English Labour will not vote against the Tory government’s welfare bill and should not oppose Tories limiting child tax credits to two children, the party’s interim leader, Harriet Harman, has said. Her remarks came as the shadow education secretary, Tristam Hunt, warned the party that it was becoming an irrelevance at a frightening speed.
Seemingly bennie bashing is how you become relevant.
Ha ha. You are so right. Unless, in the not to distant future, they invent a robot with a fourth law embedded in its neural net which axiomatically decrees – wipe bottom – Do Not Exterminate, Mr Octogenerian Infused will have to put up with the working poor taking care of his bodily functions.
But in saying that, he will receive generally excellent care.
The robot on the other will quickly and logically conclude – wiping bottom sucks – exterminate, exterminate.
Why bail out the bank directly, when you could bail out the country so it is more likely able to pay some money back to the bank? If you bail out the bank directly, Greece is left in no state to be able to recover and thus will require more lending. Bailing out the banks and not the country is short-term thinking.
If that’s the case, why lend money in the first place if they aren’t going to be able to pay it back? Oh, it’s so you have an excused to repossess all their assets. So they basically lend money so they could loot the country. Why should that behaviour be rewarded?
Did you that terrible interview on RNZ?
Good to hear listeners’ feedback supporting Twyford and slamming RNZ for its bias as well as the government for doing nothing about the crisis.
I’ve been reflecting on the kerfuffle over chinese investment in nz’s real estate. some random points:
it’s fairly easy to distinguish between who comes from the prc and who comes from.the diaspora because the communist state early on adopted a distinctive form of romanization of Chinese words called pinyin. I’m not sure if the salmond factored this in to his surprisingly underappreciated methodology.
Chinese are vulnerable in nz. any sort of negative press, such as what labour has been running, will probably result in more street level racial abuse. I doubt that Chinese associations in nz or any pakeha institutions would be well placed to pick up on such trends. liberal nz’s policy settings are based on the false premise that multiculturalism is easy, and so there isn’t an institutional depth around trying to grasp the lived experience of migrant communities -though I’d be interested to learn more about the tools that the race relations conciliator has available.
the Chinese state and local Chinese idiots are capable of truly horrific behaviour, and innocent Chinese are regularly caught up in the blowback. I’m thinking of the anti China riots in Vietnam recently when beijing plonked an oil rig in vietnamese waters, surrounding it with burly and aggressive ships. taiwanese businesses were attacked – pretty much anyone who was chineseish was in danger. even China’s immediate neighbours can be quite ignorant of the various communities that loosely come under the adjective “chinese”. also you get all sorts of outrageous behaviour from usually mainland businesspeople that gets the locals antsy about anyone who seems chinese. that’s mostly what’s behind the often strong anti-Chinese sentiment in africa. that and the success, and the numbers.
genuine question – where is the space in the public domain for people to say “I feel bad about these buggers moving in”. cos a lot of people are feeling that. I remember a couple of Myanmar refugees telling me in Wellington in 2007 something like “there are so many Chinese everywhere”. confusedly. it just seems to me that resentment is building up, and it’s dangerous to simply say “fuck off dumb racist”. cos the problem doesn’t fuck off.
political parties tend to be quite shit at engaging in migrant communities. to do it proper you need biculturalism – basically people who are conversant in the majority plus other cultures. and that takes yearsnyears of language learning, travel, lived experience, etc etc. essentially nzers lack the skills to be able to forge a coherent society out of a fractured one. we’ve got multiculturalism on the cheap, which turns out to be not good for much beyond the diversity of the shopping mall foodcourt.
The internet? And when you say “people” do those people include you? Whoever those people are, why, or what hurdles do they have to reaching an understanding of the things they think and how those things may or may not be threatened, or which things are threatened, or even why they think the way they do?
Are they happy to be against others because of race and leave it there?
From a pakeha perspective, is there a cultural reason (or of course, time, ability) that they cannot just pause for a moment and work back from “there are too many chinese everywhere” and figure out what scares them about that? As a European it’s “normal” for me to suggest this fairly clumsy method because my psychological heritage stands outside the subconscious looking in as a stranger. What is their cultural position, traditionally? What ideas are they carrying (beneficial or not) that they take for granted that holds them back from examining their beliefs like that? How are they resistent to Western thinking, if at all?
And more importantly, does it even matter? A pakeha racist might go from “too many Chinese” to “let’s attack the next one we see!” naturally. But if you were from Myanmar and a buddhist, you might think, “Ok so too many Chinese. Bastards.” and then go back to whatever you’re doing and nothing more comes of it, ever. If the problem is a negative personal experience (causing the ill-feeling), not much can be done in the “public domain” and at an early stage, internet-venting might actually make it worse.
my personal take is, people tend to be fearful of change, and large scale immigration is one kind of change.
people are also usually more comfortable dealing with their own kind…
so these are legitimate, human fears that are ubiquitous and easy to understand .
i live in china, suffer from racism quite a bit. i accept that a lot of it is coming from a very human place, so it doesn’t bother me. there are plenty of folk who can handle foreigners, and plenty who can’t so well. that’s all normal. i’ve also been attacked by groups of men a couple of times on racial grounds. i’d put that at the less legitimate end of the scale of behaviour around dealing with foreigners. but it’s really about them, not me, and i wish them well.
we live in a big diverse world and some people are better than others at handling that diversity turning up on their doorstep. but you need to appreciate the concept of “home”. this place is the home of others in a more intimate way than it is my home, so while i’m a local i’ll also always be a guest.
it’s sort of contradictory to espouse a cosmopolitanism that looks down on people who aren’t able to espouse it.
i come from a Christian angle, and the differences from liberalism re: racism are thus:
liberals believe that racism can be defeated. they believe in progress – things getting better and better. thus you hear phrases like “we have to move past racism”. what is racism grounded in according to this worldview? probably bad thinking, which can be educated away, and possibly bad attitudes such as selfishness, that can be dropped. ironically, in this worldview, you’re able to relatively easily become unracist, so if you don’t it means you are (choosing to be) inferior. so liberals look down on people for looking down on people. awesome.
i believe that racism will always be with us. “progress” does not exist. i believe it’s a question of character, and character runs deep and is not so easy to change. humans are morally weak and deserve greater empathy in their failings than liberals are generally disposed to afford them. jesus comes to a failing world in love, it’s satan who accuses (terry eagleton points out that the popular modern idea of the christian god actually fits the biblical idea of satan – the accuser who is out to get you if you screw up (the word satan is hebrew for accuser). point being, christians are required to practice empathy toward ‘bad people’, which is a world away from the snide liberal pooh pooing).
liberals follow tolerance and freedom, christians follow hospitality and the imperatives of love. for a liberal, it’s ok to allow people to immigrate, and let them do their thing without engaging with them at any serious level. for christians that’s not ok. we need to be inviting them into our homes, eating with them, and having our horizons expanded as we try to figure out how to support or simply be there for them, to live alongside them. for example: wellington refugee and migrant services was started by a group of churches – not the local atheists’ knitting club. for another example: my church ran free english classes for refugees and migrants. for a lot of them it was their only regular contact with new zealanders. new new zealanders cannot become new zealanders simply by dint of a change in citizenship status. hospitality is a vital part in becoming a local. i used to teach chinese students whose only interaction with kiwis was transactional – involving the handing over of money – be it the landlord, the esl teacher or the local shop keeper. there’s a lot of freedom and toleration in that, but it’s crap. and the chinese students knew it was crap. “come to new zealand and buy stuff!” yeah right.
when a migrant suffers from racism, they need to be able to talk it out with someone. if they’re only discussing that shit with other migrants, well that’s a recipe for brewing a world of resentment and bitterness. when migrants have actual born and bred kiwis to talk about their struggles with, it goes a huge way to making them feel accepted and part of things. new zealand is really doing this immigration thing too cheaply, and it opens the way for a toxic legacy down the track.
Racists look for “enablement”. It’s the prime principle of the dogwhistle. If someone prominent says something that they can use as justification for their behaviour, they’ll feel they’ve been let off the leash.
One of the most frequent mistakes politicians make is to assume that the only message people receive is the one they intend to send as text or subtext, not the one that people want to hear themselves.
Before it was the leakers like Goff and Robertson who wanted people to think that David Cunliffe was unfit to lead Labour when the message received was that Labour as a whole was unfit to govern. Now the message being received is that Labour says Chinese people are bad, and certainly National and Act have gleefully leapt at the opportunity to make use of this.
God only knows why I’m being so generous. Must be lingering sentiment.
Labour says that 9% of probable Chinese in a fraction of the population are probably not doing something bad for the economy, and 30% of probable Chinese in that fraction are probably doing something bad for it.
this is all about hot money inflows.
when you have the wrong end of the stick, best thing is to let it go and walk away.
Labour can say one thing and be heard another. Right now they’re defending themselves against charges of racism because some people construe their message as racist and because it’s being painted as racist. The facts are getting lost.
Mr Little said while some people had claimed it was racist, several Aucklanders had applauded it.
“If the feedback out of Auckland is anything to go by, I expect we’ll have a lot of support in the policy we’ve put up.
“We understood the risks but we thought that having got information that clearly highlights an issue that is consistent with what we’ve been saying, we made the judgment it should be disclosed. I think people need to know.”
He said Labour’s critics should be concerned about first-home buyers being squeezed out of the market.
“Our first moral duty is to those who live here, and that includes those of Chinese ethnicity who have chosen to live here, or whose parents or grandparents chose to live here. They are the people we care about.”
Except, you know, that is the Herald which is a national publication that is supposed to be neutral and the standard is a blog which openly comes from the left.
Shit. So that settles it then. They say they knew the risks. haha “the risks”? It’s not a “risk” when you chose to ring the race cowbell. That’s a choice. They knew the choices. Get it right, Andrew.
Is this a “dead rat” issue? Because stirring up racial tensions wil get a party elected, and the Left needs Labour unless the unthinkable happens and people flock to the Greens and Mana in a totally unforeseen landslide. But really, the ongoing cost of the race card, is it worth it? This is more like a “dead horse” issue, or a re-interred partially thawed and rotting ice-mammoth issue. Two years out, and The Greens are bolstering National’s anti-free speech laws and Labour are ringing the race bells. Christ. Can not wait for 2017. That year is clearly going to be insane.
And hasn’t he committed a bit of a general cultural faux pas by suggesting present day Chinese are not connected to anything past their grandparents? It’s like the “blame the parents for the kids” argument; or the “we decide who is Maori or not” bloodline/ratio approach. Colonial Viper is right, Labour need a better reflection of who it is they represent in their MPs.
