TVNZ News reports that hospitals in the UK and the USA are over crowded with Covid 19 patients and the film cameras show 1 patient. In all the reports I still have not seen a single image of a hospital over full with Covid 19 patients.
They also report 100's of dead per day and recently in the USA a 1000 dead per day from Covid 19 and the film cameras show 0 bodies. I still have not seen any evidence of this many dead.
What is the point of film camera's? They just say all this shit and don't show any of it. I feel like I'm still a child being forced to attend church, they just say all this random unbelievable shit and expect me to believe it?
Why does anyone believe this shit when they can't even show it? Seeing is believing, show what's going on or shove your mandatory mask wearing and contact tracing up your arse.
Why don't you go look for yourself and tell us all what you find? After all, video can be faked too. Truthers of all kinds of things like moon landings and the shape of the earth tell us so all the time.
Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, my cousin and her husband and all their medical colleagues are putting in everything they can every single day, and when they finally lay down to get a bit of rest, they're all hoping like hell they'll be able to summon whatever it takes to do it again the next day. With no relief anywhere on the horizon.
It's been following medical people online that's been the most instructive for me in terms of grasping the seriousness of the situation. News reports are useful too, but that frontline stuff has been essential to understand. I limit it more now, but it's alarming seeing the places which are reaching hospital overload *again. Did people in positions of power forget that one of the prime reasons for containing the pandemic was because of all the effects when the health system gets overloaded.
There's some common factors and some widely varying factors for the resurgence.
Common factors include CovidCamacho rage-tweeting nonsense from La Cage aux Fuckups that couldn't have been better designed to make the pandemic worse even if it was a planned strategy (rather than the spur-of-the-moment ad-hoc idiocy it probably was). That's likely a factor for why Repug areas are in general are getting it worse for this wave than earlier. As expected, the surge in infections also coincides with classes starting up and people spending more time indoors as the weather gets colder and daylight shorter.
Variable factors include a lot of places either didn't really get a first wave or only a small one, so they never really got the message about how seriously it needed to be taken. Utah and nearby states like the Dakotas are in this category.
Other states like California and New York that got hit hard in the early stages of the pandemic have possibly suffered from lockdown fatigue, and were slow to respond to upticks in cases. To be sure, they have responded to the upticks, just a day late and a dollar short.
edit: just eyeballing the curves for New York City and New York state certainly looks like the statewide cases are shooting up a lot faster than city cases, compared to the first wave. Make of that what you will, given than the rest of New York is fairly Repug-leaning compared to New York City.
Did people in positions of power forget that one of the prime reasons for containing the pandemic was because of all the effects when the health system gets overloaded.
As NZ has a shortage of ICU beds,which struggle in times of crisis such as CHCH eq,mosques, or white island,mobility had to be constrained as well as physical interaction such as sports etc.
The outcome was a mortality deficit in NZ over the winter months,fewer admissions,deaths, etc.
The significant decrease in accidents, also had the paradox of reducing funding to DHB by ACC.
It apparently hasn't occurred to you that they are not showing the evidence because they know the images will distress people…. especially those who have lost loved ones to Covid.
Do you remember the film footage of people jumping off the roof of the World Trade Centre in 2001 because they preferred death by falling than being burnt alive? Health officials were so alarmed at the psychological consequences of such images they called for media outlets to be banned from showing them.
"Do you remember the film footage of people jumping off the roof of the World Trade Centre in 2001 because they preferred death by falling than being burnt alive? "
I remember catching a bit of that before they started the delayed editing.
I found the written reports (sometimes first hand) of covid hitting Italy in March traumatic enough, no way did I want images or video.
911 was the last time I watched live emergencies where people were dying or suffering extremely. Unless there is a good reason to watch I don't see the point. Some people get traumatised, others develop cognitive dissonance and/or increased tolerance to violence.
When somebody is on life-support or has died, the media have the rightful duty to barge in, poke and prod the body and film up-close, interrogate staff and get their personal contact details and publish it, live, preferentially, in lieu of us checking for ourselves with our own eyes. Do you like Zen kōan?
Perhaps first hand experience of Covid-19 one way or the other, will get you to change your mind quick smart re the awful reality of the existence of the virus!
There is one fact that proves it happened…it was the height of the cold war…so russia/china..plus everyone else on the planet with a telescope tracked the fucken thing through the skies..both there and back…unless of course…they were all in the conspiracy too…to believe the moon-landing was faked is the mark of a true idiot..
Earth-based telescopes at the time and even at present are not powerful enough to make out any detail of the landings on the actual Moon itself. If they had used a monster-truck with giant wheels, it would have been different or a huge flag …
This is from a nurse who will tell you – yes it is real!
I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is Going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that “stuff” because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens. And I can’t stop thinking about it. These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them. And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It’s like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll. You just go back and do it all over again.
You using the width box in the window for embedding the image? I never got that to work for me.
What works for me is not bother with any of the other boxes, and just put in the image URL. Then submit the comment. Then immediately edit the comment to add in width="500" just before the />
Yep I've tried all those work arounds. But for some reason it is not working tonight. Had another image wrt to the tangerine ***** driving past his base today and observing just how much that showed how much he cared.
Famous Painter George Bush Canceled After Early 2000s War Crime Allegations Resurface
McLENNAN COUNTY, Texas — Prolific artist and former U.S. President George W. Bush is facing a firestorm of controversy today after numerous videos emerged online of his alleged war crimes between 2003 to 2009.
