Well…..there is that Curia, is the Taxpayers Union (Farrar). Notwithstanding, both Labour…and Greens need to STEP UP. No good "If" they are hoping the Election is way distant. Time for their "Stars?" and some of the seat warmers to show their worth. For their sakes…and OURS !
And Jacinda….I dont know how she does it. Talk about Inner Strength ! Absolutely a Gem : ). I wish her and Family all the best. I truly hope she rests during her recovery…and gets some Family Time.
That only leaves the unfounded sour taste in the mouths of the homeowning class as their property values fall 20%. No landslide, as much as I'd wish it
Those who reckoned decreased immigration numbers, and increased taxation of speculation/house hoarding, wouldn't slow house price rises, have become, strangely, silent.
Though we all know house prices need to drop. For way too many people houses are now their only asset. Any Government that has the stomach to "fix housing", no matter how much it is needed, is unlikely to improve their re-election prospects.
Those who reckoned decreased immigration numbers, and increased taxation of speculation/house hoarding, wouldn't slow house price rises, have become, strangely, silent.
Yah – and nothing to do with increasing interest rates then? Timed exactly to match the slowing price rises you are so pleased about.
Interest rises which will do little to improve affordability btw.
As I've previously made clear, a conversation you appear to have missed, housing prices and "fixing them" takes more than one thing to change the expectation that they will always rise faster than general inflation. And that house hoarding is more profitable than working for your living. Interest rates are only one factor. But hardly the most significant one when they are still way below housing inflation.
Significant interest rate rises hadn’t been on the table before prices started to slow. The other issues I've mentioned have now been around long enough to take effect.
I fully accept – and have argued myself here many times – that there are many factors feeding into property prices. But to ignore interest rates when they are one of the most obvious factors driving affordability – just struck me as more than a bit selective.
Housing is now the most unaffordable it has been for typical first home buyers since interest.co.nz began producing its Home Loan Affordability reports at the beginning of 2004.
The new record in unaffordability levels was driven by a pause in the recent price declines at the bottom end of the market and ongoing increases in mortgage interest rates.
Housing price growth is complex,but not complicated.
Housing prices globally rose over covid,due to low interest rates and increased capital (due to lockdowns and the inability to travel)
There were also limitations on build speed (completions) mitigated somewhat by immigration growth.
Since 2017 the population demand for housing inventory has increased by 105000 units (2.76pp) and around 58000 over the covid time frame in NZ.Completion rates have slowed (net housing increase) have slowed in AK and WGN due to the increase in in city infill housing ( new stock completed less housing demolished)
The new bank BOMAD ( mum and dad) also increased its lending becoming the sixth biggest lender (18 b$) as a mix of increased savings and leverage.
Housing cost inflation is the largest increase in the CPI,and also has the largest weighting (around a third of index) as a mix of excess demand,high building costs and delays.
Excess demand has been curbed by the RBNZ by changes in the LV ratio,QE and higher interest rates.Inflation expectations need to be constrained to sustainable levels,and higher population demand (immigration without limits) will mean higher costs for housing and goods and services.
Ballance said the "old soldier" considered the media "paid lackeys as a result of payments made to them". "He doesn't want to talk to the political wing of the Labour Party."
That's correct, Jenny. Support and admiration of Putin has been on the antivaxxers "menu" for a long time now, well before the invasion of the Ukraine – it was inserted there by the same agencies that had them believe in the nanotechnology-in-vax nonsense. I noticed this many months ago. Those same people are also expecting a revival of Trump.
Your comment robert imo reads like a giant generalization wrapped in a conspiracy theory liberally garnished with pure speculation !!
Illogicality of some anti vax crowds aside id be surprised if within their ranks there was any more awareness of what was actually happening in ukraine than the average joe blogs in the street given the degree of propaganda around the topic .
Even if it were true that these " same people " were expecting a revival of trump they're by no means alone !! In the badly broken two party system of the usa trump has a very good chance of winning in 24 perish the thought .
