Barry has just handed the election to National/NZFirst imho, I’m guessing that if NZ had to have another election then the Greens would be punished severely because no one likes elections all that much anyway so having to have another would really annoy people.
National and/or Winston can claim a vote for the Greens, and by extension of the MOU Labour, is a vote for instability so a lot of the swing votes are going to swing Winstons way
Well done Barry Winston is probably toasting you right now
NZ First with Shane Jones in top role, would never be a good partner in a progressive government. NZF-Labour or NZF-Nats – not much difference.
I’ll vote accordingly. I’ll leave others to make their choices. The future needs a progressive party/ies that stick to principles, rather than always having an eye on the GAME.
Edit: and the bigger issue arising from all this is that the contest in this election is between/for the smaller parties. It will not be decided on one action or blog post.
WOW all over rover – I went and checked the news sites – ummm nothing WTF – it’s being suppressed already!!!
then I checked ‘gnat supporters trying to cause trouble’ and there it was – in the funny pages next to the story on “How to tell if your cat was famous in a past life”.
James Shaw gave an interview to Guyon Espiner. Shaw ruled out an early election. Therefore the implication is that the Greens would give C & S to a Labour NZ First govt. He did not actually say that, but since he said they want to change the govt, and since the Greens have been emphatic that they will not support National in any circumstance, then that is the only logical conclusion to draw.
As was evident today from the RNZ interview, since the Greens have ruled out National in all circumstances (even if National was only 1 or 2 short of a majority), then the Greens have dramatically reduced their leverage, and greatly increased that of NZ First.
Their choice of course, and if I go by the voice of Standardnistas who party vote Green also their choice. But there are consequences of such a choice.
You Natz just don’t get it Wayne. You are an anathema to the Greens. Your policies are unacceptable. Personally I don’t want leverage by bastardizing ourselves and pretending we could work with you.
We want a change of Government.
Hes been in parliament since October,and is a fine example of the IYI species.
Intellectual Yet Idiot
From medium.com (taleb)
… the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policy making “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.
I suspect Coates is now regretting his brain fart. Basically nothing has changed. The Greens would prefer a coalition with Labour and not have to be in a 3 way coalition with NZF for obvious reasons. However they would be able to work with NZF if necessary.
They would never contemplate a coalition with the Nats (and their eugenics loving partner Act). The righties here still seem to be unable to understand the concept of having values.
Hey Wayne I went and checked a few online news sites and guess what I found? Nothing. Oh dear what a fizzer lol. Keep them coming gnats they’re starting to worry us. Meanwhile billshitter been a bit quiet – obviously been muzzled – until election day I spose.
As was evident today from the RNZ interview, since the Greens have ruled out National in all circumstances (even if National was only 1 or 2 short of a majority), then the Greens have dramatically reduced their leverage, and greatly increased that of NZ First.
🙄 The Greens ruled out National several elections ago.
All that’s happened this week is the Greens have pointed out that if NZers want a progressive government they need to vote Green. Their rationale in this is pretty sound.
I know this is a strange concept to get one’s head around, but the Greens are speaking to voters here, not people like yourself who think it’s all about power plays and behind doors machinations.
All I can see is the Gower fantasy piece, which is basically Gower making shit up, and the RNZ piece, which is a fairly perfunctory interview with Shaw. Hardly all over the news.
So far more accurate than saying ” I went and checked the news sites – ummm nothing WTF – it’s being suppressed already!!!”
Waynes ‘Standardnistas’ comments are in very bad taste …. considering the history of murders, rapes and other acts committed against the Sandinista s and their society ….. As Cocaine smuggling, funded a Cia war, waged against them …… to destabilize and destroy their society.
“To destabilize Nicaragua beginning in 1981, we began funding this force of Somoza’s ex-national guardsmen, calling them the contras (the counter
revolutionaries). We created this force, it did not exist until we allocated money.”
” they have systematically been blowing up graineries, saw mills, bridges,
government offices, schools, health centers. They ambush trucks so the produce can’t get to market. They raid farms and villages. The farmer has to carry a gun while he tries to plow, if he can plow at all.
“Systematically, the contras have been assassinating religious workers, teachers, health workers, elected officials, government administrators.”
“With the children forced to watch they gang rape the mother, and slash her breasts off. And sometimes for variety, they make the parents watch
while they do these things to the children.”
” the U.S government under Ronald Reagan, began funding and arming groups of rebels opposed to the Sandanistas known as the Counterrevolutionaries, or Contras. This is all easily obtainable information. Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series, appeared in the Mercury News in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to support their struggle”. ……. ” Webb was following the trial of a Contra leader named Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes who testified as to the C.I.A’s involvement in cocaine trafficking into Inner city Los Angeles in the 1980’s.”
“The lead of the first article set out the series’ basic claims: “For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.” This drug ring “opened the first pipeline between Colombia’s cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles” and, as a result, “The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America”
To be quite honest …. for a person like wayne mapp to be calling us “Standardnistas” ……….. makes me doubt any sincerity or bad feelings he may have expressed for his part in the killing of a three year old girl….
This coming from someone who at 7.45 this morning said neither of the GP co-leaders had said anything. Your just tripped over your troll shoelaces James.
When Alfred Ngaro threatened NGO’s who criticised National, was he revealing National Party intent?
Let’s ask James.
When Barry Coates described an possible outcome for the election, was he describing Green Party thinking?
Let’s ask James.
From what I can tell it goes like this. The Greens made a stand on the weekend about what voters need to do if they want a progressive government (hint, it doesn’t mean voting for Peters). Coates wrote his piece for The Daily Blog, published on Tues. Trotter shit stirs in his piece on Weds. Now Gower is trying to amp it up, and I see Bradbury is egging it on on twitter.
This is what it’s going to be like. Forget about truth, that lot are playing dickhead games. Gower can’t help himself, but Trotter and Bradbury should know better. It’s almost like they’d rather lose the election than have the Greens strong. Or maybe like Gower it’s all about the game.
None of it serves the country or the democratic process.
“Mr Coates also said Green MPs had discussed refusing to support a Labour-NZ First combination as a caucus in the past fortnight.”
So the Green MPs are discussing it as a possibility. – unless you are saying Coates is a liar.
Alfred Ngaro – moron. English came out – said he couldn’t do that, and reviewed all his decisions to make sure that they were not politically motivated.
So – One states that the party are discussing it, the other states that its categorically wrong and not happening. Pretty obvious that it wasn’t something being discussed as a party (but feel free to produce anything that proves that wrong if you can).
What I don’t understand is why all these non-GP voters believe that the Greens should do anything after the election. Seriously, why do you believe that the Greens should commit to C and S pre-election when no other party does?
Yes, I saw the Daily Blog piece, but Coates doesn’t actually say what Gower said he said, which is probably why Gower doesn’t quote him. Which makes me wonder if Gower did his piece solely off TDB and didn’t talk to Coates directly.
Yes, I saw that too, but given that Gower didn’t quote Coates at all, or say that bit, I’m assuming that Gower went solely off TDB piece.
What Barry Coates said
Mr Coates’ original comments come from a post he wrote for left-wing site The Daily Blog.
“The memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Labour is the foundation for building the next Government. If we were not part of the coalition, we would not accept a Labour-New Zealand First Government and certainly not a National-New Zealand First Government. Neither will be acceptable to the Greens.”
He later clarified to Newshub this “could” result in a second election, if no other combinations of parties could form a Government.
Agreed that Coates was incredibly stupid, and I’m surprised because the Greens are normally tighter than this. Does this mean MPs can post blogs without running them past caucus? More likely they don’t have a rule on this because the other MPs already know not to do that shit. Coates isn’t the only Green MP to post on TDB though.
I thought Shaw did a good job on RNZ. Hopefully it will blow over and we’ll get back to some politics without the boys shitstirring.
James Shaw was excellent in that interview. The interviewer was good also. He was direct but did not froth at the mouth like Paddy Gower and others. It gave James Shaw a chance to give his perspective without being interrupted constantly.
So, if the Greens won’t work with NZ First they should be punished, but if NZ First won’t work with the Greens that’s sound political judgement? There’s something about the Green Party that makes right-wingers lose any semblance of rationality.
Also: seriously, a Labour-NZ First government? Where the fuck is that coming from? People who can’t read or do maths?
“but if NZ First won’t work with the Greens that’s sound political judgement?”
I wouldn’t call that sound political judgement- but I would call it a nail in the coffin of a labour – greens – nzf government.
And looking at the numbers – it’s looking like 3 more years of national but this time with nzf – as well as the other parties.
That will give them a large majority.
Assuming (a big assumption) that they can make it work well and partner well with NZF (and Shane jones will help this a lot) 2020 and possibly 2023 are looking good.
Edit : looking good if you support national – not so much labour.
I’m not sure you could count that as “good.” A Lab/Green/NZF govt would be a horrendous clusterfuck because Winston Peters. Likewise, a Nat/ACT/MP/United/NZF govt would be a horrendous clusterfuck because Winston Peters. If those turn out to be the choices this election, I’d rather National suffered the horrendous clusterfuck and Labour/Greens set their sights on 2020.
If National and its current support parties are say more than 3 short of a majority I would expect a Labour/NZF/Green govt, though possibly with Greens only in a C & S role.
If National and support parties are extremely close to a majority, just 1 or 2 short, Winston will find it hard not to let them form a govt, though with NZF in the prime support role. In such a case the govt would have a solid majority, not that necessarily means much.
