The leading secular radical movement in Palestine is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, founded in 1967. Its key founder was George Habash.
Some of us at Redline were involved, a couple of years ago, in fund-raising in NZ for the PFLP.
Its most well-known member is probably Leila Khaled, a Palestinian icon who is today a member of its PolitBureau. Its general-secretary Ahmad Sa’adat, is currently in an Israeli jail, without charge, after the Israelis kidnapped him in 2006.
We have numerous articles up on Redline on the cause of Palestinian liberation and the PFLP, including an interview that was done with Leila as part of the fundraising campaign.
Excellent. Thanks for that Philip. Murray Horton is a witty and compelling speaker, with a sharp mind. Which means he is totally unsuited for radio programmes like Jim Mora’s The Panel.
I’ve just heard, on Radio NZ National’s excellent Mediawatch program, that empty vessel Mike “Contra” Hosking boasting to a simpering, giggling Rachel Smalley how he gave Nicky Hager “a hard time” on his show last year.
When did that happen? I find it extremely unlikely that Hosking would have got the better of Hager, who is far more articulate, and clearly his superior intellectually as well as ethically and morally.
Perhaps someone could provide a link to—or a transcript of—this amazing event which I for one do not believe ever happened.
That would be the Mediawatch in which that Lackwit Larry got a mention. It’s been years since I heard that droning voice delivering words of wisdom. Do people actually listen to that guy while conscious or is he the ZB sleep-time for toddlers story teller. 10mg of Mogadon would be a better option.
…. and yes – it is an excellent programme (watch out for the knives amongst RNZ management)
and yes – it is an excellent programme (watch out for the knives amongst RNZ management)
I have no doubt that Richard (Lord Haw Haw Haw Haw) Griffin has conniptions every time that this programme sends up the government’s media wing, as it did this morning with its devastating exhibition of Hosking and Williams. In the last few months alone, they’ve already wielded the knife against Wayne Brittenden and Down the List.
No. Hoskings and JLR don’t use the American pronunciation of ‘class’ rhyming like ‘ass’ as your subject (Fis) does. (Catching up with Key 14th March) They rhyme the word ‘class’ with ‘arse, speaking the same way as real New Zealanders.
Seven Sharp- shortly after the DP book was launched so it would have been mid to late August Morrissey.
There was no “intellectual” superiority in the so-called “hard time”. It was just loud noise coming from Hosking not unlike Key’s attempts to discredit Hager at the same time. Everything Hager said was rubbished by Hosking, but he presented no cogent or logical explanation fore the rubbishing. You know the type of thing:
Hager: I’ve just heard that President Kennedy has been assassinated.
Hosking: That’s rubbish. You’re making it up. The President of the USA been assassinated? Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous.
A few hours later there is an official statement… “President Kennedy has been assassinated”. Hosking goes quiet for a long time. Then he boasts loudly on a radio programme… I remember giving that creep Hager a hard time last year.
It’s a sign of how low standards are at TV1 that this himbo-bimbo fronts their evening newsmagazine show.
I heard part of Mediawatch and one of the things Hoskings did on his radio show was read out a text or email from one of his listeners (although I wouldn’t be surprised if Hosking had’ve made it up) referring to Hager as “that little prick Hager”.
I wonder if he would’ve read out a text using the same words to describe Key.
And what a withering intellectual critique of Nicky Hager, eh? But that’s Hosking’s level.
Given that he is still banging on the same nonsense about Hager all these months later, he has a real bee in his hairdo about Nicky. Nicky must’ve really made him look bad!
But now, yes, it appears he is totally delusional as well.
Hosking is that unfortunate specimen: a working class boy who has “made good” and takes on the simpering narcissism and prejudices of the class that he thinks he has joined, even though he’s really tolerated by them because he’s a useful idiot.
I knew Hosking was an airhead and a narcissist. But now it also appears he’s totally delusional.
He’s a prime example of that unfortunate creature, the working class boy ‘made good’ who takes on the prejudices and simpering narcissism of the class he thinks he’s joined when really they tolerate him because he’s a useful idiot.
Yeah, I read the headline. Thought it was unbelievable that someone thought respecting private property was the definition of a free and tolerant so society so didn’t want to add to the page views. I’m guessing it was about the Titirangi Kauri, but any statements on what he thinks about respect for people or the environment?
But that’s not how these characters play. They are puffed-up bandwagon-jumpers, holier-than-thou busybodies, always ready to bully and abuse at no expense or inconvenience to themselves.
To hell with minority rights – in this case, the Lenihan’s. We can jump up and down, and scream and shout and be clapped and reported about. It’s glorious. Look at us, we care. To hell with the law.
It really is interesting to consider that quote in the light of the early US leaders who waxed lyrical about freedom and justice. And “owned” other human beings as slaves.
Yes the concept of “private property” as conceived by John Locke in 1690 in his “ Second Treatise on Government” is shot full of logical and ethical inconsistencies. This is the founding statement and justification of the right to private property and to protection of that property by public law and force. Locke argues that the right to private property and protection is the foundation of all government legislation and duty, of all individual rights, and – if violated – of the rights to rebel against the state or sovereign. Market doctrine since Locke has presupposed his position as canonical (vis Hide’s stupid out burst!).
We have to reinvestigate the whole concept of what constitutes property – just what rights “ownership” carries as well as protection of the commons as well.
By the time George Washington became President he was the richest man in the USA. His wealth came from the extermination of the Indian nations and the expropriation, farming and on selling of their land.
In fact it is clear that the Founding Fathers of the USA did everything they could to make sure that the USA would not be a popular democracy. The appointed senate, the electoral college, and the barring of women and blacks from voting were just a few clues to that.
I came across an excellent book in the Ottawa library last year “Unequal Freedoms – the global market as an ethical system” by John Mc Murray published 1999. It investigates and critiques the philosophical basis of both the “free market” and the globalisation of such. Highly perceptive and a devastating critique of market doctrine. We see that modern economic theory is based on very flimsy foundations and it is unsurprising that our conventional economic practices are failing.
Hide doesn’t recognise that his much treasured rules of ‘private’ property are not actually sustainable in society, certainly not to the level of paramouncy as he seems to believe.
He has been caught out believing his own bullshit.
Oh, I really hope so. While I can imagine SIS agents (basically jumped up school prefects from Grammar school 2nd XVs) saying that sort of thing, the stupidity needed to put it in writing would be monumental. At least Simon Bridges level.
Hope someone will introduce into the House the letter of apology from new head of GCSB for written comments ‘spies’ ( ie employees of NZ taxpayers) made about raping Mrs Mona Dotcom and replacing her with one of their own.
KDC is a sublime rust for Key. Keeps on giving and eating away, and he may yet be the one responsible for bringing him down.
Since the article says that it applies to those who were there prior to 1999, and therefore King qualifies, it is hardly surprising that she’s in favour. Anything to build up her slush find for when she quits at the next election.
