Jobs for the boys? How much of our taxpayer money has the super ministry wasted since it was set up?
The greed for glory of the outgoing government and their friends is obscene.
“Some of its payments for consultants included:
– $198,523 on an analyst for one year
– $251,815 on a senior commercial advisor
– Up to $450 an hour for “immigration global management system independent governance adviser services”
– $156,457 for “temporary cover in information and education” over nine months
– and $249,398 for “NZ Business Number Senior Advisor Stakeholder Engagement”
In some cases, the contracts were paying roughly double the salary of that for a senior MBIE employee doing the same work”
In some cases, the contracts were paying roughly double the salary of that for a senior MBIE employee doing the same work
Which, as far as I can make out, is the point of the privatisation of government services. It costs more and so GDP goes up without actually doing anything more. The other point is that all that money most likely ends up in the hands of National supporters.
As Penny Bright has pointed out over the last few years – studies clearly show that using contractors costs more and that’s across the world where the same privatisation policies have been used.
Prohibition is a guaranteed source of funding for the gangs and provides employment for 1000’s of police, court workers and prison staff. Also the pharmaceutical industry makes big money selling anti-depressants, this market would also collapse if cannabis was legalised. I have heard of people using cannabloids to treat cancer here in NZ, which is evidently quite successful, and evidently there is sound research to back this up.
So obviously the decriminalisation of cannabis will deprive the gangs of funding, cut police spending, cut court costs, cut jail costs etc, etc
Most companies in NZ have a no drugs policy and drug testing in place, cannabis stays in the blood for approx 42 days, so most people will not use it unless they want to risk losing their job?
Alcohol prohibition in the USA provided funding for the mafia and the likes of
Al Capone in Chicago in the 1920’s, it is exactly the same senario here in NZ 2016.
If there are addiction issues it is a mental health/medical problem the same as alcohol, we need to shift the paradigm or think outside the square?
Much better for full legalisation of marijuana and a few other ‘recreational’ drugs. I’ve heard that magic mushrooms are absolutely brilliant for treating psychiatric issues.
Like, it will dry up cashflow for the likes of the Head Hunters, Hells Angels etc and will take the pressure of our police, corrections and judicial system.
It will take the cashflow out of the hands of the gangs and the pharmaceutical companies and we can reallocate those funds into medical and mental health.
There probably is somewhere but I think you’ll find that the drug companies are lobbying for IP laws that allow them to lock everyone else out so that they can get monopoly rentals.
This video explains how after North Korea tested a missile while Trump was at dinner with the Japanese Prime Minister at Trump’s resort in Florida, Trump got all his security advisors around the table at the restaurant along with the Japanese PM, top secret briefing papers etc to discuss the issue while other diners in the restaurant took photos and posted them on Facebook with one diner even taking a selfie of himself with the man who holds the briefcase with the nuclear code in it.
“Security guards unionised by Unite Union at MSD sites are angry with new policy changes brought in by the Government yesterday, that now sees them stopping every citizen trying to access their rights, and asking them for their name, appointment, and photo ID.”
So an agency that requires id wants s security staff to make sure clients have id, coz it aint for security given how clients are there to identify themselves. Less they give money to just anyone who walks in.
As for security, this is argued that some clients get very aggressive. As aggression is a barrier to work why isnt this a opportunity to send aggressive people to their doctor or councilling? Clearly any prospective employer will not employ angry people.
So overtime angry people would not be a problem, less of course, their anger is not the staff but the policy changes that keep kids sleeping in cars, families in damp state housing, running up huge debts to winz etc.
Any reasonable person would regard the act of upping security for staff as a defensive defeatist act of an organsation incapable of standing up to their minister. Instead of protecting staff properly by not puting them in the invidious position they leave them open to and increade the stressors that causes anger. i.e. the funding for security comes from a loss of ace time with clients duh, waiting causes stress…
Stressed people seeking assistanced are then woundup by WINZ who are forced into the position by neolib policies.