I think the connection is quite direct – and there are a couple of fairly straightforward examples. The first is the Russification of Wikileaks. Wikileaks formed to critique the more dubious actions, especially of the US military in Afghanistan. It had the same kind of legitimacy that whistleblowers have – they perform a vital and difficult role improving the health of the body politic by exposing things like Afghan civilian casualties. As Wikileaks increasingly became the channel of choice for Russian disinformation however, its legitimacy diminished.
The next and related item is 'the buttery males' attack on Hillary Clinton – direct political interference by what had in fact been for some time a hostile state. Various versions of email contents were filtered through multiple Clinton opponents with the object of compromising the integrity of the US electoral system. These opponent groups circulated the material, or conclusions derived from it on social media. It was a successful action, and remnants of it can still be found on some social media.
Political advocacy or ginger groups can cope with the natural differences of opinion and interpretation, even to some degree productively, but they are not well equipped to handle organized deception conducted by a well-resourced hostile foreign power.
I cannot rule out intentional deception as you suggest – but if you took a few moments to watch the very good and concise Vexler clip I linked to above – there are a number of other good explanations available that are equally if not more applicable in my experience.
If nothing else while you could claim that anti-vax ideas were all the work of a few nefarious individuals deliberately creating misinformation – it does not explain why so many millions were willing to engage with some of the more obvious crackpot ideas like 5G chips.
Nor does it explain the bulk of vaccine hesitant people who were sufficiently distrustful of the official narrative that they invested considerable time and effort into researching for what seemed to them a better explanation.
It is a good clip – but it doesn't cover all the bases.
These folk – the Macedonian fake news rings – were not interested hostiles, but click farmers. And there are a lot of comparable enterprises that are interested only in farming readers – something made easier if one embraces polarizing or sensational content so dodgy it would make Tova blush.
Yes. Some of them have been publicly defending Russia and Putin for some time now. I concluded they were the pro-Trump forces within the anti-vaxxer and anti-mandate brigade.
To paraphrase Pl.A above… the ultimate fuckwits of the fuckwits.
Another example of Stuff using a stock photo, and not choosing a very good one for the occasion.
When I read the article I actually had some sympathy for Mr Luxon as the self-styled "head" of this protest happens to be a well-known serial nutter in the Manawatu.
Perhaps you will rule this out of order on this blog ad. but I assure you many others in the Manawatu would agree with me.
There was also a famous Minhinnick cartoon which had Muldoon sitting in an airport lounge with a newspaper in his lap that had a headline saying 'Rowling addresses crowd of faithful at Wiri Woolshed'.
Muldoon looks up at a passing Bill Rowling and tartly says 'Romney or Perendale?'
In the wake of the cruel murder Al Jazeera Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the desecration of her funeral. Let Israel know that New Zealanders will no longer tolerate a racist apartheid state in the 21st Century.
Auckland Aotea Square 2pm for a rally and speeches.
From Auckland Peace Action:
Sunday May 15 is Nakba Day – this is the day marking the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and off their land by Israeli militias in 1948….
….The Nakba has continued every day since 1948 as Israel seizes more Palestinian land and creates more Palestinian refugees every day.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa are holding Nakba Day rallys around the country.
We welcome you to join us at the Auckland gathering, Aotea Square at 2pm, to hear speeches, show solidarity, and stand with community.
Please remember to wear a mask, or kaffiyeh!
I guess back in the day you were also a supporter of the racist apartheid state of South Africa given that the black population was still on the up?? Amnesty, HRW and Btselem all agree. Israel operates as an apartheid state
Duke…the Gaza strip is effectively a concentration camp with 2 million Arab prisoners trapped in it. If drive from Wanaka to Cromwell the valley floor along the way roughly represents its size.
Rather than murdering respected journalists and illegally occupying Palestinian land the Israelis need to begin the process towards a one nation solution where Gaza and the West Bank become part of Israel with equal rights for all citizens.
