Oh dear… red haired giants and Lovelock cave… them dang redheads….
Well hec,… Sasquatch ( Can , USA ) , Mahoe man ( NZ ) , Yowies ( Aus ) , Yetis (Himilaya’s ) and Yeren ( China ) … Mound Builders that the Smithonian’s do away with the bones cos it threatens Darwin …
Lets take a look at what our ancestors ( Homo sapiens ) had to deal with , shall we ?…
And reflect on what influence they may have had … in our modern world … and why we have so many problems with psychopathic rulers today…
M.K.Davis discusses the giant hand print on a cave wall. – YouTube
Wild Katipo – take a gander at this !!! https://twitter.com/ZonePhysics
(scroll down to the image with this accompanying text:
“What you see is a myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain’s parietal cortex which creates happiness. Happiness. You’re looking at happiness”
Just a little bit more for the case of an ancient remnant…. who may or may not have … ramifications for modern man…and his seemingly inability to plan rationally or do so with socially amiable outcomes…
A closer look at – Guy Chases Bigfoot In The Woods – YouTube
I have listened to Stuff’s podcast ‘The District’. The District refers to the local area.
It looks at the death of a digger operator, who was retrieving a stuck tractor, with the aid of a bulldozer.
The official line is the victim was run over, other sources say he was crushed.
Anyhow, a tenacious sister has been investigating.
Things aren’t adding up, and in her enquiries she meets Des Thomas.
Des is youngest brother of Arthur Thomas, wrongly convicted twice of the homicide of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe.
Amongst other things revealed is a 22 calibre rifle, pushed barrel down into the mud in a dam. This gets handed to police, who cut the barrel into three pieces, making testing impossible. This rifle is found a few kilometres from where the murders took place.
The 2014 ‘review’ police held into the homicides, did not mention the rifle discovery, and seemed to just pile up more stuff casting doubt on Thomas’s innocence.
This affair, for me, was when the police lost their innocence and a lot of mana.
It occurs to me The District may also refer to how police are organised and have a more sinister implication.
Congratulations to Paula Penfold, Eugene Bingham and others for this piece of investigative journalism.
“Another instructive example is housing policy. The new government’s view was that New Zealand’s housing crisis (identified by John Key in 2007) required state-sponsored building of more houses. It is not an easy strategy to get under way, especially as the preceding government‘s approach was much more laissez faire. (In contrast, the First Labour Government’s housing program was grounded in work carried out by the preceding Minister of Finance, Gordon Coates.) Instructively, the Minister of Housing, Phil Twyford, has had to create a new government agency to implement his ambition.
Public understanding of the program has not been helped by the commentariat. Undoubtedly some of the uninformed critics are ideologically opposed to state intervention (and are as enamoured with Judith Collins, National’s spokesperson on housing, as some Labour supporters are with Jacinda Ardern) but most, I think, have been as unprepared for the change in policy direction as the public service, and default to the position they learned under National. They are not National aligned, but creatures of limited habit, repeating what they learned under Key.
The Minister of Health, David Clark, has faced a different problem. Whatever his analysis or ambitions, he has been overwhelmed by problems left from his National predecessor. (It is called ‘alligator country’; dealing with them means forgetting that the point is to drain the swamp.)”
That’s a good read and clearly shows the problem that is managerialism:
Following Enteman’s 1993 classic on Managerialism: The Emergence of a New Ideology,[5] American management experts Robert Locke and J C Spender see managerialism as an expression of a special group – management – that entrenches itself ruthlessly and systemically in an organization.[6] It deprives owners of decision-making power and workers of their ability to resist managerialism. In fact the rise of managerialism may in itself be a response to people’s resistance in society and more specifically to workers’ opposition against managerial regimes.
The rise of managerialism seems to have come along, hand in hand, with neo-liberalism.
Re Budget well-being measures introduced by Grant Robertson. Amy Adams said on TV Breakfast this morning …
“The country, the Government, has always measured these things and has always cared about how New Zealanders are doing. That’s the ultimate measure for any government.”…
Puckish Rogue has introduced the analogy of cricket and politics. I offer this mid-season review of the NCC.
Simon Bridges is a medium pacer whose stock ball is two feet outside leg stump. Yet to take a wicket, though he opens the bowling when on the field. As captain does not know when to remove himself from the attack. Has an awkward delivery style and often challenged by the umpire for appealing when the delivery is half way down the pitch.
Paula Bennett has been known to run herself out, deflecting the ball onto the stumps. Opens the bowling in Bridges’s absence. She likes to pack the catching cordon in hopes of a mis-hit but, like her understanding, most of her deliveries are returned straight back over her head.
Nick Smith has a full of effort and red-faced approach to the wicket but his deliveries are too short of any length. He has an earnest yet temperamental style and indeed is easily wound up into too many loose deliveries.
Michael Woodhouse is an earnest off-spinner with a dangerous straight ball that looks like it will drift away but demands bat and pad played close together.
Gerry Browning appeals often for LBW from his unsighted position at square leg but the umpire has learnt to wave away his vociferous appeals.
Mark Mitchell runs in a bristling fashion, and is all aggression, with many deliveries spearing in at the throat. Seen as a possible captain, but too many wide deliveries from this right-armer cause him to be of little threat but to his own team fielding in close catching positions.
Judith Collins has fulfilled the 12th man role on occasion and is seen as captain of the ‘B’ team. Her glare at a turned down appeal makes a 22 yard pitch seem far too short for safety. Her strike ball is a yorker designed to dent toes and reputations.
Jonathon Coleman is retiring soon. His steady nit-picking length and parsimonious style made him hard to score off. His legacy as the team medic meant that a new first aid room had to be built by his successors.
Fielding in the deep, Amy Adams, dislikes cyclists on the boundary near her eight favourite fielding positions. Her NOMBY stance (Not On My Boundary) has the lycra-clad in an uproar.
The former captain, Bill English, was gifted the leadership at a time when the former captain , John Key, was facing prospective defeat and charges of ball tampering.
Club treasurer, Stephen Joyce, thought he had detected a hole in the opposition’s score card with an extra 11 runs short but when even the friendly media saw the error in his accounting, his attempt failed.
The search for a wicket-keeper is still being conducted, as no-one with a safe pair of hands can be found.
Allegations of bullying in the dressing room, tantrums, hair-pulling, match-fixing, dodgy donations to the beer fund, and unflattering references to the ethnic origins of fellow team members plague the team.
Best estimates are that the NCC (National Cricket Club) will return to near winning form in about another decade.
No. Do they get finished with polyurethane? Watching Pucky’s video I got the impression they’d be polished by getting rubbed in a player’s crotch like the balls, or something else equally bizarre.
Thanks Mac1. Just to add:
Current head coach, Lynton Crosby, has managed successful teams in Australia and England often using identical methods and messaging (“brighter future”). However while his methods have produced spectacular short-term successes, the long-term results are starting to look disappointing. Many attribute this to the complete moral vacuum that is the centrepiece of his approach. The aggressive self-interested accumulation of runs (and cash) has been very effective when focused outward on the opposition and society at large, but has shown a tendency to turn inwards and foment disloyalty.
Thanks, AB. I said they’ll get near winning form in a decade but now it’s “whining form” as blame and whingeing replace the formerly moderate and relatively decent values of the old National Party, the one that Winston Peters knew.
As Australian cricket has shown, if you lose your best three batsmen the brittleness shows.
Politics and cricket are about many of the same things. Attack and defence. Team spirit. Team cooperation. Batting for the team. Long practice and preparation. Team selection. Captaincy. Coaching. Competitive but fair-minded play. Respect for the opposition. Fickle fans. Media interest. Magic moments. Short sound bites. Weather. Hours of play. Touring. PR. The public. Balanced teams. Good support staff. Even playing fields. Prepared pitches.
The downsides are the same. Match fixing, cronyism, favouritism, factionalism, imbalance, poor administration, egotism, social climbing, inequality of opportunity and resources, sledging, disrespect in all its forms of racism, mysogyny, class, education, ethnicity.
Cricket is great preparation for life. A sport where both individual and team performances matter, where dedication and skill matter, where disappointment and unfairness in luck and in decisions, perceived or real, have to be dealt with.
My personal favorite because it demonstrates putting aside ones own ego to get the best out of people, how to manage egos effectively and how to work together to achieve your goals (when you probably want to throttle each other)
Richard Hadlee v Jeremy Coney II – Shuttle diplomacy, 1986-87
John Wright said he felt like renowned American diplomat Henry Kissinger delivering requests and instructions from Coney at slip to Hadlee the bowler during the third test against the West Indies in Christchurch. The pair had a falling out after a Hadlee Truth newspaper column criticised the New Zealand team’s alleged sloppy practice habits and tardy attitude. Coney believed such remarks should have stayed within the team.
As veteran journalist Don Cameron recalled on cricinfo.com: “Hadlee was not impressed with his short opening spell, so took himself off, and Wright had to pass the information to Coney. But the team recovered from the drama. Hadlee returned to take six for 50 – three of them from Coney slip catches – and the New Zealanders’ mood improved, if not completely, by the fact they won the test by five wickets.” Wright concluded the pair must have resolved their differences because he couldn’t remember telling Hadlee “the captain says ‘well bowled”‘.
Woodhouse is also gaining a reputation for ‘sledging’, albeit in sophisticated style but with fuck all substance, in the hope pomposity and various angles of attack will eventually see a wicket fall.