For we viewers of Three News, issues took a bizarre twist when the over-excitable political editor Paddy Gower popped up to announce breathlessly that “69,000 houses [are] to be built in Auckland over 10 years. A much bigger figure than has ever been made public by the Government before”.
He said they would be in Mt Roskill and Avondale, half state rentals, the rest for sale.
It was nice fantasy while it lasted, and, I thought, a smart political U-turn, stealing Labour’s thunder.
The most sinister aspect of his reign of terror which has yet to be officially acknowledged was his paranoid obsession with communists – or ‘reds under the beds’ as it was commonly referred to at the time. Many NZers were spied upon, bullied, intimidated and a lot of them lost their jobs. The vast majority were innocent but that didn’t stop his lackeys (whoever they may have been) from trying to ruin people’s lives. I should know because I was one of the innocent victims.
The campaign waged by the New Zealand Government of the time was extremely nasty and more in keeping with the actions of a totalitarian state than a democracy.
Brian Newth
Points of interest –
* Diem 25 relating to the Treaty of Rome is sharing some new approach on 25 March I think.
* The European New Deal, similar in its openness to ideas, and building capacity and keeping the economy alive with work schemes etc. He talks about people being displaced by deprivation in their areas and forced to emigrate, which destabilises the countries they go to.
* Besides high tech jobs for the future, there will be another stream of work recognised as basic and essential done by the Maintainers. (The idea here is this ensures that everybody that isn’t in IT is recognised as being a useful citizen, not some clapped out bit of old technology thrown out of the Human Resources offices.)
* Much use is to be made of a public bank that carries out basic transfers for the poorer people at little or no cost, and acts as an arm of social welfare.
* Social cohesion was referred to.
* Employment Guarantee Scheme – sounds rather like the UBI mixed with the work system we had giving employment to people doing things that are needed or wanted to do – Task Force Green ours is called.
Labour, however, turned its back on its history and pushed through free-market reforms, backed by significant business interests. After a stock market crash and some further volatility, the New Zealand economy finally got its act together in the 1990s.
Yeah, having higher rates of poverty while a few people own pretty much everything is truly getting our act together – NOT.
One lesson from the comparison is that a leader like Muldoon can be fairly popular, as he stayed in power from 1975 to 1984, winning three terms despite mistakes, antagonisms and policy failures.
And because he managed to win those three terms with less than a majority is what started the ball rolling to change to MMP.
Britain’s Pravda studiously ignored Ken Loach’s BAFTA win; maybe
he should punch an underling and make racist jokes if he wants BBC support
In 2005 the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Harold Pinter, a trenchant and uncompromising critic of the U.K./U.S. aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan. All the Blair regime’s self-proclaimed blather about “Cool Britannia” counted for nothing as Blair and his cronies sullenly showed the great playwright the collective cold shoulder. The displays of anger and bewilderment, and the obvious embarrassment of the British political class, was compared by many to the official mood in Moscow in 1958 after Boris Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Another outspoken critic of government, the great Ken Loach, is now receiving similar treatment from Britain’s state television, the same state broadcaster that lionized Jimmy Savile for decades and bent over backwards for louts like Jeremy Clarkson….
A solar power expert from (I think) Oxford University was just interviewed on Nine to Noon (from about 9.30am). His conclusion was that in 5 years time all new installed capacity should be solar as nothing else will compete with it.
A new type of panel has just been developed and is just coming into production that adds 15% to solar panel efficiency at a stroke.
No it isn’t and hasn’t. It’s only economic if you ignore all the associated costs that support a solar installation and that are needed to provide a reliable 24/7 power source.
Even solar advocate sites I have seen acknowledge that solar lifetime operating costs have to halve before competitive with gas, geothermal, and wind.
Some individuals will find it cost effective, particularly if they have an isolated property with no services installed. If you are on mains power then solar is a lifestyle not an economic choice (and a perfectly valid one).