In constitutional terms a 1 seat majority is as good as a 10 seat majority. At least if the 1 seat majority is tidy and not a constant fractious debate on every issue. I have been there (1996 to 1999) and it is a mess.
I guess it will be an integrity test. Winston will go with whoever offers the choicest “baubles of office,” so if the right-bloc/left-bloc split is close, there will be plenty of temptation to make Winston some tasty offers. In that sense, forming a govt with Winston is kind of like cocaine – very tempting, but won’t work out well for you in the long run. I’m hoping Little, Shaw and Turei have the integrity to resist that temptation – I guess we’ll find out in September whether they do or not.
Both the Nats and Labour are going to be asked to pay up large for Winston. Hes done it before, and when Helens lot didnt offer enough, then Bolger got the treasury benches.
And Winston got the sack.
Sure it was a long time ago, but since then Winston has worked far better with Labour than with the Nats.
On present polling, I see Winston as PM of a Labour led minority government with support from the Greens, (and Dunne gone from Parliament)
It wasn’t just that they didn’t offer enough, the Alliance refused to commit to confidence and supply, apparently. I don’t know whether that was because they wanted to remain separate from Labour (lots of fresh wounds) or simply because they felt locked out of being in a threeway coalition (basically the potential Green situation that the tories are wanking over – being asked to support a government that won’t give them anything in return)
“it has to come back to the members”
That doesn’t seem to be the interpretation that Shaw is putting on the question of alliances.
In the Herald article he says
“Greens co-leader James Shaw said this morning that Coates’ comments were “absolutely not” the party’s position. Discussions about possible coalition deals were “the reserve of the leadership”, he said.” http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11889937
He seems to be suggesting that it is the role of himself and Turei rather than the function of party members as a whole.
You are wrong. Shaw was referring to the caucus and that during the election campaign the only MPs who can make public statements about coalition deals are the co-leaders (have a listen to the RNZ piece).
As for post-election deals, there’s a process that involves the caucus, exec, and members, and there is a special negotiations team and one that liases with the rest of the party (that’s from memory)
alwyn
You belong with the type of people regularly heard to be calling for ‘leadership’. James Shaw has demonstrated it, but you are saying that he should leave everything important to the party members as a whole’.
marty mars at 8.11
Haha. Good,
Poission 11.53
That was a good summary of a type I’ve noticed.
Thanks for headsup.
” but you are saying that he should leave everything important to the party members as a whole”.
No, I said nothing of the sort. I gave no opinion at all on who should make the decisions on such things.
I merely suggested that what Shaw was quoted as saying didn’t seem to tie up with what Weka had said.
She assures us that the comments are not in conflict as one applies to statements made before the election and one to what they might do after the election when all the votes have been cast. That wasn’t at all clear from what the paper said and I am pleased that she has made it clear that different rules apply at the different dates.
I hope they don’t take too long over the matter. Remember how it took about 6 weeks to discover who the Government was going to be in 1996? God forbid it takes that long again.
You don’t need to tell us it’s a mess Wayne – we’ve had to live under their squalid sustained administrative failure. The Gnats are rubbish on their best day.
In constitutional terms a 1 seat majority is as good as a 10 seat majority. At least if the 1 seat majority is tidy and not a constant fractious debate on every issue. I have been there (1996 to 1999) and it is a mess.
A revealing comment!
A 1-seat majority may be all that’s need to push through bills but it does not make for sound democracy if it’s all you care about.
Obviously, in 1996 NZ politicians were still stuck in FPP mode and arguable some still are this day.
Indeed, with such a single-minded attitude each and every debate is likely to turn into a fractious one – it’s not the 1-seat majority but the mind-set that is the underlying issue.
In fact, National still displays this arrogant simplistic mind-set that winning is everything and justifies the means. In contrast, other smaller parties have adapted more to MMP and are more willing and able to build bridges, compromise, aim for consensus and generally take a broader view than just a 1-seat majority in the House.
In short, this is why we urgently need a change of government, because this kind or narrow-minded political ‘pragmatism’ is bad for (NZ) democracy and our society.
John Clark on NZ
“During the early 1980s however, the New Zealand economy was put in the hands of finance ministers due to a filing error, and authorities are still looking for the black box. A social democracy with only one previous owner was asset-stripped and replaced by a series of franchises. Even rugby sides stopped being called Canterbury, Wellington, Otago and Auckland and were instead given the names of animals, colours and weather conditions.” (Source: from the late, great John Clarke’s A Guide To New Zealand)
Most people are delusional about their economic status. I had a person the other day tell me they we middle class, renting and ten’s of thousands of dollars in debt – but middle class. Yeah right.
So the wool is firmly in place, as such the elites don’t fear working people. Until we get to a time that they do – nothing will change. Some tinkering maybe from the wets – but nothing will change.
most middle class people are one illness and one missed wage payment away from bankruptcy.
but as long as they can ‘service ‘ their debts they are middle class.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11887216
7 July 2017 On Monday, [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk sent out tweet saying that the Palo Alto, California, company anticipates production of 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in December, which was below previous estimates. Tesla also said Monday that it delivered about 22,000 vehicles in the second quarter, bringing first-half deliveries to about 47,100. That’s at the low end of the company’s projections earlier this year of between 47,000 and 50,000 deliveries.
Then on Wednesday, the dynamics of the electric car market shifted a bit when Volvo announced that by 2019, it would be producing only electric and hybrid vehicles, the first traditional automaker to make that leap.
Volvo, which is based in Sweden but owned by Chinese firm Geely, will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021. Three of them will be Volvo models and two will be electrified cars from Polestar, Volvo Cars’ performance car arm. It also plans to offer a range of hybrids as options, expecting to sell 1 million electrified cars by 2025.
The first (it’s a ger) was imported from Mongolia and is made by hand from traditional materials, yak, horse, larch etc. It needed a New Zealand-proof coat, as we are wetter than its home country, and now has one – thick pvc of the sort trucks are covered with., or circus tents made. The second is purpose built in Takaka by Jaia tents – their website reveals all. Ours is a 7-metre, windowed yurt, very pretty.
You could, if your bylaws allow. Most often, you need to show that it’s a “nomadic” structure and can be shifted about the place, it depends upon where in the country you live. Winter could be challenging, but a good rocket stove would fix that.
The regions can’t have – a decent transport avenue with rail because it won’t pay (Gisborne.) Fed Farmers want trucks, someone wants a road built on the railway tracks. Probably everyone is ducking for cover while the Gnats try to crank up the Special Economic Zones so government can say to the unpopular regions, ‘find a ….(foreign) investor and sell your soul to him/them’.
(Sort of like the story of Rumplestitskin – someone in fix, R says promise me your brightest and best and I’ll get you out of the poo. They managed to sort R out and send him off, but hey that can only happen in fairy tales.)
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201850920/questions-over-iwirail-s-economics
transport politics
8:17 am today
Questions over IwiRail’s economics
From Morning Report, 8:17 am today
Listen duration 2′ :45″
The Maori Party’s plan to resurrect rail in the regions – dubbed IwiRail – would bring back moth-balled lines, beginning with the Napier-Gisborne route and look into setting up new tracks. It wants the Government to put up an initial $350 million, with iwi and local investors also contributing. But there are questions about whether the routes will be profitable, and whether the numbers add up.
And what about poor Manawatu – the Gorge is shifting, and its enough to make you throw up if you live round there. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/manawatu-guardian/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503567&objectid=11887406
Watch NZH Local Focus: Manawatu Gorge may never reopen
7 Jul, 2017 2:09pm
NZ Herald
It’s been shut 22 times in the last five years, that’s a total of 338 days. Most recently it closed in April after a massive slip took out the road. Now, the Manawatu Gorge may never reopen.
Re the gorge, IF we had true leadership, (not beholden to the trucking lobby), they could say no trucks to go over the saddle or the pahiatua track.
Perfectly good rail corridor through the ranges. Load up in woodvegas, ashhurst or palmy, then offload at other end.
Where there is a will there is a way.
I do feel for folks in the tararua, 6,000 vehicle movements now not happening like they used to, and citizens of ashhurst now having 6,000 largely unwanted vehicles going through the residential area.
UPDATE FROM HER WARSHIP IN THE HAGUE – WORLD JUSTICE FORUM Thursday 13 July 2017 6.24am
Unfinished reporting from Tuesday 11 July 2017….
– when I dropped my political ‘bombshell’ about NZ’s corruption REALITY being that
in my opinion, as a proven anti- corruption ‘whistle-blower’ – New Zealand was a ‘corrupt, polluted tax haven – a banana republic without the bananas’.
I also stated that the Transparency International ‘Corruption Perception Index’ (which NZ topped 10 times (sometimes 1st equal) without having even ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption – should be screwed up and thrown into the rubbish bin of history.
That there were IMO, objective, significant milestones / yardsticks for quantifying corruption REALITY, rather than relying (largely) upon the subjective opinions of anonymous businesspeople for PERCEPTION of corruption (which in my view is a meaningless ‘measure’).
I pointed out how in 2010 how I had attended the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Conference in Bangkok.
Where we were told that the global procurement market was $14 TRILLION and the amount estimated to be lost in bribery and corruption was $2.5 TRILLION!
That I had a HUGE ‘lightbulb’ moment!
Wouldn’t $2.5 TRILLION
$2.5 THOUSAND BILLION
$2,500,000,000,000 – help to feed, clothe, water and shelter a few poor people?