In saying “first moral duty”, Little acknowledges the harm his party has done to people who are “second” or even lower ranked. Nice to know. The bus has a dog whistle for a horn. Beneficiaries, LBGTQ, now people with Chinese-sounding surnames – all acceptable collateral damage… I wonder if they’ll realise that chucking people under the bus won’t put diesel in the tank?
Metiria Turei gave a much more intelligent and considered response. It’s early on in this clip:
Even making the generous assumption of good faith, Labour’s handling has been collosally (and predictably) stupid, handing ammunition to Smith and undermining its credibility on race. It’s a classic case of “Fire! Aim! Ready!” Even making the generous assumption that they didn’t anticipate this backlash, then whoever’s running their media strategy needs to put down their crayons for a while and let someone with at least the barest suggestion of competence take the role.
My extended family & I sincerely hope that Labour will put a hand out to pick us up, or to scrape us off the road, after Messrs Twyford & Little and the current issues leave town in the big red bus.
Perhaps its not surprising the Herald editorial this morning backs-up Labour’s call for proper data to be collected on just who is buying up big and speculatively in the Auckland housing market. After all, the Herald IS Auckland-based, and anecdotal “evidence” and people on the ground at Auckland auctions is what’s causing the concern, and it needs addressing. This is from today’s Herald :
” For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald ……… They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market. ……”
Oh noes! Chinese at property auctions! Quick, where are the internment camps when we need them?! And what about Australians, Poms, Indians and the South Africans. Especially the South Africans. They’re sneaky bastards. You can only tell they’re South African when they open their mouths.
Geez I go away for a couple of days and everything goes ker-razy…so who decided that attacking Asians was the best way for Labour to get back into power?
Well PR you must be very upset to realise that it is not TrevM
perhaps you should go to Specsavers or even go back to where you have been and then we wouldn’t have to put up with your biased comments although, I must say that the SST actually beats you for bias in this instance.
Today’s NZ Herald editorial – ( Monday 13 July 2015) Business Section:
“Chinese role in the housing boom.
For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald will have contained just one element of surprise.
They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market.
Anecdotal accounts from auctions had led them to discount a survey of real estate agents in 2013 that attributed only 8 per cent of purchases to this group.
Even so, many will have been astonished to learn that as many as 39.5 per cent of sales may be to buyers of Chinese descent.
That figure, whatever the question-marks surrounding it, raises issues that need to be addressed.
Deriding the finding as politically motivated and statistically unsound is easy, but essentially a red herring.
Compiling an estimate of the ethnicity of purchasers from their surnames, as Labour’s housing spokesman, Phil Twyford, has done, is not ideal.
But the basis, figures covering 3922 Auckland sales from one real estate firm from February to April this year, is reasonably comprehensive.
And it is better than anything else available.
Regrettably, there is an information vacuum because this country has no register of foreign buyers.
But perhaps we should not be totally surprised if Chinese buyers are, indeed, having a big influence.
The Beijing Government is allowing more of its citizens to buy overseas property, and interest rates in China are much lower than here.
This has led to Auckland housing being marketed aggressively to Chinese investors.
They have been alerted especially that this country has no land tax, stamp duty or other of the restrictions of the likes of Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
So far, the Key Government has acted directly only to the extent of requiring overseas buyers to have an Inland Revenue number and a New Zealand bank account from October.
Mr Twyford’s finding will ramp up the pressure to do more.
To some, it will represent evidence that the extent of Chinese investment, and a readiness to pay over the odds, is, beside its ramifications for the economy, creating an untenable situation for local buyers, especially those seeking their first homes.
There needs to be a high degree of caution, however.
First, Mr Twyford’s finding has to be substantiated by statistics whose accuracy cannot be challenged.
In that context, figures made available by the new government requirements for overseas buyers need to be made available to the public.
Secondly, if these figures underline Mr Twyford’s conclusion, the response must be carefully calibrated.
It would be easy to follow Australia’s lead and require overseas investors to build new houses.
This makes some sense in increasing supply rather than adding to demand.
It is a stern step, however. New Zealanders certainly take a dim view when they are denied the right to buy a house in an overseas country.
Equally, some of the purchases by overseas Chinese buyers are for family members, perhaps students, living in this country for at least some of the time.
Even when reliable data is available, therefore, a knee-jerk response must be out of the question.”
Equally, some of the purchases by overseas Chinese buyers are for family members, perhaps students, living in this country for at least some of the time.
Well, they can just rent a flat, like all the other students in the whole flaming world!
Can you just link to articles in the future? Walls of text disrupt the flow of discussion and reposting articles without permission opens the site up to copyright claims.
“A former Goldman Sachs banker suggested Greece start legal action against his former employer over complex financial deals that helped the country hide its national debt in 2001 and continue borrowing despite its poor economy, the Independent reports.
The banking giant made as much as $500 million from the transactions known as “swaps”, which translated Greek debts issued in dollars and yens into euros, the British daily says. The figure is, however, disputed by Goldman, which refuses to state an exact number. The deals were prepared by Antigone Loudiadis, who reportedly received $12 million a year for the job….
Greece will have as much luck with that as their other brilliant idea of getting money of Germany because of the Nazis.
This is the government that some on here were calling “heros” the other day… and what have they done … Gone against the wishes of their people in the referendum which gave the response that they were championing.
Now because they have been shown to be untrustworthy the country is way worse off than it was just a few months ago.
Welcome to the National Government’s modus operandi – “While most other governments intend cutting emissions, New Zealand appears to be increasing emissions, and hiding this through creative accounting. It may not have to take any action at all to meet either its 2020 or 2030 targets.” http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/278582/nz%27s-climate-change-target-condemned
All those yelling “racist” at the top of their voices ( led by the ACT Party) have no valid explanation for the data.
That’s because there isn’t one, except for the conclusions Rob Salmon came to.
More interestingly, why why do some organisations seem so determined to shut this discussion?
Let’s look at who is benefiting from the status quo.
No surprise that you don’t know what racism is, PR. While you might be desperately hoping people are demonised, it’s not actually happening because most people can see past your faux outrage and focus on the facts. It must really be hurting you that Labour have got this issue right and have gazumped National so effectively!
Most people being Nats, Standardistas, and the twitteratti. Those being affected by the housing crises in Auckland are probably nodding their heads in agreement.
Again ISTM that many on the left would rather be ideologically pure and in permanent opposition.
There are many on this website (including me) who think this is a crisis caused by large numbers of non-doms buying up housing and property in the country.
” We do need to have a mature public debate about Chinese foreign investment in New Zealand real estate. Especially when the Government has refused to set up a register of foreign ownership and make it public.
Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and other nations have enacted restrictions on foreign buyers in recent years.
When the sales data also pointed to a big presence of offshore Chinese investors, Labour decided it was time to talk about this. However uncomfortable it may be, the sales data reinforces what so many Aucklanders have thought is going on.
It is simply not good enough to try to shut down an important public debate with allegations of racism.”
You’re the one trying to shut it down – have you even put up an argument about why it is not racism – check out what Little said – “We understood the risks…” What risk did he understand?
Twyford: Hey Andy, I have this idea about the housing crisis.
Little: What is it?
Twyford: The Chinese are the problem.
Little: Sounds risky. Sounds kinda racist. Would Winston say something like that?
Twyford: Probably.
Little: Could be a bad idea then. What else could we talk about that focussed on grass roots social issues we have policy for? Something a bit less negatively framed?
Twyford: Anything really, we could talk a lot about the things we’re doing right, but it’s like no one is listening.
Little: What evidence is there no one is listening?
Twyford: Just a hunch.
Little: Do you have wider figures for foreign buyers?
Twyford: I say just concentrate on what we do know about the Chinese. We have an email.
Little: That’s true. And I know several people in Auckland.
Twyford: Should we ask around first?
Little: Nah it sounds fairly solid. I guess we know the risk then, run with it.
Later that afternoon….
Twyford: Shit, that escalated quickly.
Little: I know. Did someone actually throw a trident at you?
Twyford: Yep.
Little: Let’s run with justification of a specific segment of Chinese people and try to cover the shit trail. And whatever you do, don’t mention the risk!
As an overseas born mixed ethnicity/Eurasian person from South East Asia (I am neither from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong nor Korea) with a Chinese family name, I do not think Twyford has initiated a “mature debate”.
My family has been here for about forty years. There are now three generations of us in the extended family, in this country we regard as home. The perception of NZ being principled about egalitarianism, social justice, inclusion & non-discrimination attracted the older family members to this country.
All of us voted Labour. Some of us are Labour Party members (if the Labour membership list is being checked, please do not assume we have the same surname, let alone a Chinese sounding surname or a pinyin version as I have used here). Has Labour asked us how we feel or what we would have thought before launching off during the weekend on TV3? How do you think my family & I feel now? Does Labour reckon they have strengthened their support from my family since Saturday? How has Labour demonstrated their principles since then?
Whatever the polling outcome or policy proposals that will eventuate from hereon, I genuinely hope what has been triggered will be worthwhile for Labour and the country. And please, to the Labour Party, don’t forget those of us with Chinese sounding names as well as Chinese looking ones when we are seen in public. We would like to continue voting for the Labour Party.
May I suggest that the Labour Party – MPs, supporters & members – spare a thought about repairing relationships at some stage really soon after whatever outcome, which was planned or intended, has been achieved please?
Who is saying anything except Twyford is a small-minded git?
Truly pitiful rhetoric calling everyone who hates Twyfords racism, an act supporter.
Who said here, anything apart from Twyford being a twit. A ninny and a school boy chauvinist?
Twyfords the great sectarian leader for bigots across NZ. Making a bid for the NZ first leadership is he?
That aside, you can have a go at his lack of humanity and talk about the housing issue – it’s not an either/or issue. I don’t believe myself or anyone else for that matter, has argued any other way.
Housing in Auckland is a problem, transnational investment is a problem, the quality of the housing is a problem, the Aussie banks are a problem, Over crowding is a problem, the government keeping the housing bubble going, because, if it doesn’t we are going to loss ten’s of thousands of jobs, is a problem. Twyford being a bigoted git, is a problem. Housing NZ, is a problem. No capital gain, death duty and a crushing g.s.t on the poor is a problem.
So many parts to this problem, but all you good’ ol boys run off to save the twit Twyford.
1.Do you think non-doms should be allowed to own housing in NZ?