Yawn – a throwaway troll attack – you care nothing about truth, history or the plight of Palestinians. Guess you will be happy that you irritated a couple of people into biting you sad pathetic little troll
After years of land confiscations and apartheid planning policies, there are now a majority of the 1.7million arabs/ Palestinians living are ghettoised in areas assigned to them in by Israel.
Yet another white supremacist mass murder attack. Why is the white far right becoming increasingly murderous? We have always know hey are racist and intolerant but now they are actioning their hatred in big numbers.
Gone are the days when it was asked if the shooter was yelling Allahu Akbar.
The shooter claims (the Australian) did the most to radicalize him. this is very much a Christchurch copycat attack.
A 106-page online manifesto, believed to have been uploaded by the shooter, explained that he was motivated by a conspiracy theory that white people are being replaced by other races. In the document, he says he is 18 years old and a self-described white supremacist and anti-semite.
“If there’s one thing I want you to get from these writings, it’s that White birth rates must change. Everyday the White population becomes fewer in number,” the document says. “To maintain a population the people must achieve a birth rate that reaches replacement fertility levels, in the western world that is about 2.06 births per woman.”
Perhaps the real reason for the Anti-abortion issue is "forced" by the "need" to increase white births.
“If there’s one thing I want you to get from these writings, it’s that White birth rates must change. Everyday the White population becomes fewer in number,” the document says. “To maintain a population the people must achieve a birth rate that reaches replacement fertility levels, in the western world that is about 2.06 births per woman.”
The fact is that birth rates across the entire developed world are below replacement and this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with women choosing to have fewer children.
That some idiot extremists will wrongly and selectively apply this reality to their own race is hardly a surprise, especially when the radical left has been loudly insisting that white people – and white males in particular – are the source of all evil for a decade or so now. Or that if we loudly (and very inconsistently) argue that human overpopulation is a bad thing – that this lowers the barrier to sociopaths taking matters directly into their own hands.
Central to the Judeo-Christian narrative was the historically remarkable idea of the sanctity of individual human life. It has of course proven to be a very challenging idea to even define or observe consistently. We have stumbled with it repeatedly and grievously But giving up on the idea and casting it aside is much worse.
Hence the rather odd scenario of the left being able to get away with performative outrage over a tiny handful of unarmed black men in the US being killed by police – while 73 million abortions annually cannot be challenged in even the most anodyne, moderate fashion.
Legal abortion will cause no more no less abortions then illegal abortion, the only difference is the amount of birthing bodies found dead on a table/floor bleeding out or dying birthing bodies being wheeled into a septic ward for scraping out and some blood transfusions.
Challenge that. And the assumption that children don't cost money, need appropriate housing, enough food, shoes for winter and summer, plus education. That assumption too could be challenged and look at how we did in NZ, Motels full of Mums and Dads with their kids, homeless in emergency housing hoping that at some stage maybe next year they find a place to call home that is not a run down motel in a dying town away from education and jobs.
Abortion will continue to happen. Legal or not. The question is how much do we value the birthing bodies that need abortions to grant them safe ones.
I have rarely commented on this very fraught topic but I will confine myself to this thought. For all the reasons you outline it is not reasonable to restrict access to abortion. But at the same time I was never comfortable with the idea that this came with zero moral consequences, and thus we might want to pay a lot more attention to reducing the necessity for abortions in the first place.
because birthing bodies get pregnant no matter if they want it or not if they can't prevent sexual intercourse with a penis ejaculating into their vagina.
My grandmother had 9 kids that lived and several that were scraped out., the last child she had at 46 years.
My mother had 5 kids that lived, on ectopic pregnancy – abortion, one kid up for adoption, and then finally came the ruling that women can have the pill without permission from their husbands in Germany and all the birthing bodies in my family suddenly stopped birthing.
If you don't want the child, can't feed the child because you are already struggling to feed the children you have, have no access to birth control, have a man who can and will not fuck without a condom, or consider a vasectomy as a form of birth control, women will have abortion, and other women and men will provide these abortion.
