I suspect over 8 million vaccinations to adults, in NZ alone, with serious side effects in less than double figures, for one.
Compelling real world evidence, that the vaccination is as harmless as anything gets.
Compared with the potential, proven, harm to children from covid, and the harm from their Teachers, Carers, elderly relatives, food suppliers etc, getting covid.
Unless like some on here,, you think every sneeze after covid vaccination, is because of the vaccination.
Wow. Just wow, only a few adverse reactions? Look at the medsafe data, which they themselves say is only about 5% of what actually happens. I too would love to see the data that medsafe used as the trial for the children's version was small and only for a short time.
Again wow. You are aware of the heart issues surely. The MOH has put out an advisary letter about them. These people are turning up in our hospitals. In this case correlation does equal causation. Do we want this for our children?
Again wow. Where are you getting this from. Worldwide children are not dieing of covid. The Danish, German and UK data tells us this. Why would we put children at a known risk of heart etc. issues when only those with comorbidities are in any way at risk from the disease. Why would we not just vaccinate those at risk rather than create risk with mass vaccination?
and wow to you. why would we educate everybody when only some want to learn? why not just educate those with potential ,rather than create knowledge with mass education.??
24 million children in the US have received a Covid vaccination and only two deaths of children have been reported to VAERS. Both of these children were in fragile health before vaccination and had multiple chronic medical conditions. Independent investigation of these two cases did not suggest a causal link between death and vaccination
These are the FACTS from verified sources reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Multiple independently verified studies have shown significant reduction in severity of Covid symptoms, hospitalisation rate and deaths if you have received a Covid vaccination.
The unvaccinated who get Covid infect far more people, require more hospital intervention and this is driving some nation's health systems into the ground. We do not want this in New Zealand, which is why we are heading towards 95% vaccination of eligible people.
People who can't get their head around how the VAERS system works are certainly not people whose views on vaccination are rational.
And I am horrified that there are anti vaxxers who are arguing against vaccination of children. We should not let these misinformed people propose a herd immunity experiment on our children
anti-vaxxers are fighting a losing battle, ignoring history, science, common sense, empathy for others ,etc, etc, armed only with outrage, selfishness and stupidity. you can educate the stupid, but it doesnt stick. however, we do have a duty to these people, as fellow humans. they dont even understand anologies. the sad but interesting thing about ignoring medical science is you become a statistic and subject for autopsy earlier than usual.
You said you were curious as to what data, what studies, what information Medsafe's experts used to decide it was safe to vaccinate children with Pfizer’s product.
They have a website which gives contact details. I suggest you contact them and ask them. I'm sure you're serious enough about the questions to follow-up with them.
The 600 number of child deaths is essentially bogus. As Harvard Prof. of Medicine and Epidemiologist Martin Kulldorrf says below.
Dr. Kulldorff: "By now it’s about 350 or so reported deaths by COVID in the U.S. for children. We don’t even know how many of those are truly COVID, because nobody has bothered to go through all those electronic health records, which I think CDC should do, as Marty Makary, a professor at John Hopkins has been urging, but that hasn’t been done. So we don’t know exactly how many, but it is at most 350."
In Sweden, upper-secondary schools moved online while lower-secondary schools remained open during the spring of 2020. A comparison of parents with children in the final year of lower-secondary and first year of upper-secondary school shows that keeping the former open had limited consequences for the overall transmission of the virus. However, the infection rate doubled among lower-secondary teachers relative to upper-secondary ones.
The one country that could have definitively answered that question has apparently failed to collect any data. Bucking a global trend, Sweden has kept day care centers and schools through ninth grade open since COVID-19 emerged, without any major adjustments to class size, lunch policies, or recess rules. That made the country a perfect natural experiment about schools' role in viral spread that many others could have learned from as they reopen schools or ponder when to do so. Yet Swedish officials have not tracked infections among school children—even when large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools or staff members died of the disease.
A more up to date (and in some ways more thorough) presentation by Jessica Rose (Aug 27) can be found by typing VAERS UPDATE for CCCA (Canadian COVID Care Alliance) into youtube. Again – it's a long one.
There appears to be a lack of understanding of how our labour force worked pre-pandemic which may explain the problems now. The student visa scheme supplied a huge number ( up to 200,000 ) of casual workers doing the “ shit “ jobs, hotspo and horticultural work mainly. My take is that the offshore visitors replaced the young Kiwis who took off after school/ uni to do their OE and took up similar jobs offshore, and because of the 2 year limit meant starting a career over there made little sense. Now back here most are moving directly into careers and foregoing the “ holiday , year off “ jobs on returning and into their chosen career or previously trained-for occupations. Celebrating, a la Stuart Nash, getting rid of the ‘ kids in vans ‘ is very short sighted. We can and should not rely on Pasifika labour in the future ,we have almost cleaned out the islands of their own essential young very much to the detriment of their soon to be, hopefully recovering economies.
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he's not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
'the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.'
Let me break it down for you: Let's use simple steps.
''The standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.''
Growing up, I can't recall a police officer with a pot belly. There may have been some, but I never saw them.' So what's changed? KFC or accepted physical standards for a serving officer to maintain?
That leads to my concern with middleclass new recruits. First our education system takes away their ability to think on their feet( in my opinion). Their general home life is safe and secure. They have never had to tough it out over three days without food in their stomach. They have never been embarrassed in front of others because they have nothing. If they do wrong they are sent to their room or grounded. A feral may have done nothing wrong, but still ends up getting beaten by someone because that someone is having a bad hair day. That lifestyle builds resilience, viciousness and cunning. Into that cauldron must step a new police recruit. That's why I have seen them flounder, be out thought and scared. I don't blame them. Police college can only prepare you so far. In times past being from the middleclass wasn't a problem because life was still reality based and everyone was reasonably fit. The underclass problem was still developing.
The solution: Mandatory training for recruits in areas like South Auckland for two years probation. Mandatory social work in similar areas as part of police training.
I accompanied a social worker relative once on a house call. What I saw, heard and smelt is still burnt into my mind.
Here's a somewhat tame and in a way, funny clip. However, it points to a way of life a new recruit will have to understand and master…it's a doorway into the dark side of life.
Obviously he suffers from Short Man Syndrome. I went to YouTube & read some of the comments. Mostly, from the spelling & ghetto-style-affecteda-language used, Māori commenters I’d say.
They all thought he was a complete joke. Several commented on the hilariously peculiar strutting & the shorts-pulling. Others noticed they girls weren’t remotely scared & howvlucky he was one of them didn’t smack him.
A couple of commenters posted akong the lines “wait till they tell their brothers get there”.
Sounds like it was in Hamilton, from the comments.
That said, I did find it unsettling no males intervened & told him to piss off.
The point is even though those ladies could handle themselves, the fact is a woman was being kicked and nobody did a thing. Even the narrator mentions this dick stepping out a woman, but he does nothing. To be fair, society is so dangerous now that stepping in to help could cost you your life as happened a few years back when a man was knifed to death for trying to stop a feral beating a woman.
If the police did this to a gang then you know there'd be media stories claiming the police are racist by picking on gangs, that lawyers would be crawling out of the woodwork and that the gangs (the leaders are not stupid) would be hitting up whatever politician they own decrying these actions
Thats why they target the individuals in cases like this
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for the police to use this to target individuals then why isn't it good enough for the police to target gang pads/HQs?
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Again the same reasoning, if its good enough for the individual then why not the gangs.
Meh.
Reading the article, the "mocking" seems to have been a hot mic moment when they didn't know there was a mic – he was outside, no?
As for taking guns first and returning them after everything's sorted out and there wasn't really a problem, I'm cool with that. Better than the other way around.
The issue of antiques does create a problem, though, especially in regards to museums etc. Different threat level, but still enough to rob someone with – just ask Dick Turpin.
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Gee can you think of other places where people might have gang affiliations because I sure can't
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Good thing they went after this guy rather than, oh I don't know, any of the known gang pads
Pretty sure that if the local cops had reliable info that guns were actually being stored at a particular gang pad at a particular time, they'd pop over for a visit there, too.
What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.
‘What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.'
The police just did exactly that, I want them to do the exact same thing they did to this guy, under the exact same arms act cited.
I'll repeat that bit again for you since you obviously missed it:
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the nearest gang pad might just have members of a gang?
I believe that the reason the police target the individual and not the gang is because the individual is a softer target, does not have the same PR representation as the gangs, does not not have the same perceived support of the gangs and certainly doesn't have the same legal resources as the gang
Theres a mob property in main street raetihi, last year I drove past , 2 detective type cars parked at the front door , officers inside , 2 uniform cops on the other side of the road covering the building with semi rifles at the ready, I'm picking they'd popped round for more than a cup of tea.
100% agreed. Legal means only. No breaking the laws, the police are not above the laws themselves.
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for one its good enough for all, don't you agree?
Safer? The safest thing to say is there's a lot of crap spouted about the police and gangs. Apparently the cops leave them alone, don't dare touch them.
Can't think why then there are regular stories in the media about big drug busts, and photos of drugs, and money and guns and reference to gang people arrested.
Theres a difference between busts and some cops turning up at someones door to confiscate some weapons which may or, especially in this case, may not be illegal
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
Against the police? People with guns who decide to fight back against the police have killed & wounded quite a few of our police officers. Several of these shooters have had criminal histories, or psychiatric/psychological issues. Not surprising the police are wary of such people ,or gun owners that are reported by the public as posting hateful comments and/or seemingly being mentally unstable.
But in this and other cases??
It certainly sounds like in this case it was a complete cock up & the police officers involved went about confiscating the guns in a very unprofessional manner, with the family claiming to have multiple evidences on CCTV video & audio of their total lack of professionalism. The fact they later wrote to him (but he’d died by the time the letter was received) to say he could collect his guns suggests they should not have confiscated them in the first place.
But we don’t know the full facts. E.g. He may have improved his home gun security in the intervening time. We’re only getting his family’s & lawyer’s side of the story. I think a complaint to the IPCA is definitely worthwhile.
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional?
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
I won’t argue with that final conclusion of yours that they got a “politician” because the Police Commissioner’s job has nearly always required the appointee to be politically astute while maintaining the fiction that they always act completely independently of the government and are not subject to political direction or intervention.
But in my view the other primary contending candidate Mike Clement would not have been significantly different. By the time they get to Deputy Commissioner level they know the Commissioner’s job is a politically sensitive role requiring careful & cautious handling. One doesn’t go against the government’s wishes.
