Today is one of the most famous anniversaries in the history of the New Zealand Trade Union Movement.
Today, the 15th of February 1951, is the very day, 61 years ago that marked the start of the 1951 lockout.
Sixty one years ago today, eight thousand wharfies were locked out of their jobs for 151 days from the 15th of February to 15th of July 1951.
The similarities don’t stop with the date.
On this day 61 years ago the entire waterfront workforce was dismissed to destroy the union.
Today in a copy of those employer tactics of the past, the whole Maritime Union workforce at the Ports of Auckland is to be dismissed to destroy the union.
Three days after the 1951 lockout began the National government declared a state of emergency, making it illegal to publicise the workers point of view.
Today in a copy of those tactics of the past, Ports of Auckland Ltd. is using an injunction to make it illegal to publicise the workers point of view.
Today in a deliberate copy of the union tactics of the past. The Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) has just as the Watersiders Union did in 1951, have called, for a partial strike. (In 1951 while making themselves available for normal duties the wharfies refused all overtime beyond 40 hours. Today while making themselves available for normal duties the wharfies are refusing to do any work on containers handled by contractors.)
In drawing attention to the obvious parralels between the two disputes, The Watersiders are giving their answer to those in the Labour Party and on this website who argue that this dispute “ain’t” nothing like 1951 therefore we should withhold our support.
Eddie in his post “1951 it ain’t, for now” argued that the Greens and Occupy and Labour should withhold their support from the wharfies.
One of the reasons Eddie gave for not supporting the wharfies was the difference in scale. Eddie said it is only 300 workers in one port.
Only 300 workers in one port are involved at present and there have been a few hours delays for a handful of ships on the 5 days of striking.
EDDIE: “1951 it ain’t, for now”
The differences Eddie highlights are quantative but not qualitive, (the sheer differences in numbers reflecting the huge increases in productivity between now and then).
Now as then, this is a fight to the death, for the soul and even the existence of a watersider union on the waterfront.
Now as then, win or lose, this dispute will have far reaching consequences for the whole union movement in this country.
Jenny do you have a link to details about the injunction preventing the distribution of information? Seems awfully undemocratic. Surely the Herald should be running a campaign!
And “Ports of Auckland Management confirmed to Lloyd’s List Australia it had filed for an injunction to prevent workers speaking publicly about the dispute.”
A little way away in a far off country a daily newspaper headline read “Memorandum Macht Frei”. For anybody who believes that a Chamberlain approach to far off places can come back to bite you very hard this should raise alarm bells.
Greece this morning is in turmoil, the end result of a romance with free and easy credit from banks. From the lie of perpetual growth to pay for all. From the corruption of financialisation of whole economies.
This is the lie Key has sold us too, tax cuts through borrowing, money for the wealthy, supposedly to “trickle” down. “Growth” to pay and create jobs. At some point the receiever comes to the door…”Mr Key, you failed to pay us the interest….bail out with austerity for the poor attached”.
Athens coming to NZ soon, courtesy of the National Party.
New Zealand government official stats show $318 billion NZ originated private institution credit money. They then treat as assets and deduct what has been invested overseas and come up with what they call Net International Investment Position which appears much less alarming despite that money competting to find profit in an international financial system where the international debt is also unrepayable from the day its born.
Even if the foreign investments from NZ where able to be repatriated in quick time they would come back to only the wealthiest few who control them and not benefit wider society as implied. Just more smoke and mirrors; http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/ParlSupport/ResearchPapers/3/4/6/00PlibCIP121-New-Zealand-s-International-Investment-Position.htm
$318 billion debt based money supply at annual interest rate of 7% equals $22 odd billion interest repayment that is essentially rent upon a revolving line of credit that circulates as our money supply.
Given most of that interest finds its way back to the same largest owners of larger international banks who own largest stake holdings in Australian banks who own NZ banks, it puts to shame the 1.3 billion they give back in tax and shout from the roof tops as being so beneficial to the prosperity of the nation
Partial strike action commences today at the Port of Auckland.Our members are refusing to service any cargo on or off Connlinx trucks.This is a company 90% owned by the Port of Auckland.The company contracted the containing moving in the Port out to themselves and made our members who used to undertake this work redundant.Tomorrow any machine that touches cargo off this company will be blacked.
Talk back radio and blog sites like the sewer have a lot to answer for. They have unleashed
a nasty, mean and selfish trait in the New Zealand psyche. It is appalling to hear what is being expressed regarding Mojo Mathers and the issues in the house. $30,000??? WTF. (Noone appears to have batted an eyelid over the obscene amounts of profit the banks are salting away…)
They of course ignore the fact that Bill English is being paid $30,000 per annum to live in the house he owns and which was paid for by 20 years of rorting.
Of course they do, if they didn’t then they’d have to face the fact that their self-selected leaders are corrupt and there’s no way that they will do that.
“Revising conventional wisdom on cats, media
from NewsCred Blog
02/14/2012
Contrary to common wisdom, cats make you popular — particularly online.”
This little gem comes from the same page linked to by felix above. Does it explain Key’s popularity when he talked about his cat on the infamous radio hour?
Does it explain felix’s popularity online?
As for the article on pseudonymity itself, are both researcher and article writer confusing ‘quality’ with ‘popularity’? The quality of a comment was gauged by whether it got a positive as in a ‘like’ or whether it got a negative rating or was dumped as spam. That seems like a popularity rating and not a
way of rating of quality which should be independent of popularity but judged on intrinsic factors.
Yeah surely quality is fairly subjective anyway. I agree it seems more like a popularity index, but I guess they’re just measuring what can be measured.
In 1951, at least, the word ain’t was a contraction of the words am not and definitely not is not. 1951 it ain’t, translates: 1951, it am not.
These days, any word can mean anything a person wants it to, which is the least of our problems since a writer can now uz txt spk qwite ezi. No one seems to have issues with using don’t and didn’t and now those of you who aren’t asleep can use ain’t correctly, too.
In 1695 “an’t” was used as a contraction of “am not”, and as early as 1696 “an’t” was used to mean “are not”. “An’t” for “is not” may have developed independently from its use for “am not” and “are not”.
The only place I can think of, apart from songs, where it is still in common usage is in the saying “Ain’t that the truth.” Songs, though, show where it is able to make sense. It ain’t me babe = It is not me babe. Ain’t misbehavin’= I am not misbehaving, etc.
Yeah that’s the post modern anything means anything approach. The Right uses it so easily and so blatantly to steal the language and symbolism of the Left and twists it for its own uses. And usually, the Left sits back and let it happen.
It is not quite the same thing, although I appreciate your point. “Ain’t” is an old fashioned slang word that is able to be used in various places where a contracted “not” is in order. Whereas the right recontextualises left wing concepts so as to rob them of their original meaning. Freedom from bondage is applied to the “free market” for example, and a woman’s right to paid work justifies the pitchforking of solo mothers into low-paid insecure jobs, etc. It works best where it is subtle, and draws the left into a conversation that it didn’t intend to have. The left wing concern about children going hungry, for example, implies that the poor need more money, but is likely to be translated by the right into the idea that the poor need more policing. And then the left finds itself disarmed. You said you wanted us to do something about child poverty, say the right. Well we’re doing something. The good thing about the Occupy Movement is that it has created a conceptual space that cannot easily be appropriated in this way.
These days, any word can mean anything a person wants it to, which is the least of our problems since a writer can now uz txt spk qwite ezi. No one seems to have issues with using don’t and didn’t and now those of you who aren’t asleep can use ain’t correctly, too.
I do! I very much have an issue with errors, especially those involving apostrophes and contractions.. (It’s part Aspergers and part being an English teacher and I never use ain’t!
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 6.3.1
The people who think anarchism is chaos also shriek that socialism will force “everyone to live in caves”. The problem is they just can’t grasp that alternative, sometimes more effective, ways of living existed before capitalism came along.
From the article you link to there is a comment on how guilds operated:
“…sovereign in its own sphere, but could not develop rules that interfered with the workings of other guilds. ”
Capitalism, or “growth”, depends on people being allowed to steal from and interfere with the property and rules of their neighbour. The wail of “living in caves” is the fear that theft would once again be called theft.