2. Do you think the data about the sale and purchase of housing should be open and transparent?
And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.
They know that one of the quickest ways of shutting down debate is to accuse your opponent of being sexist or racist.
But, by and large, when either accusation is made about tories it’s generally supported by actual fact, and is a general conclusion on the merits of an argument or the trustworthiness of a commenter.
When the accusation is made by tories, it’s generally (as you call it) a “little trick”, usually tenuous and made with the objective of derailing further analysis, however valid that analysis may be.
But being a moral vacuum, you are incapable of understanding the difference between the two.
Well I sure as shit wouldn’t want your worldview, where politics is merely a vicious game played by sociopaths who care not a jot for the real pain in the world and where all appeals to decency and calling-out of injustice are mere cynical ploys to score points. Surely humanity is more than just a pack of rabid dogs feasting on their weak?
fuck, it’s a wonder you didn’t slit your wrists years ago.
To believe that the only difference between political perspectives is simply that one side is better at being cynically manipulative than the others would be a fair approximation of hell. No hope of change. Ever.
“And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.”
“If your not for us your against us.”
Paul using good old George Bush Jr. rhetoric, what a find. You are a charmer mate. Or just another middle of the road lefty, who is in reality, an Ike style Republican.
If you can not divide up the debate – sorry for you. How about you read this, then we will talk as adults. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.
I am just trying to point out that a lot of the people jumping up and down yelling ‘racist’ are folk like pr, BM, clean power etc etc.
Yes, there are left wing voices saying the same, but shouldn’t your bedfellows concern you Adam?
It is foreign overseas wealth that is the issue, American, German, British and Chinese. And our pathetic rules that allow wealthy overseas investors trump the civil right of residents in this country to affordable housing.
The reason why the rwnjs are yelling so loudly is that they support the unhindered access to ‘markets’ by the wealthy global elite. They support the looting of this country.
Can’t you see that?
The problem is that the Labour Party has been complicit in this since the 1980s and so, I, and many others are sceptical of whether they will really stand up for the rights of workers against foreign capital.
No, what worries me is so called left wing people like you Paul who are defending racists. That’s what is worrying me. And not all right wing people are racists.
To your other points you have not read a damn thing I’ve said – so go back and try again.
Now your worried that labour having now raised China to the level of spectre, they will back down.
Sheesh, and you only way to keep pressure up is to go lalalalala Twyford is not a chauvinist small minded git. Great politics, up lifting and inclusive – no wait, if you did that sort of politics, it be left wing…
But maybe that’s what we’re doing wrong – we don’t go for uplifting and inclusive
To Clean-power – Devoy is muddled. She’s mixing local Chinese resident in NZ with the group that Phil Twyford is targetting – the non-resident Chinese who come in briefly for a few nights, go to the Auckland auctions, bag a few properties (using cheap finance), and fly off again.
Two totally different groups – and the local Chinese should be just as concerned at what their country-people are doing – because they’re also pushing them out of the Auckland housing market.
And to BM – Wikipedia is talking about the entire Asian population in Auckland – that would include Korean, Indian, and other nations as well as China. Twyford probably had his ethnic population figures from a more reliable source – NZ Stats Dept and the Auckland Council.
[Removed duplicate comment, Jenny, and added your edit about the council. TRP]
I imagine they both know what you have told them already.
Remember there are here as shills for the government and its powerful lobbyists, not to engage in rational discussion.
Trolls don’t debate.
I’m getting thoroughly sick of all this – she’s just making cheap shots burbling on about how it’s not fair to ‘Chinese New Zealanders’; when anyone with an IQ of above 60 knows perfectly well that the discussion is not about them; it’s about people without residency buying large amounts of property and distorting the market. In. fact, I’m getting really angry that people like my daughter-in-law and her family are being used by people to make what appear on the surface to be supportive arguments, but are really just a cynical tilt at the Labour Party. My family deserve better than this
Hang on, are you demanding Twyford provide a reference for a stat reported by Weepus Beard as being what Twyford said on morning report, when even if it were an undercount then the figure of 21% still suggests either disproportionate purchases by a specific residential demographic, or non-resident purchases?
That seems to be a somewhat pointless exercise.
Which is probably why you’ve got your knickers in a twist about it.
I fixed some of the issues I was having with the duplicating RSS feeds. I just have to figure out a better solution to bloody google feeds duplicating (ie mostly blogger). Now I have to figure out a better fix.
I’ll correct this comment issue. But generally the best immediate fix is to pull the comment from Trash
Hooton kept repeating the term ‘international activist groups’ as if people advocating for changes to climate change policy and Zero Hours contracts were part of some evil conspiracy.
Sounded like the reds under the bed nonsense.
And yet the host challenged one of these nonsensical ideas.
RNZ going downhill.
In fact, Paul, the host (Lynn Freeman) contradicted Hooton and exposed his crude methodology. It was Mike Williams, as useless as ever, who failed to challenge Hooton.
I’ve done a transcript of the last four minutes of the programme—humiliating for Hooton—and I’ll put it up on Open Mike tomorrow morning.
Hello JanM (on iPad & cannot reply under your comment).
Thanks & sorry to hear that.
This is why Phil Twyford had to be more careful & skilful in raising the issues & when discussing that ‘research’.
On my part, how do people here think I feel when I will be at the next open home?
Huang Y.G’s plight at his next auction does not affect my family one bit. That’s the world that the Nazional party lead government and ACT type people have fostered upon us, is it not?
One where it’s every man for himself. A dog-eat-dog world?
I’ve never been to a house auction so he or she will get no sympathy from me, thanks very much.
I really couldn’t give a stuff when the likes of Winston runs an anti-Asian campaign, but when a self styled broad church like Labour acts this politically inept and knowingly burns a couple of hundred thousand voters due to moves explained by an utter lack of Asians in its caucus and senior hierarchy, as well as a total lack of understanding the local Chinese community and its history, its time to escalate the push back.
The Labour caucus should be demographically representative (or at the very least make specific and explicit efforts to address the concerns of less powerful groups iin society). Labour, and society as a whole, will be stronger for it.
I am a renter with a young family, shut out of ever owning a house in the place I was born in and grew up in because of cheap foreign money propping up the current government’s economic policy, as hinted at by Phil Twyford, in the absence of much asked for buyers’ data.
You be ashamed of him for fighting for his family’s future against this volatile tide of cheap money which is distorting NZ’s delicate residential infrastructure?
I am a renter with a young family, shut out of ever owning a house in the place I was born in and grew up in because of cheap foreign money propping up the current government’s economic policy, as hinted at by Phil Twyford, in the absence of much asked for buyers’ data.
the Auckland property bubble has been blowing up big since 2001/2002, Helen Clark and Michael Cullen loved the wealth effect “propping up” their government’s finances too, foreign money has played a role in this, but there are a shit load of other factors as well, go blame Westpac, BNZ and ANZ for starters.
A typical Auckland house went from $300,000 to $600,000 under Helen Clark’s watch. Lots of property owning middle class Aucklanders got suddenly rich – at least on paper. Buying houses for investments and capital gains became a Kiwi middle class past time. Lots of money from ever expanding mortgage debt was flooding the economy. Labour was fine with this. Cullen built his budget surpluses on it.
Now we find that the Auckland middle class are getting seriously priced out of the market by foreign money. All of a sudden, Labour wants to make a big media hoopla about how big a problem the Chinese are causing.
None of this is about helping the average Kiwi worker earning $50K pa get into an Auckland house.
I say get the data, restrict foreigners from residential property, and slow immigration until Auckland infrastructure can catch up. That’s a socially responsible viewpoint.
You say don’t be so racist, supply is the problem, and Labour did it too. That’s a National party troll viewpoint.
I say get the data, restrict foreigners from residential property, and slow immigration until Auckland infrastructure can catch up. That’s a socially responsible viewpoint
That approach won’t sort out affordable housing in Auckland for 20 to 30 years, if even by then.
I’m more radical than you are on this topic by a million miles. You don’t even know it.
And the 3pm news headlines with a BNZ economist calling for a ban on foreign ownership of New Zealand property.
Means to an end Marty. You really need to get that chip off your shoulders that you hold against Labour. Mana/one trick pony Hone sold out and it was their choice 🙂
you’re right about one thing (I know, surprised me too) it is a means to an end but the end will not be the end rather the end of the end and then we’ll see what happens…
And the 3pm news headlines with a BNZ economist calling for a ban on foreign ownership of New Zealand property.
As I mentioned in another comment, you must always analyse why a bank economist is saying what they are saying, on behalf of their employer. In this case, BNZ would love to have these rich Chinese and other foreign buyers banned out of the market, because they are wealthy buyers who bring their own cash to the table – they do not need mortgages from the BNZ.
TL/DR: Every house bought using Chinese cash is a lost mortgage origination for the BNZ.
As I mentioned in another comment, you must always analyse why a bank economist is saying what they are saying, on behalf of their employer. In this case, BNZ would love to have these rich Chinese and other foreign buyers banned out of the market, because they are wealthy buyers who bring their own cash to the table – they do not need mortgages from the BNZ. Every house bought using Chinese cash is a lost mortgage origination for the BNZ.
Brave man, Twyford. Finally some facts emerging about this crazy house price bubble. Brave leaker from the Ak property company too, I bet there’s a witch hunt going on there right now too. Hope the leaker stays hid.
Yes there is a witch hunt going on over this story and I hate the potential for victimising NZ Chinese citizens.
But the facts that are emerging are real. If the stock market in China can lose trillions dropping back to earlier levels of just a few months ago meaning vast amounts of money was invested there, money that dwarfs NZs entire GDP, and the Chinese government is about to facilitate their citizens’ investment in foreign countries, and little old NZ still has no controls tax or other defences to restrict that, then we are fucked.
Brave man Twyford, thank Christ some people actually care about whether my daughters will ever be able to afford to buy a house in a NZ city in the next few years. Or whether go down the biggest depression hole we have ever seen. NZ doesnt have trillions of dollars, we have fuck all.
You’re shitting me. This housing bubble has been blowing up since 2001/2002, a $300K house in 2001 is now worth over a million dollars 13 years later and suddenly fucking Twyford and Little and Labour figure out that its been the goddam Chinese all this time?
Talk about lazy rationalising of the Labour Government’s failures to control the money and debt flowing into the housing market and now the National Government’s failure to control money and debt flowing into the housing market.