And Mike Clement was being investigated by the IPCA, accused of interfering in the appointment of a superintendent at the time the govt were looking to fill the role. I can’t recall the outcome but he subsequently retired with praises from the Police Minister.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he’s not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The next one might be a woman? A couple of female senior policepersons were in the original running.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies.
I haven’t seen any pot-bellied police officers down here in North Welly, but if a few middle-aged or older ones are desk-bound it wouldn’t be surprising. I don’t know what the physical fitness requirements to be maintained are once they’ve qualified to join the force.
Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.
You’re just going to have to live with that. I’m not a great fan of tats either. But they’re so ubiquitous among younger folk now that it’d be crazy to rule out young men or women who meet the requirements because they have tatoos. And many 20-something young Māori I encounter proudly display moko on arms & legs to signal their iwi affiliations. We need more Māori Pirihama. Be crazy to rule them out.
Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training. And some recruits DO come from that kind of background, as I understand it. No doubt they share their experiences during training.
As far as I know they still have to meet stringent physical fitness standards to get into the police.
Our police are not perfect. No country’s are. But I’d rather support them, & criticise them only when they act badly, than denigrate them all as a force. It’s not a job I’d take on.
Good post. I will let most of it stand as a different take ( some would say more reasoned) on what I wrote, believe and quoted.
Some cherry picking.
Regarding Costa. He wasn't the frontline favourite among officers at the time of his selection. He blows Mike Clement out of the water academic wise. But Clement has far more front line skills eg working in the undercover programme. Yes, a commissioner to a degree has to be a politician, but he also sets the tone for officers and staff who work under him. Having the support of your front line is a great way to start and build a culture. At the moment if you believe The Police Association and talkback( police officers calling in), morale is low. Serving officers don't believe police HQ has their backs. An example of that is Costa not arming police as a matter of routine. I wonder if Clement would have?
''I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training.''
I disagree with that for the reasons given. Others can make their own mind up regarding my views.
''So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional.''
Nothing to do with guns, but everything to do with attitude. Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. The officer questioning me gave them a wry smile, looked back at me and said '' well, bugger off.'' That was it. To this day, I don't have a clue what went down. He didn't even ask for my particulars. I think they just wanted a little fun on a boring Sunday morning at my expense.
Another time in a Bunnings carpark, I was stopped by two cops who demanded to see what was in my bag. I was just opening my bag when a staff worker called out to the officers and pointed to another person. I received no apology. Something like: ''sorry mate, wrong person.'' would have been nice.
I could recount other incidents. I'm not anti cop. They have a shit job…but, as the years roll on, I'm losing more respect for them. In fact, I wonder if the cops have lost a passion for their job, and just consider us all crooks? That said most cops I have dealt with have been decent good people, its just that growing feral element that I have encountered that worries me.
Clement may have had the background & skills to handle front line police with more support from them because they believed he “had their back”.
I don’t know whether he’d have had them all now routinely armed or whether he’d have arrived at the same situation they’re at now at with Tactical Response Teams with AOS level training (who have immediate access to firearms if needed) being trialled.
These seem like a mere step away from the Tactical Response Teams, which I recall weren’t being used as originally intended (they were reportedly even seen doing routine traffic stops) but were dumped because of more heavily policed communities’ & political opposition. They were possibly dumped too early, they could perhaps have been simply better managed & more appropriately tasked.
If crims keep shooting at unarmed coppers, they’ll be routinely armed eventually. There’ll be enough public support for it once we start having too many police fatalities & a big enuf % of the cops demand the right to be armed or they’ll leave the force. I hope it doesn’t come to that soon, but one day it might. Then some wrongful & accidental police shootings will probably happen.
After doing a bit more googling to find out what happened to Clement’s IPCA complaint, it turns out he was the front runner for the Commissioner’s job & someone leaked that he had an IPCA investigation underway & torpedoed his chances. The actions he took that was being investigated for some might consider were creditable & a sign of his moral values.
The personal experiences you recount would have irritated me too. These days I do find some younger cops are too abrupt to the point of rudeness if you ask them what’s going on. You might just get an annoyed scowl & “Move on please”. The days of the friendly (always tall) cop on the beat in the main street are long gone. Even as teenage “larrikins” we could always have a brief chat & a joke with the cops. They always seemed calm & skilled at defusing tense situations of young fullas full of booze eyeing each other up for a scrap.
But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other, but I doubt it will happen. It would cost more than governments will want to spend. I also think we need more police.
''But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other.''
That would be a great help. Unfortunately, it will never happen, as you have pointed out. It's all about the one size fits all corporate model. Nuances in delivery of service doesn't fit into that model.
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking. He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser.
Reminds me of a similar incident I experienced in '72 when I was doing the hippie thing. I was talking to my girlfriend who was in her car, through her driver window, standing alongside, when a car pulled up on the other side of me with two guys in the front seats.
The one in the passenger seat asked me what I was doing. Surprised, I said "None of your business." Turned back to my girlfriend, continuing the conversation. Didn't even hear him leap out of the car. Next thing I knew he'd slammed me up against her car.
Being non-violent, I didn't resist & it was a bit of a blur immediately except he (I think) asked me further questions, which I answered. I vaguely recall pointing out that I was talking to my girlfriend. Maybe he asked her to confirm but I have no memory of that. Anyway, he cooled down & jumped back in the car & they drove off. Both car & guys were mufti.
We called them dees in those days. Detectives, that meant. In Auckland, common. Dunno whether all were drug squad or not. Of course the yanks called all cops pigs & that caught on here too. However they didn't all act like pigs. The ones that invaded Ak university & beat up some professors during the Agnew visit did stick up their hand for that honorific.
Crikey, compared to you I got off lightly, Dennis. Lucky they didn't have tasers in those days or you may have received ''the jerkies” to go with your body slam.
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. '
In my 40s would be my guess. The young officer was a Maori, so BOY wasn't a racial slur but more a normal way for Maori to talk … It was one smooth sentence '' where are you going boy?'' Maybe I shouldn't have used a comma in the above comment.
KJT. I don’t think there was as much illegality as rumoured, it’s a lot harder to get away with it now and the kids were a lot more aware of their worth in a restrained labour market, so the difference between legal and cashies was marginal for the risk. One salient point was that most of the money paid was really spent locally on essentials and fun stuff like festivals and touristy stuff, and total hours worked were generally not close to full time as they were moving around to see the country and spend time with fellow travellers.
I deliberately went foe 200k rather than 300k as a lot of them didn’t need to work such as those from the wealthier countries whose parents gave them a poultice of money to get out of the house and when those ones did turn up they were pretty lazy.
In the SI if you are a local and aren’t working you must be incapacitated or similar and there are a still huge number of my over 70 cohort who are still working and not generally because of nessesity either.
,
Certainly was a large proportion in Northland.
Whether the tourists needed to work, or not, the local youngsters we can see now, who can finally put their hospitality, or agriculture training to use, shows how many of those jobs, were filled by temporary visa’s or under the table backpackers.
As for the idea that anyone who wants to work can now get a job.
There are many barriers to employment. Wages below the cost of living and lack of accommodation where the work is, are just two.
Fab to see mainstreamers displaying their ability to predict the future but they forgot to mention whether they used scrying, the pendulum, or reading tea leaves.
Being mainstreamers there's no way they would have been able to use astrology or the I Ching, of course! I guess it's a genuine sign that the long hegemony of science is finally abating. About time!
Which the Romans learnt from the Etruscans, and was eagerly embraced by scientists. Even today today they dissect plenty of creatures – although the extent to which they learn about the future seems surprising moot…
They're looking at said viscera with the wrong eyes – it's the shine on the surface of liver etc. that told and foretold 🙂 (a la crystal ball/magic mirror)
I favour the mystique button in the psyche (that gets pushed) theory which I agree is likely to be triggered by a shiny effect…
However I gather that one finding of (the pseudoscience of) psychology is that people tend to see what they're looking for.
The mainstreamers doing the predicting were probably seeking to reassure both themselves & readers that the future will be same old same old. Which it probably won't be.
We certainly interpret what we "see", using our cultural lens, but the inner-eye is clearer and surely looking straight into the heart of the matter. How to unfilter, and damp-down all that interpreting…
And we now have scientific incorporation of chaos, which means the future is as likely to be produced by discontinuity as continuity.
Xi dismounts the dais after watching the goose-stepping, trips, and his skull doesn't bounce well. Chief Assistant Honcho assumes command as Xi lies in coma, decides to invade Taiwan while Sleepy Joe is having a nap, initiates WWIII.
Except not! When the order goes out to fire the missiles from the American, Russian & Chinese leaders, nothing happens after their red buttons get pushed. The old 1950s wiring has become so corroded that the electrons encounter gaps they can't jump across.
The Omicron variant is perhaps the most contagious respiratory virus ever; nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives. Public 'health policy' as we know it has become irrelevant.
There is significant short term disruption here in Australia, but for the most part life is going on. People are scaling back their activities for the duration, and learning to 'live with it'.
The surge will peak here in Australia within the month and the reasonable expectation is that it will settle back into being another endemic virus similar to seasonal influenza or the common cold. It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it.
"nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives."
Unless it was preceded by another version, say, an delta version, that, un-checked by Government programmes, had devastated the community, choked the hospital system and wrecked the economy, in which case, the Omicron version would race through an already incapacitated society to much greater ill effect.
You mean that as being analogous to a government response wrecking an economy and devastating communities?
Since there appears to be zero immunity conferred by Delta, the effect of Omicron on health care systems will be what it's going to be. (Though, not firing a good number of nurses, doctors and other health care workers might have crossed someones mind in light of the fact “pandemic”)
Of course, a government response that had followed their own pandemic pre-planning documents and allowed for the use of efficacious anti-virals in the early stage of infection: that had promoted simple health messages like Vit D and eating better food and possibly exercising more…
Although, I forget – that messaging would not have had any effect.
Far better to message around accepting the injection of an experimental medicine (that doesn't do as advertised) and back it up with coercive pressures while offering precisely zero actual pre-hospital treatments.
"It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it."
Except of course that naturally acquired immunity will similarly apply selective pressure to the virus…but with greater risk of a bad outcome compared to vaccine-acquired immunity.
Do you know how many, if any, mutations of concern have arisen in highly vaccinated countries? Do you really believe all vaccines mutate viruses, or only this virus or a particular vaccine?
