So let me get this right. Paual Rebstock, a total hired gun government stooge, is allowed to comer out and accuse people of leaking on no evidence whatsoever beyond the fact that (in one case) they once worked for the Labour party)?
What an outrageous slur! How come she is allowed to do that?
All a red herring focusing on the political affiliation of the leaker.
Brenda Pilot (PSA secretary), has done a selection of tweets on it. Public servants are allowed political affiliations. They should be neutral n expressing advice on policy matters. The issue in question was a restructuring of a department. Public servants should be able to have opinions on that, but increasingly dissent is being suppressed.
Witch-hunts rarely work. The expensive search for the leakers of the Government’s botched plan to revamp Foreign Affairs is no exception. The State Services Commission’s inquiry cost a staggering $500,000 and more than 18 months’ work. It named nobody, although two of the three it casts “strong doubt” on have since been identified as former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Derek Leask, now retired, and New Zealand’s top trade negotiator Nigel Fyfe. The commission built a brewery which produced a pint of beer.
None of this is convincing.
The trouble with the “proper channels” argument is that it ignores the reality of power. The plan to upend the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was a stupid one which would have sacrificed 300 jobs.
[…]
This sort of “consultation” is cant. The judge in the case is also the executioner. It suits his purposes to have the discussion and the executions behind closed doors. It doesn’t suit the victims. And in this case it would clearly have harmed New Zealand’s diplomatic effort as well. So the ministry promptly leaked like a sieve. Why should these decisions, after all, be made in the dark without the public knowing anything?
That is why the leakers could argue they had a wider duty than their narrow duty of loyalty to the Government. Of course bureaucrats should not and must not leak willy-nilly. A broadly impartial public service should be able to be trusted with certain kinds of information.
[…]
In this case there was a wider public duty and therefore the leak was justified. No government has the right to demand silence from the victims of a misbegotten purge. No government should expect the “debate” to be confined to the victims and their executioners. No government should seriously expect this sort of thing not to leak.
I suspect it had to do with being paid half a million dollars and not coming up with a result. The money would have probably been better spent on evaluating why a decision was made to cut trade staff at a time when businesses really needed more effort overseas.
It is to late to tget rid of the neolib in Labour for 2014. With Parker calling the shots on Finance in election year we have to assume Labour is committed to continuing the same failed policies that we have been following since 1984.
There is only one option to ensure the Neolibs are pushed out or at least silenced.
Party Vote Green.
They must have a strong presence around the cabinet table to keep Parker and his dated policies quiet.
Yep, and as more of the Cunliffe converts to the RED Labour Party become disallusioned with business as usual from the party that brought us the Neo-Liberal cluster-f**k in the first place and swing their votes to the Green Party, i can happily vote tactically for the Mana Party to try and bolster their numbers in the next Parliament…
Cunliffe will struggle throughout next year, against a confident John Key, who will mount a pretty convincing scare campaign, while Labour will be, again wishy washy.
It doesnt look like Labour is going to swing left anytime soon anyway. Not while Parker has his way anyway. News of public sector workers getting their pensions slashed in Detroit should have inspired Labour to showcase why our pension system is superior. And any privatisation of retirement income provision will result in pensioners getting bugger all. While Trotters report that Labour doesnt appear to have any enthusasim for fixing the issue of poverty (the blame of while can lie directly at the feet of the Fourth National government, who begun the process of dismantling of our welfare state) should disturb.
A National win next year will have the obvious ramifications for those at the bottom, who will find their incomes held down for the sake of keeping inflation to between 1 and 2% and keeping middle class interest rates low (and delivering National truckloads of votes), the sick, who will bear the brunt of a possible attempt to resurrect the Upton health reforms, union members, who will find their right to join a union in jeapordy, and our environment, which will be choked up with even more crap.
I’ll be doing my damndest to make sure that it doesn’t happen like that, mate. If they show the necessary moral courage and alternative vision, Labour and Greens will take next year, and by a margin too.
There’s been this idea that Labour needs to clear out some old wood. How would that work? Is it something that Cunliffe can do? Or is it a membership issue during the selection process before the next election? Or what?
Weka – its an MP and membership process before selection, and if the dead wood doesn’t want to go, then Labour is stuck with that ! Its very difficult to unseat a current MP who doesn’t want to go.
i wonder if these neo-lib driftwood mp’s are playing the ageism/age-brings-wisdom-card..?
..and normally i wd agree..age is not a reason for them to go..
..the reason for them to go is that these are the faces/mouths who sold that neo-lib/uncaring bullshit from that clark govt for all those years..
..that is why they must go…
..and what compounds this case for their exit..
..is that they not only have not resiled from/apologised for their past errors..
..they are still pushing the same t.i.n.a.-bullshit/lies…
..and reinforcing that tweedle-dee/tweedledum labour/national comparison..
..this is why they must go..
..and as an aside..
..isn’t mallard..up there in his new seat right next to the exit..
..isn’t he so much resembling muldoon in his final days..?
..as he sits up there..with his unkempt hair..
.furiously punching/swiping at his i-pad-screen..
..pretending to be relevant..
..occaisonally having to suppress a roar..
..and just to show how far labour still has to go to become relevant on issues such as poverty..(remember they have their uncaring-history to still overcome..)
..who can forget the sighs of relief from the paganis..and their ilk..
..at the shelving of that ‘radical’-policy of including beneficiary-families in working for families..by 2018..
It’s very necessary but also very hard. For electorates the ball is in the court of each local membership, with Wellington only having a partial say. Cunliffe has minimal or no say in that process. Often times a dozen established members in the local organisation will have the majority of the sway at a selection, and they tend to be loyal to their incumbent through thick and thin. For list candidates the list ranking process is more fluid and Wellington has more influence.
One major problem is that Labour can’t pension MPs off to comfy corporate board jobs in the way that National can.
The Rogernome weeds need a dose of herbicide and the LECs are the ones that can do it.
If say they engage local support in numbers like in Auckland Central days when ‘Mad Dog’ Prebble was ACTing up, hundreds used to turn up at meetings.
The spirit of the more democratic selection rules that enabled the humiliated demoted DC to rise to party leader months later with member and affiliate support, should be grasped by LECs with half a brain or links to lefties in their community. This is a fight to the death for NZ which without a stronger Labour Party will be lost. The Greens can only grow so much further?
Selection should be denied to anyone that does not support a list of basic left policy, which I hope I do not need to list. I would like to see half the caucus with looks on their faces like those candidly photographed in a corridor after David Cunliffe’s election as leader.
The trouble with that assertion Tiger Mountain is that it did not get rid of Prebble. In the end the voters of Auckland Central decided that Sandra Lee was more Labour than Prebble was. Also, Labour activists left his electorate organisation in droves. I chaired the Kingsland branch of the Mt Albert electorate at the time, and of our 105 members, 60 were domiciled across the motorway in Auckland Central. They were not going to work for Prebble and they didn’t vote for him either.
In the final campaign, he had bugger all of an electorate organisation. The TV coverage of election night when he lost Auckland Central showed a dozen or so, mostly older people rattling around in the supper room at Trades Hall.
Yes, people turned out to try and get rid of him, but it was the lack of people to run the campaign that did him in the end when he had no way to counter Sandra Lee’s message or her organisation.
Thanks for responding Lindsey,
Not saying that the large attendance’s removed Richard Prebble, but it certainly indicated interest in the situation. My general view is the more people that get involved in politics the better.
Lindsey implies a very important point. In the Labour system of doing things a shit MP, or shit right wing MP tends to drive away all the good members, leaving a tiny core of loyalists who will keep re-selecting that MP as the next candidate every single time.
Until, as Lindsey points out, the remaining electorate organisation gets so weak, that the Labour MP gets shoved out – by Labour losing the seat.
