
As I say, it is sometimes hard to tell. But very few act like trolls.
China is a kleptocracy of a scale never seen before in human history. This post aims to explain how this wave of theft is financed, what makes it sustainable and what will make it fail. There are several China experts I have chatted with – and many of the ideas are not original. The synthesis however is mine. Some sources do not want to be quoted.
The macroeconomic effects of the Chinese kleptocracy and the massive fixed-currency crisis in Europe are the dominant macroeconomic drivers of the global economy. As I am trying a comprehensive explanation for much of the world’s economy in less that two thousand words I expect some kick-back.
Foreign Minister Murray McChardonnay – receives todays ROTFL award for his outstanding comedy skit performed recently at the Institute of International Affairs in Wellington.
He had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand with the seemly candid admission that the Security Council is a sham:
“That view holds that contested Security Council seats will always fall to the highest bidder of aid dollars, or to the holder of the most flexible positions on the controversial foreign policy issues of the day,”
And then came the punch line:
“The Prime Minister’s approach and my own approach is that we would rather lose with honour than trade overseas development assistance or policy positions for Security Council votes.”
I have had many doubts about Mr McCully, Mr Key and the National government, and those doubts of course remain, but now I think I finally understand them – they are actually a stealth comedy act, gone deep cover, their strategy – to kill off the opposition with the most potent of all weapons – uncontrollable laughter.
Our fishing is certainly under threat with ships like the Korean one in the case being tried in Court. But the Korean officers have left the country apparently. You would think we would have some legal means of stopping them leaving so they could answer to their wrongs.
The crew have been brutalised, the observer tried to intervene on some of the practices but got very curt responses and feared for her safety. Why should they be able to get away with bad practices like this major dump of fish worth I think a million dollars when apparently all they needed to do was bring the net up earlier. It’s such careless and wasteful and inefficient practice and our seas are the losers to these marauding sods.
So Paula Benefit is planning some “tough love” for teenagers likely to go on the unemployment benefit. This involves extra surveillance, advice on budgeting and parenting…… but apparently no jobs???!!!
Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett has reinforced her tough love approach to stopping the flow of young people getting the unemployment benefit after dropping out of school.
In Parliament today, while speaking during the second reading of the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, Ms Bennett said “major reforms would stop an inter-generational cycle of dependence.”
[…]
Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett has reinforced her tough love approach to stopping the flow of young people getting the unemployment benefit after dropping out of school.
In Parliament today, while speaking during the second reading of the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, Ms Bennett said “major reforms would stop an inter-generational cycle of dependence.”
[…]
The bill will allow the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to share information about school leavers, so that the MSD can identify youth before they sign up for a benefit.
“As Minister of Social Development I will continue to push, cajole, incentivise, obligate and at the end of the day put all my belief in those people on welfare,” she said.
So just a lot of additional harassment, surveillance and window-dressing, nothing useful like ACTUAL jobs …. and, the kicker!…. it’ll save the government $1billion!
In Parliament today, while speaking during the second reading of the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill, Ms Bennett said “major reforms would stop an inter-generational cycle of dependence.”
No they won’t, far more likely to entrench them.
“As Minister of Social Development I will continue to push, cajole, incentivise, obligate and at the end of the day put all my belief in those people on welfare,” she said.
What she means is that she’ll force more into poverty so that they’re forced to work to make some bludger richer for lower wages than they get already.
That is all rote stuff that Petulant Bean learned at USA University isn’t it. I think she did a pressure cooker course on how to cook the books? so as to make welfare beneficiaries seem to be a mix between vampires and the devil’s spawn. Was it at Wisconsin, a name that occurs when talking about meanness, and they would be big on using the terms welfare dependence also learned helplessness is another favourite.
Paula Bennett is a sick piece of work…so is this concept of ‘welfare dependency’ .
Its time we took back the word dependency and use it to vilify the rich.
Within the relationship between the rich and the poor, there is only one direction that dependency exists. The concept of dependency was made famous by the theorist andre gunder frank who exposed how under capitalism, on a world wide scale, the rich are dependent on the poor. Somehow this term has been highjacked and is used to stigmatise victims, and champion the abusers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_theory
Points about Gabriel Makhlouf, Secretary to the Treasury, NZ. He fits my prejudice about the hardening effect on children of absent parents sent to boarding schools at long distance from their parents, as in school in Britain while parents work for UN in various countries.
“his father pursued a career in the UN. From age 11, he was separated from his family to continue his education at a British boarding school.
After graduating with an honours degree in economics at the University of Exeter, he spent a year as a treasurer for a student union, then did a masters degree in industrial relations at the University of Bath. His thesis was on “intra-union relationships in academia” As a PhD beckoned, Makhlouf realised it was either a life in academia “or I had to get out”, and he landed his first job in 1984, as a tax inspector.”
About our teachers “However, Makhlouf doesn’t have backing from Hattie on the alleged failure of the New Zealand education system. In the book’s foreword Hattie says, “We have a nation of excellent teachers, as shown in the country’s ranking in the top half-dozen nations in reading, mathematics and science. http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/interview-gabriel-makhlouf/
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
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Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
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Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
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Boarded up homes in Kilbirnie, where work on a planned development was halted. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 5 are;Housing Minister Chris Bishop yesterday announcedKāinga Ora would be stripped of ...