How would you explain the elimination/reduction rather than mutations of diseases like smallpox, polio, measles leading to greater outbreaks once vaccines were introduced?
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure". The covid virus does that quite naturally, and all by itself.
It mutated thanks to its spread though numerous populations
Yup. That was mouse populations apparently. (And then it jumped back to human populations) 🙂
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure".
The risk of pushing the evolution of a virus by deploying a leaky 'vaccine' on a universal basis is very real and has been documented and studied in Marek's virus.
The science of complexity validates your view. Indeterminate trajectories are inherent. Both systems and subsystems get triggered into shifts of state by tiny environmental triggers.
Nature is the environment (Gaia is the whole system), humanity & covid are subsystems interacting. In this relational view, simplicity lies in the binary ebb & flow of interaction between both subsystems and complexity lies in the multitude of systemic alterations within both.
In 2015, my collaborators and I published a scientific paper about a chicken virus you have likely never heard of. At the time, it got some media attention and has been cited by other scientists in the years since…
… Sacrificing chickens was not the solution the poultry industry adopted for Marek’s disease virus. Instead, more potent vaccines were developed. Those newer vaccines provided excellent disease control, and no lethal breakthrough variants of Marek’s have emerged in over 20 years…
… In the history of human and animal vaccines, there have not been many cases of vaccine-driven evolution. But in every one of them, individuals and populations have always been better off when vaccinated…
… At every point in the 50-year history of vaccination against Marek’s disease, an individual chicken exposed to the virus was healthier if it was vaccinated. Variants may have reduced the benefit of vaccination, but they never eliminated the benefit. Evolution is no reason to avoid vaccination.
This. From an author of the Marek's study you're concerned about.
And the vaccines involved were a completely different type. The key issue with COVID is the vaccines we have do not prevent infection to any useful degree, yet they impose a selection pressure.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure? It seems some modelling suggests it might happen, but I can't find anything other that these suppositions.
Otoh – a vaccine more targeted to the omicron would reduce that likelihood by being less 'leaky'? That's what the WHO is looking for.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure?
Obviously not. We've never done a mass roll out of a leaky vaccine in the middle of a pandemic of a highly infectious respiratory virus.
Your linked article is a de-facto admission that the vaccines have been a total failure in preventing Omicron. Also note how hilarious is this?
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron? All the evidence to date tells us it's acute illness is considerably less severe. It's too soon to know about it's long term chronic impact, but all other things being equal, it's probably going to be of less concern than seasonal influenza.
At which point the mandates have no justification whatsoever.
Obviously not. We've never done a mass roll out of a leaky vaccine in the middle of a pandemic of a highly infectious respiratory virus.
I meant some other human disease, – like flu.I should have been clearer.
Your linked article is a de-facto admission that the vaccines have been a total failure in preventing Omicron. Also note how hilarious is this?
I think by now everyone knows the purpose of the current vaccines in Omicron is to cut (not wipe-out) transmission. And to reduce hospitalisations and serious illness, so they definitely hvae value, but it would be of huge benefit to have improved prevention – especially if another mutation pops up. Also, people will get tired of going for boosters every few months. Will be good to get something with more efficacy.
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron?
As above – reduce transmission, reduce hospitalisation, reduce serious illness
At which point the mandates have no justification whatsoever
As above – plus add in save the health system and healthcare workers – no-one should have to work in the environment they're expected to. All the politicians seem to treat them as robots that can keep going and going with little respite.
Agree that with a vaccine better at preventing disease we'll have little need for mandates beyond what we have for seasonal flu.
Re: Reuters – I'll keep that in mind. I linked in this case, because I'd seen the head of WHO making the statement about new vaccines on Al Jazeera, and this article pretty much covers that ground.
Get your booster to stay safe this summerhttps://covid19.govt.nz
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
The mental gymnastics required to undermine NZ's vaccination programme during the COVID-19 pandemic are extraordinary.
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron?
How Mild Is Omicron Really? [14 January 2022]
“I think it’s pretty clear Omicron causes less severe disease than the Delta variant, but that’s not saying much,” University of Western Australia epidemiologist and biostatistician Zoë Hyde writes in an email to The Scientist. “We know that Delta was more than twice as severe as the original strain, and if Imperial College is right to say that Omicron is about 40-45% less likely to put people in hospital [than Delta was], we’re back to 2020 but with a more contagious strain.”
Omicron: Is 'natural immunity' better than a vaccine? [14 January 2022]
And how does Omicron factor into immunity? The Omicron wave is so new there is no conclusive data available yet on the quality of immunity provided via infection, but it's likely to be similar to other variants, said Schulze zur Wiesch. That means that if you've been infected with Omicron over the past few weeks, you're probably safe from reinfection for the next few months.
But because Omicron has a higher transmissibility rate than previous strains, higher levels of antibodies are needed to prevent infection. Immunity gained via only two vaccines or infection to earlier COVID variants (like Delta or Alpha) won't necessarily prevent Omicron infection, he said, adding that regardless of whether you've been previously infected or double-vaccinated, a booster is your best defense against (re)infection.
The effectiveness of protection against Omicron provided by "natural immunity" from other COVID variants may be as low as 19%, according to a study conducted by the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team in late December 2021.
With that said, early findings generally indicate that as long as you have some form of immunity — either through two doses of a vaccine or past infection plus a singe dose — your course of an Omicron infection is likely to be mild.
… Despite the unknowns, one thing is clear to Schulze zur Wiesch: Unless you were infected by Omicron in the last week or two, a vaccine or booster is your best chance at avoiding a COVID infection and giving it to others.
Whether anyone will be held to account for the moral and health security failures unfolding in various countries, only time will tell – thank goodness Australia’s (and NZ’s) level of vaccination against COVID-19 is relatively high.
Daily COVID-19 death toll in Australia, 1 – 15 January 2022:
14, 6, 7, 5, 18, 12, 18, 25, 23, 22, 27, 49, 57, 56, 49.
The point that you seem to have missed is that newer strains (specifically 'hot' strains) could survive in the leaky vaccine environment and those 'hot' variants killed any unvaccinated 'sentinel' chickens that were housed next to vaccinated ones.
In normal situations, the 'hot' variants would not have come to dominate, as they would have been too 'hot' for the environment they were trying to replicate in and died out.
If you want to (very darkly) project that scenario into a possible pathway for the leaky vaccines we’re using for Covid, then ‘hot’ strains develop, and without an endless round of boosters to keep effectiveness topped up, people die – all people either not vaccinated or whose vaccination lapses for some reason or another.
edit – the way to avoid any such possibility is to target the use of leaky vaccines, as is done with flu. Better still. Use whatever effective ant–virals we have to hand (cocktails of known drugs if necessary), as per the governments Pandemic Preparedness documents.
The Barrington group of scientists are herd immunity advocates and the Declaration was funded by a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial
The John Snow Memorandum highlights the errors of the "mass infection" argument.
"It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it."
The evolving argument of some that somehow the Covid vaccine is putting evolutionary pressure on the disease is another Barrington style argument. An interesting study relating to this looks specifically at 'leaky vaccinations'
"Here, we use transmission experiments involving Marek disease virus (MDV) in chickens to show that vaccination with a leaky vaccine substantially reduces viral load in both vaccinated individuals and unvaccinated contact individuals they infect. Consequently, contact birds are less likely to develop disease symptoms or die, show less severe symptoms, and shed less infectious virus themselves, when infected by vaccinated birds. These results highlight that even partial vaccination with a leaky vaccine can have unforeseen positive consequences in controlling the spread and symptoms of disease."
And you have some evidence to challenge the study's authors and reviewers?
Who work in:
Division of Genetics and Genomics, The Roslin Institute, Easter Bush, Midlothian, United Kingdom
USDA, Agricultural Research Service, US National Poultry Research Center, Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences & Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Stanford University, USA
Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil
I what way do you imagine you have any reason to think you are more qualified to pass judgement than an actual Professor of Immunology?
No, I am merely qualified to trust the authors of a report that was published in The Lancet in October two years ago, which is now quite clearly supported by a deluge of data, and which pointed out that
"Controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive."
It may be of interest to others reading this thread that the John Snow Memorandum is a grass roots initiative, that unlike the Barrington declaration, has not received any outside or politically motivated funding. It is a collaborative, inclusive initiative supported by 6,900 scientists, researchers & healthcare professionals who believe that robust public health measures, like those implemented by Japan, New Zealand and Vietnam can control transmission of Covid and allow life to return to near normal.
I certainly do not support the rantings of a defensive Professor who has consistently supported the idea of herd immunity, the opening up schools, workplaces and borders and who argues the nonsense that:
There is currently no medical emergency, but you have been cultivating such a condition for two years now because of lust for power, budgets and control
Controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive."
That made sense two years ago and back then I would have agreed totally. Time has passed and it's clear now that all low cost and effective therapeutics were to be rigorously sidelined, and the vaccines turned out neither particularly safe nor especially effective.
Face it – Omicron has rendered the entire global vaccination program to date pretty much a waste of money, and their mandates have caused an immense amount of social polarisation and discord. And that may not even be the worst of it.
The vaccines have not saved us – and yet the moral and political power allocated to them ensures their enthusiasts will double down forever.
A study completed in S.Africa (which supercedes the very early study that suggested the Covid vaccine may not be effective against Omicron), was published on 29 Dec 2021. This study compared 133,437 Omicron Covid positive PCR test results of fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
The study results indicated that two shots of the Pfizer vaccination is 70% effective against Omicron, i.e. still effective but not as effective as the 90% protection provided against the Delta variant.
There are no population based studies as yet confirming Pfizer's lab results showing a booster shot of the vaccine increases antibody protection 25-fold compared with the initial two-dose series
However, HERE is an excellent Twitter thread just published by a British epidemiologist summarising the UK Health Security Agency's latest review of the infection severity risk of Omicron
That letter is around general hospitalisation for Omicron and includes 'incidentally +ve' hospital patients. That's fair enough, but not the same as looking at fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
That paper you linked states – Unless otherwise stated, ‘transmission’, ‘virus’, and ‘viral load’ refer to the pathogenic MDV strain and not the vaccine virus strain.
And since it's 'vaccine virus strains' that are the issue at hand….
In the original study from 2015, – Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.
