” Mr Leon [Night Shelter Manager] agrees a housing shortage is one of the biggest problems. “Housing New Zealand isn’t building anymore, council isn’t building anymore but the need is increasing. Where does that lead?”
Wellington City Council has about 2300 social housing units in the city and Housing NZ 8975, although only 1600 are in Wellington city.
Both agencies have been upgrading their housing stock in the past year, but are keen to emphasise how all displaced tenants are successfully rehoused.
Neither organisation is planning to increase their housing stock but talk enthusiastically about “partnering” with third parties to build affordable housing.
Last May, Housing NZ kicked out 131 tenants from its Gordon Wilson complex after the building was found to be quake prone.
In the Wellington region, the number of Housing NZ homes remains steady. However, while available housing hasn’t shrunk, the number of people on the high priority waiting list has more than tripled in the past two years. “
Thanks for the link, AWW. It’s good to see that a mainstream paper is taking notice.
The article gives examples of the most visible, easiest to find and accessible homeless individuals (mostly single men): those sleeping rough in public spaces, and in shelters. It does mention where homeless families (especially children and women) will be found: couch-surfing, (over) crowding into houses and flats with other people.
There are other places where there will be hidden homeless people: living in garages, in the spare rooms of friends and family, in caravans and tents on other people’s quarter acre sections, etc.
Of course, focusing on examples of such single people living at the “sharp end” of homeless, gives a skewed perception, and won’t help a lot to get rid of some people’s misconceptions about the “undeserving poor”.
Those ‘Easy Access’ flat are supposedly for providing transitional accomodation — ie support for the homeless to move into permanent housing. If the guy ended up on the street after his 6 months there, then we need to re look at that scheme and make changes,
My thinking too, here’s what i think has occurred there, the particular ‘Private Organization’ has received Health Budget support to ‘help’ those with intellectual disabilities, including head injuries,
As these contracts are structured, to receive ongoing funding over multi-year budget rounds the ‘Private Organization’ must show that X people have received the short term help and moved on as the ‘Bizness Plan’ of the organization stated to get the original funding,
Or, this is how Tony Ryall is making cuts to Vote Health without having the Doctors and Nurses up in arms,
Whatever the reason tho, that bloke should be in a HousingNZ home…
Porirua has about 45 HNZC houses currently sitting empty, untenanted.
Two blocks of 4 houses are empty. 1 each in those 4 is fire damaged. One house has been damaged since November 2010 and the whole block has been empty since then.
The other block has been empty since February 2011.
On my street there are two standalone HNZC houses both empty, and fire damaged. The roof has collapsed on one (necessitating a cheap n nasty fence with KEEP OUT signs sprinkled liberally on its length) while the other isnt in too bad a shape. Both have been empty since March 2012 and October 2012 respectively… I expect them to still be empty come November 2014.
I’m not too sure whats worse. The seeming prevalence of firebugs receiving HNZC accommodation, or the fact that 10 houses are rotting away which could comfortably accommodate at least 3 families per house /sarc
Finally the MSM start to take notice of Poverty and Homelessness A pity they did not mention Families but it’s a start. Lets hope that this is not just a one off /filler piece. And if it picked up then Shonky and co will have to take notice and will ignore it at their peril.
Climate Change Apologist, Colonial Viper and Climate Change Ignorer weka have accused me of asking the impossible in demanding that political parties particularly the Greens prioritise climate change over all their other policies. Whether they be the venal, getting cabinet seats, or the noble, ending poverty.
Jenny. Apart from this dishonest ‘dogging’ of commentors that you indulge in – does it ever cross your mind, that thanks to years of vilification by major media, that if the Greens went all gung-ho on AGW they’d sink without a trace beneath a wave of public derision aided and abetted by the media? And does it ever cross your mind that if a lead on all of this is going to come from elected representatives (and I’m far from convinced that’s the best option), then for it to be in any way palatable to or accepted by a majority of people, it’s going to have to come from the likes of Labour or National? And are you aware that even then, the mainstream media will round on said party like the pack of stupid corporate dogs that they are and get down to ripping them apart? A Labour party or a National party might withstand that. But a Green party wouldn’t.
Maybe think through what you are saying a little more and consider taking a third colour from your crayon box? The black and white routine isn’t just monotonous, it’s lacking in so many fronts that your reasonable and well founded passion comes across as…well, it doesn’t come across. It hits a stonewall of facepalm, head desk, eye roll, ‘oh, gawd here we go again’ frustration knowing that a good point is about to be obscured because the delivery’s like a flushing toilet with a whole pile of swirling crap dropped in on top.
Bill, Jenny doesn’t care what happens to the GP. She wants to them to be a glorified parliamentary lobby group, not a political party that forms government. She’s been pretty clear on this, that she believes that the GP should commit electoral suicide by going hard on CC, and give up aspirations of governance.
Jenny, I haven’t accused you of asking the impossible. What you ask is entirely possible. It’s just that it’s incredibly stupid.
What I have in fact accused you of is being a selfish, hypocritical coward. You rant about what everyone else should do about CC, but you yourself are unwilling to give up the comfy western lifestyle that not only underpins the causes of AGW, but actively prevents society from doing anything about it. You refuse to look at the large body of work that’s been done by many reputable people on why Green Tech won’t save us, and thus you show that you are willing to let the world burn despite all your rhetoric. You refuse to look at or engage with ideas around peak oil and CC that don’t fit your own dogmatic view that everything would just be alright if we only had a leader like Churchill or the GP threw themselves on their sword.
You repeatedly tell lies not only about the GP, but also about myself and CV (and presumably whoever else gets in your way). I actually felt bad about the dressing down I gave you on the weekend, but now I understand that it’s the only way to respond to you. You have almost zero integrity as commenter here in terms of ability to debate in a way that makes sense, or deal with views that don’t match your own. Quite bizarrely, you routinely slander and make offensive comments about the very people and groups that would be your natural allies. Others have pointed this out to you too, yet it makes no difference.
I’m sure that other commenters find this bullshit debate between you and me and CV tedious. I certainly do. But until you stop telling lies about me, or until the moderators step in, I feel there’s nothing I can do but meet you with with the same level of disrespect you show me. This makes me sad, because it’s obvious you have a lot of passion and energy to do something useful about CC, but you remain unwilling to do so in a way that has meaning in the real world.
In other words, Jenny, to paraphrase weka’s relatively polite statement – if the Greens started ranting obsessively on the one point like you do, no one would vote for them or even pay attention after a while.
They got released eventually, but I couldn’t see what the trigger words might have been. I was starting to think every comment I would submit on every thread would get siphoned off by the bot.
Yes and no!!!, sure it was good of Annette to enter into the fray, specially so considering that the Standard has the rep of ‘no quarter given debates’,
The proof of the pudding tho is always in the eating, in this case ‘the pudding’ being the number of HousingNZ properties that a Labour lead Government is willing to add to that portfolio,
This, Annette assured us, while restating Labour’s commitment to building up the HousingNZ numbers, is a work in progress so we will just have to wait a while i guess,
While i have to take what She says at face value i am still mindful that between now and the 2014 election ‘things’ could change, i am still smarting from the election pledge Annette made during the 2011 campaign that benefit dependent children would be made eligible to receive Working for Families tax credits,
It is apparent that from somewhere in the Party Annette was told that that was unlikely to happen and She had to embarrasingly back away from the prior announcement over the next week by announcing things like ‘this would be over time etc’,
A big ‘ups’ has to be extended to Mike Smith for the visit of Annette King, my belief is that He was instrumental from His position in the Leaders office in that visit…
Yes I hoped the Great One had been instrumental in the visitation. I challenged him when he wrote his post to stop doing the Spokesperson’s job for them and geat the actual politician to front.
Genter is lovely, but is was quite some time ago. Not we should presume upon our own self-importance for MPs to visit us. Maybe RogueTrooper is actually an MP đ
Nah, ‘Rouge’ sits way closer to God than that, we have to consider also that the ‘loud noise’ emanating from the Standard over the housing issue in the past month or so might have had Annette King fronting in an attempt to pacify us lot,
Like i commented before, i will for now take the visit and Annette’s comments at face value but i am neither ‘hollering from the rooftops enthused’ about what was said and my ego hasn’t, (as yet), exploded the size of my head beyond it’s ability to separate the ‘chaff’ from the ‘wheat’,
LOLZ, what would be a hoot is if both Labour and the Greens tasked one of their MP’s to engage with the Standard on the same basis as what us lot engage with each other,
You know what i mean, roll up the sleeves, drop the policy paper vocab and give as good as they get…
Homeless families usually have family that are willing to share with them, the sharp end as described in your link tends to have mostly as the client base those with psyche/addiction problems,
Spend a month or two of nights watching Wellington’s streets and you get good at spotting the homeless among the crowds,of course once the crowd thins out the ‘homeless’ become very apparent and if you stay all night you can while watching the street cleaning gangs go about their daily toil identify the ‘Night Shelter crew’ as they arrive from their slumber,
It’s actually relatively ‘hard’ to be homeless in Wellington City, the social agencies,City Council, and, HousingNZ all work reasonably closely together,
There are a couple of ‘drivers’ in the tripling of the ‘urgent need’ category that are on the HousingNZ waiting list,
First, the ‘unintended consequences’ of former Prime Minister Helen Clark doing a deal with the Wellington City Council where Government would subsidize the upgrading of most of the housing stock that the Council has in tower blocks,
This ongoing program has meant that the Council tenants in any tower block being re-furbished have to be found housing elsewhere in either the Council or HousingNZ’s portfolio,
It would have been nice ae, if the ‘thinking’ at the time had of seen this ‘unintended’ consequence’ where having to house a tower block of tenants elsewhere has denied other’s in need access as the total of housing units available declined during the refurbishment,
The solution of course would have been to build another large block of flats so as to be able to house those tenants effected by the Council refurbishment thus allowing the ‘normal’ tenant turnover in the portfolio to continue,
Exacerbating that is the paranoia after the Christchurch Earthquakes, where both Council and HousingNZ have been assessing their portfolio for buildings which might not meet the new standards,
Again it would have been nice to think that both agencies befor they got around to removing the tenants en masse from buildings deemed at risk would have built a suitable alternative, not doing so has simply increased the numbers in urgent need of housing,
There is of course a sub-set of ‘homeless people’ who for obvious reasons i am not going to identify too closely, they live in the garages of relatives and in some cases where their is no garage the garden shed is fitted out as their bedroom, the legality of living this way is questionable so advocating for such people can be fraught as if they are forced to leave this form of accomodation ‘the street’ is the obvious next stop…
If as you say it is relatively hard to be homeless in Wellington then since the number of people listed for priority housing with HNZ or WCC is increasing, AND the number of people showing up at the night shelter has increased from 30 a night to between 50 and 100 we can only assume it is getting easier to be homeless in Wellington than it used to be.
I think you may have overlooked some of the more vulnerable groups such as the mentally ill for whom indigence is an aspect of their pathology, and abused youth – GLBT in particular – who are very distrusting of authority.
Yep, i understand there are little sub-sets of homeless people who like the mentally ill are constantly ‘on the roam’ that it is extremely difficult to either reach or keep housed even if they can be reached,
Wellington’s inner city ministry does an excellent job of working with these people, along with the more feral alcoholics providing among other things a banking service which means among other things that should they be able to be housed the inner city ministry manages their money so as to make sure the rent is at least paid,
Of course among the psychotic and the schizophrenic there is that propensity to be driven by their affliction to just up and off for months at a time, some disappearing off of the face of the Earth and others appearing months later unable or unwilling to say where they have been,(lolz perhaps kidnapped by the aliens and taken away for ‘probing’)…
Here come the Slum-lords, gush,gush,gush go the real estate agents, where’s Gerry chiming in with ‘well if ‘they’ choose to live in them’ in defense of the Slum-lords who will as more labour arrives for the re-build increasingly ‘cream it’ renting out a growing number of slum-tenancies room by room at an ever increasing cost citing ‘demand’ being high from those ‘wanting’ to live in these wrecks…
I find the idea of a building WOF for rental accommodation to be actually dangerous for the tenants until such time as the State gets it’s A into G and builds the necessary housing to accommodate those tenants who would be forced to move if such a regime were in place,
The reason tenants move into such sub-standard accommodation is simply the worse a properties condition is the less they will be charged for rent,
If WOF inspections for tenancies become the norm, the landlord forced to fix sub-standard property will simply put up the rent to cover the cost and if the tenant can then not afford the raised rent they will be forced to look elsewhere…
I can well imagine some of the houses have been written off but are perfectly livable. Doesn’t make them a ‘slum’.
