Albert Einstein said we can’t solve problems with the same thinking or consciousness that created them. From my perspective, indigenous world-views, values and frameworks provide the thinking we need to solve some of the most pressing issues of our time. Also, the outcomes in New Zealand are so crappy for Māori, that if we get it right for tāngata whenua, it’ll work for everyone.
I am really proud that both ActionStation and RockEnrol pay people way more than a Living Wage to do paid purposeful work. I love creating pathways to meaningful employment. I also love seeing how many young people are standing for local government this year. I like to think that RockEnrol’s work (alongside folks like Chlöe Swarbrick and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) helped inspire that.
Petty messenger attacking again. Ironic particularly for Anne.
If I made things up like this about a regular here I suspect I'd be hammered for it.
And wrong. I was up at 5:30 researching for a house painting project I'm working on. Made. Watched Deep Blue with my granddaughter who is staying, then made a cuppa for everyone.
Complainants want the Labour Party to address it's archaic power structure, and hope that Jacinda Ardern can make it happen.
Alison Mau:
And while the party rows about how it's going to achieve next steps, the young people are laser-focussed on what needs to happen now. I asked one of them what it was they wanted, now that they really do have everyone's attention.
The group wants policy change at the top of course, with a complete overhaul of the sexual harm prevention and handling policy. It wants sensitive complaints referred to an expert third party for investigation.
And it wants the party to stop relying on its own supposed expertise, and take note of what the real experts have to say about the prevention of sexual harassment and bullying.
The group is now pinning its hopes on Jacinda Ardern.
They do not yet know when they will meet with her, and some of them are a little overwhelmed at the very thought, but they are refusing to condemn her, and they have a very clear idea of what they'd like to say when they do.
"We will go through our stories with her in more detail," one of the group told me.
"We would want an open, honest and frank conversation about what it's like to be a young recruit to Labour in 2019.
"We would tell her how hard we have pushed progressive parts of the party on subjects like abortion law reform – (that) we are not just bitter volunteers, we really care about this stuff.
"(We will tell her) here are some conditions that the party needs to look at, before any of us feel comfortable coming back into these (Labour) spaces."
Those conditions include requiring all staff to undergo sexual harassment prevention and disclosure handling training. They'd like to see a code of conduct being developed for party volunteers, rolled out party-wide.
They would like the party to finally understand the power imbalances in Labour: "we are not only male dominated, but incredibly white."
The young woman says she remains a Labour member and "has hope" because she's seen the party change and adapt before but it will have to address an "archaic" power structure.
I think that Ardern will understand that there's lot riding on this – for the victims of course, but also for the reputation of the Labour Party and it's attractiveness to young people, especially to young females.
Labour has talked about gender balance for years, but has failed to provide a safe environment for young people, especially females.
Note the names of those who seem to have been responsible for male staffer protection debacle – Nigel, Grant, Andrew, Rob.
And there's a lot riding on this for Jacinda herself. Her reputation, her primary attractiveness as a new generation leader who is a caring and empathetic champion of gender balance and rights, is on the line.
She needs to make sure the repair job from here is done transparently. If the inquiry terms of reference are stacked in favour of the party and the Council, if the report is kept secret like the last one, if there is a lack of openness and no public sign of real repair and progress, then Ardern have failed to live up to her PR, again.
"(We will tell her) here are some conditions that the party needs to look at, before any of us feel comfortable coming back into these (Labour) spaces."
That cannot be done in secret, because it is not just the group of victims who want change, it's the future of the party at stake. Prospective party recruits – volunteers and candidates – need to know that Labour has finally learnt from multiple failures and put things right.
It has been claimed (and not denied) that he was closely associated with the (now ex) staffer, and was aware of the seriousness of allegations and, if we are to believe Ardern, kept important information from her as did the other men named above.
Sorry, next time I will paste your words into my reply to make sure I read them more carefully. Could have sworn it said ‘the names of those staffers’.
"It has been claimed (and not denied)", and "if we are to believe" appear to be attempts to convince that any scurrilous accusation put forward without evidence must be given as much credence as supported facts. We have heard a lot of conjecture, and undoubtledly some fact, but separating the two has not been easy, or I suggest for most people possible. What started out as a complaint of office bullying seems to have developed into harrassment, sexual misconduct, and now serious sexual abuse. We don't know whether this is by a single individual to another individual, or by more than one of either culprit or victim. We generally trust our media, but we do not know what they have heard themselves or been told by others. I trust some of the media who have reported enough to believe that there has been some matters that needed and still need addressing. if we are talking about an employment matter it is not clear who that employer is – the Labour Party appears to have been involved but not Parliamentary Services. If there are criminal matters it is not clear why the victim(s) has or have not been prepared to report a crime to the police, or whether threats or inducements have discouraged police involvement. Now I have enough trust in our media to believe that they do not get everything wrong; I believe there has been at least one incident that either should not have happened and/or should have been dealt with differently. In the meantime the question of who knew what when is a sideshow, but a recent further article in the SpinOff does at least indicate that one journalist is convinced that Jacinda Ardern did not know of the extent of the complaints until last Monday.
If you know more, Pete, then by all means post the information with the evidence – provides that does not impede a possible criminal investigation of course), but if you do not have impeccable evidence, perhaps it is better to wait rather than to assume that every "claim" is automatically credible.
Ardern's halo effect has blinded many of Labour's supporters to the party's appalling failings in its handling of the whole sorry, sad mess. Some still don't get it. But pony tails, they protest. But Jami-Lee Ross.
But just contrast the last few weeks to former Prime Minister John Keys' swift removal of Richard Worth from both Cabinet and subsequently Parliament after a serious sexual allegation.
…
Helen Clark was the same, a legendary micro-manager, the iron fist in an iron glove.
…
So what now?
No leader likes loose ends and there are plenty of those as Ardern prepares to head overseas this week. So expect her to announce further action before she steps on a plane. But it will have to be more than token – Ardern has to be clear that urgent, and painful, culture change is needed in the organisation she leads.
Many of the party faithful will find it had to swallow that Labour has failed to walk the talk on an issue so core to its – and Ardern's -identity.
But the only place where they should be pointing the finger is at themselves.
[Added the correct punctuation in the quoted text; you wouldn’t want to create an impression that you might be quoting selectively, would you? Pete, you should know and do better. Next time, I’ll delete the text and only leave the link. In fact, I getting itchy fingers when I see large texts being copied & pasted here – Incognito]
[Pete should know better as he had a three week ban for the same thing in 2017. Perhaps he forgot, but I think another ban now will help him cement this in his mind. He’s also been moderated more than once in various ways over not linking.
Pete, you’re a really long term commenter, you know the deal: always link, don’t misquote, and try to avoid long tracts of cut and pastes. Looking at your comments to Sacha you appear to not understand the problem here. When you cut and past different pieces of an article you have to make it clear that they are not one block of text. If you still don’t get this, ask one of the moderators for clarification when you get back.
3 weeks again, given it’s been a long time, but expect bans to get longer for repeat offenses. Interim ban, as I’ll run this past the mods already active in this thread – weka]
[ban reduced to a week. Pete the key point here about quoting is that if you post separate sections of someone else’s work, you have to make it clear you have removed bits. This is quite different than what Sacha did, which was to post part of an article, but with no bits cut out of the part he quoted – weka]
The outcome must be that NZ faces itself in the "mirror". I'm a bit perplexed, and the use of the words men & women is solely to make a point that has occurred to me. In various comments and positions on this on an emotive level, and not necessarily based on facts that anyone can confirm, some of those now most concerned with the victims have not displayed that concern previously and appear to be purely political. Has it it been decided from an editorial perspective that having mainly "women" journalists, it appears to me anyway carry the message these or any offences are Labour's "fault". I hope not because the story, the facts and where that leads NZ is all I want to hear.
Labour has been at fault here. Not once but twice, badly, with multiple victims in both.
But it is symptomatic of whole of New Zealand society problems. The National Party has had it's own embarrassing problems, publicly as recently as last year.
Law firms have been in the spotlight.
It is generally and strongly agreed that our judicial system has is not fit for purpose, overall and particularly related to sex offences (and probably violence offences which are often connected).
Abuse of power is a common factor.
The law business community has tried to fix it's problems.
National say they have addressed their handling of bullying and sexual matters in the wake of the Jami-Lee Ross affairs. There's no way of the public knowing if that has been effective.
A review of the judicial system is currently under way.
And Labour re running their own inquiry into their mishandling of things.
Was the Beehive involved in a cover-up of the allegations that have rocked Labour?
It's likely we'll never know.
The party's investigations so far have been so ham-fisted and inept, it's hard to have any confidence in the latest process.
Barrister Maria Dew was hired by the party to re-investigate multiple allegations against a Labour parliamentary staffer.
But, the investigation is only looking at the allegations against the Labour staffer, not how the party bureaucracy handled complaints.
Labour's Council will sign off on the terms of reference for the Dew Review. Its 20-plus members bear responsibility for how the young complainants were failed – and it's new acting president was on the panel that dismissed complaints. It's no surprise they want to avoid scrutiny of their decisions. But it's hardly an independent process.
With this narrow focus on the complaints, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, her staff, ministers and MPs also escape a dissection of their role. Ardern's answers – beyond saying she was assured the allegations weren't serious – have been unsatisfactory and thin.
It's highly unlikely Dew's report would ever be made public anyway. The party refused to release the findings of lawyer Maria Austen (formerly Berryman) who was asked to look into Labour's handling of sexual assault claims made at a summer youth camp.
Media will be scrutinising how Labour handles this.
While it is a whole society problem a lot depends on how Labour handles this.
For a start, it could be a major factor in determining who our next Government is led by.
But it's bigger than that. If the Prime Minister and the major governing party openly deal with this well it will (finally) set a good example from the top that society needs to reform how it views and deals with bullying. violence, sexual violence and abuse of power.
If Labour sweep this under the carpet again then (some of) society will see this as a signal that sweeping under the carpet and business as usual (abuse as usual) is still normal practice.
Look, other than those who abuse and those who will use any part of this for political gain I can not think anyone who would want anything other than this "(finally) set a good example", can you?
…the first of Labour's issues (summer camp attacks) involved illegal behaviour that went to court.
It involved illegal behaviour of the kind that happens at parties in this country every weekend and doesn't usually end up in court because the media aren't interested and there's no political propaganda to be had from it. The perps in those cases are usually either not dealt with, or dealt with via public shaming or violence rather than complaints to the Police.
The fact that some men behave like that when drunk is a rape culture issue, not a Labour Party issue, and the prurient interest in this particular instance is mostly either politically motivated or just hand-wringing from conservatives who've led sheltered lives. Or both, I suspect, in your case.
Reflect on the rugby player in an airport toilet situation a couple of years back. Not the 'incident', the media handling of it and the explosion of public hysteria that generated.
The media love a good feeding frenzy and generating one is good for business, and egos. Couple that with the team at newstalkzb and the likes of Matthew Hooton quite simply wanting Labour and Jacinda Arden gone, the scenario is perfect.
Thank you, as a mother and a grandmother I have kept my opinion on that incident largely to myself as I knew it would not be popular to say what I thought and how I would use such examples. In an effort to keep them all safe "boys & girls" pointing out that things may not turn out always as you hope was a mainstay. That's not about blame it is about people, young people who as you say across the country can end up making utter fools of themselves when alcohol is at hand and even when it's not. That is part of the lesson the young need to learn hopefully sooner rather than later and even more so on the roads and in cars!
