Just in case any of you might have forgotten what a real Labour Party Leader and a real Labour Party with a vision looks and sounds like…
And this in turn allows you to attack your opposition like this…
So in answer to Labour Activist Enzo Giordani’s fourth suggestion in his piece ‘Ten steps towards victory for Labour’
“Get a vision that resonates with voters. I honestly can’t tell you what Labour’s vision is at the moment, and that’s been a problem for a very long time. People don’t know what we stand for.”
….perhaps the current New Zealand centrist labour party should grow some sort of a back bone, Turn Left Now, and become again a New Zealand Labour Party that we can all understand exactly what it stands for, a party we can believe in and fight for, a party that unequivocally and proudly stands for an equal and fair Socialist democratic New Zealand for all it’s citizens.
You don’t think it was the shit fight between the two factions in the party that did it? I haven’t looked close at the timeline, but there may be multiple reasons that mean blaming Corbyn’s presence might not be that useful.
Would be great to infer that it was the splitters and the internal processes that started its precipitous fall. You can argue all day about the causes.
But here’s the fact.
Corbyn wanted the job, and has now had it for a while.
Corbyn is the leader of the Labour Party.
He is responsible for the polling results of the party.
That’s the job, that’s a major measurable result.
Corbyn is doing a terrible job as leader of the Labour Party.
In NZ I tend to take the view that Labour can’t get enough votes to govern because they appear not fit to govern. If that’s true then it doesn’t matter who is leader except to the extent they make Labour more competent and present them as more competent.
If that’s also true in the UK, then changing leader, esp back to the other faction, may just confuse things more (see Labour still can’t make up their mind). But like I say, I haven’t looked at the timeline. I don’t know if Corbyn (or Little) has had enough time to change things so that their low polling can in fact be blamed on their leadership, or if there are more complex dynamics at play.
It seems to me that your argument that it’s all on Corbyn as leader is based on the assumption that his leadership alone (or majorly) is the problem, but it might not be.
And does the UK Labour Party, under Corbyn, seem fit to govern? The fact is that while he has solid support amongst the rank and file members (especially those who joined up to participate in the original leadership vote) he certainly does not lead a united party and most of the most talented and experienced MPs don’t back him.
Of course, UK Labour has had problems for quite a while and people turned to Corbyn out of a mix of frustration and hope. So, it’s not all down to him. He’s been leader for long enough to start making a difference, though, and at this stage he’s not cutting through.
Comments about media bias are irrelevant. On the whole, the media thrives on conflict and so they report the conflict in the Labour Party. That’s not a surprise. It’s Corbyn’s job to minimise that conflict and stop it distracting from the message he wants to get out. At this stage, he’s certainly not managing to do that.
Helen Clark faced this sort of issue early on. Her polling was as low as 15% (although of course in an MMP environment that’s not as bad as it would be in FPP Britain). She held on and became a very successful leader, and that was in no small part due to her success in coopting her challengers and giving them significant roles within her team (Michael Cullen being the obvious example). Corbyn hasn’t done this, and because the arguments are more idealogical than they were here, he’s not likely to. That means he’s lost a lot of talented, experienced people from his front bench, and the disaffection within the parliamentary party grows.
Personally, I don’t think Corbyn is going to turn this around. Good luck to him, but he needs more than luck and i don’t think he’s got it.
What strange planet to you come from? …where this most unusual political and social dichotomy exists? I think I would like to go there, it sounds wonderful.
Adrian, any politician is going to face negative media if they are seen as vulnerable. Besides, Corbyn has to deal with the situation he’s actually in. If that includes an antagonistic media, then he has to deal with it. It might not be fair, but it’s reality. At the moment, he’s not cutting through. Supporters can complain all they like, but it doesn’t mean that ordinary voters are going to be convinced.
BTW, do you what the word “dichotomy” means? Because you seem to be using it in a rather odd way.
@ Red Can you tell me when a politician or political party in a western democracy over the last 20 years has had to operated with over 75% negative media, but who at the same time is campaigning on a positive platform?
However I think he dealt with it extraordinarily well, I mean even after having the so called Liberal media, such as the Guardian and the third way blairites within the party try and knee cap him at every turn through out the leadership challenge, he still totally Destroyed Owen Smith, and all the while built the membership of the Labour party to be the biggest political party in western Europe, a fantastic achievement by any measure…you would think that would be cause for any real Labour supporter to celebrate, I know I am.
And I think you may well be surprised at the next UK election, polls aren’t what they used to be, as we all witnessed last year time and again.
I was using ‘dichotomy’ to illustrate my rebuttal of your proposition, when you implied that media bias and it’s effect on society/voters are mutually exclusive, thought it worked there?
Let’s start with the word “dichotomy”. This means a division into two mutually exclusive parts; opposites which contradict each other. When you say, “I was using ‘dichotomy’ to illustrate my rebuttal of your proposition, when you implied that media bias and it’s (sic) effect on society/voters are mutually exclusive,” you are misusing the word (as you are the phrase “mutually exclusive”). Presumably what you mean is that you think I’m saying that the media and any bias it shows has no effect – that’s not a dichotomy and it’s not “mutually exclusive” (what’s the other force which is excluding the media?). You might think my (supposed) opinion is nonsensical, but that doesn’t make it a dichotomy.
Now, let’s get on to the actual issue: please look at what I actually said, rather than arguing against your assumptions about the opinion of anyone who disagrees with you. I didn’t say the media has no effect on public opinion – kindly show me that statement that you think implies this, if you can find one. What I said was:
1) The media will always look for conflict, and there is conflict in the UK Labour Party under Corbyn (as there was before),
2) Corbyn hasn’t managed to settle that conflict (which is a leadership function),
3) He isn’t presenting well to the wider public, partly because his party is looking divided and unfit to govern, and
4) This is reflected in the consistently poor polling.
I also said “good luck to him”. That’s hardly an attack, Adrian – it’s just not blind adoration.
@Red blooded.
OK
1. when you stated “Comments about media bias are irrelevant”
with your following explanations as to why you think that it is normal in a democratic country to have over 75% of media coverage negative on one candidate, and that it is Corbyns fault for not bringing the media on to his side, I assumed that you meant just that.
In light of the evidence on this suject, which I have already given link too, it is a position that I would think most critical thinkers would reject outright.
2. How on earth can Corbyn change the narrative to a positive one, when the media have made it clear they are actively out to portray him negatively…
Guardian headline on receiving the report that there is over 75% negative reportage on Corbyn…
“Yes, Jeremy Corbyn has suffered a bad press, but where’s the harm?” https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/jul/19/yes-jeremy-corbyn-has-suffered-a-bad-press-but-wheres-the-harm
3.The only thing I can agree with you on is that this is most definitely ideological battle, for the very heart of the UK Labour party, but what you don’t seem to acknowledge is the media’s very real and active part in this battle, these guys are in the trenches on this one, I mean seriously do you really believe that they are on the out side, looking in and commenting dispassionately about this?
Probably Corbyns biggest mistake was trying to negotiate with the third way terrorists with in the Labour party, they, like their liberal media would rather see the Tories back in than have a real socialist in power, that they have made very clear.
Adrian, when you use phrases like “third way terrorists” you step over a line beyond rationality. You may not agree with the “third way” approach (and neither do I, as it happens), but that doesn’t make people who do terrorists.
Note, too, that I didn’t say t was “normal to have over 75% of media coverage negative on one candidate” – I said that the media look for conflict and will always report it. And I don’t say it’s not having an effect – I have simply said that it’s one of the roles of a political leader to manage the media.
The British media is more obviously politicised than it is in NZ, but even there do you honestly believe there is some kind of shadowy cabal of “the media” (and there’s a heck of a lot of competing institutions and individuals that come under that description) that get together and plot about how to take down politicians they don’t like?
And please take note of the discussion occurring further down this thread about the misuse of the term “liberal” as some kind of insult.
@ Red Blooded, OK fair point on the Third Way Terrorist bit I guess.
However you still don’t address my point that how can Corbyn manage the media when they are so obviously opposed to his ideology? and further, have shown no inclination what so ever to even try and pretend they are interested in fairness in reporting on Corbyn and the new UK socialist movement….unless I missed something.
As I have already posted, at 1.2.2.1.1 I believe that this obvious and undisputed media bias is a text book look at Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent’ functioning out in the open in the UK media for all to see. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
So no conspiracy..,,just media owned by millionaires and billionaires doing what they are brought to do, look after the interests of power and money…which Corbyn and his Socialist project will not, so not to much more to it than that.
Firstly show me one MSM news source, paper or television, that is positive about, or even just fair in it’s coverage on Corbyn? I think a good part of the numbers in your poll driven graph will reflect the answer.
Secondly what are you saying, you don’t agree with Corbyn’s policies? or if you do, that you would rather your party get elected on a platform of policies that you don’t agree with, to get to power?
Thirdly Labour UK has 550,000 members, the biggest party in Western Europe, you would think that most Labour progressives and activists would be extremely happy with these numbers…
I’m not interested in media conspiracy theories from any side. If a politician can’t figure out how to communicate within any kind of media environment, they should not be a politician, let alone a leader. FFS, all Donald Trump needs is a twitter account and Breitbart.
I wouldn’t presume to write UK Labour’s policies for it. Go for it if you want.
Having a great membership base, and continuing to tank in the public polls, shows that the Corbyn-led Labour Party is living in a self-reinforcing echo chamber, enabling a fast splintering from most of the population that is incredibly dangerous for Labour to get back in again.
I will, and you just stay in there in the centre, going nowhere, and keep telling yourself everything is going to be alright, doing nothing…what a joke, just not that funny for the working , the poor or for all of the future children of this country.
No, I put up the proposal that Labour stand for a fair and equal society for all New Zealanders, as their central platform, and their economic policies should reflect that position…you don’t like that?
What is catastrophic is people like you, who don’t seem to understand that the centre left project is over…strange that you can’t seem see this obvious truth?
Are you actually saying that a platform of working for a fair and equal society is a radical platform? I would think that a platform where this is not the central issue is radical…don’t you think?
Using your definition of ‘radical’, the 1935 NZ Labour victory fits that criteria quite nicely.
Agreed with Weka. You can strip out a lot of the language and talk about fairness and sustainability and still get the same results. Adding in “radical left” gets you nowhere in terms of winning the argument.
ok I’m confused now. Micky, do you mean we can talk about fairness without moving substantially left, or do you mean we can move left but not call it radical? I took Adrian’s original comment to mean move much more left than Labour is currently intending (irrespective of what we call those two positions), and that your question was about had that ever worked? (a big, obvious shift).
“Can you advise on one election where a radical left platform has worked?”
in 1993 the Alliance got 18% of the vote as a new party. Formed in 1991 in response the Labour takeover in the 1980s and the voters very large rejection of neoliberal Labour in 1990. It didn’t work of course, in terms of gaining power, because it was FPP, but I assume it helped the MMP campaign. What happened to the Alliance in subsequent years is probably a lesson we could still be learning from.
Yes it is incredible that proposing a fair society is considered radical, even by many progressives, it shows how many good people have been conditioned to accept the unacceptable.
If the likes of the NZ Labour Party with its accommodating liberal policies gets away with touting itself as ‘left’, then obviously anything some-one considers to the left of that is going to be labeled as radical.
The SNP merely adopted the old social democratic programmes that ‘New Labour’ couldn’t disavow fast enough (as has been done in NZ) and won a landslide with an electoral system deliberately geared to prevent majorities.
Then it won again. And again.
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour, cleaving to deeply unpopular and distrusted liberal policies is now behind the Tories in the Scottish parliament and (last I looked) polling at around 15% with local elections coming up in May.
Corbyn is merely left – not radical left. If you want radical left, then you have to look at arguments for substantive democracy. And no-one seeking election anywhere runs on a platform of substantive democracy. How could they?
edit – I tell a lie. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has a platform of substantive democracy and stands candidates (who will never take up their seats if they win)
Substantive democracy, nice one, that deserved an explanation,
Substantive democracy is a form of democracy in which the outcome of elections is representative of the people. In other words, substantive democracy is a form of democracy that functions in the interest of the governed. Although a country may allow all citizens of age to vote, this characteristic does not necessarily qualify it as a substantive democracy.
In a substantive democracy, the general population plays a real role in carrying out its political affairs, i.e., the state is not merely set up as a democracy but it functions as one as well. This type of democracy can also be referred to as a functional democracy. There is no good example of an objectively substantive democracy.
The opposite of a substantive democracy is a formal democracy, which is where the relevant forms of democracy exist but are not actually managed democratically. The former Soviet Union can be characterized in as such, since its constitution was essentially democratic but in actuality the state was managed by a bureaucratic élite.
If I was in my 40’s by the time Douglas rolled around I’d probably be so set in my ways any change would be a real struggle and seeing other points of view or different ways of doing things would be very hard to process.
Especially how insular and monocultural NZ was 30+ years ago.
Same age group as Adrian, which is why I’m so surprised about Adrian’s outlook, we were just boys back when Douglas was doing his thing.
Our age groups formative years didn’t really start till the 1990’s, by that time neo-liberalist NZ was well and truly alive and the UK aligned NZ had been confined to the dustbin of history.
What slightest bit of difference does it make how old I am?
But seems as you are interested, I am 47, married have three children one 18, twins 21..there you go, does that have an effect on what you think of my political positions?
@ BM, I am not sure what your youth involved, but I was politically active and marching for Labour/no nukes in ’84, full of youthful enthusiasm and fire, only to be totally disillusioned by the charismatic but pathetic Lange, letting that terrorist Douglas screw the traditions of Labour right in our faces.
And why wouldn’t I have ridged views around wanting a fair and equal society?
Surprised? I think I am probably more surprised by most commenters lack of resolve and floppiness on this issue.
So no I don’t feel that this fundamental foundation stone of the labour party should be open to negotiation.
@BM, Ha, I too did a lot more than my fair share of self destructive and dangerous stuff around that time, luckily the music and bands I listened too and played in where all highly charged politically, so that was my formative political education I guess.
I don’t think neo-liberalism is evil, but I do think that it’s core economic ideology is ultimately regressive for most humans, and it has no social or environmental morality built into it’s framework that I have seen.
The NZ Labour Party had over 85 000 members .
It now has just 8000 members.
Over 1 million NZ citizens did not vote.
It struggles to get 25% of the vote – that’s 25% of this that do vote.
Chasing the centre has been a disaster for it politically.
Far more importantly, it has been a disaster for the people it was set up
to support have been abandoned to the ravages of neoliberalism.
The US got Trump, Scotland abandoned Labour for the SNP and working class of the UK voted for Brexit – because the left wing betrayed it.
@Paul+1 I quite agree, it is just bizarre to me that we are still having this debate, all I can put it down to is maybe a case of Stockholm syndrome for some Labour members.
Yeh I figured that was probably the case, once you let that greed genie out of the bottle, it is very hard to get it back in.
It is one of the worst side effects of neo liberalism, I have seen it undermine many good peoples core values and principles..commodify everything, turn all citizens into gamblers, with the highest goal in our society is to join the property class and rent shelter to other citizens..it is a sick game where in the end we all lose.
It’s an academic paper by Bryce Edwards on party membership in NZ. His main finding (about ALL parties) is “There has been a very dramatic fall in party membership in New Zealand: from nearly 24% of the electorate in the 1950s to only 2% in the 1990s. This spectacular collapse began in the 1960s and, despite a recovery in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has continued to decline. This has meant that the political parties in Parliament are now low-membership, cadre-type institutions”. However, he also notes, “It is important to clarify exactly what the definition of political party membership is. This allows a better idea of the validity of party figures. For the purposes of this blog post, a distinction is made between those party members who have joined the main body of the party – direct members – and those that belong to an affiliated organisation – indirect members. This has an important implication for the membership figures: for if the affiliate trade union membership of the Labour Party is included (which currently pay fees at about ten% of the cost of ordinary membership) then in 1986, for example, the Labour Party could be said to have had about 250,000 members, whereas the party claimed only 65,000 members.”
After noting that all parties tend to exaggerate membership numbers, he also comments that there are also often errors (eg multiple recordings of the same individual – especially pre-digital files. Plus, “A loose definition of membership may have been responsible for the incredibly high membership numbers reported by the National Party in the 1950s and 1960s and the Labour Party around the early 1980s. Especially in the case of National, there is some evidence that the simple act of making a small donation to a party canvasser was regarded as bestowing the status of membership. In this sense, there is often a blurring of the separation between the categories of supporters and members. Also in the case of National, often whole families have been enrolled as members, which might suggest a less than robust and meaningful concept of membership.”
So, I guess I’m challenging your idea that hordes of people (79 000) have opted out of the Labour Party because they don’t think it’s hard left enough. If so, where have those people gone? What hard left party do they comprise? The only contenders – the Greens – don’t have 79 000 members.
In summary – ALL political parties have lost membership. Labour’s membership numbers partly depend on affiliated unions, and union numbers have gone down. There are no reliable records for membership, for any party.
I’m not saying that numbers haven’t shrunk, I’m just saying you’re being rather simplistic and putting your own narrative around this.
If you and Paul are correct, then there’s a huge constituency out there ripe for the taking by a new political party led by an outspoken charismatic progressive. Someone like Jim Anderton, or Laila Harre, or Hone Harawira…
The beauty of MMP is that you really don’t need very much support to get representation. So if your ideas really do have popular support and none of the established parties come close enough for you, you’ve got a pretty good chance with a new party. Hell, Colin Craig almost did it, even with his very visible deficiencies.
So if Labour dropped from 80,000 to 8,000 because their views weren’t close enough to what you’re advocating, it should be easy for you to scoop them up with a new party. Go on, give it a go.
Look at how many Labour MPs have multiple properties.
Look at the Labour MPs salaries.
Look at how many Labour MPs could earn that money out of parliament.
Going for a purity contest like some sad squabble between the French Socialists, Trotskyists, and Communists, is pretty futile. Have a look at that kind of history before advancing down that tawdry route.
Always fun to watch someone who has been presented with facts that completely ruin their argument lower themselves to going for the personal allegiance of the commenter.
@Ad How about you answer my original question to you…
“Secondly what are you saying, you don’t agree with Corbyn’s policies? or if you do, that you would rather your party get elected on a platform of policies that you don’t agree with, to get to power?”
Funny how all the Labour supporters think we can have a fair and just and equitable society under neoliberalism. That’s bullshit and they are dreaming.
If Labour ( and the Greens for that matter) are going to stick to free market capitalism, and be puppets of the USA, then they will never beat National. They simply haven’t got the resources, both in finance and feet on the ground. It’s no use relying on the ‘missing million’, they aren’t going to vote anyway and don’t trust any politicians because they know they’ll just get the same shit as the ‘last lot’. Their numbers will rise next election if everyone one is going for the ‘ middle ‘ ground.
For there to be a change of govt this year there will have to be some other factor(s) rear up, which is quite on the cards.
Well you are in the right party alright, the selfish party…well done
BTW what makes you say he is an idiot, because he has a political platform that works for working and poor people, promotes a fair and equal society for all citizens..
Adrian at 47 you have learnt nothing and have anoverly ambitious view of the state. you seem to think that if the state could just legislate every bodies necessities to rights ( as many basket case countries have South Africa etc) all would be well, irrespective of how these necessities would be provided barring the government would create them out of thin air Most necessities are commodities, free markets are much better at providing as such than the state, yes with shortages and surplus but market react accordingly driven by the profit motive The free market also best reflect the underlying human condition re freedom and freedom of choice , when the states gets overly involved with regulation you simply get a distorted mess and perverse outcomes, hence the rise of Neo liberalism from the late 70s to respond to as such. Thankfully The modern Labour Party believe in Neo lib they simply think they can do a better job than national in running the country In contrast Corbyn and his travelling lunes believe something entirely different, hence thier poll numbers
Sounds like the freedom to either be a wage slave for most of your life, or invest in housing and try and screw other Kiwis, or get involved in some other type gambling addiction like the markets..doesn’t look or sound like human evolution to me.
Our Housing market is a perverse outcome of a lack of a free market and regulation especially land supply in nz. interest free loans 28k, so what, why should a student not pay for part of their education, inequality much of this is driven by house prices, rents and capital gain, see point one and needs to be addressed but hardly suggests abandoning the good that the economic neo liberal model and globalisation has delivered, some tinkering yes, wholesale change as some here and the likes of corbyn are proposing I suggest not, but hey that just my opinions and what the polls in the U.K. And nz reflect
Well if you think having lots of stuff is the gauge of a healthy society, Commodifying the very houses that give us shelter, saddling our children with debt before they even get started….massive inequality mushrooming all over the world, etc etc then I guess we just have different visions of what a fair, equal and caring society looks like.
Rubbish. There is no media conspiracy – “they” (the media) wouldn’t lose anything under Corbyn. They simply report on conflict, and Corbyn isn’t managing the conflict in Labour well.
Look at NZ for a parallel. The in-fighting under Shearer and Cullen was a gift to the media. Little has calmed things down and so the media has calmed down.
Looks a lot like manufacturing consent on steroids…surly you can’t be that naive that you would seriously think that 75% of media in the UK at the same time is negative about Corbyn because of some internal party divide?…come on, that just doesn’t make any sense.
I assume you still are an avid Guardian reader then…
” The guy is a complete idiot”.
That’s rich coming from a right winger – big fans of free market Capitalism. That’s right ,according to the Right it’s the system that works best in the world. They can’t understand that it is totally unsustainable . They are in total denial about man made climate change. They think that unproductive investment in Real Estate is good for the Country. They hate taxation ie don’t want to have health and education and police and law etc done by the State ( yes they are stupid enough to believe private enterprise can do it better).
They are wrong, wrong, wrong.
On top of that they think the Opposition should only go for the ‘centre’ and not have alternative policies.
Who said the right wing in nz don’t want socialised police force , welfare, education, health etc. All most cente right are arguing for is that money is spent well re outcomes, the right incentives are in place re moral hazard and there is nothing wrong with a bit of contestibility in system with private sector competing with public sector
..,are we still going to stereotype what a labour leader should be? How about it’s all about policy, and not playing the man so much.
I’ve just had 8 years of hollowmen, I don’t need it now painted red thank you.
the day I see media driven personality politics murdered like the scum it is, that’s they day I can say we have returned to sanity. Because when you pollies (not assuming your one just speaking out loud) didn’t have all this media access getting your message out and it being scrutinized and passing by the voter I think we got better leadership and value for our tax payer dollars.
“I assume [the staff] get good tips,” Kleber said, but “most of them are not coming for the money – they are coming to be part of a once-in-a-year event … Of course it’s hard work, but it’s a lot of fun,” he added.
No, Kleber, I’m pretty sure most of them are coming for the money. And I suspect your definition of “fun” is not shared by the majority of your staff.
“In its seventh annual Global Risks report, the World Economic Forum noted that in the view of a survey panel of more than 400 experts and industry leaders, “severe income disparity” has emerged as one of the world’s most probable threats, surpassing financial risks and natural calamities.”
Milosevic returned from Kosovo with a clear political strategy. First he would assemble the mob, and then he would move on his political opponents. With his rabid supporters filling the streets of Belgrade, Milosevic orchestrated the ouster of his former mentor, Ivan Stambolic. Using the same tactic, he toppled the leaders of Vojvodina, Montenegro and Kosovo, and replaced them with hand-picked loyalists. Like Trump’s Republican primary march, Milosevic unravelled the existing order in pieces.
He called this strategy the “anti-bureaucratic revolution”. With each coup, the crowds grew and Milosevic promised them that this populist insurrection would transform Yugoslavia as a whole.
But as Milosevic knew, his supporters were not concerned with purging Yugoslavia of stilted communist bureaucrats; they heard in his dog-whistle speeches a vision to convert the South Slavic federation into a ‘Greater Serbia’.
[…]
The journalist Milos Vasic attempted to explain Milosevic’s rise to Americans in 1993 like this: “You must imagine a United States with every little TV station everywhere taking exactly the same editorial line – a line dictated by David Duke. You too would have war in five years.”
Just the first in a barrage of oppressive legislation to come, now that the “anti-establishment” candidate has overthrown the “warmongering liberals.” Once they’ve put an additional conservative onto the Supreme Court, watch this one breeze through.
This is what the demise of liberalism really looks like, all you Standard commenters who’ve been looking forward to it. Fuck all y’all.
I do not support Trump. He is a fraud and symptomatic of a lot that is wrong inoursociety.
I do support the demise of neoliberalism, which has destroyed the working class in the US, NZ and the UK, promoted the 1%, destroyed left wing socialist parties, massively increased inequality, child poverty, destroyed the Unions.
In the US, I would have supported Sanders.
However. I do understand why desperate working class folk voted for anyone who said they were against the neoliberal estsblishment.
I do understand why desperate working class folk voted for anyone who said they were against the neoliberal estsblishment.
Yes, economic anxiety forced people to vote for an establishment shit stain who plays footsies with all manner of theocratic misogynists, fascist, racists and white supremacists.
/
Exactly. “Desperate working class folk” needn’t tell us they decided to stick one to the establishment by voting for a billionaire property developer who lives in a Manhattan skyscraper, flies round the world in a private jet with his trophy wife and is famous for stiffing his workers and creditors. Not unless they want us to think they’re complete idiots.
It makes sense to write off a huge proportion of the voting public as racists and misogynists?
I mean, it’s convenient and all of that. And guaranteed to ensure that the Democratic Party (if they bought the line) would never get into power again.
Or (much more likely) just as UK Labour under Miliband bought all the racist bullshit and tried to neuter Farage by getting all anti-immigration (even selling anti-immigration mugs as fund-raisers)…racism will become excused and normalised…pandered to in a quest for votes..
People didn’t vote for the Democrats because they were shite. And people knew exactly the type of shite they would get. And they didn’t want it. And in the absence of alternatives, they voted for Trump.
which bit is the writing off? I didn’t see that. Miravox said that people voting for Trump (presumably beyond Republicans who would always vote Republican no matter what) was explainably by economics, racism and sexism, with the latter two being more significant. How is that writing people off?
As ridiculous as this may sound, many people looked at Hillary then looked at their grandmother/mother and thought, “My Grandmother/Mother running the country? are you crazy!!.
I’m not writing off the rust belt economic argument Bill. Nor are the study researchers. But however they cut it, the economic argument doesn’t explain the high income and college degree vote, not does it fully explain the rust belt vote.
This research shows peoples motivations for voting Trump were not necessarily economic. Surely that is not a controversial finding – even if the Dems were shite. They also found two non-economic motivations that outweighed the economic reasons for voting Trump for a significant number of people. This is not a new phenomenon in elections either.
What is different in this study is that it argues that pandering you mention wasn’t an additional motivation to vote Trump, but the primary reason. This is not writing off a huge chunk of the population as racist and sexist, but it does suggest that at the time they voted the stuff they were listening to had a greater impact on their votes than the economic conditions they were living in.
This again, is something that has been seen before and will be seen again if it is dismissed in favour of the cleaner, but more simplistic economic argument that is not shown to fit people’s motivations.