The whole point of the capitalist system is that when demand outstrips supply, price rises and in doing so encourages more supply to be made available. Surely people are only turning these houses into rentals because the demand, and commensurate price, is there.
The alternative would be no house at all. I’m not sure why that’s better.
Disagree, gerry and the other National Party functionary currently Governing Christchurch have a definite knowledge of the expected size of the workforce that will be imported from elsewhere to rebuild Christchurch,
Anyone with an ounce of brains having such knowledge would simply build the tower blocks of accommodation necessary to house this workforce, such accommodation could after the rebuild make a great addition to the HousingNZ portfolio,
Glad to see you firmly in the ‘camp’ of capitalism in your support for slumlords who it is obvious as these houses cannot be insured will not spend any amount of money on them into the future, they may not be quite slum conditions now but given a few years of cracked foundations they soon will be,
I can well imagine the out-right glee of the slumlords as they crank the rent through the roof as more rebuild workers arrive in a shrunken accommodation market, none of this accomodation will have been assessed for asbestos in the ceilings and it’s highly unlikely in many cases that a bit of cracking in the ceiling will provoke such ‘investors’ to investigate nor fix the problem…
“Anyone with an ounce of brains having such knowledge would simply build the tower blocks of accommodation necessary to house this workforce, such accommodation could after the rebuild make a great addition to the HousingNZ portfolio,”
Dormitory housing might be appropriate for temporary workers, but the people of CHCH (of which I am one) still need somewhere to live. There still aren’t enough houses to go around as it is.
“your support for slumlords”
I don’t know why you’re calling them slumlords. I was listening to this on the radio on the way home, about houses that were worth $500k being bought for $220k because they were damaged. A $500k house is hardly likely to be a ‘slum’, sure it might be damaged but as I said, a damaged house is still better than no house to live in.
“I can well imagine the out-right glee of the slumlords as they crank the rent through the roof as more rebuild workers arrive in a shrunken accommodation market”
The “slumlords” as you persist in calling them, are increasing the size of the accommodation market, not shrinking it.
Just as a data point, I recently moved house. Previous place I was renting for $300/week was a 1 bedroom cottage in a nice area – good condition, heat pump, but with a small kitchen and no dishwasher. Landlord has now rented it out to a couple for $350/week, who were apparently happy to pay it.
NO DISHWASHER, god what savagery, how can anyone be forced to live in such third world squalor,
If you can happily afford to cough 300-350 a week for one bedroom accommodation you or the couple you highlight do not interest me one iota as far as your housing situation is concerned,
My concern is more aimed at the likes of the Canterbury University catering worker recently made redundant who now has 7 dollars a week to live upon after paying rent…
Yeah ae, like the labour and time consumed putting the stuff in the dishwasher and taking it out again is probably more than what you expend running the sink and washing em that way,
Then there’s the consideration of power usage and if your a bit Green the utter waste of it,
I have used one as the galley slave in Wellington kitchens washing up after 120 people have dined out,LOLZ one of the most laborious low payed jobs on the planet,and some of the tight A/holes running these kitchens won’t even chuck in a meal along with that minimum wage…
“NO DISHWASHER, god what savagery, how can anyone be forced to live in such third world squalor,
If you can happily afford to cough 300-350 a week for one bedroom accommodation you or the couple you highlight do not interest me one iota as far as your housing situation is concerned,”
I was merely giving you an idea of what accommodation in CHCH costs at the moment. $350 for a one-bedroom cottage IMO is very steep.
But hey, you’re against private people providing more housing on the rental market. Apparently you’d rather the houses just remain empty or be demolished.
Yes, it would be nice if the government or someone would step in an build houses, and I think they should. But even if the government did do that, surely having another 100 extra houses provided by the private sector on top of anything provided by the government would still be better than not providing those 100 houses.
So I still don’t understand your willingness to call these people slumlords for providing a necessary and wanted service (and it is a service – these houses can’t get insurance, so they’re taking a big risk on the properties burning down etc) and I really don’t think you’ve made any rational case as to why it is a bad thing.
“My concern is more aimed at the likes of the Canterbury University catering worker recently made redundant who now has 7 dollars a week to live upon after paying rent⌔
I recall the one you were talking about. There were many comments on that stuff article about what she *needed* to do, such as downsize her living accommodation to a level that was commensurate with her new income. Yes, life sucks for some people at some times. But once again, taking liveable houses out of the market, which you are advocating, doesn’t help people in her situation one iota.
So I still donât understand your willingness to call these people slumlords for providing a necessary and wanted service (and it is a service â these houses canât get insurance, so theyâre taking a big risk on the properties burning down etc)
But why can’t the houses get insurance. Oh yes, because they are considered by the acturies and the building assessors of being at higher risk of things like fires, flooding and suffering other significant structural damage.
Yet people are expected to live in these higher risk homes with their children, and landlords renting out these uninsurable properties to make good profits on is still considered respectable?
And if a 3 bedroom house can hold 2 families, why not squeeze two families into there, it’s simply “pragmatic” to lower standards and these people have very few options after all so why not push them in.
And to make a few good bucks out of this compromised environment, maybe that’s why the term “slum lord” has been used.
“Yet people are expected to live in these higher risk homes with their children, and landlords renting out these uninsurable properties to make good profits on is still considered respectable?”
No, people are not “expected” to live in those houses. It’s their choice as a private individual as to whether they live in that accommodation or not.
“And if a 3 bedroom house can hold 2 families, why not squeeze two families into there, itâs simply âpragmaticâ to lower standards and these people have very few options after all so why not push them in.”
Now I would agree that would be slumlord behaviour. However there is no evidence of this happening in this case, outside of your suggestion of it.
“And to make a few good bucks out of this compromised environment, maybe thatâs why the term âslum lordâ has been used.”
Once again, I don’t understand why it is preferable for there to be no house at all.
It was good to hear Radio NZ start a short series called A Beginner’s Guide to Parliament this morning. Just the sort of thing that would be suitable for a civics curriculum in this country.
New Zealand’s government needs to be reformed, cutting down government CEO’s to size and putting in more checks and balances would be a start. But National seems committed to raising salaries of the top levels of government, while sacking thousands of low paid public service workers (in the military, schools, in foreign affairs and trade,etc).
We will own the answers, so we must come up with the answers in the first place.
The Standard bloggers and readers are positive people. They care enough to get engaged, and more.
Many general and many specific issues have been raised and debated on theses pages in the past year. The tempo increased significantly with the start of the Constitutional Review and has been white-hot since then.
Identifying problems and shaping answers without being able to advance/influence/progress the solution is very frustrating. Feeling that a rump in the party is fighting against that change is infuriating.
Here are a few things you can do to be in a position to shape the answer and to see them through to execution:
Host a BBQ and don’t invite your MP. She/he will definitely show up with a least two good bottles of wine. They are paranoid, the insecure darlings.
Go to the Summer School in two weeks time. David Shearer will be making another policy speech and many of the movers and shakers will be there. It is hosted by Young Labour and is great fun.
Ask for an urgent extraordinary LEC meeting to discuss your frustrations. If your Sec/Chair says that is not possible, then ask all the members you know/like to come together to discuss how you can collectively own the answer. Ditto your Sectoral group.
Ask your MP to meet over a pint/glass. Those politicians that do not drink usually loose elections quickly. Ditto for your NZ Council rep.
Remember, you own the answer. That is what the voting at Conference was all about.
I see that the RSS feed is now going through FeedBurner. Is there any way to correctly time stamp the comments? At the moment they’re on one of the US time zones. It’s like living in the past, maaan!
And, just wondering what happened to the edit options (Bold, Italic, link etc.) They were pretty useful, particularly for links.
I just shifted to Feedburner a few hours ago because the feeds were getting stuck in the cache system (no post updates since friday). I’ll have a look at the time stamps after I get through this pile of compilation bugs (ie any time between now and midnight).
The tinymce comment editor fell victim to the update of wordpress to 3.5. They finally started to use a more modern version of tinymce. I can repair it or look for a less problematic system or both. I’ll patch something in over the next couple of days.
Of course if you can control the weather and drop the humidity in Auckland, it’d help speed things up đ
Cheers, Lprent, much appreciated. Nothing I can do about the weather (and after a week’s holiday of mind numbing and body sapping mid-thirties in Gisborne, I know what you mean!).
It shows up as being in GMT on the feed XML, which is correct. Nothing weird like PST.
The reader should display in your local time. Ah so the default silly reader in the link from feedburner – which does not.
Yep. Subscribing to comments in http://www.google.co.nz/reader and in the ubuntu default reader Akregator do correctly display the datetime in the local timezone.
I’ll have a look to see if there is anyway to fix the default feedburner page to do the same
. . . At last we come to politics, where I believe Lanier has been most farsightedâand which may be the deep source of his turning into a digital Le CarrĂŠ figure. As far back as the turn of the century, he singled out one standout aspect of the new web cultureâthe acceptance, the welcoming of anonymous commenters on websitesâas a danger to political discourse and the polity itself. At the time, this objection seemed a bit extreme. But he saw anonymity as a poison seed. The way it didnât hide, but, in fact, brandished the ugliness of human nature beneath the anonymous screen-name masks. An enabling and foreshadowing of mob rule, not a growth of democracy, but an accretion of tribalism . . .
I’m not sure I agree but, coming from Lanier, worthy of consideration, I suggest. This anti-anonymous meme is coming in from all sorts of quarters, particularly the Right but also “Lefties” like Brian Edwards and various Labour MPs. Perhaps they have been captured by the business agenda of transforming the internet from the town square to a shopping mall but given Lanier’s wider comments on the economy maybe that’s not such a bad thing?
used to read ALD đ (in fact, I remember sending them l R; flattered, wish someone would offer me employment, even a home would helpful)
“The true path is a middle way between ascetic denial and pleasurable indulgence”
“Nirvana follows from a disciplined curiosity about the texture of experience, stilling the compulsions”
“…guide the brain with beautiful compassion; on this basis anything can be built, more compassion, more luminosity, greater understanding”-Head Trip : Adventures on The Wheel of Consciousness-Jeff Warren.
“When you have gained some experience in the process of liberating thoughts, they are said to undo themselves, as a snake might untie a knot in it’s own body” -Going Buddhist : Peace and Emptiness-Peter J. Conradi.
“May we attend to our implicational cognitive systems,more than our propositional”, ( in addition to our participatory consciousness).-Owen Barfield.
Is this a (2nd)? Axial Age-Karl Jaspers
It is not helpful to display to your inferiors that what you disdain in your superiors
“Not helpful to offer to your neighbours on the Left what you dislike in your neighbours on the Right”.
V fah (Bury my heart at wounded) knee Cameron ;).you and / or your associates have too much time on your hands.(I’ve always been too trusting, but I not worry) đ
Help need…
You all know and understand QE in all it’s forms 1 thru to 3 etc well I need a new term framed in language that will get resonance and traction with both msm and the public?
Also need to fundamentally reconceptualise what money is, in the mind of the public…money is a way to bring workers and materials together to get important things built.
Yes my friend but without invest growth um capitalism or some replacement then we have very little real growth over last few decades that actually provided both money supply and demand for consumables that in turn provide more employment for all that spare labour.
Personally I am a leveller all same no one greater that the least…
Or, money is simply the means by which we exchange our labour for our daily needs, money only becomes a problem when the supply of it to those with the least of it is constrained in such a way as to not allow the exchange of labour for daily needs to occur…
Pete George over on Asianinvasion showing his lack of basic undstanding of the Labour Party selection process.
“And if the vote did go to the party I doubt there is anyone who would challenge Shearer”
The “trigger” challenge has to start within the Caucus. The members only get to have a say if their MPs understand from the members that the Leadership needs validation by the members. Then life will be sweet and we can get on with kicking the Nats, John Banks and Peter Dunne out of the Treasury benches.
(Wellington Lefties and Greenies: Please, o please help Charles beat Dunne)
Ah, I know the feeling of being the shorty in the crowd, especially when people get out of their seats to stand and cheer – not a helpful box in sight.
Oh, I shouldn’t have followed that link. Laughing out loud at the join the (largely invisible) dots from our sysop to Margaret Wilson via the Uni of Waikato, along with some creative writing about anal proclivities.