Granted there is a rape culture issue with drunken youth but this was a Labour Camp for under 16's where there was lotsa booze available and it was sanctioned by Labour. Not too many of us would allow or have a cabinet of (free?) booze at our children's 16th birthdays and not too many parents would approve of their children attending any teenage function where liquor was freely available to them. I think the party has to own this.
My parents sure as hell wouldn't have approved of the drinking I was doing at ages 15 – 17, but on the plus side, what they didn't know didn't hurt them. All this hand-wringing about Labour failing to prevent alcohol sullying the sacred temple of teenagers' bodies makes Doug Sellman look like a bad-ass.
Are you sure it was a camp "for" under 16s or a youth camp that incl that group and above, I very much doubt there were 13-15s there but you can correct me with some facts.
So much of the Jamie Lee Ross superbly mismanaged debacle was hidden. There's a lot there we need to know. Pompous Paula was right out of line divulging private information on public television which started Jamie's downward mental spiral.
Also what happened to that poor ' mistreated' woman Sarah Cowie who also in a drunken rage of rejection also contributed to his ultimate step of thinking of ending his life.
NOTHING! She's still in her very responsible role in the NationalParty. So what she did was acceptable to them?? Some double standards in there somewhere.
And petulant,perfidious Paula preaching from her pulpit of presumed power should take a look in her own back yard before trying to topple Jacinda with rabid rhetoric. I'm sure there is any amount of weed there that needs to be exposed. For the good of the country of course. Paula is fuelled by hatred for Jacind a.
Compared it how, exactly? Key's "prompt action" was very good for him and the National Party but did nothing for Worth's victims, nothing to improve public awareness of rape culture and how to respond to it, and nothing for openness and transparency in government. The fact that you compare Key favourably with Ardern in that case suggests you're thinking of this entirely in terms of how cleverly some players are playing a game.
Yes, prompt action is the only way – if only the people who were complained to had had the nous to realise that. And Key had never promised the most open and transparent Govt. ever.
In that particular case, it was the best way to minimise political damage to brand Key and the National Party. Whether it was also a good thing for the victims or not we'll never know, but my money's on them not getting even a second thought.
And Key had never promised the most open and transparent Govt. ever.
I don't recall Ardern promising that either.
It's commendably honest of right-wingers to admit that they just assume a National government's going to act in its own interests and conceal that from voters, but unfortunately (and I get sick of having to point this out), National itself is not so honest:
And the second has allegations of serious offences that many think should have gone to court.
It may or may not go to court. What manythink is irrelevant to the due process except for putting undue pressure on those who could make it happen.
There's also the problem that Ardern was seen as a champion of young people and of women's rights, and is seen to have failed on both. [my emphasis]
Public perception and opinion is influenced if not manipulated to a large degree by the media. To me, you come across as a media accomplice not as a truth seeker. I prefer the latter and these people differentiate themselves from the main crowd not be being more intelligent, more confident, or being louder (e.g. boasting and bragging) but by nuance, humility, sophisticated and critical thinking, and generally admitting that they know shit nothing in the first place.
It’s highly unlikely Dew’s report would ever be made public anyway.
Ummm. Have you ever actually read a report of this kind? I have.
It is full of material that was given under confidentiality, is full of inadmissible hearsay, people names, and is deeply prejudicial to any subsequent court processes.
Releasing it may be appreciated to the prurient dribblers slavering over the underwear details. However it doesn’t help anyone apart from journalists after column inches and airtime.
Perhaps you and the idiot who wrote that quoted piece should engage your brain rather than your lust for gossip and consider what options gets killed if that kind of report gets released. For a start, just think of the consequences for victims.
He's like a dog with an old bone. Can't leave it alone. Either that or he is trolling in which case it might be necessary for a moderator to intervene. It's been going on for nearly a week.
So you're trying to influence moderators to shut things down?
This has been the biggest story in political media all week. Given how important it is to Labour, I would have thought it would be of interest to discussions here – unless the intent is to aid the apparent Labour Party coverups, which looks increasingly what some are trying to do.
[lprent: You must be blind. There have been comments all over the site for days. Unlike you, some of them have actually had suggestions about what should be done to prevent this kind of crap again.
I realise that you prefer to act as a brainless critic who carps and can’t offer any ideas. But perhaps you should try exercising your brain a bit.
But my toleration for outright lying by you and other is wearing very thin. If you can’t bring yourself to actually participate in debate about how to solve a problem – then leave. ]
No, I'm under the impression that people here have been trying to avoid discussing an issue that is important not just to Labour but to the Government and the country.
And I don't care what sources you may read, I'm not doing it for you.
You could ignore things here that you've already read rather than join the petty pile-on.
I'm under the impression that people here have been trying to avoid discussing an issue that is important not just to Labour but to the Government and the country.
The lengthy threads of people discussing it gave you that impression, did they? I dread to think what you imagine not avoiding discussing it would like.
I haven’t noticed that Pete George has managed to suggest anything constructive on this topic. He still appears to be coming up to speed with his own lack of knowledge on the issues.
In fact his most recent post quotes some actual sensible advice from Young Labour via Alison Mau that appears to have been written here. That essentially says that the Labour Party shouldn’t try to rely on internal expertise to handle these kinds of issues, but should get outside expertise.
Reading PG, it is hard to see that he managed to grasp the point. That the core problem is that Labour simply doesn’t have in-house expertise and shouldn’t be trying to do their own investigations.
They’re saying a QC – but fundamentally that is way too expensive to do every time that someone raises these kinds of issues.
To be frank it’d be simpler to disband Young Labour so the Labour Party can get on with what we pay levies for. Just about every dumbarse political crap of this kind has arisen out Young Labour or the barely grown dickheads having access to them (think Darren Hughes).
Or perhaps the answer go the other way give and give the Labour Party the authority to launch criminal prosecutions. There are some National MPs and ex ones that I would be interested in seeing in court explaining their behaviour….
Perhaps Pete should try to contribute his actual ideas rather than stroking his outrage
To be frank it’d be simpler to disband Young Labour so the Labour Party can get on with what we pay levies for. Just about every dumbarse political crap of this kind has arisen out of Young Labour or the barely grown dickheads having access to them (think Darren Hughes).
Couldn't agree more!
In my day we young things worked through the main party. We learned from our elders how to behave in a political environment and they gave us the benefit of their knowledge and expertise, so that we were well informed and could avoid the ever present pit-falls of political life. Most of all we learnt how to socialise with all age groups and to show respect for the elderly who knew a darn sight more about life than we did.
I am opposed to lowering the voting age precisely for the type of behaviour we have seen in recent times and which has become all too prevalent among so many young people in this country.
The people who caused a problem were not Young Labour this time. Two people with vast experience made bad decisions, which has made things harder for the complainants and definitely harder for the PM.
She went to the heart of it.
1. What the complainants needed to happen
2. An independent 3rd party to look at actions and facts.
3. The PM to be kept in the loop.
Out of all of that….
4. To change Labour's culture in this sphere to make the Party spaces safer in the future.
I disagree about disbanding Young Labour. A Youth wing is essentially the school/club rugby of a political party – people build skills, connections and interests, and also do a lot of the ground work for local actions.
But all youth groups need to be properly supervised, otherwise harmful cultures can build up (especially around alcohol).
But this staffer thing has nothing really to do with Young Labour beyond an incidental connection and that it shows Labour didn't learn a damned thing about how to deal with sensitive complaints in an informal environment.
So – what about the children? Labour can'yt disassociate itself from pastoral care for its voters and its young adherents in Young Labour as well. Get back to some good old fashioned interest and leadership for the young where it isn't all about money and immediate power and advantage.
I was thinking more "have a rotating watch of authority figures who intervene to stop people getting too drunk", sort of thing.
What the YL incident and the student law society camp complaints in the last few years had in common was that most things being complained about happened after the adults/authority figures left/went to bed.
Then there's the issue of how to resolve complaints after they occur.
Prevention, and if prevention fails go to treatment.
I see that. So Sacha can selectively quote, then complain about me selectively quoting, and you choose to dump on me? (I know it's your call).
[Don’t be so melodramatic! You know how things work here and you have been warned before about your incessant pasting & linking here. It is in the Policy:
Similarly pasting long materials from other sites, especially copyrighted materials, is not permitted. Just link and selectively quote. Repeated offences is really dumb.
I’m not impressed with you playing dumb and/or tit-for-tat games with Sacha.
Your hypersensitivity to criticism is showing. I did not “dump” on you; I warned you through a moderation note, and the correct term for that is “moderate”. Please note that you have been wasting moderators’ time [plural] and if you keep this up you will be ‘dumped’ (you and I know it’s your call) – Incognito]
[Edit: I just saw that Weka has already taken action that is more decisive; I’m just fudge]
Pete is lucky I didn't see the dumping comment until after I had moderated. I agree the ball is in his court now (there's a note in the back end about the length of the ban).
Pete, please show it when you leave out chunks of an article as you have done here in at least two separate posts today. I understand you are simplifying but wrapping quotes around the whole passage misrepresents the original source.
Posting such large parts of each article may also discourage readers here from bothering to click through to the original. Took me a second coffee.
Those conditions include requiring all staff to undergo sexual harassment prevention and disclosure handling training. They’d like to see a code of conduct being developed for party volunteers, rolled out party-wide.
The staff of the Labour party are about 20-30 people all up. I believe that most if not all have had this training. Certainly we don’t appear to have received any complaints from them about their behaviour.
Where they have arisen to date they have come from (in no particular order) volunteers, MPs, parliamentary staff, and random idiots who apparently weren’t even members and just turned up.
Certainly the party needs to craft a policy on it. That should be farmed out to someone with actual expertise in dealing with workplace bullying and sexual assaults. Their primary role shouldn’t be to investigate. It should be to support and shepard the complaints to the appropriate authorities so that they get dealt with.
Great article which pretty much sums up my feelings towards this and many other issues. For all the platitudes and tokenism their isn't actually the political and social will to make the changes necessary to prevent this impending doom. There will be one day when we are on the precipice of the apocalypse. But when that day arrives, a hollow feeling will swell in those peoples stomachs when they finally realize that they can now do nothing, their time has come and gone, and any grand scheme to prevent our destructions time was 20 to 50 years ago. As I said last week, I have taken steps to ensure my hopeful survival and adapt as best as I can. Will it work? Probably not, but at least I'm giving it my best effort. If only our leaders and people in influence would do the same.
There will be one day when we are on the precipice of the apocalypse. But when that day arrives, a hollow feeling will swell in those peoples stomachs when they finally realize that they can now do nothing,
Has that day arrived? There is significant evidence that the ssw event has forced a catastrophic (bifurcation ) reversal in the antarctic atmosphere.ie near reversal of the polar vortex,decreased ozone loss (and breakup of the ozone hole)
The increased probability for a wetter,colder and windier spring,summer in NZ with decreased mean T.Is that good for NZ?
The problem with Franzen article,is that he cited a paper where he invoked catastrophe (which did not exist)
According to a recent paper in Nature, the carbon emissions from existing global infrastructure, if operated through its normal lifetime, will exceed our entire emissions “allowance”—the further gigatons of carbon that can be released without crossing the threshold of catastrophe.
cant access the graph you have in your link but ask the question…do you accept the rational behind the IPCC's target of staying below a 2 deg C increase?