The consequences of abortion are for the women who have them, and most women who had abortions for what ever reason cope well enough.
a bit of 'recorded' history on abortion
The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. Many of the methods employed in early cultures were non-surgical. Physical activities such as strenuous labor, climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving were a common technique
To me it is a simple thing, those that are opposed on grounds of morals or religion should themselves abstain, but should not put any obstacles in the way of those that are not opposed or want them.
And unless we make life much easier for parents to raise their children in relative safety and comfort society must accept that some will opt out of being a birthing body.
it is not a virtue, it is needed medical care. I have yet to meat one person who had an abortion for funsies, or because they consider it 'birth control'. I have however met birthing bodies who needed abortion because their baby died in uterus and did not miscarry, i have met birthing bodies who had abortion because three kids are enough, i have met birthing bodies who aborted because they were 15 years old and the father was of the same age.
The questions re access to abortion and the right to a sexual life for birthing bodies are as follows:
Should birthing bodies be allowed have sex without consequences? –
Should child birth be something that is the lot of birthing bodies?
Should child birth be punishment for birthing bodies having sex
And should abortion be safe, medically sound, and should birthing bodies have the right to decide what happens with their bodies if an unwanted pregnancy happens or a much wanted pregnancy goes wrong.
and last for the US at least, the issue is not only Roe vs Wade, but Griswold vs Connecticut.
Griswold v.
Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a state's ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. The case concerned a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of birth control
And of course when birthing bodies can not control the amount of pregnancies they have – be they life births or miscarriages or stillborn, it will then also affect their employability, their earning power and so on and so forth. But maybe that is the desired outcome of all these current societal changes.
As i read somewhere:
the left will lock a birthing body into a prison cell with a rapist who will rape her too, the right will force that same birthing body to have the child of that rapist and co-parent with that rapist.
You seem to be arguing with an imaginary person who thinks that access to abortion should be restricted.
As i read somewhere:
the left will lock a birthing body into a prison cell with a rapist who will rape her too, the right will force that same birthing body to have the child of that rapist and co-parent with that rapist.
If this is how you are going to debate with people who are essentially on your side – is it any wonder your opponents don’t even begin to listen or engage?
Tomorrow the government will detail the emissions pathway constraints,with how they will limit GHG emissions over the next 15 years,and how NZ can become 100% renewable in electricity generation by 2030.
The latter will be expensive in capital cost (around 15b$ boe),and will see substantive islanding of existing generation assets,and will see some costs to the consumers.
Replacement of 10 gw is around the equivalent of 5 x more wind generation,( and the potential is not always available) ,bigger then think big,and will be very capital intensive.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
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This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
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Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
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Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
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As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
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NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
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TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
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History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
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TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
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National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
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So the latest Curia Poll has Nat/ACT able to govern with 61 seats. Lab/Gre/MP have 59.
It's a bit of a worry, but a week is a long time in politics let alone 18 months and Luxon will be taken apart by Jacinda in the election campaign.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-political-poll-puts-national-and-act-in-position-to-govern-for-first-time-since-2020/UQIG6BDL6DYMCXNELBTLEJJHAU/
Well…..there is that Curia, is the Taxpayers Union (Farrar). Notwithstanding, both Labour…and Greens need to STEP UP. No good "If" they are hoping the Election is way distant. Time for their "Stars?" and some of the seat warmers to show their worth. For their sakes…and OURS !
And Jacinda….I dont know how she does it. Talk about Inner Strength ! Absolutely a Gem : ). I wish her and Family all the best. I truly hope she rests during her recovery…and gets some Family Time.
Fix the housing and cost of living crisis and Labour will win in a landslide.
Absolutely, Jenny. After all National have told us how they will fix it – more money in the pocket from tax cuts! Is that all you were looking for?
Yeah we can be confident it will take more than a couple of dollars a week to do anything. Unless you are on half a million.
That only leaves the unfounded sour taste in the mouths of the homeowning class as their property values fall 20%. No landslide, as much as I'd wish it
If Labour ensures that every Kiwi wins big in Lotto then Labour will win easily in 2023.
That it?
Nothing about Climate Change, for example, or that miracle cure for inequity?