“I’ve known him for years and he’s always been nice. He never once declared war crimes on my family, so I have a hard time believing any of these credible accusations are true,” said former First Lady Michelle Obama. “What’s next? Today, we’re cancelling Bush for unjust wars; tomorrow, we’re cancelling my husband just for bombing a hospital? If things keep going this way, everyone will be too afraid to order drone strikes on civilians.”
Jubilant Reaction To Trump Defeat Quickly Soured By News Of Biden Win
"Seconds after the room had erupted into cheers, applause, and a few big sighs of relief, sources confirmed Tuesday that a local group of friend’s jubilant reaction to Donald Trump’s defeat had soured quickly upon the announcement of Joe Biden’s victory. “One moment we’re celebrating our nation’s repudiation of Trump, and the next Biden is declared the winner—what a buzzkill,” said 29-year-old Ryan Lopez"
Unlike you Andre, I actually have a firm set of moral and ethical principles that I live by that are not negotiable, I know that this concept is quite foreign to you…but there you have it.
Yes..satire is a wonderful thing..but I don't think satirists would claim to be telling the truth…so posting from the onion as tho' it is the 'truth'..and using it as a launching pad for an 'i reckon'…is kinda strange…and funny in itself…
Nah it's true because many people voted for Biden as the lessor of two evils – because Biden was not Trump. Basically a lose:lose situation or a Pyrrhic victory.
It's satirical cause it's poking fun at that very notion and at a US society / political system that basically gives you but two choices and it is clearly exaggerating the effect.
unfortunately it is a lesser known bird gets my vote, as out of the sight of the public very soon there will be no chance for those birds at all.
so every year I look for those less known for my vote and to hopefully increase its profile- saying that they all need attention, DOC resources and habitat protection
MatukuBittern
I am pleased to say that I had to dodge a makutu whilst driving down Henderson Bay Road a wee while ago. Rare indeed, and a delight to see one out and about.
Went for the Grey Warbler. Love a description of it I read somewhere – that it cleverly inverts the Victorian maxim that children should be seen and not heard.
Always feel sorry for the grey warbler. It gets parasitised by the lazy shining cuckoos. They lay their eggs in the warbler nests and then their chicks kick out the warbler chicks and make the warbler mum and dad work like crazy feeding them.
I'm fairly sure I saw a pair of Crested Grebe here in Auckland this week, and wonder if the stormy weather might have displaced them (their distribution is in the South Island).
I took a real good look as it was my first encounter with the species. They were on MOTAT land, beside an estuary/stream system.
So we have a $9 billion Hort industry relying on about 15,000 low wage RSE workers. MIQ facilities quite rightly accepting returning NZ passport holders first. NZ workers choose not to do the hard work at minimum pay rates in an industry rife with reports of exploitation by “labour contractors.” It sounds ripe ground for a unionised workforce with much better worker rights and protection. Growers simply have to face the new reality, negotiate with the Kiwi workforce and their representatives or go broke. Employment contract laws are out dated and very one sided. Time for change?
Definitely time for a change. Actually I think it could do with even wider framing. I really don't understand why Labour won't assist workers to empower themselves by making workforces part of the business conversation. We miss out on so much when we don't harness all the ability of the total workforce. We education people then when they join the workforce, rather than creating and contributing, they are told to sit down and listen only to the current managerial cult.
As to the fruit picking – at the minimum this time around I'd like to see an accreditation scheme – just to let potential workers know such things as whether the employer is compliant with labour and tax laws, are they overseas owned because I don't think anyone needs to be slave labour for overseas profit.
We have had plenty of commentary about water bottling and not being about to benefit from mining the resource yet we also have this hort. industry and don’t forget fishing. IMO little different from water bottling 🤬
The use of offshore labour to prop up successful industrial sectors.
Growers simply have to face the new reality, negotiate with the Kiwi workforce and their representatives or go broke.
It may be that they'll do both. NZ labour simply cannot compete with the cheap labour offshore.
Time for change?
Definitely time for a change but the change is actually in trade laws. We, as a nation, need to step up and say that we will only trade with countries that have the same or similar laws and enforcement as ours. This is to ensure that costs are properly accounted for.
Of course, the end result of that will be the minimising of international trade.
The wages in the local (HB) HORT industry are a joke (a bad one) even if you go on contract and prune or pick well above the average, and believe me a worker has to work fucking hard to make that happen, once you take rain days into account that worker will be earning less than minium wage at the end of most months of the season..and then to add insult to injury, getting topped up by winz is far from straight forward, and even if you do make it through their obvious "thinning out process", they will only top up a workers wage to the level of the unemployment benefit, not the wages they lost over those days!
The New Zealand Labour won't be batting for these workers any time soon….no that party of middle class wankers stopped being even pretending to be a workers party long long ago.
The New Zealand Labour won't be batting for these workers any time soon….no that party of middle class wankers stopped being even pretending to be a workers party long long ago.
I posted a few years back about the Labour Party having the cheek to have prominently on their website the 8 hour working day 40 hour working week pointing out that it was ridiculous they highlighted something they no longer believe in.
Coincidently or not it disappeared within a few weeks. That re-inforced their non-belief in it.
They also no longer believed in the right to strike as they have left that to be only at the expiry of a contract and no other time.
Like increasing benefit rates they have done nothing about giving workers a legal right to strike – the unions are just as useless negotiating multi-year agreement which reduce the right to strike to once every three years. Unions are just as fucked up as the Labour Party.
