Everyone should bank with the TSB or KiwiBank and stop $ 3.5 billion going overseas.
“New Zealand’s four major Australian owned banks paid nearly $3.5 billion in dividends to their parent companies last year – a 28 per cent jump on 2016.”b
But it is your policy suggestion. You said that the government should “act and stop tinkering” and nationalise the banks. I asked you a range of questions about how you would want them to achieve this. You suggested then that the onus was on me to research what it is that you might want the government to do; and you said that “It has been done before in many countries” while refusing to name such a country.
That makes you a troll by definition of this site:
A troll is generally defined on this site as someone who clearly isn’t bothering to engage their brain when commenting. The standard is that the troll could be replaced with a dictionary of lines and phrases, and no-one would know the difference. Typically trolls do not interact with other commentators as they either ignore what others say in reply or write a reply that ignores what they said.
I actually agree that provision of credit should not be left solely to the commercial banks, but the difference is that I wouldn’t demand the government “act” without saying what actions I wanted them to take.
I agree with Ed, we should be banking with Kiwibank.
Forcing someone is an inefficient way of getting anyone to do anything. Much better that we be doing something with a smile and because we want to.
I think Kiwibank are under utilising their primary point of difference. They have the clout of a government and could be creating compelling reasons for people to deal with Kiwibank. Not because they have to but because they want to.
“Forcing someone is an inefficient way of getting anyone to do anything.”
So in fact you disagree with Ed in the context of replying to my post, which was referring to his statements yesterday that the government should nationalise the banks. It seems he has changed his tune after not being able to say what he meant by this.
The UK has Nationalised Banks, in the past. Along with at least one US State, North Dakota (Though I am not sure if you could call that “Nationalisation?).
The UK nationalised or part nationalised a couple of banks that were on the edge of collapse. That is a completely different thing to nationalising ALL banks in a market where all those banks are very healthy. In fact, Ed wants to nationalise the banks here because they are doing so well.
I was with Kiwibank but I went to TSB as they had a good deal on mortgages at the time but when I ran into some difficulties TSB treated me pretty shabbily.
Once the earthquake hit and the value of my house increased suddenly they couldn’t do enough for me but I switched to ANZ and have got a good deal with them so why should I go back to a bank that doesn’t care about me
You want to be treated like a doormat go right ahead, I’ll stick with ANZ (until I find something better)
You’re right I should accept being treated shabbily by a bank, I should be a doormat because “NZ”, how about Ed that NZ banks actually learn to treat customers properly and try keeping customers with good deals or do NZ banks not make any money
Absolutely correct that if I’m treated poorly I’ll go elsewhere because I have a choice, the NZ banks have a choice and the NZ banks chose to treat me shabbily but ANZ chose to treat me well
Ed I agree with your sentiment re bank profits belonging to NZ, but your posts re Chris and James are shabby.
No need to post others personal details, also if you want to open the age warfare can of worms I sure wouldn’t bash the gen x ers especially if I was baby boomer( honestly don’t know if you are or not). Which generation got free education state housing and super? Gen x and onwards have to think of themselves, something those before did not.
The 30- 40 something generation don’t know about “Pay it forward” do they so we have them pushing a “dog eats dog” philosophy so we are in for a rough ride if jacinda cant get us back to the “caring society” again.
Jacinda needs to “lead by example” on all her promises for a Government that is a warm, caring, inclusive, transparent, listening to the voices of all people, – Government ‘that will look after all provincial regions equally’ and then she will shut national out of contention.
with home loans I go with who has the package that works the best for me. A kiwibank loan (last time I looked) was in the high 10’s of thousands more expensive over the term of the loan.
Thus if you choose to pay that much money just to bank with a kiwi bank you are financially stupid (which could explain Ed’s facilitation with people being paid). That additional cost is simply interest.
If you wanted to do good with it you would be better off keeping the $ and donating or using it locally for good causes locally as opposed to paying considerably more because it’s a kiwi bank.
I found ANZ to be like WINZ when I asked then for a home loan. TSB were much easier to deal with. Just waiting to hear if they will let me use the equity in my house to clear some debt that I cannot get out from under (and yes, I blame myself for the poor choices I made there. Not all lefties blame others).
* You try to leave
* You get random debts placed on your account for no reason
* Ask to get statements which take weeks for them to come up with
* Go though a call center for everything
* Try to use their god awful website and mobile banking application
“You cannot download a years worth of statements from their website”
And I thought you were somehow involved in IT?
I just checked to see if you statement above was correct and I download and printed my entire current account for last year in seconds.
Of course you can get your statements mailed to you every month if you are somehow incapable of downloading them.
Well chris – I have been a customer of TSB for years now and have never had a problem with them. The fact that there is no bank office nearby where I live has never been a problem when I need to deposit money nor when I travel either in NZ or overseas.
TSB consistently scores highly wrt customer satisfaction and I have to say you are the first that I have ever heard express a negative opinion. Perhaps that might say more about you than about TSB.
Nope, you go through an authentication process over the phone and everything is recorded. No face-to-face meetings or branch visits required (with BNZ).
Exactly!
And infused was lying when he said that TSB tampered with the survey returns.
The surveys are notdone by TSB but by a not-for-profit consumer organisation.
Infused is full of bullshit
Of course you can!
They have my signature on file, they can identify who I am over the phone, (I have transferred 10’s of thousands of dollars from off shore into another bank in the same manner) and if I go through a proper authentication process – signing in front of a JP or Police officer who can verify my identity – and that is faxed or emailed. it is no different to going into the office and signing in front of a bank official.
TSB Bank has won the Consumer NZ People’s Choice award for Banking for the second year in a row.
People’s Choice winners are identified through detailed analysis of Consumer NZ surveys. The banking survey is a nationally representative sample of 1085 Kiwis aged 18 and over and asks respondents to rate their main bank across a number of variables.
To achieve the People’s Choice award, a brand must stand out in terms of customer satisfaction. TSB Bank shares the 2017 award with two other New Zealand owned banks but we the top the overall customer satisfaction result at 87%.
So the TSB owns Consumer NZ?
Interesting! Consumer NZ is an independent, not for profit organisation.https://www.consumer.org.nz/
Re Banks… locals banks sponsor local events, big shout out to the NBS (Nelson Building Society) for supporting so many many local events in our region.
The larger banks ie BNZ do not, thanks for the offer of your logo emblazzened BNZ marque, but that’s all you offer as support in our community, doesn’t matter how many hundreds of thousands we put through your bank. Or how many millions/billions you make from those using the BNZ.
This year we will be moving all of our organisations accounts from the BNZ over to the NBS for that reason.
Personally I’ve been with KiwiBank for many years and they’ve been brilliant.
There is also the AUST tax issue. NZ and AUST have a tax treaty which means a aust registered entity payes taxes to the aust tax office not NZ’s. (like recently highlighted apple 27mil earnings in nz with $0 tax paid in nz.
It should be noted they get their funds, just like Ozzie banks, from the international banking system, not the New Zealand Government. So you are not necessarily keeping banking within New Zealand by using them.
Funding a New Zealand bank from Government borrowing as a, non profit, co-operative would remove the offshore banks altogether, as they will be unable to compete.
The reaction from overseas moneyed interests however, will make Greece look tame. Though Iceland seems to have got away with it, for now?
Note that; Suddam Hussain was toppled not because of anything he did as a Dictator. The west supports much worse. But because he threatened the US economy, with low interest loans to other African States and the bypassing the petrodollar.
And he wanted to use the Euro for trading his oil shipments instead of the US dollar as the Euro at the time was trading better than US and this would further weakling the US economy ATM.
What is a “country”Antoine? Is it a set of lines outlining a land mass or something more? Should a government govern for its citizens or all the citizens of the world?
Why wouldn’t kiwis want the benefits of their hard work to stay in NZ?
Yeah, it makes SFA. That’s why I’m pitching as I am. Just 20% of that 5 billion would benefit all NZers rather than just those with Aussie bank shares.
Any self respecting citizen in a self respecting country would be appalled at the loss of $5 billion to wealthy overseas interests.
To read the comments of many here shows how low we have fallen since Douglas betrayed this country.
I’ve banked with Kiwibank since it started, but my house is freehold and I don’t have significant savings so easy for me to do. Their Free Up accounts don’t have fees so all it costs me is the odd other bank ATM charge and card replacement costs.
I think you have never dealt with ANZ if you think Kiwibank & TSB are the worst… Or ASB when the people trying their best are tied up by stupid rules from above
YMV indeed, but the vast vast majority of feedback I have ever heard from people that have dealt with ANZ (including myself way back when they took over National Bank) is that they are horrible. There are very few people that seem to have positive dealings.
I can’t remember where (so this is just my own musings) but I am sure that the ANZ has consistently been at the bottom of any customer satisfaction surveys/rankings for NZ banks
Be that as it may I’m a happy customer with no plans to move.
(though I did get a home loan through Kiwibank as they were offering the best deal at the time and they were hopeless – or at least the woman managing the account was hopeless).
ASB switched to a one manager 10000’s of customers and all decisions are centrally managed via email only. Time frames are long for decisions andmanagers change constantly compared with when they were not trying to squeeze every last cent out of NZ.
On the recommendation of another satisfied customer, and the strength of their zero-fees accounts, I switched to TSB about 17 years ago. They’ve been great. I like that when you phone them with a request, a person always answers the phone (no machines, no waiting).
One thing I don’t like is their prize draws – would prefer slightly interest rates on balances than the chance to win a car. If I wanted to gamble, I’d by Lotto tickets.
Put this CEO Norris in stocks and give us all rotten tomatoes to throw at him Ed.
He needs a strong dose of ridicule so no one else comes along as he has to suck up to a corrupt leader like he did with (John Key) to take our public money to get a sweetheart deal to build this “convention centre” while also being allowed to install many more gambling machines.
I know business is not your strong point but if you don’t even know the difference between a ceo and a board chairman I would suggest night classes before you start commenting on financial and business matters.
I think he should start with remedial reading lessons. Then he could continue with learning how to respond to people who query the source of some of his bizarre claims. I am still waiting for him to tell me when Stephen Joyce was the Minister of Broadcasting. https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26-01-2018/#comment-1439808
That would be for the same 9 years Gerry Brownlee was the minister of climate change (according to a certain poster in here – who refuses to admit they were wrong)
“Kill off night classes”
A lot of schools used the Governments cutting out the funding off hobby classes to scrap all the courses they ran. They used the excuse that people wouldn’t be able to afford them.
Their clients weren’t given any option. The schools often didn’t want them because it meant that rooms would have to be available after 3.30pm and the staff couldn’t all head for home. Someone would have to be available to make sure that the placed was securely locked up after the classes finished in the evening.
A number of the more civic minded schools certainly kept them going and they remain very popular.
What would you like to learn. Here are a couple of options from schools in the Wellington area.
Wellington High School. A great school serving their community and the only one I have been personally involved with. http://www.cecwellington.ac.nz/course-catalogue
Tawa College http://www.tawacomed.co.nz/OurCourses
Knowing this the National led government more than decimated the funding, and then (without any kind of cost/benefit analysis), created the Inspire scholarship, increased funding to private schools, created charter schools and required beneficiaries to attend “ready to work” workshops ad nauseum.
Gives a fairly clear view of what “education” means to National.
BTW, had a look at your courses links and you are right – a comprehensive and impressive list offered by Wellington High School, but the prices remove lot of potential participants. Night school was notable for it’s accessibility.
Tawa College’s prices are more in line.
I would consider these to be anomalies now, rather than the norm. The removal of funding reduced the numbers of classes offered, increased the costs of those classes, and reduced the access to community education for many NZers.
Pointing out a couple of comprehensive programmes does not change that.
I would agree that the prices might discourage some people.
However I don’t think that the removal of funding was the cause of the classes going. That was a deliberate choice of many of the school organisations who did not give anyone who was attending their classes the option of paying a bit more.
They used the excuse of the cutting of funding as an excuse to dump them because they found them a nuisance to provide.
They even dumped the courses where the subsidy was not cut. That included the core literacy and numeracy options and te reo.
Have a look at this extract from a story at the time
“The Government’s $13.1 million funding cut for Adult Community Education, announced in the 2009 Budget, has seen the number of community-based courses plummet.
More than 100 of 212 schools offering continuing education last year have pulled out and just 24 are still receiving government funding, with another 24 in “partnerships” with funded schools.
Maryke Fordyce, president of the Continuing Education Association through Schools, said it was yet to be seen how many classes would survive. Last year 200,000 people attended subsidised night classes in schools, but only 25,000 places were subsidised this year.” http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3323417/Cuts-end-popular-night-classes
They cut about $65/person and HALF the schools immediately dumped them. Do you really think that cutting the subsidy for cake-decorating classes was so terrible?
“Do you really think that cutting the subsidy for cake-decorating classes was so terrible?”Yes, One of the great things about night classes is that the unemployed and sick could attend them,
For the unemployed this offered one of the only ways to get re-training, not to mention the social interaction.
For the sick, many course were more accessible, countering the issue of social isolation (if your unfamiliar with this its the human reaction to “hide” to cut yourself off when sick/unwell)
Course with no obvious financial benefit like “cake decorating” (a small percentage may have gone on working in bakery’s so the skills do have some economic benefit) have a social (social isolation is a big topic and a major driver of the benefit trap) and learning aspect and can be a great way to get people back into education.
that 13.5mil unspent now probably cost’s the govt 2 – 3 times that in mental health support (unfortunately I have no evidence to back this up, Thier is UK study http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-09-20-health-benefits-evening-classes-revealed) but NZ has diffrent social issues than the UK so the study’s stats may not apply.
“Do you really think that cutting the subsidy for cake-decorating classes was so terrible?”
Agree with Leonhart. Yes.
The social interaction and accessibility is one of the primary benefits to adult education.
And yes, schools may have “dumped” them for the reasons you state, but they are already underresourced and teachers undervalued. It amazes me how often people expect those who are already doing so much, to do more.
Link to a report from 2011, into the funding cuts puts in clearly:
2.1 Recommendations:
ACE funding for night classes should be re-instated to:
Empower communities to provide learning opportunities to meet local needs
Enhance adult learning opportunities and personal development options
Facilitate community networks
Provide career development openings. “
You also haven’t addressed the cost benefit analysis of ACE, and the failure to perform any cost benefit analyses on the education experiments they did fund. (Note: Made a mistake in previous comment Aspire scholarship fund – not Inspire)
The standard is that the troll could be replaced with a dictionary of lines and phrases, and no-one would know the difference. Typically trolls do not interact with other commentators as they either ignore what others say in reply or write a reply that ignores what they said.
Yes you have made my point.
I won’t do work for lazy posters who are merely seeking to derail and distract from the fundamental issue.
And we have better things to discuss.
Morning Breakfast people I whatched Te Karere last nite.
Many thanks to Ian Hutson he Tells the story of the reality of being a maori cultured person in Aotearoa and in reality we get the short end of the stick all the time
even some of my Whano whom are quite successful and have received the short end of the stick are in denial thats how brain washed the people of NZ are NZ is a fair and Just society YEA RIGHT.
He says that crime is dropping and confirms my statements on that subject.
They are still predicting OUR Maori prison population to continue to rise .
The Ngaru tai / Tidal wave of Maori prison population that has increased under shonky key and bills 9 YEARS this will take time to subside .
So ECO MAORI says to all the Maori cultured people on Papatuanuku keep your noses clean and make YOUR tepuna proud of you and be proud of yourselves .Then in time our Maori prison population will start dropping .
There is still talk of building a billion $ prison I say spend the money on improving the peoples and the mokos lives instead of spending all this money locking them up is the humane way to solve this problem
Its not ROCKET SCIENCE its common sence .
The Salvation Army is the Indigenous protection society and ECO MAORI is backing the Salvation Army 100% please make donations to the Salvation Army to help Tonga in her time of need
Good interview with the CTV building collapsing during the Christchurch earth quake that scenario is the neo libral western laws being made by the wealthy to protect the wealthy what a farcial system . There is a another scenario running in Tonga at the moment the neo libral civil servants MAFT pandering to Trump and trying to stop the reality that Global Warming is pokeing the people of Papatuanuku in the eyes .They are telling TVNZ 1 Pacific reporter what she can and cannot report in Tonga Barbra Dreaver told MAFT were to go you go Lady Mana wahine
Kia kaha. Ka kite ano Here is the link to Ians from the salvation armys interview
The idea of incarceration as rehabilitation is ridiculous, it always has been. But its supported by the public because of two ideas.
1) The criminal must “pay” by suffering hardship for their crime.
2) They are a danger to society and must be removed from it.
1. is understandable but misguided, no one pays for crime by being made to suffer you pay for crime by making reparations/recompense, obviously some crimes (like murder) this is an intangible figure (although there are novel solutions for this like indentured servitude), but in many crimes a value can be associated to the crime, but this is never met as we ruin people lives for the sake of “justice”
2. Can be true, but not in most cases and the people we are talking about should be in psychiatric wards receiving treatment not sitting in a 6 by 4 box.