Thanks UTurn, its amazing how labels stick. Socialist states and capitalist states hate anarchism in equal doses, it is the devil incarnate to both parties.
At the heart of the issue is the point you make: respect for the rules and property. Capitalist / corporate / socialist states manage this through coercion, as represented by the mechanisms and the power of the state. That individuals might manage these affairs removes the “power” from their central control. A totally heretic position….God forbid you dont follow blind dogma.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed how often anarchist sentiment is tapped into by politicians who seek popular support for their programmes?
ACT (and just about every other right wing libertarian outfit I’ve come across) do it extensively. And L’nin (that lovely left wing Authoritarian) did it too. In fact, if you listen closely, the ideas and sentiments of anarchy are all over the political sphere.
But people seeking power over others need to ensure there is never any political expression of the underlying ideas or concepts they dress their political shit up in. So the terms of ‘anarchist’ or ‘anarchy’ are demonised and cast aside in order that their conceptual basis can be quietly and safely trawled, twisted and finally processed as unrecognisable end products (Right Wing Libertarianism or Corporatism on the one hand and Dictatorial Socialist States on the other.)
Interestingly, the internet is essentially an functioning Anarchy – currently being reigned in with the likes of failed SOPA, PIPPA and impending ACTA – perhaps because it is teaching a working Anarchsit model to the generation who has grown up on it.
The Occupy movement is essentially an Anarchist movement, spearheaded and conceived by Anarchists, and it’s defining feature is Direct (consensus based ) Democracy. The other thing technology seems to have taught this generation which certainly didn’t come from their Libertarian Babyboomer parents is sharing.
Yet of coarse the pop understanding of Anarchisim suggests it is incongruous with Democracy..
Actually, this boomer was well into anarchism in my 20s, especially anarcho-syndicalism. And back then, I knew a few of my age group, and some slightly younger uni students who were strong advocates of anarchism too, both HEre and in London. London feminists (full of boomers Iin the late 70s & early 80s) tended to be describe the women’s movement as operating according to anarchist principles.
I suspect that many younger folk may not fully embrace anarchism as a principle, even though they are strongly into the Internet. But I welcome the re-invigoration of anarchist ideas that the Internet has brought.
Individualist liberals and libertarian boomers were a much stronger feature in the US than in NZ or the UK.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting these ideas or radicalism is in any way new, what I’m suggesting is interesting is that they’re being ingested as a way of being as a byproduct of the way we interact with technology.
Re the Babyboomer dig, that’s a generalization obviously, of coarse much social progress was made by those who engaged..
Well it also isn’t that much of a correct generalisation of comparative generalisations of different generations. It’s by no means that clear-cut, and it ignores the strong and dominant political forces coming from the wealthy and powerful elites.
I see too much re-writing of history about boomers. The whole hippy movement, even in individualist US, was about sharing, helping others, and about rejecting materialist acquisition of wealth. It was a time when there was much media and popular attention given to the hippy, grass-roots, commune movement, for instance, and many young kiwis got into that.
Unfortunately, some who were well into that (eg Tim Shadbolt and his rural commune), later got absorbed into the neoliberal system – a shift which came from the elites above, in contrast to the more grass roots hippy movement.
Nevertheless, as a result of boomer-dominated hippy anti-materialist, left-leaning values, notions of sharing and a gift economy were built into the Internet architecture and gave rise to such notions as open source software.
And while many people today have absorbed some of the sharing fundamentals built into the Internet architecture, at the same time have absorbed (shonkey) individualist, materially and financially acquisitive neoliberal values.
I’m afraid the destruction wrought by the majority of the babyboomer generation far outweighs any good the minority of the countercoultre achieved. As the planet is testament.
PS: the geeks who laid down the original architect of the Internet, were grad students and others around the Paolo Alta-Silicon Valley area, who were strongly influenced by the Californian hippy ideals of the time, and that influenced the anarchistic elements that underlie the Internet today.
A wee side note relating to the article. What Darwin was saying by ‘survival of the fittest’ was that what fitted best was what survived; not that everything had to fight and struggle for survival and dominance
Bill @7.3. He also highlighted the part that chance plays. A tiny modification way back could have caused say horses to be the dominant species and humanoids faded out. A biologist much younger than Darwin (working in Indonesia I think) floated the idea of survival of the fittest to Darwin when writing to him years before Darwin published. Darwin of course gets the credit but he did not mean that the toughest, meanest fight the way to the top, although looking at humanity these days you might wonder. Politics huh?
He found the view of the social Darwinists contradicted by his own empirical research. After five years examining wildlife in Siberia, Kropotkin wrote, “I failed to find – although I was eagerly looking for it – that bitter struggle for the means of existence…which was considered by most Darwinists…as the dominant characteristic – and the main factory of evolution.”
Kropotkin honored Darwin’s insights about natural selection but believed the governing principle of natural selection was cooperation, not competition. The fittest were those who cooperated.
“The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. … The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay.”
Social Darwinists still exist although the term has dropped from common usage – their natural home in NZ is now in National and Act. And they’re as wrong today as they were a hundred years ago.
Kropotkin forms a large basis of my thoughts on the matter of governance and society.
Yes, “survival of the fittest” means, those species most suited to survive in a given environment – it’s species level, and not about individual strength etc.
It is quite clear that one of the main reasons for human ‘advancement’ over other species has been its internal cooperation and not its internal competition.
That certain people alive today cannot see this dooms their own survival – which is in fact to the betterment of wider human survival and advancement of course. The fewer of these buffoons around the better.
Lprent,
Is there any way of measuring the number of external links followed by readers on a blog like this?
It would be interesting to know the number of different links, and the total number followed, as part of the bigger picture including visits and page view numbers.
Just curious really. And procrastinating something much more important…
Yes. We have that on several stats packages. The WP stats does it. For instance in the last 30 days, these are the top clicks from the body of the site (posts, comments, blogrolls) and note that these are the actual landing pages…
As you can see we generate a lot of clicks, but the fall off is pretty rapid. Yesterday for instance we did about 450 clicks out over about 200 links (over half only got one click).
If we look over the last year, we basically see the blogroll
I also jigged the system for google analytics to also do be able to do outward click analysis long ago. They have some more useful stats about paths people tended to take through and out of the site. Which is why I know that most of the readers use the front page to land, and select a post, and then use next and previous posts rather than navigating up and down. But there really isn’t a strong pattern for clickouts.
Of course we’re only really seeing what sites people navigated to from clicks on this site, and it excludes the ads.
Surprising. I thought sites like facebook would feature more prominently with the links to parliamentary clips etc.
It seems most visitors don’t follow links, even those within the body of blog posts (with some exceptions). I guess it’s mainly a matter of time and personal interest. Personally I love the links and some commenters on open mike provide some beauties too.
The more I follow things online, the less I follow the mainstream media. Seldom watch the TV news, but when I catch it I feel like I’m living in a parallel universe.
Facebook doesn’t get many outgoing links. However we do get a lot of incoming links from them. Since I put the recommendatory buttons in, it has gone from being a low contender to being second after the search engines.
Just been reading about Russia in the 50s and 60s. An intense drive to increase outputs of goods was spurred on by bonus payments to managers who met the annual targets of production. So Performance Pay is a Communist construct! The difference was that in Russia defined targets had to be met whereas here Bonus to Bankers, CEOs, Consultants are paid regardless of success.
Bring on the Commies!
Seems to be a common theme when reading such articles often contain sentences such as “This is the type of idiocy that passes as policy in the eurozone. ” – People like to fob off bad decision making as some sort of accident…
At what point will people come to realise that there is much more at play than “idiocy” when making decisions.
At what point does the continual “idiocy” beceome a deliberate act? 5, 10, 20, 30 years recently…..
Justice Miller said the application for review was granted and the decision by Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson and Associate Finance Minister Jonathan Coleman was set aside.
The judge directed that the ministers reconsider the application by Shanghai Pengxin subsidiary Milk New Zealand.
I may get repititive but it is for very good and simple reason…… namely, that having land owned by people who do not live in New Zealand is bad for New Zealand.