The unemployment rate in Marlborough has been the among lowest in NZ for quite a few years and was 2.6% in June this year or about a few hundred people. At those number you are down to only those who can do quite sedentary work because of age, injury, addiction and other causes. In effect anybody that can work in Marlborough has a job.
RSE workers are about 3000 and those jobs are a huge benefit to the mostly Pacific Islands that they come from. Stop denigrating RSE workers, they are no different from workers coming from Wellington or Auckland, except in one respect, they are a lot more capable and a hell of a lot more motivated.
To label them in a derogatory manner simply because they come from the Pacific to where the work is, is racist.
They are paid at least the minimum wage and mostly a lot more and are housed in good accomodation that has to pass muster by the Department. They are almost without exception bloody nice people.
They are also the highest paid people by a very, very long margin in their own country, equivilant to probably a Cabinet Minister in NZ.
The payments of RSE workers is a drain on NZs balance of payments. Better for NZs economy for that money to be circulated back within NZs internal economy.
If the growers have to take less dividends from the profits to avoid tax in order to pay more to NZers to entice them to pick fruit and grapes and what have you, then that's hardly going to send them to the poor house.
After all, Francine Perry has a house worth 3million, multiple shareholdings, and likely a trust with multiple properties in it too. Can't forget her late model Audi.
Yeah, nah, the growers complaining aren't complaining at the fact they can't get RSE workers. They're complaining about the fact they might not be able to buy an extra rental property or three, or upgrade the Audi to the latest model, this year, if they had to hire NZers at a rate that enables NZers to travel to work, and recognises the hard physical labour involved in horticulture pruning and picking. I mean, it took female care workers years to fight for the fact their work was just as skilled and demanding as other physical labour – horticulture is just behind the 8 ball. In fact, it's so far behind the 8 ball, that the 8 ball hasn't even been made in the factory yet, for horticulture to get behind.
"If the growers have to take less dividends from the profits to avoid tax in order to pay more to NZers to entice them to pick fruit and grapes and what have you, then that's hardly going to send them to the poor house."…too fucking right!
The RSE scheme has been used to undermine wage growth in the horticultural industry that is just a fact, why on earth do you think there hasn’t been a significant rise in picking bin rates for nearly twenty years? and most especially during the past decade when the industry has been booming, every year their returns would increase while wages stayed stagnant…exploiting one labour force ( pacific Islanders) against another(NZ workers) in a text book operation of class war pure and simple.
Because the one rule of growing stuff is that the price you get for it falls just a little bit every year. Consumers expect everything to be on special pretty much all the time and they set the price. Try selling something to a supermarket chain and get a grasp of what producers are facing everyday.
"The packing house provides accommodation too, with four roommates to one bedroom. Two double bunks where there used to be one, a lean pillow on each mattress. An acquaintance of Mum’s, who used to run the administration at the packing house, confirmed that only two people are supposed to sleep in each room. The four-to-one bedrooms are a recent addition for which the workers are charged $117 each per week. Mum’s disgusted by this. She says they have to share the bunks, and some barely fit on the mattress. The springs creak whenever they turn over in the metal bunk beds."
"Work slows down for a fortnight and the packers only work three or four days a week. As a result the Tongans are not earning much money to send back to their families, and they’re hungry. Groups of Tongan packers sit near Mum and Grant’s table, looking at their food while they’re eating. When Mum takes out an apple, Ana asks for a bite"
I can’t see anyone in the above train of comments denigrating RSE workers. They are exploited to the same or worse extent, by Hort NZ, as Kiwis. RSE workers have even less choice and a recent charge of modern day slavery, in Hawke’s Bay, led to a “Labour contractor” being gaoled. The point is, collective bargaining is a real need and a union is the only way to do this.
Whatever is negotiated with the orchards should definitely be the same for the RSE workers. No way should we be exploiting them in our labour market. And the accommodation charging is just a version of the company store and it needs to stop.
They were called slaves, that is derogatory and their ethnicity is often mentioned.
Were Kiwis going to Aussie mines for the last 40 years "slaves ".
It's a dog whistle to make a political point using some of the nicest people you could meet who are, like the Kiwis to Australia before them delighted to be making what amounts to huge money back home.
But then yesterday Elon Musk showed up. He wants to be in the NASA control room, a very reasonable desire, when his Dragon capsule is launched with real people in it. NASA requires a negative Covid test to be there. That seems somewhat reasonable too; this is a high-security area and the people in there are very important to NASA, so if they want a swab up your nose, well, here it comes.
He popped positive. No soup for you, sir, says NASA!
Except…. Musk is richer than God and he also doesn't give a **** about shoving government bull**** right up their ass. So he demanded a re-test, right there, right now. I assume he offered to pay for it too; the privilege of not caring about money helps in a situation like this, you see.
And, because he's not stupid and, as I said, he's perfectly happy to shove bull**** up their ass, he didn't just do this once.
He did it three more times. All on the same day, same nurse, in sequence.
He got two positive and two negative results.
Now Musk is either positive or negative, obviously. But whichever way it is he just dropped a nuclear weapon in the middle of the Covid19 testing industry and blew it to beyond the orbit of Mars. Exactly nobody in the media is reporting that, but that's what he did — conclusively.
Seriously, what is it with this unhinged idea that media don't report stuff? It's reached that point that making that assertion has become a fairly reliable indicator of an idiot conspiracy theorist.
As for the story itself. it's been known for a long time that COVID testing has varying degrees of positive and negative accuracy. Accuracy depends on the method used, current viral load, where the sample is taken from, and a bunch of other factors. The only slight bit of interest in the story is how it relates to Musk's desire to be in the control room, and his past controversial statements and actions with respect to COVID.
