” 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
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?
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Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...
Today has felt surreal. I was all set to touch base online with my science communication students when a colleague shared the news that Bauer Media would be shutting down its publications immediately. The first link I saw implied it was Woman’s Weekly affected, and even that shocked me. But ...
Bogeymen, Real And Imagined: Is the number of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals in any given society truly as vanishingly small as we like to tell ourselves? Isn’t it more likely that the mass-shooters and serial-killers filling the headlines represent only the tip of a much, much larger iceberg of frightfulness? ...
Outgoing Police Commissioner Mike Bush appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee today, who asked him for the rules police are using to enforce the lockdown. He refused:Police Commissioner Mike Bush has admitted the advice given to Kiwis about what they're able to do during the lockdown hasn't been clear enough. ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of my cat, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a pretty flower. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 1: Day seven of living in lock-down… This morning I had a brief chat with one of my neighbours, “D” (social distance between us, a good three or four metres). I learned he had resigned from his previous job and had been hired by another company – ...
Funnily enough, my thought as I start this post is whether it will be well written enough. Or should that be well enough written? Because so much of what I know about good writing came from my two stints at The Listener, which this morning was shut down due to ...
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
I was surprised when the prime minister described the Economic Response to Covid-19 package as the ‘largest peacetime government spend in New Zealand's history’. Reflecting – checking through history – I realised that the term ‘spend’ was crucial and the package had no income tax cuts. Even so, it has ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.This article ...
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the ...
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Of the larger European countries, Italy is now in third place for known cases per person in the population. Spain has overtaken Switzerland for ...
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru are celebrating the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight. The Court of Appeal found that there ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...
Pacific Media Watch The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has strongly condemned the shoot-to-kill order by President Rodrigo Duterte this week as a ‘dangerous’ opening to target and kill anyone in a public space. “We are raising the alarm in the international community on President ...
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...
Four PhD students engaged a clinical psychologist to help them navigate an uncertain time in their studies. They share their findings here.As four PhD students from Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research we, like many others, can’t stop reading and talking about the unfolding events that have gripped our ...
The SpinoffBy Ashleigh Rushton, Lisa McLaren, Marion Tan & Sara Harrison
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Kang, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney Young people in Australia are among the fastest-growing group to contract COVID19. According to the Department of Health, there are now more cases in Australia among people aged 20 – 29 years than any ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pattinson, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example. ...
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...
The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand is delighted that the government has moved quickly to provide an initial financial support package for pharmacy. The $15 million package was paid this week to pharmacy contract holders. Pharmaceutical Society president ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and bookseller Ash Davida Jane. washed up! it gets tiring pushing the fire alarm every nightbut things keep catching on fireor sometimes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Welcome to the second edition of our lockdown Top 10s. A reminder that this chart has nothing to do with sales or launches or the publishing cycle; these are just books the Unity team love – and this week it’s westerns, full of big skies and long rides and showdowns.AUCKLANDAll ...
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster’s plan to cover revenue shortfalls through borrowing without cutting low priority spending is immoral, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “Businesses and households across the country are meeting financial challenges ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin John Brophy, Emeritus Professor of Creative writing, University of Melbourne “Katrina, I had in mind a prayer, but only this came,” Bruce Dawe wrote to his infant daughter, new-born, in intensive care, her life in the balance, declaring as poets must ...
The shock closure of Bauer NZ – and with it all of the country’s current affairs magazines – is a stark reminder of the fragile state of local media, writes Mel Bunce, the author of a book on the subject.It is a dark week for journalism in New Zealand, with ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāmere/FridayWe made it to the end of week one e te whānau. It wasn’t that hard! In fact it was… Māori made easy.To end our week of pronunciation practice we’re going to revisit everything we ...