Seriously, the NATs have this process under far better management.
Ok, but presumably, technically, Cunliffe can remove certain MPs from positions of power within caucus? Or is that power more distrubuted amongst the whole caucus (formally? Informally). What are the ramifications of that?
Numbers. He’s caught up in a numbers game. Trotter did one of his more reasonable pieces on Cunliffe’s situation/predicament the other day. the link if you haven’t read it….
Yeah, good article. I hope he comes back and answers some of the questions about solutions.
Numbers… ok, so Cunliffe requires a certain level of support to function as leader within caucus… does that mean Labour is screwed until the neoliberal faction die out?
Personally I think all this angst over Parker/retirement age is overblown.
As far as I can tell, the subject didn’t get much traction in the media at all.
I’m not that it’s not important, just that folks around this blog have gotten a massive bee in their bonnet about it, and are imagining that it’s something the general public have caught onto and are punishing Labour in the polls for.
Now, certainly, next year when they actually have to address it as part of their election campaign, it definitely will get attention. I just don’t think it is yet.
Yes +1, always so much ado about nothing, it becomes staid; does the ‘intellectual left’ have to think for everybody , or lead them.For goodness sake, wonder what the ‘objectivists’ make of the apparent facts; “thank you very much” not likely.
That inflation is kept low is the prayer of all retired who have to wait a full twelve months for adjustments. The only good thing about inflation is that it makes repayment of debt easier assuming the intake of money matches inflation …. but pensions are slow to do that.
We haven’t had a full year but we have had 5 quarterly drops in the CPI in the last 10 years, at least that is the number I see in a cursory glance at the Stats website.
Q4 in each of 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012. The drops were very minor and I don’t think anyone was going to note a vast rise in their standard of living.
I imagine every economist would agree that deflation is a very serious problem in terms of its economic results. Inflation can be catered for but deflation of any magnitude over an extended period is a disaster.
I am getting very nervous about the 2014 prospects.
At the beginning of 1999 and 2008, Labour and National respectivley had taken control of the MSM’s narrative of how the election year would play out. In both cases they were in opposition but were generally viewed on as Government in Waiting and were enjoying massive popular support in the polls.
The left block is marginally ahead at the moment. But the MSM does not realise that we live in a MMP world and as such report it as a National v Labour race. In that race there is only one player.
The media is powerful. For the majority of people their only exposure to Wellington is what Paddy and Corrin tell them each night at 6pm.
In 1999 and 2008 we were being told the incumbets were dog tucker. As 2014 dawns we don’t have that message.
Weird stuff happening when I click on comments in the right sidebar today. Sometimes I get taken to the Post heading, not the commenter’s remarks. And the next time I look, the commenter’s disappeared, then reappeared with other more recent commenters, then disappeared again…gremlins?
Not sure. But there was a security upgrade to wordpress last night (which took 2 hours to run through our database by the look of it), and a new version of wordpress installed this morning.
Nothing showed up when testing the betas\. But I’ll have a look at it.
Yeah my tests show the same. Rather than being a server generated error it could just be something local on your browser as well.
Have to say that the new backend is really nice so far. I also took the opportunity to change the color pattern to “coffee”. I think I was craving caffeine at the time.
Outrage after impostor hijacks Mandela memorial service
11 December 2013
“He was moving his hands around, but there was no meaning”; “What happened at the memorial service is truly a disgraceful thing to see”; “Disgusting”; “Shameful hypocrisy” and “It should not happen at all.”
Those are just a few of the angry comments following an outrageous performance by an impostor at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela.
I was being slightly ironic due to the likelihood of embarrassment to the establishment of that fact being known, you know, cos of the funeral and eulogies and stuff.
This bit (unfortunately glossing over a momentous fuck up on the part of the ANC during negotiations on the hand-over of power, but pertinent nonetheless)…a lesson for everyone on why political freedom should never be pursued separately from economic freedom.
There have been important social advances since the democratic transformation of the early 1990s, from water and power supply to housing and education. And in the global climate of the early 90s, it’s perhaps not surprising that the ANC bent to the neoliberal flood tide, putting its Freedom Charter calls for public ownership and redistribution of land on the back burner. But the price has been to entrench racial economic division, unemployment and corruption, while failing to attract the expected direct foreign investment.
Great read Morrissey. Of course the hypocrisy exercised by our PM and past National leaders is galling as well. Suppose they would class it as being pragmatic in a dynamic world that politicians inhabit.
Speaking of sickening displays of hypocrisy, Hoots was oozing over Public Address, saying how he admired Nelson Mandela because he was a champion of freedom, just like Reagand and Thatcher.
That’s how the right typically works: call them a terrorist or a lunatic, then if they win and eventualy die, appropriate and sanitize their memory and then use it as a stick to beat their successors.
On a smaller scale, arsewipes like Hoots were continually attacking Rod Donald and when they’d hounded him to his grave, imediately they were calling his successors dangerous and unreasonable, not like that lovely chap Donald.
Yeah I read that sick shit too, what a load of 3rd form dribble. The praise from other commentators has been illuminating and increased the feeling of nausea, but I’m pleased he’s found a home.
How do people like Hooton wake up in the morning?
He is intelligent and must know what he is doing. He must know that the policies he proposes harm the weak and the vulnerable.
Is it vanity? His career? A desire to feather his own nest no matter what the consequences to otherwise? A game?
Appreciate that no honest answer will eventuate but it does make me think.
Not only do you cut and paste, you do it a full 24hrs behind everybody else.
Look carefully, my friend: it’s not a cut and paste. It’s my own work.
But let’s return to your original, in this case unjustified, complaint: even if it were simply a cut-and-paste, that would have been very fast for me, Dumrse. There are no time limits on classy writing. And, come to think of it, there are no time limits even on writing by the likes of Paul Thomas, Jack Tame or Kerre ohoWmad.
Not a good week for satire—not that Kathryn Ryan would know that
Radio NZ National, Friday 13 December 2013
Very interesting interview with Civilian proprietor and panda-bother Ben Uffindell this morning. He’s a bright and funny guy, and had some interesting things to say.
However, I’m not convinced that Kathryn Ryan is quite up to the task of interviewing him. She’s an Obama-cultist, like her braindead U.S. correspondent Louisa Savage, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey and (most notoriously) that hapless high priest of Obama-worship, Jim Mora. That means that she has voluntarily—or was it unwittingly?—removed a key section of her brain, namely that bit responsible for critical thinking and the recognition of irony, murderous hypocrisy and rancid insincerity.
And true enough, just as I suspected, in an ill-advised attempt to make intelligent conversation, Ms. Ryan dived in and made a really stupid statement. Speaking slowly and carefully in a low voice, to indicate how assiduously she had been thinking, she said: “New Zealand doesn’t have a rich tradition of satire like other countries do. Why do you think that is?”
In a week of Stalin-style worship of the self-appointed chief mourner at the “memorial service” for a real hero, this is perhaps the worst time ever to claim that “other countries” have a “rich tradition of satire.”
Shocked and concerned at Kathryn Ryan’s lack of any sense of irony, I flicked her the following email….
Dear Kathryn,
During your interview with Ben Uffindell, you claimed that New Zealand does not have “a rich tradition of satire like other countries do”.
In a week where the sanctimonious oratory in Johannesburg by a major impostor has been slavishly praised by mainstream commentators, and a minor signing-impostor has been showered with hectoring opprobrium, it is quite clear that satire is dead in South Africa, Britain and the United States as well as in New Zealand.
Even though he clearly didn’t want to open up that can of worms, Ben Uffindell is no doubt aware of the absurdity of the Obama cult; I wonder if you and your colleagues at Radio NZ National are.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
Keep listening, guys. She might read it out. Maybe….