Incidentally has anyone heard a rumour I was told about last week. My informant, who is subject to a bit of hyperbole, claimed that the price of Annette being deputy for a while was that she would quit and allow Little to stand for Rongotai. Seems a bit extreme but it could be possible. Certainly I’m sure he would like an electorate that he could possibly win.
The travel perk was, of course one of Norman Kirk’s schemes. Norm wanted to give MPs, and himself, a pay rise but not to appear to be doing so. He therefore brought this in so he could sanctimoniously say that MPs were sacrificing for the country without actually doing so.
He also brought in the extra allowance for former PMs. He carefully worded it so that Jack Marshall wouldn’t get it, but in time Norm would. When he died before the requisite time period the Rowling Government changed it so that Ruth King, along with Wallace Rowling himself would get the money.
Never get between a trougher and the money pot seemed to be the motto of those charlatans.
I will if you like but you might not want to hear about it.
The main promoter of the scheme, despite being a junior minister, was the bete-noire of the left, Roger Douglas.
The scheme grew out of a private member’s bill put forward by Douglas when in opposition.
As Wikipedia says
“Douglas was an early and enthusiastic promoter of the government’s plans for a compulsory contributory superannuation scheme that would supplement the old age pension. In 1972, while still in opposition, he introduced a private member’s bill that provided for a form of compulsory superannuation. In Cabinet, Rowling, who was then Minister of Finance, and Douglas were largely responsible for a 1973 White Paper setting out the government’s proposals for superannuation. As well as augmenting individual provision for retirement, the scheme was intended to be a source of capital for investment in the domestic economy.[11] The scheme became law in the form of the New Zealand Superannuation Act 1974.
The law was passed a few days before Norm died but it wasn’t really his work, was it? You have to give credit for the short-lived scheme to Rowling and Douglas.
Yes, this was when Douglas still acted for the good of the country and well before his book “There’s Got to be a Better Way”, which laid out some plagiarised Friedmanite rubbish as his own thoughts. Norm knew what the country needed, Lange was too blinded by his own witty performances to even notice what Douglas had turned into.
Legislation for a major change like super doesn’t go through without the approval of the PM, just as a very dodgy MP doesn’t stand for re-election without the specific approval of the PM.
“Legislation for a major change like super doesn’t go through without the approval of the PM, just as a very dodgy MP doesn’t stand for re-election without the specific approval of the PM.”
You may be right, although if the second part is true one must worry about the honesty of Helen Clark, given what Taito Phillip Field had been up to.
I have been told by people who had to deal with Kirk that he really had little control over anything during 1974. He had, unfortunately, had heart problems, circulation problems and other health problems during the entire year and was not really in command of his job. I cannot comment from personal experience but some of the people who have told me this were very senior public servants at the time.
Taito Philip Field was merely dodgy. For very dodgy you need to look at the right. I don’t think Field ever molested the children of anyone who worked on his house. Graeme Cappill came from the right.
You may be right.
On the other hand perhaps you can remind us again what Party Mr Capill belonged to, when he was an MP, and therefore which PM is responsible for his behaviour? At least tell us which PM was the leader of his party?
You can also tell us who was the party leader responsible when the former MP for Otaki got into Parliament and how you might justify the rather “iffy” behaviour he got up to when he entertained a teenager in the present Labour Parties deputy leader’s home? How do you justify that sort of behaviour, where the kid ended up having to flee naked down the street?
“perhaps you can remind us again what Party Mr Capill belonged to, when he was an MP, and therefore which PM is responsible for his behaviour? At least tell us which PM was the leader of his party?”
Th’ feck are you on about? No PM was ever the leader of Capill’s tawdry little conservative right-wing christo-fascist party.
Ps did you know that the right-wing conservative pedophile Graham Capill also worked for the NZ Police?
I think you know that it’s the type of offences that Capill was found guilty of that’s important here. Maybe I’ll be able to tell you the rest next week, if you don’t know already.
Some scathing views about National’s Northland BYELECTION-BRIBES:
* “New” jobs which may or may not be full-time jobs; “new” road bridges which are not a priority; “new” promises on the roll-out of broadband which are old promises.
* Is there no limit on the lengths to which the National Party will go to pull the wool over voters’ eyes and hope that prevents the seat of Northland from falling into Winston Peters’ clutches?
* Deserving of special scrutiny is the repeated claim by Steven Joyce that 7500 new jobs were created in Northland last year. [Note: The link below explains why that claim is just pig shit]
* With more pork yet to come, National is setting a none-too-useful benchmark which risks turning contests in electorates into unseemly auctions.
* But National does not care one jot what Labour or anyone else thinks. It is locked in an almighty struggle with the man who has been its nemesis for longer than the party cares to remember.
* It was Mark Osborne, National’s candidate in Northland, who announced that the Government would be spending up to $70 million on replacing 10 single-lane bridges in the electorate. It is Parliament which sanctions such spending and Bridges who will be responsible for ensuring the money is spent on exactly what Parliament has decreed it be spent on – not Osborne, who as yet has no parliamentary standing and should not have made the announcement. It takes pork-barrelling to a new level when the candidate is doing it.
* Equally disturbing is the scale of the pork-barrelling by National.
* But National does not care one jot what Labour or anyone else thinks. It is locked in an almighty struggle with the man who has been its nemesis for longer than the party cares to remember. The stakes are not just high; they are stratospheric. So far, National appears to have no idea how to do that beyond trying to crowd him out of the media.
* National’s post-mortems on the byelection will also have to ask how the party managed to select a candidate who is so obviously out of his depth. Putting him up against Peters was lamb for the slaughter.
* National’s campaign is further handicapped by its confused stance in this byelection. The subtext of Joyce’s gushing statements about the strong growth in the Northland economy is that this is all down to National’s sound management of the overall economy and its business development programmes. Yet, the ever-lengthening line of Cabinet ministers trekking to Northland bearing gifts speaks of a regional economy still in dire straits and desperately short of capital, infrastructure and a highly skilled workforce needed to attract business ventures.
Northland is either a burgeoning success story or an economic cot-case. It cannot be both.
* If things are on the improve in the region – as Joyce insists – why is National being punished by a large chunk of the party’s supporters deserting to New Zealand First?
I sometimes wonder about Armstrong’s (political) convictions. Perhaps he ‘adapts’ his style & contents to maximise the number of page views (reads?) & comments? After all, he’s a qualified professional with lots of experience unlike the likes of Rodney Hide and Mike Hosking.
“Northland is either a burgeoning success story or an economic cot-case. It cannot be both.”
It can, actually. Northland is like a 3rd world country where the wealthy live in gated enclaves and the poor live in misery. Take a drive from Kerikeri to Moerewa. It’s not far.
Tomorrow, Monday 16 March 2015, after confirming with the Electoral Commission the ‘due process’ to follow – it is my intention to make a formal complaint against National’s Northland candidate Mark Osborne, for reported comments allegedly made by him, which, in my opinion, are a breach of s.216 (2) of the Electoral Act 1993 – “BRIBERY”.