Apparently that wasn’t actually Lauda Finem, it was some Brave Courageous Speaking-Truth-To-Power Long-Time Reader of Lauda Finem. Who used the first person plural a heck of a lot, and professed to know a lot about what Lauda Finem intends to publish in future.
I may disagree with David Shearer on many things, but if Lauda Finem’s emails read anything like their posts, chucking their emails in the bin is not one of them.
In case anyone is confused, this is the “definitely not Lauda Finem” who mysteriously speaks on behalf of Lauda Finem and writes in an identical style to that of Lauda Finem: /open-mike-02012013/#comment-569040
Interesting he’s gone to The Standard to find out about “mob behaviour”, “herd mentality” and hypocrisy. Why all that time and effort when he could just spend five minutes on Whaleoil?
by The Council of Disobedient Women In a press release today Massey University announced it has decided to rebrand and reorientate after struggling to be a University for grown-ups. For some time the University has wanted to be a safe play space for wee-woke-misogynists who have been really badly triggered ...
After a brief dalliance with 'hard Revoke' it looks like the Lib Dems are changing ground on on Brexit, with leader Jo Swinson reverting to calling for a second referendum on Johnson's deal.The party has tabled an amendment to the Queen’s speech requesting that any deal brought back from Brussels ...
The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof. If ...
So, Judith Collins has done a Facebook rant about climate change, peddling the same shit National has been shovelling for the past twenty years: the impacts are overstated, there's no need to do anything about it, and its too hard anyway (oh, and its so unfair that people who peddle ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzThere is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...
I came across this song quite by accident. If it isn't one of Greta Thunberg's favourites - it should be.Video courtesy of YouTube.This post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...
Last month, NZDF's shoddy coverup of what it knew about civilian casualties in Operation Burnham began to fall apart, with the revelation that a report on the matter, which NZDF claimed not to have, had been sitting in an NZDF safe for the past nine years. Yesterday, the man responsible ...
While many imagine that countries like the USA and Europe dominate space activities, in fact India is now a major player on this stage. It launches satellites for its own purposes and also commercially, and has constellations orbiting our planet and returning data of vital importance to that nation in ...
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...
For the past week, Extinction Rebellion has been peacefully protesting in London to demand action on climate change. The British government's response? Ban their protests:Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s ...
An essay by Judith Collins MP reported on Carbon News yesterday seems to show an alarming shift in attitude within the National Party. Collins argues against the Zero Carbon Bill, the Paris Agreement, and downplays the magnitude of climate impacts. The Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015 and ratified ...
When they were running for election, Labour promised to overhaul the Employment Relations Act and introduce fair pay agreements to set basic pay and conditions on an industry level, preventing bad employers from undercutting good ones. They followed this up by establishing a working group, which reported back in January ...
A list of indicators of bad science – many of these are found in articles promoted by anti-fluoride activists. Anti-fluoride activists have been pouring money into a scaremongering campaign warning pregnant women not to drink fluoridated water. They claim fluoride will lower the IQ of their future child. Fluoride ...
Nothing Left To Say: Labour's pollster, Stephen Mills, remains swaddled-up in the comforting myths of the 1980s. As if the experience of Roger Douglas’s genuinely radical post-Muldoon policy agenda was literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing – as much as the party could possibly absorb for at least the next 50 years.MEMO ...
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...
With an unfair voting system, uneven electorates and an un-elected upper house, the UK's "democracy" is barely worthy of the name. But now the government wants to make it worse:The government has been accused of suppressing voters’ rights with the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of people after plans ...
Back in the 90's and early 2000's, the building industry was building leaky homes which should never have been granted consent. Now it turns out they've been building dodgy office blocks as well:New imaging technology has revealed hundreds of major buildings nationwide have defective or missing concrete or reinforcing steel. ...
Local body election results were released over the weekend, to joy or despair depending on where you live. In Auckland, Phil Goff trounced John Tamihere, who is muttering darkly about running for Parliament again (but which party would want him?) Wellington is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Weta Workshop, except ...
How could government evolve over the next decades? Reports of democracy’s imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. However, satisfaction with political systems in many countries is low, so there is much to do for governments of all political stripes to improve relevance and trust. Digital technologies are seen as one ...
Two years have now gone by since the Friday afternoon when my university-student son and I headed out of our Barcelona flat to a nearby primary school, designated as a polling station for the vote that was to be held the following Sunday: the referendum on Catalonia’s independence from Spain ...
Overruled: The joint decision of Finance Minister, Grant Robertson (Labour) and his Associate Minister, David Parker (Labour) arguably the two most powerful ministers in Jacinda Ardern’s government, to grant OceanaGold the consents which Land Information Minister, Eugenie Sage (Greens) had earlier denied them, offers bitter proof of how hard fighting ...
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...
A Statement on Abortion Law Reform by the Council of Disobedient Women On the eve of bringing an end to antiquated, anti-women abortion laws Green MP Jan Logie intends to write women out of the Bill. With a stroke of the pen, the woke are aiming for total erasure ...
Musings continue apace about “the experienced businessman!” soon to be taking up a National Party MP position. Or to be more accurate, being parachuted into a seat to shut down their former MP Jamie-Lee Ross, who despite his own shortcomings shed at least some more light on the inner workings ...
The Ugandan government wants to murder gay people:Uganda has announced plans to impose the death penalty on homosexuals. The bill, colloquially known as “Kill the Gays” in Uganda, was nullified five years ago on a technicality, but the government said on Thursday it plans to resurrect it within weeks. The ...
Freedom Of Speech? The Säuberung (cleansing by fire) was the work of the German Student Union which, on 10 May 1933, under the watchful eye of the Nazi Reichminister for Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, consigned 25,000 books to the flames in a ritual exorcism of “un-German thought”. According to the logic of the ...
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...
New Zealand has prided itself for decades with regard to its lack of pollution, and all will be aware that the ‘100% Pure New Zealand‘ meme is under threat through land, water and air pollution of various causes. There is another type of contamination that the country also faces: light ...
New Zealand’s media is doing its part in Japan, reassuring those in the path of the storm that they won’t miss any rugby while away from their flooded homes. New Zealand sports reporters stationed in Japan for the Rugby World Cup have had the rare and heartwarming opportunity to inform ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones is the only Cabinet member in favour of putting it all on green. As Finance Minister Grant Robertson finds himself with an enormous $7.5 billion surplus, the Government has begun intense, at times contentious conversations about whether to put the money on red or black at ...
by Susanne Kemp At the start of September close to 100,000 school teachers went on strike in Jordan. They demanded a 50% pay rise. A pay rise actually agreed to by the regime back in 2014. In early October, however, in the face of government repression and threats, the teachers’ ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhy do people still think climate change isn’t real?David ...
Back in 2011, journalist Nicky Hager published Other People's Wars, an expose on NZDF's activities over the previous decade of the "war on terror". NZDF didn't like this, and especially didn't like the fact that it was base don leaks from their own. So, they had the SIS investigate him ...
The Zero Carbon Bill is due back from select committee in two weeks, and will likely pass its final stages in November. So naturally, farmers are planning a hate-march against it. But they're not just demanding lower methane targets so they can keep on destroying the planet; they're also demanding ...
Last year, California burned. This year, to stop it happening again (or rather, to stop themselves from being found liable if it happens again), Pacific Gas and Electric is cutting power to half the state for a week:Schools are closed. Traffic lights down. Tunnels dark. Businesses unopened. Hospitals running on ...
The Best Way: Missing from the on-line voting debate is any reference to the voting system that produces turn-out figures ranging from 77 to 93 percent of registered voters. The voting system used to collect and count the votes cast in our parliamentary elections. The system that involves citizens making ...
Among the great new bunch of political friends we have been making recently is the excellent Australian-based Marxist gender-critical site, Freer Lives. So we asked the comrade who set up that blog to write something for Redline on the blog, himself, his analysis of the rise of gender politics and ...
by Don Franks The Auckland City Mission is struggling with a 40 percent increase in demand for food parcels this year. A total of 23,020 were needed by June. Last month Missioner Chris Farrelly told the Herald the “cupboards are bare” and without an emergency food drive, he can’t see ...
by The Council of Disobedient Women Massey Wellington Student Association had a sit-in today. Imagine a sit-in. On a campus. Against a women’s rights meeting. Did the ’60s really happen or did we fucking dream it? They gathered in the student square, an echo chamber. Sitting on soft pillows ...
For some reasons, my post about the mystery message from inside the Downing Street bunker seemed to catch people's attention. Quite a lot of hits from NZ (unsurprisingly) and the USA (a bit more puzzlingly, but hi there, USAians!!) and 76 views from the Ukraine.I've celebrated my Ukrainian readers in ...
First, almost a score of Labour MPs seem to have sent a letter to the EU basically begging them to accept a deal - any deal - just so Britain can get the Heck on with Brexiting instead of being trapped in limbo:
by Phil Duncan In 2016 the National-led government suspended the Parent Visa Category, through which migrants were able to bring their parents into New Zealand. Since then over 5,700 people have been in immigration limbo, stuck on the visa wait list. Labour is now bringing back the scheme. Well, sort ...
The following was released yesterday (Tues, October 8) by the women’s liberation organisation Speak Up for Women. On 23 September Speak Up For Women announced that we would be holding an event at the Massey University Theaterette in Wellington. The event is called Feminism 2020. The intention of the event ...
The government is currently consulting on plans to improve freshwater quality. So naturally, farmers oppose it:South Taranaki farmers are preparing to fight proposed national freshwater changes that some fear will bankrupt them. The Government's proposed National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management, released in September, rated the Waingongoro River as one ...
Yesterday was the last day for (reliably) posting your vote away in local body elections. Turnouts are mostly much lower than the equivalent time last year (Palmerston North is down 2.3%), and so naturally people are pushing their online-voting snake oil again. Because the online census worked so well, lets ...
This essay, on the political legacy of the eugenics movement, by Kenan Malik was originally published in the Observer on 6 October 2019, under the headline ‘The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost’. Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how ...
Another year, and the government has announced another enormous government "surplus". And just like last year, its nothing of the sort. When we have people homeless and sick and hungry, when we have schools and hospitals still falling down, when we have underpaid public servants and infrastucture unmaintained or unbuilt, ...
James Forsyth at The Spectator (I know, I know) has tapped one of his contacts inside Number Ten for an insight into the Johnson administration's thinking and strategy.It is fascinating, unsettling and quite, quite mad. Some key points:Negotiations have stalled and the Johnson administration are keen to blame the EU: ...
Fatal Contact: With the arrival of captain James Cook in October 1769, the islands of what would become New Zealand ceased to be the preserve of Polynesian navigators and settlers and became a part of both the world’s map and the world’s history.THE MAORI NATIONALIST assault upon the historical meaning ...
Another round of tactical talks about forming a Government of National Unity have come to nothing with the Liberal Democrats still refusing countenance putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street:Opposition talks on Monday made little headway over when to try and vote down Boris Johnson's government and who might succeed him as ...
by Nick Rogers The debate around the meaning of sex and gender made an appearance at this year’s British Labour Party conference in Brighton. Women’s Place UK – an organisation that questions the demand that biological males who self-identify as woman should have access to women’s spaces, to all-women shortlists, ...
Yesterday I went down to Wellington to participate in the Extinction Rebellion protest. Its part of the latest global wave of XR actions, with actions happening all over the world. Some of those protests are massively disruptive: in Canada, XR is blocking major bridges, stopping people from getting to work. ...
The Workshop is a charitable trust for public good. The Workshop undertake research to find ways of communicating that will build support for the solutions that work to solve complex social and environmental problems. See their Report on Talking about Poverty and Welfare Reform below. ...
What is language? We generally assume that it a facility unique to humans, allowing us to share what’s in and on our minds. We can tell of our plans, our past exploits, our knowledge. It also allows us to lie. And yet there are vast numbers of people we can’t ...
Being and Being Bought (Spinifex Press, 2013) by Kajsa Ekis Ekman A synopsis and commentary of Chapters 1-2 by Daphna Whitmore Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book She opens the discussion with a definition of ...
I make no claims to having much legal knowledge, so I defer to those trained in this area.I am very much enjoying this twitter stream from m'learned friend in Edinburgh, deciphering the legal arguments around the Scottish court challenge to Boris Johnson, based on the charmingly obscure principle of Nobile ...
Ivory Folly? The University of Auckland’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, upheld the right of the radical nationalist group, Action Zealandia to exercise their freedom of speech – not matter how distasteful that speech might be. A wiser community of students and scholars would have nodded their agreement and moved on. ...