The only time worth listening to n2n or afternoons Rhino, is when a locum is in place – a Lynne Freeman or a Brennan – both superior to the comfortably off.
The only good thing about Ryan is that she seems to have negotiated a HUGE amount of annual leave, OR she has some dreadful illness such that RNZ management feel sorry for her and tolerate her frequent absences.
Roll on ‘silly season’ afternoons. This ‘hater’ is anxious to see the nicest man on Earth get a well deserved break when he can spend some quality time with his nicest woman on Earth wife.
(Silence, and the sound of birds in the trees is often worthwhile, especially as I cast my eyes across Wgtn city towards RNZ House where that regular gal tries to pretend she abides by BBC style values of ‘journalistic integrity’).
Plastic. Anti-septic. Comfortable. Unchallenging. Nice. Super-nice. Intellectual bubblegum for the ears. Mundane. Faux empathy. In-touch with the people. Egotistical Linguistic Gymnastics. “Issssssyoos’. Diction. Wanna beed wannabees that wanna came and wanna cconquered. The bestest bestEST ever song ever FORever written – ALL of them supposedly the bEST. Experts in all things – from where Mavis from the Catlins to comfy Pete from Otorahanga come from. Familiarity. Did I mention the niceness?
How the two of them EVER managed to negotiate their comfy little pozzies in our ‘public service’ radio broadcaster is beyond me – especially when their frequent locums outshine them everytime
Thank Christ for the off switch though eh? Only slightly better than the other noise on the AM/FM spectrum
The trouble is that this short-term neurological arousal has long-term consequences. Firstly, it can cause desensitisation to the same erotic simuli that turned you on recently and, over the longer term, it can cause a greater likelihood of sexual dysfunction.
And not all porn is equal. Like Wolf, Cindy Gallop talks about how easy access to hardcore porn has changed many men’s ideas about what sex is (and not for the better).
The problem seems to be to do with the commodification of porn, the ease of distributing it online, and the addictive nature of images and videos that intensify sensation arousal.
And, yes, I imagine that similar processes work in advertising, and a lot of popular culture that aims to maximise audience share.
It takes one to know one. true or not.
I know Camille Nakhid even though I have never met her. she wants special privileges for herself and friends and what she wants is not democracy but oriental potentate style decison making on a friends and friends basis. another naked grab for power.
News of the New Zealand Customs stealing seizing all electronic equipment from returning Kiwi Sam Blackman has made its way into the headlines over at The Guardian:
. . . A New Zealand man returning home from London for Christmas has claimed he had all his electronic items confiscated at Auckland airport because he attended a debate on mass surveillance at which Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger spoke about the Snowden revelations . . .
The European parliament has voted to formally invite Edward Snowden to give testimony on NSA spying, despite opposition from conservative MEPs. If the US whistleblower provides answers to the questions compiled by parliamentarians in time, a hearing via video link could take place in early January.
It had looked on Wednesday as if European conservatives were trying to kick the hearing into the long grass. The European People’s party (EPP), the alliance of centre-right parties, had raised a number of concerns about inviting Snowden for a hearing, noting that it could endanger the transatlantic trade agreement with the US.
For a big picture view of the goings on, digby riffs off an interview with Glenn Greenwald exploring the how the USA Surveillance State reflects the panoptican model:
. . . The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow a single watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether they are being watched or not. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that all inmates must act as though they are watched at all times, effectively controlling their own behavior constantly . . .
whitewashing of what? Brown found not to have misused council resources in conducting his 2 year affair with Bevan Chuang, and not to have issued references etc inappropriately.
No he won’t. Brown’s press release in response to the report. He does an apology, but clearly doesn’t aim to resign.
“The report notes that over a three-year period I, and my family, stayed privately in hotels in central Auckland on a number of occasions. The arrangements for these hotels were made privately in most cases, and in all cases payment was made privately.
“My reason for staying in the central city is that I often work until late in the evening – attending meetings, functions or civic events – and I start work early the next morning, often for media interviews or breakfast events. A significant number of these rooms were also booked and used privately by me and my family.
“I was not charged for nine of these hotel rooms, including one occasion in relation to Ms Chuang.
“As the report notes, I never used council resources for private accommodation or in relation to Ms Chuang, and I do not hold a council credit card.
“However, I accept that as Mayor I am subject to a higher standard of public accountability, and in this context I should not have accepted the free rooms offered to me, and should have disclosed this fact when I was asked about it in October.
“This was an error of judgement and I apologise to the people of Auckland.
“I remain totally focussed on the issues that matter most to Aucklanders, including improving our transport system, tackling Auckland’s housing crisis and continuing to invest in our future.”
Hopefully this sets up the possibility for a new left wing candidate, whenever the next Auckland Council election is held. More importantly, Brown let us down over Ports of Auckland. He tends to bow to the neoliberal agenda too often. The search for a new left candidate should start now.
tinfoilhat, if we apply your logic to our politicians in general then 90% of them are scum.
You really need to open your eyes a bit fella/felless. It’s been going on since NZ’s first parliamentary precinct. The walls of the current precinct – including the Beehive – could tell a thousand stories worse than Len Brown.
As I commented the other day, all Brown has to do is copy John Banks, who has set the precedent for heroic “resignations” … i.e not resigning at all, just saying “I won’t bother standing next time”. (Of course, unlike actual resignations, such a promise can be reversed at any time).
Having said that, I’m now (drumroll …) withdrawing my defence of Brown. (Shock news – reporters will be banging on my door shortly, pictures at six!).
I was strongly opposed to the idea that he should be “guilty” of having sex outside marriage, because then there would have to be mass resignations from Parliament and the country would be run by eunuchs in hair-shirts.
But he’s abused his position re- the hotel rooms (the phone stuff doesn’t matter so much, almost everyone uses a work phone or computer for private use).
So he’s been an idiot and less than honest, he’s made his (hotel room) bed and can lie in it. I won’t be shouting “Resign!”, but if he does, so be it.
He may not lose his job. But he has lost my respect.
Duh, you can’t own up to gifts of luxury hotel room stays if you want to have a secret affair on the sly 😈
The main question mark over Brown’s competence is – how the hell can you traipse in and out of 5 star hotels at random times of day and night and then not expect anyone to find out??? Literally dozens of people, many of them hotel staff, must have known something was up.
It’s very interesting that this was kept under the radar for as long as it did – did journos sit on the story?
not good at all. Never been a supporter of the man, just a critic of the political subterfuge against him. Been a rapid-fire year politically; the speed of ‘progress’.
Len brown has received free hotel rooms and room upgrades from SkyCity valued at $6150 and made more than 1000 private calls to Miss Chuang from his council phone.
I agree he has to go now. That’s corruption.
But I also think that there should be an investigation into what sort of freebies have John Keys and his Tory cronies received from Sky City in return for changing the nation’s gambling laws and giving preferential treatment to one company competing with others for building the Convention centre.
Has anyone ever looked into that? I have more than once seen pictures of smiling Key and Missus at the Sky City centre.
Slater would have served democracy better by focusing on the gifts, hotel rooms etc,instead of wallowing in the sleaze of sexual affairs. He has muddied the waters.
He broke story, if he’d done nothing Len would still be there…not that I expect Len to resign because like any good leftie hes got it to good to want to leave voluntarily
That tendency has nothing to do with whether one’s a rightie or a leftie – it has to do with salary, ego, and lack of personal integrity. Something we tolerate as a nation, so it continues.
Yes. But all he’s done is open the way for a new, fresh left wing candidate. Slater’s objective looked to be to stop Brown being returned as Mayor and/or to get his preferred candidate elected mayor. On that he has failed. And he’s weakened his position for using any further smear campaigns.
“This was an error of judgement and I apologise to the people of Auckland.
“I remain totally focussed on the issues that matter most to Aucklanders, including improving our transport system, tackling Auckland’s housing crisis and continuing to invest in our future.”