India faces more challenges battling Covid-19 than any other country in the world. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, hundreds of different languages spoken, and an estimated 80% of the workforce daily wage earners currently without jobs, it could be a recipe for disaster.I’ve been living in India for more than three ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi of Pacific Media Watch The Vanuatu government is using the Covid-19 to impose draconian measures and authoritarian rule by end of last month. Wholesale censorship of all Covid-19 related content has been instituted. Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) took the extraordinary step to ...
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University At several points in the history of our planet, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused extreme global warming, prompting the majority of species on Earth to die out. In ...
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 contentMedia Henry Cooke (Stuff): There’s no easy way for Government to save media drowning. But a fast fix is ...
Just after midday a cyclist was killed on a straight road on a clear day, after being hit by a van in North Canterbury. Lucinda Rees from NZ School Speeds is asking for the mandatory cyclist/vulnerable road user passing gap, which is in consultation, ...
By Indra Singh in Suva Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says that if Fijians continue to disregard the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic directives from authorities, a nationwide 24-hour curfew could be imposed. His comments come as Fiji yesterday recorded its two latest coronavirus cases, taking the total to seven. Bainimarama said ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée.Yes, a few cyclists out and about. I remember my first bike bought from Farmers around 1942, five shillings a ...
Internal memos from NZ’s biggest magazine company, which announced its sudden closure yesterday, state they were lobbying to change a ban on publication. But the minister responsible, Kris Faafoi, has doubled down on rejecting that position, calling those internal communications ‘contradictory’ to what they said to him directly.Magazine publishing giant ...
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...
The loss of a loved one can be difficult in the best of times. But it’s even more painful when the planes are grounded.Late on Saturday night, three days into New Zealand’s level four lockdown, Harish got a call from his sister in India telling him that his father had ...
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogsTicking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...
“So do not fear, I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” Isaiah 41:10 COVID-19 - Lock down: one week on Welcome to the latest Policy Watch ...
Workers at the Port of Lyttelton are resisting the introduction of casual cargo handlers due to concerns about COVID19. RMTU South Island Organizer John Kerr says there is concern about a Lyttelton Port Company (LPC) proposal to "bring in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Associate Professor of Politics, Monash University One of Australia’s preeminent historians, Stuart Macintyre, once observed of John Curtin, the Labor Party leader revered for navigating this nation through the dangers of the second world war, that he would have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide New research the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that SARS CoV 2, which causes the disease known as COVID-19 coronavirus, is more stable on plastic and stainless steel than on cardboard or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW The Australian government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy, estimated to cost A$130 billion, is a crucial measure to help keep the economy from completely cratering. But, even if COVID-19 is sufficiently under control for the economy to return ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gordon Menzies, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Technology Sydney During this pandemic, our twin health and economic crises require two different types of concern, and they operate differently. For the health crisis, a high level of concern is necessary. Saving lives ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Harriette Richards, University of Melbourne Times of instability and crisis produce increased nostalgia for the past. We long for a time that no longer exists, or never existed. Like melancholy, nostalgia is a sentiment of loss – one that’s particularly familiar to ...
RBNZ bans bank dividends; Who is next after Bauer's shock closure? Vital plan blocked; Commission wins in real estate price fixing case; Softbank walks out WeWorkNo you won’t: The Reserve Bank took the unprecedented step of prohibiting the banks from paying dividends during the coronavirus crisis or redeeming any ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Media reels after horror week, Wellington Council facing massive budget crunch, and highest single day of new Covid-19 cases.It had always been clear that this was going to be a difficult time for the media, with the Covid-19 downturn hitting ...
Former National Finance Ministers Steven Joyce and Bill English question the severity of the Covid-19 lockdown and ask whether the Government has an exit strategy. Andrew Patterson reports. Steven Joyce and Bill English have seen their fair share of financial crises and natural disasters as the last National Government's finance ...
There is no sign the government will tighten quarantine controls for those arriving at the border, in response to calls from the Opposition to quarantine and test everyone. ...