I’ll just note this as an example of CV supporting what women do politically when it suits his agenda. As opposed to say, reproductive rights, which doesn’t, being all about identity once we get down to that level. I’ve seen him do this with disability too. I assume it happens with other groups.
and how do you state that with such confidence CV, I was under the impression your vote was private. IE they once cast did not allow that data to be used, if it’s based on exit polls or anything else that’s suspect in my mind.
as for your good choice, I new he’d win. Just had the gut feeling right from the start, but it being a good choice? as much as I was sure he would win I thought it would also be one of the worst things that will happen since Thatcher reigned suprememely ly memly cough with an iron fist.
i am just putting this out there so that people actually realise that he lost the popular vote by 3 million, but won by 80.000 in three states that coincidentally had some of the harshest voter restricting laws of the whole of the fucking US.
I know this inconvenient truth, but what evs it happened and it might as well be looked at as factor.
You suggesting that people who voted were both highly informed and rational ?
ffs Joe. Their motivations (for amny and misplaced for sure) are really fucking simple to understand. It’s essentially as Paul states. And sure. Had they been highly informed and rational they would have understood that a vote for Trump was not reflective of their motivation.
Would they then have voted for Clinton? I doubt it. I’d pick they’d either stay home or vote for Trump anyway just because it wouldn’t be another four years of the same unbearable shit. (Similar to the reasons underpinning much of the BREXIT vote)
You suggesting that people who voted were both highly informed and rational ?
Nope, I’m suggesting that Trump affirmed that their existing prejudices against immigrants, Muslims, blacks and women were valid and he spent months egging them on – reminding them that like his own ignorance, their ignorance was good and his locker room talk was their locker room talk.
And then he dressed it up as a carrot, security/law and order, and nationalism/patriotism – only I can bring back the jobs, only I can keep you safe, and MAGA.
It worked, they gobbled up every morsel of hate, fear and division they were fed, and he won.
Sanders wasn’t a choice when it came to voting for President.
And the attack now isn’t on neoliberalism, it’s on liberal values i.e. progressive values. And it’s coming from the left and the right, including here on TS.
Late last night, the Senate took the first step toward dismantling the Affordable Care Act. As part of the proceeding, Democratic senators introduced a series of amendments, most of which were designed to spotlight highly popular provisions of the ACA that will be lost if the law is repealed. Republicans voted them all down. The action was mostly political theater, but it was a discouraging glimpse at the state of GOP thinking on health care.
Voting on the amendments lasted almost seven hours. One of the many amendments Republicans struck down was one in support of requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of contraceptives. If that measure is reflected in the bill that eventually repeals Obamacare (we are still some distance from that), it would leave 55 million women without no-co-pay birth control.
According to Politico’s Dan Diamond, the Senate also voted against an amendment that would support maintaining a preexisting-conditions protection for health insurance, a provision of Obamacare that affects tens of millions of Americans. And remember that before the Affordable Care Act passed, many insurance companies considered pregnancy to be a preexisting condition.
The death of liberalism can be that ugly shite. But it needn’t be.
If you’re kind of convinced that it can only be bad, then you’ll tend to get in behind diminishing the Corbyn’s and the Sanders’ and the SNP’s because, well, if they bump everything to the left, then liberalism comes under threat, and bad stuff will happen.
And by doing that, you ensure bad stuff will happen (a left tack gets sunk and weird populist stuff gains the ascendancy. Liberalism is not going to survive.
T’would be nice if liberals would wake up, smell the coffee, get with a programme (preferably a progressive one) and help us get ready.
Then you’re impression is a misguided crock of shit. I’m probably among a very small handful of people around this blog who are vociferously anti-authoritarian; radically (by liberal standards) democratic.
Which means, obviously, that there is no ‘blue-print’ or whatever coming from me.
Well, I’m relieved that I’d got the wrong end of the stick on your feelings towards authoritarianism. But I’m now even more confused on what your preferred organising principles for society might look like. I’ve got no idea what “radically democratic” actually means. Referenda for absolutely everything?
Indeed they won’t. And the only way they ever will know what it means in practice is to do it. And if they did that, they’d get it wrong a lot of the time but learn more and more about what makes for good democratic decisions and what makes for undemocratic decisions.
A pinch of anarchism with a touch of horizontal decision making and 1960s commune rules liberally sprinkled with fairy dust, that’s what I have gathered
@Bill, ah, that old stalemate. I think it’s highly unrealistic to expect people to take on a way of organising when they don’t understand what it is. Telling people they can be more democratic if they just be more democratic, hmmm.
When Andre asked his questions I was thinking of things like adapting the select committee process whereby people who had an interest in that area could sign up and be part of the process. That would by necessity mean also talking with people who don’t sign up. That process would then itself need to be democratised around how information is gathered and decisions made, and that in turn would necessitate looking at power.
I’m guessing that’s not what you mean at all, but I was interested in seeing what might be possible to shift to from what we have now.
Open the possibility to be more democratic through involvement (rather than the ‘chicken and egg’ brick wall proposition of ‘by being more democratic’)
Select committees and what not are not what I was on about. But here’s a throw-away.
Dunedin is building a bus hub. There was ‘consultation’ (about 7 days) and people were invited to comment on the colour scheme. I kid you not.
So thousands of dollars were presumably given to some company who came up with absolute rubbish that was presented back as a done deal.
No-one asked bus drivers their thoughts. (They could have told them a bus would not get around the corner of St Andrew St if a bus was occupying the first bus bay) Instead they spent a whole heap of money and then drew out a full scale plan somewhere and had buses drive around it. (That led to major redesigns that were…I mean, a 10 year old could have pointed out the flaws in the original!)
They didn’t ask passengers a thing. So the bus stops, yet again, have no thought to Dunedin weather. But in a fit of (I dunno what) some bright spark in the design company decided that coffee stalls and food carts would be great – although no food or drink can be taken on buses and retail outlets are already in the vicinity.
Now, I’m pretty sure that if drivers and passengers had come together on the need for a hub, then (for one) a different location would have been chosen and some fairly speedy decisions from those with direct knowledge would have produced something that actually served the needs of passengers and drivers. The current one, by all accounts, won’t.
I’m not feeling any closer. What is the actual process for making those decisions?
Coz at the moment we’ve got a fairly broad societal consensus that we democratically elect a few representatives for a more or less fixed term, then cede power to those representatives for that term. If enough of us feel strongly that those representatives are making decisions we didn’t want, we retain the power of protest to try to steer decisions in our preferred direction. Seems to me that fits “Empowering democratic decision making processes developed and refined by those utilising them.” Especially since it was only twenty years ago we made a major change in how those representatives are elected.
Democracy can’t be delivered via representative parliamentary modes of governance. As you say, it involves power being ceded. That right there (ceding power) is democracy being denied.
Bill, I’m still no closer to understanding how, in your preferred system, I would interact with the decision-making process. You’ve told me a lot of things it isn’t. But that’s really no help to understanding what it is.
You interact directly with decisions around those things that would affect you and to a degree roughly in line with likely or possible impacts on you.
Or you don’t if you don’t want to,
And you or who-ever else, who are being just normal socially interactive people, naturally generate the matters that require decisions.
The minutiae of the processes develop and change according to both peoples’ wishes and whatever it is that’s being decided. Some stuff would deserve quite involved and even long drawn out processes and some stuff could be more or less simply notified so that people know what’s going on. And it would be up to the people involved in whatever setting to find the balance or balances that suit them.
Ok, I’m seeing something that might work in a small isolated village.
But in a complex society like ours, how does, say water supply to my house get managed? Does Penny Bright debate Mikhail Khimich (the dude that bought Waiwera Water) in Vector Arena while we all watch and cheer? There’s dozens of issues that deeply affect our lives like water that need to be managed. Representative democratic systems do a mostly OK job of managing all of those, so I’d really need to be convinced something else really is going to be better.
There can be no market in a democracy. That’s just logic. (Please note, I’m not talking about trade here, but about the particular rules we have around production and distribution that we give the term ‘market economy’) So no-one ‘owns’ water.
Maybe try to see it as 1001 interconnected villages rather than one isolated village. That allows you to envisage scale. So whereas I may live in ‘this’ location (ie ‘this’ village) much of the stuff I do and the potential impacts around me involve any one of a number of those other imagined social entities. So maybe in some respects I live in many different villages.
Water.
Why a centralised network? Is that the only option and the most preferable option? Do we have a desire to maintain large centralised pieces of infrastructure? If we do have that desire, then how do we break down its management and maintenance in ways and to levels that are conducive to democratic decisions being made? Is it possible to do that? We could just say ‘no’ or we could discover possibilities through experimenting with whatever number of novel approaches. Maybe in the end, it wouldn’t prove to be possible. At which point, those affected would have a number of different decisions to make.
But having (say) 10 000 people involved in a meeting in a stadium for the purpose of arriving at decisions – no. 10 000 people gathering in a stadium to throw ideas around? Maybe.
Throwing this in as a by the by (although it is kind of crucial). Dynamic order (in terms of complexity and scale, always arises from below and is ‘determined’ by quite simple initial conditions – it’s never imposed.
Dunedin. Each area could make its own decisions about water, but in the absence of enough rainfall (and taking into account CC), I’d say having a partially centralised system probably makes most sense. After Chch 2 quake I argued that Chch was in the ideal position to separate out into the multiple villages you describe, esp as the centralised water and sewerage systems failed in part because it was centralised. However, short of a big natural disaster, I’m not sure that each suburb in Dunedin building its own water infrastructure makes sense in terms of resource us (new houses should build their own catchment though, even if its just for outside use). So, there’s some centralised decision making that’s needed.
At the suburb level, I can see it working along the lines you talk about. THere’s 4,600 people living in the North East Valley. Probably a bit big but maybe doable for having meetings (not everyone will attend).
The other thing I would add is it’s not enough to have processes that people have to engage in actively, because there will always be people who can’t (e.g. women with young kids, or people who are ill). We’d also need to have ways of those people being able to take part from where they are and within their limitations.
Ok, the closest real world example of something like that I’ve had anything to do with is schooling in the US.
The school systems in many states in the US are very decentralised down to the local council level, and are funded from local property taxes (at least they were in the 90s). Governance is generally drawn from the local community. This leads to a massive variation in standards and funding from one district to another, yet ends up being quite expensive because of duplication of resources. As memories of what I learned about that come back, the idea of repeating that model on essential services appeals less and less. I’m grateful I never had to deal with my own kids going through that.
, [Noam] Chomsky is a self-described Anarcho-Syndicalist, a position which he sees as the appropriate application of classical liberal political theory to contemporary industrial society:
‘Now a federated, decentralised system of free associations, incorporating economic as well as other social institutions, would be what I refer to as anarcho-syndicalism; and it seems to me that this is the appropriate form of social organisation for an advanced technological society in which human beings do not have to be forced into the position of tools, of cogs in the machine. There is no longer any social necessity for human beings to be treated as mechanical elements in the productive process; that can be overcome and we must overcome it to be a society of freedom and free association, in which the creative urge that I consider intrinsic to human nature will in fact be able to realize itself in whatever way it will.'[70]
@Andre, that’s not what is being suggested, because that system presumably isn’t using substantive democracy and exists within a larger undemocratic system.
However I have in the past argued along similar lines about how in NZ for instance such a system with zero centralisation would lead to a big variation in standards and a loss in some places of certain human rights.
But the local councillors were much more in contact with their locals in the three small towns (suburbs of large cities) I lived in compared to Auckland (and Palmerston North), had elections every two years. As far as I could tell, there was much more community involvement in the school administration compared to here in Auckland. The local councils and local school boards seemed to have much more autonomy than their equivalents here.
If all of that isn’t several big steps towards substantive democracy and/or what Bill is advocating, then I’m back to square zero in understanding what you are advocating.
Bill, I don’t have a problem with the death of liberalism, I do have a problem with how it’s being promoted at the moment in various places (left, right, alt-right).
I disagree that in the NZ context at least, if we had a Corbyn/Sanders-esque bump to the left then liberalism comes under thread, because I don’t think Corbyn and Sanders are that radical. In other words liberalism (such a bizarre word to use in NZ politics, but hey) and the left could probably find a way to hang out together. As they have done.
“T’would be nice if liberals would wake up, smell the coffee, get with a programme (preferably a progressive one) and help us get ready.”
T’would also be nice if the anti-liberals stopped portraying liberals as not being with the programme or not being progressive per se. I am. PM not so much. But pushing the death to liberalism in the way it’s being done is not going to help those us make the cultural shifts necessary and is also likely to take us down the ‘bad stuff will happen’ route.
Just as you don’t like the way some things are being portrayed, neither do I. Mainstream outlets are pumping a poisonous meme equating Corbyn with Trump…or suggesting that voting for Corbyn is just the same as voting for Trump (In a NZ context, I’ve read media equating Morgan with Trump).
And that’s the fissure I see opening up. Powerful interests backing the liberal status quo coming out hard and dishonestly against anything that might offer an alternative.
Bringing it down to the individual level and it gets to be a minefield because there’s no settled definition for words such as ‘liberal’ and words are all we have to express ourselves or our ideas. As I understand your use of the word ‘liberal’ as it relates at the individual level, I could easily, and I think fairly, interpret that as ‘Catholic’ in it’s original definition – ie – broad minded/ open.
But that individual meaning doesn’t translate to the institutional or ideological level. Like many words, it has multiple and often mutually exclusive meanings depending on context or subject matter.
What I’m observing (on TS and in the US in different ways) is the attack on liberalism affecting liberals (including left wing folk who’ve done relatively ok by the Democrats but who want change) in ways that aren’t IMO conducive to change in a good direction. I’d prefer to see alliances being built. The attacks on liberalism aren’t just aiming at the Clintons or whoever, they’re attacking those individuals who you say we can’t take into account because it gets too difficult. I’m saying we should be starting with those people.
Liberal (small L) as I grew up with it in NZ meant progressive. There’s not reason why we can’t be more careful with our language to be inclusive. There’s also a difference between Liberalism and liberal. I have no problem with the attempt to take down Liberalism, but as I said, it’s causing problems in how it is being done, in part because of ignoring the semantics and the individuals.
And example would be that I see a big overlap between what you are arguing and people on TS who are actively wanting to undermine identity politics. Until we get to grips with that, the nuances involved, and where we can work together, there is going to be an ongoing political clusterfuck that hands power to the forces of evil (just to shorthand it).
Your point about what the media are doing and the danger in that is well taken. I’d like to see that sit alongside my point about what is happening on TS and the danger in that. Then see where our politics align.
Liberalism is to a large extent individualism: you should be left to get on with what you want to do unless there’s some genuinely good reason for governments or whoever to poke their noses in. For the ACT supporter, this largely consists of the government not trying to prevent you from using your money and influence to better yourself at other people’s expense, but for those of us who aren’t shitheads that’s not what it consists of at all. Anyone wanting rid of liberalism is either authoritarian or just naive.
From what I can tell Bill (and adam) are talking about the economic side of Classical Liberalism, and not liberty per se (nor Social Liberalism which focusses on equality).
Thing is though, once you get to having to read complex wiki entries to understand what the other person is saying, we’re in the realm of elitism and, worse, the realm of talking past each other. Which is the bread and butter of TS in the last 6 months. We’re in a political cul de sac.
I don’t think I’m talking about libertarianism. The wiki entry offers Locke’s version: “Locke argued that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property,[12] while adding that governments must not violate these rights based on the social contract. Liberals opposed traditional conservatism and sought to replace absolutism in government with representative democracy and the rule of law.” I don’t think I’m describing something very different from that.
A person can take that to mean laissez-faire economics if they’re a right-winger, but I don’t think it’s an essential feature at all.
From weka’s wiki entry on Liberalism, it describes liberalism as:
“Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programmes such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation.”
Bill, which bits of all that do you want to get rid of? Freedom of speech, religion and press? Free markets? Civil rights? Democratic societies? Secular governments? Gender equality? International cooperation? Personally I’m pretty keen on all of those, with just a few limits.
The development into maturity of classical liberalism took place before and after the French Revolution in Britain, and was based on the following core concepts: classical economics, free trade, laissez-faire government with minimal intervention and taxation and a balanced budget.
If liberalism no longer means those principles listed at the start of the wiki on Liberalism, then what’s the new word for that group of beliefs and values?
Yes, and in NZ I would say that outside of specific political spaces, not many people use the term Liberalism anyway (I did a quick google of TS and prior to the last year most people were using neoliberalism instead).
From the wiki piece,
Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Whereas classical liberalism emphasises the role of liberty, social liberalism stresses the importance of equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programmes such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation.
Those things aren’t only within Liberalism right? So I’m all for using a different term but I think more important is to have shared understandings of the concepts. Doesn’t Socialism try and balance freedom with collective responsibility? Whereas Libertarianism focusses on the liberty without that as much as possible. Carolyn talks more about the political systems around that below. I’m more interested in what lay people would understand.
Liberty isn’t really a word that’s been used in NZ. I guess because we were already liberal and our politics evolved from the UK.
I’d suggest using ‘liberal’ to refer to the progressive values around freedom, and ‘Liberal’ to refer to those that are aligned with Liberalism.
Personally, I’d prefer we stopped looking at structures that arose out of the patriarchy (and I’ll probably include anarchism in that, although I think there are good things within that philosophy to learn from), and instead looked at the systems that were in use in NZ pre-European arrival. I think much of NZ culture was influenced by Māori culture and that is rarely acknowledged. For instance the relative equality that women have here is based in both the settler culture (British women had critical roles to play there) and in Māoridom (women as a class had more mana than in British cultures).
I’m not in favour of establishing institutional hierarchies and am against power being exercised by anyone if it comes at the price of dis-empowering any other. You can scale that sentiment up to scenarios or situations containing as many people as you like, or scale it down to two.
So all of freedoms you list are besides the much more important point of who or what decides the limits or arbitrates those those freedoms at present, and what institutional barriers exist to the full expression of those freedoms…and (importantly) are those exercises of power legitimate? (I’d say they aren’t because stuff I said in the first paragraph.)
And see Weka below (?) where she adds economic facets of liberalism. Those freedoms (ie – the freedom of markets) are no kinds of freedom at all. I’m a market abolitionist.
weka: Liberal (small L) as I grew up with it in NZ meant progressive. There’s not reason why we can’t be more careful with our language to be inclusive. There’s also a difference between Liberalism and liberal.
There is certainly some confusion or blurring of these terms. It looks to me sometimes on TS, people may be talking passed each other, with different understandings of the terms.
I think you (weka) are talking about your experiences of common usages of the term, “liberal”. And dictionaries tend to reflect common usages, and follow changes in common usage.
Willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas:
In everyday relationships with people, I do use the term liberal positively in this sense.
But then there is this
Favourable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms:
I have difficulty agreeing with a “liberal” approach to gender, race, etc, because it isn’t just about individuals. It’s about how people in some gender or ethnic groups are systematically discriminated against. It’s a group thing, and requires collective action to bring pressure for change – just as for workers.
But then, our system of government is generally referred to as one of “liberal democracy”.
Liberal democracy is a liberal political ideology and a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism. It is also called western democracy. It is characterised by fair, free, and competitive elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all people.
Liberal Democracy is a phrase often used to describe Western democratic political systems, such as Australia, the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Canada and other nations.
…
It is generally agreed that liberal democracies are based on four main principles:
1.A belief in the individual, based on the idea that the individual is both moral and rational
….
4. A suspicion of concentrated forms of power, whether by individuals, groups or governments
So definitions of liberal democracies do tend to put a form of “individualism” and individual rights at their centre.
So, if Bill wants that changed, what sort of political system does he want?
I also looked up a definition of “social democracy” to see if that differed from “liberal democracy”
Social democracy is a political, social and economic ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, and a policy regime involving a commitment to representative democracy, measures for income redistribution, and regulation of the economy in the general interest and welfare state provisions.[1][2
It also goes on about how some people started using the term “social democracy” as a way of moving gradually towards socialism. But that never seemed to happen in practice. Some see social democracy as a compromise between capitalism and socialism.
Down the page it says this:
The economists John Roemer and Pranab Bardhan point out that social democracy requires a strong labour movement to sustain its heavy redistribution through taxes, and that it is idealistic to think such redistribution can be accomplished in other countries with weaker labour movements. They note that even in Scandinavian countries social democracy has been in decline as the labour movement weakened.[153]
And this need for strong collective organisation seems to me to be necessary. Point #4 above about Liberal Democracy being suspicious of concentrated forms of power, doesn’t seemed to have worked out well in today’s liberal democracies.
I do think this is part of our problems with the left these days, with the decline of the labour movement/s how can collective action be mobilised to counteract concentrated forms of power?
Thanks Carolyn, and thanks for all the research. Please also see my comment above. I agree we are talking past each other too much, and some of that is down to language.
What I’m interested in is better communication. So Bill and adam and whoever can use the terms liberal and Liberalism however they want so long as they make explicit in their comments what they mean. Which they’re generally not doing. At the moment it comes across as a kind of imposing of ideology and I’ve got limited patience for that at the moment given what is happening in the world.
I think both of them are trying to communicate very important things, but if the way they choose to do that is itself dogmatic and lessens people understanding each other and creates divisions, I really don’t see the point. To be fair to both of them, much of that is probably due to the combative style of commenting on TS which even for TS has been bad in the past 6 months (and which I also contribute to). But I do see both of them attempting a radical stance that is dogmatic and at least to me appears to value that over making allies in the cause.
At this stage of the game we should have had the semantics sorted. IMO the most important move at this time is to build alliances. Bill and adam appear to want to draw lines in the sand and make people choose sides. I appreciate the radical positioning of both of them, but strategically I think it fails (as I often say, I’m not waiting for the revolution).
Thanks, weka. Sorry I mucked up the italics (was meant to be just for tour words that I quoted)- submitted the comment then went and had dinner.
After doing the research I have questions about how truly we do have a Liberal Democracy form of government. The government does seem to recognise group issues in making some legislation.
OTOH, I do think one of our biggest problems is the accumulation of power among the wealthy, corporations, and some born to privilege (including wealth, masculine and race privilege to some degree).
And the question is how to combat that? And how to engage more of the public in political and democratic processes.
Fashionable as it is to write Morgan off I wonder if the big political story of 2017 will be that the pundits were wrong and his party was good for 7 or 8%.
As annoying as he is I’m probably going to vote for him, and I suspect there is something attractive about an establishment figure advocating (comparatively) radical policies that address structural issues.
No. He actually pointed out that politically and as a person he was nothing like Trump. On the most facile level – both wealthy businessmen, yes, that’s their backgrounds.
”Asked whether his party would follow in the footsteps of Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party in handing the election to National, Morgan retorted: “Kim Dotcom, I can think of something better – how about Trump?”
However, he did not want to draw too many parallels between himself and the Republican presidential candidate, other than a dislike of the status quo.
“I have never been bankrupt, that’s one difference…I don’t like anything about him.
“Well I guess [we are similar] in the sense that I haven’t joined an establishment party, that we are coming in here to push whoever the Government of the day is.”
are u munted in the head Bill?, do you really know what your saying?
OMFG you just have no idea what your saying, are you trying to tell me the demise of liberalism(do YOU know what it means) will be good for us all.
You would have fucking loved pre WW2 Germany why don’t you find a nice dictatorship and bugger off there.
Me I like liberalism it gives me freedom , the demise of liberalism removes that, so when the government under your ideal situation tells you your getting paid minimum wage, and you will work in a coal mine even though your an engineer you’ll be happy to do it right? Because it seems to me your wanting a great old do as we tell you dictatorship…
In New Zealand, the term “liberalism” has been used by a large variety of groups and organisations, but usually refers to a support for individual liberties and limited government. The term is generally used only with a reference to a particular policy area, e.g. “market liberalism” or “social liberalism”.
What does it mean that Cory Booker voted against this meaningless prescription drug amendment? What does it mean that Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico voted against it? What does it mean that Senator Ted Cruz voted for it?
It means approximately nothing.
But if you’re playing along, you ought to know that the intention of the amendments was never to do anything but to slap around Republicans. If you’ve decided that you need to wage a preventive war against Cory Booker’s 2020 presidential aspirations by killing him over this vote, then you’re waging your own ideological war and way off message.
It’s easy to see why you might have been taken in by this when you look at headlines that say “For Some Reason, Cory Booker and 12 Other Dems Helped Kill a Bill That Would Lower Drug Prices.”
I siobahn, having to inject a thought here, this bandying about of the word liberalism in the political sense is taking many of us in the wrong for thinking that way about it.
In that liberalism as defined as a political strategy of rule is what? there is no such thing, neither are many of the labels we put on political sides..ie National right wing/authoritarian Labour left wing/Liberalism/democratic.. it’s all bollocks..it really is, you cannot stick a label on a parties way of government unless they are extremely one way or the other to the point it is that. IE North Korea as an example of dictatorships. i’d call one man ruling a country a dictatorship, that isn’t proper communism either.
we have to stop the labelling IMHO it’s getting no one no where except a tongue poking out nah nah nah ur left we’re right load of crap.
People IMHO need to stop taking sides like that, forget it altogether and just do what is the right thing to do on a particular subject. IE welfare should be run on a care tack, and business should be looked in a light of what’s best for that.., and political sides are forgotten. horses for courses.
this argument about the fall of liberalism..what? what is that crap you lot are saying.. there can be no such thing. Even under bloody trump you have liberties.. WTF.
‘Liberal’ has taken on many meanings over the years, and as Weka said, it results in many of us talking past one another. The original Liberal Party in England did believe in laissez-faire economics, etc. But during the 70s, most ignorant Kiwis (especially Rob’s mob + rednecks) were too ignorant to know this, and the word became linked with trendy lefty things like women’s Liberation, etc – progressive, and breaking redundant, old restrictions. So we now have people using ‘liberalism’ with different ideas of what it means. To my mind, neo-liberalism is a revival of the original meaning of the word, but I still instinctively think of liberalism as being more broad and progressive. Libertarianism I would have associated with ACT’s silly ‘minimal government’ dogma.
I now wish I had just concentrated on being libertine…
Winston Peters says NZF won’t go into coalition with any Party which denies access to the Pike River mine. How real is this? By the time the election comes along, Pike River mine will be all sealed up . Just vote-catching – as per usual for Winnie.
That’s right sm. The more a population gets dumbed down the more successful populism and identity politics become. Our media have become masters of ‘dumbing down’.
That would imply there are votes to be caught taking such a position. And isn’t that what our representatives are supposed to be doing?
Peters says: “if you don’t think 29 people dying in circumstances that are still unexplained is worthy of some time then I think we’ve deteriorated into a rather sad country.”
Presumably he’s decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power. Classic move, because it will be seen as an achievement by Peters and will cloud how little else he gains in the deal.
“Presumably he’s decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power”
Are you implying Labour and the Greens won’t back Winston on this or be willing to compromise? Thus, allowing the possibility for him to also work with them?
While a number of voters will find it a win (if successful) a number of them will be expecting far more and won’t be clouded by just one win.