As for your daughters buying houses in Auckland in a few years time, what are they, in the market for $700K houses? Because nothing Labour does to halt foreign ownership of NZ land has a shit show of lowering house prices back to even that level, let alone back to an actually affordable sub-$400K level.
Other cities too. The housing bubble trajectory in Auckland isnt going to stop it’s just going to get worse and spread to other cities and the eventual crash which bubbles foretell will be devastating for NZ citizens who mortgage up to try to get what we always thought a kiwi dream.
This speculative bubble is bigger than who is driving up the prices, it’s en route to tragedy unless our useless governments do something to control it.
Every recent NZ govt has believed in the free flow of financial capital, no recent NZ government has believed in limiting capital flows.
BTW provincial towns all across NZ (excluding the likes of Wanaka and Greytown) have flat to declining house prices (esp once inflation is taken into account).
The answer is really quite simple. Give people a reason to move back to provincial NZ which is crying out for more population and more economic activity.
And yeah, ban foreign ownership of NZ land. Not just houses, all land.
How many people know that right NOW – at the Auckland Sky City Convention Centre, there is a great big fat ‘conference’ happening on combatting ‘money-laundering’?
Timing?
VENUE !?
Who would have thought …… !
“APG ANNUAL MEETING AND FORUM ON TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND TRAINING 2015
1 August 2014
The 2015 APG Annual Meeting and Technical Assistance and Training Forum will be held in Auckland, New Zealand in the week of 13-17 July 2015.
The APG Annual Meeting is the primary policy and decision-making vehicle for the APG. Decisions made at the Annual Meeting will set the course for the APG’s work over the next year.”
Wonder what their recommendations are going to be regarding the prevention of real estate / property market being used for ‘money-laundering’?
Railway thinkers. I’ve noticed that a book featuring the historic past to much of our infrastructure is on Trademe. Big Ideas: 100 Wonders of NZ Engineering by Matthew Wright published in 2009. Closes this Saturday buynow at $33
There’s also Rails Across NZ, only $12 closes Tuesday morning so be quick,
and NZ on the move: 100 Transport Icons, Buy now $15 closes Wed.
Looking at the review of Big Ideas: 100 Wonders…in North and South October 2009,
It has great photos on early power-generating and road and rail building projects and ‘for a tin-pot colony at the bottom of the world” says Wright, the eingineering and technology applied were remarkable.
Photos: Laying underwater sections of the high-voltage direct-current cable in early 1960s.
Early Hamilton marine=jet units under construction. A Kiwi invention, the jet boat was a water-borne application of the axial-flow, impeller principle adopted in WW2 for jet engines.
Benmore hydro station 1958-1964. (I heard from people there that a Swiss company was called in eventually to assist.)
The Denniston self-acting incline.
John Britten’s V-twin motorcycle, built in 1992, wa the most stylish machine of its day – and the fastest.
Now the fleas on the back of giants are sucking up all the benefit that is still present in these projects and selling off the family silver so they can proceed, like all decadent children, to gamble away the family’s wealth and estate.
Yeah you’re exercising in the wrong place Clean power. You should be at the gym building those abs and shoulders to do the physical heavy lifting. The exercise of brain requires a different sort of robust energy beyond your innate capacity. Stick to what you’re made for man.
An eight-mile convoy of pickups, motorcycles and cars wound through a central Florida town on Sunday in a show of support for the Confederate flag, as a backlash against its banishment from public landmarks across the South picks up steam.
Horns blared and hundreds of the rebel flags fluttered as more than 1,500 vehicles and some 4,500 people turned out for the “Florida Southern Pride Ride” in Ocala, according to police estimates. Vehicles from states across the South and as far away as California participated.
“That flag has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people,” said David Stone, 38, who organized the event. “It doesn’t symbolize hate unless you think it’s hate – and that’s your problem, not mine.” ….
You would think money man Key would take a leaf out of American multi billionaire Warren Buffet’s book. There is money in freighting and like Prebble says the Rail corridors are already in place in most city’s in New Zealand.
I have to agree the gridlock on Auckland’s Roading network is beyond a joke, as I ponder should I travel to Auckland early tomorrow morning for a meeting at 10.30 am
or drive later this afternoon? Either way it means being stuck in traffic.
“We purchase a substantial amount of eggs a year – nearly 13 million – so in order to keep up with demand, our egg suppliers will be investing significantly in new farms and farming systems. This is why the rollout will happen over 18 months – it needs to be sustainable for our suppliers,” says Mr Wilson.
Who are the 1% exactly? Are they the Taxpayers of Estonia, Latvia and Finland who will be the ones called upon to make sacrifices for the Greeks so they can continue spending far more than they earn? Have you ever wondered why the Finn’s, Latvian’s and Estonians’s (Not to mention the Dutch and Germans) on the whole are very resistant to both debt relief and giving Greece even more support? The Latvian’s and Estonian’s are not very wealthy. In fact an average pensioner in Latvia apparently earns less than their Greek counterpart.
The National lead government being put under pressure by the opposition parties’ policies and calls for action on issue that infect the working poor, so much so that the National lead government waits a few months only to release a watered-down version of the same opposition policy and trumpet it as new legislation.
Sufficiently watered down, one might say, to try to please everybody. Mostly, however, it just pleases their business buddies while the worker, or the freezing tenant just has to suck it up in the name of flexibility of the labour market, or listen while being told to how to clean that black mould of your sick kids’ bedroom walls while on a budget.
Let’s look at four instances of this:
– The capital gains tax that is not a tax driven by David Parker.
– The rental housing WOF, which now just asks for smoke alarms and ineffectual polystyrene floor insulation, driven by the Green party.
– The data collection for house and land sales to foreign buyers that doesn’t collect any data, driven by Phil Twyford.
– The dismantling of zero-hour contracts (thanks Helen Kelly), which ended up as an weak appeasement to shonky employers.
This new and hurried legislation from the Nazional government only just tip-toes around the edges of something which will actually work for workers and their families, but none the less would not have happened at all if it were not for the brave people in opposition who come up with solutions for the increasingly disenfranchised every day.
My question is:
Are Labour and the Greens governing this country from the opposition benches?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/70184652/doctors-helping-patients-die-as-assisted-death-debate-rolls-on
”More than one in ten doctors have helped a patient die despite potentially breaking the law, a survey suggests.
In a fax poll of general practitioners, conducted by magazine New Zealand Doctor and IMS Health, nearly 12 per cent of respondents said they had helped a patient die. About two out of five doctors also said they had been asked to help a patient die, although most had refused.”
This creates an unsafe level of pressure and stress for the doctors who are prepared to do this to help their patients. Apart from the risk to their career, there is no avenue for them to receive the counselling anyone would require (whether what they are doing is permitted or not) to cope with the emotional burden of assisting someone to end their life.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
English Labour will not vote against the Tory government’s welfare bill and should not oppose Tories limiting child tax credits to two children, the party’s interim leader, Harriet Harman, has said. Her remarks came as the shadow education secretary, Tristam Hunt, warned the party that it was becoming an irrelevance at a frightening speed.
Seemingly bennie bashing is how you become relevant.
Labour is reinforcing predjudices about family size being the cause of poverty. Bear in mind these tax credits are for working families. The English Labour Party is in disarray and air heads like Harman and Hunt are joining the Tories in slapping the working class for daring to have families.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/12/harman-labour-not-vote-against-welfare-bill-limit-child-tax-credits
Having a bigger family doesnt excatly jelp does it?
“If we can’t get them out, we’ll breed them out”
Help with what?
The rich get richer.
infused, who is going to wipe your arse when you are too old and decrepit to do it yourself? Just curious.
Kiaora, weka
Ha ha. You are so right. Unless, in the not to distant future, they invent a robot with a fourth law embedded in its neural net which axiomatically decrees – wipe bottom – Do Not Exterminate, Mr Octogenerian Infused will have to put up with the working poor taking care of his bodily functions.
But in saying that, he will receive generally excellent care.
The robot on the other will quickly and logically conclude – wiping bottom sucks – exterminate, exterminate.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-12/greece-may-sue-goldman-over-banks-role-greek-collapse
Good. It’s about time they were held to account.
Must hand over Sovereignty? 90% of the loans went to bail out banks, not to the Greek people.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/eurogroup-fails-to-reach-deal-gives-greece-24-hours-to-accept-draconian-terms-must-pass-whole-package-to-start-aid-talks-cant-greek-do-what-iceland-has-done/
The banks that Grecee owed money too? Well duh.
Why bail out the bank directly, when you could bail out the country so it is more likely able to pay some money back to the bank? If you bail out the bank directly, Greece is left in no state to be able to recover and thus will require more lending. Bailing out the banks and not the country is short-term thinking.
Why bail out the country at all when their spending habits are not going to change?
If that’s the case, why lend money in the first place if they aren’t going to be able to pay it back? Oh, it’s so you have an excused to repossess all their assets. So they basically lend money so they could loot the country. Why should that behaviour be rewarded?
This was posted on the SMH site a few days before Phil Twyford raised the issue in NZ.
Fyi,
http://webmail.clear.net.nz/deferrer.html?redirectUrl=%2Fwebmail.cgi%3Fcmd%3Durl%26url%3Dhttp!3A!2F!2Fnews.domain.com.au!2Fdomain!2Freal-estate-news!2Fchinese-share-market-offshore-investors-will-flock-to-australian-real-estate-20150708-gi7hcv.html!3Futm_source%3DSMH!26utm_medium%3Dlink!26utm
Did you that terrible interview on RNZ?
Good to hear listeners’ feedback supporting Twyford and slamming RNZ for its bias as well as the government for doing nothing about the crisis.
anyone screaming about racism over there!
I’ve been reflecting on the kerfuffle over chinese investment in nz’s real estate. some random points:
it’s fairly easy to distinguish between who comes from the prc and who comes from.the diaspora because the communist state early on adopted a distinctive form of romanization of Chinese words called pinyin. I’m not sure if the salmond factored this in to his surprisingly underappreciated methodology.