&
To confirm that virus shed into the environment was a robust proxy for overall bird-to-bird transmission potential, we co-housed birds infected with our three most virulent strains with immunologically-naïve sentinel birds (Experiment 2). When unvaccinated birds were infected with the two most lethal strains (Md5 and 675A), they were all dead within 10 days (Fig 2A), before substantial viral shedding had begun (S2 Fig). Consequently, no sentinel birds in those isolators became infected (Fig 2B) and none died (Fig 2C). In contrast, when HVT-vaccinated birds were infected with either of those hyperpathogenic strains, they survived for 30 days or more (Fig 2A), allowing substantial viral shedding (S2 Fig). All co-housed sentinels consequently became infected (Fig 2B) and went on to die as a result of MDV infection
Locus. Do you even scan (never mind read) the links you post? I'm going to skip the fact you used a wikileaks source as being somehow worthwhile and just mention that "the conversation" link claims –
The declaration begins with the false premise that governments intend to lock down society
I guess folks were dreaming.
It also was not funded by the Koch Brothers (a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial) – that being an endlessly repeated smear intended to have people dismiss what signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration were attempting to bring up for public debate and discussion.
Fck. Saint Fauci is on record as demanding the public debate be quashed before it could get started (via hit jobs and smear pieces).
Locus. Do you even scan (never mind read) the links you post? I'm going to skip the fact you used a wikileaks source as being somehow worthwhile and just mention that "the conversation" link claims –
Why have you decided to make this a personal attack?
One of my links was to Wikipedia, (why would you say "wikileaks"?), which I use as an open source of basic information. In this case I used it for the definition of the Barrington Declaration, and a summary of who has challenged it. What was noted in Wikipedia was that the
Bylines Times journalist Nafeez Ahmed described the AIER as a "institution embedded in a Koch-funded network that denies climate science while investing in polluting fossil fuel industries".
There are several credible media sources that have identified libertarian organisations partnered with or funding the AIER. This is an interesting review reported in The Guardian
On the other hand, when I'm providing information about important recent studies I reference the scientific or medical journals that the studies were published in. I do this because they are peer reviewed.
I'm heartily sick of people using antivax lie promoting websites as a 'source of truth'.
The economy doesn’t work if people can’t work. So the first economic priority during a pandemic must be to keep people healthy enough to keep working, producing, delivering and buying.
Well I never, who'd have thunk it?
Perhaps, just perhaps, our government's approach was right all along! I'm gobsmacked!
Yep, and yet "Stupid is as stupid does" – individual vaccine hesitancy is fair enough, but promoting vaccine hesitancy is giving aid and comfort to the virus, imho.
To anyone eligible for a vaccine booster – please, please, get it as soon as possible.
Get your booster to stay safe this summer
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
Opinion: Does the vaccine actually work? Details in the data
[14 January 2022]
We now have 'irrefutable' proof vaccinations reduce chances of catching COVID We now have proof that vaccinations reduce our chances of catching COVID. Take the data from Science Table (the COVID-19 advisory for Ontario) athttps://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/that shows that people are 1.6 times more likely to catch COVID if they are unvaccinated. To be clear, I’m not worried about catching it myself, but I surely don’t want to pass it on to aging parents or immuno-compromised friends who could die from it.
Since Omicron is so catchy, and many more people will likely catch it, let’s look at the data showing that vaccination reduces symptoms of the illness, and reduces the need for hospitalization and ICU beds. From the same website, unvaccinated people are 4.75 times more likely to be admitted to hospital, and 10.8 times more likely to end up in the ICU.
We should be screaming these numbers from the rooftops, not shaming people for not understanding the rationale for vaccination. I don’t believe that anyone WANTS our health-care professionals off sick, unable to care for all other health emergencies. I don’t believe that anyone WANTS to be the reason that someone else can’t get life-saving treatment because they are taking up a bed in hospital or the ICU with COVID that they could be managing at home if they had gotten the vaccination. I don’t believe that anyone WANTS to bring the virus to their grandparents and see them end up in hospital fighting for their lives.
Anti-vax and vaccine hesitant: what is the impact of those refusing to get jabbed? [14 January 2022]
What impact is all this having? There’s no doubt that the unvaccinated are making the pandemic considerably worse. The ONS found that the Covid death rate in England among people who had a second jab was 96% lower than in those who were unvaccinated between January and October last year.
At present, the risk of hospitalisation from the Omicron variant is 90% lower for those who have received a booster shot. Conversely, the UK Health Security Agency estimates that unvaccinated adults are around eight times more likely to be admitted to hospital than those who have been jabbed.
The latest figures show that unvaccinated patients accounted for 61% of the patients admitted to critical care with Covid-19 in the UK in December, though they make up only 10% of the population. Obviously these cases add greatly to the pressure on the NHS. It’s also clear now that though vaccinated people do contract and spread Covid, unvaccinated people do so at higher rates.
My wife, Clare, is an optimist and I find it galling that she refuses to share some of my more negative predictions about the future. I sometimes wonder if her optimism is a form of self-delusion.
If so, she’s not alone. According to researchers from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, self-delusion is very common. In a recent paper in the journal Philosophical Psychology, they describe different techniques we use to protect our fragile egos from the harsh realities of life. Many of these techniques, I must admit, I recognise.
First, there is the ‘reorganisation of beliefs’. An example of this is parents who are convinced their child is brilliant and blame bad grades on the teacher. Another technique, if you are determined to hold on to your beliefs, is to avoid going anywhere where those beliefs might be challenged. And if they are challenged, why not just reject what you are being told by casting doubt on the credibility of the source?
Finally, you can just tune out the stuff you don’t want to hear. Perhaps your doctor tells you that you are in good shape but could do with losing some weight. All you hear is: ‘You’re in good shape.’
Does it matter? In many circumstances a bit of self-delusion can be a good thing.
Amen to that – otoh some self-awareness of self-delusion tendencies can be a good thing too, particularly during a pandemic.
This is behaving like the 1918 Call It What You Like Flu epidemic which apparently ripped through the country in 3 months, only sparing those who may have had some residual immunity from the 1890 Russian version. Imagine the carnage this time if we didn’t have the medical knowledge and technology and a VACCINE that is giving an elevated level of protection. Omicron would be killing all of those compromised by co-morbidities that are now covered if the slower Alpha and Delta had not bought us time and cover.
Not to mention excellent political courage and intelligence and empathy.
The fact that the PMs boyfriend cant even front to say I was wrong shows me the PM is not my leader,Ive got to find another party,it wont be someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
good on you. glad that you have thought long and deeply about all of the this. cant be going off half-cocked. when you find that party, dont moan when they treat you and the country as an experiment, asset to be flogged, etc, etc.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with. If you don't want people to have that freedom then feel free to find a more authoritarian party.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with
Yup. Like declining the opportunity to have an injection that does not perform as advertised, and not facing life altering consequences imposed by third parties (ie – government)
If the partner of the PM commenting incorrectly on the type of Covid test available (a news story with zero relevance to all the policies and decisions of government) is your definition of
someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
then I hate to break it to you but you will not find a single country – never mind party, never mind politician – who meets your standards.
Tip: if you're going to act outraged, don't chew the scenery. No Oscar for you.
please remember that people can read your previous posts, to find out how attached you are to said party. So ease up on the porkies. "I'm loyal Labour but now I'm quitting" was already old about a week after the internet began.
you're skating on thin ice there. If there is a connection between CG and Sroubek, put up the evidence. Otherwise stop with the slurs. This is a political blog, make a political argument or go to FB.
The Danes have accused Russia of cooking up a bogus letter to a US Senator, purportedly from Greenland's foreign minister, saying there would be an independence referendum. US Senator Tom Cotton reckons he gave Trump the idea to buy Greenland.
Footage of pretty sizeable unstoppable sequence of tsunami waves maybe a metre or more high currently hitting Nukualofa just shown on 1ewes at 6.
Coming from that erupting Tongan volcano, which is said to be exploding so loudly it’s rattling windows in Nukualofa, 65 kilometres away. The skies are so full of ash it’s quite dark there, according to a local female reporter.
Fingers crossed there are no fatalities, there have been tsunami warnings over the past few days telling people to stay away from waterfronts & beaches, but the reporter is clearly very concerned about some people living on low lying islands & peninsulas with no high ground to go to.
Sounds like the tsunamis are hitting all the Tongan islands.
Sailed past Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha-apai 4 years ago on passage from NZ. It had only erupted and appeared above sea the year before and wasn't on the charts. Tongatapu and the Ha-apais are low lying islands with no hills to speak of so must be pretty scary for anyone on the coast. We last had a tsunami warning in Great Barrier Island when the earthquake happened in Kaikoura. Slept through the warnings and nothing happened, but friends on a boat in Whangamata were to to go up a hill.
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Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
The Government Communications Security Bureau denies hosting a foreign spying capability flagged by the watchdog, differentiating it from the system recently criticised. ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
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I am curious as to what data, what studies, what information Medsafe's experts used to decide it was safe to vaccinate children with Pfizer’s product?
I suspect over 8 million vaccinations to adults, in NZ alone, with serious side effects in less than double figures, for one.
Compelling real world evidence, that the vaccination is as harmless as anything gets.
Compared with the potential, proven, harm to children from covid, and the harm from their Teachers, Carers, elderly relatives, food suppliers etc, getting covid.
Unless like some on here,, you think every sneeze after covid vaccination, is because of the vaccination.
Wow. Just wow, only a few adverse reactions? Look at the medsafe data, which they themselves say is only about 5% of what actually happens. I too would love to see the data that medsafe used as the trial for the children's version was small and only for a short time.
How many times do we need to say?.
"Correlation is not causation".
If vaccination was "causing all this harm" don't you think it would be showing up in hospitalisations and excess deaths?
Where are we keeping all these "vaccine injured people"?
Meanwhile. Delta cases in NZ are dropping, despite easing restrictions. Because vaccination is working.
Again wow. You are aware of the heart issues surely. The MOH has put out an advisary letter about them. These people are turning up in our hospitals. In this case correlation does equal causation. Do we want this for our children?
Do you really want hundreds of children or their carers, sick or dying of COVID like the UK and USA?
The anti vaccers cognitive dissonance is mind boggling.
Again wow. Where are you getting this from. Worldwide children are not dieing of covid. The Danish, German and UK data tells us this. Why would we put children at a known risk of heart etc. issues when only those with comorbidities are in any way at risk from the disease. Why would we not just vaccinate those at risk rather than create risk with mass vaccination?
and wow to you. why would we educate everybody when only some want to learn? why not just educate those with potential ,rather than create knowledge with mass education.??