And they don’t even NEED to own the land. They claim they are investing in business, right? So invest ion the business, but they don’t need to own the land to do that.
Keep the issue alive! It is one of some paths to greater prosperity, of that there is no doubt.
I have had a quick squizz at the judgment. Justice Millar seems to be saying that the Ministers overstated the economic benefits of the purchase. The same benefits would have been available if the local bidder bought the farms. Interesting decision …
So if the ministry overstated ecenomic benefits, thats just a flash way to say “they lied” no!
The “It will create jobs” , followed by, there might be 2 possibly 3 training positions really was a give away to the fact that someone was talking CRAP!
Let’s have all the BS come out now, and lets watch the spin machine in action again!
I found the court summary quite interesting, it gelled with what I read in the OIO report here….
17. One submitter claimed that the Applicant’s proposal contains no benefits to New Zealand. In particular, the farming plans relating to herd and farm improvement are nothing more than what an average New Zealand farmer would do if given the chance to purchase the properties
(OIO) Response
19. The Overseas Investment Act does not require an overseas person investor to do more than a New Zealand investor would do to the land. Instead, the Overseas Investment Act tests only whether the investment will or is likely to benefit New Zealand, a part of New Zealand or a group of New Zealanders, and whether that benefit will be substantial and identifiable. That test is by reference to a number of benefit ‘factors’ which must be considered by the relevant Ministers.
My thoughts at the time was the OIO could not state anything to be a benefit unless they knew what other buyers intended and compared one against the other. Their response above didn’t make any sense to me, and clearly the judge thought so too.
To borrow an expression from OleBiscuitBarrel… colour me gobsmacked!!!!
What has yet to come out is the Ministerial interference in the LandCorp bid. Unfortunately I’m not 100% on my source and I can’t quote them properly; but the gist of the conversation was along the lines that LandCorp was instructed not to put in an acceptable bid for the farms.
Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t know the mine had exploded as he applied for another job, the overall mismanagement of Pike River mine is highly despicable!
COLLECTING SIGNATURES FOR THE PETITION WHICH MAY HELP GET RID OF JOHN BANKS – ACT MP FOR EPSOM:
Interesting that neither the old Securities Commission, the SFO, the Finance Markets Authority (FMA), or the Police have lifted a finger to apply ACT’s ‘one law for all’ to either the ACT Party MP for Epsom, John Banks, or the former ACT Party Leader Don Brash?
In fact, I have it in writing from the the SFO, the Finance Markets Authority (FMA), and the Police that they will not lay charges against Banks or Brash, which, in my considered opinion, is a form of political protection, which I believe is corrupt.
Both John Banks and Don Brash were equally former fellow Directors of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Ltd, whom, along with Peter Huljich equally signed Huljich Kiwisaver Registered Prospectuses which contained untrue statements.
Under the Securities Act 1978 s.58 (3) that is an offence.
Where is the ZERO TOLERANCE for ‘white collar’ crime in New Zealand?
In my considered opinion, in NZ – ‘perceived’ to be the least corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International’s 2011 ‘Corruption Perception Index’ – the balance of power is arguably being held by a yet-to-be charged or convicted ‘white collar’ criminal – John Banks ACT MP for Epsom.
However – all is not lost.
When one door closes, another door opens.
Currently there are signatures being collected for a petition which requests:
“That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into the decisions regarding prosecutions relating to the Juljich Kiwisaver Scheme registered prospectuses dated 22 August 2008 and 18 September 2009.”
I do not anticipate any major problems in getting an MP to present this petition to the House.
[lprent: I have to confess that was partially my fault. Whilst chastising OleBiscuitBarrel last year, I told him that he was a gormless fool. He adopted it as his handle. But I have to say that it is one of the more unique and entertaining handles around 😈 ]
penny as I’ve said before in politics less is more .Your track record in politics proves me right .
I agree with your plight but you are obviously not very bright .
Abbreviate your message and people won’t be turned off by your boring posts!
I think the style over content argument is passé. It is conformist boring rubbish that people like Penny and Phil u get all the time by those who do not agree with their message. The only reason it would apply is that the style is somehow detrimental to the message, which is subjective to the reader. It would seem you’re more averse to the message than the style mik e. Either way, you have the choice of not reading it.
http://ilcorsaro.info/mondo/285-il-mito-del-fannullone-greco
Sorry this is in Italian, but it’s very good about the myths told about the Greek people, and what’s really going on!
The title means ‘The myth of the lazy Greek’.
Here’s an extract and my translation:
“Prendiamo i greci. I dati dell’Ocse mostrano chiaramente che i greci lavorano in media più ore all’anno (2.109) degli altri europei: i tedeschi per esempio lavorano 1.419 ore. Si può ovviamente obiettare che le ore lavorate non significano lavoro effettivo, che si può rimanere 12 ore sul luogo di lavoro e passarne la metà a cercare ricette esotiche su internet. Questo porta ad analizzare la produttività del lavoro, concetto più complicato da calcolare perché dipende da fattori che non sono in rapporto con l’assiduità (il livello tecnologico, la qualità dell’organizzazione produttiva e così via).”
“Take the Greeks. The OECD data show clearly that the Greeks are working longer hours on average per year (2,109) than other Europeans, the Germans work 1,419 hours for example. You can of course argue that the hours worked do not mean actual work, that you can stay 12 hours at work and spend half your time searching for exotic recipes on the Internet. This leads us to analyse labour productivity, a concept more complicated to calculate because it depends on factors not related to the attendance (the technological level, quality of production organization and so on)…. (and so it does, that is, attempt that analysis. )
The myth of the ‘lazy greek’ has to be repeated to justify to the German populace why it is their bankers’ moral right and imperative to subjugate that country.
To put it succinctly, in the European South, people are paid too much, work too little, receive excessive public benefits and retire too early. Unlike the industrious Germans.
There is a small problem with this diagnosis of the Euro crisis. It is false on all counts…
Key says Mondayising Public Holidays would ‘cost’ the economy $400 million.
These are Public Holidays already, the workers of NZ are alreadyentitled to them.
The reality is that the workers of NZ are being duped out of $400 million worth of holidays due to a silly loophole in the law.
The ultimate irony for me was seeing photos of foreign owned stores & Embassies closed on these Mondays, with their NZ staff given the day off.
Internal Heartland Institute strategy and funding documents obtained by DeSmogBlog expose the heart of the climate denial machine – its current plans, many of its funders, and details that confirm what DeSmogBlog and others have reported for years. The heart of the climate denial machine relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more.
We are releasing the entire trove of documents now to allow crowd-sourcing of the material. Here are a few quick highlights, stay tuned for much more.
And there’s a lot more!
Particularly with respect to Heartland funding of the so-called NZ (now International) “Climate Science Coalition”
As John Mashey in a comment on “Hot Topic” explains:
“The read might draw inferences about the likely effects of:
a) Heartland sending $ to foreign non-charities. NO-NO
b) Foreign non-charities engage in clearly non-exempt activities (the IRS-?E codes). NO-NO
c) Some of those involved in the NZ non-charities show up and make comments that repeatedly support the non-exemptness.
Already gone, but nice icing on the cake. When reading “puppets,” I sometimes had to hold back from commenting, lest I spoil the fun.
But all that’s on the record now.
It is very likely that neither the non-charities nor Heartland understood the US tax implications. Of course, if NZ citizens got money for a non-charity and spent it, without declaring income … well that’s for Kiwis to sort out.”
The personal search function is one I like – to keep track of my comments and those responding. I made some yesterday but they don’t come up on request. Is this something that gets dropped on occasions?
Not meant to. It runs on a cron process. I will look at in the morning as I’m in bed and doing a ssh console from the iPad is strictly an emergency procedure
Ok the problem was that sphinxsearch (the program that runs the search) had an update, and it appears that it was putting the lock files in with ownership coded to its own user id. That meant that the web process that had been running it was unable to run the daily updates.
I’ve shifted the period update to shift to the sphinx user.
I’ll check when I get to work to make sure that it has actually run.
