Fonterra is the third biggest single consumer of coal after Huntly Power Station and Glenbrook Steel Mill. (Dairy industry as a whole, may consume more than Glenbrook making Dairying number 2. Unfortunately figures for the total consumption of coal by the total Dairy Industry are hard to come by).
Trend setter, Fonterra plans to dig a brand new open cast coal mine, just south of Auckland.
Though having owned the land for nearly 20 years, Fonterra were unable to mine it for it’s known coal reserves. I surmise that Fonterra were unable, or unwilling to meet the strict Auckland Regional compliance regulations.
But it seems, there is more than one way to skin a cat. (or a climate).
In the creation of the Super City the Southern Auckland boundary which contained Mangatangi, (including the Mangatangi reservoir, the biggest in the country, providing the bulk of Auckland’s drinking water), was moved North.
The prevailing winds are from the West, the Mangatangi Reservoir, in particular, is almost directly down wind of the open cast mine. Coal dust is notorious for being contaminated with heavy metal residues.
Are the local residents of Mangatangi/Mangatawhiri concerned?
Yes, they are.
Should you be too?
Yes you should.
Anti-climate change pressure group Auckland Coal Action has teamed up with local residents of Mangatangi and Mangatawhiri to oppose Fonterra’s plans for the new open cast coal mine at Mangatangi.
They are calling for as many people as possible to make submissions to the Waikato Regional Council.
With a big helping hand from then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama, Sandor’s brainchild, The Chicago Climate Exchange, opened for business in 2003 billing itself as “North America’s only cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases…
” In other words, the facilitator for a scheme not quite hatched. Sandor, a long-time economist turned environmentalist shared his vision during a 1990 interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying,
“Air and water are no longer the free goods that economics once assumed. They must be redefined as property rights so that they can be efficiently allocated.” The statement didn’t get a lot of attention back then but today seems prophetic. Sandor claims his idea of efficient allocation, also known as carbon trading, will develop into a $10 trillion industry.</B
Who would have thunk it, where there’s a good rort involving billions of dollars to be made in a ‘money for nothing scam’ the name Goldman Saches, (sacks of gold man), is to be found wallowing knee deep in the crimes of the century,
That article is a good read and encapsulates quite neatly my total and ongoing opposition to such cap’n’trade scams among them the Kyoto Accord and the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scam which if fully implemented on it’s proposed world-wide scale would have knee-capped our economy and society, (leaving only the money printers as the winners),
There can in my opinion be only one way forward for New Zealand vis a vis the CO2 issue and that is for a dedicated Carbon Tax to be imposed and a withdrawal from such rorts as cap’n’trade scams,
Such a tax would need be used to plant forests of trees and for research and development of a means by which CO2 can be extracted from the atmosphere and sequestered on an industrial scale,
Interestingly, Solid Energy, up with the play, until it’s financial demise, had invested with an Australian firm in exploring the very question of the capture and removal from the atmosphere of industrial amounts of CO2,
i will hunt out a link to the Australian research organization later, but, when you read the names in the article you have provided in your link you have to then wonder if there is not far far more going on within the financial kneecapping of the States miner Solid Energy than simply cynical revenue gathering from this Slippery National Government,
i had been forming the opinion that Solid energy had been effectively ‘crushed’ because oif it’s moves into both bio-diesel and it’s planned production of diesel from lignite coal, however, the multi-billion dollar scams which are cap’n’trade schemes would in effect become dead ducks IF the means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere on an industrial scale were found and shown to be economic…
Thanks, now it is clear why Rodney insisted on taking Auckland’s water dams from the super shitty despite hard lobbying. Obviously someone was lobbying harder.
Welfare changes – UK version, with a post on FB with what is about to happen over there:
Hi
I work within the dwp so please don’t use my name as it could cost me my job.
The dwp are rolling out nationally an initiative to work with 120k families whose lives are blighted by joblessness, single parents, crime and truancy. We have specially trained personnel to work closely with them to break these harmful trends and integrate them into society, improve their lives and make working the preferred options.
However what has not been released and is being kept hush hush is that these families are to achieve certain targets working with our staff and stakeholders, professional organisations which have been hand picked to get the desired results as expediently as possible. The department is investing a great deal of resources into this project and participants are to be under no illusions that equal investment and commitment are required from them. This will not be an option where families can choose not to be involved in…..if they refuse to participate, their benefits will be stripped under sanctions. If after a period of 26 weeks results are not forthcoming and improvements tangible and sustained all benefits will be withdrawn. The adults will either have to work in any position that can be found and will be paid via fuel food and basic clothing. If the children continue to truant and participate in anti social behaviour those under 13 will be taken into
care and those over 13 will be expected to work under the same terms as their parents with tutors twice weekly to ensure a basic level of literacy and numeracy. They will not be living with their parents but in dormitory accommodation. Tenders have been received and a short list drawn up for the lots as with pip. Fore runners are G4S, Deloittes, Veolia, Capita and Serco
Myself and many other staff are horrified but are powerless to stop this. The govt are saying they will save more on what they cut on the benefits including DLA for the people in these families getting high rates for anger and behavioural problems, housing benefits and benefits for babies and children. Any of the parents having children throughout or once they’ve failed the initiative will be taken into the care of local authorities. The families will be allowed supervised access at contact centres as deemed acceptable by the people overseeing the project and the handlers for the individual families.
This is all underway and being arranged as we speak. The govt see these families as an absolute blight on society and one way or another are determined to get rid of them in any way they can. Their view is that support and money haven’t helped, ASBO’s are a joke and seen as a badge of honour and children whether in these families or other families on low incomes are a drain on resources and they believe if they stop paying then the children will stop being born and those already here will have to either conform or to be excluded and earn their keep. To get disability allowance for children is going to be nigh on impossible which is why the reforms haven’t targeted them, new plans are underway as the perception is that ALL children need care and parents know this before having them therefore there are only very rare circumstances where additional support is justifiable.
What madness is this? As well as being a kind of eugenics, it’ll do nought for the society as a whole. Meanwhile, an increasing proportion of young Brits are slipping into poverty:
Within two years, almost 7.1m of the nation’s 13m youngsters will be in homes with incomes judged to be less than the minimum necessary for a decent standard of living, according to a new report.
The figures, which emerged a week ahead of George Osborne’s Budget, suggest that an unwanted legacy of the Coalition’s squeeze on spending will be to leave more children living close to poverty.
And meanwhile John Key’s cum Lord Asshcroft, who pays no income tax in England but wants to have a say in it’s draconian rule, is rubbing his grubby hands with glee. Riots? No doubt the ‘good’ lord has donated bullet proof vests to the UK Police force as he has done in NZ where he is obviously trying to have a similar influence as well. Asshcroft and his ilk, e.g Douglas Myers, are a nasty stain on this earth.
And meanwhile John Key’s cum Lord Asshcroft, who pays no income tax in England but wants to have a say in it’s draconian rule, is rubbing his grubby hands with glee. Riots? No doubt the ‘good’ lord has donated bullet proof vests to the UK Police force as he has done in NZ where he is obviously trying to have a similar influence as well. Asshcroft and his ilk, e.g Douglas Myers, are a nasty stain on this earth.
ooops Something went wrong. Meant to put a belated correction to my above post and it popped up again.
John Key.s CHUM is what I meant to write. Yes, have just had an eye-test and new glasses are on their way.
As karol notes above now that North Sea Oil is going going gone. The U$K is getting to be a lot poorer, this has been grossely inflamed by the use of Public Money to bail out the feckless casino banks with the same money being extracted from those already at the bottom, austerity (In plain language a 2 trillion pound transfer of wealth from the public sector to the ailing rich to support their scum bag share market as well). John Yankee’s Chum Cameron has bailed out his bankster mates and is now privatising (Including sneak privatisation of the NHS) everything in sight to cover his wretched bum. As in Yank land: Main Street is screwed but Wall Street is rescued with their obscene bonuses.
This is the NeoLiberal nightmare these bankster chum scumbag privatisation screwups have inflicted on the U$K and John Yankee’s doing it here with the privatisation of our power companies and the Solid Energy screw up, so they can flog it off. 🙁
The fatal choice between food or heating in Modern Britain
Senior Citizens and Disabled people say they’re being abandoned by society. Thousands are left to die in cold homes every year in the UK, while energy companies threaten to raise cost of heating further
Sounds like they are attacking the symptoms not the causes of inter-generational poverty. From badly designed council estates, to onerous taxation on the poorest (VAT), to needing a degree to understand eligibility
(and even then), and if successful, the numbers of families needing the new intervention will jump as the poor (as businesses sack those getting by marginally and hire the new now state rebranded citizens who have been produced by the program).
That’s the problem, its the former minister for the environment who couldn’t understand that mines need mine inspectors, and reserves do have benefits outside of the boundaries to fish levels, because it makes the government look mean and hard headed.
Look I agree that the state has a duty of care to citizens to not create inter-generational poverty, but the idea that sanctions on the citizens when its the states fault the jobs aren’t there, the schools are shit, the housing estates degrade and depress, remove choice… …its just more of the same IMHO, more taking away choice, control, enforcing poor government decisions, and ignoring the reality that government can’t sweep under the carpet the problem. Bad government does not justify more bad government.