Do you have anything that suggests National will compromise on this? Which one would expect you have to come to such a conclusion.
Nothing to do with L/G. Peters wants to keep his options open, so my guess is that he has played this so that National can say yes to it. Or Labour. Or the Greens. any of them, which was my point, it’s about Peters and what he wants politically.
As for National, I think them wanting a 4th term is entirely sufficient reason for them to compromise on this and take Peters’ support. It doesn’t seem like a big compromise on National’s part (unless there really are good political reasons for National to not want the mine open, which is possible).
If National are willing to compromise in order to ensure they remain in power as you suggested, can you explain why they haven’t compromised thus far?
It’s not like they haven’t already faced any public or political pressure on the matter.
Could it possibly point to your suggestion there could be good political reasons for National to not want the mine open?
If so, wouldn’t that indicate it would be more likely National will be unwilling to compromise? Kind of throwing a spanner into the works in regard to your initial assertion.
“If National are willing to compromise in order to ensure they remain in power as you suggested, can you explain why they haven’t compromised thus far?”
Did they not do any deals with their current partners? The compromise is related to how much support they need. There is a theory that they will need NZF after this year’s election. Sorry, I’m not sure what you are getting at, this is coalition 101 stuff.
If National are refusing access to the mine because there is a scandal waiting to be found, then obviously that will affect their willingness to compromise. I’ve already said that.
My original point wasn’t about National. It was about Peters weighing up the options and how they might best play out for him.
“Sorry, I’m not sure what you are getting at, this is coalition 101 stuff.”
Yes, I’m aware of all of that. You misunderstood the question. I’ll rephrase it for you.
Rather than risk voters turning against them while leaving it to the last minute (when forming a coalition) to compromise, can you explain why (if they want to win and ensure voters don’t turn on them) they aren’t conceding and keeping their promise to the Pike River family members now?
Considering the political and public pressure they’ve already come under, could the reason for their unwillingness to compromise now be as you suggested (a scandal waiting to be found)? And if so wouldn’t that indicate it would be more likely National will be unwilling to compromise when and if they require to go into coalition? Kind of throwing a spanner into the works in regard to your initial assertion.
The more votes they can muster before the final count, the bigger the chance of remaining in power and the less chance they will need to go into coalition.
While your initial comment was about Peters, you presumed he decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power, hence my questioning on this presumption.
“Rather than risk voters turning against them while leaving it to the last minute (when forming a coalition) to compromise, can you explain why (if they want to win and ensure voters don’t turn on them) they aren’t conceding and keeping their promise to the Pike River family members now?”
Why make concessions before you need to? It might not be a scandal, it might just be pressure from the commercial interests and/or wanting to save face. Or they’re weighing up the balance between the damage going into the mine now will cause vs the damage of going in later.
The kind of votes Peters might get from this move aren’t necessarily the kind that National would get from about facing.
“While your initial comment was about Peters, you presumed he decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power, hence my questioning on this presumption.”
To maintain voter support, thus possibly avert having to make concessions (be require to enter into coalition) later on.
Support for the Pike River family members and re-entering will come from across the political spectrum.
It would save face and be more of a vote winner to concede now, rather than further risk angering voters and come off looking like total assholes for making the families further suffer, forcing them to fight and wait all this time to then concede.
Thus, when weighing up the balance, it’s clear conceding and entering now is the less politically damaging. Unless of course, there is actually something far worse to hide.
Why do you believe commercial interests would be pressuring National on this ?
Bernie Monk said that Winston is the first politician to really stand with them. What left party leaders have been to the mine site and stood with the protestors? Winnies going to do well this year, he can make principled stands and back them up.
Well, that’s a bit rich coming from Bernie Monk. Either he’s showing a political bias or he has a poor memory. Andrew Little (starting before he became leader) spent many hours/days/weeks over time talking with… comforting… trying to do everything he could to get the men back into the mine. I recall question after question after question in the debating chamber. He has never given up.
But of course Andrew doesn’t use his personal support for political gain. He just gets on with what he knows should be done. How many hours/days/weeks has Winston spent on the West Coast trying to help the victims of the tragedy?
“Bernie Monk said that Winston is the first politician to really stand with them.”
Can you please link to that? I’d like to see the context.
“What left party leaders have been to the mine site and stood with the protestors? Winnies going to do well this year, he can make principled stands and back them up.”
If you want to support NZF go ahead. If you want a left wing govt, please stop supporting Peters’ manipulation of the electorate.
Peters can choose to support the formation of a 4th term National Govt. If lefties are ok with that, that’s up to them, but I will continue to point out that that is not a left wing government.
NZF have some left wing policies, but they are centrist and Peters has made it very clear he doesn’t want NZ moving left other than in the areas he approves of i.e. a few areas of policy.
“Moreover, would Labour in its current form be (overall) any more left than a coalition between National and NZF?”
Labour won’t govern on its own, so that’s not really a relevant question.
L/NZF is an improvement on National. L/G a much better improvement on National. L/NZF will sit distinctly to the right of a L/G govt. Not sure about L/G/NZF.
“If the left genuinely want a left wing Government they need to advocate for Labour to return to the left.”
Something that’s been happening for quite some time already.
“NZF have some left wing policies”
Indeed they do. Some more left than Labour.
You appear to have missed my point so I will repeat what I actually said instead of the bit you cut and pasted without the rest,
NZF have some left wing policies, but they are centrist and Peters has made it very clear he doesn’t want NZ moving left other than in the areas he approves of i.e. a few areas of policy.
You can look that up for yourself if you are genuinely interested. Start with his positioning on the Greens being part of govt.
Now, if you want to argue that a L/NZF coalition is left enough for you, go ahead and make that argument. Like I said, anyone supporting Peters is supporting the potential formation of a 4th term National government, even if Peters wins a few policy baubles along the way. He’s not left wing despite his party having some left wing policies. He’s centrist by his politics, what he says and how he acts. He used to be part of the National party. This doesn’t mean he hasn’t done some useful things from a leftwing perspective, I just think it’s dangerous to be presenting him as a viable left wing vote.
More to the point, my reply to mauī, who I don’t think was presenting Peters in that way, but was supporting the memery around that, was to point out that there are other ways to do this.
How Labour position themselves is relevant if the left genuinely want a left wing Government and not just a change of Government.
“L/NZF will sit distinctly to the right of a L/G govt”
Evidence for this assertion, thanks.
“Something that’s been happening for quite some time already.”
Yet there is still too much acceptance, lowering of the bar and excuses being made, thus far more work to be done.
I didn’t miss your point. I called for you to substantiate it.
You failed to comply. I’m not wasting my time looking it up, you point me directly to it. You made the assertion, were called out on it, hence it’s up to you to back it up. Otherwise we’ll assume you made it up.
Peters is old school National at most. Which now days one could argue is as left as Labour currently is now days.
Moreover, in a number of areas he’s more left than Labour and the Greens. Therefore, if you genuinely want a left wing Government we can’t afford to rule him out and lose that strive to go further left.
L/NZF coalition is not left enough for me but it’s more left (IMO) than Labour and the Greens alone. I don’t think the Greens will secure enough. Peters has the experience and political expertise to secure more and would be an added benefit to those wanting a more left-leaning coalition (L/G/NZF).
You go away and have an argument with yourself then. I have no idea what you are on about and am sick of sharing my views and not getting anything meaningful in return. I suspect you are just trying to win an argument, or at least that’s how it comes across. Not interested.
He’s not left wing despite his party having some left wing policies.
Peters grew up during the Keynesian era and is, most likely, still heavily Keynesian. Basically, IMO, he believes in the capitalist system that was part of his life when he was a child.
I personally admire the stand Winston is taking by going there and I guess I feel he’s stealing a trick on the proper left wing parties who are possibly taking a more low key (cautious) approach and won’t make a song and dance about it. As someone said on here when the blockade of the mine started, where is Andrew Little? He should be flying down there right now to show his support.
The move Winston’s made is bold, with great optics, possibly something a Mana Party might try. I just think people looking for a change of Government are more likely to buy into what he’s doing than the Greens and Labour meeting with families at Parliament. I’m all for a proper left wing Government, but Winnie could be the best out of the three parties at the marketing game.
“Well, that’s a bit rich coming from Bernie Monk. Either he’s showing a political bias or he has a poor memory. Andrew Little (starting before he became leader) spent many hours/days/weeks over time talking with… comforting… trying to do everything he could to get the men back into the mine. I recall question after question after question in the debating chamber. He has never given up.
But of course Andrew doesn’t use his personal support for political gain. He just gets on with what he knows should be done. How many hours/days/weeks has Winston spent on the West Coast trying to help the victims of the tragedy?”
“The victims’ families held a protest outside Parliament this afternoon. Speaking to the crowd, Little promised that a Labour Government would get an independent assessment of the mine and re-enter it if it was declared safe. It would be “one of the first things we will do”, he said.
“I’ve seen your report, I’ve seen the plan, I’ve heard from other experts myself, and they all tell me it is possible to go down that drift safely to have a look.”
Problem: National changed the law that effectively made it illegal to re-enter the mine.
“There is a terrible irony for the Pike River families that the new legislation which came about as a result of the tragedy is now preventing the re-entry to the mine they are pushing for.
In deciding not to allow re-entry to the mine, Solid Energy will be concerned about breaching the Act.
Unlike previous legislation the Act carries hefty penalties, and by allowing people into the mine when they know it to be dangerous, Solid Energy could face severe sanctions.
The Act has a wide scope, placing duties to ensure safety in the workplace, so far as reasonably practicable, on any person conducting a business or undertaking. Now individuals involved with the management of businesses can face penalties personality.
Conduct that is reckless as to the risk of death, serious injury, or serious illness (and certainly knowing the risk places Solid Energy in that category) carries a fine of up to $3 million, or for an individual, a $600,000 fine and/or five years imprisonment.
So if Solid Energy has a report from experts telling them it is not safe to re-enter the mine, they would be taking a huge risk to ignore that advice.
Under the Act it is not necessary for someone to actually be killed or injured in the workplace for sanctions to be imposed. Failure to comply with a duty to ensure health and safety, which exposes persons to the risk of death, serious injury or illness, carries a fine of up to $1.5m or $300,000 for individuals.
Even if no one is exposed to the risk of death, serious injury or serious illness, but a duty within the Act is not complied with, you can be fined up to $500,000, or $100,000 for individuals.
Solid Energy would face huge liability if the mine was re-entered, not to mention how disastrous it would be if harm to more people occurred in Pike River.”
“Labour leader Andrew Little has also fired back at Peters, saying Peters’ comments about being among the first to re-enter the mine were “cheap”.
“One thing I am never going to be challenged by Winston on is my commitment to Pike River. And the difference between me and Winston Peters is I wasn’t sitting in a Cabinet in the 1990s that undermined our health and safety regulations in mine regulations, specifically,” Little told the Herald.”
“This is a serious issue. Put aside the, I thought, cheap call about Winston leading a team in there – that is disrespectful to the mines rescue folks and others who are experts – you do want the best possible decision to be made.”
“Little has promised that a Labour Government would get an independent assessment of the mine, and re-enter it if it was declared safe.”
“Little said there were two conflicting streams of advice, and the best way to make a decision was to get an independent report. The Pike River families had accepted that position when he had spoken to them, he added.”
Labour have committed to having an independent assessment done and only re-entering if it’s deemed safe.
“Little has promised that a Labour Government would get an independent assessment of the mine, and re-enter it if it was declared safe.”
Whereas, Peters said we’re not interested in anything other than to ensure that advice that you’ve got that you can go in is in fact followed. Stating he won’t go into coalition with any party that doesn’t support what the families are trying to achieve.
Therefore, while Little has shown support and is prepared to have an independent assessment done, Peters has gone further, backing the report the family members have already had done and making re-entry a bottom line on any coalition deal.
Clearly, this is the stake in the ground Monk is referring too.
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere Draco TB @ 6.5 that once the entrance is sealed, it’ll be very difficult to unseal it. And that will be done before the election.
That’s why I think Winston made his “pledge” – it won’t happen. so he’ll be safe enough if he goes with the Nats to form a 4th govt, and he won’t care a damn about his unworkable pledge.
With no disrespect intended Jenny, but I can’t see Winston Peters going with the Nats to form a 4th govt.
“Dean quickly fires a question back: “And that includes if you join up with the National Party at the election next year?”
Mr Peters is visibly taken aback, and retorts with political talk. “I’m here to fix your problem, not negotiate the next election with a failed government. Make no bones about it,” says Mr Peters.”
Sorry Leftie – Peters is playing a political game. There is absolutely no guarantee he’ll go with Labour and the Greens, and it is quite possible he’ll go with the major Party which will give him the best opportunity to be one of the top players. National will do anything to stay in power – even sacrificing one of their people to give up a major spot in the limelight, to let Peters in.
That’s Peters’ nature, and he hasn’t changed. There’s also speculation that Shane Jones will be standing for NZF in Whangarei – and he is rightwing, and would be willing to go with the Nats too. I just don’t trust Peters – he is too glib and too willing to jump onto the latest bandwagon.
And the media are also playing him up as so-called kingmaker again – which, naturally, pushes him into the limelight and higher in the polls. The media, as we all know, is pro-Nats so its an interesting trend that they’re also being pro-Peters at the moment.
What’s more, Peters comments about Andrew Little at that Pike River meeting were uncomplimentary and were also untrue. Why did Peters find it necessary to say what he did about Little ? If not, because he sees him as a rival.
And I also see in today’s Herald that Shane Jones is not seeking another term as Ambassador to the Pacific nor looking for a job in the current Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so that makes it even more likely he’ll be running in Whangarei for NZF against the Nats Shane Reti (who local gossip says has disappointed the Nats but they’re just leaving him be for this election, and It’ll be a different story/ Nat candidate next election) .
This speculation locally – if correct eventually – also indicates NZF will look favourably at the Nats.
Nominee for US secretary of state Rex Tillerson uttered astonishing statements during his confirmation hearing with the Senate on Wednesday. He likened China’s island-building in the South China Sea to “Russia’s taking of Crimea,” and said the new US government would send China a clear signal that “first the island building stops, and second your access to those islands is also not going to be allowed.”
[…]
China has enough determination and strength to make sure that his rabble rousing will not succeed. Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish.
The US has no absolute power to dominate the South China Sea. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories. Probably he just has oil prices and currency rates in his mind as former ExxonMobil CEO.
Which of the other declared 2017 Mt Albert by-election candidates are going to stand up and be counted, to
STOP NIKI’S EVICTION?
_____________________________
2017 Independent candidate for Mt Albert Penny Bright calls on all decent, concerned citizens to help defend Niki Rauti – this really gutsy (former) State tenant, who is refusing to budge, and making a brave stand against the privatisation of State housing and ‘democracy for developers’!
WHEN: Tuesday 17 January 2017
TIME: 6pm
WHERE: Assemble outside Glen Innes Public Library – to march to 14 Taniwha St, Glen Innes.
The opening of this sick cult’s new headquarters is just another reminder of the consequences of living in a country without decent rules and regulations.
It won’t kill people like Pike River, forestry and farming.
it won’t bankrupt you like leaky homes and South Canterbury Finance.
But it will destroy your life.
Neoliberalism allows all these poisons in our lives.
Just liberalism, not neo-liberalism. As a liberal democracy, we have freedom of religion, which means you can’t ban people from spreading delusional bullshit for profit. For my money, if we did decide to trash freedom of religion in NZ, Muslim preachers would be the top priority – they’re much more of a threat than Scientologists.
Scientology is a racket.
I would follow the German policy and treat it as a subversive organisation.
From Wikipedia.
‘German officials sharply rejected the accusations. They said that Germany guarantees the freedom of religion, but characterized Scientology as a profit-making enterprise, rather than a religion, and emphasized that precisely because of Germany’s Nazi past, Germany took a determined stance against all “radical cults and sects, including right-wing Nazi groups”, and not just against Scientology. According to a 1997 Time magazine article, most Germans consider Scientology a subversive organization, with pollsters reporting 70% popular support for banning Scientology in Germany.’
.
Is it less of a profit-making enterprise than Destiny Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints? Germany has much weaker protections for civil liberties than we do (notably relating to freedom of expression, but also in general). It’s great that those weaker protections mean they can ban Scientology, but overall I’d rather have our stronger protection.
I’m pretty sure that, even under our present protections, we can should be able to ban something that causes serious psychological harm and even death to people which Scientology arguably does.
I belive in freedom of religion, just not man’s selective interpretation of their “good book”. For me it’s all or nothing, don’t pick and choose what messages suit your lifestyle.
Scientology is sinister form of control. They want to dedicate an entire floor to ‘auditing’, by crikey would love to be a fly on that wall.
Auditing is telling someone everything, everything. It’s the scientology form of a ‘confessional’, only with auditing, they tape record everything, everything. Imagine the leverage this gives the auditors, the control, the power.
Interesting timing don’t you think? But is it ominous?
Are we about to witness a Dallas?
Or a coup d’état by other means?
“”It doesn’t make sense to can the general in the middle of an active deployment,” rages D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) after Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, who heads the D.C. National Guard and is an integral part of overseeing the inauguration, has been ordered removed from command effective Jan. 20, 12:01 p.m., just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president.
‘As The Washington Post reports, Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz’s departure will come in the midst of the presidential ceremony, classified as a national special security event — and while thousands of his troops are deployed to help protect the nation’s capital during an inauguration he has spent months helping to plan.’
actually as per this guy this is standard operational procedure.
As the guy is appointed, he has submitted his resignation which a. can be accepted – which is what the Trump Transition team has done, or b. not be accepted and will be reconfirmed by Congress – what Obama has done over his two terms as again just for the record – this General was appointed by Bush the younger.
But in saying that, while it should not affect security – if the General has done a good job all his underlings will continue to do their job even without him present, come 12.01 the turd is responsible for what ever happens.
Quote: “He wasn’t fired.
He submitted a letter of resignation per normal procedure.
The new administration accepted his resignation as is its right.
It is unlikely in the extreme that resignation will affect security of the nation’s capital in any way.
Errol Schwartz is retiring with honor after 40 years of service. He’s a Major General, his retirement pay is in the six figure range with full benefits. He’s a talented man of many, many skills who will have his choice of any number of high paying jobs should he chose to return to civilian employment. It’s not like he’s going to be out on the street, living in a box and eating out of dumpsters behind the Pentagon.
If — IF — that decision does affect security during the inauguration, well, then that’s entirely on Donald Trump, because at 12:01 he’s in charge.”
NOTE: No present WikiLeaks staff, including our editor, have medical, psychological or drug conditions which could lead to sudden death.— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 13, 2017
I see the Herald is trying to make something positive about Blinglish”s UK visit but he got diddly squat out of the UK PM for more working rights for Kiwis in the UK. Also noticed in yesterday’s Herald that John Key was absent from the “royal wedding” in NZ yesterday because he was boarding a plane from London to chair the International Democrat Union meeting for this year in Munich. It would seem that the ex PM is as hard right as we always thought and intends to stay that way with all the filthy rich “influential” so called heads of companies getting their heads to together to plan world domination.
I did think it was a cunning move of the ex PM to endorse Blinglish – its pretty obvious the ex PM was put in place to patsy up to the people, get them mung beaned out on his whacky aw shucks sort of manner and then hand over the job to a dry hard right wing zealot to finish the job off properly for his overseas masters. I think I may be becoming a conspiracy theorist in my old age – but I do think there is a measure of truth in what I am surmising.
I see the Herald is trying to make something positive about Blinglish”s UK visit but he got diddly squat out of the UK PM for more working rights for Kiwis in the UK
Give us an idea of what English should have offered or done?
National is all about getting the deal, but it is apparent they can’t really do that.
They can only get deals for NZers if the offer is already on the table, or it costs the other party less to provide it than it does to give.
But hey, credit where credit is due.
None given because none is deserved – unless the Herald decides to spin it as good.
I have no idea but it wouldn’t surprise me the two met and conspired as they do. By the way why didn’t the Herald publish that Key had gone there, it was hidden in the gossip about the royal wedding in Wanaka. Being an ex PM it was newsworthy enough that we are told he is still involving himself in some high power pretty stinky stuff in his holiday time.
No I don’t think he could have done better, but the Herald should have called it like it was – not tried to place spin around the trip as being successful. No opposition parties in this country have a hope with our biased useless MSM and BM you should acknowledge that – even poor witted people can see it.
How do you explain your precious ex PM’s actions fraternising with that repugnant International Democrat Union – does it make you feel good?
Porn free America? Heh. Good luck with that. I’m sure closet homosexual awash with self-loathing, Pastor Ted Haggard, will be right behind that endeavour.
December rainfall in Kereikeri is the lowest since records began in 1935.
( A comment elsewhere on the web from a resident saying he was too scared to leave his property because of the extreme fire risk gives a clue about how real the danger is.)
Combined with the summer influx of tourists, water supplies are low…and even rural dwellers with their own tanks are being told to conserve their water as town supplies are being impacted by countryfolk needing the truck out to put water in their tanks.
All sounding a bit grim.
We are going to have to stop taking our water supply for granted.
Seriously. maybe we should all practice water conservation/awareness by occasionally trying to use the barest minimum of water each day. when we’re living in our Bus, we can get by on less than 10 litres each per day.
I agree about water conservation. I also think that while the rainfall is lower than in the previous century, it’s land use that is creating the drought. Changing land use will not only conserve water but make ecosystems and human communities more resilient.
It’s been persisting here in the Waikato today but I suspect that front will bypass the North.
I hope I’m wrong, because Mangawhai residents are having to wait for tanker deliveries because the water carriers have been shut out from the taps in Wellsford and Snells Beach. Trucks are having to go to Silverdale to fill up.
Agree with you, Rosemary McD. It is very very dry here in Whangarei, and whenever any rain looks as if its on the horizon …… it just peeters away somewhere to the south.
Not only tough on farmers, tough on gardeners too. We moved here a year ago and put in a stack of little orchard trees and others …… have been building up the mulch around them to give them some protection, but they still need watering every so often.
There is a company here in the Waikato that cleans plastic and steel drums.
I wouldn’t use them to store drinking water…but we did buy a heap after the 2007/8 drought here and hooked them together and connected them to the wee chookhouse, another bank to the wee hot house and yet another behind the garden shed. Only used for the chooks and the garden.
Our big concrete inground tanks used only for the house.
I’ve sat and watched rain travel along distant ranges with bated breath…hoping, just hoping. We’re heading back up your way in a few weeks, I’ll try and drag a cloud or two along….;-)
I was at Port albert a few days ago, all the grass was brown tree’s were green but the land was dry as a bone. It did look pretty bad up there, and that’s not really North it’s just Wellsford really.
Port Albert…has hosted two weary travelers, exhausted after battling Auckland traffic on our way Up North on many occasions. I hope you read up about the history of the place. there are descendants of those early settlers still in the area…real characters!
Preliminary results suggest that the reduction in working hours led to around a 10 per cent reduction in sick leave and that the health of care workers also improved markedly. Employees reported an improvement in the quality of care they were able to give patients too. Staff said they had more time to take part in social activities with those in their care – such as playing games and walking outdoors – which was particularly beneficial to patients with dementia.
“I think one of the reasons this was such a big piece of news internationally,” said Bernmar, “is that we are, in a way, presenting the complete opposite narrative of the need to work more and to work harder.
The ‘working harder for longer’ only ever benefits those who aren’t doing the work.
Republican Ben Ferguson: I can't imagine the fallout if a Republican were to ever say Obama wasn't a legitimate president CNN anchor: Umm pic.twitter.com/BJiOpJGrLo— David Mack (@davidmackau) January 14, 2017
Republican Ben Ferguson: I can't imagine the fallout if a Republican were to ever say Obama wasn't a legitimate president
The fact is that although NZ labour is not a Socialist Party its is the only Party Socialists can belong too.So it’s up to us Socialist to join Labour and make sure that we have a fair amount of Socialist policies .If we want to move the Labour Party further Left its up to us . the NZ Labour party is a Democratic Party so join and move it to the Left.
Or they could join the Greens
Or Mana
Or even the Internet Party.
Socialists actually have choice as to which party to support. Perhaps the problem is that many socialists think like you do and only believe that Labour is the only socialist party.
Interesting read for those following gender identity politics. This is very US, and reminds me of the political chaos happening there where boundaries around belief and theory are being broken down and power is up for grabs by vested interests while the liberals are still just confused as fuck.
Just reads as the usual transphobic stuff. Which is sad, because it’s rooted in misogynistic ideals, the very thing that the author is trying to fight against.
Not sure about that. I though the author was attempting to draw a line in the sand and at the same time not centre that in the usual transphobia (I thought the transphobia didn’t come out until the comments). Although obviously she is part of the feminist and lesbian culture that is pushing back against parts of transgender politics/culture. What did you see as transphobic? I’m curious because I’m interested in how the issues she raises can be discussed without being transphobic.
It’s all couched in the concept that there’s this army of trans women amassing just over the hill, and they’ve infiltrated the sacred land of lesbians, but the trans women are secretly evil men come to wreck everything with patriarchy. When really trans women just want to not be treated like shit.
Ok, so there are sides and people are choosing them. I’d like to see feminists like her move further to make the arguments less against trans women and more about the specific issues, but I still think it was a shift from some of the stuff I’ve seen (the overt TERF positions for instance).
“When really trans women just want to not be treated like shit.”
Not sure we can generalise to that degree How do you explain some of the issues raised in the post?
why of course it was just playful pinching the genitals. Why do silly women think that that would be ‘assault’ if someone grabs and pinches their genitals. And besides don’t they know that they know live in a new time and pc is out and grabbing and pinching of genitals is in. Repeat after me. Its playful pinching. Not assault.
Well, if Key could get away with repeatedly tugging on that poor waitress’s pony tail, what’s to stop a US Republican from going the whole hog with a full-on crotch-grab? Americans have never been a people to do things by halves. And now we have Trump leading by example. It’s all downhill from here.
When I was young we were out in Sunderland and my mate pinched a cop in the fanny..you should have seen how they over-reacted, or not..he was pretty pissed, but I think he was sober as a judge by the time he got in the paddy wagon LMFAO
and it appears that someone in the
turds team realized that not having someone responsible for security during the inauguration would make the turd team responsible should something happen.
so they now have asked him to stay for a few days longer.
the whole turd team is really just a pathetic bunch of urinators.
Xu Hongci’s experiences in China show that autocracy demands collaborators
Xu’s story can be read as a testament to man’s unwillingness to succumb, or as the description of a moment when “the naked truth, so long outraged, burst upon the eyes of the world,” as Albert Camus wrote of Hungary’s uprising. But, above all, it should be read as a warning. Tyranny does not begin with violence; it begins with the first gesture of collaboration. Its most enduring crime is drawing decent men and women into its siege of the truth.
The pandemic has shown us how effective our public service is. They've pulled together a massive policy response, from a lockdown to economic support to healthcare to planning how to keep everything running when this is over, and done it in next to no time. They are heroes, who have ...