This afternoon, someone drew my attention to Hooton’s post. Shocked by not only Hooton’s cynicism, but the drippily supportive responses for his cant by the likes of Hebe [1] and Craig Ranapia [2] I decided it was time to make my Public Address debut. This is what I wrote….
Some time soon, I’ll post a more thorough parsing of this bizarre concoction of sentimental posturing and cynical falsehoods, but right now I’ll deal with two statements that stand out above all the rest….
1.) “….he was alongside Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev in the sense of bringing tyranny to an end….”
That is not true. I’ll put Gorbachev to one side here, as I know as much about him as Barack Obama knows about irony.
Let’s just deal with Reagan and Thatcher: they were the polar opposites of Mandela, who was a democrat and a champion of human rights and justice. Reagan and Thatcher openly sneered at such notions. Reagan’s scofflaw regime backed and organized a brutal terrorist campaign in Nicaragua, for which it was found guilty in the International Criminal Court in 1986, and was an active backer of Saddam Hussein, the apartheid South African regime that imprisoned Mandela, Chile, Indonesia and Israel, as well as many other brutal anti-democratic governments and dictatorships. Thatcher supported all of the above, and even managed to go one better, when she announced her endorsement of the Khmer Rouge. Even Reagan wasn’t that shameless, or that foolish.
2.) “Mandela was a guy who would do attack ads with the best (or worst!) of them.”
Clearly, the implication Hooton wants us to draw here is that because Mandela was a robust and lively politician, that somehow makes him comparable to the likes of Hooton’s scurrilous friend John Ansell, the director of National’s attack ad campaigns and the genius behind National’s race-baiting “Iwi/Kiwi” campaign in 2005. Ansell is a notorious antagonist and hater of all things Māori (he was and no doubt still is a supporter of Alan Titford)—and Mandela has nothing in common with him.
Good on you Morrissey, the luvvies at PA will be pleased to welcome you aboard am sure. Rusty’s attack poodle Mr Ranapia will be snapping at your heels shortly.
Hooten is certainly a piece of work. “Gorby” was a Soviet sellout who basically greased the path for oligarchs that appropriated the state property that was worth having.
“They can do that, they have absolutely no reason not to. I can assure Mr Cunliffe the books are in tip top condition – that is the polar opposite position to what they were in when we became the Government.
I want to stress that New Zealand starts from a reasonable position in dealing with the uncertainty of our economic outlook…. In New Zealand we have room to respond. This is the rainy day that Government has been saving up for…
I have just been reading the Anadarko emergency response plan.
Tier 1- Anadarko cleans it up
Tier 2- Regional councils clean it up
Tier 3- Maritime NZ in charge of clean up,
The new rules giving beefed up powers to local body Mayors in New Zealand is really working well in Hamilton at the expense of democracy. It’s a recipe for disaster and a sad day for ratepayers, as they are the losers in all of this. The Mayor can now choose the Deputy Mayor, determine committee structure and appoint members. In the past the will of voters as expressed at the ballot box saw the highest polling councillor appointed deputy mayor and high polling councillors being appointed to chairmanships of significant committees. Sadly, this seems to have all gone out the window in Hamilton and no account has been taken of the poll results in these appointments. This is a real slap in the face for ratepayers and we now have an excellent example of empire building going on at City Hall.
In today’s Waikato Times we read that the Mayor is now to have five staff members costing ratepayers $365,000 a year. http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/9511892/Hardaker-spends-up-big-on-spin-doctor
Despite having a significant Public Relations team already in place in the council organisation, she wants her own “spin doctor”. Is this to massage the truth perhaps?
This all comes with a background of Hamilton City Council having a massive debt ($440 million), caused by the frivolous spend up by a previous council on the V8 racing fiasco and an event centre. There have also been many staff made redundant and budgets have been slashed, services have been severely curtailed and service fees increased, all in the quest to “balance the books”.
Added to this, only a small percentage of eligible voters chose to exercise their voting right. They have no room for complaint. It’s the likes of us who did bother to vote that have to live with the consequences.
Good stuff here by Gareth Hughes – this report should open some eyes and solidify resolve.
Interestingly Anadarko itself models a higher flow rate for an oil spill than Greenpeace did in their report and it shows the Government were wrong to attack Greenpeace as ‘scaremongering,’ when in fact they were being conservative with their numbers. Even the Texan cowboys Anadarko say if there is a deep sea well blowout there is a 2/3 chance we could see oil wash up on our beaches!
I can’t help thinking there is a headline out there somewhere that looks a bit like…..Phil Goff teaches public servants how to behave in a treacherous manner.
As you say, the electorate vote breakdowns are telling with only Epsom and Tamaki Yes votes exceeding No votes – but not by much.
Epsom 54.6% Yes; 45.0% No
Tamaki 53.2% Yes; 46.4% No
The Maori electorates are amazing with all seven recording No votes in the 90% ranging from 91.0% to 94.7% – although turnout was slightly lower than the overall rate, ranging from 28.9% to 33.5%.
Yes, but I felt forced.
With the Greens abusing the citizens initiated referendum I felt that I had no choice but to wallow in shit and participate in this whole charade.
Once again, Boooo to you Greens, you disgraceful excuse of a political party.
Apparently Anadarko considers Greenpeace’s level of risk assessment as valid, despite the PM calling them extreme case scenarios/alarmist.
The information being released on a Friday. I suppose leaving this to next week or early in the New Year was rejected as being too obvious a low publicity disclosure.
I’ve spent the last couple of days in Hamilton covering Waikato University’s annual NZ Economics Forum, where (arguably) three of the most influential people in our political economy right now laid out their thinking in major speeches about the size and role of Government, their views on for spending, tax ...
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
Hi,This week’s Flightless Bird episode was about “fake seizure guy” — a Melbourne man who fakes seizures in order to get members of the public to sit on him.The audio documentary (which I have included in this newsletter in case you don’t listen to Flightless Bird) built on reporting first ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The 119th Congress comes with a price tag. The oil and gas industry gave about $24 million in campaign contributions to the members of the U.S. House and Senate expected to be sworn in January 3, 2025, according to a ...
Early morning, the shadows still long, but you can already feel the warmth building. Our motel was across the road from the historic homestead where Henry Williams' family lived. The evening before, we wandered around the gardens, reading the plaques and enjoying the close proximity to the history of the ...
Thanks folks for your feedback, votes and comments this week. I’ll be making the changes soon. Appreciate all your emails, comments and subscriptions too. I know your time is valuable - muchas gracias.A lot is happening both here and around the world - so I want to provide a snippets ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
MONDAYSheriff Seymour rode slowly down the main street of Dodge on his faithful white horse Atlas Network.He liked what he saw.Children were being fed free lunches prepared by kind people who collected the scraps from an offal rendering plant.“Very strongly flavoured liver, such as ox liver, can be soaked overnight ...
Once upon a time it was all about being an astronaut, a firefighter or doctor; but these days kids have their sights set on becoming vloggers or YouTubers.That’s according to a 2019 study by Lego that surveyed 3000 children between the ages of eight to 12 from the US, the ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. From the moment I started high school and realised almost every other girl in my year was at least partially interested in what the boys were up to, I realised that I would be single for life. The feeling wasn’t one of ...
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So let me get this right. Paual Rebstock, a total hired gun government stooge, is allowed to comer out and accuse people of leaking on no evidence whatsoever beyond the fact that (in one case) they once worked for the Labour party)?
What an outrageous slur! How come she is allowed to do that?
From what I read the labour party chappie looks pretty guilty.
All the circumstantial evidence points directly at him.
If you are interested Kiwi blog did a post on it outlining what was in the report.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/12/the_rebstock_report-2.html
All a red herring focusing on the political affiliation of the leaker.