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Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
A recent returnee has tested positive for Covid-19 after testing negative twice during her 14 days in managed isolation, Marc Daalder reports There is little information available about a new community case of Covid-19 identified by testing today - other than she is in Whangarei and used the Covid app ...
by Andi Cockroft Chairman Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of NZ An Otago Daily Times report (23 January) that nearly two-thirds of Dunedin residents think public consultation is lacking at the Dunedin City Council, according to the latest ...
“If today’s probable case of Covid-19 in Northland turns out to be community transmission the Government’s overarching objective must be avoiding another lockdown,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The best news would be that this is a false alarm, ...
E tū Lifewise homecare members have been taking strike and picket action since December 2020 for basic improvements in their working conditions. Members are asking for increased sick and bereavement leave, a collective agreement, and more guaranteed ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 24. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nz1.15pm: Suspected community case in NorthlandHealth officials are investigating a suspected community case of Covid-19 in Northland, related to someone who was recently released from managed isolation and quarantine, the NZ Herald is reporting.A spokesperson for Covid-19 response ...
We’re only a few weeks into the year, and already there are two new seasons of Drag Race. Are we in danger of reaching peak Drag Race? In the first month of this year, there’s been more RuPaul’s Drag Race than ever. The 13th season of the flagship US version debuted ...
In her first years of adulthood, Jai Breitnauer found herself living in a bold and hopeful nation. More than two decades on, she laments on how the Britain we know now came to be.Apparently, fish off the coast of the United Kingdom are happier because they’re British. This is what ...
Dunedin writer Victor Billot resumes his weekly odes to New Zealanders in the news. This week: the blogging firm of Michael Bassett, Don Brash and Rodney HideThree Men in a BoatIt sounds like a conveyancing firm in Levin.It sounds like TV funny guys who’ll ...
Under a thick layer of concrete at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacramentin Christchurch is a metal box likely containing hundreds of holy relics – a historical treasure trove set to be uncovered after 50 years of near total obscurity.As the earth shook and buildings crumbled, a statue of ...
Bananas are unequivocally the best fruit in the world, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind, writes Alice Webb-Liddall.I was about 15 when I realised that halftime banana cake wasn’t a tradition outside of my family. On the day of an All Blacks game a banana cake ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as On the Rag looks at how the world around us has been built by men, for men. First published December 7, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members ...
At an antagonistic hearing yesterday, the internet giant laid out the ‘worst case scenario’. And Facebook is also considering an ‘amputation’. Hal Crawford was watching.Google is poised to hit self-destruct in Australia according to a fractious Senate hearing into an unprecedented law that will force digital giants to pay money ...
It’s great to hear Phil Twyford celebrating a success. Not a personal ministerial success, it’s fair to say, but a success nevertheless related to arms control. The arms on which Twyford is focused, it should be noted, will make quite a mess if they are triggered. They tend to be ...
Duncan Greive and Leonie Hayden were young hip hop heads and music journalists during the era captured in a new documentary about the rise and fall of South Auckland hip hop label Dawn Raid. Here they discuss the film and their memories (what’s left of them) of that time. Warning: contains ...
Houses might be the most popular and inflated purchases in New Zealand, but there are plenty of other products that are seeing soaring demand and prices over the past few months. Here’s a list of what New Zealanders are spending their money on with international travel out of the picture.Used ...
"The young boy leaps, the muscles in his thighs tensing and twisting as he lifts from the handrail": the noble art of bombing, by Pātea writer Airana Ngarewa A beautifully muscled boy is posted on the side of a pool, his feet fixed to the top of a pair of ...
How Waiwera Hot Pools went from New Zealand’s most visited water park to dereliction and decay. Many who grew up in Auckland likely have fond memories of Waiwera Hot Pools. Like me, they remember summer days spent racing down the slides and playing in the naturally hot pools. But how did ...
A government contract for a P rehab programme was canned after half a million dollars of taxpayer money was given out. Aaron Smale investigates. The Ministry of Health spent over half a million dollars on a P Rehab contract before pulling the pin because there were no results or progress reports. ...
Kia Koropp and her husband John Daubeny have been cruising the Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean over the past decade with their two children onboard their 50ft yacht, Atea. Starting in 2011 from Auckland, New Zealand, they have sailed more than 64,000 kilometres and just completed their longest ...
We are drowning out the natural world with synthetic sounds, and it’s getting worse, writes Michelle Langstone.It used to be quiet once. Remember that? Remember the hush that settled over the cities like the silence that comes down in a snowstorm? It’s less than a year since Aotearoa first locked ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden in the latest episode of On the Rag as they examine the topic of boobs from every possible angle. First published November 16, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Seventy-five years after the US detonated the first nuclear tests in the Pacific, New Zealand pledges its support to Joe Biden's first tentative step towards disarmament. Today, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons comes into effect, making it illegal for New Zealand and the 50 other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Terry, Professor of Psychology, University of Southern Queensland The challenge of bringing the world’s best tennis players and support staff, about 1,200 people in all, from COVID-ravaged parts of the world to our almost pandemic-free shores was always going to be ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Browne, Research Fellow in International Urban Development, University of Melbourne The Victorian government has committed to removing 75 road/rail level crossings across Melbourne by 2025. That’s the fastest rate of removal in the city’s history. The scale of the investment — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it is also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Stevens, Lecturer in History, University of Waikato In a year of surprises, one of the more pleasant was the recent runaway viral popularity of 19th century sea shanties on TikTok. A collaborative global response to pandemic isolation, it saw singers and ...
The sudden departure of Graine Moss from her Chief Executive role at Oranga Tamariki is a vital first step in a sequence of changes that must take place at the Ministry according to a group of wahine Māori leaders. Dame Naida Glavish, Dame Tariana Turia, ...
A new poem from Dunedin poet Jenny Powell.Her uncle’s eyeShe introduced us to her uncle’s eye floating in a jar.Lost in an accident, he hadn’t wanted to lose it again. He left it to her in his will.We must have looked shocked. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I turn him to ...
The chief executive of Oranga Tamariki is quitting, leaving behind an agency she’s admitted suffers from structural racism. Justin Giovannetti looks at the future of Oranga Tamariki.Grainne Moss’s tenure as head of Oranga Tamariki has been untenable since November when the government’s senior Māori minister wouldn’t express any confidence in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Sainsbury, Senior Lecturer Composition, Australian National University Despite having different cultural backgrounds and experiences — Indigenous composers with an Indigenous mentor, and a pianist descended from Anglo-colonial history — it is nevertheless possible to create a project that can serve as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Plank, Professor in Applied Mathematics, University of Canterbury With new, more infectious variants of COVID-19 detected around the world, and at New Zealand’s border, the risk of further level 3 or 4 lockdowns is increased if those viruses get into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Hogg, Lecturer in Psychology, Charles Sturt University Horse racing is an ethical hotbed in Australia. The Melbourne Cup alone has seen seven horses die after racing since 2013, and animal cruelty protesters have become a common feature at carnivals. The latest ...
Right now, our most fiery national debate is over whether New Zealanders were nice to the singer Amanda Palmer in a café. Desperate to restore peace in our nation, Hayden Donnell went in search of the truth.Joe Biden had barely finished calling for unity when Amanda Palmer posted a tweet ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (Pushkin Press, $37)Maths, cyanide, suicide, gardening; ye ...
Wellington artist Estère isn’t just breaking boundaries, she’s dissecting them. Maddi Rowe spoke to her about her new album, Archetypes.“That’s the story of pelicans, they’ll stab themselves in the heart to feed their young.”Despite the somewhat dark subject matter, Estère Dalton’s eyes sparkle with fascination. We’ve met to discuss Archetypes, ...
Cycling advocates are welcoming new advice from the Transport Agency on safe cycling. "Cyclists hate it when drivers pass too close. That's scary and dangerous," said Patrick Morgan from Cycling Action Network. "So it's encouraging to see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tilman Ruff, Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne Today, many around the world will celebrate the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to enter into force in 50 years. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear ...
The Public Service Association welcomes the creation of a Chief Executive role to lead the public service’s pay equity work, and the appointment of Grainne Moss to this position. "Unions and public service employers are currently working ...