In my view, in order to get an ‘outcome’ – you need to first put something into a ‘sausage machine’.
Just ‘howling at the moon’ doesn’t ‘cut it’ – in my opinion and experience.
The chain of events that ended up getting John Banks removed from Parliament, started with a complaint to the Police….
I was one of the three complainants.
Once I have the ‘process’ confirmed with the Electoral Commission – I will pass on the information.
Under NZ electoral law – “BRIBERY” is an offence.
But, situation normal, nothing will happen until someone actually MAKES A COMPLAINT?
I’ve already emailed the Electoral Commission – asking them this ‘due process’ question, so the ‘sausage machine’ has been ‘switched on’ – as it were….
Good luck Penny. Maybe you can also include/allude to the early votes deliberately cheated out of confused elderly as mentioned in Open Mike yesterday ? ( Can find you link if you missed it).
Very serious indeed, and possibly could be part of same complaint ?
I haven’t seen the comment you refer to but the voting of people suffering from dementia by the staff of their aged care home seems to be a standard feature of every election.
I worked as a clerk at a polling booth in one of the homes at an election some years ago. Their were people who obviously suffered from dementia whose voting papers were collected by a staff member. The staff member had to tell us who the resident was as they didn’t seem to be in a position to know their own name.
The staff member then “helped” them to vote. I don’t think some of them had the faintest idea that there was even an election on.
One can only hope that there are never enough to unduly affect the results.
I have no idea who the votes were being cast for.
I certainly never saw the completed ballot papers. I can only say that I don’t think the “voters” knew either.
I’m more concerned with this new, and insidious, practice by the National party to have helpers phone and door-knock offers of rides to the polling booth.
On election day in 2014 we got an automated call from Sam Lotu Iiga’s electorate office apparently offering a ride to the polling booth. I don’t know how many houses this call went out to on election day but one must assume it was all households in the Maungakeiei electorate.
I complained to the Electoral commission on the day, and to be fair to them they had their chief lawyer call me back almost instantly, but he said it was within the rules agreed to by all parties.
While a higher proportion of constituents voting for parties of the socially responsible left are more likely to require help to get to a polling booth (or in this case – advanced voting for the infirm), this agreement is likely to not be in Labour’s benefit because the National party will cynically use it to have a last ditch advertising push on election day to all voters, regardless of mobility status…
…as Sam Lotu Iiga did in Maungakeikei in September 2014.
A solution to this would be for the Electoral commission themselves to have the funding to help vulnerable voters fulfil their right to vote uninfluenced by the Nats.
I would love to know what evidence you have for the statement that “While a higher proportion of constituents voting for parties of the socially responsible left are more likely to require help to get to a polling booth”.
On the other hand I do know one person, who does vote for right leaning parties, who called the Labour Party to request help to get to the polling booth. After voting she then, on the way home thanked “the nice young man and assured him she had voted for his candidate XXX. XXX was the National candidate”. She said that the driver managed, just, to resist tossing out of the car.
I told this story to one of my Labour leaning friends and she did it the other way round at the next election. She got National to take her to vote Labour. She claimed he was, in a strained way, quite polite to her.
You’d have to be stupid to not accept that more lower socio-economic people vote left and that more lower socio-economic people lack private transport.
I complained to the Electoral commission on the day, and to be fair to them they had their chief lawyer call me back almost instantly, but he said it was within the rules agreed to by all parties.
It is. Labour has always offered rides especially to the elderly and infirm in well supported electorates
That’s what the Electoral Commission’s lawyer said too.
“Labour do it too”
I had to laugh because it sounded like something straight out of the Crosby Textor handbook.
I felt at the time that help to the polling booth targeted to immobile voters is fair enough, but an automated and apparently random phone message? Sounds like campaigning to me.
Given your comment reference, 11.2.1.2 you appear to be replying to my comment which is 11.2.1.
What the hell are you talking about? Am I not allowed to help run the election by giving my time, and the payment went to a charity, to help run the election? I was a clerk in the polling booth. I wasn’t a bloody party representative.
1. It is not “bullshit”
2. I hate to dent your little ego but I don’t really care in the slightest what you think. I have yet to read anything by you that matters in the slightest.
Lest we forget, the process which led to the legally enforced corporate takeover of the Auckland region via the Auckland ‘Supercity’ (for the 1%) amalgamation, effectively started on 5 September 2006, with the attempted ‘Mayoral coup’.
The purpose of the (failed) Auckland ‘Mayoral coup’ was to get rid of the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and replace it with a ‘Supercity’.
The ‘ring leaders’ of this attempted Auckland ‘Mayoral coup’, were Waitakere City Council Mayor Bob Harvey, Manukau City Council Mayor Barry Curtis, North Shore City Council Mayor George Wood, and Auckland City Council Mayor Dick Hubbard.
FACT.
The ‘form’ taken by these four City Council Mayors – was a letter – co-signed by all of them – addressed to then LABOUR Prime Minister, Helen Clark, asking for her urgent intervention and assistance, on behalf of those who were really pushing hard for this – BUSINESS leaders.
Luckily, fellow community activist Lisa Prager and myself, having been ‘tipped off’ about this meeting to be held in the Auckland Town Hall, gate-crashed it and disrupted it – on the basis that the Auckland ‘Mayoral Forum’ under whose auspices this meeting had been called, was NOT a ‘creature of statute’ – had no lawful right to do anything – and under the then Local Government Act 2002, there had to be a binding poll of the PUBLIC before any ‘amalgamation’ took place.
Our action on 5 September 2006, at least helped to slow down the process …
Looking at the RT site for what it has about President Putin’s whereabouts.
The news at the 12th March was that he had cancelled some things but was having meetings out of the public eye. He had some trouble in 2012 similarly and this was ascribed to old sports injuries etc. http://rt.com/politics/240025-russia-peskov-putin-health/
This has been hot on Twitter since late yesterday when Philip Lyth picked it up, then Idiot/Savant (NRT) and Graeme Edgeler. Graeme researched it and then posted on Public Address:
The whole situation seems to changing minute by minute. According to Graeme the Stuff article has been updated to exclude a sentence included in the original article referring to Fox, Turei and King opposing the changes. *
Graeme’s Twiitter feed is possibly the only way to keep up with the changing situation. Lots more details, questions, comments there.
EDIT – the earlier version also included the fact that only one dissenting vote is needed for the changes to not pass! Apparently this still stands, but taken out of the Stuff article.
I suspect that this is going to be all over the MSM news tomorrow, The Stuff (Dom Post) article was obviously written in haste – I suspect by a pretty junior on duty journo. Herald also has a fairly vacuous article up tonight. Won’t bother providing a link unless you would like one.
But it continues to be debated on Twitter – Graeme Edgeler, Jessica Williams, Hoots, Annette King (qualifies when she leaves Parliament), Tau Henare (another qualifier now) etc. King seems to be out there trying to justify the change on behalf of National. Say no more.