Brenda Pilot (PSA secretary), has done a selection of tweets on it. Public servants are allowed political affiliations. They should be neutral n expressing advice on policy matters. The issue in question was a restructuring of a department. Public servants should be able to have opinions on that, but increasingly dissent is being suppressed.
Now Pilot has just linked to this Dom Post editorial:
Just read the full editorial. Well done Dom Post. That’s the wisest commentary I’ve seen on the matter.
I suspect it had to do with being paid half a million dollars and not coming up with a result. The money would have probably been better spent on evaluating why a decision was made to cut trade staff at a time when businesses really needed more effort overseas.
In 2014 I am going to help get rid of this government.
I want my country back.
Yep.
In 2014 I am going to help get rid of the neolibs and TINAs in Labour and get rid of this government.
I want my party and my country back.
It is to late to tget rid of the neolib in Labour for 2014. With Parker calling the shots on Finance in election year we have to assume Labour is committed to continuing the same failed policies that we have been following since 1984.
There is only one option to ensure the Neolibs are pushed out or at least silenced.
Party Vote Green.
They must have a strong presence around the cabinet table to keep Parker and his dated policies quiet.
+1
Yep, and as more of the Cunliffe converts to the RED Labour Party become disallusioned with business as usual from the party that brought us the Neo-Liberal cluster-f**k in the first place and swing their votes to the Green Party, i can happily vote tactically for the Mana Party to try and bolster their numbers in the next Parliament…
+1 for Mana
Party vote Mana. Electorate vote probably Green, unless Goff, Mallard, Jones, and Parker resign.
In 2014 I am going to help get rid of this government.
I want my country back.
PM wants to know how much you’re prepared to pay for it. He has other overseas customers expressing the same interest.
National will win next year’s election.
That is my sole prediction for 2014.
Cunliffe will struggle throughout next year, against a confident John Key, who will mount a pretty convincing scare campaign, while Labour will be, again wishy washy.
It doesnt look like Labour is going to swing left anytime soon anyway. Not while Parker has his way anyway. News of public sector workers getting their pensions slashed in Detroit should have inspired Labour to showcase why our pension system is superior. And any privatisation of retirement income provision will result in pensioners getting bugger all. While Trotters report that Labour doesnt appear to have any enthusasim for fixing the issue of poverty (the blame of while can lie directly at the feet of the Fourth National government, who begun the process of dismantling of our welfare state) should disturb.
A National win next year will have the obvious ramifications for those at the bottom, who will find their incomes held down for the sake of keeping inflation to between 1 and 2% and keeping middle class interest rates low (and delivering National truckloads of votes), the sick, who will bear the brunt of a possible attempt to resurrect the Upton health reforms, union members, who will find their right to join a union in jeapordy, and our environment, which will be choked up with even more crap.
I’ll be doing my damndest to make sure that it doesn’t happen like that, mate. If they show the necessary moral courage and alternative vision, Labour and Greens will take next year, and by a margin too.
There’s been this idea that Labour needs to clear out some old wood. How would that work? Is it something that Cunliffe can do? Or is it a membership issue during the selection process before the next election? Or what?
Weka – its an MP and membership process before selection, and if the dead wood doesn’t want to go, then Labour is stuck with that ! Its very difficult to unseat a current MP who doesn’t want to go.
i wonder if these neo-lib driftwood mp’s are playing the ageism/age-brings-wisdom-card..?
..and normally i wd agree..age is not a reason for them to go..
..the reason for them to go is that these are the faces/mouths who sold that neo-lib/uncaring bullshit from that clark govt for all those years..
..that is why they must go…
..and what compounds this case for their exit..
..is that they not only have not resiled from/apologised for their past errors..
..they are still pushing the same t.i.n.a.-bullshit/lies…
..and reinforcing that tweedle-dee/tweedledum labour/national comparison..
..this is why they must go..
..and as an aside..
..isn’t mallard..up there in his new seat right next to the exit..
..isn’t he so much resembling muldoon in his final days..?
..as he sits up there..with his unkempt hair..
.furiously punching/swiping at his i-pad-screen..
..pretending to be relevant..
..occaisonally having to suppress a roar..
..and just to show how far labour still has to go to become relevant on issues such as poverty..(remember they have their uncaring-history to still overcome..)
..who can forget the sighs of relief from the paganis..and their ilk..
..at the shelving of that ‘radical’-policy of including beneficiary-families in working for families..by 2018..
..eh..?
..phillip ure..
It’s very necessary but also very hard. For electorates the ball is in the court of each local membership, with Wellington only having a partial say. Cunliffe has minimal or no say in that process. Often times a dozen established members in the local organisation will have the majority of the sway at a selection, and they tend to be loyal to their incumbent through thick and thin. For list candidates the list ranking process is more fluid and Wellington has more influence.
One major problem is that Labour can’t pension MPs off to comfy corporate board jobs in the way that National can.
The Rogernome weeds need a dose of herbicide and the LECs are the ones that can do it.
If say they engage local support in numbers like in Auckland Central days when ‘Mad Dog’ Prebble was ACTing up, hundreds used to turn up at meetings.
The spirit of the more democratic selection rules that enabled the humiliated demoted DC to rise to party leader months later with member and affiliate support, should be grasped by LECs with half a brain or links to lefties in their community. This is a fight to the death for NZ which without a stronger Labour Party will be lost. The Greens can only grow so much further?
Selection should be denied to anyone that does not support a list of basic left policy, which I hope I do not need to list. I would like to see half the caucus with looks on their faces like those candidly photographed in a corridor after David Cunliffe’s election as leader.
The trouble with that assertion Tiger Mountain is that it did not get rid of Prebble. In the end the voters of Auckland Central decided that Sandra Lee was more Labour than Prebble was. Also, Labour activists left his electorate organisation in droves. I chaired the Kingsland branch of the Mt Albert electorate at the time, and of our 105 members, 60 were domiciled across the motorway in Auckland Central. They were not going to work for Prebble and they didn’t vote for him either.
In the final campaign, he had bugger all of an electorate organisation. The TV coverage of election night when he lost Auckland Central showed a dozen or so, mostly older people rattling around in the supper room at Trades Hall.
Yes, people turned out to try and get rid of him, but it was the lack of people to run the campaign that did him in the end when he had no way to counter Sandra Lee’s message or her organisation.
Thanks for responding Lindsey,
Not saying that the large attendance’s removed Richard Prebble, but it certainly indicated interest in the situation. My general view is the more people that get involved in politics the better.
Lindsey implies a very important point. In the Labour system of doing things a shit MP, or shit right wing MP tends to drive away all the good members, leaving a tiny core of loyalists who will keep re-selecting that MP as the next candidate every single time.
Until, as Lindsey points out, the remaining electorate organisation gets so weak, that the Labour MP gets shoved out – by Labour losing the seat.
Seriously, the NATs have this process under far better management.
Ok, but presumably, technically, Cunliffe can remove certain MPs from positions of power within caucus? Or is that power more distrubuted amongst the whole caucus (formally? Informally). What are the ramifications of that?
Numbers. He’s caught up in a numbers game. Trotter did one of his more reasonable pieces on Cunliffe’s situation/predicament the other day. the link if you haven’t read it….
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/12/12/a-sort-of-victory-is-labours-old-guard-undermining-cunliffes-lurch-to-the-left/
Yeah, good article. I hope he comes back and answers some of the questions about solutions.
Numbers… ok, so Cunliffe requires a certain level of support to function as leader within caucus… does that mean Labour is screwed until the neoliberal faction die out?
Personally I think all this angst over Parker/retirement age is overblown.
As far as I can tell, the subject didn’t get much traction in the media at all.