IN our current system we lock people up for Years, without much support (apart from Drug & alcohol programmes and recently a literary program) then release them when their time is up with a bit of money sometimes (see pathway to freedom programme – many are not eligible)
Without completing the pathway programme, according to reports you get dropped of at the local bus station with a ticket back to your hometown (sometimes) and are told to goto MSD for support (you are still subject to a stand down period) sometimes assigned housing for a short term is provided (depending on demand) other times they get released and… nothing, nowhere to live, no support apart from overworked and underfunded corrections departments.
NZ has a 65% recidivism rate because we do not reintegration ex-prisoners back into society and give little/no opportunities for future employment. If you have a conviction, most employers will not even look at your CV.
Are we want to jail more people? For longer and longer using the disproven and failed notion that longer sentences reduce crime? yes apparently, because they must pay… but never actually “pay”
by “pay” its not just financial but moral restitution should be considered as well. In the form of teaching & community work, public speaking etc. To atone for the moral implications of the crime not just financial.
cavate, some crimes are heinous and you cannot “pay” but this should not stop an attempt to even if it takes the person’s entire life trying to atone, this would be justice.
sitting in a box is not. (at a cost of $110,000 per year to the taxpayer)
Agree. The conversation in public is never very deep. MoC reform towards the less costly and more efficient rehabilitation and support would be a policy that I would like to see proposed and implemented.
Pakatoa Island would be a good NZ version of Bastøy prison, already has the accommodation and infrastructure. 🙂
1080 – just wondering.
Yesterday while driving from Colville north to Fletchers Bay on the Coromandel, we noticed a lot of warning signs advising visitors to be aware of 1080 baits in the area.
“Carcasses and baits could be fatal for dogs.”
We saw several hawks feeding on the carcasses of possums as we drove.
Were those birds likely to be affected?
I’d say yes at a guess, I know around these parts if there has been a drop people avoid trout fishing (as trout can eat rodents) as well as hunting (especially with dogs) for a few months due to that reason.
It would be hard to know if the possums were roadkill or 1080 victims if they were on the side of the road. But at a guess they would more likely be roadkill, but anything is possible.
The toxic assault on the national party has begun today with News hub siding with Judith Collins as their listeners top choice for National party leader.
Now we have a toxic leader for the National Party emerging as an aggressive leader.
We are now seeing a “generational shift” says News-hub but that made me laugh as Labour have already set the standard for the generational shift but it seems that national are taking the same direction but Collins is an old woman isn’t she?
Wake up national and new-hub also will you.
Interesting year ahead with all this toxicity emerging in the national party.
Interesting hearing David Parker on RNZ this morning saying the Government would not be bailing out Fletcher’s. He said the shareholders knew they were taking a risk with investing in shares and the Government were not about to bail them out. Sounded pretty “to the point” with no arguments. Maybe there is going to be an easing on Corporate Welfare – interesting indeed.
why would Fletcher’s need bailing out anyway? They are still going to make a profit this year. Just a lot less than last year. It is only the B&I division that is causing trouble. The other divisions are humming along. Any talk of bail outs etc is just media being silly.
No, this will merely provide Twyford with a convenient excuse.
When he is asked about the failure to build any affordable houses in the next couple of years he will probably claim something like.
“Everything was on track and we were going to greatly exceed the 100,000 target but Fletcher Building deliberately sabotaged the plan in collusion with the New Zealand National Party. They are saboteurs and are totally responsible for the total lack of progress by our great coalition. Jacinda will be on the cover of Women’s Weekly again though so the masses will be appeased”.
It is a perfectly reasonable for a while. If things are in a mess, as they were when National took over in 1990 and 2008 it can be quite valid.
Rather harder for Labour of course, since things were in general in good shape in 1999 and 2017. They can claim it about housing for a bit of course. That is the one thing where National took their eye off the ball.
It does wear a bit thin though after a while. I would say that nothing is unchangeable in about 2 years. If you haven’t made major strides after that time it becomes your fault and you deserve the blame.
The time varies with the situation. By now Labour should have started buying lots of land in Auckland for housing.
And they shouldn’t be wasting hundreds of millions on the America’s Cup.
People on the loony left are still blaming Roger Douglas for crying out loud. He ceased to have any power 30 years ago. If you didn’t like what he did you are perfectly entitled to ask every Government since that time why they didn’t change it. None of them can say it was his fault any longer and that they really truly wanted to do something else. They can hold their heads up and say they didn’t change it because he was right. That is what they all really thought and they should be honest enough to say so
Why don’t you read what I said? Is it too hard.
My precise words, in my comment you are replying to, were
“They can claim it about housing for a bit of course. That is the one thing where National took their eye off the ball”
How can you possibly interpret that as saying that “housing was in good shape”?
And read it carefully. I didn’t say that Labour could talk about “Housing a bit”. I said “FOR a bit” meaning a bit of time
and…the housing mess, and yes it is a mess, didn’t just appear under national’s watch. This is a failure of successive governments, and it isn’t going to be fixed anytime soon.
it could be. very very quickly. But it would annoy alot of people.
1) Ban Airbnb without a licence as a commercial business (with taxes, inspections the same as a motel etc applied)
2) Eminent domain any house that is left uninhabited for 6 months with regular tenants living in the home, this includes holidays homes that are left unoccupied (to stop people calling their auckland land banks properties holidays homes)
3) Introduce a CGT of 10% one home per adult 18+ (must have citizenship) owner (who owns at least 50% of the property) exempt but compounding per home owned 1 = 0, 2 = 10% 3 = 20% etc.
4) Scrap letting fees
5) Reevaluate the TT so some of its more controversial decision have a modicum of sense (like “no dogs” but tenant can have dogs then damage the property and not pay)
6) introduced a govt funded and managed Tenancy “check” for both landlords and tenants to enter good/bad data at the end of each tenancy.
7) Make civil enforcement more binding and more realistic, Example a tenant who can damage a property can be charged with paying back for all the damage but can then turn around and say ok $5 a week for 100 years.
8) Landlords who “double dip” should be charged with fraud (claim damage costs from the tenant and then get the same from insurance)
9) mandatory renters insurance (maybe even built into the tenancy agreement, with a liability cover)
10) Extreme – circumstances) Create the ability for a landlord/tenant to be stripped of the ability to rent out a property in case of landlord fraud, multiple breaches etc.
I agree with some of those suggestions, but in reality the biggest problem has been the failure to plan by local councils, aided and abetted by inept governments. That has led to a shortfall of housing, which pushes up prices and makes housing unaffordable. Wham. In Auckland we now have the indecent spectacle of developers building multi-story boxes to pack people in to a level of density that is utter madness. Add that to AT’s obsession with building cycling lanes that no-one uses, and the Council’s obsession with building public transport infrastructure in a city not designed for it, and we have a right mess.
@hornet your right, but blame is pointless it really doesn’t matter whose fault is it, what matters is what we do about it right now!
Yet, every story every political statement is just more talk, from national who needed more committees to labour who are still in committees, adding to the housing stock is a long term goal we need radical action right now or this problem is going to go critical – rent for some is 60% of their wages, whats going to happen while we add to housing stock slowly (as building takes time) and rent becomes 70%, 80%, 90% of wages, when people can’t afford food due to housing costs. (which is already happening accord to salvation army report)
Parliament should be locked in until they pass some emergency measure to curb this crisis, because its pure greed thats forcing rents/prices up, nothing more.
As you often make no sense at all, – like your mate David Bennett showed also today in parliament as my mind recalls some sweet memories of utu coming back on your friend David Bennett, – read this event for the record;
I had to laugh today watching parliament when the ex Chair of the Transport and industrial relations committee chair David Bennett got up to speak on a dairy farmer bill and blamed the labour coalition for stripping out his rights to discuss the bill as “a erosion of democracy”
I recall when we assembled a 10240 petition and presented it to the steps of the ruling National government in 2012 to give to David Bennett as he was the chair of the Transport select committee then and he refused our democratic rights to speak in front of his committee about our mothballed Gisborne rail.
So it was so satisfying to see that David Bennett got the same feeling that he gave us of indignation when he refused our ‘democratic’ right to speak.
I really don’t understand why you think I might be interested in this.
However, if I have your attention perhaps you will recall the claim that you made about Stephen Joyce some weeks ago.
Have you had time to track down the source of this yarn?
My request to you is available here. https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26-01-2018/#comment-1439892
Perhaps you have forgotten. It is apparently the mark of a troll to put comments in without links and also to ignore requests to provide information to justify such claims when asked.
Doesn’t that make you a troll?
Justification or withdrawal would seem to be in order on your part..
Diddums.
It is a very simple matter to admit you are wrong you know.
I do it whenever I make a mistake.
Mind you, I do it on very rare occasions. I guess it would take a lot of your time though as you routinely tell lies.
Come on. Admit you stuffed up. Even if it is on only one occasion out of your many errors that you admit to the lapse.
You really will feel so much better. Correcting your foolish mistakes may even become a habit.
By what deranged standard could the mess National left in 1999 be described as “in good shape”?
Unemployment close to 8%, Employment Contracts Act, a double dip(ton) recession, ACC privatised, Max Bradford, growing inequality at a (for then) all-time high…
I think it’s unreasonable to toss out the garage band and expect U2 to take the stage. We’ll get another garage band, they’ll just play a genre of music I enjoy.
Those that enjoyed the ousted garage band’s blues renditions will of course claim ‘These new reggae guys are muck, I was expecting U2.’
Yes, Twyford should be gobbling up land, he is isn’t he? I understand there is an announcement in the pipeline.
I don’t share most lefties opinion of Rogernomics. I think changes were inevitable, unfortunately he administered eye surgery with a bread knife. I’m not a fan of import tariffs. I see them in the same light as WFF. Yes families need more money, in an ideal NZ I think it should be coming from thriving businesses rather than Beehive kickbacks.
“The economy is 30% smaller”.
No doubt you are able to explain the manner in which you come to that conclusion?
And you will also tell us why every Government since then has been sensible enough not to change any of the reforms to any degree.
Just one of the very many references I base that on.
NZ GDP dropped in the same period that Australia’s gained 16.8% and the OECD average was 19.7%. Hardly a success even by right wing terms such as GDP.
The rise in inequality, poverty and the drop in incomes was obvious to the rest of us.
Wage incomes dropped more than 30% against Australia’s and have never recovered.
“Another complication is that any improvements from the reforms are dominated by the macroeconomic stagnation evident in Table 2. While over the 7-year period from 1984 the OECD expanded its volume GDP by 19.7 percent, and Australia, facing a deteriorating external environment, expanded by 16.8 per cent, New Zealand GDP contracted in absolute terms.
Unlike that of the 1966-76 period, this poor performance cannot be explained by the external situation. In fact the terms of trade improved slightly over the period. Macroeconomic policy, which concentrated on disinflation, bears much of the responsibility. Monetary policy was tightened in some sense faster than fiscal policy, resulting in an over-valuation of the exchange rate at the same time as protection and export subsidies were being removed. That combination seriously damaged the tradable sector which had been the engine of growth in the New Zealand economy”.
Anyone who thinks the Douglas reforms were a success, where we bent over and unilaterally invited the outside world to fuck us, is delusional.
And no Government since has shifted them since. For the very simple reason that it suits the very few, extremely wealthy people, and the big corporates, that fund the two major parties when they obediently carry it on, just fine.
I’m sorry.
I was looking forward to what you would say but when I see that the link you provide is to something that was written a generation ago, in 1994, I don’t really think I can be bothered going through it.
I am, or was, an economist. I am not an historian though and things that happened in the period from 1984 to 1994 are just that, history.
I do think the Douglas reforms were necessary and have provided New Zealand with a much brighter future than would have been the case with the Muldoon policies.
I also do not see where you first claim, that NZ GDP dropped, can possibly come from, particularly at the drop you claim.
Here is one representation of it https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp
GDP today is much higher than it was when Roger got started.
The proof is in the fact that NZ did a lot worse than other countries, such as Australia, that did not throw out the baby with the bath water.
I have many more references, some of which I have discussed, and given on this site over the years.
However writing more detail will have to wait until i am not busy at work.
As for Muldoon, it is debatable, but cutting reliance on expensive oil imports was a good idea at the time. I don’t think many people expected the USA to invade a few more countries to stop the sky rocketing oil prices. I was one of the majority who voted for Labour at the time BTW. I still see Muldoon, as the last National party leader who actually cared about NZ’s future. Rather than adding PM to their CV. Or making a fortune afterwards.
Many think big projects made fortunes for their private owners, as did asset sales in general. Showing that they could have paid back the borrowing over time. If they hadn’t been given away in the fire sale by the ideological vandals who caused Rogernomics.
“I do think the Douglas reforms were necessary and have provided New Zealand with a much brighter future than would have been the case with the Muldoon policies”.
I did not say that GDP had dropped, just that the increase was hugely lower than other OECD countries, that didn’t adopt Rogernomics/Thatcherism with anywhere near the same enthusiasm. You double the population it is going to rise, anyway.
You may be partly correct comparing Rogernomics to Muldoons policies. But there was another path we could have taken. The one initiated by Kirks Labour Government. Including the equivalent of a sovereign wealth fund, for one.
“I do think the Douglas reforms were necessary”.
This statement is wrong on so many levels, it is hard to know where to start.
We havn’t done well even by right wing measures such as GDP. Which I believe are flawed, but it does give a basic economic comparison between countries.
As for real wages, inequality, Labour productivity, investment, innovation and rising poverty. It is blatantly obvious that the 80’s and 90’s reforms have not delivered, except for a few.
The history is relevant because it set the path we have been on ever since. Where speculators and spivs make more money than contributors.
I think Ad 6.2 may be right. They have the will and the dosh, while our lot have….? (Well, sounds a possibility so let’s have an economic paper on it, let’s have a cup of tea or would you like something stronger?)
When I looked at the shareholding for Fletchers there didn’t seem to be much that said Chinese or Asian to me (morningstar report) it seemed like North American institutions and funds. Perhaps that’s why Fletchers haven’t done well. The Chinese have been building all sorts of things successfully using clever expertise and careful surveillance of steel no doubt.
And the Chinese can afford to play extreme jokes on people – who would have though Chinese had such sense of humour? In vid below it is suggested that some people think it is cruel. I would find it terrifying and would never go on it if I knew, but if the warning was in Chinese or under size 9 font I could be caught. It’s amazing what people in power will do to each other no matter what nationality – it seems to be human to be inhuman sometimes. Haha.
the query was as to the clarity of the options…id suggest there is very little clear about the provision of infrastructure requirements…something Ad himself(?) has commented on often, even the possibility they may not happen at all.
The political fallout of such a decision alone would suggest wholesale provision by offshore entities would likely temper if not preclude such an event.
Did you hear the other things he was talking about?
Obviously this Government has solved Auckland’s housing problems.
The Nation’s children are all out of poverty.
The health system now provides all the medical treatment desired.
Now he can get on with the important matters.
A couple of hundred million to spend on a place for the uber-rich to gallivant round at an America’s Cup Regatta.
I’d rather have my tax cut, frankly. I can then spend the money on useful things like a cataract operation for my wife.
Better that than having Parker blow it away on things to attract a few billionaires here, so that the Cabinet can joyride on the super yachts. And keep Dalton in his million dollar lifestyle. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11994413
Tell Team New Zealand the money shower is over. Go somewhere else and play.
That is a $10 mil project for an industry that has a thriving export market and employs over 40,000 people.McCully gave away more than that to one windswept Arab shiek, for?
Yep. Don’t forget National suspending democracy in Canterbury, so their mates can make a killing, on a short term industry, on irrigated farmland unsuitable for dairy.
Going to be even more expensive to fix than Nationals leaky building stuffup.
Just say “No!” Prime Minister when the trash mags come calling.
“No, they’re not paying me to pose, they’re paying me to sort out homelessness and child poverty and the crisis the health system, high youth unemployment and suicide rates.”
“She really is the “woman’s weekly” pm. Soon there will be pregnancy shoots – then the baby shoots etc.”
She is and those “shoots” will deliver her many terms as Prime Minister.
I agree that some (but not all) of these photo shoots, interview by popular magazines etc may deliver political and other benefits (eg publicity about NZ) and thus well worth the PR and publicity.
Vogue for example may be aimed at the high end of the worldwide fashion market, but their articles are usually of reasonably high quality in terms of what they focus on, and are not just fluff and fashion.
From memory, it was reported back in November when the actual photo shoot and interview took place that these were on a Saturday morning – not in the midst of the parliamentary working week, for example.