No it isn’t and hasn’t. It’s only economic if you ignore all the associated costs that support a solar installation and that are needed to provide a reliable 24/7 power source.
No, even with all that, it’s still more economical.
To put it another way, fossil fuels are only economical if you ignore the millions of barrels of non-renewable resources destroyed everyday and the damage done to the environment.
Even solar advocate sites I have seen acknowledge that solar lifetime operating costs have to halve before competitive with gas, geothermal, and wind.
Those groups sound like the environmental groups that support more logging and damage to the environment because money.
A transformation is happening in global energy markets that’s worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity.
This has happened in isolated projects in the past: an especially competitive auction in the Middle East, for example, resulting in record-cheap solar costs. But now unsubsidized solar is beginning to outcompete coal and natural gas on a larger scale, and notably, new solar projects in emerging markets are costing less to build than wind projects, according to fresh data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
T’is about the Jackson-Williams issue, and Ohariu. Campbell quotes from comments on the Daily Blog by Martyn, and Anti-racist’s reply. then this:
Bomber’s message is the one that women on the left have been hearing since time eternal ie, that they should keep quiet, remain patient until victory is assured, and – in the meantime – make sure their concerns and modes of expression don’t antagonise the heroes of the proletariat. Besides everything else, this looks like a failure of imagination. Is the Winston Wing of Labour’s support base – those heroic, hand-calloused members of the white working class that Bomber Bradbury and Chris Trotter always bang on about – really so immune to policy arguments pitched any higher than Greg O’Connor’s face on a campaign billboard, or Willie Jackson on the mike?
By the final sentence, I take it that Campbell is presenting Bomber-Trotter’s limited view of the white working class: one that Campbell is indicating under-estimates working class people.
“We need to wise up to the fact that continuing to compartmentalise our endless individual battles – pay equity, dirty dairying, transport, roading, autism funding, education, intersectional feminism, partisan politics – is a waste of precious energy.
Don’t get me wrong. All are beyond important but, ultimately, unless we tackle climate change and right now, there’ll be no human rights or environment to actually fight for.”
The political writer from Rolling Stone magazine Matt Taibbi always been a joy to read. A very nice interview with Chris Hedges, about his new book “Insane Clown President”.
25.40 Min long.
It is well known that globalization has put strong downward pressure on wages and benefits of workers in wealthy countries, as companies have offshored and outsourced labor to lower-wage locations and justified wage cuts to try to stay competitive. But politicians and economists have yet to come to terms with the fact that in the rich world the income distribution system itself has broken down irretrievably.
The 20th century was the only century in which most income was divided between capital (profits) and labor (wages), with the struggle for shares mediated by the state through regulations, fiscal policy and a system of social protection. But once economic liberalization took off in the 1980s, the struggle was won decisively by capital, and labor’s share of total income has shrunk everywhere.
Meanwhile, rental income, linked to the control of natural resources, property, financial assets and intellectual property, has become a dominant force in the global economy.
This is the age of rentier capitalism; rich countries are becoming rentier economies. A rising share of global income is going to rent, rather than to wages or profits from productive activities. This perpetuates inequalities: It disproportionately favors the wealthy, and accentuates inequality over generations.
It is this rise of inequality, where a few rich people are getting richer not through producing anything of value but because they’re bludging off of everyone else, which eventually leads to the collapse of society. And this is what our governments have supported over the last 30+ years.
Throughout history it has been the rich that’s destroyed societies from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and they’re doing it again now for our own society.
It is time that we learned the lesson of history and stopped them and the only way to do that is to get rid of the rich. Legislate them out of existence.
“The tendency to impute order to ambiguous stimuli is simply built into the
cognitive machinery we use to apprehend the world. It may have been bred into us through evolution because of its general adaptiveness. . .” (Gilovich 1993,
chapter 2).
or how to be fooled by randomness (without context) eg Lyttleton fire last night.