Edgeler seems to be holding his ground and refusing to let it go which IMO is good. Could be the start of another bad week for Key …. !
Death by a thousand cuts, perhaps. Time will tell.
Sparrho is like the Google for scientific papers—and patents, posters, events, and grants. Just type in keywords, like “GMO food,” and you’ll soon have access to all the latest research. Here’s a snapshot of what comes up when you search for GMO food:
As you can see, the latest results are up-to-date (I performed the search on March 6). Some are accessible to laypeople, some are not. That’s because Vivian Chan, Sparrho’s CEO and co-founder, originally designed the platform for herself. “I was doing my PhD at Cambridge University, and realized using search engines for science doesn’t work. There are all of these databases out there, but you have to know exactly what it is you’re looking for,” she says.
Good analysis and ideas in the Observer today for addressing Britain’s housing crisis, which shares most of the hallmarks of NZ’s:
”The Homes for Britain campaign, which brings together housing associations, private house builders, landlords, planners and architects, is holding a rally in Westminster. It aims to solve the housing crisis “in a generation”, which is a realistic time frame, given that it has taken a generation to create the current situation
”The crisis in house prices is therefore not an act of pure economic fate but constructed and willed by policy over decades. As such, it can also be defused by policy, if not easily or quickly. So far, the main government response has been to try to relax planning rules and to encourage the market with measures such as Help To Buy which, presented as much-needed assistance to first-time buyers, tend to push up prices further.”
Aid agencies reported that around 90% of houses in Port Vila have been destroyed, many people displaced, and schools ripped apart. Oxfam Australia’s executive director Helen Szoke said:
It’s becoming increasingly clear that we are now dealing with worse than the worst case scenario in Vanuatu. This is likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the Pacific.
Up to 75,000 children in Vanuatu could be in desperate need of food, water and shelter, Save the Children has said.
‘Lack of urgency’ on climate change, says World Bank V-P
As reported earlier, Vanuatu’s president, Baldwin Lonsdale, is, by coincidence, at the UN world conference on disaster risk reduction in Japan, from where AFP sends this report:
Despite ominous predictions of mass devastation in cyclone-wrecked Vanuatu, policymakers at a UN disaster meeting in Japan do not seem to understand the pressing need to tackle climate change, the World Bank warned Sunday.
A state of emergency has been declared in the impoverished Pacific nation, where dozens are feared dead after one of the most powerful storms ever recorded smashed through. Aid agencies have spoken of “grave fears” over the scale of the human tragedy.
But Rachel Kyte, World Bank vice president and special envoy for climate change, said there appeared to be a disconnect between policy and the increasingly-frequent weather-related disasters the world is suffering.
“I worry that a sense of urgency and a sense of shared ambition is not at the right level,” she told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of the UN conference on disaster risk reduction in Sendai, Japan.
“It’s hugely ironic that this storm should hit Vanuatu while we are all here. If we truly care for those people, we have to respond,” she said, referring to the need for environmental commitments.
“I think we have to hold ourselves accountable and at least voluntarily we should have targets” on emission reductions from the Sendai conference, she said.
The conference comes ahead of COP 21 talks scheduled for December in Paris, at which countries will try to thrash out agreements on cutting greenhouse gases.
French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who will chair the meeting, told AFP Sendai could act as a springboard to success later in the year.
Kyte told AFP:
I don’t think I would say climate change caused [Cyclone] Pam, but I would say the fact is in the past three or four years we’ve seen category fives coming with a regularity we’ve never seen before.
And that has some relationship with climate change. It is indisputable that part of the Pacific Ocean is much warmer today than in previous years, so these storms are intensifying.
We may have helped communities become resilient to the kinds of storms we experienced in the past, but resilience to a storm with wind speed of up to 300km per hour – that’s a whole new intensity.
The UN development bank chief, Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, said it was “impossible” to protect against natural disasters without addressing one of the root causes:
Unless we tackle climate change on the global level we are making the task of building resilience to disasters almost impossible.
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The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
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Iranian cabinet is full of US trained PhDs
It’s quite likely that Iran understands the USA far better than the other way around.
https://twitter.com/rezaaslan/status/522076160545419264/photo/1
http://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2014/nov/13/rouhani%E2%80%99s-us-educated-cabinet
Ten steps which narrowed British politics to the extreme centre
A nation big enough to go to war in the Middle East, but not big enough to fund public libraries.
http://rt.com/op-edge/240745-uk-neocons-faux-left-establishment/
The leading secular radical movement in Palestine is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, founded in 1967. Its key founder was George Habash.
Some of us at Redline were involved, a couple of years ago, in fund-raising in NZ for the PFLP.
Its most well-known member is probably Leila Khaled, a Palestinian icon who is today a member of its PolitBureau. Its general-secretary Ahmad Sa’adat, is currently in an Israeli jail, without charge, after the Israelis kidnapped him in 2006.
We have numerous articles up on Redline on the cause of Palestinian liberation and the PFLP, including an interview that was done with Leila as part of the fundraising campaign.
Below are a few PFLP pieces:
Remembering George Habash: Palestinian revolutionary intellectual and freedom fighter: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/remembering-george-habash/
For a world free of racism, imperialism and capitalist exploitation – message from PFLP to 2014 eirigi conference: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/for-a-world-that-is-free-of-racism-colonialism-imperialism-oppression-and-capitalist-exploitation-pflp-message-to-eirigi-conference/
Palestinian liberation and the PFLP today – interview with PFLP deputy-general-secretary: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/palestinian-liberation-and-the-pflp-today-an-interview-with-abu-ahmad-fouad-deputy-secretary-general-of-the-pflp/
PFLP on the Palestinian Authority: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/pflp-on-the-palestinian-authority/
NZ solidarity activist interview with Palestinian revolutionary icon Leila Khaled: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/nz-solidarity-activist-interviews-leila-khaled-2010/
The case of Ahmad Sa’adat: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/the-case-of-ahmad-saadat-palestinian-revolutionary-leader-and-political-prisoner/
Also, check out the Palestine and PFLP categories on the site.
Fascinating piece of NZ history – Murray Horton on the introduction of peacetime conscription in 1949 and the fight against it: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/labours-introduction-of-peacetime-conscription-and-the-fight-against-it/
Excellent. Thanks for that Philip. Murray Horton is a witty and compelling speaker, with a sharp mind. Which means he is totally unsuited for radio programmes like Jim Mora’s The Panel.
Fantasists of Our Time
No. 1: MIKE HOSKING
I’ve just heard, on Radio NZ National’s excellent Mediawatch program, that empty vessel Mike “Contra” Hosking boasting to a simpering, giggling Rachel Smalley how he gave Nicky Hager “a hard time” on his show last year.
When did that happen? I find it extremely unlikely that Hosking would have got the better of Hager, who is far more articulate, and clearly his superior intellectually as well as ethically and morally.
Perhaps someone could provide a link to—or a transcript of—this amazing event which I for one do not believe ever happened.