Chinese are vulnerable in nz. any sort of negative press, such as what labour has been running, will probably result in more street level racial abuse. I doubt that Chinese associations in nz or any pakeha institutions would be well placed to pick up on such trends. liberal nz’s policy settings are based on the false premise that multiculturalism is easy, and so there isn’t an institutional depth around trying to grasp the lived experience of migrant communities -though I’d be interested to learn more about the tools that the race relations conciliator has available.
the Chinese state and local Chinese idiots are capable of truly horrific behaviour, and innocent Chinese are regularly caught up in the blowback. I’m thinking of the anti China riots in Vietnam recently when beijing plonked an oil rig in vietnamese waters, surrounding it with burly and aggressive ships. taiwanese businesses were attacked – pretty much anyone who was chineseish was in danger. even China’s immediate neighbours can be quite ignorant of the various communities that loosely come under the adjective “chinese”. also you get all sorts of outrageous behaviour from usually mainland businesspeople that gets the locals antsy about anyone who seems chinese. that’s mostly what’s behind the often strong anti-Chinese sentiment in africa. that and the success, and the numbers.
genuine question – where is the space in the public domain for people to say “I feel bad about these buggers moving in”. cos a lot of people are feeling that. I remember a couple of Myanmar refugees telling me in Wellington in 2007 something like “there are so many Chinese everywhere”. confusedly. it just seems to me that resentment is building up, and it’s dangerous to simply say “fuck off dumb racist”. cos the problem doesn’t fuck off.
political parties tend to be quite shit at engaging in migrant communities. to do it proper you need biculturalism – basically people who are conversant in the majority plus other cultures. and that takes yearsnyears of language learning, travel, lived experience, etc etc. essentially nzers lack the skills to be able to forge a coherent society out of a fractured one. we’ve got multiculturalism on the cheap, which turns out to be not good for much beyond the diversity of the shopping mall foodcourt.
re: “…genuine question…”.
The internet? And when you say “people” do those people include you? Whoever those people are, why, or what hurdles do they have to reaching an understanding of the things they think and how those things may or may not be threatened, or which things are threatened, or even why they think the way they do?
Are they happy to be against others because of race and leave it there?
From a pakeha perspective, is there a cultural reason (or of course, time, ability) that they cannot just pause for a moment and work back from “there are too many chinese everywhere” and figure out what scares them about that? As a European it’s “normal” for me to suggest this fairly clumsy method because my psychological heritage stands outside the subconscious looking in as a stranger. What is their cultural position, traditionally? What ideas are they carrying (beneficial or not) that they take for granted that holds them back from examining their beliefs like that? How are they resistent to Western thinking, if at all?
And more importantly, does it even matter? A pakeha racist might go from “too many Chinese” to “let’s attack the next one we see!” naturally. But if you were from Myanmar and a buddhist, you might think, “Ok so too many Chinese. Bastards.” and then go back to whatever you’re doing and nothing more comes of it, ever. If the problem is a negative personal experience (causing the ill-feeling), not much can be done in the “public domain” and at an early stage, internet-venting might actually make it worse.
my personal take is, people tend to be fearful of change, and large scale immigration is one kind of change.
people are also usually more comfortable dealing with their own kind…
so these are legitimate, human fears that are ubiquitous and easy to understand .
i live in china, suffer from racism quite a bit. i accept that a lot of it is coming from a very human place, so it doesn’t bother me. there are plenty of folk who can handle foreigners, and plenty who can’t so well. that’s all normal. i’ve also been attacked by groups of men a couple of times on racial grounds. i’d put that at the less legitimate end of the scale of behaviour around dealing with foreigners. but it’s really about them, not me, and i wish them well.
we live in a big diverse world and some people are better than others at handling that diversity turning up on their doorstep. but you need to appreciate the concept of “home”. this place is the home of others in a more intimate way than it is my home, so while i’m a local i’ll also always be a guest.
it’s sort of contradictory to espouse a cosmopolitanism that looks down on people who aren’t able to espouse it.
doing some more thinking about it:
i come from a Christian angle, and the differences from liberalism re: racism are thus:
liberals believe that racism can be defeated. they believe in progress – things getting better and better. thus you hear phrases like “we have to move past racism”. what is racism grounded in according to this worldview? probably bad thinking, which can be educated away, and possibly bad attitudes such as selfishness, that can be dropped. ironically, in this worldview, you’re able to relatively easily become unracist, so if you don’t it means you are (choosing to be) inferior. so liberals look down on people for looking down on people. awesome.
i believe that racism will always be with us. “progress” does not exist. i believe it’s a question of character, and character runs deep and is not so easy to change. humans are morally weak and deserve greater empathy in their failings than liberals are generally disposed to afford them. jesus comes to a failing world in love, it’s satan who accuses (terry eagleton points out that the popular modern idea of the christian god actually fits the biblical idea of satan – the accuser who is out to get you if you screw up (the word satan is hebrew for accuser). point being, christians are required to practice empathy toward ‘bad people’, which is a world away from the snide liberal pooh pooing).
liberals follow tolerance and freedom, christians follow hospitality and the imperatives of love. for a liberal, it’s ok to allow people to immigrate, and let them do their thing without engaging with them at any serious level. for christians that’s not ok. we need to be inviting them into our homes, eating with them, and having our horizons expanded as we try to figure out how to support or simply be there for them, to live alongside them. for example: wellington refugee and migrant services was started by a group of churches – not the local atheists’ knitting club. for another example: my church ran free english classes for refugees and migrants. for a lot of them it was their only regular contact with new zealanders. new new zealanders cannot become new zealanders simply by dint of a change in citizenship status. hospitality is a vital part in becoming a local. i used to teach chinese students whose only interaction with kiwis was transactional – involving the handing over of money – be it the landlord, the esl teacher or the local shop keeper. there’s a lot of freedom and toleration in that, but it’s crap. and the chinese students knew it was crap. “come to new zealand and buy stuff!” yeah right.
when a migrant suffers from racism, they need to be able to talk it out with someone. if they’re only discussing that shit with other migrants, well that’s a recipe for brewing a world of resentment and bitterness. when migrants have actual born and bred kiwis to talk about their struggles with, it goes a huge way to making them feel accepted and part of things. new zealand is really doing this immigration thing too cheaply, and it opens the way for a toxic legacy down the track.
Cheers Vaughan Little; good to read your thoughtful perspective on this.
Racists look for “enablement”. It’s the prime principle of the dogwhistle. If someone prominent says something that they can use as justification for their behaviour, they’ll feel they’ve been let off the leash.
One of the most frequent mistakes politicians make is to assume that the only message people receive is the one they intend to send as text or subtext, not the one that people want to hear themselves.
Before it was the leakers like Goff and Robertson who wanted people to think that David Cunliffe was unfit to lead Labour when the message received was that Labour as a whole was unfit to govern. Now the message being received is that Labour says Chinese people are bad, and certainly National and Act have gleefully leapt at the opportunity to make use of this.
God only knows why I’m being so generous. Must be lingering sentiment.
“Labour says Chinese people are bad”
Labour says that 9% of probable Chinese in a fraction of the population are probably not doing something bad for the economy, and 30% of probable Chinese in that fraction are probably doing something bad for it.
this is all about hot money inflows.
when you have the wrong end of the stick, best thing is to let it go and walk away.
Read it again. Especially my second sentence.
Labour can say one thing and be heard another. Right now they’re defending themselves against charges of racism because some people construe their message as racist and because it’s being painted as racist. The facts are getting lost.
target selected
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11479813
Check out the photo they have used of little.
The wind has changed and now anybody can be chucked under the labour bus – for the first moral duty.
No different than the old fat photos of farrer thestandard still uses or the stupid ones of john key.
Except, you know, that is the Herald which is a national publication that is supposed to be neutral and the standard is a blog which openly comes from the left.
All media uses whatever means to grab attention though doesn’t it?
I’m not defending the papers either. They are all equally as shit… well most media in NZ.
Shit. So that settles it then. They say they knew the risks. haha “the risks”? It’s not a “risk” when you chose to ring the race cowbell. That’s a choice. They knew the choices. Get it right, Andrew.
Is this a “dead rat” issue? Because stirring up racial tensions wil get a party elected, and the Left needs Labour unless the unthinkable happens and people flock to the Greens and Mana in a totally unforeseen landslide. But really, the ongoing cost of the race card, is it worth it? This is more like a “dead horse” issue, or a re-interred partially thawed and rotting ice-mammoth issue. Two years out, and The Greens are bolstering National’s anti-free speech laws and Labour are ringing the race bells. Christ. Can not wait for 2017. That year is clearly going to be insane.
And hasn’t he committed a bit of a general cultural faux pas by suggesting present day Chinese are not connected to anything past their grandparents? It’s like the “blame the parents for the kids” argument; or the “we decide who is Maori or not” bloodline/ratio approach. Colonial Viper is right, Labour need a better reflection of who it is they represent in their MPs.
But thats how he looks and how he appears, whats he supposed to do?
In saying “first moral duty”, Little acknowledges the harm his party has done to people who are “second” or even lower ranked. Nice to know. The bus has a dog whistle for a horn. Beneficiaries, LBGTQ, now people with Chinese-sounding surnames – all acceptable collateral damage… I wonder if they’ll realise that chucking people under the bus won’t put diesel in the tank?
Metiria Turei gave a much more intelligent and considered response. It’s early on in this clip:
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/mnr/mnr-20150713-0711-labour_cops_flak_over_chinese_surname_property_claim-048.mp3
Even making the generous assumption of good faith, Labour’s handling has been collosally (and predictably) stupid, handing ammunition to Smith and undermining its credibility on race. It’s a classic case of “Fire! Aim! Ready!” Even making the generous assumption that they didn’t anticipate this backlash, then whoever’s running their media strategy needs to put down their crayons for a while and let someone with at least the barest suggestion of competence take the role.
Hmmm, does my roof need painting?
Exactly rhino
My extended family & I sincerely hope that Labour will put a hand out to pick us up, or to scrape us off the road, after Messrs Twyford & Little and the current issues leave town in the big red bus.
Thanks MM.
I’d guessed that Twyford’s tack was approved by Andrew Little and the Leader’s office.
There’s something quite particular having a leader who is promising then really disappointing by turns.
Three attempts at trolling by infused already on this thread.
Coffee took longer than expected.
Perhaps its not surprising the Herald editorial this morning backs-up Labour’s call for proper data to be collected on just who is buying up big and speculatively in the Auckland housing market. After all, the Herald IS Auckland-based, and anecdotal “evidence” and people on the ground at Auckland auctions is what’s causing the concern, and it needs addressing. This is from today’s Herald :
” For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald ……… They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market. ……”
Oh noes! Chinese at property auctions! Quick, where are the internment camps when we need them?! And what about Australians, Poms, Indians and the South Africans. Especially the South Africans. They’re sneaky bastards. You can only tell they’re South African when they open their mouths.
Re the auck prices
Interestingly at 4% commission and average $700k house the real estate firm will have collected about $112 million in fees!!!!