Shocking and revealing – just one more step closer to “concentration camps” for the “anti-social”, considered to be a “burden” on society.
And as we know, Bennett and her MSD brigades just love the ideology about the so-called “bio psycho social model”, which has been perverted by the ones like Prof. Mansel Aylward, former Chief Medical Officer at DWP, and others he mentored or shares his madness about “work ability” with.
Dr David Bratt, Principal Health Advisor for MSD and WINZ is working right now, to bring in policies from the UK, and once the sick and disabled are assessed and considered “fit” for whatever (using ATOS type outsourced assessors), they will be put into work. Once that has been implemented, NZ will endeavour to follow this kind of stuff just mentioned here.
“In another episode, Bergoglio has been accused of ignoring the pleas for help from a family that lost five of its members to the junta, including a young woman who was five months pregnant before she was kidnapped and killed in 1977. Bergoglio allegedly assigned a junior colleague to the case, who was subsequently given a note from a colonel explaining that the young woman had given birth while in detention and that the baby had been given to an “important” family. Despite his involvement in this case, Bergoglio testified in 2010 that he did not know about stolen babies until after the fall of the dictatorship.”
The new Pope seems to have been chosen to save the institution that is the Catholic church. He was chosen for his experience at the root of Catholicism. In a world where poverty (which once fueled religious fervor) is now being addressed by science, technology, yes even economics, as efficient societies are less resource parasites than countries with poor war ridden masses who block to resources, its pretty much obvious the trends are all against institutional faith. People do not choose weak religions.
The only winners in the financial crisis that brought Detroit to the brink of state takeover are Wall Street bankers who reaped more than $474 million from a city too poor to keep street lights working.
The city started borrowing to plug budget holes in 2005 under former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was convicted this week on corruption charges. That year, it issued $1.4 billion in securities to fund pension payments. Last year, it added $129.5 million in debt, 9.3 percent of its general-fund budget, in part to repay loans taken to service other bonds.
The debt sales cost Detroit $474 million, including underwriting expenses, bond-insurance premiums and fees for wrong-way bets on swaps, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That almost equals the city’s 2013 budget for police and fire protection.
The largest part is $350 million owed for derivatives meant to lower borrowing costs on variable-rate debt.
It’s almost time for simple outright refusal to deal with banks and finance types. Just don’t deal with them. From personal (use cash – still a requirement to be paid in cash if an employee wishes) to the big stuff. For example, the govt does not need to pay $120,000,000 to investment bankers to sell Mighty River Power, it could do it itself.
As those given the elected responsibility, fail to protect the vulnerable people of NZ we continue to live in a farce of so called democracy.
As the failure to address the causes of the *GFC* continues, and there is no indication that it will be halted, the scams, rip offs, poverty, inequality and financially/socially genocidal decisions/results will amplify dramatically, as we are seeing around the world, and in NZ.
We are now into the 6th year of the *GFC*, and structurally, there has not been any changes to how the world’s financial/banking systems function, nor has there been any prosecutions of note at the highest levels of banking, which is the true indicator of the power the owners of the world’s financial systems wield!
Have a read of my link above at 1.1.1, to get a feel for the power/influence, which the directors of our world seek to crush the rest of us under.
We are being crushed, and yet hardly a whimper – It must be working nicely for a heap of people, to remain this quiet in NZ!
Like beneficiaries are meat and drink to tories, they are the Achilles heel of the left.
I’m quite certain that it’s not only the right wing of the nat’s voter base that think all unemployed people are work shy scum bags, but large chunks of middle NZ buy into the stereotype.
The solution is in the hands of Labour and the Green’s to offer the alternative to the status quo, if they’re brave, competent and strategically savvy enough to do so.
We all know that some people on benefits rort the system, fact. These people tarnish the name of those making use of the safety net. Rule one, don’t hand ammo to the enemy unless they’re blanks.
Target these people, not with poverty penalties, but using the weapons long championed by the socially conscious – Education, training and support to equality. When the stick clearly doesn’t work, wave the ‘effing carrot.
There’s a job for everyone, even those that don’t want one. We’re in this sinking ship together, bailing together is better than sinking alone.
People on invalidity benefits, those people who suffer enough already, should never have to worry about money. A clear policy statement should read ‘you want anything, let us know. Otherwise just sit back and take it easy, we got your backs.’
People on sickness benefits, another target of this government, should also be sent a clear message from the opposition. They should be told that if your doctor says you can’t work at the moment, no worries, you won’t lose your house or not be able to eat every day because of illness. We’re the caring left, get better and we’ll help you back into work when the doctors say you’re ready. The state should also provide free access to counselling and other services if needed.
Any work organised by winz should be paid at the national minimum wage.
We’re known for being clean and green, but Kiwis are still eating up at least twice their fair share of the planet when it comes to sustainability.
Two papers released today by the Royal Society of New Zealand explore how many people the country could support sustainably – and how comfortably.
They found that if the entire world was to live like a New Zealander, we would require more than two planets to sustain us.
What a surprise, we’re not living sustainably.
Some estimates had put the number as high as five.
And those estimates are probably correct as those estimates are usually based around everyone living as the USians do. Although the US are slightly less than 5% of the population they use about 25% of the resources.
Yep, pretty much. Why do you think I’ve come to the conclusion that we can’t afford the middle class? We can probably afford the median class but I doubt that a lot of people want to hear that.
Looking at the Listener in the supermarket the features sounded like standard Readers Digest fare. Mostly light, magazine, time-filling reading – okay for the fish and chip shop and the determinedly ignorant.
nz Listener recent main features
The Lake of Shame about pollution (worthy topic)
but then, for the anxious self-involved middle class (woman?) –
Beating your inner critic
Change of fortune (money etc)
Secrets of colour
Can Women Succeed & Still Be Liked? March23-29
and from December last –
Can science cure baldness?
Diagnosis danger
(Many people are receiving medical treatments that are doing them more harm than good – and are completely unaware of it.)
@ Dave Kennedy (bsprout)
Hey great post! I think you might be really onto something here.
and LOL “The RMA roadshow”
…the whole “governing” shebang in NZ is seeming like more like a circus, increasingly so each day,… and each day one thinks it couldn’t resemble a circus more….and then the next day dawns…and one is proven wrong….
Disappointing results of an Official Information Act request made to MSD in late Oct. 2012:
Question(s) and Answers (summarised):
Q 1). Information in detail about the total number of referrals made by WINZ case managers and/or regional health and disability advisory staff – of sickness benefit (SB) and invalid’s benefit (IB) recipients/applicants – to be examined under sections 44 (1) and 54B (3) of the Social Security Act 1964 by a “designated doctor” – per year from 2006 up until now, for all administrative regions in NZ.
Answer: “The Ministry does not centrally record the number of benefit applications that have been referred to a designated doctor that have not subsequently been endorsed by a designated doctor. Rather this information is held on individual client files. Therefore this part of your question is refused under section 18 (f) of the O.I.A..”
Q 2). Information in detail about the total number of appeals made according to section 53A (1) (b) and (ba) of the Social Security Act 1964 – against decisions made by case managers and/or other staff members, following (and relying on) recommendations by regional health and disability advisory staff, upon them receiving reports and recommendations from medical practitioners or psychologists, who conducted medical examinations according to sections 44 (1) and 54B (3) of the Social Security Act 1964. This is for appeal made by IB and SB recipients or applicants per year from 2006 up until now, for all administered regions in NZ.
Q 3). Information in detail about the total costs for preparing, conducting and finalising appeals brought under section 53A of the Social Security Act 1964 – per year from 2006 up until now, for all administrative regions within NZ.
Q 4). Information in detail – about the numbers of decisions by MSD and Work and Income staff upheld and/or overturned by Medical Appeal Board panels hearing appeals – per year from 2006 up until now, for all administrative regions within NZ.
Answer(s) (2 to 4 here have been answered in summary, but indeed more questions were asked in detail and have thus been summarised):
“The Ministry is reviewing the way in which M.A.B. data is centrally reported and monitored, this is because the Ministry has only recently developed a system that records the total number of M.A.B. appeals. Information prior to April 2011, detailed information is not able to be obtained as the information is captured on individual client files where it is most needed. As such this information is again unable to be provided under to section 18 (f) of the Act.”
“A number of W+I staff who are involved in preparing information for the M.A.B. also perform a wide variety of other tasks within the Ministry. For this reason I am not able to answer your questions regarding the costs for preparing for a M.A.B. hearing. Section 18 (g) allows me to refuse this part of your request…”
A table is provided to list costs for M.A.B. hearings expenses directly (not including preparation and organisation costs for WINZ):
2005/2006 $ 129,569
2006/2007 $ 135,872
2007/2008 $ 91,665
2008/2009 $ 196,412
2009/2010 $ 610,092
2010/2011 $ 690,646
2011/2012 $ 449,582
Q 5). Information about the total expenses paid to –
a) “designated doctors”;
b) “host” or “usual” doctors –
for conducting examinations, completing designated doctor reports and making recommendations to MSD and/or WINZ staff – or for preparing and providing “host” or “usual doctor reports”, per year from 2006 until now, for all administrative regions in New Zealand.