And Chris is happier to just watch from the sidelines and offer moral support for the tactics employed like a dutiful little school boy, while Gerry is still slicing the oranges and contemplating the wicket (if he can find it) also from the sidelines.
Gerry and Chris are also busy discussing the technicalities – with Chris as the expert, and Gerry mulling over the best means of delivery.
Soimon is wondering whether it’s all worth it and whether or not a bit of fixing might not be in order. He’s got JK on speed dial.
Thanks, gsays. What of interest also are those inside the park.
Village cricket eccentrics found here on the Standard.
The little mascot brought by the blonde lady with the big glasses that bounds yapping onto the field wanting to chase the ball but runs back to its mistress to be fed little tit bits and bark at passers-by?
The adolescent in mid-puberty on the bank who knows nothing about cricket but annoys the adults around him asking questions all the time which he thinks will show how knowledgeable he is, always commenting but never able to discuss?
The boy with the score book annotating every run and keeping statistics?
The grumpy Yorkshireman who asserts that the only true cricket is played in LeEDs?
The groundsman who likes to bring out the heavy roller when faced with spectators who don’t keep the ground rules and who deals with pitch invaders the same way.
The green-keeper whose uses horse manure and a scythe to maintain lawn order and never is asked what’s growing in the green house…..
Mac 1 This is classic.
Here’s to the Coalition Cricket Club winning the next 3 tests.
My cricket loving husband laughed out loud. Hearing me chuckling away, he wanted in on the joke. An enjoyable read, and yes a reflection of life.
N says “The National Cricket team doesn’t do well on a sticky wicket”.
Wallace Chapman will be taking over “The Panel” from Jan.14 next year. I expect there will be some refreshing newcomers in the line up of guests. Might start listening again.
Guyon is leaving Morning Report to do more long-term field work. I think that has been a big part of his problem. He doesn’t like being cooped up in a studio and takes it out on his guests – especially those on the left.
Mora I want no more of. Sunday morning reflected Wallace Chapman’s thoughtful, ethical and religious background. Mora is just the thinking man’s Mike Hosking. So no more of him, I don’t want Sunday morning dumbed down by Mora’s interests and tendencies.
It is interesting how people in Radionz have their favourites –
Mora and Noelle McCarthy for instance. Jim has an aura of sanctity about him after he became front man for a garden and hardware franchise which funded the projects undertaken in doing up worthy peoples’ gardens. McCarthy has tried to widen her approach but would be best for what to do in the holidays, and why working women are so stressed, and do teeth whiteners harm your teeth and leave you toothless in old age, and of course a biggie subject, how old can you live with new scientific findings and drugs being developed.
Are there other people who have done nationally recognised things regarded positively, and who broadcasts well that people could think of as alternative to Mora? People with huge interests, who can be incisive, light-hearted, querulous at times, interesting always, chat with others and bring out their interesting thoughts and reactions. And don’t mention Kim Hill, I am looking for someone of the same calibre who would be 40-50. I don’t know if Bryan Crump would like a change but he is so good on nights and I think very popular there. What about one of the two who take over Radionz on holiday afternoons and are a bit crazy, they are wide-ranging and presumably have strong interests about people being wonderful and creative around the world.
Very sorry to hear Guyon Espiner leaving the show.
He has taken te reo seriously and it’s been awesome.
Personally I think RNZ morning report has been far too soft on this government, except for the sustained reporting on NZTA’s failing regulatory arm, which in no small part brought down the Chief Executive.
RNZ reporting also led directly to the Ministry of Transport investigation directed by the Minister that will blow NZTA out of the water when it reports back to Parliament in late March 2019. No one else really gave a damn about it, but Morning Report was consistently at it over months.
The very bad news is that Mora will be doing Sunday morning – but there’s a silver lining: The sleep-in and the Sunday Market at Te Papa.
I might even go have a healthy breakfast at a Subway somewhere.
Actually there’s even MORE good news. My idol (Kim) has come out unscathed and it appears she’ll continue on a Saturday – and maybe (fingers crossed) as the Clingon’s replacement on Morning Report until a replacement is found.
Hopefully the replacement is an escaped Okker called Alex
By the way @ VV. I thought of you and @ Anne as I was perusing this virtual ‘space’ going forward.
There’s a thing on PUNDIT by Brian Easton, and it sums things up nicely re our Public Service and the state it’s in but it’s a good analysis.
I think there are one or two things that he’s being a fucking sight more charitable than I would have been – to do with culture and the effects of the career-minded generic manager.
The longer term effects of that don’t seem to have been answered adequately in my opinion.
Have a read when you get time and let us all know what you think.
And when you do, think of the record of the past 10 or so years – especially in relation to Ministries, departments and agencies like NZTA, WINZ, Housing COrp, Health, ALL that comprises the Ministry for EVERTHING (from radio frequencies and interferance, to ripped off employees to immigrants to shitty steel FFS, and a lot more).
I read a couple of PEBs! They just fucking STUNNED me.
Will do, OWT. Won’t be today as I am a bit tired. Have done quite a bit of going down rabbit holes over the last week to do with a subject I have commented on here quite a bit. But have had to be selective in what I say. Still a bit more rabbit holing to do but need a break and to get some housework, shopping etc done pre-weekend.
Hi OWT.
Read the article. It’s spot on. One minor correction. Easton talks about “generic managers” as though it is a relatively recent phenomenon. It’s not. I worked for a smallish specialist department which came under the umbrella of ‘Transport’ in the 1980s. It was one of the first to be restructured under the direction of the then minister, Richard Prebble.
Out the door went the dedicated management who had devoted their lives to the specialist skills required, and in came the careerist, generic managers who had little to no knowledge of the subject matter in hand.
The first thing they did was embark on a cost cutting exercise which saw a large number of field stations close. This made it difficult for the specialists to do their job properly and the department came perilously close to falling apart. What saved it in the end was the incoming Bolger government who turfed out the ‘new management’ and replaced with people who had knowledge of the specialist skills involved. At the same time it became an SOE which, in this case, was the best thing to have happened.
In Easton’s words:
How to address the problem? Clearly there needs to be a discounting of the significance of generic managers in appointment assessments and a higher priority for those who are fit-for-purpose with the particular skills the department needs.
And that sums up the fundamental problem of today’s Public Service.
/agreed @Anne that there’s always been a problem.
However 30 or so years of neo-liberalism, a culture that places bean-counting over public service and welfare has compounded the problems, and this is especially evident over the past 10 years or so.
Coalition Ministers publicly appear to have “confidence in their officials”. When you read some of those “pathetic PEBs” (as Easton calls them), you have to wonder whether some Ministers are bloody masochists who might as well be saying “beat me, beat me!”
One of the few things I had to agree with Mathew Hooton on was when I heard him say that the bureacrats had a vested interest in preserving the status quo (On Nine to Noon from memory) – and that status quo was at the upper echelon’s preoccupation of career advancement/salary increase/impressive CV that exists – and of course that culture affects/denigrates the subordinates who generally do most of the hard yards. Most of our Ministries/Departments/Agencies have become the CEO/Snr Managment’s little feifdom where they can take credit for any successes whilst blaming the peons for any failings.
As we’ve seen, especially over the past decade, there is very little accountability. The recent NZTA debacle is about the only example I can think of where someone has fallen on their sword – it might not even be the right person who has done so.
I actually pity the new CEO of MBIE a tiny, tiny bit- what a poison chalice to have inherited. But you could pick any number of these departments/agencies/ministries to do with health, social welfare, education, etc. etc. etc.
Shouldn’t have got me started ;p.
There is a glimmer of hope in Chippie’s proposal for reform and Jacinda’s wish for a ‘kinder’ approach, but I doubt reforms will go far enough. In some cases there needs to be a complete rout.
Oh, and by the way – look how long the NZTA shit went on.
But again on a brighter note – look what happens when we get things right – with an agency that isn’t all about bean counting, managerialism and the things Easton is critical of. The Pike River Mine re-entry people – if ever there was something that might succeed in its intent, this is it.
nzherald should interview the RWs here if they are looking for bum-biters. There are some really rabid Opposition supporters here; we have a nice selection NZHerald, one of these would be excellent for your purposes.
Maybe he could catch her calling her ministers effing useless and selling electorate seats for cash, particularly the Chinese ones, Indian ones, not so valuable. Oh wait, that’s already happened, but not to her.
Except National DID do THAT, and Labour HASN’T done THIS. You’re just wishing they have and casting innuendo based on nothing but desperate blue barking at cars. Come back when you have proof not innuendo.
No wonder they went bust, their recruitment style sounds like the government recruiting Handley. Professional tech people won’t go for jobs and companies and their time wasted by a bunch of idiots who don’t understand tech and over compensate by ridiculous recruitment measures…
“Appster’s gruelling 22-hour job interview, featuring eight stages, four interviews, up to 10 reference checks and even a body language assessment.’
(wonder if it takes over 6 months like marketing, Handley’s non recruitment of a role he had never done before, but was deemed the best candidate as presumably being qualified does not count as much as a good video?)
You also generally find that firms that have ridiculous recruitment methods and interviewers who are in marketing, also like to under pay. Only most desperate or with visa issues, left standing?
“Bandara, who started his firm in 2010, blamed Appster’s demise on “unsustainable growth” and said the founders came from “marketing backgrounds”.