Weird analogy. Not even in the same ball park, but thank you for the laugh.
Worldwide, children are dying from Covid
Since 1 April 2020 in the USA alone (CDC official record of US deaths of children from COVID)
16,386,758 (more than 16 million) 12 to 18 year old in the US have received a COVID vaccination, and 7,844,160 (more than 7 million) 5 to 11 year olds have received a vaccination. (CDC official record of children who have received Covid vaccination in the USA)
24 million children in the US have received a Covid vaccination and only two deaths of children have been reported to VAERS. Both of these children were in fragile health before vaccination and had multiple chronic medical conditions. Independent investigation of these two cases did not suggest a causal link between death and vaccination
These are the FACTS from verified sources reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Multiple independently verified studies have shown significant reduction in severity of Covid symptoms, hospitalisation rate and deaths if you have received a Covid vaccination.
The unvaccinated who get Covid infect far more people, require more hospital intervention and this is driving some nation's health systems into the ground. We do not want this in New Zealand, which is why we are heading towards 95% vaccination of eligible people.
People who can't get their head around how the VAERS system works are certainly not people whose views on vaccination are rational.
And I am horrified that there are anti vaxxers who are arguing against vaccination of children. We should not let these misinformed people propose a herd immunity experiment on our children
anti-vaxxers are fighting a losing battle, ignoring history, science, common sense, empathy for others ,etc, etc, armed only with outrage, selfishness and stupidity. you can educate the stupid, but it doesnt stick. however, we do have a duty to these people, as fellow humans. they dont even understand anologies. the sad but interesting thing about ignoring medical science is you become a statistic and subject for autopsy earlier than usual.
Ok, 2 years use. Apart from that a long-winded ‘I don’t know’.
I part company with your view of harmless.
Where did you do your mind reading course? You are overdue for a refresher, or should that be a booster?
You can pop your Pfizer pom poms away for now,
You said you were curious as to what data, what studies, what information Medsafe's experts used to decide it was safe to vaccinate children with Pfizer’s product.
They have a website which gives contact details. I suggest you contact them and ask them. I'm sure you're serious enough about the questions to follow-up with them.
Overview here
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-authorizes-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-emergency-use-children-5-through-11-years-age
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-regulator-approves-use-of-pfizerbiontech-vaccine-in-5-to-11-year-olds
If you want to delve deeper there's links at the same sites
Thanks HS, I will have a look later.
Jessica Rose provides weekly VAERS updates here https://i-do-not-consent.netlify.app/
There are a lot of data.
The following youtube presentation is a bit of an overview from April last year (it's long)
Six hundred children have been killed by COVID-19 in the US – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org)
Which, as acknowledged by the CDC, is on the low side as daft Repub legislatures limit testing to hide the extent of their murderous culpability.
The 600 number of child deaths is essentially bogus. As Harvard Prof. of Medicine and Epidemiologist Martin Kulldorrf says below.
Dr. Kulldorff: "By now it’s about 350 or so reported deaths by COVID in the U.S. for children. We don’t even know how many of those are truly COVID, because nobody has bothered to go through all those electronic health records, which I think CDC should do, as Marty Makary, a professor at John Hopkins has been urging, but that hasn’t been done. So we don’t know exactly how many, but it is at most 350."
https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/08/20/harvard-epidemiologist-martin-kulldorff-on-vaccine-passports-the-delta-variant-and-the-covid-public-health-fiasco/
Only a few paragraphs into your link and the interviewee, Kulldorf, is factually wrong about Sweden.
Another Yank that cannot comprehend a world outside the USA.
So, Sweden did shut down schools did they?
They did. But not enough, apparently.
Uppsala University
Summary:
In Sweden, upper-secondary schools moved online while lower-secondary schools remained open during the spring of 2020. A comparison of parents with children in the final year of lower-secondary and first year of upper-secondary school shows that keeping the former open had limited consequences for the overall transmission of the virus. However, the infection rate doubled among lower-secondary teachers relative to upper-secondary ones.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210212101842.htm
The one country that could have definitively answered that question has apparently failed to collect any data. Bucking a global trend, Sweden has kept day care centers and schools through ninth grade open since COVID-19 emerged, without any major adjustments to class size, lunch policies, or recess rules. That made the country a perfect natural experiment about schools' role in viral spread that many others could have learned from as they reopen schools or ponder when to do so. Yet Swedish officials have not tracked infections among school children—even when large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools or staff members died of the disease.
https://www.science.org/content/article/how-sweden-wasted-rare-opportunity-study-coronavirus-schools
A more up to date (and in some ways more thorough) presentation by Jessica Rose (Aug 27) can be found by typing VAERS UPDATE for CCCA (Canadian COVID Care Alliance) into youtube. Again – it's a long one.
The report she co-authored (note: Elsevier are being sued because they withdrew it after publication and right before the FDA were deciding on injecting children) is(n’t) here…A Report on Myocarditis Adverse Events in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in Association with COVID-19 Injectable Biological Products
Thanks Bill, I will give them a look later.
There appears to be a lack of understanding of how our labour force worked pre-pandemic which may explain the problems now. The student visa scheme supplied a huge number ( up to 200,000 ) of casual workers doing the “ shit “ jobs, hotspo and horticultural work mainly. My take is that the offshore visitors replaced the young Kiwis who took off after school/ uni to do their OE and took up similar jobs offshore, and because of the 2 year limit meant starting a career over there made little sense. Now back here most are moving directly into careers and foregoing the “ holiday , year off “ jobs on returning and into their chosen career or previously trained-for occupations. Celebrating, a la Stuart Nash, getting rid of the ‘ kids in vans ‘ is very short sighted. We can and should not rely on Pasifika labour in the future ,we have almost cleaned out the islands of their own essential young very much to the detriment of their soon to be, hopefully recovering economies.
The estimate was up to 300 000 in NZ before covid.
Ignoring the many thousands more backpackers and tourists, working illegally for industries such as hospitality.
yep. A system that was suppressing wages and work conditions and making it hard for locals to make a living.
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
But in this and other cases??
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/127444880/family-want-apology-after-police-allegedly-mock-amputee-gun-owner
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he's not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
You should moonlight as a…comedian!
Not the sharpest, Blade.
In the drawer.
Neither is Cuddles Costa. But hey…let’s not let a old, now dead man, and the innocent public get in the way of decent liberal policing, eh Robert?
Now that attitude is as blunt as your pruning knife.
Please expand on you insightful comment. If you are having a problem expressing yourself ….plagiarise something.
Your critique of police recruits….pot bellies,never had a hiding….etc…seriously!
Perhaps you could try addressing the comment and actually contributing to the website. The article if true is pretty concerning.
I am responding to this….
'the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.'
Thx all the same.
Let me break it down for you: Let's use simple steps.
''The standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.''
Growing up, I can't recall a police officer with a pot belly. There may have been some, but I never saw them.' So what's changed? KFC or accepted physical standards for a serving officer to maintain?
That leads to my concern with middleclass new recruits. First our education system takes away their ability to think on their feet( in my opinion). Their general home life is safe and secure. They have never had to tough it out over three days without food in their stomach. They have never been embarrassed in front of others because they have nothing. If they do wrong they are sent to their room or grounded. A feral may have done nothing wrong, but still ends up getting beaten by someone because that someone is having a bad hair day. That lifestyle builds resilience, viciousness and cunning. Into that cauldron must step a new police recruit. That's why I have seen them flounder, be out thought and scared. I don't blame them. Police college can only prepare you so far. In times past being from the middleclass wasn't a problem because life was still reality based and everyone was reasonably fit. The underclass problem was still developing.
The solution: Mandatory training for recruits in areas like South Auckland for two years probation. Mandatory social work in similar areas as part of police training.
I accompanied a social worker relative once on a house call. What I saw, heard and smelt is still burnt into my mind.
Here's a somewhat tame and in a way, funny clip. However, it points to a way of life a new recruit will have to understand and master…it's a doorway into the dark side of life.
Presumably you have had a few hidings…in life…and look how you turned…out!
I rest my case.
My daughter was confronted by a similar piece of excrement in Point Erin Park, Ponsonby. I think she was more worried for her dog than herself.
The excrement picked on the wrong girl, shes First Dan Karate Shotokan. As far as im aware hes still taking his kai via a straw. lol
Good for her, Hetzer. Notice how in the clip no one came to the girls aid?
Thirty years ago, if a man did that, he would have been dealt to by other men? That would still happen today in the right part of town.
yeppers
Obviously he suffers from Short Man Syndrome. I went to YouTube & read some of the comments. Mostly, from the spelling & ghetto-style-affecteda-language used, Māori commenters I’d say.
They all thought he was a complete joke. Several commented on the hilariously peculiar strutting & the shorts-pulling. Others noticed they girls weren’t remotely scared & howvlucky he was one of them didn’t smack him.
A couple of commenters posted akong the lines “wait till they tell their brothers get there”.
Sounds like it was in Hamilton, from the comments.
That said, I did find it unsettling no males intervened & told him to piss off.
No one came to their aid because those young ladies looked like they were capable of kicking his sorry arse all on their own.
The point is even though those ladies could handle themselves, the fact is a woman was being kicked and nobody did a thing. Even the narrator mentions this dick stepping out a woman, but he does nothing. To be fair, society is so dangerous now that stepping in to help could cost you your life as happened a few years back when a man was knifed to death for trying to stop a feral beating a woman.
I'd like to know how many gang pads/homes have been raided versus other less scary homes
If they're 'worried about gangs and weapons surely they'd take on the groups more likely to fight back
Or did I just answer my own question…
Do you feel safer?
How many gang members make up the prison population??
Hoe did said prisoners make it to jail?
Did they knock on the door asking to be locked up, ? Or did the cops perchance go catch them bad boys???
Deadly reposte!
Robert you need to get out of Riverton more.
If the police did this to a gang then you know there'd be media stories claiming the police are racist by picking on gangs, that lawyers would be crawling out of the woodwork and that the gangs (the leaders are not stupid) would be hitting up whatever politician they own decrying these actions
Thats why they target the individuals in cases like this
You're right, Pucky. I was being needlessly flippant.
You do seem though, to have something of a fixation on gangs.
You're opinions about police behaviour with regard gangs are flavoured by your anger?
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for the police to use this to target individuals then why isn't it good enough for the police to target gang pads/HQs?
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Again the same reasoning, if its good enough for the individual then why not the gangs.
