“The terrible truth is dawning. The extreme heat wave – or ‘heat dome’ – over Canada’s British Columbia and the US state of Oregon is tragic evidence that it’s too late. We can’t reduce the blanket of greenhouse gases we’ve put up there. It will remain, virtually forever.
The focus now is on what we can and must do to stop it getting worse.”
“Virtually forever” is a bit hyperbolic (except for CF4), but certainly longer than a single human lifetime. CO2 is the main greenhouse gas and its atmospheric lifetime is between 5-200 years according to NASA (Though I have heard 1-1000 years to emphasize the uncertainty in persistence).
I did like the idea of electric buses and shuttles though. Down in Dunedin, there is a tension between the Otago Regional Council and the DCC. With the ORC currently running (via subcontracting) the buses throughout the region using large vehicles that would technically be more efficient if they were ever full. However they are also not that frequent, and sometimes unreliable. Smaller electric shuttles off the main routes would suit Dunedin’s narrow winding hill suburbs better (especially with regenerative braking). It’s not uncommon for large buses to have to drive over roundabouts, or even block entire streets if there are cars parked on the sides.
But the ORC remain focused on vehicles for the wide open roads. And the DCC’s attempts to prise the local bus service off them don’t seem to be going very fast.
The problem of electricity substitution for FF transport,is that we have both insufficient capacity for renewable generation,and a need to generate using FF from thermals just to maintain NI usage.
Today if a thermal ,or transmission fault occurs,the North Island will brown out.
Government (MBIE) is working on NZ Battery Project, effectively a business case for Lake Onslow pumped hydro.
If it’s viable, Onslow would retire current thermal generation and allow a lot more wind and solar to be built. A few issues around the structure of the generation market though and who will own it and profit by it.
Also at present constraints like this are where the generators make their money
Yes and sadly that appears to be about the sum total and the belated process is still years away from decision…never mind any anticipated construction delays should it get approved
Onslow and others are in essence thing big projects (where political projection is larger then the outcomes) ie the bigger the bullshit the bigger the sale by politicians.
For energy we should be thinking small,diverse,and geographically distributed.
Solar for example should be installed in all schools,during school holidays the excess would be available for the national grid during daylight,reducing hydro loads (and ff) and in addition reducing OPEX for schools.
Onslow is insurance for dry year reduced hydro output (roughly 60% of current total generation)…..there is no reason why local distributed generation cannot occur as well.
Yet we are trying to accelerate the uptake of electric car use… and in the meantime we are burning about the dirtiest coal possible in record amounts….
Here’s a novel idea can prob even reheat the old tv ads, explain the hydro dams are very low and ask NZrs to conserve electrity…
Onslow and pumped hydro isn’t new, it was being talked about when Clyde was built. It’s one of the reasons provision was made in the Clyde Dam for another two machines, that’s the two unused penstocks at the southern end.
Don’t have any documentary proof on that but was discussion amongst engineers when I was a technician there during construction.
Provided nothing fatal comes up in the business case MBIE are working on I’d expect things could move very quickly. Situations like Poission linked to are just what the Minister needs to get action.
Unfortunately construction of new generation has been left to the industry, who’s motivation is profit. Constraints / scarcity drive profit (to a point, then the regulator comes in with big boots on in current system) so there’s not incentives to have large surplus capacity.
“According to a factsheet released in July, the scheme seeking a solution to the dry year problem that has kept New Zealand reliant on fossil fuels for a small portion of our generation for decades was due to complete an initial investigation of options in 2021 and a more rigorous business case in 2022. The construction of whatever project was finally recommended by officials was slated to begin as early as 2022.
However, an update Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods provided to Cabinet in December, just months after the NZ Battery project was launched, shows the timelines have already blown out considerably. Now, the first phase of the investigation is only expected to wrap up in May 2022. A second phase would finish in mid-2023 if all went well, or as late as early 2024, Woods wrote.”
And yes the profit motive for gentailers appears a problem as outlined on RNZ this morning…..a lot of problems and very little urgency in applying solutions.
Fundamental disinterest in adaptation within the ORC transport unit is one factor. Rumour has it that the DCC started making the bus hub before the ORC would countenance moving the bus route a block off the main street.
I really want the DCC to just take over dunedin public transport. The DCC keeps planning on trialling passenger rail (the trials have to work around the heavy freaight use seasons on the line, I've been told).
2.3 million passengers passed through the terminal
There were 58,536 aircraft movements at Queenstown Airport, including scheduled services, private jets and general aviation.
Four commercial airlines currently operate at the airport: Air New Zealand, Jetstar, Qantas, and Virgin Australia.
The airport is the direct domestic and international entry point to the lower South Island, providing easy access to Queenstown, one of the world’s premium visitor destinations, and to some of New Zealand’s most renowned scenery and visitor experiences. As such, it serves the communities across the region and contributes significantly to the growth and prosperity of New Zealand’s tourism sector.
ORC gets its revenue from the businesses and residents supported by that influx.
"what's the connection with ORC being uninterested in coastal Otago rail?"
If you have limited resources where do you invest?…where you get the biggest bang for the buck (where you see the possibility of growth)….is rail going to bring 2.5m additional customers to your door every year?….while a well designed and run rail service may reduce activity…all those lost truck movements…regional economies love nothing more than spending from without (exports)
are you being deliberately obtuse?….where would the businesses and residents be without that annual influx and spend?….Queenstown Lakes wouldnt have been the growth engine of the ORC catchment….and that means less revenue for the ORC, or alternatively higher impediment to a diminished base with all the consequent risks.
That's the bit you're not connecting with the tourist influx.
As far as I can see, unless ORC has a tourist shop on Rees St then the main impact tourists will have is very indirectly on property prices, which Q'town actually pays less on per $100k value than dunedin does. But tourists don't buy lifestyle blocks.
"Growth engine" my arse. subsidised by port otago dividends and dunedin ratepayers, more like.
"Growth Change Factors Economic growth in Otago is dominated by tourism, primary production and education. The economy has been impacted negatively by the COVID-19 situation. Pre COVID-19 the population within certain areas of Otago was forecast to grow over the next ten years, the most significant being in the Queenstown Lakes district. Resident population in Queenstown is forecast to grow by 2.6% each year over the next ten years, and visitor numbers to grow by 2.4% per annum. This projection will be revised as part of the LTP 2021-31 process. There is currently a high level of uncertainty on growth over medium term and how that might impact on Council activity. Medium to longer term changes in the economy and population are likely to impact on the level of many activities carried out by Council, such as transport, demand on resource use, environmental incidents, civil defence and emergency management. The Council’s immediate short-term response is to maintain Council’s service for 202020-21 and seek revised forecasts on the impacts of COVID-19."
I can see how "impact on council activity" can be shorthand for "more buses and stress on water quality", but putting actual money in the council's pocket?
(Youtube censored Dark Horse for the offending podcasts. Some here critical of Youtube as being the font of all nonsense might see that as an positive with regards to Weinstein and Heying's authority.)
Strange the Quilette piece uses so much emotive language for a scientific article.. like "bonkers", "insane", "ruinous", "eccentric", "cause carnage", "notorious conspiracy theory".
But when you're up against those conspiracy theorists like an expert in mRNA vaccines, a leading medical researcher and an experienced doctor on the covid frontlines, you have to win the argument somehow…
I can just about pinpoint when the rot set in…. published in an actual Sciencey Journal with a very Sciencey title, in February 2020.
The piece starts off sounding very technical and authoritative, but just when it begins to get to the interesting part the author delivers this line…
Lack of the definite origin of 2019-nCoV has led to speculation that 2019-nCoV might be derived from genetic manipulation or even for the purpose of use as a bioweapon. This notion has been fully debunked in the media.
Had the authors provided a reference to where the media had published scientific proof that Te Virus hadn't originated from a lab then perhaps this might not have been so concerning. But the authors didn't…and obviously they were under the misguided impression that readers of scientific papers would find nothing incongruous in a scientist referring to the media as being an authority on a scientific matter.
Very strange. And shit's been getting stranger ever since.
Strange the Quilette piece uses so much emotive language for a scientific article..
Yeah, and even stranger is that it isn’t a scientific article in a scientific journal that has been peer-reviewed by other scientific experts. How strange indeed, you created a strawman.
For the record, I enjoyed reading the Quillette article but then again, I would say that, of course, because I’ve been long lost to the Dark Side. FFS.
And while cartoonist are onto this one – at last – Richard Branson is chasing, now promoting , another rainbow that the earth does not need. His rocket rides! I just don,t get it !
Needle phobia is another reason for people not being vaccinated. This can be overcome or managed by having people arrive for the appointment and not being kept waiting or a small side room.