What's the accuracy of the test in question? Got a link to the ROC plot?
Dude narrowly failed a screening test. Could be a misdiagnosis, could be that his viral load at the time was borderline – maybe he was getting over it and didn't know.
But he still failed it twice. Would you rather a test that erred on the side of false negatives?
In his big speech the other day Trump once again spoke about the testing. The 'best' tests and the best testing. There was the acceptance and acknowledgement there that there are tests and there are tests.
:SIGH:
This has been known for some months. But in America where quicker is always better..
Fast Isn’t Always Better: What to Know About Rise of Rapid Coronavirus Testing
Earlier this month, shortly before Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was due to meet President Donald Trump at a Cleveland airport, the governor tested positive on a rapid antigen test for the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that causes the disease COVID-19.
Two follow-up tests, using a more accurate polymerase chain reaction, or PCR test, showed the governor didn’t have the virus.
This kind of false positive with an antigen test isn’t an isolated incident.
Dozens of people who took a rapid SARS-CoV-2 test developed by biotech company Quidel at a Manchester, Vermont, clinic in July were told they had the virus.
Subsequent PCR tests run by the state’s Department of Health found that only 4 out of those 65 were positive.
With people across the United States returning to work and school — and flying and eating out — companies, businesses, and universities are turning to rapid tests as a way to identify people who have the virus.
But no test is completely accurate, which means that some cases will be missed (false negatives) and some people will be told they have the virus even though they don’t (false positives).
This can create confusion, especially when people aren’t aware of what type of test they’ve had done.
But some experts say that widespread testing, even if it’s less accurate, can still help contain the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Although antigen tests are faster and the number of tests being run can be easily scaled up, they have a high false-negative rate — with as many as half of negative results inaccurate.
There's the old tradies' rule that work can be fast, good, or cheap, you pick two out of three.
Medical tests are similar, with the proviso that "good" can be "specific" or "sensitive".
NASA wanted sensitivity as a priority. That often means a trade-off against "specificity" – sometimes it will confuse something else for what you are testing for.
Meh. I had wondered why Musk was going apeshit over it. Apparently he can send people into space, but he can't watch it over zoom lol.
You can come up with all the excuses… it's neo-liberalism… it's free trade agreements taking away their jobs and… people are entitled to their views etc., but the truth is:
These people are one dirty great screw loose and they're dangerous.
Here we go again. The suits find it suits them to sign up to these constricting trade agreements and if we upset any of the ‘partners’ the suits will fly.
Fifteen countries in the Asia-Pacific region have signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) deal.
It's the world's largest free trade agreement, has been eight years in the making and came into fruition today via a virtual summit hosted in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Australia went from relief that it had had several days without any community transmission to a certain smugness, with eyes cast over the ditch at NZs recent leakage from quarantine…..until today. A new cluster has emerged in Adelaide, the first in the community since April.The source is a worker at a quarantine hotel, who appears to have passed the virus on to family members who work in places where further transmission is likely – no room for complacency as the Chief Health Officer reminds everyone in SA. Mind you, compared to the horror figures coming out of the U.S. and Europe (and just about everywhere else) these little leaks seem pretty insignifcant on a world scale.
Tegnell is admitting that his PlanB-style non-lockdown infectious disease control plan did not mitigate the second wave. His math was a little bit off initially, fair enough. But he committed to the plan even when it others said it was going pear-shaped.
If it were fiction, he'd be a bit of a tragic figure – reminds me of Kodos the Executioner. Similar body count so far, too.
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Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],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, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
TVNZ News reports that hospitals in the UK and the USA are over crowded with Covid 19 patients and the film cameras show 1 patient. In all the reports I still have not seen a single image of a hospital over full with Covid 19 patients.
They also report 100's of dead per day and recently in the USA a 1000 dead per day from Covid 19 and the film cameras show 0 bodies. I still have not seen any evidence of this many dead.
What is the point of film camera's? They just say all this shit and don't show any of it. I feel like I'm still a child being forced to attend church, they just say all this random unbelievable shit and expect me to believe it?
Why does anyone believe this shit when they can't even show it? Seeing is believing, show what's going on or shove your mandatory mask wearing and contact tracing up your arse.
Maybe the dead and dying aren't there for your entertainment purposes. Have you heard of the internet? It has lots of awful stuff you can fap to.
Why don't you go look for yourself and tell us all what you find? After all, video can be faked too. Truthers of all kinds of things like moon landings and the shape of the earth tell us so all the time.
Meanwhile in Salt Lake City, my cousin and her husband and all their medical colleagues are putting in everything they can every single day, and when they finally lay down to get a bit of rest, they're all hoping like hell they'll be able to summon whatever it takes to do it again the next day. With no relief anywhere on the horizon.
It's been following medical people online that's been the most instructive for me in terms of grasping the seriousness of the situation. News reports are useful too, but that frontline stuff has been essential to understand. I limit it more now, but it's alarming seeing the places which are reaching hospital overload *again. Did people in positions of power forget that one of the prime reasons for containing the pandemic was because of all the effects when the health system gets overloaded.
There's some common factors and some widely varying factors for the resurgence.
Common factors include CovidCamacho rage-tweeting nonsense from La Cage aux Fuckups that couldn't have been better designed to make the pandemic worse even if it was a planned strategy (rather than the spur-of-the-moment ad-hoc idiocy it probably was). That's likely a factor for why Repug areas are in general are getting it worse for this wave than earlier. As expected, the surge in infections also coincides with classes starting up and people spending more time indoors as the weather gets colder and daylight shorter.