My opinion is to read what the science is suggesting.Not what various purveyors of crisis are suggesting.
The emergent scientific consensus is the IPCC science irrationally.Not by sceptics but alarmists and it has no place in science analysis.
the wmo sg statement here.
In my interview, I made clear that a science-based approach underpins climate action, and that our best science shows that the climate is changing, driven in large part by human action. However, I pointed out that the science-based approach is undermined when facts are taken out of context to justify extreme measures in the name of climate action.
so thats a negative….well i do accept the IPCC rationale advocating 2 deg C as a likely tipping point to unrecoverable climate change that is outside our habitability…maybe a little less or more…and on that basis the statement that if the existing infrastructure burns FF forhe estimated lifespan of that infrastructure we will well exceed the carbon budget for 2 deg C is obviously right…so the statement in the article is accurate
I said read what the science says (not what you think i said)
2c is not a tipping point .That s your unscientific opinion of a mathematical statement ie it has a strict description (including grammar) no more no less,and of which your understanding would be say limited.
2 deg C (above pre industrial average) has been determined as a point where unrecoverable climate feedbacks will (with a high degree of probability) be triggered…with your superior understanding of scientific principle do you wish to dispute that is the position of the IPCC?
A tipping point is a bifurcation.back to back saddle node,and or Shilnikov in the case of the ENSO complex system with regime change due to negative feedbacks
Large amplitude response to feedbacks appear only in linear systems and have significant constraints on prediction of complex systems. eg Zalipin and Ghil.
We revisit a recent claim that the Earth’s climate system is characterized by sensitive dependence to parameters; in particular, that the system exhibits an asymmetric,large-amplitude response to normally distributed feedback forcing. Such a response would imply irreducible uncertainty in climate change predictions and thus have notable implications for climate science and climate-related policy making. We show that equilibrium climate sensitivity in all generality does not support such an intrinsic indeterminacy; the latter appears only in essentially linear systems.The main flaw in the analysis that led to this claim is in-appropriate linearization of an intrinsically nonlinear model;there is no room for physical interpretations or policy conclusions based on this mathematical error.
"To judge from recent opinion polls, which show that a majority of Americans (many of them Republican) are pessimistic about the planet’s future, and from the success of a book like David Wallace-Wells’s harrowing “The Uninhabitable Earth,” which was released this year, I’m not alone in having reached this conclusion. But there continues to be a reluctance to broadcast it. Some climate activists argue that if we publicly admit that the problem can’t be solved, it will discourage people from taking any ameliorative action at all. This seems to me not only a patronizing calculation but an ineffectual one, given how little progress we have to show for it to date. The activists who make it remind me of the religious leaders who fear that, without the promise of eternal salvation, people won’t bother to behave well. In my experience, nonbelievers are no less loving of their neighbors than believers. And so I wonder what might happen if, instead of denying reality, we told ourselves the truth."
I have just heard on the 8am news on RNZ that a victim who survived the mosque attack can only recieve 60 % of their income due to only having worked for some months. The man is married and has 4 children.
What I find to be unacceptable is that the family is having to wash their clothing by hand. Due to being on ACC the earner is not entitled to a Work and Income grant for a washing machine.
Who ever is managing the fund which was raised, has overlooked what practical/essential assistance a family requires.
Each time the family washes their clothing they should not be reminded of why there is no washing machine.
My mother did not have a washing machine until the 6th child was born in 1961. Her hands would have been swollen and sore.
Shame on whoever has deprived the family and immediate action is required to assist victims where there is a need.
It is the loss of income which is the reason there is no washing machine.
I did not say that any money raised was for the loss of income.
There is more on this story on RNZ just after 8.10 am. My power ran out, so I have not listened to it yet.
I would like to know what is on the list which the donations are permitted for.
If this family were refugees why was there no washing machine or vacuum.
My mother was an orphaned refugee and when she went out into the world at age 21 the NZ govt provided her with sufficient clothing, a job and accommodation she could afford. This was in 1950.
The man on ACC was here on a work permit, his wife and family were overseas (not sure when they came to NZ). All victims of the mosque attacks are eligible to get permanent residence. The man's application is not yet processed.
I though that a person could apply for both ACC and Work and Income assistance but one reduces the final amount as is cancelled $ for $. Also even though residence of 24 months is required I thought that is what an emergency benefit was for.
……a subject that has been grinding my gears of late has been some of the static that has followed the initiative of putting free lunches into schools.What a surprise it was to hear (or sadly not that much of a surprise) so many narrow minded comments on both radio and TV, when the trial was announced by Government."Isn't it the parents responsibility" …"why aren't they budgeting better"… or the old classic "what, so the parents can spend more on smokes". What an embarrassment. To think so many people are that detached and quite prepared in their comments to punish the child rather than consider the underlying dynamics…….
…. it is the cohort that now includes many working poor that are exposed to the brunt of the changes.When you are earning $600 but your unavoidable bills are $650, that's not a budgeting issue, that's a crisis with no apparent solution.But not once have I heard that issue raised as a causative factor as to why a child may be coming to school hungry.The prioritising required of the impoverished is a challenge that the detached would benefit from experiencing.But in the meantime I think silence would be the best contribution they could make to the discussions.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who also has a role as an SIT ambassador, was particularly scathing of Hipkins' plans and want they meant for Invercargill.Shadbolt and SIT chief executive Penny Simmonds also indicated they would look at potential legal options on the back of the announcement.
Cadogan said many of the other polytechnics had been quite accepting of Thursday's announcement and he would prefer a similar approach from those in the deep south."At the moment we should be working to discuss the positives and what we can do to position us for the future."He said SIT's strength put it in a strong position when working through the detail of the merger.Rather than fighting it, Cadogan said the focus should centre on working with the Establishment Board for a positive outcome for the lower South Island. He has applauded Hipkins' "bold" move to restructure what Cadogan said was a broken polytechnic and training institute system.
Even if poor parenting is the reason kids are hungry at school, that's not the kid's fault.
I've come across plenty of people with punitive views towards the impoverished. But even they can't come up with a reason why kids should suffer the consequence of going hungry because of their parents' choices. (But they're really good at changing the subject when you ask why the kids should suffer)
Ensuring kids get at least one decent feed a day, five days a week, would give the kids suffering the biggest opportunity gaps a boost way out of proportion to the tiny cost involved. FFS, even most places in the US have worked out some way to ensure the worst-off kids get a free lunch at school.
Do you think this should be expanded because of school holidays? Children need decent nutrition 24/7, not just during school terms. In the US they can also get free (or bought) breakfast at school.
Absolutely expand it to 365 days, if anyone can figure out the politics of how to get there from where we are now. But while I reckon Icould map out a politically workable path to feeding kids in schools, I've no idea how to swing a program that would feed them outside of school.
The US also has the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamps). Not sure how often recipients have to reapply, but it's certainly longer-term and more secure than our one-off food benefit that you have to use within 3 days of getting it.
The Cadogan boys are an interesting pair, brother Tim is mayor of Central Otago and an interesting character too. On the face of it a Nat (very strong National majority in area) but when you dig deeper quite left.
Shadbolt needs to roll a blunt and inhale for a bit.
There is nothing stopping the southern Licensing trusts from continuing to fund free places to their local polytech – so exactly what harm to Southland is he on about?
Shadbolt is an establishment synchophant now. I wouldnt be suprised if he is a member of the National Party. He has been parroting all their lines for over a decade now.
Mind you, all Trotskyists seem to take the same course.
He'll probably be denounced by National's Red (or is that Blue?) Guards and paraded through Balclutha's main street naked with a billboard round his neck.
There's going to be a rearrangement of electorates in the South before the next election and things will change quite a bit due to the huge population growth in Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago. Quite on the cards that it could turn out to be not quite as blue as at present. Add in a couple of young incumbent MPs who seem to keep making fools of themselves by barking at every car that goes past, often missing the point completely, and it could be all on.
I had never even seen the link box. I had always just done the crude posting of the copied URL into the comment itself. It worked but it wasn't very pretty.
Hey now I can try and give much prettier links with text instead of just the URL. Never did master that before.
Followed your instructions but the same thing happened. When I submit, half the address line drops off. lprent is aware there is a glitch and will sort it when he gets the time. Only some of us appear to be affected.
Actually it is starting to look good. I have one more task at home, have no real required work at work. My slave master / student is heading away for weeks to the land of the deluded peasants (US), and I have almost a years complement of unused holiday time available.
However I also have a jury service notice – complete with a warning that is a trial in it for up to 5 weeks.
Here is why – 28 minutes – can do house work and listen. Elizabeth Anderson is Giant. Love her books, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It) . is fantastic and a must read for anyone interested in political economy.
You can't help yourself being rude talking over the top of Jacinda.
I don't think that it's fair on the people victim of the parliament scandal these peoples should not be used as a political FOOTBALL.
Our farmers do have a very low carbon footprint but they can lower there carbon footprint more they just have to focus on a lower carbon footprint and lower there water use to help save our environment we need to all work together to get to a carbon neutral society by 2050 not fight about it letting t the years roll by in that process making becoming carbon neutral by 2050 harder and harder you WE have to start now.
Ka pai Geovana Pères Aotearoa Wahine WBO Champion all the best it's great to see more of our Wahine Sports Stars being given the Star light kia kaha.
I agree with Mark on the Basket Ball.
I agree with Marie views about on the parliament staff issues.
I… It warms Eco Maori Ngaku to see finally that the majority of people can see OUR reality on human cause climate change. Even more when I see that our Rangatahi can see the big picture clearly through all the putea that is spent trying to deceive OUR Realities on Human Cause Climate change. Kia kaha Rangatahi of the Papatuanuku keep up the excellent MAHI. Championing positive action to minimise climate change and become carbon neutral ASAP
Americans are waking up': two thirds say climate crisis must be addressed
Major CBS News poll released as part of Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of more than 250 news outlets around the world to strengthen coverage of the climate story
Young people have been galvanized by climate science being taught in schools as well as a spreading global activist movement spearheaded by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who started a wave of school walkouts to demand action. Thunberg recently arrived in the US on a solar-powered yacht, ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in New York on 23 September.
This generational divide even cuts across party affiliation, with two-thirds of Republican voters aged under 45 considering it their duty to address the climate crisis, according to the CBS poll. Just 38% of Republicans aged over 45 feel the same.
“Younger Republicans are much more convinced climate change is a crisis and are supportive of action than older Republicans – which has big implications for the future of the party,” said Leiserowitz.
Around three-quarters of all respondents said they understand that climate change is melting the Arctic, raising sea levels and causing warmer summers. A further two-thirds accept that hurricanes will be made more severe by global heating. Hurricane Dorian, which recently devastated parts of the Bahamas, made 38% of Americans more concerned about the climate crisis, with 56% unswayed.
Leiserowitz said that the relationship between extreme weather events and concern over climate change is a complex one, with people already worried the most likely to say that their alarm has increased when a major storm or flood hits.
Regardless of concern over climate change there appears to be skepticism among Americans about how much humans can do about it. Just 19% said humans can stop rising temperatures and the associated impacts, with nearly half thinking it possible to slow but not stop the changes and 23% refusing to believe humans can do anything at all.