New Zealand is now officially halfway through its first 4-week lockdown period. The good news is that it seems to be working - people staying at home has reduced the potential for the virus to spread, and we've had steadily decreasing numbers of new cases over the last few days ...
In 1968 Canadian sociologist Laurence Peter coined the phrase “Peter Principle” as a contribution to the sociology of organisations. It explains that in complex organizations people rise to the level of their own incompetence. That is, they get promoted so long as they meet or exceed the specified criteria for ...
The practice and business of music has been one of the sectors most gravely impacted by the virus sweeping the world. The emphatic nature of our government's response, necessary as it was, has slammed the industry and the people who work in it.There are New Zealand artists – Nadia Reid, ...
. . April 8: Day 14 of living in lock-down… The good news first: the downward trajectory of new cases appears to be a real thing. In the last four days, since Sunday, new infections have been dropping: Sunday: 89 new cases Monday: 67 Tuesday: 54 Today (Wednesday): 50 The ...
The anti-fluoride movement wants to restrict your reading to “just four studies.” They actively ignore or attempt to discredit other relevant studies. Image credit:Censorship in media. For earlier articles in this series see: ...
Not Now, Not Ever, Never! The problem with Labour's leading activists is that there is never a good time for democratic socialism. Never. They are like Saint Augustine who prayed to the Almighty: “Lord, give me chastity and self-control – but not yet.” In the case of Labour "junior officers", however, ...
We are seeing what has been termed “a greater challenge than the crash of 2008” by a growing number of economists and more rational, sane commentators, because whilst that was a shocking exposure of the levels to which hubris had sunk, right down to the blank cheque given those who ...
I am a Kiwi living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Jersey City is the second-largest city in the state and is located directly across the Hudson River from downtown Manhattan. Locals call it New York’s sixth borough. More than 350,000 New Jersey citizens, including myself, commute to New York daily ...
It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon, we need to get out of the house, and so our bubble sets off on a bike ride around our local neighbourhood, Cambridge Park. The bikes come out of the garage, and, being really certain we have a front door key, close the garage door ...
. . April 7: Day 13 of living in lock-down… and unlucky for those who are superstitious. A day when there was a ray of sunshine from an otherwise bleak day of worrying signs. Today, as RNZ reported; Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield reported 54 new confirmed and probable cases ...
So far, universal basic income policies, which see people given a regular income without any conditions, have been trailed only on a small scale. But now, Spain is introducing one nationwide as a response to the pandemic: Spain is to roll out a universal basic income (UBI) “as soon as ...
Paul Connet, head of the anti-fluoride propaganda group, Fluoride Action Network, claims that the IQ of children bottle-fed in fluoridated areas drops by 9 points. But he misrepresented the research. There is no observable effect. For earlier articles in this series see: Part 1: Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only ...
The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Dr Christina Schädel Across vast swaths of the northern hemisphere’s higher reaches, frozen ground holds billions of tonnes of carbon. As global temperatures rise, this “permafrost” land is at increasing risk of thawing out, potentially releasing its long-held carbon into the atmosphere. Abrupt permafrost ...
Back in February, the Marlborough District Council increased the mount it charges for LGOIMA requests. I used the LGOIMA to poke into this, and it seems the case for increased charges is unjustified: the supposed increase in request volumes it rests on is an artefact of the Council suddenly deciding ...
. . April 6: Day 12 of living in lock-down… Another day of a near-empty Park N Ride carpark; . . And another day of near-empty Wellington streets; . . . Light traffic on the motorway. No apparent increase in volume. Commercial vehicles sighted; a gravel-hauling truck; McAuley’s Transport; a ...
Imagination By-Pass: Had the Communications Minister, Kris Faafoi (above) taken a firm stand with Bauer, reminding them of their obligations to both their staff and the wider New Zealand public, then a much more favourable outcome may well have ensued. He should have made it clear to the Bauer board ...
We all know that Simon Bridges has, at the best of times, an intermittent relationship with the truth. However you would think that during a pandemic and economic crisis the current opposition leader would pull his head in and start to do the right thing.Obviously leading by example should be ...
Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Dr. Richard Wood and Dr. Laura Jackson Generally, we think of climate change as a gradual process: the more greenhouse gases that humans emit, the more the climate will change. But are there any “points of no return” that commit us to irreversible ...
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...
Nick Wilson,1 Ayesha Verrall,1,2 Len Cook,3 Alistair Gray,3 Amanda Kvalsvig,1 Michael Baker,1 (1epidemiologists, 2infectious disease physician, 3statisticians)In this blog, we raise ideas for how New Zealand might optimise testing to both identify cases in the community as part of the COVID-19 elimination strategy, and to confirm when the virus ...
Maybe you’ve seen the graph that says those countries where everyone wears a mask are the ones that have managed to keep Covid-19 under control? The first thing to say about that claim is that those countries also did lots of other things, too – they acted fast, with intense ...
Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... North Atlantic's capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggestsResearch into ocean’s plankton likely to lead to ...
The Treaty on Open Skies is one of the most effective mechanisms for preventing war curently in force. By letting countries make surveillance flights over each others' territory, it eliminates fears that they are secretly preparing for war. So naturally, the US is planning to withdraw from it: The Trump ...
. . April 5: Day eleven of living in lock-down… My one day of rest for the week, and an opportunity to mow my lawns – which I’d been delaying for about three weeks. (On the plus side, the damp micro-climate in my back yard yielded three lovely fresh mushrooms ...
As far as anyone can say, New Zeaand still has a general election scheduled for September 19 this year. The election will be accompanied by two referenda, one of which will ask voters:Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?The official campaign period for the cannabis referendum begins ...
The vast majority of tributes to the Listener hearken back to its glory days, with little reflection on the magazine as it was at its end.I wrote for it, for half the Listener’s life; I have known personally all the editors except the first (mythical) three. From 1978 to 2014 ...
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ...
. . April 4: Day 10 of living in lock-down… I wake up to a fine Saturday morning which normally would be like an early Christmas. But it’s Day 10 of Level 4 Lock Down. What will my fellow New Zealanders be doing on a day like this – staying ...
Some time during the night we went over the 850,000 views mark. We might have had our millionth view by the end of this year – certainly by early next year. Most of the people involved in Redline spent years and years producing various small left-wing papers and selling them ...
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...
One of the key voices in this extraordinary time in which we live is that of University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Philip Matthews did an an excellent job this weekend of capturing the way he became the man for this moment in a profile for The Press.But one ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...
Redline received this article from the KOE a Marxist party in Greece Our friends in the KOE describe here the mounting crisis in Greece and tensions on the Turkish border. As desperate people flee from their homelands which have been ruined after decades of imperialist wars and interventions the people ...
As the first week of Level Four lockdown unfolded, mounting questions grew as to just what was (and was not) allowed under its “rules”. Partly these were driven by some apparently contradictory messagesfrom different authority figures and explanations carried in the media. Partly they reflected a somewhat sketchy legal basis ...
. . April 3: Day 9 of living in lock-down… Another late-start to my work day. Everything is temporarily upended as clients are shuffled around so we can minimise our “bubble” by reducing the number of people we help. One of my colleagues has been removed from his clients; his ...
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 2: Day eight of living in lock-down… Today, my work day starts late. Our rosters and clients have been dramatically changed, lessening (theoretically) the number of people in our work “bubble”. If just one of us catches covid19 the impact could be considerable as Grey Base Hospital ...
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin Don’t we all know that feeling now.
Prospect Magazine alerted me to this particularly apt quote. It is a much more evocative quote than Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly” which is also doing ...
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...
Brian Williamson1, Prof Nick Wilson2 (1Economic consultant, UK; 2University of Otago Wellington)In this blog, we outline how a win-win social contract could be forged to address the major dimensions of response to the COVID-19 pandemic when using a mitigation strategy: the particular need to protect older people from high ...
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...
No Free Society Without A Free And Functioning News Media: If we are to surrender our civil rights to the broader cause of defeating Covid-19, then foreign corporations must, likewise, surrender their right to inflict immense economic and cultural harm on New Zealanders simply because it improves their bottom line.I’M ...
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...
The swan politicians may be gliding on the water, occasionally snapping at one another. Meanwhile, as the Covid19 crisis illustrates, the officials are desperately paddling below providing the real locomotion. One of the most fatuous recent grandstanding comments (of about a week ago), adding to the public’s anxieties, was ...
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...
Today has felt surreal. I was all set to touch base online with my science communication students when a colleague shared the news that Bauer Media would be shutting down its publications immediately. The first link I saw implied it was Woman’s Weekly affected, and even that shocked me. But ...
Bogeymen, Real And Imagined: Is the number of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals in any given society truly as vanishingly small as we like to tell ourselves? Isn’t it more likely that the mass-shooters and serial-killers filling the headlines represent only the tip of a much, much larger iceberg of frightfulness? ...
Outgoing Police Commissioner Mike Bush appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee today, who asked him for the rules police are using to enforce the lockdown. He refused:Police Commissioner Mike Bush has admitted the advice given to Kiwis about what they're able to do during the lockdown hasn't been clear enough. ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of my cat, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a pretty flower. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 1: Day seven of living in lock-down… This morning I had a brief chat with one of my neighbours, “D” (social distance between us, a good three or four metres). I learned he had resigned from his previous job and had been hired by another company – ...
Funnily enough, my thought as I start this post is whether it will be well written enough. Or should that be well enough written? Because so much of what I know about good writing came from my two stints at The Listener, which this morning was shut down due to ...
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
While New Zealand is at Alert Level 4, we're making sure that New Zealanders are kept informed and up to date with all the latest developments of the Government's COVID-19 response. It's been a shortened week because of Easter, so we're bringing you our weekly wrap a day early. ...
Earlier this week, the Prime Minister informed the nation that the Easter Bunny (and the Tooth Fairy!) were deemed essential workers. However, she made it clear that, due to the restrictions we are all facing at COVID-19 Alert Level 4, the Easter Bunny may find it tricky to get to ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon. Ron Mark, Minister of Defence Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark today announced that New Zealand will provide a further package of assistance to Vanuatu, to support the response to Tropical Cyclone Harold. “Tropical ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced that New Zealand will enter into transit arrangements with a range of countries to make it easier for each other’s citizens to get home. “There are millions of people around the world stranded ...
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Government has striven to provide calm, clear and consistent communication, including daily press conference updates from the Prime Minister. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
The Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson has announced that urgent maintenance of turf and care for plants in non-plantation nurseries will soon be able to go ahead under Level 4 restrictions. “The Government has agreed that urgent upkeep and maintenance of biological assets will be able to go ahead ...
E tangi ana a Taranaki iwi, e tangi ana te ao Māori, otirā e tangi ana te motu. Mōu katoa ngā roimata e riringi whānui ana, mōu katoa ngā mihi. E te kaikōkiri i te reo Māori, e Te Huirangi, takoto mai. Takoto mai me te mōhio ko ngā ...
Today is day 15 of Alert Level 4 lockdown. And at the halfway mark I have no hesitation in saying, that what New Zealanders have done over the last two weeks is huge. In the face of the greatest threat to human health we have seen in over a century, ...
All driver licences, WoFs, CoFs, and some vehicle certifications, that expired on or after 1 January 2020 will be valid for up to six months from 10 April 2020, Transport Minister Phil Twyford has announced. “People shouldn’t have to worry about getting fined for having an expired document if driving ...
The Government has today released the report from the Public Inquiry into the Earthquake Commission chaired by Dame Silvia Cartwright. Minister Responsible for the Earthquake Commission Grant Robertson says the Government wants to learn from people’s experiences following the Canterbury earthquakes and other recent natural disasters. “Dame Silvia’s report documents ...
The Government has extended by two weeks till April 27 the amount of time priority groups, such as health workers and those aged over 65, have to get their flu vaccine before it is made available to the wider public. This year’s vaccination campaign is a key component of the ...
Communities stepping up to help New Zealanders stay at home to break the transmission of COVID-19 and save lives have received Government support, said Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni. “Delivering groceries for the elderly who can’t shop online, providing data packs for low income families to keep them connected, and being ...
Across New Zealand 120 sites are taking samples to be tested for COVID-19. 68 community based assessment centres (CBACs) have been established to take samples from people with COVID-19 symptoms. Alongside this, 52 other centres including designated general practices, swabbing centres, and mobile clinics are now testing people for ...
The Ministry of Education is working with partners to develop a package of options so that students can learn at home when Term 2 begins on 15 April, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. Supports are also being prepared for households with children under five, to help parents and whānau ...
Māori Television to begin educational te reo programmes Ki te Ao Mārama – a new online learning space Thousands of hard copy learning packs ready for distribution Helpdesk and advice service for kōhanga, kura and wharekura Television, the internet and hard copy learning packs are some of the ways whānau ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced an initial package of support to help the people and the Government of Vanuatu respond to the impact of Tropical Cyclone Harold. “Our Pacific neighbours have been hit by a Category 5 Cyclone at the same time as dealing with the economic impacts ...
Tourism New Zealand to lead work reimagining the way tourism operates in post-COVID-19 world. Ministers to review International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy investment plan. The Government, industry and business are working together to develop a plan for how tourism will operate in a post-COVID-19 world, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis ...
More New Zealanders are taking up the chance to work in horticulture as the sector keeps New Zealanders fed and in jobs during the COVID-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown. “Our horticulture sector has long been one of New Zealand’s export star performers, contributing around $6 billion a year to our ...
The Provincial Development Unit is working through applications and projects to see where Provincial Growth Fund money can be repurposed for initiatives deemed more critical to fighting the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “We need to be throwing everything we have at ...
The Government’s wage subsidy to protect jobs and keep workers and businesses connected during the lockdown has now supported over a million New Zealanders, with $6.6 billion already paid out. “We’re supporting businesses to pay wages, and stay connected with their workers so that we are all in a better ...
The Government is stepping up efforts to help protect New Zealand’s Pacific communities in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet has agreed that $17 million will be allocated to support a COVID-19 Pacific Response Package, which will: Support Pacific health and disability services facing increased demand; Ramp up public health messaging ...
“Yesterday evening the Health Minister advised me of his trip to a beach during the lockdown and offered his resignation,” Jacinda Ardern said. “Under normal conditions I would sack the Minister of Health. What he did was wrong, and there are no excuses. “But right now, my priority is our ...
Last night as part of my preparation for the Epidemic Response Committee, I provided the Prime Minister with a complete picture of my activity outside my home during Alert Level 4. That included the fact that on the first weekend of the Alert Level 4 lockdown I drove my family ...
A range of support is being rolled out across New Zealand to help people look after their mental health during COVID-19 Health Minister David Clark said this morning. “COVID-19 has brought a lot of uncertainty into our lives and many of us will be feeling some level of distress or ...
The New Zealand Government has made arrangements to charter a flight for New Zealanders stranded in Peru to depart the country, following agreement with the Chilean government to allow the necessary transit through Chile, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. “Like many travellers around the world at the moment, ...
Hospital preparations for COVID-19 are well advanced says Health Minister David Clark. “Hospitals across New Zealand are repurposing buildings and training staff to get ready for COVID-19 patients. This gives me confidence that we are well prepared for any potential increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospital level care,” said David ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
The Government has stepped in to support vital air links to our offshore islands, the Chatham Islands, Great Barrier Island and Motiti Island, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. “As part of our $600 million support package to minimise the impacts of COVID-19 on the aviation sector, the Government has ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Education Minister Dan Tehan has warned non-government schools that if they fail to open for the next term they will face losing funding. He said on Thursday that “as part of the funding requirement” a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Remember how last year’s Easter felt bizarre because the country was in election-mode? How normal that seems, now everything is surreal, with the nation “holidaying” in this peculiar, unpleasant limbo. As we contemplate the grimness ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Michelle Grattan talks with MPs Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Victoria), Fiona Martin (Reid, NSW), Clare O’Neil (Hotham, Victoria) and Helen Haines (Indi, Victoria) about how they do their job during the pandemic. They discuss the operation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nic Geard, Senior Lecturer, School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne; Senior Research Fellow, Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne Following the emergence and rapid spread of COVID-19, several countries have succeeded in bringing local outbreaks under ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Today’s chart shows the per capita level of testing performed in a number of countries. While the highest testing rate shown is Norway, we should note that Iceland has tested over eight percent of its population; too high to show on this chart. A ...
By RNZ News New Zealand has recorded just 29 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, but the prime minister says a decision on changing the alert level will only be made two days before the lockdown ends. It is the fourth day in a row there ...
The Guardian’s Pacific Project disaster video.By the Pacific Project Tropical Cyclone Harold lashed the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, ripping off roofs and downing telecommunications, before moving towards Fiji and Tonga. The powerful cyclone made landfall on Monday in Sana province, an island north of Vanuatu’s capital Port ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elyse Methven, Lecturer in Law, University of Technology Sydney The message to everyone during the coronavirus pandemic is to stay at home and only leave if you really need to for, say, food, health care or exercise. Police now have powers to ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Pat MacFie from Manaaki.This week we have another special podcast highlighting some of ...
NZ First leader Winston Peters today said he wants the election held on November 21, Radio NZ reported. He says he believes the health system would be under the pump in September with the winter flu season and the country potentially still dealing with the impacts of Covid-19. Prime Minister ...
New Zealand Rock Lobster (crayfish) are once again heading to China with the first small consignment being airfreighted last week. It was one of the first primary industry sectors in New Zealand to be affected by Covid-19, and as we now know, the sledgehammer that hit this industry was just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Bloomfield, Senior Lecturer, School of Medicine, University of Notre Dame Australia Lockdown measures aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 should actually help cut the cases of flu this year. That’s because keeping people apart to reduce the spread of coronavirus ...
New modelling from Te Pūnaha Matatini projects the impact of the lockdown, and what our next steps could be, Marc Daalder reports New figures from a team of mathematicians and scientists modelling the way Covid-19 could affect New Zealand indicate the lockdown has significantly dampened the spread of the virus. ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the latest retail spending data and the Reserve Bank's call for banks to step up as market-makers for corporate and local government bonds. In their latest daily 'Bernard Zooms out to lunch with Jarrod' video, Bernard Hickey and Jarrod ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Georgie Russell, Senior Lecturer, Deakin University This Easter will be especially challenging, with family isolation and many parents under financial strain, or other stressors. So, many parents will be looking to restore some sense of “normality” by welcoming the Easter bunny into ...
The Beths’ live-streamed concert yesterday showed that even in lockdown, music isn’t dead. Here’s why it worked, and where you can see Kiwis live streaming for the next week.Yesterday at 9am, Liz Stokes put a giant pineapple mask over her head and played the Animal Crossing theme on a trumpet ...
New Conservative Leader Leighton Baker has lived in and around the Waimakariri district since 1992 and is revelling in the opportunity to represent the electorate in Parliament after the 2020 general election. “Waimakariri is a diverse district with a strong ...
“Hard-hit councils, who oversee half this country’s public infrastructure, require financial support from central government that is tied to shared priorities through Urban Growth Partnerships,” says Paul Blair CEO of Infrastructure New Zealand. ...
Airways may close seven of its regional air traffic control towers because of a collapse in traveller numbers. The services under review are provided at Hawke's Bay, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Invercargill Airport as well as the airfield flight information services provided at Kapiti Coast Airport and Milford Sound ...
Proposals to expand the role of local councils into climate change mitigation under the Resource Management Act would add confusion, complexity and duplication, according to the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ) and ...
As New Zealand enters its third week of Covid-19 lockdown, a just released set of modelling provides a flare of light at the end of the tunnel, reports Toby Manhire.On a day that the active case number decreased, it finds that “While New Zealand case numbers remain low, tracing, testing, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael L. Brown, Director of the Centre for Philosophy of the Sciences and Lecturer at the School of Philosophy, Australian National University As they released the modelling of the COVID-19 pandemic behind Australia’s social isolation policies this week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison ...
The latest in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersThese posts collate the most recent statistics and present them as charts and maps. The Ministry of Health typically publishes data updates in the early ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Tognolini, Director, Centre for Educational Measurement and Assessment, University of Sydney Following a meeting with states and territories, federal education minister, Dan Tehan said year 12 students were a priority, and were being sent a clear signal: “There will be no ...
The Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO) is calling for an equal extension to all licencing regimes, following the Government’s announcement today offering motorists a six-month licencing grace period. COLFO says that like motorists, licenced ...
Dear Minister Jones, Firstly, let me introduce myself. My name is Adrian. I am an employee in the forestry industry, a Future Forester, a graduate of Canterbury University and, albeit very small, a forest owner. ...
As countries in Europe plan a tightrope walk back out of lockdown, the World Health Organisation warns it is too early to relax strict suppression measures in the fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Bale Two weeks into New Zealand's aggressive and early lockdown to combat the spread of Covid-19, voices ...
Consumers dramatically changed their spending patterns last month because of Covid-19 and the government ordered lockdown. Official numbers show overall retail spending using electronic cards fell a record seasonally adjusted 3.9 percent on the previous month. Stats NZ senior manager Sue Chapman said spending on eating out and accommodation plunged ...
A new $200,000 business subsidy package is being launched in Christchurch to help those affected by Covid-19. The ChristchurchNZ business support subsidy will offer eligible businesses up to $1000 each to seek professional advice. The scheme - funded by ChristchurchNZ, the city's economic development agency, will support small to medium ...
Large retailers have been quick to apply for government wage subsidies during the Covid-19 lockdown. The Warehouse has received $67.7 million to cover the labour costs of the shutdown of its Red Shed, Torpedo, Noel Leeming, and Warehouse Stationery chains, which between them employ about 11,000 staff. "The receipt of ...
A new report Quantifying the wellbeing costs of Covid-19 by the New Zealand Initiative shows how an economic hit of about 6.1% of GDP would be justified if it meant saving 33,600 lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. The figures, compiled by research fellow ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dougal Sutherland, Clinical Psychologist, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington The COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of people to live under strict lockdown conditions, but the psychology of human behaviour predicts they will find it harder to stick to the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Smillie, Associate Professor, University of Melbourne The coronavirus pandemic has caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world and pushed major economies into a tailspin. Beyond those impacts, almost all of us will face psychological challenges – trying to maintain ...
We asked Tony Baird, of Newsroom foundation supporter Vodafone NZ, to provide some insights into how New Zealanders have been using online and their smartphones during the first fortnight of lockdown. At Vodafone NZ, we entered new territory in this lockdown as New Zealanders have been turning to their smartphones and devices ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has launched a new campaign to temporarily reduce the remuneration of politicians, senior bureaucrats, and council bosses to match those voluntary and involuntary efforts in the private sector where pay is being ...
Analysis by Keith RankinWhat is Mercantilism?Keith Rankin. Mercantilism is the form of public policy that was dominant in Europe – especially Northern Europe – in the ‘early modern’ period; meaning in the period loosely between 1500 and 1800 (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries). In a political sense it ...
Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency says legislative changes to driver licensing and vehicle certification requirements coming into effect tomorrow (10 April) will help drivers and vehicle owners safely navigate through the COVID-19 lockdown period and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Woolaston, Lawyer, Queensland University of Technology Never before have we seen how the human use of wildlife can yield such catastrophe, as we have with COVID-19. The current available evidence indicates COVID-19 was first transmitted in a wildlife market in Wuhan. ...
In a week alone there was an increase of about 10,000 people now relying on welfare to get by. As the number of benefit recipients rapidly increases as a result of COVID-19, Auckland Action Against Poverty is calling on the Government to urgently lift benefits ...
CEAC stands alongside Forest & Bird, Greenpeace, WWF-New Zealand, Generation Zero, EDS and Ecologic letter to Jacinda Ardern calling on the Government to transform the New Zealand economy to tackle climate change, save native species, improve freshwater ...
Better Public Media welcomes the announcement that the Ministry of Education will fund Television New Zealand and Māori Television to provide up to six hours daily of educational content for our children and students, beginning next week. It is ...
It’s OK if you don’t come out of lockdown with abs.We are living through the worst global pandemic since the Spanish Flu in 1918 and the beginning of an economic calamity that has already claimed the jobs of millions of workers the world over. Hospitals are full, schools are closed and many countries are in ...
One thing is abundantly clear, when this lock down is over, many tourism related businesses will be reliant on Domestic Tourism to stay afloat. But what will that mean from a Freedom Camping point of view? While it has been true, that many towns ...
The Government has announced that all incoming travellers will be quarantined away from their homes and families for a 14 day period, after a public campaign that received widespread support The Government has bowed to a public campaign led by epidemiologists and the National Party to have all returning New Zealanders ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...
New Zealand is has joined the ranks of countries experiencing a wave of sabotage attempts against mobile networks as false claims about 5G go viral, Marc Daalder reports Spark, 2degrees, Vodafone and the Rural Connectivity Group have all experienced threats or actual attempts of sabotage of cell towers in recent ...
Air traffic control closure sends COVID-19 shockwaves through regional airports Seven regional airports are shocked that Airways NZ, the national air traffic management organisation, wants to discuss the removal of air traffic control at their facilities ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters wants an election on November 21st. Peters told RNZ he fought for that originally as it's his long held position that summer elections are better. ...
The national lockdown was justifiable to protect the nation's intensive care capacity. But any prolonged lockdown and border closure will cause economic issues that lead to broader, indirect problems for our health and wellbeing, writes Professor Grant Guilford. In a caring society it is right that we do our utmost ...
She’s not a teacher or a fluent speaker – she just wants to practise with you. Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Yesterday we were counting things, today we’re counting people. We have different ways of counting each because people aren’t ...
A news item by Māni Dunlop, Māori News Director, has been posted on the RNZ website under the heading Government urged to put Māori at forefront of Covid-19 planning. “Forefront” means the position of greatest importance or prominence. One implication to be drawn from the headline, therefore. is that Māori ...
Women’s Rights Commissioner Saunoamaali’i Karanina Sumeo is encouraging women to seek help immediately if they find themselves in an abusive situation during the COVID-19 isolation. Often, people who were already in an abusive situation will likely ...
COMMENTARY:By Georgie Bright, Australia associate director of Human Rights Watch Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the fragile health system in Papua New Guinea was underfunded and overwhelmed, with high rates of malaria, tuberculosis, and diabetes among its population of more than eight million. Access to hospitals is extremely ...
New home owners will pay tens of thousands of dollars more on their mortgage if they accept a six-month mortgage 'holiday' option. That’s money going to the banks. But should lender and borrower be sharing the pain? There’s always a nagging worry about holidays. They are fun while they last, but ...
An Auckland bus driver tells Leonie Hayden what it’s like to operate under alert level four, and the struggle to secure a safer work environment.Mike moved to New Zealand in 2001. “I’m a Kiwi now,” he says, “and a die-hard unionist.” He’s employed by a large New Zealand bus company ...
The 1pm briefing has become appointment viewing. But it is no substitute for transparent, timely information, even in such extraordinary times, writes Newshub investigations reporter Michael Morrah in this post originally published on Newshub.Like all journalists in New Zealand right now, I’ve been covering stories day after day, all of ...