Variable factors include a lot of places either didn't really get a first wave or only a small one, so they never really got the message about how seriously it needed to be taken. Utah and nearby states like the Dakotas are in this category.
Other states like California and New York that got hit hard in the early stages of the pandemic have possibly suffered from lockdown fatigue, and were slow to respond to upticks in cases. To be sure, they have responded to the upticks, just a day late and a dollar short.
edit: just eyeballing the curves for New York City and New York state certainly looks like the statewide cases are shooting up a lot faster than city cases, compared to the first wave. Make of that what you will, given than the rest of New York is fairly Repug-leaning compared to New York City.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-trends.page
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-york/
Did people in positions of power forget that one of the prime reasons for containing the pandemic was because of all the effects when the health system gets overloaded.
As NZ has a shortage of ICU beds,which struggle in times of crisis such as CHCH eq,mosques, or white island,mobility had to be constrained as well as physical interaction such as sports etc.
The outcome was a mortality deficit in NZ over the winter months,fewer admissions,deaths, etc.
The significant decrease in accidents, also had the paradox of reducing funding to DHB by ACC.
https://mpidr.shinyapps.io/stmortality/
It apparently hasn't occurred to you that they are not showing the evidence because they know the images will distress people…. especially those who have lost loved ones to Covid.
Do you remember the film footage of people jumping off the roof of the World Trade Centre in 2001 because they preferred death by falling than being burnt alive? Health officials were so alarmed at the psychological consequences of such images they called for media outlets to be banned from showing them.
"Do you remember the film footage of people jumping off the roof of the World Trade Centre in 2001 because they preferred death by falling than being burnt alive? "
I remember catching a bit of that before they started the delayed editing.
It was f-ing awful
I found the written reports (sometimes first hand) of covid hitting Italy in March traumatic enough, no way did I want images or video.
911 was the last time I watched live emergencies where people were dying or suffering extremely. Unless there is a good reason to watch I don't see the point. Some people get traumatised, others develop cognitive dissonance and/or increased tolerance to violence.
When somebody is on life-support or has died, the media have the rightful duty to barge in, poke and prod the body and film up-close, interrogate staff and get their personal contact details and publish it, live, preferentially, in lieu of us checking for ourselves with our own eyes. Do you like Zen kōan?
@Non-Personal
Are the dying non-personal persons?. When are the dead non-persons – just before, or the moment after? Do you need to see the nail-holes in the hands?
Because, my conspiracist leaning friend, sick people and dead people have rights of privacy! Duh!!
I have seen evidence of over full hospitals on Aljazeera TV channel 16 and the storing of bodies. As well the pressure health care workers are under.
Just on AJ TV 180,000 Covid infections in the US in the last 24 hrs. Britain has a high as well.
I will not comment
I will not comment
I will not comment
I will not comment
I will not
aaarrrrgghhhhhhh!
@ Non Personal … Are you for real?
Perhaps first hand experience of Covid-19 one way or the other, will get you to change your mind quick smart re the awful reality of the existence of the virus!
I realise I am wasting my own good time by responding to you. Your level of ignorance defies belief. Please get some help
D'yareckon the moon-landing was faked..?
Heh! Had the same thought but concluded that the fake was faked, which kinda makes the real thing real in a surreal kinda way, for real.
I remember many a happy hour at Vic in our Philosophy III tutorials with Prof Hughes discussing that very moot "What is 'real'?"
Hangovers are real and the good nights before are surreal. Like a good Groundhog, we keep repeating the same type of behaviour over and over again.
There is one fact that proves it happened…it was the height of the cold war…so russia/china..plus everyone else on the planet with a telescope tracked the fucken thing through the skies..both there and back…unless of course…they were all in the conspiracy too…to believe the moon-landing was faked is the mark of a true idiot..
Earth-based telescopes at the time and even at present are not powerful enough to make out any detail of the landings on the actual Moon itself. If they had used a monster-truck with giant wheels, it would have been different or a huge flag …
This is from a nurse who will tell you – yes it is real!
I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is Going to ruin the USA. All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that “stuff” because they don’t have COViD because it’s not real. Yes. This really happens. And I can’t stop thinking about it. These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them. And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It’s like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll. You just go back and do it all over again.
https://twitter.com/JodiDoering/status/1327771329555292162
You sound like Billy T the fuckwit.
[Image resized]
Tried to adjust this image to fit (eg with 450) – it appears ok in the preview, but when submitted it always reverts to the original size 🙁
You using the width box in the window for embedding the image? I never got that to work for me.
What works for me is not bother with any of the other boxes, and just put in the image URL. Then submit the comment. Then immediately edit the comment to add in width="500" just before the />
Yep I've tried all those work arounds. But for some reason it is not working tonight. Had another image wrt to the tangerine ***** driving past his base today and observing just how much that showed how much he cared.
Ha! Fixed it – I'd been missing a space :blush:
Add this before the end of tag: width="100%"
Heh..!…very good..!…
[Removed stray letter from e-mail address]
Famous Painter George Bush Canceled After Early 2000s War Crime Allegations Resurface
McLENNAN COUNTY, Texas — Prolific artist and former U.S. President George W. Bush is facing a firestorm of controversy today after numerous videos emerged online of his alleged war crimes between 2003 to 2009.