That would be the Mediawatch in which that Lackwit Larry got a mention. It’s been years since I heard that droning voice delivering words of wisdom. Do people actually listen to that guy while conscious or is he the ZB sleep-time for toddlers story teller. 10mg of Mogadon would be a better option.
…. and yes – it is an excellent programme (watch out for the knives amongst RNZ management)
and yes – it is an excellent programme (watch out for the knives amongst RNZ management)
I have no doubt that Richard (Lord Haw Haw Haw Haw) Griffin has conniptions every time that this programme sends up the government’s media wing, as it did this morning with its devastating exhibition of Hosking and Williams. In the last few months alone, they’ve already wielded the knife against Wayne Brittenden and Down the List.
Steve McCabe will have lost his spot on the Panel after daring to criticise the dear leader last week.
I know. Mike Hosking posts here as fisiani. The comparisons are uncanny.
I reckon fisiani sounds more like Jamie-Lee after a morning prayer sermon from Dear Leader & Joyce
No. Hoskings and JLR don’t use the American pronunciation of ‘class’ rhyming like ‘ass’ as your subject (Fis) does. (Catching up with Key 14th March) They rhyme the word ‘class’ with ‘arse, speaking the same way as real New Zealanders.
Seven Sharp- shortly after the DP book was launched so it would have been mid to late August Morrissey.
There was no “intellectual” superiority in the so-called “hard time”. It was just loud noise coming from Hosking not unlike Key’s attempts to discredit Hager at the same time. Everything Hager said was rubbished by Hosking, but he presented no cogent or logical explanation fore the rubbishing. You know the type of thing:
Hager: I’ve just heard that President Kennedy has been assassinated.
Hosking: That’s rubbish. You’re making it up. The President of the USA been assassinated? Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous.
A few hours later there is an official statement… “President Kennedy has been assassinated”. Hosking goes quiet for a long time. Then he boasts loudly on a radio programme… I remember giving that creep Hager a hard time last year.
Thanks for that, Anne. I wonder if this is available on YouTube. I’ll have a search; I’m sure it will end up there some time.
Excellent one, Anne.
That’s Hosking to a tee!
It’s a sign of how low standards are at TV1 that this himbo-bimbo fronts their evening newsmagazine show.
I heard part of Mediawatch and one of the things Hoskings did on his radio show was read out a text or email from one of his listeners (although I wouldn’t be surprised if Hosking had’ve made it up) referring to Hager as “that little prick Hager”.
I wonder if he would’ve read out a text using the same words to describe Key.
And what a withering intellectual critique of Nicky Hager, eh? But that’s Hosking’s level.
Given that he is still banging on the same nonsense about Hager all these months later, he has a real bee in his hairdo about Nicky. Nicky must’ve really made him look bad!
Phil
The thing about all this spying stuff is its our ‘Are we the baddies?’ moment.
https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?list=RDToKcmnrE5oY
I knew Hosking was an airhead and narcissist.
But now, yes, it appears he is totally delusional as well.
Hosking is that unfortunate specimen: a working class boy who has “made good” and takes on the simpering narcissism and prejudices of the class that he thinks he has joined, even though he’s really tolerated by them because he’s a useful idiot.
Phil
I knew Hosking was an airhead and a narcissist. But now it also appears he’s totally delusional.
He’s a prime example of that unfortunate creature, the working class boy ‘made good’ who takes on the prejudices and simpering narcissism of the class he thinks he’s joined when really they tolerate him because he’s a useful idiot.
Phil
Dog Math
😀
Reality Maths 🙂
hide frothing at the mouth like the c-grade actor that he is
“Respect for private property is what makes a free and tolerant society.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11417397
Private property is what makes a society greedy and divisive leading to an inevitable collapse.
The confiscation of the commons destroys society.
Yeah, I read the headline. Thought it was unbelievable that someone thought respecting private property was the definition of a free and tolerant so society so didn’t want to add to the page views. I’m guessing it was about the Titirangi Kauri, but any statements on what he thinks about respect for people or the environment?
yep, this
minority rights? lol what a dickhead hide is
So no tolerance and freedom to have an opinion for people or respect for the environment – can’t see the ownership titles I suppose.
He’s gotta be pretty pissed off about how his pet supercity project is working out huh? 🙂
It really is interesting to consider that quote in the light of the early US leaders who waxed lyrical about freedom and justice. And “owned” other human beings as slaves.
Yes the concept of “private property” as conceived by John Locke in 1690 in his “ Second Treatise on Government” is shot full of logical and ethical inconsistencies. This is the founding statement and justification of the right to private property and to protection of that property by public law and force. Locke argues that the right to private property and protection is the foundation of all government legislation and duty, of all individual rights, and – if violated – of the rights to rebel against the state or sovereign. Market doctrine since Locke has presupposed his position as canonical (vis Hide’s stupid out burst!).
We have to reinvestigate the whole concept of what constitutes property – just what rights “ownership” carries as well as protection of the commons as well.
By the time George Washington became President he was the richest man in the USA. His wealth came from the extermination of the Indian nations and the expropriation, farming and on selling of their land.
In fact it is clear that the Founding Fathers of the USA did everything they could to make sure that the USA would not be a popular democracy. The appointed senate, the electoral college, and the barring of women and blacks from voting were just a few clues to that.
I came across an excellent book in the Ottawa library last year “Unequal Freedoms – the global market as an ethical system” by John Mc Murray published 1999. It investigates and critiques the philosophical basis of both the “free market” and the globalisation of such. Highly perceptive and a devastating critique of market doctrine. We see that modern economic theory is based on very flimsy foundations and it is unsurprising that our conventional economic practices are failing.
Hide doesn’t recognise that his much treasured rules of ‘private’ property are not actually sustainable in society, certainly not to the level of paramouncy as he seems to believe.
He has been caught out believing his own bullshit.
Murdoch in the great package deal being offered Northlanders by National.
https://twitter.com/domesticanimal/status/576845854364938241
Great cartoon…and so true!
SIS papers release to dotcom lawyers: shocking reveal!
https://twitter.com/KimDotcom
hmmm, I hope he’s going to release the documents. Too much assertion otherwise.
Oh, I really hope so. While I can imagine SIS agents (basically jumped up school prefects from Grammar school 2nd XVs) saying that sort of thing, the stupidity needed to put it in writing would be monumental. At least Simon Bridges level.
Hope someone will introduce into the House the letter of apology from new head of GCSB for written comments ‘spies’ ( ie employees of NZ taxpayers) made about raping Mrs Mona Dotcom and replacing her with one of their own.
KDC is a sublime rust for Key. Keeps on giving and eating away, and he may yet be the one responsible for bringing him down.
This on Twitter from Jessica Williams .. can’t find anything further about it .. anyone know anything ?