Answer (summarised): Only a table of total costs per year for designated and host doctor expenses was provided. There was a change under the last Labour government (“Working NZ”), where IB recipients/applicants no longer needed to be examined or re-examined – unless there were contradicting or unclear reports on conditions, ability to work, etc. from the client and her/his doctor:
Q 6). A complete list including all names, professional or other titles, positions and medical or health related qualifications, of those persons, who were – besides of Principal Health Advisor for the Ministry of Social Development, Dr David Bratt conducting “designated doctor training” from 2008.
Answer (summarised): Besides of Dr Bratt apparently only Dr David Rankin (Sen. Advisor in the Ministry, MBChB, Uni Otago) was involved in “training” designated doctors in 2008.
Q 7). The complete lists of all “training sessions” held all over NZ, for the purpose of training medical practitioners or other health professionals used as “designated doctors” by WINZ for medical examinations, for the years from 2008 up to the most recent time. And also requested was a complete list of the essential, detailed training materials and presentations commonly used during training of “designated doctors” (by Dr David Bratt or other staff of MSD) since such training was commenced during the course of 2008.
Answer: NO list for training sessions was provided, and only a mention was made that „training“ was done all over NZ between August and October 2008. Training material (incl. 7 “scenarios”) have been listed, but don’t include PDF or PowerPoint presentations, which were according to other sources being used. So there is some contradiction about the whole list of training material that was being used. No material was provided as examples! It appears from the answer that direct Designated Doctor training during joint training sessions was only done in 2008, but that other training is continuing on a one to one and ad hoc basis.
Q 8). A summary list with the actual sundry costs, expenses, fees paid for “designated doctor training”:
Answer: “The amount paid by W+I for Designated Doctors training sessions was $ 26,710 in 2008/09 and $ 533 during the 2009/10 financial year. These expenses related to appointment fees in order to meet with Designated Doctors.” ”I am unable to provide a further break down of actual sundry costs, expenses and fees paid for the Designated Doctors training as this information is not held in further detail by the Ministry. Section 18 (g) of the O.I.A. allows me to withhold this part of your request…”
Q 9). Copies of ALL reports (i.e. ministerial, at policy and executive planning level, at the overseeing departmental management level, and at the levels of Principal Health and Disability Advisor positions – and below) that were prepared, authorised, released, confirmed and acted upon – for the preparation, implementation, anticipated outcomes of “designated doctor training” sessions, managed by Dr David Bratt as Principal Health Advisor, or any other person in charge of such training, from 2006 to the present day. Also included should be any reports relating to suggested and/ or implemented changes and termination of such training.
Answer: “The training package and subsequent material is available on the Ministry’s website. I am withholding the copies of all reports that were prepared as part of the Designated Doctor training under section 18 (f) of the Act as it was part of the wider Working NZ training package that the Ministry developed between 2006 to 2008.”
To collate the information would require staff to search through a large amount of documents to collate and assess the specific documents in scope of the request. I do not consider this an appropriate use of staff time and resources.”
(Note: All I’ve ever been able to find on the Ministry’s website is the “Guide for Designated Doctors”!)
Q 10). A detailed list displaying the individual annual before tax salaries for the following senior and key-role staff of the Ministry of Social Development paid through the “public purse”:
a) Dr David Bratt, Principal Health Advisor for the MSD;
b) Anne Hawker, Principal Disability Advisor for the MSD;
c) the salaries paid to the 13 (or so) Regional Health Advisors in each Regional Office of MSD;
d) the salaries paid to the 13 (or so) Regional Disability Advisors in each Regional Office of MSD;
e) the salaries paid to the Health and Disability Coordinators in Regional Offices of MSD;
f) the individual salaries of Social Welfare Board members: Paula Rebstock, Ian McPherson, Kathryn McPherson, Andrew Body, Reg Barrett and Debbie Packer.
Answer:
“I can advise that the remuneration range for regional health and disability advisors is $ 57,300 and 78,807 per annum, and for the health and disability coordinators the range is between $ 42,491 and $ 58,425, per annum as at December 2012.” “Salaries of the Principal Health and Disability Advisors have been withheld under section (9) (2) (a) “to protect their privacy”.
The six ‘Work and Income Board’ members receive $ 26,500 each per annum, but the chairperson receives $ 58,500 per annum (which is of course besides of other incomes the persons receive for other positions they hold outside the MSD).
So much information is being withheld for various reasons, but re question 9 above, there is information I and others have obtained that give sufficient insight into how designated doctor training was planned, and who was behind it all, under the last Labour led government!
(Questions numbered above are summarised from a larger number of questions in the original request!) **SORRY I KNOW THIS IS LONG, BUT I FEEL TOO UNSURE ABOUT HOW TO PROVIDE A PROPER SEPARATE POST.**
The Royal Society of New Zealand has released two interesting papers on sustainable development in New Zealand. One looks at the carrying capcity – what we can sustainably produce to continue living in a way we have become accustomed. The second looks at the constraints on NZ’s sustainable well-being. Worth a look.
Perhaps because it is not actually a drought? It is only drought relative to the state of the land, courtesy of us, namely thin grassland instead of thick deep bush.
If there was anything to Ring’s woo-woo bullshit he wouldn’t be trying to make money by selling his predictions; he’d be keeping very quiet and raking it in by gambling on Lotto or on the stock market.
I am currently watching the sun set over the high Andes. However, life is not all hot Sourh American girls and pisco sours at dusk. Seeing the impact of mining in the Atacama is really thought provoking. On the one hand, you’ve got real bone ride boom towns like Calama, with obvious prosperity and new wealth speinging up everywhere. On the other hand, the impact of mining for lithium is awesome, on a scale that matches the gigantic geography up here. Maybe, in this vast and desolate landscape mining is OK. But it is just so ugly. I can’t anything but toy mining being appropriate in NZ.
The farming sector has been thumbing its nose at certain other sectors of the community for some time. For example, the Canterbury farming community and its theft of water resources. When that community then expects something from the community that it has shat on it is human nature is to tell the shitter to get f….d.
Another example sits with Federated Farmers itself. It last leader Don Nicholson was one of the most obnoxious (not to mention plain ignorant) people to have held an office of that type. Don Nicholson penned an article called “Real New Zealanders” in which he called farmers and export dollar earners the real New Zealanders and everyone else less worthy.
Quite frankly both of those examples (plus the one you mention DtB) illustrate the view that the rural sector has of those other sectors, and that is not a pleasant view. In fact it is appalling on several fronts.
yep Don Nicholson was awful. To their credit the farmers heaved him out and put in an organic? beef farmer.
I’d hate to judge all farmers by Nicholson. Many are just quietly getting on with trying to farm well but all the media interview, are the vocal right wing majority I suspect. Bit like any other issue. Personally , I’d like to see them take more interest in their Nact representatives. Frankly, I think they are voting for a brand that is rapidly parting company with their interests.
“What are the chances this same person would be down the pub blaming beneficiaries for being unemployed?”
Thats exactly what I thought when I read that article. I empathise with their challenges and agree that they should receive the equivalent of an unemployment benefit. However when they do receive their funds I doubt that they will feel equivalent to anyone else who is in the same position of being without income due to no fault of their own. Something about the deserving Vs. the non deserving perhaps? I’m more concerned for the welfare of the animals, who already live a miserable existance as an industrial animal. This drought only compounds their suffering.
In the meantime here in Wgtn we go to a full outdoor water ban tomorrow. Haven’t experienced anything like it since that drought in Akld back in the early nineties.
Yes while not wishing to kick the farmers while they are down the current little dry spell they call a drought should be a lesson to them on a number of levels,
The first as already discussed above is that the farming communities should consider the options that they now have in the face of this ‘drought’ which are very few and then consider the options of the jobless in the face of this current ‘jobs drought’ and the continual ‘droughts in employment’ our economy cycles in and out of,
Secondly, SURPRISE surprise it looks like climate change might have given the dairy farmers a slight reminder, rudely interrupting the milk and money flow and hopefully pointing out to the Farmers that boom bust is on the cards for a dairy industry that has engaged in unplanned overt expansion for the past 20 years and that the writing on the climate wall says that in the coming 20 years such unplanned for expansion will cost us all dearly,
Here’s one point of stupidity,theres enough water falls in the city of Auckland to irrigate every farm in the Waikato through the most severe droughts even if those droughts occurred annually,
There was one hell of a haste to run a pipeline from the Waikato River to take water to Auckland but no thought given to building catchment dams in the Waikato to allow another pipeline to take excess rainfall for irrigation to the Waikato…
yep Don Nicholson was awful. To their credit the farmers heaved him out and put in an organic? beef farmer.
I’d hate to judge all farmers by Nicholson. Many are just quietly getting on with trying to farm well but all the media interview, are the vocal right wing majority I suspect. Bit like any other issue. Personally , I’d like to see them take more interest in their Nact representatives. Frankly, I think they are voting for a brand that is rapidly parting company with their interests.
Hey, Labour and all other idiots that want to raise the age of retirement, read this?