Housing prices look like they are slowing.
Those who reckoned decreased immigration numbers, and increased taxation of speculation/house hoarding, wouldn't slow house price rises, have become, strangely, silent.
Though we all know house prices need to drop. For way too many people houses are now their only asset. Any Government that has the stomach to "fix housing", no matter how much it is needed, is unlikely to improve their re-election prospects.
Those who reckoned decreased immigration numbers, and increased taxation of speculation/house hoarding, wouldn't slow house price rises, have become, strangely, silent.
Yah – and nothing to do with increasing interest rates then? Timed exactly to match the slowing price rises you are so pleased about.
Interest rises which will do little to improve affordability btw.
As I've previously made clear, a conversation you appear to have missed, housing prices and "fixing them" takes more than one thing to change the expectation that they will always rise faster than general inflation. And that house hoarding is more profitable than working for your living. Interest rates are only one factor. But hardly the most significant one when they are still way below housing inflation.
Significant interest rate rises hadn’t been on the table before prices started to slow. The other issues I've mentioned have now been around long enough to take effect.
I fully accept – and have argued myself here many times – that there are many factors feeding into property prices. But to ignore interest rates when they are one of the most obvious factors driving affordability – just struck me as more than a bit selective.
And a quick scan of media shows they noticed the connection.
Who? Was "ignoring interest rates"?
I mentioned two factors. I did not! exclude others.
Straw Man, seems to be your preferred method of debate.
Goalpost shifting yours.
Sure.
Housing price growth is complex,but not complicated.
Housing prices globally rose over covid,due to low interest rates and increased capital (due to lockdowns and the inability to travel)
There were also limitations on build speed (completions) mitigated somewhat by immigration growth.
Since 2017 the population demand for housing inventory has increased by 105000 units (2.76pp) and around 58000 over the covid time frame in NZ.Completion rates have slowed (net housing increase) have slowed in AK and WGN due to the increase in in city infill housing ( new stock completed less housing demolished)
The new bank BOMAD ( mum and dad) also increased its lending becoming the sixth biggest lender (18 b$) as a mix of increased savings and leverage.
Housing cost inflation is the largest increase in the CPI,and also has the largest weighting (around a third of index) as a mix of excess demand,high building costs and delays.
Excess demand has been curbed by the RBNZ by changes in the LV ratio,QE and higher interest rates.Inflation expectations need to be constrained to sustainable levels,and higher population demand (immigration without limits) will mean higher costs for housing and goods and services.
Lots of moving parts.
Not only a Fake but an insult to those who served.
For the anti vaxxers…he was the fuckwits…fuckwit.
despicable.
Has anyone else noticed how many of the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists are also supporters of Putin's invasion of Ukraine?
What's with that?
Haven't noticed that .
How did you come to that…conclusion?
That's correct, Jenny. Support and admiration of Putin has been on the antivaxxers "menu" for a long time now, well before the invasion of the Ukraine – it was inserted there by the same agencies that had them believe in the nanotechnology-in-vax nonsense. I noticed this many months ago. Those same people are also expecting a revival of Trump.
Your comment robert imo reads like a giant generalization wrapped in a conspiracy theory liberally garnished with pure speculation !!
Illogicality of some anti vax crowds aside id be surprised if within their ranks there was any more awareness of what was actually happening in ukraine than the average joe blogs in the street given the degree of propaganda around the topic .
Even if it were true that these " same people " were expecting a revival of trump they're by no means alone !! In the badly broken two party system of the usa trump has a very good chance of winning in 24 perish the thought .
I guess Putin has a spy network operating in Ukraine. He probably knows more than us about what was happening there prior to the invasion.
However, I'm only speculating.
[Please check and correct your user name in the next comment, thanks]
Mod note
It is my sense of there may be a correlation but it is not a direct one – what both groups have in common is a loss of trust in social institutions:
I think the connection is quite direct – and there are a couple of fairly straightforward examples. The first is the Russification of Wikileaks. Wikileaks formed to critique the more dubious actions, especially of the US military in Afghanistan. It had the same kind of legitimacy that whistleblowers have – they perform a vital and difficult role improving the health of the body politic by exposing things like Afghan civilian casualties. As Wikileaks increasingly became the channel of choice for Russian disinformation however, its legitimacy diminished.
