Just to keep you posted: TESCO, which owns the Fukushima plant has finally admitted that reactor no1 is in total meltdown and that they have been lying about the true state of affairs for a while.
Added to that reactor 4 is leaning precariously and reactor 2 is leaking. But don’t worry because they are going to build huge tents around the reactors to stop the radioactive gasses from spreading.
I thought you were esposing the REAL owner of the plant, then realised it’s a typo. TESCO is the UK supermarket chain, where I often shopped in my time in the UK. Fukushima is owned by TEPCO
Um, they didn’t “admit” it had melted down. They confirmed, with more 1st hand evidence, that it definitely has, and the extent to which it had melted down.
Lanthanide, you have a credibility issue, with your seeming readiness to believe official pronouncements after this catastrophe.
Only your good self, a few sad fools from the looney right blogosphere, and the utterly corrupt and disgusting CEO of Air New Zealand continue to express confidence in the integrity of the Japanese government and TEPCO.
VIDEO UPDATE: May 13th, 2011
Fukushima – One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems. Gundersen says Fukushima’s gaseous and liquid releases continue unabated. With a meltdown at Unit 1, Unit 4 leaning and facing possible collapse, several units contaminating ground water, and area school children outside the exclusion zone receiving adult occupational radiation doses, the situation continues to worsen. TEPCO needs a cohesive plan and international support to protect against world-wide contamination.
This is not a time or place to say “Told you so…” but it would be an excellent opportunity for Jim (RNZ voice of I’m-ever-so-humble-reasonable-boy-next-door-apologist-for-the-National-Party) Mora to get all his pundits who made their pro-nuclear comments at the time of the quake to now give us their opinions and he could start with the Penguin from the Kiwiblog. Just another instance of how wrong and uninformed Farrar can be. Perhaps it’s time he was dropped from the show completely
(Sorry but cannot find link to the Afternoons panel – but it was within a couple of days of the tsunami)
Yes, and for Rob Fife to retract his statements about how bloggers and irresponsible newspaper journalists make the Fukushima disaster worse than it really is.
TEPCO learned about the water level of the pressure vessel after workers who entered the reactor building beginning Tuesday adjusted a water-level gauge. Previously, the reading of the water level had remained almost unchanged at about 1.6 meters below the top of fuel rods since immediately after the outbreak of the crisis at the plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
After adjusting the gauge, workers found the actual water level was more than 5 meters below the top of the fuel rods. As the fuel rods are about 4 meters long, they are considered to have been fully exposed above the cooling water, TEPCO said. …
At the bottom of the steel pressure vessel, which is 16 centimeters thick, the water level is believed to stand at a maximum of only about 4 meters, TEPCO said. The company believes that most of the 190 tons of water injected every day is leaking from the pressure vessel, which is likely to be damaged more seriously than previously thought.
Seems to be missing the first 100 years or so. The US has effectively been in a state of perpetual war ever since it’s founding. There hasn’t been any sudden or radical change in their policy in the last two decades. What has changed is that more people know about the US military interventions at the time that they’re happening than before due to the networking (local and global) that the internet and other modern communications methods have allowed.
The leading candidate for the Maori Party now seems to be Pita Tipene Chairperson of the Ngati Hine Forestry Trust, he is from Ngati Hine.
At best any Maori Party candidate would end up at around10%. Kelvin from Labour at most would sit around 30%, while Hone and Mana would at least be around the 60% mark in the June 25 By Election.
The Maori Party is politically mortally wounded in the North, and shall become of no electoral relevance in the North.
When you stand Hone against Kelvin, Hone and Mana win hands down with the Maori Party candidate performing extremely badly.
The Northern Advocate Newspaper ran an online poll yesterday, it had120 votes.
Hone Mana Party 77%
Kelvin Labour Party 18%
Maori Party Candadiate 5%
The newspaper also under took a street poll through Northland. Mr Brown said “he had not voted in the 2008 general election, but had since grown to admire Mr Harawira”, Ms Mare 63 said she voted for the Maori Party in 2008 “because of Hone.”, “What he says he does,” pledging a switch to Mana. Grace Takimoana said “…I voted for Labour last time, but they haven’t got much hope with their new leader.”
In the last General Election Hone had a resounding 32% majority over Kelvin, Hone’s electorate vote grew about 10% in 2008, while the Maori Party vote decreased by 1.3%. Combine that with the Advocate poll result the trend is clear Hone has grown support while the Maori Party has lost support.
I heard there may have been around 16 at the Maori Party Waitangi hui, that should have been the story of the day. Further the president Pam Bird of the Maori Party dismisses Maori youth our future leaders. In a poll during the last election 70% of the voters in the electorate wanted the Maori Party to work with Labour, not National. Do not forget the New Zealand First backlash for going into government with National, the seats were basically wiped out.
Polling prior to the 2008 election from Maori Television poll had some interesting numbers;
Only 20.6% surveyed said Kelvin Davis could be trusted, 21.2% to deliver on his promises. When you move on to he knows the needs of local people Kevin performs badly again at 16.2%.When it comes to leadership Kevin only manages 19.2%. The survey about who has personality Kelvin scores 11.2%, while Hone scores 71.4%.
Police say it’s still too dangerous to enter the mine – after 5 months? Who do they think they’re kidding? And, ‘two or three months to enhance the latest images’?
Conspiracy theories aside, it’s looking very much like someone’s hiding something.
I think it’s money that is the major problem now for advancing Pike River surveys and recovery. Nothing will be done if the family doesn’t keep it current, the authorities just want to let it fade till it ends with a shrug and a sad face with nothing more attempted.
There has been first tight control by authorities and a dependence on machinery to try and allow perfect safety, but they have also excluded affected families from entering themselves to look. Iif there was a window of opportunity to penetrate and survey the mine with a large percentage likelihood of safety they might have chosen to put themselves in danger.
The same style of rigid control in Christchurch with total exclusion of people involved with the area.
As blunt as this sounds, I have to question the coroners finding into the time and cause of death of the very brave 29 who were killed in the Pike River mine. It is clear how important it is to have the scene examined due to the latest footage or two possible bodies being intact.
If my loved one was in there, I would not stop until the mine was entered regardless on how long my patience was being tried, I would also not allow the cost to deter me either.
So you or the families would be prepared to stump up all the cost? Suppose that worked out to $1 million each. Still necessary?
As great as my sympathy is for the Pike River families for the loss of their 29 men the fact has to be faced that current technology makes it extremely difficult, dangerous and expensive to recover these bodies. Situations in which bodies are not recovered occur fairly regularly in NZ. As such the demands being made by the families spokesman and the mayor border on the unreasonable and in fact the irrational.
After today’s announcement
“A Mines Rescue service team would enter the mine on Monday with the sole purpose of resealing the entryway to stabilise the main tunnel, not recover the bodies, Hollis said.
He said a feasibility plan for the recovery process was discussed in the meeting and could have lead to the confusion.”
There is no confusion. There is just a track record of Kokshoorn and Monk fabricating information to suit their egos.
Like I said before
They might as well be at the bottom of the sea, it’s just as dangerous.
Or inside the Chernobyl reactor.
The mine is full of methane gas, which is explosive when mixed with air at a certain percentage. once you have dug out some of the mine – which it was when operating – there is a lot more methane being released than there was when they first dug their way in through the original tunnel. The whole of the mine will be full of it, so there is a lot more danger than when the mine was first built.
The only realistic way of making it safe is to get the ventilation operating – however obviously they think there is a risk of it bursting into flame again – which happens quite often in mines, spontaneous combustion and underground fires are common situations in underground coal mines and they often burn for decades or centuries in some cases. If it does catch fire again then it could explode and they would have to go through all the rigamarole with the Gag machine again. I think everyone who is pushing for it to be reopened has conveniently forgotten the explosions and the fire 6 months ago because that was seriously dangerous and there was no less risk to life and limb then.
As it is the Families spokesman and the mayor of Greymouth look like motor mouths more and more, every time they are calling up the papers to say this and that they get shot down in flames. Brutal as it may sound the families have to move on and just live with the fact they may never get the bodies back.
Good stats and info on Mana Party Terry. Those stats confirm what someone else said – that it is wasting a good pollie such as Kelvin Davis throwing him against Hone and the Maori Party when he is unlikely to win.
In this weeks review; the protest flotilla, Operation 8 update, Typhoid Fever in NZ, His Royal Highness, Child poverty leads to skin conditions, Bees being decimated, Refugees, Oil drilling in the Arctic, People interfering with explosives in the Naki, US Floods, ACC, Kiwisaver and WFF gutted, Protest in Gisborne and Julian Assange gets an award.
Kiim Hill on Radionz first off this morning interviewed climate change scientist.-
8:15 James Hansen
Dr James Hansen is the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and one of the best-known climate scientists in the world. He is visiting New Zealand to give a public lecture, Climate Change: a Scientific, Moral and Legal Issue, in Auckland, Palmerston North, Wellington, Dunedin, Gore and Christchurch, from 12 to 21 May. He will also participate in the Symposium on the Future of Coal (17 May, Wellington), and the Festival for the Planet (21 May, Auckland).
He responded to Kim’s questioning well without impatience and explained all his points clearly and
was very informative. Now I really must make some changes myself. By the way he doesn’t see nuclear as an evil thing. It needs to be run well, but more people die from cancers from other causes than from nuclear problems. And there is the point that climate change will be likely to do more damage. If we want energy we have to decide what loss of our present environment we will accept. Wind turbines affecting country vistas, dams for hydropower etc.
No getting round it. And we must not rely on coal, huge producer of CO2. And we should have a carbon tax so we all get the proper signals of how expensive it is to our environment which will grow affecting more our children’s future than our present.
weka – Yeah but there is the situation of needing energy and choosing the best from a group of alternatives that each have downsides. Wishful thinking would lead us to hope for cheap ways of harnessing the sun but we can’t get enough for all our needs that way.
One here at present with a downside being protested is the Kaipara Harbour turbines. Changing the environment and depleting food species has to be considered with this one – apparently major spawning area for snapper. Would nuclear at this location run carefully be less hurtful to the environment? Hansen referred to Three Mile Island, as a notable failure for the USA which sounded really bad but actually was not so bad.
Hi prism, there are enough good reasons for reducing energy consumption/need without even having to consider nuclear – if increasing energy allows us to keep living beyond our environmental means then the obvious solution is to stop using so much.
As someone posted yesterday, we could be building houses that need very little power to heat. This idea that we have to have perpetual energy growth is wrong, we don’t need it for a good life. Increasing demands for power are about wants not needs.
I don’t know anything about the Kaipara situation, but have seen some of the protest in the South Island. We could be moving away from the big, very wasteful power schemes towards local power generation. Let individual communities decide what they want and how much energy they want to use. Most of the big power schemes get protested by locals.
hi weka – We have to think nationally as well as locally. Cities, big manufacturers need to draw on outside their areas and people away from the city need to think beyond ‘mine’ and ‘local’ to share some of their assets for other’s benefit. There has to be protection and control so that is done the least permanently destructive way, ie wind turbine with bird lanes? preferred to drowning all our valleys and natural fast rivers for hydro.
There will be an increase in need for power merely because of natural population growth, plus immigration. We can limit this to a more sustainable level by giving people information and help so they can limit family size below say four, most would choose less I think. This would be sure to be controversial but is what an intelligent societies should be doing at this state of human over-development.
I agree energy saving is a must. One thought I had was that during the winter nights there could be a community message about 8pm on tv requesting a turn off of unnecessary lighting, even one. This would have both a symbolic and actual savings effect. Double glazing, retro glazing, doing sensible things in an efficient way is a positive provided we regulate and control this so that there isn’t a bunch of cowboys ripping off individuals and the country as I believe happened in Oz with household energy improvements.
Yep. And turning electronics and chargers off at the wall instead of leaving them on standby could save twenty to thirty watts per household. With a million households and offices…30 MW saved with no loss of lifestyle. Sweet.