“People who are shorter-lived tend to make less, which means that if you raise the retirement age, low-income populations would be subsidising the lives of higher-income people,” said Maya Rockeymoore, president and chief executive of Global Policy Solutions, a public policy consultancy. “Whenever I hear a policymaker say people are living longer as a justification for raising the retirement age, I immediately think they don’t understand the research or, worse, they are willfully ignoring what the data say.”
Yeah, raising the retirement age is regressive – effectively taxing the poor to pay the rich.
Solid Energy collapse “has hit West Coast community very hard” -Tony Kokshoorn
Drought is going to hit the meat (slaughtering) industry next
Drought is ” affecting whole communities” (businesses servicing farming) “suffering”
Drought (read that it may take 1% of this years growth forecasts)
Drought “neighbours in Wellywood 😉 ignoring bans, while other neighbours are dobbing them in”
(what a great cohesive community we have; wait until things do get tough…)
From Syria, 100,000 refugees crossed into Jordan in ONE night; the Jordanian infrastructure is “crumbling”
although Francis is a Jesuit, did you know that the Vatican clamped down on Jon Sobrino, an advocate of Marxist-inspired theology? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sobrino
– We’ve got plenty of empirical examples of why the american system of education is failure, and yet we see our government biting at the bit to role out “competition”, “choice” and charter schools…
Then again, there are none so blind as politicians wanting to stay in power.
It’s not so much that the politicians are wanting to stay in power but that they’re wanting to enrich themselves and their rich mates at our expense without us realising it.
In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Paronen: “Real winners do not compete.”
In fact, since academic excellence wasn’t a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland’s students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland — unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway — was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.
Both of those should really frighten those that think that they’re special.
In thinking about New Zealand’s supposed ‘long tail of failure’ (Tolley and Parata’s ‘1 in 5’ students) the following quotation is relevant:
Samuel Abrams, a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s Teachers College, has addressed the effects of size and homogeneity on a nation’s education performance by comparing Finland with another Nordic country: Norway. Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey. Educational policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a country’s school system than the nation’s size or ethnic makeup.
We interrupt this broadcast to cast you another broadside…
“His thought was permanently marked by the rise of fascism, and by the failure of Marxism, both in the West and in the Soviet Union
He and Horkheimer diagnosed the ills of modernity in “Dialectic of the Enlightenment”
Another factor shaping his thought was existentialism which was in part a movement of rebellion against the dehumanization of people in industrial society (Tillich; check out The Courage to Be), and a response to the failure of Marx’s and Hegel’s solutions to it.
Despite his criticisms of the existentialists, Adorno shared many of their concerns: Kierkegaard’s reinstatement of subjectivity against Hegel’s supposedly panlogistic and historicist system, Heidegger’s antipathy to technology, 😉 and so on.
Even to ignore socio-political relations is to justify them, by suggesting, for example, that the individual is more autonomous than they are.
The insistence on the mediated-ness of everything immediate is the model of dialectical thinking as such, and also of Materialistic thinking, insofar as it ascertains the social preformation of contingent, individual experience.
(Do you think, that in view of our potential, and growing, control over organic processes, we cannot dismiss a fortiori the thought of the elimination of death? This may be unlikely; yet we can entertain the thought…which according to existential ontology, should be unthinkable.)
Like Socrates and the early Plato, he wields a negative dialectic and does not, like Hegel and the later Plato, derive a positive result.
His aim is to dissolve conceptual forms before they harden into lenses which distort our vision of, and impair our practical engagements with, reality. Reality is not transparent to us; there is a “totally other”, a non-identical, that eludes our concepts.
When concepts fail us, art comes to our aid. Aesthetic illusion sustains the hope for an ideology-free utopia that neither theory or political activity can secure: In illusion there is the promise of freedom from illusion. Art, especially music, is relatively autonomous of repressive social structures and thus represents a demand for freedom and a critique of society.
Although critical of Kierkegaard’s existentialism and “phenomenology”, Adorno still integrated their concerns with authority and subjectivity.
The subject is constituted politically, yet there is hope, that THE AUTHENTIC META-PHYSICAL SUBJECT WILL SHED THIS CONDITIONING.
Josie McNaught out of her depth on “The Panel”
Radio New Zealand National, Friday 15 March 2013
Jim Mora, Josie McNaught, Mike Williams
One of Jim Mora’s blander occasional guests on The Panel is the Auckland-based “arts correspondent” Josie McNaught. Regular listeners to The Panel will be well aware by now that there are just two things she seems to show any interest in. One is the lack of respect and resources for the Arts in this country. And the other is the lack of respect and resources for Arts correspondents in this country, namely, the lack of respect and resources for Josie McNaught.
So her appearances on the Panel are usually a bit melancholic, and usually consist of nothing more than her bitterly bemoaning the sad state of affairs for redundant arts correspondents in this country. Unkind people have occasionally even slung off at her as “Joyless Josie”.
Today, during her Soapbox contribution, Joyless Josie suddenly came unglued. Her piece, which was supposed to have been prepared carefully, started off as a low-key, rather ho-hum encomium for the sport of tennis—then suddenly segued into a mad, confused, dyspeptic, wandery anti-rugby rant. In her bilious pomp, Joyless Josie subjected listeners to a disastrous, confused mess of pottage at a level rarely plumbed on “The Panel” other than by the mediocre John “Barney” Barnett, the crazed Christine Spankin’ Rankin and the senile Garth “Gaga” George.
Next up, the big topic of the day: did the Prime Minister willfully mislead the country when he claimed that it was the board of Solid Energy, not Key and his cronies, that insisted on plunging the company into massive debt?
Now, as well as Josie McNaught, there were a couple of people present who did know something, in fact a great deal, about the situation. Former Labour Party president and ex-Genesis Energy Deputy Chairman Mike Williams and Herald political correspondent John Armstrong were both waiting to say something about this very important matter.
Guess who spoke up first? Yep, you got it in one, buster: it was Not-So-Jolly Josie who had to contribute her two cents worth. “The key word here is ‘asked’, I think,” she chirped. “You can’t blame them for trying surely?”
Mike Williams, obviously appalled and straining to be charitable, decided someone needed to start talking sense. “Just a minute! Let’s just untangle what you said,” he intoned, ominously.
For the next few minutes Williams and John Armstrong carefully, logically, pitilessly dismantled the government’s flimsy case, while McNaught, humiliated, sat silently.
This was yet another Guest selection fail for the Panel’s producers, unfortunately.
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 27 were:1. The Minister for Ford Rangers strikes againTransport Minister Simeon Brown was again the busiest of the Cabinet ministers this week, announcing an ...
You got a fast carAnd I want a ticket to anywhereMaybe we make a dealMaybe together we can get somewhereAny place is betterYesterday’s newsletter, Trust In Me, on the report of abuse in state care, and by religious organisations, between 1950 and 2019, coupled with the hypocrisy of Christopher Luxon ...
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
The tabling of the final report from the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care is a watershed moment for New Zealand. This comprehensive document lays bare the pervasive abuse and neglect experienced by children, young people, and adults in state and faith-based care from 1950 to 1999, and beyond. Among ...
Fonterra Cooks the Climate
Fonterra is the third biggest single consumer of coal after Huntly Power Station and Glenbrook Steel Mill. (Dairy industry as a whole, may consume more than Glenbrook making Dairying number 2. Unfortunately figures for the total consumption of coal by the total Dairy Industry are hard to come by).
Trend setter, Fonterra plans to dig a brand new open cast coal mine, just south of Auckland.
Though having owned the land for nearly 20 years, Fonterra were unable to mine it for it’s known coal reserves. I surmise that Fonterra were unable, or unwilling to meet the strict Auckland Regional compliance regulations.
But it seems, there is more than one way to skin a cat. (or a climate).
In the creation of the Super City the Southern Auckland boundary which contained Mangatangi, (including the Mangatangi reservoir, the biggest in the country, providing the bulk of Auckland’s drinking water), was moved North.
Who knew?
Mangatangi, including the Mangatangi Reservoir, the Upper Mangatawhiri Reservoir and the proposed mine, are all now, in the newly created borough of North East Waikato, part of the Waikato Region where consents are easier to obtain, and compliance regulations far looser than under Auckland Regional governance.
The prevailing winds are from the West, the Mangatangi Reservoir, in particular, is almost directly down wind of the open cast mine. Coal dust is notorious for being contaminated with heavy metal residues.
Are the local residents of Mangatangi/Mangatawhiri concerned?
Yes, they are.
Should you be too?
Yes you should.
Anti-climate change pressure group Auckland Coal Action has teamed up with local residents of Mangatangi and Mangatawhiri to oppose Fonterra’s plans for the new open cast coal mine at Mangatangi.
They are calling for as many people as possible to make submissions to the Waikato Regional Council.
You can help.
Details on how to make a submission are here:
http://aucklandcoalaction.org/2013/02/28/submissions-on-proposed-new-coal-mine-at-mangatangimangatawhiri/
Numbers Count.
If you make a submission, ask for the right to speak to it.
Remember; NUMBERS COUNT!
Protect Auckland’s drinking water from coal dust contamination!
Become a climate change hero!
Be able to look your grandchildren in the eye!
Fill in a submission form!
Address the council!
This is your chance!
Have your say!
“But it seems, there is more than one way to skin a cat. (or a climate).”
