The idea of a level playing field is certainly not new. It just does not mention that in the 3 dimensional it is slanted towards poverty lane for many.
There are 3 articles today in Staff that catches the eye:
1/ A whole generation has been failed in Mathematic. And English lets just add this too.
This has been pointed out more than 20 years ago by University Lecturers, the estimated that some 30% of entry students are functionally illiterate. Why? Any answers?
2/ Where did the wage subsidy really go?
Well we know that the rich just made a grab for money that is now missing to remedy poverty, infrastructure etc. I am still in utter disbelieve that a finance minister can approve so much money without thinking through foreseeable consequences. In my view, something does not make sense. But what does make sense is that the blackmailing money class has NZ by the short and curlies.
3/New Zealand is a ridiculous name.
No its not. It reflects the history of this country over the last 380 odd years.
Maori would translate NZ: Nu Tereni. Aotearoa traditionally was used as a name for the North Island. (Land of the long white cloud). It is a beautiful name but it neither of them are inclusive. NZ has a long tradition of immigrants from all over the world. If this is to be seen as a partnership, any new name should reflect this and put to a referendum. Just not the laser kiwi please.
One reason for the increase in the estimates of functional illiteracy might be the increase in volumes of students following the introduction of student loans and opening up of universities to all.
"A whole generation has been failed in Mathematic. And English lets just add this too."(Sic.)
The answer is simple. We need to revolutionise the way things are done in primary schools. Tell you what, we'll have a system to improve standards. It'll be nationwide, schools must use the system.
Since it's about standards and it's nationwide we'll call it 'National Standards.' That has a lovely ring to it. Yes, 'National,' sounds good. It will be brilliant, it will work wonders and it'll keep tabs on teachers, make them accountable. Results will be on the rise.
The results of international testing from about 2015 on should show the results of this great innovative move as the cohorts advantaged by the wisdom move through the schooling system.
I think we should look at teachers and their standard. Weather they understand the subject to start with. True story: a teacher told a 15 year old student that they will learn a mathematical solution by research and do it themselves! ???? true response. No wonder the kids need to grow additional fingers, (sarc) Reading? Yep… easy, "recognize the word" that will be extremely helpful when reading a manual of all things with some mathematic tables. This method of teaching is just lazy. And to top it all off the number of school breaks is just ridiculous. Unless your child is in a private school, it will be disadvantaged from the start.
"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn". Benjamin Franklin
Yes it is, my apologies. Was a bit in the hurry to get the dog reigned in. Weather certainly played a role . And may I add, here is a word that can be easily misspelled, misread and added to the infamous “recognize the word” vocabulary. 🙂
Pretty funny you choose to shoot the messenger, over what could be a result of poor education, rather than engage. Because you know, teachers feelings are far more important than kids achieving
Teachers are part of the equation, and I doubt there are many NZ teachers who want their students to fail. If the profession had higher status then we might make progress, but in NZ the single biggest metric for ranking occupations is not work-life balance, satisfaction and/or contribution to society, but rather how much money you can make. And so it goes.
Finland’s high level of education and expertise is based on high-quality teacher education. Teachers in Finland are highly educated and respected professionals. Teaching is a popular profession and universities can select the most motivated and talented applicants. The profession has high status and teachers are autonomous in their work, as the system is based on trust rather than control.
There is learning mathematics and there is learning how to learn. Both can be taught at the same time – and it's easier to do in maths because a student can see if they are right and wrong. For a 15 year old, researching how to do something should be well within their abilities.
Yep. It is common to think that Teaching is the transfer of knowledge from the Teacher to the student.
If that is all we, as a Teacher are doing, then we have failed.
No one person “knows” enough for a start.
The aim is to Teach students to learn and go beyond our knowledge.
When a student takes off and begins to research for themselves, question, argue and analyse what I've taught them, and delves deeper into the subject. I know I'm winning. I want the student to end up more "educated' than me. Not less!
Yes, this is true but mathematical formula are better not learned by browsing through the internet. Or maybe we can all forget about Pythagoras, Galileo Galilei, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, Paul Erdős, Newton, Albert Einstein etc. We don't need them, we can research this all by ourselves. (sarc) By extension, maybe we don't need teachers at all?
"True story: a teacher told a 15 year old student that they will learn a mathematical solution by research and do it themselves! ???? true response."
What was the context? What was the teacher trying to get the pupil to achieve with that kid at that time? Did the teacher use that strategy only and with all lessons?
Using that as an example of why our kids don't score well in international tests?
The comment about children being disadvantaged from the start by not being in a private school is nonsense.
No, the teacher was actually calling for a parent evening and in that context it was mentioned that this is what is expected. Now, if a teacher does not want to teach then maybe he/she should do something else? It is for many parents very frustrating to deal with this kind let down. I am not the only one saying this. But naturally, there will be a lot of defensiveness. I also do know that many parents who are able to afford this, send their children to private schools to make sure that they succeed in an every increasing competitive world.
All I am saying is that, if we don't equip the teacher we cant expect the kids to succeed.
Are the Uyghur muslims the first muslims the right wing of New Zealand have paid any attention to?