Solar hot water heating and hot water cylinder insulation – both musts IMO. That’ll save a lot more than 30 MW.
CV I tried to be a bit clever and bought a charger for my rechargeables for camera etc which is a rapid one that turns itself off when done. I think this must be an energy saver plus the advantage of not having to watch for over-charging of battery.
“We have to think nationally as well as locally. Cities, big manufacturers need to draw on outside their areas and people away from the city need to think beyond ‘mine’ and ‘local’ to share some of their assets for other’s benefit. ”
You’re teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs there prism, given you are talking to a Mainlander 😉
The South Island rivers and windy hills aren’t ‘assets’. They’re the land that gives us our life. I don’t mind sharing some of the wealth of this land with our cousins up North, but I do object to building more dams on the Clutha and transporting that power to the NI, or even Chch, when so much power gets lost in the transfer.
I also object to having more dams and windfarms here so that Aucklanders can wear tshirts in the winter. Or people can have heated towel rails. If Aucklanders really believe that being able to wear tshirts in the winter is a necessity of life (as opposed to putting on a jersey) then they can make their own local decisions about power generation by putting the generation in *their* backyard (as long as it’s not nuclear – I agree with you there, some decisions need to be made nationally).
Turning off lights isn’t going to make much of a saving. We have to think about our whole relationship with energy and our lifes (including industry and the economy). Solutions like CV is talking about most likely need to be legislated – why build electronics that need to be reset everytime you turn them off at the wall? And the insulation one is a no-brainer. But we could also be legislating so that every new house in NZ has to have solar hot water (dual systems for those with less sunshine) and passive solar heating. These aren’t difficult things to do, and there are many many things we could do around energy efficiency.
Yes weka all true. But our ‘land that gives us our life’ is our asset, though not one as a simple listing on a financial document. And we Mainlanders are part of the NZ mix and have to watch our power usage as well as Aucklanders. Turning off lights isn’t a great saving no but I did mention the symbolic effect which means that people are reminded of the need to keep monitoring energy use and not procrastinate or think it’s SEP – someone elses problem. While we voters put it off we give pollies who want to be in charge of everything, the OK to proceed to do sweet FA. If something is done by one gang then when the other gets in they wipe it, deballs it, or extend the time plan into the never-never. Despairing sort of stuff and neither political persuasion gives confidence, which is why the Greens are so important.
Your ideas sound really good, but the pollies and their financial mates who like to gamble on the casino of life, and manage to win most of the time, allow conditions in financial markets to wipe all our monetary assets and give taxes back to the people who already have an excess of excess, and then they announce a financial crisis and prudent people couldn’t agree to any state expenditure and they haven’t time to pass legislation on energy saving measures etc.
Unfortunately electric power has been the cleanest and easiest form to prevent pollution and taking out fireplaces and free-standers and replacing them with heat pumps is going to use up quite a lot. Auckland will need them too in the summer if the temps continue to rise as the climate change effect continues. Auckland should be looking at providing more of its energy for sure – they could use solar, and heat retention house designs. But Kaipara turbines might be less satisfactory than hydro from a sustainable level, eg not decimating food supplies and fertility – hard decisions to make. Having nuclear might seem better if its between the destruction of our rivers, or great technology that upsets a major food source.
I said that hydro is a problem. I think they are planning new one/s on the Clutha aren’t they?
The heatpump one is interesting, and I agree that it’s a big consumer of electricity. Wood for fuel is one of the few carbon neutral active energy sources we have, and it has multiple flow on effect for humans and the environment if done properly. I’d rather see R and D go into burning wood fuel efficiently than building more dams/windfarms (or developing NZ based nuclear power that will always carry too high a risk).
There are always plans afoot for new Clutha dams. Labour said no way the last time they were in power. It’s just taken the industry a while to get back to it under National.
I still don’t accept your argument re nuke power. If we reduce consumption and improve efficiency we don’t even need to consider it, so it’s a red herring to compare nuclear with alternatives that damage the environment.
The heatpump one is interesting, and I agree that it’s a big consumer of electricity.
Installed and run correctly it’s the most efficient form of heating available – that includes wood burning.
I’d rather see R and D go into burning wood fuel efficiently than building more dams/windfarms.
I’d rather see more wind farms and better insulated, longer lasting houses. It’s more efficient and allows our forests to progress to old growth which would help increase bio-diversity.
Or, even better, people encouraged to use less electricity so we don’t need any more wind farms of dams.
Agreed on the last point. Problem with the other points is that that kind of power generation isn’t sustainable in practical terms with peak oil, or environmental terms with climate change.
“Installed and run correctly it’s the most efficient form of heating available – that includes wood burning.”
I doubt it, but we’re probably comparing different things. What about a thermal mass stove in a house with passive solar?
How much extra energy are you using to cut and transport the wood? Is it more or less than what’s needed to get the electricity to the heat pump? (Hint: It’s more, much more). Please note, the efficiency of a heat pump comes from the point that it’s not actually making heat – it’s transferring it from one place (outside) to another (inside).
I’d go for a passive solar heat store (yeah, you don’t actually have to burn things to heat up those rocks) backed by a heat pump.
Problem with heat pumps is that some people buy into the sales story that they are just sooooo efficient. And end up running them at 21 deg C all day and all night.
So net, it consumes way more power than if they had used standard heating.
See, I keep hearing those stories and wonder WTF went wrong. The heat pump should be turned on all the time and left to run as determined by the thermostat and pre-programmed timing plans as then it will operate at it’s most efficient.
What you describe can only be put down to either of two things:
1.) Bad installation that was reading the temperature wrong or
2.) The people operating the heat pump overrode the devices internal logic forcing it to run all the time.
Generally speaking, and with my experience as a CSR, I’d say it was most likely the latter. PEBKAC, the most common fault with computers.
I also object to having more dams and windfarms here so that Aucklanders can wear tshirts in the winter.
It would make more sense for more energy to be generated near Auckland. But, really, some of us Aucklanders don’t wear tshirts (at least not without some other layers on top) in winter indoors. But even with a few layers on in the coldest weather, I would find it really difficult inside in Auckland during the winter without heating. It especially effects my hands & feet – they get cold very easily & it’s hard to do anything much when they are very cold.
Mind you, I haven’t switched on a heater at my place yet this year. Remarkably warm autumn so far. There has been a couple of cold snaps, but some extra layers of clothes in the evening worked fine.
He tried to minimize the catastrophe at Three Mile Island. That was as dishonest as anything we are seeing right now from TEPCO or the Japanese government’s “communications” people.
I wonder if Hansen would have had the gall to go to Fukushima or Chernobyl to say how safe nuclear power is.
morrissey I think Hansen puts a nuclear failure causing some deaths beside other factors causing death or injury, ie the onset of general cancers and road deaths and looks to see which one is greater.
Last post tah tah. See dimpost for Brash’s secret letter – reveals his concern about the decline in effort by the National Party bowling club to improve their system for winning at ten pin bowling.
…This has resulted in the White House making a press release stating that it is illegal to alter photos in this way. So in light of this ridiculous request, we at the Jackal have searched far and wide for the best photo-shopped image of the Obama national security team watching Osama bin Laden being killed… and the winner is:
A good National Radio interview here, broadcast on Wed night. Globalisation versus Americanisation.
Essentially, American powers influenced the rest of the world to take up their model of financial management and governance (I mean, look what good its done for the people of the US so far).
Hi Rare earth man,
TEPCO admits, conceded, admits, admits (and that is just a small selection of the 940,000 hits I got when I googled; TEPCO admits) they are lying scum destroying our planet.
Any nuclear reactor not cooled for 90 minutes goes into meltdown, period….. It took them way more than that to even get some cooling back online.
They found plutonium 1 miles away from the reactors according to Arnie Gunderson this meant the initial speed with which that piece of plutonium must have started was some 1000 miles per hour. That is one hell of an explosion.
11 million litres of water have disappeared from reactor no1. Were is it gone? My guess is back into the ocean being spread around the planet via the beltway stream contaminating the entire planet with radioactive crap.
Rare earth man, I don’t know were you’re coming from but your shite is sounding more and more inane to me.
I love NZ, you think its bad then something really stupid happens to make it worse. The NZ economy is at the whim of the global market, and commodities are booming, yet NZ is going backwards. Its astonishing how badly run this country is, and then we elected John Key. LOL.
But then would I have like the pressure of London or Sydney, the pollution, the social climbing being brought here to NZ.
So my question is how to keep NZ a rural backwater but without looking like the rural idiot.
David Cunliffe excelled last night on Willie Jackson’s Newsbite. Passionate crystal clear definition of where Labour sis going in spite of the negative commentary from some.
I can’t find a way into their site or if they have replay. Anyone?
Site is : http://www.maoritelevision.com/Default.aspx?tabid=605
Now I’m aware that we have some very smart and clever contributers to the Standard, so please would someone tell me just where all the money that has been raised and due for Christchurch is going. Now is not the largest bill not covered by insurance ? . What about Earth Quake Commission money? Are not the injured covered by ACC.
However what does concern me is the money being raised around the country and in fact world wide.Every town,village and city in NZ have had fund raisers ,it must amount to millions of dollars. So why is this government telling us ad,nausem .that we must sell assets to pay for the Christchurch disaster? Why does English tell us that the country is in a mess because of Christchurch. To be honest if I was a Christchurch resident I would be a bit a pissed of at being blames for the mess this government has put us.
I don’t normally point people to stuff like this as I’m anti-capitalist but it’s well worth reading.
It’s funny that when people reach a certain age, such as after graduating college, they assume it’s time to go out and get a job. But like many things the masses do, just because everyone does it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In fact, if you’re reasonably intelligent, getting a job is one of the worst things you can do to support yourself. There are far better ways to make a living than selling yourself into indentured servitude.
Here are some reasons you should do everything in your power to avoid getting a job:
As I say, I’m anti-capitalist and consider that the socio-political system we labour under a failed system but this article highlights some of the real meanings behind getting a job are and points out that getting a job is the worst thing you can do. It also points out the parasites at the top of our present system and how they benefit from your work.
“Editorial: NZ’s culture of honesty one to be cherished
Corruption is foreign to New Zealand’s government, we believe.
The belief is so deeply ingrained in this country that we instinctively doubt an accusation such as that levelled against the Government this week over the ministerial vehicle fleet replacement.
…….
In any other country there would be that perception, but here? We are blessedly confident in the probity of our public service. The country rates close to zero on international measures of corruption and local industry representatives who deal abroad say we do not realise how lucky we are.
………….
No country can be too vigilant against corruption. If this is one of the world’s least corrupt places, it is at risk of assuming too much. Corruption, after all, is not completely unknown here.
………………..
Exceptions are sufficiently rare to prove the rule: we retain a culture of honesty in public life that we ought never to take for granted. ”
If New Zealand is supposed to be the ‘least corrupt country in the world’ (along with Singapore and Denmark, according to the 2010 Transparency International ‘Corruption Perception Index’ – then arguably we should be the most ‘transparent’?
Here are some quite specific points which clearly identify where NZ lacks genuine transparency.
If these were turned into ‘demands’ and achieved – in my view – there would be quite a transformation which is long-overdue.