If you are not convinced terrorist Organisation ‘Extinction Rebellion’ is very, very dangerous – watch this video at one of their recent meetings. Not only is this obviously mentally ill Woman begging the other terrorists to promote killing and “eating” babies and children, if you watch carefully other members nod ...
The Ombudsman has been surveying people about their knowledge of the OIA and the right to information. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that widespread:The Chief Ombudsman says too many New Zealanders were in the dark over their right to access official information. Peter Boshier said an independent survey released yesterday on ...
In the wake of last Friday's climate strike, Peter McKenzie had an article in The Spinoff about protest strategies. The school strike movement is "polite" and cooperates with those in power because that's its kaupapa - its led by schoolkids who understandably don't want to risk arrest. But there's more ...
So, the latest ruminations on the gnews from Westminster (Again, sorry; I'll stop making that pun right now). This follows on from, and likely repeats bits of, my last post, on the suggestion that a Government of National Unity (GNU) should be set up and then oversee a referendum before ...
New Zealand likes to think of itself as not a racist country (despite being founded on the racist dispossession and subjugation of Maori). But for years, we've had a racist refugee policy, which basicly excludes refugees from Africa and the Middle East unless they already have relatives here. Now, the ...
Several people have asked me whether a particular repeat litigant could be declared a vexatious litigant, in light of their recent decision to appeal an adverse High Court ruling. My nascent tweet thread was getting ridiculously long, so it became this blog post instead.The short answer is: no. The particular ...
Appealing To The Past: Action Zealandia, like so many of the organisations springing up on the far-Right, across what they call the “Anglosphere”, is born out of the profound confusion over what a man is supposed to be in the twenty-first century and, more importantly, what he is supposed to do.THE STATUE OF ...
The attempts of anti-democratic transactivists to (often violently) disrupt women’s rights organising is largely ignored by those sections of the left most prone to misogyny and authoritarianism in New Zealand. In Britain, however, scores of trade union and left activists added their names to a letter in July, defending ...
The Justice Committee has reported back on the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. The Bill would establish an independent, quasi-judicial body to investigate and review potential miscarriages of justice, and refer them back to the Court of appeal if required. It would be a vital backstop to our judiciary, help ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...
Speaking at the Council of Trade Unions' (CTU) biennial conference, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters told unionists that any future attacks on the Government won't work. "Now, we are being attacked by the union movement in this country. You can have your views but I'm here to say standing ...
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark has used his powers to overrule a noise complaint ruling against Whenuapai airbase on the grounds of "national security". The Environment Court last month released a ruling in favour of a private developer, declaring the Auckland airbase had to comply with noise restrictions when it performs ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has opened fire against "unreconstructed morons" after NZ First MP Shane Jones was photographed on holiday holding an AR-15 rifle. Mr Peters is defending Mr Jones, telling Magic Talk host Peter Williams that his MP was just having fun "like most people do". "The ...
New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau was in attendance during the morning blessing of the Rotorua Lakefront development project. Around 60 people gathered on the shores of Lake Rotorua, including city mayor Steve Chadwick and deputy Dave Donaldson. The Lakefront development is a ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones is considering reining in on conversions of farmland to forestry, and also issued a warning to foreign-owned forestry companies that make up nearly 75 per cent of the industry. He said too many foreign companies had not provided enough access for domestic processors to get timber. ...
Speaking to Radio NZ, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said the tightening of the parental category visa is a direct result of the Party’s coalition negotiations with the Labour Party. He said the new changes switch the financial onus from the parent moving to New Zealand to the child ...
The Coalition Government is set to cut red tape in the building and construction sector in an effort to allow more houses to be built, including prefabricated houses. The changes will enable the mass factory production of "high quality" buildings, slash the likely number of building inspections for factory produced ...
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to tackle homelessness and make sure everyone has a warm, dry home. And today, on World Homeless Day, we want to report back and update you on our progress so far. ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit back at National Party leader Simon Bridges who criticized the Coalition Government’s approach to crime, and said that the latter isn't credible in his attack on the Government over gang recruitment. "We've got as massive drug problem in this country. It is ...
New Zealand Mānuka honey exporters have welcomed an initiative by the Coalition Government to help secure the term “mānuka honey” to be used exclusively by Kiwi exporters, ensuring that our multimillion-dollar industry is protected. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones had recently announced that a Provincial Growth Funding of $5.7 ...
Political commentator Mike Hosking has labelled New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as “the voice of reason in a government soft on drugs”, for the Party’s stance on drug testing at music festivals. “If common sense is worth a vote, Winston Peters is quids in,” Mr Hosking said. The Labour ...
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau has announced Provincial Growth Funding to ensure work opportunities in Turangi and Whanganui, through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi. A fund of $500,000 will go to Rafting NZ in Turangi for a 16-week river guide training course to train ...
Treasury has shown that the Coalition Government has a $7.5 billion surplus, which is $4 billion higher than what was expected in the 2019 Budget unveiled last May. It is also $2 billion higher than the actual surplus unveiled this time last year, and at a size that has not ...
Official Information Act figures released to NZME show there were 350 assaults on officers in the year to the end of June, 79 more than the year before. The increase in attacks have sparked calls for more legal protection for first responders to be enacted. The assaults included officers being ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
We're making progress on tackling the long-term challenges: from homelessness, to strengthening border security, to bringing banking back New Zealand's small towns. ...
Associate Transport Minister Shane Jones has backed the ambitious plan to move Auckland’s port to Northport, at Whangarei harbour, which he says will be the “King Kong of infrastructure”. The plan is part of the recommendations of a six-person independent working group, which has recommended the Ports of Auckland be ...
A six-member independent working group selected the option of moving Auckland’s port to Northport, in Whangarei, ahead of other options. In what could be New Zealand’s most ambitious infrastructure project yet, a major expansion of the Marsden Point port could happen within 15 years. The project, officially called the “Upper ...
The final Electricity Price Review recommended prohibiting prompt payment discounts but allowing “reasonable” late fees. The findings of this review was welcomed by the Coalition Government, but they hope companies will follow through with its recommendations without regulations needed to be passed. Meridian Energy had already stopped prompt payment discounts, ...
Fletcher Tabuteau, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF)through its skills and employment programme, Te Ara Mahi,will invest nearly $600,000 to ensure work opportunities for locals in Turangia and Whanganui, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “I’m pleased to announce the PGF ...
An export-led economy is one of New Zealand First’s key principles, and our commitment to achieving this is shown by the continuing skyrocketing demand for our beef and sheep meat exports. Beef + Lamb New Zealand's New Season Outlook 2019-20 report forecasts beef, lamb and mutton prices to lift from ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today in Gisborne an investment of $17.27m into bringing “world-leading” food-growing technology and the creation of more than 100 new jobs in the East Coast city. The funding comes from the Provincial Growth Fund, and included a $15 million loan to LeaderBrand, a ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development More than 100 people in Tairāwhiti’s Tolaga Bay will benefit from two employment initiatives supported by the Provincial Growth Fund, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. “Tolaga Bay is an incredibly tight-knit community, but one in ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is supporting Gisborne business Leaderbrand to produce salad vegetables year round and create more jobs in the Tairāwhiti region, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Our support for Leaderbrand will help them build large greenhouses ...
“Nobody wants to see babies uplifted”, this was the pronouncement of Minister for Children Hon. Tracey Martin as her department, Oranga Tamariki, faces multiple inquiries into the number of babies being taken from their families. “But a baby can die with a single punch, “the Minister continued. “So sometimes, Oranga ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has praised the promise by New Zealand’s biggest banks not to close any provincial branches while the Coalition Government trials regional banking hubs across the country. The Minister said the announce was the “first sign of hope for regional communities”, many of which have ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, New Zealand First Leader New Zealand First is proud to have delivered an upgrade of the SuperGold Card website and a new smartphone app, which will help unlock the full benefits of the SuperGold Card for 750,000 New Zealand seniors.Party Leader Rt Hon Winston Peters, ...
Delivering a key election campaign promise, New Zealand First is proud to have accomplished a long overdue upgrade of the SuperGold Card today. At an event in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters joined Minister for Seniors Hon. Tracey Martin in unveiling the new website and smartphone app which ...
Another busy week, from speaking with world leaders on the world stage about climate change, to equipping our school leavers with everything they need to get ahead in life. ...
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...
At 1.30pm tomorrow, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis will join about 65 million people around the globe in ShakeOut, the world’s biggest earthquake drill. The annual drill is to remind people of the right action to take during an earthquake which is to Drop, Cover, Hold, and to practise their ...
Kiwis are benefiting from higher wage growth and low inflation under the Coalition Government. Stats NZ data out today shows the rise in the cost of living remains low, as annual Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation fell to 1.5% in September from 1.7% in June. “The low inflation comes as ...
New Zealand’s economic strength and resilience has been recognised in a major update on the state of the global economy. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook released overnight shows a reduced global growth forecast over the next two years as issues like the US-China trade war and Brexit take hold. ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little has today introduced a new Bill to prevent terrorism and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas. The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill gives the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who ...
A Bill that proposes targeted changes to simplify the processes for Māori land owners when engaging with the Māori Land Court has had its First Reading today. “The approach taken by the Government is to ensure that the protection of Māori land remains a priority as we seek to improve ...
Let me first thank all the new unionists and members in the room. There is nothing more important to improving people’s working lives than people making the decision to care, to get on board and help, to take up the reins and get involved. Congratulations to you. You bring the ...
Minister of Defence Ron Mark has signed a certificate exempting the activity of engine testing at Whenuapai Airbase from the Resource Management Act 1991. The Act gives the Minister of Defence the power to exempt activities for the purposes of national security. The certificate will mean the recent Environment Court ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced New Zealand will join the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action while attending APEC meetings in Chile. The objective of the 39 member Coalition is to share information and promote action to tackle climate change. It was formed in April this year, in ...
Ladies and gentlemen, NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff, members of respective unions – thank you for the invitation to speak to you today. This might be preaching to the choir, but the importance of trade unions in New Zealand’s historical arch is difficult to understate. And it is my belief that ...
"Let’s start by acknowledging that it has been a huge year. " Police Association Annual Conference James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel Wellington Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ka nui te mihi, ki a koutou katoa. President of the Police Association, Chris Cahill; Members of the Association and ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters and Minister of Defence Ron Mark have announced the New Zealand Government’s decision to again deploy a Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3K2 (P-3) maritime patrol aircraft to support the implementation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions imposing sanctions against North Korea. New ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand continues to have serious concerns for peace and stability in north-east Syria. “Recent reports that hundreds of ISIS-affiliated families have fled from a camp are deeply concerning from a humanitarian and security perspective”, Mr Peters says. “While we acknowledge Turkey’s domestic security ...
Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor is warning travelling Kiwis to be vigilant as the high-season for the crop-eating brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is under way. “We’re on high alert to stop BMSB arriving in NZ. The high season runs until April 30 and we’ve strengthened our measures to stop stink ...
The Government is moving swiftly to change the law to improve the welfare and pastoral care of students living in university halls of residence and other tertiary hostels. Cabinet has agreed to several changes, including creating a new mandatory Code of Practice that sets out the duty of pastoral care ...
The Minister for Conservation Eugenie Sage has launched a new comprehensive trapping guide for community trappers to help them protect our native birds, plants and other wildlife, at Zealandia in Wellington today. ‘A practical guide to trapping’, has been developed by the Department of Conservation (DOC), and was launched during ...
Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter welcomes PHARMAC’s move to improve access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARCs). PHARMAC has today announced it will fund the full cost of Mirena and Jaydess for anyone seeking long term contraception, lifting previous restrictions on access to Mirena. “I welcome women having greater choices ...
The Government has approved the next stage of a major redevelopment of Taranaki Base Hospital, which will deliver new and improved facilities for patients. Health Minister Dr David Clark has announced details of a $300 million dollar project to build a new East Wing at the New Plymouth hospital. It ...
Extra funding will allow Rural Support Trusts to help farming families, says Minister for Rural Communities and Agriculture Damien O’Connor. “I know that rural families are worried about some of the challenges facing them, including the ongoing uncertainty created by the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. “Those concerns sit alongside ongoing worries ...