This may well influence the views of leading presidential contenders’ climate plans. Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders, for example, has proposed a rapid remodeling of society where planet-warming emissions from transport and power generation are eradicated within just 11 years
That's great the Japan Rugby World Cup is looking like a big secess that is good for the Game.
Still a lot of questions around that digger hitting the Auckland Airport fuel pipe.
Arsonists burning anything is boggling burning our tamariki schools is even worse idiots
Kia kaha to all the Tangata picking up the plastic waste from Tangaroa and our Awa we will change to a society that use minimal resources in everyday life.
That's is correct Maori and Pacific tamariki will be discriminated against the most in Schools. That has to stop.
Ngāti Kahu do not want a ship like Captain Cook landing in their harbor to celebrate Cooks arrival to Aotearoa Ka pai
I agree its not on that a social worker gave up the address were a destressed Wahine and tamariki to a out of control man who could do some dumb stuff.
Condolences to the Mullins Whanau for the loss have lost their Father.
I… we have to come up with new systems to minimise our usage taonga resources and minimise our waste by making a close loop system.
Eco Maori always likes listening to our great Kau matua stories and views on the Present kia kaha
To. Much Dug Clark teaching people vehicle mantince and serviceing fixing peoples cars just for the price of the parts in Kaitaia great skills to have
That's awesome our Taonga Te Kakapo indangered native parrot population has increased to 213 birds this year great mahi.
Its good to see you are concerned about human cause climate change.
Eco Maori sort of knows how some people feel when every conclusion I voice gets spun out to the Matariki.
Its great that Facebook is making changes to stop online extremists haters from using their platforms Ka pai don't give them any oxygen.
Its excellent to see Gull is moving into the South Island that will force the others to lower prices and save our consumers costs considerably kia Ora.
That's the way Customs is stopping more PEE like drugs from getting on New Zealand Street and ultimately destroying people lives.
He waimare etahi taangata He tangata taangata ahu.
Yes Te Kakapu native fish are rear with our degraded Wai quality in our Awa times are changing we are now going to treat our Taonga Wai with the respect it deserves.
Ka pai to Lisa for your massive feat swimming hundreds of miles for your cause Mana Wahine.
We must all make changes to the way we live now as the sooner we act the easier it will be to minimise global warming. The longer we wait the harder it will be to get to a carbon-free society its not ROCKET SCIENCE its logical.
Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry’
The Swedish environmentalist was one of several who spoke at a Senate climate crisis task force.
At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might combat one of the most urgent and politically contentious threats confronting world leaders: climate change.
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.
“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.
The Green New Deal is an ambitious 14-page resolution that calls for a “10-year national mobilization” that would eliminate the nation’s emissions in one decade. Scientists say limiting warming to 1.5C would require cutting manmade carbon levels by 45% by 2030 and reaching net zero around 2050.
Markey said their movement is shifting the political landscape. The senator pointed to the 2020 presidential debates as evidence of what has changed. Candidates are being asked about climate change and pushed to introduce plans to combat global warming. This is in stark contrast to 2016.
“What has happened? You have happened,” he told the activists. “You are giving this extra level of energy to the political process that is absolutely changing the dynamics of politics in the United States Ka kite Ano link below.
Typical of some business people say one thing in the public EYE and in the board rooms do the opposite what do we call them Lies. If they don't get on the climate mitigation waka they will lose their shoulders CASH. What a lot of business people haven't figured out is clean tech or anything that makes products with low or no carbon footprint is going to be the NEXT GOLD Rush. All the natural materials produced with low or no carbon will have a higher value .
Wall Street investment giants voting against key climate resolutions
Asset management companies BlackRock Inc and Vanguard have failed to live up to pledge to support climate action at energy firms
Some of Wall Street’s largest asset management companies are failing to live up to commitments to use their voting power to fight the climate crisis, according to a new report.
The report, published on Tuesday by the Washington DC-based Majority Action and the Climate Majority Project, claims that BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $6tn under management, and Vanguard, with assets of $5.2tn, have voted overwhelmingly against the key climate resolutions at energy companies, including a resolution at ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting, and at Duke Energy.
Had BlackRock and Vanguard not torpedoed these investor efforts, at least 16 climate-critical shareholder resolutions at S&P 500 companies would have received majority support in 2019, representing a significant corporate shift on climate, the report claims.
Refusing to use their proxy votes to support shareholders’ resolutions means letting companies off the hook – even as the climate crisis threatens their investors, their business models and the planet, the group says.
“The climate crisis is well upon us, and leading investors are stepping up to press fossil-fuel-dependent companies to align their strategies to the goals of the Paris agreement but some of the largest US investment companies are severely lagging,” said Majority Action’s Eli Kasargod-Staub.
Majority Action, which delivered a petition of 129,000 petition signatures to Blackrock in April, claims it ranks at the bottom of the list of fund managers using their voting powers to force companies to act responsibly on climate.
Nicholas Eisenberger at the advisory firm Pure Energy Partners said he was encouraged by the growing awareness of the urgency of the climate crisis in the business sector.
“Large asset managers are just at the beginning of taking the urgent actions required to more aggressively confront the threat of climate change,” he said, describing them as battleships at the start of an emergency corrective turn.
“We seen a fundamental shift in the last two years in the understanding of the dangers climate change presents but the steps we’ve taken are nowhere near adequate to the task yet
Its excellent that Amazon is going to make The Lord Of The Rings TV series in Aotearoa we have A Beautiful Contry and the most environmental way to shear Aotearoa to the Papatuanuku is with Films and TV series.
Brain fart lol
Cool find in North Canterbury a tooth bird 62 million years old birds are beautiful creatures. Aotearoa Te Whenua of ancient birds.
Let's hope not to many Pilot whales get stranded in Te Tai tokorau. Pilot Whales have huge brains and bond with each other quite closely.
Reduce emissions /becoming carbon neutral is definitely great for everyone every living thing.
Pilot Whale stranding it cool that heaps of tangata working together to try and save the stranded awesome.
Its sad that tangata whenua of Whangarei is being cut out of there Taonga Wai
Its great that Tangata whenua tourists operator's are chasing more revenue from entertaing our guests. It would be great to see more of our guests experiencing the best place in Aotearoa Te Tairawhiti best hunting fishing first whenua to see Te Ra in Eco Maori view
Isac great innovation finding a valuable oil from industrial hemp teno pai.
Turangi sing to give up smoking anyway you can give the stuff up is cool.
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
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 ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – 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 of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Photo by Jari Hytönen 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 ...
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 Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Sacks, Professor of Public Health Policy, Deakin University Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock In recent years, there’s been increasinghype about the potential health risks associated with so-called “ultra-processed” foods. But new evidence published this week found not all “ultra-processed” foods are linked ...
Fears that New Zealand is relying too heavily on low-cost forests to absorb its carbon dioxide emissions have been reignited by a report from the OECD. ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed the total dollar savings target from public sector cuts has been met, but the reductions have not been felt evenly across public agencies. Government departments were told to make savings set at 6.5 percent or 7.5 percent where headcount had grown by more than ...
She doesn’t have a single kind word for me and it’s getting under my skin.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,I have two amazing friends that I absolutely adore. Grace (all names have been changed) and I lived together across 2023 and Olivia moved in with us this ...
Can Western science and Māori science work together to support our well-being? The Te Ohu Mō Papatūānuku (TOMP) Trials Project was a landmark case for healing the land and people with the guidance of Māori science and leadership. This is what happened when Papatūānuku (Earth) was contaminated by toxic discharge, ...
The District Plan is a blueprint for a bigger, better Wellington, through tens of thousands of new apartments and townhouses and a new approach to urban growth. Joel MacManus lays out the vision. The process of putting together Wellington’s new District Plan has been long and excruciating. As a city, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Williams Veazey, ARC DECRA Research Fellow, University of Sydney DavideAngelini/Shutterstock In the 2007 film The Bucket List Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two main characters who respond to their terminal cancer diagnoses by rejecting experimental treatment. Instead, they go ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mohan Singh, Professor of Agri-Food Biotechnology, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences at the University of Melbourne., The University of Melbourne Tanja Esser/Shutterstock Australia’s vital agriculture sector will be hit hard by steadily rising global temperatures. Our climate is already ...
The Acumen Edelman Trust barometer reported that New Zealand’s political trust score now sits below the global average, a topic explored in a recent discussion paper by Maxim Institute. ...
Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman says, "The Fast-Track Bill is the most damaging piece of environmental legislation any Government has introduced in living memory. People are angry, and it’s time to march." ...
The school lunches programme has been retained – and will be extended to some preschoolers. So how is it going to cost $107 million less? To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. The minister with many hats David Seymour wears a number of hats, but this week ...
“Show us the bird,” I found myself muttering at times while reading Hard by the Cloud House by Peter Walker, a deeply thoughtful, often hilarious, at times rambling – but somehow delightfully so – search for the story of a big bird. But not just any bird: the bird. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Marley, Environment + Energy Editor, UK edition DPVUE .images/Shutterstock Your home was probably designed for a climate that no longer exists. As long as humanity continues to burn fossil fuel, padding the heat-trapping blanket of gases in Earth’s atmosphere, the ...
A senior lawyer has filed a complaint about tikanga becoming a required law school module. Law lecturer Carwyn Jones explains what he’s getting wrong. “…the first law of Aotearoa, a law that served the needs of tangata whenua for a thousand years before the arrival of tauiwi.”– Ani Mikaere ...
In 2019, an Auckland woman woke up from surgery to find that she had undergone a treatment she didn’t consent to. She tells Alex Casey about her experience. From her very first period at the age of 14, Laura experienced “debilitating” levels of pain that forced her to withdraw from ...
Comment: Concerns about the state of the economy are creeping up to the top of firms’ list of challenges. That’s evident in both surveys and the tone of our recent client discussions. Skimming the past few weeks of eco-news, it’s not hard to see why. – Retail card spending fell ...
Opinion: Could former co-leader James Shaw still make a difference to working with National? The post How the Greens could be contenders appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Opinion: What if we got rid of our existing drug laws and replaced them with a new law that legalised and carefully regulated all psychoactive substances, from cannabis to MDMA, methamphetamine and LSD to magic mushrooms? And which also included legal drugs such as alcohol and nicotine. “Wow,” you might ...
In the gloom following director-general Al Morrison’s job cuts in 2013, the Department of Conservation restructured its operations arm. Eleven conservancy districts were whittled into six new “conservation delivery” regions, under which the Rēkohu/Wharekauri/Chatham Islands area, comprising 40 scattered islands more than 800km east of Christchurch, was tethered to the ...
One of th e country’s top litigation lawyers says New Zealand is seeing a lift in court action between companies. Chapman Tripp partner Justin Graham, who oversees a team of around 80 litigation specialists, says the courts are now so log-jammed that it’s taking over two years to get cases ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A,DIV,A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 9 May appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government is talking up the crucial role of gas as a transition fuel “through to 2050 and beyond”. In a gas strategy to be released on Thursday, the government envisages the fuel’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Next week the government will again next try to get its legislation through to deal with non-citizens who won’t cooperate with efforts to deport them. The bill, which the opposition and crossbench refused to rush ...