There needs to be information for needle phobic people such as being able to be vaccinated in a partly reclined comfortable chair and having a support person.
I understand there will be a press release today about a Provisional Improvement Notice at our local DHB.
I am keen for ideas for helping the buraurcrats solve some if the pressing issues.
Bedspace in the hospital is one issue. How about requisitioning a hotel ala MIQ and put stable patients in makeshift wards?
Bigger picture, when building the next hospital, listen to the staff on the floor and keep the bean counters out of the room. After all, a beer made by a bean counter is not a tasty brew.
To be honest I had a lot of respect for the bean counter at the DHB meeting I was at who stood up and said as the DHB was deciding to reduce hours of help for the elderly –
“You know already that we get many unpaid hours of work worth millions of dollars from the staff that currently look after those people, who despite previous cuts to hours often stay on until the person is dressed, fed, showered, etc. You also know that cutting paid hours will also give you more unpaid hours of work. I don’t support the the cuts”.
Dunno if he still works there but it was clear that it wasn’t the bean counters that were the problem. Management was the problem – knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.
And yeah they cut hours again impacting on those I was advocating for.
I’ve seen other bean-counters show similar empathy and kindness over the years as well. In my observation they often provide alongside what they have been asked specifically to cost other options and a good assessment of the pros and cons.
Often they bear the reputational brunt of senior management decisions.
(The site at the moment doesn’t like carriage returns. You have to go redo them in edit mode as everything gets run together when posting. Using Chrome.)
A bit of philosophy for lunch. Probably more broadly applicable, but also relevant to the gender/sex debate (GCFs take the position that sex is a material reality).
“…follow the laws of perspective and reflection of light, so it is easy to arrive at a permanent object underlying all the different people’s sense-data.”
At what point does “sense” become “nonsense”?
Serious question…when a man says they ‘feel’ like they are a woman (trapped in a man’s body etc….), what does that actually mean?
(I don’t know what it ‘feels’ like to be a woman…I just am a woman. ‘Feels’ have nothing to do with it.)
Perhaps one of those people celebrating the removal of the offensive billboard giving the dictionary definition of “woman” can shed some light here.
The fact you don’t “feel” anything doesn’t disallow others to “feel” otherwise. Good for you, and myself, I’m quite happy & comfortable with who & what I am, yet I can grasp others may feel different, & who am I to say they shouldn’t, just because I don’t.
That is incorrect I feel love. SUFW don't thrive on "trapped in a mans body." I have heard SUFW say otherwise.
Others are entitled to feel what they feel. I don't have a problem with that, although psychologists state there are only something like 6 or 7 feelings including sadness, fear, disgust, joy, anger.
I accept some people feel this way, it is not a problem, the problem is that gender ideology requires me to accept their feelings as a factual reality "trans women are real women". I object to that….strongly.
Thanks for responding…but I’m still wanting to know exactly what being a woman “feels” like, since trans ideology demands that ‘feeling‘ like a woman is all that is required to be a woman.
To the point where the sex on a birth certificate can be changed at the stroke of a pen.
I have a sense of myself as a woman beyond my biology but it can’t be separated from my biology (and before anyone starts, no this isn’t biological essentialism).
I do believe there is such a thing as women’s culture and have spent a lot of time in groups and places where that’s a given.
Trans people covers a wide range of experiences. Young lesbians transitioning then detransitioning are having different experiences than a middle aged man leaving a marriage and coming out as a TW. Technically I fit under the now very large trans umbrella in a number of ways. I feel there is so much rich human experience to be explored but no debate and neoliberalism have birthed a nasty bluepink social dynamic that serves very few well.
Why people identify, and are identified, as female or male is relatively clear. It’s also clear that the idea of one’s gender (woman/man) being more ‘fluid’ than one’s sex (female/male) is not for everyone.
For women who “don’t know what it feels like to be a woman” to want/expect trans women to articulate exactly why they feel like women seems odd, but then cis women do constitute a (healthy) majority.
Would any description of how a trans woman ‘feels like a woman‘ (or how a trans man feels like a man) be sufficient to broaden the views of those who have a firm (if narrow) grasp of what “is required to be a woman” (or man)?
Fwiw, I’ve found it difficult to judge how to act normally (in as much as any of my behaviour qualifies as ‘normal’) around the handful of trans men of my acquaintance – I’m possibly overly attentive (a slippery slope) so as not to be seen to be ignoring/avoiding them. But maybe some are content to be ignored – would certainly be easier for introvert me.
“Transgender men and women are recognized and accepted in many Islamic cultures around the world. In fact, the idea of a man or woman identifying as a member of the opposite gender is more likely to be accepted than that of a man or woman expressing sexual desire for someone of their own gender.” https://www.hrc.org/resources/stances-of-faiths-on-lgbt-issues-islam
Weesht weka! Words can mean anything to anyone and be damned if you or anyone else will tell others' what to believe.
Somewhere there will be a definition of "language" that might come in handy…
the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture.
Of course, effective communication requires accepted meanings of words.
Discarding traditional definitions because a small minority of persons reject the reality and demand the majority accept their beliefs is going to lead to strife.
For women who “don’t know what it feels like to be a woman” to want/expect trans women to articulate exactly why they feel like women seems odd, but then cis women do constitute a (healthy) majority.
Part of the problem here is that society is being expected to accept some big legislative and social changes without adequate explanation. If how someone identifies is sufficient without explanation, why is this not true for women as well?
I don't need trans women to articulate exactly why they feel like a woman. I however think it's important that society gets to look at what gender and sex are, and whether prioritising gender over sex is the best way forward, and to do that we do need to have some kind of coherent and shared understanding of the various concepts. Hence the Russell quote.
When I checked the other day, "sex" was defined as
either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.
and "gender" as
either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
The trans lobby is so powerful that I can see these definitions being overthrown completely and biological sex being consigned to quaint scientific history.
The idea that for millenia humans used to wrongly think that biological sex was (in the vast majority cases) accurately obvious at birth and was immutable, will be the source of much mirth.
The idea that for millenia humans used to wrongly think that biological sex was (in the vast majority cases) accurately obvious at birth and was immutable
White humans, and lately a very small but loud group of them from the UK. Other people and cultures do not think the sky is falling.
Unlikely that it is only white folks that understand that the perpetuation of the species relies on two different sexes.
Biology… kindergarten level.
Unlikely that it is only non white folks from placesotherthantheuk who acknowledge that forcing individuals to conform to culturally proscribed sex role stereotypes is outdated and harmful.
This is not about demanding that people accept gender roles (in fact, quite the opposite), it is about acknowledging that sex is real…not a social construct.
Biological essentialism is turning the clock back. Sad to see fear drive some women to a stance their mothers and grandmothers fought so hard to escape from under.
Biological essentialism is turning the clock back.
@Sacha
You are going to have to define "biological essentialism".
Sad to see fear drive some women to a stance their mothers and grandmothers fought so hard to escape from under.
Sigh. Do I have to explain, again? It is the trans lobby turning back the clock by demanding that the sex marker on their birth certificate must be changed so it reflects the 'reality' of their gender ID.
As if sex dictates gender expression these days.
It is saddening to see that for some, being accepted as the opposite sex is vital for them to be comfortable in their own skin.
It is saddening to see that for some, being accepted as the opposite sex is vital for them to be comfortable in their own skin.
"Saddening" because their sense of self is 'faulty'? Maybe all some transfeminine/transmasculine people need is a bit of good old-fashioned conversion therapy?
The ‘rising tide‘ of transgender people is a challenging trend and I'm ashamed to admit I'd rather it wasn't happening, but it's fruitless to deny the reality that "being accepted as the opposite sex is vital for them [transgender people] to be comfortable in their own skin."
I’m trying to understand the transgender PoV – trans men and trans women are people too – but of course that's not for everyone.
The idea that I, or trans kids growing up today, would just ‘grow out of it’ and become gay or lesbian is a ridiculous claim, and is not reflected by the majority who have been supported as themselves from an early age and are adults now.
Figuring out your gender is a very different process to figuring out who you’re attracted to. I feel that those who confuse the two are usually people who have always been comfortable with their gender, and don’t understand the pure joy of finally being able to break free from the limitations placed on you, and express it in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.
It’s easy to make assumptions and claims about something you haven’t experienced yourself.
You cannot know what it feels like to be a woman because you have no way of knowing (experiencing) what it feels like to not be a woman. You need to have a basis for making comparisons.
Personally, being a woman is not based on 'feeling', it is a reality.
I have no choice in the matter. I was born female, and the girl grew to be a woman.