The Council of Trade Unions is warning that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures out today illustrate that the cost of living is increasing disproportionately for those on lower incomes; resulting in the poor getting poorer. CTU Economist Craig ...
Why are there so many offensive comments on the New Zealand Police Facebook page and are they breaking the law? Janaye Henry investigates. New Zealand Police Facebook pages – there are a number of them, for different regional police districts around the country – are an interesting place to spend ...
Our guide to stopping procrastinating and actually (finally) getting on top of investing. Because there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you don’t know a single thing about it.In part one, we covered some of the basic things you need to know about investing – why do it? ...
Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft acknowledges the huge effort and commitment of departing Oranga Tamariki Chief Executive Grainne Moss and says her decision to resign today was principled. “The issues facing Oranga Tamariki are beyond individual ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Two Large Waves versus One Tsunami. Chart by Keith Rankin. Two Large Waves versus One Tsunami. Chart by Keith Rankin. With Covid19, Italy shows the classic European pattern, with its early outbreak, substantial recovery thanks to lockdowns and other public health measures, and resurgence thanks to complacency ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Appleby, Professor, UNSW Law School, UNSW This year has already seen significant progress in the government’s commitment to establish a body – a “Voice” – that would allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have a say when the government ...
Northland farmer Derek Robinson was sentenced earlier today by the District Court in Whangarei for two offences of ill-treating animals at rodeo events. Mr Robinson was found guilty in November last year, following a defended hearing. The charges ...
Under fire Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss has announced she will resign, effective February 28, Marc Daalder reports After four and a half years at the helm of child protection agency Oranga Tamariki, chief executive Grainne Moss has announced she will be leaving the position at the end of ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and New Zealand Police acknowledge the sentencing of 36-year-old Aaron Joseph Hutton on charges relating to the possession of child sexual exploitation material, and entering into a dealing involving the sexual exploitation ...
Ngā Tāngata Microfinance (NTM) is calling for tougher penalties for those caught promoting pyramid schemes. Such business models are illegal under the Fair Trading Act 1986. This call comes after the Commerce Commission issued a ‘stop now’ notice ...
British High Commissioner to New Zealand Laura Clarke is calling on young women aged 17 to 25 to apply for the annual ‘Be British High Commissioner for the Day’ competition. The winner will have the opportunity to become an ‘honorary High Commissioner’, ...
The Māori Party is welcoming the resignation of Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss after sustained pressure from leading figures within the Māori Party. This resignation is the result of the continued strong pressure of the Māori Party ...
In a historic corner of Dunedin, startup culture is thriving. Catherine McGregor visited the city’s Warehouse Precinct to meet the people driving the movement. When Jason and Kate Lindsey bought the four storey building now known as Petridish, it was an absolute wreck. Once home to a thriving hat and textiles ...
Summer reissue: The Fold’s very first guest is back to tell Duncan Greive how she pulled off the media deal of the year.The chaotic couple of weeks which finally saw the end of the Stuff-NZME saga were riveting and strange, replete with stock exchange announcements, legal challenges and finally the ...
Chris Liddell has dropped his candidacy to become director-general of the Paris-based OECD. Without support from the Ardern government and vilified in the media as somehow being involved in the encouragement by Donald Trump of the Washington riots, he plainly saw he had little chance of crowning his stellar career ...
Tara Ward hands out her first impression roses as she dives deep into the sea of single men vying to win The Bachelorette NZ’s heart. While the world burns in a searing fireball of unpredictability, we can take comfort in the fact that some things never change. The heart still yearns, ...
People from all around New Zealand will be converging on the super-secret Waihopai satellite interception spybase, in Marlborough, on Saturday January 30th. ...
In its Thursday editorial the NZ Herald speaks an important truth: “Investment important to stay on track”. This won’t have startled its more literate readers but in its text it notes the strong result in the latest Global Dairy Trade auction, which prompted Westpac to raise its forecast for dairy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Mark, Professor, Faculty of International Studies, Kyoritsu Women’s University With the spread of COVID-19 steadily worsening in Japan since the onset of winter — daily records for infections and deaths continue to be broken — the fate of the Tokyo Summer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Taylor, Early Career Research Leader, Emerging Viruses, Inflammation and Therapeutics Group, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University All eyes are on COVID-19 vaccines, with Australia’s first expected to be approved for use shortly. But their development in record time, without compromising ...
Yesterday’s government announcement on new state housing is a pathetic response to the biggest housing crisis in New Zealand since the 1940s. At a time when the country needs an industrial-scale state house building programme, the government ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it is also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become ...
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Today is one of the most famous anniversaries in the history of the New Zealand Trade Union Movement.
Today, the 15th of February 1951, is the very day, 61 years ago that marked the start of the 1951 lockout.
Sixty one years ago today, eight thousand wharfies were locked out of their jobs for 151 days from the 15th of February to 15th of July 1951.
The similarities don’t stop with the date.
On this day 61 years ago the entire waterfront workforce was dismissed to destroy the union.
Today in a copy of those employer tactics of the past, the whole Maritime Union workforce at the Ports of Auckland is to be dismissed to destroy the union.
Three days after the 1951 lockout began the National government declared a state of emergency, making it illegal to publicise the workers point of view.
Today in a copy of those tactics of the past, Ports of Auckland Ltd. is using an injunction to make it illegal to publicise the workers point of view.
Today in a deliberate copy of the union tactics of the past. The Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) has just as the Watersiders Union did in 1951, have called, for a partial strike. (In 1951 while making themselves available for normal duties the wharfies refused all overtime beyond 40 hours. Today while making themselves available for normal duties the wharfies are refusing to do any work on containers handled by contractors.)
In drawing attention to the obvious parralels between the two disputes, The Watersiders are giving their answer to those in the Labour Party and on this website who argue that this dispute “ain’t” nothing like 1951 therefore we should withhold our support.
Eddie in his post “1951 it ain’t, for now” argued that the Greens and Occupy and Labour should withhold their support from the wharfies.
One of the reasons Eddie gave for not supporting the wharfies was the difference in scale. Eddie said it is only 300 workers in one port.
The differences Eddie highlights are quantative but not qualitive, (the sheer differences in numbers reflecting the huge increases in productivity between now and then).
Now as then, this is a fight to the death, for the soul and even the existence of a watersider union on the waterfront.
Now as then, win or lose, this dispute will have far reaching consequences for the whole union movement in this country.
Jenny do you have a link to details about the injunction preventing the distribution of information? Seems awfully undemocratic. Surely the Herald should be running a campaign!
Sorry Micky, no link.
Maybe, Wharfie might be able to provide the link.
Here you go Micky http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1202/S00127/ports-of-auckland-management-attack-free-speech.htm
And “Ports of Auckland Management confirmed to Lloyd’s List Australia it had filed for an injunction to prevent workers speaking publicly about the dispute.”
http://www.lloydslistdcn.com.au/archive/2012/02-feb/14/ports-of-auckland-ups-the-ante-in-wharfie-dispute
A little way away in a far off country a daily newspaper headline read “Memorandum Macht Frei”. For anybody who believes that a Chamberlain approach to far off places can come back to bite you very hard this should raise alarm bells.
Greece this morning is in turmoil, the end result of a romance with free and easy credit from banks. From the lie of perpetual growth to pay for all. From the corruption of financialisation of whole economies.
This is the lie Key has sold us too, tax cuts through borrowing, money for the wealthy, supposedly to “trickle” down. “Growth” to pay and create jobs. At some point the receiever comes to the door…”Mr Key, you failed to pay us the interest….bail out with austerity for the poor attached”.
Athens coming to NZ soon, courtesy of the National Party.
New Zealand government official stats show $318 billion NZ originated private institution credit money. They then treat as assets and deduct what has been invested overseas and come up with what they call Net International Investment Position which appears much less alarming despite that money competting to find profit in an international financial system where the international debt is also unrepayable from the day its born.
Even if the foreign investments from NZ where able to be repatriated in quick time they would come back to only the wealthiest few who control them and not benefit wider society as implied. Just more smoke and mirrors;
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/ParlSupport/ResearchPapers/3/4/6/00PlibCIP121-New-Zealand-s-International-Investment-Position.htm
$318 billion debt based money supply at annual interest rate of 7% equals $22 odd billion interest repayment that is essentially rent upon a revolving line of credit that circulates as our money supply.