It would seem the right wing of New Zealand are using the Uyghur muslims for political purposes.
These people might very well be persecuted. But I find it interesting The West has happily trades with, and profited from that trade with China for some decades now despite clear human rights abuses, and now suddenly it's all a big problem.
I think some people have deliberately not been paying attention until it is politically expedient to do so.
According to the right wing Uyghur muslims are suddenly the most important muslims, for some strange reason.
For instance, you wouldn’t find the same right wing of New Zealand advocating for Palestinian muslims, would you?
Suddenly China's human rights abuses are a big problem but in reality we've turned a blind eye for decades. We've worn their cheap goods and happily heated our meals in their cheap microwave ovens for years without a thought to justice.
We've even got rich off their cheap money by allowing their citizens to buy up vast swathes of NZ residential property!
New Zealand’s Overseas Investment Amendment Bill came into force in October 2018, officially banning foreigners not intending to live in New Zealand from buying existing homes. The aim was to make residential properties more affordable to locals as the government blamed foreign buyers for driving up home prices beyond the reach of locals.
This spooked Chinese buyers and home transfers to people who didn’t hold New Zealand citizenship, or a resident visa fell by 81 per cent in the March 2019 quarter compared with the same quarter a year ago, according to Statistics New Zealand. The number of sales to Chinese buyers also plunged by 80 per cent.1
In the past before the ban, New Zealand was a hotspot for Chinese home buyers.
Thanks, but that doesn’t state what you think it states. For example, what was the proportion of all sales? The text in (your) bold was simply marketing clickbait.
Aucklanders like to brag that Chinese buyers will pay more for their property. For the first time leaked sales figures suggest they may be right.
It seems everyone in Auckland has a story to tell about Chinese buyers wanting their house.
One elderly Takapuna man was startled to hear a Chinese syndicate was interested in buying his well-established family home.
His place wasn't even on the market when a real estate agent door-knocked the 82-year-old last month, said a relative.
"A Chinese syndicate was wanting to buy a series of sections to build a block of apartments. The hard-sell was on apparently, but thankfully he resisted the temptation."
Thanks again, but not compelling. Mostly urban legend stuff, and Phil Twyford’s infamous surname ‘analysis’, based on a small sample from “one unidentified real estate company from February to April”. You’re just continuing the propaganda BS and flawed factoids from the past 🙁
That was Twyford at his zenith. It brought about real change when the government of the time sought to ignore the issue. The last decent thing he did. It's all been downhill from there.
You asked for links to mainland Chinese buying lots of New Zealand property. I have provided that. A simple thank you would suffice.
You asked for links to mainland Chinese buying lots of New Zealand property. I have provided that.
You’re sadly misguided and misinformed. I can now understand better your assertion, which is based on your misconception and ignorance. However, not everybody likes to spread BS and some even push back on it. Maybe it was too much to ask you for a proper analysis with facts, e.g. from Stat NZ, but you took the piece of rope and showed yourself to be a spreader of populist memes instead of a critical independent thinker and commenter.
This comment shows you didn't read the link I posted at 5.1.1.1.1 because the information in the StatsNZ link is the same.
But on top of that your criticism tries to say that a drop in offshore ownership means that there was not a problem in the first place???
I can't work this one out.
Back to the original point at 5 which was to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the West engaging with China the way we have for 3 decades now despite obvious and ongoing human rights and worker rights breaches.
I watched Tiananmen Square as a 19 year old and was shocked like everyone else. What censure or punishment for China? Nothing. There was no punishment, only reward. The reward was a huge increase in trade, and a proliferation of sweatshops and dodgy manufacturers with which a few players in the West got rich and we all got nice shoes.
I find it gross that some people cry about Uyghur muslims now while for years they conveniently ignored years of China's abuses, because they benefitted from those same abuses.
That money funnelled into the New Zealand residential property market by mainland Chinese and new resident property purchases was tainted with corruption, poor justice, and the abused rights of manual workers.
Over 30 years of civil rights abuse was ignored by us because it was convenient. So for some on the political right to suddenly have newfound sympathy for a group of muslims sticks in the craw.
I did read the link and it did not answer my question and thus it did not support your assertion that Chinese citizens “buy up vast swathes of NZ residential property”.
If you had actually bother to delve into the NZ Stats link I provided you would have known that the percentage of overseas buyers is actually very low. For example, in the March-2019 Quarter, only 0.6% (i.e. 204 from a total of 31,728) so-called Home transfers involved buyers who were not NZ citizens or NZ resident visa holders. Only 90 buyers in that period had the PRC as Country of tax residence (which is not the same as nationality!).
If you had said that there is no NZ register of property owned by overseas people, you’d be 100% correct, which is also mentioned in the NZ Stats link.
I understand your views on PRC but these should not cloud your views on the few Chinese buyers in the NZ housing market, IMO, which you used to support your anti-China narrative and sentiments.
As to whether the Overseas Investment Amendment Act 2018 addressed a problem, which may have been overblown for a number of reasons, remains to be seen. The worsening situation since its introduction and even more so since Covid, when overseas buyers cannot even enter into NZ, suggests that it was a red herring and possibly more of a political stunt.