Australian & New Zealand Geo-Engineering Protest will be Co-ordinating a protest throughout Australia & New Zealand – Saturday 20th April
https://www.facebook.com/AustralianGeoengineeringProtest
VERY GOOD!
And here is the climate change mafia scam in action: This is MUST READ!
For people like Richard Sandor and former Vice-President Al Gore the focus on “green politics” represented the culmination of years of planning and a giant step towards a massive payday.
Read on!
Who would have thunk it, where there’s a good rort involving billions of dollars to be made in a ‘money for nothing scam’ the name Goldman Saches, (sacks of gold man), is to be found wallowing knee deep in the crimes of the century,
That article is a good read and encapsulates quite neatly my total and ongoing opposition to such cap’n’trade scams among them the Kyoto Accord and the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scam which if fully implemented on it’s proposed world-wide scale would have knee-capped our economy and society, (leaving only the money printers as the winners),
There can in my opinion be only one way forward for New Zealand vis a vis the CO2 issue and that is for a dedicated Carbon Tax to be imposed and a withdrawal from such rorts as cap’n’trade scams,
Such a tax would need be used to plant forests of trees and for research and development of a means by which CO2 can be extracted from the atmosphere and sequestered on an industrial scale,
Interestingly, Solid Energy, up with the play, until it’s financial demise, had invested with an Australian firm in exploring the very question of the capture and removal from the atmosphere of industrial amounts of CO2,
i will hunt out a link to the Australian research organization later, but, when you read the names in the article you have provided in your link you have to then wonder if there is not far far more going on within the financial kneecapping of the States miner Solid Energy than simply cynical revenue gathering from this Slippery National Government,
i had been forming the opinion that Solid energy had been effectively ‘crushed’ because oif it’s moves into both bio-diesel and it’s planned production of diesel from lignite coal, however, the multi-billion dollar scams which are cap’n’trade schemes would in effect become dead ducks IF the means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere on an industrial scale were found and shown to be economic…
Thanks, now it is clear why Rodney insisted on taking Auckland’s water dams from the super shitty despite hard lobbying. Obviously someone was lobbying harder.
Welfare changes – UK version, with a post on FB with what is about to happen over there:
Hi
I work within the dwp so please don’t use my name as it could cost me my job.
The dwp are rolling out nationally an initiative to work with 120k families whose lives are blighted by joblessness, single parents, crime and truancy. We have specially trained personnel to work closely with them to break these harmful trends and integrate them into society, improve their lives and make working the preferred options.
However what has not been released and is being kept hush hush is that these families are to achieve certain targets working with our staff and stakeholders, professional organisations which have been hand picked to get the desired results as expediently as possible. The department is investing a great deal of resources into this project and participants are to be under no illusions that equal investment and commitment are required from them. This will not be an option where families can choose not to be involved in…..if they refuse to participate, their benefits will be stripped under sanctions. If after a period of 26 weeks results are not forthcoming and improvements tangible and sustained all benefits will be withdrawn. The adults will either have to work in any position that can be found and will be paid via fuel food and basic clothing. If the children continue to truant and participate in anti social behaviour those under 13 will be taken into
care and those over 13 will be expected to work under the same terms as their parents with tutors twice weekly to ensure a basic level of literacy and numeracy. They will not be living with their parents but in dormitory accommodation. Tenders have been received and a short list drawn up for the lots as with pip. Fore runners are G4S, Deloittes, Veolia, Capita and Serco
Myself and many other staff are horrified but are powerless to stop this. The govt are saying they will save more on what they cut on the benefits including DLA for the people in these families getting high rates for anger and behavioural problems, housing benefits and benefits for babies and children. Any of the parents having children throughout or once they’ve failed the initiative will be taken into the care of local authorities. The families will be allowed supervised access at contact centres as deemed acceptable by the people overseeing the project and the handlers for the individual families.
This is all underway and being arranged as we speak. The govt see these families as an absolute blight on society and one way or another are determined to get rid of them in any way they can. Their view is that support and money haven’t helped, ASBO’s are a joke and seen as a badge of honour and children whether in these families or other families on low incomes are a drain on resources and they believe if they stop paying then the children will stop being born and those already here will have to either conform or to be excluded and earn their keep. To get disability allowance for children is going to be nigh on impossible which is why the reforms haven’t targeted them, new plans are underway as the perception is that ALL children need care and parents know this before having them therefore there are only very rare circumstances where additional support is justifiable.
What madness is this? As well as being a kind of eugenics, it’ll do nought for the society as a whole. Meanwhile, an increasing proportion of young Brits are slipping into poverty:
Setting the scene for riots and insurrection. What they’ve seen so far is just a stage rehearsal.
Meanwhile, the slightly older young Brits are failing to support the welfare state, benefit levels, the NHS, etc., apparently in droves.
And meanwhile John Key’s cum Lord Asshcroft, who pays no income tax in England but wants to have a say in it’s draconian rule, is rubbing his grubby hands with glee. Riots? No doubt the ‘good’ lord has donated bullet proof vests to the UK Police force as he has done in NZ where he is obviously trying to have a similar influence as well. Asshcroft and his ilk, e.g Douglas Myers, are a nasty stain on this earth.
And meanwhile John Key’s cum Lord Asshcroft, who pays no income tax in England but wants to have a say in it’s draconian rule, is rubbing his grubby hands with glee. Riots? No doubt the ‘good’ lord has donated bullet proof vests to the UK Police force as he has done in NZ where he is obviously trying to have a similar influence as well. Asshcroft and his ilk, e.g Douglas Myers, are a nasty stain on this earth.
ooops Something went wrong. Meant to put a belated correction to my above post and it popped up again.
John Key.s CHUM is what I meant to write. Yes, have just had an eye-test and new glasses are on their way.
cum worked for me……
yeah – “john keys cum lord” does have a certain ring to it 🙂
Hi asleepwhilewalking
Here’s another dispatch from the U$K’s class war. Artist Taxi Driver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL-VtIO-ZPk&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A
The U$K has descended to new depths of privatisation madness. John Yankee wants us to get stuffed the same way, it’s coming! 🙁
Another epic rant from the Artist taxi driver wherein he covers quite a bit of territory! 🙁 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5AUB2y55HQ
As karol notes above now that North Sea Oil is going going gone. The U$K is getting to be a lot poorer, this has been grossely inflamed by the use of Public Money to bail out the feckless casino banks with the same money being extracted from those already at the bottom, austerity (In plain language a 2 trillion pound transfer of wealth from the public sector to the ailing rich to support their scum bag share market as well). John Yankee’s Chum Cameron has bailed out his bankster mates and is now privatising (Including sneak privatisation of the NHS) everything in sight to cover his wretched bum. As in Yank land: Main Street is screwed but Wall Street is rescued with their obscene bonuses.
This is the NeoLiberal nightmare these bankster chum scumbag privatisation screwups have inflicted on the U$K and John Yankee’s doing it here with the privatisation of our power companies and the Solid Energy screw up, so they can flog it off. 🙁
The fatal choice between food or heating in Modern Britain
Senior Citizens and Disabled people say they’re being abandoned by society. Thousands are left to die in cold homes every year in the UK, while energy companies threaten to raise cost of heating further
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9800#.UUJPKzccMj8
The problem? Corporatisation and profits before people’s needs.
Sounds like they are attacking the symptoms not the causes of inter-generational poverty. From badly designed council estates, to onerous taxation on the poorest (VAT), to needing a degree to understand eligibility
(and even then), and if successful, the numbers of families needing the new intervention will jump as the poor (as businesses sack those getting by marginally and hire the new now state rebranded citizens who have been produced by the program).
That’s the problem, its the former minister for the environment who couldn’t understand that mines need mine inspectors, and reserves do have benefits outside of the boundaries to fish levels, because it makes the government look mean and hard headed.
Look I agree that the state has a duty of care to citizens to not create inter-generational poverty, but the idea that sanctions on the citizens when its the states fault the jobs aren’t there, the schools are shit, the housing estates degrade and depress, remove choice… …its just more of the same IMHO, more taking away choice, control, enforcing poor government decisions, and ignoring the reality that government can’t sweep under the carpet the problem. Bad government does not justify more bad government.
Shocking and revealing – just one more step closer to “concentration camps” for the “anti-social”, considered to be a “burden” on society.
And as we know, Bennett and her MSD brigades just love the ideology about the so-called “bio psycho social model”, which has been perverted by the ones like Prof. Mansel Aylward, former Chief Medical Officer at DWP, and others he mentored or shares his madness about “work ability” with.
Dr David Bratt, Principal Health Advisor for MSD and WINZ is working right now, to bring in policies from the UK, and once the sick and disabled are assessed and considered “fit” for whatever (using ATOS type outsourced assessors), they will be put into work. Once that has been implemented, NZ will endeavour to follow this kind of stuff just mentioned here.
S*** Heil Paula, Bill and John!
Re. Bergoglio, aka Francis I.