Given most of that interest finds its way back to the same largest owners of larger international banks who own largest stake holdings in Australian banks who own NZ banks, it puts to shame the 1.3 billion they give back in tax and shout from the roof tops as being so beneficial to the prosperity of the nation
Nice peice of research and analysis Muzza, its a real worry to think that unless we too default we will be debt serfs of these charlatans forever.
+1
The entire financial system that we slave under is a load lies and misdirection.
+ 7%
Partial strike action commences today at the Port of Auckland.Our members are refusing to service any cargo on or off Connlinx trucks.This is a company 90% owned by the Port of Auckland.The company contracted the containing moving in the Port out to themselves and made our members who used to undertake this work redundant.Tomorrow any machine that touches cargo off this company will be blacked.
People with disabilities.
Talk back radio and blog sites like the sewer have a lot to answer for. They have unleashed
a nasty, mean and selfish trait in the New Zealand psyche. It is appalling to hear what is being expressed regarding Mojo Mathers and the issues in the house. $30,000??? WTF. (Noone appears to have batted an eyelid over the obscene amounts of profit the banks are salting away…)
They of course ignore the fact that Bill English is being paid $30,000 per annum to live in the house he owns and which was paid for by 20 years of rorting.
Of course they do, if they didn’t then they’d have to face the fact that their self-selected leaders are corrupt and there’s no way that they will do that.
Food for thought on pseudonymity : http://testkitchen.colorado.edu/2012/02/what-is-a-quality-comment/
But The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell is my real name and my comments are all quality.
Haha you are many exceptions to many rules 😉
“Revising conventional wisdom on cats, media
from NewsCred Blog
02/14/2012
Contrary to common wisdom, cats make you popular — particularly online.”
This little gem comes from the same page linked to by felix above. Does it explain Key’s popularity when he talked about his cat on the infamous radio hour?
Does it explain felix’s popularity online?
As for the article on pseudonymity itself, are both researcher and article writer confusing ‘quality’ with ‘popularity’? The quality of a comment was gauged by whether it got a positive as in a ‘like’ or whether it got a negative rating or was dumped as spam. That seems like a popularity rating and not a
way of rating of quality which should be independent of popularity but judged on intrinsic factors.
Yeah surely quality is fairly subjective anyway. I agree it seems more like a popularity index, but I guess they’re just measuring what can be measured.
No surprise about cats though, cats are awesome 😀
Absolutely they are! 😀
And now a note on what time does to language:
In 1951, at least, the word ain’t was a contraction of the words am not and definitely not is not. 1951 it ain’t, translates: 1951, it am not.
These days, any word can mean anything a person wants it to, which is the least of our problems since a writer can now uz txt spk qwite ezi. No one seems to have issues with using don’t and didn’t and now those of you who aren’t asleep can use ain’t correctly, too.
Actually I always thought it was a contraction of “are not”, but it turns out it is both and has a history going back centuries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contractions_of_negated_auxiliary_verbs_in_English#Ain.27t
The only place I can think of, apart from songs, where it is still in common usage is in the saying “Ain’t that the truth.” Songs, though, show where it is able to make sense. It ain’t me babe = It is not me babe. Ain’t misbehavin’= I am not misbehaving, etc.
(ahem..!..i am trying to keep ‘ain’t’ alive….it is a great marker of tone..
..i reckon..eh..?..)
[email look alike deleted].
Yes that is probably why song writers like it. One “ain’t song of many:
Yeah that’s the post modern anything means anything approach. The Right uses it so easily and so blatantly to steal the language and symbolism of the Left and twists it for its own uses. And usually, the Left sits back and let it happen.
It is not quite the same thing, although I appreciate your point. “Ain’t” is an old fashioned slang word that is able to be used in various places where a contracted “not” is in order. Whereas the right recontextualises left wing concepts so as to rob them of their original meaning. Freedom from bondage is applied to the “free market” for example, and a woman’s right to paid work justifies the pitchforking of solo mothers into low-paid insecure jobs, etc. It works best where it is subtle, and draws the left into a conversation that it didn’t intend to have. The left wing concern about children going hungry, for example, implies that the poor need more money, but is likely to be translated by the right into the idea that the poor need more policing. And then the left finds itself disarmed. You said you wanted us to do something about child poverty, say the right. Well we’re doing something. The good thing about the Occupy Movement is that it has created a conceptual space that cannot easily be appropriated in this way.
…or close parentheses, apparently.
Haha, getting very close to Muphrey’s Law there.
http://whoar.co.nz/2012/anarchism-is-not-what-you-think-it-is-and-theres-a-whole-lot-we-can-learn-from-it/
“…The word anarchism has been so stripped of substance that it has come to be equated with chaos and nihilism.
That’s not what it means…”
[email look alike deleted].
The people who think anarchism is chaos also shriek that socialism will force “everyone to live in caves”. The problem is they just can’t grasp that alternative, sometimes more effective, ways of living existed before capitalism came along.
From the article you link to there is a comment on how guilds operated:
“…sovereign in its own sphere, but could not develop rules that interfered with the workings of other guilds. ”
Capitalism, or “growth”, depends on people being allowed to steal from and interfere with the property and rules of their neighbour. The wail of “living in caves” is the fear that theft would once again be called theft.
Thanks UTurn, its amazing how labels stick. Socialist states and capitalist states hate anarchism in equal doses, it is the devil incarnate to both parties.
At the heart of the issue is the point you make: respect for the rules and property. Capitalist / corporate / socialist states manage this through coercion, as represented by the mechanisms and the power of the state. That individuals might manage these affairs removes the “power” from their central control. A totally heretic position….God forbid you dont follow blind dogma.
Don’t know if you’ve noticed how often anarchist sentiment is tapped into by politicians who seek popular support for their programmes?
ACT (and just about every other right wing libertarian outfit I’ve come across) do it extensively. And L’nin (that lovely left wing Authoritarian) did it too. In fact, if you listen closely, the ideas and sentiments of anarchy are all over the political sphere.
But people seeking power over others need to ensure there is never any political expression of the underlying ideas or concepts they dress their political shit up in. So the terms of ‘anarchist’ or ‘anarchy’ are demonised and cast aside in order that their conceptual basis can be quietly and safely trawled, twisted and finally processed as unrecognisable end products (Right Wing Libertarianism or Corporatism on the one hand and Dictatorial Socialist States on the other.)
Interestingly, the internet is essentially an functioning Anarchy – currently being reigned in with the likes of failed SOPA, PIPPA and impending ACTA – perhaps because it is teaching a working Anarchsit model to the generation who has grown up on it.
The Occupy movement is essentially an Anarchist movement, spearheaded and conceived by Anarchists, and it’s defining feature is Direct (consensus based ) Democracy. The other thing technology seems to have taught this generation which certainly didn’t come from their Libertarian Babyboomer parents is sharing.
Yet of coarse the pop understanding of Anarchisim suggests it is incongruous with Democracy..
On that note, Adbusters call out to programmers to build new social network, that JP Morgan & Saudi Govt can’t buy shares in..
http://theglobalsquare.org/call4coders
Actually, this boomer was well into anarchism in my 20s, especially anarcho-syndicalism. And back then, I knew a few of my age group, and some slightly younger uni students who were strong advocates of anarchism too, both HEre and in London. London feminists (full of boomers Iin the late 70s & early 80s) tended to be describe the women’s movement as operating according to anarchist principles.
I suspect that many younger folk may not fully embrace anarchism as a principle, even though they are strongly into the Internet. But I welcome the re-invigoration of anarchist ideas that the Internet has brought.
Individualist liberals and libertarian boomers were a much stronger feature in the US than in NZ or the UK.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting these ideas or radicalism is in any way new, what I’m suggesting is interesting is that they’re being ingested as a way of being as a byproduct of the way we interact with technology.
Re the Babyboomer dig, that’s a generalization obviously, of coarse much social progress was made by those who engaged..