I’m not that it’s not important, just that folks around this blog have gotten a massive bee in their bonnet about it, and are imagining that it’s something the general public have caught onto and are punishing Labour in the polls for.
Now, certainly, next year when they actually have to address it as part of their election campaign, it definitely will get attention. I just don’t think it is yet.
Yes +1, always so much ado about nothing, it becomes staid; does the ‘intellectual left’ have to think for everybody , or lead them.For goodness sake, wonder what the ‘objectivists’ make of the apparent facts; “thank you very much” not likely.
That inflation is kept low is the prayer of all retired who have to wait a full twelve months for adjustments. The only good thing about inflation is that it makes repayment of debt easier assuming the intake of money matches inflation …. but pensions are slow to do that.
But in times of deflation, those who are on pensions similarly gain an advantage over those 12 months.
I don’t know if we’ve had a full year of deflation at any time recently, but we certainly have had the odd quarter here and there.
We haven’t had a full year but we have had 5 quarterly drops in the CPI in the last 10 years, at least that is the number I see in a cursory glance at the Stats website.
Q4 in each of 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012. The drops were very minor and I don’t think anyone was going to note a vast rise in their standard of living.
I imagine every economist would agree that deflation is a very serious problem in terms of its economic results. Inflation can be catered for but deflation of any magnitude over an extended period is a disaster.
I am getting very nervous about the 2014 prospects.
At the beginning of 1999 and 2008, Labour and National respectivley had taken control of the MSM’s narrative of how the election year would play out. In both cases they were in opposition but were generally viewed on as Government in Waiting and were enjoying massive popular support in the polls.
The left block is marginally ahead at the moment. But the MSM does not realise that we live in a MMP world and as such report it as a National v Labour race. In that race there is only one player.
The media is powerful. For the majority of people their only exposure to Wellington is what Paddy and Corrin tell them each night at 6pm.
In 1999 and 2008 we were being told the incumbets were dog tucker. As 2014 dawns we don’t have that message.
Weird stuff happening when I click on comments in the right sidebar today. Sometimes I get taken to the Post heading, not the commenter’s remarks. And the next time I look, the commenter’s disappeared, then reappeared with other more recent commenters, then disappeared again…gremlins?
Not sure. But there was a security upgrade to wordpress last night (which took 2 hours to run through our database by the look of it), and a new version of wordpress installed this morning.
Nothing showed up when testing the betas\. But I’ll have a look at it.
Thanks for that lprent. Whatever it was, the sidebar comments links all seem to be working ok now.
Yeah my tests show the same. Rather than being a server generated error it could just be something local on your browser as well.
Have to say that the new backend is really nice so far. I also took the opportunity to change the color pattern to “coffee”. I think I was craving caffeine at the time.
Outrage after impostor hijacks Mandela memorial service
11 December 2013
“He was moving his hands around, but there was no meaning”; “What happened at the memorial service is truly a disgraceful thing to see”; “Disgusting”; “Shameful hypocrisy” and “It should not happen at all.”
Those are just a few of the angry comments following an outrageous performance by an impostor at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela.
Here’s a photo of the fraudster, waving his arm in the air….
http://cdn1.independent.ie/world-news/article29829821.ece/ALTERNATES/h342/PANews_bfce2d94-f4ec-4d75-b069-6d5218eab9d2_I1.jpg
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/11/mandela-sanitised-hypocrites-apologists-apartheid
Brilliant article-everyone should read it.
+ 1 Yeah I enjoyed it too.
“and Mandela wasn’t removed from the US terrorism watch list until 2008.” – surprised that wasn’t removed from the official record.
Why are you surprised? Do you think the United States is on the side of those who struggle liberation, like Mandela did?
I was being slightly ironic due to the likelihood of embarrassment to the establishment of that fact being known, you know, cos of the funeral and eulogies and stuff.
I know you know that marty. I wasn’t having a go at you personally, I was just re-stating a point.
This bit (unfortunately glossing over a momentous fuck up on the part of the ANC during negotiations on the hand-over of power, but pertinent nonetheless)…a lesson for everyone on why political freedom should never be pursued separately from economic freedom.
Happened here. Patted ourselves on the back about nuclear free legislation and took eyes off the economy.
Great read Morrissey. Of course the hypocrisy exercised by our PM and past National leaders is galling as well. Suppose they would class it as being pragmatic in a dynamic world that politicians inhabit.
Speaking of sickening displays of hypocrisy, Hoots was oozing over Public Address, saying how he admired Nelson Mandela because he was a champion of freedom, just like Reagand and Thatcher.
That’s how the right typically works: call them a terrorist or a lunatic, then if they win and eventualy die, appropriate and sanitize their memory and then use it as a stick to beat their successors.
On a smaller scale, arsewipes like Hoots were continually attacking Rod Donald and when they’d hounded him to his grave, imediately they were calling his successors dangerous and unreasonable, not like that lovely chap Donald.
Yeah I read that sick shit too, what a load of 3rd form dribble. The praise from other commentators has been illuminating and increased the feeling of nausea, but I’m pleased he’s found a home.
a comfort-zone
Where “I” can rest my head….
How do people like Hooton wake up in the morning?
He is intelligent and must know what he is doing. He must know that the policies he proposes harm the weak and the vulnerable.
Is it vanity? His career? A desire to feather his own nest no matter what the consequences to otherwise? A game?
Appreciate that no honest answer will eventuate but it does make me think.
Not only do you cut and paste, you do it a full 24hrs behind everybody else.
Makes me wonder why you even come here.
Not only do you cut and paste, you do it a full 24hrs behind everybody else.
Look carefully, my friend: it’s not a cut and paste. It’s my own work.
But let’s return to your original, in this case unjustified, complaint: even if it were simply a cut-and-paste, that would have been very fast for me, Dumrse. There are no time limits on classy writing. And, come to think of it, there are no time limits even on writing by the likes of Paul Thomas, Jack Tame or Kerre ohoWmad.
Not a good week for satire—not that Kathryn Ryan would know that
Radio NZ National, Friday 13 December 2013
Very interesting interview with Civilian proprietor and panda-bother Ben Uffindell this morning. He’s a bright and funny guy, and had some interesting things to say.
However, I’m not convinced that Kathryn Ryan is quite up to the task of interviewing him. She’s an Obama-cultist, like her braindead U.S. correspondent Louisa Savage, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah Winfrey and (most notoriously) that hapless high priest of Obama-worship, Jim Mora. That means that she has voluntarily—or was it unwittingly?—removed a key section of her brain, namely that bit responsible for critical thinking and the recognition of irony, murderous hypocrisy and rancid insincerity.
And true enough, just as I suspected, in an ill-advised attempt to make intelligent conversation, Ms. Ryan dived in and made a really stupid statement. Speaking slowly and carefully in a low voice, to indicate how assiduously she had been thinking, she said: “New Zealand doesn’t have a rich tradition of satire like other countries do. Why do you think that is?”
In a week of Stalin-style worship of the self-appointed chief mourner at the “memorial service” for a real hero, this is perhaps the worst time ever to claim that “other countries” have a “rich tradition of satire.”
Shocked and concerned at Kathryn Ryan’s lack of any sense of irony, I flicked her the following email….
Dear Kathryn,
During your interview with Ben Uffindell, you claimed that New Zealand does not have “a rich tradition of satire like other countries do”.
In a week where the sanctimonious oratory in Johannesburg by a major impostor has been slavishly praised by mainstream commentators, and a minor signing-impostor has been showered with hectoring opprobrium, it is quite clear that satire is dead in South Africa, Britain and the United States as well as in New Zealand.
Even though he clearly didn’t want to open up that can of worms, Ben Uffindell is no doubt aware of the absurdity of the Obama cult; I wonder if you and your colleagues at Radio NZ National are.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
Keep listening, guys. She might read it out. Maybe….