The next and related item is 'the buttery males' attack on Hillary Clinton – direct political interference by what had in fact been for some time a hostile state. Various versions of email contents were filtered through multiple Clinton opponents with the object of compromising the integrity of the US electoral system. These opponent groups circulated the material, or conclusions derived from it on social media. It was a successful action, and remnants of it can still be found on some social media.
Political advocacy or ginger groups can cope with the natural differences of opinion and interpretation, even to some degree productively, but they are not well equipped to handle organized deception conducted by a well-resourced hostile foreign power.
I cannot rule out intentional deception as you suggest – but if you took a few moments to watch the very good and concise Vexler clip I linked to above – there are a number of other good explanations available that are equally if not more applicable in my experience.
If nothing else while you could claim that anti-vax ideas were all the work of a few nefarious individuals deliberately creating misinformation – it does not explain why so many millions were willing to engage with some of the more obvious crackpot ideas like 5G chips.
Nor does it explain the bulk of vaccine hesitant people who were sufficiently distrustful of the official narrative that they invested considerable time and effort into researching for what seemed to them a better explanation.
It is a good clip – but it doesn't cover all the bases.
These folk – the Macedonian fake news rings – were not interested hostiles, but click farmers. And there are a lot of comparable enterprises that are interested only in farming readers – something made easier if one embraces polarizing or sensational content so dodgy it would make Tova blush.
Yes. Some of them have been publicly defending Russia and Putin for some time now. I concluded they were the pro-Trump forces within the anti-vaxxer and anti-mandate brigade.
To paraphrase Pl.A above… the ultimate fuckwits of the fuckwits.
Amusing Stuff headline – is there a caption competition in the accompanying photo?
3 clubs, 4 hearts…
Blocked by the sheeple???
You should have saved that for the caption competition. 😀
Another example of Stuff using a stock photo, and not choosing a very good one for the occasion.
When I read the article I actually had some sympathy for Mr Luxon as the self-styled "head" of this protest happens to be a well-known serial nutter in the Manawatu.
Perhaps you will rule this out of order on this blog ad. but I assure you many others in the Manawatu would agree with me.
I tried that photo for a Caption Contest but the quality is too poor, IMHO. Better next time![wink wink](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/wink_smile.png?x42494)
It's a natural for the Arabic proverb:
A sheep spends her whole life fearing the wolves, and gets eaten in the end by the shepherd.
There was also a famous Minhinnick cartoon which had Muldoon sitting in an airport lounge with a newspaper in his lap that had a headline saying 'Rowling addresses crowd of faithful at Wiri Woolshed'.
Muldoon looks up at a passing Bill Rowling and tartly says 'Romney or Perendale?'
Minhinnick – the Giles of the South Pacific.
Were the protesters not impressed with his system card?
"Sean" Luxon and party faithful…..
Today is Nakba Day,
Make sure to attend your local event.
In the wake of the cruel murder Al Jazeera Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the desecration of her funeral. Let Israel know that New Zealanders will no longer tolerate a racist apartheid state in the 21st Century.
Auckland Aotea Square 2pm for a rally and speeches.
From Auckland Peace Action:
Yesterday you were claiming it was a million Palestinians in 1948, now it’s 3/4 of that?
And there only around 650,000 Jews to do this pushing in 1948?
and there are now 1.7million arabs/ Palestinians living in Israel, so they’ve done an atypically bad job of “cleaning”
I guess back in the day you were also a supporter of the racist apartheid state of South Africa given that the black population was still on the up?? Amnesty, HRW and Btselem all agree. Israel operates as an apartheid state
Duke…the Gaza strip is effectively a concentration camp with 2 million Arab prisoners trapped in it. If drive from Wanaka to Cromwell the valley floor along the way roughly represents its size.