“When you are a tech business just marketing is not enough, you have to have that management and technical background to be successful,” he said.”
Marketing people learn from the first that what a successful salesperson aims to do and achieves is selling yourself and your ideas. You have to believe in your product completely.
Not much ability to assess anything dispassionately there, even week-long interviews wouldn’t help them. The marketers and PRs are perfect people to introduce the robotised society to us, practically mindless. They ought to get a program to do the people checking for them, it would produce a short-list in a morning, with recommendations and the basis for these, indicating the strong and weak points of each candidate.
Nice long piece from The Age showing all the different Five Eyes intelligence security leaders working together against 5G risks. Usefully pulls quotes from a variety of security agency leaders into a cooperative narrative:
What a lovely bit of boys own or even Enid Blightons Famous Five. Such a fabulous lot those five eyes lads and lasses. Especially that lovely Gina Haspel. She has worked so tirelessly to make us all safe…
The real story is that China has leapt ahead in this transformational technology and the west can only catch up by seriosly delaying their rollout. Capitalism always runs up against other expansionist states when all its internal contradictions become apparent. For one the free market level playing field is only for when you are winning.
With the Government’s cap on spending coupled with their targeted debt to GDP ratio, it’s difficult to expect too much from their Well-being budget.
While it will help reshuffle expenditure, it won’t lead to more net spending overall, which is largely required to get the country back on track. It’s just more tinkering around the edges.
With John Kelly exiting, Agent Drumpfski needs a new chief of staff. But the pool of people interested in getting a cheeto-tinged skidmark smeared down their CV has got very small. So apparently the Kush-kiddy wants a crack at it.
Personally, I’m rooting for Chris Christie to get the job. Given he put the Kush-daddy in the slammer, it would add a fascinating new dynamic to the reality show.
Young people are into instant gratification and don’t want to go through due process and restrain themselves so they don’t care about the restrainsts of the law and why they aid good process.
If Ms Millane had been careful and checked out this guy that she apparently met through an App, which would have required a wary and closer inspection and longer introduction amongst her peers, this might have been avoided. But Apps cater for instant gratification, everything must be fast and that service, accepted like an innocent child completely trustingly without sensible safety concerns, cocoons a person from the real world of bad events and sad disasters happening all the time.
And did she do something or say something to trigger him to violence?
And was she drunk?
And any of the other forms of victim blaming ….
I cannot believe the lack of awareness of some people especially as you said after all the recent discussion – but then in the case of one or two here I can.
The beige blog also has some interesting reading in that regard today. I see Casual Jacket is back here today, possibly as a result of the responses to some of his comments there ….
Oh sorry every woman is a queen and all the ills and bads of the world bow down to her and give her safe passage. In your dreams. Women in the early 20th century had more go and pluck and nous than today’s easy-riders going forward on the back of the hard work put in by fighters for the right of women to have autonomy. Well women have got it, but modern lasses can’t handle it!
Oh get real Sacha. Women have always had to be careful about whom they consort and comport with. The recent discussion is a bunch of wet-eyed soppy people who have chosen to get really emotional about someone who had everything in life, except a an understanding of how to care for her own safety. It’s a pity that the women-lovers who carry on about the pick of the month, can’t stretch out their compassion and concern to all the other women in NZ who are doing it hard. I guess they are the wrong class or something.
Complete sop. There is no reason he should have been given name suppression in the first place and just got it on a technicality. If our justice system is so fragile that someone over in the never never may know his name? They just need to be careful in the jury selection that none of them got his name before hand. No doubt it will be public knowledge shortly anyway so a few weeks makes zero difference to his case.
His name is certainly not wide spread knowledge like if his name was printed in the paper or he was on NZ TV news. just goes to show some of our justice rules are not fit for purpose anymore if this type of scaremongering has validity.
If he has any decency he will spare the family a trial.
Agree. UK news pisses me off. A simple search online and the details are right there.
Hope they get pawned in court. NZ law may not apply in the UK BUT the fact is their actions have a predictable ripple effect causing the name disclosed here.
How would knowing his name affect someone’s ability to do the jury thing? Is name suppression ever granted to enable a fair trial? Isn’t it usually to protect family members?
The Dorian Gray Husk writes approvingly of the way the coalition government has forecasts of rising budget surpluses for the post 2020 period – falling debt and unable to spend more than 30% of GDP. The Husk can see, this along with National ending the $1B pa first year free year tertiary spending and cancelling the free second year the potential for National to offer a really big tax cut in their 2020 election manifesto.
The right wing media was very favourable to Roger Douglas back in the day (of course he actually delivered a really big tax on the high income earners and then decided against any CGT as part of a balanced package – which began the trend towards larger new builds and a substantial rise in property values in the more desirable areas).
With over $1.2tn going through the financial markets every year, a financial transaction tax of 1% will give the govt an income of $120bn a year.
The current raft of taxes generates just $85bn a year.
It is not hard to see that scrapping all forms of taxes and implementing an FTT of 1% will let to higher govt revenue and more money for consumers to spend as they see fit.
“has always cared about how New Zealanders are doing. That’s the ultimate measure for any government.”…”
Trouble is the meaning of the word ‘measure’. How to measure, and what? You need good, appropriate statistics, counting, to do that ‘measure’ properly, not just choose a sample that shows the government in the best light (an 8 watt bulb). A government that celebrates individualism, and then takes stats that ignore how individuals are doing and doesn’t report on each spectrum of the nation’s pie, isn’t giving measure for measure.
That is using statistics fraudulently Ms Adams, and that is how exteme poverty can be unnoticed by those Nationals celebrating a rock-star economy. Gnat ministers would likely say, “Don’t tell me about it in your report, I don’t want to know that!”
On Google, Measure for Measure shows up a promotion for Nottingham actors – this sounds a good rollicking Shakespearean play that National gals and guys would enjoy!
Measure for Measure – Pop-up Globe https://popupglobe.co.nz/shows/measure-for-measure/
Measure for Measure – a searing expose of sexual exploitation and abuse of power presented in a timely and provocative production.
Oh for true measure for measure for the National Party. What does the title Measure for Measure mean?
of Measure for Measure: “Its temper is ironic as its title: ‘Measure,’ as there used. is a judicial term for the measuring out of justice; hence the title means, ‘justice for justice.’ But Angelo does not receive measure for measure, an eye for. an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Measure for Measure: The Significance of the Title – jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/2866753
Test
Please note – that though I have got the Test word onto the post, I have had four tries at sending my comment on Amy Adams quote in No.5, it has not shown up. Where has it gone? Is something putting it into spam? This is another test to see what triggers rejection.
Desert turns into oasis: Man plants 50,000 trees in 15 years in N China
A resident in southwest China’s Guizhou Province has been planting trees on a barren mountain for more than 30 years on end, without cutting a single tree for profit. He has, together with his wife, planted 76.67 hectares of trees since 1985.
Amazing determination in Mongolia Save NZ. We in great old NZ have so many labour saving devices and yet it an up hill battle to get heaps planted and of course it is against bluddy minded Opposition who oppose planting because …? Wonder why?
What has Simon got against trees.
Not just the Natz hatred of trees here, the councils and transport agencies are also major tree haters and can’t wait to destroy trees at any opportunity.
Even nicer story for the weekend where we are trying to run a post to be an archive with ideas for helping a better environmental future for us all. The last one was called The Future Is… but it may change title. Everyone please visit and put up something helpful and interesting and links to save etc.
savenz I copies it and put it over in the post as it is just the sort of story that we want to get on record with link. Thanks.
We are in a boat off Fraser Island down wind from you. Forecast is now for TC Owen to fizzle out before it gets here. Summer in Oz is always a little crazy!
Get them on camera so you can have fond memories! Sometimes dull is good eh.
Interesting location very far north. Is there anything you have heard of interesting going on in the environment field up there? We are gathering ideas and putting on post on how to conserve water for droughts, fresh water, tree planting to bring shade and stop erosion etc.
The Australian government need’s to heed to the call of the people and plan to stop burning coal in the prosess they will be drowning thee neighbor all the Pacific Island are in great danger of sea level rise. Australia is a cause of refugee and there solution is to lock the people in cages on a Island . Its not all doom and gloom as it looks like a new government next year in Australia .
The call from 15 small Pacific island states came one day after the Australian government called for expressions of interest in new power generation projects, indicating it would be prepared to use taxpayer money to underwrite new coal plants.
Leaders warned Australia’s relations in the Pacific were being eroded by a perceived intransigence in Canberra over coalmining.
As the COP24 UN climate talks in Poland remained stalled over an unwillingness from major emitters to commit to further carbon emissions cuts, frustrated Pacific states, traditional allies of Australia, said the world must abandon coal-powered energy generation.
Australia’s carbon emissions highest on record, data shows
Read more
The Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, the outgoing president of COP23, said: “We call on all OECD countries to quickly phase out their use of coal by 2030 and for all other countries to phase out their use of coal by 2040. There must be no expansion of existing coal mines or the creation of new mines.”
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Australia and the US have both this week said publicly they have no plans to begin phasing out coal-generated power. Ka kite ano
NZ business are the biggest beneficiaries of NZ
John is being politically correct and polite in his story about Aotearoa inequality and how the uber rich made there riches .