You've picked numbers post Overseas Investment Amendment Act 2018. It did what it was designed to do.
That house prices have increased this year is not proof that offshore investors, including those from China, did not have a significant effect on our housing market.
Back to my original point, that we've so long been happy for cheap and tainted foreign cash to prop up our economy, so getting upset for persecuted peoples in China now is more than a little ironic.
You didn’t click on the NZ Stats link because it contains a nice wee bar graph with before and after Overseas Investment Amendment Act 2018 came into place. Overseas buyers came from a high (!) of 3.3%, a whopping 3.3% and that includes more than just Chinese buyers.
Getting back to my original point, your assertion is piss-poor and you have no evidence to support it other than your belief. Such a shame that you don’t want to face the facts 🙁
And even that is not the true story because trusts are included as NZ citizens if just one trustee is a NZ citizen.
As always with housing data in this country, this is not a complete picture.
It also shows in March 2018, 7.8% of Auckland homes were sold to people with no NZ citizenship or residency. Not even including the above points, that is significant.
Imagine how much worse the situation would be right now if we hadn't put a stop to it.
Inquiries from Chinese buyers looking at New Zealand real estate have increased 32 per cent since the outbreak of coronavirus, property website Juwai's executive chairman says.
The website offers international property listings to Chinese purchasers.
Executive chairman Georg Chmiel said only Vietnam had seen a bigger increase in activity, up 43 per cent.
But he said in-person activity was likely to remain subdued because Chinese consumers were restricting their travel.
The piece is based on increased interest, i.e. literally just clicks on a website. As such, it does not support your assertion at all.
I do question whether you actually read it before you copied & pasted it here!?
New Zealand's foreign buyer restrictions mean people who are not ordinarily resident can only buy new build properties in large developments.
"Most so-called 'Chinese' buyers in New Zealand today actually are either legal residents or have even become citizens. We don't have the data, but we do believe that most of these inquiries are from Chinese speakers with legal residence in New Zealand who intend to buy for their own use."
In other words, just speculation about speculation.
NZ is not the only property market to have been affected by Chinese buyers. Being a relatively small market, such groups can have disproportionate influence. This from Vancouver:
@Incognito – you are, without contrary facts, trying to dismiss Muttonbird's thesis, that Chinese property accumulation has become a problem.
We know the Key government declined to collect such statistics, most probably because it would embarrass the group concerned, who were major funders.
You have dismissed the Chinese names data – but I am, among other things, in linguistics. It is quite possible, and perfectly proper to obtain meaningful data from names in that fashion.
Stuart talked about Vancouver and I asked about NZ, just as I’ve asked you about NZ. But nothing useful so far. Meanwhile, “mainland Chinese buying lots of New Zealand property” according to you @ 3:35 pm and seemingly also according to Stuart!? But you now claim there are no data to back this up!? So, did you pluck that assertion out of your orifice just as Phil Twyford did?
It wasn't dismissed because it was crap, but because the usual media suspects weren't up to understanding how it worked. The failure was political, not factual.
In a field where data is scarce, imperfect data is better than none. It may well be corrected by subsequent full data, if it were collected. But what can be learned from partial data doesn't go away just because the Chinese speculators howled 'racism!' Just as the Indian prospective husbands, denied the end-run allowed under the Key administration, made similar claims of oppression, but went silent as the trope surfaced.
Our property register has (irresponsibly) not been collecting the data. Comparative data sets like behaviours of the same expatriate community in other countries form a reasonable estimate of their activity here, in the absence of the figures any responsible administration would collect as a matter of course. As do name frequency analyses, which revealed a disproportionate activity level among Chinese purchasers.
Phil Twyford’s ‘data analysis’ was crap. Crap data in, crap ‘conclusions’ out. Pretty much what happened 🙁
Blablablah, irrelevant diversion.
As do name frequency analyses, which revealed a disproportionate activity level among Chinese purchasers.
Did they now? So, a “name frequency” analysis equals a “linguistic” analysis? Shame that they, which or whatever they (any links besides to Twyford’s crap one?), seem to be inconsistent with Stats NZ data. You didn’t read my comment @ 10:11 pm, did you? Or you didn’t understand it, or wilfully ignored it.
The data it generated is consistent with market behaviour, which is not even discernable from Stats' failure to measure.
“name frequency” analysis equals a “linguistic” analysis?
Yes, in fact. Ethnicity is reasonably correlated with names, which are linguistic data. We can predict Irish ancestry from names with an O patronymic, or Georgian from a -shvili, or Chinese from a surname like Zhou. Though the match is not perfect, as people change their names, emigrate, or intermarry, the correlation is strong enough to use for some purposes, such as determining whether the NZ property market has enjoyed an inexplicable immunity from the problems created by an inflow of Chinese real estate investment in comparable communities like Vancouver.
Mainland Chinese purchased $1.5 billion of residential real estate in New Zealand last year, according to a real estate website for Chinese investors.