As presumed by James at 7.2.1.2, it was also reported that Jacinda Ardern will not be on the front cover of the magazine as apparently it is not Vogue’s policy to do so with political figures or their family – eg Michelle Obama was not on the cover when she did a shoot and interview, and Theresa May who also did a Vogue interview and photo shoot in late 2017 will not be on the cover when these are published (April 2018?) .
Ardern’s photo shoot and interview has been reported again now because the actual interview (but not the photos) is now publicly online although the hard copy Vogue March issue is not due to be on sale for some weeks.
(Note – you will probably get an initial screen asking for name, email etc – just close the X and it should go to the article.)
IMO the article is a good balance between reporting Ardern’s political background and views, and the more personal stuff including fashion. I have certainly seen much worse.
I personally have no problems with this article being available worldwide in terms of any impressions it gives of New Zealand. In fact I am pleased to see mentions of NZ’s long standing anti-nuclear stance and Ardern’s stance on climate change.
Ardern is clear-eyed about what a prime minister of New Zealand, a country with a population of under five million, can achieve on the world stage. “We’re small,” she says, “but we do our bit by standing up for what we believe in.” She points to New Zealand’s long-standing nuclear-free policy as an example and wants to apply that same moral leadership to action on climate change. “We’re surrounded by island nations who will feel the brunt of climate change. So I see us as having a responsibility.” Of course New Zealand is a tiny contributor, overall, to the warming planet—and yet carbon-heavy industries like farming, horticulture, and forestry are the country’s biggest businesses. Ardern is ready to take those sectors on. “The most difficult thing for us to do is to mitigate and offset our agricultural emissions,” she says. “If we find a way to do that, then we’re showing other countries how to do it too.”
Exactly North – James, PR etc. are dissing things of interest to many women (fashion, clothes) as unworthy trivialities.
But they see no problem with similar things that are of interest to men (rugby, beer) where Key did photo-ops.
Their misogyny is as blatant as it is unconscious.
Oh – and she looks bloody great too – whereas Key looked like the doofus he also sounded like.
Key grasped every chance to be in the public eye. Both the sublime and the ridiculous and it seemed to work, damn him. I guess that those who read the trashy magazines may not gain an awareness in “our” ways. So go for it Jacinda – I am afraid.
While people are admiring her picture on the cover of vogue at the supermarket (I’m guessing most labour supporters would never actually buy a copy)- it takes their eye off the signing of the TPP that labour are so in favour of now despite all their promises and bowls of outrage.
You’re starting to look pretty troll-y there James. Too many implied lies there that are redesigned to rark people up. Might want to rethink how you want to comment here. It would be good if you did that before I start thinking about getting out the bold pen. But I am noticing a growing number of people pointing out the troll-like nature of your presence here.
“it takes their eye off the signing of the TPP that labour are so in favour of now despite all their promises and bowls of outrage.”
You’ve been called out on this before, and failed to respond.
Labour were never against the TPPA, but against the process. Provide a link to where they unequivocally and officially stated their aversion to the TPPA. I – like many others – waited for them to do so, and it didn’t happen. Attendence at protests is not the same as protesting or opposing. (…or the police are far more liberal and progressive than I gave them credit for)
That one is more real, because we have not had a lying, smug, ad*&^%, in office for 8 years. This hate against jacinda has no basis in fact – it may get there with time.
Unlike the former PM who not only had the blip’s list, but the utter disdain of a growing portion of the population.
Rosemary
You seem in the mood to appreciate this last bit from a rather dark post on Bowalley Road.
William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet, saw it all happening nearly a century ago, in the fretful aftermath of the First World War. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity”, he wrote in his most famous poem, The Second Coming.
The final lines of that poem can still send a chill down the spine:
… but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
She can and will do both. Who on earth would turn down golden opportunities to connect with voters the way women’s mags allow modern politicians to do? Jacinda is serving her supporters well by attending to their political needs and their need for encouraging stories.
As long as she doesn’t get into the stream of crap those magazines publish.
According to the cover stories I see at the Supermarket checkouts we will have two magazines saying how blissfully happy she and Clark are and two saying they have separated. Next month their will be the same two viewpoints but on the other pair of magazines.
Does she plan to be the David Beckham of the Posh/Becks variety?
Mind you at least Beckham was a superbly professional footballer and his wife a very skilled businesswoman. I don’t see anything like it in our pair.
God almighty did you not see all the magazines at the supermarket we had to suffer as visual pollution of the chosen one and his Stepford wife. At least Adhern’s partner is employed as we speak and not being a blessed ornament to the annointed one. The Stepford wife got a degree for god’s sake and then “with mutual decision making” decided to become a stay at home wife while the godhead blazed the stage of the money markets.
Give Jacinda Adhern a break, at least Vogue magazine has some mana in the print world and she will get maximum exposure for the forgotten lot of us down here.
Hard to see the real difference between Clark and Bronagh in at least one respect.
Brohagh stayed at home and brought up two children.
Clark is going to stay home and look after one child.
Do you really think that women who stay home with their children are to be despised? It certainly sounds like it.
Leave her alone. Just because you don’t like the National Party is no reason to spray your venom at someone who took no part in political life, seems to be a very pleasant person and has done absolutely nothing to you.
Well, alwyn, like WK I recall seeing many Women’s Weekly type magazines at the supermarket over the last nine + years featuring John Key and Bronagh (or Bronagh alone) on the cover with articles inside – with accompanying photographs of them or her in various changes of clothes.
Similarly over the last year there have been magazine articles (some with front cover photos and more photos inside ) featuring Bill and/or Mary English.
So take a step back and stop this ‘pot calling the kettle black’ approach.
Also:
1. Gayford’s first name is Clarke – not Clark. (Misspelt in your 7.3.1 as well)
2. How do you know that Jacinda is only having one child? Have you seen the ultrasound images? Do you know there are twins in Jacinda’s family (eg her father has a twin brother)?
3. As I detailed in my comment at 6.1.1.3.1.2 in OM on 13 Feb, Clarke is giving up most of his work to be the main caregiver – probably a not easy decision.
Three years ago he took a big gamble (with Jacinda’s agreement) to follow his dream of creating his own TV series combining travel, fishing and food, and marine sustainability and protection.
The third series of his series “Fish of the Day” is due to run here in NZ soon on Prime TV (it was previously on Choice TV) and in about 38 other countries through the National Geographic’s network (up from about 20 countries for the previous two series).
So he deserves credit ( as does Bronagh) for putting his dreams, ambitions etc aside to become the homemaker, caregiver etc in support of their partners.
My apologies to Clarke Gayford.
I didn’t mean to misspell it and to do it twice is very careless.
On the other hand I found Kate’s comment about Mrs Key quite offensive to all woman who see their most important role as bringing up children.
I see you pointed out Kate’s error as well.
Did you mean your criticism of me in a “nice” way as well?
Well alwyn, I had to give that a lot of deep thought overnight, and could not get hold of my lawyer to get her advice, but taking all things in to account, and putting you request into the context in which it was raised ..
OK, fair is fair, I am prepared to describe my criticism of you comments as meant in a “nice” way as well; and also as meant as “constructive criticism” – or should that be “instructive criticism”.
BUT – if it is twins, I will count on you to back me up when I claim to have predicted this before anyone else! LOL.
” I will count on you to back me up “.
That seems entirely fair. I will not treat you like Cassandra.
Both my sisters had twins. Ran them ragged.
I can’t remember whether the odds, when my siblings and I were having children, were about 1:80 that a birth would be twins or 1:80 that a person would be one of twins.
I believe that it has risen quite a lot since then, though. Older mothers and fertility treatments mostly.
I am not sure of the odds either – but only about four months to go. But my remarks on this were strictly tongue in cheek!
I have a cousin who swore that she did not want children despite being married and hubby was also of the same view etc. Lucky her (or rather them) had first one set of twins despite birth control; then a second set again despite birth control. Surgical intervention was then sought by both parties to prevent further accidents. Then divorce…
Have a nice day. Did you see my reply to your ‘randy goat’ remark on Daily Review last night? LOLZ
” Did you see my reply to your ‘randy goat’ ”
Yes, and I replied to it.
ps. There wasn’t an actual publication “The Double Standard”. There were only the mock newspaper posters.
This is why Labour made her leader, this is what her role is, smiling, laughing, mag shots and all the other superficial fakery.
The real stuff whatever that may be is going on behind the scenes, Arderns just the nice facade to make people feel all happy and positive, “Yay Jacinda she’s so lovely, what an inspiration !!!”
I’ve got to say, it’s a superb strategy, Helen Clark and Heather Simpson are seriously clever people.
Bullshit, BM. clark is out of the picture – mostly out of the country and dealing with her own (international) issues. Ardern decided to bring in Simpson – fine. An experienced pair of hands.
Ardern has a sharp brain and good tactical skills. She has a different approach and a different set of priorities to Clark’s, in her time. Stop spreading manure around and start trying to find your buch a leader who has half the smarts and yes, the charisma and communications skills, that Ardern has..
BM, I think you would say differently if you had the Prime Ministerial finger waggled at you. As she did with that sports jock. She is seriously a leader. Her leadership in the post-election dealing showed that.
I am with you in the sense that I don’t follow the fakery stuff as you call it either.
But modern media etc demand it. She’s good at it, as was Key.
Just don’t think that her skills end there…….. And I don’t agree with your assertion that she is controlled by Clark and Simpson, just as i did not believe that Key was controlled by, well, whichever conspiracy theory one may want to subscribe to.
There is a difference between control and influence, btw. People do, and should, seek good advice.
Yes BM so why did your leader go here to a secretive meeting in 2011 (as four ‘participants’) on public money representing as PM and didn’t tell us all??????
He is also the Chairman of the International Democrat Union, a consortium of 50 centre right parties which meet in Europe on a regular basis. He chaired it during his tenure as PM of this country. Fran O’Sullivan has written about this in her financial opinion pieces in the past. So much for being a centrist likeable bloke which many were suckered into believing.
I don’t have a problem with the whole Women’s Weekly thing. I want a PM who makes time to connect with different parts of the electorate. Lots of women read those magazines and don’t have other connections to politics.
I’ll be interested to see what the Vogue article actually says. The anti-Trump framing is very US looking for hope, but I think they are right. She’s not a Sanders, she’s the liberal inverse of Trump.
The support for a NZ designer will play well in many circles too. This is Ardern building political capital. I think this is smart if we want a second term with a higher majority. It’s not enough on its own, obviously we need the Labour govt to do some serious politics and change, but it’s not hurting Labour’s ability to do those things.
More of a problem imo is what Stephanie points to about values-based politics. I don’t see Labour getting that yet.
’ll be interested to see what the Vogue article actually says.
See my comment at 7.1.1.3 which provides a link to the actual article which is now online, plus my views on it and a quote from the article about NZ’s longstanding anti-nuclear stance and Ardern’s stance on climate change.
National’s questions went nowhere and elicited nothing: that’s why there is no news coverage about them.
Labour MPs fell into the same trap during the last Parliament: loaded questions just give the minister a free hit. For example: Kelvin Davis got the National Party’s habit of lying (“scaremongering”) into Hansard.
Yes, I know you don’t see it that way, and so what?
You should watch the coverage. It’s a wreckage. And it’s not about ‘eliciting’ anything, it’s about making government members look like fools. The only reason yesterday didn’t get worse was because Mallard was kind. But Kaye in particular really put a hit on Davis (Mallard had him backtracking on his first answer, then he said he had phoned a particular charter school and they “didn’t pick up the phone” – honestly he’s a walking target) and did again today. Between him and Hipkins, Labour have a real problem. Still, it won’t detract from the PM’s photo op’s, I’m certain of that.
No, she didn’t. She asked about ‘other associate ministers of education’. It was a question that, if allowed to go forward, may well have embarrassed her own minister!
No, it’s more that when National and their mouthpieces allege incompetence, I’m inclined to dismiss their bleating with contempt, on account of the deciduous forest sticking out of their eyes.
“it’s more that when National and their mouthpieces allege incompetence,”
I’d say you don’t have to support any political party to spot Hipkins and Davis as political corpses. The just released Cabinet Paper is going to provide more fun.
Hilarious. National expose an Associate Minister favouring two PS’s over another, all in his own electorate, and you call it ‘dishonest’ and ‘treating education like a political football’.
Let’s be clear, Davis is in serious trouble with this, and considering his Minister is ‘3 strikes’ Hipkins, Labour need to reign this in and fast.
In many areas Labour look to be performing well, but bumbling performances such as Hipkins and Davis are displaying won’t be tolerated with H2 in the background, I’ll bet.
(As is clear from her interjection in the House) Tracey Martin has been talking to some schools, Kelvin Davis to others.
I’d say in going after Davis in these circumstances they make ‘termination for convenience’ significantly more likely. Especially when it turns out they’ve been inflating their academic record by expelling the students they can’t teach.
“Tracey Martin has been talking to some schools, Kelvin Davis to others. ”
Davis has stated publicly he has been talking to them in his capacity as a constituent MP. Hipkins has stated it is the MoE doing the talking. What is Martin up to?
“Especially when it turns out they’ve been inflating their academic record by expelling the students they can’t teach.”
Cite?
And why won’t the government release the report on the PS’s that was due months ago?
I expect the answers to your whynes will form a large part of your reasons to beg for judicial review. Or perhaps they’ll just be more whining. That sounds more likely.
Why would there be a judicial review? We have a government who is talking with forked tongues (or maybe it’s just incompetence?), implementing poor policy to assuage a vested interest group who funds them, and riding roughshod over those who are being affected. This is normal government activity. No cause for a review.
How is complaining about Davis’ behaviour acting in bad faith? Again it sounds like you implying a threat.
And which schools have been approached by Tracy Martin? And why are either Martin or Davis engaging with the schools if Hipkins says he can’t because the work is being done by the ministry (that’s my understanding)?
Good story Anon. Have you seen the Cabinet Paper that has just been released on the changes? I’m reading through it and there has been some big porky pies told.
So, again, your concern is not the right or wrong but whether the government gets away with it. I get the impression that drives most of your commentary here.
The fact that Hornet pursues the same line and approach in his multiple comments and can never be satisfied apparently, does not say anything good about the defence of charter or partnership schools. That is not the thinking of a wise person with resilience adapting to the future while still keeping the important mores of the past. You are a bad
advertisement for them Hornet.
“It was hard to breathe, and each time he exhaled the moisture froze on his face: a chandelier of crystals hung from his beard; his eyebrows were encased like preserved specimens; his eyelashes cracked when he blinked.”
Reminded me of delivering newspapers in a 40c below Swedish night.
A few technical probs. ‘Not a bear in sight’. Antarctica is like that. The blonde bears are all up the top.
I expected bravado and stiff upper lip but instead it was a very credible human story which brought a tear or two to both my eyes. His family neatly included too.
Nothing in her response suggested she’d seen Blade Runner.
NB: I’m not sure when the original exchange was. I remember Danyl posting it on his blog at the time, it must have been at least four years ago, maybe longer. If memory serves, the readers couldn’t decide whether this was Collins wittily giving a response that made her sound like a replicant failing the test through lack of empathy, or just Collins lacking empathy. You can probably guess which I thought was more likely.
No, at the time that came out the joke was she hadn’t seen BR, she had no idea she had been punked. Interesting.the righties trying to rewrite history here, Collins a sci fi fan? Ha!
(heads up, she found it humourous, so normal people might find the subject of sexual assault disturbing, regardless of location or nature of the victim):
FINALLY… Zuma has stood down… about freakin time. Time for the ANC to sort their shite out, they’ve become a freaking embarrassment to that nation.
“South Africa will look back and wonder how we allowed a president so reprehensible to last so long in office,”
Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, author of Democracy and Delusion: 10 Myths in South African Politics, told Al Jazeera.
People will be dancing in the streets over there 🙂
I’ve been fairly intimately involved in South Africa (personally and professionally), spent a fair chunk of my time there too and I don’t think this will make a lick of difference unfortunately.
Corruption is so endemic in the ANC now that it is time for a fresh face. The Democratic Alliance is the party of the future however due to the extreme propaganda from the ANC over the last 5 or so years they haven’t a hope because (but not exclusively because I should add) they have whites in the party. It is something the ANC has drilled into the minds of the poorest of the poor even though under Zuma they have suffered while the ruling class have profited. It is such a shame to see the party of Mandela become a hollowed, corrupt and self interested beast.
Zuma was part of the struggle too but in the end he was a bad as the rest.
Not sure he’s cut out for it to be honest. He said some pretty emotive and nasty things about anti-vaxxers last year, and whatever one thinks about vaccination (and anti-vaxxers) that kind of public expression isn’t what NZers expect of politicians.
He also said he wanted to be the sole Māori Party leader rather than a co-leader, another hint he might not work well with others and probably tends to the authoritarian end of the scale.
That Oxfam workers have been apparently trading aid for sex doesn’t detract from the good things the organisation does. Humans always mess up projects, that is why AI has been invented so we don’t have humans around any more. As The Conchords sing ‘The humans are dead,dead,dead….”