A long-term project that will set out an alternative vision for Aotearoa that looks beyond the narrow confines of the policy straight jacket adopted by successive governments. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bree Hurst, Associate Professor, Faculty of Business and Law, QUT, Queensland University of Technology TK Kurikawa/Shutterstock A much-awaited report into Coles and Woolworths has found what many customers have long believed – Australia’s big supermarkets engage in price gouging. What started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney The Albanese government wanted to avoid an inquiry into its migration amendment bill. The report, handed down yesterday by a senate committee that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne Lobbying is at the heart of government. Who has access to and influence over key government officials shapes the decisions governments make – and how they make them. The ability to influence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Myfany Turpin, Associate Professor, Ethnomusicology, Linguistics and Ethnobiology, University of Sydney The act representing Australia at this year’s Eurovision contest has sadly not qualified for the grand final. Yet for Zaachariaha Fielding and Michael Ross, the duo that makes up Electric Fields, ...
In announcing changes to the school lunches programme, David Seymour said kids would no longer be served ‘woke’ foods. To clear up any confusion, The Spinoff has compiled a guide to the wokeness levels of some common food items. Apple = NOT WOKE Avocado = WOKE Avocado, smashed = EVEN ...
The Minister Responsible for GCSB and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security have been notified of this review, and have been provided a finalised Terms of Reference. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Minglu Chen, Senior Lecturer, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Robert Way/Shutterstock As the past few years have illustrated so clearly, the Australia-China relationship is complicated. As such, it is crucial for Australians to develop a more nuanced understanding of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mariana Campbell, Research Lecturer, Conservation, Charles Darwin University Marilyn Connell Australian freshwater turtles are facing an alarming trend. Almost half of these species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. The Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) is one of Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritise the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University Unsplash We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that everyone thinks, interacts and experiences the world differently. In the past, autistic people, people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder ...
PNG Post-Courier Papua New Guinea’s deputy opposition leader James Nomane has accused the government of “reckless economic management” that has forced devaluation to manage loan repayments in foreign currency and placate the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prime Minister James Marape “must stop lying to the people of Papua New Guinea”, ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Jane Arthur, author of Brown Bird, and former bookseller at Good Books.The book I wish I’d writtenI have been working on not comparing myself to others. On accepting that what I can ...
The final decision on the Wellington District Plan makes it official: High-density housing is legal across most of Wellington. Housing minister Chris Bishop has announced his decision on the Wellington District Plan, approving a series of amendments to radically upzone most of Wellington, allowing tens of thousands of new townhouses ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to ...
RNZ News As Israel presses ahead with strikes in Rafah and seizing the Rafah crossing from Egypt, aid agencies are sounding the alarm of a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”. Rafah was “significant” because it was the only part in Gaza that had not been terribly damaged by the conflict, United Nations ...
With funding set to be scrapped for the Hamilton-Auckland commuter train, Te Huia enthusiast Georgie Dansey argues for it to be thrown a lifeline. It’s 5.45am and the chain of my crappy old bike falls off slugging up the one hill in Hamilton. I contemplate yeeting the bike into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Cooke, Honorary Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland We feel ecological grief when we lose places, species or ecosystems we value and love. These losses are a growing threat to mental health and wellbeing globally. We all see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shauna Brail, Associate Professor, Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto A shift to hybrid and remote work continues to affect worker presence in Toronto’s downtown.(Shutterstock) Downtown Toronto, the core of Canada’s largest city, continues to reel from the lingering ...
Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
Productivity apps now make up a big chunk of the software market. But do they work? And why do they all have AI integrations?Despite being firmly on the record as a physical planner fan, I sometimes dream of something better than my pretty diary and its scrawled, ugly, interior ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
An objective list of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand, as judged by the Spinoff Editorial Board. It’s power list season, baby, and we want in on the action. Sure, there’s the rich list and the powerful “c-suite” list and the young people with power (hmmm) but here, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the names of deceased people, and describes ongoing colonial violence towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. First Nations people in Australia ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Macquarie University Netflix Baby Reindeer’s phenomenal success has much to do with its writer and lead, Richard Gadd, who plays Donny in a tender semi-autobiographical account of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking. Gadd’s story has ...
Profile of an influential young NZ activist https://storyo.co/stories/laura-oconnell-rapira
Yay. In before Pete!
Not by much. 🙁
Can picture it. 7am alarm goes off. Jumps out of bed. Makes toast and a cuppa. Grabs the latest installment out of the newspaper and he’s off……….
It's also pretty easy to copy and paste a post you've already prepared for your own website: https://yournz.org/2019/09/15/complainant-labour-party-will-have-to-address-archaic-power-structure/
Yes. That crossed my mind but wanted to be short and sweet.
You're wrong. I posted here first, then decided to cut and paste to a post at YNZ.
Why are you being so petty?
Nothing petty about early morning amazement.
Petty messenger attacking again. Ironic particularly for Anne.
If I made things up like this about a regular here I suspect I'd be hammered for it.
And wrong. I was up at 5:30 researching for a house painting project I'm working on. Made. Watched Deep Blue with my granddaughter who is staying, then made a cuppa for everyone.
I was right about the cuppa then. 😀
You have no sense of humour Pete.
Well done.
Complainants want the Labour Party to address it's archaic power structure, and hope that Jacinda Ardern can make it happen.
Alison Mau:
I think that Ardern will understand that there's lot riding on this – for the victims of course, but also for the reputation of the Labour Party and it's attractiveness to young people, especially to young females.
Labour has talked about gender balance for years, but has failed to provide a safe environment for young people, especially females.
Note the names of those who seem to have been responsible for male staffer protection debacle – Nigel, Grant, Andrew, Rob.
And there's a lot riding on this for Jacinda herself. Her reputation, her primary attractiveness as a new generation leader who is a caring and empathetic champion of gender balance and rights, is on the line.
She needs to make sure the repair job from here is done transparently. If the inquiry terms of reference are stacked in favour of the party and the Council, if the report is kept secret like the last one, if there is a lack of openness and no public sign of real repair and progress, then Ardern have failed to live up to her PR, again.
"(We will tell her) here are some conditions that the party needs to look at, before any of us feel comfortable coming back into these (Labour) spaces."
That cannot be done in secret, because it is not just the group of victims who want change, it's the future of the party at stake. Prospective party recruits – volunteers and candidates – need to know that Labour has finally learnt from multiple failures and put things right.
Grant is not a staffer. Nice try though.
I didn't say he was a staffer.
It has been claimed (and not denied) that he was closely associated with the (now ex) staffer, and was aware of the seriousness of allegations and, if we are to believe Ardern, kept important information from her as did the other men named above.
Sorry, next time I will paste your words into my reply to make sure I read them more carefully. Could have sworn it said ‘the names of those staffers’.
"It has been claimed (and not denied)", and "if we are to believe" appear to be attempts to convince that any scurrilous accusation put forward without evidence must be given as much credence as supported facts. We have heard a lot of conjecture, and undoubtledly some fact, but separating the two has not been easy, or I suggest for most people possible. What started out as a complaint of office bullying seems to have developed into harrassment, sexual misconduct, and now serious sexual abuse. We don't know whether this is by a single individual to another individual, or by more than one of either culprit or victim. We generally trust our media, but we do not know what they have heard themselves or been told by others. I trust some of the media who have reported enough to believe that there has been some matters that needed and still need addressing. if we are talking about an employment matter it is not clear who that employer is – the Labour Party appears to have been involved but not Parliamentary Services. If there are criminal matters it is not clear why the victim(s) has or have not been prepared to report a crime to the police, or whether threats or inducements have discouraged police involvement. Now I have enough trust in our media to believe that they do not get everything wrong; I believe there has been at least one incident that either should not have happened and/or should have been dealt with differently. In the meantime the question of who knew what when is a sideshow, but a recent further article in the SpinOff does at least indicate that one journalist is convinced that Jacinda Ardern did not know of the extent of the complaints until last Monday.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/14-09-2019/on-the-labour-party-crisis-and-jacinda-ardern/
If you know more, Pete, then by all means post the information with the evidence – provides that does not impede a possible criminal investigation of course), but if you do not have impeccable evidence, perhaps it is better to wait rather than to assume that every "claim" is automatically credible.
Tracy Watkins: Jacinda Ardern must force Labour to face itself in the mirror
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/115804055/editorial-jacinda-ardern-must-force-labour-to-face-itself-in-the-mirror
[Added the correct punctuation in the quoted text; you wouldn’t want to create an impression that you might be quoting selectively, would you? Pete, you should know and do better. Next time, I’ll delete the text and only leave the link. In fact, I getting itchy fingers when I see large texts being copied & pasted here – Incognito]
[Pete should know better as he had a three week ban for the same thing in 2017. Perhaps he forgot, but I think another ban now will help him cement this in his mind. He’s also been moderated more than once in various ways over not linking.
Pete, you’re a really long term commenter, you know the deal: always link, don’t misquote, and try to avoid long tracts of cut and pastes. Looking at your comments to Sacha you appear to not understand the problem here. When you cut and past different pieces of an article you have to make it clear that they are not one block of text. If you still don’t get this, ask one of the moderators for clarification when you get back.
3 weeks again, given it’s been a long time, but expect bans to get longer for repeat offenses. Interim ban, as I’ll run this past the mods already active in this thread – weka]
[ban reduced to a week. Pete the key point here about quoting is that if you post separate sections of someone else’s work, you have to make it clear you have removed bits. This is quite different than what Sacha did, which was to post part of an article, but with no bits cut out of the part he quoted – weka]
The outcome must be that NZ faces itself in the "mirror". I'm a bit perplexed, and the use of the words men & women is solely to make a point that has occurred to me. In various comments and positions on this on an emotive level, and not necessarily based on facts that anyone can confirm, some of those now most concerned with the victims have not displayed that concern previously and appear to be purely political. Has it it been decided from an editorial perspective that having mainly "women" journalists, it appears to me anyway carry the message these or any offences are Labour's "fault". I hope not because the story, the facts and where that leads NZ is all I want to hear.
Labour has been at fault here. Not once but twice, badly, with multiple victims in both.
But it is symptomatic of whole of New Zealand society problems. The National Party has had it's own embarrassing problems, publicly as recently as last year.
Law firms have been in the spotlight.
It is generally and strongly agreed that our judicial system has is not fit for purpose, overall and particularly related to sex offences (and probably violence offences which are often connected).
Abuse of power is a common factor.
The law business community has tried to fix it's problems.
National say they have addressed their handling of bullying and sexual matters in the wake of the Jami-Lee Ross affairs. There's no way of the public knowing if that has been effective.
A review of the judicial system is currently under way.
And Labour re running their own inquiry into their mishandling of things.
Media will be scrutinising how Labour handles this.
While it is a whole society problem a lot depends on how Labour handles this.
For a start, it could be a major factor in determining who our next Government is led by.
But it's bigger than that. If the Prime Minister and the major governing party openly deal with this well it will (finally) set a good example from the top that society needs to reform how it views and deals with bullying. violence, sexual violence and abuse of power.
If Labour sweep this under the carpet again then (some of) society will see this as a signal that sweeping under the carpet and business as usual (abuse as usual) is still normal practice.
I'm fine with that but remain perplexed that Nat Party inquiries and outcomes were not so scrutinised and followed up on by media.
National had just one major issue last year, Jami Lee Ross.
Labour stuffed up twice in a row.