________________________________________________________________________________
CORRUPTION REALITY CHECKLIST – NEW ZEALAND
1. Has NZ ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption? ……… NO
2. Does NZ have an independent anti-corruption body tasked with educating the public and PREVENTING corruption? ……. NO
3. Do NZ’s laws ensure transparency in the funding of candidates for elected public office and political parties at central government level? …………………. NO
4. Do NZ Members of Parliament have a ‘Code of Conduct’? NO
5. Do NZ Local Govt elected reps have a ‘Code of Conduct’? ……. YES
6. Is it an offence for NZ Local Govt elected reps to breach the ‘Code of Conduct’? ..NO
7. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Govt elected reps? …………………NO
8. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Central Govt staff responsible for procurement? ……………… NO
9. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Govt staff responsible for procurement? ………. NO
10. Is there a lawful requirement for details of ‘contracts issued’ – including the name of the contractor; scope, term and value of the contract to be published in NZ Central Govt Public Sector, and Local Govt (Council) Annual Reports so that they are available for public scrutiny?……. NO
11. Is it a lawful requirement that a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ of NZ Central Govt public finances be undertaken to substantiate that private procurement of public services previously provided ‘in-house’ is cost-effective for the public majority? ………NO
12. Is it a lawful requirement that a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ of NZ Local Govt public finances be undertaken to substantiate that private procurement of public services previously provided ‘in-house’ is cost-effective for the public majority? ………NO
13. Does NZ have a legally-enforcable ‘Code of Conduct’ for members of the NZ Judiciary? ……NO
14. Are all NZ Court procedings recorded, and audio records made available to parties who request them?……………NO
15. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ Judicial ‘Register of Interests’? …. NO
16. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ ‘Register of Lobbyists’ at Central Govt Ministerial level? ………… NO
17. Is there a legal requirement at NZ Central and Local Govt level for a ‘post-separation employment quarantine ‘ period’ from the time officials leave the public service to take up a similar role in the private sector?………………NO
18. Is it a lawful requirement that it is only a binding vote of the public majority that can determine whether public assets held at NZ Central Govt or Local Govt level are sold; or long-term leased via Public-Private –Partnerships? …………………. NO
19. Is it unlawful in NZ for politicians to knowingly misrepresent their policies prior to election at central or local government level? …………………………. NO
20. Do NZ laws promote and protect individuals, NGOs and community-based organisations who are ‘whistleblowing’ against ‘conflicts of interest’ and corrupt practices at central and local govt level and within the judiciary? ……………………………. NO
Prepared by Penny Bright – for Transparency International 14th Conference 7/11/2010
IACC ID D – 1198 http://waterpressure.wordpress.com[email deleted]
Did you realise that sea ice is melting and temperatures are warming even faster than climatologists predicted? There is no doubt that it’s happening because of Human-made climate change. An increasing body of scientific observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system, with new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE IN IMAGES 2022I am just wondering how hot is too hot before we commit to real global action to reduce our emissions and save our climate and natural environment. The images below are what has occurred in the northern hemisphere summer and it is likely we will ...
Salman Rushdie has been stabbed while on stage in New York where he was about to give a talk. He is now undergoing surgery. The British novelist has lived under death threats since the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him in 1989 and put a $3 ...
Two-and-a-half years on, the Government’s merged mega-polytechnic, the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology – Te Pūkenga, is facing a deficit which is double the planned one. Will Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) be facing similar troubles in December 2024?Why did the Government centralise the 20 ...
A couple of months ago, in response to a Newsroom piece about what endemic covid means for Aotearoa, I asked Treasury and the Ministry of Health what advice they'd produced on the impacts of "long covid" on the economy and health system. Treasury responded quickly, admitting that they hadn't been ...
On The Way Out: Gaurav Sharma has clearly had enough of Parliament and is more than ready to return to his life as a medical professional. What he has been willing to do on the way out, however, is draw aside the curtain, if only for a moment, and let ...
The Empire Within Which Bullying Never Ceased: The bitter truth about Great Britain’s “public” schools (and their many imitators in the Empire’s far-flung dominions) is that they were consciously designed to produce a very particular kind of imperial administrator. These men needed to be courageous, but not compassionate; clever, but ...
A most amazingly air-tight conspiracy Not research, but research-related. Skeptical Science reader John G. writes to point out an omission in our collection of rebuttals: "You are failing to rebut a prevailing narrative which blames a Globalist Elite for promoting CC as part of The Great Reset."Thank you John, ...
The travails of National MP Sam Uffindell are bad news for the National party in more ways than one. The obvious question is as to how an applicant with such a disreputable history could have secured the nomination as the National candidate in the Tauranga by-election. National’s vetting procedures seem ...
The “A View from Afar” podcast with Selwyn Manning and I resumed after a months hiatus. We discussed the PRC-Taiwan tensions in the wake of Nancy Pelosi’s visit and what pathways, good and bad, may emerge from the escalation of hostilities between the mainland and island. You can find it ...
A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Crown Minerals (Prohibition of Mining) Amendment Bill (Eugenie Sage) The bill is pitched as protecting conservation land, and it does immediately do that. But it also goes further, doing exactly what it ...
Sam Uffindell’s defenders keep reminding us that he was only 16 at the time of the King’s College incident, and haven’t we all done things in our teens that, as adults, we look back on with shame and embarrassment? True. Let’s be honest. Haven’t we all at one time or ...
Our media insists on telling us that Ukraine is a unified country suffering aggression from its neighbour the Russian Federation. But it is hardly unified. A violent civil war has raged there since the overthrow of the democratically elected government in February 2014. This civil war arose from deep ...
If National causes yet another by-election to be held in Tauranga, not only will it cost the taxpayers another unnecessary $1m for the taxpayers after Simon Bridges called it quits earlier in the year, but National will also pay a big price in terms of its reputation and integrity. A ...
Representing Pakeha Racism: The important thing to remember about Rob Muldoon, and the racist policies with which his name is associated, is that he drew his power from the hundreds-of-thousands of anxious, angry, and yes – racist – Pakeha who voted for him, and that his most effective campaign slogan was: “New Zealand the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The U.S. Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act by a single vote on Sunday, August 7. The bill, headed to the House of Representatives within days, includes by far the largest and most consequential measures to reduce domestic climate pollution in the nation’s ...
I remember feeling anxious before making the phone call, although not at anxious I might have expected. But what sticks most in my mind is how the phone call ended. It was the late 1990s. I was deputy editor of the NZ Listener and I had to ring a guy ...
National is dripping “blue blood” again. The revelations over Sam Uffindell’s violent assault indicate that the National Party under Christopher Luxon hasn’t quite shed the toxicity and internal damage of the last few years. The crises besetting the party have recently been well documented in journalist Andrea Vance’s new book ...
Most of us believe in redemption and atonement… But the timing, the nature and the semantics of Sam Uffindell‘s apology for his role in a gang that beat a younger kid (reportedly) with wooden bed legs, has left much to be desired. The victim seems pretty clear about the motivation ...
Yesterday the news broke that newly elected National MP Sam Uffindell was asked to leave private Auckland school King’s College at the end of his fifth form year after being part of a group that viciously beat a younger student one night. There are many elements to this latest political ...
You’ve got to wonder why the National Party knowingly hid information from the public about their newest MP, Sam Uffindell. Surely they must’ve realised that their secret would eventually leak into the public domain. New Zealand is far too small for cover-ups of this kind to be effective.Despite his violent ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk With high energy prices and increasing urgency to reduce fossil fuel burning, it makes sense to get the most out of every gallon of gasoline or kilowatt-hour of electricity. A previous post showed that charging an EV costs around $1.41 per gallon ...
Back in the 1990s, Tony Blair rebranded The British Labour Party as “New Labour”, to try and draw a line under past failures. It’s as if Christopher Luxon is attempting to follow suit, and launch “New National” at the moment – a party that’s fresh-looking, has made some big breaks ...
Back in June Sam Uffindell was elected to parliament in the Tauranga by-election. Turns out he's a bully who beat a kid with a bed-leg at school: The National Party’s newest MP, Sam Uffindell, was asked to leave his exclusive boarding school after viciously beating a younger student late ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Electoral Amendment Bill. Submissions are due by Wednesday, 31 August 2022, and can be made at the link above. The bill improves disclosure of party finances, lowering the declaration threshold to $5,000 and requiring parties to disclose their annual financial statements. ...
Laughing With The Poor Folks - Or At Them? Christopher Luxon took rapper LunchMoney Lewis’s lyrics at their face value. “Bills”, as heard by Luxon, is a cri-de-cœur from a hard-working man determined to pull himself and his family up by their own bootstraps. It simply wouldn’t occur to him ...
On the rare occasions when it ever gets asked, the public keeps rejecting tax cuts as such, as a policy priority. It keeps saying it wants tax levels to either stay the same or be increased, so that public services can be maintained, or even (perish the thought) improved. In ...
Europe has been baking in a heatwave, of course. Not so much this part of the world, which benefits by still being in Winter (though let’s just say I am not looking forward to January 2023). Not that it’s been a particularly cold Winter – we haven’t had one ...
The Wagner Group is a private military company – effectively mercenaries. It has been used for the military activity of the Russian Federation in various parts of the world. Currently, it is operating in Ukraine and apparently has a reputation as a very brave and effective force in the ...
I have said this in other forums, but here is the deal: PRC military exercises after Pelosi’s visit are akin to male gorillas who run around thrashing branches and beating their chests when annoyed, disturbed or seeking to show dominance. They are certainly dangerous and not to be ignored, but ...
From July 7 to 26 we tried something new on our Facebook page by sharing one Cranky Uncle cartoon each day for 20 days in a row. There were two reasons for doing this: firstly, we wanted to ensure that at least one post would get published each day while I was ...
Too many commentators on current price pressures have not understood that this time it is very different from the 1970s. Their prescriptions may accelerate inflation.The New Zealand economy is experiencing an external price shock arising from the Covid pandemic and the Ukrainian invasion compounded by related supply chain difficulties. It ...
During the years of the Key government one hardy perennial of political journalism was that whenever the Labour Opposition would suggest a policy alternative to the status quo, the hard bitten response from the Gallery realists would be “But how’re you gonna pay for it?” National in Opposition has been ...
In The Wizard’s Garden: George Dunlop Leslie, 1904IT ALL SEEMS so long ago now, and, to be fair, in human terms, 48 years is a long time. New Zealand was a different country in 1974. Someone unafraid of courting controversy might say it had achieved “Peak Pakeha”. Although the Labour Government of ...
Proximate Cause: Tellingly, it was Helen Clark who was seated close by when, earlier this week, Jacinda Ardern delivered a speech carefully crafted to keep New Zealand’s dairy exports heading China’s way. Photo by PolitikPURISTS WOULD ARGUE that New Zealand’s foreign policy should not be determined by who its Prime Minister ...
We have a new clip out of The Rings of Power. It sees Galadriel and the affectionately nicknamed Gigwit* venturing into dark places in search of evil. At fifty-odd seconds, it also constitutes the longest single piece of show dialogue we have seen thus far. *An acronym. “Galadriel Is ...
Rising To The Challenge: Te Pāti Māori is reassuring the angry and the alienated that in 2023 voting will make a difference. Aotearoa is changing. Pakeha – especially young Pakeha – are changing. The racism is still there, of course, heightened, it would seem, by the prospect of Labour, the ...
"CAGW." A thing? With its provocative title and remarks grounded in respected published research, the perspective Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has caused a few ripples reaching into popular media. "Endgame" and "catastrophic" lean hard in the direction of "pay ...
In the past there's been a few interesting data points about the New Zealand Intelligence Community's desire to covertly manipulate public opinion through media and academic mouthpieces. In 2015 the Council for Civil Liberties revealed the existence of an NZIC "Strategic Communications Group" tasked with persuading the public that spying ...
Inflation is through the roof, and "coincidentally" so is oil company profiteering. UN Secretary-General António Guterres calls it what it is: grotesque: The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has described the record profits of oil and gas companies as immoral and urged governments to introduce a windfall tax, using ...
What on earth is going on with the main opposition parties at the moment? Both National and ACT have been making numerous flip-flops and miscommunications, clearly indicating that they aren’t a viable alternative to the current Labour led Government.Of particular note is the duplicitous reasoning given for why they support ...
A ballot for two member's bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Housing Infrastructure (GST-sharing) Bill (Brooke van Velden) Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill (Debbie Ngarewa-Packer) Ngarewa-Packer's bill looks likely to start a shitfight with Labour, and not just because the ...