That another ‘lightbulb’ moment – was that Transparency International were not looking at the underpinning private procurement MODEL, but the private procurement PROCESS.
That as soon as you got into the private procurement (contracting out) of public services, formerly provided ‘in house’ by staff directly employed under the ‘public service’ model, you got into CONTRACT MANAGEMENT.
Government or Council staff were regarded as ‘too dumb’ to do contract management – so a ‘bureaucrat'(s) would then hire CONSULTANT(S) to ‘project manage’ the WORKS CONTRACTOR(S), who would then usually SUB-CONTRACT- so by the time you got down to those in the boots and overalls getting their hands dirty and actually doing something productive – you might have up to 4 layers of pinstripe suits – clipping the ticket while effectively doing nothing.
How on EARTH is that a more ‘cost-effective’ use of public money?
In 2010, at that Transparency International Anti-Corruption Conference, I stood on my hind legs and asked a (high-faluting) panel – where was the EVIDENCE that the private procurement of public services that used to be provided at central and local government level, was more ‘cost-effective’ than former ‘in-house’ service provision?
(It was like I had slapped the face of the person who was chairing the panel.
He literally did a ‘double-take’ and mumbled that there was evidence – but none was ever provided.)
My point to this 2017 World Justice Forum group – was that in my opinion, it was time to look at the whole underpinning private procurement MODEL for public services.
( IMO – it is the privatisation -private procurement – of public services which is the major source of GRAND corruption.
I am one of the few people in the world actually saying this- that the root cause of most GRAND corruption- is PRIVATISATION.
How is it decided who GETS the contracts?
Remember – back in 2010 – the global amount estimated to be paid in bribery and corruption was $2.5 TRILLION!
__________________________
This is a BIG deal folks.
The whole Neo-liberal myth and mantra ‘public is bad – private is good’ upon which this massive privatisation of public services, locally, nationally and internationally was based – was NOT ‘evidence based’.
The BIG business globalists – just MADE IT UP!
More later …
Her Warship – guns loaded and blazing ‘inside the tent!’
(As it were …. 🙂
Does this tender business make sense? Expecting a bus firm to invest in providing good vehicles and provide good service and change over to better fuels, and then be dropped like a hot potato some years on. Waste of capital, and more expensive in the long run I would think. Another example of NZ demanding champagne while earning a beer income?
In Wellington a new operator says it will provide over 200 buses and the media is asking where they are going to be parked? It sounds as if all the dots haven’t been joined.
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Over the past two or three weeks, a procession of Maori iwi and hapu in a series of little-noticed appearances before two Select Committees have been asking for more say for Maori over resource management decisions along the co-governance lines of Three Waters. Their submissions and appearances run counter ...
The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue war crimes arrest warrants for the Russian President and the Russia Children Ombudsman may have been welcomed by the ideologically committed but otherwise seems to have been greeted with widespread cynicism (see Situation in Ukraine: ICC judges issue arrest warrants ...
Let’s say you’re clasping your drink at a wedding, or a 40th, or a King’s Birthday Weekend family reunion and Drunk Uncle Kevin has just got going.He’s in an expansive frame of mind because we’re finally rid of that silly girl. But he wants to ask an honest question about ...
National Party leader Christopher Luxon may be feeling glum about his poll ratings, but he could be tapping into a rich political vein in describing the current state of education as “alarming”. Luxon said educational achievement has been declining, with a recent NCEA pilot exposing just how far it has ...
Way Beyond Reform: Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have no more interest in remaining permanent members of “New Zealand’s” House of Representatives than did Lenin and Trotsky in remaining permanent members of Tsar Nicolas II’s “democratically-elected” Duma. Like the Bolsheviks, Te Pāti Māori is a party of revolutionaries – not reformists.THE CROWN ...
Buzz from the Beehive Auckland was wiped off the map, when Education Minister Jan Tinetti delivered her speech of welcome as host of the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers “here in Tāmaki Makaurau”. But – fair to say – a reference was made later in the speech to a ...
Morning mate, how you going?Well, I was watching the news last night and they announced this scientific report on Climate Change. But before they got to it they had a story about the new All Blacks coach.Sounds like important news. It’s a bit of a worry really.Yeah, they were talking ...
Always a bailout: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Government would fully guarantee all savers in all smaller US banks if needed. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: No wonder an entire generation of investors are used to ‘buying the dip’ and ‘holding on for dear life’. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ...
Wealthy vested interests have an oversized influence on political decisions in New Zealand. Partly that’s due to their use of corporate lobbyists. Fortunately, the influence lobbyists can have on decisions made by politicians is currently under scrutiny in Guyon Espiner’s in-depth series published by RNZ. Two of Espiner’s research exposés ...
Yesterday afternoon it rained and traffic around the region ground to a halt, once again highlighting why it is so important that our city gets on with improving the alternatives to driving. For additional irony, this happened on the same day the IPCC synthesis report landed, putting the focus on ...
The Beginning: Anti-Co-Governance agitator, Julian Batchelor, addresses the Dargaville stop of his travelling roadshow across New Zealand . Fascism almost always starts small. Sadly, it doesn’t always stay that way. Especially when the Left helps it to grow.THERE IS A DREADFUL LOGIC to the growth of fascism. To begin with, it ...
Hi,From an incredibly rainy day in Los Angeles, I just wanted to check in. I guess this is the day Trump may or may not end up in cuffs? I’m attempting a somewhat slower, less frenzied week. I’ve had Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s new record on non-stop, and it’s been a ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
RNZ has been shining their torch into corners where lobbyists lurk and asking such questions as: Do we like the look of this?and Is this as democratic as it could be?These are most certainly questions worth asking, and every bit as valid as, say:Are weshortchanged democratically by the way ...
RNZ has continued its look at the role of lobbyists by taking a closer look at the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Andrew Kirton. He used to work for liquor companies, opposing (among other things) a container refund scheme which would have required them to take responsibility for their own ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has left for Beijing for the first ministerial visit to China since 2019. Mahuta is to meet China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang where she might have to call on all the diplomatic skills at her command. Almost certainly she will face questions on what role ...
TL;DR:The Opportunities Party’s Leader Raf Manji is hopeful the party’s new Teal Card, a type of Gold card for under 30s, will be popular with students, and not just in his Ilam electorate where students make up more than a quarter of the voters and where Manji is confident ...
When I was a kid New Zealand was actually pretty green. We didn’t really have plastic. The fruit and veges came in a cardboard box, the meat was wrapped in paper, milk came in a glass bottle, and even rubbish sacks were made of paper. Today if you sit down ...
Looking back through the names of our Police Ministers down the years, the job has either been done by once or future party Bigfoots – Syd Holland, Richard Prebble, Juduth Collins, Chris Hipkins – or by far lesser lights like Keith Allen, Frank Gill, Ben Couch, Allen McCready, Clem Simich, ...
Chris Trotter writes – The Crown is a fickle friend. Any political movement deemed to be colourful but inconsequential is generally permitted to go about its business unmolested. The Crown’s media, RNZ and TVNZ, may even “celebrate” its existence (presumably as proof of Democracy’s broad-minded acceptance of diversity). ...
Four out of the five people who have held the top role of Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff since 2017 have been lobbyists. That’s a fact that should worry anyone who believes vested interests shouldn’t have a place at the centre of decision making. Chris Hipkins’ newly appointed Chief of ...
Feedback on Auckland Council’s draft 2023/24 budget closes on March 28th. You can read the consultation document here, and provide feedback here. Auckland Council is currently consulting on what is one of its most important ever Annual Plans – the ‘budget’ of what it will spend money on between July ...
by Molten Moira from Motueka If you want to be a woman let me tell you what to do Get a piece of paper and a biro tooWrite down your new identification And boom! You’re now a woman of this nationSpelled W O M A Na real trans woman that isAs opposed ...
Buzz from the Beehive New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti is hosting the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers for three days from today, welcoming Education Ministers and senior officials from 18 Pacific Island countries and territories, and from Australia. Here’s hoping they have brought translators with them – or ...
Let’s say you’ve come all the way from His Majesty’s United Kingdom to share with the folk of Australia and New Zealand your antipathy towards certain other human beings. And let’s say you call yourself a women’s rights activist.And let’s say 99 out of 100 people who listen to you ...
James Shaw gave the Green party's annual "state of the planet" address over the weekend, in which he expressed frustration with Labour for not doing enough on climate change. His solution is to elect more Green MPs, so they have more power within any government arrangement, and can hold Labour ...
RNZ this morning has the first story another investigative series by Guyon Espiner, this time into political lobbying. The first story focuses on lobbying by government agencies, specifically transpower, Pharmac, and assorted universities, and how they use lobbyists to manipulate public opinion and gather intelligence on the Ministers who oversee ...
Nick Matzke writes – Dear NZ Herald, I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland. I teach evolutionary biology, but I also have long experience in science education and (especially) political attempts to insert pseudoscience into science curricula in ...
James Shaw has again said the Greens would be better ‘in the tent’ with Labour than out, despite Labour’s policy bonfire last week torching much of what the Government was doing to reduce emissions. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Green Party has never been more popular than in some ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler Poor air quality is a long-standing problem in Los Angeles, where the first major outbreak of smog during World War II was so intense that some residents thought the city had been attacked by chemical weapons. Cars were eventually discovered ...