This week Kiwirail and Auckland Transport were celebrating the completion of the summer rail works that had the network shut or for over a month and the start of electric trains to Pukekohe. First up, here’s parts of the press release about the shutdown works. Passengers boarding trains in Auckland ...
Through its austerity measures, the coalition government has engineered a rise in unemployment in order to reduce inflation while – simultaneously – cracking down harder and harder on the people thrown out of work by its own policies. To that end, Social Development Minister Louise Upston this week added two ...
This year, we've seen a radical, white supremacist government ignoring its Tiriti obligations, refusing to consult with Māori, and even trying to legislatively abrogate te Tiriti o Waitangi. When it was criticised by the Waitangi Tribunal, the government sabotaged that body, replacing its legal and historical experts with corporate shills, ...
Poor old democracy, it really is in a sorry state. It would be easy to put all the blame on the vandals and tyrants presently trashing the White House, but this has been years in the making. It begins with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the spirit of Gordon ...
The new school lunches came in this week, and they were absolutely scrumptious.I had some, and even though Connor said his tasted like “stodge” and gave him a sore tummy, I myself loved it!Look at the photos - I knew Mr Seymour wouldn’t lie when he told us last year:"It ...
The tighter sanctions are modelled on ones used in Britain, which did push people off ‘the dole’, but didn’t increase the number of workers, and which evidence has repeatedly shown don’t work. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, ...
Catching you up on the morning’s global news and a quick look at the parallels -GLOBALTariffs are backSharemarkets in the US, UK and Europe have “plunged” in response to Trump’s tariffs. And while Mexico has won a one month reprieve, Canada and China will see their respective 25% and 10% ...
This post by Nicolas Reid was originally published on Linked in. It is republished here with permission. Gondolas are often in the news, with manufacturers of ropeway systems proposing them as a modern option for mass transit systems in New Zealand. However, like every next big thing in transport, it’s hard ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkBoth 2023 and 2024 were exceptionally warm years, at just below and above 1.5C relative to preindustrial in the WMO composite of surface temperature records, respectively. While we are still working to assess the full set of drivers of this warmth, it is clear that ...
Hi,I woke up feeling nervous this morning, realising that this weekend Flightless Bird is going to do it’s first ever live show. We’re heading to a sold out (!) show in Seattle to test the format out in front of an audience. If it works, we’ll do more. I want ...
From the United-For-Now States of America comes the thrilling news that a New Zealander may be at the very heart of the current coup. Punching above our weight on the world stage once more! Wait, you may be asking, what New Zealander? I speak of Peter Thiel, made street legal ...
Even Stevens: Over the 33 years between 1990 and 2023 (and allowing for the aberrant 2020 result) the average level of support enjoyed by the Left and Right blocs, at roughly 44.5 percent each, turns out to be, as near as dammit, identical.WORLDWIDE, THE PARTIES of the Left are presented ...
Back in 2023, a "prominent political figure" went on trial for historic sex offences. But we weren't allowed to know who they were or what political party they were "prominent" in, because it might affect the way we voted. At the time, I said that this was untenable; it was ...
I'm going, I'm goingWhere the water tastes like wineI'm going where the water tastes like wineWe can jump in the waterStay drunk all the timeI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayI'm gonna leave this city, got to get awayAll this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure ...
Waitangi Day is a time to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and stand together for a just and fair Aotearoa. Across the motu, communities are gathering to reflect, kōrero, and take action for a future built on equity and tino rangatiratanga. From dawn ceremonies to whānau-friendly events, there are ...
Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
Here’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s political economy on politics and in the week to Feb 3:PM Christopher Luxon began 2025’s first day of Parliament last Tuesday by carrying on where left off in 2024, letting National’s junior coalition partner set the political agenda and dragging ...
The PSA have released a survey of 4000 public service workers showing that budget cuts are taking a toll on the wellbeing of public servants and risking the delivery of essential services to New Zealanders. Economists predict that figures released this week will show continued increases in unemployment, potentially reaching ...
The Prime Minister’s speech 10 days or so ago kicked off a flurry of commentary. No one much anywhere near the mainstream (ie excluding Greens supporters) questioned the rhetoric. New Zealand has done woefully poorly on productivity for a long time and we really need better outcomes, and the sorts ...
President Trump on the day he announced tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, unleashing a shock to supply chains globally that is expected to slow economic growth and increase inflation for most large economies. Photo: Getty ImagesLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 9 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 3Politics: New Zealand Government cabinet meeting usually held early afternoon with post-cabinet news conference possible at 4 pm, although they have not been ...
Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
What seems to be the common theme in the US, NZ, Argentina and places like Italy under their respective rightwing governments is what I think of as “the politics of cruelty.” Hate-mongering, callous indifference in social policy-making, corporate toadying, political bullying, intimidation and punching down on the most vulnerable with ...
If you are confused, check with the sunCarry a compass to help you alongYour feet are going to be on the groundYour head is there to move you aroundSo, stand in the place where you liveSongwriters: Bill Berry / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe / Peter Buck.Hot in the CityYesterday, ...
Shane Jones announced today he would be contracting out his thinking to a smarter younger person.Reclining on his chaise longue with a mouth full of oysters and Kina he told reporters:Clearly I have become a has-been, a palimpsest, an epigone, a bloviating fossil. I find myself saying such things as: ...
