“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."
"You're forgetting something Miles – you have no choice."
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”.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
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New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
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The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
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Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
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New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
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Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
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Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
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Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
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Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
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In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
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In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
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“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,![embarassed](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif?x42494)
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:
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.
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.![frown frown](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/confused_smile.png?x42494)
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."
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.