Yesterday I was reading an excellent newsletter from David Slack, and I started writing a comment “Sounds like some excellent genetic heritage…” and then I stopped.There was something about the phrase genetic heritage that stopped me in tracks. Is that a phrase I want to be saying? It’s kind of ...
Brian Easton writes – Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go ...
This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War. While it strongly opposed the US-led invasion, New Zealand’s then Labour-led government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark did deploy military engineers to try to help rebuild Iraq in mid-2003. With violence soaring, their 12-month deployment ended without being renewed ...
After seventy years, Auckland’s motorway network is finally finished. In July 1953 the first section of motorway in Auckland was opened between Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Mt Wellington Highway. The final stage opens to traffic this week with the completion of the motorway part of the Northern Corridor Improvements project. Aucklanders ...
National’s appointment of Todd McClay as Agriculture spokesperson clearly signals that the party is in trouble with the farming vote. McClay was not an obvious choice, but he does have a record as a political scrapper. The party needs that because sources say it has been shedding farming votes ...
Rays of white light come flooding into my lounge, into my face from over the top of my neighbour’s hedge. I have to look away as the window of the conservatory is awash in light, as if you were driving towards the sun after a rain shower and suddenly blinded. ...
The columnists in Private Eye take pen names, so I have not the least idea who any of them are. But I greatly appreciate their expert insight, especially MD, who writes the medical column, offering informed and often damning critique of the UK health system and the politicians who keep ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Mar 12, 2023 thru Sat, Mar 18, 2023. Story of the Week Guest post: What 13,500 citations reveal about the IPCC’s climate science report IPCC WG1 AR6 SPM Report Cover - Changing ...
Buzz from the Beehive The building of financial capability was brought into our considerations when Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced she had dipped into the government’s coffers for $3 million for “providers” to help people and families access community-based Building Financial Capability services. That wording suggests some ...
Do you ever come across something that makes you go Hmmmm?You mean like the song?No, I wasn’t thinking of the song, but I am now - thanks for that. I was thinking of things you read or hear that make you stop and go Hmmmm.Yeah, I know what you mean, ...
By the end of the week, the dramas over Stuart Nash overshadowed Hipkins’ policy bonfire. File photo: Lynn GrieveasonTLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included:PM Chris Hipkins’ announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but ...
When word went out that Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would be making an announcement about Stuart Nash on the tiles at parliament at 2:45pm yesterday, the assumption was that it was over. That we had reached tipping point for Nash’s time as minister. But by 3pm - when, coincidentally, the ...
Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go on to attack physics by citing Newton.So ...
Photo by Walker Fenton on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on Riverside (we’ve moved from Zoom) for our chat about the week’s news with ...
In a nice bit of news, my 2550-word deindustrial science-fiction piece, The Dream of Florian Neame, has been accepted for publication at New Maps Magazine (https://www.new-maps.com/). I have published there before, of course, with Of Tin and Tintagel coming out last year. While I still await the ...
And so this is Friday, and what have we learned?It was a week with all the usual luggage: minister brags and then he quits, Hollywood red carpet is full of twits. And all the while, hanging over the trivial stuff: existential dread, and portents of doom.Depending on who you read ...
When I changed the name of this newsletter from The Daily Read to Nick’s Kōrero I was a bit worried whether people would know what Kōrero meant or not. I added a definition when I announced the change and kind of assumed people who weren’t familiar with it would get ...
There was a time when a political party’s publicity people would counsel against promoting a candidate as queer. No matter which of two dictionary meanings the voting public might choose to apply – the old meaning of odd, strange, weird, or aberrant, or the more recent meaning of gay, homosexual ...
Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for the next hour, including:PM Chris Hipkins announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but which blew up ...
Even though concern over the climate change threat is becoming more mainstream, our governments continue to opt out of the difficult decisions at the expense of time, and cost for future generations. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Now we have a climate liability number to measure the potential failure of the ...
Thomas Cranmer writesLike it or not, the culture wars have entered New Zealand politics and look set to broaden and intensify. The culture wars are often viewed as an exclusively American phenomenon, but the reality is that they are becoming increasingly prominent in countries around the world, ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today and in your busy lives turning up to this meeting. Forty five years ago, in Howick, often described as racist, and where few Maori lived because it had been a ‘Fencible’ settlement at the time of the Anglo-Maori ...
The Green Party has marked the National Party’s new education policy and given it a fail, especially for its failure to address the underlying drivers of school performance. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised in their State of the Planet speech today. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party after the election must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised today. ...
You will never truly understand, from the pictures you’ve seen in the newspapers or on the six o-clock news, the sheer scale of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. ...
We’re boosting incomes and helping ease cost of living pressures on Kiwis through a range of bread and butter support measures that will see pensioners, students, families, and those on main benefits better off from the start of next month. ...
The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government. ...
“Cabinet needs to do better - and today has shown exactly why we need Green Ministers in cabinet, so we can prioritise action to cut climate pollution and support people to make ends meet,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson. ...
Biggest increase in food prices for over three decades shows the need for an excess profit tax on corporations to help people put food on the table. ...
The Green Party has today launched a submission guide to help Aucklanders give crucial input and prevent potentially disastrous Auckland Council budget proposals. ...
With calls growing for inquiries and action on bank profits, the Greens say the Government has all the information it needs to act now and put a levy on banks. ...
As large parts of Aotearoa recover from two of the worst climate disasters we have ever experienced, it would be a huge mistake for the Government to deprioritise climate action from future transport investments, the Green Party says. ...
The Green Party is celebrating the signing of a historic United Nations Ocean Treaty, and calls on the new Oceans and Fisheries Minister to urgently step up protection for Aotearoa’s oceans. ...
Attorney-General David Parker has announced the appointment of Christopher John Dellabarca of Wellington, Dr Katie Jane Elkin of Wellington, Caroline Mary Hickman of Napier, Ngaroma Tahana of Rotorua, Tania Rose Williams Blyth of Hamilton and Nicola Jan Wills of Wellington as District Court Judges. Chris Dellabarca Mr Dellabarca commenced his ...
A new Government-backed project will help ocean-related businesses in the Nelson Tasman region to accelerate their growth and boost jobs. “The Nelson Tasman region is home to more than 400 blue economy businesses, accounting for more than 30 percent of New Zealand’s economic activity in fishing, aquaculture, and seafood processing,” ...
After three years of COVID-19 disruptions schools are finally settling down and National want to throw that all in the air with major disruption to learning and underinvestment. “National’s education policy lacks the very thing teachers, parents and students need after a tough couple of years, certainty and stability,” Education ...
People aged over 50 with innovative business ideas will now be able to receive support to advance their ideas to the next stage of development, Minister for Seniors Ginny Andersen said today. “Seniors have some great entrepreneurial ideas, and this programme will give them the support to take that next ...
A cross government target for relevant government procurement contracts for goods and services to be awarded to Māori businesses annually will increase to 8%, after the initial 5% target was exceeded. The progressive procurement policy was introduced in 2020 to increase supplier diversity, starting with Māori businesses, for the estimated ...
77,000 fewer children living in low income households on the after-housing-costs primary measure since Labour took office Eight of the nine child poverty measures have seen a statistically significant reduction since 2018. All nine have reduced 28,700 fewer children experiencing material hardship since 2018 Measures taken by the Government during ...
Deputy Prime Minister Kamikamica; distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Tēnā koutou katoa, ni sa bula vinaka saka, namaste. Deputy Prime Minister, a very warm welcome to Aotearoa. I trust you have been enjoying your time here and thank you for joining us here today. To all delegates who have travelled to be ...
$2.9 million convertible loan for Scapegrace Distillery to meet growing national and international demand $4.5m underwrite to support Silverlight Studios’ project to establish a film studio in Wanaka Gore’s James Cumming Community Centre and Library to be official opened tomorrow with support of $3m from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood has today launched the first national EV (electric vehicle) charging strategy, Charging Our Future, which includes plans to provide EV charging stations in almost every town in New Zealand. “Our vision is for Aotearoa New Zealand to have world-class EV charging infrastructure that is accessible, affordable, ...
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment Priyanca Radhakrishnan has today launched the Love Better campaign in a world-leading approach to family harm prevention. Love Better will initially support young people through their experience of break-ups, developing positive and life-long attitudes to dealing with hurt. “Over 1,200 young kiwis told ...
Hon Rino Tirikatene, Minister for Courts, welcomes the Ministry of Justice’s appointment of Dr Garry Clearwater as New Zealand’s first Chief Clinical Advisor working with the Coroners Court. “This appointment is significant for the Coroners Court and New Zealand’s wider coronial system.” Minister Tirikatene said. Through Budget 2022, the Government ...
The Government via the Cyclone Taskforce is working with local government and insurance companies to build a picture of high-risk areas following Cyclone Gabrielle and January floods. “The Taskforce, led by Sir Brian Roche, has been working with insurance companies to undertake an assessment of high-risk areas so we can ...
E te huia kaimanawa, ko Ngāpuhi e whakahari ana i tau aupikinga ki te tihi o te maunga. Ko te Ao Māori hoki e whakanui ana i a koe te whakaihu waka o te reo Māori i roto i te Ao Ture. (To the prized treasure, it is Ngāpuhi who ...
113,400 exits into work in the year to June 2022 Young people are moving off Benefit faster than after the Global Financial Crisis Two reports released today by the Ministry of Social Development show the Government’s investment in the COVID-19 response helped drive record numbers of people off Benefits and ...