Two new cases of Covid-19 have been identified in Fiji, prompting a lockdown of its capital. Teuila Fuatai reports. Fijian health authorities are scrambling to identify close contacts of its latest two Covid-19 cases. The couple, from Nabua, Suva, appear unrelated to the country’s previous five. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama ...
Christchurch is a city of contrasts, as some stretch their legs with smiles and others with suspicion. David Williams reports It was no surprise it happened in Christchurch’s student quarter. The smiles of those standing at their gates in Ilam Road broadened as a baby kayak strapped to a skateboard ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Suzanne McFadden speaks to two Kiwi 'bubbles' who have unanticipated - but serendipitous - housemates. Sue Bremner has found a silver lining to the brooding cloud of lockdown – it’s meant getting to know the sister who never knew she existed for almost 65 years. Englishwoman Bremner has found herself holed ...
As the walls go up around the world, global trade is feeling the effects. But beyond the short-term pain, what systemic change might we see? Sam Sachdeva reports. International trade was already facing headwinds before the spread of coronavirus - but the pandemic has knocked it well and truly off-course. ...
The decisions by German media giant Bauer to shut its New Zealand magazine operation and NZME’s axing of Radio Sport have been precipitated by the coronavirus. But, as Mark Jennings and Tim Murphy write, the closures are also due to the deeper problems of the local media industry. The sudden announcement ...
How long does it take to recover, how do you know you’ve recovered and can you catch Covid-19 twice? If you’ve had Covid-19 when are you officially recovered? Turns out there’s no test in New Zealand. It's judged by time of onset and last symptoms. How do I tick the ...
The first thing to note about the partying Queenstown backpackers is these acts of youthful rebellion are not an isolated phenomenon. As I write this on April 1, The Guardian is reporting on a group of people in their 20s who took the opportunity to celebrate Spring Break in the ...
Every Friday of lockdown, LockerRoom will share posts from Kiwi sportswomen who've caught our eye with novel ways of keeping on top of their game at home. This week we have Black Ferns making their own training equipment, a Kiwi professional cyclist virtually racing against riders around the world, and ANZ Premiership netballers calling their ...
Steve Braunias pays tribute to the Listener, closed yesterday in the wake of Covid-19's devastation of the economy. This piece to mark the end of the Listener is exactly how I started writing for the Listener: late at night, with instant coffee, in a state of shock. The shock then ...
The shockingly fast collapse of Bauer presents the government with a momentous choice, says Duncan Greive. Will it save the media industry, or concentrate on its own?This moment was always coming. The long, steady flow of advertising revenue to the tech giants has left the private sector media gaunt, much ...
A new app unveiled by the Government to dispense information about Covid-19 can be scaled up to help with pandemic tracking and diagnosing the illness, Marc Daalder reportsA Government WhatsApp channel revealed today will help carry information pertinent to the Covid-19 pandemic to the nation's smartphones - but that's ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As the COVID-19 transforms our individual lives, we are learning a few new things about ourselves as a society. We’ve known Australians suspect authority and, like other Western countries, have come to trust government less ...
About those handles and rails and communal areas …The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 crisis is only possible because of the support of members. If you can, please consider joining Spinoff Members here.As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Quinn, Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is changing how we live. With a rapid increase in cases, we are now isolating in our homes to “flatten the curve”. However, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In this special hour long podcast presented by Mark Evans, professor of governance and director of Democracy 2025, the panel discusses Australian democracy with Emeritus Professor Ian Chubb and Michelle Grattan. The panel dissects the ...