Juwai.com said that was an increase of US$130 million (NZ$197.2m) on the year before, although there was a lack of reliable data in 2016.
Carrie Law, chief executive and director of Juwai.com said the $1.5b estimate was based on official data which showed mainland Chinese buyers made nearly 1600 purchases in New Zealand last year, not including corporations.
This is getting tedious. The only ‘hard’ number is “nearly 1600” but it does not state where that figure came from and what fraction of the total number it represents. The piece also suggests that the number was what it was because “a desire to beat New Zealand's new partial foreign buyers ban buoyed the local market”.
Data released by Labour suggests impact of Chinese buyers on Auckland property market much bigger than expected, the party's housing spokeman says.
While ethnic Chinese make up 9% of Auckland's population, 39.5% of Auckland houses sold from February to April this year were to buyers with Chinese surnames, according to figures from one large real estate firm that represent a significant minority of all Auckland sales, Phil Twyford says.
To be honest, the crocodile tears shed by the right about what is happening in Xinjiang province seem to happen when the Chinese government is starting to:
1) slow its privatisation and market reform programs
Mediaworks are in trouble again. They have failed to recognise an abuser in their ranks, probably one which delivers some sort of profit to them.
Staff have gone to directly to social media to out this predator such is their power and now the bigwigs are scrambling to cover their tracks.
I'm reminded of the popularity of such 'boys will be boys' behaviour at radio stations such as this which were so very popular with the serial pony-tail puller, Sir John Key.
What the Key government did when it came to not fully acknowledging though ACC the damage (not addressing the full impact) which a schedule 3 event can cause showed me how out of touch Key was when it came to a sexual offence causing a mental injury.
I am going to call out the Ardern government for not addressing the damage and impact which a person who has PTSD is not covered unless they have a physical injury.
Little should not have been given the job to implement changes due to 15 March 2019. How can Little be impartial when he is the Minister of the SIS and GCSB?
Fair go,Treetop, how the fuck was Little supposed to know what the arsehole was up to when his own mother and other people he lived with didn’t have a clue?
You are just sniping for snipings sake.
Anker you or I could go into the city highly intoxicated and fall over and smash our face in and ACC will cover you.
ACC give cover using the 1961 Crimes Act, which they refer to as a schedule 3 injury for mental injury cover. Some physical accidents also have a mental injury component such as pain and they are assessed for this. A lot of interpretation goes on. Is this what parliament intended when they deny cover for a no fault accident?
In 1992 the then National government took cover away for a mental injury which did not have a physical cause.
Most people are not aware of what PTSD can do to the body. The physical effects need to be acknowledged such as autoimmune conditions and the effects that the trauma has on the central nervous system. This is what exposure to a high magnitude event will do.
This is WA, the opportunity to tell the eastern states, and especially Federal Government / Canberra to go forth and multiply is electoral gold for any incumbent politician. A complete separation / secession would be just fine with most of the State's residents.
That is a big stretch for you to think that I hold Little responsible for the actions of a deranged gunman. Little is the face of the government on the direction of the matter.
The President of the Islamic Council of NZ on The Nation yesterday everything she said I agree with.
Little cannot drag his heels when it comes to not looking into the future of those who have PTSD but are not covered because they do not have a so called physical injury. It needs to be fully acknowledged that the PTSD was caused by a high magnitude event which government agencies were unprepared for.
Hi Treetop, just remember that right now there are voices asking for extended cover for those who are contributing to the system. ACC is funded by taxpayers under a model of user pay, i.e. payroll deduction, employer contribution, car rego. etc. Do not confuse any welfare provision that is being paid by setting aside a fund from general taxation with this self funding mechanism.
Also remember, in NZ medical services and not even the Ambulance service is being fully funded by the tax allocations. ACC is NOT part of that at all.
Interesting interview with an old school diplomate re; China/USA (ie the rest of the western world)..
Biden’s China Policy: A More Polite Trump – Amb. Chas Freeman
"Retired Ambassador Chas Freeman, Nixon's translator during his 1972 trip to China, says U.S. policy to China remains a desire to hold on to primacy globally and regionally. Biden's approach so far is not much different than the aggressive posture of Trump."
Their chosen instrument: the Covid restrictions (which weren't actually being violated till the flatfoots themselves invaded the bandstand where the organisers were). I suppose it’s at least different from the usual "fire regulations" catch-all.
Worth noting because the same sort of crap might be tried on by our own boys in blue at some point when they see something going down that offends their ideas of order.
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Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
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The idea of a level playing field is certainly not new. It just does not mention that in the 3 dimensional it is slanted towards poverty lane for many.
There are 3 articles today in Staff that catches the eye:
1/ A whole generation has been failed in Mathematic. And English lets just add this too.
This has been pointed out more than 20 years ago by University Lecturers, the estimated that some 30% of entry students are functionally illiterate. Why? Any answers?
2/ Where did the wage subsidy really go?
Well we know that the rich just made a grab for money that is now missing to remedy poverty, infrastructure etc. I am still in utter disbelieve that a finance minister can approve so much money without thinking through foreseeable consequences. In my view, something does not make sense. But what does make sense is that the blackmailing money class has NZ by the short and curlies.