Another difference is that the first of Labour's issues (summer camp attacks) involved illegal behaviour that went to court.
And the second has allegations of serious offences that many think should have gone to court.
There's also the problem that Ardern was seen as a champion of young people and of women's rights, and is seen to have failed on both.
Look, other than those who abuse and those who will use any part of this for political gain I can not think anyone who would want anything other than this "(finally) set a good example", can you?
…the first of Labour's issues (summer camp attacks) involved illegal behaviour that went to court.
It involved illegal behaviour of the kind that happens at parties in this country every weekend and doesn't usually end up in court because the media aren't interested and there's no political propaganda to be had from it. The perps in those cases are usually either not dealt with, or dealt with via public shaming or violence rather than complaints to the Police.
The fact that some men behave like that when drunk is a rape culture issue, not a Labour Party issue, and the prurient interest in this particular instance is mostly either politically motivated or just hand-wringing from conservatives who've led sheltered lives. Or both, I suspect, in your case.
I think this is a good summary.
Reflect on the rugby player in an airport toilet situation a couple of years back. Not the 'incident', the media handling of it and the explosion of public hysteria that generated.
The media love a good feeding frenzy and generating one is good for business, and egos. Couple that with the team at newstalkzb and the likes of Matthew Hooton quite simply wanting Labour and Jacinda Arden gone, the scenario is perfect.
Thank you, as a mother and a grandmother I have kept my opinion on that incident largely to myself as I knew it would not be popular to say what I thought and how I would use such examples. In an effort to keep them all safe "boys & girls" pointing out that things may not turn out always as you hope was a mainstay. That's not about blame it is about people, young people who as you say across the country can end up making utter fools of themselves when alcohol is at hand and even when it's not. That is part of the lesson the young need to learn hopefully sooner rather than later and even more so on the roads and in cars!
Granted there is a rape culture issue with drunken youth but this was a Labour Camp for under 16's where there was lotsa booze available and it was sanctioned by Labour. Not too many of us would allow or have a cabinet of (free?) booze at our children's 16th birthdays and not too many parents would approve of their children attending any teenage function where liquor was freely available to them. I think the party has to own this.
My parents sure as hell wouldn't have approved of the drinking I was doing at ages 15 – 17, but on the plus side, what they didn't know didn't hurt them. All this hand-wringing about Labour failing to prevent alcohol sullying the sacred temple of teenagers' bodies makes Doug Sellman look like a bad-ass.
Are you sure it was a camp "for" under 16s or a youth camp that incl that group and above, I very much doubt there were 13-15s there but you can correct me with some facts.
So much of the Jamie Lee Ross superbly mismanaged debacle was hidden. There's a lot there we need to know. Pompous Paula was right out of line divulging private information on public television which started Jamie's downward mental spiral.
Also what happened to that poor ' mistreated' woman Sarah Cowie who also in a drunken rage of rejection also contributed to his ultimate step of thinking of ending his life.
NOTHING! She's still in her very responsible role in the NationalParty. So what she did was acceptable to them?? Some double standards in there somewhere.
And petulant,perfidious Paula preaching from her pulpit of presumed power should take a look in her own back yard before trying to topple Jacinda with rabid rhetoric. I'm sure there is any amount of weed there that needs to be exposed. For the good of the country of course. Paula is fuelled by hatred for Jacind a.
National had just one major issue last year, Jami Lee Ross.
Pfft. There were two that we know about.
What about Richard Worth? He sexually abused two women (the ones we know about) and got away with it.
What about Mike Sabin?
Very selective in your interminably long and boring offerings aren't you.
I you're going back that fr why re you being selective and omitting the likes of Hughes?
Worth was quickly dumped by Key. Media have compared that prompt action to Ardern's inaction.
Compared it how, exactly? Key's "prompt action" was very good for him and the National Party but did nothing for Worth's victims, nothing to improve public awareness of rape culture and how to respond to it, and nothing for openness and transparency in government. The fact that you compare Key favourably with Ardern in that case suggests you're thinking of this entirely in terms of how cleverly some players are playing a game.
Yes, prompt action is the only way – if only the people who were complained to had had the nous to realise that. And Key had never promised the most open and transparent Govt. ever.
Yes, prompt action is the only way…
In that particular case, it was the best way to minimise political damage to brand Key and the National Party. Whether it was also a good thing for the victims or not we'll never know, but my money's on them not getting even a second thought.
And Key had never promised the most open and transparent Govt. ever.
I don't recall Ardern promising that either.
It's commendably honest of right-wingers to admit that they just assume a National government's going to act in its own interests and conceal that from voters, but unfortunately (and I get sick of having to point this out), National itself is not so honest:
Bill English, 2014:
He told TV3's The Nation this morning that Prime Minister John Key ran the "most transparent government that New Zealand's ever seen".
It may or may not go to court. What many think is irrelevant to the due process except for putting undue pressure on those who could make it happen.
Public perception and opinion is influenced if not manipulated to a large degree by the media. To me, you come across as a media accomplice not as a truth seeker. I prefer the latter and these people differentiate themselves from the main crowd not be being more intelligent, more confident, or being louder (e.g. boasting and bragging) but by nuance, humility, sophisticated and critical thinking, and generally admitting that they know
shitnothing in the first place.Ummm. Have you ever actually read a report of this kind? I have.
It is full of material that was given under confidentiality, is full of inadmissible hearsay, people names, and is deeply prejudicial to any subsequent court processes.
Releasing it may be appreciated to the prurient dribblers slavering over the underwear details. However it doesn’t help anyone apart from journalists after column inches and airtime.
Perhaps you and the idiot who wrote that quoted piece should engage your brain rather than your lust for gossip and consider what options gets killed if that kind of report gets released. For a start, just think of the consequences for victims.
Sometimes you are just an idiot.
Are you under the impression we don't know where Stuff is or something, Pete?
He's like a dog with an old bone. Can't leave it alone. Either that or he is trolling in which case it might be necessary for a moderator to intervene. It's been going on for nearly a week.
I do not believe Mr George is trolling, just fixated.
It can be a fine line between being fixated and needing a fix.
So you're trying to influence moderators to shut things down?
This has been the biggest story in political media all week. Given how important it is to Labour, I would have thought it would be of interest to discussions here – unless the intent is to aid the apparent Labour Party coverups, which looks increasingly what some are trying to do.
[lprent: You must be blind. There have been comments all over the site for days. Unlike you, some of them have actually had suggestions about what should be done to prevent this kind of crap again.
I realise that you prefer to act as a brainless critic who carps and can’t offer any ideas. But perhaps you should try exercising your brain a bit.
But my toleration for outright lying by you and other is wearing very thin. If you can’t bring yourself to actually participate in debate about how to solve a problem – then leave. ]
It's Sacha and Anne who have been making things up here, but par for the course for me to get the threats to shut up..
What have I made up?
9 September 2019 at 12:19 pm
"There were these two terriers who loved the scent of blood…"
No, I'm under the impression that people here have been trying to avoid discussing an issue that is important not just to Labour but to the Government and the country.
And I don't care what sources you may read, I'm not doing it for you.
You could ignore things here that you've already read rather than join the petty pile-on.
Just as well there's a fearless moral conscience here to set things straight then. Undies on the outside!
I'm under the impression that people here have been trying to avoid discussing an issue that is important not just to Labour but to the Government and the country.
The lengthy threads of people discussing it gave you that impression, did they? I dread to think what you imagine not avoiding discussing it would like.
I haven’t noticed that Pete George has managed to suggest anything constructive on this topic. He still appears to be coming up to speed with his own lack of knowledge on the issues.
In fact his most recent post quotes some actual sensible advice from Young Labour via Alison Mau that appears to have been written here. That essentially says that the Labour Party shouldn’t try to rely on internal expertise to handle these kinds of issues, but should get outside expertise.
Reading PG, it is hard to see that he managed to grasp the point. That the core problem is that Labour simply doesn’t have in-house expertise and shouldn’t be trying to do their own investigations.
They’re saying a QC – but fundamentally that is way too expensive to do every time that someone raises these kinds of issues.
To be frank it’d be simpler to disband Young Labour so the Labour Party can get on with what we pay levies for. Just about every dumbarse political crap of this kind has arisen out Young Labour or the barely grown dickheads having access to them (think Darren Hughes).
Or perhaps the answer go the other way give and give the Labour Party the authority to launch criminal prosecutions. There are some National MPs and ex ones that I would be interested in seeing in court explaining their behaviour….
Perhaps Pete should try to contribute his actual ideas rather than stroking his outrage
Couldn't agree more!
In my day we young things worked through the main party. We learned from our elders how to behave in a political environment and they gave us the benefit of their knowledge and expertise, so that we were well informed and could avoid the ever present pit-falls of political life. Most of all we learnt how to socialise with all age groups and to show respect for the elderly who knew a darn sight more about life than we did.
I am opposed to lowering the voting age precisely for the type of behaviour we have seen in recent times and which has become all too prevalent among so many young people in this country.
The people who caused a problem were not Young Labour this time. Two people with vast experience made bad decisions, which has made things harder for the complainants and definitely harder for the PM.
She went to the heart of it.
1. What the complainants needed to happen
2. An independent 3rd party to look at actions and facts.
3. The PM to be kept in the loop.
Out of all of that….
4. To change Labour's culture in this sphere to make the Party spaces safer in the future.
May it succeed.
I disagree about disbanding Young Labour. A Youth wing is essentially the school/club rugby of a political party – people build skills, connections and interests, and also do a lot of the ground work for local actions.
But all youth groups need to be properly supervised, otherwise harmful cultures can build up (especially around alcohol).
But this staffer thing has nothing really to do with Young Labour beyond an incidental connection and that it shows Labour didn't learn a damned thing about how to deal with sensitive complaints in an informal environment.
So – what about the children? Labour can'yt disassociate itself from pastoral care for its voters and its young adherents in Young Labour as well. Get back to some good old fashioned interest and leadership for the young where it isn't all about money and immediate power and advantage.
I was thinking more "have a rotating watch of authority figures who intervene to stop people getting too drunk", sort of thing.
What the YL incident and the student law society camp complaints in the last few years had in common was that most things being complained about happened after the adults/authority figures left/went to bed.
Then there's the issue of how to resolve complaints after they occur.
Prevention, and if prevention fails go to treatment.
Yeah nah – the Key government moved heaven and earth to protect Mike Sabin.
Any process becomes difficult when the guy running it is the guy you're trying to stop.
See my Moderation note @ 7:49 AM.
I see that. So Sacha can selectively quote, then complain about me selectively quoting, and you choose to dump on me? (I know it's your call).
[Don’t be so melodramatic! You know how things work here and you have been warned before about your incessant pasting & linking here. It is in the Policy:
I’m not impressed with you playing dumb and/or tit-for-tat games with Sacha.
Your hypersensitivity to criticism is showing. I did not “dump” on you; I warned you through a moderation note, and the correct term for that is “moderate”. Please note that you have been wasting moderators’ time [plural] and if you keep this up you will be ‘dumped’ (you and I know it’s your call) – Incognito]
[Edit: I just saw that Weka has already taken action that is more decisive; I’m just fudge]
See my Moderation note @ 12:32 PM.
Pete is lucky I didn't see the dumping comment until after I had moderated. I agree the ball is in his court now (there's a note in the back end about the length of the ban).