The Chair of the Earthquake Commission, Sir Michael Cullen, has welcomed Dame Silvia Cartwright’s Report of the Public Inquiry into the Earthquake Commission, released today. “The Report lays out clearly the challenges faced by EQC in responding to ...
With 14 days before the lockdown period is - for now - set to end, big questions remain about how the country is going to be able to stamp out flareups of Covid-19. ...
Environmental groups from across New Zealand have written to the Prime Minister urging the Government to restore Aotearoa in the economic recovery after lockdown. Forest & Bird, Greenpeace, WWF-New Zealand, Generation Zero, EDS and Ecologic ...
We've published a Controller update on Government spending in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. On 25 March 2020, Parliament passed legislation in response to the pandemic authorising the Government to spend up to $52 billion in addition ...
‘It is sobering watching what a country can do if it wants to. Having been told for so long that nothing is possible. These are strange times down the back of the bus, John.’Read more Lockdown Letters here.Dear John KeatsFunny that it’s had to come to this. But when I think ...
By Kelly Vacala in Suva Fiji disaster authorities have lifted movement restrictions imposed yesterday during the height of Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold have been lifted and both Queens and Kings highways are open. However, Covid-19 restrictions remain. Category 5 Harold is now heading for Tonga after leaving a trail ...
The Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Education will be taking questions from the opposition in the Epidemic Response Committee meeting. ...
Today’s EQC report urges the country’s natural disaster insurer to prepare for the next “big one”. David Williams reports The Canterbury earthquakes killed 185 people, and damaged 180,000 houses, some of which still haven’t been adequately repaired. Or re-repaired. But they also did something else. They shook people’s confidence in the ...
KiwiSaver funds invested solely in ethical companies are outperforming other funds amidst market volatility. An analysis of returns for the first quarter of 2020 shows growth funds were on average down more than 12 percent, but growth funds that were ethically invested lost on under 8 percent. Conservative and balanced ...
An Auckland small business owner says he's paying full price for broadband in an empty factory and it is not fair. Steve has been wrangling with Spark for days arguing it should share in the pain of thousands of its customers. He runs a small manufacturing business with a handful ...
Paywave limits will increase to $200 to reduce physical contact with PIN pads during the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously only transactions of $80 or less were able to be completed without a PIN using a contactless card. After a pilot, Payments NZ will progressively roll out the new higher contactless payment ...
The Overstory, the winnner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is an engulfing, worldview-shifting novel about climate catastrophe and hope, writes Susan Wardell. (Photographs are from a photo essay on kauri dieback by Michelle Hyslop; captions by Andrea Ewing). The year before last, I spent the month of January hugging ...
US death toll jumps 779 in a day; WTO warns global trade could drop by 13-33%; Trump says WHO biased towards China; WHO boss says finger-pointing just results in 'many more body bags'US toll surges: The United States is standing out in the Coid-19 numbers count with more than ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi, contributing editor of Pacific Media Watch After some weeks of heavy criticism of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape’s government amid the Covid-19 pandemic, support for the administration has come from a surprising quarter – one of the media. Scott Waide is the Lae bureau ...
NZX50 back over 10k again as Mainfreight keeps its profit forecast with just single digit fall in sales, while Tilt Renewables' big payday helps Infratil pay a dividendPushing higher: The NZX50 finally managed to close above the key 10,000 level for the first time in almost a month, finishing ...
Open Mike 15/01/2017 
The pandemic has shown us how effective our public service is. They've pulled together a massive policy response, from a lockdown to economic support to healthcare to planning how to keep everything running when this is over, and done it in next to no time. They are heroes, who have ...11 hours ago
In 1968 Canadian sociologist Laurence Peter coined the phrase “Peter Principle” as a contribution to the sociology of organisations. It explains that in complex organizations people rise to the level of their own incompetence. That is, they get promoted so long as they meet or exceed the specified criteria for ...12 hours ago
The practice and business of music has been one of the sectors most gravely impacted by the virus sweeping the world. The emphatic nature of our government's response, necessary as it was, has slammed the industry and the people who work in it.There are New Zealand artists – Nadia Reid, ...13 hours ago
. . April 8: Day 14 of living in lock-down… The good news first: the downward trajectory of new cases appears to be a real thing. In the last four days, since Sunday, new infections have been dropping: Sunday: 89 new cases Monday: 67 Tuesday: 54 Today (Wednesday): 50 The ...15 hours ago
The anti-fluoride movement wants to restrict your reading to “just four studies.” They actively ignore or attempt to discredit other relevant studies. Image credit: Censorship in media. For earlier articles in this series see: ... 19 hours ago
Not Now, Not Ever, Never! The problem with Labour's leading activists is that there is never a good time for democratic socialism. Never. They are like Saint Augustine who prayed to the Almighty: “Lord, give me chastity and self-control – but not yet.” In the case of Labour "junior officers", however, ...20 hours ago
52 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Sensitivity of ice flow to uncertainty in flow law parameters in an idealized one-dimensional geometry (open access) Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Will heat stress take its toll on milk production in China? Uncoupled El Niño ...22 hours ago
We are seeing what has been termed “a greater challenge than the crash of 2008” by a growing number of economists and more rational, sane commentators, because whilst that was a shocking exposure of the levels to which hubris had sunk, right down to the blank cheque given those who ...1 day ago
It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon, we need to get out of the house, and so our bubble sets off on a bike ride around our local neighbourhood, Cambridge Park. The bikes come out of the garage, and, being really certain we have a front door key, close the garage door ...2 days ago
The Queen’s coronavirus broadcast, with its overtones of Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn, prompted me to reflect on the tribulations my parents’ generation suffered during the Second World War – and I imagine that those parallels, given her own wartime experience, were very much in the Queen’s mind as she ...2 days ago
We all know that Simon Bridges has, at the best of times, an intermittent relationship with the truth. However you would think that during a pandemic and economic crisis the current opposition leader would pull his head in and start to do the right thing.Obviously leading by example should be ...3 days ago
Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action ... 3 days ago
Last month I wrote my blog on covid-19 pointing out the in our pre Alert Level 4 days that a subject no one had heard here months ago was now dominating the media. An amazing feature of this crisis is how quickly it has swept every other issue aside worldwide. ...3 days ago
As the world economy slides rapidly towards deep recession there are growing calls for a Universal Benefit coming from some leftists and rightists. Now Finance Minister Grant Robertson is saying it is on the table. This article by a French party Workers Struggle provides analysis of various forms of universal ...4 days ago
This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading up on all the scientific information “You only have ... 4 days ago
Comfortably, in the very first round, with an impressive 56% of the votes.I wonder, did members of the Shadow Cabinet start tweeting their resignations during Starmer's victory speech, or is that only a trick the right pull?It is odd how all the talk of how the next leader "needs to ...5 days ago
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation today about the decline in daylight New Zealand has been experiencing over the previous few months. She said “As many of you will notice, our attempts to stem the dwindling of the daylight over the last few months have been completely ...5 days ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...6 days ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...1 week ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 1 week ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...1 week ago
While New Zealand is at Alert Level 4, we're making sure that New Zealanders are kept informed and up to date with all the latest developments of the Government's COVID-19 response. It's been a shortened week because of Easter, so we're bringing you our weekly wrap a day early. ...9 hours ago
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon. Ron Mark, Minister of Defence Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark today announced that New Zealand will provide a further package of assistance to Vanuatu, to support the response to Tropical Cyclone Harold. “Tropical ...13 hours ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...2 weeks ago
The Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson has announced that urgent maintenance of turf and care for plants in non-plantation nurseries will soon be able to go ahead under Level 4 restrictions. “The Government has agreed that urgent upkeep and maintenance of biological assets will be able to go ahead ...12 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Education Minister Dan Tehan has warned non-government schools that if they fail to open for the next term they will face losing funding. He said on Thursday that “as part of the funding requirement” a ...4 hours ago
State housing provider Kāinga Ora is phoning 6000 tenants to apologise after many received letters saying their rent would go up. ...10 hours ago
NZ First leader Winston Peters today said he wants the election held on November 21, Radio NZ reported. He says he believes the health system would be under the pump in September with the winter flu season and the country potentially still dealing with the impacts of Covid-19. Prime Minister ...11 hours ago
New Zealand Rock Lobster (crayfish) are once again heading to China with the first small consignment being airfreighted last week. It was one of the first primary industry sectors in New Zealand to be affected by Covid-19, and as we now know, the sledgehammer that hit this industry was just ...11 hours ago
New modelling from Te Pūnaha Matatini projects the impact of the lockdown, and what our next steps could be, Marc Daalder reports New figures from a team of mathematicians and scientists modelling the way Covid-19 could affect New Zealand indicate the lockdown has significantly dampened the spread of the virus. ...12 hours ago
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank chief economist Jarrod Kerr about the latest retail spending data and the Reserve Bank's call for banks to step up as market-makers for corporate and local government bonds. In their latest daily 'Bernard Zooms out to lunch with Jarrod' video, Bernard Hickey and Jarrod ...12 hours ago
The Beths’ live-streamed concert yesterday showed that even in lockdown, music isn’t dead. Here’s why it worked, and where you can see Kiwis live streaming for the next week.Yesterday at 9am, Liz Stokes put a giant pineapple mask over her head and played the Animal Crossing theme on a trumpet ...12 hours ago
New Conservative Leader Leighton Baker has lived in and around the Waimakariri district since 1992 and is revelling in the opportunity to represent the electorate in Parliament after the 2020 general election. “Waimakariri is a diverse district with a strong ...12 hours ago
Airways may close seven of its regional air traffic control towers because of a collapse in traveller numbers. The services under review are provided at Hawke's Bay, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Invercargill Airport as well as the airfield flight information services provided at Kapiti Coast Airport and Milford Sound ...12 hours ago
As countries in Europe plan a tightrope walk back out of lockdown, the World Health Organisation warns it is too early to relax strict suppression measures in the fight against Covid-19, writes Peter Bale Two weeks into New Zealand's aggressive and early lockdown to combat the spread of Covid-19, voices ...13 hours ago
Consumers dramatically changed their spending patterns last month because of Covid-19 and the government ordered lockdown. Official numbers show overall retail spending using electronic cards fell a record seasonally adjusted 3.9 percent on the previous month. Stats NZ senior manager Sue Chapman said spending on eating out and accommodation plunged ...13 hours ago
A new $200,000 business subsidy package is being launched in Christchurch to help those affected by Covid-19. The ChristchurchNZ business support subsidy will offer eligible businesses up to $1000 each to seek professional advice. The scheme - funded by ChristchurchNZ, the city's economic development agency, will support small to medium ...13 hours ago
Large retailers have been quick to apply for government wage subsidies during the Covid-19 lockdown. The Warehouse has received $67.7 million to cover the labour costs of the shutdown of its Red Shed, Torpedo, Noel Leeming, and Warehouse Stationery chains, which between them employ about 11,000 staff. "The receipt of ...13 hours ago
We asked Tony Baird, of Newsroom foundation supporter Vodafone NZ, to provide some insights into how New Zealanders have been using online and their smartphones during the first fortnight of lockdown. At Vodafone NZ, we entered new territory in this lockdown as New Zealanders have been turning to their smartphones and devices ...14 hours ago
The Government has announced that all incoming travellers will be quarantined away from their homes and families for a 14 day period, after a public campaign that received widespread support The Government has bowed to a public campaign led by epidemiologists and the National Party to have all returning New Zealanders ...15 hours ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet ...15 hours ago
New Zealand is has joined the ranks of countries experiencing a wave of sabotage attempts against mobile networks as false claims about 5G go viral, Marc Daalder reports Spark, 2degrees, Vodafone and the Rural Connectivity Group have all experienced threats or actual attempts of sabotage of cell towers in recent ...15 hours ago
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters wants an election on November 21st. Peters told RNZ he fought for that originally as it's his long held position that summer elections are better. ...15 hours ago
The national lockdown was justifiable to protect the nation's intensive care capacity. But any prolonged lockdown and border closure will cause economic issues that lead to broader, indirect problems for our health and wellbeing, writes Professor Grant Guilford. In a caring society it is right that we do our utmost ...16 hours ago
A news item by Māni Dunlop, Māori News Director, has been posted on the RNZ website under the heading Government urged to put Māori at forefront of Covid-19 planning. “Forefront” means the position of greatest importance or prominence. One implication to be drawn from the headline, therefore. is that Māori ...16 hours ago
New home owners will pay tens of thousands of dollars more on their mortgage if they accept a six-month mortgage 'holiday' option. That’s money going to the banks. But should lender and borrower be sharing the pain? There’s always a nagging worry about holidays. They are fun while they last, but ...16 hours ago
Today’s EQC report urges the country’s natural disaster insurer to prepare for the next “big one”. David Williams reports The Canterbury earthquakes killed 185 people, and damaged 180,000 houses, some of which still haven’t been adequately repaired. Or re-repaired. But they also did something else. They shook people’s confidence in the ...18 hours ago
KiwiSaver funds invested solely in ethical companies are outperforming other funds amidst market volatility. An analysis of returns for the first quarter of 2020 shows growth funds were on average down more than 12 percent, but growth funds that were ethically invested lost on under 8 percent. Conservative and balanced ...18 hours ago
An Auckland small business owner says he's paying full price for broadband in an empty factory and it is not fair. Steve has been wrangling with Spark for days arguing it should share in the pain of thousands of its customers. He runs a small manufacturing business with a handful ...18 hours ago
Paywave limits will increase to $200 to reduce physical contact with PIN pads during the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously only transactions of $80 or less were able to be completed without a PIN using a contactless card. After a pilot, Payments NZ will progressively roll out the new higher contactless payment ...18 hours ago
US death toll jumps 779 in a day; WTO warns global trade could drop by 13-33%; Trump says WHO biased towards China; WHO boss says finger-pointing just results in 'many more body bags' US toll surges: The United States is standing out in the Coid-19 numbers count with more than ...19 hours ago
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Just in case any of you might have forgotten what a real Labour Party Leader and a real Labour Party with a vision looks and sounds like…
And this in turn allows you to attack your opposition like this…
So in answer to Labour Activist Enzo Giordani’s fourth suggestion in his piece ‘Ten steps towards victory for Labour’
“Get a vision that resonates with voters. I honestly can’t tell you what Labour’s vision is at the moment, and that’s been a problem for a very long time. People don’t know what we stand for.”
….perhaps the current New Zealand centrist labour party should grow some sort of a back bone, Turn Left Now, and become again a New Zealand Labour Party that we can all understand exactly what it stands for, a party we can believe in and fight for, a party that unequivocally and proudly stands for an equal and fair Socialist democratic New Zealand for all it’s citizens.
Here’s the graph comparing medium-term support for parties in the UK.
You can see clearly when Labour’s fast downward acceleration started:
http://www.ukpolitical.info/General_election_polls.htm
Why do you think that is?
Whatever the full reasons – I am sure Swordfish and others can speculate – Corbyn is a polling disaster for Labour.
You don’t think it was the shit fight between the two factions in the party that did it? I haven’t looked close at the timeline, but there may be multiple reasons that mean blaming Corbyn’s presence might not be that useful.
Would be great to infer that it was the splitters and the internal processes that started its precipitous fall. You can argue all day about the causes.
But here’s the fact.
Corbyn wanted the job, and has now had it for a while.
Corbyn is the leader of the Labour Party.
He is responsible for the polling results of the party.
That’s the job, that’s a major measurable result.
Corbyn is doing a terrible job as leader of the Labour Party.
In NZ I tend to take the view that Labour can’t get enough votes to govern because they appear not fit to govern. If that’s true then it doesn’t matter who is leader except to the extent they make Labour more competent and present them as more competent.
If that’s also true in the UK, then changing leader, esp back to the other faction, may just confuse things more (see Labour still can’t make up their mind). But like I say, I haven’t looked at the timeline. I don’t know if Corbyn (or Little) has had enough time to change things so that their low polling can in fact be blamed on their leadership, or if there are more complex dynamics at play.
It seems to me that your argument that it’s all on Corbyn as leader is based on the assumption that his leadership alone (or majorly) is the problem, but it might not be.
And does the UK Labour Party, under Corbyn, seem fit to govern? The fact is that while he has solid support amongst the rank and file members (especially those who joined up to participate in the original leadership vote) he certainly does not lead a united party and most of the most talented and experienced MPs don’t back him.
Of course, UK Labour has had problems for quite a while and people turned to Corbyn out of a mix of frustration and hope. So, it’s not all down to him. He’s been leader for long enough to start making a difference, though, and at this stage he’s not cutting through.
Comments about media bias are irrelevant. On the whole, the media thrives on conflict and so they report the conflict in the Labour Party. That’s not a surprise. It’s Corbyn’s job to minimise that conflict and stop it distracting from the message he wants to get out. At this stage, he’s certainly not managing to do that.
Helen Clark faced this sort of issue early on. Her polling was as low as 15% (although of course in an MMP environment that’s not as bad as it would be in FPP Britain). She held on and became a very successful leader, and that was in no small part due to her success in coopting her challengers and giving them significant roles within her team (Michael Cullen being the obvious example). Corbyn hasn’t done this, and because the arguments are more idealogical than they were here, he’s not likely to. That means he’s lost a lot of talented, experienced people from his front bench, and the disaffection within the parliamentary party grows.
Personally, I don’t think Corbyn is going to turn this around. Good luck to him, but he needs more than luck and i don’t think he’s got it.
@ Red “Comments about media bias are irrelevant”
Did you just say that? are you actually saying that having pretty much all MSM biased against you in a political battle is irrelevant..
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-media-bias-labour-mainstream-press-lse-study-misrepresentation-we-cant-ignore-bias-a7144381.html
What strange planet to you come from? …where this most unusual political and social dichotomy exists? I think I would like to go there, it sounds wonderful.
Adrian, any politician is going to face negative media if they are seen as vulnerable. Besides, Corbyn has to deal with the situation he’s actually in. If that includes an antagonistic media, then he has to deal with it. It might not be fair, but it’s reality. At the moment, he’s not cutting through. Supporters can complain all they like, but it doesn’t mean that ordinary voters are going to be convinced.
BTW, do you what the word “dichotomy” means? Because you seem to be using it in a rather odd way.
@ Red Can you tell me when a politician or political party in a western democracy over the last 20 years has had to operated with over 75% negative media, but who at the same time is campaigning on a positive platform?
However I think he dealt with it extraordinarily well, I mean even after having the so called Liberal media, such as the Guardian and the third way blairites within the party try and knee cap him at every turn through out the leadership challenge, he still totally Destroyed Owen Smith, and all the while built the membership of the Labour party to be the biggest political party in western Europe, a fantastic achievement by any measure…you would think that would be cause for any real Labour supporter to celebrate, I know I am.
And I think you may well be surprised at the next UK election, polls aren’t what they used to be, as we all witnessed last year time and again.
I was using ‘dichotomy’ to illustrate my rebuttal of your proposition, when you implied that media bias and it’s effect on society/voters are mutually exclusive, thought it worked there?
Let’s start with the word “dichotomy”. This means a division into two mutually exclusive parts; opposites which contradict each other. When you say, “I was using ‘dichotomy’ to illustrate my rebuttal of your proposition, when you implied that media bias and it’s (sic) effect on society/voters are mutually exclusive,” you are misusing the word (as you are the phrase “mutually exclusive”). Presumably what you mean is that you think I’m saying that the media and any bias it shows has no effect – that’s not a dichotomy and it’s not “mutually exclusive” (what’s the other force which is excluding the media?). You might think my (supposed) opinion is nonsensical, but that doesn’t make it a dichotomy.
Now, let’s get on to the actual issue: please look at what I actually said, rather than arguing against your assumptions about the opinion of anyone who disagrees with you. I didn’t say the media has no effect on public opinion – kindly show me that statement that you think implies this, if you can find one. What I said was:
1) The media will always look for conflict, and there is conflict in the UK Labour Party under Corbyn (as there was before),
2) Corbyn hasn’t managed to settle that conflict (which is a leadership function),
3) He isn’t presenting well to the wider public, partly because his party is looking divided and unfit to govern, and
4) This is reflected in the consistently poor polling.
I also said “good luck to him”. That’s hardly an attack, Adrian – it’s just not blind adoration.
@Red blooded.
OK
1. when you stated “Comments about media bias are irrelevant”
with your following explanations as to why you think that it is normal in a democratic country to have over 75% of media coverage negative on one candidate, and that it is Corbyns fault for not bringing the media on to his side, I assumed that you meant just that.
In light of the evidence on this suject, which I have already given link too, it is a position that I would think most critical thinkers would reject outright.
2. How on earth can Corbyn change the narrative to a positive one, when the media have made it clear they are actively out to portray him negatively…
Guardian headline on receiving the report that there is over 75% negative reportage on Corbyn…
“Yes, Jeremy Corbyn has suffered a bad press, but where’s the harm?”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/jul/19/yes-jeremy-corbyn-has-suffered-a-bad-press-but-wheres-the-harm
3.The only thing I can agree with you on is that this is most definitely ideological battle, for the very heart of the UK Labour party, but what you don’t seem to acknowledge is the media’s very real and active part in this battle, these guys are in the trenches on this one, I mean seriously do you really believe that they are on the out side, looking in and commenting dispassionately about this?
Probably Corbyns biggest mistake was trying to negotiate with the third way terrorists with in the Labour party, they, like their liberal media would rather see the Tories back in than have a real socialist in power, that they have made very clear.
Adrian, when you use phrases like “third way terrorists” you step over a line beyond rationality. You may not agree with the “third way” approach (and neither do I, as it happens), but that doesn’t make people who do terrorists.
Note, too, that I didn’t say t was “normal to have over 75% of media coverage negative on one candidate” – I said that the media look for conflict and will always report it. And I don’t say it’s not having an effect – I have simply said that it’s one of the roles of a political leader to manage the media.
The British media is more obviously politicised than it is in NZ, but even there do you honestly believe there is some kind of shadowy cabal of “the media” (and there’s a heck of a lot of competing institutions and individuals that come under that description) that get together and plot about how to take down politicians they don’t like?
And please take note of the discussion occurring further down this thread about the misuse of the term “liberal” as some kind of insult.
@ Red Blooded, OK fair point on the Third Way Terrorist bit I guess.
However you still don’t address my point that how can Corbyn manage the media when they are so obviously opposed to his ideology? and further, have shown no inclination what so ever to even try and pretend they are interested in fairness in reporting on Corbyn and the new UK socialist movement….unless I missed something.
As I have already posted, at 1.2.2.1.1 I believe that this obvious and undisputed media bias is a text book look at Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent’ functioning out in the open in the UK media for all to see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
So no conspiracy..,,just media owned by millionaires and billionaires doing what they are brought to do, look after the interests of power and money…which Corbyn and his Socialist project will not, so not to much more to it than that.
Good point re media bias, we have the same issues here in NZ, as do other countries.
Do you support privatisation and austerity Ad?
Firstly show me one MSM news source, paper or television, that is positive about, or even just fair in it’s coverage on Corbyn? I think a good part of the numbers in your poll driven graph will reflect the answer.
Secondly what are you saying, you don’t agree with Corbyn’s policies? or if you do, that you would rather your party get elected on a platform of policies that you don’t agree with, to get to power?
Thirdly Labour UK has 550,000 members, the biggest party in Western Europe, you would think that most Labour progressives and activists would be extremely happy with these numbers…
I’m not interested in media conspiracy theories from any side. If a politician can’t figure out how to communicate within any kind of media environment, they should not be a politician, let alone a leader. FFS, all Donald Trump needs is a twitter account and Breitbart.
I wouldn’t presume to write UK Labour’s policies for it. Go for it if you want.
Having a great membership base, and continuing to tank in the public polls, shows that the Corbyn-led Labour Party is living in a self-reinforcing echo chamber, enabling a fast splintering from most of the population that is incredibly dangerous for Labour to get back in again.
But go ahead, tack hard left.
I will, and you just stay in there in the centre, going nowhere, and keep telling yourself everything is going to be alright, doing nothing…what a joke, just not that funny for the working , the poor or for all of the future children of this country.
You put the proposition up this morning that the NZ Labour Party should follow the example of Jeremy Corbyn’a leadership of the UK Labour Party.
The results under Corbyn are catastrophic, so you are wrong.
No, I put up the proposal that Labour stand for a fair and equal society for all New Zealanders, as their central platform, and their economic policies should reflect that position…you don’t like that?
What is catastrophic is people like you, who don’t seem to understand that the centre left project is over…strange that you can’t seem see this obvious truth?
Can you advise on one election where a radical left platform has worked?
Easy.
1945 UK election.
Great – all we need is the catastrophe of war and the spectre of fascism. Easy!
be careful what you wish for.
Why do you assume a fair and equal society for all New Zealanders requires a radical left platform? We might as well give up then.
Agreed.
Are you actually saying that a platform of working for a fair and equal society is a radical platform? I would think that a platform where this is not the central issue is radical…don’t you think?
Using your definition of ‘radical’, the 1935 NZ Labour victory fits that criteria quite nicely.
take the word radical out and see if you can answer the question (because it’s a useful question that shouldn’t get lost in semantic side arguments).
Agreed with Weka. You can strip out a lot of the language and talk about fairness and sustainability and still get the same results. Adding in “radical left” gets you nowhere in terms of winning the argument.
ok I’m confused now. Micky, do you mean we can talk about fairness without moving substantially left, or do you mean we can move left but not call it radical? I took Adrian’s original comment to mean move much more left than Labour is currently intending (irrespective of what we call those two positions), and that your question was about had that ever worked? (a big, obvious shift).
“Can you advise on one election where a radical left platform has worked?”
in 1993 the Alliance got 18% of the vote as a new party. Formed in 1991 in response the Labour takeover in the 1980s and the voters very large rejection of neoliberal Labour in 1990. It didn’t work of course, in terms of gaining power, because it was FPP, but I assume it helped the MMP campaign. What happened to the Alliance in subsequent years is probably a lesson we could still be learning from.
The SNP results in Scotland too.
Yes it is incredible that proposing a fair society is considered radical, even by many progressives, it shows how many good people have been conditioned to accept the unacceptable.
Pretty sure that’s not what micky meant, and I think you have avoided the question.
Hopefully this Mt Albert by-election?
🙂
Penny Bright
If the likes of the NZ Labour Party with its accommodating liberal policies gets away with touting itself as ‘left’, then obviously anything some-one considers to the left of that is going to be labeled as radical.
The SNP merely adopted the old social democratic programmes that ‘New Labour’ couldn’t disavow fast enough (as has been done in NZ) and won a landslide with an electoral system deliberately geared to prevent majorities.
Then it won again. And again.
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour, cleaving to deeply unpopular and distrusted liberal policies is now behind the Tories in the Scottish parliament and (last I looked) polling at around 15% with local elections coming up in May.