Warning: This post contains references to sexual assaultOn Saturday, I spent far too long editing a video on Tim Jago, the ACT Party President and criminal, who has given up his fight for name suppression after 2 years. He voluntarily gave up just in time for what will be a ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is global warming ...
Our low-investment, low-wage, migration-led and housing-market-driven political economy has delivered poorer productivity growth than the rest of the OECD, and our performance since Covid has been particularly poor. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty this ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.As far as major government announcements go, a Three Ministers Event is Big. It can signify a major policy development or something has gone Very Well, or an absolute Clusterf**k. When Three Ministers assemble ...
One of those blasts from the past. Peter Dunne – originally neoliberal Labour, then leader of various parties that sought to work with both big parties (generally National) – has taken to calling ...
Completed reads for January: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson The Black Spider, by Jeremias Gotthelf The Spider and the Fly (poem), by Mary Howitt A Noiseless Patient Spider (poem), by Walt Whitman August Heat, by W.F. Harvey Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White The Shrinking Man, by Richard Matheson ...
Do its Property Right Provisions Make Sense?Last week I pointed out that it is uninformed to argue that the New Zealand’s apparently poor economic performance can be traced only to poor regulations. Even were there evidence they had some impact, there are other factors. Of course, we should seek to ...
Richard Wagstaff It was incredibly jarring to hear the hubris from the Prime Minister during his recent state of the nation address. I had just spent close to a week working though the stories and thoughts shared with us by nearly 2000 working people as part of our annual Mood ...
Odd fact about the Broadcasting Standards Authority: for the last few years, they’ve only been upholding about 5% of complaints. Why? I think there’s a range of reasons. Generally responsible broadcasters. Dumb complaints. Complaints brought under the wrong standard. Greater adherence to broadcasters’ rights to freedom of expression in the ...
And I said, "Mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone"'Cause I can't go outside, I'm scared I might not make it homeWell I'm alive, I'm alive, but I'm sinking inIf there's anyone at home at your place, darlingWhy don't you invite me in?Don't try to feed me'Cause I've been ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ star is on the rise, having just added the Energy, Local Government and Revenue portfolios to his responsibilities - but there is nothing ambitious about the Government’s new climate targets. Photo: SuppliedLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
It may have been a short week but there’s been no shortage of things that caught our attention. Here is some of the most interesting. This week in Greater Auckland On Tuesday Matt took a look at public transport ridership in 2024 On Thursday Connor asked some questions ...
The East Is Red: Journalists and commentators are referring to the sudden and disruptive arrival of DeepSeek as a second “Sputnik moment”. (Sputnik being the name given by the godless communists of the Soviet Union to the world’s first artificial satellite which, to the consternation and dismay of the Americans, ...
Hi,Back on inauguration day we launched a ridiculous RFK Jr. “brain worms” tee on the Webworm store, and I told you I’d be throwing my profits over to Mutual Aid LA and Rainbow Youth New Zealand. Just to show I am not full of shit, here are the receipts. I ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump over Gaza and Ukraine.Health expert and author David Galler ...
In an uncompromising paper Treasury has basically told the Government that its plan for a third medical school at Waikato University is a waste of money. Furthermore, the country cannot afford it. That advice was released this week by the Treasury under the Official Information Act. And it comes as ...
Back in November, He Pou a Rangi provided the government with formal advice on the domestic contribution to our next Paris target. Not what the target should be, but what we could realistically achieve, by domestic action alone, without resorting to offshore mitigation. Their answer was startling: depending on exactly ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guest David Patman and ...
I don't like to spend all my time complaining about our government, so let me complain about the media first.Senior journalistic Herald person Thomas Coughlan reported that Treasury replied yeah nah, wrong bro to Luxon's claim that our benighted little country has been in recession for three years.His excitement rose ...
Back in 2022, when the government was consulting internally about proactive release of cabinet papers, the SIS opposed it. The basis of their opposition was the "mosaic effect" - people being able to piece together individual pieces of innocuous public information in a way which supposedly harms "national security" (effectively: ...
With The Stroke Of A Pen:Populism, especially right-wing populism, invests all the power of an electoral/parliamentary majority in a single political leader because it no longer trusts the bona fides of the sprawling political class among whom power is traditionally dispersed. Populism eschews traditional politics, because, among populists, traditional politics ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to stand firm and work with allies to progress climate action as Donald Trump signals his intent to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once again. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Jon Kroll and Aimee McCammon have been appointed to the New Zealand Film Commission Board, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “I am delighted to appoint these two new board members who will bring a wealth of industry, governance, and commercial experience to the Film Commission. “Jon Kroll has been an ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has hailed a drop in the domestic component of inflation, saying it increases the prospect of mortgage rate reductions and a lower cost of living for Kiwi households. Stats NZ reported today that inflation was 2.2 per cent in the year to December, the second consecutive ...
Two new appointed members and one reappointed member of the Employment Relations Authority have been announced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden today. “I’m pleased to announce the new appointed members Helen van Druten and Matthew Piper to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) and welcome them to ...
Mediawatch -Trump's alarmed the world with trade tariffs, turning off aid and proposing to take over Gaza. But New Zealand's had diplomatic drama in the news too - with the media in the middle of it. ...
By Rachel Helyer Donaldson, RNZ News journalist New Zealand should be robust in its response to the “unacceptable” situation in Gaza but it must also back its allies against threats by the US President, says an international relations academic. Otago University professor of international relations Robert Patman said the rest ...