Remember this:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mongrel-mob-leader-says-members-wont-hand-in-their-guns/DY3UKD2J3XFQJAYXOJXMWAE27M/
'Will gangs get rid of their weapons? No. Because of who we are, we can't guarantee our own safety," he told Stuff.'
You're not allowed firearms for protection so why isn't every gang pad getting raided?
Are you ok with different rules for different people?
I'm okay with taking the actions that are most effective, doable and safe.
Good, we're in agreement then.
So why aren't the police going after gangs more, like they did with this guy (who as it turned out did nothing wrong)
I'll repeat it again:
'I'd like to know how many gang pads/homes have been raided versus other less scary homes'
How many or are the police just going after safer, less politically advantaged, weaker individuals
We recognise your desire to know, Pucky!
When you find out, please share.
I'm sure it's on the search warrant form – a tickbox for "scary place".
I'm surprised that on a left wing political blog theres not more people up in arms about the police over stepping their boundaries
Anything to maintain the illusion of safety I suppose
Meh.
Reading the article, the "mocking" seems to have been a hot mic moment when they didn't know there was a mic – he was outside, no?
As for taking guns first and returning them after everything's sorted out and there wasn't really a problem, I'm cool with that. Better than the other way around.
The issue of antiques does create a problem, though, especially in regards to museums etc. Different threat level, but still enough to rob someone with – just ask Dick Turpin.
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Gee can you think of other places where people might have gang affiliations because I sure can't
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Good thing they went after this guy rather than, oh I don't know, any of the known gang pads
But they knew this guy had guns.
Pretty sure that if the local cops had reliable info that guns were actually being stored at a particular gang pad at a particular time, they'd pop over for a visit there, too.
What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.
‘But they knew this guy had guns.’
I have guns, should I be raided?
‘What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.'
The police just did exactly that, I want them to do the exact same thing they did to this guy, under the exact same arms act cited.
I'll repeat that bit again for you since you obviously missed it:
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the nearest gang pad might just have members of a gang?
I believe that the reason the police target the individual and not the gang is because the individual is a softer target, does not have the same PR representation as the gangs, does not not have the same perceived support of the gangs and certainly doesn't have the same legal resources as the gang
Have the cops received information that you also have close gang connections while holding a firearms license?
Very likely. But I suspect your local "gang pad" does not have anyone with a current firearms license living there.
Theres a mob property in main street raetihi, last year I drove past , 2 detective type cars parked at the front door , officers inside , 2 uniform cops on the other side of the road covering the building with semi rifles at the ready, I'm picking they'd popped round for more than a cup of tea.
Should be hitting them once a month at least, once a week would be better.
Harry and harass the gangs, using legal means only, constantly. It won't stamp them out but it will curtail their activities.
I'd guess legal means ,means needing probably cause,you know verifiable, provable in court reasons for search?
Believe me I dont like gangs, but I'd like an unleashed law enforcement less.
100% agreed. Legal means only. No breaking the laws, the police are not above the laws themselves.
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for one its good enough for all, don't you agree?
fixed it for you.
Safer? The safest thing to say is there's a lot of crap spouted about the police and gangs. Apparently the cops leave them alone, don't dare touch them.
Can't think why then there are regular stories in the media about big drug busts, and photos of drugs, and money and guns and reference to gang people arrested.
Theres a difference between busts and some cops turning up at someones door to confiscate some weapons which may or, especially in this case, may not be illegal
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
Against the police? People with guns who decide to fight back against the police have killed & wounded quite a few of our police officers. Several of these shooters have had criminal histories, or psychiatric/psychological issues. Not surprising the police are wary of such people ,or gun owners that are reported by the public as posting hateful comments and/or seemingly being mentally unstable.
But in this and other cases??
It certainly sounds like in this case it was a complete cock up & the police officers involved went about confiscating the guns in a very unprofessional manner, with the family claiming to have multiple evidences on CCTV video & audio of their total lack of professionalism. The fact they later wrote to him (but he’d died by the time the letter was received) to say he could collect his guns suggests they should not have confiscated them in the first place.
But we don’t know the full facts. E.g. He may have improved his home gun security in the intervening time. We’re only getting his family’s & lawyer’s side of the story. I think a complaint to the IPCA is definitely worthwhile.
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional?
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
I won’t argue with that final conclusion of yours that they got a “politician” because the Police Commissioner’s job has nearly always required the appointee to be politically astute while maintaining the fiction that they always act completely independently of the government and are not subject to political direction or intervention.
But in my view the other primary contending candidate Mike Clement would not have been significantly different. By the time they get to Deputy Commissioner level they know the Commissioner’s job is a politically sensitive role requiring careful & cautious handling. One doesn’t go against the government’s wishes.
And Mike Clement was being investigated by the IPCA, accused of interfering in the appointment of a superintendent at the time the govt were looking to fill the role. I can’t recall the outcome but he subsequently retired with praises from the Police Minister.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he’s not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The next one might be a woman? A couple of female senior policepersons were in the original running.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies.
I haven’t seen any pot-bellied police officers down here in North Welly, but if a few middle-aged or older ones are desk-bound it wouldn’t be surprising. I don’t know what the physical fitness requirements to be maintained are once they’ve qualified to join the force.
Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.
You’re just going to have to live with that. I’m not a great fan of tats either. But they’re so ubiquitous among younger folk now that it’d be crazy to rule out young men or women who meet the requirements because they have tatoos. And many 20-something young Māori I encounter proudly display moko on arms & legs to signal their iwi affiliations. We need more Māori Pirihama. Be crazy to rule them out.
Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training. And some recruits DO come from that kind of background, as I understand it. No doubt they share their experiences during training.
As far as I know they still have to meet stringent physical fitness standards to get into the police.
Our police are not perfect. No country’s are. But I’d rather support them, & criticise them only when they act badly, than denigrate them all as a force. It’s not a job I’d take on.
Good post. I will let most of it stand as a different take ( some would say more reasoned) on what I wrote, believe and quoted.
Some cherry picking.
Regarding Costa. He wasn't the frontline favourite among officers at the time of his selection. He blows Mike Clement out of the water academic wise. But Clement has far more front line skills eg working in the undercover programme. Yes, a commissioner to a degree has to be a politician, but he also sets the tone for officers and staff who work under him. Having the support of your front line is a great way to start and build a culture. At the moment if you believe The Police Association and talkback( police officers calling in), morale is low. Serving officers don't believe police HQ has their backs. An example of that is Costa not arming police as a matter of routine. I wonder if Clement would have?
''I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training.''
I disagree with that for the reasons given. Others can make their own mind up regarding my views.
''So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional.''
Nothing to do with guns, but everything to do with attitude. Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. The officer questioning me gave them a wry smile, looked back at me and said '' well, bugger off.'' That was it. To this day, I don't have a clue what went down. He didn't even ask for my particulars. I think they just wanted a little fun on a boring Sunday morning at my expense.
Another time in a Bunnings carpark, I was stopped by two cops who demanded to see what was in my bag. I was just opening my bag when a staff worker called out to the officers and pointed to another person. I received no apology. Something like: ''sorry mate, wrong person.'' would have been nice.
I could recount other incidents. I'm not anti cop. They have a shit job…but, as the years roll on, I'm losing more respect for them. In fact, I wonder if the cops have lost a passion for their job, and just consider us all crooks? That said most cops I have dealt with have been decent good people, its just that growing feral element that I have encountered that worries me.
Great work stories, Blade!
What do you mean?
Tripe (rhymes with hype)
Troll rhymes with Lol.
All fair points, & well made, Blade.
Clement may have had the background & skills to handle front line police with more support from them because they believed he “had their back”.
I don’t know whether he’d have had them all now routinely armed or whether he’d have arrived at the same situation they’re at now at with Tactical Response Teams with AOS level training (who have immediate access to firearms if needed) being trialled.
These seem like a mere step away from the Tactical Response Teams, which I recall weren’t being used as originally intended (they were reportedly even seen doing routine traffic stops) but were dumped because of more heavily policed communities’ & political opposition. They were possibly dumped too early, they could perhaps have been simply better managed & more appropriately tasked.
If crims keep shooting at unarmed coppers, they’ll be routinely armed eventually. There’ll be enough public support for it once we start having too many police fatalities & a big enuf % of the cops demand the right to be armed or they’ll leave the force. I hope it doesn’t come to that soon, but one day it might. Then some wrongful & accidental police shootings will probably happen.
After doing a bit more googling to find out what happened to Clement’s IPCA complaint, it turns out he was the front runner for the Commissioner’s job & someone leaked that he had an IPCA investigation underway & torpedoed his chances. The actions he took that was being investigated for some might consider were creditable & a sign of his moral values.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/deputy-commissioner-mike-clement-interfered-when-plum-job-given-to-senior-officer-censured-over-crude-sexual-jokes/GEPE7S5VOBBYA7DX3OYVR3KUYE/
The personal experiences you recount would have irritated me too. These days I do find some younger cops are too abrupt to the point of rudeness if you ask them what’s going on. You might just get an annoyed scowl & “Move on please”. The days of the friendly (always tall) cop on the beat in the main street are long gone. Even as teenage “larrikins” we could always have a brief chat & a joke with the cops. They always seemed calm & skilled at defusing tense situations of young fullas full of booze eyeing each other up for a scrap.
But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other, but I doubt it will happen. It would cost more than governments will want to spend. I also think we need more police.
' It would cost more than governments will want to spend. I also think we need more police.'
Agree with both
Just a correction: The Tactical Response Teams are being trialled in place of the Armed Response Teams. (I used TRT above twice.)
''But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other.''
That would be a great help. Unfortunately, it will never happen, as you have pointed out. It's all about the one size fits all corporate model. Nuances in delivery of service doesn't fit into that model.
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking. He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser.
Reminds me of a similar incident I experienced in '72 when I was doing the hippie thing. I was talking to my girlfriend who was in her car, through her driver window, standing alongside, when a car pulled up on the other side of me with two guys in the front seats.
The one in the passenger seat asked me what I was doing. Surprised, I said "None of your business." Turned back to my girlfriend, continuing the conversation. Didn't even hear him leap out of the car. Next thing I knew he'd slammed me up against her car.
Being non-violent, I didn't resist & it was a bit of a blur immediately except he (I think) asked me further questions, which I answered. I vaguely recall pointing out that I was talking to my girlfriend. Maybe he asked her to confirm but I have no memory of that. Anyway, he cooled down & jumped back in the car & they drove off. Both car & guys were mufti.