Open mike 14/01/2013 
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...5 hours ago
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...6 hours ago
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...9 hours ago
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...10 hours ago
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...11 hours ago
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...17 hours ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...21 hours ago
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...24 hours ago
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...2 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 2 days ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...2 days ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...3 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...4 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...6 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...7 days ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...7 days ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world". Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...4 hours ago
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...6 days ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...1 week ago
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...3 hours ago
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...7 mins ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government. This article ...59 mins ago
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...1 hour ago
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...2 hours ago
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...2 hours ago
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...2 hours ago
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...3 hours ago
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...3 hours ago
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...3 hours ago
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...3 hours ago
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...3 hours ago
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...4 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...4 hours ago
Vodafone says its continuing to see significant increases in calls and data on its networks after the first week of level 4 lockdown. ...5 hours ago
The Opposition says the government should be more generous with its wage and business subsidies to help companies survive the economic shutdown. ...6 hours ago
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...7 hours ago
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...7 hours ago
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...7 hours ago
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...9 hours ago
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...9 hours ago
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogs Ticking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...9 hours ago
RBNZ bans bank dividends; Who is next after Bauer's shock closure? Vital plan blocked; Commission wins in real estate price fixing case; Softbank walks out WeWork No you won’t: The Reserve Bank took the unprecedented step of prohibiting the banks from paying dividends during the coronavirus crisis or redeeming any ...10 hours ago
Former National Finance Ministers Steven Joyce and Bill English question the severity of the Covid-19 lockdown and ask whether the Government has an exit strategy. Andrew Patterson reports. Steven Joyce and Bill English have seen their fair share of financial crises and natural disasters as the last National Government's finance ...11 hours ago
Two new cases of Covid-19 have been identified in Fiji, prompting a lockdown of its capital. Teuila Fuatai reports. Fijian health authorities are scrambling to identify close contacts of its latest two Covid-19 cases. The couple, from Nabua, Suva, appear unrelated to the country’s previous five. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama ...12 hours ago
Christchurch is a city of contrasts, as some stretch their legs with smiles and others with suspicion. David Williams reports It was no surprise it happened in Christchurch’s student quarter. The smiles of those standing at their gates in Ilam Road broadened as a baby kayak strapped to a skateboard ...12 hours ago
Suzanne McFadden speaks to two Kiwi 'bubbles' who have unanticipated - but serendipitous - housemates. Sue Bremner has found a silver lining to the brooding cloud of lockdown – it’s meant getting to know the sister who never knew she existed for almost 65 years. Englishwoman Bremner has found herself holed ...13 hours ago
As the walls go up around the world, global trade is feeling the effects. But beyond the short-term pain, what systemic change might we see? Sam Sachdeva reports. International trade was already facing headwinds before the spread of coronavirus - but the pandemic has knocked it well and truly off-course. ...13 hours ago
The decisions by German media giant Bauer to shut its New Zealand magazine operation and NZME’s axing of Radio Sport have been precipitated by the coronavirus. But, as Mark Jennings and Tim Murphy write, the closures are also due to the deeper problems of the local media industry. The sudden announcement ...13 hours ago
How long does it take to recover, how do you know you’ve recovered and can you catch Covid-19 twice? If you’ve had Covid-19 when are you officially recovered? Turns out there’s no test in New Zealand. It's judged by time of onset and last symptoms. How do I tick the ...13 hours ago
The first thing to note about the partying Queenstown backpackers is these acts of youthful rebellion are not an isolated phenomenon. As I write this on April 1, The Guardian is reporting on a group of people in their 20s who took the opportunity to celebrate Spring Break in the ...13 hours ago
Every Friday of lockdown, LockerRoom will share posts from Kiwi sportswomen who've caught our eye with novel ways of keeping on top of their game at home. This week we have Black Ferns making their own training equipment, a Kiwi professional cyclist virtually racing against riders around the world, and ANZ Premiership netballers calling their ...13 hours ago
Steve Braunias pays tribute to the Listener, closed yesterday in the wake of Covid-19's devastation of the economy. This piece to mark the end of the Listener is exactly how I started writing for the Listener: late at night, with instant coffee, in a state of shock. The shock then ...13 hours ago
A new app unveiled by the Government to dispense information about Covid-19 can be scaled up to help with pandemic tracking and diagnosing the illness, Marc Daalder reports A Government WhatsApp channel revealed today will help carry information pertinent to the Covid-19 pandemic to the nation's smartphones - but that's ...13 hours 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)