As you might have noticed, I have an on-going interest in working my way through old and intellectually influential reading material. Occasionally I even share my thoughts on it, which allows me to take a break from my generally-dominant Tolkien analysis. Well, today I thought I would take a ...
Golriz Ghahraman's Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill will probably face its first reading today. And three months after it was introduced - pissing on the "as soon as practicable" requirement of Standing Order 269 - it has received a section 7 report from Attorney-General David Parker stating that its proposed ...
There's an interesting select committee report out today, from the Petitions Committee on the Petition of Conrad Petersen: The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA). The petitioner raises some concerns about the slowness of the IPCA process and its lack of oversight, and suggests some solutions. The committee doesn't seem keen ...
Today is a Member's Day, but likely to be a boring one. There's no general debate today, and instead the House will move right into the third reading of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, which will add unelected, inherently conflicted Ngai Tahu representatives to ECan. Then there's ...
That gormlessly glum picture of Christopher Luxon in Samoa graphically tells us what kind of image New Zealand would be projecting abroad if there’s a change of government next year. The glumness is understandable. For months, National and ACT had been dog whistling to the bigots who oppose the creation ...
There is no corruption in New Zealand. At least that’s what authorities want the public to believe. For decades now our system of political finance regulation has been portrayed as highly rigorous, ensuring our politicians cannot be bought. Unfortunately, that’s just not true. Although politicians and officials have claimed tight ...
Pundits have come out of the woodwork to defend the Greens co-leader, after he was stripped of his leadership last week by unhappy party members. The defences have all stuck to basically the same script: Shaw is a successful leader and minister who’s handed the party big victories in politics ...
Meghan Murphy talks with Batya Ungar-Sargon the author of Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy. The book charts the trajectory of journalism in the US as it shifted from being a blue collar occupation producing the penny press for the masses, to a profession for Ivy League university ...
Co-Leaders? The uncomfortable truth is: not the Army, not the Police, not the Spooks, and not even a combination of all three, could defeat the scale and violence of White Supremacist and Māori Nationalist resistance which the imposition of radical decolonisation – or its racism-inspired defeat – would unleash upon ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson and Jeff Masters Torrents of rain that began before dawn on Tuesday, July 26, gave St. Louis, Missouri, its highest calendar-day total since records began in 1873. And the deadly event is just the latest example of a well-established trend ...
Completed reads for July: The Prince, by Niccolo MachiavelliFaust, Part I, by Johann Wolfgang von GoetheFaust, Part II, by Johann Wolfgang von GoetheParadise Lost, by John MiltonParadise Regained, by John MiltonThe NibelungenliedAgricola, by TacitusGermania, by TacitusDialogue on Orators, by TacitusThe Gods of Pegana, by Lord DunsanyTime and the Gods, ...
A couple of weeks ago the High Court exposed a loophole in our electoral donations law, enabling corrupt parties to take in unlimited amounts of secret money and explicitly sell policy to the rich. Pretty obviously, this is unacceptable in a country which wants to call itself a democracy, and ...
This morning, National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis managed to get top of the bulletin news coverage by pointing out that some Kiwis living abroad might receive the government’s cost of living payment. Quelle horreur. What is the problem here? Inflation is a global problem, and Kiwis living abroad may be ...
Beyond Fixing? The critical question confronting New Zealanders is whether we any longer have the resources to repair our physical and human infrastructure?WHO WILL MAKE the New Zealand of the next 50 years? We had better hope that, whoever they are, they make a better job of it than those ...
Today’s speech by Jacinda Ardern to the China Business Summit in Auckland was full of soothing words for Beijing. The headline-grabber was Ardern’s comment that ‘a few plans are afoot’ for New Zealand ministers to return to China – and that the Prime Minister herself hopes to return to the ...
Rule-Breaker? It is easy to see why poor James Shaw found himself brutally deposed as the Greens’ co-leader. By seeking the responsibilities of leadership – and exercising them – he violated the first rule of Green Party governance. Then, by accepting the limitations of the Green Party’s electoral mandate (7.8 ...
After the incredibly sad story about the deaths of over 50 Ukrainian POWs in a Ukrainian missile attack on the prison they were housed in (see Over 50 POWs killed. A military accident or a cynical war crime?)I came across the heartwarming story about another Ukrainian POW. It’s about a ...
British mercenary Aiden Aslin, now a prisoner in the Donetsk People’s Republic, expressed real concern that he may die from the Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk. He has experienced many missile attacks that came close to the prison.Is he still alive? Understandably, we are always shocked about the losses ...
Politics is largely reported as theatre: tragedy and comedy, thriller and farce. Andrea Vance captures it all very successfully in Blue Blood. But it is the politics of personality, not of policy – of the impact of government on the people’s wellbeing. Even so, we can see from the book ...
This year the government finally got its clean car feebate scheme into place. But there's a problem: it's been too successful: Transport Minister Michael Wood will shortly review the cost of the fees and rebates in the Government's "feebate" scheme after the runaway success of the policy has meant ...
Given how the pandemic has disrupted the sporting calendar, no-one would begrudge our elite athletes their chance to compete at international level. What with the war in Ukraine and the cost of living, there are also not many ‘good news” stories out there. So… I suppose the strenuous efforts the ...
Everybody Having A Say: Democracy commands us to look outward; it demands our trust; it tells us what is expected of our humanity; it elevates the collective above the self; it celebrates the things we have in common; it defines our morals and values; it calculates what we owe one ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to ensure that as a nation which produces enough food to feed 40 million people, everyone in New Zealand can put an abundance of nourishing, nutritious kai on the table. ...
Following months of work by the Green Party and community and environmental organisations, Parliament will have the opportunity to pass legislation to protect public conservation land and waters from mining. ...
New evidence released today by Alcohol Healthwatch shows there’s never been a better time for Parliament to pass Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick’s Alcohol Harm Minimisation Bill. ...
We’re helping more Kiwis into work, to help support whānau, grow our skilled workforce and secure our economy for future generations. During our time in Government, we’ve delivered record low unemployment rates, as well as a steady fall in the number of New Zealanders receiving a main benefit, and we’re ...
The Green Party once again calls on the Government to ban bottom trawling on all seamounts following the release of an industry white paper on so-called ‘sustainable’ trawling. ...
Urgent reform is essential to ensure disabled people have equal access to the care and support they need, the Green Party says in response to a new report that challenges politicians to fix the current system. ...
COVID-19 is here to stay and so the Government needs to put in place long-term protection measures, including mandatory ventilation standards, the Green Party says. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to overhaul the Recognised Seasonal Employers scheme in the wake of revelations of shocking human rights violations. ...
The Green Party is calling for a cross-party commitment to guaranteeing at least a living wage and safe working conditions to people seeking employment, instead of continuing benefit sanctions. ...
The Green Party is once again calling on the Government to announce its support for a moratorium on deep sea mining, and to support a member’s bill going to select committee. ...
The Government must take steps to ensure that the way we build our homes is helping to meet New Zealand’s climate change targets, the Green Party said. ...
The Government’s employment initiatives led by the Ministry of Social Development must guarantee liveable incomes and fair working conditions, the Green Party says. ...
New Zealanders deserve a health system that works for everyone, no matter who you are or where you live. Our Government has a plan to make this a reality, and we’re taking the next steps. We now have thousands more health professionals, such as doctors and nurses, working in New ...
During her time as Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern has navigated New Zealand through unprecedented times. Through it all, she’s become known as someone who leads with kindness, compassion and strength, while keeping the wellbeing of Kiwis at the heart of her approach. To celebrate five years of Jacinda leading the ...
Since taking office in 2017, our Government has worked hard to lift wages and make life more affordable for New Zealanders, as we move forward with our plan to grow a secure economy for all. ...
The Government must use the opportunity of the Electoral Amendment Bill in Parliament to close the loophole in the political donations regime, the Green Party says. ...
Thanks to political pressure from the Green Party and the more than 900 personal stories of birth injury and trauma delivered to Minister Sepuloni, more injuries have been added to the ACC birth injuries bill. ...
Supporting New Zealanders is at the heart of our approach as a Government, and we’re working hard to tackle the big issues Kiwis are facing. While long term challenges like child poverty won’t be solved overnight, we’re putting in place policies that make a real difference for New Zealanders. Here ...
As-salamu alaykum, Tena tatou katoa, Thank you all for being here today. To the Afghan human rights defenders and your family members, welcome to Aotearoa. And thank you Your Excellency for hosting us all here at Government House. We have with us today from Afghanistan, human rights advocates, journalists, judges, ...
It’s my great pleasure to be able to speak with you about a really positive move for the Build-to-Rent sector. As you know, we announced changes last year to help steer property investors way from the existing pool of housing and toward solving New Zealand’s grave housing shortage - by ...
· Tax changes aimed at growing quality, secure rental supply · New and existing build-to-rent developments exempt from interest limitation rules in perpetuity, when offering ten-year tenancies · Exemption to apply from 1 October 2021. The Government is encouraging more long-term rental options by giving developers tax incentives for as ...
The Government has marked another milestone in its push for better rural connectivity, welcoming the delivery of Rural Connectivity Group’s (RCG) 350th tower. Waikato’s Te Ākau, which sits roughly 50 kilometres out of Hamilton is home to the new tower. “The COVID 19 pandemic has highlighted the ever-increasing importance of ...
Biosecurity co-operation topped the agenda when Australia and New Zealand’s agriculture ministers met yesterday. Australia’s Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Senator Murray Watt met with his New Zealand counterpart, Damien O’Connor, Minister of Agriculture, Biosecurity, and Rural Communities in a conference call, which had particular focus on foot and ...
People could spend less time in hospital, thanks to a smart new remote device that lets patients be monitored at home, Health Minister Andrew Little says. “Technology has the potential to really change the way we do things – to do things that are better for patients and at the ...
Concrete steps to clarify inclusive, evidence-informed teaching practices Strengthen capability supports along the professional pathway Enhance partnerships between the education system and whānau, iwi, communities Embed equitable additional learning supports and assessment tools that help teachers effectively notice and respond to the needs of students Improved student achievement is a ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to strengthen global prevention, preparedness and responses to future pandemics with seed funding for a new World Bank initiative, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. “We cannot afford to wait until the next pandemic. We must all play our part to support developing countries ...
A law change to ensure that forestry conversions by overseas investors benefit New Zealand has passed its final reading in Parliament. Previously, overseas investors wishing to convert land, such as farm land, into forestry only needed to meet the “special forestry test”. This is a streamlined test, designed to encourage ...
International tourism recovery well underway with higher level of overseas visitor arrivals than previously expected UK and US card spend already back at pre-COVID levels Visitors staying in New Zealand longer and spending more compared to 2019 Govt support throughout pandemic helped tourism sector prepare for return of international ...
The Ministry for Ethnic Communities has released its first strategy, setting out the actions it will take over the next few years to achieve better wellbeing outcomes for ethnic communities Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities Priyanca Radhakrishnan announced today. “The Strategy that has been released today sets out ...
The Prime Minister has officially opened the Hawke’s Bay Regional Aquatic Centre today saying it is a huge asset to the region and to the country. “This is a world class facility which will be able to host national and international events including the world championships. With a 10-lane Olympic ...
The Associate Minister of Education, Aupito William Sio, has today announced the recipients of the Tulī Takes Flight scholarships which were a key part of last year’s Dawn Raids apology. The scholarships are a part of the goodwill gesture of reconciliation to mark the apology by the New Zealand Government ...
96% of estimated menstruating students receive free period products 2085 schools involved 1200 dispensers installed Supports cost of living, combats child poverty, helps increase attendance Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti today hailed the free period products in schools, Ikura | Manaakitia te whare tangata, a huge success, acknowledging ...
The Tourism Industry Transformation Plan outlines key actions to improve the sector This includes a Tourism and Hospitality Accord to set employment standards Developing cultural competency within the workforce Improving the education and training system for tourism Equipping business owners and operators with better tools and enabling better work ...
Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications Dr David Clark welcomes Google Cloud’s decision to make New Zealand a cloud region. “This is another major vote of confidence for New Zealand’s growing digital sector, and our economic recovery from COVID 19,” David Clark said. “Becoming a cloud region will mean ...
A package of changes to NCEA and University Entrance announced today recognise the impact COVID-19 has had on senior secondary students’ assessment towards NCEA in 2022, says Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti. “We have heard from schools how significant absences of students and teachers, as a result of COVID-19, ...
Te Reo Māori tauparapara… Tapatapa tū ki te Rangi! Ki te Whei-ao! Ki te Ao-mārama Tihei mauri ora! Stand at the edge of the universe! of the spiritual world! of the physical world! It is the breath of creation Formal acknowledgments… [Your Highness Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II and Masiofo] ...
The Government’s commitment to combatting firearms violence has reached another significant milestone today with the passage of the Firearms Prohibition Order Legislation Bill, Police Minister Chris Hipkins says. The new law helps to reduce firearm-related crime by targeting possession, use, or carriage of firearms by people whose actions and behaviours ...
Minister for Veterans, Hon Meka Whaitiri sends her condolences to the last Battle for Crete veteran. “I am saddened today to learn of the passing of Cyril Henry Robinson known as Brant Robinson, who is believed to be the last surviving New Zealand veteran of the Battle for Crete, Meka ...
Legislation to repeal the ‘Three Strikes’ law has passed its third reading in Parliament. “The Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill ends an anomaly in New Zealand’s justice system that dictates what sentence judges must hand down irrespective of relevant factors,” Justice Minister Kiri Allan said. “The three strikes law was ...
Work is under way on preliminary steps to improve the Government’s support for survivors of abuse in care while a new, independent redress system is designed, Public Service Minister Chris Hipkins says. These steps – recommended by the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry – include rapid payments for ...
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki Online Forum 77 years ago today, an atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Three days earlier, on the 6th of August 1945, the same fate had befallen the people of Hiroshima. Tens of thousands died instantly. In the years that followed 340,000 ...
An agreement signed today between the New Zealand and United States governments will provide new opportunities for our space sector and closer collaboration with NASA, Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash said. Stuart Nash signed the Framework Agreement with United States Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman. The signing ...
An agreement signed today between New Zealand’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the United States’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will strengthen global emergency management capability, says Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty. “The Government is committed to continually strengthening our emergency management system, and this Memorandum of Cooperation ...
New Zealand will remain at the Orange traffic light setting, while hospitalisations remain elevated and pressure on the health system continues through winter. “There’s still significant pressure on hospitals from winter illnesses, so our current measures have an ongoing role to play in reducing the number of COVID-19 cases and ...
Streets will soon be able to be transformed from unsafe and inaccessible corridors to vibrant places for all transport modes thanks to new legislation proposed today, announced Transport Minister Michael Wood. “We need to make it safe, quicker and more attractive for people to walk, ride and take public transport ...
More young minds eyeing food and fibre careers is the aim of new Government support for agricultural and horticultural science teachers in secondary schools, Agriculture and Rural Communities Minister Damien O’Connor announced today. The Government is committing $1.6 million over five years to the initiative through the Ministry for Primary ...
Kākāpō numbers have increased from 197 to 252 in the 2022 breeding season, and there are now more of the endangered parrots than there have been for almost 50 years, Conservation Minister Poto Williams announced today. The flightless, nocturnal parrot is a taonga of Ngāi Tahu and a species unique ...
The relationship between Aotearoa New Zealand and Malaysia is to be elevated to the status of a Strategic Partnership, to open up opportunities for greater co-operation and connections in areas like regional security and economic development. Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta met her Malaysian counterpart Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah today during a ...
With additional trains operating across the network, powered by the Government’s investment in rail, there is need for a renewed focus on rail safety, Transport Minister Michael Wood emphasised at the launch of Rail Safety Week 2022. “Over the last five years the Government has invested significantly to improve level ...
The Foreign Minister has wrapped up a series of meetings with Indo-Pacific partners in Cambodia which reinforced the need for the region to work collectively to deal with security and economic challenges. Nanaia Mahuta travelled to Phnom Penh for a bilateral meeting between ASEAN foreign ministers and Aotearoa New Zealand, ...
Kia ora koutou Firstly, thank you to the President of the Criminal Bar Association, Fiona Guy Kidd QC, for her invitation to attend the annual conference this weekend albeit unfortunately she is unable to attend, I’m grateful to the warm welcome both Chris Wilkinson-Smith (Vice-President, Whanganui) and Adam Simperingham (Vice-President, Gisborne) ...
Extension of Aotearoa Touring Programme supporting domestic musicians The Programme has supported more than 1,700 shows and over 250 artists New Zealand Music Commission estimates that around 200,000 Kiwis have been able to attend shows as a result of the programme The Government is hitting a high note, with ...
Minister of Defence Peeni Henare will depart tomorrow for Solomon Islands to attend events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal. While in Solomon Islands, Minister Henare will also meet with Solomon Islands Minister of National Security, Correctional Services and Police Anthony Veke to continue cooperation on security ...
The Government is partnering with Ngāi Tahu Farming Limited and Ngāi Tūāhuriri on a whole-farm scale study in North Canterbury to validate the science of regenerative farming, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor announced today. The programme aims to scientifically evaluate the financial, social and environmental differences between regenerative and conventional practices. ...
52.5% of people on public boards are women Greatest ever percentage of women Improved collection of ethnicity data “Women’s representation on public sector boards and committees is now 52.5 percent, the highest ever level. The facts prove that diverse boards bring a wider range of knowledge, expertise and skill. ...
I am honoured to support the 2022 Women in Governance Awards, celebrating governance leaders, directors, change-makers, and rising stars in the community, said Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio. For the second consecutive year, MPP is proudly sponsoring the Pacific Governance Leader category, recognising Pacific women in governance and presented to ...
Today Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash turned the sod for the new Whakatāne Commercial Boat Harbour, cut the ribbon for the revitalised Whakatāne Wharf, and inspected work underway to develop the old Whakatāne Army Hall into a visitor centre, all of which are part of the $36.8 million ...
New Zealanders are not getting a fair deal on some key residential building supplies and while the Government has already driven improvements in the sector, a Commerce Commission review finds that changes are needed to make it more competitive. “New Zealand is facing the same global cost of living and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Big business wants a “catch up boost” to permanent migration, with at least two thirds of the places going to skilled workers, In proposals for next month’s jobs and skills summit, the Business Council ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND Australia’s top economists are divided about how to tackle ballooning inflation of 6.1% that’s forecast to climb to a three-decade high of 7.75% by ...
ANALYSIS:By Shailendra Singh of the University of the South Pacific In Fiji’s politically charged context, national elections are historically a risky period. Since the 2022 campaign period was declared open on April 26, the intensity has been increasing. Moreover, with three governments toppled by coups after the 1987, 1999 ...
RNZ Pacific The Queen’s Representative in the Cook Islands, Sir Tom Marsters, has confirmed Mark Brown as the Prime Minister. In a statement issued from Mark Brown’s office, Sir Tom said he was “satisfied” that Mark Brown had the majority of the MPs elected to Parliament. Following the final count ...
Former list MP Aaron Gilmore, who resigned in 2013 after he used his position as a threat to a hotel employee, says there has been "outrageous behaviour" by those in Parliament. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pasi Sahlberg, Professor of Education, Southern Cross University Federal Education Minister Jason Clare and his state colleagues met in Canberra on Friday.Lukas Coch/AAP Last Friday, Australia’s state and federal education ministers met with emotional teachers, who spoke of working on weekends ...
Despite an 11th-hour rush of nominations for this year's local body elections, Local Government New Zealand says the numbers could still be too low. ...
A political analyst says people who would have voted for Leo Molloy in Auckland's mayoral election may now turn to Efeso Collins, because both candidates have working-class appeal. ...
Podcast - After one of the fastest political downfalls in New Zealand's history, Political Reporter Katie Scotcher examines how both major parties now face bullying accusations. ...
The government has unveiled what it is calling a radical plan to overhaul reading, writing and maths teaching after two decades of sliding literacy rates. ...
ANALYSIS:By Russel Norman, executive director of Greenpeace Aotearoa Only people power can ensure genuine enduring progress on climate and people need to know the truth if they are to act on it. For that reason greenwashing is the enemy of progress on climate and where you stand on ...
PNG Post-Courier Papua New Guinea’s Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai says he will seek a further extension from the Governor-General for the return of writ for Southern Highlands provincial seat which has faced protracted delays in counting. He said any discussions and talks of “failing” an election and calling for a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeline Taylor, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University Shutterstock Australia’s energy ministers on Friday voted to make emissions reduction a key national energy goal, in a major step forward in the clean energy transition. Federal, state and territory energy ministers agreed to ...
Labour MP Gaurav Sharma has launched another broadside at his own party, posting a lengthy statement on social media that details his interactions with Parliamentary Service and the Labour whips. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Wadham, Director, Open Door: Understanding and Supporting Service Personnel and their Families, Flinders University The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide has released its interim report after more than 1,900 submissions and 194 witnesses. It includes recommendations considered so urgent ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mathieu O’Neil, Associate Professor of Communication, News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra GettyImages Donald Trump derided any critical news coverage as “fake news” and his unwillingness to concede the 2020 presidential election eventually led to the January 6, 2021 ...
The Government’s esteem for science and science-based research findings can be gauged from a press statement released by the Ministry for Primary Industries. The statement gives a progress report on a New Zealand Forest Services’ partnership with a marae-based tree-growing project and its grant of nearly $500,000 over two years ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stan Karanasios, Associate professor, The University of Queensland Rob Hampson/Unsplash On August 9 2022, Australia’s COVIDSafe app was officially decommissioned, and all its features removed. People were encouraged to uninstall the app. Reports of its closure have made international news. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Paddy Nixon talk about this week in politics. They discuss Australia’s relationship with China as tensions rise over Taiwan, the inquiry into ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominique Allen, Associate Professor, Monash University Photo by Sora Shimazaki/Pexels, CC BY You might have heard of jobseekers being asked to complete a “personality test” as part of a job application, or been through the process yourself. The questions can ...
Buzz from the Beehive Some readers might be surprised to learn from Associate Finance Minister David Parker that the law has been changed to ensure forestry conversions by overseas investors benefit New Zealand. Did the law previously allow forestry conversions by overseas investors that would be to ...
The government is giving long-term build-to-rent developments a tax break in a bid to increase secure rental supply for tenants for at least 10 years. ...
Aucklanders now have a clear choice between continuing the failing status quo or choosing a candidate who can fix Auckland, Mayoral candidate Wayne Brown says. “They can choose more of the same from current councillor Efeso Collins, or a new proactive ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk The head of the Solomon Islands state-owned broadcaster has defended its role in the face of the government tightening control — a move that critics say is squarely aimed at controlling and censoring the news. The government said last Friday that the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation ...
What a difference less than a week can make: National lurching from success to controversy and Labour facing its own bombshell, Political Editor Jane Patterson writes. ...
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Te Pāti Māori co-leader and list MP based in Te Tai Hauāuru will this weekend share in the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Pātea Māori club anthem, Poi E. “Iwi of Taranaki and Ngāti Ruanui will be reminiscing ...
Labour's Whip's office says it has always acted in good faith with Hamilton West MP Gaurav Sharma, after he made explosive allegations about bullying. ...
Today, XR Whakatū are blocking the Trafalgar St to launch “The People” in the form of Te Tiriti based peoples assemblies as their candidate for this year's local body elections. “The climate and ecological crisis proves our political system ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Mehigan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Canterbury Getty Images However you look at it, the National Party has selected someone who once committed an act of criminal violence to represent the Tauranga electorate in parliament. It’s an unfortunate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patricia Davidson, Vice-Chancellor, University of Wollongong Shutterstock Demand for health care is soaring as the population ages, medical treatments become more widely available and more people live with chronic and complex illnesses. However, there is global shortage of health professionals ...