“I’ve known him for years and he’s always been nice. He never once declared war crimes on my family, so I have a hard time believing any of these credible accusations are true,” said former First Lady Michelle Obama. “What’s next? Today, we’re cancelling Bush for unjust wars; tomorrow, we’re cancelling my husband just for bombing a hospital? If things keep going this way, everyone will be too afraid to order drone strikes on civilians.”
https://thehardtimes.net/culture/famous-painter-george-bush-canceled-after-early-2000s-war-crime-allegations-resurface/
Anyone else gong to EcoDay? Trackmeet of all activist beings in western Auckland?
https://www.ecomatters.org.nz/event/ecohub-market-day-2/
Jubilant Reaction To Trump Defeat Quickly Soured By News Of Biden Win
"Seconds after the room had erupted into cheers, applause, and a few big sighs of relief, sources confirmed Tuesday that a local group of friend’s jubilant reaction to Donald Trump’s defeat had soured quickly upon the announcement of Joe Biden’s victory. “One moment we’re celebrating our nation’s repudiation of Trump, and the next Biden is declared the winner—what a buzzkill,” said 29-year-old Ryan Lopez"
https://politics.theonion.com/jubilant-reaction-to-trump-defeat-quickly-soured-by-new-1845551327
…the reaction of every single person I have talked to about the US election, Trump and Biden both universally despised by all right thinking citizens.
You do realise that The Onion is a satirical comedy dhow don't you?
…you do understand that most good satire and especially political satire are based within unsaid truths..don't you?
Like the unsaid truth (in liberal press) that Biden is corporate whore and well known war monger amongst other things..
Politically, poor Mr Thornton is like a vegan stuck in a town where the only place to get a feed is Carnivore Carl's House of Dripping Bloody Steaks.
Unlike you Andre, I actually have a firm set of moral and ethical principles that I live by that are not negotiable, I know that this concept is quite foreign to you…but there you have it.
And relying on the onion for yr political news/information is one of them..?…heh..!
I'm on Adrian's side here.
Good satire is so often truthful at the same time as being satirical.
Yes..satire is a wonderful thing..but I don't think satirists would claim to be telling the truth…so posting from the onion as tho' it is the 'truth'..and using it as a launching pad for an 'i reckon'…is kinda strange…and funny in itself…
Nah it's true because many people voted for Biden as the lessor of two evils – because Biden was not Trump. Basically a lose:lose situation or a Pyrrhic victory.
It's satirical cause it's poking fun at that very notion and at a US society / political system that basically gives you but two choices and it is clearly exaggerating the effect.
Closing 5:00 pm today Bird of the Year Vote: Exercise your rights 😉🤔
https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/
As a bird lover I want to vote for all of them. 🙁
Do you reckon the Fairy Tern would be a good pick?
Surely it's its turn?
Done.
unfortunately it is a lesser known bird gets my vote, as out of the sight of the public very soon there will be no chance for those birds at all.
so every year I look for those less known for my vote and to hopefully increase its profile- saying that they all need attention, DOC resources and habitat protection
MatukuBittern
I am pleased to say that I had to dodge a makutu whilst driving down Henderson Bay Road a wee while ago. Rare indeed, and a delight to see one out and about.
Yes, I think it is the bittern's turn.
Went for the Grey Warbler. Love a description of it I read somewhere – that it cleverly inverts the Victorian maxim that children should be seen and not heard.
Always feel sorry for the grey warbler. It gets parasitised by the lazy shining cuckoos. They lay their eggs in the warbler nests and then their chicks kick out the warbler chicks and make the warbler mum and dad work like crazy feeding them.
Hutton's Shearwater for me, obviously.
I'm fairly sure I saw a pair of Crested Grebe here in Auckland this week, and wonder if the stormy weather might have displaced them (their distribution is in the South Island).
I took a real good look as it was my first encounter with the species. They were on MOTAT land, beside an estuary/stream system.
So we have a $9 billion Hort industry relying on about 15,000 low wage RSE workers. MIQ facilities quite rightly accepting returning NZ passport holders first. NZ workers choose not to do the hard work at minimum pay rates in an industry rife with reports of exploitation by “labour contractors.” It sounds ripe ground for a unionised workforce with much better worker rights and protection. Growers simply have to face the new reality, negotiate with the Kiwi workforce and their representatives or go broke. Employment contract laws are out dated and very one sided. Time for change?
Definitely time for a change. Actually I think it could do with even wider framing. I really don't understand why Labour won't assist workers to empower themselves by making workforces part of the business conversation. We miss out on so much when we don't harness all the ability of the total workforce. We education people then when they join the workforce, rather than creating and contributing, they are told to sit down and listen only to the current managerial cult.
As to the fruit picking – at the minimum this time around I'd like to see an accreditation scheme – just to let potential workers know such things as whether the employer is compliant with labour and tax laws, are they overseas owned because I don't think anyone needs to be slave labour for overseas profit.
We have had plenty of commentary about water bottling and not being about to benefit from mining the resource yet we also have this hort. industry and don’t forget fishing. IMO little different from water bottling 🤬
The use of offshore labour to prop up successful industrial sectors.
It may be that they'll do both. NZ labour simply cannot compete with the cheap labour offshore.
Definitely time for a change but the change is actually in trade laws. We, as a nation, need to step up and say that we will only trade with countries that have the same or similar laws and enforcement as ours. This is to ensure that costs are properly accounted for.
Of course, the end result of that will be the minimising of international trade.
Love to read your 'pungent' comments on the recently signed RECEP (or whatever it's called) 'free' trade agreement.
Nothing in it for the average kiwi, but the big players will make some bucks!