” Jessica Williams
@mizjwilliams
Why is the government trying to sneak through a fat increase to MPs’ travel perks? Listen to @LIVENewsDesk! “
I suspect it’s this. Annette King has given it the walrus of approval.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11417644
Since the article says that it applies to those who were there prior to 1999, and therefore King qualifies, it is hardly surprising that she’s in favour. Anything to build up her slush find for when she quits at the next election.
Incidentally has anyone heard a rumour I was told about last week. My informant, who is subject to a bit of hyperbole, claimed that the price of Annette being deputy for a while was that she would quit and allow Little to stand for Rongotai. Seems a bit extreme but it could be possible. Certainly I’m sure he would like an electorate that he could possibly win.
The travel perk was, of course one of Norman Kirk’s schemes. Norm wanted to give MPs, and himself, a pay rise but not to appear to be doing so. He therefore brought this in so he could sanctimoniously say that MPs were sacrificing for the country without actually doing so.
He also brought in the extra allowance for former PMs. He carefully worded it so that Jack Marshall wouldn’t get it, but in time Norm would. When he died before the requisite time period the Rowling Government changed it so that Ruth King, along with Wallace Rowling himself would get the money.
Never get between a trougher and the money pot seemed to be the motto of those charlatans.
Thank you for another post from the Tory misinformation service. How about Norm’s super scheme? Tell us about that instead.
I will if you like but you might not want to hear about it.
The main promoter of the scheme, despite being a junior minister, was the bete-noire of the left, Roger Douglas.
The scheme grew out of a private member’s bill put forward by Douglas when in opposition.
As Wikipedia says
“Douglas was an early and enthusiastic promoter of the government’s plans for a compulsory contributory superannuation scheme that would supplement the old age pension. In 1972, while still in opposition, he introduced a private member’s bill that provided for a form of compulsory superannuation. In Cabinet, Rowling, who was then Minister of Finance, and Douglas were largely responsible for a 1973 White Paper setting out the government’s proposals for superannuation. As well as augmenting individual provision for retirement, the scheme was intended to be a source of capital for investment in the domestic economy.[11] The scheme became law in the form of the New Zealand Superannuation Act 1974.
The law was passed a few days before Norm died but it wasn’t really his work, was it? You have to give credit for the short-lived scheme to Rowling and Douglas.
Yes, this was when Douglas still acted for the good of the country and well before his book “There’s Got to be a Better Way”, which laid out some plagiarised Friedmanite rubbish as his own thoughts. Norm knew what the country needed, Lange was too blinded by his own witty performances to even notice what Douglas had turned into.
Legislation for a major change like super doesn’t go through without the approval of the PM, just as a very dodgy MP doesn’t stand for re-election without the specific approval of the PM.
“Legislation for a major change like super doesn’t go through without the approval of the PM, just as a very dodgy MP doesn’t stand for re-election without the specific approval of the PM.”
You may be right, although if the second part is true one must worry about the honesty of Helen Clark, given what Taito Phillip Field had been up to.
I have been told by people who had to deal with Kirk that he really had little control over anything during 1974. He had, unfortunately, had heart problems, circulation problems and other health problems during the entire year and was not really in command of his job. I cannot comment from personal experience but some of the people who have told me this were very senior public servants at the time.
Taito Philip Field was merely dodgy. For very dodgy you need to look at the right. I don’t think Field ever molested the children of anyone who worked on his house. Graeme Cappill came from the right.
You may be right.
On the other hand perhaps you can remind us again what Party Mr Capill belonged to, when he was an MP, and therefore which PM is responsible for his behaviour? At least tell us which PM was the leader of his party?
You can also tell us who was the party leader responsible when the former MP for Otaki got into Parliament and how you might justify the rather “iffy” behaviour he got up to when he entertained a teenager in the present Labour Parties deputy leader’s home? How do you justify that sort of behaviour, where the kid ended up having to flee naked down the street?
“perhaps you can remind us again what Party Mr Capill belonged to, when he was an MP, and therefore which PM is responsible for his behaviour? At least tell us which PM was the leader of his party?”
Th’ feck are you on about? No PM was ever the leader of Capill’s tawdry little conservative right-wing christo-fascist party.
Ps did you know that the right-wing conservative pedophile Graham Capill also worked for the NZ Police?
Just like Mike Sabin did.
I think you know that it’s the type of offences that Capill was found guilty of that’s important here. Maybe I’ll be able to tell you the rest next week, if you don’t know already.
will you be in for the hearing, murray ?
Nah, I’m back in Oz.
Some scathing views about National’s Northland BYELECTION-BRIBES:
* “New” jobs which may or may not be full-time jobs; “new” road bridges which are not a priority; “new” promises on the roll-out of broadband which are old promises.
* Is there no limit on the lengths to which the National Party will go to pull the wool over voters’ eyes and hope that prevents the seat of Northland from falling into Winston Peters’ clutches?
* Deserving of special scrutiny is the repeated claim by Steven Joyce that 7500 new jobs were created in Northland last year. [Note: The link below explains why that claim is just pig shit]
* With more pork yet to come, National is setting a none-too-useful benchmark which risks turning contests in electorates into unseemly auctions.
* But National does not care one jot what Labour or anyone else thinks. It is locked in an almighty struggle with the man who has been its nemesis for longer than the party cares to remember.
* It was Mark Osborne, National’s candidate in Northland, who announced that the Government would be spending up to $70 million on replacing 10 single-lane bridges in the electorate. It is Parliament which sanctions such spending and Bridges who will be responsible for ensuring the money is spent on exactly what Parliament has decreed it be spent on – not Osborne, who as yet has no parliamentary standing and should not have made the announcement. It takes pork-barrelling to a new level when the candidate is doing it.
* Equally disturbing is the scale of the pork-barrelling by National.
* But National does not care one jot what Labour or anyone else thinks. It is locked in an almighty struggle with the man who has been its nemesis for longer than the party cares to remember. The stakes are not just high; they are stratospheric. So far, National appears to have no idea how to do that beyond trying to crowd him out of the media.
* National’s post-mortems on the byelection will also have to ask how the party managed to select a candidate who is so obviously out of his depth. Putting him up against Peters was lamb for the slaughter.
* National’s campaign is further handicapped by its confused stance in this byelection. The subtext of Joyce’s gushing statements about the strong growth in the Northland economy is that this is all down to National’s sound management of the overall economy and its business development programmes. Yet, the ever-lengthening line of Cabinet ministers trekking to Northland bearing gifts speaks of a regional economy still in dire straits and desperately short of capital, infrastructure and a highly skilled workforce needed to attract business ventures.
Northland is either a burgeoning success story or an economic cot-case. It cannot be both.
* If things are on the improve in the region – as Joyce insists – why is National being punished by a large chunk of the party’s supporters deserting to New Zealand First?
The full article is here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/john-armstrong/news/article.cfm?a_id=3&objectid=11416930
Armstrong’s awful biased journalism prior to the election makes me question his authenticity.
A lot of journalists and media commentators were. I think now at least a few of them seem to have seen the light and are coming out of the dark side.