The Government’s priority to keep New Zealand at the cutting edge of food production and lift our sustainability credentials continues by backing the next steps of a hi-tech vertical farming venture that uses up to 95 per cent less water, is climate resilient, and pesticide-free. Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor visited ...
E nga mana, e nga iwi, e nga reo, e nga hau e wha, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou kātoa. Warm Pacific greetings to all. It is an honour to host the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers here in Tāmaki Makaurau. Aotearoa is delighted to be hosting you ...
The new renal unit at Taranaki Base Hospital has been officially opened by the Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall this afternoon. Te Huhi Raupō received around $13 million in government funding as part of Project Maunga Stage 2, the redevelopment of the Taranaki Base Hospital campus. “It’s an honour ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little has marked the arrival of the country’s second P-8A Poseidon aircraft alongside personnel at the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s Base at Ohakea today. “With two of the four P-8A Poseidons now on home soil this marks another significant milestone in the Government’s historic investment in ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will provide further humanitarian support to those seriously affected by last month’s deadly earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, says Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta. “The 6 February earthquakes have had devastating consequences, with almost 18 million people affected. More than 53,000 people have died and tens of thousands more ...
Migrant communities across New Zealand are represented in the new Migrant Community Reference Group that will help shape immigration policy going forward, Immigration Minister Michael Wood announced today. “Since becoming Minister, a reoccurring message I have heard from migrants is the feeling their voice has often been missing around policy ...
Construction has begun on major works that will deliver significant safety improvements on State Highway 3 from Waitara to Bell Block, Associate Minister of Transport Kiri Allan announced today. “This is an important route for communities, freight and visitors to Taranaki but too many people have lost their lives or ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has today appointed Ginny Andersen as Minister of Police. “Ginny Andersen has a strong and relevant background in this important portfolio,” Chris Hipkins said. “Ginny Andersen worked for the Police as a non-sworn staff member for around 10 years and has more recently been chair of ...
Six further bailey bridge sites confirmed Four additional bridge sites under consideration 91 per cent of damaged state highways reopened Recovery Dashboards for impacted regions released The Government has responded quickly to restore lifeline routes after Cyclone Gabrielle and can today confirm that an additional six bailey bridges will ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for China tomorrow, where she will meet with her counterpart, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in Beijing. This will be the first visit by a New Zealand Minister to China since 2019, and follows the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions between New Zealand and China. ...
Education Ministers from across the Pacific will gather in Tāmaki Makaurau this week to share their collective knowledge and strategic vision, for the benefit of ākonga across the region. New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti will host the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers (CPEM) for three days from today, ...
A vital transport link for communities and local businesses has been restored following Cyclone Gabrielle with the reopening of State Highway 5 (SH5) between Napier and Taupō, Associate Minister of Transport Kiri Allan says. SH5 reopened to all traffic between 7am and 7pm from today, with closure points at SH2 (Kaimata ...
Internal Affairs Minister Barbara Edmonds has thanked generous New Zealanders who took part in the special Lotto draw for communities affected by Cyclone Gabrielle. Held on Saturday night, the draw raised $11.7 million with half of all ticket sales going towards recovery efforts. “In a time of need, New Zealanders ...
The Government has announced funding of $3 million for providers to help people, and whānau access community-based Building Financial Capability services. “Demand for Financial Capability Services is growing as people face cost of living pressures. Those pressures are increasing further in areas affected by flooding and Cyclone Gabrielle,” Minister for ...
Minister of Education, Hon Jan Tinetti, has announced appointments to the Board of Education New Zealand | Manapou ki te Ao. Tracey Bridges is joining the Board as the new Chair and Dr Therese Arseneau will be a new member. Current members Dr Linda Sissons CNZM and Daniel Wilson have ...
Fifteen ākonga Māori from across Aotearoa have been awarded the prestigious Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships and Awards for 2023, Associate Education Minister and Ngarimu Board Chair, Kelvin Davis announced today. The recipients include doctoral, masters’ and undergraduate students. Three vocational training students and five wharekura students, ...
High Court Judge Jillian Maree Mallon has been appointed a Judge of the Court of Appeal, and District Court Judge Andrew John Becroft QSO has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Mallon graduated from Otago University in 1988 with an LLB (Hons), and with ...
The economy has continued to show its resilience despite today’s GDP figures showing a modest decline in the December quarter, leaving the Government well positioned to help New Zealanders face cost of living pressures in a challenging global environment. “The economy had grown strongly in the two quarters before this ...
Aucklanders now have more ways to get around as Transport Minister Michael Wood opened the direct State Highway 1 (SH1) to State Highway 18 (SH18) underpass today, marking the completion of the 48-kilometre Western Ring Route (WRR). “The Government is upgrading New Zealand’s transport system to make it safer, more ...
This section contains briefings received by incoming ministers following changes to Cabinet in January. Some information may have been withheld in accordance with the Official Information Act 1982. Where information has been withheld that is indicated within the document. ...
Aotearoa New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta reaffirmed her commitment to working together with the new Government of Fiji on issues of shared importance, including on the prioritisation of climate change and sustainability, at a meeting today, in Nadi. Fiji and Aotearoa New Zealand’s close relationship is underpinned by the Duavata ...
The Government is delivering a coastal shipping lifeline for businesses, residents and the primary sector in the cyclone-stricken regions of Hawkes Bay and Tairāwhiti, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan announced today. The Rangitata vessel has been chartered for an emergency coastal shipping route between Gisborne and Napier, with potential for ...
The Government will progress to the next stage of the NZ Battery Project, looking at the viability of pumped hydro as well as an alternative, multi-technology approach as part of the Government’s long term-plan to build a resilient, affordable, secure and decarbonised energy system in New Zealand, Energy and Resources ...
This morning I was made aware of a media interview in which Minister Stuart Nash criticised a decision of the Court and said he had contacted the Police Commissioner to suggest the Police appeal the decision. The phone call took place in 2021 when he was not the Police Minister. ...
The Government’s sharp focus on trade continues with Aotearoa New Zealand set to host Trade Ministers and delegations from 10 Asia Pacific economies at a meeting of Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Commission members in July, Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O’Connor announced today. “New Zealand ...
$25 million boost to support more businesses with clean-up in cyclone affected regions, taking total business support to more than $50 million Demand for grants has been strong, with estimates showing applications will exceed the initial $25 million business support package Grants of up to a maximum of $40,000 per ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Beryl Exley, Professor, Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Griffith University Shutterstock Last August, the federal government set up an expert panel to look at the continuous improvement agenda in teacher education in Australia. The panel, led by ...
The New Zealand First leader took to the altar of an East Auckland church today to set out his 2023 election agenda. It was, as Stewart Sowman-Lund found out, pretty much what you’d expect. Winston Peters rolled into Howick today with a state of the nation speech that, he claimed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Wardle, Professor of Public Health, Southern Cross University Shutterstock Earlier this week, Australian retail giant Woolworths announced a move into health-care delivery via development of its subsidiary HealthyLife’s online portal. Through this portal, Australians can book a same-day ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters - eyeing a political comeback - has used a scene-setting speech in Auckland warning against a "conceited, conniving, cultural cabal". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Peterson, Adjunct Associate Professor, Auckland University of Technology The Sheep Song.Tim Standing/Daylight Breaks/Adelaide Festival Few Adelaideans remember a time before the Adelaide Festival. Formed in 1960 as a civic enterprise and financed against loss by prominent Adelaide businessmen, the ...
Analysis - The Greens lay down a challenge as the minor parties approach an election in which both National and Labour are going to need coalition partners to form a government, writes Peter Wilson. ...
By Arieta Vakasukawaqa in Suva Communications Fiji Ltd (CFL) chair William Parkinson has called for a repeal of Fiji’s Media Industry Development Act 2010 and more discussion on the proposed Media Ownership and Registration Bill 2023. He said this during a public consultation on the review of MIDA Act 2010 ...
High Court Justice David Gendall regretfully allows anti-trans activist to enter New Zealand, but warns the expression of her views may be harmful to our vulnerable rainbow community. Jonathan Milne does his best to be civil.Opinion: Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull calls herself Posie Parker. And that's what I'm going to call her. Because she is ...
It’s about time somebody made a wacky TV show about how bonkers spelling is. Enter comedian Guy Montgomery and his Guy Mont Spelling Bee. The three years since Covid-19 began have been pretty rocky, but one of the best things to come out of the chaos was Guy Montgomery’s Guy ...
Te Rōpū Mātai Hinengaro o Aotearoa, The New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS) stands beside LGBTQIA+ and Takatāpui communities rallying against anti-trans rhetoric in light of the impending visit of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (Posie Parker). We are ...
Earlier this month, everybody’s favourite Monster of the Week series Married at First Sight Australia toppled 1News to become the highest rating television show for New Zealand viewers aged 25-54. The controversial reality series garnered an average audience of 137,000, or 6.7% audience share from March 5 until March 11. ...
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for feijoa lovers – here’s how to make the most of it.Fragrant and sweet, with a delicate jelly centre surrounded by gritty, tangy flesh, all encased in a green sour skin. My parents’ feijoa tree has just dropped its first fruit, ...