3/New Zealand is a ridiculous name.
No its not. It reflects the history of this country over the last 380 odd years.
Maori would translate NZ: Nu Tereni. Aotearoa traditionally was used as a name for the North Island. (Land of the long white cloud). It is a beautiful name but it neither of them are inclusive. NZ has a long tradition of immigrants from all over the world. If this is to be seen as a partnership, any new name should reflect this and put to a referendum. Just not the laser kiwi please.
One reason for the increase in the estimates of functional illiteracy might be the increase in volumes of students following the introduction of student loans and opening up of universities to all.
Inclusion matters.
https://www.tiktok.com/@skanassa/video/6938628132861676805
"A whole generation has been failed in Mathematic. And English lets just add this too."(Sic.)
The answer is simple. We need to revolutionise the way things are done in primary schools. Tell you what, we'll have a system to improve standards. It'll be nationwide, schools must use the system.
Since it's about standards and it's nationwide we'll call it 'National Standards.' That has a lovely ring to it. Yes, 'National,' sounds good. It will be brilliant, it will work wonders and it'll keep tabs on teachers, make them accountable. Results will be on the rise.
The results of international testing from about 2015 on should show the results of this great innovative move as the cohorts advantaged by the wisdom move through the schooling system.
Ah…..
Yes Hekia Parata did really well as the Minister of Ed with her 'Learnings'.
I think we should look at teachers and their standard. Weather they understand the subject to start with. True story: a teacher told a 15 year old student that they will learn a mathematical solution by research and do it themselves! ???? true response. No wonder the kids need to grow additional fingers, (sarc) Reading? Yep… easy, "recognize the word" that will be extremely helpful when reading a manual of all things with some mathematic tables. This method of teaching is just lazy. And to top it all off the number of school breaks is just ridiculous. Unless your child is in a private school, it will be disadvantaged from the start.
"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn". Benjamin Franklin
"Weather they understand the subject to start with."
Ironic in a post about declining English surely the word is whether.
Yes it is, my apologies. Was a bit in the hurry to get the dog reigned in. Weather certainly played a role . And may I add, here is a word that can be easily misspelled, misread and added to the infamous “recognize the word” vocabulary. 🙂
"Reigned" is the appropriate word if you're describing how a cat interacts with its hooman.
"Reined" is the appropriate word for a human attempting to control their dog.
“Rained” is the appropriate word when it rains cats and dogs.
Surely the word "surely" commences a new sentence.
Indeed, and sentence adverbs are followed by a comma.
Did I make my point yet? Or has none cottoned on to what this was about? Were you able to "recognize" words?
Pretty funny you choose to shoot the messenger, over what could be a result of poor education, rather than engage. Because you know, teachers feelings are far more important than kids achieving
Teachers are part of the equation, and I doubt there are many NZ teachers who want their students to fail. If the profession had higher status then we might make progress, but in NZ the single biggest metric for ranking occupations is not work-life balance, satisfaction and/or contribution to society, but rather how much money you can make. And so it goes.
And. Only 3% private schools, and no “for profit schools”..
So the wealthy have an incentive to support a good State system.
As successive Governments refuse to listen to Teachers, or evidence, you can hardly put the blame on Teachers.
There is learning mathematics and there is learning how to learn. Both can be taught at the same time – and it's easier to do in maths because a student can see if they are right and wrong. For a 15 year old, researching how to do something should be well within their abilities.
Yep. It is common to think that Teaching is the transfer of knowledge from the Teacher to the student.
If that is all we, as a Teacher are doing, then we have failed.
No one person “knows” enough for a start.
The aim is to Teach students to learn and go beyond our knowledge.
When a student takes off and begins to research for themselves, question, argue and analyse what I've taught them, and delves deeper into the subject. I know I'm winning. I want the student to end up more "educated' than me. Not less!
Yes, this is true but mathematical formula are better not learned by browsing through the internet. Or maybe we can all forget about Pythagoras, Galileo Galilei, Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, Paul Erdős, Newton, Albert Einstein etc. We don't need them, we can research this all by ourselves. (sarc) By extension, maybe we don't need teachers at all?
See above.
This is just yet another effort to step up privatisation of education in this country.
"True story: a teacher told a 15 year old student that they will learn a mathematical solution by research and do it themselves! ???? true response."
What was the context? What was the teacher trying to get the pupil to achieve with that kid at that time? Did the teacher use that strategy only and with all lessons?
Using that as an example of why our kids don't score well in international tests?
The comment about children being disadvantaged from the start by not being in a private school is nonsense.
No, the teacher was actually calling for a parent evening and in that context it was mentioned that this is what is expected. Now, if a teacher does not want to teach then maybe he/she should do something else? It is for many parents very frustrating to deal with this kind let down. I am not the only one saying this. But naturally, there will be a lot of defensiveness. I also do know that many parents who are able to afford this, send their children to private schools to make sure that they succeed in an every increasing competitive world.
All I am saying is that, if we don't equip the teacher we cant expect the kids to succeed.