Listening now to Nick Smith,getting hamerd,and unlike lost arguement insulted Twyford.Now if Labour can keep housing pushing and the minimum wage joke,that employment is profit honest work,for some one hour per week others two,hours per week and for even more full employed,three,days per week.
Dr Custard keeps to his regular pattern , informs the speaker prior that the answer will be longer than normal and jacks up some patsy supplementary questions. Hand picked facts to delude and distract.
Nelson voters need educating, proactive approach is necessary.
Speaking to media at Parliament before the meeting, English offered his sympathies to the victims’ families, saying they were “people who have suffered the distress of enormous loss”.
However, the decision over whether or not to re-enter the mine was “at its core a safety issue”, rather than a decision for the Government.
Some political parties have taken up the cause of the Pike River families, with Labour and NZ First both pledging to make re-entry an election year issue.
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Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
The Government’s newly announced funding for biodiversity and tourism of $30-million over three years is a small fraction of what is required for conservation in this country. ...
The Government's sudden cancellation of the tertiary education funding increase is a reckless move that risks widespread job losses and service reductions across New Zealand's universities. ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
The change allows for devices that do screening, similar to at drink-drive checkpoints, rather than having to test oral fluid to an evidentiary standard. ...
Almost 40% of those departing NZ long-term are aged 18 to 30. What sort of country will they leave behind, asks Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Young people leading the charge out the door Last year saw ...
New Health Minister Simeon Brown is presiding over a list of resignations from high-ranking health officials that some say is a "bloodbath". What's going on? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Rickerby, Lecturer, School of Product Design, University of Canterbury The Poly-1. MOTAT , CC BY-NC Some 45 years ago, a team of staff and students at Wellington Polytechnic designed and built a desktop computer with an operating system customised for ...
The Forum has raised concerns regarding the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill and the Regulatory Standards Bill, which, if enacted, will radically undermine existing human rights protections, Indigenous rights, and constitutional safeguards ...
The passage of time hasn’t been kind to Ngāi Tahu.When its High Court hearing over wai māori (freshwater) commenced last week, 52 months after the claim was filed, the tribe mourned the loss of two named first plaintiffs – Bishop Richard Wallace, of Makaawhio, and Theo Bunker, of Wairewa – ...
Margie Apa, Nicholas Jones, Diana Sarfati, the board of Health New Zealand … and will Lester Levy be next?The biggest names in our health service are tumbling like dominos.It’s been called a bloodbath and a crisis.What’s going on?Every day there’s a new story about shortages, patients having to wait for ...
Opinion: The coalition Government’s recent revisions to the business investor visa, officially the Active Investor Plus but commonly known as the ‘golden visa’, has put pay-for-residency back in the headlines. While many object to the commodification of citizenship implicit in this policy, questions should be asked about its potential as ...
One Christmas, to thank him for helping me hugely with my writing (on a mentor scheme), I sent Michael King a dark blue cashmere scarf. I chose it with the awful knowledge that he was battling cancer, and I somehow thought it might keep him warm and make him feel ...
Comment: Readers may recall the commentaries from academics that appeared on these pages as well as on many media outlets, alarmed and appalled by the disbanding of the Marsden panels for humanities and the social sciences.The Marsden Fund is a “blue skies” initiative established by Simon Upton in the 1990s. ...
Everything you missed from day five of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard seven hours of submissions. Read our recaps of the previous hearings here.An “insult to every one of our tīpuna” was the first advice the Justice Committee heard on the Treaty principles bill ...
The same councillors who decry excessive spending on pet projects just voted to pump millions of dollars into a greenhouse for flowers. On Thursday last week, Wellington City Council voted to consult on repairing Begonia House, the greenhouse for exotic flowers in Wellington Botanic Garden. The options for repairs range ...