A new poem by poet and novelist Maggie Rainey-Smith. Bang a Drum We’ve hit Gentle Annie passed the pub at Okaramio and on the left, at Wakapuaka there’s Sunnybank where parents left their children An oddly named orphanage manned (ha) by Nuns childless women in black habits, scapula, cowls and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathy Buntting, Director, Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, University of Waikato Getty Images Less than a fortnight after teachers staged a national strike, education was back in the headlines with the National Party’s release of its curriculum policy – ...
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 Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)Number one in both ...
The Free Speech Union welcomes the decision of the High Court to reject the application to overrule the decision of the Minister of Immigration to allow Kellie-Jay entry into New Zealand. This was the only right result for a nation that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fan Yang, Research Associate at RMIT and Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University Baidu’s ERNIE Bot was launched to considerable disappointment.Ng Han Guan / AP On March 16, Baidu unveiled China’s latest rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT – ERNIE Bot (short for “Enhanced ...
By Meri Radinibaravi in Suva Former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has told The Fiji Times to ask the Republic of Fiji Military Forces about claims that his bodyguards were allowed to take guns on to Fiji Link flights without proper authorisation. “I understand that there’s some enquiries going on regarding that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University Installation view of Troy Emery’s work Mountain climber 2022 on display as part of the Melbourne Now exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne from 24 March – 20 August ...
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Maori Party introduces its first Asian candidate
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/07/maori-party-introduces-its-first-asian-candidate.html
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/07/green-mp-threatens-new-election-if-labour-goes-with-nz-first.html
Thanks Barry, the cheque is in the mail 🙂
Signed
Steven Joyce
This election is shaping up to be the contest between/for the medium sized and smaller parties.
Barry has just handed the election to National/NZFirst imho, I’m guessing that if NZ had to have another election then the Greens would be punished severely because no one likes elections all that much anyway so having to have another would really annoy people.
National and/or Winston can claim a vote for the Greens, and by extension of the MOU Labour, is a vote for instability so a lot of the swing votes are going to swing Winstons way
Well done Barry Winston is probably toasting you right now
You saw the leaders of the greens coming out to say he mis-spoke right?
No ? Nor did anyone. I say it’s green policy not just Barry.
NZ First with Shane Jones in top role, would never be a good partner in a progressive government. NZF-Labour or NZF-Nats – not much difference.
I’ll vote accordingly. I’ll leave others to make their choices. The future needs a progressive party/ies that stick to principles, rather than always having an eye on the GAME.
Edit: and the bigger issue arising from all this is that the contest in this election is between/for the smaller parties. It will not be decided on one action or blog post.
WOW all over rover – I went and checked the news sites – ummm nothing WTF – it’s being suppressed already!!!
then I checked ‘gnat supporters trying to cause trouble’ and there it was – in the funny pages next to the story on “How to tell if your cat was famous in a past life”.
This combined with the co =leaders description of NZF as racist just a few days ago makes L/NZF/G look unlikely
marty mars
It has been all over the news this morning.
James Shaw gave an interview to Guyon Espiner. Shaw ruled out an early election. Therefore the implication is that the Greens would give C & S to a Labour NZ First govt. He did not actually say that, but since he said they want to change the govt, and since the Greens have been emphatic that they will not support National in any circumstance, then that is the only logical conclusion to draw.
As was evident today from the RNZ interview, since the Greens have ruled out National in all circumstances (even if National was only 1 or 2 short of a majority), then the Greens have dramatically reduced their leverage, and greatly increased that of NZ First.
Their choice of course, and if I go by the voice of Standardnistas who party vote Green also their choice. But there are consequences of such a choice.
You Natz just don’t get it Wayne. You are an anathema to the Greens. Your policies are unacceptable. Personally I don’t want leverage by bastardizing ourselves and pretending we could work with you.
We want a change of Government.
James Shaw I have heard of.
Hes the leader with the portfolio of “make friends with the business community”, but this Barry Coates, who the hell is he?
I see that Shaw has come out (in keeping with his portfolio of keeping business happy) and said Coates has got it wrong. But Coates has support too.
Is this just clever marketing by the Greens?
Barry Coates, who the hell is he?
Hes been in parliament since October,and is a fine example of the IYI species.
Intellectual Yet Idiot
From medium.com (taleb)
… the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policy making “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.
I suggest people actually listen to Shaw themselves.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201850912/will-the-greens-support-a-labour-nz-first-government
I suspect Coates is now regretting his brain fart. Basically nothing has changed. The Greens would prefer a coalition with Labour and not have to be in a 3 way coalition with NZF for obvious reasons. However they would be able to work with NZF if necessary.
They would never contemplate a coalition with the Nats (and their eugenics loving partner Act). The righties here still seem to be unable to understand the concept of having values.
Hey Wayne I went and checked a few online news sites and guess what I found? Nothing. Oh dear what a fizzer lol. Keep them coming gnats they’re starting to worry us. Meanwhile billshitter been a bit quiet – obviously been muzzled – until election day I spose.
As was evident today from the RNZ interview, since the Greens have ruled out National in all circumstances (even if National was only 1 or 2 short of a majority), then the Greens have dramatically reduced their leverage, and greatly increased that of NZ First.
🙄 The Greens ruled out National several elections ago.
All that’s happened this week is the Greens have pointed out that if NZers want a progressive government they need to vote Green. Their rationale in this is pretty sound.
I know this is a strange concept to get one’s head around, but the Greens are speaking to voters here, not people like yourself who think it’s all about power plays and behind doors machinations.
“It has been all over the news this morning.”
By ‘all over the news’ you mean a single interview with James Shaw on RNZ?
No – see link above for another example.
So far more accurate than saying ” I went and checked the news sites – ummm nothing WTF – it’s being suppressed already!!!”
Mate you might get an Oscar for this dramatic performance – still not feeling it personally…
All I can see is the Gower fantasy piece, which is basically Gower making shit up, and the RNZ piece, which is a fairly perfunctory interview with Shaw. Hardly all over the news.
So far more accurate than saying ” I went and checked the news sites – ummm nothing WTF – it’s being suppressed already!!!”
Pretty sure marty was taking the piss.
Waynes ‘Standardnistas’ comments are in very bad taste …. considering the history of murders, rapes and other acts committed against the Sandinista s and their society ….. As Cocaine smuggling, funded a Cia war, waged against them …… to destabilize and destroy their society.
https://libcom.org/files/The secret wars of the CIA-John Stockwell.pdf
“To destabilize Nicaragua beginning in 1981, we began funding this force of Somoza’s ex-national guardsmen, calling them the contras (the counter
revolutionaries). We created this force, it did not exist until we allocated money.”
” they have systematically been blowing up graineries, saw mills, bridges,
government offices, schools, health centers. They ambush trucks so the produce can’t get to market. They raid farms and villages. The farmer has to carry a gun while he tries to plow, if he can plow at all.
“Systematically, the contras have been assassinating religious workers, teachers, health workers, elected officials, government administrators.”
“With the children forced to watch they gang rape the mother, and slash her breasts off. And sometimes for variety, they make the parents watch
while they do these things to the children.”
https://wearechange.org/real-drug-lords-brief-history-cia-involvement-drug-trafficking/
” the U.S government under Ronald Reagan, began funding and arming groups of rebels opposed to the Sandanistas known as the Counterrevolutionaries, or Contras. This is all easily obtainable information. Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series, appeared in the Mercury News in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to support their struggle”. ……. ” Webb was following the trial of a Contra leader named Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes who testified as to the C.I.A’s involvement in cocaine trafficking into Inner city Los Angeles in the 1980’s.”
“The lead of the first article set out the series’ basic claims: “For the better part of a decade, a San Francisco Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to a Latin American guerrilla army run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.” This drug ring “opened the first pipeline between Colombia’s cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles” and, as a result, “The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America”
To be quite honest …. for a person like wayne mapp to be calling us “Standardnistas” ……….. makes me doubt any sincerity or bad feelings he may have expressed for his part in the killing of a three year old girl….
His banality is showing …….
You don’t expect me to vote Labour do you? What’s the choice then?
“WOW all over rover – I went and checked the news sites – ummm nothing WTF – it’s being suppressed already!!!”
None so blind that dont want to see.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/07/green-mp-threatens-new-election-if-labour-goes-with-nz-first.html
Nice big headline: Green MP threatens new election if Labour goes with NZ First.
Even a special video made for it.
Fizzer mate. Sad.
Fizzer?
But it proved you either a liar or just plain wrong.
“WOW all over rover – I went and checked the news sites – ummm nothing WTF – it’s being suppressed already!!!”
Apart from the interviews – news articles and video you mean.
You need to look at more sites other than echo chambers.
This coming from someone who at 7.45 this morning said neither of the GP co-leaders had said anything. Your just tripped over your troll shoelaces James.
In fairness at that point I had not seen anything..
So? At the point marty looked he didn’t see anything.
Fucksake, is this what it’s going to be like? Really? If you want to troll, at least get some half way decent troll skills.
Sure, try and get your steam up by insulting me. #fizzerloluselessgnats
When Alfred Ngaro threatened NGO’s who criticised National, was he revealing National Party intent?
Let’s ask James.
When Barry Coates described an possible outcome for the election, was he describing Green Party thinking?
Let’s ask James.
Yep hebe desperate James.
Fizzerwatch update. Still nothing.
From what I can tell it goes like this. The Greens made a stand on the weekend about what voters need to do if they want a progressive government (hint, it doesn’t mean voting for Peters). Coates wrote his piece for The Daily Blog, published on Tues. Trotter shit stirs in his piece on Weds. Now Gower is trying to amp it up, and I see Bradbury is egging it on on twitter.