As expected NZ is low on their CRI calculations. So is the USA.
He should have just chosen one or two major issues (charter schools is a good one) and a couple of populist ones to go on about but instead he chooses this…
Judith Collins is right when she said that Ardern is all about her, and not about what is best for NZ (words to that effect). Ardern is not elected by the people, and all she seems to care about is endless photoshoots. Totally empty, and Kiwis deserve better. She is out of her depth as PM, so she promotes herself as a glam girl instead. So much for ‘capitalism has failed’ eh. Bring back a real PM, who cares less about empty celebrity, photo ops and magazine covers! The public will tire of it fast, if not already, especially as our economy sinks.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[RWers are free to comment under my posts so long as they’re not posting derailments and they can relate their comment to the post. You’re also not going to get away with running Dirty Politics lines like Labour being an illegitimate government. If you don’t like Ardern, that’s fine but I don’t write so that *you can have a space to troll, spout nonsense and spin. Having looked at why you’ve had bans in the past, I’m making a note for future reference, expect a ban without warning if it happens again. – weka]
1 nil, 1nil, 1nil, stand up if you hate national, stand up if you hate national, stand up if you hate national, stand up if you hate national, clap your hands for Jandals, clap your hands for Jandals. clap your hands for Jandals and Winne is the 2nd coming.
Tanz what a load of bullshit. ” Bring back a real PM, who cares less about empty celebrity, photo ops and magazine covers!”
Who would that be then the planking Pm who took every bloody media opportunity he could or that Bill bloke who found poverty in the final week of the campaign and as finance minister plunged our economy into debt with Tax cuts for the rich all the while strangling our public hospitals and schools funding.
“Ardern is not elected by the people”
Pls define this and name a PM that has been “elected by the people”
“…and all she seems to care about is endless photoshoots….”
Cough ‘John Key’ cough….
Don’t get me wrong – I actually didn’t mind Key all in all (better than some of the weird fucks like Joyce and Collins) but never voted for him. But for fucks sake man, that guy was just as vacuous as you make Ardern to be
” …. all she seems to care about is endless photoshoots.”
That of course is an infantile comment based on not just simple bias, and pique as shown by your other comments, but mainly pure ignorance of what politicians, especially Prime Ministers, do.
More than that though, nominating what according to you Ms Ardern ‘seems to care about’, would be profound stupidity except that it reflects the profound stupidity and vacuous nature of the comment.
I hope you liked what I posted last nite and this morning I’m going to smell like cow ______ so getting ready to go see our taonga mokos so to busy to have more input than this All you Kiwis and Maori cultured people be proud of who you are and keep your noses clean Ka pai Hilary & Jeremy keep up the good work so hard case Jeremy I missed your kiwi wit Ka pai Ka kite ano
Are all you brown people who have or are working in our justice systems feeling STINK BRO well good YOU should have told the Whano exactly how the farcical justice system worked and our prisons won’t be over flowing Ana to kai
Morning Rumble people I drove a water truck for a bit in tauranga. The Tauranga sandflys though they would play a move and chase ECO Away but no like water off a ducks back. Ana to kai
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Rob MacCulloch writes – National and Labour and ACT have at various times waxed on about their “vision” of NZ as a high value-added world tech centerWhat subject is tech based upon? Mathematics. A Chicago mathematician just told me that whereas last decade ...
Eric Crampton writes – Danyl McLauchlan over at The Listener on the recent shift toward more contestability in public policy advice in education: Education Minister Erica Stanford, one of National’s highest-ranked MPs, is trying to circumvent the establishment, taking advice from a smaller pool of experts – ...
Ele Ludemann writes – That Kāinga Ora is a mess is no surprise, but the size of the mess is. There have been many reports of unruly tenants given licence to terrorise neighbours, properties bought and left vacant, and the state agency paying above market rates in competition ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result ...
The scathing “independent” review of Kāinga Ora barely hit the table before the coalition government had acted on it. The entire Kāinga Ora board will be replaced, and a new chair (Simon Moutter) has been announced. Hmm. No aspersions on Bill English, but the public would have had more confidence ...
I'll light the fireYou place the flowers in the vaseThat you bought todayA warm dry home, you’d think that would be bread and butter to politicians. Home ownership and making sure people aren’t left living on the street, that’s as Kiwi as Feijoa and Apple Crumble. Isn’t it?The coalition are ...
Politics is about compromise, right? And framing it so the voters see your compromise as the better one. John Key was a skilful exponent of this approach (as was Keith Holyoake in an earlier age), and Chris Luxon isn’t too bad either. But in politics, the process whereby an old ...
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 ...
It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result of his non-disclosure could even see ...
The relentless drone coming out of the Prime Minister and his deputy for a million days now has been that the last government was just hosing money all over the show and now at last the grownups are in charge and shutting that drunken sailor stuff down. There is a word ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to riot-torn New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. Today’s flight will carry around 50 passengers with the most ...
Precious declaration saysYours is yours and mine you leave alone nowPrecious declaration saysI believe all hope is dead no longerTick tick tick Boom!Unexploded ordnance. A veritable minefield. A National caucus with a large number of unknowns, candidates who perhaps received little in the way of vetting as the party jumped ...
Rex Ahdar writes – The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper ...
That is the only way to describe an MP "forgetting" to declare $178,000 in donations. The amount of money involved - more than five times the candidate spending cap, and two and a half times the median income - is boggling. How do you just "forget" that amount of money? ...
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also spoke about the problems Joe … Continue reading → ...
Hi,Two years ago I briefly featured in Justin Pemberton’s Web of Chaos documentary, which touched on things like QAnon during the pandemic.I mostly prattled on about how intertwined conspiracy narratives are with Evangelical Christian thinking, something Webworm’s explored in the past.(The doc is available on TVNZ+, if you’re not in ...
The Government is leaving the entire construction sector and the community housing sector in limbo. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English-led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll ...
New Zealand’s relationship with China is becoming harder to define, and with that comes a worry that a deteriorating political relationship could spill over into the economic relationship. It is about more than whether New Zealand will join Pillar Two of Aukus, though the Chinese Ambassador, more or less, suggested ...
Been hoping we would see something like this from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is excellent.The present Bill goes further than the National Development Act 1979 in stripping away procedures designed to ensure that environmental issues are properly considered. The 1979 approach was not acceptable then and this present approach is ...
He’s Got The Moxie: Only Willie Jackson possesses the credentials to meld together a new Labour message that is, at one and the same moment, staunchly working-class, union-friendly, and which speaks to the hundreds-of-thousands of urban Māori untethered to the neo-tribal capitalist elites of the Iwi Leaders Forum.IT’S ONE OF THE ...
Tree-huggers may well accuse the Government of giving them the fingers, after Energy Minister Simeon Brown announced new measures to protect powerlines from trees, rather than measures to protect trees from powerlines. It can be no coincidence, surely, that this has been announced at the same as Fisheries Minister Shane Jones ...
Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper who could take over the Labour ...
Barrister Gary Judd KC’s complaint to the Regulatory Review Committee has sparked a fierce debate about the place of tikanga Māori – or Māori customs, values and spiritual beliefs – in the law.Judd opposes the New Zealand Council of Legal Education’s plans to make teaching tikanga compulsory in the legal curriculum.AUT ...
Alwyn Poole writes – In New Zealand we have approximately 460 high schools. The gaps between the schools that produce the best results for students and those at the other end of the spectrum are enormous.In terms of the data for their leavers, the top 30 schools have ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be ...
Brian Eastonwrites – The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am ...
The split opening up in Israel’s “War Cabinet” is not just between PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his long-term rival Benny Gantz. It is actually a three-way split, set in motion by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. It was Gallant’s open criticism of Netanyahu that finally flushed Gantz out into the open. ...
On Thursday 17 May, the Mayoral Proposal for Auckland’s Long Term Plan 2024-2034 was passed by Auckland Council, 20 to 1. It is set to be formally adopted by the Governing Body at its June 27th meeting. The entire process took 8 hours, with the vast majority of that time ...
Pakanga o muaTukua, ka ngaroPuritia taku ringaNgaro ana te ara ki pae rauThere's a battle aheadMany battles are lostBut you'll never see the end of the roadWhile you're travelling with meLate yesterday morning I headed to Wynyard Quarter to see Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick give their pre-budget State of ...
Maybe the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister expected the worst, so they mounted a stout defence of the Budget tax cuts to their party faithful at a party conference over the weekend. In turn, they were greeted with applause, which, though it may have been less than wildly enthusiastic, ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 12, 2024 thru Sat, May 18, 2024. Story of the week “The legislation I signed today [will] keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and ...
TL;DR: Here’s six links that stood out to me in the last day in Aotearoa’s political economy to 6:06am on Sunday, May 19:Aotearoa-NZ is the seventh worst in the OECD’s homelessness rankings, just behind the United States and just ahead of Australia. BlackRock thinks rate hikes actually worsen inflation because ...
Halfway up a historic tower in York, we are neither up nor down. At the top you will have views of a city steeped in antiquity, made and remade by Romans, Normans, Vikings, Tescos. Below, you will find a retired minister happy to tell you all about this most astonishing ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Does breathing contribute to CO2 ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
Photo by Marino Linic on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Following a horrific case of stalking that ended in tragedy, Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen has drafted a bill that would add stalking to the Crimes Act. ...
The Rt Hon Winston Peters, joined by Mike King, has announced $24 million over four years for the ‘I Am Hope Foundation’, and will provide young people aged between 5 to 25 years with free mental health counselling services. This funding will help I Am Hope’s ‘Gumboot Friday’ initiative give ...
Te Pāti Māori have launched a petition to stop the repeal of Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. This announcement comes prior to the first reading of the Section 7AA repeal bill in Parliament today. “Section 7AA forces the Government to adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi with respect ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The coalition Government is investing in social housing for New Zealanders who are most in need of a warm dry home, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. Budget 2024 will allocate $140 million in new funding for 1,500 new social housing places to be provided by Community Housing Providers (CHPs), not ...
Thousands more young New Zealanders will have better access to mental health services as the Government delivers on its commitment to fund the Gumboot Friday initiative, says Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey. “Budget 2024 will provide $24 million over four years to contract the ...
The Coalition Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill, which will improve tenancy laws and help increase the supply of rental properties, has passed its first reading in Parliament says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “The Bill proposes much-needed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 that will remove barriers to increasing private ...
Standing here in Cassino War Cemetery, among the graves looking up at the beautiful Abbey of Montecassino, it is hard to imagine the utter devastation left behind by the battles which ended here in May 1944. Hundreds of thousands of shells and bombs of every description left nothing but piled ...
I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill Mr. Speaker, I move that the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the Bill. Thank you, Mr. ...
The Bill to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has had its first reading in Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the care and safety of children in care, says Minister for Children Karen Chhour. “When I became the Minister for Children, I made ...
Kia ora koutou, good morning, and zao shang hao. Thank you Fran for the opportunity to speak at the 2024 China Business Summit – it’s great to be here today. I’d also like to acknowledge: Simon Bridges - CEO of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. His Excellency Ambassador - Wang ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing them ...
The Coalition Government will introduce legislation this year that will enable roadside drug testing as part of our commitment to improve road safety and restore law and order, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In ...
The Government has announced a series of immediate actions in response to the independent review of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “Kāinga Ora is a large and important Crown entity, with assets of $45 billion and over $2.5 billion of expenditure each year. It ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is pleased that Pseudoephedrine can now be purchased by the general public to protect them from winter illness, after the coalition government worked swiftly to change the law and oversaw a fast approval process by Medsafe. “Pharmacies are now putting the medicines back on their ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Da jia hao. Good morning everyone. Prime Minister Luxon, your excellency, a great friend of New Zealand and my friend Ambassador Wang, Mayor of what he tells me is the best city in New Zealand, Wayne Brown, the highly respected Fran O’Sullivan, Champion of the Auckland business ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
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Everyone should bank with the TSB or KiwiBank and stop $ 3.5 billion going overseas.
“New Zealand’s four major Australian owned banks paid nearly $3.5 billion in dividends to their parent companies last year – a 28 per cent jump on 2016.”b
Hows the google search going?
Ask the mullet.
But it is your policy suggestion. You said that the government should “act and stop tinkering” and nationalise the banks. I asked you a range of questions about how you would want them to achieve this. You suggested then that the onus was on me to research what it is that you might want the government to do; and you said that “It has been done before in many countries” while refusing to name such a country.
That makes you a troll by definition of this site:
I actually agree that provision of credit should not be left solely to the commercial banks, but the difference is that I wouldn’t demand the government “act” without saying what actions I wanted them to take.
I agree with Ed, we should be banking with Kiwibank.
Forcing someone is an inefficient way of getting anyone to do anything. Much better that we be doing something with a smile and because we want to.
I think Kiwibank are under utilising their primary point of difference. They have the clout of a government and could be creating compelling reasons for people to deal with Kiwibank. Not because they have to but because they want to.
“Forcing someone is an inefficient way of getting anyone to do anything.”
So in fact you disagree with Ed in the context of replying to my post, which was referring to his statements yesterday that the government should nationalise the banks. It seems he has changed his tune after not being able to say what he meant by this.
Yeah Ed makes bold sweeping statements, great conversation starters.
Lots of my adventurous ideas fall over under a bit of scrutiny too. I don’t regret tabling them and sometimes a hybrid floats.
Thanks David
‘a smiley face and a wave emoji’ (I’m not sure how to do them.)
The UK has Nationalised Banks, in the past. Along with at least one US State, North Dakota (Though I am not sure if you could call that “Nationalisation?).
The UK nationalised or part nationalised a couple of banks that were on the edge of collapse. That is a completely different thing to nationalising ALL banks in a market where all those banks are very healthy. In fact, Ed wants to nationalise the banks here because they are doing so well.
I spoke to Google Ed, they said you were a dalcop.
Oh please, Ed doesn’t need to listen to your pesky demands.
I was with Kiwibank but I went to TSB as they had a good deal on mortgages at the time but when I ran into some difficulties TSB treated me pretty shabbily.
Once the earthquake hit and the value of my house increased suddenly they couldn’t do enough for me but I switched to ANZ and have got a good deal with them so why should I go back to a bank that doesn’t care about me
You want to be treated like a doormat go right ahead, I’ll stick with ANZ (until I find something better)
Me.
Me.
Me.
The neoliberal generation.
All about me.
No care for society.
They grew up in the heyday of neoliberalism and are devotees of this selfish cult.
Chris (born in 73 ) is 44.
James, who ‘doesn’t care’, is 48.
You’re right I should accept being treated shabbily by a bank, I should be a doormat because “NZ”, how about Ed that NZ banks actually learn to treat customers properly and try keeping customers with good deals or do NZ banks not make any money
Absolutely correct that if I’m treated poorly I’ll go elsewhere because I have a choice, the NZ banks have a choice and the NZ banks chose to treat me shabbily but ANZ chose to treat me well
Solidarity.
Ponder this concept for a day or so and reflect on this quote.
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Reductio ad Hitlerum 🙄
Yes, Godwin’s law. Ed should stop now.
Your last comment made the point
5 I
2 me
0 we
Ed I agree with your sentiment re bank profits belonging to NZ, but your posts re Chris and James are shabby.
No need to post others personal details, also if you want to open the age warfare can of worms I sure wouldn’t bash the gen x ers especially if I was baby boomer( honestly don’t know if you are or not). Which generation got free education state housing and super? Gen x and onwards have to think of themselves, something those before did not.
100% fact there Ed.
I see it the same way.
The 30- 40 something generation don’t know about “Pay it forward” do they so we have them pushing a “dog eats dog” philosophy so we are in for a rough ride if jacinda cant get us back to the “caring society” again.
Jacinda needs to “lead by example” on all her promises for a Government that is a warm, caring, inclusive, transparent, listening to the voices of all people, – Government ‘that will look after all provincial regions equally’ and then she will shut national out of contention.
with home loans I go with who has the package that works the best for me. A kiwibank loan (last time I looked) was in the high 10’s of thousands more expensive over the term of the loan.
Thus if you choose to pay that much money just to bank with a kiwi bank you are financially stupid (which could explain Ed’s facilitation with people being paid). That additional cost is simply interest.
If you wanted to do good with it you would be better off keeping the $ and donating or using it locally for good causes locally as opposed to paying considerably more because it’s a kiwi bank.
Kiwibank is the worst for home loans and total shit for business banking.
It’s my birthday coming up – some nice cuff links would be a beautiful present.
A violent golf course?
Can be done, but we call them ‘handcuffs!’
No doubt. You should try hanging around less wasters and criminals then.
“fewer” and policemen have handcuffs – show some respect please, old man.
No imagination! Not heard of fluffy handcuffs?
I found ANZ to be like WINZ when I asked then for a home loan. TSB were much easier to deal with. Just waiting to hear if they will let me use the equity in my house to clear some debt that I cannot get out from under (and yes, I blame myself for the poor choices I made there. Not all lefties blame others).