I say they made there money by back room deals trading information they were ultimately taking from the people of Aotearoa cheating in my words hence my dislike of dilly joyce and his associates . Eco Maori say that the NZ benefit system is a direct subside to all the business in NZ and hence any poor people with out these benefit are struggling the young and the old in Aotearoa . There’s a global conversation raging over the massive growth in inequality and poverty. At home, that conversation is being led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who has seized on this agenda. Part of that national conversation is under way, via the Child Poverty Bill presently before Parliament.
It is sobering to reflect on New Zealand and what the once great promise of an egalitarian society has finally come to look like and represent. It has all happened in the last 30 years.
Many of the Kiwi folk who make up our rich list did not make their money simply by being sharp and clever innovators or entrepreneurs.
The richest man in New Zealand, Graeme Hart, gained his boarding pass to becoming the country’s richest man in some respects by being in the right place at the right time when the New Zealand Printing Office was privatised. We all know the story of the merchant bankers Michael Fay and David Richwhite, and one-time transport tycoons Alan Gibbs and Trevor Farmer, who made their money in part by being well positioned around deregulation — therefore privatisation.
Even the recently retired National Party politician Steven Joyce made his money before politics out of privatised radio bandwidths which were previously owned in the Government estate. Ana to kai Ka kite ano Links below. P.S I hope you get it no benefits min wage would be $25 a hour I don’t mean to scrap all benefits just a correction
The sandflys are commiting the same offenses against me the bank staff are blinded by there shiny badges shonky has given them to much power and they are flouting it .Eco Maori is going to WIN in the end
New Zealand’s Security and Intelligence Service (NZSIS) has been found to be “very intrusive” in some of its requests to banks for customers’ information.
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn appears before the select committee.
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn RNZ / Diego Opatowski
The spy agency watchdog, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn, has released a report on a three month assessment of the service’s policy and practices of acquiring personal information from banks.
She found that despite using voluntary disclosure requests, rather than getting official warrants to obtain the information, the voluntary aspect wasn’t always made clear.
“Some of the past collection by the NZSIS would have constituted unreasonable searches contrary to the Bill of Rights,” Ms Gwyn said.
The law was changed last year with the enactment of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, which has resolved some of the issues identified, she said. Ka kite ano links below.
Here is why health cost are so enormously expensive in America some people buy smaller drug companies change the name of the drugs and hike the prices of the health drugs by 5000% hence millions of people in America can not afford health care .
We must never let ANYONE stop Aotearoa Pharma if we do the mutuality national neo liberals capitalist will drain Aotearoa of money. PURE GREED. Ana to kai ka kite ano links below
This is a video for the above post I could not get any storys on Valeant any were else except youtube ka pai youtube ka kite ano P.S YOU NEED TO watch Dirty Money on NetFlix
I seen this person on Tv a few months back and I DID NOT like what I saw I got the same feeling when I seen him on the Millane case but out of respect for Millane whano I held my words back than the gods have answered my concerns when I found this story on News Room website
Detective Inspector Scott Beard’s handling of the Millane case touched some New Zealanders and the Millane family, and has won praise from colleagues and politicians, but he has been working under internal scrutiny after Auckland Area Commander Gary Davey investigated four allegations against him pre-dating the Millane case – and upheld them.
Davey had been asked by Police Commissioner Mike Bush to inquire into a complaint against Beard. The four counts include sharing confidential police information of a sensitive nature, breaching the confidentiality of his team members and supervisors, breaching the privacy of a victim’s parent, and separately selling or supplying alcohol at his Hibiscus Coast Football Club. Ana to kai ka kite ano link below
Kia ora Newshub there are a lot of fool about poisoning those pohutukawa trees they take at least 50 years to get to the size of the ones poisoned up North.
I seen a story on this sight TSD about the J&J talcom baby powder there was a lady who died of cancer she put it on everyday capitalism at its best No.
Good on the young fella for being so industrious and selling his services to preforming a haka.
Shakira one can not hid anything now days just pay your tax’s to your country.
That good a good story White Stone cheese winning a prize in France that is what we should be doing with a lot of our foods high value markets ka pai.
I think that people need to be polite with mowing the berm issues there is a point to mow or not to mow one is good for the environment and ones not lol .
Those pounamu are a awesome sight and the story about the tiki tiki is cool.
Kate that is a good story line of Aquaman being rescued by a wahine we need to raze everyone respect for wahine
Mike someone told me that Ruamoko was singing his waiata and preforming a haka loud and proud last night I missed it went to sleep early last night.
Ka kite ano
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
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Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Asia Pacific Report A score of Palestine solidarity protesters draped themselves in white shrouds with mock blood in a sombre “die-in” demonstration at Te Komitanga Square — the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city — today as speakers urged people to take a stronger boycott against Israeli products. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Tackling violence against women will be the sole agenda item for a national cabinet meeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has convened for Wednesday. The meeting, held remotely, follows thousands of Australians attending rallies across ...
The protest outside the White House correspondents’ dinner hotel. Image: Anatolu video screenshot APR More than two dozen Palestinian journalists had called for a boycott of the dinner, writing an open letter urging their American colleagues not to attend. “You have a unique responsibility to speak truth to power and ...
“Our exporters should, therefore, be deeply concerned that the Fast-track Approvals Bill was not assessed for consistency with any of our free trade commitments prior to being introduced to the House,” says Gary Taylor, Chief Executive of the Environmental ...
NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff is calling on all political parties to support the new Member’s Bill from Labour’s workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich MP that would ensure negligent companies are held accountable when their employees ...
A historian with an uncanny track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go very wrong for him. ...
A historian with a track record of predicting US election winners tells RNZ's Sunday Morning that President Biden looks to be on track for another term, but things could still go wrong for him. ...
Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, ...
Appointment viewing has been lost to the mists of time, but memories of Montana Sunday Theatre can still be conjured by hitting play on a particular piece of classical music. “You’re not going to be able to sell it.” Over 30 years on, Karen Bieleski still recalls how the task ...
Performance Review King Luxon sat behind His massive polished oak desk. It is Performance Review time. There is a knock on the door. “Enter!” says the King. In steps Minister of Disabilities and Carer Pedicures, Penny Simmonds. “I can explain everything …” she begins. “Fine,” says King Luxon, pressing the ...
The pair opened their first fully collaborative exhibition, Nina for Flowers, last Saturday. Gabi Lardies visited their studio to find out who Nina is and what working together was like.‘It didn’t start out like, ‘This is a show about Nina,’” says Josephine Jelicich, gripping a thermos of peppermint tea. ...
Thank you, Dr Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner, for your brilliant invention. I’m another mid-20s Kiwi who had an OE last year. I hopped on my bicycle where France meets the Atlantic and cycled east. I pedalled through the Loire Valley, down rivers lined with willows and ancient wisteria-draped chateaus. I relished ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Oh dear… red haired giants and Lovelock cave… them dang redheads….
Well hec,… Sasquatch ( Can , USA ) , Mahoe man ( NZ ) , Yowies ( Aus ) , Yetis (Himilaya’s ) and Yeren ( China ) … Mound Builders that the Smithonian’s do away with the bones cos it threatens Darwin …
Lets take a look at what our ancestors ( Homo sapiens ) had to deal with , shall we ?…
And reflect on what influence they may have had … in our modern world … and why we have so many problems with psychopathic rulers today…
M.K.Davis discusses the giant hand print on a cave wall. – YouTube
Traditional Lakota/Dakota Sundance Songs 3/6 – YouTube
#6 – Chief Joseph – Episode 6 – YouTube
Lakota 🙂 Aho!!!!!
Blessings .
Wild Katipo – take a gander at this !!!
https://twitter.com/ZonePhysics
(scroll down to the image with this accompanying text:
“What you see is a myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain’s parietal cortex which creates happiness. Happiness. You’re looking at happiness”
I prefer people who have actually been there…
Tim Coonbo Baker
Former NASA scientist Tim Coonbo Baker speaks about Bigfoot …
Just a little bit more for the case of an ancient remnant…. who may or may not have … ramifications for modern man…and his seemingly inability to plan rationally or do so with socially amiable outcomes…
A closer look at – Guy Chases Bigfoot In The Woods – YouTube
And why ?…
I’ll let you be the judge….
Neanderthal: Profile of a super predator – YouTube
There well may be a reason for all this psychopathic behavior due to rape and oppression. Who can say ? DNA ?
But it just might be well worth some kind of unbiased scientific reports… do we even have that these days?
Back to the days of Nimrod….
Darwinian science and evolution…. yeah right….”
The Smithsonian: We Destroyed the Skeletons of Giant … – YouTube
That’s wild Wild Katipo. Makes a change from studying the anthropomorphic tracings that can be viewed around NZ Parliament Buildings.
Massive praise to Bernie Sanders and others for standing up and calling out the War in Yemen during a senate debate on the subject.
Thank you for speaking up, may it be the catalyst for change, fingers crossed re the vote over there.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/senate-rebukes-saudi-arabia-yemen-war-khashoggi-murder-181213004802358.html
I have listened to Stuff’s podcast ‘The District’. The District refers to the local area.
It looks at the death of a digger operator, who was retrieving a stuck tractor, with the aid of a bulldozer.
The official line is the victim was run over, other sources say he was crushed.
Anyhow, a tenacious sister has been investigating.
Things aren’t adding up, and in her enquiries she meets Des Thomas.
Des is youngest brother of Arthur Thomas, wrongly convicted twice of the homicide of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe.