A Christchurch man who lost 55 relatives in three Israeli airstrikes on Gaza says his remaining family will never leave, despite a US proposal to remove them. ...
Asia Pacific Report A national Palestine advocacy group has hit back at critics of its “genocide hotline” campaign against soldiers involved in Israel’s war against Gaza, saying New Zealand should be actively following international law. The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) dismissed a “predictable lineup of apologists for Israel” for ...
ACT Party leader David Seymour said he wrote to police about the treatment of Philip Polkinghorne because it's an electorate MP's job to pass on the concerns of their constituents. ...
MEDIAWATCH:By Colin Peacock, RNZ Mediawatch presenter By the time US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on China and Canada last Monday which could kickstart a trade war, New Zealand’s diplomats in Washington, DC, had already been deployed on another diplomatic drama. Republican Senator Ted Cruz had said on social ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown says New Zealand is asking for too much oversight over its deal with China, which is expected to be penned in Beijing next week. Brown told RNZ Pacific the Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship was reciprocal. “They certainly did ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Byelections occurred on Saturday in the Victorian state seats of Prahran and Werribee. The Liberals gained Prahran from the Greens by a ...
A long time ago, Brian Turner wrote a poem in which, among the mountains, as he slept on a river flat … My speechless ancestors played like mice among my dreamsand he woke to the river running over my bed of stone. I have come to know that where a ...
Pacific Media Watch President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and ...
Otago University professor of international relations Robert Patman says New Zealand should provide a robust response to Donald Trump's Gaza plan, and also "should stop tip-toeing" around Trump. ...
The new minister of transport has opened the door for public consultation on at least some of the speed limit changes the government said would be automatic. ...
Officially, they’re called ‘memecoins,’ but Kōura Wealth founder Rupert Carlyon says the crypto world has another name for them: ‘shitcoins’.In digital finance, that phrase is used for tokens that have no true value – in essence, a money-grab.A few days before his inauguration, US President Donald Trump launched his own ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. Guy Williams has made a whole show off the joke that he is a “volunteer” journalist. So getting publicly owned by David Seymour while trying to act as a journalist is a good and timely reminder not to underestimate the nuance and ...
Many of Sāmoa’s beloved dishes are the result of cultural collaboration, writes Madeleine Chapman. All photos by Jin FelletIf you ever find yourself at a barbecue in a Sāmoan home, there’s 99% chance that sapasui (chop suey) will be on the table. For the past century, sapasui has ...
The funnyman takes us through his life in television, including Jono and Ben mayhem, live Telethon flubs, and funnelling all those experiences into his new comedy Vince. There’s an inciting incident in Three’s new comedy Vince where morning television presenter Vince Walters (Jono Pryor) is visiting sick kids in hospital ...
People often claim they just want Waitangi Day to be a celebration. At Waitangi, away from the headlined political acrimony and the marae ātea, celebrating is what most people are doing. The Spinoff Essay showcases the best essayists in Aotearoa, on topics big and small. Made possible by the generous ...
Is there anything more fashionable than a Māori get together? One of the best things about Northland is that nobody cares what they look like — probably because they’re all naturally more stylish than the rest of us, famously. Māori from the Far North, especially. In 27 degree heat, wearing ...
I’ve been in love with him since last July, but it’s only now in this tepid hotel room that I find myself wondering why. The first thing he does when we arrive is smoke a cone in the bathroom – he emerges, hacking up a lung, fists thrust into his ...
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Books of Mana: 180 Māori-Authored Books of Significance, edited by Jacinta Ruru, Angela Wanhalla and Jeanette Wikaira has just been released by Otago University Press. In this essay, Books are Taonga, Jeanette Wikaira explores her personal relationship to books and their value.For me, books are taonga. The knowledge ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amani Kasherwa, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Queensland In late January, a rebel group that has long caused mayhem in the sprawling African nation of Democratic Republic of Congo took control of Goma, a major city of ...
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“The sprawling political refugee camp that Labour is busily turning itself into will find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the “No Discussion of Beliefs Permitted” rule it is currently enforcing in order not to upset its National refugees, and a position which denies the importance of espousing coherent political beliefs altogether.”
Chris Trotter in a thought provoking mood in his Bowlalleyroad blog. Have a read.
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/
I’d rather rub ground glass into my eyes than read Trotter’s “dudes only!11!!” centred bullshit.
I like it! Thanks BillODrees…
Not really political but that shouldn’t stop a good moan. Who is sick of the media running their own trial with these high profile court cases? Every day we get the media version of the Guy/MacDonald saga; a days court proceedings condensed into a few column inches of ghoulish voyeurism. The media take a sick delight in parading the private lives of the participants, gorging on gossip, innuendo and rumour. There’s no justice in it, they’re neither judge nor jury, its all about ratings and they don’t care who they hurt in the process.
If it’s not that it is disgusting grief-porn. All cheap copy that sells newspapers and apparently that’s all that matters.
Speaking of the Guy case, I’ve been interested in the number of workers on that farm who were not being paid, and were doing some kind of “work experience”. More agrarian welfare for the rich.
Who is sick of the media running their own trial with these high profile court cases?