It’s important to respect people’s right to free speech and peaceful assembly, but how much political deference is due when it isn’t peaceful? Commenting on Destiny Church members storming a children’s event at the Te Atatū library and community centre on Saturday, prime minister Christopher Luxon said it’s important to ...
Comment: US is capitulating to Moscow’s demands before negotiations over Ukraine even begin The post The day the West died appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 18 February appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Asia Pacific Report Two Palestinian resistance groups have condemned “the brutal assault” on prisoners at Ofer Prison, saying it was “barbaric criminal behaviour that reflects the fascist and terrorist nature of” Israel. In the joint statement, Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) called the attack a “miserable attempt” by Israel ...
By Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist in Avarua, Rarotonga Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown hopes to have “an opportunity to talk” with the New Zealand government to “heal some of the rift”. Brown returned to Avarua on Sunday afternoon (Cook Islands Time) following his week-long state visit to China, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sonia R. Grover, Clinical Professor of Gynaecology, The University of Melbourne Polina Zimmerman/Pexels Menstruation, or a period, is the bleeding that occurs about monthly in healthy people born with a uterus, from puberty to menopause. This happens when the endometrium, the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ella Barclay, Senior Lecturer, School of Art and Design, Australian National University Despite the perceived outrage at Khaled Sabsabi’s depiction of Hassan Nasrallah in his 2007 work You, Australian art has long made subjects of outlaws and questionable figures. And it is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Pryke, Honorary Research Associate, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney Lisa Tomasetti/Opera Australia “It’s an old song”, Hermes (Christine Anu) sings at the opening of Hadestown, but “we’re gonna sing it again and again”. Based on a ...
An additional $13 million will be invested in tourism infrastructure, including upgrading huts and resolving the backlog in Milford Sound concessions. ...
The reality is that we have no obligation to tolerate the intolerant. They are using violence to shut down and silence others. The result of tolerating intolerant views is the loss of everyone’s freedom of speech except for the one who most effectively ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Davis, Associate Professor in Conservation, Edith Cowan University Adwo/Shutterstock Humans have been poisoning rodents for centuries. But fast-breeding rats and mice have evolved resistance to earlier poisons. In response, manufacturers have produced second generation anticoagulant rodenticides such as bromadiolone, widely ...
Alex Casey unearths Simon Court’s full sales pitch for how menstrual cups could end poverty. On Friday last week, Act MP Simon Court was accused of “mansplaining” during a parliamentary committee hearing about benefit sanctions. After submitter Rachel Dibble shared her concerns about period poverty and the impact that sanctions ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato It’s an unfortunate fact that bad people sometimes want guns. And while laws are designed to prevent guns falling into the wrong hands, the determined criminal can be highly resourceful. There are three main ...
Asia Pacific Report Two independent Jewish Voices groups in Aotearoa New Zealand have written an open letter to the government condemning the Zionist “colonisation” project leading to genocide and criticising the role of the NZ Jewish Council for its “unelected” and “uncritical support” for Israel. The groups, Alternative Jewish Voices ...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/89390521/government-superministry-under-fire-for-spending-on-external-consultants
Consultant = over paid suit who stands around sounding smart while the workers do the job they would have done anyway.
Jobs for the boys? How much of our taxpayer money has the super ministry wasted since it was set up?
The greed for glory of the outgoing government and their friends is obscene.
“Some of its payments for consultants included:
– $198,523 on an analyst for one year
– $251,815 on a senior commercial advisor
– Up to $450 an hour for “immigration global management system independent governance adviser services”
– $156,457 for “temporary cover in information and education” over nine months
– and $249,398 for “NZ Business Number Senior Advisor Stakeholder Engagement”
In some cases, the contracts were paying roughly double the salary of that for a senior MBIE employee doing the same work”
Which, as far as I can make out, is the point of the privatisation of government services. It costs more and so GDP goes up without actually doing anything more. The other point is that all that money most likely ends up in the hands of National supporters.