That I can tick many of the boxes that some claim are symptoms of gender dysphoria makes me feel incredibly fortunate to have grown up during a time when there was growing acceptance of those who did not conform to traditional sex roles.
It seems to me that much of the trans ideology is about turning back the clock to times when men were supposed to be men, and we women were supposed to be ladies.
This activism grew out of literary criticism, including the claim that a piece of literature can mean whatever a reader reads, not what the author intended. On broadening to more tangible subjects the idea that reality is socially constructed is applied in similar terms.
What Russell discusses is that there is a shared reality which is perceptible, but totally independent of our perception of that reality. Were as the socially constructed version claims that man/woman stems from language and how people apply it and ultimately claims that getting society to act on that will overcome biological differences between these categories.
Of course ultimately this in incompatible with science, but thats why terminology is a priority and social pressure is used over appeals to fact.
No acknowledgement of cultural context there – what table means to different people, and the social power dynamics about which meanings are most public at any time. What it looks like is trivial.
I think there's potential there to bring together both the materialist position and the social one. Neither is trivial, and having both would give us more than the sum of the parts.
I don't see Russell talking about what the table looks like, but about how we perceive that there is a table at all. Thus establishing that humans have the capacity to observe reality on a shared basis despite some variation in how that observation is interpreted or reported.
Good luck with that. A trivial part of what Russell is saying there is that, at the beginning of the universe there actually was a universe. Now once humans evolved we have ways of perceiving that universe (and internal mental models of that including social models), but the existance of that universe doesn't require anyone to perceive it.
The next important area is that a mental model (e.g a piece of logic or maths or a factual statement) doesn't need to be scientifically true of reality. Now if reality is socially constructed then whatever claim is socially dominant is true but this is fundamentally incompatible with scientific validity, because people are quite capable of believing things which are not true, even in large social groups.
It’s a good time to think about fixing your mortgage interest rates if you haven’t already as it seems like they have hit rock bottom and as everyone seems to be predicting, are about to start increasing. In fact I believe the ASB has just increased some of their rates.
Good advice IMO. An ANZ economist here was telling an Oz bus show they’re expecting inflation.
The markets been banging on about reflation/inflation awhile now so at the slightest hint off they’ll go as banks have seen money leaving their low/no interest term deposits for much better returns pretty much anywhere else.
Nick Tuffley of ASB has just pointed the finger at wages growth when asked.
Ask about freight rates to export/import and have a look around at the pump to see what is happening there. Sometimes you don’t need experts, just a little observation can sometimes give you an idea of what is happening and just as well as land and property are not part of the inflation equation. And with labour shortages what is the obvious consequence of that ??
Unlikely. The banks project risk (to themselves) out into the future. The analytical view of the significiant portion of the announcement was summarised as (from your link and my italics)..
The Reserve Bank has left interest rates unchanged but taken a significant step towards future rate rises.
It held the official cash rate at a record low 0.25 percent, and halted its bond buying programme, but will keep the cheap money bank lending programme.
This is pure signalling a forward risk to the banks. Change is risk and has to be calculated into the cost of borrowing. That was why the the longer term rates (3 -5 years) rose last month across virtually all banks – the uncertainty into the future increased. Why the shorter term rates (<= 2 years) slightly decreased – the risk in the shorter term was low, so get customers form other banks while they could..
Banks are likely to increase rates sooner rather than later, and as the ASB announcement showed, it’d be less of an increase in the short term loans, more in the longer term loans because of the risk..
//—————–
And just like that – this popped up in my mailbox. Link
Economists now beating drums for August rate hike
Rebecca Howard | Wed, 14 Jul 2021
Today’s central bank statement has been widely viewed as hawkish with some economists now saying the first rate hike will come in August.
Yeah, rates can only go up. That's been increasingly obvious for the last year.
My point was how long can ASB maintain their position in a very competitive market for those with the ability to borrow. Can't see them keeping that rate if other banks hold their rates as they were. Once the RB lifts their rate from 0.25% we may see banks raise rates but in the meantime the banks will be increasingly picky on who they lend too and fight tooth and nail for those eligible borrowers.
Only apparently it will only be a drive-by bark in Dunedin because it’s “not safe to stop in Dunedin”. Probably scared of being outnumbered by hippie students smoking their “reefer” and demanding workers’ rights and clean drinking water.
Gotta say, a name like “Groundswell NZ” just screams astroturfing lol. Getting a fair bit of plugging by the ODT, too. But I guess we’ll see.
Judging by the comments below the ODT article I don’t blame them for just doing a drive-by….
Can’t see them getting much of a reception in Queenstown either, apart from pissing a lot of people off, the town centre’s seriously disrupted by road works from a council sewer upgrade that didn’t quite go to plan and street upgrades financed by COVID stimulus. Then most of the CBD business are taking it up the chook so that everyone else can swan about having little protests and otherwise getting on with life. That everything else in town, apart from tourism, is going gangbusters is beside the point.
Most of the ute / pickup lot here are more American market led, well the ones I talk to anyway, and are reasonably exposed to electric transition. An awful lot of Teslas tooling around town. Chatter the last couple of days is whether the EV Rams will qualify for the feebate
Just a big American pick-up / ute. Most likely double cab and 4×4. What every builder in Queenstown aspires, especially EV. Good for the branding. Cybertruck even better.
Toyota has fucked up not developing EV or hybrid utes, other manufacturers will have them in showrooms in the next year or so and they will be the thing to have. The only people buying a new Hilux in 2023 will be diehard farmers and the Taliban
If we are going to do large scale mass vaccination events like this through August, could someone stand outside with a donation bucket and Labour Party membership forms?
For the sake of getting as much vaccine coverage as we reasonably can, the last thing we need is anything pushing towards vaccine politicisation like has become such a problem elsewhere.
PARIS, July 13 (Reuters) – More than 900,000 people in France rushed to set up appointments to get vaccinated on Monday night after the president warned that people would see curbs imposed on them if they did not have a health pass that covered a vaccine or negative COVID test
When the travel bubble opened with Oz, it was clearly signalled it could pop at any moment without warning, and anyone travelling had to bear that risk on their own.
So why the actual fuck is the government now giving away free MIQ to the poor darling snowflakes that were in NSW when the clearly signalled risk actually happened?
Maybe it is that this Government cares about people and knows that sometimes well-intended decisions and choices can have negative unintended consequences even though some of the risks were relatively clear. However, it does raise the question of fairness and balance compared to other overseas stranded Kiwis. FWIW, personally, I’d rather not spend 14 days cooped up in an MIQ facility.
Do you two idiots realise that the disruptive Covid outbreaks in Australia are due in large part to non-compliance to public orders?
One thing NZ has done very well is compliance to public orders. It is for the benefit of us all. That we have done so well is because of clear communication.
One of the biggest components of that clear communication is regular or semi-regular appearances by JA, Hipkins, Bloomfield, and/or other MoH officials.
That communication and response is the envy of the world yet you run it down because you are offended in some way, or claim you took leave of your senses for a moment?
"There will still be an element of 'flyer beware' for New Zealanders travelling to Australia, with the government saying it will not be coming to their rescue if they get trapped because of an outbreak."
Well, I'm certainly not happy that taxpayer monies are going towards free MIQ for NSW holidaymakers.
But otherwise the government is not "coming to their rescue" as they have to pay for repatriation flights.
The 14 day quarantine is something imposed by us on them.
It would be good from this point for the government to state that in future should a bubble burst then all travellers wanting to re-enter NZ they will have to pay for MIQ.
Your comment at 13.2.1.1.1 totally departed from the complaint that TT travellers were getting treatment over and above what was indicated.
Ah, youre displeased by my interaction with a fellow poster…thats a shame.
This government has one, and only one, area of competence and that is its response to covid (imperfect though it has been) and they appear determined to fuck that up as well with self inflicted wounds.
All National/Act have to do is give them more rope.
And then you'll something real to be pissed off about.
I think it is crucial that the people know that their Government is providing a safety net and can be relied upon to help those who need it. At the core, it is a trust issue. This works both ways, as the $16 billion wage subsidy scheme has shown. The elimination strategy is another case in point.
Still trust our Govt to try to do their best for all NZers, but the absolute outrage at their inconsistency is papable. Saying they're not going to help and then subsequently helping – "That pisses me off." [YouTube link – mind the language]
Yeah, yeah. We got het up because of all the inconsistencies in the Government Response to Te Virus in the Early Days…but then Siouxsie explained it thus…
Trouble is though…folks are tired and folks are stressed and folks trusted both the NZ and Aus governments when they got all enthusiastic about our Bubble and the fantastic money making potential for both countries from Opening Up.