Noting that if you control for socio economic background, private schools do not do as well as State schools.
The contacts made and the access to the "old boy network" is, of course, invaluable.
Question:
Are the Uyghur muslims the first muslims the right wing of New Zealand have paid any attention to?
It would seem the right wing of New Zealand are using the Uyghur muslims for political purposes.
These people might very well be persecuted. But I find it interesting The West has happily trades with, and profited from that trade with China for some decades now despite clear human rights abuses, and now suddenly it's all a big problem.
I think some people have deliberately not been paying attention until it is politically expedient to do so.
According to the right wing Uyghur muslims are suddenly the most important muslims, for some strange reason.
For instance, you wouldn’t find the same right wing of New Zealand advocating for Palestinian muslims, would you?
Can you please point to millions Pakistani Muslim’s suffering genocide by a communist government?
Suddenly China's human rights abuses are a big problem but in reality we've turned a blind eye for decades. We've worn their cheap goods and happily heated our meals in their cheap microwave ovens for years without a thought to justice.
We've even got rich off their cheap money by allowing their citizens to buy up vast swathes of NZ residential property!
It's all too convenient to be crying foul now.
Given that you asserted that as a statement of fact, please back it up with a link.
https://list.juwai.com/news/2020/01/chinese-show-interest-new-zealand-properties-despite-ban
Thanks, but that doesn’t state what you think it states. For example, what was the proportion of all sales? The text in (your) bold was simply marketing clickbait.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/weve-got-chinese-buyers/RQR6KUAUKMNJ5VPBAYKCMNIZLI/
Thanks again, but not compelling. Mostly urban legend stuff, and Phil Twyford’s infamous surname ‘analysis’, based on a small sample from “one unidentified real estate company from February to April”. You’re just continuing the propaganda BS and flawed factoids from the past 🙁
That was Twyford at his zenith. It brought about real change when the government of the time sought to ignore the issue. The last decent thing he did. It's all been downhill from there.
You asked for links to mainland Chinese buying lots of New Zealand property. I have provided that. A simple thank you would suffice.
You’re sadly misguided and misinformed. I can now understand better your assertion, which is based on your misconception and ignorance. However, not everybody likes to spread BS and some even push back on it. Maybe it was too much to ask you for a proper analysis with facts, e.g. from Stat NZ, but you took the piece of rope and showed yourself to be a spreader of populist memes instead of a critical independent thinker and commenter.
For your perusal and edification:
https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/drop-in-home-transfers-to-overseas-buyers
This comment shows you didn't read the link I posted at 5.1.1.1.1 because the information in the StatsNZ link is the same.
But on top of that your criticism tries to say that a drop in offshore ownership means that there was not a problem in the first place???
I can't work this one out.
Back to the original point at 5 which was to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the West engaging with China the way we have for 3 decades now despite obvious and ongoing human rights and worker rights breaches.
I watched Tiananmen Square as a 19 year old and was shocked like everyone else. What censure or punishment for China? Nothing. There was no punishment, only reward. The reward was a huge increase in trade, and a proliferation of sweatshops and dodgy manufacturers with which a few players in the West got rich and we all got nice shoes.
I find it gross that some people cry about Uyghur muslims now while for years they conveniently ignored years of China's abuses, because they benefitted from those same abuses.
That money funnelled into the New Zealand residential property market by mainland Chinese and new resident property purchases was tainted with corruption, poor justice, and the abused rights of manual workers.
Over 30 years of civil rights abuse was ignored by us because it was convenient. So for some on the political right to suddenly have newfound sympathy for a group of muslims sticks in the craw.
I did read the link and it did not answer my question and thus it did not support your assertion that Chinese citizens “buy up vast swathes of NZ residential property”.
If you had actually bother to delve into the NZ Stats link I provided you would have known that the percentage of overseas buyers is actually very low. For example, in the March-2019 Quarter, only 0.6% (i.e. 204 from a total of 31,728) so-called Home transfers involved buyers who were not NZ citizens or NZ resident visa holders. Only 90 buyers in that period had the PRC as Country of tax residence (which is not the same as nationality!).
If you had said that there is no NZ register of property owned by overseas people, you’d be 100% correct, which is also mentioned in the NZ Stats link.
I understand your views on PRC but these should not cloud your views on the few Chinese buyers in the NZ housing market, IMO, which you used to support your anti-China narrative and sentiments.
As to whether the Overseas Investment Amendment Act 2018 addressed a problem, which may have been overblown for a number of reasons, remains to be seen. The worsening situation since its introduction and even more so since Covid, when overseas buyers cannot even enter into NZ, suggests that it was a red herring and possibly more of a political stunt.
You've picked numbers post Overseas Investment Amendment Act 2018. It did what it was designed to do.
That house prices have increased this year is not proof that offshore investors, including those from China, did not have a significant effect on our housing market.
Back to my original point, that we've so long been happy for cheap and tainted foreign cash to prop up our economy, so getting upset for persecuted peoples in China now is more than a little ironic.