Wait until
* You try to leave
* You get random debts placed on your account for no reason
* Ask to get statements which take weeks for them to come up with
* Go though a call center for everything
* Try to use their god awful website and mobile banking application
Seriously, fuck tsb.
* You try to leave
I dont intend to leave. Too much of a hassle.
* You get random debts placed on your account for no reason
Not too sure what you mean. The debts that go on my account, are placed for transparent reasons
* Ask to get statements which take weeks for them to come up with
I can go on the website and download them in minutes
* Go though a call center for everything
They are working on it,
* Try to use their god awful website and mobile banking application
I found it to be fine. Room for improvement, but they are getting there. Their 2-factor authentication pisses me off tho.
Right-wingers necessarily dislike banks not owned by the big conglomerates, and will make up whatever crap about them.
Fuck off idiot. I’ve had their managers ringing me about this shit. One of their staff was fired for being so fucking inept.
They borrow all their money from overseas btw. Get a clue.
That is why I would nationalise the banks.
– You cannot download a years worth of statements from their website
– They are not working on it – they’ve done this for the last 7 years
“You cannot download a years worth of statements from their website”
And I thought you were somehow involved in IT?
I just checked to see if you statement above was correct and I download and printed my entire current account for last year in seconds.
Of course you can get your statements mailed to you every month if you are somehow incapable of downloading them.
Well chris – I have been a customer of TSB for years now and have never had a problem with them. The fact that there is no bank office nearby where I live has never been a problem when I need to deposit money nor when I travel either in NZ or overseas.
TSB consistently scores highly wrt customer satisfaction and I have to say you are the first that I have ever heard express a negative opinion. Perhaps that might say more about you than about TSB.
lol. their survey is total bullshit. their ex-wellington manager told me they remove negative replies to their surveys.
You will need to see a branch for anything related to your home loans. There’s no other way around it.
You will need to see a branch for anything related to your home loans. There’s no other way around it.
An inconvience, yet, but whats wrong with that. As long as they dont act like WINZ I am fine.
Their closest one to me is 50km away. Only open until 5pm, no weekends. Very handy.
I don’t have home loans
And when I did I was able to negotiate those over the phone. As I do with my investments.
You cannot do anything over the phone like that, stop lying. If it requires a signature, you need your ass on a chair in their office.
Nope, you go through an authentication process over the phone and everything is recorded. No face-to-face meetings or branch visits required (with BNZ).
Exactly!
And infused was lying when he said that TSB tampered with the survey returns.
The surveys are notdone by TSB but by a not-for-profit consumer organisation.
Infused is full of bullshit
Of course you can!
They have my signature on file, they can identify who I am over the phone, (I have transferred 10’s of thousands of dollars from off shore into another bank in the same manner) and if I go through a proper authentication process – signing in front of a JP or Police officer who can verify my identity – and that is faxed or emailed. it is no different to going into the office and signing in front of a bank official.
So the TSB owns Consumer NZ?
Interesting!
Consumer NZ is an independent, not for profit organisation.https://www.consumer.org.nz/
https://www.tsb.co.nz/about/news/consumer-nz-2017
Re Banks… locals banks sponsor local events, big shout out to the NBS (Nelson Building Society) for supporting so many many local events in our region.
The larger banks ie BNZ do not, thanks for the offer of your logo emblazzened BNZ marque, but that’s all you offer as support in our community, doesn’t matter how many hundreds of thousands we put through your bank. Or how many millions/billions you make from those using the BNZ.
This year we will be moving all of our organisations accounts from the BNZ over to the NBS for that reason.
Personally I’ve been with KiwiBank for many years and they’ve been brilliant.
There is also the AUST tax issue. NZ and AUST have a tax treaty which means a aust registered entity payes taxes to the aust tax office not NZ’s. (like recently highlighted apple 27mil earnings in nz with $0 tax paid in nz.
That blows.
Agree. TSB didn’t treat me at all well, either.
It should be noted they get their funds, just like Ozzie banks, from the international banking system, not the New Zealand Government. So you are not necessarily keeping banking within New Zealand by using them.
Funding a New Zealand bank from Government borrowing as a, non profit, co-operative would remove the offshore banks altogether, as they will be unable to compete.
The reaction from overseas moneyed interests however, will make Greece look tame. Though Iceland seems to have got away with it, for now?
Note that; Suddam Hussain was toppled not because of anything he did as a Dictator. The west supports much worse. But because he threatened the US economy, with low interest loans to other African States and the bypassing the petrodollar.
And he wanted to use the Euro for trading his oil shipments instead of the US dollar as the Euro at the time was trading better than US and this would further weakling the US economy ATM.
Why would I want money to be in NZ rather than Australia?
Are Australians less deserving than New Zealanders? Do we want to take their money away??
A.
What is a “country”Antoine? Is it a set of lines outlining a land mass or something more? Should a government govern for its citizens or all the citizens of the world?
Why wouldn’t kiwis want the benefits of their hard work to stay in NZ?
As an Australasian, I’m happy for my money to stay in Australasia.
(Or to leave the region, in exchange for something I want for somewhere else)
There is no country or political entity called Australasia. It is in the same sector as Oceania.
OK, I’m an Oceanian then
Be bold, be a Zealandian
Pull the other one, this piece of land you are trying to flog off to me is largely underwater
Keeps us away from aus.
If you drill down into who the major sharehoders and bond holders of the big 4 banks are, you may be surprised.
It should not be of surprise value…
The banks are not, Australian owned..
They are owned, just like the vast majority of listed companies around the world…’owned’ and controlled by a handful of entities…
They are large global finance institutions
The cost of getting my kid to an Aussie school would be astronomical. It would take 2 days for a policeman to show up.
I can see sense in my bank fees building NZ schools and paying a NZ based Policeman.
(Puzzled) Your bank fees go to the bank, not to pay for schools or police.
A.
The bank is owned by the same people that build schools and pay policemen. You and me.
Kiwibank pays SFA dividends back to its owners.
A.
Yeah, it makes SFA. That’s why I’m pitching as I am. Just 20% of that 5 billion would benefit all NZers rather than just those with Aussie bank shares.
Any self respecting citizen in a self respecting country would be appalled at the loss of $5 billion to wealthy overseas interests.
To read the comments of many here shows how low we have fallen since Douglas betrayed this country.
‘Why would I want money to be in NZ rather than Australia?’
Hope you don’t need to go to a NZ hospital or a road anytime soon.
Went over this with David Mac already, see above
yep Ed been with TSB for 15yrs now.
Very happy so I recommend for all to switch to TSB.
Nice staff.
I’ve banked with Kiwibank since it started, but my house is freehold and I don’t have significant savings so easy for me to do. Their Free Up accounts don’t have fees so all it costs me is the odd other bank ATM charge and card replacement costs.
TSB is the worst bank in NZ next to Kiwibank.
Coincidence?
TSB is not NZ owned.
I think you have never dealt with ANZ if you think Kiwibank & TSB are the worst… Or ASB when the people trying their best are tied up by stupid rules from above
I’m with ANZ and have nothing but great service.
I’m of the opinion that individual results vary no matter which bank you are with
YMV indeed, but the vast vast majority of feedback I have ever heard from people that have dealt with ANZ (including myself way back when they took over National Bank) is that they are horrible. There are very few people that seem to have positive dealings.
I can’t remember where (so this is just my own musings) but I am sure that the ANZ has consistently been at the bottom of any customer satisfaction surveys/rankings for NZ banks
Be that as it may I’m a happy customer with no plans to move.
(though I did get a home loan through Kiwibank as they were offering the best deal at the time and they were hopeless – or at least the woman managing the account was hopeless).
I’d vote ANZ the worst customer service and least ethical bank in NZ.
ASB switched to a one manager 10000’s of customers and all decisions are centrally managed via email only. Time frames are long for decisions andmanagers change constantly compared with when they were not trying to squeeze every last cent out of NZ.
ANZ are great.
So great they remove massive wads of money out of our country.
I understand that TSB is one that is totally under NZ control. Who do you think owns TSB?
Sorry to see your TSB experience was a poor one, Infused, but why lie about the 100% NZ-owned and independent TSB bank?
https://www.tsb.co.nz/about/history
On the recommendation of another satisfied customer, and the strength of their zero-fees accounts, I switched to TSB about 17 years ago. They’ve been great. I like that when you phone them with a request, a person always answers the phone (no machines, no waiting).
One thing I don’t like is their prize draws – would prefer slightly interest rates on balances than the chance to win a car. If I wanted to gamble, I’d by Lotto tickets.
Sorry – they source their funds from overseas. Some hong kong bank.
How can it be worse than banks that take $3.5 billion out of our economy every year?
Think about what we could do with our hospitals with 3.5 billion.
Credit Unions are another good option to support local banking.
I think you need $5k to open an account with tsb.
Trouble at Russell McVeigh
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11994831
And at Fletchers
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/350429/fears-job-losses-will-stem-from-fletcher-s-fall
Time for the old boys’ club to be torn down in this country.
Put this CEO Norris in stocks and give us all rotten tomatoes to throw at him Ed.
He needs a strong dose of ridicule so no one else comes along as he has to suck up to a corrupt leader like he did with (John Key) to take our public money to get a sweetheart deal to build this “convention centre” while also being allowed to install many more gambling machines.
He has blood on his hands this evil man.
I know business is not your strong point but if you don’t even know the difference between a ceo and a board chairman I would suggest night classes before you start commenting on financial and business matters.
I think he should start with remedial reading lessons. Then he could continue with learning how to respond to people who query the source of some of his bizarre claims. I am still waiting for him to tell me when Stephen Joyce was the Minister of Broadcasting.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26-01-2018/#comment-1439808
That would be for the same 9 years Gerry Brownlee was the minister of climate change (according to a certain poster in here – who refuses to admit they were wrong)
Didn’t the last National Government kill off night classes James?
Do you not pay attention to what those you cheer for actually do?
There are still night classes – just not all the yoga classes paid for my the government.
You don’t rate yoga ?
What’s wrong with you, James ?
Not all yoga is bad
Combine that with a barbie, and James’ll be in like Flynn!
Ask and you shall receive
https://www.facebook.com/events/402624236775556/
After all that meat eating, he needs some healthy activity.
“Kill off night classes”
A lot of schools used the Governments cutting out the funding off hobby classes to scrap all the courses they ran. They used the excuse that people wouldn’t be able to afford them.
Their clients weren’t given any option. The schools often didn’t want them because it meant that rooms would have to be available after 3.30pm and the staff couldn’t all head for home. Someone would have to be available to make sure that the placed was securely locked up after the classes finished in the evening.
A number of the more civic minded schools certainly kept them going and they remain very popular.
What would you like to learn. Here are a couple of options from schools in the Wellington area.
Wellington High School. A great school serving their community and the only one I have been personally involved with.
http://www.cecwellington.ac.nz/course-catalogue
Tawa College
http://www.tawacomed.co.nz/OurCourses
Yet a PriceWaterHouse Cooper study in 2009 apparently calculated a return of $16 for every dollar spent on ACE.
The benefits of your “hobby courses” are long-term and more than just improving individual finances.
Knowing this the National led government more than decimated the funding, and then (without any kind of cost/benefit analysis), created the Inspire scholarship, increased funding to private schools, created charter schools and required beneficiaries to attend “ready to work” workshops ad nauseum.
Gives a fairly clear view of what “education” means to National.
BTW, had a look at your courses links and you are right – a comprehensive and impressive list offered by Wellington High School, but the prices remove lot of potential participants. Night school was notable for it’s accessibility.
Tawa College’s prices are more in line.
I would consider these to be anomalies now, rather than the norm. The removal of funding reduced the numbers of classes offered, increased the costs of those classes, and reduced the access to community education for many NZers.
Pointing out a couple of comprehensive programmes does not change that.
I would agree that the prices might discourage some people.
However I don’t think that the removal of funding was the cause of the classes going. That was a deliberate choice of many of the school organisations who did not give anyone who was attending their classes the option of paying a bit more.
They used the excuse of the cutting of funding as an excuse to dump them because they found them a nuisance to provide.
They even dumped the courses where the subsidy was not cut. That included the core literacy and numeracy options and te reo.
Have a look at this extract from a story at the time
“The Government’s $13.1 million funding cut for Adult Community Education, announced in the 2009 Budget, has seen the number of community-based courses plummet.
More than 100 of 212 schools offering continuing education last year have pulled out and just 24 are still receiving government funding, with another 24 in “partnerships” with funded schools.
Maryke Fordyce, president of the Continuing Education Association through Schools, said it was yet to be seen how many classes would survive. Last year 200,000 people attended subsidised night classes in schools, but only 25,000 places were subsidised this year.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3323417/Cuts-end-popular-night-classes
They cut about $65/person and HALF the schools immediately dumped them. Do you really think that cutting the subsidy for cake-decorating classes was so terrible?
“Do you really think that cutting the subsidy for cake-decorating classes was so terrible?”Yes, One of the great things about night classes is that the unemployed and sick could attend them,
For the unemployed this offered one of the only ways to get re-training, not to mention the social interaction.
For the sick, many course were more accessible, countering the issue of social isolation (if your unfamiliar with this its the human reaction to “hide” to cut yourself off when sick/unwell)
Course with no obvious financial benefit like “cake decorating” (a small percentage may have gone on working in bakery’s so the skills do have some economic benefit) have a social (social isolation is a big topic and a major driver of the benefit trap) and learning aspect and can be a great way to get people back into education.
that 13.5mil unspent now probably cost’s the govt 2 – 3 times that in mental health support (unfortunately I have no evidence to back this up, Thier is UK study http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-09-20-health-benefits-evening-classes-revealed) but NZ has diffrent social issues than the UK so the study’s stats may not apply.
“Do you really think that cutting the subsidy for cake-decorating classes was so terrible?”
Agree with Leonhart. Yes.
The social interaction and accessibility is one of the primary benefits to adult education.
And yes, schools may have “dumped” them for the reasons you state, but they are already underresourced and teachers undervalued. It amazes me how often people expect those who are already doing so much, to do more.
Link to a report from 2011, into the funding cuts puts in clearly:
You also haven’t addressed the cost benefit analysis of ACE, and the failure to perform any cost benefit analyses on the education experiments they did fund. (Note: Made a mistake in previous comment Aspire scholarship fund – not Inspire)
James, as you don’t know the difference between honesty and truth (agitators plight)..
You’re not in a position to suggest that anyone else should ‘take classes’…
Now the insult is to attend night classes, that the last national government closed down. You’re truly a priceless amoral scrub aren’t you james.
He is. And I wish he would stop loitering on this site.
Hey, déjà vu all over again!
I interact regularly with other posters.
I ignore for the most part pointless or aggressive posts
Google is your friend.
Yes you have made my point.
I won’t do work for lazy posters who are merely seeking to derail and distract from the fundamental issue.
And we have better things to discuss.
So what’s your excuse for everyone else who asks you to expand on your drive-by comments?
I’ve heard Russell McVeigh has a poor reputation for honesty, I’d avoid.
Morning Breakfast people I whatched Te Karere last nite.
Many thanks to Ian Hutson he Tells the story of the reality of being a maori cultured person in Aotearoa and in reality we get the short end of the stick all the time
even some of my Whano whom are quite successful and have received the short end of the stick are in denial thats how brain washed the people of NZ are NZ is a fair and Just society YEA RIGHT.
He says that crime is dropping and confirms my statements on that subject.
They are still predicting OUR Maori prison population to continue to rise .
The Ngaru tai / Tidal wave of Maori prison population that has increased under shonky key and bills 9 YEARS this will take time to subside .
So ECO MAORI says to all the Maori cultured people on Papatuanuku keep your noses clean and make YOUR tepuna proud of you and be proud of yourselves .Then in time our Maori prison population will start dropping .
There is still talk of building a billion $ prison I say spend the money on improving the peoples and the mokos lives instead of spending all this money locking them up is the humane way to solve this problem
Its not ROCKET SCIENCE its common sence .
The Salvation Army is the Indigenous protection society and ECO MAORI is backing the Salvation Army 100% please make donations to the Salvation Army to help Tonga in her time of need
Good interview with the CTV building collapsing during the Christchurch earth quake that scenario is the neo libral western laws being made by the wealthy to protect the wealthy what a farcial system . There is a another scenario running in Tonga at the moment the neo libral civil servants MAFT pandering to Trump and trying to stop the reality that Global Warming is pokeing the people of Papatuanuku in the eyes .They are telling TVNZ 1 Pacific reporter what she can and cannot report in Tonga Barbra Dreaver told MAFT were to go you go Lady Mana wahine
Kia kaha. Ka kite ano Here is the link to Ians from the salvation armys interview
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/te-karere/home/new-salvation-army-report-highlights-nz-issues
The idea of incarceration as rehabilitation is ridiculous, it always has been. But its supported by the public because of two ideas.