Rather than murdering respected journalists and illegally occupying Palestinian land the Israelis need to begin the process towards a one nation solution where Gaza and the West Bank become part of Israel with equal rights for all citizens.
Yawn – a throwaway troll attack – you care nothing about truth, history or the plight of Palestinians. Guess you will be happy that you irritated a couple of people into biting you sad pathetic little troll![frown frown](https://cdn2.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/plugins/ark-wysiwyg-comment-editor/ckeditor/plugins/smiley/images/confused_smile.png?x42494)
After years of land confiscations and apartheid planning policies,
there are nowa majority of the 1.7million arabs/ Palestinianslivingare ghettoised in areas assigned to theminby Israel.fify
/
The estimated number of Palestinians at the end of 2021 was about 14 million:
5.3 million in the State of Palestine (3.2 million in the West Bank and 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip),
– land confiscations occur in East Jerusalem and the West Bank
1.7 million in the 1948 territories
– most of these in the same areas they occupied in 1948
– there are no widely reported accounts of land confiscations within 1948 Israel in recent decades
7 million in the diaspora (6.3 million live in Arab countries and 750,000 in foreign countries).
Yet another white supremacist mass murder attack. Why is the white far right becoming increasingly murderous? We have always know hey are racist and intolerant but now they are actioning their hatred in big numbers.
Gone are the days when it was asked if the shooter was yelling Allahu Akbar.
https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1525572912836554752
Veteran campaigner explains why the GOP is pushing anti abortion laws.
https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis/status/1522657929991700480
A 106-page online manifesto, believed to have been uploaded by the shooter, explained that he was motivated by a conspiracy theory that white people are being replaced by other races. In the document, he says he is 18 years old and a self-described white supremacist and anti-semite.
“If there’s one thing I want you to get from these writings, it’s that White birth rates must change. Everyday the White population becomes fewer in number,” the document says. “To maintain a population the people must achieve a birth rate that reaches replacement fertility levels, in the western world that is about 2.06 births per woman.”
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2022/05/mass-shooting-supermarket-buffalo-10-dead/
Perhaps the real reason for the Anti-abortion issue is "forced" by the "need" to increase white births.
FFS is there nothing the left cannot try and blame white people for? Taken a look at the situation in China recently?
The fact is that birth rates across the entire developed world are below replacement and this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with women choosing to have fewer children.
That some idiot extremists will wrongly and selectively apply this reality to their own race is hardly a surprise, especially when the radical left has been loudly insisting that white people – and white males in particular – are the source of all evil for a decade or so now. Or that if we loudly (and very inconsistently) argue that human overpopulation is a bad thing – that this lowers the barrier to sociopaths taking matters directly into their own hands.
Central to the Judeo-Christian narrative was the historically remarkable idea of the sanctity of individual human life. It has of course proven to be a very challenging idea to even define or observe consistently. We have stumbled with it repeatedly and grievously But giving up on the idea and casting it aside is much worse.
Hence the rather odd scenario of the left being able to get away with performative outrage over a tiny handful of unarmed black men in the US being killed by police – while 73 million abortions annually cannot be challenged in even the most anodyne, moderate fashion.
Legal abortion will cause no more no less abortions then illegal abortion, the only difference is the amount of birthing bodies found dead on a table/floor bleeding out or dying birthing bodies being wheeled into a septic ward for scraping out and some blood transfusions.
Challenge that. And the assumption that children don't cost money, need appropriate housing, enough food, shoes for winter and summer, plus education. That assumption too could be challenged and look at how we did in NZ, Motels full of Mums and Dads with their kids, homeless in emergency housing hoping that at some stage maybe next year they find a place to call home that is not a run down motel in a dying town away from education and jobs.
Abortion will continue to happen. Legal or not. The question is how much do we value the birthing bodies that need abortions to grant them safe ones.
Abortion will continue to happen. Legal or not.
Why?