*Raises hand*
Raises both hands! The second the latest gruesome details of the latest murder trial comes on TV
it is the OFF button for me. If everybody did the same thing they would soon stop. It is the victim’s families who must stand to be the most affected by this media obsession with murder and mayhem. What long term damage is being done to them I hate to think.
Another hazard that is often overlooked… I know there are many parents of young families who can no longer watch the 6pm news because they will not allow their children to be exposed to the daily diet of murder trials with all it’s attendant blood and gore.
Dh I agree. A brief mention of the progress of the Guy case would be satisfactory not all this background about what the farm worker said and thought, family feelings and on. One thing emerges – the emotional pull to farmland is strong here. There was a murder of a wife in a divorce who in wanting her half share of property was forcing the sale of a hard-built farm and the husband reacted against her.
My moan is about the extensive coverage, with money wasted on USA commentators, of the USA political circus. Let them ride their roundabouts there, with again, brief updates. But the fight for presidential candidates, the ridiculous manipulated party addresses and loud cries of approval from their fans, we don’t need this. It’s a waste of money. There are 172? countries in the world. When is there time to hear about the others with the USA crowding out other news?To get any airtime they have to have riots or disasters yet they lead very interesting and internationally important lives.
Exactly! What really irks me is when a grinning Hil’ry Berry or Mike McRoberts, plays some trivial local American item, the sort of thing that would be a paragraph in a local newspaper.. it’s not as if there isn’t plenty else to discuss!
We gave this trial matter some thought recently; DYNASTY or DALLAS comes to mind.Having worked for and socialised with sectors of our glorious rural community over the decades can advise that the sorts of dynamics being revealed in this publicised expose are very common between family members, families, neighbors, managers etc. It is not so bucolic amongst the california thistles, mastitis and mongrels. ENVY and GREED reeks from a lot of these people, and yes, getting paid like getting blood out of pumice.
Emmerdale on steroidal hormones.
Well, with corporate farming expansion, falling commodity prices, reduced commodity orders, devaluation of the dollar likely, interest rate rises, increased regulation and environmental requirements, Trading in Fonterra shares, fuel price and ruc increases etc….
Good Luck to Them. NOT.
SamHall
Interesting comment which I understood this time. You sound as if you are well-versed in the healthy country lifestyle. By the way who are ‘we’? Do you arise from a think tank or is it the royal we? Haha.
Seems to suffer from multiple personality disorder.
Lets not forget it is always handy to a Government that is dealing with sensitive and/or volatile policies to have a juicy murder to distract the public with. This was highlighted for me this morning when National Radio had an interview about Australia and How The Dingo Did It. The commentator mentioned how the whole Azaria case came to light and began its protracted media prescence just as the Mabo land case was gaining traction.
I absolutely agree! The Guy/McDonald saga is particularly boring/annoying… Said about Kylie Guy “she still wears her rings” – well, most widows do! What was their point?
With the increase of Road User Charges I assume we will have John Banks encouraging the roading industry to block Auckland Roads with trucks again in protest as he did when the Labour Party were in Government /sarc. He was so enthuisiastic over the protest then. Hypocrites.
Sorting out Super – what now?
We should start the discussion now. National may choose to stay out of it for now, but they will have to join at some stage.
Suggested progress:
– Involve all willing parties and any groups and organisations with an interest in the future of NZ Super in discussion and proposal of policies.
– Open it to wide public discussion.
– Gather as much information and opinion as possible.
– National and United Future have a Confidence and Supply commitment to public discussion on flexi-super – this can be used to develop the Super debate further.
– In time for next election campaign have a commitment from all (willing) parties on the future direction of NZ Super and a timeframe for dealing with it.
– Include NZ Super in parliamentary business early in the next term (first half of 2015)
Let’s make it happen. Starting now.
Suggested progress:
– get the poodle to not vote for the next budget unless it addresses the Superannuation time bomb.
– get all the pollies to read the very interesting and comprehensive posts and comments in the Standard on the subject.
Lets really make it happen. Starting now.
Your first point is either pathetic or woefully ignorant.
Your second point is very good – why don’t you make it happen? I could give you some practical advice if you like. If you can generate some positive and balanced discussion here I’d be happy to promote and support it. Cross-blog discussion on Super is something I’ve suggested.
What are you doing on your blog about Super? I’d be happy to link that in too.
Your first point is either pathetic or woefully ignorant.
Why is that Petey?
Sounds like ignorance.
Why doesn’t the poodle withhold his vote on next year’s budget if the Government refuses to confront the baby boomer bulge now?
Because C&S responsibilities don’t allow for the bringing down of the government at the request of some random blog commenter. This is a standard coalition provision, and will have protected the Clark government from first year collapse due to Redbaiter asking a party to break their agreement (similar to you he’s currently asking for banishment of the entire National contingent).
Perhaps you think any coalition between between Labour and Greens would be as flimsy and temporary as you seem to think the current one should be.
Apart from that it’s ridiculous to threaten a budget that’s eleven months away on an issue that could achieve significant progress in that time, but will probably take longer than that to resolve.
There are no C&S responsibilities that overide Dunne’s responsibilities to NZ, Pete. If he genuinely wants a debate on Super, then the power is in his hands to enforce one. Which he won’t do, because he is too worried about a single aspect of the super debate; his own pension pot.
Dunne has already used his (coalition) power to get a commitment with National to a public discussion paper on Super, which is more than anyone else has been able to achieve.