Thank you for the opportunity to be here to present certificates to the 16 graduates who have completed a beekeeping course delivered by the Howard League. Let us start by acknowledging Auckland Prison’s Deputy Prison Director Tom Sherlock, and Acting Assistant Regional Commissioner of Corrections Northern Region Scott Walker - ...
Finance Minister Grant Robertson leaves this weekend to attend the APEC Finance Ministers meeting in Santiago, Chile. Discussions between APEC Finance Ministers at the meeting will include the effects of the current global economic uncertainty, risks for APEC economies and sustainable development of the region. While at APEC Grant Robertson ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says for Pacific people, language can be a source of strength. It can help ground us and give us confidence. When we speak them, our languages provide us with an immediate and intimate access to our identity and our story - and ...
The Coalition Government has announced an action plan to improve the wellbeing of disabled New Zealanders by addressing inequalities in play, active recreation and sport. The initiative includes training to develop a workforce that understands the needs of children and young people with a range of impairments, advocacy for fit ...
The construction sector is being freed up to allow more homes to be built more quickly as the Government cuts through some of the red tape of the Building Act. “Every New Zealander deserves a warm, dry, safe home and old inefficiencies in the Building Act make building slow and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed further details on the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall’s visit to New Zealand next month. Their Royal Highnesses will visit New Zealand from 17-23 November – their third joint visit to New Zealand and first in four years. They arrive in Auckland ...
Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture, Damien O’Connor, heads to Thailand today to attend the final Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Ministerial meeting, as negotiations enter their final stages. “The RCEP Agreement would anchor New Zealand in a regional agreement that covers 16 countries, ...
Pacific young people living in the Hawke’s Bay, Southland and Otago regions will have access to support services that have proved successful in helping young people find new earning and learning opportunities. “Tupu Aotearoa is about changing Pacific young peoples’ lives. Our young people are talented, they are smart, they ...
Introduction As the Minister for ACC I thank you all for the work that you do supporting New Zealanders in their literally most vulnerable moments. From those who hold people’s lives in their hands, to the people who research technique, technology and trends, your work is highly valued. A special ...
Notes prepared for speeches in Christchurch – Wednesday 9 October 2019 Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There ...
Minister of Health Dr David Clark and Associate Minister of Health Peeni Henare say this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is a reminder of why the Government’s work on mental health is so important. “This year the World Federation for Mental Health has made suicide prevention the main theme ...
Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni will represent the government at Australia’s Meeting of Cultural Ministers in Adelaide this week. “This year’s meeting is special because New Zealand is expected to become an International Member of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers at this Australian forum,” Carmel Sepuloni said. “The meeting is an opportunity to ...
The Greater Christchurch Claims Resolution Service has resolved 608 insurance and EQC claims in its first year in operation, Minister Megan Woods has announced. The government service, which celebrates its first birthday today, provides a one stop shop to help Cantabrians still battling to get their homes repaired or rebuilt ...
Today’s topic, “trends and opportunities for the New Zealand economy,” is certainly one getting a great deal of commentary at the moment. Looking across the media landscape lately you’ll notice we aren’t the only ones having this discussion. There has been an increasing amount of attention paid to the outlook ...
The Government is acting swiftly to strengthen NZTA’s regulatory role following a review into the Transport Agency, and Ministry of Transport’s performance as its monitor, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. An independent review by Martin Jenkins has found NZTA failed to properly regulate the transport sector under the previous ...
The Netherlands and New Zealand have a long-standing and close relationship based on many shared interests and values. We value the rule of law, our democracies, and multilateralism. And we value our environment – at home and globally. Right now there are major global challenges in all of these areas – ...
The Government is putting right a decade’s worth of underpayment to nurses, doctors and other health workers, says Health Minister Dr David Clark. Initial sampling of District Health Boards payroll records has found that around $550-$650 million is owed to DHB staff to comply with the Holidays Act. It’s expected ...
A strong surplus and low debt show the economy is performing well, and means the Government is in a good position to meet the challenges of global economic uncertainty. “The surplus and low levels of debt show the economy is in good shape. This allows the Government to spend more ...
New applications from mining company OceanaGold to purchase land in Waihi for new tailings ponds associated with its gold mines have been approved. Minister of Finance Grant Robertson and Associate Minister of Finance David Parker considered the applications under the Overseas Investment Act. Earlier this year, applications from OceanaGold to ...
New Zealanders in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa / Poverty Bay will witness Māori, Pākehā and Pacific voyaging traditions come together today as the Tuia 250 Voyage flotilla assembles for the first time, Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Minister Kelvin Davis says. “Tuia 250 is a national commemoration and an opportunity for honest conversations ...
Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker leaves tomorrow for Dubai, London and Berlin for a series of meetings to advance New Zealand’s trade interests. In Dubai he will visit New Zealand’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 where construction is underway. There he will meet Minister of State for International Cooperation, Her ...
Alex Casey talks to Henessey Griffiths, a 22 year-old Dunedin student who just finished her dissertation about one of Youtube’s most controversial stars. Content warning: this article contains mention of suicide, please take careYesterday afternoon in Dunedin, honours student Henessey Griffiths sent a tweet that was a year (or rather, five ...
The Transport Minister has released almost all of the letters he's received from Green MPs, but still refuses to release the letter from Julie Anne Genter that is now at the centre of an Ombudsman complaint. ...
Court documents have confirmed Winston Peters was sent a letter by officials four years into his seven-year overpayment of national superannuation asking him to check details he had supplied, including that he was 'single'. ...
Olympic sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling are throwing their weight behind a campaign encouraging New Zealander consumers and businesses to reduce their plastic pollution. ...
National Party leader Simon Bridges says his MP Agnes Loheni let him know she'd be contesting the candidacy for Botany, adding it's a "free world". ...
Think you’ve got your KiwiSaver sorted? Try Kōura’s ‘robo-advice’ questionnaire and you might be surprised.If a person who looks like they know about finance asks you whether your appetite for risk is low, medium or high, what do you say? The problem is most Kiwis don’t understand what the question ...
The Social Services and Community Committee is seeking submissions on the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill. This bill aims to improve the process of applying for rates rebates. It proposes: • Removing the requirement to make a statutory ...
The Māori Affairs Committee is calling for submissions on the Te Ture Whenua Maori (Succession, Dispute Resolution, and Related Matters) Amendment Bill. ...
The New Zealand Police have been used as a political pawn which is stretching their resources and seriously affecting their ability to address the real causes of crime, such as gang related supply of illicit drugs. ...
Alex Casey yarns to Karen O’Leary, early childhood teacher by day and star of Wellington Paranormal and What We Do in The Shadows by night. Two of the funniest moments in New Zealand television last year were entirely fence-based. First up there was Agni on The Block NZ, who packed a ...
NZ Police wish to clarify that cartridges filled with steel or lead shot are not prohibited. They may still be used under the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Order 2019 as shotgun cartridges are specifically excluded from the prohibition order. ...
NZ Police wish to clarify that cartridges filled with steel or lead shot are not prohibited. They may still be used under the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Order 2019 as shotgun cartridges are specifically excluded from the prohibition order. ...
Josie Adams is in tonight’s episode of Have You Been Paying Attention. Specifically, she is in the audience.When you watch Have You Been Paying Attention? tonight, please consider the bladders of audience members watching it live. They offer beverages, but my God it’s a dangerous offer. As I found out ...
Despite comments from Auckland City Council CCOs Board Chairs re pay and performance bonuses for top managers—Herald Newspaper Tuesday Oct 15th--there is very little evidence that says high pay and bonuses improve the performance of a company. Most ...
By Michael Andrew Pacific diplomats, academics and youth leaders will gather in Auckland this week to discuss security, economic development and other pressing issues shaping the region’s future. Pacific Futures will be held on October 18 and will feature speakers from across the region, including Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hutchinson, PhD Candidate, Australian National University It has been more than two years since “clearance operations” by Myanmar’s security forces, the Tatmadaw, forced more than 700,000 Rohingya across the border to neighbouring Bangladesh. During this time, the UN Security Council has ...
Fast food company Restaurant Brands has made a smaller half year profit largely because of accounting changes as it prepares to invest heavily in the launch of Taco Bell in New Zealand. ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Papua New Guinea police have issued a warrant for the arrest of former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill. According to EMTV News, the Waigana district court issued the warrant which was based on evidence previously compiled by police investigators. Acting Police Commissioner David Manning said he ...
Patient Voice Aotearoa welcomes the comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters on ‘The Project’ on Friday last week. Peters stated “Right now…we know we are not spending nearly enough on pharmaceuticals and first world drugs…the ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is calling on outgoing Porirua Mayor Mike Tana to repay money clocked up on his ratepayer-funded fuel card for personal travel. The Ernst and Young report released yesterday reveals that, within less than three ...
Barely a month after the Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China, the country’s Central Province has signed an agreement with the Beijing-based Sam Group to develop Tulagi Island, across Ironbottom Sound from the capital Honiara. Tulagi was the pre-war base of the British ...
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today, a new hole-in-the-wall eatery in Auckland dedicated to New Zealand’s favourite snack.Cheese On Toast has unsavoury connotations for a lot of New Zealand music fans, but now you can wash that bad taste out ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Md Arif Hasan, PhD candidate, Victoria University of Wellington CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert ...
There’s an innovation renaissance brewing in post-earthquake Christchurch as multicultural entrepreneurship replaces the old boys’ network. This required a new name, writes Steven Moe.An unusual name that evokes images from Harry Potter is fine by the Ministry of Awesome, because it immediately sets it apart. Founded in the aftermath of ...
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and Ngā Tāngata Microfinance endorse the Salvation Army’s call for tougher regulations on debt collectors and mechanisms to provide forgiveness or waivers for debts to private lenders and Government that are "effectively ...
Cotton On members are currently negotiating a new Collective Agreement with their employer, but despite the company’s repeated claims that they will provide “a pathway to the living wage”, a “people first focus” and a “commitment to ...
Today the Wellington Howard League releases the results of its fourth annual Wellington Howard League prison survey. The survey suggests a variation in the conditions experienced across prisons in New Zealand and an overall decline in most aspects surveyed. This ...
Some people go for a run to let off steam after work, while others try their hand at ballroom dancing or hit up a pub quiz. And some, as Greta Yeoman discovers, throw sharp objects at walls. She gives it a go.An uncoordinated, anxious journalist with terrible aim is probably ...
A move by Australia's financial regulator could be enough to turn the big banks' threat to ditch New Zealand into a reality - or at least see them charge customers more. ...
A staffing survey carried out by the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, has found a gaping shortfall of hospital specialists at the Northland DHB. ...
Iain Lees-Galloway has defended granting residency to a man with multiple drink-driving convictions saying the person had been in the country for 20 years and had kept out of trouble for a long time. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Industrial relations Luke Malpass (Stuff): Winston Peters holds the keys to new union laws. Will ...
Not the impeachment investigation. Nor Ukraine. Syrian Kurds.Last week, Turkey invaded the bit of Syria controlled by America’s Kurdish hitherto-allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he only wants to occupy a border strip to resettle Syrian refugees and create a buffer zone between ...
Yes we fully support Minister of transport plan to use special speed cameras finally catching all speeding trucks, and other vehicles on our narrow single lane roads that are not fit to use as a speedway by any vehicle. ...
This afternoon Fish & Game posted a public statement responding to my email to supporters this morning – specifically rejecting our claim that steel shot is now deemed "enhanced penetration ammunition" and therefore possession of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandie Shean, Lecturer, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Two-thirds of young people experience levels of exam stress that mental health organisation ReachOut describes as “worrying”. Research shows high levels of exam stress can interfere with attention and reduce working memory, leading ...
The National Party's outrage that the Immigration Minister granted residency to a protected person and recidivist drink driver, entitling them to the same benefits as New Zealanders, has backfired. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Beckett, Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Melbourne Reports of Facebook moderators’ appalling working conditions have been making headlines worldwide. Workers say they are burning out as they moderate vast flows of violent content under pressure, with vague, ever-changing guidelines. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Lycett, Senior Research Officer, Deakin University; Honorary Fellow, The University of Melbourne, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Three simple factors can predict whether a child is likely to be overweight or obese by the time they reach adolescence: the child’s body mass ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Marshall, Lecturer, Landscape Architecture and Urban Ecology, University of Melbourne You may mock the national anthem by singing “Our land abounds in nature strips” but what you might not know is how true that is. In Melbourne, for example, more than ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University It’s unlikely Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, realised he’d be sparking an international diplomatic incident when, on October 4, he tweeted the following Stand with Hong ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Pressure on government from unions, mosque attack victim widows turned down for residency, and another Nat eyes safe Botany seat nomination.Pressure is being put on the government to deliver on one of their major promises to the union movement, reports the NZ ...