This is what it’s going to be like. Forget about truth, that lot are playing dickhead games. Gower can’t help himself, but Trotter and Bradbury should know better. It’s almost like they’d rather lose the election than have the Greens strong. Or maybe like Gower it’s all about the game.
None of it serves the country or the democratic process.
no – and there is a difference:
“Mr Coates also said Green MPs had discussed refusing to support a Labour-NZ First combination as a caucus in the past fortnight.”
So the Green MPs are discussing it as a possibility. – unless you are saying Coates is a liar.
Alfred Ngaro – moron. English came out – said he couldn’t do that, and reviewed all his decisions to make sure that they were not politically motivated.
So – One states that the party are discussing it, the other states that its categorically wrong and not happening. Pretty obvious that it wasn’t something being discussed as a party (but feel free to produce anything that proves that wrong if you can).
What I don’t understand is why all these non-GP voters believe that the Greens should do anything after the election. Seriously, why do you believe that the Greens should commit to C and S pre-election when no other party does?
lol, that’s five minutes of Paddy Gower’s secret squirrel imaginings. Notice how he doesn’t quote Coates even once?
See if you can find where Coates said what Gower is claiming. There’s a reason no-one is quoting Coates.
Actually there is Weka.
Coates wrote an opinion piece on the Daily Blog last night. Unbelievably stupid. It was picked up by Newshub immediately of course.
James Shaw has handled it very well I think. He is very impressive in this interview.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/07/no-intention-of-forcing-an-second-election-james-shaw.html
Yes, I saw the Daily Blog piece, but Coates doesn’t actually say what Gower said he said, which is probably why Gower doesn’t quote him. Which makes me wonder if Gower did his piece solely off TDB and didn’t talk to Coates directly.
If you look at the last sentence it seems someone from Newshub did contact Coates directly:
http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/no-intention-of-forcing-a-second-election-shaw/ar-BBEjiaU?li=BBqdk7Q&ocid=mailsignout
It is for the most part a Newshub beatup but just shows how careful MPs have to be. Hopefully Coates has learnt a valuable lesson.
Yes, I saw that too, but given that Gower didn’t quote Coates at all, or say that bit, I’m assuming that Gower went solely off TDB piece.
What Barry Coates said
Mr Coates’ original comments come from a post he wrote for left-wing site The Daily Blog.
“The memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Labour is the foundation for building the next Government. If we were not part of the coalition, we would not accept a Labour-New Zealand First Government and certainly not a National-New Zealand First Government. Neither will be acceptable to the Greens.”
He later clarified to Newshub this “could” result in a second election, if no other combinations of parties could form a Government.
Agreed that Coates was incredibly stupid, and I’m surprised because the Greens are normally tighter than this. Does this mean MPs can post blogs without running them past caucus? More likely they don’t have a rule on this because the other MPs already know not to do that shit. Coates isn’t the only Green MP to post on TDB though.
I thought Shaw did a good job on RNZ. Hopefully it will blow over and we’ll get back to some politics without the boys shitstirring.
Just checked, Coates has written at TDB quite a few times before. Curious.
James Shaw was excellent in that interview. The interviewer was good also. He was direct but did not froth at the mouth like Paddy Gower and others. It gave James Shaw a chance to give his perspective without being interrupted constantly.
I thought it was good too. Espiner asked the pertinent questions without being a dick about it, and Shaw got to be clear in what he was saying.
Unfortunately the “panel” then went on with some right wing memes about the left being disorganised.
Obviously forgotten about Brownlee, Ngaro and the tobacco dealer from Southland, already!
was that on the radio, or online?
TV. Breakfast time.
So, if the Greens won’t work with NZ First they should be punished, but if NZ First won’t work with the Greens that’s sound political judgement? There’s something about the Green Party that makes right-wingers lose any semblance of rationality.
Also: seriously, a Labour-NZ First government? Where the fuck is that coming from? People who can’t read or do maths?
“but if NZ First won’t work with the Greens that’s sound political judgement?”
I wouldn’t call that sound political judgement- but I would call it a nail in the coffin of a labour – greens – nzf government.
And looking at the numbers – it’s looking like 3 more years of national but this time with nzf – as well as the other parties.
That will give them a large majority.
Assuming (a big assumption) that they can make it work well and partner well with NZF (and Shane jones will help this a lot) 2020 and possibly 2023 are looking good.
Edit : looking good if you support national – not so much labour.
I’m not sure you could count that as “good.” A Lab/Green/NZF govt would be a horrendous clusterfuck because Winston Peters. Likewise, a Nat/ACT/MP/United/NZF govt would be a horrendous clusterfuck because Winston Peters. If those turn out to be the choices this election, I’d rather National suffered the horrendous clusterfuck and Labour/Greens set their sights on 2020.
If National and its current support parties are say more than 3 short of a majority I would expect a Labour/NZF/Green govt, though possibly with Greens only in a C & S role.
If National and support parties are extremely close to a majority, just 1 or 2 short, Winston will find it hard not to let them form a govt, though with NZF in the prime support role. In such a case the govt would have a solid majority, not that necessarily means much.
In constitutional terms a 1 seat majority is as good as a 10 seat majority. At least if the 1 seat majority is tidy and not a constant fractious debate on every issue. I have been there (1996 to 1999) and it is a mess.
I guess it will be an integrity test. Winston will go with whoever offers the choicest “baubles of office,” so if the right-bloc/left-bloc split is close, there will be plenty of temptation to make Winston some tasty offers. In that sense, forming a govt with Winston is kind of like cocaine – very tempting, but won’t work out well for you in the long run. I’m hoping Little, Shaw and Turei have the integrity to resist that temptation – I guess we’ll find out in September whether they do or not.
Both the Nats and Labour are going to be asked to pay up large for Winston. Hes done it before, and when Helens lot didnt offer enough, then Bolger got the treasury benches.
And Winston got the sack.
Sure it was a long time ago, but since then Winston has worked far better with Labour than with the Nats.
On present polling, I see Winston as PM of a Labour led minority government with support from the Greens, (and Dunne gone from Parliament)
Only Winston could pull that sort of deal off
It wasn’t just that they didn’t offer enough, the Alliance refused to commit to confidence and supply, apparently. I don’t know whether that was because they wanted to remain separate from Labour (lots of fresh wounds) or simply because they felt locked out of being in a threeway coalition (basically the potential Green situation that the tories are wanking over – being asked to support a government that won’t give them anything in return)
“I’m hoping Little, Shaw and Turei have the integrity to resist that temptation”
Me too. It’s going to be interesting, because in the case of Shaw and Turei, it has to come back to the members.
“it has to come back to the members”
That doesn’t seem to be the interpretation that Shaw is putting on the question of alliances.
In the Herald article he says
“Greens co-leader James Shaw said this morning that Coates’ comments were “absolutely not” the party’s position. Discussions about possible coalition deals were “the reserve of the leadership”, he said.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11889937
He seems to be suggesting that it is the role of himself and Turei rather than the function of party members as a whole.
You are wrong. Shaw was referring to the caucus and that during the election campaign the only MPs who can make public statements about coalition deals are the co-leaders (have a listen to the RNZ piece).
As for post-election deals, there’s a process that involves the caucus, exec, and members, and there is a special negotiations team and one that liases with the rest of the party (that’s from memory)
alwyn
You belong with the type of people regularly heard to be calling for ‘leadership’. James Shaw has demonstrated it, but you are saying that he should leave everything important to the party members as a whole’.
marty mars at 8.11
Haha. Good,
Poission 11.53
That was a good summary of a type I’ve noticed.
Thanks for headsup.
” but you are saying that he should leave everything important to the party members as a whole”.
No, I said nothing of the sort. I gave no opinion at all on who should make the decisions on such things.
I merely suggested that what Shaw was quoted as saying didn’t seem to tie up with what Weka had said.
She assures us that the comments are not in conflict as one applies to statements made before the election and one to what they might do after the election when all the votes have been cast. That wasn’t at all clear from what the paper said and I am pleased that she has made it clear that different rules apply at the different dates.
I hope they don’t take too long over the matter. Remember how it took about 6 weeks to discover who the Government was going to be in 1996? God forbid it takes that long again.
You don’t need to tell us it’s a mess Wayne – we’ve had to live under their squalid sustained administrative failure. The Gnats are rubbish on their best day.
A revealing comment!
A 1-seat majority may be all that’s need to push through bills but it does not make for sound democracy if it’s all you care about.
Obviously, in 1996 NZ politicians were still stuck in FPP mode and arguable some still are this day.
Indeed, with such a single-minded attitude each and every debate is likely to turn into a fractious one – it’s not the 1-seat majority but the mind-set that is the underlying issue.
In fact, National still displays this arrogant simplistic mind-set that winning is everything and justifies the means. In contrast, other smaller parties have adapted more to MMP and are more willing and able to build bridges, compromise, aim for consensus and generally take a broader view than just a 1-seat majority in the House.
In short, this is why we urgently need a change of government, because this kind or narrow-minded political ‘pragmatism’ is bad for (NZ) democracy and our society.
For the many, not just for the one.
Baltimore out of control, 72hr cease fire campaign launched.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-11/baltimore-citizens-urge-nobody-kill-anybody-ceasefire-start-august
In NZ context
Baltimore has a homicide rate of 5.3 per 10,000 pop
NZ is 0.15 per 10,000
The Wire.