You didn’t click on the NZ Stats link because it contains a nice wee bar graph with before and after Overseas Investment Amendment Act 2018 came into place. Overseas buyers came from a high (!) of 3.3%, a whopping 3.3% and that includes more than just Chinese buyers.
Getting back to my original point, your assertion is piss-poor and you have no evidence to support it other than your belief. Such a shame that you don’t want to face the facts 🙁
That bar graphs shows under 80% of NZ houses were sold to Kiwis before the Overseas Investment Act amendment 2018.
Not good enough.
And even that is not the true story because trusts are included as NZ citizens if just one trustee is a NZ citizen.
As always with housing data in this country, this is not a complete picture.
It also shows in March 2018, 7.8% of Auckland homes were sold to people with no NZ citizenship or residency. Not even including the above points, that is significant.
Imagine how much worse the situation would be right now if we hadn't put a stop to it.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/residential/119643341/chinese-buyers-seek-boltholes-in-new-zealand-property-market
More variations on the same theme 🙁
The piece is based on increased interest, i.e. literally just clicks on a website. As such, it does not support your assertion at all.
I do question whether you actually read it before you copied & pasted it here!?
In other words, just speculation about speculation.
NZ is not the only property market to have been affected by Chinese buyers. Being a relatively small market, such groups can have disproportionate influence. This from Vancouver:
Why Vancouver's Housing Market Hinges on China's Economy | Smart Cities Dive
Sure, but do you have some solid numbers (AKA stats) for the NZ situation?
Not being a demographer, no. Do you have figures that show the contrary?
You joined this discussion thread and I assumed because you have information to share on NZ.
The contrary of what?? Your Q makes no sense.
@Incognito – you are, without contrary facts, trying to dismiss Muttonbird's thesis, that Chinese property accumulation has become a problem.
We know the Key government declined to collect such statistics, most probably because it would embarrass the group concerned, who were major funders.
You have dismissed the Chinese names data – but I am, among other things, in linguistics. It is quite possible, and perfectly proper to obtain meaningful data from names in that fashion.
Nice of you to join the convo again but please have a coffee first before you start talking nonsense.
Muttonbird asserted a fact.
I asked them to back it up.
I’m still waiting but it looks like I’ll be waiting till the cows come up because they’re not playing ball.
Waiting =//= dismissing.
Feel free to apply your linguistics skills and tools to the question. What/which database(s) are you going to use? The same crap one as Phil Twyford?
Further, see my comment @ 10:11 pm (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-14-03-2021/#comment-1783274).
This is the New Zealand residential property market, there are no stats.
Have you been in a coma the last 10 years?
Huh?
Stuart talked about Vancouver and I asked about NZ, just as I’ve asked you about NZ. But nothing useful so far. Meanwhile, “mainland Chinese buying lots of New Zealand property” according to you @ 3:35 pm and seemingly also according to Stuart!? But you now claim there are no data to back this up!? So, did you pluck that assertion out of your orifice just as Phil Twyford did?
The same crap one as Phil Twyford?
It wasn't dismissed because it was crap, but because the usual media suspects weren't up to understanding how it worked. The failure was political, not factual.
In a field where data is scarce, imperfect data is better than none. It may well be corrected by subsequent full data, if it were collected. But what can be learned from partial data doesn't go away just because the Chinese speculators howled 'racism!' Just as the Indian prospective husbands, denied the end-run allowed under the Key administration, made similar claims of oppression, but went silent as the trope surfaced.
Our property register has (irresponsibly) not been collecting the data. Comparative data sets like behaviours of the same expatriate community in other countries form a reasonable estimate of their activity here, in the absence of the figures any responsible administration would collect as a matter of course. As do name frequency analyses, which revealed a disproportionate activity level among Chinese purchasers.
Phil Twyford’s ‘data analysis’ was crap. Crap data in, crap ‘conclusions’ out. Pretty much what happened 🙁
Blablablah, irrelevant diversion.
Did they now? So, a “name frequency” analysis equals a “linguistic” analysis? Shame that they, which or whatever they (any links besides to Twyford’s crap one?), seem to be inconsistent with Stats NZ data. You didn’t read my comment @ 10:11 pm, did you? Or you didn’t understand it, or wilfully ignored it.
The data it generated is consistent with market behaviour, which is not even discernable from Stats' failure to measure.
“name frequency” analysis equals a “linguistic” analysis?
Yes, in fact. Ethnicity is reasonably correlated with names, which are linguistic data. We can predict Irish ancestry from names with an O patronymic, or Georgian from a -shvili, or Chinese from a surname like Zhou. Though the match is not perfect, as people change their names, emigrate, or intermarry, the correlation is strong enough to use for some purposes, such as determining whether the NZ property market has enjoyed an inexplicable immunity from the problems created by an inflow of Chinese real estate investment in comparable communities like Vancouver.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/106836362/chinese-pour-15-billion-into-nz-housing-market-last-year
This is getting tedious. The only ‘hard’ number is “nearly 1600” but it does not state where that figure came from and what fraction of the total number it represents. The piece also suggests that the number was what it was because “a desire to beat New Zealand's new partial foreign buyers ban buoyed the local market”.
https://www.nbr.co.nz/article/leaked-data-shows-chinese-offshore-buyers-fuelling-rampant-auckland-property-speculation
What percentage were sold to wealthy offshore buyers, from places other than China?