Well it also isn’t that much of a correct generalisation of comparative generalisations of different generations. It’s by no means that clear-cut, and it ignores the strong and dominant political forces coming from the wealthy and powerful elites.
I see too much re-writing of history about boomers. The whole hippy movement, even in individualist US, was about sharing, helping others, and about rejecting materialist acquisition of wealth. It was a time when there was much media and popular attention given to the hippy, grass-roots, commune movement, for instance, and many young kiwis got into that.
Unfortunately, some who were well into that (eg Tim Shadbolt and his rural commune), later got absorbed into the neoliberal system – a shift which came from the elites above, in contrast to the more grass roots hippy movement.
Nevertheless, as a result of boomer-dominated hippy anti-materialist, left-leaning values, notions of sharing and a gift economy were built into the Internet architecture and gave rise to such notions as open source software.
And while many people today have absorbed some of the sharing fundamentals built into the Internet architecture, at the same time have absorbed (shonkey) individualist, materially and financially acquisitive neoliberal values.
I’m afraid the destruction wrought by the majority of the babyboomer generation far outweighs any good the minority of the countercoultre achieved. As the planet is testament.
PS: the geeks who laid down the original architect of the Internet, were grad students and others around the Paolo Alta-Silicon Valley area, who were strongly influenced by the Californian hippy ideals of the time, and that influenced the anarchistic elements that underlie the Internet today.
A wee side note relating to the article. What Darwin was saying by ‘survival of the fittest’ was that what fitted best was what survived; not that everything had to fight and struggle for survival and dominance
Bill @7.3. He also highlighted the part that chance plays. A tiny modification way back could have caused say horses to be the dominant species and humanoids faded out. A biologist much younger than Darwin (working in Indonesia I think) floated the idea of survival of the fittest to Darwin when writing to him years before Darwin published. Darwin of course gets the credit but he did not mean that the toughest, meanest fight the way to the top, although looking at humanity these days you might wonder. Politics huh?
Fortunately most parts of mother nature don’t represent a contrived never ending gladiatorial contest or cage fight like Parliament is.
Quoting Article quoting Muatal Aid
Social Darwinists still exist although the term has dropped from common usage – their natural home in NZ is now in National and Act. And they’re as wrong today as they were a hundred years ago.
Kropotkin forms a large basis of my thoughts on the matter of governance and society.
Yes, “survival of the fittest” means, those species most suited to survive in a given environment – it’s species level, and not about individual strength etc.
Spot on DtB.
It is quite clear that one of the main reasons for human ‘advancement’ over other species has been its internal cooperation and not its internal competition.
That certain people alive today cannot see this dooms their own survival – which is in fact to the betterment of wider human survival and advancement of course. The fewer of these buffoons around the better.
Lprent,
Is there any way of measuring the number of external links followed by readers on a blog like this?
It would be interesting to know the number of different links, and the total number followed, as part of the bigger picture including visits and page view numbers.
Just curious really. And procrastinating something much more important…
Yes. We have that on several stats packages. The WP stats does it. For instance in the last 30 days, these are the top clicks from the body of the site (posts, comments, blogrolls) and note that these are the actual landing pages…
scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1201/S00136/teapot-tapes-uploaded.htm 325
tumeke.blogspot.com 264
patbrittenden.com/2012/01/18/its-not-about-race-or-age-or-gender-or-religion-its-about-poverty 260
whaleoil.co.nz/2012/01/not-involved 239
bowalleyroad.blogspot.com 222
nzherald.co.nz 167
norightturn.blogspot.com 167
facebook.com/NZNATS 155
imperatorfish.com 152
robertwinter.blogspot.com 131
kiwiblog.co.nz 119
stuff.co.nz 118
thejackalman.blogspot.com/2012/01/teapot-tape-released.html 117
tumeke.blogspot.com/2012/01/teapot-tape-now-online.html 116
soundcloud.com/goldenturkey/2johns2cups 115
blog.labour.org.nz/2012/01/31/my-christmas-gift-to-david-farrar-2 115
blog.labour.org.nz 111
As you can see we generate a lot of clicks, but the fall off is pretty rapid. Yesterday for instance we did about 450 clicks out over about 200 links (over half only got one click).
If we look over the last year, we basically see the blogroll
tumeke.blogspot.com 4,941
norightturn.blogspot.com 3,557
bowalleyroad.blogspot.com 3,483
blog.labour.org.nz 3,248
nzherald.co.nz 2,396
kiwiblog.co.nz 2,053
robertwinter.blogspot.com 1,895
brianedwardsmedia.co.nz 1,447
stuff.co.nz 1,383
imperatorfish.com 1,330
pundit.co.nz 1,315
asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com 1,200
dimpost.wordpress.com 1,174
Again with some pretty rapid falloffs.
I also jigged the system for google analytics to also do be able to do outward click analysis long ago. They have some more useful stats about paths people tended to take through and out of the site. Which is why I know that most of the readers use the front page to land, and select a post, and then use next and previous posts rather than navigating up and down. But there really isn’t a strong pattern for clickouts.
Of course we’re only really seeing what sites people navigated to from clicks on this site, and it excludes the ads.
Thanks for indulging my curiousity LPrent.
Surprising. I thought sites like facebook would feature more prominently with the links to parliamentary clips etc.
It seems most visitors don’t follow links, even those within the body of blog posts (with some exceptions). I guess it’s mainly a matter of time and personal interest. Personally I love the links and some commenters on open mike provide some beauties too.
The more I follow things online, the less I follow the mainstream media. Seldom watch the TV news, but when I catch it I feel like I’m living in a parallel universe.
Yeah, once you’ve spent time getting news and researching the background of that news online the MSM just doesn’t seem to be connected to reality.
Facebook doesn’t get many outgoing links. However we do get a lot of incoming links from them. Since I put the recommendatory buttons in, it has gone from being a low contender to being second after the search engines.
Just been reading about Russia in the 50s and 60s. An intense drive to increase outputs of goods was spurred on by bonus payments to managers who met the annual targets of production. So Performance Pay is a Communist construct! The difference was that in Russia defined targets had to be met whereas here Bonus to Bankers, CEOs, Consultants are paid regardless of success.
Bring on the Commies!
The future of New Zealand anyone?
I don’t know about you, but I am not planning to convert to Mormonism.
Seems to be a common theme when reading such articles often contain sentences such as “This is the type of idiocy that passes as policy in the eurozone. ” – People like to fob off bad decision making as some sort of accident…
At what point will people come to realise that there is much more at play than “idiocy” when making decisions.
At what point does the continual “idiocy” beceome a deliberate act? 5, 10, 20, 30 years recently…..
Nah its all a massive accident!
Well I can see the outsourcing is on it’s way outside NZ – with the IRD upgrade, which I’ve blogged about.
http://nowoccupy.blogspot.com/2012/02/creating-more-jobs-in-silicon-valley.html
National’s slack internet security
There are many holes in the government’s Internet security, mainly because there are so many operators that don’t know what they’re doing…
Stuff: High Court orders Government to reconsider Crafar farms sale deal … 🙂
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/6422866/Reconsider-Crafar-farms-deal-Government-told
Indeed!
Ha! Yeesssss…!!
Keep the issue in the spotlight.
I may get repititive but it is for very good and simple reason…… namely, that having land owned by people who do not live in New Zealand is bad for New Zealand.
And they don’t even NEED to own the land. They claim they are investing in business, right? So invest ion the business, but they don’t need to own the land to do that.
Keep the issue alive! It is one of some paths to greater prosperity, of that there is no doubt.
I have had a quick squizz at the judgment. Justice Millar seems to be saying that the Ministers overstated the economic benefits of the purchase. The same benefits would have been available if the local bidder bought the farms. Interesting decision …
I await the RWNJ claims that the Judge is racist. Snap McFlock.
Time until Fran O’Sullivan calls the High Court racist (sorry, “xenophobic”): 4… 3… 2… 1…
So if the ministry overstated ecenomic benefits, thats just a flash way to say “they lied” no!
The “It will create jobs” , followed by, there might be 2 possibly 3 training positions really was a give away to the fact that someone was talking CRAP!