It’s the end of an era at Three as MAFS NZ and Guy Williams’ new show canceled and 7 Days cut to bone, writes Duncan Greive.A trio of shows which have been amongst Three’s most important local productions are either being canceled or severely cut back, as the channel’s agonising ...
'Joker' expects viewers not only to understand its cruelty, but to understand the justified violence of a white man when the protests of black men and women in the US are regularly met with condemnation, vilification and exclusion. ...
She runs the women's Aussie Rules and netball programmes at one of Australia's oldest sports clubs, so why is Jane Woodlands-Thompson sitting on the Silver Ferns bench? ...
As someone with a severe chronic illness, Hannah McGowan has a vested interest in getting to the bottom of what cannabis can and can’t do for her health. The reality, she discovers, is complicated.Woo [colloq.]: Mystical, supernatural or pseudo-scientific beliefs not backed up by evidence. I crave a well informed, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The last PM shock jock Alan Jones slapped down was Jacinda Ardern. His language was particularly offensive, advertisers deserted his program and he apologised to New Zealand’s leader. But at least Ardern didn’t have to ...
By Michael Andrew and Sri Krishnamurthi The true story of one of the Pacific’s great waka builders and sailor has been captured in a stirring and visually gripping documentary. Loimata: The Sweetest Tears follows the final years of Ema Siope, a Samoan born kiwi who endured a tumultuous past ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Cowie, Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Viral Hepatitis, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity Around one-third of Australians living with hepatitis C have been cured in the last four years. Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. Hepatitis C is ...
New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Image AsiaPacificReport.nz/RNZ.Commentators across the political spectrum seem to agree – the Labour-led Government’s popularity is being damaged by its failure to deliver in Jacinda Ardern’s self-proclaimed “Year of Delivery”. Instead, the delivery of bad news to Labour and the Government has come in ...
Internet Service Providers have cautiously greeted the news that the Government is exploring an internet filter for violent extremist and terrorist content. ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Polls Richard Harman (Politik): Ardern now dependent on Peters Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern still standing, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Austin, Professor UNSW Canberra Cyber, UNSW This is part of a new series looking at the national security challenges facing Australia, how our leaders are responding to them and how these measures are impacting society. Read other stories in the series ...
Open mike 14/01/2013 
After a brief dalliance with 'hard Revoke' it looks like the Lib Dems are changing ground on on Brexit, with leader Jo Swinson reverting to calling for a second referendum on Johnson's deal.The party has tabled an amendment to the Queen’s speech requesting that any deal brought back from Brussels ...7 hours ago
The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof. If ...10 hours ago
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz There is a lot of discussion on the benefits of ...13 hours ago
I came across this song quite by accident. If it isn't one of Greta Thunberg's favourites - it should be.Video courtesy of YouTube.This post is exclusive to Bowalley Road. ...14 hours ago
Thanks to a report from the Acting Inspector General of Intelligence and Security following a complaint by Nicky Hager, we have come to find out that the SIS illegally spied on Mr. Hager on behalf of the NZDF after publication of Hager’s 2011 book, Other People’s Wars. The NZDF justified ...1 day ago
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate. FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, ...1 day ago
The Royal Commission on abuse in care is very significant for the disability community. For many decades last century, thousands of disabled children, and adults who managed to survive, were locked away from families and communities. This was not for anything they had done, but for the perceived threat their ...2 days ago
More than double the number of people who will vote in this year’s local body elections have tried marijuana or urinated somewhere they shouldn’t have. As local elections look set for the lowest turnout in decades, with many regions falling well short of 40%, the Government is exploring a number ...5 days ago
“There can be no such thing as kaupapa Māori political parties or politics in Aotearoa” (Willie Jackson, Labour Party (2017). Māori TV, General/List Election Special) I begin with that claim because at the time, I was confounded at first that it fell out of Willie Jackson’s mouth, and then ...6 days ago
https://mailchi.mp/7d9133add053/closing-the-gap-october-2019-newsletter ...6 days ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is predicting a hard Brexit for the United Kingdom, as he believes British Prime Minister Boris Johnson won’t be able to negotiate terms before the October 30 deadline. The Minister, who was one of the first to publicly come out and predict British voters would leave ...9 hours ago
We want every New Zealander to be happy, safe, and healthy. To do this, we need to support strong, safe communities, and a robust and efficient health system. ...1 day ago
The future for New Zealand’s threatened indigenous freshwater fish looks brighter with the passing of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in Parliament today said Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage. “Until now, our freshwater fish legislation has been 20 years out of date. We have lacked effective tools to ...4 hours ago
Alex Casey talks to Henessey Griffiths, a 22 year-old Dunedin student who just finished her dissertation about one of Youtube’s most controversial stars. Content warning: this article contains mention of suicide, please take careYesterday afternoon in Dunedin, honours student Henessey Griffiths sent a tweet that was a year (or rather, five ...6 hours ago
The Transport Minister has released almost all of the letters he's received from Green MPs, but still refuses to release the letter from Julie Anne Genter that is now at the centre of an Ombudsman complaint. ...6 hours ago
Court documents have confirmed Winston Peters was sent a letter by officials four years into his seven-year overpayment of national superannuation asking him to check details he had supplied, including that he was 'single'. ...7 hours ago
An ambitious target for new officers seems to have turned into a cynical redefinition - how will police take the news? ...8 hours ago
Olympic sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling are throwing their weight behind a campaign encouraging New Zealander consumers and businesses to reduce their plastic pollution. ...8 hours ago
The Social Services and Community Committee is seeking submissions on the Rates Rebate (Statutory Declarations) Amendment Bill. This bill aims to improve the process of applying for rates rebates. It proposes: • Removing the requirement to make a statutory ...8 hours ago
By Michael Andrew Pacific diplomats, academics and youth leaders will gather in Auckland this week to discuss security, economic development and other pressing issues shaping the region’s future. Pacific Futures will be held on October 18 and will feature speakers from across the region, including Samoa’s Deputy Prime Minister ...10 hours ago
Fast food company Restaurant Brands has made a smaller half year profit largely because of accounting changes as it prepares to invest heavily in the launch of Taco Bell in New Zealand. ...11 hours ago
Higher household costs helped to push consumer prices higher in the past three months, beating expectations. ...11 hours ago
Just talking about how good things will be if given the chance no longer cuts the electoral mustard. ...11 hours ago
In the 1980s, 78 percent of New Zealanders owned the home they lived in. Fast forward to today, and that's dropped to just 55 percent. ...11 hours ago
Principals nervously wait for the final outcomes of the biggest education system review in 30 years. ...12 hours ago
Dairy prices rose slightly in the latest global auction overnight. ...15 hours ago
New Zealand's light is still glowing bright on the international investment stage despite a pause of caution from investors this year. ...15 hours ago
A move by Australia's financial regulator could be enough to turn the big banks' threat to ditch New Zealand into a reality - or at least see them charge customers more. ...15 hours ago
Zhang Jun looks at how China can move beyond imitating its more developed counterparts to leading the world in innovation. ...20 hours ago
After two bad polls, Jacinda Ardern was greeted by a friendly crowd of unionists - but one eager for faster and greater progress. ...20 hours ago
'Joker' expects viewers not only to understand its cruelty, but to understand the justified violence of a white man when the protests of black men and women in the US are regularly met with condemnation, vilification and exclusion. ...20 hours ago
She runs the women's Aussie Rules and netball programmes at one of Australia's oldest sports clubs, so why is Jane Woodlands-Thompson sitting on the Silver Ferns bench? ...20 hours ago
Is the Government going soft on its so-called Electric Vehicles pledge? The University of Auckland's Basil Sharp doesn't think so. ...20 hours ago
A preview of the public lecture to be given at the National Library in Wellington this week by distinguished playwright Dean Parker. ...20 hours ago
Volunteer drug testers must tip-toe around a legal grey area to be able to spell out the risks of drug-taking to festival-goers. ...21 hours ago
Internet Service Providers have cautiously greeted the news that the Government is exploring an internet filter for violent extremist and terrorist content. ...1 day ago
The proceeds from the sale of Trump-style "Make Ardern Go Away" hats are being used to promote far right Facebook pages. ...1 day ago
Support has risen for the general arming of police officers in the wake of March 15, but the police minister is opposed. ...1 day ago
Wellington homelessness on the increase. No word about homeless families in this article.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/8173211/Rough-end-of-street-life-bites
” Mr Leon [Night Shelter Manager] agrees a housing shortage is one of the biggest problems. “Housing New Zealand isn’t building anymore, council isn’t building anymore but the need is increasing. Where does that lead?”
Wellington City Council has about 2300 social housing units in the city and Housing NZ 8975, although only 1600 are in Wellington city.
Both agencies have been upgrading their housing stock in the past year, but are keen to emphasise how all displaced tenants are successfully rehoused.
Neither organisation is planning to increase their housing stock but talk enthusiastically about “partnering” with third parties to build affordable housing.
Last May, Housing NZ kicked out 131 tenants from its Gordon Wilson complex after the building was found to be quake prone.
In the Wellington region, the number of Housing NZ homes remains steady. However, while available housing hasn’t shrunk, the number of people on the high priority waiting list has more than tripled in the past two years. “
Thanks for the link, AWW. It’s good to see that a mainstream paper is taking notice.
The article gives examples of the most visible, easiest to find and accessible homeless individuals (mostly single men): those sleeping rough in public spaces, and in shelters. It does mention where homeless families (especially children and women) will be found: couch-surfing, (over) crowding into houses and flats with other people.
There are other places where there will be hidden homeless people: living in garages, in the spare rooms of friends and family, in caravans and tents on other people’s quarter acre sections, etc.
Of course, focusing on examples of such single people living at the “sharp end” of homeless, gives a skewed perception, and won’t help a lot to get rid of some people’s misconceptions about the “undeserving poor”.
Those ‘Easy Access’ flat are supposedly for providing transitional accomodation — ie support for the homeless to move into permanent housing. If the guy ended up on the street after his 6 months there, then we need to re look at that scheme and make changes,
My thinking too, here’s what i think has occurred there, the particular ‘Private Organization’ has received Health Budget support to ‘help’ those with intellectual disabilities, including head injuries,
As these contracts are structured, to receive ongoing funding over multi-year budget rounds the ‘Private Organization’ must show that X people have received the short term help and moved on as the ‘Bizness Plan’ of the organization stated to get the original funding,
Or, this is how Tony Ryall is making cuts to Vote Health without having the Doctors and Nurses up in arms,
Whatever the reason tho, that bloke should be in a HousingNZ home…
Porirua has about 45 HNZC houses currently sitting empty, untenanted.
Two blocks of 4 houses are empty. 1 each in those 4 is fire damaged. One house has been damaged since November 2010 and the whole block has been empty since then.
The other block has been empty since February 2011.
On my street there are two standalone HNZC houses both empty, and fire damaged. The roof has collapsed on one (necessitating a cheap n nasty fence with KEEP OUT signs sprinkled liberally on its length) while the other isnt in too bad a shape. Both have been empty since March 2012 and October 2012 respectively… I expect them to still be empty come November 2014.
I’m not too sure whats worse. The seeming prevalence of firebugs receiving HNZC accommodation, or the fact that 10 houses are rotting away which could comfortably accommodate at least 3 families per house /sarc
Finally the MSM start to take notice of Poverty and Homelessness A pity they did not mention Families but it’s a start. Lets hope that this is not just a one off /filler piece. And if it picked up then Shonky and co will have to take notice and will ignore it at their peril.
Climate Change Apologist, Colonial Viper and Climate Change Ignorer weka have accused me of asking the impossible in demanding that political parties particularly the Greens prioritise climate change over all their other policies. Whether they be the venal, getting cabinet seats, or the noble, ending poverty.
Jenny. Apart from this dishonest ‘dogging’ of commentors that you indulge in – does it ever cross your mind, that thanks to years of vilification by major media, that if the Greens went all gung-ho on AGW they’d sink without a trace beneath a wave of public derision aided and abetted by the media? And does it ever cross your mind that if a lead on all of this is going to come from elected representatives (and I’m far from convinced that’s the best option), then for it to be in any way palatable to or accepted by a majority of people, it’s going to have to come from the likes of Labour or National? And are you aware that even then, the mainstream media will round on said party like the pack of stupid corporate dogs that they are and get down to ripping them apart? A Labour party or a National party might withstand that. But a Green party wouldn’t.