A sexual abuse survivor group SNAP says the Government’s decision to allow faith-based institutions like the Catholic Church to continue providing redress to survivors would just re-traumatise Catholic Church survivors. SNAP’s national leader, Christopher ...
The 2022 round of the Rainbow Wellbeing Legacy Fund (RWLF) will see $299,999 in grants being distributed to programmes with a focus on mental health in rainbow communities thanks to a partnership with Foundation North. Foundation North, the community trust ...
The Government continuing to push through a Wairarapa treaty settlement without addressing serious flaws in it, is a slap in the face to natural justice and rank hypocrisy from the Crown. That’s the submission today to Parliament’s Maori Affairs ...
The rental price indexes measure the changes in prices that households pay for housing rentals. Key facts Monthly change In July 2022 compared with June 2022: the index for the stock measure of rental property prices rose 0.2 percent the index for the ...
Climate Change Minister James Shaw has been found wanting, after his response to a letter from Groundswell NZ lacked any evidence that New Zealand agriculture is contributing to climate warming, Groundswell NZ emissions spokesperson Steve Cranston ...
New research from HelloFresh bites into the nation’s changing diets and reveals what’s impacting the way we eat Leading meal-kit provider, HelloFresh serves up fresh research that explores New Zealand’s changing diets, revealing how eating ...
“The marked increase in violent youth crime has been long predicted and is being met by a chorus of excuses instead of admitting the soft youth system is a demonstrable failure,” says Darroch Ball Leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “Its time to ...
Morning Report - This week RNZ and Stuff's political editors Jane Patterson and Luke Malpass discuss the accusations by Labour's Gaurav Sharma, and those against National's Sam Uffindell. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Myles Menz, Lecturer, Zoology and Ecology, James Cook University Christian Ziegler Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Author provided Migratory insects number in the trillions. They’re a major part of global ecosystems, helping to transport nutrients and pollen across continents ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Toole, Associate Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute As monkeypox vaccination programs roll out and health authorities release information about how to reduce the spread of the virus, progress on another aspect of the outbreak is lagging: its name. On June 14, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne Marc Pell/Unsplash, CC BY The world’s focus is sharply fixed on achieving net-zero emissions, yet surprisingly little thought has been given to what comes afterwards. In our new paper, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Alders, Honorary Professor, Australian National University Foot-and-mouth disease now poses a high threat to Australia. This highly contagious livestock virus is sweeping Indonesia – the closest it’s been to Australia since the 1980s. A large outbreak here could cause decimate the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anita Wreford, Professor Applied Economics, Lincoln University, New Zealand Sanka Vidanagama/NurPhoto via Getty Images New Zealand’s national adaptation plan, launched last week, offers the first comprehensive approach to how communities can prepare for the inevitable impacts of a changing climate. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa McLean Davies, Professor of Teacher Education, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock Today, state and federal education ministers will meet in Canberra to discuss the teacher shortage. In their first in-person meeting for more than a year, they will ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury HBO HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones dominated television and pop culture discourse for much of a decade. Its upcoming prequel series, House of the Dragon, is similarly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The federal Liberals are in a parlous state, after an election that was not just lost to Labor but where “teals” stripped them of a batch of traditional seats. In coming months the Liberal ...
By Leah Tebbutt, RNZ News reporter A number of Māori wāhine have put their hat in the ring to become mayor at this year’s Aotearoa New Zealand local body election across the motu in October. Georgina Beyer is believed to be the first and only Māori woman ever elected as ...
By Concy Simon of the PNG Post-Courier Leadership of Papua New Guinea has “gone to the dogs” represented by a rapid increase in prices of goods and services and the “worst national election” ever, says a lawyer. Lawyer Goiye Kondago made the crtiticism during the official declaration of Kerenga Kua ...
COMMENTARY:By Barbara Dreaver, 1News Pacific correspondent Even from the grainy black and white footage of American soldiers wading towards shore while under fire, you can see and sense the fear, resignation and determination in that moment. The Battle of Midway in World War II may have been won, but ...
Cook Islands PressBy Jason Brown Tens of thousands of Cook Islanders celebrated 57th Constitution Day events these last weeks. Not just in the homeland, but overseas as well, with communities across New Zealand, Australia and beyond celebrating language, dance, culture and other arts. How many in all might be ...
A Labour backbencher has launched an extraordinary broadside, claiming MP-on-MP bullying is rampant within Parliament and facilitated by those supposed to prevent it. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rod Sims, Professor in the practice of public policy and antitrust, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Public interest journalism is essential to a well-functioning society, even for those who do not watch or read it. It holds ...
The Greens will continue to push for climate friendly, affordable transport options as part of a new cross-party Parliamentary inquiry into the future of inter-regional passenger rail in New Zealand. “Investing in rail is a great way to connect our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Huw Griffiths, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/ STCReview: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, directed by Kip Williams for Sydney Theatre Company With their new production, Kip Williams and the Sydney Theatre ...
National Party's leader and deputy leader say details of Sam Uffindell's flat are "not great" and "yuck", and the party will continue improving its candidate selection processes. ...
David Timbs from Peter Timbs Butchers has decided not to run in this year’s local body election. Mr Timbs initially said he would be running for council but has now put his support behind independent candidate Ali Jones who is running for the Innes ...
Buzz from the Beehive Tourism Minister Stuart Nash has been busy in the past 24 hours, joining the PM for the opening of a new aquatic centre, enthusing about data from the latest visitor statistics and announcing a new industry strategy. The Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities Priyanca ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University A record number of female Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander athletes represented Australia at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games. While embracing their role model status, it is worth considering the weighty ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnie Blewitt, Head, Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute leah hetteberg/unsplash What if we could inherit more than our parents’ genes? What if we could inherit the ability to turn genes on and off? These possibilities have come ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Orlando, Researcher: Digital Literacy and Digital Wellbeing, Western Sydney University Shutterstock This week, one Sydney high school made headlines for banning mobile phones during school hours. Phones can come to school but must stay in locked pouches allowing teachers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allen Cheng, Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Monash University People could have caught the virus from wild shrews.Shutterstock A new virus, Langya henipavirus, is suspected to have caused infections in 35 people in China’s Shandong and Henan provinces. It’s related to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dallas Rogers, Head of Urbanism and Associate Professor of Urban Studies, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney The redevelopment of the 22-hectare Barangaroo precinct on Sydney Harbour has long been a masterclass in poor urban development governance and lack ...
The Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA) is encouraging Kiwis to make a submission on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill by 24 August. They say getting tough on tobacco is well overdue. Now with Parliament’s ...
Just to keep you posted: TESCO, which owns the Fukushima plant has finally admitted that reactor no1 is in total meltdown and that they have been lying about the true state of affairs for a while.
Added to that reactor 4 is leaning precariously and reactor 2 is leaking. But don’t worry because they are going to build huge tents around the reactors to stop the radioactive gasses from spreading.
TESCO, which owns the Fukushima plant
I thought you were esposing the REAL owner of the plant, then realised it’s a typo. TESCO is the UK supermarket chain, where I often shopped in my time in the UK. Fukushima is owned by TEPCO
Oh oops. my bad Of course it is TEPCO. duh. LOL
Um, they didn’t “admit” it had melted down. They confirmed, with more 1st hand evidence, that it definitely has, and the extent to which it had melted down.
Lanthanide, you have a credibility issue, with your seeming readiness to believe official pronouncements after this catastrophe.
Only your good self, a few sad fools from the looney right blogosphere, and the utterly corrupt and disgusting CEO of Air New Zealand continue to express confidence in the integrity of the Japanese government and TEPCO.
Where have I expressed confidence in the integrity of the Japanese government and Tepco?
http://www.fairewinds.com/
VIDEO UPDATE: May 13th, 2011
Fukushima – One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems. Gundersen says Fukushima’s gaseous and liquid releases continue unabated. With a meltdown at Unit 1, Unit 4 leaning and facing possible collapse, several units contaminating ground water, and area school children outside the exclusion zone receiving adult occupational radiation doses, the situation continues to worsen. TEPCO needs a cohesive plan and international support to protect against world-wide contamination.
http://www.fairewinds.com/
This is not a time or place to say “Told you so…” but it would be an excellent opportunity for Jim (RNZ voice of I’m-ever-so-humble-reasonable-boy-next-door-apologist-for-the-National-Party) Mora to get all his pundits who made their pro-nuclear comments at the time of the quake to now give us their opinions and he could start with the Penguin from the Kiwiblog. Just another instance of how wrong and uninformed Farrar can be. Perhaps it’s time he was dropped from the show completely
(Sorry but cannot find link to the Afternoons panel – but it was within a couple of days of the tsunami)
Yes, and for Rob Fife to retract his statements about how bloggers and irresponsible newspaper journalists make the Fukushima disaster worse than it really is.
With respect to aircraft flying in to Japan, Rob Fyfe was completely correct.
No, he was not.
logie97 – Funny – your description of Jim Mora. Him to a ‘t’.
Here ya go, logie97….
TEPCO learned about the water level of the pressure vessel after workers who entered the reactor building beginning Tuesday adjusted a water-level gauge. Previously, the reading of the water level had remained almost unchanged at about 1.6 meters below the top of fuel rods since immediately after the outbreak of the crisis at the plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
After adjusting the gauge, workers found the actual water level was more than 5 meters below the top of the fuel rods. As the fuel rods are about 4 meters long, they are considered to have been fully exposed above the cooling water, TEPCO said. …
At the bottom of the steel pressure vessel, which is 16 centimeters thick, the water level is believed to stand at a maximum of only about 4 meters, TEPCO said. The company believes that most of the 190 tons of water injected every day is leaking from the pressure vessel, which is likely to be damaged more seriously than previously thought.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/13/975709/-Confirmed:-Fuel-rods-at-Fukushima-reactor-have-mostly-melted-Taxpayer-funded-bailout-announced
Our most successful export !!!!
Poor wages, decreasing living standards and we export our money !!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10725469
The Atlantic: How perpetual war became U.S ideology.
Seems to be missing the first 100 years or so. The US has effectively been in a state of perpetual war ever since it’s founding. There hasn’t been any sudden or radical change in their policy in the last two decades. What has changed is that more people know about the US military interventions at the time that they’re happening than before due to the networking (local and global) that the internet and other modern communications methods have allowed.
Dirty Fucking Hippies WERE RIGHT!
The leading candidate for the Maori Party now seems to be Pita Tipene Chairperson of the Ngati Hine Forestry Trust, he is from Ngati Hine.
At best any Maori Party candidate would end up at around10%. Kelvin from Labour at most would sit around 30%, while Hone and Mana would at least be around the 60% mark in the June 25 By Election.
The Maori Party is politically mortally wounded in the North, and shall become of no electoral relevance in the North.
When you stand Hone against Kelvin, Hone and Mana win hands down with the Maori Party candidate performing extremely badly.
The Northern Advocate Newspaper ran an online poll yesterday, it had120 votes.
Hone Mana Party 77%
Kelvin Labour Party 18%
Maori Party Candadiate 5%
The newspaper also under took a street poll through Northland. Mr Brown said “he had not voted in the 2008 general election, but had since grown to admire Mr Harawira”, Ms Mare 63 said she voted for the Maori Party in 2008 “because of Hone.”, “What he says he does,” pledging a switch to Mana. Grace Takimoana said “…I voted for Labour last time, but they haven’t got much hope with their new leader.”
In the last General Election Hone had a resounding 32% majority over Kelvin, Hone’s electorate vote grew about 10% in 2008, while the Maori Party vote decreased by 1.3%. Combine that with the Advocate poll result the trend is clear Hone has grown support while the Maori Party has lost support.