The only time worth listening to n2n or afternoons Rhino, is when a locum is in place – a Lynne Freeman or a Brennan – both superior to the comfortably off.
The only good thing about Ryan is that she seems to have negotiated a HUGE amount of annual leave, OR she has some dreadful illness such that RNZ management feel sorry for her and tolerate her frequent absences.
Roll on ‘silly season’ afternoons. This ‘hater’ is anxious to see the nicest man on Earth get a well deserved break when he can spend some quality time with his nicest woman on Earth wife.
(Silence, and the sound of birds in the trees is often worthwhile, especially as I cast my eyes across Wgtn city towards RNZ House where that regular gal tries to pretend she abides by BBC style values of ‘journalistic integrity’).
Plastic. Anti-septic. Comfortable. Unchallenging. Nice. Super-nice. Intellectual bubblegum for the ears. Mundane. Faux empathy. In-touch with the people. Egotistical Linguistic Gymnastics. “Issssssyoos’. Diction. Wanna beed wannabees that wanna came and wanna cconquered. The bestest bestEST ever song ever FORever written – ALL of them supposedly the bEST. Experts in all things – from where Mavis from the Catlins to comfy Pete from Otorahanga come from. Familiarity. Did I mention the niceness?
How the two of them EVER managed to negotiate their comfy little pozzies in our ‘public service’ radio broadcaster is beyond me – especially when their frequent locums outshine them everytime
Thank Christ for the off switch though eh? Only slightly better than the other noise on the AM/FM spectrum
How porn is destroying modern sex lives:
Ok, fine, porn is bad.
Still, gives another reason to ban advertising.
And not all porn is equal. Like Wolf, Cindy Gallop talks about how easy access to hardcore porn has changed many men’s ideas about what sex is (and not for the better).
http://blog.ted.com/2009/12/02/cindy_gallop_ma/
The problem seems to be to do with the commodification of porn, the ease of distributing it online, and the addictive nature of images and videos that intensify sensation arousal.
And, yes, I imagine that similar processes work in advertising, and a lot of popular culture that aims to maximise audience share.
It’s also an issue of who makes porn, and who they think they are making it for.
It takes one to know one. true or not.
I know Camille Nakhid even though I have never met her. she wants special privileges for herself and friends and what she wants is not democracy but oriental potentate style decison making on a friends and friends basis. another naked grab for power.
Does that mean she is going to join the Mana party?
Nope, that would be more National’s style.
‘
News of the New Zealand Customs
stealingseizing all electronic equipment from returning Kiwi Sam Blackman has made its way into the headlines over at The Guardian:Meanwhile, the European Parliament clears the way for Edward Snowden to appear before it early next year to answer questions:
For a big picture view of the goings on, digby riffs off an interview with Glenn Greenwald exploring the how the USA Surveillance State reflects the panoptican model:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11172021
– Looks like whitewashing is rife at the moment
whitewashing of what? Brown found not to have misused council resources in conducting his 2 year affair with Bevan Chuang, and not to have issued references etc inappropriately.
He has been found to have had free use of hotel rooms for council business that he didn’t declare, plus some other gifts. This last revelation is wounding to Brown. I despair. He has disappointed those of us who voted for him.
He is a lying piece of scum he should resign………. but won’t.
No he won’t. Brown’s press release in response to the report. He does an apology, but clearly doesn’t aim to resign.
Hopefully this sets up the possibility for a new left wing candidate, whenever the next Auckland Council election is held. More importantly, Brown let us down over Ports of Auckland. He tends to bow to the neoliberal agenda too often. The search for a new left candidate should start now.
Brown really is scum anyone who voted for him should be furious with his behaviour.
tinfoilhat, if we apply your logic to our politicians in general then 90% of them are scum.
You really need to open your eyes a bit fella/felless. It’s been going on since NZ’s first parliamentary precinct. The walls of the current precinct – including the Beehive – could tell a thousand stories worse than Len Brown.
+1
these politicians are men and women, not angels.
As I commented the other day, all Brown has to do is copy John Banks, who has set the precedent for heroic “resignations” … i.e not resigning at all, just saying “I won’t bother standing next time”. (Of course, unlike actual resignations, such a promise can be reversed at any time).
Having said that, I’m now (drumroll …) withdrawing my defence of Brown. (Shock news – reporters will be banging on my door shortly, pictures at six!).
I was strongly opposed to the idea that he should be “guilty” of having sex outside marriage, because then there would have to be mass resignations from Parliament and the country would be run by eunuchs in hair-shirts.
But he’s abused his position re- the hotel rooms (the phone stuff doesn’t matter so much, almost everyone uses a work phone or computer for private use).
So he’s been an idiot and less than honest, he’s made his (hotel room) bed and can lie in it. I won’t be shouting “Resign!”, but if he does, so be it.
He may not lose his job. But he has lost my respect.
Duh, you can’t own up to gifts of luxury hotel room stays if you want to have a secret affair on the sly 😈
The main question mark over Brown’s competence is – how the hell can you traipse in and out of 5 star hotels at random times of day and night and then not expect anyone to find out??? Literally dozens of people, many of them hotel staff, must have known something was up.
It’s very interesting that this was kept under the radar for as long as it did – did journos sit on the story?
not good at all. Never been a supporter of the man, just a critic of the political subterfuge against him. Been a rapid-fire year politically; the speed of ‘progress’.
Is that an attempt to defame Ernst & Young…
More like Len refusing to allow Sky city to divulge what they know
Really? You seem to know everything , could you find time to submit a post
Len brown has received free hotel rooms and room upgrades from SkyCity valued at $6150 and made more than 1000 private calls to Miss Chuang from his council phone.
I agree he has to go now. That’s corruption.
But I also think that there should be an investigation into what sort of freebies have John Keys and his Tory cronies received from Sky City in return for changing the nation’s gambling laws and giving preferential treatment to one company competing with others for building the Convention centre.
Has anyone ever looked into that? I have more than once seen pictures of smiling Key and Missus at the Sky City centre.
Well Cameron Slater broke the story so maybe someone on the left could investigate
Slater would have served democracy better by focusing on the gifts, hotel rooms etc,instead of wallowing in the sleaze of sexual affairs. He has muddied the waters.
He broke story, if he’d done nothing Len would still be there…not that I expect Len to resign because like any good leftie hes got it to good to want to leave voluntarily
John Banks is a leftie now?
Well Banks is facing charges while Lens digging in for the long haul so not really applicable
Take a prosecution against him then PR. All the best mate.
Unlike certain bankrupts I have a job and other considerations on my time
hey, you don’t need to spend your time posting here, I’m sure we’d all understand and sadly accept the absence of your comments for a few months…
😀
Bankrupt? There’s identification again.
But Banks hasn’t resigned.
Do you think a conviction is necessary, before he should? And the same for Brown?
That tendency has nothing to do with whether one’s a rightie or a leftie – it has to do with salary, ego, and lack of personal integrity. Something we tolerate as a nation, so it continues.
Yes. But all he’s done is open the way for a new, fresh left wing candidate. Slater’s objective looked to be to stop Brown being returned as Mayor and/or to get his preferred candidate elected mayor. On that he has failed. And he’s weakened his position for using any further smear campaigns.
Maybe the new, young candidate won’t be a corrupt, lying sleazebag in which case its a win-win for everyone
And we can say the same about National but all indications are they’ll be just as unethical as John Key.
Slater broke wind and fed you fools with hot air.
Slater has damaged his public image, and delivered the left the potential of a new left candidate for mayor in the future.
“This was an error of judgement and I apologise to the people of Auckland.
“I remain totally focussed on the issues that matter most to Aucklanders, including improving our transport system, tackling Auckland’s housing crisis and continuing to invest in our future.”