Maybe think through what you are saying a little more and consider taking a third colour from your crayon box? The black and white routine isn’t just monotonous, it’s lacking in so many fronts that your reasonable and well founded passion comes across as…well, it doesn’t come across. It hits a stonewall of facepalm, head desk, eye roll, ‘oh, gawd here we go again’ frustration knowing that a good point is about to be obscured because the delivery’s like a flushing toilet with a whole pile of swirling crap dropped in on top.
Bill, Jenny doesn’t care what happens to the GP. She wants to them to be a glorified parliamentary lobby group, not a political party that forms government. She’s been pretty clear on this, that she believes that the GP should commit electoral suicide by going hard on CC, and give up aspirations of governance.
Jenny, I haven’t accused you of asking the impossible. What you ask is entirely possible. It’s just that it’s incredibly stupid.
What I have in fact accused you of is being a selfish, hypocritical coward. You rant about what everyone else should do about CC, but you yourself are unwilling to give up the comfy western lifestyle that not only underpins the causes of AGW, but actively prevents society from doing anything about it. You refuse to look at the large body of work that’s been done by many reputable people on why Green Tech won’t save us, and thus you show that you are willing to let the world burn despite all your rhetoric. You refuse to look at or engage with ideas around peak oil and CC that don’t fit your own dogmatic view that everything would just be alright if we only had a leader like Churchill or the GP threw themselves on their sword.
You repeatedly tell lies not only about the GP, but also about myself and CV (and presumably whoever else gets in your way). I actually felt bad about the dressing down I gave you on the weekend, but now I understand that it’s the only way to respond to you. You have almost zero integrity as commenter here in terms of ability to debate in a way that makes sense, or deal with views that don’t match your own. Quite bizarrely, you routinely slander and make offensive comments about the very people and groups that would be your natural allies. Others have pointed this out to you too, yet it makes no difference.
I’m sure that other commenters find this bullshit debate between you and me and CV tedious. I certainly do. But until you stop telling lies about me, or until the moderators step in, I feel there’s nothing I can do but meet you with with the same level of disrespect you show me. This makes me sad, because it’s obvious you have a lot of passion and energy to do something useful about CC, but you remain unwilling to do so in a way that has meaning in the real world.
In other words, Jenny, to paraphrase weka’s relatively polite statement – if the Greens started ranting obsessively on the one point like you do, no one would vote for them or even pay attention after a while.
Testing; the last two comments I’ve submitted – onto QOT’s DejaVu thread, have gone directly into auto-moderation.
Edit: OK, this comment went thru OK.
No idea why that’s happened on mine, karol!
They got released eventually, but I couldn’t see what the trigger words might have been. I was starting to think every comment I would submit on every thread would get siphoned off by the bot.
You’re getting too close to the truth! The machines are after you!
Wasn’t it good to see Annette King come on this site discussing housing policy over the weekend?
Maybe there’s a whole caucus out there somewhere that would like to engage as well.
Maybe it’s time for the Green MPs to deign us with a visit?
Yes and no!!!, sure it was good of Annette to enter into the fray, specially so considering that the Standard has the rep of ‘no quarter given debates’,
The proof of the pudding tho is always in the eating, in this case ‘the pudding’ being the number of HousingNZ properties that a Labour lead Government is willing to add to that portfolio,
This, Annette assured us, while restating Labour’s commitment to building up the HousingNZ numbers, is a work in progress so we will just have to wait a while i guess,
While i have to take what She says at face value i am still mindful that between now and the 2014 election ‘things’ could change, i am still smarting from the election pledge Annette made during the 2011 campaign that benefit dependent children would be made eligible to receive Working for Families tax credits,
It is apparent that from somewhere in the Party Annette was told that that was unlikely to happen and She had to embarrasingly back away from the prior announcement over the next week by announcing things like ‘this would be over time etc’,
A big ‘ups’ has to be extended to Mike Smith for the visit of Annette King, my belief is that He was instrumental from His position in the Leaders office in that visit…
Yes I hoped the Great One had been instrumental in the visitation. I challenged him when he wrote his post to stop doing the Spokesperson’s job for them and geat the actual politician to front.
Genter is lovely, but is was quite some time ago. Not we should presume upon our own self-importance for MPs to visit us. Maybe RogueTrooper is actually an MP đ
Nah, ‘Rouge’ sits way closer to God than that, we have to consider also that the ‘loud noise’ emanating from the Standard over the housing issue in the past month or so might have had Annette King fronting in an attempt to pacify us lot,
Like i commented before, i will for now take the visit and Annette’s comments at face value but i am neither ‘hollering from the rooftops enthused’ about what was said and my ego hasn’t, (as yet), exploded the size of my head beyond it’s ability to separate the ‘chaff’ from the ‘wheat’,
LOLZ, what would be a hoot is if both Labour and the Greens tasked one of their MP’s to engage with the Standard on the same basis as what us lot engage with each other,
You know what i mean, roll up the sleeves, drop the policy paper vocab and give as good as they get…
PS, the Greens Julie Ann Genter paid the Standard a Sunday afternoon visit a while back…
Homeless families usually have family that are willing to share with them, the sharp end as described in your link tends to have mostly as the client base those with psyche/addiction problems,
Spend a month or two of nights watching Wellington’s streets and you get good at spotting the homeless among the crowds,of course once the crowd thins out the ‘homeless’ become very apparent and if you stay all night you can while watching the street cleaning gangs go about their daily toil identify the ‘Night Shelter crew’ as they arrive from their slumber,
It’s actually relatively ‘hard’ to be homeless in Wellington City, the social agencies,City Council, and, HousingNZ all work reasonably closely together,
There are a couple of ‘drivers’ in the tripling of the ‘urgent need’ category that are on the HousingNZ waiting list,
First, the ‘unintended consequences’ of former Prime Minister Helen Clark doing a deal with the Wellington City Council where Government would subsidize the upgrading of most of the housing stock that the Council has in tower blocks,
This ongoing program has meant that the Council tenants in any tower block being re-furbished have to be found housing elsewhere in either the Council or HousingNZ’s portfolio,
It would have been nice ae, if the ‘thinking’ at the time had of seen this ‘unintended’ consequence’ where having to house a tower block of tenants elsewhere has denied other’s in need access as the total of housing units available declined during the refurbishment,
The solution of course would have been to build another large block of flats so as to be able to house those tenants effected by the Council refurbishment thus allowing the ‘normal’ tenant turnover in the portfolio to continue,
Exacerbating that is the paranoia after the Christchurch Earthquakes, where both Council and HousingNZ have been assessing their portfolio for buildings which might not meet the new standards,
Again it would have been nice to think that both agencies befor they got around to removing the tenants en masse from buildings deemed at risk would have built a suitable alternative, not doing so has simply increased the numbers in urgent need of housing,
There is of course a sub-set of ‘homeless people’ who for obvious reasons i am not going to identify too closely, they live in the garages of relatives and in some cases where their is no garage the garden shed is fitted out as their bedroom, the legality of living this way is questionable so advocating for such people can be fraught as if they are forced to leave this form of accomodation ‘the street’ is the obvious next stop…
If as you say it is relatively hard to be homeless in Wellington then since the number of people listed for priority housing with HNZ or WCC is increasing, AND the number of people showing up at the night shelter has increased from 30 a night to between 50 and 100 we can only assume it is getting easier to be homeless in Wellington than it used to be.
For the reasons i stated in comment 5, Yes!!!…
I think you may have overlooked some of the more vulnerable groups such as the mentally ill for whom indigence is an aspect of their pathology, and abused youth – GLBT in particular – who are very distrusting of authority.
Yep, i understand there are little sub-sets of homeless people who like the mentally ill are constantly ‘on the roam’ that it is extremely difficult to either reach or keep housed even if they can be reached,
Wellington’s inner city ministry does an excellent job of working with these people, along with the more feral alcoholics providing among other things a banking service which means among other things that should they be able to be housed the inner city ministry manages their money so as to make sure the rent is at least paid,
Of course among the psychotic and the schizophrenic there is that propensity to be driven by their affliction to just up and off for months at a time, some disappearing off of the face of the Earth and others appearing months later unable or unwilling to say where they have been,(lolz perhaps kidnapped by the aliens and taken away for ‘probing’)…
Meanwhile, down in Chch….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/rebuilding-christchurch/8173130/Wrecked-houses-used-as-rentals
Here come the Slum-lords, gush,gush,gush go the real estate agents, where’s Gerry chiming in with ‘well if ‘they’ choose to live in them’ in defense of the Slum-lords who will as more labour arrives for the re-build increasingly ‘cream it’ renting out a growing number of slum-tenancies room by room at an ever increasing cost citing ‘demand’ being high from those ‘wanting’ to live in these wrecks…
Slumlords? They’re “savvy investors” according to Stuff /sarc. Pretty sure Gerry will be happy to see the market working to provide, as he expected.
I wonder how a WoF for rentals will affect their savvy investments.
I find the idea of a building WOF for rental accommodation to be actually dangerous for the tenants until such time as the State gets it’s A into G and builds the necessary housing to accommodate those tenants who would be forced to move if such a regime were in place,
The reason tenants move into such sub-standard accommodation is simply the worse a properties condition is the less they will be charged for rent,
If WOF inspections for tenancies become the norm, the landlord forced to fix sub-standard property will simply put up the rent to cover the cost and if the tenant can then not afford the raised rent they will be forced to look elsewhere…
“I wonder how a WoF for rentals will affect their savvy investments.”
Probably not as much as criminal charges if you rent a garage as a domicile will.
I can well imagine some of the houses have been written off but are perfectly livable. Doesn’t make them a ‘slum’.
The whole point of the capitalist system is that when demand outstrips supply, price rises and in doing so encourages more supply to be made available. Surely people are only turning these houses into rentals because the demand, and commensurate price, is there.
The alternative would be no house at all. I’m not sure why that’s better.
Disagree, gerry and the other National Party functionary currently Governing Christchurch have a definite knowledge of the expected size of the workforce that will be imported from elsewhere to rebuild Christchurch,
Anyone with an ounce of brains having such knowledge would simply build the tower blocks of accommodation necessary to house this workforce, such accommodation could after the rebuild make a great addition to the HousingNZ portfolio,
Glad to see you firmly in the ‘camp’ of capitalism in your support for slumlords who it is obvious as these houses cannot be insured will not spend any amount of money on them into the future, they may not be quite slum conditions now but given a few years of cracked foundations they soon will be,
I can well imagine the out-right glee of the slumlords as they crank the rent through the roof as more rebuild workers arrive in a shrunken accommodation market, none of this accomodation will have been assessed for asbestos in the ceilings and it’s highly unlikely in many cases that a bit of cracking in the ceiling will provoke such ‘investors’ to investigate nor fix the problem…
“Anyone with an ounce of brains having such knowledge would simply build the tower blocks of accommodation necessary to house this workforce, such accommodation could after the rebuild make a great addition to the HousingNZ portfolio,”
Dormitory housing might be appropriate for temporary workers, but the people of CHCH (of which I am one) still need somewhere to live. There still aren’t enough houses to go around as it is.
“your support for slumlords”
I don’t know why you’re calling them slumlords. I was listening to this on the radio on the way home, about houses that were worth $500k being bought for $220k because they were damaged. A $500k house is hardly likely to be a ‘slum’, sure it might be damaged but as I said, a damaged house is still better than no house to live in.
“I can well imagine the out-right glee of the slumlords as they crank the rent through the roof as more rebuild workers arrive in a shrunken accommodation market”
The “slumlords” as you persist in calling them, are increasing the size of the accommodation market, not shrinking it.
Just as a data point, I recently moved house. Previous place I was renting for $300/week was a 1 bedroom cottage in a nice area – good condition, heat pump, but with a small kitchen and no dishwasher. Landlord has now rented it out to a couple for $350/week, who were apparently happy to pay it.
NO DISHWASHER, god what savagery, how can anyone be forced to live in such third world squalor,
If you can happily afford to cough 300-350 a week for one bedroom accommodation you or the couple you highlight do not interest me one iota as far as your housing situation is concerned,
My concern is more aimed at the likes of the Canterbury University catering worker recently made redundant who now has 7 dollars a week to live upon after paying rent…
LOL. Never had a dishwasher in my life – apart from my own 2 hands. It’s not something I ever consider when looking for somewhere to rent.