Thanks and I responded in the back-end.
moderation note for you Pete.
"The Wheels of Justice turn slowly but exceedingly fine."
Pete, please show it when you leave out chunks of an article as you have done here in at least two separate posts today. I understand you are simplifying but wrapping quotes around the whole passage misrepresents the original source.
Posting such large parts of each article may also discourage readers here from bothering to click through to the original. Took me a second coffee.
You "left out chunks" of the article that you quoted from.
Which article?
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-09-2019/#comment-1655068
[HTH]
[link fixed – weka]
Do you mean my post #1? What have I left out from between the two (continuous) paragraphs I quoted?
A moderator has fixed one of yours above at 2.2, for comparison.
The staff of the Labour party are about 20-30 people all up. I believe that most if not all have had this training. Certainly we don’t appear to have received any complaints from them about their behaviour.
Where they have arisen to date they have come from (in no particular order) volunteers, MPs, parliamentary staff, and random idiots who apparently weren’t even members and just turned up.
Certainly the party needs to craft a policy on it. That should be farmed out to someone with actual expertise in dealing with workplace bullying and sexual assaults. Their primary role shouldn’t be to investigate. It should be to support and shepard the complaints to the appropriate authorities so that they get dealt with.
this piece from jonothan franzen has been getting some attention..
in it he argues that we are pretty much fucked..
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending
'The climate apocalypse is coming.
To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.'
Great article which pretty much sums up my feelings towards this and many other issues. For all the platitudes and tokenism their isn't actually the political and social will to make the changes necessary to prevent this impending doom. There will be one day when we are on the precipice of the apocalypse. But when that day arrives, a hollow feeling will swell in those peoples stomachs when they finally realize that they can now do nothing, their time has come and gone, and any grand scheme to prevent our destructions time was 20 to 50 years ago. As I said last week, I have taken steps to ensure my hopeful survival and adapt as best as I can. Will it work? Probably not, but at least I'm giving it my best effort. If only our leaders and people in influence would do the same.
There will be one day when we are on the precipice of the apocalypse. But when that day arrives, a hollow feeling will swell in those peoples stomachs when they finally realize that they can now do nothing,
Has that day arrived? There is significant evidence that the ssw event has forced a catastrophic (bifurcation ) reversal in the antarctic atmosphere.ie near reversal of the polar vortex,decreased ozone loss (and breakup of the ozone hole)
The increased probability for a wetter,colder and windier spring,summer in NZ with decreased mean T.Is that good for NZ?
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/gif/pole10_sh.gif
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/meteorology/figures/ozone/omds_2019_toms+omi+omps.pdf
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/meteorology/figures/merra2/wind/u45_75s_10_2019_merra2.pdf
I personally believe that day arrived 15 years ago. All we can really do now imo is prepare as best we can for a horrible future.
The problem with Franzen article,is that he cited a paper where he invoked catastrophe (which did not exist)
According to a recent paper in Nature, the carbon emissions from existing global infrastructure, if operated through its normal lifetime, will exceed our entire emissions “allowance”—the further gigatons of carbon that can be released without crossing the threshold of catastrophe.
https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira/status/1170775296825425922
cant access the graph you have in your link but ask the question…do you accept the rational behind the IPCC's target of staying below a 2 deg C increase?
rationale
Here is a better graph from the paper using the IPCC scenario.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAl1NApXoAAfSLK.jpg:large
My opinion is to read what the science is suggesting.Not what various purveyors of crisis are suggesting.
The emergent scientific consensus is the IPCC science irrationally.Not by sceptics but alarmists and it has no place in science analysis.
the wmo sg statement here.
In my interview, I made clear that a science-based approach underpins climate action, and that our best science shows that the climate is changing, driven in large part by human action. However, I pointed out that the science-based approach is undermined when facts are taken out of context to justify extreme measures in the name of climate action.
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/statement-wmo-secretary-general-petteri-taalas
so thats a negative….well i do accept the IPCC rationale advocating 2 deg C as a likely tipping point to unrecoverable climate change that is outside our habitability…maybe a little less or more…and on that basis the statement that if the existing infrastructure burns FF forhe estimated lifespan of that infrastructure we will well exceed the carbon budget for 2 deg C is obviously right…so the statement in the article is accurate
I said read what the science says (not what you think i said)
2c is not a tipping point .That s your unscientific opinion of a mathematical statement ie it has a strict description (including grammar) no more no less,and of which your understanding would be say limited.
2 deg C (above pre industrial average) has been determined as a point where unrecoverable climate feedbacks will (with a high degree of probability) be triggered…with your superior understanding of scientific principle do you wish to dispute that is the position of the IPCC?
A tipping point is a bifurcation.back to back saddle node,and or Shilnikov in the case of the ENSO complex system with regime change due to negative feedbacks
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Saddle-node_bifurcation
Large amplitude response to feedbacks appear only in linear systems and have significant constraints on prediction of complex systems. eg Zalipin and Ghil.
We revisit a recent claim that the Earth’s climate system is characterized by sensitive dependence to parameters; in particular, that the system exhibits an asymmetric,large-amplitude response to normally distributed feedback forcing. Such a response would imply irreducible uncertainty in climate change predictions and thus have notable implications for climate science and climate-related policy making. We show that equilibrium climate sensitivity in all generality does not support such an intrinsic indeterminacy; the latter appears only in essentially linear systems.The main flaw in the analysis that led to this claim is in-appropriate linearization of an intrinsically nonlinear model;there is no room for physical interpretations or policy conclusions based on this mathematical error.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1003.0253.pdf
You're planning on being cryogenically frozen…?
No, I'm going to upload my conciousness to a computer and come back as a Kelly Lebrock lookalike human hybrid like in the movie weird science…
"To judge from recent opinion polls, which show that a majority of Americans (many of them Republican) are pessimistic about the planet’s future, and from the success of a book like David Wallace-Wells’s harrowing “The Uninhabitable Earth,” which was released this year, I’m not alone in having reached this conclusion. But there continues to be a reluctance to broadcast it. Some climate activists argue that if we publicly admit that the problem can’t be solved, it will discourage people from taking any ameliorative action at all. This seems to me not only a patronizing calculation but an ineffectual one, given how little progress we have to show for it to date. The activists who make it remind me of the religious leaders who fear that, without the promise of eternal salvation, people won’t bother to behave well. In my experience, nonbelievers are no less loving of their neighbors than believers. And so I wonder what might happen if, instead of denying reality, we told ourselves the truth."
Could have written it myself….if I could write,
Good link
A stupid false binary from Frantzen.
We're all obligated to do our best to mitigate climate change – to whatever temperature our collective efforts merit.
He should stick to being a novelist – which is the one thing he’s good at.
I have just heard on the 8am news on RNZ that a victim who survived the mosque attack can only recieve 60 % of their income due to only having worked for some months. The man is married and has 4 children.
What I find to be unacceptable is that the family is having to wash their clothing by hand. Due to being on ACC the earner is not entitled to a Work and Income grant for a washing machine.
Who ever is managing the fund which was raised, has overlooked what practical/essential assistance a family requires.
Each time the family washes their clothing they should not be reminded of why there is no washing machine.
My mother did not have a washing machine until the 6th child was born in 1961. Her hands would have been swollen and sore.
Shame on whoever has deprived the family and immediate action is required to assist victims where there is a need.
No vacuum cleaner either.
Looking after the daily needs of these families is the least we can do as a nation. Disgusting.
What happened to the donated money?
It was never intended to make up for months of lost income. That's on how our govt have chosen to arrange matters.
It is the loss of income which is the reason there is no washing machine.
I did not say that any money raised was for the loss of income.
There is more on this story on RNZ just after 8.10 am. My power ran out, so I have not listened to it yet.
I would like to know what is on the list which the donations are permitted for.
If this family were refugees why was there no washing machine or vacuum.
My mother was an orphaned refugee and when she went out into the world at age 21 the NZ govt provided her with sufficient clothing, a job and accommodation she could afford. This was in 1950.
The man on ACC was here on a work permit, his wife and family were overseas (not sure when they came to NZ). All victims of the mosque attacks are eligible to get permanent residence. The man's application is not yet processed.
I though that a person could apply for both ACC and Work and Income assistance but one reduces the final amount as is cancelled $ for $. Also even though residence of 24 months is required I thought that is what an emergency benefit was for.
A W&I and ACC advocate needs to become involved.
Also he stepped from the ranks recently to say
Even if poor parenting is the reason kids are hungry at school, that's not the kid's fault.
I've come across plenty of people with punitive views towards the impoverished. But even they can't come up with a reason why kids should suffer the consequence of going hungry because of their parents' choices. (But they're really good at changing the subject when you ask why the kids should suffer)
Ensuring kids get at least one decent feed a day, five days a week, would give the kids suffering the biggest opportunity gaps a boost way out of proportion to the tiny cost involved. FFS, even most places in the US have worked out some way to ensure the worst-off kids get a free lunch at school.
Do you think this should be expanded because of school holidays? Children need decent nutrition 24/7, not just during school terms. In the US they can also get free (or bought) breakfast at school.
Absolutely expand it to 365 days, if anyone can figure out the politics of how to get there from where we are now. But while I reckon I could map out a politically workable path to feeding kids in schools, I've no idea how to swing a program that would feed them outside of school.
The US also has the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamps). Not sure how often recipients have to reapply, but it's certainly longer-term and more secure than our one-off food benefit that you have to use within 3 days of getting it.
The Cadogan boys are an interesting pair, brother Tim is mayor of Central Otago and an interesting character too. On the face of it a Nat (very strong National majority in area) but when you dig deeper quite left.
https://crux.org.nz/2019-local-body-elections/tim-cadogan/ (edit, link is a 10 minute video covering Tim’s local politics)
Shadbolt needs to roll a blunt and inhale for a bit.
There is nothing stopping the southern Licensing trusts from continuing to fund free places to their local polytech – so exactly what harm to Southland is he on about?
Shadbolt is an establishment synchophant now. I wouldnt be suprised if he is a member of the National Party. He has been parroting all their lines for over a decade now.
Mind you, all Trotskyists seem to take the same course.
He'll probably be denounced by National's Red (or is that Blue?) Guards and paraded through Balclutha's main street naked with a billboard round his neck.
The population centres are not as blue in the south as one might think (with some notable exceptions)
There's going to be a rearrangement of electorates in the South before the next election and things will change quite a bit due to the huge population growth in Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago. Quite on the cards that it could turn out to be not quite as blue as at present. Add in a couple of young incumbent MPs who seem to keep making fools of themselves by barking at every car that goes past, often missing the point completely, and it could be all on.
Who needs Bolton to start a war?
https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1172971900664012802
Must be a delicate thing trying to time it right for the presidential election.
Republican diversity.
https://twitter.com/AdrienChorn_/status/1172539989030313984
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/elizabeth-heng-aoc-cambodia-khmer-rouge-new-voices.html
A local short story for your afternoon: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/09/07/785976/saturday-short-story-the-black-monk-by-charlotte-grimshaw
People having trouble with linking to TS comments, here's how to do it:
If you want to make it fancier, you can put some words in the Display Text box.
I had never even seen the link box. I had always just done the crude posting of the copied URL into the comment itself. It worked but it wasn't very pretty.