Amongst other things revealed is a 22 calibre rifle, pushed barrel down into the mud in a dam. This gets handed to police, who cut the barrel into three pieces, making testing impossible. This rifle is found a few kilometres from where the murders took place.
The 2014 ‘review’ police held into the homicides, did not mention the rifle discovery, and seemed to just pile up more stuff casting doubt on Thomas’s innocence.
This affair, for me, was when the police lost their innocence and a lot of mana.
It occurs to me The District may also refer to how police are organised and have a more sinister implication.
Congratulations to Paula Penfold, Eugene Bingham and others for this piece of investigative journalism.
“The unprepared” – a very interesting read from Brian Easton
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/the-unprepared
“Another instructive example is housing policy. The new government’s view was that New Zealand’s housing crisis (identified by John Key in 2007) required state-sponsored building of more houses. It is not an easy strategy to get under way, especially as the preceding government‘s approach was much more laissez faire. (In contrast, the First Labour Government’s housing program was grounded in work carried out by the preceding Minister of Finance, Gordon Coates.) Instructively, the Minister of Housing, Phil Twyford, has had to create a new government agency to implement his ambition.
Public understanding of the program has not been helped by the commentariat. Undoubtedly some of the uninformed critics are ideologically opposed to state intervention (and are as enamoured with Judith Collins, National’s spokesperson on housing, as some Labour supporters are with Jacinda Ardern) but most, I think, have been as unprepared for the change in policy direction as the public service, and default to the position they learned under National. They are not National aligned, but creatures of limited habit, repeating what they learned under Key.
The Minister of Health, David Clark, has faced a different problem. Whatever his analysis or ambitions, he has been overwhelmed by problems left from his National predecessor. (It is called ‘alligator country’; dealing with them means forgetting that the point is to drain the swamp.)”
That’s a good read and clearly shows the problem that is managerialism:
The rise of managerialism seems to have come along, hand in hand, with neo-liberalism.
Re Budget well-being measures introduced by Grant Robertson. Amy Adams said on TV Breakfast this morning …
“The country, the Government, has always measured these things and has always cared about how New Zealanders are doing. That’s the ultimate measure for any government.”…
Ahem:
Ew! Did you have to do that?
The ‘re-imaging’ that’s occurred though since that Bennett extravaganza, and today is quite startling (and I don’t necessarily mean aesthetically).
I wonder if Paula Bennett stands by all her statements in whatever context they were given
Sorry, OWT… This just sprung to mind as soon as I heard Adams
It seems both can tell lies so easily.
The National Cricket Club.
Puckish Rogue has introduced the analogy of cricket and politics. I offer this mid-season review of the NCC.
Simon Bridges is a medium pacer whose stock ball is two feet outside leg stump. Yet to take a wicket, though he opens the bowling when on the field. As captain does not know when to remove himself from the attack. Has an awkward delivery style and often challenged by the umpire for appealing when the delivery is half way down the pitch.
Paula Bennett has been known to run herself out, deflecting the ball onto the stumps. Opens the bowling in Bridges’s absence. She likes to pack the catching cordon in hopes of a mis-hit but, like her understanding, most of her deliveries are returned straight back over her head.
Nick Smith has a full of effort and red-faced approach to the wicket but his deliveries are too short of any length. He has an earnest yet temperamental style and indeed is easily wound up into too many loose deliveries.
Michael Woodhouse is an earnest off-spinner with a dangerous straight ball that looks like it will drift away but demands bat and pad played close together.
Gerry Browning appeals often for LBW from his unsighted position at square leg but the umpire has learnt to wave away his vociferous appeals.
Mark Mitchell runs in a bristling fashion, and is all aggression, with many deliveries spearing in at the throat. Seen as a possible captain, but too many wide deliveries from this right-armer cause him to be of little threat but to his own team fielding in close catching positions.
Judith Collins has fulfilled the 12th man role on occasion and is seen as captain of the ‘B’ team. Her glare at a turned down appeal makes a 22 yard pitch seem far too short for safety. Her strike ball is a yorker designed to dent toes and reputations.
Jonathon Coleman is retiring soon. His steady nit-picking length and parsimonious style made him hard to score off. His legacy as the team medic meant that a new first aid room had to be built by his successors.
Fielding in the deep, Amy Adams, dislikes cyclists on the boundary near her eight favourite fielding positions. Her NOMBY stance (Not On My Boundary) has the lycra-clad in an uproar.
The former captain, Bill English, was gifted the leadership at a time when the former captain , John Key, was facing prospective defeat and charges of ball tampering.
Club treasurer, Stephen Joyce, thought he had detected a hole in the opposition’s score card with an extra 11 runs short but when even the friendly media saw the error in his accounting, his attempt failed.
The search for a wicket-keeper is still being conducted, as no-one with a safe pair of hands can be found.
Allegations of bullying in the dressing room, tantrums, hair-pulling, match-fixing, dodgy donations to the beer fund, and unflattering references to the ethnic origins of fellow team members plague the team.
Best estimates are that the NCC (National Cricket Club) will return to near winning form in about another decade.
Wonderful!!!!!!!!
Even though I HATE cricket – and would rather watch paint dry.
Thanks. ROFL.
Such an ugly word, the ‘H’ Word…
In my opinion..the ugliest word of all…
I feel the same about “Twi”.
Watch this then, it’ll change your mind
I got too bored to continue watching at 1:28.
There’s fascinating colour and texture changes happening on a piece of wood I just polyurethaned that are much more interesting.
It’s that moment that it starts to coagulate …..
Blink – and the moment is gone forever.
By crikey when I get crowned Emperor of the Earth (by our alien overlords) there’ll be some changes round I can tell you
However if you start your penance I might, I stress might, be merciful…your penance starts right here:
Is it on a cricket bat?
No. Do they get finished with polyurethane? Watching Pucky’s video I got the impression they’d be polished by getting rubbed in a player’s crotch like the balls, or something else equally bizarre.
Andre
VF. LOL.
LOL excellent!!!
Love it!!!
I suggest every member of this hapless team play in the position of left right out.
Good work there
🙂
(Also go the Black Caps!)
Thanks Mac1. Just to add:
Current head coach, Lynton Crosby, has managed successful teams in Australia and England often using identical methods and messaging (“brighter future”). However while his methods have produced spectacular short-term successes, the long-term results are starting to look disappointing. Many attribute this to the complete moral vacuum that is the centrepiece of his approach. The aggressive self-interested accumulation of runs (and cash) has been very effective when focused outward on the opposition and society at large, but has shown a tendency to turn inwards and foment disloyalty.
Thanks, AB. I said they’ll get near winning form in a decade but now it’s “whining form” as blame and whingeing replace the formerly moderate and relatively decent values of the old National Party, the one that Winston Peters knew.
As Australian cricket has shown, if you lose your best three batsmen the brittleness shows.
Politics and cricket are about many of the same things. Attack and defence. Team spirit. Team cooperation. Batting for the team. Long practice and preparation. Team selection. Captaincy. Coaching. Competitive but fair-minded play. Respect for the opposition. Fickle fans. Media interest. Magic moments. Short sound bites. Weather. Hours of play. Touring. PR. The public. Balanced teams. Good support staff. Even playing fields. Prepared pitches.
The downsides are the same. Match fixing, cronyism, favouritism, factionalism, imbalance, poor administration, egotism, social climbing, inequality of opportunity and resources, sledging, disrespect in all its forms of racism, mysogyny, class, education, ethnicity.
Cricket is great preparation for life. A sport where both individual and team performances matter, where dedication and skill matter, where disappointment and unfairness in luck and in decisions, perceived or real, have to be dealt with.
Yup, all to this (well most of it 😉 )
Why cricket is a metaphor for life, politics…anything
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10854330
My personal favorite because it demonstrates putting aside ones own ego to get the best out of people, how to manage egos effectively and how to work together to achieve your goals (when you probably want to throttle each other)
Richard Hadlee v Jeremy Coney II – Shuttle diplomacy, 1986-87
John Wright said he felt like renowned American diplomat Henry Kissinger delivering requests and instructions from Coney at slip to Hadlee the bowler during the third test against the West Indies in Christchurch. The pair had a falling out after a Hadlee Truth newspaper column criticised the New Zealand team’s alleged sloppy practice habits and tardy attitude. Coney believed such remarks should have stayed within the team.
As veteran journalist Don Cameron recalled on cricinfo.com: “Hadlee was not impressed with his short opening spell, so took himself off, and Wright had to pass the information to Coney. But the team recovered from the drama. Hadlee returned to take six for 50 – three of them from Coney slip catches – and the New Zealanders’ mood improved, if not completely, by the fact they won the test by five wickets.” Wright concluded the pair must have resolved their differences because he couldn’t remember telling Hadlee “the captain says ‘well bowled”‘.
Agreed 🙂
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10854330
Even when players don’t want to talk to each other (Hadlee and Coney) you can still get the result you want if you know how to manage properly
Could be something in that for political parties
Yes Mac 1. Bluddy clever and funny. And probably true.
Woodhouse is also gaining a reputation for ‘sledging’, albeit in sophisticated style but with fuck all substance, in the hope pomposity and various angles of attack will eventually see a wicket fall.
And Chris is happier to just watch from the sidelines and offer moral support for the tactics employed like a dutiful little school boy, while Gerry is still slicing the oranges and contemplating the wicket (if he can find it) also from the sidelines.
Gerry and Chris are also busy discussing the technicalities – with Chris as the expert, and Gerry mulling over the best means of delivery.