Yeah ae, like the labour and time consumed putting the stuff in the dishwasher and taking it out again is probably more than what you expend running the sink and washing em that way,
Then there’s the consideration of power usage and if your a bit Green the utter waste of it,
I have used one as the galley slave in Wellington kitchens washing up after 120 people have dined out,LOLZ one of the most laborious low payed jobs on the planet,and some of the tight A/holes running these kitchens won’t even chuck in a meal along with that minimum wage…
I’ve never owned a dishwasher, either, but I’ve long been familiar with using all the clean crockery before having to do the washing up. đ
LOL. I think a dishwasher is very helpful at work, with the quantity of stuff washed.
Some parents tell me a dishwasher is cheaper on the electricity with the amount of kitchen and eating utensils they have to wash.
“NO DISHWASHER, god what savagery, how can anyone be forced to live in such third world squalor,
If you can happily afford to cough 300-350 a week for one bedroom accommodation you or the couple you highlight do not interest me one iota as far as your housing situation is concerned,”
I was merely giving you an idea of what accommodation in CHCH costs at the moment. $350 for a one-bedroom cottage IMO is very steep.
But hey, you’re against private people providing more housing on the rental market. Apparently you’d rather the houses just remain empty or be demolished.
Yes, it would be nice if the government or someone would step in an build houses, and I think they should. But even if the government did do that, surely having another 100 extra houses provided by the private sector on top of anything provided by the government would still be better than not providing those 100 houses.
So I still don’t understand your willingness to call these people slumlords for providing a necessary and wanted service (and it is a service – these houses can’t get insurance, so they’re taking a big risk on the properties burning down etc) and I really don’t think you’ve made any rational case as to why it is a bad thing.
“My concern is more aimed at the likes of the Canterbury University catering worker recently made redundant who now has 7 dollars a week to live upon after paying rent⌔
I recall the one you were talking about. There were many comments on that stuff article about what she *needed* to do, such as downsize her living accommodation to a level that was commensurate with her new income. Yes, life sucks for some people at some times. But once again, taking liveable houses out of the market, which you are advocating, doesn’t help people in her situation one iota.
But why can’t the houses get insurance. Oh yes, because they are considered by the acturies and the building assessors of being at higher risk of things like fires, flooding and suffering other significant structural damage.
Yet people are expected to live in these higher risk homes with their children, and landlords renting out these uninsurable properties to make good profits on is still considered respectable?
And if a 3 bedroom house can hold 2 families, why not squeeze two families into there, it’s simply “pragmatic” to lower standards and these people have very few options after all so why not push them in.
And to make a few good bucks out of this compromised environment, maybe that’s why the term “slum lord” has been used.
“Yet people are expected to live in these higher risk homes with their children, and landlords renting out these uninsurable properties to make good profits on is still considered respectable?”
No, people are not “expected” to live in those houses. It’s their choice as a private individual as to whether they live in that accommodation or not.
“And if a 3 bedroom house can hold 2 families, why not squeeze two families into there, itâs simply âpragmaticâ to lower standards and these people have very few options after all so why not push them in.”
Now I would agree that would be slumlord behaviour. However there is no evidence of this happening in this case, outside of your suggestion of it.
“And to make a few good bucks out of this compromised environment, maybe thatâs why the term âslum lordâ has been used.”
Once again, I don’t understand why it is preferable for there to be no house at all.
It was good to hear Radio NZ start a short series called A Beginner’s Guide to Parliament this morning. Just the sort of thing that would be suitable for a civics curriculum in this country.
New Zealand’s government needs to be reformed, cutting down government CEO’s to size and putting in more checks and balances would be a start. But National seems committed to raising salaries of the top levels of government, while sacking thousands of low paid public service workers (in the military, schools, in foreign affairs and trade,etc).
Pete +1
We will own the answers, so we must come up with the answers in the first place.
The Standard bloggers and readers are positive people. They care enough to get engaged, and more.
Many general and many specific issues have been raised and debated on theses pages in the past year. The tempo increased significantly with the start of the Constitutional Review and has been white-hot since then.
Identifying problems and shaping answers without being able to advance/influence/progress the solution is very frustrating. Feeling that a rump in the party is fighting against that change is infuriating.
Here are a few things you can do to be in a position to shape the answer and to see them through to execution:
Host a BBQ and don’t invite your MP. She/he will definitely show up with a least two good bottles of wine. They are paranoid, the insecure darlings.
Go to the Summer School in two weeks time. David Shearer will be making another policy speech and many of the movers and shakers will be there. It is hosted by Young Labour and is great fun.
Ask for an urgent extraordinary LEC meeting to discuss your frustrations. If your Sec/Chair says that is not possible, then ask all the members you know/like to come together to discuss how you can collectively own the answer. Ditto your Sectoral group.
Ask your MP to meet over a pint/glass. Those politicians that do not drink usually loose elections quickly. Ditto for your NZ Council rep.
Remember, you own the answer. That is what the voting at Conference was all about.
A couple of tech questions for the SYSOP:
I see that the RSS feed is now going through FeedBurner. Is there any way to correctly time stamp the comments? At the moment they’re on one of the US time zones. It’s like living in the past, maaan!
And, just wondering what happened to the edit options (Bold, Italic, link etc.) They were pretty useful, particularly for links.
Cheers,
TRP
I just shifted to Feedburner a few hours ago because the feeds were getting stuck in the cache system (no post updates since friday). I’ll have a look at the time stamps after I get through this pile of compilation bugs (ie any time between now and midnight).
The tinymce comment editor fell victim to the update of wordpress to 3.5. They finally started to use a more modern version of tinymce. I can repair it or look for a less problematic system or both. I’ll patch something in over the next couple of days.
Of course if you can control the weather and drop the humidity in Auckland, it’d help speed things up đ
Cheers, Lprent, much appreciated. Nothing I can do about the weather (and after a week’s holiday of mind numbing and body sapping mid-thirties in Gisborne, I know what you mean!).
It shows up as being in GMT on the feed XML, which is correct. Nothing weird like PST.
The reader should display in your local time. Ah so the default silly reader in the link from feedburner – which does not.
Yep. Subscribing to comments in http://www.google.co.nz/reader and in the ubuntu default reader Akregator do correctly display the datetime in the local timezone.
I’ll have a look to see if there is anyway to fix the default feedburner page to do the same
Great scott! Thank God for Punk Rock (oh we’re so pretty, oh so pretty,ahh, we’re vacant) đ
.
Interesting perspective from a recent net “apostate”:
I’m not sure I agree but, coming from Lanier, worthy of consideration, I suggest. This anti-anonymous meme is coming in from all sorts of quarters, particularly the Right but also “Lefties” like Brian Edwards and various Labour MPs. Perhaps they have been captured by the business agenda of transforming the internet from the town square to a shopping mall but given Lanier’s wider comments on the economy maybe that’s not such a bad thing?
(Hat Tip: Arts and Letters Daily.)
The reality tho is the opposite, by being anonymous we are simply all equal…
bad12
Trouble is – some are more equal than others. Depends on what level of probity you want to speak from.
used to read ALD đ (in fact, I remember sending them l R; flattered, wish someone would offer me employment, even a home would helpful)
“The true path is a middle way between ascetic denial and pleasurable indulgence”
“Nirvana follows from a disciplined curiosity about the texture of experience, stilling the compulsions”
“…guide the brain with beautiful compassion; on this basis anything can be built, more compassion, more luminosity, greater understanding”-Head Trip : Adventures on The Wheel of Consciousness-Jeff Warren.
“When you have gained some experience in the process of liberating thoughts, they are said to undo themselves, as a snake might untie a knot in it’s own body” -Going Buddhist : Peace and Emptiness-Peter J. Conradi.
“May we attend to our implicational cognitive systems,more than our propositional”, ( in addition to our participatory consciousness).-Owen Barfield.
Is this a (2nd)? Axial Age-Karl Jaspers
It is not helpful to display to your inferiors that what you disdain in your superiors
“Not helpful to offer to your neighbours on the Left what you dislike in your neighbours on the Right”.
40 Ways Trees Can Save Us
http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_make_a_difference/climate_change_and_energy/841418/diana_beresfordkroeger_the_woman_who_speaks_for_the_trees.html
remember The Red and The Green (haemoglobin and chlorophyll)
Plus
Jane Goodall and Birute Galdikas (all Three Women)
or
Why I left Goldman Sachs (or never considered finance in the first place)
welllll…
Lynn, are you around? I just did an advanced search and all the hits came back with the date 12:00 am, January 1st, 1970.
Yep. Looks like a bug in the sphinx search. I’ll look at it later tonight. And damnit I already noticed it and forgot to fix it…
BTW: midnight on the 1st of Jan 1970 is the NULL date for most *nix computers. They store the date/time in seconds since then.
V fah (Bury my heart at wounded) knee Cameron ;).you and / or your associates have too much time on your hands.(I’ve always been too trusting, but I not worry) đ
Help need…
You all know and understand QE in all it’s forms 1 thru to 3 etc well I need a new term framed in language that will get resonance and traction with both msm and the public?
Here’s an idea
Kiwbuild to kiwi bank mortgages to mortgage backed securities bought from kiwi bank by QE.
Also need to fundamentally reconceptualise what money is, in the mind of the public…money is a way to bring workers and materials together to get important things built.
Yes my friend but without invest growth um capitalism or some replacement then we have very little real growth over last few decades that actually provided both money supply and demand for consumables that in turn provide more employment for all that spare labour.
Personally I am a leveller all same no one greater that the least…
Well all that is true…Cullen’s economic growth and employment miracle was built on a massive spiking of foreign sourced private debt 2002-2008.
Yip housing speculAtion created debt demand, that money had to come from somewhere…
Kiwbuild here we come..
Or, money is simply the means by which we exchange our labour for our daily needs, money only becomes a problem when the supply of it to those with the least of it is constrained in such a way as to not allow the exchange of labour for daily needs to occur…
http://asianinvasion2006.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/labour-struggles-with-its-direction.html?m=1
Pete George over on Asianinvasion showing his lack of basic undstanding of the Labour Party selection process.
“And if the vote did go to the party I doubt there is anyone who would challenge Shearer”
The “trigger” challenge has to start within the Caucus. The members only get to have a say if their MPs understand from the members that the Leadership needs validation by the members. Then life will be sweet and we can get on with kicking the Nats, John Banks and Peter Dunne out of the Treasury benches.
(Wellington Lefties and Greenies: Please, o please help Charles beat Dunne)
A thousand words.
Ah, I know the feeling of being the shorty in the crowd, especially when people get out of their seats to stand and cheer – not a helpful box in sight.
Awwww, isn’t it cute? Muzza’s been doing a social experiment on us the whole time. đ
[Note: link to Lauda Finem post, which is most kindly described as incoherent, made against The Standard.]
So one outcome of Muzz’ social experiment is to conclude that NZ has been damaged by folks experimenting on it so much?
Fascinating. NUDIST, I wonder?
Oh, I shouldn’t have followed that link. Laughing out loud at the join the (largely invisible) dots from our sysop to Margaret Wilson via the Uni of Waikato, along with some creative writing about anal proclivities.
Didn’t Lauda Finem get a ban from ts a while back?
Ah, yes…. /open-mike-04012013/#comment-569281
Apparently that wasn’t actually Lauda Finem, it was some Brave Courageous Speaking-Truth-To-Power Long-Time Reader of Lauda Finem. Who used the first person plural a heck of a lot, and professed to know a lot about what Lauda Finem intends to publish in future.
I may disagree with David Shearer on many things, but if Lauda Finem’s emails read anything like their posts, chucking their emails in the bin is not one of them.
In case anyone is confused, this is the “definitely not Lauda Finem” who mysteriously speaks on behalf of Lauda Finem and writes in an identical style to that of Lauda Finem: /open-mike-02012013/#comment-569040
Ah, thanks. Far to complicated for me at this time of night. And it’s not like I was going to go and read all the interminable details đ
Interesting he’s gone to The Standard to find out about “mob behaviour”, “herd mentality” and hypocrisy. Why all that time and effort when he could just spend five minutes on Whaleoil?
There is also Fox news on you tube.
Where have I heard that ‘I’m really only here to conduct research’ bullshit before?
Oh that’s right, from Pete George, who coincidentally also has a website dedicated to writing about The Standard.
Very Sad
(at least I am better informed than I was Before)