We called them dees in those days. Detectives, that meant. In Auckland, common. Dunno whether all were drug squad or not. Of course the yanks called all cops pigs & that caught on here too. However they didn't all act like pigs. The ones that invaded Ak university & beat up some professors during the Agnew visit did stick up their hand for that honorific.
Crikey, compared to you I got off lightly, Dennis. Lucky they didn't have tasers in those days or you may have received ''the jerkies” to go with your body slam.
'
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. '
How old were you when this happened..Blade.?
In my 40s would be my guess. The young officer was a Maori, so BOY wasn't a racial slur but more a normal way for Maori to talk … It was one smooth sentence '' where are you going boy?'' Maybe I shouldn't have used a comma in the above comment.
KJT. I don’t think there was as much illegality as rumoured, it’s a lot harder to get away with it now and the kids were a lot more aware of their worth in a restrained labour market, so the difference between legal and cashies was marginal for the risk. One salient point was that most of the money paid was really spent locally on essentials and fun stuff like festivals and touristy stuff, and total hours worked were generally not close to full time as they were moving around to see the country and spend time with fellow travellers.
I deliberately went foe 200k rather than 300k as a lot of them didn’t need to work such as those from the wealthier countries whose parents gave them a poultice of money to get out of the house and when those ones did turn up they were pretty lazy.
In the SI if you are a local and aren’t working you must be incapacitated or similar and there are a still huge number of my over 70 cohort who are still working and not generally because of nessesity either.
,
Certainly was a large proportion in Northland.
Whether the tourists needed to work, or not, the local youngsters we can see now, who can finally put their hospitality, or agriculture training to use, shows how many of those jobs, were filled by temporary visa’s or under the table backpackers.
As for the idea that anyone who wants to work can now get a job.
There are many barriers to employment. Wages below the cost of living and lack of accommodation where the work is, are just two.
Interesting perspectives on China for 2022. A holding year, bau for China.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/127505177/what-will-happen-in-china-in-2022-here-are-12-predictions
Fab to see mainstreamers displaying their ability to predict the future but they forgot to mention whether they used scrying, the pendulum, or reading tea leaves.
Being mainstreamers there's no way they would have been able to use astrology or the I Ching, of course! I guess it's a genuine sign that the long hegemony of science is finally abating. About time!
Entrails.
Which the Romans learnt from the Etruscans, and was eagerly embraced by scientists. Even today today they dissect plenty of creatures – although the extent to which they learn about the future seems surprising moot…
They're looking at said viscera with the wrong eyes – it's the shine on the surface of liver etc. that told and foretold 🙂 (a la crystal ball/magic mirror)
I favour the mystique button in the psyche (that gets pushed) theory which I agree is likely to be triggered by a shiny effect…
However I gather that one finding of (the pseudoscience of) psychology is that people tend to see what they're looking for.
The mainstreamers doing the predicting were probably seeking to reassure both themselves & readers that the future will be same old same old. Which it probably won't be.
We certainly interpret what we "see", using our cultural lens, but the inner-eye is clearer and surely looking straight into the heart of the matter. How to unfilter, and damp-down all that interpreting…
And we now have scientific incorporation of chaos, which means the future is as likely to be produced by discontinuity as continuity.
Xi dismounts the dais after watching the goose-stepping, trips, and his skull doesn't bounce well. Chief Assistant Honcho assumes command as Xi lies in coma, decides to invade Taiwan while Sleepy Joe is having a nap, initiates WWIII.
Except not! When the order goes out to fire the missiles from the American, Russian & Chinese leaders, nothing happens after their red buttons get pushed. The old 1950s wiring has become so corroded that the electrons encounter gaps they can't jump across.
Future annihilation turns into present insulation. Everybody lives happily ever after…
Why our government has been doing the right thing all along.
https://theconversation.com/healthy-humans-drive-the-economy-were-now-witnessing-one-of-the-worst-public-policy-failures-in-australias-history-174606?fbclid=IwAR1woocIGm-ZJuJy5sWDwEEdEmLlcWawmFMRzpEX0Fm2nbxQkj0EfasBFZk
The Omicron variant is perhaps the most contagious respiratory virus ever; nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives. Public 'health policy' as we know it has become irrelevant.
There is significant short term disruption here in Australia, but for the most part life is going on. People are scaling back their activities for the duration, and learning to 'live with it'.
The surge will peak here in Australia within the month and the reasonable expectation is that it will settle back into being another endemic virus similar to seasonal influenza or the common cold. It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it.
"nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives."
Unless it was preceded by another version, say, an delta version, that, un-checked by Government programmes, had devastated the community, choked the hospital system and wrecked the economy, in which case, the Omicron version would race through an already incapacitated society to much greater ill effect.
Yes?
You mean that as being analogous to a government response wrecking an economy and devastating communities?
Since there appears to be zero immunity conferred by Delta, the effect of Omicron on health care systems will be what it's going to be. (Though, not firing a good number of nurses, doctors and other health care workers might have crossed someones mind in light of the fact “pandemic”)
Of course, a government response that had followed their own pandemic pre-planning documents and allowed for the use of efficacious anti-virals in the early stage of infection: that had promoted simple health messages like Vit D and eating better food and possibly exercising more…
Although, I forget – that messaging would not have had any effect.
Far better to message around accepting the injection of an experimental medicine (that doesn't do as advertised) and back it up with coercive pressures while offering precisely zero actual pre-hospital treatments.
"It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it."
Except of course that naturally acquired immunity will similarly apply selective pressure to the virus…but with greater risk of a bad outcome compared to vaccine-acquired immunity.
Covid-19 did not mutate via any vaccine. It mutated thanks to its spread though numerous populations. The more it replicates, the greater the chance of something dangerous to humans arising, as per the virus that causes influenza.
Do you know how many, if any, mutations of concern have arisen in highly vaccinated countries? Do you really believe all vaccines mutate viruses, or only this virus or a particular vaccine?
How would you explain the elimination/reduction rather than mutations of diseases like smallpox, polio, measles leading to greater outbreaks once vaccines were introduced?
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure". The covid virus does that quite naturally, and all by itself.
It mutated thanks to its spread though numerous populations
Yup. That was mouse populations apparently. (And then it jumped back to human populations) 🙂
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure".
The risk of pushing the evolution of a virus by deploying a leaky 'vaccine' on a universal basis is very real and has been documented and studied in Marek's virus.
The science of complexity validates your view. Indeterminate trajectories are inherent. Both systems and subsystems get triggered into shifts of state by tiny environmental triggers.
Nature is the environment (Gaia is the whole system), humanity & covid are subsystems interacting. In this relational view, simplicity lies in the binary ebb & flow of interaction between both subsystems and complexity lies in the multitude of systemic alterations within both.
This. From an author of the Marek's study you're concerned about.
https://theconversation.com/vaccines-could-affect-how-the-coronavirus-evolves-but-thats-no-reason-to-skip-your-shot-165960
Marek is a totally different virus in a completely different species.
Yes, I'm aware of that. but that's the example Bill gave me.
And the vaccines involved were a completely different type. The key issue with COVID is the vaccines we have do not prevent infection to any useful degree, yet they impose a selection pressure.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure? It seems some modelling suggests it might happen, but I can't find anything other that these suppositions.
Otoh – a vaccine more targeted to the omicron would reduce that likelihood by being less 'leaky'? That's what the WHO is looking for.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-says-more-research-needed-vaccine-efficacy-against-omicron-2022-01-11/
It is possible that we'll end up with an influenza-type situation with vaccines modified for variants each year, isn't it?
It is possible that we'll end up with an influenza-type situation with vaccines modified for variants each year, isn't it?
That's how I see the situation & I'd even replace possible with likely.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure?
Obviously not. We've never done a mass roll out of a leaky vaccine in the middle of a pandemic of a highly infectious respiratory virus.
Your linked article is a de-facto admission that the vaccines have been a total failure in preventing Omicron. Also note how hilarious is this?
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron? All the evidence to date tells us it's acute illness is considerably less severe. It's too soon to know about it's long term chronic impact, but all other things being equal, it's probably going to be of less concern than seasonal influenza.
At which point the mandates have no justification whatsoever.
I meant some other human disease, – like flu.I should have been clearer.
I think by now everyone knows the purpose of the current vaccines in Omicron is to cut (not wipe-out) transmission. And to reduce hospitalisations and serious illness, so they definitely hvae value, but it would be of huge benefit to have improved prevention – especially if another mutation pops up. Also, people will get tired of going for boosters every few months. Will be good to get something with more efficacy.
As above – reduce transmission, reduce hospitalisation, reduce serious illness
As above – plus add in save the health system and healthcare workers – no-one should have to work in the environment they're expected to. All the politicians seem to treat them as robots that can keep going and going with little respite.
Agree that with a vaccine better at preventing disease we'll have little need for mandates beyond what we have for seasonal flu.
Re: Reuters – I'll keep that in mind. I linked in this case, because I'd seen the head of WHO making the statement about new vaccines on Al Jazeera, and this article pretty much covers that ground.
Get your booster to stay safe this summer https://covid19.govt.nz
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
The mental gymnastics required to undermine NZ's vaccination programme during the COVID-19 pandemic are extraordinary.
Whether anyone will be held to account for the moral and health security failures unfolding in various countries, only time will tell – thank goodness Australia’s (and NZ’s) level of vaccination against COVID-19 is relatively high.
Daily COVID-19 death toll in Australia, 1 – 15 January 2022:
14, 6, 7, 5, 18, 12, 18, 25, 23, 22, 27, 49, 57, 56, 49.
The point that you seem to have missed is that newer strains (specifically 'hot' strains) could survive in the leaky vaccine environment and those 'hot' variants killed any unvaccinated 'sentinel' chickens that were housed next to vaccinated ones.
In normal situations, the 'hot' variants would not have come to dominate, as they would have been too 'hot' for the environment they were trying to replicate in and died out.
If you want to (very darkly) project that scenario into a possible pathway for the leaky vaccines we’re using for Covid, then ‘hot’ strains develop, and without an endless round of boosters to keep effectiveness topped up, people die – all people either not vaccinated or whose vaccination lapses for some reason or another.
edit – the way to avoid any such possibility is to target the use of leaky vaccines, as is done with flu. Better still. Use whatever effective ant–virals we have to hand (cocktails of known drugs if necessary), as per the governments Pandemic Preparedness documents.
Is it true Queensland have decided on the 'let it rip' policy?