Soimon is wondering whether it’s all worth it and whether or not a bit of fixing might not be in order. He’s got JK on speed dial.
Soimon should just send JK at text ….
Excellent mac1, out of the park.
Thanks, gsays. What of interest also are those inside the park.
Village cricket eccentrics found here on the Standard.
The little mascot brought by the blonde lady with the big glasses that bounds yapping onto the field wanting to chase the ball but runs back to its mistress to be fed little tit bits and bark at passers-by?
The adolescent in mid-puberty on the bank who knows nothing about cricket but annoys the adults around him asking questions all the time which he thinks will show how knowledgeable he is, always commenting but never able to discuss?
The boy with the score book annotating every run and keeping statistics?
The grumpy Yorkshireman who asserts that the only true cricket is played in LeEDs?
The groundsman who likes to bring out the heavy roller when faced with spectators who don’t keep the ground rules and who deals with pitch invaders the same way.
The green-keeper whose uses horse manure and a scythe to maintain lawn order and never is asked what’s growing in the green house…..
Any takers?
Don’t forget the students at Molyneux Park in summer with the chilly bin 🙂
The woman with the knitting and the newspaper shade-hunting in the stands.
The bearded sage dozing under a sun hat in a post-prandial snooze but awake to the beckoning call of humanity……..
Sounds rather Wodehouse.
Thanks. I rather like PG. “He forked a moody eggs and b.”
He’s OTT with the whimsy but I like some whimsy done well. So top hole etc.
Mate, I am not even going to try.
This is one occasion I know I am out of my league.
Well done.
Mac 1 This is classic.
Here’s to the Coalition Cricket Club winning the next 3 tests.
My cricket loving husband laughed out loud. Hearing me chuckling away, he wanted in on the joke. An enjoyable read, and yes a reflection of life.
N says “The National Cricket team doesn’t do well on a sticky wicket”.
Good news:
Wallace Chapman will be taking over “The Panel” from Jan.14 next year. I expect there will be some refreshing newcomers in the line up of guests. Might start listening again.
Guyon is leaving Morning Report to do more long-term field work. I think that has been a big part of his problem. He doesn’t like being cooped up in a studio and takes it out on his guests – especially those on the left.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/378252/guyon-espiner-moves-from-morning-report-in-rnz-changes
I am happy with those two changes – but Mora on Sunday Mornings??????
NONONONONONONO
Reminds me of something
Me too
For those of a masochist bent
Mora I want no more of. Sunday morning reflected Wallace Chapman’s thoughtful, ethical and religious background. Mora is just the thinking man’s Mike Hosking. So no more of him, I don’t want Sunday morning dumbed down by Mora’s interests and tendencies.
It is interesting how people in Radionz have their favourites –
Mora and Noelle McCarthy for instance. Jim has an aura of sanctity about him after he became front man for a garden and hardware franchise which funded the projects undertaken in doing up worthy peoples’ gardens. McCarthy has tried to widen her approach but would be best for what to do in the holidays, and why working women are so stressed, and do teeth whiteners harm your teeth and leave you toothless in old age, and of course a biggie subject, how old can you live with new scientific findings and drugs being developed.
Are there other people who have done nationally recognised things regarded positively, and who broadcasts well that people could think of as alternative to Mora? People with huge interests, who can be incisive, light-hearted, querulous at times, interesting always, chat with others and bring out their interesting thoughts and reactions. And don’t mention Kim Hill, I am looking for someone of the same calibre who would be 40-50. I don’t know if Bryan Crump would like a change but he is so good on nights and I think very popular there. What about one of the two who take over Radionz on holiday afternoons and are a bit crazy, they are wide-ranging and presumably have strong interests about people being wonderful and creative around the world.
“What about one of the two who take over Radionz on holiday afternoons”
Just on grounds of musical taste, no.
Are you afficianados, they deliberately draw you out saying ‘No No No’.
OMG! Mora on Sunday mornings
aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Very sorry to hear Guyon Espiner leaving the show.
He has taken te reo seriously and it’s been awesome.
Personally I think RNZ morning report has been far too soft on this government, except for the sustained reporting on NZTA’s failing regulatory arm, which in no small part brought down the Chief Executive.
RNZ reporting also led directly to the Ministry of Transport investigation directed by the Minister that will blow NZTA out of the water when it reports back to Parliament in late March 2019. No one else really gave a damn about it, but Morning Report was consistently at it over months.
The very bad news is that Mora will be doing Sunday morning – but there’s a silver lining: The sleep-in and the Sunday Market at Te Papa.
I might even go have a healthy breakfast at a Subway somewhere.
Actually there’s even MORE good news. My idol (Kim) has come out unscathed and it appears she’ll continue on a Saturday – and maybe (fingers crossed) as the Clingon’s replacement on Morning Report until a replacement is found.
Hopefully the replacement is an escaped Okker called Alex
‘I might even go have a healthy breakfast at a Subway somewhere.’
Recent Reddit expose about Subway ,suggests you ..might not.
Snap @ VV above!.
By the way @ VV. I thought of you and @ Anne as I was perusing this virtual ‘space’ going forward.
There’s a thing on PUNDIT by Brian Easton, and it sums things up nicely re our Public Service and the state it’s in but it’s a good analysis.
I think there are one or two things that he’s being a fucking sight more charitable than I would have been – to do with culture and the effects of the career-minded generic manager.
The longer term effects of that don’t seem to have been answered adequately in my opinion.
Have a read when you get time and let us all know what you think.
And when you do, think of the record of the past 10 or so years – especially in relation to Ministries, departments and agencies like NZTA, WINZ, Housing COrp, Health, ALL that comprises the Ministry for EVERTHING (from radio frequencies and interferance, to ripped off employees to immigrants to shitty steel FFS, and a lot more).
I read a couple of PEBs! They just fucking STUNNED me.
Let me know what you think
Will do, OWT. Won’t be today as I am a bit tired. Have done quite a bit of going down rabbit holes over the last week to do with a subject I have commented on here quite a bit. But have had to be selective in what I say. Still a bit more rabbit holing to do but need a break and to get some housework, shopping etc done pre-weekend.
Hi OWT.
Read the article. It’s spot on. One minor correction. Easton talks about “generic managers” as though it is a relatively recent phenomenon. It’s not. I worked for a smallish specialist department which came under the umbrella of ‘Transport’ in the 1980s. It was one of the first to be restructured under the direction of the then minister, Richard Prebble.
Out the door went the dedicated management who had devoted their lives to the specialist skills required, and in came the careerist, generic managers who had little to no knowledge of the subject matter in hand.
The first thing they did was embark on a cost cutting exercise which saw a large number of field stations close. This made it difficult for the specialists to do their job properly and the department came perilously close to falling apart. What saved it in the end was the incoming Bolger government who turfed out the ‘new management’ and replaced with people who had knowledge of the specialist skills involved. At the same time it became an SOE which, in this case, was the best thing to have happened.
In Easton’s words:
And that sums up the fundamental problem of today’s Public Service.
/agreed @Anne that there’s always been a problem.
However 30 or so years of neo-liberalism, a culture that places bean-counting over public service and welfare has compounded the problems, and this is especially evident over the past 10 years or so.
Coalition Ministers publicly appear to have “confidence in their officials”. When you read some of those “pathetic PEBs” (as Easton calls them), you have to wonder whether some Ministers are bloody masochists who might as well be saying “beat me, beat me!”
One of the few things I had to agree with Mathew Hooton on was when I heard him say that the bureacrats had a vested interest in preserving the status quo (On Nine to Noon from memory) – and that status quo was at the upper echelon’s preoccupation of career advancement/salary increase/impressive CV that exists – and of course that culture affects/denigrates the subordinates who generally do most of the hard yards. Most of our Ministries/Departments/Agencies have become the CEO/Snr Managment’s little feifdom where they can take credit for any successes whilst blaming the peons for any failings.
As we’ve seen, especially over the past decade, there is very little accountability. The recent NZTA debacle is about the only example I can think of where someone has fallen on their sword – it might not even be the right person who has done so.
I actually pity the new CEO of MBIE a tiny, tiny bit- what a poison chalice to have inherited. But you could pick any number of these departments/agencies/ministries to do with health, social welfare, education, etc. etc. etc.
Shouldn’t have got me started ;p.
There is a glimmer of hope in Chippie’s proposal for reform and Jacinda’s wish for a ‘kinder’ approach, but I doubt reforms will go far enough. In some cases there needs to be a complete rout.
Oh, and by the way – look how long the NZTA shit went on.
But again on a brighter note – look what happens when we get things right – with an agency that isn’t all about bean counting, managerialism and the things Easton is critical of. The Pike River Mine re-entry people – if ever there was something that might succeed in its intent, this is it.
Well I hope RNZ shouts Wafflish some speech lessons. That gibbering whine of his gets tired real fast.
Some sanity on the coverage of US politics minus the propaganda.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12176820
Asked whether there was “anything more to come that might bite you in the bum,” Ardern said, “absolutely not”.
We shall see 🙂
nzherald should interview the RWs here if they are looking for bum-biters. There are some really rabid Opposition supporters here; we have a nice selection NZHerald, one of these would be excellent for your purposes.
If they really are looking for bum biters then look no further 🙂
Wombats are cute but not to be messed with. 🙂
Attacking or wanting attention 🙂
probably both
But I’ve heard of one who would knock down doors to get inside to be fed!