Reading the comments section there, I think the 72 hour deal is a pisstake.
John Clark on NZ
“During the early 1980s however, the New Zealand economy was put in the hands of finance ministers due to a filing error, and authorities are still looking for the black box. A social democracy with only one previous owner was asset-stripped and replaced by a series of franchises. Even rugby sides stopped being called Canterbury, Wellington, Otago and Auckland and were instead given the names of animals, colours and weather conditions.” (Source: from the late, great John Clarke’s A Guide To New Zealand)
Oh, if only we’d been able to keep him here we might not be in this mess 🙁
We would have gone down the rabbit hole.
Most people are delusional about their economic status. I had a person the other day tell me they we middle class, renting and ten’s of thousands of dollars in debt – but middle class. Yeah right.
So the wool is firmly in place, as such the elites don’t fear working people. Until we get to a time that they do – nothing will change. Some tinkering maybe from the wets – but nothing will change.
most middle class people are one illness and one missed wage payment away from bankruptcy.
but as long as they can ‘service ‘ their debts they are middle class.
How is electric car manufacturing going in USA?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11887216
7 July 2017
On Monday, [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk sent out tweet saying that the Palo Alto, California, company anticipates production of 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in December, which was below previous estimates. Tesla also said Monday that it delivered about 22,000 vehicles in the second quarter, bringing first-half deliveries to about 47,100. That’s at the low end of the company’s projections earlier this year of between 47,000 and 50,000 deliveries.
Then on Wednesday, the dynamics of the electric car market shifted a bit when Volvo announced that by 2019, it would be producing only electric and hybrid vehicles, the first traditional automaker to make that leap.
Volvo, which is based in Sweden but owned by Chinese firm Geely, will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021. Three of them will be Volvo models and two will be electrified cars from Polestar, Volvo Cars’ performance car arm. It also plans to offer a range of hybrids as options, expecting to sell 1 million electrified cars by 2025.
Robert – from the other thread (to save the Mods moving it). [r0b: Very considerate!]
Yurt —
Did you build yours from scratch or did you use a ‘kit’ so to speak? like http://www.yurts.com/ ?
The first (it’s a ger) was imported from Mongolia and is made by hand from traditional materials, yak, horse, larch etc. It needed a New Zealand-proof coat, as we are wetter than its home country, and now has one – thick pvc of the sort trucks are covered with., or circus tents made. The second is purpose built in Takaka by Jaia tents – their website reveals all. Ours is a 7-metre, windowed yurt, very pretty.
can you live in that thing all year round?
You could, if your bylaws allow. Most often, you need to show that it’s a “nomadic” structure and can be shifted about the place, it depends upon where in the country you live. Winter could be challenging, but a good rocket stove would fix that.
a paddock near whakatane would be the location, and yes it would be removable.
Nice yurt and teepees from Jaia. Good one.
We have a teepee also. Elegant.
http://robertguyton.blogspot.co.nz/2017/01/teepee-camping.html
Nice. I love teepees.
The regions can’t have – a decent transport avenue with rail because it won’t pay (Gisborne.) Fed Farmers want trucks, someone wants a road built on the railway tracks. Probably everyone is ducking for cover while the Gnats try to crank up the Special Economic Zones so government can say to the unpopular regions, ‘find a ….(foreign) investor and sell your soul to him/them’.
(Sort of like the story of Rumplestitskin – someone in fix, R says promise me your brightest and best and I’ll get you out of the poo. They managed to sort R out and send him off, but hey that can only happen in fairy tales.)
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201850920/questions-over-iwirail-s-economics
transport politics
8:17 am today
Questions over IwiRail’s economics
From Morning Report, 8:17 am today
Listen duration 2′ :45″
The Maori Party’s plan to resurrect rail in the regions – dubbed IwiRail – would bring back moth-balled lines, beginning with the Napier-Gisborne route and look into setting up new tracks. It wants the Government to put up an initial $350 million, with iwi and local investors also contributing. But there are questions about whether the routes will be profitable, and whether the numbers add up.
And what about poor Manawatu – the Gorge is shifting, and its enough to make you throw up if you live round there.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/manawatu-guardian/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503567&objectid=11887406
Watch NZH Local Focus: Manawatu Gorge may never reopen
7 Jul, 2017 2:09pm
NZ Herald
It’s been shut 22 times in the last five years, that’s a total of 338 days. Most recently it closed in April after a massive slip took out the road. Now, the Manawatu Gorge may never reopen.
Good map of Gorge and shows alternative Saddle Road.
https://www.topomap.co.nz/NZTopoMap?v=2&ll=-40.31796475,175.7980936&z=14&pin=1&lbl=Manawatu+Gorge
Re the gorge, IF we had true leadership, (not beholden to the trucking lobby), they could say no trucks to go over the saddle or the pahiatua track.
Perfectly good rail corridor through the ranges. Load up in woodvegas, ashhurst or palmy, then offload at other end.
Where there is a will there is a way.
I do feel for folks in the tararua, 6,000 vehicle movements now not happening like they used to, and citizens of ashhurst now having 6,000 largely unwanted vehicles going through the residential area.
Interesting food and biofuel project using seawater in Abu Dhabi. Hope it all works out.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/12/middleeast/iseas-abu-dhabi-aviation-biofuel/index.html
UPDATE FROM HER WARSHIP IN THE HAGUE – WORLD JUSTICE FORUM Thursday 13 July 2017 6.24am
Unfinished reporting from Tuesday 11 July 2017….
– when I dropped my political ‘bombshell’ about NZ’s corruption REALITY being that
in my opinion, as a proven anti- corruption ‘whistle-blower’ – New Zealand was a ‘corrupt, polluted tax haven – a banana republic without the bananas’.
I also stated that the Transparency International ‘Corruption Perception Index’ (which NZ topped 10 times (sometimes 1st equal) without having even ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption – should be screwed up and thrown into the rubbish bin of history.
That there were IMO, objective, significant milestones / yardsticks for quantifying corruption REALITY, rather than relying (largely) upon the subjective opinions of anonymous businesspeople for PERCEPTION of corruption (which in my view is a meaningless ‘measure’).
I pointed out how in 2010 how I had attended the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Conference in Bangkok.
Where we were told that the global procurement market was $14 TRILLION and the amount estimated to be lost in bribery and corruption was $2.5 TRILLION!
That I had a HUGE ‘lightbulb’ moment!
Wouldn’t $2.5 TRILLION
$2.5 THOUSAND BILLION
$2,500,000,000,000 – help to feed, clothe, water and shelter a few poor people?
That another ‘lightbulb’ moment – was that Transparency International were not looking at the underpinning private procurement MODEL, but the private procurement PROCESS.
That as soon as you got into the private procurement (contracting out) of public services, formerly provided ‘in house’ by staff directly employed under the ‘public service’ model, you got into CONTRACT MANAGEMENT.
Government or Council staff were regarded as ‘too dumb’ to do contract management – so a ‘bureaucrat'(s) would then hire CONSULTANT(S) to ‘project manage’ the WORKS CONTRACTOR(S), who would then usually SUB-CONTRACT- so by the time you got down to those in the boots and overalls getting their hands dirty and actually doing something productive – you might have up to 4 layers of pinstripe suits – clipping the ticket while effectively doing nothing.
How on EARTH is that a more ‘cost-effective’ use of public money?
In 2010, at that Transparency International Anti-Corruption Conference, I stood on my hind legs and asked a (high-faluting) panel – where was the EVIDENCE that the private procurement of public services that used to be provided at central and local government level, was more ‘cost-effective’ than former ‘in-house’ service provision?
(It was like I had slapped the face of the person who was chairing the panel.
He literally did a ‘double-take’ and mumbled that there was evidence – but none was ever provided.)
My point to this 2017 World Justice Forum group – was that in my opinion, it was time to look at the whole underpinning private procurement MODEL for public services.
( IMO – it is the privatisation -private procurement – of public services which is the major source of GRAND corruption.
I am one of the few people in the world actually saying this- that the root cause of most GRAND corruption- is PRIVATISATION.
How is it decided who GETS the contracts?
Remember – back in 2010 – the global amount estimated to be paid in bribery and corruption was $2.5 TRILLION!
__________________________
This is a BIG deal folks.
The whole Neo-liberal myth and mantra ‘public is bad – private is good’ upon which this massive privatisation of public services, locally, nationally and internationally was based – was NOT ‘evidence based’.
The BIG business globalists – just MADE IT UP!
More later …
Her Warship – guns loaded and blazing ‘inside the tent!’
(As it were …. 🙂
Penny Bright
#StopCorruption
#OpenTheBooks
#CutOutTheContractors
#ImplementAndEnforceThePublicRecordsAct
#WJForum
Penny, Her War Ship, with lighting, in the Hague 😀
You are all shades of light bulb awesomeness.
I truly admire your intellect and dedication.
Thank you for doing what you do and for sharing.
Does this tender business make sense? Expecting a bus firm to invest in providing good vehicles and provide good service and change over to better fuels, and then be dropped like a hot potato some years on. Waste of capital, and more expensive in the long run I would think. Another example of NZ demanding champagne while earning a beer income?
In Wellington a new operator says it will provide over 200 buses and the media is asking where they are going to be parked? It sounds as if all the dots haven’t been joined.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/92407885/concern-over-where-tranzits-228-new-wellington-buses-will-be-kept