Corbyn is merely left – not radical left. If you want radical left, then you have to look at arguments for substantive democracy. And no-one seeking election anywhere runs on a platform of substantive democracy. How could they?
edit – I tell a lie. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has a platform of substantive democracy and stands candidates (who will never take up their seats if they win)
Substantive democracy, nice one, that deserved an explanation,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_democracy
@Bill +1
Except wikipedia is describing a representative democracy (votes, states, legislative/institutional permissions…)
What age bracket do you fit into Adrian?
70+?
Relevance?
If I was in my 40’s by the time Douglas rolled around I’d probably be so set in my ways any change would be a real struggle and seeing other points of view or different ways of doing things would be very hard to process.
Especially how insular and monocultural NZ was 30+ years ago.
What age bracket do you fit into BM?
Same age group as Adrian, which is why I’m so surprised about Adrian’s outlook, we were just boys back when Douglas was doing his thing.
Our age groups formative years didn’t really start till the 1990’s, by that time neo-liberalist NZ was well and truly alive and the UK aligned NZ had been confined to the dustbin of history.
What slightest bit of difference does it make how old I am?
But seems as you are interested, I am 47, married have three children one 18, twins 21..there you go, does that have an effect on what you think of my political positions?
BM thinks that anyone under 70 should have been well socialised into neoliberalism by now 😉
Wow, I had you pegged for someone in their mid 70’s.
Surprising to see someone of your age group with such rigid views.
You really do see people in categories like that? I’m surprised BM, I thought you were against that sort of thing.
I’m channelling my inner lefty. 😀
lol
@ BM, I am not sure what your youth involved, but I was politically active and marching for Labour/no nukes in ’84, full of youthful enthusiasm and fire, only to be totally disillusioned by the charismatic but pathetic Lange, letting that terrorist Douglas screw the traditions of Labour right in our faces.
And why wouldn’t I have ridged views around wanting a fair and equal society?
Surprised? I think I am probably more surprised by most commenters lack of resolve and floppiness on this issue.
So no I don’t feel that this fundamental foundation stone of the labour party should be open to negotiation.
Yeah I was there 1984
@ BM, I am not sure what your youth involved
Booze, weed and trying to meet girls, I didn’t really start to even consider politics until my mid 20’s.
I can certainly see why you hold the view that neo-liberalism is all that is evil and needs to be destroyed, though
.
@BM, Ha, I too did a lot more than my fair share of self destructive and dangerous stuff around that time, luckily the music and bands I listened too and played in where all highly charged politically, so that was my formative political education I guess.
I don’t think neo-liberalism is evil, but I do think that it’s core economic ideology is ultimately regressive for most humans, and it has no social or environmental morality built into it’s framework that I have seen.
‘Tack hard left.’
You do realise you sound like one of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers as you repeat that slogan.
No doubt caused by the Blairite MPs who have ensured that Labour is not a united party. The problem with Corbyn is he doesn’t deselect those MPs.
So it’s Corbyn’s fault for being weak.
Not encouraging.
Yes he’s too nice.
However he is socialist – are you?
I’m not a politician leading a Labour Party.
I am a member of the NZ Labour Party, and I want them to win in no small part because I want this government gone.
The NZ Labour Party had over 85 000 members .
It now has just 8000 members.
Over 1 million NZ citizens did not vote.
It struggles to get 25% of the vote – that’s 25% of this that do vote.
Chasing the centre has been a disaster for it politically.
Far more importantly, it has been a disaster for the people it was set up
to support have been abandoned to the ravages of neoliberalism.
The US got Trump, Scotland abandoned Labour for the SNP and working class of the UK voted for Brexit – because the left wing betrayed it.
When are people like you going to learn?
Politics, regrettably for yourself, really is a popularity contest.
Just as soon as Corbyn completely turns the ship around and outperforms the Conervatives, I’ll salute him. Just you watch me.
Then maybe your right wing mates in the UK Labour Party should stop kneecapping Corbyn.
@Paul+1 I quite agree, it is just bizarre to me that we are still having this debate, all I can put it down to is maybe a case of Stockholm syndrome for some Labour members.
The people we are debating with have benefited personally from neoliberalism.
There are only 8000 members.
The silent majority (79 000 ex-members) and 1 000 000 non voters gave up on Labour after Douglas and Lange’s coup d’état.
Yeh I figured that was probably the case, once you let that greed genie out of the bottle, it is very hard to get it back in.
It is one of the worst side effects of neo liberalism, I have seen it undermine many good peoples core values and principles..commodify everything, turn all citizens into gamblers, with the highest goal in our society is to join the property class and rent shelter to other citizens..it is a sick game where in the end we all lose.
Paul, I’ve asked you before for a reference for your membership figures. I’ve also linked to this before: http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2008/06/party-members-4.html
It’s an academic paper by Bryce Edwards on party membership in NZ. His main finding (about ALL parties) is “There has been a very dramatic fall in party membership in New Zealand: from nearly 24% of the electorate in the 1950s to only 2% in the 1990s. This spectacular collapse began in the 1960s and, despite a recovery in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has continued to decline. This has meant that the political parties in Parliament are now low-membership, cadre-type institutions”. However, he also notes, “It is important to clarify exactly what the definition of political party membership is. This allows a better idea of the validity of party figures. For the purposes of this blog post, a distinction is made between those party members who have joined the main body of the party – direct members – and those that belong to an affiliated organisation – indirect members. This has an important implication for the membership figures: for if the affiliate trade union membership of the Labour Party is included (which currently pay fees at about ten% of the cost of ordinary membership) then in 1986, for example, the Labour Party could be said to have had about 250,000 members, whereas the party claimed only 65,000 members.”
After noting that all parties tend to exaggerate membership numbers, he also comments that there are also often errors (eg multiple recordings of the same individual – especially pre-digital files. Plus, “A loose definition of membership may have been responsible for the incredibly high membership numbers reported by the National Party in the 1950s and 1960s and the Labour Party around the early 1980s. Especially in the case of National, there is some evidence that the simple act of making a small donation to a party canvasser was regarded as bestowing the status of membership. In this sense, there is often a blurring of the separation between the categories of supporters and members. Also in the case of National, often whole families have been enrolled as members, which might suggest a less than robust and meaningful concept of membership.”
So, I guess I’m challenging your idea that hordes of people (79 000) have opted out of the Labour Party because they don’t think it’s hard left enough. If so, where have those people gone? What hard left party do they comprise? The only contenders – the Greens – don’t have 79 000 members.
In summary – ALL political parties have lost membership. Labour’s membership numbers partly depend on affiliated unions, and union numbers have gone down. There are no reliable records for membership, for any party.
I’m not saying that numbers haven’t shrunk, I’m just saying you’re being rather simplistic and putting your own narrative around this.
If you and Paul are correct, then there’s a huge constituency out there ripe for the taking by a new political party led by an outspoken charismatic progressive. Someone like Jim Anderton, or Laila Harre, or Hone Harawira…
Go hard, men.
Are you one of the 8 000?
@ Paul: Nope. Greens are much closer to my views.
The beauty of MMP is that you really don’t need very much support to get representation. So if your ideas really do have popular support and none of the established parties come close enough for you, you’ve got a pretty good chance with a new party. Hell, Colin Craig almost did it, even with his very visible deficiencies.
So if Labour dropped from 80,000 to 8,000 because their views weren’t close enough to what you’re advocating, it should be easy for you to scoop them up with a new party. Go on, give it a go.
Look at how many Labour MPs have multiple properties.
Look at the Labour MPs salaries.
Look at how many Labour MPs could earn that money out of parliament.
Careerist.
Self-serving.
Not socialist.
I note that you conveniently did not answer a simple question.
Are you a socialist?
If not I sense you are in the wrong party.
Peter Dunne might like your membership.
Going for a purity contest like some sad squabble between the French Socialists, Trotskyists, and Communists, is pretty futile. Have a look at that kind of history before advancing down that tawdry route.
Always fun to watch someone who has been presented with facts that completely ruin their argument lower themselves to going for the personal allegiance of the commenter.
I agree.
You appear to ignore the facts about NZ Labour since it adopted neoliberalism.
87 000 to 8000 members
1 000 000 non voters.
25% of vote.
Paul. You are like a broken record. You haven’t taken any notice of the facts Red-Blooded has posted. You have completely ignored it all.
@Ad How about you answer my original question to you…
“Secondly what are you saying, you don’t agree with Corbyn’s policies? or if you do, that you would rather your party get elected on a platform of policies that you don’t agree with, to get to power?”
Funny how all the Labour supporters think we can have a fair and just and equitable society under neoliberalism. That’s bullshit and they are dreaming.
If Labour ( and the Greens for that matter) are going to stick to free market capitalism, and be puppets of the USA, then they will never beat National. They simply haven’t got the resources, both in finance and feet on the ground. It’s no use relying on the ‘missing million’, they aren’t going to vote anyway and don’t trust any politicians because they know they’ll just get the same shit as the ‘last lot’. Their numbers will rise next election if everyone one is going for the ‘ middle ‘ ground.
For there to be a change of govt this year there will have to be some other factor(s) rear up, which is quite on the cards.
As a righty – I agree, copy corbyn for all it is worth. You will be out of power for a generation.
The guy is a complete idiot.
Well you are in the right party alright, the selfish party…well done
BTW what makes you say he is an idiot, because he has a political platform that works for working and poor people, promotes a fair and equal society for all citizens..
Adrian at 47 you have learnt nothing and have anoverly ambitious view of the state. you seem to think that if the state could just legislate every bodies necessities to rights ( as many basket case countries have South Africa etc) all would be well, irrespective of how these necessities would be provided barring the government would create them out of thin air Most necessities are commodities, free markets are much better at providing as such than the state, yes with shortages and surplus but market react accordingly driven by the profit motive The free market also best reflect the underlying human condition re freedom and freedom of choice , when the states gets overly involved with regulation you simply get a distorted mess and perverse outcomes, hence the rise of Neo liberalism from the late 70s to respond to as such. Thankfully The modern Labour Party believe in Neo lib they simply think they can do a better job than national in running the country In contrast Corbyn and his travelling lunes believe something entirely different, hence thier poll numbers
@RED That’s funny, real funny, you have obviously learnt nothing I would say…
Here is your free market capitalism at work pal…
NZ now has the highest house hold debt to income ratio ever recorded..
http://www.interest.co.nz/property/83530/kiwis-debt-pile-now-exceeds-annual-disposable-income-nearly-100-billion
NZ House prices to income ratio now one of the most unequal in the world..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/83750475/NZ-tops-IMFs-housing-unaffordability-list
NZ 2016 lowest mean increase in wages since 1994..
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/employment_and_unemployment/LabourMarketStatistics_HOTPMar16qtr/Commentary.aspx
Average NZ student debt is now $28.000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_New_Zealand
Sounds like the freedom to either be a wage slave for most of your life, or invest in housing and try and screw other Kiwis, or get involved in some other type gambling addiction like the markets..doesn’t look or sound like human evolution to me.
Our Housing market is a perverse outcome of a lack of a free market and regulation especially land supply in nz. interest free loans 28k, so what, why should a student not pay for part of their education, inequality much of this is driven by house prices, rents and capital gain, see point one and needs to be addressed but hardly suggests abandoning the good that the economic neo liberal model and globalisation has delivered, some tinkering yes, wholesale change as some here and the likes of corbyn are proposing I suggest not, but hey that just my opinions and what the polls in the U.K. And nz reflect
Well if you think having lots of stuff is the gauge of a healthy society, Commodifying the very houses that give us shelter, saddling our children with debt before they even get started….massive inequality mushrooming all over the world, etc etc then I guess we just have different visions of what a fair, equal and caring society looks like.
His platform isn’t working. He’s talking shit. Labours poll numbers have tanked and they will never get into power with him.
So he can talk any game he wants – he will never get to implement it.
He just didn’t seem to get this – this is why he’s an idiot.
The consistent attacks on him by the right wing in UK suggests they see him as a threat – not an idiot.
Rubbish. There is no media conspiracy – “they” (the media) wouldn’t lose anything under Corbyn. They simply report on conflict, and Corbyn isn’t managing the conflict in Labour well.
Look at NZ for a parallel. The in-fighting under Shearer and Cullen was a gift to the media. Little has calmed things down and so the media has calmed down.
Looks a lot like manufacturing consent on steroids…surly you can’t be that naive that you would seriously think that 75% of media in the UK at the same time is negative about Corbyn because of some internal party divide?…come on, that just doesn’t make any sense.
I assume you still are an avid Guardian reader then…
No – sometimes they simply are an idiot.
” The guy is a complete idiot”.
That’s rich coming from a right winger – big fans of free market Capitalism. That’s right ,according to the Right it’s the system that works best in the world. They can’t understand that it is totally unsustainable . They are in total denial about man made climate change. They think that unproductive investment in Real Estate is good for the Country. They hate taxation ie don’t want to have health and education and police and law etc done by the State ( yes they are stupid enough to believe private enterprise can do it better).
They are wrong, wrong, wrong.
On top of that they think the Opposition should only go for the ‘centre’ and not have alternative policies.
And yet the majority of voters keep putting in right wing governments in the western world.
So more people vote that they are heading in the right direction and others (like you ) are the ones they consider wrong.
Who said the right wing in nz don’t want socialised police force , welfare, education, health etc. All most cente right are arguing for is that money is spent well re outcomes, the right incentives are in place re moral hazard and there is nothing wrong with a bit of contestibility in system with private sector competing with public sector
..,are we still going to stereotype what a labour leader should be? How about it’s all about policy, and not playing the man so much.
I’ve just had 8 years of hollowmen, I don’t need it now painted red thank you.
the day I see media driven personality politics murdered like the scum it is, that’s they day I can say we have returned to sanity. Because when you pollies (not assuming your one just speaking out loud) didn’t have all this media access getting your message out and it being scrutinized and passing by the voter I think we got better leadership and value for our tax payer dollars.
Army of staff descends on Davos to serve WEF super-rich
Amid sessions on inequality, hastily bussed-in hotel workers will pack five to a room on bunk beds to serve the super-rich and powerful delegates
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/13/army-of-staff-descends-on-davos-to-serve-wef-super-rich
“I assume [the staff] get good tips,” Kleber said, but “most of them are not coming for the money – they are coming to be part of a once-in-a-year event … Of course it’s hard work, but it’s a lot of fun,” he added.
No, Kleber, I’m pretty sure most of them are coming for the money. And I suspect your definition of “fun” is not shared by the majority of your staff.
Davos 2012
“In its seventh annual Global Risks report, the World Economic Forum noted that in the view of a survey panel of more than 400 experts and industry leaders, “severe income disparity” has emerged as one of the world’s most probable threats, surpassing financial risks and natural calamities.”
Davos …a waste of space, resource and time.
As db says, we can’t afford the rich.
Yeah – you still can’t get by without them either.
Yep we need more Paul’s
Davos the IYI annual convention.
I guess we’ll wait and see.
Milosevic returned from Kosovo with a clear political strategy. First he would assemble the mob, and then he would move on his political opponents. With his rabid supporters filling the streets of Belgrade, Milosevic orchestrated the ouster of his former mentor, Ivan Stambolic. Using the same tactic, he toppled the leaders of Vojvodina, Montenegro and Kosovo, and replaced them with hand-picked loyalists. Like Trump’s Republican primary march, Milosevic unravelled the existing order in pieces.
He called this strategy the “anti-bureaucratic revolution”. With each coup, the crowds grew and Milosevic promised them that this populist insurrection would transform Yugoslavia as a whole.
But as Milosevic knew, his supporters were not concerned with purging Yugoslavia of stilted communist bureaucrats; they heard in his dog-whistle speeches a vision to convert the South Slavic federation into a ‘Greater Serbia’.
[…]
The journalist Milos Vasic attempted to explain Milosevic’s rise to Americans in 1993 like this: “You must imagine a United States with every little TV station everywhere taking exactly the same editorial line – a line dictated by David Duke. You too would have war in five years.”
Today, David Duke is back and so is Milosevic.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/15112016-before-trump-and-brexit-milosevic-oped/
21 November 2016 – women are going to be denied reproductive autonomy ✅
Just the first in a barrage of oppressive legislation to come, now that the “anti-establishment” candidate has overthrown the “warmongering liberals.” Once they’ve put an additional conservative onto the Supreme Court, watch this one breeze through.
This is what the demise of liberalism really looks like, all you Standard commenters who’ve been looking forward to it. Fuck all y’all.
I do not support Trump. He is a fraud and symptomatic of a lot that is wrong inoursociety.
I do support the demise of neoliberalism, which has destroyed the working class in the US, NZ and the UK, promoted the 1%, destroyed left wing socialist parties, massively increased inequality, child poverty, destroyed the Unions.
In the US, I would have supported Sanders.
However. I do understand why desperate working class folk voted for anyone who said they were against the neoliberal estsblishment.
Yes, economic anxiety forced people to vote for an establishment shit stain who plays footsies with all manner of theocratic misogynists, fascist, racists and white supremacists.
/
Exactly. “Desperate working class folk” needn’t tell us they decided to stick one to the establishment by voting for a billionaire property developer who lives in a Manhattan skyscraper, flies round the world in a private jet with his trophy wife and is famous for stiffing his workers and creditors. Not unless they want us to think they’re complete idiots.
+2
And, it’s not like all desperate working folk voted Trump or even voted at all. Best we apply some nuances to the analysis.
Like this analysis that suggests that while economic factors were important in the election, the vote for Trump is better explained by racism and sexism
http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/4/14160956/trump-racism-sexism-economy-study
that makes sense.
It makes sense to write off a huge proportion of the voting public as racists and misogynists?
I mean, it’s convenient and all of that. And guaranteed to ensure that the Democratic Party (if they bought the line) would never get into power again.
Or (much more likely) just as UK Labour under Miliband bought all the racist bullshit and tried to neuter Farage by getting all anti-immigration (even selling anti-immigration mugs as fund-raisers)…racism will become excused and normalised…pandered to in a quest for votes..
People didn’t vote for the Democrats because they were shite. And people knew exactly the type of shite they would get. And they didn’t want it. And in the absence of alternatives, they voted for Trump.
which bit is the writing off? I didn’t see that. Miravox said that people voting for Trump (presumably beyond Republicans who would always vote Republican no matter what) was explainably by economics, racism and sexism, with the latter two being more significant. How is that writing people off?
As ridiculous as this may sound, many people looked at Hillary then looked at their grandmother/mother and thought, “My Grandmother/Mother running the country? are you crazy!!.
I’m not writing off the rust belt economic argument Bill. Nor are the study researchers. But however they cut it, the economic argument doesn’t explain the high income and college degree vote, not does it fully explain the rust belt vote.
This research shows peoples motivations for voting Trump were not necessarily economic. Surely that is not a controversial finding – even if the Dems were shite. They also found two non-economic motivations that outweighed the economic reasons for voting Trump for a significant number of people. This is not a new phenomenon in elections either.
What is different in this study is that it argues that pandering you mention wasn’t an additional motivation to vote Trump, but the primary reason. This is not writing off a huge chunk of the population as racist and sexist, but it does suggest that at the time they voted the stuff they were listening to had a greater impact on their votes than the economic conditions they were living in.
This again, is something that has been seen before and will be seen again if it is dismissed in favour of the cleaner, but more simplistic economic argument that is not shown to fit people’s motivations.
As ridiculous as this may sound, many people looked at Hillary then looked at their grandmother/mother and thought
Strangely, I think you’re right BM, that some people think like that. Yet they’re happy enough to vote for a rude and abusive grandpa.
I think that’s pretty sexist.
53% of white women voted for Trump. A full ten points more than for Hillary. Solid choice, good judgement.
I’ll just note this as an example of CV supporting what women do politically when it suits his agenda. As opposed to say, reproductive rights, which doesn’t, being all about identity once we get down to that level. I’ve seen him do this with disability too. I assume it happens with other groups.
+1000
and how do you state that with such confidence CV, I was under the impression your vote was private. IE they once cast did not allow that data to be used, if it’s based on exit polls or anything else that’s suspect in my mind.
as for your good choice, I new he’d win. Just had the gut feeling right from the start, but it being a good choice? as much as I was sure he would win I thought it would also be one of the worst things that will happen since Thatcher reigned suprememely ly memly cough with an iron fist.
“…good judgement…”
Yay… more drive-by bullshit.
The judgement bit remains to be seen.
the turd won with 80.000 votes in three states.
i am just putting this out there so that people actually realise that he lost the popular vote by 3 million, but won by 80.000 in three states that coincidentally had some of the harshest voter restricting laws of the whole of the fucking US.
I know this inconvenient truth, but what evs it happened and it might as well be looked at as factor.
https://thinkprogress.org/2016-a-case-study-in-voter-suppression-258b5f90ddcd#.qnasxuugt
https://thinkprogress.org/2016-a-case-study-in-voter-suppression-258b5f90ddcd#.qnasxuugt
who voted?
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2016/11/11/292322/voter-suppression-laws-cost-americans-their-voices-at-the-polls/
for those that are intersted to see who voted, by race, by gender, by income, by education, look it here is some information
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/who-voted-for-donald-trump-white-men-and-women-most-responsible-for-new-president-elect-voting-data-a7407996.html
mabye someone wants to look at how religion has influenced the vote for Trump – you know forced birthers and God and Gun people
http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/november/trump-elected-president-thanks-to-4-in-5-white-evangelicals.html
and regardless of any of this, still more women voted for Hillary Clinton then the orange coloured shitgibbon.
but never mind facts, and polls, and such, i hear its all fake.
You suggesting that people who voted were both highly informed and rational ?
ffs Joe. Their motivations (for amny and misplaced for sure) are really fucking simple to understand. It’s essentially as Paul states. And sure. Had they been highly informed and rational they would have understood that a vote for Trump was not reflective of their motivation.
Would they then have voted for Clinton? I doubt it. I’d pick they’d either stay home or vote for Trump anyway just because it wouldn’t be another four years of the same unbearable shit. (Similar to the reasons underpinning much of the BREXIT vote)
Nope, I’m suggesting that Trump affirmed that their existing prejudices against immigrants, Muslims, blacks and women were valid and he spent months egging them on – reminding them that like his own ignorance, their ignorance was good and his locker room talk was their locker room talk.
And then he dressed it up as a carrot, security/law and order, and nationalism/patriotism – only I can bring back the jobs, only I can keep you safe, and MAGA.
It worked, they gobbled up every morsel of hate, fear and division they were fed, and he won.
“In the US, I would have supported Sanders.”
Sanders wasn’t a choice when it came to voting for President.
And the attack now isn’t on neoliberalism, it’s on liberal values i.e. progressive values. And it’s coming from the left and the right, including here on TS.
Burning down the house, with everybody inside.
Late last night, the Senate took the first step toward dismantling the Affordable Care Act. As part of the proceeding, Democratic senators introduced a series of amendments, most of which were designed to spotlight highly popular provisions of the ACA that will be lost if the law is repealed. Republicans voted them all down. The action was mostly political theater, but it was a discouraging glimpse at the state of GOP thinking on health care.
Voting on the amendments lasted almost seven hours. One of the many amendments Republicans struck down was one in support of requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of contraceptives. If that measure is reflected in the bill that eventually repeals Obamacare (we are still some distance from that), it would leave 55 million women without no-co-pay birth control.
According to Politico’s Dan Diamond, the Senate also voted against an amendment that would support maintaining a preexisting-conditions protection for health insurance, a provision of Obamacare that affects tens of millions of Americans. And remember that before the Affordable Care Act passed, many insurance companies considered pregnancy to be a preexisting condition.
http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/01/the-senate-just-voted-to-roll-back-womens-healthcare.html
“This is what the demise of liberalism really looks like, all you Standard commenters who’ve been looking forward to it. Fuck all y’all.”
Yep.
The death of liberalism can be that ugly shite. But it needn’t be.
If you’re kind of convinced that it can only be bad, then you’ll tend to get in behind diminishing the Corbyn’s and the Sanders’ and the SNP’s because, well, if they bump everything to the left, then liberalism comes under threat, and bad stuff will happen.
And by doing that, you ensure bad stuff will happen (a left tack gets sunk and weird populist stuff gains the ascendancy. Liberalism is not going to survive.
T’would be nice if liberals would wake up, smell the coffee, get with a programme (preferably a progressive one) and help us get ready.
Bill, I’ve developed the impression you lean heavily towards favouring authoritarian structures.
How about you lay out what your alternative vision to liberalism looks like?
Then you’re impression is a misguided crock of shit. I’m probably among a very small handful of people around this blog who are vociferously anti-authoritarian; radically (by liberal standards) democratic.
Which means, obviously, that there is no ‘blue-print’ or whatever coming from me.
Well, I’m relieved that I’d got the wrong end of the stick on your feelings towards authoritarianism. But I’m now even more confused on what your preferred organising principles for society might look like. I’ve got no idea what “radically democratic” actually means. Referenda for absolutely everything?
No. Not referenda . Empowering democratic decision making processes developed and refined by those utilising them.
Lots of people reading this won’t know what that means in practice. Just saying.
Indeed they won’t. And the only way they ever will know what it means in practice is to do it. And if they did that, they’d get it wrong a lot of the time but learn more and more about what makes for good democratic decisions and what makes for undemocratic decisions.
A pinch of anarchism with a touch of horizontal decision making and 1960s commune rules liberally sprinkled with fairy dust, that’s what I have gathered
@Bill, ah, that old stalemate. I think it’s highly unrealistic to expect people to take on a way of organising when they don’t understand what it is. Telling people they can be more democratic if they just be more democratic, hmmm.
When Andre asked his questions I was thinking of things like adapting the select committee process whereby people who had an interest in that area could sign up and be part of the process. That would by necessity mean also talking with people who don’t sign up. That process would then itself need to be democratised around how information is gathered and decisions made, and that in turn would necessitate looking at power.
I’m guessing that’s not what you mean at all, but I was interested in seeing what might be possible to shift to from what we have now.
Open the possibility to be more democratic through involvement (rather than the ‘chicken and egg’ brick wall proposition of ‘by being more democratic’)
Select committees and what not are not what I was on about. But here’s a throw-away.
Dunedin is building a bus hub. There was ‘consultation’ (about 7 days) and people were invited to comment on the colour scheme. I kid you not.
So thousands of dollars were presumably given to some company who came up with absolute rubbish that was presented back as a done deal.
No-one asked bus drivers their thoughts. (They could have told them a bus would not get around the corner of St Andrew St if a bus was occupying the first bus bay) Instead they spent a whole heap of money and then drew out a full scale plan somewhere and had buses drive around it. (That led to major redesigns that were…I mean, a 10 year old could have pointed out the flaws in the original!)
They didn’t ask passengers a thing. So the bus stops, yet again, have no thought to Dunedin weather. But in a fit of (I dunno what) some bright spark in the design company decided that coffee stalls and food carts would be great – although no food or drink can be taken on buses and retail outlets are already in the vicinity.
Now, I’m pretty sure that if drivers and passengers had come together on the need for a hub, then (for one) a different location would have been chosen and some fairly speedy decisions from those with direct knowledge would have produced something that actually served the needs of passengers and drivers. The current one, by all accounts, won’t.