So flights were booked and plans made and because of some leakage in the border protection everything went to shit. Folks got stuck and folks begged and folks cried and folks got told by Officials Tough Shit.
Media broadcasts sad and sorry stories of stranded, tearful folks and suddenly flights are on and places in MIQ magically become available.
Enough to make folks think that The Government Kindness is only activated by media intervention. Almost as if the Government learns more about what's going on around our border from the media than they do from Officials.
I thought there was a Minister dedicated to managing the Covid…
Almost as if the Government learns more about what's going on around our border from the media than they do from Officials.
"Almost as if" indeed. What are Te Officials and Te Government good for anyway – worse than Te Experts eh? Not one independent thought among the lot of them – 'consensus suckers' everyone!
And I'm no better – got sucked in by the pro-vax lobby and already had a dose of that dreadful Pfizer vaccine (Comirnaty). Bound to be a disaster – can almost feel a 5G microchip (curse you Bill Gates!) working its way towards what passes for my brain; moulding my ‘mind’ – wish me luck.
Where did the microchip vaccine conspiracy theory come from anyway?
How an innocuous Reddit thread mutated into a dangerous, viral lie
"To be clear: there are no microchips in any vaccine. There’s no evidence that even one of the nearly 170 million Americans who have received a shot so far have been implanted with a tiny piece of tracking hardware."
The government does not care enough about some groups of people when it comes to their welfare. The Lake Alice survivors and people who witnessed 15 March 2019.
Government has money to pay for MIQ for people who travelled for a holiday, (an exception for a seriously unwell family member is made) and not for those who were tortured or witnessed extreme terrorism.
It is not nonsense. The government would need to provide money for lawyers in order to convince me that all which could be done for the above groups is being done. Without legal advice people may not have the energy or confidence to challenge a ACC decision.
You know that the inquiry into Lake Alice Hospital is part of a bigger wider and ongoing Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry, don’t you?
We have already discussed previously here on TS the issue of ACC cover for mental health issues of witnesses of terrorist acts, please keep up. Did you know that some Lake Alice survivors do get ACC cover PTSD, et cetera? I bet you didn’t know this.
How many TTTs who were caught when the travel bubble burst did go purely for a holiday? Please provide some hard numbers, not just speculation and assumption.
3rd attempt to reply so will be a short reply. Yes I am aware of all your questions.
I will continue to raise my disgust with the governments handling of some ACC claimants. Mainly ECT not being covered when used as torture and witness to a terrorist attack and some historical issues with government departments.
Not on the schedule 3 list for a mental injury and a physical injury needs to have occurred.
1982-1992 there was cover for mental shock (a category not the ECT) and no physical injury had to be proven.
The deemed date of injury is important as some claimants could be under the 1982-1992 ACC legislation.
The date of injury is when a person first gets treatment for the injury being covered. An accurate diagnosis is not required at the start of treatment either.
Indeed, demonstrable and consequential injury has to be present for a claim to proceed and possibly be approved under current legislation, which ACC is bound by. Government can change relevant legislation if necessary. A legal process (challenge) may indeed be required for change. It is a step-wise (slow, tedious, and expensive) process, but this is how the system works, by design and for good reason, and by that I don’t mean just ACC and the Accident Compensation Act 2001. At the same time, political pressure may be required. In short, make a case, present it, and then follow through, all the way.
Melbourne will be next to have a lockdown as a resurgence in community transmission. With a pre departure test required 72 hours before departure, this could delay a quick get away.
High Profile Party Leaders Resign from Green Party; cite: “mob of dogmatic, self-righteous authoritarians” within ranks.
In their heavily footnoted 13 page letter, the Central Illinois grandparents who have devoted 25 years to building the Green party while raising their family, cite a broad range of offences by various members of party leadership which they assert violate the founding values of the party, including:
suppression of Paula’s speech on the National Committee
suppression of speech by others on the National Committee and elsewhere
an unprecedented attack by the Steering Committee on a caucus of party activists
the suppression of real policy discussion on issues raised by gender ideology
a betrayal of core Green Party values, including: Grassroots Democracy, Feminism and Non-Violence
So this is Green Party USA Illinois state details? It would be good to state that. Most of us are NZrs here and have to keep an eye on our own politics, in case they change drastically or even disappear when we look away. It is interesting to know the Green Party is confused probably everywhere in the world. Just let us know what country you are talking about will you. As you have done below referring to Scottish. Luckily we know that Dublin is in Ireland, or Eire?
Greywarshark, you got that correct, Illinois is in the U$.
I merely see a trend that trips up well respected GP leaders, who have given years to the green movement, over the trans religion.
Today I read that the co-leader quit the green party of the UK over the trans conflict.
Which made someone comment along the lines of: almost as if someone was financing TRAs to infiltrate ecology focused political parties.
Being distracted totally from the effects of climate change on whole groups of people, their food security and can we still do something do about it…
Andy Wightman, the Scottish Greens’ list member for Lothian region and a highly respected campaigner for tenants’ rights and land reform, stated in his resignation letter published on Friday afternoon:
“Some of the language, approaches and postures of the party and its spokespeople have been provocative, alienating and confrontational for many women and men”.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
“The terrible truth is dawning. The extreme heat wave – or ‘heat dome’ – over Canada’s British Columbia and the US state of Oregon is tragic evidence that it’s too late. We can’t reduce the blanket of greenhouse gases we’ve put up there. It will remain, virtually forever.
The focus now is on what we can and must do to stop it getting worse.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/theres-no-going-back-so-what-can-be-saved
“Virtually forever” is a bit hyperbolic (except for CF4), but certainly longer than a single human lifetime. CO2 is the main greenhouse gas and its atmospheric lifetime is between 5-200 years according to NASA (Though I have heard 1-1000 years to emphasize the uncertainty in persistence).
https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/016.htm
I did like the idea of electric buses and shuttles though. Down in Dunedin, there is a tension between the Otago Regional Council and the DCC. With the ORC currently running (via subcontracting) the buses throughout the region using large vehicles that would technically be more efficient if they were ever full. However they are also not that frequent, and sometimes unreliable. Smaller electric shuttles off the main routes would suit Dunedin’s narrow winding hill suburbs better (especially with regenerative braking). It’s not uncommon for large buses to have to drive over roundabouts, or even block entire streets if there are cars parked on the sides.
But the ORC remain focused on vehicles for the wide open roads. And the DCC’s attempts to prise the local bus service off them don’t seem to be going very fast.
The problem of electricity substitution for FF transport,is that we have both insufficient capacity for renewable generation,and a need to generate using FF from thermals just to maintain NI usage.
Today if a thermal ,or transmission fault occurs,the North Island will brown out.
https://www.transpower.co.nz/sites/default/files/interfaces/wrn/WRN%20Insufficient%20Generation%20offers%20National%203994870484.pdf
and yet there appears little in the way of concrete planning to address that
Government (MBIE) is working on NZ Battery Project, effectively a business case for Lake Onslow pumped hydro.
If it’s viable, Onslow would retire current thermal generation and allow a lot more wind and solar to be built. A few issues around the structure of the generation market though and who will own it and profit by it.
Also at present constraints like this are where the generators make their money
Yes and sadly that appears to be about the sum total and the belated process is still years away from decision…never mind any anticipated construction delays should it get approved
Onslow and others are in essence thing big projects (where political projection is larger then the outcomes) ie the bigger the bullshit the bigger the sale by politicians.
For energy we should be thinking small,diverse,and geographically distributed.
Solar for example should be installed in all schools,during school holidays the excess would be available for the national grid during daylight,reducing hydro loads (and ff) and in addition reducing OPEX for schools.
Onslow is insurance for dry year reduced hydro output (roughly 60% of current total generation)…..there is no reason why local distributed generation cannot occur as well.
Yet we are trying to accelerate the uptake of electric car use… and in the meantime we are burning about the dirtiest coal possible in record amounts….
Here’s a novel idea can prob even reheat the old tv ads, explain the hydro dams are very low and ask NZrs to conserve electrity…
At the very least will help reduce our coal burn
Onslow and pumped hydro isn’t new, it was being talked about when Clyde was built. It’s one of the reasons provision was made in the Clyde Dam for another two machines, that’s the two unused penstocks at the southern end.
Don’t have any documentary proof on that but was discussion amongst engineers when I was a technician there during construction.
Provided nothing fatal comes up in the business case MBIE are working on I’d expect things could move very quickly. Situations like Poission linked to are just what the Minister needs to get action.
Unfortunately construction of new generation has been left to the industry, who’s motivation is profit. Constraints / scarcity drive profit (to a point, then the regulator comes in with big boots on in current system) so there’s not incentives to have large surplus capacity.