“In another episode, Bergoglio has been accused of ignoring the pleas for help from a family that lost five of its members to the junta, including a young woman who was five months pregnant before she was kidnapped and killed in 1977. Bergoglio allegedly assigned a junior colleague to the case, who was subsequently given a note from a colonel explaining that the young woman had given birth while in detention and that the baby had been given to an “important” family. Despite his involvement in this case, Bergoglio testified in 2010 that he did not know about stolen babies until after the fall of the dictatorship.”
http://www.countercurrents.org/oconnor140313.htm
The new Pope seems to have been chosen to save the institution that is the Catholic church. He was chosen for his experience at the root of Catholicism. In a world where poverty (which once fueled religious fervor) is now being addressed by science, technology, yes even economics, as efficient societies are less resource parasites than countries with poor war ridden masses who block to resources, its pretty much obvious the trends are all against institutional faith. People do not choose weak religions.
Thats why they Choose Islam (or christian anarchy)
GOD IS BACK
http://books.google.co.nz/books/about/God_Is_Back.html?id=QwtWtGw5B9kC&redir_esc=y
and here to STAY
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=SRAWCwc4OlcC&dq=the+resurgence+of+religion&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k45CUer7OIfMkQXX5IHwCA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA
Only Wall Street Wins in Detroit Crisis Reaping $474 Million Fee
Couldn’t happen here of course, could it /sarc!
It’s almost time for simple outright refusal to deal with banks and finance types. Just don’t deal with them. From personal (use cash – still a requirement to be paid in cash if an employee wishes) to the big stuff. For example, the govt does not need to pay $120,000,000 to investment bankers to sell Mighty River Power, it could do it itself.
As those given the elected responsibility, fail to protect the vulnerable people of NZ we continue to live in a farce of so called democracy.
As the failure to address the causes of the *GFC* continues, and there is no indication that it will be halted, the scams, rip offs, poverty, inequality and financially/socially genocidal decisions/results will amplify dramatically, as we are seeing around the world, and in NZ.
We are now into the 6th year of the *GFC*, and structurally, there has not been any changes to how the world’s financial/banking systems function, nor has there been any prosecutions of note at the highest levels of banking, which is the true indicator of the power the owners of the world’s financial systems wield!
Have a read of my link above at 1.1.1, to get a feel for the power/influence, which the directors of our world seek to crush the rest of us under.
We are being crushed, and yet hardly a whimper – It must be working nicely for a heap of people, to remain this quiet in NZ!
Tick Tock
Like beneficiaries are meat and drink to tories, they are the Achilles heel of the left.
I’m quite certain that it’s not only the right wing of the nat’s voter base that think all unemployed people are work shy scum bags, but large chunks of middle NZ buy into the stereotype.
The solution is in the hands of Labour and the Green’s to offer the alternative to the status quo, if they’re brave, competent and strategically savvy enough to do so.
We all know that some people on benefits rort the system, fact. These people tarnish the name of those making use of the safety net. Rule one, don’t hand ammo to the enemy unless they’re blanks.
Target these people, not with poverty penalties, but using the weapons long championed by the socially conscious – Education, training and support to equality. When the stick clearly doesn’t work, wave the ‘effing carrot.
There’s a job for everyone, even those that don’t want one. We’re in this sinking ship together, bailing together is better than sinking alone.
People on invalidity benefits, those people who suffer enough already, should never have to worry about money. A clear policy statement should read ‘you want anything, let us know. Otherwise just sit back and take it easy, we got your backs.’
People on sickness benefits, another target of this government, should also be sent a clear message from the opposition. They should be told that if your doctor says you can’t work at the moment, no worries, you won’t lose your house or not be able to eat every day because of illness. We’re the caring left, get better and we’ll help you back into work when the doctors say you’re ready. The state should also provide free access to counselling and other services if needed.
Any work organised by winz should be paid at the national minimum wage.
Mend the net and cast it wide.
Kiwis take more than a fair share
What a surprise, we’re not living sustainably.
And those estimates are probably correct as those estimates are usually based around everyone living as the USians do. Although the US are slightly less than 5% of the population they use about 25% of the resources.
“They found that if the entire world was to live like a New Zealander, we would require more than two planets to sustain us.”
I think that would apply to any western country (I’d wager to live like the yanks we’d need three planets)
Yep, pretty much. Why do you think I’ve come to the conclusion that we can’t afford the middle class? We can probably afford the median class but I doubt that a lot of people want to hear that.
Looking at the Listener in the supermarket the features sounded like standard Readers Digest fare. Mostly light, magazine, time-filling reading – okay for the fish and chip shop and the determinedly ignorant.
nz Listener recent main features
The Lake of Shame about pollution (worthy topic)
but then, for the anxious self-involved middle class (woman?) –
Beating your inner critic
Change of fortune (money etc)
Secrets of colour
Can Women Succeed & Still Be Liked? March23-29
and from December last –
Can science cure baldness?
Diagnosis danger
(Many people are receiving medical treatments that are doing them more harm than good – and are completely unaware of it.)
compared to the ‘net, most modern magazines are just wastage, outta date, and outta context, and advertising people outta their own minds, oh well…
We can’t build a future on a Lotto ticket and a fairytale! http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/governance-by-lottery.html
@ Dave Kennedy (bsprout)
Hey great post! I think you might be really onto something here.
and LOL “The RMA roadshow”
…the whole “governing” shebang in NZ is seeming like more like a circus, increasingly so each day,… and each day one thinks it couldn’t resemble a circus more….and then the next day dawns…and one is proven wrong….
sigh
fantasy indeed
Disappointing results of an Official Information Act request made to MSD in late Oct. 2012:
Question(s) and Answers (summarised):
Q 1). Information in detail about the total number of referrals made by WINZ case managers and/or regional health and disability advisory staff – of sickness benefit (SB) and invalid’s benefit (IB) recipients/applicants – to be examined under sections 44 (1) and 54B (3) of the Social Security Act 1964 by a “designated doctor” – per year from 2006 up until now, for all administrative regions in NZ.
Answer: “The Ministry does not centrally record the number of benefit applications that have been referred to a designated doctor that have not subsequently been endorsed by a designated doctor. Rather this information is held on individual client files. Therefore this part of your question is refused under section 18 (f) of the O.I.A..”
Q 2). Information in detail about the total number of appeals made according to section 53A (1) (b) and (ba) of the Social Security Act 1964 – against decisions made by case managers and/or other staff members, following (and relying on) recommendations by regional health and disability advisory staff, upon them receiving reports and recommendations from medical practitioners or psychologists, who conducted medical examinations according to sections 44 (1) and 54B (3) of the Social Security Act 1964. This is for appeal made by IB and SB recipients or applicants per year from 2006 up until now, for all administered regions in NZ.
Q 3). Information in detail about the total costs for preparing, conducting and finalising appeals brought under section 53A of the Social Security Act 1964 – per year from 2006 up until now, for all administrative regions within NZ.
Q 4). Information in detail – about the numbers of decisions by MSD and Work and Income staff upheld and/or overturned by Medical Appeal Board panels hearing appeals – per year from 2006 up until now, for all administrative regions within NZ.
Answer(s) (2 to 4 here have been answered in summary, but indeed more questions were asked in detail and have thus been summarised):
“The Ministry is reviewing the way in which M.A.B. data is centrally reported and monitored, this is because the Ministry has only recently developed a system that records the total number of M.A.B. appeals. Information prior to April 2011, detailed information is not able to be obtained as the information is captured on individual client files where it is most needed. As such this information is again unable to be provided under to section 18 (f) of the Act.”
“A number of W+I staff who are involved in preparing information for the M.A.B. also perform a wide variety of other tasks within the Ministry. For this reason I am not able to answer your questions regarding the costs for preparing for a M.A.B. hearing. Section 18 (g) allows me to refuse this part of your request…”
A table is provided to list costs for M.A.B. hearings expenses directly (not including preparation and organisation costs for WINZ):
2005/2006 $ 129,569
2006/2007 $ 135,872
2007/2008 $ 91,665
2008/2009 $ 196,412
2009/2010 $ 610,092
2010/2011 $ 690,646
2011/2012 $ 449,582
Q 5). Information about the total expenses paid to –
a) “designated doctors”;
b) “host” or “usual” doctors –
for conducting examinations, completing designated doctor reports and making recommendations to MSD and/or WINZ staff – or for preparing and providing “host” or “usual doctor reports”, per year from 2006 until now, for all administrative regions in New Zealand.
Answer (summarised): Only a table of total costs per year for designated and host doctor expenses was provided. There was a change under the last Labour government (“Working NZ”), where IB recipients/applicants no longer needed to be examined or re-examined – unless there were contradicting or unclear reports on conditions, ability to work, etc. from the client and her/his doctor:
Fin. Year Design. Doctors Host Doctor
2005/2006 $ 2,845,371 $ 416,168
2006/2007 $ 2,957,330 $ 429,948
2007/2008 $ 1,161,185 $ 156,478
2008/2009 $ 449,176 $ 58,878
2009/2010 $ 580,381 $ 92,274
2010/2011 $ 451,785 $ 71,477
2011/2012 $ 413,854 $ 70,644
Q 6). A complete list including all names, professional or other titles, positions and medical or health related qualifications, of those persons, who were – besides of Principal Health Advisor for the Ministry of Social Development, Dr David Bratt conducting “designated doctor training” from 2008.