Hey now I can try and give much prettier links with text instead of just the URL. Never did master that before.
Thank you for the tip.
Jeeze alwyn, I can't believe it, I thought you knew everything, just like Hosking.
concise 🙂
I'm sorry to destroy one of your cherished beliefs.
Now I am really going to spoil your day.
There is no Santa Claus!
Hi weka
Followed your instructions but the same thing happened. When I submit, half the address line drops off. lprent is aware there is a glitch and will sort it when he gets the time. Only some of us appear to be affected.
Time, if I only had time…
Actually it is starting to look good. I have one more task at home, have no real required work at work. My slave master / student is heading away for weeks to the land of the deluded peasants (US), and I have almost a years complement of unused holiday time available.
However I also have a jury service notice – complete with a warning that is a trial in it for up to 5 weeks.
Liberals, Leninists and the Libertarians suck.
Here is why – 28 minutes – can do house work and listen. Elizabeth Anderson is Giant. Love her books, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It) . is fantastic and a must read for anyone interested in political economy.
Looks like Boris Johnson's tactics are working and Corbyn is even more ineffective.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/14/tories-extend-poll-lead-to-12-despite-week-of-political-chaos
Conservatives up 2%
Labour stays same.
Doesn't seem to match Gosman's point. Perhaps it was another poll?
A former president of the European Council has said he believes Brexit has changed EU attitudes to Scottish independence.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-49690513
Amidst the nutso reporting of late, a real scandal affecting hundreds of Kiwi families goes unremarked
https://twitter.com/hamish_keith/status/1172637706276364288?s=20
Kia Ora Newshub.
You can't help yourself being rude talking over the top of Jacinda.
I don't think that it's fair on the people victim of the parliament scandal these peoples should not be used as a political FOOTBALL.
Our farmers do have a very low carbon footprint but they can lower there carbon footprint more they just have to focus on a lower carbon footprint and lower there water use to help save our environment we need to all work together to get to a carbon neutral society by 2050 not fight about it letting t the years roll by in that process making becoming carbon neutral by 2050 harder and harder you WE have to start now.
Ka pai Geovana Pères Aotearoa Wahine WBO Champion all the best it's great to see more of our Wahine Sports Stars being given the Star light kia kaha.
I agree with Mark on the Basket Ball.
I agree with Marie views about on the parliament staff issues.
Ka kite Ano
Ka pai to the Bubbles foiling sea taxi in France cool new tech coming from France.
I… It warms Eco Maori Ngaku to see finally that the majority of people can see OUR reality on human cause climate change. Even more when I see that our Rangatahi can see the big picture clearly through all the putea that is spent trying to deceive OUR Realities on Human Cause Climate change. Kia kaha Rangatahi of the Papatuanuku keep up the excellent MAHI. Championing positive action to minimise climate change and become carbon neutral ASAP
Americans are waking up': two thirds say climate crisis must be addressed
Major CBS News poll released as part of Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of more than 250 news outlets around the world to strengthen coverage of the climate story
Young people have been galvanized by climate science being taught in schools as well as a spreading global activist movement spearheaded by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who started a wave of school walkouts to demand action. Thunberg recently arrived in the US on a solar-powered yacht, ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in New York on 23 September.
This generational divide even cuts across party affiliation, with two-thirds of Republican voters aged under 45 considering it their duty to address the climate crisis, according to the CBS poll. Just 38% of Republicans aged over 45 feel the same.
“Younger Republicans are much more convinced climate change is a crisis and are supportive of action than older Republicans – which has big implications for the future of the party,” said Leiserowitz.
Around three-quarters of all respondents said they understand that climate change is melting the Arctic, raising sea levels and causing warmer summers. A further two-thirds accept that hurricanes will be made more severe by global heating. Hurricane Dorian, which recently devastated parts of the Bahamas, made 38% of Americans more concerned about the climate crisis, with 56% unswayed.
Leiserowitz said that the relationship between extreme weather events and concern over climate change is a complex one, with people already worried the most likely to say that their alarm has increased when a major storm or flood hits.
Regardless of concern over climate change there appears to be skepticism among Americans about how much humans can do about it. Just 19% said humans can stop rising temperatures and the associated impacts, with nearly half thinking it possible to slow but not stop the changes and 23% refusing to believe humans can do anything at all.
This may well influence the views of leading presidential contenders’ climate plans. Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders, for example, has proposed a rapid remodeling of society where planet-warming emissions from transport and power generation are eradicated within just 11 years
Ka kite Ano link below below.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/15/americans-climate-change-crisis-cbs-poll
Kia Ora Newshub.
Kia Pai Winston Peters is back Kia Kaha.
That's great the Japan Rugby World Cup is looking like a big secess that is good for the Game.
Still a lot of questions around that digger hitting the Auckland Airport fuel pipe.
Arsonists burning anything is boggling burning our tamariki schools is even worse idiots
Kia kaha to all the Tangata picking up the plastic waste from Tangaroa and our Awa we will change to a society that use minimal resources in everyday life.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
That's is correct Maori and Pacific tamariki will be discriminated against the most in Schools. That has to stop.
Ngāti Kahu do not want a ship like Captain Cook landing in their harbor to celebrate Cooks arrival to Aotearoa Ka pai
I agree its not on that a social worker gave up the address were a destressed Wahine and tamariki to a out of control man who could do some dumb stuff.
Condolences to the Mullins Whanau for the loss have lost their Father.
I… we have to come up with new systems to minimise our usage taonga resources and minimise our waste by making a close loop system.
Eco Maori always likes listening to our great Kau matua stories and views on the Present kia kaha
To. Much Dug Clark teaching people vehicle mantince and serviceing fixing peoples cars just for the price of the parts in Kaitaia great skills to have
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
That's awesome our Taonga Te Kakapo indangered native parrot population has increased to 213 birds this year great mahi.
Its good to see you are concerned about human cause climate change.
Eco Maori sort of knows how some people feel when every conclusion I voice gets spun out to the Matariki.
Its great that Facebook is making changes to stop online extremists haters from using their platforms Ka pai don't give them any oxygen.
Its excellent to see Gull is moving into the South Island that will force the others to lower prices and save our consumers costs considerably kia Ora.
That's the way Customs is stopping more PEE like drugs from getting on New Zealand Street and ultimately destroying people lives.
He waimare etahi taangata He tangata taangata ahu.
Yes Te Kakapu native fish are rear with our degraded Wai quality in our Awa times are changing we are now going to treat our Taonga Wai with the respect it deserves.
Ka pai to Lisa for your massive feat swimming hundreds of miles for your cause Mana Wahine.
Ka kite Ano
We must all make changes to the way we live now as the sooner we act the easier it will be to minimise global warming. The longer we wait the harder it will be to get to a carbon-free society its not ROCKET SCIENCE its logical.
Greta Thunberg to Congress: ‘You’re not trying hard enough. Sorry’
The Swedish environmentalist was one of several who spoke at a Senate climate crisis task force.
At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might combat one of the most urgent and politically contentious threats confronting world leaders: climate change.
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has galvanized young people across the world to strike for more action to combat the impact of global warming, politely reminded them that she was a student, not a scientist – or a senator.
“Please save your praise. We don’t want it,” she said. “Don’t invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it because it doesn’t lead to anything.
The Green New Deal is an ambitious 14-page resolution that calls for a “10-year national mobilization” that would eliminate the nation’s emissions in one decade. Scientists say limiting warming to 1.5C would require cutting manmade carbon levels by 45% by 2030 and reaching net zero around 2050.
Markey said their movement is shifting the political landscape. The senator pointed to the 2020 presidential debates as evidence of what has changed. Candidates are being asked about climate change and pushed to introduce plans to combat global warming. This is in stark contrast to 2016.
“What has happened? You have happened,” he told the activists. “You are giving this extra level of energy to the political process that is absolutely changing the dynamics of politics in the United States Ka kite Ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/17/greta-thunberg-to-congress-youre-not-trying-hard-enough-sorry
Typical of some business people say one thing in the public EYE and in the board rooms do the opposite what do we call them Lies. If they don't get on the climate mitigation waka they will lose their shoulders CASH. What a lot of business people haven't figured out is clean tech or anything that makes products with low or no carbon footprint is going to be the NEXT GOLD Rush. All the natural materials produced with low or no carbon will have a higher value .
Wall Street investment giants voting against key climate resolutions
Asset management companies BlackRock Inc and Vanguard have failed to live up to pledge to support climate action at energy firms
Some of Wall Street’s largest asset management companies are failing to live up to commitments to use their voting power to fight the climate crisis, according to a new report.
The report, published on Tuesday by the Washington DC-based Majority Action and the Climate Majority Project, claims that BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $6tn under management, and Vanguard, with assets of $5.2tn, have voted overwhelmingly against the key climate resolutions at energy companies, including a resolution at ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting, and at Duke Energy.
Had BlackRock and Vanguard not torpedoed these investor efforts, at least 16 climate-critical shareholder resolutions at S&P 500 companies would have received majority support in 2019, representing a significant corporate shift on climate, the report claims.
Refusing to use their proxy votes to support shareholders’ resolutions means letting companies off the hook – even as the climate crisis threatens their investors, their business models and the planet, the group says.
“The climate crisis is well upon us, and leading investors are stepping up to press fossil-fuel-dependent companies to align their strategies to the goals of the Paris agreement but some of the largest US investment companies are severely lagging,” said Majority Action’s Eli Kasargod-Staub.
Majority Action, which delivered a petition of 129,000 petition signatures to Blackrock in April, claims it ranks at the bottom of the list of fund managers using their voting powers to force companies to act responsibly on climate.
Nicholas Eisenberger at the advisory firm Pure Energy Partners said he was encouraged by the growing awareness of the urgency of the climate crisis in the business sector.
“Large asset managers are just at the beginning of taking the urgent actions required to more aggressively confront the threat of climate change,” he said, describing them as battleships at the start of an emergency corrective turn.
“We seen a fundamental shift in the last two years in the understanding of the dangers climate change presents but the steps we’ve taken are nowhere near adequate to the task yet
Ka kite Ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/17/wall-street-asset-management-climate-change-blackrock-vanguard
Kia Ora Newshub.
Its excellent that Amazon is going to make The Lord Of The Rings TV series in Aotearoa we have A Beautiful Contry and the most environmental way to shear Aotearoa to the Papatuanuku is with Films and TV series.
Brain fart lol
Cool find in North Canterbury a tooth bird 62 million years old birds are beautiful creatures. Aotearoa Te Whenua of ancient birds.
Let's hope not to many Pilot whales get stranded in Te Tai tokorau. Pilot Whales have huge brains and bond with each other quite closely.
Reduce emissions /becoming carbon neutral is definitely great for everyone every living thing.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Te Maori King has made the correct call Ka pai
Pilot Whale stranding it cool that heaps of tangata working together to try and save the stranded awesome.
Its sad that tangata whenua of Whangarei is being cut out of there Taonga Wai
Its great that Tangata whenua tourists operator's are chasing more revenue from entertaing our guests. It would be great to see more of our guests experiencing the best place in Aotearoa Te Tairawhiti best hunting fishing first whenua to see Te Ra in Eco Maori view
Isac great innovation finding a valuable oil from industrial hemp teno pai.
Turangi sing to give up smoking anyway you can give the stuff up is cool.
Ka kite Ano