“According to a factsheet released in July, the scheme seeking a solution to the dry year problem that has kept New Zealand reliant on fossil fuels for a small portion of our generation for decades was due to complete an initial investigation of options in 2021 and a more rigorous business case in 2022. The construction of whatever project was finally recommended by officials was slated to begin as early as 2022.
However, an update Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods provided to Cabinet in December, just months after the NZ Battery project was launched, shows the timelines have already blown out considerably. Now, the first phase of the investigation is only expected to wrap up in May 2022. A second phase would finish in mid-2023 if all went well, or as late as early 2024, Woods wrote.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/pumped-hydro-already-delayed-a-year
Quickly?
And yes the profit motive for gentailers appears a problem as outlined on RNZ this morning…..a lot of problems and very little urgency in applying solutions.
not to mention electric rail
Rail comes with its winter constraints.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/446848/freezing-temperatures-hit-much-of-the-country-trains-suspended-in-wellington
everything comes with constraints….though I wonder how often european or asian train services are disrupted by frosts?
With the ORC’s it’s any rail, not just electric rail that they won’t entertain. Rugby stadium however, not a problem.
Why is that?
Fundamental disinterest in adaptation within the ORC transport unit is one factor. Rumour has it that the DCC started making the bus hub before the ORC would countenance moving the bus route a block off the main street.
I really want the DCC to just take over dunedin public transport. The DCC keeps planning on trialling passenger rail (the trials have to work around the heavy freaight use seasons on the line, I've been told).
ORC couldn't care less about rail.
I wonder how much this has to do with the lack of interest
https://www.queenstownairport.co.nz/corporate/about/quick-facts
What's that got to do with getting people from Mosgiel to Palmerston and anywhere in between?
edit: but for that matter, a decent rail link to the city’s airport might be an idea for anyone serious about getting dunedinites out of cars.
Its got everything to do with where your revenue comes from and where your investment goes
Can you please connect the dots for us? What's the connection between ORC and QAC?
How does ORC get revenue from queenstown airport?
ORC gets its revenue from the businesses and residents supported by that influx.
QLDC has half the GDP of Dunedin.
what's the connection with ORC being uninterested in coastal Otago rail?
Currently….but where is the growth? Queenstown and Lakes highest growth area in country (before covid) …three times the rate of Dunedin.
Oh, it'll keep booming until there's a global shock again. Disease, war, a credit crunch, any of them.
Also, seems to me they're charging lower rates in q'town than dunedin as a function of property value.
"what's the connection with ORC being uninterested in coastal Otago rail?"
If you have limited resources where do you invest?…where you get the biggest bang for the buck (where you see the possibility of growth)….is rail going to bring 2.5m additional customers to your door every year?….while a well designed and run rail service may reduce activity…all those lost truck movements…regional economies love nothing more than spending from without (exports)
What do tourists buy off the ORC?
Where does ORCs revenue come from?
Not from tourists.
are you being deliberately obtuse?….where would the businesses and residents be without that annual influx and spend?….Queenstown Lakes wouldnt have been the growth engine of the ORC catchment….and that means less revenue for the ORC, or alternatively higher impediment to a diminished base with all the consequent risks.
That's the bit you're not connecting with the tourist influx.
As far as I can see, unless ORC has a tourist shop on Rees St then the main impact tourists will have is very indirectly on property prices, which Q'town actually pays less on per $100k value than dunedin does. But tourists don't buy lifestyle blocks.
"Growth engine" my arse. subsidised by port otago dividends and dunedin ratepayers, more like.
"Growth Change Factors Economic growth in Otago is dominated by tourism, primary production and education. The economy has been impacted negatively by the COVID-19 situation. Pre COVID-19 the population within certain areas of Otago was forecast to grow over the next ten years, the most significant being in the Queenstown Lakes district. Resident population in Queenstown is forecast to grow by 2.6% each year over the next ten years, and visitor numbers to grow by 2.4% per annum. This projection will be revised as part of the LTP 2021-31 process. There is currently a high level of uncertainty on growth over medium term and how that might impact on Council activity. Medium to longer term changes in the economy and population are likely to impact on the level of many activities carried out by Council, such as transport, demand on resource use, environmental incidents, civil defence and emergency management. The Council’s immediate short-term response is to maintain Council’s service for 202020-21 and seek revised forecasts on the impacts of COVID-19."
Page 37
https://www.orc.govt.nz/media/8679/annual-plan-2020-21_digital.pdf
How does that affect ORC revenue?
I can see how "impact on council activity" can be shorthand for "more buses and stress on water quality", but putting actual money in the council's pocket?
Has been raised here before.
https://twitter.com/puddleg/status/1415033724714897411
A rebuttal, of sorts, to the Quillette thing…from the Dark Horse's mouth. An investment.
https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/EvoLens87:1
(Youtube censored Dark Horse for the offending podcasts. Some here critical of Youtube as being the font of all nonsense might see that as an positive with regards to Weinstein and Heying's authority.)
Strange the Quilette piece uses so much emotive language for a scientific article.. like "bonkers", "insane", "ruinous", "eccentric", "cause carnage", "notorious conspiracy theory".
But when you're up against those conspiracy theorists like an expert in mRNA vaccines, a leading medical researcher and an experienced doctor on the covid frontlines, you have to win the argument somehow…
…for a scientific article
I can just about pinpoint when the rot set in…. published in an actual Sciencey Journal with a very Sciencey title, in February 2020.
The piece starts off sounding very technical and authoritative, but just when it begins to get to the interesting part the author delivers this line…
Lack of the definite origin of 2019-nCoV has led to speculation that 2019-nCoV might be derived from genetic manipulation or even for the purpose of use as a bioweapon. This notion has been fully debunked in the media.
Had the authors provided a reference to where the media had published scientific proof that Te Virus hadn't originated from a lab then perhaps this might not have been so concerning. But the authors didn't…and obviously they were under the misguided impression that readers of scientific papers would find nothing incongruous in a scientist referring to the media as being an authority on a scientific matter.
Very strange. And shit's been getting stranger ever since.
Yeah, that’s exactly when and where the rot set in: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7033698/citedby/ [Is Cited by the Following 21 Articles in this Archive:]
It went viral from exactly that point in space and time.
Good grief, SSDD 🙁
Yeah, and even stranger is that it isn’t a scientific article in a scientific journal that has been peer-reviewed by other scientific experts. How strange indeed, you created a strawman.
For the record, I enjoyed reading the Quillette article but then again, I would say that, of course, because I’ve been long lost to the Dark Side. FFS.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10217703918183477&set=a.10201506603220726
Facecloth does not auto-embed here so you may want to say what the link is of.
My bad, the picture is a critique of climate change,
Huh? Are you critiquing Climate Change now too?
And while cartoonist are onto this one – at last – Richard Branson is chasing, now promoting , another rainbow that the earth does not need. His rocket rides! I just don,t get it !
Needle phobia is another reason for people not being vaccinated. This can be overcome or managed by having people arrive for the appointment and not being kept waiting or a small side room.
There needs to be information for needle phobic people such as being able to be vaccinated in a partly reclined comfortable chair and having a support person.
I understand there will be a press release today about a Provisional Improvement Notice at our local DHB.
I am keen for ideas for helping the buraurcrats solve some if the pressing issues.
Bedspace in the hospital is one issue. How about requisitioning a hotel ala MIQ and put stable patients in makeshift wards?
Bigger picture, when building the next hospital, listen to the staff on the floor and keep the bean counters out of the room. After all, a beer made by a bean counter is not a tasty brew.
To be honest I had a lot of respect for the bean counter at the DHB meeting I was at who stood up and said as the DHB was deciding to reduce hours of help for the elderly –
“You know already that we get many unpaid hours of work worth millions of dollars from the staff that currently look after those people, who despite previous cuts to hours often stay on until the person is dressed, fed, showered, etc. You also know that cutting paid hours will also give you more unpaid hours of work. I don’t support the the cuts”.
Dunno if he still works there but it was clear that it wasn’t the bean counters that were the problem. Management was the problem – knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.
And yeah they cut hours again impacting on those I was advocating for.
I’ve seen other bean-counters show similar empathy and kindness over the years as well. In my observation they often provide alongside what they have been asked specifically to cost other options and a good assessment of the pros and cons.
Often they bear the reputational brunt of senior management decisions.
(The site at the moment doesn’t like carriage returns. You have to go redo them in edit mode as everything gets run together when posting. Using Chrome.)
CDHB?…the management of Canterbury home care services is an absolute disaster
In health, what can amd cant be done comes down to the money provided in the budget…
Someone has to make hard calls as to who of which sector of the community misses out.