Let’s have all the BS come out now, and lets watch the spin machine in action again!
I found the court summary quite interesting, it gelled with what I read in the OIO report here….
17. One submitter claimed that the Applicant’s proposal contains no benefits to New Zealand. In particular, the farming plans relating to herd and farm improvement are nothing more than what an average New Zealand farmer would do if given the chance to purchase the properties
(OIO) Response
19. The Overseas Investment Act does not require an overseas person investor to do more than a New Zealand investor would do to the land. Instead, the Overseas Investment Act tests only whether the investment will or is likely to benefit New Zealand, a part of New Zealand or a group of New Zealanders, and whether that benefit will be substantial and identifiable. That test is by reference to a number of benefit ‘factors’ which must be considered by the relevant Ministers.
My thoughts at the time was the OIO could not state anything to be a benefit unless they knew what other buyers intended and compared one against the other. Their response above didn’t make any sense to me, and clearly the judge thought so too.
To borrow an expression from OleBiscuitBarrel… colour me gobsmacked!!!!
What has yet to come out is the Ministerial interference in the LandCorp bid. Unfortunately I’m not 100% on my source and I can’t quote them properly; but the gist of the conversation was along the lines that LandCorp was instructed not to put in an acceptable bid for the farms.
Now that would be evidence that needs to be presented at a court.
One Ministerial resignation possibly from Parliament as well. Now that would set an interesting dynamic for the year.
Don’t get too excited. They will reconsider, apply the different criteria and come to the same result.
Yeah I know, but I live in hope.
Today is a good day!
Doug White – Asshole of the Week
Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn’t know the mine had exploded as he applied for another job, the overall mismanagement of Pike River mine is highly despicable!
COLLECTING SIGNATURES FOR THE PETITION WHICH MAY HELP GET RID OF JOHN BANKS – ACT MP FOR EPSOM:
Interesting that neither the old Securities Commission, the SFO, the Finance Markets Authority (FMA), or the Police have lifted a finger to apply ACT’s ‘one law for all’ to either the ACT Party MP for Epsom, John Banks, or the former ACT Party Leader Don Brash?
In fact, I have it in writing from the the SFO, the Finance Markets Authority (FMA), and the Police that they will not lay charges against Banks or Brash, which, in my considered opinion, is a form of political protection, which I believe is corrupt.
Both John Banks and Don Brash were equally former fellow Directors of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Ltd, whom, along with Peter Huljich equally signed Huljich Kiwisaver Registered Prospectuses which contained untrue statements.
Under the Securities Act 1978 s.58 (3) that is an offence.
Where is the ZERO TOLERANCE for ‘white collar’ crime in New Zealand?
In my considered opinion, in NZ – ‘perceived’ to be the least corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International’s 2011 ‘Corruption Perception Index’ – the balance of power is arguably being held by a yet-to-be charged or convicted ‘white collar’ criminal – John Banks ACT MP for Epsom.
However – all is not lost.
When one door closes, another door opens.
Currently there are signatures being collected for a petition which requests:
“That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into the decisions regarding prosecutions relating to the Juljich Kiwisaver Scheme registered prospectuses dated 22 August 2008 and 18 September 2009.”
I do not anticipate any major problems in getting an MP to present this petition to the House.
For more background information, check out http://www.pennybright4epsom.org.nz
Penny Bright
[email deleted]
Fuck you are boring, Penny.
yeah yr handle is so entertaining too
[lprent: I have to confess that was partially my fault. Whilst chastising OleBiscuitBarrel last year, I told him that he was a gormless fool. He adopted it as his handle. But I have to say that it is one of the more unique and entertaining handles around 😈 ]
So – why bother engaging?
😉
Cheers!
Penny Bright
Penny, you don’t engage. You cut and paste press releases. I’d rather talk to randal.
Good on you Penny!
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2012/02/general_debate_15_february_2012.html#comment-933530
Quite a debate starting here!
Want to play?
🙂
Cheers!
Penny Bright
rather you than me Penny but fight the good fight
penny as I’ve said before in politics less is more .Your track record in politics proves me right .
I agree with your plight but you are obviously not very bright .
Abbreviate your message and people won’t be turned off by your boring posts!
I think the style over content argument is passé. It is conformist boring rubbish that people like Penny and Phil u get all the time by those who do not agree with their message. The only reason it would apply is that the style is somehow detrimental to the message, which is subjective to the reader. It would seem you’re more averse to the message than the style mik e. Either way, you have the choice of not reading it.
Imagine the effect if the charges were enforced. Far reaching indeed. Good on ‘yer Penny.
http://ilcorsaro.info/mondo/285-il-mito-del-fannullone-greco
Sorry this is in Italian, but it’s very good about the myths told about the Greek people, and what’s really going on!
The title means ‘The myth of the lazy Greek’.
Here’s an extract and my translation:
“Prendiamo i greci. I dati dell’Ocse mostrano chiaramente che i greci lavorano in media più ore all’anno (2.109) degli altri europei: i tedeschi per esempio lavorano 1.419 ore. Si può ovviamente obiettare che le ore lavorate non significano lavoro effettivo, che si può rimanere 12 ore sul luogo di lavoro e passarne la metà a cercare ricette esotiche su internet. Questo porta ad analizzare la produttività del lavoro, concetto più complicato da calcolare perché dipende da fattori che non sono in rapporto con l’assiduità (il livello tecnologico, la qualità dell’organizzazione produttiva e così via).”
“Take the Greeks. The OECD data show clearly that the Greeks are working longer hours on average per year (2,109) than other Europeans, the Germans work 1,419 hours for example. You can of course argue that the hours worked do not mean actual work, that you can stay 12 hours at work and spend half your time searching for exotic recipes on the Internet. This leads us to analyse labour productivity, a concept more complicated to calculate because it depends on factors not related to the attendance (the technological level, quality of production organization and so on)…. (and so it does, that is, attempt that analysis. )
The myth of the ‘lazy greek’ has to be repeated to justify to the German populace why it is their bankers’ moral right and imperative to subjugate that country.
Vicky32, you might like this article as well…
Awesome infographic: the true cost of war
Apparently a million US dollars is not that much money. In $100 bills it would fit in a decent sized, single strap, over the shoulder satchel.
Key says Mondayising Public Holidays would ‘cost’ the economy $400 million.
These are Public Holidays already, the workers of NZ are already entitled to them.
The reality is that the workers of NZ are being duped out of $400 million worth of holidays due to a silly loophole in the law.
The ultimate irony for me was seeing photos of foreign owned stores & Embassies closed on these Mondays, with their NZ staff given the day off.
+1
DeSmogBlog releases a trove of whistleblower documents that confirm a lot of things we already suspected:
And there’s a lot more!
Particularly with respect to Heartland funding of the so-called NZ (now International) “Climate Science Coalition”
As John Mashey in a comment on “Hot Topic” explains:
“The read might draw inferences about the likely effects of:
a) Heartland sending $ to foreign non-charities. NO-NO
b) Foreign non-charities engage in clearly non-exempt activities (the IRS-?E codes). NO-NO
c) Some of those involved in the NZ non-charities show up and make comments that repeatedly support the non-exemptness.
Already gone, but nice icing on the cake. When reading “puppets,” I sometimes had to hold back from commenting, lest I spoil the fun.
But all that’s on the record now.
It is very likely that neither the non-charities nor Heartland understood the US tax implications. Of course, if NZ citizens got money for a non-charity and spent it, without declaring income … well that’s for Kiwis to sort out.”
Awesome. Show up those who are funding the lies.
The personal search function is one I like – to keep track of my comments and those responding. I made some yesterday but they don’t come up on request. Is this something that gets dropped on occasions?
Not meant to. It runs on a cron process. I will look at in the morning as I’m in bed and doing a ssh console from the iPad is strictly an emergency procedure
Ok the problem was that sphinxsearch (the program that runs the search) had an update, and it appears that it was putting the lock files in with ownership coded to its own user id. That meant that the web process that had been running it was unable to run the daily updates.
I’ve shifted the period update to shift to the sphinx user.
I’ll check when I get to work to make sure that it has actually run.