How effective that discussion will be will depend on how much effort a range of parties, organisations and individuals make to take advantage of the opportunity.
No he hasn’t. Key refuses to join in the debate and the ‘agreement’ you refer to is nothing to do with the wider issue of super. It’s just a sop, as you well know, Pete. Stop dissembling and start putting pressure on your leader. Poodles have teeth, you know. They just have to be trained to use them.
It’s just a sop
I’m certain you have no idea what it will be yet.
Au conraire, Pompous George.
It is a sop; it’s a commitment in the C&S agreement to a (small ‘g’) government paper on a possible flexible retirement age, (ie. straight to Bin 13). Even if it ever makes the light of day, that’s a change which the PM rejected yet again as recently as yesterday.
So stop trying to blow smoke up our collective nether regions and get to work on Dunne. Tell him you’ll walk if he doesn’t threaten to do the same. Go on, mate, show some balls. You can cripple the media arm of UF just by refusing to blog for a day.
I’d rather work positively to see what can be done. Hissy fitting as you suggest doesn’t usually achieve anything.
And…
So that’s where the only common ground is at the moment, so it’s worth doing as much as possible with it.
Other blogs are getting in on promoting good Super discussion and progress too:
From: http://keepingstock.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/consensus-in-our-times.html
Canadian tar sands break even between $50-$75 per barrel http://awe.sm/aKsc Price is currently $40 http://awe.sm/aKsX #peakoil
My understanding is that break even today is closer to $75/barrel for new operations.
And that assumes the ongoing ability to use and pollute as much fresh ground water as you like in the process for free AND not clean any of the massive chemical ponds or pollution up afterwards.
Shell gave the $50 figure at the beginning of last year so that’s a long time in the oil business. You could be right on current costs.
The oil companies pretty much have free range in Alberta and from the Harper government. They are desperate to get a pipeline either East or West but are facing huge opposition. They have to give large discounts to the US as they buy 99% of the Albertan oil at the moment.
That $50 is just their assessment of when they make meaningful money. Oilcos have been working the sands for decades at lower prices. Production costs including a reasonable rate of return are much lower.
For established conventional fields in the prime of production, I agree.
But for new deep sea wells and other unconventional sources, financial break even is not far off US$75/bb.
As for energy break even (EROEI) that’s another matter again.
Break even in terms of raw production costs. Not break even in terms of CO2 and environmental destruction.
A few years back lifting costs were only about $15
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_wsj-oil_oil.htm
outsider mad hatters institute a right wing propaganda organisation with very deep pockets.
I smell Murdoch and other robber barons all over this!
No credibility looking after vested interests.
Another brilliant blog analysis by Giovanni Tiso, this time on the temporarily derailed education reforms. And apart from the content, Tiso writes so damn well.
http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.co.nz/
…We aren’t always going to be so lucky. Attacks against public education, here and elsewhere, are going to continue, and they will be launched – against the backdrop of a permanent state of economic crisis – by driving a wedge between the aspirations of the middle class and the realities faced by the working class. Of course league tables and performance pay are damaging to public education understood as a universal good – and I’m going to explain why to John Roughan in a minute – but so long as you feel confident that you will be able to move to the area with the best school, and you have been correctly conditioned to view the education of your children as a form of competition, you might not mind this, or even learn to actively support the idea. And just in case you might harbour some nostalgia for old-fashioned egalitarian myths, we shall disguise the reforms as pious concern for the one in five whom the education system currently fails (never mind it’s more like one in twenty), and who hail in the main from the lower socio-economic classes. This will sway some of the liberals who most need to be made to feel altruistic in exchange for their class interests being served. …
embolding mine.
Thanks just saying. You are right about Giovanni’s writing style. And he has captured the essence of dark days of Education that are to come. Larger classes are just the opening shots. Ughh!
I agree, Giovanni Tiso’s writing is lovely to read, and this is an excellent piece. But whichever way you look, the downward squeeze /upward flow gets more and more apparent. Everything works in the manner of a nasty franchise: the owner of the brand squeezes the margins so that the franchisee cannot get his head above water, and in turn squeezes the staff. Dollar-guys attack the Euro Zone through its weakest links, and the strong members squeeze the weaker ones in an attempt to regain their ground. Education is no different; the recent changes to tertiary education, in which interest-free student loans are kept but limits placed upon getting them, essentially means a near-free education for the wealthy (who can invest the loan amount, take the loan, and reduce the cost via the interest received), while the poor are gradually squeezed out. The mooted changes to primary/secondary education follow much the same pattern. Wake up, middle class! You are only a squeeze or two further away from ruin than the people you want to see sterilised.
Well-said, Olwyn!
Hallelujah Olwyn!
+1
There have been a few server structural shifts going on overnight. See this comment from yesterday.
Let me know if anyone spots anything outside of the current site flaws. I haven’t been seeing any of significiance apart from a markedly reduced overseas bandwidth.
On my screen, the layout is different, lists of blogs, media etc., is now running single-file down the length of the right side of the screen, and periodically it becomes blurred with the words on top of each other.
All clear on my screen.
I sometimes suspect my computer of being a bit of a hypochondriac.
No it was there.. One part of it was to do some interesting things to javascripts. A bit too much as it turned out. Took a while for that to come through the system.
Should be fixed now.