The other observation was that many of the comments in NBR were positive re the release of the data.
Geez I go away for a couple of days and everything goes ker-razy…so who decided that attacking Asians was the best way for Labour to get back into power?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/70170890/housing-data-strongly-suggests-chinese-foreign-investment–twyford
At first i thought it was picture of T. Mallard
Well PR you must be very upset to realise that it is not TrevM
perhaps you should go to Specsavers or even go back to where you have been and then we wouldn’t have to put up with your biased comments although, I must say that the SST actually beats you for bias in this instance.
At least with me (unlike the MSM) you know I’m not pretending about my political viewpoints
This is an interesting attack add from the democrats. Commentary by TYT.
https://youtu.be/bv_zIYXzsGo?t=198
familiar? hahahaha
Seen this?
Today’s NZ Herald editorial – ( Monday 13 July 2015) Business Section:
“Chinese role in the housing boom.
For many people, the leaked property sale figures reported in the Weekend Herald will have contained just one element of surprise.
They concluded some time ago that overseas Chinese buyers were behind the boom in the Auckland property market.
Anecdotal accounts from auctions had led them to discount a survey of real estate agents in 2013 that attributed only 8 per cent of purchases to this group.
Even so, many will have been astonished to learn that as many as 39.5 per cent of sales may be to buyers of Chinese descent.
That figure, whatever the question-marks surrounding it, raises issues that need to be addressed.
Deriding the finding as politically motivated and statistically unsound is easy, but essentially a red herring.
Compiling an estimate of the ethnicity of purchasers from their surnames, as Labour’s housing spokesman, Phil Twyford, has done, is not ideal.
But the basis, figures covering 3922 Auckland sales from one real estate firm from February to April this year, is reasonably comprehensive.
And it is better than anything else available.
Regrettably, there is an information vacuum because this country has no register of foreign buyers.
But perhaps we should not be totally surprised if Chinese buyers are, indeed, having a big influence.
The Beijing Government is allowing more of its citizens to buy overseas property, and interest rates in China are much lower than here.
This has led to Auckland housing being marketed aggressively to Chinese investors.
They have been alerted especially that this country has no land tax, stamp duty or other of the restrictions of the likes of Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
So far, the Key Government has acted directly only to the extent of requiring overseas buyers to have an Inland Revenue number and a New Zealand bank account from October.
Mr Twyford’s finding will ramp up the pressure to do more.
To some, it will represent evidence that the extent of Chinese investment, and a readiness to pay over the odds, is, beside its ramifications for the economy, creating an untenable situation for local buyers, especially those seeking their first homes.
There needs to be a high degree of caution, however.
First, Mr Twyford’s finding has to be substantiated by statistics whose accuracy cannot be challenged.
In that context, figures made available by the new government requirements for overseas buyers need to be made available to the public.
Secondly, if these figures underline Mr Twyford’s conclusion, the response must be carefully calibrated.
It would be easy to follow Australia’s lead and require overseas investors to build new houses.
This makes some sense in increasing supply rather than adding to demand.
It is a stern step, however. New Zealanders certainly take a dim view when they are denied the right to buy a house in an overseas country.
Equally, some of the purchases by overseas Chinese buyers are for family members, perhaps students, living in this country for at least some of the time.
Even when reliable data is available, therefore, a knee-jerk response must be out of the question.”
Penny Bright
Well, they can just rent a flat, like all the other students in the whole flaming world!
Can you just link to articles in the future? Walls of text disrupt the flow of discussion and reposting articles without permission opens the site up to copyright claims.
‘Goldman Sachs could face lawsuit for helping hide Greek debt – report’
http://rt.com/business/273208-greece-goldman-debt-lawsuit/
“A former Goldman Sachs banker suggested Greece start legal action against his former employer over complex financial deals that helped the country hide its national debt in 2001 and continue borrowing despite its poor economy, the Independent reports.
The banking giant made as much as $500 million from the transactions known as “swaps”, which translated Greek debts issued in dollars and yens into euros, the British daily says. The figure is, however, disputed by Goldman, which refuses to state an exact number. The deals were prepared by Antigone Loudiadis, who reportedly received $12 million a year for the job….
Greece will have as much luck with that as their other brilliant idea of getting money of Germany because of the Nazis.
This is the government that some on here were calling “heros” the other day… and what have they done … Gone against the wishes of their people in the referendum which gave the response that they were championing.
Now because they have been shown to be untrustworthy the country is way worse off than it was just a few months ago.
Excellent. The Greek government will only require 79 Billion Euros rather than 80 Billion when they win.
Well, that’s a good start!
Except they will still be bankrupt and economically hapless.
Welcome to the National Government’s modus operandi – “While most other governments intend cutting emissions, New Zealand appears to be increasing emissions, and hiding this through creative accounting. It may not have to take any action at all to meet either its 2020 or 2030 targets.”
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/278582/nz%27s-climate-change-target-condemned
-Twyford (again today on Morning Report)
I couldn’t agree more!
All those yelling “racist” at the top of their voices ( led by the ACT Party) have no valid explanation for the data.
That’s because there isn’t one, except for the conclusions Rob Salmon came to.
More interestingly, why why do some organisations seem so determined to shut this discussion?
Let’s look at who is benefiting from the status quo.
Its racist because a group is being demonised on the basis that their names sound Asian
Labour messed up (again) so now the best thing they could do is own up to it and apoligise
No surprise that you don’t know what racism is, PR. While you might be desperately hoping people are demonised, it’s not actually happening because most people can see past your faux outrage and focus on the facts. It must really be hurting you that Labour have got this issue right and have gazumped National so effectively!
You choose to make that interpretation of what has happened.
Most people don’t.
Most people being Nats, Standardistas, and the twitteratti. Those being affected by the housing crises in Auckland are probably nodding their heads in agreement.
Again ISTM that many on the left would rather be ideologically pure and in permanent opposition.
There are many on this website (including me) who think this is a crisis caused by large numbers of non-doms buying up housing and property in the country.
That’s not what Labour (Twyford and Little) said, though.
These are Twyford’s words.
” We do need to have a mature public debate about Chinese foreign investment in New Zealand real estate. Especially when the Government has refused to set up a register of foreign ownership and make it public.
Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and other nations have enacted restrictions on foreign buyers in recent years.
When the sales data also pointed to a big presence of offshore Chinese investors, Labour decided it was time to talk about this. However uncomfortable it may be, the sales data reinforces what so many Aucklanders have thought is going on.
It is simply not good enough to try to shut down an important public debate with allegations of racism.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11479817
You’re the one trying to shut it down – have you even put up an argument about why it is not racism – check out what Little said – “We understood the risks…” What risk did he understand?
I’m trying to keep the discussion open about Auckland’s housing crisis.
See that word 11 places in?
Here’s what we’re asked to believe:
One morning at breakfast…
Twyford: Hey Andy, I have this idea about the housing crisis.
Little: What is it?
Twyford: The Chinese are the problem.
Little: Sounds risky. Sounds kinda racist. Would Winston say something like that?
Twyford: Probably.
Little: Could be a bad idea then. What else could we talk about that focussed on grass roots social issues we have policy for? Something a bit less negatively framed?
Twyford: Anything really, we could talk a lot about the things we’re doing right, but it’s like no one is listening.
Little: What evidence is there no one is listening?
Twyford: Just a hunch.
Little: Do you have wider figures for foreign buyers?
Twyford: I say just concentrate on what we do know about the Chinese. We have an email.
Little: That’s true. And I know several people in Auckland.
Twyford: Should we ask around first?
Little: Nah it sounds fairly solid. I guess we know the risk then, run with it.
Later that afternoon….
Twyford: Shit, that escalated quickly.
Little: I know. Did someone actually throw a trident at you?
Twyford: Yep.
Little: Let’s run with justification of a specific segment of Chinese people and try to cover the shit trail. And whatever you do, don’t mention the risk!
nek minute…
Little: … and furthermore… we knew the risk… DOH!
As an overseas born mixed ethnicity/Eurasian person from South East Asia (I am neither from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong nor Korea) with a Chinese family name, I do not think Twyford has initiated a “mature debate”.
My family has been here for about forty years. There are now three generations of us in the extended family, in this country we regard as home. The perception of NZ being principled about egalitarianism, social justice, inclusion & non-discrimination attracted the older family members to this country.
All of us voted Labour. Some of us are Labour Party members (if the Labour membership list is being checked, please do not assume we have the same surname, let alone a Chinese sounding surname or a pinyin version as I have used here). Has Labour asked us how we feel or what we would have thought before launching off during the weekend on TV3? How do you think my family & I feel now? Does Labour reckon they have strengthened their support from my family since Saturday? How has Labour demonstrated their principles since then?
Whatever the polling outcome or policy proposals that will eventuate from hereon, I genuinely hope what has been triggered will be worthwhile for Labour and the country. And please, to the Labour Party, don’t forget those of us with Chinese sounding names as well as Chinese looking ones when we are seen in public. We would like to continue voting for the Labour Party.
May I suggest that the Labour Party – MPs, supporters & members – spare a thought about repairing relationships at some stage really soon after whatever outcome, which was planned or intended, has been achieved please?
Who is saying anything except Twyford is a small-minded git?
Truly pitiful rhetoric calling everyone who hates Twyfords racism, an act supporter.
Who said here, anything apart from Twyford being a twit. A ninny and a school boy chauvinist?
Twyfords the great sectarian leader for bigots across NZ. Making a bid for the NZ first leadership is he?
That aside, you can have a go at his lack of humanity and talk about the housing issue – it’s not an either/or issue. I don’t believe myself or anyone else for that matter, has argued any other way.
Housing in Auckland is a problem, transnational investment is a problem, the quality of the housing is a problem, the Aussie banks are a problem, Over crowding is a problem, the government keeping the housing bubble going, because, if it doesn’t we are going to loss ten’s of thousands of jobs, is a problem. Twyford being a bigoted git, is a problem. Housing NZ, is a problem. No capital gain, death duty and a crushing g.s.t on the poor is a problem.
So many parts to this problem, but all you good’ ol boys run off to save the twit Twyford.
1.Do you think non-doms should be allowed to own housing in NZ?
2. Do you think the data about the sale and purchase of housing should be open and transparent?
It would be a very weak minimum position, but yes we need both those points.
I also think we need a Capital gains tax. A death Tax. More houses.
A full investigation into the Aussie banks and their role in creating, and continuing the housing bubble here, and across the ditch.
More housing density, coupled with good public transport options.