1) The criminal must “pay” by suffering hardship for their crime.
2) They are a danger to society and must be removed from it.
1. is understandable but misguided, no one pays for crime by being made to suffer you pay for crime by making reparations/recompense, obviously some crimes (like murder) this is an intangible figure (although there are novel solutions for this like indentured servitude), but in many crimes a value can be associated to the crime, but this is never met as we ruin people lives for the sake of “justice”
2. Can be true, but not in most cases and the people we are talking about should be in psychiatric wards receiving treatment not sitting in a 6 by 4 box.
IN our current system we lock people up for Years, without much support (apart from Drug & alcohol programmes and recently a literary program) then release them when their time is up with a bit of money sometimes (see pathway to freedom programme – many are not eligible)
Without completing the pathway programme, according to reports you get dropped of at the local bus station with a ticket back to your hometown (sometimes) and are told to goto MSD for support (you are still subject to a stand down period) sometimes assigned housing for a short term is provided (depending on demand) other times they get released and… nothing, nowhere to live, no support apart from overworked and underfunded corrections departments.
NZ has a 65% recidivism rate because we do not reintegration ex-prisoners back into society and give little/no opportunities for future employment. If you have a conviction, most employers will not even look at your CV.
Are we want to jail more people? For longer and longer using the disproven and failed notion that longer sentences reduce crime? yes apparently, because they must pay… but never actually “pay”
by “pay” its not just financial but moral restitution should be considered as well. In the form of teaching & community work, public speaking etc. To atone for the moral implications of the crime not just financial.
cavate, some crimes are heinous and you cannot “pay” but this should not stop an attempt to even if it takes the person’s entire life trying to atone, this would be justice.
sitting in a box is not. (at a cost of $110,000 per year to the taxpayer)
Agree. The conversation in public is never very deep. MoC reform towards the less costly and more efficient rehabilitation and support would be a policy that I would like to see proposed and implemented.
Pakatoa Island would be a good NZ version of Bastøy prison, already has the accommodation and infrastructure. 🙂
Just now, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/101482467/manawat-prisons-flaws-pointed-out-after-inspection
Very shocking, we are treating offenders worse than animals, no wonder gang culture is so strong and they are so angry when they get out.
1080 – just wondering.
Yesterday while driving from Colville north to Fletchers Bay on the Coromandel, we noticed a lot of warning signs advising visitors to be aware of 1080 baits in the area.
“Carcasses and baits could be fatal for dogs.”
We saw several hawks feeding on the carcasses of possums as we drove.
Were those birds likely to be affected?
I’d say yes at a guess, I know around these parts if there has been a drop people avoid trout fishing (as trout can eat rodents) as well as hunting (especially with dogs) for a few months due to that reason.
It would be hard to know if the possums were roadkill or 1080 victims if they were on the side of the road. But at a guess they would more likely be roadkill, but anything is possible.
Hawks can be poisoned as by-kill from other kinds of baits. Not sure about 1080.
The toxic assault on the national party has begun today with News hub siding with Judith Collins as their listeners top choice for National party leader.
Now we have a toxic leader for the National Party emerging as an aggressive leader.
We are now seeing a “generational shift” says News-hub but that made me laugh as Labour have already set the standard for the generational shift but it seems that national are taking the same direction but Collins is an old woman isn’t she?
Wake up national and new-hub also will you.
Interesting year ahead with all this toxicity emerging in the national party.
Looking good for a second term for labour now.
Perhaps like others, I voted in that poll for Judith Collins simply because I want to see the National party implode.
Or maybe I’m sinister like that.
Interesting hearing David Parker on RNZ this morning saying the Government would not be bailing out Fletcher’s. He said the shareholders knew they were taking a risk with investing in shares and the Government were not about to bail them out. Sounded pretty “to the point” with no arguments. Maybe there is going to be an easing on Corporate Welfare – interesting indeed.
why would Fletcher’s need bailing out anyway? They are still going to make a profit this year. Just a lot less than last year. It is only the B&I division that is causing trouble. The other divisions are humming along. Any talk of bail outs etc is just media being silly.
bail them out, nationalise them and call them something like… The Ministry of Works!
Totally agree.
This is an opportunity for the government to assume much greater control of housing in NZ.
Clearly the Australians and Chinese will be building Twyford’s houses and railways.
The cycles of life, Fletchers grew their teeth building Savage’s houses. Fewer pokie emporiums and more houses ain’t so bad.
No, this will merely provide Twyford with a convenient excuse.
When he is asked about the failure to build any affordable houses in the next couple of years he will probably claim something like.
“Everything was on track and we were going to greatly exceed the 100,000 target but Fletcher Building deliberately sabotaged the plan in collusion with the New Zealand National Party. They are saboteurs and are totally responsible for the total lack of progress by our great coalition. Jacinda will be on the cover of Women’s Weekly again though so the masses will be appeased”.
Hahahaha, nah he doesn’t need to do that. He need only stick to the story that all incoming governments trot out.
‘Now that we can have an indepth look at the situation we’ve discovered that things are much worse than we were led to believe.’
It’s a line that gets cut through because it can be applied to all facets of government and leaves dirt sitting with the new opposition.
It is a perfectly reasonable for a while. If things are in a mess, as they were when National took over in 1990 and 2008 it can be quite valid.
Rather harder for Labour of course, since things were in general in good shape in 1999 and 2017. They can claim it about housing for a bit of course. That is the one thing where National took their eye off the ball.
It does wear a bit thin though after a while. I would say that nothing is unchangeable in about 2 years. If you haven’t made major strides after that time it becomes your fault and you deserve the blame.
The time varies with the situation. By now Labour should have started buying lots of land in Auckland for housing.
And they shouldn’t be wasting hundreds of millions on the America’s Cup.
People on the loony left are still blaming Roger Douglas for crying out loud. He ceased to have any power 30 years ago. If you didn’t like what he did you are perfectly entitled to ask every Government since that time why they didn’t change it. None of them can say it was his fault any longer and that they really truly wanted to do something else. They can hold their heads up and say they didn’t change it because he was right. That is what they all really thought and they should be honest enough to say so
Rather harder for Labour of course, since things were in general in good shape in 1999 and 2017.
By what deranged standard could the housing mess National left for Labour to clean up be described as “in good shape?”
Why don’t you read what I said? Is it too hard.
My precise words, in my comment you are replying to, were
“They can claim it about housing for a bit of course. That is the one thing where National took their eye off the ball”
How can you possibly interpret that as saying that “housing was in good shape”?
And read it carefully. I didn’t say that Labour could talk about “Housing a bit”. I said “FOR a bit” meaning a bit of time
and…the housing mess, and yes it is a mess, didn’t just appear under national’s watch. This is a failure of successive governments, and it isn’t going to be fixed anytime soon.
it could be. very very quickly. But it would annoy alot of people.
1) Ban Airbnb without a licence as a commercial business (with taxes, inspections the same as a motel etc applied)
2) Eminent domain any house that is left uninhabited for 6 months with regular tenants living in the home, this includes holidays homes that are left unoccupied (to stop people calling their auckland land banks properties holidays homes)
3) Introduce a CGT of 10% one home per adult 18+ (must have citizenship) owner (who owns at least 50% of the property) exempt but compounding per home owned 1 = 0, 2 = 10% 3 = 20% etc.
4) Scrap letting fees
5) Reevaluate the TT so some of its more controversial decision have a modicum of sense (like “no dogs” but tenant can have dogs then damage the property and not pay)
6) introduced a govt funded and managed Tenancy “check” for both landlords and tenants to enter good/bad data at the end of each tenancy.
7) Make civil enforcement more binding and more realistic, Example a tenant who can damage a property can be charged with paying back for all the damage but can then turn around and say ok $5 a week for 100 years.
8) Landlords who “double dip” should be charged with fraud (claim damage costs from the tenant and then get the same from insurance)
9) mandatory renters insurance (maybe even built into the tenancy agreement, with a liability cover)
10) Extreme – circumstances) Create the ability for a landlord/tenant to be stripped of the ability to rent out a property in case of landlord fraud, multiple breaches etc.
I agree with some of those suggestions, but in reality the biggest problem has been the failure to plan by local councils, aided and abetted by inept governments. That has led to a shortfall of housing, which pushes up prices and makes housing unaffordable. Wham. In Auckland we now have the indecent spectacle of developers building multi-story boxes to pack people in to a level of density that is utter madness. Add that to AT’s obsession with building cycling lanes that no-one uses, and the Council’s obsession with building public transport infrastructure in a city not designed for it, and we have a right mess.
@hornet your right, but blame is pointless it really doesn’t matter whose fault is it, what matters is what we do about it right now!
Yet, every story every political statement is just more talk, from national who needed more committees to labour who are still in committees, adding to the housing stock is a long term goal we need radical action right now or this problem is going to go critical – rent for some is 60% of their wages, whats going to happen while we add to housing stock slowly (as building takes time) and rent becomes 70%, 80%, 90% of wages, when people can’t afford food due to housing costs. (which is already happening accord to salvation army report)
Parliament should be locked in until they pass some emergency measure to curb this crisis, because its pure greed thats forcing rents/prices up, nothing more.
Everything you write is hard to figure Alwyn;;
As you often make no sense at all, – like your mate David Bennett showed also today in parliament as my mind recalls some sweet memories of utu coming back on your friend David Bennett, – read this event for the record;
I had to laugh today watching parliament when the ex Chair of the Transport and industrial relations committee chair David Bennett got up to speak on a dairy farmer bill and blamed the labour coalition for stripping out his rights to discuss the bill as “a erosion of democracy”
I recall when we assembled a 10240 petition and presented it to the steps of the ruling National government in 2012 to give to David Bennett as he was the chair of the Transport select committee then and he refused our democratic rights to speak in front of his committee about our mothballed Gisborne rail.
So it was so satisfying to see that David Bennett got the same feeling that he gave us of indignation when he refused our ‘democratic’ right to speak.
Utu to you David Bennett.
I really don’t understand why you think I might be interested in this.
However, if I have your attention perhaps you will recall the claim that you made about Stephen Joyce some weeks ago.
Have you had time to track down the source of this yarn?
My request to you is available here.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26-01-2018/#comment-1439892
Perhaps you have forgotten. It is apparently the mark of a troll to put comments in without links and also to ignore requests to provide information to justify such claims when asked.
Doesn’t that make you a troll?
Justification or withdrawal would seem to be in order on your part..
You have ‘selective reading disorder’ like your bosses in the hapless national party.
So no point responding to your dribble is there?
Diddums.
It is a very simple matter to admit you are wrong you know.
I do it whenever I make a mistake.
Mind you, I do it on very rare occasions. I guess it would take a lot of your time though as you routinely tell lies.
Come on. Admit you stuffed up. Even if it is on only one occasion out of your many errors that you admit to the lapse.
You really will feel so much better. Correcting your foolish mistakes may even become a habit.
By what deranged standard could the mess National left in 1999 be described as “in good shape”?
Unemployment close to 8%, Employment Contracts Act, a double dip(ton) recession, ACC privatised, Max Bradford, growing inequality at a (for then) all-time high…
Yes Douglas deserves trial, judgement, conviction and a sentence that would deter future treasonous behaviour.
100% Ed I stand at the door on this as these treasonous animals need to be taken to order for their crimes against the people.
I think it’s unreasonable to toss out the garage band and expect U2 to take the stage. We’ll get another garage band, they’ll just play a genre of music I enjoy.
Those that enjoyed the ousted garage band’s blues renditions will of course claim ‘These new reggae guys are muck, I was expecting U2.’
Yes, Twyford should be gobbling up land, he is isn’t he? I understand there is an announcement in the pipeline.
I don’t share most lefties opinion of Rogernomics. I think changes were inevitable, unfortunately he administered eye surgery with a bread knife. I’m not a fan of import tariffs. I see them in the same light as WFF. Yes families need more money, in an ideal NZ I think it should be coming from thriving businesses rather than Beehive kickbacks.
Excellent satire, again, Alwyn.
Since when did National leave anything in good shape?
As for Douglas’s, so called reforms. They were a failure by any measure.
The economy is 30% smaller than it would have been without the “reforms”.
Including the billions removed by the asset stripping he enabled since.
Forgotten 87 already?
“The economy is 30% smaller”.
No doubt you are able to explain the manner in which you come to that conclusion?
And you will also tell us why every Government since then has been sensible enough not to change any of the reforms to any degree.
Just one of the very many references I base that on.
NZ GDP dropped in the same period that Australia’s gained 16.8% and the OECD average was 19.7%. Hardly a success even by right wing terms such as GDP.
The rise in inequality, poverty and the drop in incomes was obvious to the rest of us.
Wage incomes dropped more than 30% against Australia’s and have never recovered.
https://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/1994/10/economic_and_other_ideas_behind_the_new_zealand_reforms/
“Another complication is that any improvements from the reforms are dominated by the macroeconomic stagnation evident in Table 2. While over the 7-year period from 1984 the OECD expanded its volume GDP by 19.7 percent, and Australia, facing a deteriorating external environment, expanded by 16.8 per cent, New Zealand GDP contracted in absolute terms.
Unlike that of the 1966-76 period, this poor performance cannot be explained by the external situation. In fact the terms of trade improved slightly over the period. Macroeconomic policy, which concentrated on disinflation, bears much of the responsibility. Monetary policy was tightened in some sense faster than fiscal policy, resulting in an over-valuation of the exchange rate at the same time as protection and export subsidies were being removed. That combination seriously damaged the tradable sector which had been the engine of growth in the New Zealand economy”.
Anyone who thinks the Douglas reforms were a success, where we bent over and unilaterally invited the outside world to fuck us, is delusional.
And no Government since has shifted them since. For the very simple reason that it suits the very few, extremely wealthy people, and the big corporates, that fund the two major parties when they obediently carry it on, just fine.
I’m sorry.
I was looking forward to what you would say but when I see that the link you provide is to something that was written a generation ago, in 1994, I don’t really think I can be bothered going through it.
I am, or was, an economist. I am not an historian though and things that happened in the period from 1984 to 1994 are just that, history.
I do think the Douglas reforms were necessary and have provided New Zealand with a much brighter future than would have been the case with the Muldoon policies.
I also do not see where you first claim, that NZ GDP dropped, can possibly come from, particularly at the drop you claim.
Here is one representation of it
https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp
GDP today is much higher than it was when Roger got started.
The proof is in the fact that NZ did a lot worse than other countries, such as Australia, that did not throw out the baby with the bath water.
I have many more references, some of which I have discussed, and given on this site over the years.
However writing more detail will have to wait until i am not busy at work.
As for Muldoon, it is debatable, but cutting reliance on expensive oil imports was a good idea at the time. I don’t think many people expected the USA to invade a few more countries to stop the sky rocketing oil prices. I was one of the majority who voted for Labour at the time BTW. I still see Muldoon, as the last National party leader who actually cared about NZ’s future. Rather than adding PM to their CV. Or making a fortune afterwards.
Many think big projects made fortunes for their private owners, as did asset sales in general. Showing that they could have paid back the borrowing over time. If they hadn’t been given away in the fire sale by the ideological vandals who caused Rogernomics.
“I do think the Douglas reforms were necessary and have provided New Zealand with a much brighter future than would have been the case with the Muldoon policies”.
I did not say that GDP had dropped, just that the increase was hugely lower than other OECD countries, that didn’t adopt Rogernomics/Thatcherism with anywhere near the same enthusiasm. You double the population it is going to rise, anyway.
You may be partly correct comparing Rogernomics to Muldoons policies. But there was another path we could have taken. The one initiated by Kirks Labour Government. Including the equivalent of a sovereign wealth fund, for one.
“I do think the Douglas reforms were necessary”.
This statement is wrong on so many levels, it is hard to know where to start.
We havn’t done well even by right wing measures such as GDP. Which I believe are flawed, but it does give a basic economic comparison between countries.
As for real wages, inequality, Labour productivity, investment, innovation and rising poverty. It is blatantly obvious that the 80’s and 90’s reforms have not delivered, except for a few.
The history is relevant because it set the path we have been on ever since. Where speculators and spivs make more money than contributors.
clearly?
I think Ad 6.2 may be right. They have the will and the dosh, while our lot have….? (Well, sounds a possibility so let’s have an economic paper on it, let’s have a cup of tea or would you like something stronger?)
When I looked at the shareholding for Fletchers there didn’t seem to be much that said Chinese or Asian to me (morningstar report) it seemed like North American institutions and funds. Perhaps that’s why Fletchers haven’t done well. The Chinese have been building all sorts of things successfully using clever expertise and careful surveillance of steel no doubt.