I have rarely commented on this very fraught topic but I will confine myself to this thought. For all the reasons you outline it is not reasonable to restrict access to abortion. But at the same time I was never comfortable with the idea that this came with zero moral consequences, and thus we might want to pay a lot more attention to reducing the necessity for abortions in the first place.
because birthing bodies get pregnant no matter if they want it or not if they can't prevent sexual intercourse with a penis ejaculating into their vagina.
My grandmother had 9 kids that lived and several that were scraped out., the last child she had at 46 years.
My mother had 5 kids that lived, on ectopic pregnancy – abortion, one kid up for adoption, and then finally came the ruling that women can have the pill without permission from their husbands in Germany and all the birthing bodies in my family suddenly stopped birthing.
If you don't want the child, can't feed the child because you are already struggling to feed the children you have, have no access to birth control, have a man who can and will not fuck without a condom, or consider a vasectomy as a form of birth control, women will have abortion, and other women and men will provide these abortion.
The consequences of abortion are for the women who have them, and most women who had abortions for what ever reason cope well enough.
a bit of 'recorded' history on abortion
To me it is a simple thing, those that are opposed on grounds of morals or religion should themselves abstain, but should not put any obstacles in the way of those that are not opposed or want them.
And unless we make life much easier for parents to raise their children in relative safety and comfort society must accept that some will opt out of being a birthing body.
I wasn't quibbling with need for reasonable access to abortion. It seems that in our current world it is a necessity.
Just not comfortable with making a virtue of it.
it is not a virtue, it is needed medical care. I have yet to meat one person who had an abortion for funsies, or because they consider it 'birth control'. I have however met birthing bodies who needed abortion because their baby died in uterus and did not miscarry, i have met birthing bodies who had abortion because three kids are enough, i have met birthing bodies who aborted because they were 15 years old and the father was of the same age.
The questions re access to abortion and the right to a sexual life for birthing bodies are as follows:
and last for the US at least, the issue is not only Roe vs Wade, but Griswold vs Connecticut.
And of course when birthing bodies can not control the amount of pregnancies they have – be they life births or miscarriages or stillborn, it will then also affect their employability, their earning power and so on and so forth. But maybe that is the desired outcome of all these current societal changes.
As i read somewhere:
the left will lock a birthing body into a prison cell with a rapist who will rape her too, the right will force that same birthing body to have the child of that rapist and co-parent with that rapist.
Where is the virtue in that?
You seem to be arguing with an imaginary person who thinks that access to abortion should be restricted.
As i read somewhere:
the left will lock a birthing body into a prison cell with a rapist who will rape her too, the right will force that same birthing body to have the child of that rapist and co-parent with that rapist.
Where is the virtue in that?
None whatsoever. Indeed if you scrolled down the very next reply you will see I have already made a response to this.
If this is how you are going to debate with people who are essentially on your side – is it any wonder your opponents don’t even begin to listen or engage?
I am not trying to arguing with you RL, just really stating the obvious. Legal or not it will happen. Legal however would be my preferred outcome.
Thank you Sabine.
I learnt something new because you took time to write this (and other) comments out on the discussion around women's rights and abortion.
Others may have too. It makes a difference.
BA2 92%
BA1 2%
Delta 0%
Only the fittest coronavirus variant survives. Aced evolution theory.
BA2 to be replaced with BA4 and BA5 soon enough, as cases have been found here. Just like in the rest of the world.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/466765/explainer-why-are-there-so-many-new-omicron-sub-variants-like-ba-4-and-ba-5
Tomorrow the government will detail the emissions pathway constraints,with how they will limit GHG emissions over the next 15 years,and how NZ can become 100% renewable in electricity generation by 2030.
The latter will be expensive in capital cost (around 15b$ boe),and will see substantive islanding of existing generation assets,and will see some costs to the consumers.
Replacement of 10 gw is around the equivalent of 5 x more wind generation,( and the potential is not always available) ,bigger then think big,and will be very capital intensive.
https://twitter.com/SPGlobal/status/1524147366047232000?cxt=HHwWgMC9qYj97aYqAAAA