It is 🙂
The UK, for the opening of the Olympics is setting up a picture of a country idyll with happy cows and people – must be like a glossy Midsomer Murders background. Very Marie Antoinette who used to have tableaus with her entourage dressed as rustics I understand.
And funny in a nightmarish way when one thinks of residential buildings in London having their roofs turned into sites for anti-missile etc surveillance. This will have to be set up earlier than the opening and people screened in and out. The people there will have this burden of suspicion and checking systems for months perhaps, and feel like targets for damage. Not an idyll.
lprent
I have struck a wee problem. I put an item on 12/6 open mike and then realised I wanted it in 13/6 so tried to delete it and that gave me a blank page with -1 at the top of it. I thought okay it’s been deleted, and put the item in 13/6 and then checked back on 12/6 but it was still there. Pressed delete again got the pink line that I wasn’t allowed to do this and blue Close. I pressed this and nothing happened. I couldn’t get reaction either from the return/refresh arrow at top so was locked there in Ajax and had to close out to get out.
That’s been happening for a while.
Alert from Avaaz.org. An online petition re Asset Sales:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Oppose_NZ_Asset_Sales/?boNMXab&v=15125
You said it ianmac! New Zealand’s “Key” assets, indeed!! He must have at least 3 people supporting him, I guess.
Lurker Boag goes viral:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7094218/Boag-keeps-eagle-eye-on-ACC-story
“What was Michelle Boag doing?”
Tee hee.
From accounts about a decade ago, the Lady does not do “demure” (please correct this if this is not accurate). “It was that simple.”
Btw, being “short” (courtesy from Crushless) does not preclude having bionic ears.
secret taping lurking round parliament spying on reporters i smell a rat a natrat from the brat pack.
Boag will not be the flavour of the month in most Nact circles right now.
Helping undermine her leaders aspirations.
The Boag Con stictor. Sqeezing the life out of her prey.
Another Nactional meddling muddler
Well spotted Carol! Just what the hell was she doing there? Is this awful woman still an office-holder within National? I guess that she is another “asset” on the side, but one (unfortunately) they will never sell!
Bob Jones treads a shaky line in his column in the Herald:
shonkey might be buysexual
BJ is a lout.
And: BREAKING NEWS
ACC CEO Ralph Stewart to leave… details soon
Even worse for National, Speaker Roy has allowed an urgent debate on ACC with him chairing. It is going to be a blood bath …
Time for some predictions.
In the movie The Truman Show, Truman is talking to the woman who will later be his girlfriend. She is wearing a button saying “How’s it going to end?”
How’s our Truman Show going to end?
Around the world, elected and un-elected officials developing unworkable economic solutions to problems created by corporates and banks seeking profits that are now being paid for from austerity measures placed on the innocent.
The use of taxes earned off the backs of the workers to purchase worthless “assets” from private interests who manipulated, deluded and defrauded so they could use other people’s money to make personal profit.
Banks, corporations, executives, bankers escaping prosecution for the misery they created around to world in the form of job loses, mortgagee sales, business failures and all the attendant mental, emotional damage.
The development of a corporate aristocracy for whom the rules applied to lesser beings do not apply. Golden parachutes given to people who cause loss or harm to their company. Corporate boxes for politicians when public servants could be sacked for receiving such a gift. Horrendously large salaries and bonuses for jobs that, some times, could be done by a well trained chimp.
A worker goes to work knowing that a percentage of their labour and time will be exchanged for money that will fund a life of entitlement for politicians who do not undergo a performance review. An election every three years by an uninformed or indifferent populace is NOT a performance review.
Taxes used to fund corporate welfare projects based on flawed calculations of how many jobs it will create. Instead, private investors who have some degree of wealth profit from the sweat of those who don’t.
A world economic system that is soooo flawed that it needs radical reform but the lunatics are the ones running the asylum.
The list goes on…..
How’s it going to end? Are we all just a Truman Burbank? Content to live in a world where everything is a corporate product and nothing is real?
Christof: If his was more than just a vague ambition, if he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s no way we could prevent him.
Christof: “I’ve given Truman the chance to lead a normal life. The world, the place you live in is the sick place. Seahaven is the way the world should be.”
How do you think it will end?
Financial systems are a constant mystery also those involved in them. On Radionz I think on Sunday afternoon there was a piece on auditors. There used to be 9 big ones, now there are only four. Consideration is being given to legislating for a change of auditor every 6 years to prevent client capture or moral hazard or whatever name for cosiness. The auditors spoken to were very confident that everything was fine as it is. Auditing relationships have been known to last 48 years. Of course that rarely applies now as businesses average about 10 years before fading.
What we need is another Australian with a socialist background to lead this country out of recession…
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/lessons-in-history.html
Oops
Finance Minister Bill English admits rebalancing of NZ economy towards exporting yet to happen due to high NZ$ and quake; also sees tax switch benefits taking 5-7 years
However, “one way or another they will muddle through.
http://www.interest.co.nz/
Actual Link
Thanks Draco
Muldooms light at the end of the tunnel con.Austerity and think big robs vision.
Austerity and motorways brighter future Pure spin nosubstance.
I was recently half listening to an interview with author on King Dick Seddon. He sounded like an able politician who achieved a lot.
Only LPrent knows for sure, but it seems to me that there has been a steady increase in the number of women commenting on the Standard in the couple of years I’ve been coming here. I’m extrpolating to a certain extent from the pseudonyms people are using, and assuming can make an ass….