And the Chinese can afford to play extreme jokes on people – who would have though Chinese had such sense of humour? In vid below it is suggested that some people think it is cruel. I would find it terrifying and would never go on it if I knew, but if the warning was in Chinese or under size 9 font I could be caught. It’s amazing what people in power will do to each other no matter what nationality – it seems to be human to be inhuman sometimes. Haha.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9biTRkiBEBs
the query was as to the clarity of the options…id suggest there is very little clear about the provision of infrastructure requirements…something Ad himself(?) has commented on often, even the possibility they may not happen at all.
The political fallout of such a decision alone would suggest wholesale provision by offshore entities would likely temper if not preclude such an event.
Did you hear the other things he was talking about?
Obviously this Government has solved Auckland’s housing problems.
The Nation’s children are all out of poverty.
The health system now provides all the medical treatment desired.
Now he can get on with the important matters.
A couple of hundred million to spend on a place for the uber-rich to gallivant round at an America’s Cup Regatta.
I’d rather have my tax cut, frankly. I can then spend the money on useful things like a cataract operation for my wife.
Better that than having Parker blow it away on things to attract a few billionaires here, so that the Cabinet can joyride on the super yachts. And keep Dalton in his million dollar lifestyle.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11994413
Tell Team New Zealand the money shower is over. Go somewhere else and play.
Don’t forget Winston’s all weather race course for the horsie people.
Gotta start out on the important stuff.
First race coming up in 2 weeks, only 3 horses in it. lolololol
The stables have turned.
ha ha good joke Matiri
A Donkey, a lame duck and a mad pit bull!
That is a $10 mil project for an industry that has a thriving export market and employs over 40,000 people.McCully gave away more than that to one windswept Arab shiek, for?
Yep. Don’t forget National suspending democracy in Canterbury, so their mates can make a killing, on a short term industry, on irrigated farmland unsuitable for dairy.
Going to be even more expensive to fix than Nationals leaky building stuffup.
“Blow money on superyachts”. To promote one of New Zealand’s few successful manufacturing export industries?
Or. Is your preference to blow even more money in irrigating Canterbury. so we can add to the worlds surplus of cheap dairy products?
If you, and many similar idealogs, hadn’t kept voting for tax cuts, the public health system would have covered your wife’s cataract operation.
Why state that when they haven’t asked?
Could someone perhaps tell our Prime Minister that there’s work to be done.
There’s absobloodylutely no time for this shit….http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11994876
Just say “No!” Prime Minister when the trash mags come calling.
“No, they’re not paying me to pose, they’re paying me to sort out homelessness and child poverty and the crisis the health system, high youth unemployment and suicide rates.”
She really is the “woman’s weekly” pm. Soon there will be pregnancy shoots – then the baby shoots etc.
“She really is the “woman’s weekly” pm. Soon there will be pregnancy shoots – then the baby shoots etc.”
She is and those “shoots” will deliver her many terms as Prime Minister.
Unfortunately you’re probably correct
She has to get thru this one first.
I agree that some (but not all) of these photo shoots, interview by popular magazines etc may deliver political and other benefits (eg publicity about NZ) and thus well worth the PR and publicity.
Vogue for example may be aimed at the high end of the worldwide fashion market, but their articles are usually of reasonably high quality in terms of what they focus on, and are not just fluff and fashion.
From memory, it was reported back in November when the actual photo shoot and interview took place that these were on a Saturday morning – not in the midst of the parliamentary working week, for example.
As presumed by James at 7.2.1.2, it was also reported that Jacinda Ardern will not be on the front cover of the magazine as apparently it is not Vogue’s policy to do so with political figures or their family – eg Michelle Obama was not on the cover when she did a shoot and interview, and Theresa May who also did a Vogue interview and photo shoot in late 2017 will not be on the cover when these are published (April 2018?) .
Ardern’s photo shoot and interview has been reported again now because the actual interview (but not the photos) is now publicly online although the hard copy Vogue March issue is not due to be on sale for some weeks.
https://www.vogue.com/article/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-prime-minister-vogue-march-2018-issue
(Note – you will probably get an initial screen asking for name, email etc – just close the X and it should go to the article.)
IMO the article is a good balance between reporting Ardern’s political background and views, and the more personal stuff including fashion. I have certainly seen much worse.
I personally have no problems with this article being available worldwide in terms of any impressions it gives of New Zealand. In fact I am pleased to see mentions of NZ’s long standing anti-nuclear stance and Ardern’s stance on climate change.
Ardern is clear-eyed about what a prime minister of New Zealand, a country with a population of under five million, can achieve on the world stage. “We’re small,” she says, “but we do our bit by standing up for what we believe in.” She points to New Zealand’s long-standing nuclear-free policy as an example and wants to apply that same moral leadership to action on climate change. “We’re surrounded by island nations who will feel the brunt of climate change. So I see us as having a responsibility.” Of course New Zealand is a tiny contributor, overall, to the warming planet—and yet carbon-heavy industries like farming, horticulture, and forestry are the country’s biggest businesses. Ardern is ready to take those sectors on. “The most difficult thing for us to do is to mitigate and offset our agricultural emissions,” she says. “If we find a way to do that, then we’re showing other countries how to do it too.”
“She really is the “woman’s weekly” pm.” Mmm…..with greater relevance and authenticity than had Key with that rugby publication.
Exactly North – James, PR etc. are dissing things of interest to many women (fashion, clothes) as unworthy trivialities.
But they see no problem with similar things that are of interest to men (rugby, beer) where Key did photo-ops.
Their misogyny is as blatant as it is unconscious.
Oh – and she looks bloody great too – whereas Key looked like the doofus he also sounded like.
do you disapprove James?
Disapprove is too strong a word.
I’m not really that fussed.
She’s the Vogue PM James – try to keep up.
https://www.vogue.com/article/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-prime-minister-vogue-march-2018-issue
That type of approach worked for John Key. I’m not sure if Labour supporters will be as forgiving as they were to John.
Would you prefer something more like this?
http://thewireless.co.nz/system/production/content_images/images/000/005/100/full/hotdogkey.jpg?1496559828
Argh. That needed a warning attached.
Key grasped every chance to be in the public eye. Both the sublime and the ridiculous and it seemed to work, damn him. I guess that those who read the trashy magazines may not gain an awareness in “our” ways. So go for it Jacinda – I am afraid.
“I am afraid.”
I am disappointed. Saddened. Disheartened.
Key did this shit as a distraction from nasty dealings behind the scenes.
What’s going on with this lot we don’t know about yet?
SSDD.
For what its worth Rosemary I respect that the views you’re holding on Jacinda are similar to the views held on John Key when he did stuff like this
While people are admiring her picture on the cover of vogue at the supermarket (I’m guessing most labour supporters would never actually buy a copy)- it takes their eye off the signing of the TPP that labour are so in favour of now despite all their promises and bowls of outrage.
You’re starting to look pretty troll-y there James. Too many implied lies there that are redesigned to rark people up. Might want to rethink how you want to comment here. It would be good if you did that before I start thinking about getting out the bold pen. But I am noticing a growing number of people pointing out the troll-like nature of your presence here.
I have been saying this for ages.
James comments only to derail and distract.
And he never adds anything positive to a discussion.
“it takes their eye off the signing of the TPP that labour are so in favour of now despite all their promises and bowls of outrage.”
You’ve been called out on this before, and failed to respond.
Labour were never against the TPPA, but against the process. Provide a link to where they unequivocally and officially stated their aversion to the TPPA. I – like many others – waited for them to do so, and it didn’t happen. Attendence at protests is not the same as protesting or opposing. (…or the police are far more liberal and progressive than I gave them credit for)
Else you are deliberately misleading.
Thanks for that, I couldn’t be bothered going over it again. Imo, he’s deliberately misleading.
SSDD?
same shit different day
ta.
JDS.
What?
JCVD
I think James is developing Jacinda Derangement Syndrome.
That one is more real, because we have not had a lying, smug, ad*&^%, in office for 8 years. This hate against jacinda has no basis in fact – it may get there with time.
Unlike the former PM who not only had the blip’s list, but the utter disdain of a growing portion of the population.
It’s hard to pick it from his Usual Conservative Cognitive Shambles.
Rosemary
You seem in the mood to appreciate this last bit from a rather dark post on Bowalley Road.
William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet, saw it all happening nearly a century ago, in the fretful aftermath of the First World War. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity”, he wrote in his most famous poem, The Second Coming.
The final lines of that poem can still send a chill down the spine:
… but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
She can and will do both. Who on earth would turn down golden opportunities to connect with voters the way women’s mags allow modern politicians to do? Jacinda is serving her supporters well by attending to their political needs and their need for encouraging stories.
As long as she doesn’t get into the stream of crap those magazines publish.
According to the cover stories I see at the Supermarket checkouts we will have two magazines saying how blissfully happy she and Clark are and two saying they have separated. Next month their will be the same two viewpoints but on the other pair of magazines.
Does she plan to be the David Beckham of the Posh/Becks variety?
Mind you at least Beckham was a superbly professional footballer and his wife a very skilled businesswoman. I don’t see anything like it in our pair.
God almighty did you not see all the magazines at the supermarket we had to suffer as visual pollution of the chosen one and his Stepford wife. At least Adhern’s partner is employed as we speak and not being a blessed ornament to the annointed one. The Stepford wife got a degree for god’s sake and then “with mutual decision making” decided to become a stay at home wife while the godhead blazed the stage of the money markets.
Give Jacinda Adhern a break, at least Vogue magazine has some mana in the print world and she will get maximum exposure for the forgotten lot of us down here.
Hard to see the real difference between Clark and Bronagh in at least one respect.
Brohagh stayed at home and brought up two children.
Clark is going to stay home and look after one child.
Do you really think that women who stay home with their children are to be despised? It certainly sounds like it.
Leave her alone. Just because you don’t like the National Party is no reason to spray your venom at someone who took no part in political life, seems to be a very pleasant person and has done absolutely nothing to you.
Well, alwyn, like WK I recall seeing many Women’s Weekly type magazines at the supermarket over the last nine + years featuring John Key and Bronagh (or Bronagh alone) on the cover with articles inside – with accompanying photographs of them or her in various changes of clothes.
Similarly over the last year there have been magazine articles (some with front cover photos and more photos inside ) featuring Bill and/or Mary English.
So take a step back and stop this ‘pot calling the kettle black’ approach.
Also:
1. Gayford’s first name is Clarke – not Clark. (Misspelt in your 7.3.1 as well)
2. How do you know that Jacinda is only having one child? Have you seen the ultrasound images? Do you know there are twins in Jacinda’s family (eg her father has a twin brother)?
3. As I detailed in my comment at 6.1.1.3.1.2 in OM on 13 Feb, Clarke is giving up most of his work to be the main caregiver – probably a not easy decision.
Three years ago he took a big gamble (with Jacinda’s agreement) to follow his dream of creating his own TV series combining travel, fishing and food, and marine sustainability and protection.
The third series of his series “Fish of the Day” is due to run here in NZ soon on Prime TV (it was previously on Choice TV) and in about 38 other countries through the National Geographic’s network (up from about 20 countries for the previous two series).
More details of this and his other work are here –
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13-02-2018/#comment-1448000
So he deserves credit ( as does Bronagh) for putting his dreams, ambitions etc aside to become the homemaker, caregiver etc in support of their partners.
My apologies to Clarke Gayford.
I didn’t mean to misspell it and to do it twice is very careless.
On the other hand I found Kate’s comment about Mrs Key quite offensive to all woman who see their most important role as bringing up children.
I see you pointed out Kate’s error as well.
Did you mean your criticism of me in a “nice” way as well?
Well alwyn, I had to give that a lot of deep thought overnight, and could not get hold of my lawyer to get her advice, but taking all things in to account, and putting you request into the context in which it was raised ..
OK, fair is fair, I am prepared to describe my criticism of you comments as meant in a “nice” way as well; and also as meant as “constructive criticism” – or should that be “instructive criticism”.
BUT – if it is twins, I will count on you to back me up when I claim to have predicted this before anyone else! LOL.
” I will count on you to back me up “.
That seems entirely fair. I will not treat you like Cassandra.
Both my sisters had twins. Ran them ragged.
I can’t remember whether the odds, when my siblings and I were having children, were about 1:80 that a birth would be twins or 1:80 that a person would be one of twins.
I believe that it has risen quite a lot since then, though. Older mothers and fertility treatments mostly.
I am not sure of the odds either – but only about four months to go. But my remarks on this were strictly tongue in cheek!
I have a cousin who swore that she did not want children despite being married and hubby was also of the same view etc. Lucky her (or rather them) had first one set of twins despite birth control; then a second set again despite birth control. Surgical intervention was then sought by both parties to prevent further accidents. Then divorce…
Have a nice day. Did you see my reply to your ‘randy goat’ remark on Daily Review last night? LOLZ
” Did you see my reply to your ‘randy goat’ ”
Yes, and I replied to it.
ps. There wasn’t an actual publication “The Double Standard”. There were only the mock newspaper posters.
A whisper – Ardern, not Adhern. Shhhhh (Meant nicely)
I agree – see my reply to you at 7.1.1.3
Rosemary.
This is why Labour made her leader, this is what her role is, smiling, laughing, mag shots and all the other superficial fakery.
The real stuff whatever that may be is going on behind the scenes, Arderns just the nice facade to make people feel all happy and positive, “Yay Jacinda she’s so lovely, what an inspiration !!!”
I’ve got to say, it’s a superb strategy, Helen Clark and Heather Simpson are seriously clever people.
Lovely to hear from you BM !
Bullshit, BM. clark is out of the picture – mostly out of the country and dealing with her own (international) issues. Ardern decided to bring in Simpson – fine. An experienced pair of hands.
Ardern has a sharp brain and good tactical skills. She has a different approach and a different set of priorities to Clark’s, in her time. Stop spreading manure around and start trying to find your buch a leader who has half the smarts and yes, the charisma and communications skills, that Ardern has..
WK 1.15?
You meet a better class of marriageable types at uni.
!000%
BM, I think you would say differently if you had the Prime Ministerial finger waggled at you. As she did with that sports jock. She is seriously a leader. Her leadership in the post-election dealing showed that.
I am with you in the sense that I don’t follow the fakery stuff as you call it either.
But modern media etc demand it. She’s good at it, as was Key.
Just don’t think that her skills end there…….. And I don’t agree with your assertion that she is controlled by Clark and Simpson, just as i did not believe that Key was controlled by, well, whichever conspiracy theory one may want to subscribe to.
There is a difference between control and influence, btw. People do, and should, seek good advice.
No,no,no BM. Youve got it all wrong.! That was john key that you are describing. Mister Superficial.
And the Illuminati BM. Don’t forget the illuminati.
100% National is part of Illuminati for sure;
Since John Key and co’ attended Bilderberg in 2011 where lots of Illuminati were part of this secret society.
http://twochurchesonly.com/volume-1/supmat/03/most_influential/bilderberg_group/list_of_bilderberg_attendees.pdf
Didn’t realise Clarkula was part of the Illuminati.
Sort of surprised, not surprised if you know what I mean.
Yes BM so why did your leader go here to a secretive meeting in 2011 (as four ‘participants’) on public money representing as PM and didn’t tell us all??????
http://twochurchesonly.com/volume-1/supmat/03/most_influential/bilderberg_group/list_of_bilderberg_attendees.pdf
List of Bilderberg participants 4
New Zealand
• John Key (2011-2012), Prime Minister of New Zealand
You better watch it old boy or I’ll hack your computer and erase all your shit.
LOL, fuck you’re a crazy old coot.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/14/the-dirty-politics-campaign-to-destabilise-bill-english/#comment-417196
BM means = Bloody Mildless
Name fits you are a spook you don’t fool me or scare me!!!
So try again you (obviously) young coot.
While your’e at it please for all our sanity, crawl back into that toxic national snakepit inside the $11.7 Billion hole you all dig for your graves.
He is also the Chairman of the International Democrat Union, a consortium of 50 centre right parties which meet in Europe on a regular basis. He chaired it during his tenure as PM of this country. Fran O’Sullivan has written about this in her financial opinion pieces in the past. So much for being a centrist likeable bloke which many were suckered into believing.
Did you say that when John key minced down the catwalk in a blue tee shirt?
Vogue as a trash mag 😆
I don’t have a problem with the whole Women’s Weekly thing. I want a PM who makes time to connect with different parts of the electorate. Lots of women read those magazines and don’t have other connections to politics.
I’ll be interested to see what the Vogue article actually says. The anti-Trump framing is very US looking for hope, but I think they are right. She’s not a Sanders, she’s the liberal inverse of Trump.
The support for a NZ designer will play well in many circles too. This is Ardern building political capital. I think this is smart if we want a second term with a higher majority. It’s not enough on its own, obviously we need the Labour govt to do some serious politics and change, but it’s not hurting Labour’s ability to do those things.
More of a problem imo is what Stephanie points to about values-based politics. I don’t see Labour getting that yet.
’ll be interested to see what the Vogue article actually says.