As Penny Bright has pointed out over the last few years – studies clearly show that using contractors costs more and that’s across the world where the same privatisation policies have been used.
Here is another reason the cannabis laws need to be changed.
Terminal cancer patient, uses cannabis for pain and nausea relief etc. Grows one plant in their garden so they don’t have to go to a gang or dealer.
Someone comes onto their property and steals their plant, their medicine, are they able to go to to the police for help? No.
Do they feel safe in their home after someone prowled around their property and stole something from them? No
Will the cannabis end up in the hands of a gang who will profit from it? Probably
Will the terminal cancer patient be suffering because someone stole from them? Yes
All the current cannabis laws seem to do is look after the gangs and neglects the sick and dying. Its disgusting.
Prohibition is a guaranteed source of funding for the gangs and provides employment for 1000’s of police, court workers and prison staff. Also the pharmaceutical industry makes big money selling anti-depressants, this market would also collapse if cannabis was legalised. I have heard of people using cannabloids to treat cancer here in NZ, which is evidently quite successful, and evidently there is sound research to back this up.
So obviously the decriminalisation of cannabis will deprive the gangs of funding, cut police spending, cut court costs, cut jail costs etc, etc
Most companies in NZ have a no drugs policy and drug testing in place, cannabis stays in the blood for approx 42 days, so most people will not use it unless they want to risk losing their job?
Alcohol prohibition in the USA provided funding for the mafia and the likes of
Al Capone in Chicago in the 1920’s, it is exactly the same senario here in NZ 2016.
If there are addiction issues it is a mental health/medical problem the same as alcohol, we need to shift the paradigm or think outside the square?
+1
Much better for full legalisation of marijuana and a few other ‘recreational’ drugs. I’ve heard that magic mushrooms are absolutely brilliant for treating psychiatric issues.
Like, it will dry up cashflow for the likes of the Head Hunters, Hells Angels etc and will take the pressure of our police, corrections and judicial system.
It looks after the corporations as well as it reduces the competition on them allowing them to charge far more for the drugs that they produce.
Just think of how the aspirin/panadol/neurofen market would crash if everyone could grow a plant in the back garden/spare room for pain.
It will take the cashflow out of the hands of the gangs and the pharmaceutical companies and we can reallocate those funds into medical and mental health.
Quite simple really?
I wonder if any one is actively fighting/lobbying against medical marijuana?
There probably is somewhere but I think you’ll find that the drug companies are lobbying for IP laws that allow them to lock everyone else out so that they can get monopoly rentals.
This video explains how after North Korea tested a missile while Trump was at dinner with the Japanese Prime Minister at Trump’s resort in Florida, Trump got all his security advisors around the table at the restaurant along with the Japanese PM, top secret briefing papers etc to discuss the issue while other diners in the restaurant took photos and posted them on Facebook with one diner even taking a selfie of himself with the man who holds the briefcase with the nuclear code in it.
Dementia.
“Security guards unionised by Unite Union at MSD sites are angry with new policy changes brought in by the Government yesterday, that now sees them stopping every citizen trying to access their rights, and asking them for their name, appointment, and photo ID.”
<a hre="http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/02/14/union-anger-at-msd-id-crackdown/
So an agency that requires id wants s security staff to make sure clients have id, coz it aint for security given how clients are there to identify themselves. Less they give money to just anyone who walks in.
As for security, this is argued that some clients get very aggressive. As aggression is a barrier to work why isnt this a opportunity to send aggressive people to their doctor or councilling? Clearly any prospective employer will not employ angry people.
So overtime angry people would not be a problem, less of course, their anger is not the staff but the policy changes that keep kids sleeping in cars, families in damp state housing, running up huge debts to winz etc.