I don’t know for sure, I generally have to guess. And I frequently find I am wrong both ways. I’ve had people tell me that they deliberately pick opposite gender names…. The whole point about the site is that unless people choose to rely on parts of the life outside of pure argument and use those in the conversation, you can’t tell.
But I think that there has been a steadily increasing numbers of women commenting over the years and that they are commenting more than they used to.
And making the most sensible and sensitive comments too.
Some do. Some make my cynical rants designed to perform experimental literay inguinal orchiectomy on trolls look relatively tame. You should see some of the compliments I get after each excision from our modestly polite but robust debate.
Personally I rather like that our other gender has a healthy dislike of idiots. Makes me more hopeful about the kids with that level of discrimination against the socially inept with a self assessed Priapus problem.
As I say, it is sometimes hard to tell. But very few act like trolls.
Hmm, this.
China is a kleptocracy of a scale never seen before in human history. This post aims to explain how this wave of theft is financed, what makes it sustainable and what will make it fail. There are several China experts I have chatted with – and many of the ideas are not original. The synthesis however is mine. Some sources do not want to be quoted.
The macroeconomic effects of the Chinese kleptocracy and the massive fixed-currency crisis in Europe are the dominant macroeconomic drivers of the global economy. As I am trying a comprehensive explanation for much of the world’s economy in less that two thousand words I expect some kick-back.
Foreign Minister Murray McChardonnay – receives todays ROTFL award for his outstanding comedy skit performed recently at the Institute of International Affairs in Wellington.
He had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand with the seemly candid admission that the Security Council is a sham:
“That view holds that contested Security Council seats will always fall to the highest bidder of aid dollars, or to the holder of the most flexible positions on the controversial foreign policy issues of the day,”
And then came the punch line:
“The Prime Minister’s approach and my own approach is that we would rather lose with honour than trade overseas development assistance or policy positions for Security Council votes.”
I have had many doubts about Mr McCully, Mr Key and the National government, and those doubts of course remain, but now I think I finally understand them – they are actually a stealth comedy act, gone deep cover, their strategy – to kill off the opposition with the most potent of all weapons – uncontrollable laughter.
At last some common sense – just not from NZ.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/falling-dollar-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-says-stevens-20120613-20946.html
grumpy more BS from a neo con. Australias savings are among the best in the world/
Nup, normal RWNJ scaremongering about high prices.
Our fishing is certainly under threat with ships like the Korean one in the case being tried in Court. But the Korean officers have left the country apparently. You would think we would have some legal means of stopping them leaving so they could answer to their wrongs.
The crew have been brutalised, the observer tried to intervene on some of the practices but got very curt responses and feared for her safety. Why should they be able to get away with bad practices like this major dump of fish worth I think a million dollars when apparently all they needed to do was bring the net up earlier. It’s such careless and wasteful and inefficient practice and our seas are the losers to these marauding sods.
So Paula Benefit is planning some “tough love” for teenagers likely to go on the unemployment benefit. This involves extra surveillance, advice on budgeting and parenting…… but apparently no jobs???!!!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10812818
So just a lot of additional harassment, surveillance and window-dressing, nothing useful like ACTUAL jobs …. and, the kicker!…. it’ll save the government $1billion!
Vampire lurve!
No they won’t, far more likely to entrench them.
What she means is that she’ll force more into poverty so that they’re forced to work to make some bludger richer for lower wages than they get already.
That is all rote stuff that Petulant Bean learned at USA University isn’t it. I think she did a pressure cooker course on how to cook the books? so as to make welfare beneficiaries seem to be a mix between vampires and the devil’s spawn. Was it at Wisconsin, a name that occurs when talking about meanness, and they would be big on using the terms welfare dependence also learned helplessness is another favourite.
Learned helplessness has a specific meaning in educational psychology, and should never be used outside that specific discipline!
Paula Bennett is a sick piece of work…so is this concept of ‘welfare dependency’ .
Its time we took back the word dependency and use it to vilify the rich.
Within the relationship between the rich and the poor, there is only one direction that dependency exists. The concept of dependency was made famous by the theorist andre gunder frank who exposed how under capitalism, on a world wide scale, the rich are dependent on the poor. Somehow this term has been highjacked and is used to stigmatise victims, and champion the abusers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_theory
Points about Gabriel Makhlouf, Secretary to the Treasury, NZ. He fits my prejudice about the hardening effect on children of absent parents sent to boarding schools at long distance from their parents, as in school in Britain while parents work for UN in various countries.
“his father pursued a career in the UN. From age 11, he was separated from his family to continue his education at a British boarding school.
After graduating with an honours degree in economics at the University of Exeter, he spent a year as a treasurer for a student union, then did a masters degree in industrial relations at the University of Bath. His thesis was on “intra-union relationships in academia” As a PhD beckoned, Makhlouf realised it was either a life in academia “or I had to get out”, and he landed his first job in 1984, as a tax inspector.”
About our teachers “However, Makhlouf doesn’t have backing from Hattie on the alleged failure of the New Zealand education system. In the book’s foreword Hattie says, “We have a nation of excellent teachers, as shown in the country’s ranking in the top half-dozen nations in reading, mathematics and science. http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/interview-gabriel-makhlouf/