How do you frame bills reply? I need to frame it
😀
I’m not feeling any closer. What is the actual process for making those decisions?
Coz at the moment we’ve got a fairly broad societal consensus that we democratically elect a few representatives for a more or less fixed term, then cede power to those representatives for that term. If enough of us feel strongly that those representatives are making decisions we didn’t want, we retain the power of protest to try to steer decisions in our preferred direction. Seems to me that fits “Empowering democratic decision making processes developed and refined by those utilising them.” Especially since it was only twenty years ago we made a major change in how those representatives are elected.
How long is piece of string?
Democracy can’t be delivered via representative parliamentary modes of governance. As you say, it involves power being ceded. That right there (ceding power) is democracy being denied.
Bill, I’m still no closer to understanding how, in your preferred system, I would interact with the decision-making process. You’ve told me a lot of things it isn’t. But that’s really no help to understanding what it is.
You interact directly with decisions around those things that would affect you and to a degree roughly in line with likely or possible impacts on you.
Or you don’t if you don’t want to,
And you or who-ever else, who are being just normal socially interactive people, naturally generate the matters that require decisions.
The minutiae of the processes develop and change according to both peoples’ wishes and whatever it is that’s being decided. Some stuff would deserve quite involved and even long drawn out processes and some stuff could be more or less simply notified so that people know what’s going on. And it would be up to the people involved in whatever setting to find the balance or balances that suit them.
Ok, I’m seeing something that might work in a small isolated village.
But in a complex society like ours, how does, say water supply to my house get managed? Does Penny Bright debate Mikhail Khimich (the dude that bought Waiwera Water) in Vector Arena while we all watch and cheer? There’s dozens of issues that deeply affect our lives like water that need to be managed. Representative democratic systems do a mostly OK job of managing all of those, so I’d really need to be convinced something else really is going to be better.
There can be no market in a democracy. That’s just logic. (Please note, I’m not talking about trade here, but about the particular rules we have around production and distribution that we give the term ‘market economy’) So no-one ‘owns’ water.
Maybe try to see it as 1001 interconnected villages rather than one isolated village. That allows you to envisage scale. So whereas I may live in ‘this’ location (ie ‘this’ village) much of the stuff I do and the potential impacts around me involve any one of a number of those other imagined social entities. So maybe in some respects I live in many different villages.
Water.
Why a centralised network? Is that the only option and the most preferable option? Do we have a desire to maintain large centralised pieces of infrastructure? If we do have that desire, then how do we break down its management and maintenance in ways and to levels that are conducive to democratic decisions being made? Is it possible to do that? We could just say ‘no’ or we could discover possibilities through experimenting with whatever number of novel approaches. Maybe in the end, it wouldn’t prove to be possible. At which point, those affected would have a number of different decisions to make.
But having (say) 10 000 people involved in a meeting in a stadium for the purpose of arriving at decisions – no. 10 000 people gathering in a stadium to throw ideas around? Maybe.
Throwing this in as a by the by (although it is kind of crucial). Dynamic order (in terms of complexity and scale, always arises from below and is ‘determined’ by quite simple initial conditions – it’s never imposed.
If we took a specific place as an example,
Dunedin. Each area could make its own decisions about water, but in the absence of enough rainfall (and taking into account CC), I’d say having a partially centralised system probably makes most sense. After Chch 2 quake I argued that Chch was in the ideal position to separate out into the multiple villages you describe, esp as the centralised water and sewerage systems failed in part because it was centralised. However, short of a big natural disaster, I’m not sure that each suburb in Dunedin building its own water infrastructure makes sense in terms of resource us (new houses should build their own catchment though, even if its just for outside use). So, there’s some centralised decision making that’s needed.
At the suburb level, I can see it working along the lines you talk about. THere’s 4,600 people living in the North East Valley. Probably a bit big but maybe doable for having meetings (not everyone will attend).
The other thing I would add is it’s not enough to have processes that people have to engage in actively, because there will always be people who can’t (e.g. women with young kids, or people who are ill). We’d also need to have ways of those people being able to take part from where they are and within their limitations.
Ok, the closest real world example of something like that I’ve had anything to do with is schooling in the US.
The school systems in many states in the US are very decentralised down to the local council level, and are funded from local property taxes (at least they were in the 90s). Governance is generally drawn from the local community. This leads to a massive variation in standards and funding from one district to another, yet ends up being quite expensive because of duplication of resources. As memories of what I learned about that come back, the idea of repeating that model on essential services appeals less and less. I’m grateful I never had to deal with my own kids going through that.
Bill @ 5.11pm sounds a lot like anarcho syndicalism.
oh.Look what it says down the page:
@Andre, that’s not what is being suggested, because that system presumably isn’t using substantive democracy and exists within a larger undemocratic system.
However I have in the past argued along similar lines about how in NZ for instance such a system with zero centralisation would lead to a big variation in standards and a loss in some places of certain human rights.
But the local councillors were much more in contact with their locals in the three small towns (suburbs of large cities) I lived in compared to Auckland (and Palmerston North), had elections every two years. As far as I could tell, there was much more community involvement in the school administration compared to here in Auckland. The local councils and local school boards seemed to have much more autonomy than their equivalents here.
If all of that isn’t several big steps towards substantive democracy and/or what Bill is advocating, then I’m back to square zero in understanding what you are advocating.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, steps towards, and I’m in favour of that. I just meant as an end result, in the whole political system kind of way.
Bill, I don’t have a problem with the death of liberalism, I do have a problem with how it’s being promoted at the moment in various places (left, right, alt-right).
I disagree that in the NZ context at least, if we had a Corbyn/Sanders-esque bump to the left then liberalism comes under thread, because I don’t think Corbyn and Sanders are that radical. In other words liberalism (such a bizarre word to use in NZ politics, but hey) and the left could probably find a way to hang out together. As they have done.
“T’would be nice if liberals would wake up, smell the coffee, get with a programme (preferably a progressive one) and help us get ready.”
T’would also be nice if the anti-liberals stopped portraying liberals as not being with the programme or not being progressive per se. I am. PM not so much. But pushing the death to liberalism in the way it’s being done is not going to help those us make the cultural shifts necessary and is also likely to take us down the ‘bad stuff will happen’ route.
Just as you don’t like the way some things are being portrayed, neither do I. Mainstream outlets are pumping a poisonous meme equating Corbyn with Trump…or suggesting that voting for Corbyn is just the same as voting for Trump (In a NZ context, I’ve read media equating Morgan with Trump).
And that’s the fissure I see opening up. Powerful interests backing the liberal status quo coming out hard and dishonestly against anything that might offer an alternative.
Bringing it down to the individual level and it gets to be a minefield because there’s no settled definition for words such as ‘liberal’ and words are all we have to express ourselves or our ideas. As I understand your use of the word ‘liberal’ as it relates at the individual level, I could easily, and I think fairly, interpret that as ‘Catholic’ in it’s original definition – ie – broad minded/ open.
But that individual meaning doesn’t translate to the institutional or ideological level. Like many words, it has multiple and often mutually exclusive meanings depending on context or subject matter.
But I’m digressing…
Not digressing IMO, but getting to the nub of it.
What I’m observing (on TS and in the US in different ways) is the attack on liberalism affecting liberals (including left wing folk who’ve done relatively ok by the Democrats but who want change) in ways that aren’t IMO conducive to change in a good direction. I’d prefer to see alliances being built. The attacks on liberalism aren’t just aiming at the Clintons or whoever, they’re attacking those individuals who you say we can’t take into account because it gets too difficult. I’m saying we should be starting with those people.
Liberal (small L) as I grew up with it in NZ meant progressive. There’s not reason why we can’t be more careful with our language to be inclusive. There’s also a difference between Liberalism and liberal. I have no problem with the attempt to take down Liberalism, but as I said, it’s causing problems in how it is being done, in part because of ignoring the semantics and the individuals.
And example would be that I see a big overlap between what you are arguing and people on TS who are actively wanting to undermine identity politics. Until we get to grips with that, the nuances involved, and where we can work together, there is going to be an ongoing political clusterfuck that hands power to the forces of evil (just to shorthand it).
Your point about what the media are doing and the danger in that is well taken. I’d like to see that sit alongside my point about what is happening on TS and the danger in that. Then see where our politics align.
If you reckon there’s a need for society to be rid of liberalism, then we’ll have common cause to build on.
If you reckon liberalism should be ‘protected’ or maintained, then we’ll be on opposite sides of a quite fundamental divide.
Which one do you think I am?
Liberalism is to a large extent individualism: you should be left to get on with what you want to do unless there’s some genuinely good reason for governments or whoever to poke their noses in. For the ACT supporter, this largely consists of the government not trying to prevent you from using your money and influence to better yourself at other people’s expense, but for those of us who aren’t shitheads that’s not what it consists of at all. Anyone wanting rid of liberalism is either authoritarian or just naive.
Isn’t that Libertarianism?
From what I can tell Bill (and adam) are talking about the economic side of Classical Liberalism, and not liberty per se (nor Social Liberalism which focusses on equality).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism#Liberal_economic_theory
Thing is though, once you get to having to read complex wiki entries to understand what the other person is saying, we’re in the realm of elitism and, worse, the realm of talking past each other. Which is the bread and butter of TS in the last 6 months. We’re in a political cul de sac.
I don’t think I’m talking about libertarianism. The wiki entry offers Locke’s version: “Locke argued that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property,[12] while adding that governments must not violate these rights based on the social contract. Liberals opposed traditional conservatism and sought to replace absolutism in government with representative democracy and the rule of law.” I don’t think I’m describing something very different from that.
A person can take that to mean laissez-faire economics if they’re a right-winger, but I don’t think it’s an essential feature at all.
From weka’s wiki entry on Liberalism, it describes liberalism as:
“Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programmes such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation.”
Bill, which bits of all that do you want to get rid of? Freedom of speech, religion and press? Free markets? Civil rights? Democratic societies? Secular governments? Gender equality? International cooperation? Personally I’m pretty keen on all of those, with just a few limits.
You missed this,
The development into maturity of classical liberalism took place before and after the French Revolution in Britain, and was based on the following core concepts: classical economics, free trade, laissez-faire government with minimal intervention and taxation and a balanced budget.
See anything there that Bill might object to?
@weka: That’s a closer fit to what’s now pejoratively called neo-liberalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
If liberalism no longer means those principles listed at the start of the wiki on Liberalism, then what’s the new word for that group of beliefs and values?
Yes, and in NZ I would say that outside of specific political spaces, not many people use the term Liberalism anyway (I did a quick google of TS and prior to the last year most people were using neoliberalism instead).
From the wiki piece,
Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Whereas classical liberalism emphasises the role of liberty, social liberalism stresses the importance of equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programmes such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality, and international cooperation.
Those things aren’t only within Liberalism right? So I’m all for using a different term but I think more important is to have shared understandings of the concepts. Doesn’t Socialism try and balance freedom with collective responsibility? Whereas Libertarianism focusses on the liberty without that as much as possible. Carolyn talks more about the political systems around that below. I’m more interested in what lay people would understand.
Liberty isn’t really a word that’s been used in NZ. I guess because we were already liberal and our politics evolved from the UK.
I’d suggest using ‘liberal’ to refer to the progressive values around freedom, and ‘Liberal’ to refer to those that are aligned with Liberalism.
Personally, I’d prefer we stopped looking at structures that arose out of the patriarchy (and I’ll probably include anarchism in that, although I think there are good things within that philosophy to learn from), and instead looked at the systems that were in use in NZ pre-European arrival. I think much of NZ culture was influenced by Māori culture and that is rarely acknowledged. For instance the relative equality that women have here is based in both the settler culture (British women had critical roles to play there) and in Māoridom (women as a class had more mana than in British cultures).
Well Andre.
I’m not in favour of establishing institutional hierarchies and am against power being exercised by anyone if it comes at the price of dis-empowering any other. You can scale that sentiment up to scenarios or situations containing as many people as you like, or scale it down to two.
So all of freedoms you list are besides the much more important point of who or what decides the limits or arbitrates those those freedoms at present, and what institutional barriers exist to the full expression of those freedoms…and (importantly) are those exercises of power legitimate? (I’d say they aren’t because stuff I said in the first paragraph.)
And see Weka below (?) where she adds economic facets of liberalism. Those freedoms (ie – the freedom of markets) are no kinds of freedom at all. I’m a market abolitionist.
weka: Liberal (small L) as I grew up with it in NZ meant progressive. There’s not reason why we can’t be more careful with our language to be inclusive. There’s also a difference between Liberalism and liberal.
There is certainly some confusion or blurring of these terms. It looks to me sometimes on TS, people may be talking passed each other, with different understandings of the terms.
I think you (weka) are talking about your experiences of common usages of the term, “liberal”. And dictionaries tend to reflect common usages, and follow changes in common usage.
Dictionaries don’t make such a clear cut difference between Liberalism and liberal. Some give one meaning of “liberal”:
In everyday relationships with people, I do use the term liberal positively in this sense.
But then there is this
I have difficulty agreeing with a “liberal” approach to gender, race, etc, because it isn’t just about individuals. It’s about how people in some gender or ethnic groups are systematically discriminated against. It’s a group thing, and requires collective action to bring pressure for change – just as for workers.
But then, our system of government is generally referred to as one of “liberal democracy”.
Wikipedia says:
australiapolitics.com says this:
So definitions of liberal democracies do tend to put a form of “individualism” and individual rights at their centre.
So, if Bill wants that changed, what sort of political system does he want?
I also looked up a definition of “social democracy” to see if that differed from “liberal democracy”
Wikipedia on social democracy:
It also goes on about how some people started using the term “social democracy” as a way of moving gradually towards socialism. But that never seemed to happen in practice. Some see social democracy as a compromise between capitalism and socialism.
Down the page it says this:
Thanks Carolyn, and thanks for all the research. Please also see my comment above. I agree we are talking past each other too much, and some of that is down to language.
What I’m interested in is better communication. So Bill and adam and whoever can use the terms liberal and Liberalism however they want so long as they make explicit in their comments what they mean. Which they’re generally not doing. At the moment it comes across as a kind of imposing of ideology and I’ve got limited patience for that at the moment given what is happening in the world.
I think both of them are trying to communicate very important things, but if the way they choose to do that is itself dogmatic and lessens people understanding each other and creates divisions, I really don’t see the point. To be fair to both of them, much of that is probably due to the combative style of commenting on TS which even for TS has been bad in the past 6 months (and which I also contribute to). But I do see both of them attempting a radical stance that is dogmatic and at least to me appears to value that over making allies in the cause.
At this stage of the game we should have had the semantics sorted. IMO the most important move at this time is to build alliances. Bill and adam appear to want to draw lines in the sand and make people choose sides. I appreciate the radical positioning of both of them, but strategically I think it fails (as I often say, I’m not waiting for the revolution).
Thanks, weka. Sorry I mucked up the italics (was meant to be just for tour words that I quoted)- submitted the comment then went and had dinner.
After doing the research I have questions about how truly we do have a Liberal Democracy form of government. The government does seem to recognise group issues in making some legislation.
OTOH, I do think one of our biggest problems is the accumulation of power among the wealthy, corporations, and some born to privilege (including wealth, masculine and race privilege to some degree).
And the question is how to combat that? And how to engage more of the public in political and democratic processes.
Morgan likened himself to Trump.
Fashionable as it is to write Morgan off I wonder if the big political story of 2017 will be that the pundits were wrong and his party was good for 7 or 8%.
As annoying as he is I’m probably going to vote for him, and I suspect there is something attractive about an establishment figure advocating (comparatively) radical policies that address structural issues.
No. He actually pointed out that politically and as a person he was nothing like Trump. On the most facile level – both wealthy businessmen, yes, that’s their backgrounds.
”Asked whether his party would follow in the footsteps of Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party in handing the election to National, Morgan retorted: “Kim Dotcom, I can think of something better – how about Trump?”
However, he did not want to draw too many parallels between himself and the Republican presidential candidate, other than a dislike of the status quo.
“I have never been bankrupt, that’s one difference…I don’t like anything about him.
“Well I guess [we are similar] in the sense that I haven’t joined an establishment party, that we are coming in here to push whoever the Government of the day is.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/86086492/Philanthropist-Gareth-Morgan-launches-political-party-compares-himself-to-Donald-Trump
are u munted in the head Bill?, do you really know what your saying?
OMFG you just have no idea what your saying, are you trying to tell me the demise of liberalism(do YOU know what it means) will be good for us all.
You would have fucking loved pre WW2 Germany why don’t you find a nice dictatorship and bugger off there.
Me I like liberalism it gives me freedom , the demise of liberalism removes that, so when the government under your ideal situation tells you your getting paid minimum wage, and you will work in a coal mine even though your an engineer you’ll be happy to do it right? Because it seems to me your wanting a great old do as we tell you dictatorship…
There’s a nice one in North Korea, bye.
You’ll note that the conservative party in Australia is called the Liberal Party. Even National has been known to call themselves liberal.
These are lies as they are all authoritarian but do you really think that they’d go round telling everyone that?
Perhaps the real problem is that it’s all misnamed:
Meanwhile the Democrats, those champions of Liberalism..
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/12/cory-booker-joins-senate-republicans-to-kill-measure-to-import-cheaper-medicine-from-canada/
and for those who won’t read the Intercept
http://www.phillymag.com/news/2017/01/13/casey-toomey-against-drug-importation/
Yes its the Intercept…but funnily enough I can’t find any coverage in the mainstream media…I wonder why???
Well, there’s this on USA Today. You don’t get more mainstream than that.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/12/sanders-slams-democrats-who-voted-pharmaceutical-industry/96506340/
It’s all over places like HuffPo, Vox, Slate, and a quick google shows it’s in places like the Boston Globe.
yawn..
What does it mean that Cory Booker voted against this meaningless prescription drug amendment? What does it mean that Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico voted against it? What does it mean that Senator Ted Cruz voted for it?
It means approximately nothing.
But if you’re playing along, you ought to know that the intention of the amendments was never to do anything but to slap around Republicans. If you’ve decided that you need to wage a preventive war against Cory Booker’s 2020 presidential aspirations by killing him over this vote, then you’re waging your own ideological war and way off message.
It’s easy to see why you might have been taken in by this when you look at headlines that say “For Some Reason, Cory Booker and 12 Other Dems Helped Kill a Bill That Would Lower Drug Prices.”
But that headline should be considered Fake News.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/01/13/the-stupid-war-on-cory-booker/
I siobahn, having to inject a thought here, this bandying about of the word liberalism in the political sense is taking many of us in the wrong for thinking that way about it.
In that liberalism as defined as a political strategy of rule is what? there is no such thing, neither are many of the labels we put on political sides..ie National right wing/authoritarian Labour left wing/Liberalism/democratic.. it’s all bollocks..it really is, you cannot stick a label on a parties way of government unless they are extremely one way or the other to the point it is that. IE North Korea as an example of dictatorships. i’d call one man ruling a country a dictatorship, that isn’t proper communism either.
we have to stop the labelling IMHO it’s getting no one no where except a tongue poking out nah nah nah ur left we’re right load of crap.
People IMHO need to stop taking sides like that, forget it altogether and just do what is the right thing to do on a particular subject. IE welfare should be run on a care tack, and business should be looked in a light of what’s best for that.., and political sides are forgotten. horses for courses.
this argument about the fall of liberalism..what? what is that crap you lot are saying.. there can be no such thing. Even under bloody trump you have liberties.. WTF.
‘Liberal’ has taken on many meanings over the years, and as Weka said, it results in many of us talking past one another. The original Liberal Party in England did believe in laissez-faire economics, etc. But during the 70s, most ignorant Kiwis (especially Rob’s mob + rednecks) were too ignorant to know this, and the word became linked with trendy lefty things like women’s Liberation, etc – progressive, and breaking redundant, old restrictions. So we now have people using ‘liberalism’ with different ideas of what it means. To my mind, neo-liberalism is a revival of the original meaning of the word, but I still instinctively think of liberalism as being more broad and progressive. Libertarianism I would have associated with ACT’s silly ‘minimal government’ dogma.
I now wish I had just concentrated on being libertine…
Good Lord, Graham Kerr is still alive!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/dining/graham-kerr-galloping-gourmet.html?contentCollection=weekendreads&_r=0
Good to see he is still on this side of the turf. Looks pretty healthy.
Winston Peters says NZF won’t go into coalition with any Party which denies access to the Pike River mine. How real is this? By the time the election comes along, Pike River mine will be all sealed up . Just vote-catching – as per usual for Winnie.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/322387/peters-meets-with-pike-river-families
“Just vote-catching – as per usual for Winnie.”
He is the master at it, NZ is perfectly set up for him to be very successful in this election.
That’s right sm. The more a population gets dumbed down the more successful populism and identity politics become. Our media have become masters of ‘dumbing down’.
Just vote-catching you say.
That would imply there are votes to be caught taking such a position. And isn’t that what our representatives are supposed to be doing?
Peters says: “if you don’t think 29 people dying in circumstances that are still unexplained is worthy of some time then I think we’ve deteriorated into a rather sad country.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/88421122/winston-peters-visits-pike-river-protest
I would agree with Peters there.
Presumably he’s decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power. Classic move, because it will be seen as an achievement by Peters and will cloud how little else he gains in the deal.
“Presumably he’s decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power”
Are you implying Labour and the Greens won’t back Winston on this or be willing to compromise? Thus, allowing the possibility for him to also work with them?
While a number of voters will find it a win (if successful) a number of them will be expecting far more and won’t be clouded by just one win.
Do you have anything that suggests National will compromise on this? Which one would expect you have to come to such a conclusion.
Nothing to do with L/G. Peters wants to keep his options open, so my guess is that he has played this so that National can say yes to it. Or Labour. Or the Greens. any of them, which was my point, it’s about Peters and what he wants politically.
As for National, I think them wanting a 4th term is entirely sufficient reason for them to compromise on this and take Peters’ support. It doesn’t seem like a big compromise on National’s part (unless there really are good political reasons for National to not want the mine open, which is possible).
If National are willing to compromise in order to ensure they remain in power as you suggested, can you explain why they haven’t compromised thus far?
It’s not like they haven’t already faced any public or political pressure on the matter.
Could it possibly point to your suggestion there could be good political reasons for National to not want the mine open?
If so, wouldn’t that indicate it would be more likely National will be unwilling to compromise? Kind of throwing a spanner into the works in regard to your initial assertion.
“If National are willing to compromise in order to ensure they remain in power as you suggested, can you explain why they haven’t compromised thus far?”
Did they not do any deals with their current partners? The compromise is related to how much support they need. There is a theory that they will need NZF after this year’s election. Sorry, I’m not sure what you are getting at, this is coalition 101 stuff.
If National are refusing access to the mine because there is a scandal waiting to be found, then obviously that will affect their willingness to compromise. I’ve already said that.
My original point wasn’t about National. It was about Peters weighing up the options and how they might best play out for him.
“Sorry, I’m not sure what you are getting at, this is coalition 101 stuff.”
Yes, I’m aware of all of that. You misunderstood the question. I’ll rephrase it for you.
Rather than risk voters turning against them while leaving it to the last minute (when forming a coalition) to compromise, can you explain why (if they want to win and ensure voters don’t turn on them) they aren’t conceding and keeping their promise to the Pike River family members now?
Considering the political and public pressure they’ve already come under, could the reason for their unwillingness to compromise now be as you suggested (a scandal waiting to be found)? And if so wouldn’t that indicate it would be more likely National will be unwilling to compromise when and if they require to go into coalition? Kind of throwing a spanner into the works in regard to your initial assertion.
The more votes they can muster before the final count, the bigger the chance of remaining in power and the less chance they will need to go into coalition.
While your initial comment was about Peters, you presumed he decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power, hence my questioning on this presumption.
“Rather than risk voters turning against them while leaving it to the last minute (when forming a coalition) to compromise, can you explain why (if they want to win and ensure voters don’t turn on them) they aren’t conceding and keeping their promise to the Pike River family members now?”
Why make concessions before you need to? It might not be a scandal, it might just be pressure from the commercial interests and/or wanting to save face. Or they’re weighing up the balance between the damage going into the mine now will cause vs the damage of going in later.
The kind of votes Peters might get from this move aren’t necessarily the kind that National would get from about facing.
“While your initial comment was about Peters, you presumed he decided that it’s something that National would be willing to compromise on in order to stay in power, hence my questioning on this presumption.”
Better to ask Peters then.
“Why make concessions before you need to?”
To maintain voter support, thus possibly avert having to make concessions (be require to enter into coalition) later on.
Support for the Pike River family members and re-entering will come from across the political spectrum.
It would save face and be more of a vote winner to concede now, rather than further risk angering voters and come off looking like total assholes for making the families further suffer, forcing them to fight and wait all this time to then concede.
Thus, when weighing up the balance, it’s clear conceding and entering now is the less politically damaging. Unless of course, there is actually something far worse to hide.
Why do you believe commercial interests would be pressuring National on this ?
“Better to ask Peters then “
But it was you who made the presumption.
I’m not really interested in debating National Party strategy.
Unfortunately, you brought it to the fore when you made it a key part of your presumption, thus assertion on Peters position.
Bernie Monk said that Winston is the first politician to really stand with them. What left party leaders have been to the mine site and stood with the protestors? Winnies going to do well this year, he can make principled stands and back them up.
Well, that’s a bit rich coming from Bernie Monk. Either he’s showing a political bias or he has a poor memory. Andrew Little (starting before he became leader) spent many hours/days/weeks over time talking with… comforting… trying to do everything he could to get the men back into the mine. I recall question after question after question in the debating chamber. He has never given up.
But of course Andrew doesn’t use his personal support for political gain. He just gets on with what he knows should be done. How many hours/days/weeks has Winston spent on the West Coast trying to help the victims of the tragedy?
Not to mention he was head of Epmu up at time thus is part of the story
+1000 Anne.
“He can make principled stands and back them up”
I think a number of voters will see it that way opposed to thinking it is something they will compromise on, thus making a play for National.
“Bernie Monk said that Winston is the first politician to really stand with them.”
Can you please link to that? I’d like to see the context.
“What left party leaders have been to the mine site and stood with the protestors? Winnies going to do well this year, he can make principled stands and back them up.”
If you want to support NZF go ahead. If you want a left wing govt, please stop supporting Peters’ manipulation of the electorate.
From December. Someone else can look up Labour.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1612/S00200/green-mps-to-stand-with-pike-river-families.htm
“ If you want a left wing govt, please stop supporting Peters’ manipulation of the electorate.”
How have you come to conclude Peters is manipulating the electorate? And what does that have to do with wanting a left wing Government?
Have a look over at NZF, there is a lot of left leaning policy over there.
http://www.nzfirst.org.nz/policies
They’re only Left-wing in comparison to the radical right-wing position that we’ve had since the 1980s.
Peters can choose to support the formation of a 4th term National Govt. If lefties are ok with that, that’s up to them, but I will continue to point out that that is not a left wing government.