When you are an endangered species, you have to look out for yourself. Expect more human aggression over wanting to be fed!
I’m not into porn thank you not very much PR!
Simon Bridges won’t get caught rooting a goat. We shall see !
Simon Bridges won’t get caught being honest and reasonable – ever!
Yes however he only needs to catch out the PM once
Maybe he could catch her calling her ministers effing useless and selling electorate seats for cash, particularly the Chinese ones, Indian ones, not so valuable. Oh wait, that’s already happened, but not to her.
I’m guessing you’re thinking that because National did that therefore Labour can do this?
Well the voting public maybe more forgiving, but I doubt it
Except National DID do THAT, and Labour HASN’T done THIS. You’re just wishing they have and casting innuendo based on nothing but desperate blue barking at cars. Come back when you have proof not innuendo.
Bit hard to find proof when the PM won’t release the texts
She was wearing another hat at the time – so nah nah nah nah nah.
🙂
Good one Macro.
Young marketing millionaires doing tech outsourced to India – what could go wrong? sarcasm.
‘Spiralled out of control very quickly’: Kiwi rich-lister behind Appster speaks out after collapse
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12176329
No wonder they went bust, their recruitment style sounds like the government recruiting Handley. Professional tech people won’t go for jobs and companies and their time wasted by a bunch of idiots who don’t understand tech and over compensate by ridiculous recruitment measures…
“Appster’s gruelling 22-hour job interview, featuring eight stages, four interviews, up to 10 reference checks and even a body language assessment.’
(wonder if it takes over 6 months like marketing, Handley’s non recruitment of a role he had never done before, but was deemed the best candidate as presumably being qualified does not count as much as a good video?)
You also generally find that firms that have ridiculous recruitment methods and interviewers who are in marketing, also like to under pay. Only most desperate or with visa issues, left standing?
“Bandara, who started his firm in 2010, blamed Appster’s demise on “unsustainable growth” and said the founders came from “marketing backgrounds”.
“When you are a tech business just marketing is not enough, you have to have that management and technical background to be successful,” he said.”
Doh!
Marketing people learn from the first that what a successful salesperson aims to do and achieves is selling yourself and your ideas. You have to believe in your product completely.
Not much ability to assess anything dispassionately there, even week-long interviews wouldn’t help them. The marketers and PRs are perfect people to introduce the robotised society to us, practically mindless. They ought to get a program to do the people checking for them, it would produce a short-list in a morning, with recommendations and the basis for these, indicating the strong and weak points of each candidate.
Nice long piece from The Age showing all the different Five Eyes intelligence security leaders working together against 5G risks. Usefully pulls quotes from a variety of security agency leaders into a cooperative narrative:
https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/how-the-five-eyes-cooked-up-the-campaign-to-kill-huawei-20181213-p50m24.html
What a lovely bit of boys own or even Enid Blightons Famous Five. Such a fabulous lot those five eyes lads and lasses. Especially that lovely Gina Haspel. She has worked so tirelessly to make us all safe…
The real story is that China has leapt ahead in this transformational technology and the west can only catch up by seriosly delaying their rollout. Capitalism always runs up against other expansionist states when all its internal contradictions become apparent. For one the free market level playing field is only for when you are winning.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/12/14/huaw-d14.html
With the Government’s cap on spending coupled with their targeted debt to GDP ratio, it’s difficult to expect too much from their Well-being budget.
While it will help reshuffle expenditure, it won’t lead to more net spending overall, which is largely required to get the country back on track. It’s just more tinkering around the edges.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018675561/grant-robertson-discusses-wellbeing-budget
With John Kelly exiting, Agent Drumpfski needs a new chief of staff. But the pool of people interested in getting a cheeto-tinged skidmark smeared down their CV has got very small. So apparently the Kush-kiddy wants a crack at it.
Personally, I’m rooting for Chris Christie to get the job. Given he put the Kush-daddy in the slammer, it would add a fascinating new dynamic to the reality show.
Lawyers are concerned that the alleged killer of Grace Millane will walk away on the grounds that he could not be given a fair trial.
I get that people are angry and I get that they want justice for Grace. I do too, but I know that it does not happen at the expense of due process.
https://willnewzealandberight.com/2018/12/14/the-need-to-respect-due-process-in-new-zealand-courts/
Young people are into instant gratification and don’t want to go through due process and restrain themselves so they don’t care about the restrainsts of the law and why they aid good process.
If Ms Millane had been careful and checked out this guy that she apparently met through an App, which would have required a wary and closer inspection and longer introduction amongst her peers, this might have been avoided. But Apps cater for instant gratification, everything must be fast and that service, accepted like an innocent child completely trustingly without sensible safety concerns, cocoons a person from the real world of bad events and sad disasters happening all the time.
“If Ms Millane had been careful”
Really? Still pushing that line after all the recent discussion.
And what was she wearing?
And did she do something or say something to trigger him to violence?
And was she drunk?
And any of the other forms of victim blaming ….
I cannot believe the lack of awareness of some people especially as you said after all the recent discussion – but then in the case of one or two here I can.
The beige blog also has some interesting reading in that regard today. I see Casual Jacket is back here today, possibly as a result of the responses to some of his comments there ….
Oh sorry every woman is a queen and all the ills and bads of the world bow down to her and give her safe passage. In your dreams. Women in the early 20th century had more go and pluck and nous than today’s easy-riders going forward on the back of the hard work put in by fighters for the right of women to have autonomy. Well women have got it, but modern lasses can’t handle it!
Oh get real Sacha. Women have always had to be careful about whom they consort and comport with. The recent discussion is a bunch of wet-eyed soppy people who have chosen to get really emotional about someone who had everything in life, except a an understanding of how to care for her own safety. It’s a pity that the women-lovers who carry on about the pick of the month, can’t stretch out their compassion and concern to all the other women in NZ who are doing it hard. I guess they are the wrong class or something.
Complete sop. There is no reason he should have been given name suppression in the first place and just got it on a technicality. If our justice system is so fragile that someone over in the never never may know his name? They just need to be careful in the jury selection that none of them got his name before hand. No doubt it will be public knowledge shortly anyway so a few weeks makes zero difference to his case.
His name is certainly not wide spread knowledge like if his name was printed in the paper or he was on NZ TV news. just goes to show some of our justice rules are not fit for purpose anymore if this type of scaremongering has validity.
If he has any decency he will spare the family a trial.
Agree. UK news pisses me off. A simple search online and the details are right there.
Hope they get pawned in court. NZ law may not apply in the UK BUT the fact is their actions have a predictable ripple effect causing the name disclosed here.
His lawyer will advise him to plead not guilty in order to extract maximum payment from his client.
A pleading of guilty will dry up the lawyers income stream.
Sad truth, but is the reality.
How would knowing his name affect someone’s ability to do the jury thing? Is name suppression ever granted to enable a fair trial? Isn’t it usually to protect family members?
The Dorian Gray Husk writes approvingly of the way the coalition government has forecasts of rising budget surpluses for the post 2020 period – falling debt and unable to spend more than 30% of GDP. The Husk can see, this along with National ending the $1B pa first year free year tertiary spending and cancelling the free second year the potential for National to offer a really big tax cut in their 2020 election manifesto.
The right wing media was very favourable to Roger Douglas back in the day (of course he actually delivered a really big tax on the high income earners and then decided against any CGT as part of a balanced package – which began the trend towards larger new builds and a substantial rise in property values in the more desirable areas).
With over $1.2tn going through the financial markets every year, a financial transaction tax of 1% will give the govt an income of $120bn a year.
The current raft of taxes generates just $85bn a year.
It is not hard to see that scrapping all forms of taxes and implementing an FTT of 1% will let to higher govt revenue and more money for consumers to spend as they see fit.
> With over $1.2tn going through the financial markets every year, a financial transaction tax of 1% will give the govt an income of $120bn a year.
That it will not, see upthread.
A.
Test
Now let’s see if this will go through – 4th try!
“has always cared about how New Zealanders are doing. That’s the ultimate measure for any government.”…”
Trouble is the meaning of the word ‘measure’. How to measure, and what? You need good, appropriate statistics, counting, to do that ‘measure’ properly, not just choose a sample that shows the government in the best light (an 8 watt bulb). A government that celebrates individualism, and then takes stats that ignore how individuals are doing and doesn’t report on each spectrum of the nation’s pie, isn’t giving measure for measure.
That is using statistics fraudulently Ms Adams, and that is how exteme poverty can be unnoticed by those Nationals celebrating a rock-star economy. Gnat ministers would likely say, “Don’t tell me about it in your report, I don’t want to know that!”
On Google, Measure for Measure shows up a promotion for Nottingham actors – this sounds a good rollicking Shakespearean play that National gals and guys would enjoy!
Measure for Measure – Pop-up Globe
https://popupglobe.co.nz/shows/measure-for-measure/
Measure for Measure – a searing expose of sexual exploitation and abuse of power presented in a timely and provocative production.
Oh for true measure for measure for the National Party.
What does the title Measure for Measure mean?
of Measure for Measure: “Its temper is ironic as its title: ‘Measure,’ as there used. is a judicial term for the measuring out of justice; hence the title means, ‘justice for justice.’ But Angelo does not receive measure for measure, an eye for. an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Measure for Measure: The Significance of the Title – jstor
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2866753
Test
Please note – that though I have got the Test word onto the post, I have had four tries at sending my comment on Amy Adams quote in No.5, it has not shown up. Where has it gone? Is something putting it into spam? This is another test to see what triggers rejection.