No idea. But for the purposes of this argument, were those other offshore buyers from countries with such appalling human rights records as China???
I know several from the country that is currently bombing Syria, and supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia.
As well as starving Venezuala and Iran into submission.
But. They are our "friends".
I know Chinese immigrants, and Chinese Kiwi’s, that are not at all happy with the CCP, BTW.
FFS!
To be honest, the crocodile tears shed by the right about what is happening in Xinjiang province seem to happen when the Chinese government is starting to:
1) slow its privatisation and market reform programs
2) jail corrupt billionaires
3) have SOE's invest in 3rd World nations.
Thanks Millsy – my fave comment so far.
Mediaworks are in trouble again. They have failed to recognise an abuser in their ranks, probably one which delivers some sort of profit to them.
Staff have gone to directly to social media to out this predator such is their power and now the bigwigs are scrambling to cover their tracks.
I'm reminded of the popularity of such 'boys will be boys' behaviour at radio stations such as this which were so very popular with the serial pony-tail puller, Sir John Key.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/radios-prison-rape-joke-with-pm-falls-flat/YZJQMY3CSUKDUSVG4K4UQUC6YY/
Seems The Rock and Mediaworks still haven't cleaned up their act.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/investigation-into-sexual-harassment-allegations-at-the-rock-mediaworks-radio-station/YV5UT4VMNU6DTKS2IW5OVUIRGA/
What the Key government did when it came to not fully acknowledging though ACC the damage (not addressing the full impact) which a schedule 3 event can cause showed me how out of touch Key was when it came to a sexual offence causing a mental injury.
I am going to call out the Ardern government for not addressing the damage and impact which a person who has PTSD is not covered unless they have a physical injury.
Little should not have been given the job to implement changes due to 15 March 2019. How can Little be impartial when he is the Minister of the SIS and GCSB?
Fair go,Treetop, how the fuck was Little supposed to know what the arsehole was up to when his own mother and other people he lived with didn’t have a clue?
You are just sniping for snipings sake.
Anker you or I could go into the city highly intoxicated and fall over and smash our face in and ACC will cover you.
ACC give cover using the 1961 Crimes Act, which they refer to as a schedule 3 injury for mental injury cover. Some physical accidents also have a mental injury component such as pain and they are assessed for this. A lot of interpretation goes on. Is this what parliament intended when they deny cover for a no fault accident?
In 1992 the then National government took cover away for a mental injury which did not have a physical cause.
Most people are not aware of what PTSD can do to the body. The physical effects need to be acknowledged such as autoimmune conditions and the effects that the trauma has on the central nervous system. This is what exposure to a high magnitude event will do.
Surprise surprise, border closures are winning strategy.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/wa-election-bloodbath-as-labor-triumph-historic-landslide-victory/f9575b08-8eb3-447c-8b41-316f334cd896
This is WA, the opportunity to tell the eastern states, and especially Federal Government / Canberra to go forth and multiply is electoral gold for any incumbent politician. A complete separation / secession would be just fine with most of the State's residents.
Poor dear's doing it tough.
/
https://twitter.com/mrJeffHowell/status/1370846696054292480
Reply to Adrian @8
That is a big stretch for you to think that I hold Little responsible for the actions of a deranged gunman. Little is the face of the government on the direction of the matter.
The President of the Islamic Council of NZ on The Nation yesterday everything she said I agree with.
Little cannot drag his heels when it comes to not looking into the future of those who have PTSD but are not covered because they do not have a so called physical injury. It needs to be fully acknowledged that the PTSD was caused by a high magnitude event which government agencies were unprepared for.
Correction Islamic Women's Council of NZ
Hi Treetop, just remember that right now there are voices asking for extended cover for those who are contributing to the system. ACC is funded by taxpayers under a model of user pay, i.e. payroll deduction, employer contribution, car rego. etc. Do not confuse any welfare provision that is being paid by setting aside a fund from general taxation with this self funding mechanism.
Also remember, in NZ medical services and not even the Ambulance service is being fully funded by the tax allocations. ACC is NOT part of that at all.
Interesting interview with an old school diplomate re; China/USA (ie the rest of the western world)..
Biden’s China Policy: A More Polite Trump – Amb. Chas Freeman
"Retired Ambassador Chas Freeman, Nixon's translator during his 1972 trip to China, says U.S. policy to China remains a desire to hold on to primacy globally and regionally. Biden's approach so far is not much different than the aggressive posture of Trump."
UK police trying to shut down publicity for a crime committed by one of their own:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/13/sarah-everard-pressure-for-new-laws-to-curb-violence-against-women
Their chosen instrument: the Covid restrictions (which weren't actually being violated till the flatfoots themselves invaded the bandstand where the organisers were). I suppose it’s at least different from the usual "fire regulations" catch-all.
Worth noting because the same sort of crap might be tried on by our own boys in blue at some point when they see something going down that offends their ideas of order.