NZF have some left wing policies, but they are centrist and Peters has made it very clear he doesn’t want NZ moving left other than in the areas he approves of i.e. a few areas of policy.
“Peters can choose to support the formation of a 4th term National Govt “
Alternatively, he could as easily decide to go with Labour.
Either way, one would expect he’ll secure some good concessions for doing so.
Nonetheless, you are correct, National and NZF wouldn’t be a left wing Government.
However, can we seriously suggest that Labour in its current form is a left wing Government?
Moreover, would Labour in its current form be (overall) any more left than a coalition between National and NZF?
The Greens may get some sway, then again Labour could decide to drop them for a deal with NZF.
If the left genuinely want a left wing Government they need to advocate for Labour to return to the left.
“NZF have some left wing policies”
Indeed they do. Some more left than Labour.
“Peters has made it very clear he doesn’t want NZ moving left “
Link for this pleases, thanks.
“Moreover, would Labour in its current form be (overall) any more left than a coalition between National and NZF?”
Labour won’t govern on its own, so that’s not really a relevant question.
L/NZF is an improvement on National. L/G a much better improvement on National. L/NZF will sit distinctly to the right of a L/G govt. Not sure about L/G/NZF.
“If the left genuinely want a left wing Government they need to advocate for Labour to return to the left.”
Something that’s been happening for quite some time already.
“NZF have some left wing policies”
Indeed they do. Some more left than Labour.
You appear to have missed my point so I will repeat what I actually said instead of the bit you cut and pasted without the rest,
NZF have some left wing policies, but they are centrist and Peters has made it very clear he doesn’t want NZ moving left other than in the areas he approves of i.e. a few areas of policy.
You can look that up for yourself if you are genuinely interested. Start with his positioning on the Greens being part of govt.
Now, if you want to argue that a L/NZF coalition is left enough for you, go ahead and make that argument. Like I said, anyone supporting Peters is supporting the potential formation of a 4th term National government, even if Peters wins a few policy baubles along the way. He’s not left wing despite his party having some left wing policies. He’s centrist by his politics, what he says and how he acts. He used to be part of the National party. This doesn’t mean he hasn’t done some useful things from a leftwing perspective, I just think it’s dangerous to be presenting him as a viable left wing vote.
More to the point, my reply to mauī, who I don’t think was presenting Peters in that way, but was supporting the memery around that, was to point out that there are other ways to do this.
How Labour position themselves is relevant if the left genuinely want a left wing Government and not just a change of Government.
“L/NZF will sit distinctly to the right of a L/G govt”
Evidence for this assertion, thanks.
“Something that’s been happening for quite some time already.”
Yet there is still too much acceptance, lowering of the bar and excuses being made, thus far more work to be done.
I didn’t miss your point. I called for you to substantiate it.
You failed to comply. I’m not wasting my time looking it up, you point me directly to it. You made the assertion, were called out on it, hence it’s up to you to back it up. Otherwise we’ll assume you made it up.
Peters is old school National at most. Which now days one could argue is as left as Labour currently is now days.
Moreover, in a number of areas he’s more left than Labour and the Greens. Therefore, if you genuinely want a left wing Government we can’t afford to rule him out and lose that strive to go further left.
L/NZF coalition is not left enough for me but it’s more left (IMO) than Labour and the Greens alone. I don’t think the Greens will secure enough. Peters has the experience and political expertise to secure more and would be an added benefit to those wanting a more left-leaning coalition (L/G/NZF).
“Evidence for this assertion, thanks.”
https://home.greens.org.nz/about/ourparty
https://home.greens.org.nz/policy
If you seriously want to argue that NZF is to the left of the GP, have at it mate.
That’s not evidence. You don’t know what influence NZF or the Greens will have on Labour. Therefore, you are merely speculating.
As to your strawman, that’s not my argument. Bringing into question your use of it.
I said in a number of areas he’s more left than Labour and the Greens.
You go away and have an argument with yourself then. I have no idea what you are on about and am sick of sharing my views and not getting anything meaningful in return. I suspect you are just trying to win an argument, or at least that’s how it comes across. Not interested.
Peters grew up during the Keynesian era and is, most likely, still heavily Keynesian. Basically, IMO, he believes in the capitalist system that was part of his life when he was a child.
I first saw the Newshub story on Winnie visiting Pike. It had this quote from Bernie Monk:
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/01/winston-peters-visits-pike-river-families-with-election-promise.html
I personally admire the stand Winston is taking by going there and I guess I feel he’s stealing a trick on the proper left wing parties who are possibly taking a more low key (cautious) approach and won’t make a song and dance about it. As someone said on here when the blockade of the mine started, where is Andrew Little? He should be flying down there right now to show his support.
The move Winston’s made is bold, with great optics, possibly something a Mana Party might try. I just think people looking for a change of Government are more likely to buy into what he’s doing than the Greens and Labour meeting with families at Parliament. I’m all for a proper left wing Government, but Winnie could be the best out of the three parties at the marketing game.
Well I agree with that last sentence. Will you vote for him then?
Anne @ 6.4.1
“Well, that’s a bit rich coming from Bernie Monk. Either he’s showing a political bias or he has a poor memory. Andrew Little (starting before he became leader) spent many hours/days/weeks over time talking with… comforting… trying to do everything he could to get the men back into the mine. I recall question after question after question in the debating chamber. He has never given up.
But of course Andrew doesn’t use his personal support for political gain. He just gets on with what he knows should be done. How many hours/days/weeks has Winston spent on the West Coast trying to help the victims of the tragedy?”
“OPPOSITION COMMITS TO RE-ENTRY”
“The victims’ families held a protest outside Parliament this afternoon. Speaking to the crowd, Little promised that a Labour Government would get an independent assessment of the mine and re-enter it if it was declared safe. It would be “one of the first things we will do”, he said.
“I’ve seen your report, I’ve seen the plan, I’ve heard from other experts myself, and they all tell me it is possible to go down that drift safely to have a look.”
<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11766138
Problem: National changed the law that effectively made it illegal to re-enter the mine.
“There is a terrible irony for the Pike River families that the new legislation which came about as a result of the tragedy is now preventing the re-entry to the mine they are pushing for.
In deciding not to allow re-entry to the mine, Solid Energy will be concerned about breaching the Act.
Unlike previous legislation the Act carries hefty penalties, and by allowing people into the mine when they know it to be dangerous, Solid Energy could face severe sanctions.
The Act has a wide scope, placing duties to ensure safety in the workplace, so far as reasonably practicable, on any person conducting a business or undertaking. Now individuals involved with the management of businesses can face penalties personality.
Conduct that is reckless as to the risk of death, serious injury, or serious illness (and certainly knowing the risk places Solid Energy in that category) carries a fine of up to $3 million, or for an individual, a $600,000 fine and/or five years imprisonment.
So if Solid Energy has a report from experts telling them it is not safe to re-enter the mine, they would be taking a huge risk to ignore that advice.
Under the Act it is not necessary for someone to actually be killed or injured in the workplace for sanctions to be imposed. Failure to comply with a duty to ensure health and safety, which exposes persons to the risk of death, serious injury or illness, carries a fine of up to $1.5m or $300,000 for individuals.
Even if no one is exposed to the risk of death, serious injury or serious illness, but a duty within the Act is not complied with, you can be fined up to $500,000, or $100,000 for individuals.
Solid Energy would face huge liability if the mine was re-entered, not to mention how disastrous it would be if harm to more people occurred in Pike River.”
<a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/87770769/peter-cullen-solid-energy-runs-huge-legal-risk-reentering-pike-river-mine
“Labour leader Andrew Little has also fired back at Peters, saying Peters’ comments about being among the first to re-enter the mine were “cheap”.
“One thing I am never going to be challenged by Winston on is my commitment to Pike River. And the difference between me and Winston Peters is I wasn’t sitting in a Cabinet in the 1990s that undermined our health and safety regulations in mine regulations, specifically,” Little told the Herald.”
“This is a serious issue. Put aside the, I thought, cheap call about Winston leading a team in there – that is disrespectful to the mines rescue folks and others who are experts – you do want the best possible decision to be made.”
“Little has promised that a Labour Government would get an independent assessment of the mine, and re-enter it if it was declared safe.”
“Little said there were two conflicting streams of advice, and the best way to make a decision was to get an independent report. The Pike River families had accepted that position when he had spoken to them, he added.”
<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11782762
Peters has fully committed to re-entry.
Labour have committed to having an independent assessment done and only re-entering if it’s deemed safe.
“Little has promised that a Labour Government would get an independent assessment of the mine, and re-enter it if it was declared safe.”
Whereas, Peters said we’re not interested in anything other than to ensure that advice that you’ve got that you can go in is in fact followed. Stating he won’t go into coalition with any party that doesn’t support what the families are trying to achieve.
Therefore, while Little has shown support and is prepared to have an independent assessment done, Peters has gone further, backing the report the family members have already had done and making re-entry a bottom line on any coalition deal.
Clearly, this is the stake in the ground Monk is referring too.
Given National’s hard line stance on Pike River, that knocks out a marriage with Peters and the Nats then doesn’t it?
Unless they fill the whole thing with concrete I’m pretty sure it will be possible to unseal it.
“Unless they fill the whole thing with concrete I’m pretty sure it will be possible to unseal it.”
Concrete, 20-metres thick, apparently.
So, difficult but not impossible.
That’s two cuts, two shifts, 24 hours, easy work boytee
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere Draco TB @ 6.5 that once the entrance is sealed, it’ll be very difficult to unseal it. And that will be done before the election.
That’s why I think Winston made his “pledge” – it won’t happen. so he’ll be safe enough if he goes with the Nats to form a 4th govt, and he won’t care a damn about his unworkable pledge.
With no disrespect intended Jenny, but I can’t see Winston Peters going with the Nats to form a 4th govt.
“Dean quickly fires a question back: “And that includes if you join up with the National Party at the election next year?”
Mr Peters is visibly taken aback, and retorts with political talk. “I’m here to fix your problem, not negotiate the next election with a failed government. Make no bones about it,” says Mr Peters.”
<a href="http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2016/12/inside-winston-peters-private-meeting-with-pike-river-families.html
Sorry Leftie – Peters is playing a political game. There is absolutely no guarantee he’ll go with Labour and the Greens, and it is quite possible he’ll go with the major Party which will give him the best opportunity to be one of the top players. National will do anything to stay in power – even sacrificing one of their people to give up a major spot in the limelight, to let Peters in.
That’s Peters’ nature, and he hasn’t changed. There’s also speculation that Shane Jones will be standing for NZF in Whangarei – and he is rightwing, and would be willing to go with the Nats too. I just don’t trust Peters – he is too glib and too willing to jump onto the latest bandwagon.
And the media are also playing him up as so-called kingmaker again – which, naturally, pushes him into the limelight and higher in the polls. The media, as we all know, is pro-Nats so its an interesting trend that they’re also being pro-Peters at the moment.
What’s more, Peters comments about Andrew Little at that Pike River meeting were uncomplimentary and were also untrue. Why did Peters find it necessary to say what he did about Little ? If not, because he sees him as a rival.
Do you think with John key gone, (after he ran away), many in National will see it as a way clear for Peter’s to support National?
Yes, Leftie.
And I also see in today’s Herald that Shane Jones is not seeking another term as Ambassador to the Pacific nor looking for a job in the current Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so that makes it even more likely he’ll be running in Whangarei for NZF against the Nats Shane Reti (who local gossip says has disappointed the Nats but they’re just leaving him be for this election, and It’ll be a different story/ Nat candidate next election) .
This speculation locally – if correct eventually – also indicates NZF will look favourably at the Nats.
Thanks for the enlightening posts Jenny.
Chinese state media….oh boy….
Nominee for US secretary of state Rex Tillerson uttered astonishing statements during his confirmation hearing with the Senate on Wednesday. He likened China’s island-building in the South China Sea to “Russia’s taking of Crimea,” and said the new US government would send China a clear signal that “first the island building stops, and second your access to those islands is also not going to be allowed.”
[…]
China has enough determination and strength to make sure that his rabble rousing will not succeed. Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea, any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish.
The US has no absolute power to dominate the South China Sea. Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories. Probably he just has oil prices and currency rates in his mind as former ExxonMobil CEO.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1028568.shtml
Which of the other declared 2017 Mt Albert by-election candidates are going to stand up and be counted, to
STOP NIKI’S EVICTION?
_____________________________
2017 Independent candidate for Mt Albert Penny Bright calls on all decent, concerned citizens to help defend Niki Rauti – this really gutsy (former) State tenant, who is refusing to budge, and making a brave stand against the privatisation of State housing and ‘democracy for developers’!
WHEN: Tuesday 17 January 2017
TIME: 6pm
WHERE: Assemble outside Glen Innes Public Library – to march to 14 Taniwha St, Glen Innes.
North Dakota Republicans’ new idea for managing the Dakota Access Pipeline protestors: just let anybody mow ’em down with their cars and trucks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bill-would-legalize-accidentally-driving-into-and-killing-protesters_us_587a3dabe4b0e58057ff1ebc?j1shw9gh95vkl9dx6r
I wonder if the US and others are going to put the same emphasis on this as Duterte shooting of drug dealers.
Dodgy David Miscavige appears to be coming to Auckland to open his Cults latest brainwashing establishment
The opening of this sick cult’s new headquarters is just another reminder of the consequences of living in a country without decent rules and regulations.
It won’t kill people like Pike River, forestry and farming.
it won’t bankrupt you like leaky homes and South Canterbury Finance.
But it will destroy your life.
Neoliberalism allows all these poisons in our lives.
Just liberalism, not neo-liberalism. As a liberal democracy, we have freedom of religion, which means you can’t ban people from spreading delusional bullshit for profit. For my money, if we did decide to trash freedom of religion in NZ, Muslim preachers would be the top priority – they’re much more of a threat than Scientologists.
Scientology is a racket.
I would follow the German policy and treat it as a subversive organisation.
From Wikipedia.
‘German officials sharply rejected the accusations. They said that Germany guarantees the freedom of religion, but characterized Scientology as a profit-making enterprise, rather than a religion, and emphasized that precisely because of Germany’s Nazi past, Germany took a determined stance against all “radical cults and sects, including right-wing Nazi groups”, and not just against Scientology. According to a 1997 Time magazine article, most Germans consider Scientology a subversive organization, with pollsters reporting 70% popular support for banning Scientology in Germany.’
.
what actions did they take then?
Is it less of a profit-making enterprise than Destiny Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints? Germany has much weaker protections for civil liberties than we do (notably relating to freedom of expression, but also in general). It’s great that those weaker protections mean they can ban Scientology, but overall I’d rather have our stronger protection.
I’m pretty sure that, even under our present protections, we can should be able to ban something that causes serious psychological harm and even death to people which Scientology arguably does.
I doubt it. Islam also causes serious psychological harm and even death, but it would be illegal to ban it.
I belive in freedom of religion, just not man’s selective interpretation of their “good book”. For me it’s all or nothing, don’t pick and choose what messages suit your lifestyle.
“…which means you can’t ban people from spreading delusional bullshit for profit..”
We could tax them though.
Could and should – all of them. Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would result…
We could set up a wailing wall!
Yes lets build a wall..and we can get them to pay for it 🙂
You’ll thank us later when every one is making money
Scientology is sinister form of control. They want to dedicate an entire floor to ‘auditing’, by crikey would love to be a fly on that wall.
Auditing is telling someone everything, everything. It’s the scientology form of a ‘confessional’, only with auditing, they tape record everything, everything. Imagine the leverage this gives the auditors, the control, the power.
The best information I’ve found yet on this CULT is the documentary series, Leah Remini Scientology and the Aftermath which hit screens in the USA late last year.
Highly recommended listen/viewing. Leah is an American Actress that faithfully followed Scientology for 35 years, she left the Cult a couple of years back.
Edit… try this link to watch the full series
http://putlocker-movies.is/tvshows/leah-remini-scientology-and-the-aftermath/
Interesting timing don’t you think? But is it ominous?
Are we about to witness a Dallas?
Or a coup d’état by other means?
“”It doesn’t make sense to can the general in the middle of an active deployment,” rages D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) after Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, who heads the D.C. National Guard and is an integral part of overseeing the inauguration, has been ordered removed from command effective Jan. 20, 12:01 p.m., just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president.
‘As The Washington Post reports, Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz’s departure will come in the midst of the presidential ceremony, classified as a national special security event — and while thousands of his troops are deployed to help protect the nation’s capital during an inauguration he has spent months helping to plan.’
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-13/dc-national-guard-chief-fired-days-trump-inauguration-timing-extremely-unusual
It’s what any newly elevated leader of a banana republic worth his salt does, purge the military.
or maybe you are just here to witness a beating of demonstrators that will come the day following the inauguration?
this guy was appointed by Bush in 2004, he is not a democratic appointee, but someone who has risen through the ranks to his current position.
or might that interfere with current conspiracies?
actually as per this guy this is standard operational procedure.
As the guy is appointed, he has submitted his resignation which a. can be accepted – which is what the Trump Transition team has done, or b. not be accepted and will be reconfirmed by Congress – what Obama has done over his two terms as again just for the record – this General was appointed by Bush the younger.
But in saying that, while it should not affect security – if the General has done a good job all his underlings will continue to do their job even without him present, come 12.01 the turd is responsible for what ever happens.
Quote: “He wasn’t fired.
He submitted a letter of resignation per normal procedure.
The new administration accepted his resignation as is its right.
It is unlikely in the extreme that resignation will affect security of the nation’s capital in any way.
Errol Schwartz is retiring with honor after 40 years of service. He’s a Major General, his retirement pay is in the six figure range with full benefits. He’s a talented man of many, many skills who will have his choice of any number of high paying jobs should he chose to return to civilian employment. It’s not like he’s going to be out on the street, living in a box and eating out of dumpsters behind the Pentagon.
If — IF — that decision does affect security during the inauguration, well, then that’s entirely on Donald Trump, because at 12:01 he’s in charge.”
Anonymous throws Assange under the bus –
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/13/1620270/–Anonymous-squeals-on-Wikileaks-Julian-Assange
– paranoia?.
Squeals? Is this primary school? 😉
Interesting tweets sequence.
I see the Herald is trying to make something positive about Blinglish”s UK visit but he got diddly squat out of the UK PM for more working rights for Kiwis in the UK. Also noticed in yesterday’s Herald that John Key was absent from the “royal wedding” in NZ yesterday because he was boarding a plane from London to chair the International Democrat Union meeting for this year in Munich. It would seem that the ex PM is as hard right as we always thought and intends to stay that way with all the filthy rich “influential” so called heads of companies getting their heads to together to plan world domination.
I did think it was a cunning move of the ex PM to endorse Blinglish – its pretty obvious the ex PM was put in place to patsy up to the people, get them mung beaned out on his whacky aw shucks sort of manner and then hand over the job to a dry hard right wing zealot to finish the job off properly for his overseas masters. I think I may be becoming a conspiracy theorist in my old age – but I do think there is a measure of truth in what I am surmising.
I see the Herald is trying to make something positive about Blinglish”s UK visit but he got diddly squat out of the UK PM for more working rights for Kiwis in the UK
Give us an idea of what English should have offered or done?
The comment is on the Herald’s obsequious sucking up to the Nats.
Do you think English could have got a better deal for kiwis wanting to work in the UK?
what do you think?
It’s all down to Theresa May, all Bill English can do is ask and see what she says.
National is all about getting the deal, but it is apparent they can’t really do that.
They can only get deals for NZers if the offer is already on the table, or it costs the other party less to provide it than it does to give.
But hey, credit where credit is due.
None given because none is deserved – unless the Herald decides to spin it as good.
There’s BM deflecting again. More important is what that shithead Key is up to.
“more important is what that shithead Key is up”
Yes Garibaldi, see my post below – I am still waiting for BM’s reply to the PM’s little trip to Munich.
Did English go to Munich?
I have no idea but it wouldn’t surprise me the two met and conspired as they do. By the way why didn’t the Herald publish that Key had gone there, it was hidden in the gossip about the royal wedding in Wanaka. Being an ex PM it was newsworthy enough that we are told he is still involving himself in some high power pretty stinky stuff in his holiday time.
No I don’t think he could have done better, but the Herald should have called it like it was – not tried to place spin around the trip as being successful. No opposition parties in this country have a hope with our biased useless MSM and BM you should acknowledge that – even poor witted people can see it.
How do you explain your precious ex PM’s actions fraternising with that repugnant International Democrat Union – does it make you feel good?
ahh, priorities
Make America Porn free Again! 🙂
i wonder how that will go down with the turds supporters 🙂
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-porn-free-america-republicans-pledge-expurgation_us_58755de8e4b065be69099018?k656m9ednio2edn29
Porn free America? Heh. Good luck with that. I’m sure closet homosexual awash with self-loathing, Pastor Ted Haggard, will be right behind that endeavour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard
The Far North is in the grip of a severe drought.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11781786
December rainfall in Kereikeri is the lowest since records began in 1935.
( A comment elsewhere on the web from a resident saying he was too scared to leave his property because of the extreme fire risk gives a clue about how real the danger is.)
Combined with the summer influx of tourists, water supplies are low…and even rural dwellers with their own tanks are being told to conserve their water as town supplies are being impacted by countryfolk needing the truck out to put water in their tanks.
All sounding a bit grim.
We are going to have to stop taking our water supply for granted.
Seriously. maybe we should all practice water conservation/awareness by occasionally trying to use the barest minimum of water each day. when we’re living in our Bus, we can get by on less than 10 litres each per day.
I agree about water conservation. I also think that while the rainfall is lower than in the previous century, it’s land use that is creating the drought. Changing land use will not only conserve water but make ecosystems and human communities more resilient.
Check out the Metvuw 10 day forecast: tropical storm coming up.
http://www.metvuw.com/forecast/forecast.php?type=rain®ion=nzni&noofdays=8
It’s been persisting here in the Waikato today but I suspect that front will bypass the North.
I hope I’m wrong, because Mangawhai residents are having to wait for tanker deliveries because the water carriers have been shut out from the taps in Wellsford and Snells Beach. Trucks are having to go to Silverdale to fill up.
Cost of 10,000 litres gone up from $200 to $600.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11782730
Agree with you, Rosemary McD. It is very very dry here in Whangarei, and whenever any rain looks as if its on the horizon …… it just peeters away somewhere to the south.
Not only tough on farmers, tough on gardeners too. We moved here a year ago and put in a stack of little orchard trees and others …… have been building up the mulch around them to give them some protection, but they still need watering every so often.
There is a company here in the Waikato that cleans plastic and steel drums.
I wouldn’t use them to store drinking water…but we did buy a heap after the 2007/8 drought here and hooked them together and connected them to the wee chookhouse, another bank to the wee hot house and yet another behind the garden shed. Only used for the chooks and the garden.
Our big concrete inground tanks used only for the house.
I’ve sat and watched rain travel along distant ranges with bated breath…hoping, just hoping. We’re heading back up your way in a few weeks, I’ll try and drag a cloud or two along….;-)
I was at Port albert a few days ago, all the grass was brown tree’s were green but the land was dry as a bone. It did look pretty bad up there, and that’s not really North it’s just Wellsford really.
Port Albert…has hosted two weary travelers, exhausted after battling Auckland traffic on our way Up North on many occasions. I hope you read up about the history of the place. there are descendants of those early settlers still in the area…real characters!
Is it just me or did everyone’s avatars just change?
Let’s see.
edit: nope, just you.
probably an improvement
(it might affect others with logins, there was a funny login glitch there for a moment).
You used to be green, and now you’re blue. Metiria Turei and James Shaw would not approve.
Lol, I was thinking it was a deep purple which possibly means I’m still an old hippie. Besides the old green was a bit viridian 😉
test
damn.
Sweden: ‘six-hour days could positively reboot working life’
The ‘working harder for longer’ only ever benefits those who aren’t doing the work.
Oh dear.
The fact is that although NZ labour is not a Socialist Party its is the only Party Socialists can belong too.So it’s up to us Socialist to join Labour and make sure that we have a fair amount of Socialist policies .If we want to move the Labour Party further Left its up to us . the NZ Labour party is a Democratic Party so join and move it to the Left.
Yep – The PP – the more socialists who join up with Labour, the more “left” it will be able to be.
Or they could join the Greens
Or Mana
Or even the Internet Party.
Socialists actually have choice as to which party to support. Perhaps the problem is that many socialists think like you do and only believe that Labour is the only socialist party.
Interesting read for those following gender identity politics. This is very US, and reminds me of the political chaos happening there where boundaries around belief and theory are being broken down and power is up for grabs by vested interests while the liberals are still just confused as fuck.
http://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/01/13/todays-shameless-lesbians-wont-queered/
Just reads as the usual transphobic stuff. Which is sad, because it’s rooted in misogynistic ideals, the very thing that the author is trying to fight against.
Not sure about that. I though the author was attempting to draw a line in the sand and at the same time not centre that in the usual transphobia (I thought the transphobia didn’t come out until the comments). Although obviously she is part of the feminist and lesbian culture that is pushing back against parts of transgender politics/culture. What did you see as transphobic? I’m curious because I’m interested in how the issues she raises can be discussed without being transphobic.
It’s all couched in the concept that there’s this army of trans women amassing just over the hill, and they’ve infiltrated the sacred land of lesbians, but the trans women are secretly evil men come to wreck everything with patriarchy. When really trans women just want to not be treated like shit.
Ok, so there are sides and people are choosing them. I’d like to see feminists like her move further to make the arguments less against trans women and more about the specific issues, but I still think it was a shift from some of the stuff I’ve seen (the overt TERF positions for instance).
“When really trans women just want to not be treated like shit.”
Not sure we can generalise to that degree How do you explain some of the issues raised in the post?
why of course it was just playful pinching the genitals. Why do silly women think that that would be ‘assault’ if someone grabs and pinches their genitals. And besides don’t they know that they know live in a new time and pc is out and grabbing and pinching of genitals is in. Repeat after me. Its playful pinching. Not assault.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/conn-republican-arrested-for-grabbing-womans-genitals-his-lawyer-says-it-was-a-playful-gesture/
Well, if Key could get away with repeatedly tugging on that poor waitress’s pony tail, what’s to stop a US Republican from going the whole hog with a full-on crotch-grab? Americans have never been a people to do things by halves. And now we have Trump leading by example. It’s all downhill from here.
When I was young we were out in Sunderland and my mate pinched a cop in the fanny..you should have seen how they over-reacted, or not..he was pretty pissed, but I think he was sober as a judge by the time he got in the paddy wagon LMFAO
Urine, urine, urine…..
and it appears that someone in the
turds team realized that not having someone responsible for security during the inauguration would make the turd team responsible should something happen.
so they now have asked him to stay for a few days longer.
the whole turd team is really just a pathetic bunch of urinators.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trump-transition-team-says-it-asked-dc-national-guard-general-to-stay/2017/01/14/c0aa76b2-da80-11e6-9a36-1d296534b31e_story.html?postshare=7121484452754387&tid=ss_tw
When Tyranny Takes hold