This is not the John Armstrong I’m used to..He must be due for the chop after this must read.
I sometimes wonder about Armstrong’s (political) convictions. Perhaps he ‘adapts’ his style & contents to maximise the number of page views (reads?) & comments? After all, he’s a qualified professional with lots of experience unlike the likes of Rodney Hide and Mike Hosking.
“Northland is either a burgeoning success story or an economic cot-case. It cannot be both.”
It can, actually. Northland is like a 3rd world country where the wealthy live in gated enclaves and the poor live in misery. Take a drive from Kerikeri to Moerewa. It’s not far.
Tomorrow, Monday 16 March 2015, after confirming with the Electoral Commission the ‘due process’ to follow – it is my intention to make a formal complaint against National’s Northland candidate Mark Osborne, for reported comments allegedly made by him, which, in my opinion, are a breach of s.216 (2) of the Electoral Act 1993 – “BRIBERY”.
In my view, in order to get an ‘outcome’ – you need to first put something into a ‘sausage machine’.
Just ‘howling at the moon’ doesn’t ‘cut it’ – in my opinion and experience.
The chain of events that ended up getting John Banks removed from Parliament, started with a complaint to the Police….
I was one of the three complainants.
Once I have the ‘process’ confirmed with the Electoral Commission – I will pass on the information.
Under NZ electoral law – “BRIBERY” is an offence.
But, situation normal, nothing will happen until someone actually MAKES A COMPLAINT?
I’ve already emailed the Electoral Commission – asking them this ‘due process’ question, so the ‘sausage machine’ has been ‘switched on’ – as it were….
Penny Bright
+1
Good on you, Penny Bright.
You are courageous and a tenacious fighter for accountability.
If I may say so, you are bold and Bright..putting your Penny and pen where your mouth is.
Good luck Penny. Maybe you can also include/allude to the early votes deliberately cheated out of confused elderly as mentioned in Open Mike yesterday ? ( Can find you link if you missed it).
Very serious indeed, and possibly could be part of same complaint ?
I haven’t seen the comment you refer to but the voting of people suffering from dementia by the staff of their aged care home seems to be a standard feature of every election.
I worked as a clerk at a polling booth in one of the homes at an election some years ago. Their were people who obviously suffered from dementia whose voting papers were collected by a staff member. The staff member had to tell us who the resident was as they didn’t seem to be in a position to know their own name.
The staff member then “helped” them to vote. I don’t think some of them had the faintest idea that there was even an election on.
One can only hope that there are never enough to unduly affect the results.
Disgraceful conduct like that by the union reps in rest homes has been happening at every election.
I have no idea who the votes were being cast for.
I certainly never saw the completed ballot papers. I can only say that I don’t think the “voters” knew either.
Headlines.
Fate of countries RMA reforms in hands of 137 elderly KeriKeri dementia sufferers.
Lol.
I’m more concerned with this new, and insidious, practice by the National party to have helpers phone and door-knock offers of rides to the polling booth.
On election day in 2014 we got an automated call from Sam Lotu Iiga’s electorate office apparently offering a ride to the polling booth. I don’t know how many houses this call went out to on election day but one must assume it was all households in the Maungakeiei electorate.
I complained to the Electoral commission on the day, and to be fair to them they had their chief lawyer call me back almost instantly, but he said it was within the rules agreed to by all parties.
While a higher proportion of constituents voting for parties of the socially responsible left are more likely to require help to get to a polling booth (or in this case – advanced voting for the infirm), this agreement is likely to not be in Labour’s benefit because the National party will cynically use it to have a last ditch advertising push on election day to all voters, regardless of mobility status…
…as Sam Lotu Iiga did in Maungakeikei in September 2014.
A solution to this would be for the Electoral commission themselves to have the funding to help vulnerable voters fulfil their right to vote uninfluenced by the Nats.
I would love to know what evidence you have for the statement that “While a higher proportion of constituents voting for parties of the socially responsible left are more likely to require help to get to a polling booth”.
On the other hand I do know one person, who does vote for right leaning parties, who called the Labour Party to request help to get to the polling booth. After voting she then, on the way home thanked “the nice young man and assured him she had voted for his candidate XXX. XXX was the National candidate”. She said that the driver managed, just, to resist tossing out of the car.
I told this story to one of my Labour leaning friends and she did it the other way round at the next election. She got National to take her to vote Labour. She claimed he was, in a strained way, quite polite to her.
Nice story, but I don’t believe a word of it.
You’d have to be stupid to not accept that more lower socio-economic people vote left and that more lower socio-economic people lack private transport.
It is. Labour has always offered rides especially to the elderly and infirm in well supported electorates
That’s what the Electoral Commission’s lawyer said too.
“Labour do it too”
I had to laugh because it sounded like something straight out of the Crosby Textor handbook.
I felt at the time that help to the polling booth targeted to immobile voters is fair enough, but an automated and apparently random phone message? Sounds like campaigning to me.
Do you want unions to be banned fisi?
If it stops rich pricks like you from bleeding the poor dry, then it is justified.
For too long people like you have been screwing over those at the bottom, demanding high rents, high divedends, low taxes, low prices, etc.
“For too long people like you have been screwing over those at the bottom, demanding high rents, high dividends, low taxes, low prices, etc”
Yes, especially the Selfish Rich Prick RW bastards.
Given your comment reference, 11.2.1.2 you appear to be replying to my comment which is 11.2.1.
What the hell are you talking about? Am I not allowed to help run the election by giving my time, and the payment went to a charity, to help run the election? I was a clerk in the polling booth. I wasn’t a bloody party representative.
alwyn-You really think people believe your Bullshit?
1. It is not “bullshit”
2. I hate to dent your little ego but I don’t really care in the slightest what you think. I have yet to read anything by you that matters in the slightest.
You mean real bribery like interest free student loans Or just a fevered deluded inference?
When are you going to stop freeloading and pay your rates?
Yes, god forbid that we should reduce the financial burden on those getting an education.
Lest we forget, the process which led to the legally enforced corporate takeover of the Auckland region via the Auckland ‘Supercity’ (for the 1%) amalgamation, effectively started on 5 September 2006, with the attempted ‘Mayoral coup’.
The purpose of the (failed) Auckland ‘Mayoral coup’ was to get rid of the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and replace it with a ‘Supercity’.
The ‘ring leaders’ of this attempted Auckland ‘Mayoral coup’, were Waitakere City Council Mayor Bob Harvey, Manukau City Council Mayor Barry Curtis, North Shore City Council Mayor George Wood, and Auckland City Council Mayor Dick Hubbard.
FACT.
The ‘form’ taken by these four City Council Mayors – was a letter – co-signed by all of them – addressed to then LABOUR Prime Minister, Helen Clark, asking for her urgent intervention and assistance, on behalf of those who were really pushing hard for this – BUSINESS leaders.