Any reasonable person would regard the act of upping security for staff as a defensive defeatist act of an organsation incapable of standing up to their minister. Instead of protecting staff properly by not puting them in the invidious position they leave them open to and increade the stressors that causes anger. i.e. the funding for security comes from a loss of ace time with clients duh, waiting causes stress…
Stressed people seeking assistanced are then woundup by WINZ who are forced into the position by neolib policies.
Ken Loach addressed the British government’s outrageous treatment of the poor eloquently at the BAFTA Awards two days ago…
Brian Rudman on the government’s alt-facts about housing – Bling catches the Trump disease.
Insights for the US from our feisty, protectionist populist, Muldoon.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-13/feisty-protectionist-populism-new-zealand-tried-that
The most sinister aspect of his reign of terror which has yet to be officially acknowledged was his paranoid obsession with communists – or ‘reds under the beds’ as it was commonly referred to at the time. Many NZers were spied upon, bullied, intimidated and a lot of them lost their jobs. The vast majority were innocent but that didn’t stop his lackeys (whoever they may have been) from trying to ruin people’s lives. I should know because I was one of the innocent victims.
Here’s an example from last Saturday’s Herald:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11789391
While thinking about how to do things in future to restore the country without someone like Trump or authoritarian fascist types, Yanis Varoufakis Greek economist and politician and Philip Adams a long-time Oz journalist have an interesting interview.
(https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2017/02/07/trump-brexit-the-european-new-deal-with-phillip-adams-on-abc-radio-national-live/
Points of interest –
* Diem 25 relating to the Treaty of Rome is sharing some new approach on 25 March I think.
* The European New Deal, similar in its openness to ideas, and building capacity and keeping the economy alive with work schemes etc. He talks about people being displaced by deprivation in their areas and forced to emigrate, which destabilises the countries they go to.
* Besides high tech jobs for the future, there will be another stream of work recognised as basic and essential done by the Maintainers. (The idea here is this ensures that everybody that isn’t in IT is recognised as being a useful citizen, not some clapped out bit of old technology thrown out of the Human Resources offices.)
* Much use is to be made of a public bank that carries out basic transfers for the poorer people at little or no cost, and acts as an arm of social welfare.
* Social cohesion was referred to.
* Employment Guarantee Scheme – sounds rather like the UBI mixed with the work system we had giving employment to people doing things that are needed or wanted to do – Task Force Green ours is called.
Yeah, having higher rates of poverty while a few people own pretty much everything is truly getting our act together – NOT.
Labour’s reforms have put us on the path to collapse.
And because he managed to win those three terms with less than a majority is what started the ball rolling to change to MMP.
Britain’s Pravda studiously ignored Ken Loach’s BAFTA win; maybe
he should punch an underling and make racist jokes if he wants BBC support
In 2005 the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Harold Pinter, a trenchant and uncompromising critic of the U.K./U.S. aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan. All the Blair regime’s self-proclaimed blather about “Cool Britannia” counted for nothing as Blair and his cronies sullenly showed the great playwright the collective cold shoulder. The displays of anger and bewilderment, and the obvious embarrassment of the British political class, was compared by many to the official mood in Moscow in 1958 after Boris Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Another outspoken critic of government, the great Ken Loach, is now receiving similar treatment from Britain’s state television, the same state broadcaster that lionized Jimmy Savile for decades and bent over backwards for louts like Jeremy Clarkson….
+100
I, Daniel Blake is an excellent film, they clapped at the end in Wanaka when it was shown…this seldom happens.
Shame on the beeb.
Ken Loach has hit a nerve, the hard right media are biting back hard.
All sorts of anti-Loach press now.
A solar power expert from (I think) Oxford University was just interviewed on Nine to Noon (from about 9.30am). His conclusion was that in 5 years time all new installed capacity should be solar as nothing else will compete with it.
A new type of panel has just been developed and is just coming into production that adds 15% to solar panel efficiency at a stroke.
Solar has been more price competitive for awhile now. It has always been more economical.