Answer (summarised): Besides of Dr Bratt apparently only Dr David Rankin (Sen. Advisor in the Ministry, MBChB, Uni Otago) was involved in “training” designated doctors in 2008.
Q 7). The complete lists of all “training sessions” held all over NZ, for the purpose of training medical practitioners or other health professionals used as “designated doctors” by WINZ for medical examinations, for the years from 2008 up to the most recent time. And also requested was a complete list of the essential, detailed training materials and presentations commonly used during training of “designated doctors” (by Dr David Bratt or other staff of MSD) since such training was commenced during the course of 2008.
Answer: NO list for training sessions was provided, and only a mention was made that „training“ was done all over NZ between August and October 2008. Training material (incl. 7 “scenarios”) have been listed, but don’t include PDF or PowerPoint presentations, which were according to other sources being used. So there is some contradiction about the whole list of training material that was being used. No material was provided as examples! It appears from the answer that direct Designated Doctor training during joint training sessions was only done in 2008, but that other training is continuing on a one to one and ad hoc basis.
Q 8). A summary list with the actual sundry costs, expenses, fees paid for “designated doctor training”:
Answer: “The amount paid by W+I for Designated Doctors training sessions was $ 26,710 in 2008/09 and $ 533 during the 2009/10 financial year. These expenses related to appointment fees in order to meet with Designated Doctors.” ”I am unable to provide a further break down of actual sundry costs, expenses and fees paid for the Designated Doctors training as this information is not held in further detail by the Ministry. Section 18 (g) of the O.I.A. allows me to withhold this part of your request…”
Q 9). Copies of ALL reports (i.e. ministerial, at policy and executive planning level, at the overseeing departmental management level, and at the levels of Principal Health and Disability Advisor positions – and below) that were prepared, authorised, released, confirmed and acted upon – for the preparation, implementation, anticipated outcomes of “designated doctor training” sessions, managed by Dr David Bratt as Principal Health Advisor, or any other person in charge of such training, from 2006 to the present day. Also included should be any reports relating to suggested and/ or implemented changes and termination of such training.
Answer: “The training package and subsequent material is available on the Ministry’s website. I am withholding the copies of all reports that were prepared as part of the Designated Doctor training under section 18 (f) of the Act as it was part of the wider Working NZ training package that the Ministry developed between 2006 to 2008.”
To collate the information would require staff to search through a large amount of documents to collate and assess the specific documents in scope of the request. I do not consider this an appropriate use of staff time and resources.”
(Note: All I’ve ever been able to find on the Ministry’s website is the “Guide for Designated Doctors”!)
Q 10). A detailed list displaying the individual annual before tax salaries for the following senior and key-role staff of the Ministry of Social Development paid through the “public purse”:
a) Dr David Bratt, Principal Health Advisor for the MSD;
b) Anne Hawker, Principal Disability Advisor for the MSD;
c) the salaries paid to the 13 (or so) Regional Health Advisors in each Regional Office of MSD;
d) the salaries paid to the 13 (or so) Regional Disability Advisors in each Regional Office of MSD;
e) the salaries paid to the Health and Disability Coordinators in Regional Offices of MSD;
f) the individual salaries of Social Welfare Board members: Paula Rebstock, Ian McPherson, Kathryn McPherson, Andrew Body, Reg Barrett and Debbie Packer.
Answer:
“I can advise that the remuneration range for regional health and disability advisors is $ 57,300 and 78,807 per annum, and for the health and disability coordinators the range is between $ 42,491 and $ 58,425, per annum as at December 2012.” “Salaries of the Principal Health and Disability Advisors have been withheld under section (9) (2) (a) “to protect their privacy”.
The six ‘Work and Income Board’ members receive $ 26,500 each per annum, but the chairperson receives $ 58,500 per annum (which is of course besides of other incomes the persons receive for other positions they hold outside the MSD).
So much information is being withheld for various reasons, but re question 9 above, there is information I and others have obtained that give sufficient insight into how designated doctor training was planned, and who was behind it all, under the last Labour led government!
(Questions numbered above are summarised from a larger number of questions in the original request!) **SORRY I KNOW THIS IS LONG, BUT I FEEL TOO UNSURE ABOUT HOW TO PROVIDE A PROPER SEPARATE POST.**
The Royal Society of New Zealand has released two interesting papers on sustainable development in New Zealand. One looks at the carrying capcity – what we can sustainably produce to continue living in a way we have become accustomed. The second looks at the constraints on NZ’s sustainable well-being. Worth a look.
Thanks for posting those papers Pete. Looking forward to reading them when there is a chance.
on “Constraints”-summary “however, often the rate of improvement in both resource use and resource conservation is inadequate”
Did Ken Ring predict this drought? (no)
Perhaps because it is not actually a drought? It is only drought relative to the state of the land, courtesy of us, namely thin grassland instead of thick deep bush.
Ring predicts rain, often when it doesn’t.
Yep, his weather predictions aren’t that great but some people swear by them.
If there was anything to Ring’s woo-woo bullshit he wouldn’t be trying to make money by selling his predictions; he’d be keeping very quiet and raking it in by gambling on Lotto or on the stock market.
That’s by no means necessarily so. It depends on what it is that motivates him, among a number of other factors.
I am currently watching the sun set over the high Andes. However, life is not all hot Sourh American girls and pisco sours at dusk. Seeing the impact of mining in the Atacama is really thought provoking. On the one hand, you’ve got real bone ride boom towns like Calama, with obvious prosperity and new wealth speinging up everywhere. On the other hand, the impact of mining for lithium is awesome, on a scale that matches the gigantic geography up here. Maybe, in this vast and desolate landscape mining is OK. But it is just so ugly. I can’t anything but toy mining being appropriate in NZ.
Entire North Island drought declared
What are the chances this same person would be down the pub blaming beneficiaries for being unemployed?
Yes, you highlight a pertinent point.
The farming sector has been thumbing its nose at certain other sectors of the community for some time. For example, the Canterbury farming community and its theft of water resources. When that community then expects something from the community that it has shat on it is human nature is to tell the shitter to get f….d.
Another example sits with Federated Farmers itself. It last leader Don Nicholson was one of the most obnoxious (not to mention plain ignorant) people to have held an office of that type. Don Nicholson penned an article called “Real New Zealanders” in which he called farmers and export dollar earners the real New Zealanders and everyone else less worthy.
Quite frankly both of those examples (plus the one you mention DtB) illustrate the view that the rural sector has of those other sectors, and that is not a pleasant view. In fact it is appalling on several fronts.
In light of that, for me, they are on their own.
yep Don Nicholson was awful. To their credit the farmers heaved him out and put in an organic? beef farmer.
I’d hate to judge all farmers by Nicholson. Many are just quietly getting on with trying to farm well but all the media interview, are the vocal right wing majority I suspect. Bit like any other issue. Personally , I’d like to see them take more interest in their Nact representatives. Frankly, I think they are voting for a brand that is rapidly parting company with their interests.
“What are the chances this same person would be down the pub blaming beneficiaries for being unemployed?”
Thats exactly what I thought when I read that article. I empathise with their challenges and agree that they should receive the equivalent of an unemployment benefit. However when they do receive their funds I doubt that they will feel equivalent to anyone else who is in the same position of being without income due to no fault of their own. Something about the deserving Vs. the non deserving perhaps? I’m more concerned for the welfare of the animals, who already live a miserable existance as an industrial animal. This drought only compounds their suffering.
In the meantime here in Wgtn we go to a full outdoor water ban tomorrow. Haven’t experienced anything like it since that drought in Akld back in the early nineties.
Yes while not wishing to kick the farmers while they are down the current little dry spell they call a drought should be a lesson to them on a number of levels,
The first as already discussed above is that the farming communities should consider the options that they now have in the face of this ‘drought’ which are very few and then consider the options of the jobless in the face of this current ‘jobs drought’ and the continual ‘droughts in employment’ our economy cycles in and out of,
Secondly, SURPRISE surprise it looks like climate change might have given the dairy farmers a slight reminder, rudely interrupting the milk and money flow and hopefully pointing out to the Farmers that boom bust is on the cards for a dairy industry that has engaged in unplanned overt expansion for the past 20 years and that the writing on the climate wall says that in the coming 20 years such unplanned for expansion will cost us all dearly,
Here’s one point of stupidity,theres enough water falls in the city of Auckland to irrigate every farm in the Waikato through the most severe droughts even if those droughts occurred annually,
There was one hell of a haste to run a pipeline from the Waikato River to take water to Auckland but no thought given to building catchment dams in the Waikato to allow another pipeline to take excess rainfall for irrigation to the Waikato…
The Co$t of War
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/8429803/Iraq-war-cost-US-more-than-US-2-trillion
Just as well they’ve got big money printing machines eh.
yep Don Nicholson was awful. To their credit the farmers heaved him out and put in an organic? beef farmer.
I’d hate to judge all farmers by Nicholson. Many are just quietly getting on with trying to farm well but all the media interview, are the vocal right wing majority I suspect. Bit like any other issue. Personally , I’d like to see them take more interest in their Nact representatives. Frankly, I think they are voting for a brand that is rapidly parting company with their interests.
Hey, Labour and all other idiots that want to raise the age of retirement, read this?