Sounds like the remedy is worse than the cure eh, in praxis.
The emotive outburst from Professor Qimron in his letter to the Israeli government reflects his invested opinions in having signed the Great Barrington Declaration. Read here for how this has been challenged Facts about the Barrington Declaration, and here: 5 Failings of the Barrington Declaration
The Barrington group of scientists are herd immunity advocates and the Declaration was funded by a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial
The John Snow Memorandum highlights the errors of the "mass infection" argument.
The evolving argument of some that somehow the Covid vaccine is putting evolutionary pressure on the disease is another Barrington style argument. An interesting study relating to this looks specifically at 'leaky vaccinations'
This is what the authors of the study have to say:
nice work, thanks.
I what way do you imagine you have any reason to think you are more qualified to pass judgement than an actual Professor of Immunology?
That study you quoted is utter bunk.
And you have some evidence to challenge the study's authors and reviewers?
Who work in:
There you go. You're happy to use reference to authority when it agrees with your opinion, but reject it when it does not.
Reality however doesn't care too much for our opinions.
No, I am merely qualified to trust the authors of a report that was published in The Lancet in October two years ago, which is now quite clearly supported by a deluge of data, and which pointed out that
It may be of interest to others reading this thread that the John Snow Memorandum is a grass roots initiative, that unlike the Barrington declaration, has not received any outside or politically motivated funding. It is a collaborative, inclusive initiative supported by 6,900 scientists, researchers & healthcare professionals who believe that robust public health measures, like those implemented by Japan, New Zealand and Vietnam can control transmission of Covid and allow life to return to near normal.
I certainly do not support the rantings of a defensive Professor who has consistently supported the idea of herd immunity, the opening up schools, workplaces and borders and who argues the nonsense that:
Controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive."
That made sense two years ago and back then I would have agreed totally. Time has passed and it's clear now that all low cost and effective therapeutics were to be rigorously sidelined, and the vaccines turned out neither particularly safe nor especially effective.
Face it – Omicron has rendered the entire global vaccination program to date pretty much a waste of money, and their mandates have caused an immense amount of social polarisation and discord. And that may not even be the worst of it.
The vaccines have not saved us – and yet the moral and political power allocated to them ensures their enthusiasts will double down forever.
A study completed in S.Africa (which supercedes the very early study that suggested the Covid vaccine may not be effective against Omicron), was published on 29 Dec 2021. This study compared 133,437 Omicron Covid positive PCR test results of fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
The study results indicated that two shots of the Pfizer vaccination is 70% effective against Omicron, i.e. still effective but not as effective as the 90% protection provided against the Delta variant.
There are no population based studies as yet confirming Pfizer's lab results showing a booster shot of the vaccine increases antibody protection 25-fold compared with the initial two-dose series
However, HERE is an excellent Twitter thread just published by a British epidemiologist summarising the UK Health Security Agency's latest review of the infection severity risk of Omicron
That letter is around general hospitalisation for Omicron and includes 'incidentally +ve' hospital patients. That's fair enough, but not the same as looking at fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
That paper you linked states – Unless otherwise stated, ‘transmission’, ‘virus’, and ‘viral load’ refer to the pathogenic MDV strain and not the vaccine virus strain.
And since it's 'vaccine virus strains' that are the issue at hand….
In the original study from 2015, – Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.
&
To confirm that virus shed into the environment was a robust proxy for overall bird-to-bird transmission potential, we co-housed birds infected with our three most virulent strains with immunologically-naïve sentinel birds (Experiment 2). When unvaccinated birds were infected with the two most lethal strains (Md5 and 675A), they were all dead within 10 days (Fig 2A), before substantial viral shedding had begun (S2 Fig). Consequently, no sentinel birds in those isolators became infected (Fig 2B) and none died (Fig 2C). In contrast, when HVT-vaccinated birds were infected with either of those hyperpathogenic strains, they survived for 30 days or more (Fig 2A), allowing substantial viral shedding (S2 Fig). All co-housed sentinels consequently became infected (Fig 2B) and went on to die as a result of MDV infection
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198
And a mainstream article on the same study for easy reading –
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous
Locus. Do you even scan (never mind read) the links you post? I'm going to skip the fact you used a wikileaks source as being somehow worthwhile and just mention that "the conversation" link claims –
The declaration begins with the false premise that governments intend to lock down society
I guess folks were dreaming.
It also was not funded by the Koch Brothers (a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial) – that being an endlessly repeated smear intended to have people dismiss what signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration were attempting to bring up for public debate and discussion.
Fck. Saint Fauci is on record as demanding the public debate be quashed before it could get started (via hit jobs and smear pieces).
Why have you decided to make this a personal attack?
One of my links was to Wikipedia, (why would you say "wikileaks"?), which I use as an open source of basic information. In this case I used it for the definition of the Barrington Declaration, and a summary of who has challenged it. What was noted in Wikipedia was that the
There are several credible media sources that have identified libertarian organisations partnered with or funding the AIER. This is an interesting review reported in The Guardian
On the other hand, when I'm providing information about important recent studies I reference the scientific or medical journals that the studies were published in. I do this because they are peer reviewed.
I'm heartily sick of people using antivax lie promoting websites as a 'source of truth'.
lol – yup. Wikipedia – which is garbage for pretty much anything beyond dates and names in the socio/political sphere.
The paper you referenced on the virus front was not a study on vaccine strains of Mareks.
Can't see how you see my responses as "personal attacks".
+100
Essential reading.
Well I never, who'd have thunk it?
Perhaps, just perhaps, our government's approach was right all along! I'm gobsmacked!
yes, if you are too sick to work, you are not going to be buying much. what a bugger eh?
Yeah … Who'da thunk… Not Scomo.
Yep, and yet "Stupid is as stupid does" – individual vaccine hesitancy is fair enough, but promoting vaccine hesitancy is giving aid and comfort to the virus, imho.
To anyone eligible for a vaccine booster – please, please, get it as soon as possible.
Get your booster to stay safe this summer
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
Amen to that – otoh some self-awareness of self-delusion tendencies can be a good thing too, particularly during a pandemic.
This is behaving like the 1918 Call It What You Like Flu epidemic which apparently ripped through the country in 3 months, only sparing those who may have had some residual immunity from the 1890 Russian version. Imagine the carnage this time if we didn’t have the medical knowledge and technology and a VACCINE that is giving an elevated level of protection. Omicron would be killing all of those compromised by co-morbidities that are now covered if the slower Alpha and Delta had not bought us time and cover.
Not to mention excellent political courage and intelligence and empathy.
Karel Sroubek case: Delayed appeal will decide convicted drug smuggler's fate – NZ Herald
Just call Clarke I'm sure he can sort it out.
The fact that the PMs boyfriend cant even front to say I was wrong shows me the PM is not my leader,Ive got to find another party,it wont be someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
good on you. glad that you have thought long and deeply about all of the this. cant be going off half-cocked. when you find that party, dont moan when they treat you and the country as an experiment, asset to be flogged, etc, etc.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with. If you don't want people to have that freedom then feel free to find a more authoritarian party.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with
Yup. Like declining the opportunity to have an injection that does not perform as advertised, and not facing life altering consequences imposed by third parties (ie – government)
If the partner of the PM commenting incorrectly on the type of Covid test available (a news story with zero relevance to all the policies and decisions of government) is your definition of
someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
then I hate to break it to you but you will not find a single country – never mind party, never mind politician – who meets your standards.
Tip: if you're going to act outraged, don't chew the scenery. No Oscar for you.
PS Another tip for "Lilman". When you say
Ive got to find another party
please remember that people can read your previous posts, to find out how attached you are to said party. So ease up on the porkies. "I'm loyal Labour but now I'm quitting" was already old about a week after the internet began.
How is your new life in Australia?
you're skating on thin ice there. If there is a connection between CG and Sroubek, put up the evidence. Otherwise stop with the slurs. This is a political blog, make a political argument or go to FB.
Don't think Clarke had anything to do with that. That was Richie Hardcore texting Jacinda directly regarding Karel Sroubek.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/110018901/karel-sroubek-a-good-guy-richie-hardcore-says-in-text-to-pm-jacinda-ardern
Pataua and Lilman you call him… you seem to want more information. The Election is next year so save your DP ’till then.
The Danes have accused Russia of cooking up a bogus letter to a US Senator, purportedly from Greenland's foreign minister, saying there would be an independence referendum. US Senator Tom Cotton reckons he gave Trump the idea to buy Greenland.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-accuses-china-russia-iran-espionage-threat-2022-01-13/
Didn't Trump suggest the US buy Greenland?
It would have been a good deal if it had gone through
Footage of pretty sizeable unstoppable sequence of tsunami waves maybe a metre or more high currently hitting Nukualofa just shown on 1ewes at 6.
Coming from that erupting Tongan volcano, which is said to be exploding so loudly it’s rattling windows in Nukualofa, 65 kilometres away. The skies are so full of ash it’s quite dark there, according to a local female reporter.
Fingers crossed there are no fatalities, there have been tsunami warnings over the past few days telling people to stay away from waterfronts & beaches, but the reporter is clearly very concerned about some people living on low lying islands & peninsulas with no high ground to go to.
Sounds like the tsunamis are hitting all the Tongan islands.
https://twitter.com/sakakimoana/status/1482218193619865600
Major volcanic event underway in Tonga,with subsequent tsunami events.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2022/01/another-tsunami-warning-issued-for-tonga.html
This follows from the previous eruption.
https://twitter.com/CIMSS_Satellite/status/1481794444416462848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1481794444416462848%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FCIMSS_Satellite2Fstatus2F1481794444416462848widget%3DTweet
Pressure wave took under three hours to reach dunedin.
http://www.physics.otago.ac.nz/eman/weather_station/weather_data/graph_pressure.png
It's a biggie.
https://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/tonga-size-of-eruption-put-into-perspective-x4-infographics
https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=Tonga%20volcano&src=typed_query
Yep.
NZ tidal buoys now showing effects.
https://www.geonet.org.nz/tsunami
Sailed past Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha-apai 4 years ago on passage from NZ. It had only erupted and appeared above sea the year before and wasn't on the charts. Tongatapu and the Ha-apais are low lying islands with no hills to speak of so must be pretty scary for anyone on the coast. We last had a tsunami warning in Great Barrier Island when the earthquake happened in Kaikoura. Slept through the warnings and nothing happened, but friends on a boat in Whangamata were to to go up a hill.