No it isn’t and hasn’t. It’s only economic if you ignore all the associated costs that support a solar installation and that are needed to provide a reliable 24/7 power source.
Even solar advocate sites I have seen acknowledge that solar lifetime operating costs have to halve before competitive with gas, geothermal, and wind.
Some individuals will find it cost effective, particularly if they have an isolated property with no services installed. If you are on mains power then solar is a lifestyle not an economic choice (and a perfectly valid one).
No, even with all that, it’s still more economical.
To put it another way, fossil fuels are only economical if you ignore the millions of barrels of non-renewable resources destroyed everyday and the damage done to the environment.
Those groups sound like the environmental groups that support more logging and damage to the environment because money.
World Energy Hits a Turning Point: Solar That’s Cheaper Than Wind
Gordon Campbell on Werewolf, always a journalist worth reading, doesn’t hold back on Labour’s latest candidate selections and Green’s complicity.
T’is about the Jackson-Williams issue, and Ohariu. Campbell quotes from comments on the Daily Blog by Martyn, and Anti-racist’s reply. then this:
By the final sentence, I take it that Campbell is presenting Bomber-Trotter’s limited view of the white working class: one that Campbell is indicating under-estimates working class people.
Rachel Stewart – nails it,
“We need to wise up to the fact that continuing to compartmentalise our endless individual battles – pay equity, dirty dairying, transport, roading, autism funding, education, intersectional feminism, partisan politics – is a waste of precious energy.
Don’t get me wrong. All are beyond important but, ultimately, unless we tackle climate change and right now, there’ll be no human rights or environment to actually fight for.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11800401
Yes, yes yes! Brilliant – again!
President Bannon and the Other Guy
Funny!
Next up to get the arse?.
http://freakoutnation.com/2017/02/uh-oh-trumps-personal-and-official-accounts-just-unfollowed-kellyanne-conway-images/
The political writer from Rolling Stone magazine Matt Taibbi always been a joy to read. A very nice interview with Chris Hedges, about his new book “Insane Clown President”.
25.40 Min long.
The age of rentier capitalism
It is this rise of inequality, where a few rich people are getting richer not through producing anything of value but because they’re bludging off of everyone else, which eventually leads to the collapse of society. And this is what our governments have supported over the last 30+ years.
Throughout history it has been the rich that’s destroyed societies from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome and they’re doing it again now for our own society.
It is time that we learned the lesson of history and stopped them and the only way to do that is to get rid of the rich. Legislate them out of existence.
So I read today that Flynn’s 29 day tenure was the shortest appointment of a National Security Advisor in the position’s history.
So at least Trump’s made one historic change already 🙂
“The tendency to impute order to ambiguous stimuli is simply built into the
cognitive machinery we use to apprehend the world. It may have been bred into us through evolution because of its general adaptiveness. . .” (Gilovich 1993,
chapter 2).
or how to be fooled by randomness (without context) eg Lyttleton fire last night.
https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/h/8/u/b/g/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620×349.1h8lkx.png/1487120697474.jpg
Ah, so it was actually an attack from space…
😈
Listening now to Nick Smith,getting hamerd,and unlike lost arguement insulted Twyford.Now if Labour can keep housing pushing and the minimum wage joke,that employment is profit honest work,for some one hour per week others two,hours per week and for even more full employed,three,days per week.
Dr Custard keeps to his regular pattern , informs the speaker prior that the answer will be longer than normal and jacks up some patsy supplementary questions. Hand picked facts to delude and distract.
Nelson voters need educating, proactive approach is necessary.
Looking forward to this years election
“Pike River families told that sealing of mine will be stopped following meeting with PM”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/89454103/pike-river-families-meet-pm-bill-english-to-discuss-sealing-of-mine
More to come..
Stuff on this
Bill really is quite keen on an election win isn’t he…or is it swallowing dead rats time again?
Following Checkpoint on the out of control fire in Christchurch Port Hills.
RNZ doing updates