GCSB
Wishful thinking? LOL
What does wishful thinking mean? We certainly don’t want the GCSB present.
Nice story for a Friday afternoon.
Desert turns into oasis: Man plants 50,000 trees in 15 years in N China
A resident in southwest China’s Guizhou Province has been planting trees on a barren mountain for more than 30 years on end, without cutting a single tree for profit. He has, together with his wife, planted 76.67 hectares of trees since 1985.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/man-creates-a-forest-after-planting-trees-for-more-than-30-years
Amazing determination in Mongolia Save NZ. We in great old NZ have so many labour saving devices and yet it an up hill battle to get heaps planted and of course it is against bluddy minded Opposition who oppose planting because …? Wonder why?
What has Simon got against trees.
Not just the Natz hatred of trees here, the councils and transport agencies are also major tree haters and can’t wait to destroy trees at any opportunity.
Even nicer story for the weekend where we are trying to run a post to be an archive with ideas for helping a better environmental future for us all. The last one was called The Future Is… but it may change title. Everyone please visit and put up something helpful and interesting and links to save etc.
savenz I copies it and put it over in the post as it is just the sort of story that we want to get on record with link. Thanks.
Thanks Greywarshark. Have a great weekend!
Health warning for the day:
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/2132-being-vegan-makes-you-mentally-disabled-warns-top-danish-doctor
I’m sure its nothing though 🙂
Sounds like a chicken and egg situation to me .
Which came 1st mental illness or veganism.
Sorry but if it’s vegan, neither the chicken nor any eggs were involved.
🙂
Lewis Hamilton, the five times and reigning world F1 champion is a vegan.
Just imagine how much more dominant he would be if he wasn’t vegan.
There have only been two drivers to win five F1 world championships, Juan Manuel Fangio and Lewis Hamilton.
Michael Schumacher won the F1 title seven times and I have no idea what he ate. Probably raw meat carved straight from a cows ass.
You got to be next level crazy to drive a car at airplane speeds .
Well according to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_Grand_Prix_winners#By_driver
There have been 76 F1 champions so it seems being vegan is a hindrance to being a F1 champion, was that the point you’re trying tomake?
Shit Stirrer
As proven by Mythbusters (and Labour) you can polish a turd:
Crazy country, last week catastrophic bush fires to dodge, this week I’m on the edge of a Cat 4 cyclone.
Everything is tied down, and outside its hammering lightening and rain. Visible ground strokes just a few hundred metres away. Yee hah😀
Good luck. I’m all good with the elemental forces of nature, but cat4 is putting the “mental” into it…
We are in a boat off Fraser Island down wind from you. Forecast is now for TC Owen to fizzle out before it gets here. Summer in Oz is always a little crazy!
That’s a big island – should give some protection from wind? Iguess it might be better to be at sea than right by coastline.
Let us know how you get on RL. We can’t do much but can commiserate! What part of Oz?
About 100k south of Weipa. We should be OK here, but it’s still spectacular.
Get them on camera so you can have fond memories! Sometimes dull is good eh.
Interesting location very far north. Is there anything you have heard of interesting going on in the environment field up there? We are gathering ideas and putting on post on how to conserve water for droughts, fresh water, tree planting to bring shade and stop erosion etc.
The Australian government need’s to heed to the call of the people and plan to stop burning coal in the prosess they will be drowning thee neighbor all the Pacific Island are in great danger of sea level rise. Australia is a cause of refugee and there solution is to lock the people in cages on a Island . Its not all doom and gloom as it looks like a new government next year in Australia .
The call from 15 small Pacific island states came one day after the Australian government called for expressions of interest in new power generation projects, indicating it would be prepared to use taxpayer money to underwrite new coal plants.
Leaders warned Australia’s relations in the Pacific were being eroded by a perceived intransigence in Canberra over coalmining.
As the COP24 UN climate talks in Poland remained stalled over an unwillingness from major emitters to commit to further carbon emissions cuts, frustrated Pacific states, traditional allies of Australia, said the world must abandon coal-powered energy generation.
Australia’s carbon emissions highest on record, data shows
Read more
The Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, the outgoing president of COP23, said: “We call on all OECD countries to quickly phase out their use of coal by 2030 and for all other countries to phase out their use of coal by 2040. There must be no expansion of existing coal mines or the creation of new mines.”
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Australia and the US have both this week said publicly they have no plans to begin phasing out coal-generated power. Ka kite ano
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/14/pacific-nations-under-climate-threat-urge-australia-to-abandon-coal-within-12-years
NZ business are the biggest beneficiaries of NZ
John is being politically correct and polite in his story about Aotearoa inequality and how the uber rich made there riches .
I say they made there money by back room deals trading information they were ultimately taking from the people of Aotearoa cheating in my words hence my dislike of dilly joyce and his associates . Eco Maori say that the NZ benefit system is a direct subside to all the business in NZ and hence any poor people with out these benefit are struggling the young and the old in Aotearoa . There’s a global conversation raging over the massive growth in inequality and poverty. At home, that conversation is being led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who has seized on this agenda. Part of that national conversation is under way, via the Child Poverty Bill presently before Parliament.
It is sobering to reflect on New Zealand and what the once great promise of an egalitarian society has finally come to look like and represent. It has all happened in the last 30 years.
Many of the Kiwi folk who make up our rich list did not make their money simply by being sharp and clever innovators or entrepreneurs.
The richest man in New Zealand, Graeme Hart, gained his boarding pass to becoming the country’s richest man in some respects by being in the right place at the right time when the New Zealand Printing Office was privatised. We all know the story of the merchant bankers Michael Fay and David Richwhite, and one-time transport tycoons Alan Gibbs and Trevor Farmer, who made their money in part by being well positioned around deregulation — therefore privatisation.
Even the recently retired National Party politician Steven Joyce made his money before politics out of privatised radio bandwidths which were previously owned in the Government estate. Ana to kai Ka kite ano Links below. P.S I hope you get it no benefits min wage would be $25 a hour I don’t mean to scrap all benefits just a correction
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12078939
The sandflys are commiting the same offenses against me the bank staff are blinded by there shiny badges shonky has given them to much power and they are flouting it .Eco Maori is going to WIN in the end
New Zealand’s Security and Intelligence Service (NZSIS) has been found to be “very intrusive” in some of its requests to banks for customers’ information.
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn appears before the select committee.
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn RNZ / Diego Opatowski
The spy agency watchdog, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn, has released a report on a three month assessment of the service’s policy and practices of acquiring personal information from banks.
She found that despite using voluntary disclosure requests, rather than getting official warrants to obtain the information, the voluntary aspect wasn’t always made clear.
“Some of the past collection by the NZSIS would have constituted unreasonable searches contrary to the Bill of Rights,” Ms Gwyn said.
The law was changed last year with the enactment of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, which has resolved some of the issues identified, she said. Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/378274/sis-very-intrusive-in-some-requests-for-bank-customer-info
Here is why health cost are so enormously expensive in America some people buy smaller drug companies change the name of the drugs and hike the prices of the health drugs by 5000% hence millions of people in America can not afford health care .
We must never let ANYONE stop Aotearoa Pharma if we do the mutuality national neo liberals capitalist will drain Aotearoa of money. PURE GREED. Ana to kai ka kite ano links below
This is a video for the above post I could not get any storys on Valeant any were else except youtube ka pai youtube ka kite ano P.S YOU NEED TO watch Dirty Money on NetFlix
I seen this person on Tv a few months back and I DID NOT like what I saw I got the same feeling when I seen him on the Millane case but out of respect for Millane whano I held my words back than the gods have answered my concerns when I found this story on News Room website
Detective Inspector Scott Beard’s handling of the Millane case touched some New Zealanders and the Millane family, and has won praise from colleagues and politicians, but he has been working under internal scrutiny after Auckland Area Commander Gary Davey investigated four allegations against him pre-dating the Millane case – and upheld them.
Davey had been asked by Police Commissioner Mike Bush to inquire into a complaint against Beard. The four counts include sharing confidential police information of a sensitive nature, breaching the confidentiality of his team members and supervisors, breaching the privacy of a victim’s parent, and separately selling or supplying alcohol at his Hibiscus Coast Football Club. Ana to kai ka kite ano link below
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/12/14/363361/grace-cop-subject-of-internal-inquiry
Kia ora Newshub there are a lot of fool about poisoning those pohutukawa trees they take at least 50 years to get to the size of the ones poisoned up North.
I seen a story on this sight TSD about the J&J talcom baby powder there was a lady who died of cancer she put it on everyday capitalism at its best No.
Good on the young fella for being so industrious and selling his services to preforming a haka.
Shakira one can not hid anything now days just pay your tax’s to your country.
That good a good story White Stone cheese winning a prize in France that is what we should be doing with a lot of our foods high value markets ka pai.
I think that people need to be polite with mowing the berm issues there is a point to mow or not to mow one is good for the environment and ones not lol .
Those pounamu are a awesome sight and the story about the tiki tiki is cool.
Kate that is a good story line of Aquaman being rescued by a wahine we need to raze everyone respect for wahine
Mike someone told me that Ruamoko was singing his waiata and preforming a haka loud and proud last night I missed it went to sleep early last night.
Ka kite ano
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.