No sale of the current social housing stock, with a massive improvement of the rights for tenants.
I also think the market can not solve this issue.
It needs a wholly new approach.
+1
The people benefiting from the status quo are the rich – everyone else is being screwed.
And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.
They know that one of the quickest ways of shutting down debate is to accuse your opponent of being sexist or racist.
We learned that little trick from the left…also helps to accuse your opponesnts as being trolls as well
But, by and large, when either accusation is made about tories it’s generally supported by actual fact, and is a general conclusion on the merits of an argument or the trustworthiness of a commenter.
When the accusation is made by tories, it’s generally (as you call it) a “little trick”, usually tenuous and made with the objective of derailing further analysis, however valid that analysis may be.
But being a moral vacuum, you are incapable of understanding the difference between the two.
Sorry but by and large the left are as bad and in some cases even worse than the right its just that the right are better at it
However I do see that the left now have a new weapon in their armoury with the new cyber bullying laws so we’ll see how that goes
Yeah, reread my last sentence above.
Well you keep on believing what you want to believe
Well I sure as shit wouldn’t want your worldview, where politics is merely a vicious game played by sociopaths who care not a jot for the real pain in the world and where all appeals to decency and calling-out of injustice are mere cynical ploys to score points. Surely humanity is more than just a pack of rabid dogs feasting on their weak?
fuck, it’s a wonder you didn’t slit your wrists years ago.
Suicide isn’t funny. Just sayin….
not a joke.
To believe that the only difference between political perspectives is simply that one side is better at being cynically manipulative than the others would be a fair approximation of hell. No hope of change. Ever.
Fuck.
I need to go for a cup of coffee.
“And that’s why our resident trolls and the ACT Party are so determined to frame this conversation as racist.”
“If your not for us your against us.”
Paul using good old George Bush Jr. rhetoric, what a find. You are a charmer mate. Or just another middle of the road lefty, who is in reality, an Ike style Republican.
If you can not divide up the debate – sorry for you. How about you read this, then we will talk as adults. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.
Simple question.
Are you concerned about non-dom ownership of housing in NZ?
I am and I don’t know why that concern should be twisted.
“If your not for us your against us.”
erm… Paul didn’t actually use that rhetoric, did he?
I am just trying to point out that a lot of the people jumping up and down yelling ‘racist’ are folk like pr, BM, clean power etc etc.
Yes, there are left wing voices saying the same, but shouldn’t your bedfellows concern you Adam?
It is foreign overseas wealth that is the issue, American, German, British and Chinese. And our pathetic rules that allow wealthy overseas investors trump the civil right of residents in this country to affordable housing.
The reason why the rwnjs are yelling so loudly is that they support the unhindered access to ‘markets’ by the wealthy global elite. They support the looting of this country.
Can’t you see that?
The problem is that the Labour Party has been complicit in this since the 1980s and so, I, and many others are sceptical of whether they will really stand up for the rights of workers against foreign capital.
No, what worries me is so called left wing people like you Paul who are defending racists. That’s what is worrying me. And not all right wing people are racists.
To your other points you have not read a damn thing I’ve said – so go back and try again.
Now your worried that labour having now raised China to the level of spectre, they will back down.
Sheesh, and you only way to keep pressure up is to go lalalalala Twyford is not a chauvinist small minded git. Great politics, up lifting and inclusive – no wait, if you did that sort of politics, it be left wing…
But maybe that’s what we’re doing wrong – we don’t go for uplifting and inclusive
According to this Asians make up 21% of the Auckland population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Auckland
Apparently the data went to level2 ethnicity, so 21% Asian includes 9% “Asian (Chinese)”, 8% “Asian (Indian)”, etc.
Dame Susan takes Labour to task
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/70172739/use-of-halfbaked-housing-data-disappointing–devoy
And Twyford is acting Ethnic Affairs spokesman while Goff is overseas… you can’t make this shit up.
Someones decided to help Labour out:
http://howkiwiareyou.nz/
It sounds as plausible as Labours stats
To Clean-power – Devoy is muddled. She’s mixing local Chinese resident in NZ with the group that Phil Twyford is targetting – the non-resident Chinese who come in briefly for a few nights, go to the Auckland auctions, bag a few properties (using cheap finance), and fly off again.
Two totally different groups – and the local Chinese should be just as concerned at what their country-people are doing – because they’re also pushing them out of the Auckland housing market.
And to BM – Wikipedia is talking about the entire Asian population in Auckland – that would include Korean, Indian, and other nations as well as China. Twyford probably had his ethnic population figures from a more reliable source – NZ Stats Dept and the Auckland Council.
[Removed duplicate comment, Jenny, and added your edit about the council. TRP]
I imagine they both know what you have told them already.
Remember there are here as shills for the government and its powerful lobbyists, not to engage in rational discussion.
Trolls don’t debate.
I’m getting thoroughly sick of all this – she’s just making cheap shots burbling on about how it’s not fair to ‘Chinese New Zealanders’; when anyone with an IQ of above 60 knows perfectly well that the discussion is not about them; it’s about people without residency buying large amounts of property and distorting the market. In. fact, I’m getting really angry that people like my daughter-in-law and her family are being used by people to make what appear on the surface to be supportive arguments, but are really just a cynical tilt at the Labour Party. My family deserve better than this
C’mon Jenny. If Twyford sources are reliable, why doesn’t he disclose them and tell us who they are? The term “probably” is out of place here.
Hang on, are you demanding Twyford provide a reference for a stat reported by Weepus Beard as being what Twyford said on morning report, when even if it were an undercount then the figure of 21% still suggests either disproportionate purchases by a specific residential demographic, or non-resident purchases?
That seems to be a somewhat pointless exercise.
Which is probably why you’ve got your knickers in a twist about it.
shit that was to c_p. Must have missed the reply button
Something funny about the reply sequencing McFlock? I don’t know why I’m above the comment and not below. See where this one lands.
ok, someone’s deleted their comment and blown the threading, maybe.
[Might have been when I removed a duplicate comment halfway up. I’ll see if I can fix it. TRP]
[Yeah, CP’s reply to Anne’s duplicate comment is now an orphan. Must have been posted as I was trashing the dupe. Sorry about that. TRP]
I fixed some of the issues I was having with the duplicating RSS feeds. I just have to figure out a better solution to bloody google feeds duplicating (ie mostly blogger). Now I have to figure out a better fix.
I’ll correct this comment issue. But generally the best immediate fix is to pull the comment from Trash
Hooton kept repeating the term ‘international activist groups’ as if people advocating for changes to climate change policy and Zero Hours contracts were part of some evil conspiracy.
Sounded like the reds under the bed nonsense.
And yet the host challenged one of these nonsensical ideas.
RNZ going downhill.
In fact, Paul, the host (Lynn Freeman) contradicted Hooton and exposed his crude methodology. It was Mike Williams, as useless as ever, who failed to challenge Hooton.
I’ve done a transcript of the last four minutes of the programme—humiliating for Hooton—and I’ll put it up on Open Mike tomorrow morning.
Hello JanM (on iPad & cannot reply under your comment).
Thanks & sorry to hear that.
This is why Phil Twyford had to be more careful & skilful in raising the issues & when discussing that ‘research’.
On my part, how do people here think I feel when I will be at the next open home?
I don’t care how you feel at your next open home.
Not nice, Weepus beard
C’mon.
Huang Y.G’s plight at his next auction does not affect my family one bit. That’s the world that the Nazional party lead government and ACT type people have fostered upon us, is it not?
One where it’s every man for himself. A dog-eat-dog world?
I’ve never been to a house auction so he or she will get no sympathy from me, thanks very much.
Thanks for confirming that you’ve taken aspects of the right wing ethos to heart.
And you really seem to be more accepting of identity politics these days…
I really couldn’t give a stuff when the likes of Winston runs an anti-Asian campaign, but when a self styled broad church like Labour acts this politically inept and knowingly burns a couple of hundred thousand voters due to moves explained by an utter lack of Asians in its caucus and senior hierarchy, as well as a total lack of understanding the local Chinese community and its history, its time to escalate the push back.
I agree entirely.
The Labour caucus should be demographically representative (or at the very least make specific and explicit efforts to address the concerns of less powerful groups iin society). Labour, and society as a whole, will be stronger for it.
I am a renter with a young family, shut out of ever owning a house in the place I was born in and grew up in because of cheap foreign money propping up the current government’s economic policy, as hinted at by Phil Twyford, in the absence of much asked for buyers’ data.
You?
Same situation as my younger son, then, but I’d be ashamed of him if he carried on like this
Really?
You be ashamed of him for fighting for his family’s future against this volatile tide of cheap money which is distorting NZ’s delicate residential infrastructure?
No for having a go at someone without establishing where they’re coming from – you made an assumption and just went for it!. Read his 12.45 post
the Auckland property bubble has been blowing up big since 2001/2002, Helen Clark and Michael Cullen loved the wealth effect “propping up” their government’s finances too, foreign money has played a role in this, but there are a shit load of other factors as well, go blame Westpac, BNZ and ANZ for starters.
#labourdidittoo
A typical Auckland house went from $300,000 to $600,000 under Helen Clark’s watch. Lots of property owning middle class Aucklanders got suddenly rich – at least on paper. Buying houses for investments and capital gains became a Kiwi middle class past time. Lots of money from ever expanding mortgage debt was flooding the economy. Labour was fine with this. Cullen built his budget surpluses on it.
Now we find that the Auckland middle class are getting seriously priced out of the market by foreign money. All of a sudden, Labour wants to make a big media hoopla about how big a problem the Chinese are causing.
None of this is about helping the average Kiwi worker earning $50K pa get into an Auckland house.
I’m done conversing with you on this.
I say get the data, restrict foreigners from residential property, and slow immigration until Auckland infrastructure can catch up. That’s a socially responsible viewpoint.
You say don’t be so racist, supply is the problem, and Labour did it too. That’s a National party troll viewpoint.
I’m done.
That approach won’t sort out affordable housing in Auckland for 20 to 30 years, if even by then.
I’m more radical than you are on this topic by a million miles. You don’t even know it.
LOL mate, even the conservatives are more compassionate than you.
midday onenews – first item – labour getting smashed from all sides – thanks twyford and little you have really helped the gnats – wankers.
And the 3pm news headlines with a BNZ economist calling for a ban on foreign ownership of New Zealand property.