Luckily, fellow community activist Lisa Prager and myself, having been ‘tipped off’ about this meeting to be held in the Auckland Town Hall, gate-crashed it and disrupted it – on the basis that the Auckland ‘Mayoral Forum’ under whose auspices this meeting had been called, was NOT a ‘creature of statute’ – had no lawful right to do anything – and under the then Local Government Act 2002, there had to be a binding poll of the PUBLIC before any ‘amalgamation’ took place.
Our action on 5 September 2006, at least helped to slow down the process …
Penny Bright
On the good news front. Our Friends in Australia – are sick of the crap being done to them.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/protesters-shut-down-melbourne-to-fight-against-closure-of-aboriginal-communities-20150313-143uhe.html
I can’t believe Australia is still doing that shit. Good on the people taking over the main streets of Melbourne.
Forcing people out of remote communities through funding cuts ‘cultural genocide’: Trevor Donaldson
Content warning: ignorant white man pretending to be the Prime Minister of Australia being an extremely racist prick instead.
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2015/03/12/4196442.htm?site=goldfields
NORTHLAND BYELECTION : The I-PREDICT price movements so far:
Investors and gamblers have been estimating, daily, the % chances of which candidate will win :
The predictions so far are for the dates, March 4th, 6th, 9th, 11th, 13th and today, the 15th (The ides of March of Winston’s march!):
The Nat candidate : 90%, 75%, 65%, 65%, 60%, and today, 53%.
The Winston Peters: 10%, 22%, 45%, 35%, 37%, and today, 48%.
The Lab candidate : 10%, 25%, 15%, 15%, 15%, and today, 0.3%.
Here are the graphs:
NAT : https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=graph&sym=BE15.NTD.NAT&size=xlg&col=%230392D7&cbgcolor=%230089EF&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF
WP : https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=graph&sym=BE15.NTD.OTHER&size=xlg&col=%230392D7&cbgcolor=%230089EF&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF
LAB: https://www.ipredict.co.nz/app.php?do=graph&sym=BE15.NTD.LAB&size=xlg&col=%230392D7&cbgcolor=%230089EF&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF
Pick the winner and double your money
@fisiani
“Pick the winner and double your money”
Who would you pick to double the money, fisiani?
Fisianil looking at the average decline in support for National per day.
I predict Winnie to Win.
Looking at the RT site for what it has about President Putin’s whereabouts.
The news at the 12th March was that he had cancelled some things but was having meetings out of the public eye. He had some trouble in 2012 similarly and this was ascribed to old sports injuries etc.
http://rt.com/politics/240025-russia-peskov-putin-health/
Comments on the Ukraine business from Gorbachev and Kissinger. Two old guys who have definite views on the subject and sound as if they are very sharp still. Kissinger is not glad handing the USA.
http://rt.com/news/203475-gorbachev-speech-berlin-wall/
http://rt.com/news/203795-kissinger-warns-cold-war/
I can only shake my head in disbelief at this http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/67387751/Former-MPs-travel-perk-to-get-a-boost
This has been hot on Twitter since late yesterday when Philip Lyth picked it up, then Idiot/Savant (NRT) and Graeme Edgeler. Graeme researched it and then posted on Public Address:
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/mps-to-vote-on-raising-international-travel/
Graeme’s post includes links to Philip and I/S posts.
Marama Fox (MP) and Metiria Turei (GP) were contacted via Twitter and both said they would oppose the increase.
Last night Annette King tweeted Graeme asking where he got the information from regarding former MPs travel and “No-one else has heard it!”
https://twitter.com/annetterongotai/status/576598331515756545
The whole situation seems to changing minute by minute. According to Graeme the Stuff article has been updated to exclude a sentence included in the original article referring to Fox, Turei and King opposing the changes. *
Graeme’s Twiitter feed is possibly the only way to keep up with the changing situation. Lots more details, questions, comments there.
https://twitter.com/GraemeEdgeler
EDIT – the earlier version also included the fact that only one dissenting vote is needed for the changes to not pass! Apparently this still stands, but taken out of the Stuff article.
Cheers I thought I’d seen a comment on The Standard some were but couldn’t find it so thought I’d chuck this up.
Pleased you did!
I suspect that this is going to be all over the MSM news tomorrow, The Stuff (Dom Post) article was obviously written in haste – I suspect by a pretty junior on duty journo. Herald also has a fairly vacuous article up tonight. Won’t bother providing a link unless you would like one.
But it continues to be debated on Twitter – Graeme Edgeler, Jessica Williams, Hoots, Annette King (qualifies when she leaves Parliament), Tau Henare (another qualifier now) etc. King seems to be out there trying to justify the change on behalf of National. Say no more.
Edgeler seems to be holding his ground and refusing to let it go which IMO is good. Could be the start of another bad week for Key …. !
Death by a thousand cuts, perhaps. Time will tell.
Update – Edgeler has now posted a further post at Public Address.
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/update-on-the-former-mps-travel-perk/
Haven’t read it yet, but thought you might be interested if you had not seen it.
heh
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3043346/a-google-for-scientific-articles-for-the-next-time-youre-locked-in-a-debate-about-vaccines
Sparrho is like the Google for scientific papers—and patents, posters, events, and grants. Just type in keywords, like “GMO food,” and you’ll soon have access to all the latest research. Here’s a snapshot of what comes up when you search for GMO food:
As you can see, the latest results are up-to-date (I performed the search on March 6). Some are accessible to laypeople, some are not. That’s because Vivian Chan, Sparrho’s CEO and co-founder, originally designed the platform for herself. “I was doing my PhD at Cambridge University, and realized using search engines for science doesn’t work. There are all of these databases out there, but you have to know exactly what it is you’re looking for,” she says.
worth some thought maybe …
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-drought-california-20150313-story.html
and Sao Paulo, Brasil, with population of 25 million is on water rationing with supplies only two days a week …
thank goodness there isn’t any such thing as human=induced climate change. Imagine how bad things might really be !!!
The so called Housing Crisis in Auckland myth has been exploded http://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Auckland_Housing_Accord_Monitoring_Report_5.pdf
Ask the people having to live in shithole boarding houses.
Or the homeless people living on the streets.
Good analysis and ideas in the Observer today for addressing Britain’s housing crisis, which shares most of the hallmarks of NZ’s:
”The Homes for Britain campaign, which brings together housing associations, private house builders, landlords, planners and architects, is holding a rally in Westminster. It aims to solve the housing crisis “in a generation”, which is a realistic time frame, given that it has taken a generation to create the current situation
”The crisis in house prices is therefore not an act of pure economic fate but constructed and willed by policy over decades. As such, it can also be defused by policy, if not easily or quickly. So far, the main government response has been to try to relax planning rules and to encourage the market with measures such as Help To Buy which, presented as much-needed assistance to first-time buyers, tend to push up prices further.”
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/14/britain-housing-crisis-10-ways-solve-rowan-moore-general-election
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/mar/15/cyclone-pam-aid-agencies-head-to-vanuatu-as-death-toll-rises#block-55053188e4b08cb82df08263