I heard there may have been around 16 at the Maori Party Waitangi hui, that should have been the story of the day. Further the president Pam Bird of the Maori Party dismisses Maori youth our future leaders. In a poll during the last election 70% of the voters in the electorate wanted the Maori Party to work with Labour, not National. Do not forget the New Zealand First backlash for going into government with National, the seats were basically wiped out.
Polling prior to the 2008 election from Maori Television poll had some interesting numbers;
Only 20.6% surveyed said Kelvin Davis could be trusted, 21.2% to deliver on his promises. When you move on to he knows the needs of local people Kevin performs badly again at 16.2%.When it comes to leadership Kevin only manages 19.2%. The survey about who has personality Kelvin scores 11.2%, while Hone scores 71.4%.
The murkiness continues – http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pike-river-mine-disaster/5004587/Victims-families-tell-authorities-to-go-into-Pike-River-mine
Police say it’s still too dangerous to enter the mine – after 5 months? Who do they think they’re kidding? And, ‘two or three months to enhance the latest images’?
Conspiracy theories aside, it’s looking very much like someone’s hiding something.
I think it’s money that is the major problem now for advancing Pike River surveys and recovery. Nothing will be done if the family doesn’t keep it current, the authorities just want to let it fade till it ends with a shrug and a sad face with nothing more attempted.
There has been first tight control by authorities and a dependence on machinery to try and allow perfect safety, but they have also excluded affected families from entering themselves to look. Iif there was a window of opportunity to penetrate and survey the mine with a large percentage likelihood of safety they might have chosen to put themselves in danger.
The same style of rigid control in Christchurch with total exclusion of people involved with the area.
As blunt as this sounds, I have to question the coroners finding into the time and cause of death of the very brave 29 who were killed in the Pike River mine. It is clear how important it is to have the scene examined due to the latest footage or two possible bodies being intact.
If my loved one was in there, I would not stop until the mine was entered regardless on how long my patience was being tried, I would also not allow the cost to deter me either.
So you or the families would be prepared to stump up all the cost? Suppose that worked out to $1 million each. Still necessary?
As great as my sympathy is for the Pike River families for the loss of their 29 men the fact has to be faced that current technology makes it extremely difficult, dangerous and expensive to recover these bodies. Situations in which bodies are not recovered occur fairly regularly in NZ. As such the demands being made by the families spokesman and the mayor border on the unreasonable and in fact the irrational.
After today’s announcement
“A Mines Rescue service team would enter the mine on Monday with the sole purpose of resealing the entryway to stabilise the main tunnel, not recover the bodies, Hollis said.
He said a feasibility plan for the recovery process was discussed in the meeting and could have lead to the confusion.”
There is no confusion. There is just a track record of Kokshoorn and Monk fabricating information to suit their egos.
No probs, John Key has long said that the Government would cover it.
Like I said before
They might as well be at the bottom of the sea, it’s just as dangerous.
Or inside the Chernobyl reactor.
The mine is full of methane gas, which is explosive when mixed with air at a certain percentage. once you have dug out some of the mine – which it was when operating – there is a lot more methane being released than there was when they first dug their way in through the original tunnel. The whole of the mine will be full of it, so there is a lot more danger than when the mine was first built.
The only realistic way of making it safe is to get the ventilation operating – however obviously they think there is a risk of it bursting into flame again – which happens quite often in mines, spontaneous combustion and underground fires are common situations in underground coal mines and they often burn for decades or centuries in some cases. If it does catch fire again then it could explode and they would have to go through all the rigamarole with the Gag machine again. I think everyone who is pushing for it to be reopened has conveniently forgotten the explosions and the fire 6 months ago because that was seriously dangerous and there was no less risk to life and limb then.
As it is the Families spokesman and the mayor of Greymouth look like motor mouths more and more, every time they are calling up the papers to say this and that they get shot down in flames. Brutal as it may sound the families have to move on and just live with the fact they may never get the bodies back.
Good stats and info on Mana Party Terry. Those stats confirm what someone else said – that it is wasting a good pollie such as Kelvin Davis throwing him against Hone and the Maori Party when he is unlikely to win.
IRD ditching a soft ware programme which has already cost $21 million.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5003418/IRD-shelves-project-after-spending-21-million
Where have I seen this before? The INCIS police computer.
http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/july99/0707.html
The week that was 7 – 13 May
http://thejackalman.blogspot.com/2011/05/week-that-was-7-13-may.html
In this weeks review; the protest flotilla, Operation 8 update, Typhoid Fever in NZ, His Royal Highness, Child poverty leads to skin conditions, Bees being decimated, Refugees, Oil drilling in the Arctic, People interfering with explosives in the Naki, US Floods, ACC, Kiwisaver and WFF gutted, Protest in Gisborne and Julian Assange gets an award.
Kiim Hill on Radionz first off this morning interviewed climate change scientist.-
8:15 James Hansen
Dr James Hansen is the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and one of the best-known climate scientists in the world. He is visiting New Zealand to give a public lecture, Climate Change: a Scientific, Moral and Legal Issue, in Auckland, Palmerston North, Wellington, Dunedin, Gore and Christchurch, from 12 to 21 May. He will also participate in the Symposium on the Future of Coal (17 May, Wellington), and the Festival for the Planet (21 May, Auckland).
He responded to Kim’s questioning well without impatience and explained all his points clearly and
was very informative. Now I really must make some changes myself. By the way he doesn’t see nuclear as an evil thing. It needs to be run well, but more people die from cancers from other causes than from nuclear problems. And there is the point that climate change will be likely to do more damage. If we want energy we have to decide what loss of our present environment we will accept. Wind turbines affecting country vistas, dams for hydropower etc.
No getting round it. And we must not rely on coal, huge producer of CO2. And we should have a carbon tax so we all get the proper signals of how expensive it is to our environment which will grow affecting more our children’s future than our present.
Has anyone done a cost vs benefit analysis that shows how many bad nuclear disasters would tip the argument the other way?
The main argument I hear is that more people die from coal than nuclear. Well duh, stop using both.
weka – Yeah but there is the situation of needing energy and choosing the best from a group of alternatives that each have downsides. Wishful thinking would lead us to hope for cheap ways of harnessing the sun but we can’t get enough for all our needs that way.
One here at present with a downside being protested is the Kaipara Harbour turbines. Changing the environment and depleting food species has to be considered with this one – apparently major spawning area for snapper. Would nuclear at this location run carefully be less hurtful to the environment? Hansen referred to Three Mile Island, as a notable failure for the USA which sounded really bad but actually was not so bad.
Hi prism, there are enough good reasons for reducing energy consumption/need without even having to consider nuclear – if increasing energy allows us to keep living beyond our environmental means then the obvious solution is to stop using so much.
As someone posted yesterday, we could be building houses that need very little power to heat. This idea that we have to have perpetual energy growth is wrong, we don’t need it for a good life. Increasing demands for power are about wants not needs.
I don’t know anything about the Kaipara situation, but have seen some of the protest in the South Island. We could be moving away from the big, very wasteful power schemes towards local power generation. Let individual communities decide what they want and how much energy they want to use. Most of the big power schemes get protested by locals.
hi weka – We have to think nationally as well as locally. Cities, big manufacturers need to draw on outside their areas and people away from the city need to think beyond ‘mine’ and ‘local’ to share some of their assets for other’s benefit. There has to be protection and control so that is done the least permanently destructive way, ie wind turbine with bird lanes? preferred to drowning all our valleys and natural fast rivers for hydro.
There will be an increase in need for power merely because of natural population growth, plus immigration. We can limit this to a more sustainable level by giving people information and help so they can limit family size below say four, most would choose less I think. This would be sure to be controversial but is what an intelligent societies should be doing at this state of human over-development.
I agree energy saving is a must. One thought I had was that during the winter nights there could be a community message about 8pm on tv requesting a turn off of unnecessary lighting, even one. This would have both a symbolic and actual savings effect. Double glazing, retro glazing, doing sensible things in an efficient way is a positive provided we regulate and control this so that there isn’t a bunch of cowboys ripping off individuals and the country as I believe happened in Oz with household energy improvements.
Yep. And turning electronics and chargers off at the wall instead of leaving them on standby could save twenty to thirty watts per household. With a million households and offices…30 MW saved with no loss of lifestyle. Sweet.
Solar hot water heating and hot water cylinder insulation – both musts IMO. That’ll save a lot more than 30 MW.
CV I tried to be a bit clever and bought a charger for my rechargeables for camera etc which is a rapid one that turns itself off when done. I think this must be an energy saver plus the advantage of not having to watch for over-charging of battery.
Noice.
“We have to think nationally as well as locally. Cities, big manufacturers need to draw on outside their areas and people away from the city need to think beyond ‘mine’ and ‘local’ to share some of their assets for other’s benefit. ”
You’re teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs there prism, given you are talking to a Mainlander 😉
The South Island rivers and windy hills aren’t ‘assets’. They’re the land that gives us our life. I don’t mind sharing some of the wealth of this land with our cousins up North, but I do object to building more dams on the Clutha and transporting that power to the NI, or even Chch, when so much power gets lost in the transfer.
I also object to having more dams and windfarms here so that Aucklanders can wear tshirts in the winter. Or people can have heated towel rails. If Aucklanders really believe that being able to wear tshirts in the winter is a necessity of life (as opposed to putting on a jersey) then they can make their own local decisions about power generation by putting the generation in *their* backyard (as long as it’s not nuclear – I agree with you there, some decisions need to be made nationally).
Turning off lights isn’t going to make much of a saving. We have to think about our whole relationship with energy and our lifes (including industry and the economy). Solutions like CV is talking about most likely need to be legislated – why build electronics that need to be reset everytime you turn them off at the wall? And the insulation one is a no-brainer. But we could also be legislating so that every new house in NZ has to have solar hot water (dual systems for those with less sunshine) and passive solar heating. These aren’t difficult things to do, and there are many many things we could do around energy efficiency.
Yes weka all true. But our ‘land that gives us our life’ is our asset, though not one as a simple listing on a financial document. And we Mainlanders are part of the NZ mix and have to watch our power usage as well as Aucklanders. Turning off lights isn’t a great saving no but I did mention the symbolic effect which means that people are reminded of the need to keep monitoring energy use and not procrastinate or think it’s SEP – someone elses problem. While we voters put it off we give pollies who want to be in charge of everything, the OK to proceed to do sweet FA. If something is done by one gang then when the other gets in they wipe it, deballs it, or extend the time plan into the never-never. Despairing sort of stuff and neither political persuasion gives confidence, which is why the Greens are so important.
Your ideas sound really good, but the pollies and their financial mates who like to gamble on the casino of life, and manage to win most of the time, allow conditions in financial markets to wipe all our monetary assets and give taxes back to the people who already have an excess of excess, and then they announce a financial crisis and prudent people couldn’t agree to any state expenditure and they haven’t time to pass legislation on energy saving measures etc.
Unfortunately electric power has been the cleanest and easiest form to prevent pollution and taking out fireplaces and free-standers and replacing them with heat pumps is going to use up quite a lot. Auckland will need them too in the summer if the temps continue to rise as the climate change effect continues. Auckland should be looking at providing more of its energy for sure – they could use solar, and heat retention house designs. But Kaipara turbines might be less satisfactory than hydro from a sustainable level, eg not decimating food supplies and fertility – hard decisions to make. Having nuclear might seem better if its between the destruction of our rivers, or great technology that upsets a major food source.
I said that hydro is a problem. I think they are planning new one/s on the Clutha aren’t they?
The heatpump one is interesting, and I agree that it’s a big consumer of electricity. Wood for fuel is one of the few carbon neutral active energy sources we have, and it has multiple flow on effect for humans and the environment if done properly. I’d rather see R and D go into burning wood fuel efficiently than building more dams/windfarms (or developing NZ based nuclear power that will always carry too high a risk).
There are always plans afoot for new Clutha dams. Labour said no way the last time they were in power. It’s just taken the industry a while to get back to it under National.