– Yeah Lens not going anywhere
A reply to Matthew Hooton’s vapourings about Mandela
After Nelson Mandela died, Matthew Hooton took out an onion and posted this masterpiece of gall and hypocrisy…
http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-mandela/?p=302690#post302690
This afternoon, someone drew my attention to Hooton’s post. Shocked by not only Hooton’s cynicism, but the drippily supportive responses for his cant by the likes of Hebe [1] and Craig Ranapia [2] I decided it was time to make my Public Address debut. This is what I wrote….
Some time soon, I’ll post a more thorough parsing of this bizarre concoction of sentimental posturing and cynical falsehoods, but right now I’ll deal with two statements that stand out above all the rest….
1.) “….he was alongside Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev in the sense of bringing tyranny to an end….”
That is not true. I’ll put Gorbachev to one side here, as I know as much about him as Barack Obama knows about irony.
Let’s just deal with Reagan and Thatcher: they were the polar opposites of Mandela, who was a democrat and a champion of human rights and justice. Reagan and Thatcher openly sneered at such notions. Reagan’s scofflaw regime backed and organized a brutal terrorist campaign in Nicaragua, for which it was found guilty in the International Criminal Court in 1986, and was an active backer of Saddam Hussein, the apartheid South African regime that imprisoned Mandela, Chile, Indonesia and Israel, as well as many other brutal anti-democratic governments and dictatorships. Thatcher supported all of the above, and even managed to go one better, when she announced her endorsement of the Khmer Rouge. Even Reagan wasn’t that shameless, or that foolish.
2.) “Mandela was a guy who would do attack ads with the best (or worst!) of them.”
Clearly, the implication Hooton wants us to draw here is that because Mandela was a robust and lively politician, that somehow makes him comparable to the likes of Hooton’s scurrilous friend John Ansell, the director of National’s attack ad campaigns and the genius behind National’s race-baiting “Iwi/Kiwi” campaign in 2005. Ansell is a notorious antagonist and hater of all things Māori (he was and no doubt still is a supporter of Alan Titford)—and Mandela has nothing in common with him.
http://publicaddress.net/system/profile?id=136755
[1] http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-mandela/?p=302693#post302693
[2] http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-mandela/?p=303083#post303083
Good on you Morrissey, the luvvies at PA will be pleased to welcome you aboard am sure. Rusty’s attack poodle Mr Ranapia will be snapping at your heels shortly.
Hooten is certainly a piece of work. “Gorby” was a Soviet sellout who basically greased the path for oligarchs that appropriated the state property that was worth having.
Rusty’s attack poodle Mr Ranapia will be snapping at your heels shortly.
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6589003264/hC8BF5189/
John Key, lying again:
John Key, today (http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9515170/PM-playing-down-voter-turnout)
vs
Bill English, 2008 (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501219&objectid=10548753&ref=imthis)
Someone should introduce those two, they could compare notes.
I have just been reading the Anadarko emergency response plan.
Tier 1- Anadarko cleans it up
Tier 2- Regional councils clean it up
Tier 3- Maritime NZ in charge of clean up,
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1312/AnnexEEmergencyResponsePlan.pdf
The new rules giving beefed up powers to local body Mayors in New Zealand is really working well in Hamilton at the expense of democracy. It’s a recipe for disaster and a sad day for ratepayers, as they are the losers in all of this. The Mayor can now choose the Deputy Mayor, determine committee structure and appoint members. In the past the will of voters as expressed at the ballot box saw the highest polling councillor appointed deputy mayor and high polling councillors being appointed to chairmanships of significant committees. Sadly, this seems to have all gone out the window in Hamilton and no account has been taken of the poll results in these appointments. This is a real slap in the face for ratepayers and we now have an excellent example of empire building going on at City Hall.
In today’s Waikato Times we read that the Mayor is now to have five staff members costing ratepayers $365,000 a year. http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/9511892/Hardaker-spends-up-big-on-spin-doctor
Despite having a significant Public Relations team already in place in the council organisation, she wants her own “spin doctor”. Is this to massage the truth perhaps?
This all comes with a background of Hamilton City Council having a massive debt ($440 million), caused by the frivolous spend up by a previous council on the V8 racing fiasco and an event centre. There have also been many staff made redundant and budgets have been slashed, services have been severely curtailed and service fees increased, all in the quest to “balance the books”.
Added to this, only a small percentage of eligible voters chose to exercise their voting right. They have no room for complaint. It’s the likes of us who did bother to vote that have to live with the consequences.
Good stuff here by Gareth Hughes – this report should open some eyes and solidify resolve.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2013/12/13/anadarkos-deep-sea-oil-drilling-information-blowout/
len brown will be interviewed on campbell live 2nite..
..i went to the mandela service in ak..and brown spoke..
..i so so wanted to heckle ..
..phillip ure..
I can’t help thinking there is a headline out there somewhere that looks a bit like…..Phil Goff teaches public servants how to behave in a treacherous manner.
Results in …
http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/2013_citizens_referendum/
Minority vote high enough to legitimise referendum. Turnout good.
2 electorates voted “Yes” – Epsom and Tamaki. All others “No”, including Key’s own, Helensville.
Maori electorates highest “No” votes (yep, the maori party are finished).
As you say, the electorate vote breakdowns are telling with only Epsom and Tamaki Yes votes exceeding No votes – but not by much.
Epsom 54.6% Yes; 45.0% No
Tamaki 53.2% Yes; 46.4% No
The Maori electorates are amazing with all seven recording No votes in the 90% ranging from 91.0% to 94.7% – although turnout was slightly lower than the overall rate, ranging from 28.9% to 33.5%.
Less than 1/2 of eligible voters.
What a waste of money, money that could have been spent on the poor but instead blown of this waste of time.
Shame on you Greens, Shame.
But you voted.
Yes, but I felt forced.
With the Greens abusing the citizens initiated referendum I felt that I had no choice but to wallow in shit and participate in this whole charade.
Once again, Boooo to you Greens, you disgraceful excuse of a political party.
Garn. Admit it. You love wallowing in shit. Your posts here drip it profusely.
he loves wallowing in his own shit.
And the money would NOT have been spent on the poor.
Apparently Anadarko considers Greenpeace’s level of risk assessment as valid, despite the PM calling them extreme case scenarios/alarmist.
The information being released on a Friday. I suppose leaving this to next week or early in the New Year was rejected as being too obvious a low publicity disclosure.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1312/S00212/anadarko-discharge-management-plan-available.htm
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2013/12/whos-scaremongering-now.html
Coober Pedy, South Australia = a shale oil find at 700 metres. Potential 233B barrels. Over 10% of current world reserves.
A find of geo-political significance.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-25/linc-energy-in-shale-talks-with-oil-services-company-in-u-s-1-.html
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Australia-Next-Petro-Superstate.html
http://oilandenergyinvestor.com/ext/arckaringa/articles/20-million-oil-find-to-unleash-energy-war.php?src=taboola&ad=ad7
.
With the existing oil reserves in SA/Iraq/Iran/Libya/Russia/Kazakhstan/Nigeria/Venezuela, OPEC has problems now with resumed flow from Iraq,Iran and Libya and the development of shale oil exploitation capacity in North America without such huge finds as this.
How economic is deep sea oil exploration in this environment, even if there is a discovery?
The NOAA Arctic report card update and James Hansen addresses the American Geophysical Union fall meeting.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/
http://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/_922621/uiconf_id/21384601/entry_id/1_o17ip0if
and then there’s This , officer.
A drop in pressure.
and you joe, are among the best of the last , Now it’s our turn to Dream about Tomorrow’s lies yet, no need to be anybody’s Winter . Night All: expended, almost 😉
Interesting current Keiser Report.
Homozygosity – the phenomenon that keeps the National Party and the banker’s class alive (and oure, and entitled)