Yes. Time for a change. I think though that the Hort industry will hold out expecting the government to come to their rescue.
The wages in the local (HB) HORT industry are a joke (a bad one) even if you go on contract and prune or pick well above the average, and believe me a worker has to work fucking hard to make that happen, once you take rain days into account that worker will be earning less than minium wage at the end of most months of the season..and then to add insult to injury, getting topped up by winz is far from straight forward, and even if you do make it through their obvious "thinning out process", they will only top up a workers wage to the level of the unemployment benefit, not the wages they lost over those days!
The New Zealand Labour won't be batting for these workers any time soon….no that party of middle class wankers stopped being even pretending to be a workers party long long ago.
QFT
I posted a few years back about the Labour Party having the cheek to have prominently on their website the 8 hour working day 40 hour working week pointing out that it was ridiculous they highlighted something they no longer believe in.
Coincidently or not it disappeared within a few weeks. That re-inforced their non-belief in it.
They also no longer believed in the right to strike as they have left that to be only at the expiry of a contract and no other time.
Like increasing benefit rates they have done nothing about giving workers a legal right to strike – the unions are just as useless negotiating multi-year agreement which reduce the right to strike to once every three years. Unions are just as fucked up as the Labour Party.
No use having power you can't actually exercise.
@a.t…Yep..!
The unemployment rate in Marlborough has been the among lowest in NZ for quite a few years and was 2.6% in June this year or about a few hundred people. At those number you are down to only those who can do quite sedentary work because of age, injury, addiction and other causes. In effect anybody that can work in Marlborough has a job.
RSE workers are about 3000 and those jobs are a huge benefit to the mostly Pacific Islands that they come from. Stop denigrating RSE workers, they are no different from workers coming from Wellington or Auckland, except in one respect, they are a lot more capable and a hell of a lot more motivated.
To label them in a derogatory manner simply because they come from the Pacific to where the work is, is racist.
They are paid at least the minimum wage and mostly a lot more and are housed in good accomodation that has to pass muster by the Department. They are almost without exception bloody nice people.
They are also the highest paid people by a very, very long margin in their own country, equivilant to probably a Cabinet Minister in NZ.
Whomst labelling RSE workers in racial epithets?
The payments of RSE workers is a drain on NZs balance of payments. Better for NZs economy for that money to be circulated back within NZs internal economy.
If the growers have to take less dividends from the profits to avoid tax in order to pay more to NZers to entice them to pick fruit and grapes and what have you, then that's hardly going to send them to the poor house.
After all, Francine Perry has a house worth 3million, multiple shareholdings, and likely a trust with multiple properties in it too. Can't forget her late model Audi.
Yeah, nah, the growers complaining aren't complaining at the fact they can't get RSE workers. They're complaining about the fact they might not be able to buy an extra rental property or three, or upgrade the Audi to the latest model, this year, if they had to hire NZers at a rate that enables NZers to travel to work, and recognises the hard physical labour involved in horticulture pruning and picking. I mean, it took female care workers years to fight for the fact their work was just as skilled and demanding as other physical labour – horticulture is just behind the 8 ball. In fact, it's so far behind the 8 ball, that the 8 ball hasn't even been made in the factory yet, for horticulture to get behind.
@ James Thrace +1
"If the growers have to take less dividends from the profits to avoid tax in order to pay more to NZers to entice them to pick fruit and grapes and what have you, then that's hardly going to send them to the poor house."…too fucking right!
You have missed the point that there are no workers to do the work . And who the fuck is francine Perry /
The RSE scheme has been used to undermine wage growth in the horticultural industry that is just a fact, why on earth do you think there hasn’t been a significant rise in picking bin rates for nearly twenty years? and most especially during the past decade when the industry has been booming, every year their returns would increase while wages stayed stagnant…exploiting one labour force ( pacific Islanders) against another(NZ workers) in a text book operation of class war pure and simple.
Because the one rule of growing stuff is that the price you get for it falls just a little bit every year. Consumers expect everything to be on special pretty much all the time and they set the price. Try selling something to a supermarket chain and get a grasp of what producers are facing everyday.
"The packing house provides accommodation too, with four roommates to one bedroom. Two double bunks where there used to be one, a lean pillow on each mattress. An acquaintance of Mum’s, who used to run the administration at the packing house, confirmed that only two people are supposed to sleep in each room. The four-to-one bedrooms are a recent addition for which the workers are charged $117 each per week. Mum’s disgusted by this. She says they have to share the bunks, and some barely fit on the mattress. The springs creak whenever they turn over in the metal bunk beds."
"Work slows down for a fortnight and the packers only work three or four days a week. As a result the Tongans are not earning much money to send back to their families, and they’re hungry. Groups of Tongan packers sit near Mum and Grant’s table, looking at their food while they’re eating. When Mum takes out an apple, Ana asks for a bite"
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/hard-labour-in-paradise
How many ex P.I. Cabinet Ministers you think amongst that lot?
I can’t see anyone in the above train of comments denigrating RSE workers. They are exploited to the same or worse extent, by Hort NZ, as Kiwis. RSE workers have even less choice and a recent charge of modern day slavery, in Hawke’s Bay, led to a “Labour contractor” being gaoled. The point is, collective bargaining is a real need and a union is the only way to do this.
Whatever is negotiated with the orchards should definitely be the same for the RSE workers. No way should we be exploiting them in our labour market. And the accommodation charging is just a version of the company store and it needs to stop.
And the cost of airflights,visas etc?
denigrating?…perhaps not…justifying exploitation definitely.