Means to an end Marty. You really need to get that chip off your shoulders that you hold against Labour. Mana/one trick pony Hone sold out and it was their choice 🙂
you’re right about one thing (I know, surprised me too) it is a means to an end but the end will not be the end rather the end of the end and then we’ll see what happens…
As I mentioned in another comment, you must always analyse why a bank economist is saying what they are saying, on behalf of their employer. In this case, BNZ would love to have these rich Chinese and other foreign buyers banned out of the market, because they are wealthy buyers who bring their own cash to the table – they do not need mortgages from the BNZ.
TL/DR: Every house bought using Chinese cash is a lost mortgage origination for the BNZ.
– Colonial Viper, 13/07/15
Bookmarked.
I’m getting sick of this.
Brave man, Twyford. Finally some facts emerging about this crazy house price bubble. Brave leaker from the Ak property company too, I bet there’s a witch hunt going on there right now too. Hope the leaker stays hid.
Yes there is a witch hunt going on over this story and I hate the potential for victimising NZ Chinese citizens.
But the facts that are emerging are real. If the stock market in China can lose trillions dropping back to earlier levels of just a few months ago meaning vast amounts of money was invested there, money that dwarfs NZs entire GDP, and the Chinese government is about to facilitate their citizens’ investment in foreign countries, and little old NZ still has no controls tax or other defences to restrict that, then we are fucked.
Brave man Twyford, thank Christ some people actually care about whether my daughters will ever be able to afford to buy a house in a NZ city in the next few years. Or whether go down the biggest depression hole we have ever seen. NZ doesnt have trillions of dollars, we have fuck all.
Don’t worry. Nick Smith has got our backs. You can trust Nick Smith to deal with this can’t you? [/sarc]
“Brave man Twyford”
You’re shitting me. This housing bubble has been blowing up since 2001/2002, a $300K house in 2001 is now worth over a million dollars 13 years later and suddenly fucking Twyford and Little and Labour figure out that its been the goddam Chinese all this time?
Talk about lazy rationalising of the Labour Government’s failures to control the money and debt flowing into the housing market and now the National Government’s failure to control money and debt flowing into the housing market.
As for your daughters buying houses in Auckland in a few years time, what are they, in the market for $700K houses? Because nothing Labour does to halt foreign ownership of NZ land has a shit show of lowering house prices back to even that level, let alone back to an actually affordable sub-$400K level.
Other cities too. The housing bubble trajectory in Auckland isnt going to stop it’s just going to get worse and spread to other cities and the eventual crash which bubbles foretell will be devastating for NZ citizens who mortgage up to try to get what we always thought a kiwi dream.
This speculative bubble is bigger than who is driving up the prices, it’s en route to tragedy unless our useless governments do something to control it.
its the exact same story with our exchange rate.
Every recent NZ govt has believed in the free flow of financial capital, no recent NZ government has believed in limiting capital flows.
BTW provincial towns all across NZ (excluding the likes of Wanaka and Greytown) have flat to declining house prices (esp once inflation is taken into account).
The answer is really quite simple. Give people a reason to move back to provincial NZ which is crying out for more population and more economic activity.
And yeah, ban foreign ownership of NZ land. Not just houses, all land.
How many people know that right NOW – at the Auckland Sky City Convention Centre, there is a great big fat ‘conference’ happening on combatting ‘money-laundering’?
Timing?
VENUE !?
Who would have thought …… !
“APG ANNUAL MEETING AND FORUM ON TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND TRAINING 2015
1 August 2014
The 2015 APG Annual Meeting and Technical Assistance and Training Forum will be held in Auckland, New Zealand in the week of 13-17 July 2015.
The APG Annual Meeting is the primary policy and decision-making vehicle for the APG. Decisions made at the Annual Meeting will set the course for the APG’s work over the next year.”
Wonder what their recommendations are going to be regarding the prevention of real estate / property market being used for ‘money-laundering’?
Penny Bright
Railway thinkers. I’ve noticed that a book featuring the historic past to much of our infrastructure is on Trademe. Big Ideas: 100 Wonders of NZ Engineering by Matthew Wright published in 2009. Closes this Saturday buynow at $33
There’s also Rails Across NZ, only $12 closes Tuesday morning so be quick,
and NZ on the move: 100 Transport Icons, Buy now $15 closes Wed.
Looking at the review of Big Ideas: 100 Wonders…in North and South October 2009,
It has great photos on early power-generating and road and rail building projects and ‘for a tin-pot colony at the bottom of the world” says Wright, the eingineering and technology applied were remarkable.
Photos: Laying underwater sections of the high-voltage direct-current cable in early 1960s.
Early Hamilton marine=jet units under construction. A Kiwi invention, the jet boat was a water-borne application of the axial-flow, impeller principle adopted in WW2 for jet engines.
Benmore hydro station 1958-1964. (I heard from people there that a Swiss company was called in eventually to assist.)
The Denniston self-acting incline.
John Britten’s V-twin motorcycle, built in 1992, wa the most stylish machine of its day – and the fastest.
Now the fleas on the back of giants are sucking up all the benefit that is still present in these projects and selling off the family silver so they can proceed, like all decadent children, to gamble away the family’s wealth and estate.
Chur GW
Yeah you’re exercising in the wrong place Clean power. You should be at the gym building those abs and shoulders to do the physical heavy lifting. The exercise of brain requires a different sort of robust energy beyond your innate capacity. Stick to what you’re made for man.
Not looking good for the Greeks now:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/12/finlands-parliament-in-favour-of-forcing-greece-out-of-the-euro-says-report
Confederate flag supporters rise up to defend embattled symbol
OCALA, FLA. | BY BARBARA LISTON
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/12/us-usa-confederate-ride-idUSKCN0PM11Q20150712
An eight-mile convoy of pickups, motorcycles and cars wound through a central Florida town on Sunday in a show of support for the Confederate flag, as a backlash against its banishment from public landmarks across the South picks up steam.
Horns blared and hundreds of the rebel flags fluttered as more than 1,500 vehicles and some 4,500 people turned out for the “Florida Southern Pride Ride” in Ocala, according to police estimates. Vehicles from states across the South and as far away as California participated.
“That flag has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people,” said David Stone, 38, who organized the event. “It doesn’t symbolize hate unless you think it’s hate – and that’s your problem, not mine.” ….
Continued…..
https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/34009
I find it hard to believe but I agree with Prebble on something
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11480088
I can’t even find any ‘hoik it off to the lowest bidder’ hook in there O.o
You would think money man Key would take a leaf out of American multi billionaire Warren Buffet’s book. There is money in freighting and like Prebble says the Rail corridors are already in place in most city’s in New Zealand.
I have to agree the gridlock on Auckland’s Roading network is beyond a joke, as I ponder should I travel to Auckland early tomorrow morning for a meeting at 10.30 am
or drive later this afternoon? Either way it means being stuck in traffic.
‘Dat moment the crazy right wing guy looks moderate compared to the present govt. O_O
McDonald’s moving to cage free eggs in all stores within 18 months, by which time the company will account for 9% of the free range market.
http://www.voxy.co.nz/lifestyle/mcdonalds-nz-commitments-100-free-range-eggs/5/226386
“We purchase a substantial amount of eggs a year – nearly 13 million – so in order to keep up with demand, our egg suppliers will be investing significantly in new farms and farming systems. This is why the rollout will happen over 18 months – it needs to be sustainable for our suppliers,” says Mr Wilson.
Number of beneficiaries going in debt to WINZ increasing.
Another illustration why consumption inequality is an inadequate measure.
This Washington Post Online article points out how Syriza has failed abysmally.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/10/how-greece-went-from-victory-to-economy-destroying-defeat/
Do you ever support the people or are you always shilling for the 1%?
Who are the 1% exactly? Are they the Taxpayers of Estonia, Latvia and Finland who will be the ones called upon to make sacrifices for the Greeks so they can continue spending far more than they earn? Have you ever wondered why the Finn’s, Latvian’s and Estonians’s (Not to mention the Dutch and Germans) on the whole are very resistant to both debt relief and giving Greece even more support? The Latvian’s and Estonian’s are not very wealthy. In fact an average pensioner in Latvia apparently earns less than their Greek counterpart.
Seems just about everyone has gone off the Greek issue Gosman?
I thought they’d be lining up to concede that you have been pretty much on the money all the way through. sarc.
We have seen a lot of it recently.
The National lead government being put under pressure by the opposition parties’ policies and calls for action on issue that infect the working poor, so much so that the National lead government waits a few months only to release a watered-down version of the same opposition policy and trumpet it as new legislation.
Sufficiently watered down, one might say, to try to please everybody. Mostly, however, it just pleases their business buddies while the worker, or the freezing tenant just has to suck it up in the name of flexibility of the labour market, or listen while being told to how to clean that black mould of your sick kids’ bedroom walls while on a budget.
Let’s look at four instances of this:
– The capital gains tax that is not a tax driven by David Parker.
– The rental housing WOF, which now just asks for smoke alarms and ineffectual polystyrene floor insulation, driven by the Green party.
– The data collection for house and land sales to foreign buyers that doesn’t collect any data, driven by Phil Twyford.
– The dismantling of zero-hour contracts (thanks Helen Kelly), which ended up as an weak appeasement to shonky employers.
This new and hurried legislation from the Nazional government only just tip-toes around the edges of something which will actually work for workers and their families, but none the less would not have happened at all if it were not for the brave people in opposition who come up with solutions for the increasingly disenfranchised every day.
My question is:
Are Labour and the Greens governing this country from the opposition benches?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/70183404/cheaper-milk-prices-help-cut-the-household-grocery-bill
and now for some good news
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/70184652/doctors-helping-patients-die-as-assisted-death-debate-rolls-on
”More than one in ten doctors have helped a patient die despite potentially breaking the law, a survey suggests.
In a fax poll of general practitioners, conducted by magazine New Zealand Doctor and IMS Health, nearly 12 per cent of respondents said they had helped a patient die. About two out of five doctors also said they had been asked to help a patient die, although most had refused.”
This creates an unsafe level of pressure and stress for the doctors who are prepared to do this to help their patients. Apart from the risk to their career, there is no avenue for them to receive the counselling anyone would require (whether what they are doing is permitted or not) to cope with the emotional burden of assisting someone to end their life.
Turei, less smart than I thought. Disappointing from her.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/70186455/greens-accuse-labour-of-crude-racial-profiling-on-housing-sales
Labour fighting back over Devoy’s comments.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/70202394/labour-hits-back-at-dame-susan-devoy-over-claim-its-housing-data-was-halfbaked
Just going out for popcorn… back soon.