I still don’t accept your argument re nuke power. If we reduce consumption and improve efficiency we don’t even need to consider it, so it’s a red herring to compare nuclear with alternatives that damage the environment.
Installed and run correctly it’s the most efficient form of heating available – that includes wood burning.
I’d rather see more wind farms and better insulated, longer lasting houses. It’s more efficient and allows our forests to progress to old growth which would help increase bio-diversity.
Or, even better, people encouraged to use less electricity so we don’t need any more wind farms of dams.
Agreed on the last point. Problem with the other points is that that kind of power generation isn’t sustainable in practical terms with peak oil, or environmental terms with climate change.
“Installed and run correctly it’s the most efficient form of heating available – that includes wood burning.”
I doubt it, but we’re probably comparing different things. What about a thermal mass stove in a house with passive solar?
How much extra energy are you using to cut and transport the wood? Is it more or less than what’s needed to get the electricity to the heat pump? (Hint: It’s more, much more). Please note, the efficiency of a heat pump comes from the point that it’s not actually making heat – it’s transferring it from one place (outside) to another (inside).
I’d go for a passive solar heat store (yeah, you don’t actually have to burn things to heat up those rocks) backed by a heat pump.
Problem with heat pumps is that some people buy into the sales story that they are just sooooo efficient. And end up running them at 21 deg C all day and all night.
So net, it consumes way more power than if they had used standard heating.
This is an example of Jevon’s Paradox.
See, I keep hearing those stories and wonder WTF went wrong. The heat pump should be turned on all the time and left to run as determined by the thermostat and pre-programmed timing plans as then it will operate at it’s most efficient.
What you describe can only be put down to either of two things:
1.) Bad installation that was reading the temperature wrong or
2.) The people operating the heat pump overrode the devices internal logic forcing it to run all the time.
Generally speaking, and with my experience as a CSR, I’d say it was most likely the latter. PEBKAC, the most common fault with computers.
I also object to having more dams and windfarms here so that Aucklanders can wear tshirts in the winter.
It would make more sense for more energy to be generated near Auckland. But, really, some of us Aucklanders don’t wear tshirts (at least not without some other layers on top) in winter indoors. But even with a few layers on in the coldest weather, I would find it really difficult inside in Auckland during the winter without heating. It especially effects my hands & feet – they get cold very easily & it’s hard to do anything much when they are very cold.
Mind you, I haven’t switched on a heater at my place yet this year. Remarkably warm autumn so far. There has been a couple of cold snaps, but some extra layers of clothes in the evening worked fine.
He tried to minimize the catastrophe at Three Mile Island. That was as dishonest as anything we are seeing right now from TEPCO or the Japanese government’s “communications” people.
I wonder if Hansen would have had the gall to go to Fukushima or Chernobyl to say how safe nuclear power is.
morrissey I think Hansen puts a nuclear failure causing some deaths beside other factors causing death or injury, ie the onset of general cancers and road deaths and looks to see which one is greater.
That doesn’t make sense though. If we had a cause of cancer that was preventable why wouldn’t we try and prevent it?
Last post tah tah. See dimpost for Brash’s secret letter – reveals his concern about the decline in effort by the National Party bowling club to improve their system for winning at ten pin bowling.
Eh? You leaving us prism?
Friday the 13th Fun with Photos
http://thejackalman.blogspot.com/2011/05/friday-13th-fun-with-photos.html
…This has resulted in the White House making a press release stating that it is illegal to alter photos in this way. So in light of this ridiculous request, we at the Jackal have searched far and wide for the best photo-shopped image of the Obama national security team watching Osama bin Laden being killed… and the winner is:
A good National Radio interview here, broadcast on Wed night. Globalisation versus Americanisation.
Essentially, American powers influenced the rest of the world to take up their model of financial management and governance (I mean, look what good its done for the people of the US so far).
[audio src="http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ngts/ngts-20110511-1915-Globalisation_vs_Americanisation-048.mp3" /]
Excellent high-resolution photo tour of the Red Zone in Christchurch. If you haven’t looked at any other photos, you should look at this collection.
https://picasaweb.google.com/RossBeckerNZ/2011April27IntoTheChristchurchRedZone#slideshow/5602376597050171794
Thanks Lanth.
Hi Rare earth man,
TEPCO admits, conceded, admits, admits (and that is just a small selection of the 940,000 hits I got when I googled; TEPCO admits) they are lying scum destroying our planet.
Any nuclear reactor not cooled for 90 minutes goes into meltdown, period….. It took them way more than that to even get some cooling back online.
They found plutonium 1 miles away from the reactors according to Arnie Gunderson this meant the initial speed with which that piece of plutonium must have started was some 1000 miles per hour. That is one hell of an explosion.
11 million litres of water have disappeared from reactor no1. Were is it gone? My guess is back into the ocean being spread around the planet via the beltway stream contaminating the entire planet with radioactive crap.
Rare earth man, I don’t know were you’re coming from but your shite is sounding more and more inane to me.
I love NZ, you think its bad then something really stupid happens to make it worse. The NZ economy is at the whim of the global market, and commodities are booming, yet NZ is going backwards. Its astonishing how badly run this country is, and then we elected John Key. LOL.
But then would I have like the pressure of London or Sydney, the pollution, the social climbing being brought here to NZ.
So my question is how to keep NZ a rural backwater but without looking like the rural idiot.
Teenaa koe, ZeeBop
I would much prefer that we went backward to pre-colony days – although I can still see internet being used.
We need to breathe deeply the 100% pure brand – the country should go organic and be green environmentally, socially, and economically.
That act alone puts our thinking at a greater level, and only the truly stupid would think us idiots.
Ooh aah shucks. Gimme a beer.
What’s wrong with looking like a rural idiot?
David Cunliffe excelled last night on Willie Jackson’s Newsbite. Passionate crystal clear definition of where Labour sis going in spite of the negative commentary from some.
I can’t find a way into their site or if they have replay. Anyone?
Site is : http://www.maoritelevision.com/Default.aspx?tabid=605
Yeah, the Maori TV website sux. It’s pretty close to impossible to find what you’re looking for.
Hell, they don’t even list by date. Either that or they’re listing using a difference dating system that I’ve never seen before.
Now I’m aware that we have some very smart and clever contributers to the Standard, so please would someone tell me just where all the money that has been raised and due for Christchurch is going. Now is not the largest bill not covered by insurance ? . What about Earth Quake Commission money? Are not the injured covered by ACC.
However what does concern me is the money being raised around the country and in fact world wide.Every town,village and city in NZ have had fund raisers ,it must amount to millions of dollars. So why is this government telling us ad,nausem .that we must sell assets to pay for the Christchurch disaster? Why does English tell us that the country is in a mess because of Christchurch. To be honest if I was a Christchurch resident I would be a bit a pissed of at being blames for the mess this government has put us.
I don’t normally point people to stuff like this as I’m anti-capitalist but it’s well worth reading.
As I say, I’m anti-capitalist and consider that the socio-political system we labour under a failed system but this article highlights some of the real meanings behind getting a job are and points out that getting a job is the worst thing you can do. It also points out the parasites at the top of our present system and how they benefit from your work.
IF NZ IS THE ‘LEAST CORRUPT COUNTRY IN THE WORLD – THEN SHOULDN’T WE BE THE MOST ‘TRANSPARENT’?
Seen this latest CRAP in the NZ Herald?
“Editorial: NZ’s culture of honesty one to be cherished”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10725551
“Editorial: NZ’s culture of honesty one to be cherished
Corruption is foreign to New Zealand’s government, we believe.
The belief is so deeply ingrained in this country that we instinctively doubt an accusation such as that levelled against the Government this week over the ministerial vehicle fleet replacement.
…….
In any other country there would be that perception, but here? We are blessedly confident in the probity of our public service. The country rates close to zero on international measures of corruption and local industry representatives who deal abroad say we do not realise how lucky we are.
………….
No country can be too vigilant against corruption. If this is one of the world’s least corrupt places, it is at risk of assuming too much. Corruption, after all, is not completely unknown here.
………………..
Exceptions are sufficiently rare to prove the rule: we retain a culture of honesty in public life that we ought never to take for granted. ”
________________________________________________________________________________
THE NZ ‘CORRUPTION REALITY CHECKLIST’!
If New Zealand is supposed to be the ‘least corrupt country in the world’ (along with Singapore and Denmark, according to the 2010 Transparency International ‘Corruption Perception Index’ – then arguably we should be the most ‘transparent’?
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results
Here are some quite specific points which clearly identify where NZ lacks genuine transparency.
If these were turned into ‘demands’ and achieved – in my view – there would be quite a transformation which is long-overdue.
________________________________________________________________________________
CORRUPTION REALITY CHECKLIST – NEW ZEALAND
1. Has NZ ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption? ……… NO
2. Does NZ have an independent anti-corruption body tasked with educating the public and PREVENTING corruption? ……. NO
3. Do NZ’s laws ensure transparency in the funding of candidates for elected public office and political parties at central government level? …………………. NO
4. Do NZ Members of Parliament have a ‘Code of Conduct’? NO
5. Do NZ Local Govt elected reps have a ‘Code of Conduct’? ……. YES
6. Is it an offence for NZ Local Govt elected reps to breach the ‘Code of Conduct’? ..NO
7. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Govt elected reps? …………………NO
8. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Central Govt staff responsible for procurement? ……………… NO
9. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available ‘Register of Interests’ for NZ Local Govt staff responsible for procurement? ………. NO
10. Is there a lawful requirement for details of ‘contracts issued’ – including the name of the contractor; scope, term and value of the contract to be published in NZ Central Govt Public Sector, and Local Govt (Council) Annual Reports so that they are available for public scrutiny?……. NO
11. Is it a lawful requirement that a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ of NZ Central Govt public finances be undertaken to substantiate that private procurement of public services previously provided ‘in-house’ is cost-effective for the public majority? ………NO
12. Is it a lawful requirement that a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ of NZ Local Govt public finances be undertaken to substantiate that private procurement of public services previously provided ‘in-house’ is cost-effective for the public majority? ………NO
13. Does NZ have a legally-enforcable ‘Code of Conduct’ for members of the NZ Judiciary? ……NO
14. Are all NZ Court procedings recorded, and audio records made available to parties who request them?……………NO
15. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ Judicial ‘Register of Interests’? …. NO
16. Is there a lawful requirement for a publicly-available NZ ‘Register of Lobbyists’ at Central Govt Ministerial level? ………… NO
17. Is there a legal requirement at NZ Central and Local Govt level for a ‘post-separation employment quarantine ‘ period’ from the time officials leave the public service to take up a similar role in the private sector?………………NO
18. Is it a lawful requirement that it is only a binding vote of the public majority that can determine whether public assets held at NZ Central Govt or Local Govt level are sold; or long-term leased via Public-Private –Partnerships? …………………. NO
19. Is it unlawful in NZ for politicians to knowingly misrepresent their policies prior to election at central or local government level? …………………………. NO
20. Do NZ laws promote and protect individuals, NGOs and community-based organisations who are ‘whistleblowing’ against ‘conflicts of interest’ and corrupt practices at central and local govt level and within the judiciary? ……………………………. NO
Prepared by Penny Bright – for Transparency International 14th Conference 7/11/2010
IACC ID D – 1198 http://waterpressure.wordpress.com [email deleted]
Creating the Climate for Change
http://thejackalman.blogspot.com/2011/05/creating-climate-for-change.html
Did you realise that sea ice is melting and temperatures are warming even faster than climatologists predicted? There is no doubt that it’s happening because of Human-made climate change. An increasing body of scientific observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system, with new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
CERA’s nice-to-have??
http://smh.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/home-squeeze-home-life-in-3x3x3m-20110512-1ekcg.html
Apologies if this has already been pointed out on The Standard.
That would work too Jim. And housework would only take a minute. Wonder what the NZ equivalent will be?