A bit of philosophy for lunch. Probably more broadly applicable, but also relevant to the gender/sex debate (GCFs take the position that sex is a material reality).
https://twitter.com/tommygun1964/status/1415092144696483842
“…follow the laws of perspective and reflection of light, so it is easy to arrive at a permanent object underlying all the different people’s sense-data.”
At what point does “sense” become “nonsense”?
Serious question…when a man says they ‘feel’ like they are a woman (trapped in a man’s body etc….), what does that actually mean?
(I don’t know what it ‘feels’ like to be a woman…I just am a woman. ‘Feels’ have nothing to do with it.)
Perhaps one of those people celebrating the removal of the offensive billboard giving the dictionary definition of “woman” can shed some light here.
The fact you don’t “feel” anything doesn’t disallow others to “feel” otherwise. Good for you, and myself, I’m quite happy & comfortable with who & what I am, yet I can grasp others may feel different, & who am I to say they shouldn’t, just because I don’t.
And maybe look a bit deeper into it, “trapped in a mans body” is quite an ignorant view TBH, which is what the SUFW thrive on.
Would you mind expanding in that? I know it gets used dismissively but I also hear it used within trans activism and by trans people.
That is incorrect I feel love. SUFW don't thrive on "trapped in a mans body." I have heard SUFW say otherwise.
Others are entitled to feel what they feel. I don't have a problem with that, although psychologists state there are only something like 6 or 7 feelings including sadness, fear, disgust, joy, anger.
I accept some people feel this way, it is not a problem, the problem is that gender ideology requires me to accept their feelings as a factual reality "trans women are real women". I object to that….strongly.
Thanks for responding…but I’m still wanting to know exactly what being a woman “feels” like, since trans ideology demands that ‘feeling‘ like a woman is all that is required to be a woman.
To the point where the sex on a birth certificate can be changed at the stroke of a pen.
Maybe this will elucidate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJL4UGSbeFg&ab_channel=ShaniaTwainVEVO
I have a sense of myself as a woman beyond my biology but it can’t be separated from my biology (and before anyone starts, no this isn’t biological essentialism).
I do believe there is such a thing as women’s culture and have spent a lot of time in groups and places where that’s a given.
Trans people covers a wide range of experiences. Young lesbians transitioning then detransitioning are having different experiences than a middle aged man leaving a marriage and coming out as a TW. Technically I fit under the now very large trans umbrella in a number of ways. I feel there is so much rich human experience to be explored but no debate and neoliberalism have birthed a nasty bluepink social dynamic that serves very few well.
Why people identify, and are identified, as female or male is relatively clear. It’s also clear that the idea of one’s gender (woman/man) being more ‘fluid’ than one’s sex (female/male) is not for everyone.
For women who “don’t know what it feels like to be a woman” to want/expect trans women to articulate exactly why they feel like women seems odd, but then cis women do constitute a (healthy) majority.
Would any description of how a trans woman ‘feels like a woman‘ (or how a trans man feels like a man) be sufficient to broaden the views of those who have a firm (if narrow) grasp of what “is required to be a woman” (or man)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvyBuPj5FPY
Fwiw, I’ve found it difficult to judge how to act normally (in as much as any of my behaviour qualifies as ‘normal’) around the handful of trans men of my acquaintance – I’m possibly overly attentive (a slippery slope) so as not to be seen to be ignoring/avoiding them. But maybe some are content to be ignored – would certainly be easier for introvert me.
gender (woman/man)
sex (female/male)
Might have to put it to the vote, but I think more accurate definitions would be…
sex(male/female, man/woman, girl/boy)
gender(masculine/feminine, boyish/girly, and perhaps blue/pink, spice/sugar)
gender: woman, girl, man, boy, etc
gender expression: masculine, feminine, etc
what's the definition of gender there? I assume you're not referring to biological sex.
sex: male, female, etc
man: adult human male
woman: adult human female
etc?
do I look like a billboard?
🙂
I'm guessing there's little agreement on what those words mean here.
Weesht weka! Words can mean anything to anyone and be damned if you or anyone else will tell others' what to believe.
Somewhere there will be a definition of "language" that might come in handy…
the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture.
Of course, effective communication requires accepted meanings of words.
Discarding traditional definitions because a small minority of persons reject the reality and demand the majority accept their beliefs is going to lead to strife.
Which are politically negotiated over time and cultures. Welcome to humanity.
Transgender people = trans women and trans men (widely understood?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_woman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_man
But thanks Rosemary, your terms (transfeminine / transmasculine) might be better, although they do seem more like adjectives.
https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/17/trans-masculine-people-are-being-excluded-from-the-conversation
"Some people may feel that their body is not in line with their deeply felt sense of self."
Part of the problem here is that society is being expected to accept some big legislative and social changes without adequate explanation. If how someone identifies is sufficient without explanation, why is this not true for women as well?
I don't need trans women to articulate exactly why they feel like a woman. I however think it's important that society gets to look at what gender and sex are, and whether prioritising gender over sex is the best way forward, and to do that we do need to have some kind of coherent and shared understanding of the various concepts. Hence the Russell quote.
When I checked the other day, "sex" was defined as
either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.
and "gender" as
either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.
The trans lobby is so powerful that I can see these definitions being overthrown completely and biological sex being consigned to quaint scientific history.
The idea that for millenia humans used to wrongly think that biological sex was (in the vast majority cases) accurately obvious at birth and was immutable, will be the source of much mirth.
Much like the idea that Earth orbits the Sun.
White humans, and lately a very small but loud group of them from the UK. Other people and cultures do not think the sky is falling.
Unlikely that it is only white folks that understand that the perpetuation of the species relies on two different sexes.
Biology… kindergarten level.
Unlikely that it is only non white folks from placesotherthantheuk who acknowledge that forcing individuals to conform to culturally proscribed sex role stereotypes is outdated and harmful.
This is not about demanding that people accept gender roles (in fact, quite the opposite), it is about acknowledging that sex is real…not a social construct.
Biological essentialism is turning the clock back. Sad to see fear drive some women to a stance their mothers and grandmothers fought so hard to escape from under.
Biological essentialism is turning the clock back.
@Sacha
You are going to have to define "biological essentialism".
Sad to see fear drive some women to a stance their mothers and grandmothers fought so hard to escape from under.
Sigh. Do I have to explain, again? It is the trans lobby turning back the clock by demanding that the sex marker on their birth certificate must be changed so it reflects the 'reality' of their gender ID.
As if sex dictates gender expression these days.
It is saddening to see that for some, being accepted as the opposite sex is vital for them to be comfortable in their own skin.
And as for "fear"… I am Woman, hear me roar!
"Saddening" because their sense of self is 'faulty'? Maybe all some transfeminine/transmasculine people need is a bit of good old-fashioned conversion therapy?
https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/06/translation-gay-transgender-children-still-being-sent-to-conversion-therapy/
The ‘rising tide‘ of transgender people is a challenging trend and I'm ashamed to admit I'd rather it wasn't happening, but it's fruitless to deny the reality that "being accepted as the opposite sex is vital for them [transgender people] to be comfortable in their own skin."
I’m trying to understand the transgender PoV – trans men and trans women are people too – but of course that's not for everyone.
“Author? Author? Did you write these legs?'
'Yes."
'Well, I don't like dem. I don't like 'em at all at all. I could ha' writted better legs meself.”
― Spike Milligan, Puckoon
"My happily splashing daughter said,
"My legs are getting shorter!"
Well she must be dim, to take a swim,
In shark-infested water…."
(Also the Bard of the Silly Isles…but for the life of me I can't find it anywhere. I think it was in A Book of Bits etc.)
they both seem appropriate
Same for me. My problem is that women are being denied the right to self ID as a class, and all the flow in effects of that politically and socially.
You cannot know what it feels like to be a woman because you have no way of knowing (experiencing) what it feels like to not be a woman. You need to have a basis for making comparisons.
Personally, being a woman is not based on 'feeling', it is a reality.
I have no choice in the matter. I was born female, and the girl grew to be a woman.
That I can tick many of the boxes that some claim are symptoms of gender dysphoria makes me feel incredibly fortunate to have grown up during a time when there was growing acceptance of those who did not conform to traditional sex roles.
It seems to me that much of the trans ideology is about turning back the clock to times when men were supposed to be men, and we women were supposed to be ladies.
This activism grew out of literary criticism, including the claim that a piece of literature can mean whatever a reader reads, not what the author intended. On broadening to more tangible subjects the idea that reality is socially constructed is applied in similar terms.