Yeah, raising the retirement age is regressive – effectively taxing the poor to pay the rich.
Go Labour! Go Labour ! Go Labour!
That’s why the NZ Treasury, a well known nest of right wing nutters is so in favor of the policy of raising the retirement age,
What NZ Labour is doing in that mix is anyone’s guess…
They believe the same delusional economics as Treasury.
Yeah i know, but i just woke up from an afternoon sleep and couldn’t get my fingers to make the accusation…
Solid Energy collapse “has hit West Coast community very hard” -Tony Kokshoorn
Drought is going to hit the meat (slaughtering) industry next
Drought is ” affecting whole communities” (businesses servicing farming) “suffering”
Drought (read that it may take 1% of this years growth forecasts)
Drought “neighbours in Wellywood 😉 ignoring bans, while other neighbours are dobbing them in”
(what a great cohesive community we have; wait until things do get tough…)
From Syria, 100,000 refugees crossed into Jordan in ONE night; the Jordanian infrastructure is “crumbling”
Let My Love Open The Door… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JtYgQxetek
although Francis is a Jesuit, did you know that the Vatican clamped down on Jon Sobrino, an advocate of Marxist-inspired theology?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Sobrino
Oh Tilda, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH7dMBcg-gE , The Stars (are out tonight)
Let’s Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxQ9bvdZgU
‘cos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrTyD7rjBpw (Black-Eyed Peas)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
– We’ve got plenty of empirical examples of why the american system of education is failure, and yet we see our government biting at the bit to role out “competition”, “choice” and charter schools…
Then again, there are none so blind as politicians wanting to stay in power.
It’s not so much that the politicians are wanting to stay in power but that they’re wanting to enrich themselves and their rich mates at our expense without us realising it.
That’s a great article. I especially liked:
Both of those should really frighten those that think that they’re special.
GREAT article NickS.
In thinking about New Zealand’s supposed ‘long tail of failure’ (Tolley and Parata’s ‘1 in 5’ students) the following quotation is relevant:
Samuel Abrams, a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s Teachers College, has addressed the effects of size and homogeneity on a nation’s education performance by comparing Finland with another Nordic country: Norway. Like Finland, Norway is small and not especially diverse overall, but unlike Finland it has taken an approach to education that is more American than Finnish. The result? Mediocre performance in the PISA survey. Educational policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a country’s school system than the nation’s size or ethnic makeup.
a commercial break /
“Philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on, because the moment to realize it was missed”
I Dor know nussink. 😉
BodyCounts in The House (goes outside to enjoy sun and some caffeine)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ7Rjlo0aJo
(not partial to Iced Tea)
We interrupt this broadcast to cast you another broadside…
“His thought was permanently marked by the rise of fascism, and by the failure of Marxism, both in the West and in the Soviet Union
He and Horkheimer diagnosed the ills of modernity in “Dialectic of the Enlightenment”
Another factor shaping his thought was existentialism which was in part a movement of rebellion against the dehumanization of people in industrial society (Tillich; check out The Courage to Be), and a response to the failure of Marx’s and Hegel’s solutions to it.
Despite his criticisms of the existentialists, Adorno shared many of their concerns: Kierkegaard’s reinstatement of subjectivity against Hegel’s supposedly panlogistic and historicist system, Heidegger’s antipathy to technology, 😉 and so on.
Even to ignore socio-political relations is to justify them, by suggesting, for example, that the individual is more autonomous than they are.
The insistence on the mediated-ness of everything immediate is the model of dialectical thinking as such, and also of Materialistic thinking, insofar as it ascertains the social preformation of contingent, individual experience.
(Do you think, that in view of our potential, and growing, control over organic processes, we cannot dismiss a fortiori the thought of the elimination of death? This may be unlikely; yet we can entertain the thought…which according to existential ontology, should be unthinkable.)
Like Socrates and the early Plato, he wields a negative dialectic and does not, like Hegel and the later Plato, derive a positive result.
His aim is to dissolve conceptual forms before they harden into lenses which distort our vision of, and impair our practical engagements with, reality. Reality is not transparent to us; there is a “totally other”, a non-identical, that eludes our concepts.
When concepts fail us, art comes to our aid. Aesthetic illusion sustains the hope for an ideology-free utopia that neither theory or political activity can secure: In illusion there is the promise of freedom from illusion. Art, especially music, is relatively autonomous of repressive social structures and thus represents a demand for freedom and a critique of society.
Although critical of Kierkegaard’s existentialism and “phenomenology”, Adorno still integrated their concerns with authority and subjectivity.
The subject is constituted politically, yet there is hope, that THE AUTHENTIC META-PHYSICAL SUBJECT WILL SHED THIS CONDITIONING.
as Bob sang, “Emancipate yourselves”
Doesn’t this sound familiar!!! Richard Murphy from Tax Research UK is on the button as usual!
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/03/14/the-tory-revolution-is-aimed-at-creating-a-managed-corporately-controlled-and-deeply-unequal-democracy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+org%2FlWWh+%28Tax+Research+UK+2%29
Tension
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8431186/N-Korea-accuses-US-of-cyber-attack-sabotage
Wait. North Korea has the interwebs? 😛
“Interesting Times”, indeed.
Been happening for years mate.
Here’s Helen
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/un-development-program-says-prosperity-middle-class-are-rising-in-nations-of-worlds-south/2013/03/14/b1a252d8-8d14-11e2-adca-74ab31da3399_story.html
(and the Rise of The South)
Not “millions”, But Billions into “extreme poverty”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/mar/14/environmental-threats-extreme-poverty-un
“reversing gains”
Adam Lurches
http://thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=World+lurching+to+a+heat+spike%3A+Study&NewsID=369371
The Navel (gazing) role of Climate Change in Pacific geo-politics
http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/climate-change-top-threat-says-us-navy-commander.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29
And, some Steve Keen:
Busting Money’s Creation Myths
An empirical nail for the austerity coffin
Krugman’s economic modelling morass
Where Krugman went wrong
How Krugman lost equilibrium
Enjoy.
Read this as well – especially the comments.
And the one following the last link:
Oblivious to the essence of equilibrium
Josie McNaught out of her depth on “The Panel”
Radio New Zealand National, Friday 15 March 2013
Jim Mora, Josie McNaught, Mike Williams
One of Jim Mora’s blander occasional guests on The Panel is the Auckland-based “arts correspondent” Josie McNaught. Regular listeners to The Panel will be well aware by now that there are just two things she seems to show any interest in. One is the lack of respect and resources for the Arts in this country. And the other is the lack of respect and resources for Arts correspondents in this country, namely, the lack of respect and resources for Josie McNaught.
So her appearances on the Panel are usually a bit melancholic, and usually consist of nothing more than her bitterly bemoaning the sad state of affairs for redundant arts correspondents in this country. Unkind people have occasionally even slung off at her as “Joyless Josie”.
Today, during her Soapbox contribution, Joyless Josie suddenly came unglued. Her piece, which was supposed to have been prepared carefully, started off as a low-key, rather ho-hum encomium for the sport of tennis—then suddenly segued into a mad, confused, dyspeptic, wandery anti-rugby rant. In her bilious pomp, Joyless Josie subjected listeners to a disastrous, confused mess of pottage at a level rarely plumbed on “The Panel” other than by the mediocre John “Barney” Barnett, the crazed Christine Spankin’ Rankin and the senile Garth “Gaga” George.
Next up, the big topic of the day: did the Prime Minister willfully mislead the country when he claimed that it was the board of Solid Energy, not Key and his cronies, that insisted on plunging the company into massive debt?
Now, as well as Josie McNaught, there were a couple of people present who did know something, in fact a great deal, about the situation. Former Labour Party president and ex-Genesis Energy Deputy Chairman Mike Williams and Herald political correspondent John Armstrong were both waiting to say something about this very important matter.
Guess who spoke up first? Yep, you got it in one, buster: it was Not-So-Jolly Josie who had to contribute her two cents worth. “The key word here is ‘asked’, I think,” she chirped. “You can’t blame them for trying surely?”
Mike Williams, obviously appalled and straining to be charitable, decided someone needed to start talking sense. “Just a minute! Let’s just untangle what you said,” he intoned, ominously.
For the next few minutes Williams and John Armstrong carefully, logically, pitilessly dismantled the government’s flimsy case, while McNaught, humiliated, sat silently.
This was yet another Guest selection fail for the Panel’s producers, unfortunately.
“Unkind people have occasionally even slung off at her as “Joyless Josie”.”
My bullshit detector just started twitching, Moz.
If anyone’s hanging out tonight for the next Morgan poll (sad, eh?) it will be published on Monday. According to the Twitter thing.
Cheers, gs. I did check a couple of times today, some good news would be nice.
cheers for that.
I would make a joke about new media, but I’m not much at twitticisms.
I’m against capital punishment but for that I could make an exception
I will be polling my Magic 8-Ball here on the standard on Monday morning, ask me any y/n questions about politics and I’ll relay the poll results.
Dude what are you on tonight and how much is it
Free to those who can afford it…
… very expensive to those that can’t!
Tomorrow Radionz – Kim and Hordur.
8:15 Hordur Torfason: Iceland and democracy