15 November 2020 at 2:38 pm
They were called slaves, that is derogatory and their ethnicity is often mentioned.
Were Kiwis going to Aussie mines for the last 40 years "slaves ".
It's a dog whistle to make a political point using some of the nicest people you could meet who are, like the Kiwis to Australia before them delighted to be making what amounts to huge money back home.
It's been happening all day ref.
This is an i trresting development in testing accuracy….
From https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker
But then yesterday Elon Musk showed up. He wants to be in the NASA control room, a very reasonable desire, when his Dragon capsule is launched with real people in it. NASA requires a negative Covid test to be there. That seems somewhat reasonable too; this is a high-security area and the people in there are very important to NASA, so if they want a swab up your nose, well, here it comes.
He popped positive. No soup for you, sir, says NASA!
Except…. Musk is richer than God and he also doesn't give a **** about shoving government bull**** right up their ass. So he demanded a re-test, right there, right now. I assume he offered to pay for it too; the privilege of not caring about money helps in a situation like this, you see.
And, because he's not stupid and, as I said, he's perfectly happy to shove bull**** up their ass, he didn't just do this once.
He did it three more times. All on the same day, same nurse, in sequence.
He got two positive and two negative results.
Now Musk is either positive or negative, obviously. But whichever way it is he just dropped a nuclear weapon in the middle of the Covid19 testing industry and blew it to beyond the orbit of Mars. Exactly nobody in the media is reporting that, but that's what he did — conclusively.
… Exactly nobody in the media is reporting that …
Except Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NBC, Reuters, Washington Post … and that's just half the media that just show up in the first page of a search.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=musk+covid+positive+negative&tbm=nws&source=univ&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-067J9YPtAhVbyjgGHdFeCnEQt8YBKAF6BAgKEB0&biw=1920&bih=966
Seriously, what is it with this unhinged idea that media don't report stuff? It's reached that point that making that assertion has become a fairly reliable indicator of an idiot conspiracy theorist.
As for the story itself. it's been known for a long time that COVID testing has varying degrees of positive and negative accuracy. Accuracy depends on the method used, current viral load, where the sample is taken from, and a bunch of other factors. The only slight bit of interest in the story is how it relates to Musk's desire to be in the control room, and his past controversial statements and actions with respect to COVID.
On Friday, he had questioned the veracity of rapid antigen testing, tweeting: "Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse."
Fake
outragenews.I think you may have slightly miss interpreted the final paragraph,
How much would you pay for that test….and how badly poor accuracy test results are giving a false picture of what is actually happening,
That is the issue he is commenting on as not being reported, not the news that Musk test results were so random.
"Poor accuracy"?
What's the accuracy of the test in question? Got a link to the ROC plot?
Dude narrowly failed a screening test. Could be a misdiagnosis, could be that his viral load at the time was borderline – maybe he was getting over it and didn't know.
But he still failed it twice. Would you rather a test that erred on the side of false negatives?
In his big speech the other day Trump once again spoke about the testing. The 'best' tests and the best testing. There was the acceptance and acknowledgement there that there are tests and there are tests.
:SIGH:
This has been known for some months. But in America where quicker is always better..
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/fast-isnt-always-better-experts-worry-about-rise-of-rapid-covid-19-testing
That was reported on 26 August. The inaccuracy of the antigen tests has been well understood within the health community for some time before that.
There's the old tradies' rule that work can be fast, good, or cheap, you pick two out of three.
Medical tests are similar, with the proviso that "good" can be "specific" or "sensitive".
NASA wanted sensitivity as a priority. That often means a trade-off against "specificity" – sometimes it will confuse something else for what you are testing for.
Meh. I had wondered why Musk was going apeshit over it. Apparently he can send people into space, but he can't watch it over zoom lol.
Oh Dear! How Sad! lol Maybe he could take a ride in his Tesla up there
I hope the UK does it, and I wish the NZ govt. would do it too. In fact I wish all countries would do it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/54893437
You can come up with all the excuses… it's neo-liberalism… it's free trade agreements taking away their jobs and… people are entitled to their views etc., but the truth is:
These people are one dirty great screw loose and they're dangerous.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/430670/opposition-as-nz-joins-world-s-largest-free-trade-agreement
Here we go again. The suits find it suits them to sign up to these constricting trade agreements and if we upset any of the ‘partners’ the suits will fly.
When is our new government supposed to actually start work?
I mean great to see the new Minister of Civil Defence out there with a shovel and all, but seriously team where's the momentum?
They just kept moving so you won’t sense a change of momentum.
Sunday, 15 November 2020. Auckland.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/430670/opposition-as-nz-joins-world-s-largest-free-trade-agreement
Australia went from relief that it had had several days without any community transmission to a certain smugness, with eyes cast over the ditch at NZs recent leakage from quarantine…..until today. A new cluster has emerged in Adelaide, the first in the community since April.The source is a worker at a quarantine hotel, who appears to have passed the virus on to family members who work in places where further transmission is likely – no room for complacency as the Chief Health Officer reminds everyone in SA. Mind you, compared to the horror figures coming out of the U.S. and Europe (and just about everywhere else) these little leaks seem pretty insignifcant on a world scale.
Tegnell is admitting that his PlanB-style non-lockdown infectious disease control plan did not mitigate the second wave. His math was a little bit off initially, fair enough. But he committed to the plan even when it others said it was going pear-shaped.
If it were fiction, he'd be a bit of a tragic figure – reminds me of Kodos the Executioner. Similar body count so far, too.