See my comment at 7.1.1.3 which provides a link to the actual article which is now online, plus my views on it and a quote from the article about NZ’s longstanding anti-nuclear stance and Ardern’s stance on climate change.
thanks!
One of the first things she needs to do is lift the governments performance in the House. Yesterday was a trainwreck for Peeni Henare (https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=198293), Willie Jackson (https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=198289 and Kelvin Davis (https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=198286).
National’s questions went nowhere and elicited nothing: that’s why there is no news coverage about them.
Labour MPs fell into the same trap during the last Parliament: loaded questions just give the minister a free hit. For example: Kelvin Davis got the National Party’s habit of lying (“scaremongering”) into Hansard.
Yes, I know you don’t see it that way, and so what?
You should watch the coverage. It’s a wreckage. And it’s not about ‘eliciting’ anything, it’s about making government members look like fools. The only reason yesterday didn’t get worse was because Mallard was kind. But Kaye in particular really put a hit on Davis (Mallard had him backtracking on his first answer, then he said he had phoned a particular charter school and they “didn’t pick up the phone” – honestly he’s a walking target) and did again today. Between him and Hipkins, Labour have a real problem. Still, it won’t detract from the PM’s photo op’s, I’m certain of that.
I watched the coverage prior to commenting.
If National want to allege wrongdoing on Davis’ part they should should do so. As it is they’re asking loaded questions with inevitable results.
That’s why none of this is news, and why you have now repeated your original point without adding anything new, Ad Nauseam.
You were so quick to answer you missed my edit! Didn’t realise I had struck such a nerve.
Here’s today’s episode https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/ondemand?itemId=198357.
Another wreckage fro Davis.
😆
Tracey Martin exposed the opposition’s dishonest approach to question time very well. Thanks for the link, and the laugh.
And you still haven’t managed to say anything new.
No, she didn’t. She asked about ‘other associate ministers of education’. It was a question that, if allowed to go forward, may well have embarrassed her own minister!
But how are going with that news coverage Anon?
From yesterday. That has no legs, because it’s as you said. a “hit”, not a substantive criticism.
“From yesterday. That has no legs, because it’s as you said. a “hit”, not a substantive criticism.”
I disagree. But even so, are you saying that as long as the media doesn’t notice, incompetence is ok?
No, it’s more that when National and their mouthpieces allege incompetence, I’m inclined to dismiss their bleating with contempt, on account of the deciduous forest sticking out of their eyes.
“it’s more that when National and their mouthpieces allege incompetence,”
I’d say you don’t have to support any political party to spot Hipkins and Davis as political corpses. The just released Cabinet Paper is going to provide more fun.
It was easy: you didn’t say anything new, and what you have said amounts to: “I don’t like Labour”. Your edit hasn’t changed that.
Thanks for illustrating my point. For further information, and rebuttal of your repetitious talking point, refer to 7.7.1.1.1
So you accept it was a train wreck, but you just don’t care?
Or you don’t think it was a train wreck because no-one else wrote about it?
Mmmm
“…that’s why there is no news coverage about them. ”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/101433659/charter-school-lays-complaint-with-ministry-of-education-about-kelvin-davis
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018632089/kelvin-davis-accused-of-favouritism-by-charter-school
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/02/14/88929/davis-downplays-charter-school-complaint
It neatly exposed the National Party’s dishonest approach to QT, and that they are treating education like a political football.
You cannot see this. Your worldview requires that you not see it.
The complaint will go nowhere. Watch and learn.
Hilarious. National expose an Associate Minister favouring two PS’s over another, all in his own electorate, and you call it ‘dishonest’ and ‘treating education like a political football’.
Let’s be clear, Davis is in serious trouble with this, and considering his Minister is ‘3 strikes’ Hipkins, Labour need to reign this in and fast.
In many areas Labour look to be performing well, but bumbling performances such as Hipkins and Davis are displaying won’t be tolerated with H2 in the background, I’ll bet.
(As is clear from her interjection in the House) Tracey Martin has been talking to some schools, Kelvin Davis to others.
I’d say in going after Davis in these circumstances they make ‘termination for convenience’ significantly more likely. Especially when it turns out they’ve been inflating their academic record by expelling the students they can’t teach.
But hey, it’s your link.
“Tracey Martin has been talking to some schools, Kelvin Davis to others. ”
Davis has stated publicly he has been talking to them in his capacity as a constituent MP. Hipkins has stated it is the MoE doing the talking. What is Martin up to?
“Especially when it turns out they’ve been inflating their academic record by expelling the students they can’t teach.”
Cite?
And why won’t the government release the report on the PS’s that was due months ago?
Why? Why? Why? Why? Whyne? Whine. Whine.
I expect the answers to your whynes will form a large part of your reasons to beg for judicial review. Or perhaps they’ll just be more whining. That sounds more likely.
“That sounds more likely.”
Why would there be a judicial review? We have a government who is talking with forked tongues (or maybe it’s just incompetence?), implementing poor policy to assuage a vested interest group who funds them, and riding roughshod over those who are being affected. This is normal government activity. No cause for a review.
You think the Governance of the country should depend on who “wins” petty games?
That is one of the main problems. The comfortable think it is a game. Like a debating competition, or a horse race.
“You think the Governance of the country should depend on who “wins” petty games?”
No. That’s what OAB thinks, apparently.
It is obvious that is what you think Hornet. As that is what you have been doing on here.
“…that’s why there is no news coverage about them. ”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/101433659/charter-school-lays-complaint-with-ministry-of-education-about-kelvin-davis
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018632089/kelvin-davis-accused-of-favouritism-by-charter-school
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/02/14/88929/davis-downplays-charter-school-complaint
I wonder whether the schools who’ve been approached by Tracey Martin are wise to follow this path of attacking Kelvin Davis.
Why not? Surely the decision about their future will be made in an impartial manner? (Chuckle).
Because Ms. Martin would then be able to note that they’re acting in bad faith, and that would increase the likelihood of their closure.
Especially if they’ve failed to disclose their contact with Ms. Martin to Nikki Kaye. Own goal.
How is complaining about Davis’ behaviour acting in bad faith? Again it sounds like you implying a threat.
And which schools have been approached by Tracy Martin? And why are either Martin or Davis engaging with the schools if Hipkins says he can’t because the work is being done by the ministry (that’s my understanding)?
Obviously the poor cry-babies feel threatened. Why else would they be reaching out to the National Party?
And of course, they know that their access to brand new BMWs will cease by the end of the December school term.
And they know they’ll be brought under the eye of the MoE. Or be terminated for convenience.
It’s all good with me.
Good story Anon. Have you seen the Cabinet Paper that has just been released on the changes? I’m reading through it and there has been some big porky pies told.
😆
Then your judicial review will totes succeed.
links and do tell. You’re always good for a laugh when you try to report what you think is reality.
“Then your judicial review will totes succeed.”
So, again, your concern is not the right or wrong but whether the government gets away with it. I get the impression that drives most of your commentary here.
Judicial review is all about right and wrong. Try again.
“Judicial review is all about right and wrong. Try again.”
Yes, but that’s not your concern. Is it? Your concern is pure ideology, and you’ll support lies and deception to achieve it.
“You’re always good for a laugh when you try to report what you think is reality.”
Find it yourself. It’s publicly available now. It hasn’t been suppressed, although on past form that would probably your preference, aye.
Your concern is pure ideology, and you’ll support lies and deception to achieve it.
Your judicial review will prove that. Or not, as the case may be.
You would it be fair to say you support National?
And therefore would it be fair to say your comment is entirely predictable?
“You would it be fair to say you support National?”
I have voted and supported across the political spectrum. Today I trust none of them. I had thought the Greens had at least some integrity, and then this https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/05-02-2018/my-old-party-is-betraying-its-own-proud-history-on-the-waka-jumping-bill/.
The fact that Hornet pursues the same line and approach in his multiple comments and can never be satisfied apparently, does not say anything good about the defence of charter or partnership schools. That is not the thinking of a wise person with resilience adapting to the future while still keeping the important mores of the past. You are a bad
advertisement for them Hornet.
Just read a long piece of absorbing literature with clever technical bits sent to me by Millhouse.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-white-darkness
What a great/crazy man he was. (Let me know if you read it.)
Yes, skillful prose Ian.
“It was hard to breathe, and each time he exhaled the moisture froze on his face: a chandelier of crystals hung from his beard; his eyebrows were encased like preserved specimens; his eyelashes cracked when he blinked.”
Reminded me of delivering newspapers in a 40c below Swedish night.
A few technical probs. ‘Not a bear in sight’. Antarctica is like that. The blonde bears are all up the top.
I was wondering the other day. Could polar bears be successfully introduced to Antarctica? Or would penguins thrive in the Arctic?
A.
Ha! I think polar bears would develop a taste for aquatic poultry.
The ‘Long March’ would become the ‘Short Speed Waddle’.
I expected bravado and stiff upper lip but instead it was a very credible human story which brought a tear or two to both my eyes. His family neatly included too.
Judith Collins tweets her true nature, as well as the kaupapa of her party,
https://twitter.com/ThisCJ/status/963531431187116032
Shes referencing Blade Runner: http://www.devo.com/bladerunner/sector/2/interrogation.html
Danyl was referencing Blade Runner. Collins was referencing her feelings of empathy, in a pretty revealing way.
TBH I’m just surprised shes watched Blade Runner
What makes you think she’s seen BR and wasn’t just answering at face value?
She could have at least tried a bit of conscience-signalling…
Maybe she did 😆
Nothing in her response suggested she’d seen Blade Runner.
NB: I’m not sure when the original exchange was. I remember Danyl posting it on his blog at the time, it must have been at least four years ago, maybe longer. If memory serves, the readers couldn’t decide whether this was Collins wittily giving a response that made her sound like a replicant failing the test through lack of empathy, or just Collins lacking empathy. You can probably guess which I thought was more likely.
No, at the time that came out the joke was she hadn’t seen BR, she had no idea she had been punked. Interesting.the righties trying to rewrite history here, Collins a sci fi fan? Ha!
(heads up, she found it humourous, so normal people might find the subject of sexual assault disturbing, regardless of location or nature of the victim):
Russell Brown has another example of her failing an empathy test.
And just in case we think it doesn’t exist in NZ, it’s funny to her, because it’s true.
FINALLY… Zuma has stood down… about freakin time. Time for the ANC to sort their shite out, they’ve become a freaking embarrassment to that nation.
“South Africa will look back and wonder how we allowed a president so reprehensible to last so long in office,”
Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, author of Democracy and Delusion: 10 Myths in South African Politics, told Al Jazeera.
People will be dancing in the streets over there 🙂
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/jacob-zuma-resigns-south-africa-president-180209204724335.html
I’ve been fairly intimately involved in South Africa (personally and professionally), spent a fair chunk of my time there too and I don’t think this will make a lick of difference unfortunately.
Corruption is so endemic in the ANC now that it is time for a fresh face. The Democratic Alliance is the party of the future however due to the extreme propaganda from the ANC over the last 5 or so years they haven’t a hope because (but not exclusively because I should add) they have whites in the party. It is something the ANC has drilled into the minds of the poorest of the poor even though under Zuma they have suffered while the ruling class have profited. It is such a shame to see the party of Mandela become a hollowed, corrupt and self interested beast.
Zuma was part of the struggle too but in the end he was a bad as the rest.
Thanks for your insight John, much appreciated.
Last election over there I heard that the ANC were standing over the poor, threatening and bullying them into voting for the ANC.
Strongly agree with what you say ” It is such a shame to see the party of Mandela become a hollowed, corrupt and self interested beast”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/101387777/lance-osullivan-could-be-a-future-national-party-leader
Do it Lance do it! (But wait until 2020 at least)
Good luck with that.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/19-09-2017/lance-osullivan-explains-why-hes-is-running-for-the-maori-party-in-2020/
Still not bad, means National will have a coalition partner ready to go but some maori Labour MPs might be a little worried
Not sure he’s cut out for it to be honest. He said some pretty emotive and nasty things about anti-vaxxers last year, and whatever one thinks about vaccination (and anti-vaxxers) that kind of public expression isn’t what NZers expect of politicians.
He also said he wanted to be the sole Māori Party leader rather than a co-leader, another hint he might not work well with others and probably tends to the authoritarian end of the scale.
I wonder at his motives when surely he is much more use as a doctor than a Nat mp 🙁
Lol, true. I don’t know if he sits on the left or right of the Mp, that would be very interesting to know.
That Oxfam workers have been apparently trading aid for sex doesn’t detract from the good things the organisation does. Humans always mess up projects, that is why AI has been invented so we don’t have humans around any more. As The Conchords sing ‘The humans are dead,dead,dead….”
As expected NZ is low on their CRI calculations. So is the USA.
Get lots of links off this link.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/335299/nz-shamefully-poor-on-tax-policies-oxfam
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2018/02/david-seymour-gilda-kirkpatrick-to-star-in-dancing-with-the-stars-2018.html
NO NO NO NO !!!!
This is beyond stupid of Seymour.
Who the hell in his team thought this was a good idea?
This is shades of Bill English getting in the fight for life…not good
Sadly true.
He should have just chosen one or two major issues (charter schools is a good one) and a couple of populist ones to go on about but instead he chooses this…
Charter Schools is a dead duck – they will carry on just under a different name and a tidy-up
The same people who think being a Libertarian is a good idea. They just set themselves a new benchmark, too.
They could put Judith Collins on and call it Dancing with the Satyrs.
Aww yeah! I’d watch that, I’d watch the hell out of that, I’d possibly even watch it twice in a row…without a break
Is it suddenly hot in here?
Judith Collins is right when she said that Ardern is all about her, and not about what is best for NZ (words to that effect). Ardern is not elected by the people, and all she seems to care about is endless photoshoots. Totally empty, and Kiwis deserve better. She is out of her depth as PM, so she promotes herself as a glam girl instead. So much for ‘capitalism has failed’ eh. Bring back a real PM, who cares less about empty celebrity, photo ops and magazine covers! The public will tire of it fast, if not already, especially as our economy sinks.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[RWers are free to comment under my posts so long as they’re not posting derailments and they can relate their comment to the post. You’re also not going to get away with running Dirty Politics lines like Labour being an illegitimate government. If you don’t like Ardern, that’s fine but I don’t write so that *you can have a space to troll, spout nonsense and spin. Having looked at why you’ve had bans in the past, I’m making a note for future reference, expect a ban without warning if it happens again. – weka]
erm..were you here for John Keys term?
Bah Bah Bah, still want those tissues?
1 nil, 1nil, 1nil, stand up if you hate national, stand up if you hate national, stand up if you hate national, stand up if you hate national, clap your hands for Jandals, clap your hands for Jandals. clap your hands for Jandals and Winne is the 2nd coming.
Tanz what a load of bullshit. ” Bring back a real PM, who cares less about empty celebrity, photo ops and magazine covers!”
Who would that be then the planking Pm who took every bloody media opportunity he could or that Bill bloke who found poverty in the final week of the campaign and as finance minister plunged our economy into debt with Tax cuts for the rich all the while strangling our public hospitals and schools funding.
100% Craig Glen Eden.
National were heading us into ruin as they did to Greece so thank god Jacinda saved the day.
Well she is not sucking allover a allblack,or offering 10 new bridges
I think you should take along holiday and come back in the real world
A moderation note for you above and I’d like an acknowledgement you have understood .
Sorry but can you clarify a few things for me…
“Ardern is not elected by the people”
Pls define this and name a PM that has been “elected by the people”
“…and all she seems to care about is endless photoshoots….”
Cough ‘John Key’ cough….
Don’t get me wrong – I actually didn’t mind Key all in all (better than some of the weird fucks like Joyce and Collins) but never voted for him. But for fucks sake man, that guy was just as vacuous as you make Ardern to be
” …. all she seems to care about is endless photoshoots.”
That of course is an infantile comment based on not just simple bias, and pique as shown by your other comments, but mainly pure ignorance of what politicians, especially Prime Ministers, do.
More than that though, nominating what according to you Ms Ardern ‘seems to care about’, would be profound stupidity except that it reflects the profound stupidity and vacuous nature of the comment.
I hope you liked what I posted last nite and this morning I’m going to smell like cow ______ so getting ready to go see our taonga mokos so to busy to have more input than this All you Kiwis and Maori cultured people be proud of who you are and keep your noses clean Ka pai Hilary & Jeremy keep up the good work so hard case Jeremy I missed your kiwi wit Ka pai Ka kite ano
Are all you brown people who have or are working in our justice systems feeling STINK BRO well good YOU should have told the Whano exactly how the farcical justice system worked and our prisons won’t be over flowing Ana to kai
Friends. Not.
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/02/14/with-friends-like-these-2/
Pihau
Morning Rumble people I drove a water truck for a bit in tauranga. The Tauranga sandflys though they would play a move and chase ECO Away but no like water off a ducks back. Ana to kai