What Russell discusses is that there is a shared reality which is perceptible, but totally independent of our perception of that reality. Were as the socially constructed version claims that man/woman stems from language and how people apply it and ultimately claims that getting society to act on that will overcome biological differences between these categories.
Of course ultimately this in incompatible with science, but thats why terminology is a priority and social pressure is used over appeals to fact.
No acknowledgement of cultural context there – what table means to different people, and the social power dynamics about which meanings are most public at any time. What it looks like is trivial.
I think there's potential there to bring together both the materialist position and the social one. Neither is trivial, and having both would give us more than the sum of the parts.
I don't see Russell talking about what the table looks like, but about how we perceive that there is a table at all. Thus establishing that humans have the capacity to observe reality on a shared basis despite some variation in how that observation is interpreted or reported.
There is a lot of philosophy over the last century or so about how we negotiate reality. Whole degrees in it.
Yes. I liked the one quoted above.
He's not much part of it.
Surrealism?
Some of this 'discussion' qualifies.
Good luck with that. A trivial part of what Russell is saying there is that, at the beginning of the universe there actually was a universe. Now once humans evolved we have ways of perceiving that universe (and internal mental models of that including social models), but the existance of that universe doesn't require anyone to perceive it.
The next important area is that a mental model (e.g a piece of logic or maths or a factual statement) doesn't need to be scientifically true of reality. Now if reality is socially constructed then whatever claim is socially dominant is true but this is fundamentally incompatible with scientific validity, because people are quite capable of believing things which are not true, even in large social groups.
We know Paraparaumu is a hard one…
https://www.facebook.com/jgeekandthegeeks/videos/1016513785761380
Excellent. That brought a smile to my face.
And those shoes!
The Southern version:
Ōtepoti
Ōtākou
Waikouaiti
Te Wai Pounamu
Oraka 😉
It’s a good time to think about fixing your mortgage interest rates if you haven’t already as it seems like they have hit rock bottom and as everyone seems to be predicting, are about to start increasing. In fact I believe the ASB has just increased some of their rates.
Good advice IMO. An ANZ economist here was telling an Oz bus show they’re expecting inflation.
The markets been banging on about reflation/inflation awhile now so at the slightest hint off they’ll go as banks have seen money leaving their low/no interest term deposits for much better returns pretty much anywhere else.
Nick Tuffley of ASB has just pointed the finger at wages growth when asked.
Some recent examples of financial commentators over predicting inflation.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=47883
NZ interest rates will go up when the RBNZ wants them to, not according to what the market thinks.
Ask about freight rates to export/import and have a look around at the pump to see what is happening there. Sometimes you don’t need experts, just a little observation can sometimes give you an idea of what is happening and just as well as land and property are not part of the inflation equation. And with labour shortages what is the obvious consequence of that ??
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/freight-costs-ship-inflation-higher
Looks more like ASB tried to pre-empt today’s Reserve Bank announcement.
Well interest rate is staying at 0.25% and cheap money funding for lending programme will continue. However bond buying will cease.
Lets see how many other banks follow ASB’s lead, and how long it takes ASB to quietly backtrack.
I dont think there will be any backtrack near term….but they will likely have company soon…..and they have the second largest book.
Unlikely. The banks project risk (to themselves) out into the future. The analytical view of the significiant portion of the announcement was summarised as (from your link and my italics)..
This is pure signalling a forward risk to the banks. Change is risk and has to be calculated into the cost of borrowing. That was why the the longer term rates (3 -5 years) rose last month across virtually all banks – the uncertainty into the future increased. Why the shorter term rates (<= 2 years) slightly decreased – the risk in the shorter term was low, so get customers form other banks while they could..
Banks are likely to increase rates sooner rather than later, and as the ASB announcement showed, it’d be less of an increase in the short term loans, more in the longer term loans because of the risk..
//—————–
And just like that – this popped up in my mailbox. Link
Yeah, rates can only go up. That's been increasingly obvious for the last year.
My point was how long can ASB maintain their position in a very competitive market for those with the ability to borrow. Can't see them keeping that rate if other banks hold their rates as they were. Once the RB lifts their rate from 0.25% we may see banks raise rates but in the meantime the banks will be increasingly picky on who they lend too and fight tooth and nail for those eligible borrowers.
The answer was that after the inflation figures went up, so did all of the major banks lending rates. Risk overruled – as I suspected.
Unfortunately, I think the other banks will move their rates up as well shortly.
Farmer’s will protest to show their anger at townies, raising hell in urban centres like Gore and Queenstown.
Only apparently it will only be a drive-by bark in Dunedin because it’s “not safe to stop in Dunedin”. Probably scared of being outnumbered by hippie students smoking their “reefer” and demanding workers’ rights and clean drinking water.
Gotta say, a name like “Groundswell NZ” just screams astroturfing lol. Getting a fair bit of plugging by the ODT, too. But I guess we’ll see.
Judging by the comments below the ODT article I don’t blame them for just doing a drive-by….
Can’t see them getting much of a reception in Queenstown either, apart from pissing a lot of people off, the town centre’s seriously disrupted by road works from a council sewer upgrade that didn’t quite go to plan and street upgrades financed by COVID stimulus. Then most of the CBD business are taking it up the chook so that everyone else can swan about having little protests and otherwise getting on with life. That everything else in town, apart from tourism, is going gangbusters is beside the point.
More ute than tractor in Queenstown I’m guessing.
Most of the ute / pickup lot here are more American market led, well the ones I talk to anyway, and are reasonably exposed to electric transition. An awful lot of Teslas tooling around town. Chatter the last couple of days is whether the EV Rams will qualify for the feebate
Can't quite see what that is. Is that twin cab? 4WD?
Just a big American pick-up / ute. Most likely double cab and 4×4. What every builder in Queenstown aspires, especially EV. Good for the branding. Cybertruck even better.
Toyota has fucked up not developing EV or hybrid utes, other manufacturers will have them in showrooms in the next year or so and they will be the thing to have. The only people buying a new Hilux in 2023 will be diehard farmers and the Taliban
I told my mate I thought it was a poster for good coffee beans. He wasn't impressed.
Will Judith step up or is she just full of tūtae?
https://www.twitter.com/Mihi_Forbes/status/1414736665927507971
Judith meant Demand The Debate For White People
If we are going to do large scale mass vaccination events like this through August, could someone stand outside with a donation bucket and Labour Party membership forms?
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/auckland-mass-vaccination-event-begin-months-end-1-5m-doses-coming-in-august
Oh please no.
For the sake of getting as much vaccine coverage as we reasonably can, the last thing we need is anything pushing towards vaccine politicisation like has become such a problem elsewhere.
Getting people vaccinated transcends any link to politics.
it won't seem like that to non-Labour voters.
Fafo in action.
PARIS, July 13 (Reuters) – More than 900,000 people in France rushed to set up appointments to get vaccinated on Monday night after the president warned that people would see curbs imposed on them if they did not have a health pass that covered a vaccine or negative COVID test
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-france-idUSL1N2OP0B4
When the travel bubble opened with Oz, it was clearly signalled it could pop at any moment without warning, and anyone travelling had to bear that risk on their own.
So why the actual fuck is the government now giving away free MIQ to the poor darling snowflakes that were in NSW when the clearly signalled risk actually happened?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/125745140/covid19-free-miq-for-kiwis-stranded-in-nsw-feels-like-a-slap-in-the-face-for-expats-stranded-abroad
why indeed
Maybe it is that this Government cares about people and knows that sometimes well-intended decisions and choices can have negative unintended consequences even though some of the risks were relatively clear. However, it does raise the question of fairness and balance compared to other overseas stranded Kiwis. FWIW, personally, I’d rather not spend 14 days cooped up in an MIQ facility.
It also raises the question whether any other government proclamations/instructions will be taken seriously
…government proclamations/instructions will be taken seriously
Is there still the "PM at1pm" show? Used to be a watcher until I came to my senses.
not currently…but who knows whether it will be resurrected or not
Do you two idiots realise that the disruptive Covid outbreaks in Australia are due in large part to non-compliance to public orders?
One thing NZ has done very well is compliance to public orders. It is for the benefit of us all. That we have done so well is because of clear communication.
One of the biggest components of that clear communication is regular or semi-regular appearances by JA, Hipkins, Bloomfield, and/or other MoH officials.
That communication and response is the envy of the world yet you run it down because you are offended in some way, or claim you took leave of your senses for a moment?
Grow up.
Yes communication was clear
"There will still be an element of 'flyer beware' for New Zealanders travelling to Australia, with the government saying it will not be coming to their rescue if they get trapped because of an outbreak."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/439909/new-zealand-australia-travel-no-quarantine-bubble-to-start-on-19-april-ardern-hipkins
But you are of course correct, it was childish of me to expect a politician to mean what they say….shame on me.
Well, I'm certainly not happy that taxpayer monies are going towards free MIQ for NSW holidaymakers.
But otherwise the government is not "coming to their rescue" as they have to pay for repatriation flights.
The 14 day quarantine is something imposed by us on them.
It would be good from this point for the government to state that in future should a bubble burst then all travellers wanting to re-enter NZ they will have to pay for MIQ.
Your comment at 13.2.1.1.1 totally departed from the complaint that TT travellers were getting treatment over and above what was indicated.
Ah, youre displeased by my interaction with a fellow poster…thats a shame.
This government has one, and only one, area of competence and that is its response to covid (imperfect though it has been) and they appear determined to fuck that up as well with self inflicted wounds.
All National/Act have to do is give them more rope.
And then you'll something real to be pissed off about.
What? I'm displeased because you went full Simon Bridges on the idea "it's not fair the PM gets to do Covid updates".
I think it is crucial that the people know that their Government is providing a safety net and can be relied upon to help those who need it. At the core, it is a trust issue. This works both ways, as the $16 billion wage subsidy scheme has shown. The elimination strategy is another case in point.
It is indeed a trust issue….and they have demonstrated their word is not to be trusted
Still trust our Govt to try to do their best for all NZers, but the absolute outrage at their inconsistency is papable. Saying they're not going to help and then subsequently helping – "That pisses me off." [YouTube link – mind the language]
Yeah, yeah. We got het up because of all the inconsistencies in the Government Response to Te Virus in the Early Days…but then Siouxsie explained it thus…
….we are having to build the plane at the same time as flying it.
Trouble is though…folks are tired and folks are stressed and folks trusted both the NZ and Aus governments when they got all enthusiastic about our Bubble and the fantastic money making potential for both countries from Opening Up.
So flights were booked and plans made and because of some leakage in the border protection everything went to shit. Folks got stuck and folks begged and folks cried and folks got told by Officials Tough Shit.
Media broadcasts sad and sorry stories of stranded, tearful folks and suddenly flights are on and places in MIQ magically become available.
Enough to make folks think that The Government Kindness is only activated by media intervention. Almost as if the Government learns more about what's going on around our border from the media than they do from Officials.
I thought there was a Minister dedicated to managing the Covid…
"Almost as if" indeed. What are Te Officials and Te Government good for anyway – worse than Te Experts eh? Not one independent thought among the lot of them – 'consensus suckers' everyone!
And I'm no better – got sucked in by the pro-vax lobby and already had a dose of that dreadful Pfizer vaccine (Comirnaty). Bound to be a disaster – can almost feel a 5G microchip (curse you Bill Gates!) working its way towards what passes for my brain; moulding my ‘mind’ – wish me luck.
"You're forgetting something Miles – you have no choice."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYrcyROSjl0
You didn't get the microchip version coz you're not the target demographic.
The government does not care enough about some groups of people when it comes to their welfare. The Lake Alice survivors and people who witnessed 15 March 2019.
Government has money to pay for MIQ for people who travelled for a holiday, (an exception for a seriously unwell family member is made) and not for those who were tortured or witnessed extreme terrorism.
With respect, but that’s a load of nonsense, which you seem to believe.
The emphasis is on not care enough.
It is not nonsense. The government would need to provide money for lawyers in order to convince me that all which could be done for the above groups is being done. Without legal advice people may not have the energy or confidence to challenge a ACC decision.
You know that the inquiry into Lake Alice Hospital is part of a bigger wider and ongoing Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry, don’t you?
We have already discussed previously here on TS the issue of ACC cover for mental health issues of witnesses of terrorist acts, please keep up. Did you know that some Lake Alice survivors do get ACC cover PTSD, et cetera? I bet you didn’t know this.
How many TTTs who were caught when the travel bubble burst did go purely for a holiday? Please provide some hard numbers, not just speculation and assumption.
Government cannot ignore or bypass the Law.
3rd attempt to reply so will be a short reply. Yes I am aware of all your questions.
I will continue to raise my disgust with the governments handling of some ACC claimants. Mainly ECT not being covered when used as torture and witness to a terrorist attack and some historical issues with government departments.
That’s fine with me, as long as you’re aware that you’re not always barking up the right tree. For one, ACC =//= Government.
You know why ECT is not covered by ACC, don’t you?
Not on the schedule 3 list for a mental injury and a physical injury needs to have occurred.
1982-1992 there was cover for mental shock (a category not the ECT) and no physical injury had to be proven.
The deemed date of injury is important as some claimants could be under the 1982-1992 ACC legislation.
The date of injury is when a person first gets treatment for the injury being covered. An accurate diagnosis is not required at the start of treatment either.
It could be argued that placement of the electrodes on the genitals is a schedule 3 cover.
Until there is access to full legal representation for claimants legal arguments cannot be made.
If moderator feels the first paragraph needs to be removed or a warning please do so.
Thank you.
Indeed, demonstrable and consequential injury has to be present for a claim to proceed and possibly be approved under current legislation, which ACC is bound by. Government can change relevant legislation if necessary. A legal process (challenge) may indeed be required for change. It is a step-wise (slow, tedious, and expensive) process, but this is how the system works, by design and for good reason, and by that I don’t mean just ACC and the Accident Compensation Act 2001. At the same time, political pressure may be required. In short, make a case, present it, and then follow through, all the way.
Melbourne will be next to have a lockdown as a resurgence in community transmission. With a pre departure test required 72 hours before departure, this could delay a quick get away.
This was not hard to predict.
Oh that sound familiar :
High Profile Party Leaders Resign from Green Party; cite: “mob of dogmatic, self-righteous authoritarians” within ranks.
In their heavily footnoted 13 page letter, the Central Illinois grandparents who have devoted 25 years to building the Green party while raising their family, cite a broad range of offences by various members of party leadership which they assert violate the founding values of the party, including:
https://www.dialoguenotexpulsion.org/nlc-vs-gagp/prs-rls/High_Profile_Resignations_prompted_by_Mob_of_Self-Righteous_Authoritarians?fbclid=IwAR2VXwW5yLWPIluxzBzDCCz7raMOkUg-ue19TYqyDOhQbU5WOX7mDyTlBo8
So this is Green Party USA Illinois state details? It would be good to state that. Most of us are NZrs here and have to keep an eye on our own politics, in case they change drastically or even disappear when we look away. It is interesting to know the Green Party is confused probably everywhere in the world. Just let us know what country you are talking about will you. As you have done below referring to Scottish. Luckily we know that Dublin is in Ireland, or Eire?
Greywarshark, you got that correct, Illinois is in the U$.
I merely see a trend that trips up well respected GP leaders, who have given years to the green movement, over the trans religion.
Today I read that the co-leader quit the green party of the UK over the trans conflict.
Which made someone comment along the lines of: almost as if someone was financing TRAs to infiltrate ecology focused political parties.
Being distracted totally from the effects of climate change on whole groups of people, their food security and can we still do something do about it…
Andy Wightman, the Scottish Greens’ list member for Lothian region and a highly respected campaigner for tenants’ rights and land reform, stated in his resignation letter published on Friday afternoon:
“Some of the language, approaches and postures of the party and its spokespeople have been provocative, alienating and confrontational for many women and men”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/18/scottish-greens-msp-resigns-claiming-intolerance-over-women-and-trans-rights
A fourth councillor has resigned from the Green Party. (Jan 2021)
Dublin-based Peter Kavanagh has stepped away from the Greens, citing internal abuse over his criticism of the party leadership.
https://www.newstalk.com/news/fourth-green-party-councillor-resigns-over-culture-within-party-1140398
Gosh, what a shambles it must be with a few resignations. We've never seen the like.
It Must Be Taxing Taxing Taxes.
Simon was told mate just get on your bike
Then Todd had a go and then Todd took a hike
Now Judith’s in charge and she paid for her likes
Paid for her likes so she’s liked
Adams said Madam now I’ve had enough
And Kaye said OK well that’s my innings up
And Falloon was soon in the news so screwed up
But she paid for some likes so they’re liked
There’s been English & Joyce, & who’d forget Ross
Finlayson, Korako, Walker & Scott
Guy, Barry, Dowie, Wagner & Carter
Abandoned the ship before Jude got the charter
No Tolley or Bennett nor Yang do we spy
It’s bare in Nats lair as elections draw nigh
But Jude, Paul & Gerry are building on dreams
Cue tax cuts and roads from the strongest of teams.
Well done.
Excellent! 🙂
Great nightcap, thanks WTB.